Disclaimer: Not mine, JK's. There are quotes in here from Red Dwarf
(back when it was funny), Blackadder, Buffy, and I realized I'd
criminally neglected Terry Pratchett so far, so made up for it by
nicking several quotes in this chapter at once.

A/N There's a fair bit of telepathic communication in this story,
which is indicated in italics. If you can, read it in Files, where
the italics show up. Otherwise, I apologize if it's at all confusing.

Draco Sinister Chapter 9: The Bargaining

This is dedicated to Heidi and Rave, my beta-readers. Schnoogles for
both of them.

The corridor was stone, lit with the light of smokeless torches at
uneven intervals, their sconces carved in the shapes of serpents. The
blue-eyed woman paid them no attention as she hurried down the hall,
her feet making no noise on the bare stone floor.
She paused in front of a door, rapped on it once. It was opened by a
red-headed woman with tired eyes which lit with a dark blue glow when
she saw who had knocked. "Rowena," she said. "You came...he's been
asking for you."
"Is he dying, Helga?"
"I don't know. One of those snakes he's endlessly playing with, using
in his experiments...it bit him on the arm. I've tried antivenom
spells, but nothing seems to be working."
"I want to see him."
Helga sighed. "Go on in."
Inside the room, Rowena stood for a long time, looking at the young
man in the bed. His eyes were closed, shadows like black half-moons
under his eyes, his head propped up on pillows. Fever pushed him in
its slow dance from one side of the bed to another. She could see the
dark mark of the bite on the inside of his forearm, black and
venomous-looking. She didn't move, not sure if he was asleep or not.
At last he opened his eyes and looked at her. "You can come near me,"
he said. "It's snake venom, I'm not contagious."
"I didn't know if you'd want me to come near you," she said, and
went to sit on the stool next to his bed. She looked at him out of
the corner of her eye. His silver hair was plastered to his head with
sweat, his gray eyes bright with fever. Sickness had made him look
younger, somehow undefended.
"Who would have sent for you, if not me?" he asked.
"Nobody sent me for me. I heard you were ill--"
"And in compassion and pity you overcame your aversion to me, and
forced yourself to my bedside. Very commendable of you. What does
Godric have to say about this?"
She expelled a breath. "Godric doesn't know. How's your wife?"
He glared at her. "She's not my wife. I told you that."
"No, just another of these creatures you've created. What did you
call her...?"
"A veela," said the man in the bed impatiently. "She's not my wife
but she's obedient, she's loving, she's all the things you aren't.
And she's giving me an heir."
"Yes, and when you get her angry, she grows an enormous beak and
tries to poke out your eyes."
"No experiment is perfect," he said, almost sounding amused, and
tried to straighten up on the pillows. "The wolf-men, though, I'm
especially proud of what I've done with them."
"You don't think it's cruel? Creating these races of creatures that
aren't men, aren't animals, but are something else instead? What is
going to happen to them, after you're gone?"
"I'm not planning on ever being gone."
"Oh, Lord, not this again. You have to stop this, all of it, these
horrible experiments with the Dark Arts. You can't call up the powers
of Hell and expect no repercussions. Be sensible."
"If you just came here to lecture me, you might as well leave."
"Fine," said Rowena, gathering her cloak up about her, but he
suddenly whipped his hand forward and seized onto her wrist, making
her wince. "It's not fair," he said. "Since we were children, who did
we ever have to trust save each other?"
"But I don't trust you any more," she said tearfully, and he loosened
his grip on her wrist, sliding his hand down, interlocking her
fingers with his. His skin was burning hot with fever. "What do you
want from me, Salazar?"
"I'm dying," he said. "But if you want me to live I will. Poison,
disease, the wound of any battle – nothing will be able to hurt me.
I'll be invulnerable."
She looked away, blinking hard. "People are not meant to live
forever. Why don't you try doing something good with all your power,
your knowledge? You could be a healer like Helga, you could put
people back together instead of taking them apart and doing
experiments on the pieces..."
He sat up then, staring at her, his gray eyes lit with a fever so
intense they looked almost blue. "I could," he said. "I could, if you
would help me. Stay with me, Rowena, and I swear, I promise, I'll
abandon the Dark Arts, I'll burn my books, destroy my experiments –"
he broke off, drawing her towards him by their interlocked hands. She
let herself be pulled down on the bed beside him and leaned into him,
her face against the hollow of his shoulder. Through the link that
bound them she could feel that the weight of her against his skin was
causing him excruciating pain. She also knew he did not want her to
move away. The poison in him was black and burning. She found that
she was afraid for him and so, for the moment, no longer afraid of
him. "I'll tell you something," he said. "I let that snake bite me."
"Salazar, why?"
"I thought if I was dying you might come to see me. Don't laugh – I
was right. Here you are."
"I wasn't going to laugh."
"And I'm not going to die. Not now that you're here. Don't leave me,"
he said, and she could feel his rapid heartbeat through the
bedclothes. He reached his right hand up, touched her face, ran his
thumb along her cheekbone, down to her mouth. "You're the only thing
that matters to me, the only thing I could never give up."
"Yes, you would," she said, against his fingers. "You would sacrifice
me along with all the rest."
"Not you. Never."
"We'll see."

***

"Sirius!" shouted Harry. "Sirius, where are you?"
There was no answer, but at that moment, he became aware of the sound
of running feet behind him, and turned to see Ron – still in his
paisley pajamas, barefoot, but running as fast as his long legs could
carry him. He was holding his wand.
He threw himself down next to Harry at the edge of the
quarry. "What's going on?" he demanded, breathless.
"Malfoy fell in," said Harry tersely. "I can't do anything – Hermione
sent me here as an Apparation. Ron, can you—"
But Ron was already kneeling upright, pointing his wand down into the
quarry. "Accio!" he said firmly, and the water seemed to break open
and turn itself inside out. Harry saw the water flash black and then
silver, and then Draco's body flew up out of it, rose into the air,
and landed between them on the grass, crumpled in on itself like an
abandoned toy.
Ron looked at Harry. His face was very white in the moonlight, each
freckle standing out like a separate ink dot. "Check his pulse."
"I can't. I can't touch anything."
Ron swore, and reached out to turn Draco over. Harry's heart sank.
Draco's skin was blueish-white, not an encouraging color, and the
lids of his shut eyes were purple. Against his livid skin, the scar
on his left hand stood out, black as if it had been inked there.
Malfoy, Harry thought experimentally, but he could not cast the
thought outward; it echoed in emptiness, as if he had thrown a ball
and found that there was no one there to catch it.
Ron pressed his fingers to Draco's throat, looked up and shook his
head. "No pulse."
"No pulse?" Harry echoed in disbelief. "But he can't have been down
there that long—"
"No pulse, that's what I said." To Harry's surprise, Ron then lifted
his wand and placed the tip of it against Draco's chest. "Suspiro,"
he snapped.
Draco's chest jerked, and subsided.
Ron looked worried. "Suspiro!" he said again, jamming the tip of the
wand harder into Draco's ribcage. This time Draco's body didn't move
at all. He continued to lie there, his hair streaming blood and
water, his chest unmoving. Harry suddenly recalled the first dead
body he could remember seeing – Cedric's. Remembered looking at
Cedric, and being sure he was dead, not knowing how he knew, but
knowing. And it was the same thing now.
Insubstantial though he was, he felt the bottom of his stomach drop
out. Felt a weird, panicky sort of feeling he had never felt before.
No – he had felt it before, when, tied to the grave of Voldemort's
dead father, he had seen Wormtail come at him with his knife, and
Harry had felt a moment of primal panic, positive that he was about
to lose a part of himself –an arm, a hand -- that could never be
replaced, that a wound was about to be inflicted on him from which
he would never recover.
"Ron," he said, "do something--"
Looking desperate, Ron tried again. "Suspiro vivicus," he said, with
emphasis. "Suspiro vivicus totalus!"
Nothing continued to happen. Draco lay there, looking cold and
vulnerable and very, very dead.
Ron looked up at Harry, and Harry saw the shock in his blue
eyes. "Harry..." Ron said unevenly, shivering in the cold night
air. "He's dead."
Harry shook his head. "Try again."
"There's no point. He's dead. If he wasn't, he'd respond to the
spell. His heart's not beating --"
"Drop your wand, Ron."
"What?"
"Put it down."
Ron did.
" Now, do exactly what I tell you." Ron was looking at Harry as if he
were insane, and Harry was none too sure that he wasn't. He felt as
if he were gripping very tightly onto something very slippery. Felt,
in fact, as if he might lapse into hysterics at any moment, but knew
he couldn't afford to. "All right," he said, enunciating each word
with perfect precision. "Open his mouth."
Ron did it, looking doubtfully sideways at Harry as he did
so. "Yikes. He's freezing cold."
"Tilt his head back. Right. Like that. Now put your mouth on his and
breath into his lungs—"
Ron jerked back. "What?"
"JUST DO IT!"
"Okay, okay."

***
"There must be something I can do."
"You can get out of the cell, Sirius," said Lupin, who was lying on
his back with his hands covering his face. Every once in a while he
would groan and curl in on himself, his arms wrapped around his
midsection. Sirius couldn't tell exactly where the pain originated –
everywhere, he had a feeling.
"Look, Moony, I'll just transform if I have to."
"I'm not sure that'll help. Damn," added Lupin softly, flinching as
he took his hands away from his face and glared at his fingertips,
from which razor-sharp nails had sprouted. "What's going on?"
"Does it feel like the Change?" Sirius asked.
Lupin shook his head. "As if someone took the Change and stretched it
out...and out...and out. It never takes this long, you know that –"
he broke off on a wince, looked up at Sirius. "Sirius...what if I get
stuck this way? In between?"
"That's all right," said Sirius, patting him a bit awkwardly on the
shoulder. "I hear teeth and fingernails are being worn long this
season."
Lupin actually laughed, a short gasp cut off by another spasm of
pain. He winced and turned away from Sirius to face the wall.
"That does it," muttered Sirius, and fumbled in his pocket for his
wand, casting his mind back to Hogwarts; he'd been with Lupin before
when he Changed, but usually it was – though painful – immediate, and
anti-pain spells had never been—
Sirius paused.
His pocket was empty.
Sirius swore. He was even better at swearing than Draco, although he
did it less.
He heard a chortle, and swung his head around to see the demon's
gloating face pressed against the bars of its cell. "Only an idiot
would stay locked in a cell with a werewolf," it said. "But only
their heir to the throne of a kingdom of idiots would stay locked in
a cell with a werewolf being Called by Dark powers."
Sirius glared at it, wanting nothing more a that moment than to leap
across the space that separated them and bash its gloating face
in. "If you don't shut up," he told it in measured tones, "I'll
finish what Harry started on you."
The demon bared its teeth at him and hissed. "You know nothing," it
snarled at him.
"I know you tried to kill my godson."
The demon's eyes whirled, concentric circles of black and red. "I was
not trying to kill him," it began indignantly, and then its red eyes
widened and Sirius whirled around to see the wolf at his back.


*** ***

Draco opened his eyes, or thought he did. He could not see anything
with them, not blackness, not anything. Harry, he tried to say, but
he had nothing to say it with – no throat, no voice. It was like
dreaming, and knowing he was dreaming, but not being able to wake
himself up.
"Harry!" he called out, and this time he heard his own voice, and
jumped. And as if that jump had cracked some glass he was imprisoned
in, light and color came rushing at him like a river in full flood.
He stared ahead into green-gray mist, and blackness, and a thousand
shadows suggestive of nothing familiar.
"Where am I?" he said out loud, more to hear his own voice than
because he expected an answer to the question.
No answer came.
He glanced down at himself, and the sourceless light showed him his
own form, still wearing the clothes he had been wearing last,
although his sword was gone and he was dry. He saw the darkness caked
all over the front of his shirt and knew it was the blood from his
face; he touched his cheek gingerly and felt the cut, but no pain.
I'm dead, he thought. He didn't feel anything particular about it,
other than a sort of bemused astonishment. I guess I should have
killed Wormtail when I had the chance, he thought, while knowing, in
his heart, that he couldn't have done it.
He took a step forward into the mist, and another, and abruptly it
thinned out slightly, showing him the contours of the place he was
standing. An unadorned, rocky plain stretched behind and to the sides
of him, gray and barren-looking. Ahead of him were more shadows, that
as he neared them took on the form of a narrow but fast-flowing
river. Its water was also gray, and on the opposite side of it were
more huddled grayish shapes. Rocks? Trees? It was hard to tell. He
took a step toward the river.
A voice spoke out of nowhere.
"Stop where you are."
Draco glanced up and around and saw no source for the voice which
spoke to him. He cleared his throat. "Why?"
" Such water is not for you."
"Where am I? Is this Hell?"
Now the voice sounded amused. "This is not Hell. This is between."
"Between what?"
"Between life and death."
"Why is this water not for me?"
"The living cross it to become the dead. You are neither. There is a
bargaining for you."
Draco was dumbfounded. "A bargaining?"
"Your life hangs in the balance," said the voice, sounding
clipped, "Only the outcome concerns me."
"What," asked Draco, "if I went ahead and crossed the river anyway?"
"You cannot cross with the blood of life still in you. But," said the
voice, sounding amused again, "do go ahead and try."
Stubbornly, Draco stomped forward, his boots making no sound
whatsoever on the brittle ground. The misty shapes across the river
surged as he neared the banks – he squinted into it – and at that
moment, the mist came into focus, and he knew what they were.
Spirits crowded the opposite side of the river, seething and
numberless, seeming somehow both extremely close and very far away.
If he looked closely, he could see their individual faces and bodies,
but when he stopped staring, they seemed to meld together into a
formless gray mass. He shook his head, stared again, and saw movement
this time – not aimless, but directed movement. Several of the
spirits seemed to be shoving their through the packed masses, like
rioters at a Quidditch match. He had the feeling, he could not have
said why, that they were trying to get at him.
Draco took a step forward, but the river and the spirits across it
stayed the same distance away.
"You cannot cross," said the cold voice, again.
It seemed to be true. Draco stood and waited at the river's edge as
the struggling spirits – there were three of them, two women and a
man, he could tell that much now– broke free of the rest of the crowd
and came to stand at the very edge of the river, just across from
him. The taller of the two women gazed at him, her ghostly mouth open
in an O of surprise.
"Salazar?" she said.
Draco froze. And stared. And as he stared at the three spirits, they
seemed to leap into sharper focus, their outlines solidifying, color
surging into their faces, their clothes. A tall man with clipped,
dark hair –a small, round woman with a long tangle of flaming red
hair and Ginny's dark eyes – and the woman who was gazing at Draco,
her blue eyes filled with a terrible sort of indefinable longing and
fear –
He knew her voice, he realized. It was the voice that had screamed in
his head when the dementors got near him, crying out, asking him what
he had done. "Rowena," he said, knowing now who she was. "Rowena
Ravenclaw?"
The dark-haired man – Godric – stepped in front of Rowena and glared
at him, his outline wavering but distinct. "So at last you are dead,"
he said. "We have waited a thousand years for someone to give you
the punishment you deserve and to end your worthless, stolen
existence—"
Godric looked rather as if he meant to go on in this vein for quite
some time, so Draco interrupted him. "I'm not who you think I am,"
he said. "I'm not Salazar Slytherin."
The spirits looked doubtful.
"Look at me," insisted Draco.
Rowena, who had had her hand over her mouth, lowered it
slowly. "Godric...He cannot be Salazar. He is only a child."
They all stared at him. Draco was indignant. "I'm sixteen. I'll be
seventeen in a few weeks."
"I wouldn't put money on that," said Godric, quite unkindly.
"Godric!" the red-headed woman – Helga Hufflepuff – interrupted
him. "Do not tease him. He is but a child, and he has his death
wound."
Draco looked down at the blood on his shirt, and back up. "I do not
have my death wound," he said crankily. "I drowned, and anyway,
there's a bargaining for me."
"Is there?" said Godric, looking bored. "That hardly ever works."
Draco glared at him. It struck him that he did not like Godric. It
also struck him that in order to free himself from the Tragic and
Destructive Cycle of History Repeating Itself, it might be wise to
try to like Godric.
But he didn't want to like Godric. Godric, he thought, was a prat.
"You're dead, boy," said Godric with immense satisfaction, cementing
Draco's dislike of him on the spot. "Face it – you're dead."
Draco paused, unable to think of any suitable reply. "Am not" lacked
a certain style, while "Is it serious?" seemed somehow too frivolous.
Finally, he settled for smiling at Godric. "I may be dead, but I'm
still pretty," he pointed out cheerfully. "That's more than I can say
for you."
Godric seemed to swell with anger, and as he did so, Draco noted his
outline hardening and firming as if he were becoming more real, the
colors of his face and hair and eyes and clothes more vivid. Draco
could now begin to see how Godric resembled Harry, a grown-up Harry.
A grown-up Harry who had spent a lot of time working out with heavy
weights. His arms were huge. Draco was glad Godric didn't seem to be
able to cross the river either. He didn't know what it would feel
like to be punched in the face in the afterlife, and didn't much care
to find out.
Rowena was still looking at Draco with a torrent of mixed emotions
crossing her face. "You sound like Salazar," she said. "And you look
just like him..."
"I'm his Heir," said Draco, seeing no reason not to divulge this
information.
"Then you are cursed," said Godric. "And fortunate to have died."
Draco looked at him irritably. "Don't you ever say anything pleasant?"
"Godric," said Helga, in a warning sort of tone. Godric looked from
Rowena to Helga, and did a sort of little shuffle with his
feet. "Well, he is cursed," he muttered. "If he is truly Salazar's
Heir..." He turned on Draco. "How do you know you're the Heir of
Slytherin?' he demanded.
"Because Slytherin said so," Draco snapped.
"He said so?" breathed Rowena, her eyes widening. As with Godric,
intense emotion seemed to make her form clearer, too. Draco could now
see how much she looked like Hermione. It was very unnerving. He had
often played fantasies through in his head where he happened to bump
into Hermione unexpectedly in various places. The afterlife, however,
had not been one of them. "You mean he is alive – he walks among you,
as a man?"
"He's alive. I've seen him. But he isn't very powerful. He doesn't
have a Source."
Rowena's spirit had begun pacing in a tight circle. "That won't last.
Salazar is clever. He'll find himself a Source. Has he tried to use
you?" She glanced up, shook her head. "No, he wouldn't. Not his
Heir...he'll try to find someone else." She whirled, looked at
Draco. "He must be prevented from returning to his full power," she
said. "I shudder to think of the destruction, the despair he could
wreak. That is why we imprisoned him in the first place—"
"He told Hermione he shut himself away from the world—"
"He lied," said Rowena definitively. "He didn't want you to think he
was weak, did not want you to know how his eventual defeat was
accomplished. Helga and I could not kill him, but we rendered him
powerless." She raised her eyes, looked at Draco. "As you must. If I
tell you how he can be defeated, will you do it?"
"Look, I'd love to defeat Slytherin for you, but there are two slight
problems with that plan," said Draco resignedly. "The first is that
I'm dead. The second one is that, well, I'm dead. I recognize that
technically that's only one flaw, but it was such a big one I thought
it was worth mentioning twice."
"You are not dead until you have crossed this river," said Rowena
fiercely. "There is a bargaining for you. That means someone is
trying to keep you alive."
"Probably Harry," said Draco glumly. "And the state he's in, he
couldn't keep a goldfish alive. No, I'm afraid I've well and truly
snuffed it."
Rowena looked as if she might slap him, and he was even more strongly
reminded of Hermione. "Now, you listen here—"
"Do you want to be dead, child?" asked the spirit of Helga
Hufflepuff, in a gentle sort of voice.
Draco looked down at his blood-caked shirt. "I don't know. I'm not
sure." He looked around. "At least it's peaceful here."
"Peaceful?" Godric echoed incredulously. "This is not the land of the
restful dead. This is the land of the murdered, those who have died
before their time, those whose blood cries out from the ground for
vengeance—"
"Godric, please," interrupted Rowena. "Don't make a three-act play
out of it."
Draco was curious. "You were all murdered?"
"Not exactly," said Rowena. "Salazar did in fact murder Godric – I'm
sorry, Godric dear, but you know it's true——"
"Bastard," muttered Godric. "He snuck up behind me."
"Well, you should have been paying attention. It was that magic armor
of yours. I told you it didn't work, but you would wear it."
"It did too work."
"Godric, your last words were `You can't kill me, I've got magic
aaaaargh.'"
"Oh, shut up," said Godric.
Rowena shook her head. "I suppose Salazar thought it was self-
defense, in some twisted way," she added, in Draco's direction. "We
had all realized that we must take steps to protect ourselves against
him. Together, we forged a magical weapon, each part crafted by one
of us – Salazar must have discovered our plans. He struck first at
Godric. Then he attacked us –Helga and me. We were ready for him. We
put up quite a fight, but he was too powerful. He struck down Helga
as she fought against him, then came for me. But at the last, he
hesitated –" Rowena's voice shook slightly. "And I was able to work
our spell upon him. He was rendered powerless, but the drain on my
Magid powers was so great that it killed me. Thus we are all here."
"And so you want him dead," reasoned Draco.
Rowena shook her head. "If he can be killed, it is beyond my
knowledge to say how. I can tell you only how to imprison him and
strip him of his power. And for that, you need the other three Heirs,
and their Keys. Tell me, do they yet live, the other Heirs of the
Founders?"
Draco hesitated, looking around at the teeming banks of massed gray
spirits behind her. "Don't you know? Surely there must be
other...spirits here who have died since you, who could tell you—"
Rowena shook her head. "Without a living person to regard us, we are
without form, almost without thought. Time has no meaning here,
speech almost none."
"You can't talk to each other?" Draco asked, revolted. "That voice
told me this wasn't Hell...but that sounds like Hell to me."
To his surprise, it was Godric who replied. "There is a difference,"
he said. "Hell is forever. We are here only until we are avenged."
"Avenged?" Draco echoed, turning, but was interrupted by a voice that
spoke out of the gray mass of spirits behind the three
Founders. "Mortal boy," Draco heard a voice say. "Your face is
familiar. Who are you?"
Draco turned, and saw only formless shapes with glowing eyes, nothing
recognizable or familiar. He pitched his voice a little louder, and
called out, "I'm Draco Malfoy. And I'm talking to someone right now,
if you don't mind."
He glanced over towards Rowena, who seemed to be fading a bit
without his gaze on her. Godric and Helga, behind her, were nearly
transparent now. "Sorry," he began, when the other voice called out
again.
"You are Lucius Malfoy's son?"
"Yes," Draco called back.
"Then I charge you to speak to me."
No sooner had these words reached Draco's ears, that Rowena's spirit
suddenly faded into insubstantiality, the sound of her words blurring
the way the Wizarding Wireless Network did during particularly
destructive thunderstorms. "Hey!" Draco called, and saw Rowena's lips
moving, leaned forward –
They were gone. Other spirits were pushing through the crowd, taking
their place. Draco turned towards them. And froze, the breath going
out of him as if someone had hit him.
Two more shadowy figures faced him across the narrow river. A tall
man with dark untidy hair and glasses, and at his side a woman whose
dark green eyes were eerily familiar. Even if Draco hadn't seen the
pictures that Sirius kept on his desk, even if he hadn't seen their
faces in old Hogwarts yearbooks, he would have known who they were.
He was looking at Harry's parents.

***

"Cross your hands. Put then on his chest and push down, hard."
"Okay."
"Harder than that."
"I'm going to break his ribs, doing this –"
"You're trying to get his heart started, who cares if you break his
ribs? Do it again."
Another voice. "What's going on?"
Harry looked up. "Oh, hell. Ginny –"
"What's wrong with Draco?" Her voice wavered. "Is he dead?"
Ron looked up. "Maybe she should take over?"
"No, you're stronger," said Harry positively. "And don't stop, Ron,
you're supposed to be breathing for him, come on --"
"You've lost it, Harry. He's dead."
"Do it!" said Harry and Ginny together, and Ron complied.

***

Hermione bolted down the corridors that led to the dungeon, skidding
on the uneven stone flooring, taking the corners with a reckless
abandon that caught up to her when, rounding a corner, she slipped on
an object that lay on the floor and fell headlong, slamming her knee
into the ground. The pain was sharp and immediate and she rolled
over, clutching her arm, scrambling up to her feet, and looked down
to see what she had slipped on—
A wand. It looked like Sirius' wand. She reached down to retrieve it,
and nearly fell over again when a bloodcurdling howl split the
underground air. It was like being hit in the face with an ice-cold
wave of wind or water; like night and cold and loneliness made
audible, and terrifying.
Lupin.
Forgetting the wand, she started to run again, limping a little now,
towards the sound of the howling. She rounded another corner,
stumbled, and came to the gate that blocked off the dungeons. She
wrenched it open and ran inside, calling for Sirius.
"I'm here," came a terse voice from a cell at the end of the corridor.
Hermione ran towards it – and came up short.
Sirius was in the cell, backed against the opposite wall – and
between him and the cell door was a wolf. A wolf the size of a small
pony, brindled gray and silver, lips pulled back from its teeth,
snarling, ears laid flat back against its head.
Not it, she reminded herself. He. It's Lupin. You've seen him change
before.
But surely, when he had changed before, he hadn't been quite
so....large? Or so ferocious-looking?
"Sirius," she hissed, "change into your animal form – you said he's
only a danger to humans!"
"Tried that," said Sirius shortly. "Didn't work. Hermione—"
"Don't tell me to get out of here, I'm not going to go and leave you
here to be eaten!" she snapped hotly.
"He won't eat me—" Sirius began, then broke off as the wolf emitted
another blood-curdling snarl. "Well," he amended, edging slightly
farther away from the wolf, "if he did, he'd be very sorry
afterward."
"Oh, he'll eat you all right," the demon interrupted. "As soon as the
Call becomes strong enough. I give you...five minutes."
Hermione ignored this. "Sirius – there must be something—"
"The Lycanthe," said Sirius quickly. "That silver thing of Draco's –
that used to be Portkey – I need that. Can you Summon it for me?"
Hermione already hand her wand in her hand. "Accio Lyncanthe!"
There was a short silence. She waited, heart pounding, the snarl of
the wolf in her ears, Sirius' deadly silence nearly as bad. A sudden
mental picture of Harry came to her, standing on the field during the
First Task, hand outstretched for his Firebolt, and waiting,
waiting...
Clink.
The Lycanthe flew towards her, ricocheting off the bars of the cell
opposite, and Hermione reached up to catch it. Her fingers closed
around it; she turned back to Sirius --
A blackness so intense it was blinding flashed behind her eyes. She
staggered, felt her back hit the stone wall behind her, nearly fell.
Darkness flooded her vision.
And then came light.
In quick succession, a series of images raced across the back of her
eyelids. She saw a castle surrounded by water, a man with snakes
twined around his forearms, a pale, blue-eyed woman wearing a silver
charm around her neck on a braided chain, the pattern of a labyrinth,
and the polished surface of a mirror which reflected only darkness.
Her vision cleared and she was suddenly back in the dungeon, staring
through the bars of the cage at Sirius and the werewolf, still locked
in their frightful staring contest. Her knees felt weak and there was
a buzzing in her ears, but she knew what she had to do.
She heard Sirius yelling her name, but ignored it. Instead, she
strode up to the unlocked cell door, flung it open, and walked
inside. She did not feel at all afraid, not even when the wolf turned
from snarling at Sirius to face her, not when it drew its lips back
from its teeth, its eyes narrowing, muscles tensing –
"Hermione, get out!" she heard Sirius shout despairingly, and then
she raised her hand with the silver Lycanthe in it and held it out in
front of the werewolf.
The werewolf cringed back and let out an unearthly, whimpering howl.
Hermione took a deep breath, and raised the Lycanthe higher. "Tutamen
mali intus," she cried, directing the light of the Lycanthe at the
werewolf as if it were a wand. "Cum monstrum colloquor, repulsus!
Repulsus!"
The werewolf stiffened – its eyelids drooped, its limbs trembled –
and then it crashed to the ground in a heap and lay still.
Hermione gasped, and the burning light in the back of her mind
vanished, like a light switch flicked off.
Shaking, she let her arm fall to her side and looked up at Sirius.
He was white as his shirt, staring at her. "What did you do? And how--
?"
"I don't know," she whispered, staring back at him, and then,
recalling why she was there, reached out to seize at his hand, which
was icy cold, and started dragging him towards the door. "Sirius –
you have to come — it's about Harry and Draco..."

***

Heart pounding, Draco turned to face Harry's parents, feeling somehow
that facing them directly was the least he could do. His eyes
fastened on Harry's father – who hardly even looked like anyone's
father, he seemed so young, a barely-aged version of Harry. Of
course, he had been only five years older than Harry was now when he
had died.
Draco felt a chill go through him.
James Potter raised his eyes to Draco's and they were not green as
Harry's were, but black. He said, "I'm sorry I interrupted your
conversation."
"Oh," said Draco. "Oh. That's – that's all right."
Color and life was coming into the Potters' faces as Draco looked at
them, the woman straightening, her cheeks flushing, her eyes fixed on
Draco. But it was the man who spoke first.
"You are only the second living person we have ever seen in this
place," said James. "And that you would be Lucius Malfoy's son – that
seems a very strange chance. I suppose I should tell you that your
father and I are old enemies."
"That's all right," said Draco. "My father and I are old enemies as
well."
The spirit of Lily Potter tugged at her husband's sleeve. James
looked down at her, then back at Draco, and Draco braced himself,
knowing what James was about to say.
"If you're Lucius' son, you must go to Hogwarts. And if you go to
Hogwarts – do you know our son? His name is—"
"Harry," Draco finished. "Harry Potter."
Lily pushed forward. She was standing in front of James now. "So you
do know him?" Her voice was light and wavering and very pretty.
"Yes, I – he – Everyone knows Harry Potter," said Draco. What are you
doing? said a little voice in the back of his head. Tell them more;
tell them you know him well, that he's nearly your brother, that he's
your friend – but is he? – that he's your enemy --– because he's
that as well.
I can't, he said back. I just...can't.
"Everyone knows him," Draco said again, defeated. "He's famous."
"Yes," said James. "That's what the last living person we talked to
said. But he knew very little else." He seemed to sigh. "There is no
time in this place. An hour could be a minute, a moment a year. I
could not believe it when he told us that Harry was eleven years
old." He raised his black eyes to Draco. "If he is at school he must
still be a child...how old is he now?"
Draco couldn't look at him. "My age. Sixteen."
"Please," Lily interrupted. "Could you tell us about him? Just a
little bit?"
Draco looked at her, and saw that just as Godric had, she seemed to
be taking on a clearer shape under his gaze. Her face came into
clearer focus, her hair, flaming red, almost the same lovely shade as
Ginny's, all of a cross between sunset and the outer edge of a candle
flame. The green eyes that were Harry's looked at him, entreating,
begging him for something he didn't think he could give.
He cleared his throat. "What do you want to know?"
"Everything," she said rapidly. "Is he happy? What does he do on an
ordinary day? What is he like?"
Draco found himself looking down at the transparent, rushing river,
wishing he could just disappear into it.
"I – well, I don't really know him that well, and –"
Lily gave an echoing, disappointed cry. "But you go to school with
him – you must at least know what he's like?"
He glanced up and looked at Lily, and then at James, which meant that
James snapped into clearer focus too, looking terribly, eerily like
Harry, and both the spirits were looking at him with hopeful
expectation --
Oh, God, this is horrible, Draco thought. What can I say? Why
couldn't I be Ron or Sirius, someone who actually knows him, someone
he cares about, I'm the last person he would want talking to his
parents. The LAST person.
"Harry is..." He looked away. "He plays Quidditch for Gryffindor," he
said. "He was their youngest Seeker in a hundred years. He'll be team
captain next year, and..."
Draco trailed off. He could tell by the way the spirits were looking
at him that this was not the kind of information they wanted.
He felt speechless, which rarely happened. If it were me, he thought,
what would I want to hear? But that floored him, never having been a
parent (fortunately, he thought) he couldn't even imagine. So instead
he tried to call up Harry in his mind – not the way Harry looked, but
the way Harry was, the memory of what it was like to think the way
Harry did, to very nearly be Harry.
He shut his eyes. "My father," he said, hearing his own voice echo
beneath the susurration of rushing water, the impatient rustling of
the spirits. "My father used to talk a lot about honor, the honor of
our family, the honor of our bloodline and our name. But in my life,
I never saw my father do an honorable thing. I thought honor was just
a term, like lineage or patrimony, that meant you'd been around for a
while. But it's a real thing, to have honor. And Harry has it. Harry
is the first person you would want on your side in a fight, and the
last person who would ever do an untruthful or an underhanded thing.
Harry has more integrity than anyone else I have ever known."
The spirit of Lily Potter turned away from him, and buried her
insubstantial face in her husband's insubstantial chest. Feeling as
if he had said atrociously the wrong thing, Draco looked fearfully at
James, who looked back at him, wavering and half-transparent, and put
an arm around his crying wife. "You're a friend of his," he
said. "Aren't you?"
"Sometimes," admitted Draco. "I'm sorry," he added, not exactly sure
if he was apologizing, or simply expressing sorrow.
"Don't be," said James. "I understand."
And Draco rather thought that James did understand.
"You're fading," James went on, looking at Draco closely. "Someone is
calling you back."
"I'm sorry," he said again.
"No. It's a good thing. You can take a message with you."
"I can tell Harry that you—"
"No. Don't tell Harry you saw us. It will just cause him pain.
There's a man called Sirius Black; he's Harry's godfather, you might
have seen him picking up Harry at platform 9 ¾ at the end of term.
Find him. Tell him to go into his vault at Gringott's and take from
it what I gave him just before I died, and give it to Harry. I never
told him it was for Harry, but it is. Harry is the Heir of
Gryffindor, he'll be needing it soon. And tell Sirius that I—" and
then the ground jerked under Draco's feet and a soft implosion sent
the world flying at his face in sheets of shattered color like
hurtling glass. He would have thrown his arms up to protect himself,
but a tearing pain ripped through his chest, doubling him over, and
he was coughing, coughing in great wrenching, shattering gasps,
coughing and spitting water all over the wet dark grass of the
Weasleys' back garden.
He blinked his eyes open. He was lying on his back, on the grass,
under a black sky. Harry was hunched down by his shoulder, Ron beside
him, very pale under his freckles, with the back of his wrist pressed
against his mouth as if he were trying to keep himself from yelling
or being sick. And on his other side was Ginny, with enormous eyes,
who looked a degree worse than her brother – not just pale but with
tear streaks on top of that.
Draco took a breath. He could hear his chest gurgling like a leaky
radiator, and it hurt to breathe, but otherwise...
"You're alive," said Ginny, looking and sounding amazed. She turned
to her brother. "Ron! You did it!"
"Mmppph," said Ron, still goggling at Draco as if he couldn't believe
his eyes.
What's going on? Draco tried to say, but discovered that taking in
the air that would allow him to talk made his chest hurt even more.
He concentrated on breathing shallowly, and flicked his eyes towards
Harry.
Hey, Potter...
Harry leaned forward so quickly that one of his insubstantial hands
went through Draco's chest. Draco glared at him.
Harry looked contrite. Sorry.
Never mind. What happened?
You drowned. Ron revived you.
He did what? How?
Harry grinned. Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, Malfoy.
What? Draco's eyes flicked over to Ron, widening. "Oh my God, how
disgusting," he said, out loud, before he could help it. This sent
him off into another spasm of coughing. When he recovered, he saw Ron
glaring at him.
"Well, it was no picnic for me, either, you ungrateful git," he
said. "At least you were dead for most of the experience. Now I just
wish I was."
Draco coughed again. He had begun to feel as if he were coughing up
his own lungs. He put a hand to his chest and sat up, which seemed to
ease the pressure under his ribcage.
"Can you breathe properly?" asked Ginny anxiously, scooting up next
to him, and putting a hand to his forehead. "You're still freezing."
She brought her hand back, wet with water and blood from his cut
cheek.
"I am freezing," Draco said, and reached to take his jacket off, but
his fingers wouldn't obey him. He couldn't seem to make them work
properly; they fumbled at the wet dragonhide leather, and let go.
"Let me," said Ginny, and helped him off with the jacket. She turned
to her brother. "Ron, give me your pajama top."
Ron glared at her.
"Fine," she snapped. "either that, or I'll give him my pajama top."
"I'll take option number two," said Draco, through chattering teeth.
Ron sighed, and took his top off. (Okay, so no Ron in leather, but we
do get...Shirtless Ron!) He tossed it to Ginny, who proceeded to use
it to dry Draco's hair. "We need to get you out of these wet
clothes," she said.
At that, another coughing spasm doubled Draco over, and when he
straightened up, it took him several moments to properly focus his
eyes. For a moment, he couldn't tell Ron from Ginny, they both looked
like wavery blobs, with Harry a darker sort of blob off to the right,
which was disturbing to say the least. "Bugger," he said, and his
voice sounded like a bubbling water cooler. "I can't see properly."
He was vaguely aware of the Ron-blob looking with alarm at the Ginny-
blob, and then there was a soft *pop * as someone Apparated into the
garden.
"Sirius," Draco heard Ron mutter under his breath, sounding
relieved. "Thank God."
There was a thump and Sirius dropped down on his knees next on the
grass next to Draco, who had begun shivering again, and with every
shiver his vision blackened further. I won't faint, he thought
crossly. I won't. He felt Sirius' fingers on his neck, checking his
pulse, then a hand against his forehead, reminding him of his mother
checking for fever.
"Hypothermic shock," he heard Sirius say calmly, "He'll be fine if we
get him inside." Draco saw a blur as he turned. "Harry, I'm sending
you back."
Draco heard Harry's voice from a distance. "All right," and then
there was a gasp from Ron. Draco presumed this meant that Harry had
vanished. Either that, or the spell had gone horribly awry and turned
Harry into a newt. Either way, Draco wasn't sure he could get too
worked up about it. Everything seemed as if it were being filtered
down from a long way away. He felt Sirius' hand on his wrist, and
then Ron's voice saying something about lung damage, and Ginny asking
if he'd be all right.
"He'll be all right. I can fix him up if we get him inside." Sirius
bent down to Draco. "I'm going to lift you up now. Brace yourself,
all right?"
Draco nodded, and felt Sirius' hand slide under his back, the other
under his knees, picking him up. He did not remember ever having been
carried like that before, not by his father anyway, and was surprised
to find he didn't mind it too much. He threw an arm around Sirius'
neck, looked sideways, saw Ginny's white and worried face, the moon
behind her, and then all the shapes of the world ran together like
watercolor and Draco did something he had always sworn he would never
do, and fainted.

***

Wham.
Harry opened his eyes, feeling somewhat as if he had been struck head-
on by the Hogwarts Express train and thrown about fifty feet into a
patch of nettles. He blinked, focusing his eyes, and saw that he was
back the armchair in the Malfoy family library, staring up at the
ceiling, which was traced with a design of the constellations picked
out in gold leaf.
It took him several tries, but he managed to sit up and flex his
fingers. His whole body stung with pins and needles. He became aware
of being watched, and turned his head sideways to see Hermione
kneeling by the arm of his chair, looking at him with huge eyes.
"Hey," he said.
"You're all right," she said, and it was both a question and a
statement.
He nodded.
"I never should have sent you through," she said colorlessly. "I
never should have. I can't believe I did anything so stupid."
"Hermione –"
"I keep telling myself it wasn't really me," she went on in the same
colorless voice. "I haven't been me for the last week or so. I would
never have done anything so idiotic. It's my job to keep you from
doing stupid things, not aid you and abet you. What if something had
happened to you, it would have been my fault and that would have
killed me, Harry, it would have killed me."
She was still staring at him with the same huge eyes and he was
suddenly reminded of the way she had looked at him after he'd faced
that Hungarian Horntail his fourth year, remembered how she had
gripped her face so tightly in fear for him that she had left deep
fingernail marks on her skin. It had startled him at the time that
anyone could care that much what happened to him; it startled him
still. "Hermione—love—don't," he protested, a bit incoherently, and
reached out for her.
She was up and off the floor and in his lap in less than a second,
her arms wrapped around his neck. He buried his face against her,
where her neck curved down into her shoulder. Her hair smelled like
it always did, a smell that reminded him of Moroccan mint tea. He
felt her chest hitch, and then she was crying against him, dryly and
with a soundless sort of despair that alarmed him. What on earth...?
"Oh, Harry, I just can't believe it, and I'm sure you did everything
you possibly could have. It's not your fault."
Harry pulled back and looked at her, confused. "What's not my fault?"
"Draco. He's dead, isn't he?"
Harry looked at her, profoundly startled. "How did you –"
"The love spell's off me," she said, simply. "I felt it go." The
tears had started sliding down her face, and Harry thought she looked
somehow as if she was trying to be calm for his sake, which was very
Hermione in a way. "What happened?" she burst out finally, her voice
breaking. "How did he—no, never mind, don't tell me, I don't want to
know." She scrubbed the back of her hand across her eyes. "Harry, I
feel so guilty, this past few days all I've been wishing is for this
stupid spell to be off me, and now it is, but I never wanted—"
"Hermione," said Harry kindly. "Shut up for a minute, okay? I have to
tell you something, and you're not going to believe it..."

***

"Ron? Ron saved his life? You're kidding. I can't believe it. I bet
Ron can't either. He must be going spare. Where's the Floo Powder? We
have to get to the Burrow. Oh, I wish I could Apparate. Where's the
bloody Floo Powder?"
"Hermione, do stop rushing about. Five minutes ago you were crying
hysterically and now you seem to be doing an impression of McGonagall
on speed. I'm getting a headache. Anyway, I think the Floo Powder is
downstairs in the kitchen."
"Go get it, then."
"Don't be daft. Accio Floo Powder!"
"Harry, you're not supposed to do wandless magic – oooh, it worked.
Nice Summoning Charm."
"My specialty, thanks to you."
"All your specialties are thanks to me, nitwit."
"What a smug girlfriend I've got."
"Don't try to be clever, just give me the Floo Powder."
"No."
"What do you mean, no?"
"Come and get it."
"Come and get it? What are we, twelve?"
"You're afraid of my superior strength."
"I am not afraid of your superior strength. You are afraid of my
superior intellect. Do not make faces at me, Harry Potter. All right,
that does it."
"Does what? Ow! Ow! Where'd you learn how to tackle like that? You're
like an American linebacker, only, of course, much prettier and
somewhat less burly."
"Flattery will not help you. I am going to sit on you until you give
me the Floo Powder. What did you do with it, anyway?"
"I hid it somewhere on my body. Want to look for it?"
"Are you daring me?"
"I might be."

--- about twenty minutes later ---

"You didn't really hide the Floo Powder on your body, did you?"
"You haven't looked everywhere yet."
"No. Somehow, I got distracted. Harry..."
"Oh, all right, it's under the desk."
"Cheater."
"You mad?"
"Come over here and find out."

***

"Enervate."
Draco came back to consciousness instantly, his eyes flying open,
fixing on Sirius' face. "Where am I?"
"In Percy Weasley's bedroom. Sorry to wake you up; I want you to
drink this. It's a Warming Potion. Do you need me to help you sit up?"
Draco hesitated, then nodded. Sirius reached out and helped him into
a sitting position, wincing a little at the coldness of Draco's skin.
He'd dried the boy's clothes with a Dessicarus Charm and covered him
with every spare blanket he could find, but it didn't seem to have
raised his icy body temperature much.
Draco took the mug from Sirius with the sleepy-eyed and unquestioning
acceptance of the completely exhausted. He drank it down, holding the
mug carefully in both hands, and handed it back to Sirius, who put
the mug on the bedside table while Draco leaned back against the
pillows, pressing the heels of his hands to his temples. Sirius was
reminded suddenly of being in the infirmary with Harry after the last
task of the Triwizard Tournament; how drained Harry had looked, how
pushed beyond the very borders of strength to a place Sirius couldn't
follow after him, much as he thought he should, much as he would have
wanted to. He had a sudden urge to reach over and pat Draco on the
shoulder, or ruffle his hair, but didn't.
"Where's everyone else?" Draco asked, his eyelids drooping with
tiredness.
"They're all downstairs. But you won't be seeing any of them until
tomorrow. I'll go fetch your mother in a little while. I can't owl
her while she's at the inquest but I think she won't mind if I show
up in person. Not if it's about you."
Draco pushed a little fretfully at the enormous heap of blankets
covering him. "But I want to see—"
"No," said Sirius firmly.
Draco looked up at him with huge eyes. Wrapped in blankets, so pale
still that each of his eyelashes stood out as if it had been
individually inked, he looked about eleven. "I was dead, Sirius," he
said. "I saw the Founders – all except Slytherin – I talked to them,
and –"
Sirius took him firmly by the shoulders. "Draco," he said. "You need
to go to sleep. Your body needs the rest. Tell me all about whatever
you...saw...tomorrow. All right?"
Draco's eyes narrowed. "You don't believe me."
Sirius sighed, and let him go. "Honestly? No, of course I don't. You
were very nearly dead, Draco. Your body was breaking down. Who knows
what your mind thought it saw? But if it'll make you happy, you can
tell me all about it – tomorrow."
Draco's eyes had fallen shut. "I thought everyone was curious about
what happens after you die," he said, his words slurred with
tiredness. "Aren't they?"
"Yes, but unlike you, we do not all go on reconaissance missions to
find out. And that's all I'm going to say about it. Go to sleep,
Draco."
Sirius got up. He was halfway across the room when Draco spoke again:
"I saw Harry's parents, too, " he said.
The mug flew out of Sirius' hand and fell to the ground, denting the
floorboards. He spun around. "You mean Lily and James?"
"Yeah."
Sirius was aware that his heart was pounding unevenly in his
chest. "What do you mean, you saw them?"
"What I said," replied Draco, in a vague sort of half-sleepy
voice. "I was in a place full of ghosts. There were thousands of
them. And Harry's parents were there; James thought I was my father
at first, and came over to me..."
"You do look like Lucius," whispered Sirius, and then: "What did he
say?" He heard the hopeful anguish in his own voice, winced at
it. "Never mind," he said harshly. "You were half-dead, Draco, you
were hallucinating."
"Why would I hallucinate Harry's parents?" Draco asked reasonably.
Sirius pressed the tips of his fingers to his eyes. "I don't know,
Draco. Why does anyone have the dreams they do?"
"It was them. Harry's father looked just like him, and his mother—"
"Draco, I know you've seen pictures of them before, that doesn't mean
anything. For God's sake, don't make yourself crazy with this."
"Harry's father said there was something in your vault at Gringott's
for Harry, something he gave you just before he died—"
"James didn't give me anything just before he died," said Sirius
flatly. "Go to sleep, Draco."
He heard a defeated sigh from the boy in the bed, and then a
muffled, "Good night, Sirius."
"Good night. And Draco?"
"What?"
"Don't say anything to Harry about this, all right?"
A short silence. "All right."
Sirius went out of the room, shut the door behind him, and fell back
against it, his hands over his eyes. Why exactly he had lied to Draco
about having been given something by James, he wasn't sure. One thing
he was sure of, though. He would be going to Gringott's tomorrow.

***

Ron and Ginny sat with Harry and Hermione (recently arrived via Floo
Powder) at the table in the Weasley's warm, yellow-lit kitchen,
drinking tea and eating digestive biscuits straight out of the packet.
"He's really all right?" Hermione asked for the eighth time, and for
the eighth time, Ron nodded.
"He's fine...unfortunately."
Hermione threw a biscuit at him. "Karma, Ron."
Ron caught the biscuit and handed it to Ginny, who grinned at
him. "I'm not worried about my karma," said Ron smugly. "Considering."
"True," Harry pointed out. "You did save Malfoy's life. Although you
dithered a bit at first..."
"Did not. Well, a little. He just looked so dead, it seemed
pointless."
"He was dead," said Hermione, eating a biscuit. "Clinically, anyway,
he must have been dead. No pulse, no heartbeat...no brain waves,
maybe..."
"Does Malfoy ever have brain waves?" put in Ron, but Hermione ignored
him.
"It's interesting," she added, her eyes lighting up, "that Draco
being clinically dead was enough to counteract the love potion. It's
an intersection of magic and science I hadn't really considered
before, and the possible implications—"
"Have another biscuit, Herm," said Harry, firmly, shoving one into
her hand.
She smiled at him. "Am I being boring?"
He kissed her ear. "Yes, but in a very interesting way."
"Ginny's interested," said Hermione, pointing at Ginny, who had her
chin on her hand and was smiling.
"Not, I'm not," said Ginny candidly. "I was just thinking that Ron
has now officially gotten more action with Draco than I have." She
turned a dazzling smile on her brother. "Congratulations, Ron!"
Ron blanched. "I have to go brush my teeth," he said, making as if to
stand up, but Ginny grabbed his arm and yanked him back down.
"You've already brushed your teeth twelve times and it hasn't
helped," she said. "Face it. You kissed Malfoy, and there's nothing
you can do about it!"
"Now, now," said Harry, grinning like a fiend. "It was a medical
procedure. A medical procedure that just happens to look a lot like
necking."
"You were the one who got all hysterical!" said Ron, pointing a
shaking finger at Harry. "I would just have let him die!"
Harry rolled his eyes. "No, you wouldn't, Ron, because you're a good
guy and good guys do not just let other people die, even total pills
like Malfoy."
"Argh," said Ron, and put his head down on the table.
"Ron's having issues," Ginny sang, hopping up to retrieve some milk
from the sideboard. `Ron's having iss-ues..."
"Shut up, Gin," said Ron.
"It's just what Freud would have said," said Harry. "Only Freud might
not actually have made a song out of it...or done that little dance."
"I hate you all," said Ron, in a muffled voice.
"Oh, come on. We're just winding you up. Hey, how did you know all
those anti-drowning spells, anyway?" Harry added, curiously. "Not
that they worked, but still, it was impressive."
"Well, they would have worked if he hadn't been so far gone already,"
said Ron. Then he looked over at Ginny, who looked back at him, and
sighed.
"We had a brother," she said, looking down at her hands. " In between
Percy and Charlie. He drowned in the quarry when he was three years
old. We never knew him, but Mum and Dad have insisted on all of us
knowing anti-drowning spells, just in case anything ever happens."
Hermione glanced over at Harry, who looked astonished. Apparently
neither of them had known this fact about Ron's family. They could
both, however, tell that questions on this topic would not be
welcome, so restrained themselves. "Why didn't they just fill in the
quarry?" wondered Hermione instead.
Ron shrugged. "You can't. They tried. It's got some kind of magical
protection on it – fill it in, it just reappears the next day. So
they put up wards around it. They only took them down when Ginny was
twelve, the figured we were all old enough not to fall in, and all of
us can swim, so...Harry, how did you know that other stuff?"
"CPR?" said Harry, and made a face. "I used to have to go with Dudley
to swimming lessons, but I wasn't actually allowed to take lessons
with him, because that cost money. So I used to sit in on the CPR
classes. I must have sat through the same class about fifteen times."
Hermione grinned at him. "I figured you nicked it off
watching `Baywatch.'"
Harry looked indignant. "I've never watched `Baywatch!'"
"Bet you have."
"I have not."
"What are you two blithering on about?" Ron demanded, raising his
head off his arms.
"Girls in bikinis," said Hermione.
"I'm not sure even that could lift me out of my despair," said Ron
gloomily.
"Despair?" Hermione jumped up, came around the table, grabbed Ron by
the shoulders, and kissed him firmly on both cheeks. "You saved
someone's life, Ron Weasley," she announced. "I think this makes you
a hero. And the fact that you don't even like him, that makes you
even more heroic. So there."
Ron blushed scarlet.
"That's right!" agreed Ginny, swooping down to give Ron a hug as
well. Hermione threw her arms around Ron from the other side. "Hey,"
Ron protested feebly, although he looked like he was having a good
time. "Girls! You're messing up my hair!" Harry looked over at them,
grinned, got up, and threw himself into the group hug with such
enthusiasm that Ron was knocked off his chair and all four of them
collapsed to the ground in a giggling heap.
"Well, well," said an amused voice from the doorway. "Am I late for
the orgy or am I right on time?"
Ginny looked up, flushed from laughing, and clapped a hand over her
mouth in surprise. "Charlie!"
The rest of them looked up as well. It was certainly Charlie Weasley,
tousle-haired and tired-eyed. He was wearing his dragon-keeping
clothes, and there was a dusty satchel slung across his back. "Hallo,
all," he said.
Ron hopped to his feet. "Charlie! How'd you get here? Dragon?"
Charlie rolled his eyes. "I've told you before, Ron, people don't
ride dragons. That's just a cutsey myth. I Apparated, what'd you
think?"
Ginny stood up and held out a hand to pull Hermione up after
her. "Did you come because of Draco?" she asked Charlie, looking
curious.
Charlie looked blank. "Because of Draco..?"
There was a step on the stairs and Sirius came into the kitchen,
looking disheveled and immeasurably tired. His eyes lit up when he
saw Charlie, however. "Charlie," he said eagerly, crossing the room
to shake Charlie's hand, `did you get my owl, then? Wonderful, I
really need to get back to the Mansion and –"
Charlie was shaking his head. "I didn't get any owl from you. I came
because my mum wrote and told me about Dad being elected Minister,
and since they had to stay in London for a few days she asked me—" He
glanced around again, as if seeing Harry and Hermione for the first
time. "What are you lot doing here, anyway?"
There was a short silence. Harry looked at Ron. Ron looked at Ginny.
Ginny looked at Sirius. Sirius looked at Charlie, and sighed.
"Come on into the living room for a second, Charlie," he said. "I'll
fill you in on the details."
"All right," said Charlie slowly, hefting his satchel onto his back.
Sirius turned to the rest of them. "I want one of you to sit with
Draco, just in case anything happens – nothing will, he's fine, but
just as a precaution."
"I will," said Ginny immediately.
"Thanks." Sirius turned back to Charlie. "Let's go."
As Charlie followed Sirius out of the room, Hermione heard him
say, "I brought a bottle of Ogden's Old Firewhiskey with me."
Sirius clapped him on the back. "Bless you, Charlie Weasley."

***