Looking into them, Ginny thought, Draco must have felt he were staring into some strange combination of Harry's eyes and her own. 'All right,'
Blaise said and, standing, took Ginny's wrist and held it tightly, which Ginny found startling though not unpleasant. They went up the stairs together and through the wide double doors into the infirmary.
A profound hush lay over the room, as if all sounds were muffled in the shadow of Death's wings. Madam Pomfrey moved silently in the low light, stopping occasionally to speak to Narcissa Malfoy, who had insisted upon being helpful in any way she could: bandaging Harry and Ron's wounds as well as Draco's, carrying bowls of antidote and plumping pillows. She sat now in a large armchair pulled up to the window by Draco's bed, her eyes half closed, chin in hand.
Hermione sat at the foot of the bed, a book open in her lap. Her hair was pulled up in a heavy silver clip, her still-damp blue winter cloak hung on a peg behind her. She had a shawl wrapped around her shoulders: Ginny recognized it as the one Draco had given her for Christmas. Hermione glanced up as the door shut behind Ginny and Blaise, and gestured them over with her quill, spilling a bit of ink on her sleeve.
Blaise hung back. Ginny had to half-drag her to the side of the bed. The last splashes of dying sunlight lent a faint color to Draco's white hands, folded across the snowy-white sheets and blankets drawn up to his chest.
He had been bathed and put into his own pajamas; clean, he looked deceptively healthier than when Ginny had seen him in Romania, a stark scarecrow latticed with cuts and filthy with blood and mud, his ragged clothes hanging on his bony frame. His hair was fresh now, curling in silver-white tendrils at his temples, his hands were wrapped in bandages, and his thin chest rose and fell, rose and fell, so slightly that the blankets barely moved.
Blaise's eyes welled up with tears, which spilled down her cheeks, spoiling her eye makeup. 'Bother,' she said, dropping Ginny's wrist to scrub fiercely at her face. 'Sorry,' she said, addressing Draco, a soft catch to her voice. 'I know how you hate it when I cry.'
'It's all right,' said Harry. 'He won't notice. He doesn't notice anything.'
Blaise jumped and turned, startled. Ginny followed her gaze to where Harry huddled in an armchair at the head of the bed, so still that he might have been invisible. Ginny wondered if she would have noticed him if she hadn't already known he'd be there. He'd been there for three days, and looked it: his green eyes smeared with lampblack stains of weariness, his hair hanging in matted tangles. Madam Pomfrey and Narcissa had done what they could to patch him up — he hadn't objected as long as he hadn't been asked to move from the chair — and swathes of clean white bandage showed beneath the ragged tears in his filthy black clothes. His sword, the hilt still stained with blood, leaned against the back of his chair; Ginny didn't know where Terminus Est was, and hadn't dared ask.
'You don't know that, Harry,' said Hermione, looking up from her book.
'They say people in a coma can hear when they're spoken to, sometimes, even if they don't show it.'
'I know it,' said Harry, with finality. His voice was gritty with exhaustion.
He raised himself up a little, and looked around the infirmary. 'Where's Ron?'
'He said he had to talk to Remus about something, remember? He's probably with him in his office.'
'And Sirius?'
'He's down in the Potions office with Snape,' Hermione said. 'I told you that before.'
'Have they had any luck finding anything?' Blaise asked. She had taken Draco's hand, lacing her fingers through his. Ginny felt a burst of resentment, which she tamped down fiercely. Real love is generous, she told herself, it is not jealous, it is not destructive, it is not-Oh, bugger it, she thought, and turned away from the bed, from the sight of the redheaded girl who was not herself holding Draco's hand while his life inched away. She found herself staring down at Hermione, and at her open book. Across the top of the page was a woodcut drawing of a winged serpent; below it a symbol like a sharply rayed star, oddly familiar.
'I've seen that symbol before,' Ginny said, trying to remember exactly where. 'What does it mean?'
Hermione, who had been replying to Blaise, stopped and sighed. 'It's the rune for silver dragons. I've been reading up on them as much as I can, hoping to find something…'
'It was on Harry's runic band,' Ginny said, suddenly, glancing towards him, though he didn't seem to be listening. 'I remember, because…'
Hermione slammed her book shut, drowning out the rest of Ginny's words. Her face was white. 'Harry, do you mind if Ginny and I go talk in the corridor?'
Harry shook his head, barely looking at them. 'Do what you like.'
Ginny found herself hustled unceremoniously out of the infirmary, glancing back over her shoulder as she went to cast an apologetic look at Blaise. Out on the landing, Hermione checked to make sure that the door was firmly shut before she spoke. 'Now finish what you were saying,' she said, peremptorily. 'The symbol was on Harry's runic band?'
'Well, I never looked that closely at the band when Harry had it,' Ginny admitted. 'But I saw it when Gareth was wearing it. I looked at it because I was surprised he had one just like Harry's.'
Hermione looked as if she were about to clutch at her head. 'Gareth? You mean back-in-the-past Gareth?'
'Yes, but he wasn't in the past, he was in my bedroom.' Seeing Hermione's expression, Ginny hastened to reassure the other girl that she hadn't been seeking illicit time-traveling booty. 'With Ben. They came forward in time to give me something. You see…'
Hermione was blessedly quiet during Ginny's explanation, only nodding on occasion. When Ginny was done, she said, 'I've never heard of anything called a flora fortis, myself.'
'Well, maybe you don't know everything,' Ginny said, vexed.
'It's been suggested.' Hermione's tone was acerbic; Ginny sometimes forgot just how dry and almost emotionless Hermione got when she was very, very upset. 'Anyway, it sounds as if they didn't have much to say to you that was all that helpful. Just a lot of muttering and a bouquet of dubious usefulness. But you saw the silver dragon rune? You're sure?'
Ginny nodded.
Hermione bit her lip. 'I don't want you saying anything to Harry. Do you understand?'
'Why not?'
'Because,' Hermione said slowly, 'if he finds out that he's been wearing the means to save Draco all these months, and now he's destroyed it, then…' She shook her head. 'No. He can never, ever know.'
'He'll have to know eventually, Hermione,' Ginny said.
'Not if I have anything to do with it,' Hermione said, her dark eyes flashing, and Ginny remembered something that Draco had said once, that Hermione had taught him what it meant to be utterly ruthless in love. 'It's a moot point, anyway. That bracelet's gone. It no longer exists.'
'Yes, it does.'
'No,' said Hermione with conscious patience. 'Harry destroyed it. You know that.'
'It exists. It exists in the past.'
'GINNY.' Hermione dropped her book seized the other girl's wrists. 'You can't change the past, do you understand that? Look what happened last time you messed around with time travel.'
Ginny tried to draw back, but Hermione's grip was like iron. 'You don't think I've thought about that? But this is different, Hermione. This could work. This could save him.'
'No,' Hermione said again, but Ginny saw the flicker in her eyes. 'It's destined, Ginny. I talked to Ron about the visions he had, back at the fortress, how he saw the Dark Mark and the Ministry on fire, and how all of them came true. You know what else he saw? He saw Draco lying dead in a bed, and Harry crying over him. That's the future, Ginny. That's what's going to happen. We can't change it.'
'I don't believe it,' Ginny said stubbornly. 'The future isn't made until it happens. Do you want to let him die and know you didn't do everything you possibly could to save him?'
'Do you want to bring another Tom-sized disaster down on all of us? How many people have to die before you stop being so reckless?'
This time Ginny pulled her wrist back. 'When I freed Rhysenn,' she said, her voice tight with the effort not to
