and their gazes met. All Ron's regret was in his eyes, all his stubborness and his sorrow.
'Harry,' he said, awkwardly, 'Harry, if I — '
'Come on.' Harry stuck out his hand. 'If you don't- I mean, we could use your help.'
There was the barest fraction of hesitation; then Ron took Harry's hand, and let Harry help him to his feet. They stood staring at each other, as if not sure whether they had license to grin foolishly yet. Draco looked away from them — and his eyes widened.
'Bugger,' he said, eloquently. 'Look who's not trapped in the pentagram.'
From the center of the roiling smoke, a figure had emerged. Streaked with smoke and grime, his elegant robes hanging off him in filthy tatters, his blond hair was matted with ash. One of his sleeves was stained with blood.
He stared around him malevolently, coughing on smoke. His glamour's gone, Ginny thought.
'Tom,' she whispered. 'But I thought — '
'It wasn't his spell,' Hermione said. 'So he isn't trapped in the pentagram like Voldemort is.' She looked anxiously towards Harry. 'What should we do?'
Tom staggered a few steps further from the pentagram, blinking, before his gaze snapped to Ginny. Their eyes met, and she shrank back towards Draco. Tom flung out his left hand, snarling, but nothing happened. His face twisted violently, lips curling back over his teeth. Then he turned and dashed from the room.
Ginny sprang to her feet. 'No — we can't let him — '
'Wait.' Seizing her arm, Harry turned to Draco. 'Malfoy, you know the layout of this place better than anyone. Can you — '
Draco nodded. 'I'll get him.' He turned and sped after Tom, leaving the huge double doors standing open behind him.
Harry released his grip on Ginny, turning to Ron. 'If Tom's free, then Lucius — ' he began, but as he spoke, his grip on Ginny loosened. She tore free and dashed after Draco through the double doors.
Harry said a word Hermione had no idea he knew, and started after Ginny. She caught at his sleeve. 'Don't,' she said. 'Draco will never let her go with him, anyway.'
'I suppose so,' Harry said dubiously, glancing sideways at Ron.
'She's safer out of here, isn't she?' Ron said dryly, glancing towards the pentagram, still gouting ash and flames. 'Still, maybe I should — '
'I will go after her,' Rhysenn said, rising to her feet with the grace of smoke. 'I will make sure she stays out of harm's way.'
She drifted out the door in a swirl of black hair.
Harry's dubious look came to rest on Hermione. 'She's being awfully helpful,' he said.
'Yes,' Hermione said serenely, re-Transfiguring the cup into a barrette with a flick of her wand.
'I suspect you had something to do with it,' Harry said.
'Maybe so,' Hermione agreed, clipping the barrette back into her hair.
'You're not going to tell me, are you?' Harry said.
'I hardly think I'm the only one of us keeping secrets related to Rhysenn,'
Hermione said, brushing the dust off her Puddlemere United t-shirt.
Harry's mouth opened slightly, and he looked so appalled that Hermione, for a moment, felt sorry for him.
But then he had been locking lips with that succubus-creature only a few days after they'd broken up, and he hadn't told her. There was only so sorry for him that she could be. Then again, she'd kissed Draco, and hadn't told Harry, although there hadn't really been an opportunity to talk to him alone, aside from that time that Draco had left them in the bedroom together so she could talk to him alone. Maybe that would have been a good time to do it. Oh, dear.
'Harry,' she began. 'Look, I should tell you that Draco and I — '
'Arrrggh.' It was Ron, interrupting with a strangled noise. He pointed.
'Voldemort,' he said, a bit indistinctly. 'He nearly got out of the pentagram that time. Look, maybe we should…'
Harry was already tugging the sword of Gryffindor out of its scabbard.
'I'm going in there.'
'No!' Hermione protested, quickly. 'Harry, you can't…'
'I have to.' He looked at her, steady green eyes unwavering. 'You know it.'
'If this is some symbolic thing, Harry — '
'It's not,' he said quietly. 'That pentagram won't hold him much longer, you heard Rhysenn. And then what? We run? He may not have the God-like powers he wanted, but he's plenty powerful enough. Right now he's trapped, blinded, still reeling from shock. Right now, I have a chance. We have a chance.'
'So you'll let us go with you,' Ron said swiftly, coming up to stand by Harry.
'I wish you wouldn't,' Harry said grimly. 'I wish I could make you promise to wait here — '
'Never,' said Hermione.
'Not a chance,' said Ron, and looked towards the pentagram with hatred in his eyes. 'He tried to kill me — drain my blood. Not to mention the kidnapping and the torture. No, I have my own scores to settle, Harry.'
Harry nodded. 'Do you have a wand, though?'
Ron shook his head. 'No — they took it away from me.'
'Give me your wrists,' Harry said, and when Ron did, Harry transferred the now-frayed leather cuffs he was wearing from his wrists to Ron's.
'These'll help.'
Ron blinked bemusedly, looking at the cuffs. 'Very stylish.'
'Terror of squirrels everywhere,' said Harry, and turned to Hermione before she could ask him what he meant. 'Hermione?'
'I've got my wand,' she started to protest, indignantly, but then his arms were around her and he was hugging her, hard. 'I love you,' he said, and kissed her, once, hard on the mouth, the sword of Gryffindor pressed between them. When he let her go, it caught on her shirt, tearing the hem of it, and Hermione put the back of her hand to her mouth and smiled around it at Harry, her eyes full of tears.
'Harry,' she said, 'be careful,' which had always been her way of telling him that she loved him. And he nodded and turned back towards Ron, who had been pretending to inspect the cuffs.
'Are we ready?' he asked, and Hermione remembered an icy night in Hogsmeade, kneeling, all three of them in the snow and swearing that they would be together until the end. And here it was, the end, and she didn't feel at all ready for it.
'Ready,' she lied, and Ron nodded. Harry began to walk towards the pentagram, and they followed him, the way they had followed him now for seven years. God, please keep him safe, Hermione thought, her eyes on Harry as he stepped into the pentagram. She glanced back at Ron, who gave her a nervous smile, then went to follow Harry -
And something struck her, knocking her sideways. 'You little bitch,' said a cold and icy voice, and she looked up into the winter-gray eyes of Lucius Malfoy.
'Draco, wait!'
Halfway down the corridor already, he turned, saw her, and cursed out loud. 'Why are you following me? Didn't you hear what Harry said?'
Ginny stopped, her hand outstretched. 'It's not fair,' she said. 'I should be the one to go after him.'
'Maybe not.' A bitter smile twisted Draco's mouth. 'You have a history of not being able to quite say no to him.'
