bravery? Not to mention team spirit and patriotism. I thought all I was supposed to be an expert on was underhandedness and nice hair.'
Harry ignored this. 'Bravery doesn't mean you're not afraid,' he said. 'It just means you don't turn back, even when you are.'
'And the lecture begins,' Draco said, although he didn't sound really out-of-sorts, just tired and strained. 'Tell me all about being a hero, Harry Potter.'
'I can't,' Harry said. 'I'm not really comfortable being a hero. I'm just not comfortable being a coward either.'
'Ah,' said Draco, 'the whole concept of this war must be something of a no-win for you, then, mustn't it?'
Harry blinked. 'War?' he echoed. 'Is this a war, then?'
Draco just looked at him over the neck of his bottle. Harry had always imagined a war against the Dark Lord as a business of troops and soldiers, platoons of wizards clashing by night on dark battlefields, trenches ablaze with magical fire. He had never thought of it like this: himself and Draco, alone and dirty and bitterly cold, without maps or plans, advice or guidance, bereft of all familiar things save each other.
Harry looked up. When they were flying, the stars had seemed very close.
Now they had retreated up into the sky, as far-off and unreachable as everything Harry could not touch: courage and surety, a sense of home and safety, the secrets Draco held behind the shutters of his grey eyes.
'I killed a man today,' Harry said, just to hear the words spoken.
'I know,' Draco said. 'Welcome to the war.'
Master Lucius, It appears there is talk among the Dark Lord and his servants as regards their opinion of your trustworthiness. It might be advisable for you to put in a reassuring visit or two. Not to mention, I find myself pining for your sparkling company.
Your obedient servant, Rhysenn
She had underlined the word 'servant' twice, and drawn little stars around it. With an impatient grunt, Lucius crumpled the paper in his hand and tossed it into the fire; it caught alight and vanished in a puff of ash.
Irritably, Lucius began to pace the room. He'd spent a pleasant day at the Manor so far — having not heard from Tom had made the day even better -
engaged in a minor bit of house-elf torture. He'd also tried on all his old trousers to see if they still fit — they did — and contemplated the purchase of twin greyhounds which would follow him everywhere he went. He would name them Jareth and Chamberlain and they would wear matching collars inscribed with the Malfoy crest.
A very pleasant bit of day-dreaming it had been, too, until his reverie had been rudely shattered by the missive from Rhysenn. The truth was, he had been avoiding Voldemort — socially, so to speak — while he sorted out his thoughts regarding the Tom fiasco. Surely by now the Dark Lord must know of the murder sprees, the dead Death Eaters, and Lucius was going to have to have something very convincing to say when he -
Lucius broke off mid-reverie as a loud crash sounded behind him: he spun around just as the crack of displaced air faded from the room, and stared.
There, in the center of the expensive Persian library carpet, stood Tom Riddle. He was white as a sheet, drenched in sweat, and the front of his shirt was stained with blood. His throat was necklaced with ugly weals, and in his arms he held the limp body of Ginny Weasley. Her long scarlet hair trailed over his arm, her legs dangled lifelessly, her left arm hung at an ugly angle. Her eyes were shut, sunk in bruised skin.
Lucius bit back a furious groan. 'The girl — ' he said. 'Is she dead?'
Tom's breathing was ragged. 'She is alive, but barely,' he snarled, coughed, and spat blood onto the carpet. 'And so am I. I need your help, Lucius — I need you to save her life.'
They were walking. The end of the short winter day had come, and the sun was setting behind the mountains Harry had thought looked like a wall. The sunset had opened across the sky like a scarlet fan, edged with black lace clouds, and in the shadow of the mountains and the sunset Harry was following Draco down a narrow path that wound between low hills crowned with crumbling rocks. The ground was hard and winter-bitten, and Harry hoped Draco was not just pretending to know where he was going.
'Are you sure we're not lost?' Harry asked, for the fifteenth time.
'If you ask me that again, I'm going to fuck right off and leave you here,'
Draco said. 'I'll take my chances with the Dark Lord. I bet he never worries about getting lost.'
'Of course not,' Harry said, navigating a frozen puddle with care, 'he just kills anyone who gives him wrong directions.'
'You have to admire that kind of singlemindedness,' Draco said. All the palinka he had drunk did not appear to have impaired his motor skills; he was striding along well ahead of Harry, bareheaded despite the cold. The frigid air had brightened his pale cheeks to scarlet.
'No, you don't,' Harry said. He knew Draco was being argumentative and annoying on purpose, but did not care. 'I don't need to admire anything about Voldemort, thank you.'
Draco rolled his eyes. 'I know you're all about saying the Dark Lord's name, but you know the best time to be trilling out those syllables might not be right outside his front door, right?'
'Yeah, because that squirrel over there, that's one of the Dark Lord's spies,' Harry said, indicating a squirrel crouched on a nearby branch.
'When did you get so paranoid, Malfoy?'
Draco stuck his lower lip out and exhaled irritably. 'Look, Potter,' he said.
'Do I think we'll make it to the Dark Lord's fortress? Yes, I do, largely because as far as I can make out, the Dark Lord's always had a two-pronged plan: kill you, and rule the world. And he's always been just as obsessed with killing you as he is with ruling the world, largely because he's a petty bastard, really. So do I think he'll let anything stand in the way of getting you in his grasp? No, I don't. But it isn't just him I'm worried about. This is evil country, you know — cursed land. Things roam here whose attention we really don't want — '
'Oh, not this horror-novel stuff again.' Harry flung out a hand in exasperation. 'Malfoy, I-' But to Harry's dismay, he had flung his hand out a little too hard. There was a whoosh-thuk, a knife shot from Harry's wrist, and the unfortunate squirrel Harry had previously accused of surveillance activities tumbled from its branch with a squeak and a heavy thunking noise.
'Oh, no,' Harry exclaimed, aghast.
Draco was scarlet with the effort of not laughing. 'You've eliminated one of the Dark Lord's spies!' he announced. 'Perhaps you're right! Perhaps we could stroll right up to his front door, singing traditional wizarding drinking songs the entire way, and be none the worse for it. In fact…'
Draco took another swig from his bottle of brandy, tucked it under his arm, and began to warble a deliberately off-key tune.
