'I told you I would not be merciful.'
'But why-I mean, why this?'
'Why not?' Draco cut at Harry again, high this time, and Harry ducked; the blade bit deep into the wood paneling above his head.
Straightening, Harry observed dryly, 'You seem annoyed.'
Draco paused to yank his sword out of the wall. 'You would keep me from my death,' he said. The blade flashed in his hand as he swung at Harry; Harry parried, keeping his feet planted, just as Draco had taught him. In fact, it seemed to him that Draco was using all the moves he'd used when training Harry in swordplay; surely if he really wanted to hurt Harry, he'd try something else, something Harry wasn't prepared for? Emboldened by this thought, he pressed forward, taking the offensive. Draco dropped back a step, his eyes narrowed to lazy silver crescents. 'Nice move, Potter.'
'It's not your time,' Harry said, between gasps. He was sweating, salt stinging his eyes.
'You don't get to say when-'
'Neither do you!'
Draco sprang onto the lowest step of the stairs, striking at Harry's sword with enough force to bruise Harry's fingers where they gripped the hilt.
'It is my life-my death.'
'But why? Why not fight for it? Why not fight for every last minute, every second, every possibility of a chance that you might be cured? Why not?'
'Because I'm tired!' Draco shouted, with a sudden anger that struck at Harry more forcefully than the just- delivered blow. 'Tired of fighting-and tired of struggling-and tired of this endless, arduous nothing-' His blade snapped up, level with Harry's eyes. 'What's the reward, Potter?' he said, his voice half a whisper. 'If I die now, then I die in glory, don't I? Fallen in the fight against Voldemort. Dulce et decorum est.'
'What? I don't know-'
'Never learned your Latin, did you? Not past the spells you needed to know, anyway.' Draco's voice was too weary for the scorn his words implied. 'If I live,' he said, enunciating clearly, as if Harry were a particularly slow child, 'then all that glory fades into ordinariness, doesn't it? You-you'll always be special. The boy who killed Voldemort. I only ever had a purpose when you were my purpose. What do you expect me to do now, now that you no longer need me any more?'
This time, the cold darkness seemed to go on forever. Ginny could hear the howl of wind in her ears, feel the blood freezing inside her veins, stiffening her fingers into claws made out of ice. Even the chattering of her teeth made no sound in the empty void between then and now.
At last she heard a noise-a sort of shattering, like breaking ice- and she broke through the grayness into light and heat and noise. Her knees gave way and she fell to the floor, clutching the runic band tightly in her fingers.
Hands on her shoulders pulled her upright into a sitting position. It was Ron, very pale, his lower lip caught between his teeth. 'Ginny?'
Blaise hurried towards them both across the library, her red hair like a stream of torchlight. 'Ginny! Are you all right? You both appeared and then you just… fell…'
'I'm all right,' Ginny said, though she heard the strain in her voice and knew it wasn't true. She was glad of the pressure of Ron's hands, keeping her upright. She was still shivering so hard…
She glanced down at her hands. The bracelet was clasped between them.
The edges of it were faintly frosted with ice.
'You got it!' Blaise exclaimed, dropping to her knees. Ron let go of Ginny's shoulders. Ginny's stomach lurched and a wave of blackness rose up inside her, threatening to swamp her vision. She fought it back through sheer will, clawing it down until the darkness receded and she could breathe again.
'We got it,' she said. She felt as if the ground were rocking up and down under her. Glancing at the bracelet, she saw that a faint glow still clung to it, despite its traumatic voyage through time. 'But I don't know what to do now- it's a bracelet, right, not at antidote. Maybe we grind it down to powder or…'
'Or maybe we go to Snape,' said Blaise firmly.
Ron stood up. 'I'm heading to the infirmary,' he said. 'I need to tell Harry and Hermione what's going on.'
Ginny squeezed his arm as she got to her feet. 'Thanks, Ron. For coming with me.'
'Of course.' He still looked a little dazed.
Blaise, impatient, took hold of Ginny's sleeve and towed her out of the library and down the stairs to the dungeon. She kept a tight hold on Ginny's arm, and Ginny was grateful. She suspected that otherwise, she'd have fallen down the stairs and fetched up at Snape's feet, much to his astonishment.
He was, as always, in the Potions dungeon, standing at a long trestle table covered with jars and vials and philters spilling powders and sticky liquids and bits of dragon scale and newts' eyes and boggart toenails all over its surface. Snape hovered above a boiling cauldron, his greasy hair slicked with steam and sweat. His eyes were rimmed in bloody red. He looked up and scowled. 'What the devil do you two want?'
Ginny opened her mouth, but could find no words. Exhaustion and dizziness had rendered her speechless. It was Blaise who plucked the bracelet out of her hand and held it out to the Potions professor.
'Ginny's found the missing part of the antidote, Professor Snape,' she said imperiously.
Snape raised first one eyebrow, then another. 'I see,' he said. 'Miss Weasley has had yet another fanciful notion regarding the antidote?
Might I remind you, Miss Weasley, of the wholly useless flower that you sent me last week? I believe you thought that was the antidote, too.'
Ginny felt herself flush. 'It was a flora fortis,' she said. 'A willpower plant.'
'It was a common sowthistle,' said Snape crossly, and gestured towards the windowsill, where a small box contained dirt-and a sparse scattering of yellow flowers. 'I planted it. It may eventually make a pleasant window box, but an antidote ingredient, it was not.'
Blaise looked as if she were about to say something, but Ginny interrupted her. 'This is different,' she said. 'It has the blood of silver dragons in it.'
Snape looked up, his reddened eyes suddenly cold. 'That's impossible.'
Ginny reached for the gold chain around her throat and held up the Time-Turner that dangled at the end of it. Even in the muddy gloom of the basement, it still caught the light. 'Dumbledore gave me…' she began.
But Snape had already snatched the bracelet out of Blaise's grasp and was gripping it in shaking hands. 'I saw Potter wearing this,' he said. 'Do you mean to tell me…?'
Ginny shook her head. 'It's not the same bracelet Harry had. That one didn't have the dragon blood in it. It'd been taken out.'
Slowly, Snape turned the dark, glassy red circlet over and over in his hands. He ran a long white finger over the runes that etched its surface: the one that looked like a wing and the one that looked like a rayed sun and the one that Ginny had thought looked like a heart.
She heard his breath catch.
'A broken heart spills all its secrets,' he said, and pressed with the pad of his thumb against the heart rune.
There was a sound like a snapped bone. The bracelet came apart in two perfect half circles, and from the broken ends of it poured a thin silver liquid. It splashed down into the cauldron on the table in front of Snape.
The bubbling mixture inside the cauldron stopped bubbling, and turned a singing gold color.
Blaise gave a little gasp. 'The antidote!' she said.
Blade clanged on blade. 'I'll never not need you,' said Harry, out of breath, his wrist aching.
'That's not true.' Draco was making his way back down the stairs now, forcing Harry to retreat. 'You needed
