'That doesn't matter — you shouldn't be the one risking yourself! It should be me! I'm the one who brought him back into the world, he's my responsibility!'
'I'll tell you what,' Draco said.
Her lips parted in surprise. 'Kill him? You can't kill him — '
Oh? His tone was cold. Why not?
She hesitated. It would be so easy to tell him the truth: Because if he dies, I might die as well. And if that had truly been the only reason she was reluctant for Tom s death, she would have said those words. But it wasn t.
And she didn t.
I thought so, Draco said, dismissively. He turned on his heel. Slumping against the wall, she watched him walk away in silence.
Lucius stood over Hermione, wand in hand, his face twisted with fury.
Like Tom had been, he was filthy with ash, his fine gray robes smeared with it, his knuckles raw and bloodied. 'You did this,' he snarled, his wand hand utterly still as he trained the tip of it just between her eyes.
'Filthy little Mudblood.'
The Cup will protect me, Hermione thought, but her heart was pounding.
There was such cold hatred in his eyes. She had rarely been spoken to with such hatred, not even by Snape — years ago, she thought, Draco had spoken to her like this. And if it had not been for Harry, perhaps this is what Draco would have become, a monster like his father, with a mind of winter and eyes that cut like the jagged edge of an icicle. 'It's over,' she said. 'There's nothing you can do to me now.'
'Hermione?' It was Ron, finding his way towards her through the smoke.
'Hermione, did you — '
He broke off as he came into view of them and stared. Hermione could see what he was thinking — he had the knives in his hand, but what use were they, when Lucius had a wand? And Harry was gone, into the pentagram, probably locked in battle with Voldemort this very moment.
'Ron!' she shouted, holding up her hand to warn him to stay back. 'It's all right,' she added, foolishly, 'he can't hurt me — '
Lucius laughed, a high snarl of a laugh, and seized her by the arm, yanking her into a sitting position. Before she could react, she felt his hands in her hair, tearing at the barrette. It came off in his hand, along with a large clump of her hair, ripped out at the roots. She cried out, reaching for it, but Lucius shoved her hard and she sprawled back onto the floor, gasping in pain and surprise.
'I should have guessed before,' he said, 'when I saw the look on your disgusting little Mudblood face as we were dragging you off. I thought I saw a gleam of triumph in your eyes. You're not stupid,' he said, turning the barrette over in his fingers, 'I'll give you that. You have a sort of narrow, vicious cunning to you, like a rat, or a weasel. I've heard that about your kind before. Something about the mixing of blood seems to encourage that sort of low cleverness. Ensuring that Voldemort got the wrong cup, now, that was a bit of cheap trickery there. And it nearly worked out for you, didn't it?'
He jammed the tip of his wand up under her chin, forcing her to raise her face to his. By far the worst thing about looking directly at Lucius Malfoy, she thought, was the echo of Draco that was there: the same fine-boned face, the same drawling, lazy, diamond-sharp voice.
'Get away from her,' Ron said, but he hung back as if frightened that any move he made might force Lucius' hand.
Lucius laughed, a jeering, sharp laugh, and jammed the knife deeper into Hermione's throat, making her choke and gag. 'Avada — '
'No!' Ron flung out his hand — and from the cuff around his wrist shot the thin blade of a knife. It flew across the room, burying itself in Lucius' arm, just above the elbow. Bellowing with pain, Lucius fell to his knees, the wand dropping from his hand, Gasping for breath, Hermione snatched it up, pointing it at Lucius. 'Stupefy,' she croaked, and light burst from the wand's tip.
Eyes rolling up in his head, Lucius crumpled to the hard marble floor, blood running in thin rivulets from his injured arm. Hermione raised her amazed eyes to Ron. 'Ron,' she said. 'That was incredible. Where did you learn to handle a knife like that?'
Ron looked from the wrist cuff, to Hermione, and shrugged sheepishly.
'Oh, you know.' he said. 'Around.'
The taste of the smoke was bitter. Bitter on his tongue; bitter where it stung his eyes. Harry could feel the heat of the floor through his boots, knew that if he fell against it, it would burn him.
Sweat trickled down his spine, plastered his hair to his forehead. The sword of Gryffindor was heavy in his hand, the hilt slippery, and the blade banged against his leg as he walked. His wrist was starting to ache.
Nobody ever mentioned this sort of thing when they wrote adventure stories about heroic confrontations, he thought. Nobody mentioned the gut cramps of panic and tension, the hollow lightheadedness of fear, the coppery- bitter taste of hate and violence.
He could hear the Dark Lord screaming. The screams grew louder as Harry reached the heart of the pentagram. They were mixed with other screams as well. Harry's foot struck something; and he recoiled; it was Wormtail, he saw with horror, who had crawled towards him across the burning marble floor. His clothes smoked, as did his skin — red and blistered in some places, burnt nearly black in others. 'Water,' Wormtail croaked, seizing the hem of Harry's frayed traveling cloak with his metal hand.
'For the love of God, water please — '
He raised his head then, and Harry saw that his eyes had been burnt out.
There were only blistered white orbs where they had once been. He heard himself cry out in disgust and horror, and stumbled back, bile rising in the back of his throat. His cloak came off in Wormtail's grip and he was left shivering in his jacket and thin shirt. 'Master,' Wormtail croaked.
'Master, please…'
He thinks I'm Voldemort, Harry thought with a bewildered nausea, and then the choking thick gray air in front of him parted and the Dark Lord loomed up out of the smoke. His chalk-white skin was smeared with patches of black char, and in his clawed left hand he gripped the hilt of the Worthy Dagger. With a howl of triumphant rage, he lunged forward, plunging the blade into Harry's chest.
Ginny watched as Draco vanished into the darkness at the end of the corridor. Then she slumped back against the double doors of the Ceremonial Chamber, her heart pounding wildly.
She wondered if she would feel it, the blade going into Tom, his life pumping out of him. Or maybe death would come down like a curtain, a neat severance dividing this life from the next.
Or maybe nothing would happen at all.
Or maybe Tom would kill Draco, but that was more horrible to contemplate than her own death. Especially since it would be her fault.
Coward, said the voice inside her head, cowardly traitor, coward, you let him go to face your own responsibility.
'Decided not to go, then, did you?' said a voice at her shoulder. Ginny turned to see Rhysenn there. The folds of her white dress blew in the bitter, smoky air of the corridor, and her feet did not quite touch the floor. 'I guess you don't need me to protect you after all.'
'He wouldn't let me go,' Ginny said flatly. 'And you're right, I don't need you.'
Rhysenn chuckled. 'I'm sure he'll be fine, you know.' She twirled, standing up on her toes, her black hair wrapping her slowly like ribbons around a Maypole.
'Who'll be fine?' Ginny asked, suspicion creeping into her voice. 'Tom or Draco?'
'Does it matter? You're soft on them both, or so I hear. Either way, you win.'
'That's not true,' Ginny said, her voice sounding sharper than she'd expected. 'Tom has to die. I'd kill him
