— you know, not out loud. Prepared you.'
'There are some things you can never prepare for,' Draco said. There was a pale bruise rising on his cheek, and the collar of his shirt was torn. A frayed ribbon, tattered and bloodied, swung jauntily from his wrist. 'It's not your fault,' Draco said. 'Just the universe, laughing at us as usual.'
'I won't kill him,' Harry said. 'Not if you don't want me to.'
Draco's eyes were remote, his voice slow and cool as the progress of glaciers. 'You will do what you must,' he said. 'You always do.'
'No,' Harry said. He could feel Draco slipping away from him, water through his fingers. Deliberately, he reached out, and placed his hands on Draco's shoulders. The other boy looked at him, surprised. 'I have done,'
Harry said, 'enough killing in the name of light. And if you want your father to live, I will let him live.'
'You would let him live past me, and not kill him in revenge for my death?'
Harry nodded.
'I am not sure I could say the same, were our positions reversed,' Draco said. 'But that's why you are the hero, and I am not.'
'You would do it,' Harry said, 'for my sake.'
Draco looked away. The ends of his hair brushed the backs of Harry's hands. He said, 'Don't restrain yourself on my account. I know you need to avenge your parents. I know only my father's death can ensure that.
And surely he has earned your retribution.'
'You won't forbid me, then?' Harry asked.
Draco said, 'I want no part in this. I will abide by whatever decision you make.'
'But Malfoy — '
'No.' Draco looked back at him, his eyes the color of storm clouds. 'Don't force my hand.'
'He's your blood, your family,' Harry said. 'You'd be well within your rights — '
Draco raised his hand, and laid it over Harry's on his shoulder. 'You are my blood,' he said. 'My family.' Looking at Harry, he smiled faintly. 'I must say, I thought — '
'What?'
'That your scar would be gone,' Draco said simply. 'Once Voldemort was dead. But it's still there. I'm glad. You wouldn't be you without it.' He lowered his hand. 'Will you do one thing for me?'
'What?'
'Take this.' Draco drew Terminus Est and held the sword out to Harry.
Tendrils of smoke twined the steel-gray hilt and dulled the pattern of black roses etched into the crosspiece. 'I would rather that my father did not die on a Gryffindor blade,' he said.
Harry dropped his hands from Draco's shoulders, and took Terminus Est.
The sword was heavy in his grip, its weight and balance unfamiliar. 'Yes,' he said. 'Yes, I will do this one thing for you.'
Tom hung in his shackles. Hermione couldn't help but think how uncomfortable he looked, even unconscious. Blood had trickled into his fair hair from a cut across his temple. She thought of the strangled girl in the Midnight Club and hoped it hurt a great deal. 'We could kill him,' she said.
'We can't,' Ginny said. She was leaning against the wall, not looking at Tom, her eyes searching the smoke. Rhysenn drifted beside her, her black hair lifting like raven's wings on the gusts of cold, bitter air that blew at intervals through the chamber.
Hermione raised an eyebrow. I wish I could trust her. 'Why not?'
'Because of Seamus,' Ginny said. 'If there's still a chance we could save him…'
Rhysenn looked confused. 'Is his name Tom, or is it Seamus?' she asked.
'I'm not sure I understand. Although,' she added, and wrinkled up her nose as if she'd tasted something bitter, 'There is something very peculiar about him — something unnatural.'
'He has two souls,' Hermione said. 'One his own, and one possessing him.'
Rhysenn looked startled for a moment, then laughed. 'One of you is two souls in one body,' she said, 'and another is one soul in two.
Remarkable.'
'I wouldn't say Tom is one of us,' Hermione said crisply. 'And what do you mean — '
'One soul in two bodies,' Draco said, appearing as if out of nowhere. He had his hands in his pockets, an his eyes were unnaturally bright, the way they sometimes were when he was very angry, very agitated, or both.
'That's rather poetic, for a demon.'
'Draco,' Ginny said, but he didn't look at her. Biting her lip, she turned and walked away — not very far; Hermione could still see her bright dress and hair through the smoke.
Ignoring her departure, Draco turned to Rhysenn. 'I take it you've been Hermione's partner in all this?' he said. 'Faking her death, slipping her lockpicks, drugging Voldemort's tea?'
'I never drugged Voldemort's tea,' Rhysenn protested, looking taken aback. 'Besides, he drinks coffee. Er, drank coffee.'
'My point is that I never expected you to be all that helpful,' Draco said, and Rhysenn smiled her cool, secret smile. 'Bit like Chudley Cannons pitching in at the last moment to help out Puddlemere, wouldn't you say?'
Rhysenn blinked.
'Sports metaphors not quite your thing, I take it,' said Draco.
Hermione gave a little grunt of impatience. 'Draco, honestly.'
'I merely meant that her loyalties lie elsewhere,' Draco said blandly. 'To wit, with my father. Or what seems to be left of him.'
'They don't, actually,' said Hermione. 'She's meant to be loyal to the master of the English Malfoy family. Technically, that's you. Your father lost the title when he 'died', and never bothered setting about regaining it
— because, well, why do you think?'
'Ah, legalities,' Draco said. 'They tell us everything we need to know about how things ought to be and nothing about how they are. My father is the Master of Malfoy Manor, Hermione. Every stone of the Manor knows it.'
'But you are the last of the Malfoys,' said Hermione. 'Without you, there will be no more. And Rhysenn is pledged to protect the Malfoy line — and that means you.'
'I didn't quite realize how it was,' Rhysenn said calmly, 'until Hermione explained it to me, and then I understood it perfectly.'
'Yes, well, Hermione could convince an electric eel that it was a harmless rubber duck,' said Draco. 'Of course, that wouldn't help the poor bastard who tried to take a bath with it.' He turned on Hermione. 'I bet you told her I'd free her if she helped us.'
'I did, actually,' Hermione admittedly.
'Well, I can't,' Draco said. 'Only my father can. Maybe he will, too.
Normally I'd say you had to catch him on a good day — namely, Saturday the twelfth of Absolutely Sodding Never — but who knows? Anything seems possible at the moment.'
'You can if your father gives permission,' Hermione said. 'And he has. He says you can do whatever you want.'
Draco's mouth twisted, and he gave a bitter little laugh. 'Does he, now?'
He looked sharply at Hermione. 'You foresaw all this, didn't you?'
She shrugged. 'I guessed.'
'Blind Justice was never so cruel,' said Draco, and turned to Rhysenn.
'You do realize,' he added, looking over his shoulder at Hermione, 'that you're asking me to unleash an evil sex demon with the power to suck out men's souls onto an unsuspecting world?'
'Yes,' Hermione said.
'I can suck out women's souls, too,' said Rhysenn helpfully.
