'Eurgh,' said Ginny, and bit her lip. 'Are you sure?'
'I'm sure,' said Gareth. 'It's as much a burden as it is anything else, the band. It was made with love, mind you, but my father's brand of love-the killing, clinging sort. I'd be glad not to have to leave it to an Heir of my own.'
'Thank you, Gareth,' said Ginny, and heard Gareth suck his breath in.
She looked up, and saw Ben standing in the doorway, the wand in one hand and a stone mug of something in the other.
He looked stricken. 'Gareth, no.'
Gareth jumped lightly off the desk. 'It won't make a difference, Benjamin,' he said. 'It won't make me die any sooner.'
'I don't want to know when you are going to die,' said Ben, looking distraught. He waved the lighted wand, so it made lacelike patterns of light on the opposite wall. 'I don't want to be forewarned-about myself, either,' he added, glaring at Ginny as if she were the Voice of Doom.
'You won't know,' said Gareth, 'not till the moment. Look, we can argue about it later.'
Ben shook his head. 'No. I don't like it. I won't go along with it.'
Gareth looked at Ginny. 'Is your Time-Turner set to take you back?'
She nodded. 'Yes, but-'
He reached out as if he meant to pat her cheek, but seized the Time-Turner instead, and flipped it over. She heard him say, 'Run along, then, there's a good girl,' or something like it, just as the ground was yanked out from under her feet._
'Leave without me?' echoed Harry. 'Leave and go where?'
Draco put the book he was reading aside-Harry couldn't see the cover, only that it had a broad spine stamped in gold leaf-and regarded Harry with his head tilted to the side, like a quizzical magpie's. 'I'm not sure, exactly,' he said. 'I only know that I have to go, and soon. It's a sort of drawing pull that gets stronger and stronger.' He pointed towards the door of the library.
'I've been out there,' said Harry. 'The only thing out there is the hallway.'
Draco laughed. 'I think I'm supposed to leave the Manor,' he said. 'Have you been out the front doors?'
'No,' Harry was forced to admit. He glanced at the window behind Draco-he could not tell if the gray flatness beyond it was merely winter sky, or some more empty and permanent grayness. 'You know we're not really here, don't you?'
Draco looked at him blankly.
'What do you think is outside the Manor?' Harry asked, trying again.
'I don't know,' Draco said, with an uncharacteristically artless sort of smile. 'But I'm going-and I don't think I'll be coming back. That's why I'm glad you're here. I wanted to say goodbye.'
He leaned back. Harry was struck by how healthy and ordinary he looked-there was color in his face and he was no longer thin. He supposed everyone was healthy inside their own mind. Perhaps this was the way Draco saw himself.
'Goodbye?' Harry echoed, and when Draco said nothing, he asked, 'How did you know I was coming?'
'I could hear you. Talking to me. Like a ghost at the window.' He glanced towards the window, seeming not to see the emptiness outside.
'There are so many ghosts in this Manor,' said Harry, remembering, 'but I never thought you would be one of them.'
'I'm not,' said Draco, a little too quickly. 'I heard Hermione and Ginny too, and Sirius. But your voice was the strongest.'
'They've been taking turns sitting with you,' said Harry. 'In the infirmary.'
Draco's light eyebrows raised. Harry thought of talking to that false Draco in the rain-soaked alley outside the Midnight Club, thought about how he had known then that there was something peculiar, something wrong about his friend, but not what it was. It was like that now, though he had no doubt that this was Draco. A Draco altered, changed in some microscopic, particulate way, but still Draco. 'And you haven't? Not up for taking it in turns, Potter?'
The slight sarcastic accent on his last name comforted Harry with its familiarity. 'I haven't left you,' he said. 'And I won't, until…'
'Until what?'
Harry expelled a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. 'Surely you must know,' he said. 'Where we are now, what's outside. There's death beyond that door, Malfoy. You'll die if you go outside.'
Draco looked merely curious. 'Will I?' he said, and, leaping from the desk, made his way towards the door with a determined stride.
The second journey, forward in time, seemed swifted than the first. She saw black clouds gather around her and heard a shrill, piercing sound, like the noise of nails on a chalkboard. Then the world came together again, and she was standing in the library, looking into Blaise's wide, frightened eyes.
'Crikey,' said Blaise, recovering. 'You just blipped right out and then back in again-you were only gone for a second! Does that mean you have to go back?'
Gasping a little, Ginny leaned on the table until her dizziness passed.
'Yes,' she said. 'But first I need-'
'What? Water? Do you need to sit down?'
Ginny shook her head. 'No. Books.'
Blaise's eyebrows drew together. 'Books?'
Ginny nodded.
Blaise shook her head. 'You're more like Granger than I thought.'
Still, despite her sharp tone, once Ginny had made it clear what she needed, Blaise went to search the historical section for further books about the Founders. 'Anything that contains an exact death date for Gareth Slytherin,' said Ginny. 'And I need to know if he had any children, and which of them became the next Heir of Slytherin.'
Once Blaise had gone, Ginny sank down in a chair. She had forgotten how draining time travel could be. She lowered her head into her hands, letting her cold fingers cool her flushed face-then glanced up as the library door slammed.
It was Ron. He hurried over to her, blue eyes full of concern. 'Are you all right?'
She nodded. 'I'm fine. Ron, what are you doing here?'
'Seamus told me you were in danger.'
'Seamus can be such a-'
Blaise reappeared from between the stacks with a book in her hands, chuckling. 'I thought Gryffindors didn't know those kinds of words!'
'We're brave, not prudish,' said Ron, shortly.
Blaise fluttered her eyelashes. 'Whatever you say.'
Ron narrowed his eyes at her. 'Whatever's going on-did you put Ginny up to something?'
'I certainly did not,' replied Blaise coldly.
'Oh, Ron,' said Ginny wearily. 'Stop being a tool, will you? This was my idea.'
'What was your idea?' Ron demanded. He looked around, a muscle by his mouth twitching. 'What are you doing in the library?'
The muscle by his mouth twitched more rapidly as Ginny explained.
When she was done, he exploded, 'Ginny, that's the stupidest-'
'It is not stupid!' Ginny flared. 'And Hermione said it was all right.'
'That's because she's in love with him too,' said Ron, even more angrily.
Blaise's eyes flew open. 'With Draco?' he said.
