Not at all, Ron thought quickly. He could hear Hermione behind him, her breathing sharp and harsh. Without her wand, he thought, she must really be terrified. I just want to pass by.
It's just a snake, you just want to pass by — your desires are so little for one of your power, your speech so careful. Why is that, Diviner?
Ron's mouth twisted bitterly. What power? A head full of useless visions, a future I can't do anything to change -
The snake let out a hiss which sounded impatient. I tell you, boy, it said, the answers you need are not locked only in the future. Some are in the past.
What do you mean by that? Ron began, but he heard a low moan behind him, and turned to see that Hermione had slid, shivering, to the floor. She was alarmingly blue.
Kevin chuckled, if a snake could be said properly to chuckle (although a snake named Kevin might perhaps be capable of more than your ordinary snake, Ron thought.) See to your girl, he hissed, and slithered backward, disappearing into the alcove he had emerged from with a disdainful flick of his tail.
It was only much later, when he had seen Hermione again and had known that she was, for the time being at least, safe, that Harry was able to remember that next terrible half an hour, during which he and Draco had wandered Viktor's flat, silent as ghosts. They had not even called out her name. She was so clearly gone: Harry felt the lack of her, like its own presence, in every room.
They wound up back in the kitchen. Draco paused by the stove and looked down at it. For the first time Harry noticed that there was still a pot on it, the flame underneath turned low. Whatever had been in the pot was now a blackened and unrecognizable mass. Draco waved a hand at the stove and the flame vanished. Then he looked at Harry. 'Do we want to talk about what we're going to do now?'
Some part of Harry, a distant part, was comforted by that use of the word 'we.' Whatever happened, he would not be alone…'They took her,' he said. 'Voldemort's men.'
'Yes. Probably the same ones that came after you last night. They said they were looking for her.'
'I heard something,' Harry said. 'When I woke up- when they woke me this morning. The sound of a body falling — '
'You think she's dead?' Draco said. He touched the side of the pot, jumped, drew his hand back. Closed his fingers in against his palm. He was very white.
'She's not dead,' Harry said. 'I'd know.'
'Yes,' Draco said. 'I think you would.'
'I guess we don't need to talk about what we're going to do.' Harry's voice was bitter. 'I guess I was going after the Dark Lord anyway. Now I'll just go — a little faster.'
'Faster?' Draco said. He was still staring down at the pot, at whatever it had once contained, burned now to ash. 'We haste by night, and press by day — ' He stopped, overtaken by a fit of coughing. 'Sorry,' he said. 'Ash in my throat.'
'All my friends,' Harry said. 'One by one — ' He touched Draco's sleeve.
'You'll be careful?'
Draco looked away from him. 'The Dark Lord wouldn't want me. He doesn't like damaged things.'
'Your hand will heal,' Harry said.
Draco seemed not to hear him. 'I almost wish I could talk to my father,' he said. 'He'd know where Voldemort is.'
'I know where he is, sort of,' Harry said. 'He's in Romania.'
'Ah,' Draco said, realization in his voice. 'Yes, those creatures last night, they were speaking Romanian — and there's a place — my father always spoke of it — a fortress on a hill…'
'We just have to figure out the fastest way to get there.'
'As for that,' Draco said with the ghost of a smile, 'I may have a cunning plan…give me a few minutes, Potter. And why don't you go wash the blood off you. Looking at you is making me sick.'
Blaise gave a little moan and tensed all over. Ginny touched her shoulder lightly, then turned, and looked at Tom.
He was lounging in the doorway, his head to the side, a faint smile touching the corner of his mouth. In the light now, she could see that he wore a white shirt, stained all over with blood, some of it dried to rusty stains, some of it fresh and new. His skin — Seamus' wind-tanned skin — was a few shades darker than the shirt, his cheekbones flushed, his lips a pale shell pink, his coppery-gold hair catching the candlelight. He looked like an angel, she thought dazedly, an angel of the old days when there were wars in heaven and angels could kill.
His faint smile widened to a smirk. 'Nothing to say, Virginia? Cat got your tongue?' He unhitched himself from the doorway and walked into the room, stopping before Blaise. Hands behind his back, he looked down at her, his gaze considering. 'Miss Zabini,' he said. 'I remember your grandfather, with his stammer and his funny unpronouncable name.
Plenty of money, your family always had, but in the end — foreign trash was all they were and they knew it. Yes, I know you,' he added, his voice like poisoned honey, 'but you won't know me, oh no.' He knelt down then, before her chair, took her bloody hands in his, and brushed his lips across the top of her knuckles. 'Ginny could tell you who I was, if she liked,' he confided, his eyes fixed on Ginny. They were full of a disturbing amusement. 'After all, she made me.'
Breath escaped Ginny's lips in a hiss. 'Don't,' she whispered. 'Tom — '
'You hear the way she says my name,' Tom murmured, his lips almost touching Blaise's skin. 'She doesn't know whether to love me or hate me, for I am herself. I am her love, I am her hatred. I am her joy and I am her loathing and her abhorrence. I am her unrequited passions. I am her guilt and her remembrance. I am her beautiful despair. I am the futility of all her wishes. Out of blood and tears and ink, she made me. And I will never leave her.'
Blaise was staring at him open-mouthed. 'You're a complete lunatic, is what you are.'
But he seemed hardly to hear her. He was staring at Ginny, and his eyes were burning — and in their lighted depths, Ginny saw a heat that could char her to kindling, melt her down and make her anew. 'This isn't about her, Tom,' she said. 'This is about us. You and me.'
He nodded, and rose to his feet, light and graceful in his bloodstained shirt. 'Then what is it that you want, Virginia?'
Ginny looked at him levelly. 'To finish this,' she said, and walked out of the room.
Harry let the shower water run as hot as he could stand, then stood under it for a long time, letting it sluice the blood and dirt off his skin. He felt bruised all over, outside as well as in. He swallowed water and soap, spat, closed his eyes and raised his face to let the water run over his mouth and eyelids.
Alone now without Draco, he was acutely conscious of the beat of his own heart, the sting of his bruised skin where the hot water ran over it. He only dimly remembered whatever it was Draco had said to him in the kitchen but being held onto like that had been like having an arrow pulled out of his chest: the agony was gone now, though the wound remained.
When the water had run clear for several minutes, Harry shut the shower off, put his trousers on, and padded barefoot back into the bedroom, toweling off his hair as he went. Draco was already in there, sorting through Viktor's pile of weapons. He looked up when Harry came in.
'You changed,' Harry said. 'Are those your clothes?'
Draco glanced down at himself. He was wearing all black: black boots, black trousers, a rusty black pullover that was a little too big, a black cloak on over it. He seemed disinclined to look directly at Harry. 'These are Viktor's,' he said. 'I took them out of his closet.'He shrugged. 'My bags haven't gotten here yet and I didn't want to borrow anything of yours.'
'You could have if you wanted,' Harry said. 'You look sort of depressing. I mean, you don't look bad,' he added hastily as Draco's expression darkened. 'Black suits you.'
'Looking Better in Black Than the Widows of Our Enemies Since 1500,'
