back at the bedroom, he thought for a moment that Hermione had not yet returned from her bath. The room was still and quiet, and from the other room he could hear the sound of running water.
Then he heard her voice, low and steady. 'Shut the door, Ron.'
Ron pulled the door shut behind him. When it closed, the torches flared up in their holders, and he saw Hermione, sitting on the foot of the bed, wrapped in a wide white towel. Her wet hair stuck to her cheeks and neck in smooth dark tendrils. For a moment she just stared at him; then she smiled, and was Hermione again. 'Sorry,' she said, gesturing sheepishly at the towel. 'My clothes were wet '
'It's all right,' Ron said awkwardly. He took a few steps forward, laid the bundle of velvet he'd found down on the bedspread, and backed away hastily. 'Sorry it took me so long — I had to hide from the Dark Lord and Wormtail. They must know you're here, but — '
She looked panicked. 'Did they say anything about me?'
Ron shook his head. 'No. They were too busy talking about how they don't trust Lucius Malfoy.'
'They don't? I thought — '
'It doesn't matter.' Ron took a step forward. 'What matters is if you feel better.'
She nodded. She certainly looked better — her lips were back to their normal pink, and there was color in her cheeks. 'Yes. I'm sorry about before, too. I was being a real bitch.'
'Oh,' said Ron. 'Oh. No — you weren't.'
'I was, though.' She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up, clutching the towel around her. Her legs, beneath the towel hem, were slim and bare. There was a graze over her right ankle that touched him oddly — there was something so childish about it. 'I've no right to slag off on you for doing what you had to do to survive,' she said. 'I was just so concerned about Harry, I wasn't thinking.'
'Is he in danger?' Ron checked himself and smiled wryly. 'I mean, more than usual?'
'Yes,' Hermione said. 'We were staying in Prague, all of us, Harry and Draco and I, and Gabriel sent his men to get me, and left some of them behind to kill Draco and Harry. So I don't — '
'No,' Ron said. 'Voldemort would never allow that. They're needed for something, both of them. The Dark Lord wouldn't have them killed outright. Lucius is always here, and he — '
'Lucius?' Hermione stepped towards Ron and caught at his arm with the hand that was not holding up the towel. Ron looked away. 'You've heard him talk about Draco?'
'Only a little,' Ron said. 'I know that the Dark Lord sent his creatures after Harry but they couldn't hurt him, and I know Draco was with him and protecting him, only when they were talking, they made it sound like actually he'd meant them to go after you — but why? What do they want with you?'
Hermione had gone tense all over; her thin fingers gripped his arm like cabled steel. 'Surely you must know,' she said in a whispered tone.
'The Cup,' Ron said. 'The Fourth Worthy Object — '
Hermione's eyes were wide and bright. 'Yes '
'But I didn't realize you had it with you still. I would have thought you'd have left it at Hogwarts.'
Hermione's tone was sharp. 'It's much too powerful an object to be simply left behind, Ron.'
Ron felt obscurely scolded. 'Well, right, but I figured you'd have hidden it, at least. Did you?'
Hermione was still looking up at him; suddenly she smiled, an odd sort of smile. 'Can't you guess?'
Ron shook his head. 'No.'
Hermione's smile wavered for a moment; then she laughed, and dropped his hands. 'You always were,' she said, 'the least devious of all of us.'
'So you're not going to tell me, then?' Ron asked, slightly put out.
Hermione shook her head, sober again. 'It's safer for you if you don't know.' Lightly, she put her hands on his shoulders, and looked up into his face. 'I've spent too much time thinking I'd lost you,' she said, 'to risk losing you again.'
'Oh,' Ron said, feeling his lack of eloquence. He was aware suddenly and sharply of the nearness of her, the light gliding along The soft curve of her cheekbone, pulling gold threads out of her hair. The thin towel was stark white against the softer white of her skin. 'Hermione, you probably shouldn't '
Words were failing him; he felt a precarious and strangely intoxicating dizziness. Aftereffects of Pansy's spells? He wasn't sure; all he knew was that her hair was drifting across his face and that it smelled of clover honey. Am I still in love with her? Ron wondered. She had been his first love, his childish love, the sort of awkward ineffectual charming love most people looked back on years later with affectionate nostalgia. But not Ron.
That love had been taken away from him, twisted and thrown back in his face, robbed of its charm, its sweetness replaced with pain. She was a symbol now, of every mistake he had ever made, and everything he had ever wanted that he could not have. if only there were some way to make that right…
'What?' Hermione blinked up at him, wide-eyed, then tightened her arms around his neck. 'Are you worried about those love spells Pansy used on you?'
'Er,' Ron said. 'Well, I mean, I am a bit. You know. Just a bit and all. I know you would never '
'Oh, Ron,' Hermione whispered. 'You're so noble and so forgiving, after the way we treated you. I'd never want to hurt Harry, but sometimes I wish…you just make everything seem so simple…'
Ron blinked. 'I do?' It seemed to him nothing about his life, especially recently, as particularly simple.
Hermione turned her face up to his. Tears glittered on the ends of her lashes; she was breathing hard, as if she had been running. 'It's just us now,' she whispered, 'and it can be our secret, just between us two…'
The words were distantly familiar, as if he had heard them before in a dream. No, he thought, no, I've been through this before, it was wrong, all wrong, this is a dream or a nightmare — but it was Hermione, still Hermione, who was his friend, and when she put her mouth to his, he could not summon the anger he would have needed to push her away. He froze, letting her lips cover his; he had never felt a kiss like this before, so heated, so close and draining — could not breathe enough air; pain mounted behind his eyes and burned down through his veins as if his blood had turned to firewhiskey, and he knew. 'Rhysenn,' he hissed, pulling his mouth away from hers, and heard her laugh, low in her throat.
Furious, he tried to push her away, but she would not release him. He bit down, hard, on her lip, and heard her gasp out loud in pain; she shoved him, hard, and his feet went out from under him. He slid to the hard marble floor, limp as a deboned fish.
She knelt over him, slim and straight in her virginal white dress, and her ink-black hair spilled down over her shoulders and tickled his skin. She put her hand to her red mouth and when she drew it away there was blood on her fingers.
'You mortals are so ruthless with your love,' Rhysenn said. 'Is it because you have such a short time to live?'
Gazing up at her through his haze of pain, Ron heard Hermione's voice in his ears once again — If Harry lives to see him die, than Harry will live through today. 'Don't,' he said. 'Don't expect me to feel sorry for you.'
Her eyes widened, but he was already slipping away into blackness; if she spoke again, he did not hear her.
The world spun away beneath them, a glowing carpet of lights that gradually faded to an indistinct blur.
'Potter?'
'Mm, yes?'
'Are there stars?'
Harry was silent for a moment before replying. 'What do you mean? Of course there are stars.' He twisted sideways to look at Draco, and Draco tightened his grip on Harry's belt. 'What kind of question is that?'
'Nothing. No kind of question. Forget about it, Potter.'
