He bit down on his lip. Don't think about it. Don't torture yourself over what you can't alter. It's done.
Someone jostled his shoulder then and a voice swore at him in a language he couldn't quite comprehend. Harry pressed himself back against the wall as a group of men poured through the room, laughing and talking to each other. They were dressed in identical dark robes, each robe striped around the cuffs with red and orange. Something like a memory tugged at the back of Harry's mind, but he was too ill now with fever and misery to concentrate. It was all he could do to slip in at the back of the line of strangers and follow them through the archway.
He trailed after them down a short corridor which emptied out into a truly enormous room which was packed with wizards. The group Harry had come in with scattered around him as he stood and stared.
He seemed to be at the bottom of what looked like an enormous chimney, going up and up and up until the roof vanished into the distance above him. The air was thick and hazy with smoke and smelled of ash and cinders and damp, cold brick. All along the walls above him were dark holes — fireplaces, Harry realized. Walkways bracketed the fireplaces.
Harry could see people walking along them, ducking into the fireplaces, and vanishing in bursts of green and orange light.
I'm in a Floo Hub, he realized, with a sense of mixed wonder. He had heard of Floo Hubs, although he'd never been in one before. Hundreds of fireplaces, each connected to the Floo networks of different countries. You could get almost anywhere in the world from a Floo Hub. If escape was what he wanted, he could not have come to a better place. And yet…
He glanced around. Most of the wizards here on the ground floor seemed to be clustered around a desk at the far side of the room. Harry was fairly sure that this was where you purchased your Floo Powder and passes. His sense of misgiving returned. As far as he knew, you had to present your wizarding certificates in order to be allowed to Floo out of the country.
Somewhere in his bag was his school certificate, but he hardly wanted to present that. As soon as they saw his name, they'd be all over him.
Harry sighed. His back and neck were aching, his bones hurt from exhaustion and illness, and it was nearly impossible to get his thoughts under control. He wondered dully how much Hermione hated him now.
He was glad she hadn't been with Draco. He couldn't have stood it if they'd both looked at him like that. It was bad enough that Draco was furious with him. Although certainly he'd forgive him, eventually, wouldn't he? He'd have to. Harry could reason with him, tell him, explain.
Sit him down and think at him until he had to admit that Harry wasn't lying. An ill-advised confidence surged over Harry suddenly. Of course Draco would relent, because he had to. He couldn't just give up on their friendship, he couldn't walk away from it; what bound them together was much more than both of them. Nor could Harry imagine living the rest of his life without Draco in it. Therefore Draco would have to forgive him.
This seemed to Harry, in his fevered state, to be the most sensible logic he had ever encountered. He smiled, and began to reach into his pocket for his book bag. He had just raised his hand when the world suddenly and terrifyingly seemed to burst apart around him.
He staggered and fell as a wave of blackness rolled up and over him, knocking him to the ground. He heard screaming in his ears and felt shards of glass tearing his skin. He screamed, having no idea who or what he was shouting for. He could not hear his own voice over the howling wind in his head. He seemed to be in two places at once: he could see wavering light in front of him, blood and fire, splintering walls. At the same time he felt the cold stone floor under him as his body twisted and thrashed in agony.
Through the fog of pain and the wailing screams that surrounded him, hands reached to touch him. There were voices all around him, chattering in another language. Harry wondered briefly if he was dying. Then he didn't care. Arms went around him and lifted him up. A familiar voice said his name in his ear but he fainted before he could reply.
Faint light moved in a reddish glow and behind that glow were shadows.
Draco came up out of the darkness slowly, as if he were crawling his way up through mud or layers of water. When he opened his eyes, he did not immediately know where he was.
Slowly the blurred shapes that he was seeing resolved themselves and he recognized his surroundings. He was lying flat on his back on the bare marble floor of the hotel room in Diagon Alley, and his head was pounding as if a mountain troll had set up residence in his cortex.
Draco sat up slowly, convinced that if he moved quickly his head would come off completely. Pain laced his vision with a black mesh and he had to blink several times before he could focus. When he did focus, the first thing he saw was Hermione. She was sitting on the floor a little distance away from him, wearing white pajamas, her back against the couch. She was staring at him. In her pale face her dark eyes looked enormous, like wells of black ink.
'Hey,' he said.
It was all he could think of.
Her hands, clasped in her lap, tightened themselves hard around the small silver flask she had been holding. Draco recognized it as the antidote flask she had been carrying around with her since they'd left school. It was chased silver, with a dark blue stone top. In the dim light it had a strange, bluish sheen that was somehow familiar. 'You look awful,' she said.
'I feel awful.' Sitting up was proving to be too difficult. Draco lay back on his propped arms and concentrated on breathing through the pain in his head. He glanced down at himself — he was shoeless, wearing only his shirt and trousers. His shirt was splotched all over with silver stains and his gloves were gone, his hands bare. 'Er… what happened exactly?'
She blinked at him. Her expression didn't change. 'You don't remember?'
He shook his head, and winced as another bolt of pain shot through his temples. 'I went looking for another Portkey…'
'So,' she said, her voice very measured. 'You don't remember tearing apart Blackthorpe's office? You started off by blowing his desk into toothpicks, and moved on to smashing every single on of the windows. I'm surprised you didn't kill everyone with the flying glass shards. Then of course all the floorboards wrenched themselves up and burst into flames.'
'I put the flames out,' said Draco, to whom recollection was returning in rather lurid fragments.
'With a rain of blood,' said Hermione frigidly. 'Then all those snakes burst out of the wall. Although they didn't get the attention they deserved, I fear, since everyone was kind of distracted by the wailing chorus of the damned and the giant rats that ate each other.'
'I was proudest of the flock of invisible ducks, myself,' Draco said.
Hermione did not laugh. She did not seem remotely amused. 'I suppose you think you really showed them,' she said. 'Especially the part where you keeled over in a dead faint and I had to use the hotel Portkey to get us back here. Thank God I had it, or we'd both be dead.'
Draco was interested. 'Did I really keel over in a dead faint?'
'Yes,' Hermione said flatly. 'That's why you're on the floor. I couldn't lift you. I didn't want to use a spell. I think you've had enough magic tonight.
Harry always did say that if you ever let your Magid powers get out of hand it would blow the roof off Hogwarts. I guess he was right.'
Her flat tone of voice was beginning to alarm him. 'How long have I been out? You changed into pajamas…'
'I had to,' she said expressionlessly. 'You coughed up blood all over my clothes.'
'Oh.' This, Draco felt, ought to be worrying information. He didn't feel upset, though. Just very tired. 'I'm sure the hotel has house-elf laundry services. I'll pay for it — '
Thwack! Draco barely flinched away in time as the flask Hermione had been holding sailed by his ear. It smacked soundly into the tiled floor and rolled away. He blinked at her.
