Ginny hesitated, and then sighed a long slow sigh into Harry’s mouth. It felt like her breath turned into a warm coil of comfort in his chest, easing the empty ache there.
He’d been holding on to her too hard, hands closed around her curls almost in fists. He opened his fist and stroked a curl, then the material of her jumper. Mrs Weasley had made this, he knew. She was a little piece of the Burrow, a home opening to him when he was twelve years old, not quite his, never quite his, but welcoming.
She looked at him like she might want to be his. Harry kissed her again. Her mouth was soft and yielding, opening easily against his. He opened his eyes a little to see her: her eyes were warm and her hair was glorious in the faint light of Malfoy’s stars.
She shifted under his stroking hand, guessing what he was thinking or misinterpreting it, he wasn’t sure which, and she pulled off the jumper. He helped her tug it over her ruffled head, touched her bare white arms. Underneath she was wearing her Muggle summer dress, even though it was too light: she must have been cold.
Ginny was shivering a little. Harry didn’t think it was from cold. She tucked herself against him, lying almost on his chest, and he eased all her weight onto him. She was small, light, but she seemed like an anchor.
He leaned up and kissed her again, a slow slide of his mouth against hers. Her long slow sigh had been broken into a dozen tiny, taut breaths, breaths they were sharing from lip to lip. He felt her take her hands from his chest and looked in case that meant—but Ginny’s hands were only lifted to the front of her dress.
Harry stared as one small, yellow button slid from the material. He looked up quickly, as if he’d stumbled in by accident and wasn’t allowed to see, to Ginny’s face. She bit her lip and smiled at him, looking nervous and excited, and then she nodded.
Very carefully, he reached up and undid the next button. His hands were trembling and he tugged at the dress, the material pulling tight, and he ended up almost yanking the button out. He looked at Ginny again, in brief uncertain agony, and she laughed a little shakily and undid the next button.
Harry’s hands looked large and dark against her skin: like some adult stranger’s hands.
He tried to stop them shaking as he slid the light material off one shoulder, revealing skin that looked pale and smooth under the gentle light of the stars. Light turned her freckles into a dusting of gold and Harry kissed the freckles. Her skin was satin-soft and warm under his mouth. He could feel her heart pounding against his lips.
It was such a relief not to think.
He pressed kisses along the slope of her collarbone, rested his mouth against the hollow of her throat and pulled her in closer against him, one hand on her hip.
Ginny pushed the dress off the other shoulder by herself. The cotton pooled at her waist, he felt it brush the back of his hand like a whisper, and he drew back a little to look at her.
She was almost shimmering in the starlight, his familiar Ginny and yet suddenly different, mysterious, a stranger made of shadows and curves. He looked at the swell of her breasts over pink lace, thought of the way she loved pink and purple and over-decorating things. The realisation that she over-decorated even herself in secret made him smile, and he reached up and kissed her mouth, felt it curve in answer to his smile. He leaned back and saw her smile at him properly, all warmth and comfort, her brown eyes lit up.
“Harry,” she said in a low wonderful voice. “I love you.”
“Oh,” Harry said. “Er. Thanks.”
Warmth and comfort fled from the room. Possibly they were as embarrassed as he was. He twisted the fallen material of her dress awkwardly in his fist, thought briefly of just tugging her down and pretending the entire exchange hadn’t happened.
The expression on Ginny’s face indicated that any such tugging down might result in Harry learning about the joys of the Bat-Bogey hex firsthand.
“Thanks,” she repeated. “Yeah, that’s—”
“I’m sorry,” Harry said, horrorstruck. “What d’you want me to say?”
Ginny’s face twisted. She scrambled out of his lap, crouched on the bed across from him as if he was an enemy.
“Harry, I would’ve thought it was obvious what I—I don’t want you to say anything you don’t mean, but I thought… You said that we could’ve had years and that you wanted to—what else is that supposed to mean? What did you mean?”
Her mouth went all out of shape for a moment and Harry thought she might be going to cry.
“I didn’t—it’s not that I don’t mean it,” Harry said. “I don’t know. I’ve never said it to anyone.”
“Well, Harry, nor have I!” Ginny gestured helplessly and then seemed to remember she was half naked. She changed the gesture into a grab, pulling the fabric up over herself like a sheet. “It’s a big deal to me too. I wouldn’t say it to anyone else—”
“Of course you have.”
“I haven’t!”
Ginny looked amazed and indignant that he was accusing her of lying. Harry was so bad at this.
“I mean, like to your Mum and Dad and Ron and Charlie and people,” Harry said. “You’ve said it to your family.”
“Yeah,” Ginny replied, and then stopped and looked at him with dawning understanding.
“I’ve never said it to anyone,” Harry repeated stupidly, as if he could make her see by saying it often enough. Her face softened and for an instant he thought it would be all right, but then her eyes narrowed.
“You’re right, I’ve said it,” she said. “To Mum and Dad—and Ron. You didn’t answer me before. Where’s Ron?”
Harry’s hand, half-raised to get her back, closed into a fist, and all the coldness and despair rushed back. He didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to think about how far away Ron and Hermione were by now.
“Harry!” Ginny’s voice was almost a scream. “Where’s my brother?”
Harry looked away from her, into a dark corner of the room. “In Roumania by now, for all I know,” he said in a low voice, hating every word. “He and Hermione and Zacharias Smith went to find a Horcrux.”
“And you didn’t go with them?”
“Don’t you think I wanted to?” Harry roared, his head snapping back around to glare at her.
Ginny glared ferociously back. “And just what did you think you were doing, not telling me, snogging me and—how d’you think I would have felt if we’d, if I’d found out after—Ron’s my brother! I love him! And you didn’t tell me right away. Exactly what am I to you, Harry, some prize you get after the war? Something you snog and put away in a cupboard when you’re too busy to snog, something you don’t even talk to?”
“I couldn’t talk about it,” Harry ground out. “I didn’t even want to think about it.”
Ginny looked ready to spit. “You never talk to me about anything!” She was shaking with fury so badly that she was fumbling, unable to button her dress. When she lifted her face her cheeks were scarlet. “I didn’t want a holiday when I decided not to go back to school, you know, Harry. I wanted to be part of this. I wanted to help—”
“Yeah?” Harry snapped. “When d’you help? Ron and Hermione and Malfoy and I, we were clawing through books to find out stuff about Horcruxes, and you never touched a book. What did you think this was going to be, did you think it was going to be glamorous and exciting like, like you thought meeting Harry Potter was going to be back on the platform when we were kids? What am I to you, if it comes to that! What good are you?”
Ginny had her buttons done up now, all but a couple. Her fingers stilled on the front of her dress. Her whole body seemed to go still.
“I would’ve helped,” she said, very quiet. “I hate reading.”
“I’m not mad about it myself,” Harry said impatiently, trying not to think about the way Hermione was so happy surrounded by books, the way she could put in a bookmark as if she was patting a child’s head.
“You don’t understand,” Ginny said, her voice so small it seemed stifled. “I used to love books. A book. I used to save up opening it like a treat last thing at night, smooth out the pages, use my best quill to write out things I would have never told a living soul and—and it was the Dark Lord and I almost killed and I almost died! In second year I had panic attacks whenever I had to go into the library. I’d make sure to take so many notes in class, so I wouldn’t have to open a book, I—I got control of it, of course I did, but—there were so many piles of books in there and everything was so claustrophobic, you were all so desperate, and I didn’t want you to see me… I didn’t want you to know. It’s stupid. I know that.” She lifted her chin. “You’re not the only one with some issues, Harry.”
“Well—you should’ve told me,” Harry said, and then winced. “Wait, I mean. You think too much about how I see you…”
He meant that not showing stuff like being afraid of books, the way that Ginny couldn’t catch a child in midair with the pressure of his eyes on her—that the pressure must’ve been horrible. He meant that what he’d seen of her was fine.
He was saying this all wrong, and she was becoming even more furious.
“You’re right,” Ginny said, trying to sound calm when he thought her burning rage might actually make her hair burst into flame. “I’m done worrying about how you see me. I’m done waiting for you to talk to me, or to let me help.”
She practically threw herself off the bed, landing like a bristling sure-footed cat, and faced him with her eyes blazing.
“Ginny,” Harry said, terrified by what a mess he’d made out of this, feeling hopelessly tangled: he was still cold and desperate, and hadn’t they been going to, and he didn’t know what to do or say.
“I’m going to do something by myself!” Ginny shouted. “All that talk about coming back to me—well, maybe if you’re lucky, I’ll come back to you. And once I do, Harry Potter, you’d better talk—no. No. You’d better come on your knees ready to listen to me!”
She whirled like an astonishingly mobile volcano and slammed out of the room. The crack of the door echoed through Harry’s skull and clenched teeth, causing an instant headache. He held onto the bedpost until his fingers ached and thought about following her to the Burrow, having to explain to the Weasleys about where he’d let Ron go…
Best to give Ginny a chance to cool down and a chance for him to think up some way to tell the Weasleys and make things up with her. If he could make things up with her. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her so angry before.
It appeared that Malfoy might actually have been right when he said that Harry was the lamest person on the face of the earth.
When it came to girls.
He’d also offered to help with that but of course Malfoy, being Malfoy, was nowhere to be found when you actually wanted him.
Harry lay back down on the bed, hands linked behind his head, and gave the stars a dirty look. “I blame you, you git,” he muttered, and tried very hard not think about what might be happening to Malfoy this minute.
He lay awake for hours, listening for sounds in that silent house. The stars were the only light to be found all through Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place that night.
The next morning Harry was eating burned toast—he knew Kreacher sneaked in and fiddled with the toaster settings when he wasn’t looking—when his morning was made complete by the advent of Professor Snape.
Harry stared at him blankly, wondering if he was some sort of punishment from God for upsetting girls.
Snape stared back at him. Judging from his expression, he was wondering if Harry was some sort of punishment from God for upsetting—everyone he’d ever met.
Then Harry remembered that Malfoy’d said Snape would come back to test Harry’s Occlumency. He was torn between his usual cold dread at the thought of a lesson with Snape and the burning urge to do something, anything, so he wouldn’t have to think.
“Hello,” he said at last. Snape’s lip curled in a silent sneer.
Harry pulled his toast to pieces and ate the smallest piece. It left an ashy taste in his dry mouth.
“Emptied the place so nobody would see you make a fool of yourself attempting Occlumency, did you?” Snape inquired silkily.
“No,” Harry said, and tried to think of some way not to utter the awful truth that Ron and Hermione were gone. “I sort of had a fight with Ginny—”
Snape actually took a step backwards. “I have no interest in the details of your dalliances with whichever Weasley you are romancing this week. I realise that thinking about yourself is your favourite pastime, but could you possibly turn your attention—just for a minute—to the small matter of saving the wizarding world from the threat of the Dark Lord?”
Harry pushed his plate of ashes away. He was starting to feel better, actually.
He knew a challenge when he heard one.
“You want to see what I can do?” he snapped.
Snape leaned in the doorway and regarded Harry with steady, cold hatred. His expression did not change as he nodded slowly, not breaking their gaze.
Harry stood up, the legs of his chair scraping against the floor as he pushed it back. He put one hand in his pocket and with his free hand, he beckoned.
“Come on, then,” he said. “Read my mind.”
Snape struck like a snake, one Harry couldn’t talk to and had no weapon against, and for a moment Harry just felt blind panic. Snape was going to hit a memory in a minute, Ginny by starlight or this bleak tearing loneliness or something humiliating and Harry couldn’t bear it, he couldn’t think.
He attacked back, tried to strike out and hit something. He could only see—walls, high black blank walls in Snape’s mind being shoved higher and pushed farther back as Harry attacked.
Then he realised that Snape had stopped attacking to protect himself instantly, defensively, as if he was afraid. Snape, so used to hiding behind a slick curtain of hair and a sharp torrent of words, so bitterly resentful of anyone intruding on his privacy, remembered the last Occlumency lesson. He didn’t want to risk Harry getting so much as a glimpse of his mind.
Harry tried to—sort of feint, with his mind, take advantage of Snape’s wariness, and thought of sorting through Malfoy’s memories, heard Malfoy saying “Concentrate” and saw in Snape’s memory Narcissa Malfoy’s face.
Mrs Malfoy at night, scared and in pain and trying not to show it. Malfoy’s mother and a traitor to Sirius and someone Harry had not quite hated, golden hair streaming in the wind of a lost, past night.
He remembered with a shock that he’d told her to go to Voldemort: he’d sent Malfoy’s mother to her death.
He was thrown violently out of Snape’s mind, felt the shock reverberate through his body, but he’d seen something and he’d stayed shielded.
Harry grasped the table and did not look away from Snape, even now. “Well?” he ground out.
“There may have been a slight improvement, Mr Potter,” Snape conceded. “I put it down to Mr Malfoy’s tireless efforts in what seemed to everyone an utterly hopeless task.”
Harry bared his teeth at him. “Student’s only as good as the teacher, I guess.”
“Well, I have many things to do and more pleasant people to see, so I think I will be going.”
Snape had actually turned when Harry said: “Hey!”
He looked over his shoulder, one black eye peering coldly. “Yes?”
“Aren’t you going to—I passed, didn’t I? I showed you I could do it. Aren’t you going to tell me how to get to Nagini?”
“Mr Potter,” Snape said, in the tones of a man whose patience had frayed while holding him over an abyss. “You have—for the first time, I might add—showed some bare sliver of competence at the most basic form of Occlumency. And you wish me to wave you merrily on your way to the stronghold of the most powerful wizard in the world. Have you ever heard of hubris?”
“D’you want me to just do nothing?” Harry demanded. “People are dying. I can’t just wait here in this tomb of a house!”
Snape hesitated, then nodded his head.
“A test,” he proposed. “Get some of the Order members to go with you in case you stumble in over your head. Did you know that the Dark Lord is contemplating making more Horcruxes?”
Harry felt as if he’d been hit over the head. More—he’d never find them all, how could he—
“I suppose,” Snape said thoughtfully, “a soul is much like a precious vase. Once shattered, what does it matter to the owner how many pieces it is broken into? But how difficult would it be for someone seeking to destroy every atom of the vase, if the vase was ground into dust and scattered to the winds? We have to stop this, Potter.”
He strode forward, took a lump of black stone from his robes and tossed it onto the table in front of Harry.
“The Dark Lord has sent some of his men to perform a ritual which will—set up formidable wards for his Horcruxes. They meet at midnight this day week. This Portkey will take you to the place. And if the Order reports that you did well, then—perhaps we can try for the snake.”
The thought of being able to do something real and useful, being able to stop thinking and simply act, made Harry smile. Snape looked vaguely startled and then severe, and Harry didn’t even care.
“Sir,” Harry said for the first time this morning. “Is—how is Malfoy?”
“He’s alive,” said Snape coolly, though he relapsed into looking startled. Perhaps it was feeling off guard that made him add: “He asked me to ascertain that you were in the same state. I don’t particularly care to be made the bearer of messages between grubby schoolboys—if you have anything to say to Mr Malfoy, you can write it down. I suppose simply dropping a note into his hand would take less time than this dancing about.”
The offer sounded so like an insult it took Harry a moment to process.
Then he said: “Yeah. Yeah, OK. Wait here!” and brushed right by Snape’s sneer to get to the study where there were quills and parchment and where it occurred to him that he had no idea what to write to Malfoy.
Hi, he wrote, and then stopped, looking at the black ink, stark against the white paper. He’d never noticed before, but his writing was kind of straggling and stupid-looking, really young.
He couldn’t write about Ron and Hermione. He couldn’t.
I’m OK. Had a bit of a fight with Ginny. I hope that you’re OK. Snape said that you were alive and that was all he said, because he’s a git even if he is giving you this letter.
Harry had a brief flash of satisfaction at the thought that Snape might read this over. He squinted and tried to think of some random innocent facts, something that sounded normal.
Kreacher is burning my toast. It’s really quiet here. You’d better not be taking any stupid risks.
Oh, and Malfoy would be really pleased about this.
Snape actually said my Occlumency was good. Sort of. Not really. So I get to go on this dark ritual mission with some of the Order of the Phoenix.
There was the faint possibility that Malfoy might worry, so Harry added firmly:
Shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll handle it.
Snape probably wouldn’t wait that long.
Come back any time you like. Kreacher is probably missing you.
There. It was stupid, but it would do. Harry rolled it up and marched back down the stairs to Snape, and to his enormous surprise found him in the hall talking to Hestia Jones.
“I’m so glad to have caught you,” Hestia said, nodding her sleek dark head in Snape’s direction like a friendly, encouraging seal. “You know, I have read all your contributions to Potions Unleashed. Do you know you hold the records for most potions invented by a living wizard?”
“Well,” Snape said, sounding completely bewildered.
“Such an impressive achievement, especially considering the fact you hold down a full-time job! Do you have a passion for teaching?”
“Not what you might call a passion,” Snape said slowly, “…no.”
“Are you very fond of children, then?”
“They have their uses,” Snape said, still sounding at a loss. “Mainly as potions ingredients, I often think.”
Hestia laughed lightly. “Do you know, I think it’s criminal that a mind like yours isn’t entirely devoted to research. Imagine the benefit to future generations!”
“Oh dear me, here comes Mr Potter now,” Snape said flatly. “One of my students. To whom I must attend.”
He cast a slightly hunted glance towards Harry. It made a nice change from the usual stares of absolute loathing. He also took the parchment from Harry’s hand without a glance or a sarcastic comment: Harry kind of wished Hestia Jones would come admire Snape more often.
“It must have been such a privilege to learn Potions from the foremost expert in the field,” Hestia remarked, smiling at him.
“I can’t tell you how I appreciated it,” Harry said dryly, and Hestia patted his arm.
“I understand that you return quite often to Hogwarts,” she said, returning to Snape. “So an Owl there would find you? It would be so enlightening to have a few conversations about—practise and theory. If it wouldn’t be too much bother.”
Snape scowled in what seemed to be a reflex. “I can hardly deny you knowledge which you might apply to the war effort.”
“Splendid!” said Hestia, smiling warmly, and Snape hurried out with barely a nod. Hestia gazed at the door closing behind him. “Brilliant mind, you know,” she confided to Harry. “Absolutely the genius of his generation. Do you think he looks well?”
“Same as ever,” Harry said cautiously.
“So often geniuses neglect their own health,” Hestia told him gravely. “They can’t concern themselves with practicalities. Imagine what an honour it would be, though, to help such a man and know you were influencing the course of history!”
Hestia Jones had never struck Harry as stark raving mad before but admittedly, he hadn’t spent that much time in her company.
“I can’t actually imagine what an honour that would be,” he said in a firm voice. “Um, so Snape was telling me that Voldemort—uh, You Know Who is planning a ritual in a week…”
This piece of news diverted Hestia from contemplating Snape’s great genius. That added to the prospect of action gave Harry enough courage, once Hestia was gone, to Floo to the Burrow.
Mrs Weasley fell on Harry’s neck before Harry was properly out of the fireplace.
“Oh Harry, thank God,” she said. “Please—”
Harry squirmed uncomfortably, aware she must be getting soot on her, not sure how to say it, that Ron was—that he’d let Ron—that her son could be…
“Harry, please, you must tell me,” said Mrs Weasley. “Where is my daughter?”
Harry sat numbly, with a cup of tea untouched and growing cold between his palms, and stared at the clock Malfoy’d made.
Ron’s hand said Foreign Climes, Annoyed and Battling Evil and in the light of her other fears Mrs Weasley seemed almost philosophical about Ron’s situation. He was of age and he’d done this kind of thing before and he was with Hermione, smart girl, Mrs Weasley had always liked her, and another friend, very nice, and Harry knew where he was and why he was going there and was Harry sure Ginny hadn’t even dropped a hint?
“No,” Harry said, clinging to the cup. “Sorry. I had no idea—I thought she was coming straight home, I swear—”
Mrs Weasley made a valiant effort to pretend she wasn’t sniffing tears away. “She just left a note,” she whispered, her voice shaking. “She said not to worry—she said she’d be in touch, she’d be absolutely all right—”
Her voice begged Harry to tell her that all this was true.
Harry stared at Ginny’s hand on the wall. It said Unspecified Location (Underground), Scared and was poised half-way between In A Rather Ambiguous Situation and Battling Evil.
Harry’s own stupid hand was pointing to Home and Fretting, which was completely untrue anyway. He wasn’t fretting.
He’d done this. He’d let Ron go and he’d upset Ginny enough to make her go—God knew where—on some insane quest to—He had to find her. He had to find her but she’d gone of her own free will and she probably wouldn’t want to see him and he couldn’t tie her up and carry her back home, oh God, how had he messed up this badly, if only he hadn’t kissed her or he had said he’d loved her or something, if only he’d done something right.
The thought that had kept him awake all night, moving like a burglar in the darkness of his subconscious, finally arrived in the front of his mind, stark and terrible.
What if they all died, and he lived?
“I don’t know what to do,” Harry ground out, and Mrs Weasley looked frightened—for her children, of the dark possibilities of war, of him.
“I know you’re doing your best, Harry.”
But what if his best got them all killed?
He couldn’t stay. He couldn’t face Mr Weasley or Charlie when they came home, couldn’t have them all looking at him and wondering what had happened to their baby brother and sister, all because of him. But he couldn’t bear being in Grimmauld Place either.
The house felt like it was shrinking down to cupboard size. He was doing nothing and it was killing him, it could kill a lot more people than him, and he was going to go as mad as Kreacher.
Ginny. She’d been right, too, not that he wanted to put her in a cupboard but he had wanted to—keep her safe. He’d wanted her at school, really, not part of this. He’d wanted summer by the lake and her kiss in the Gryffindor common room waiting for him, warm and perfectly preserved, wanted the life he’d had to leave waiting for him exactly where he’d left it.
But Ginny had her own life.
He had no idea what she was doing, except that she was scared somewhere. But then he had no idea what any of them were doing, really.
He tried to read up about Horcruxes but not a word sunk in. He went to bed and couldn’t sleep.
He was had fallen into a sweaty, troubled daze by early morning. It was broken by a scream.
It wasn’t a particularly manly scream. When Harry opened his eyes for a second he thought Malfoy was going to have an attack of nerves.
Malfoy was frozen in the act of grabbing a pillow, face white and tired by starlight and looking down at him incredulously, as if it was strange for Harry to be in Grimmauld Place.
“Jesus God, Potter,” he said, his voice sharp. “What are you doing in my bed?”
Oh, that.
“Er,” Harry said. “I was looking at your canopy.”
He left out the part where that had been last night and was pleased to see Malfoy accepted his story without question. The implied compliment did the trick: Malfoy immediately looked charmed and delighted and a little less wan.
“It’s brilliant, isn’t it?” he said, lovingly admiring his own genius in a way that reminded Harry disturbingly of Hestia Jones.
He collapsed onto the left side of the bed, one hand carelessly tucked under his head, in order to better admire his handiwork. Harry had seen the sky before: he looked at Malfoy instead, alive and here, all right, back safe. Warmth and feeling made a sudden return in him.
“You look strange,” Malfoy added, looking at his canopy. “Stranger than usual. And by the way, that letter you sent me was insane.”
“No it wasn’t,” Harry said thickly, fighting the urge to grab Malfoy and maybe cry, or scream himself, or put his head down on Malfoy’s shoulder and sleep properly.
“It was, even for you, Potter, it was impressively crazy. I came back to make sure you hadn’t set the house on fire. Or Kreacher: he is mine. You’re not allowed to set him on fire. I don’t care how much he burns your toast.”
“I haven’t set anything on fire,” Harry said. “But I make no promises. You should probably stay and guard your house elf.”
Malfoy snorted softly. “As if I could. There’s so much to do, Potter. Snape gave me your missive of lunacy this morning and this was the first chance I got to slip away. The D—Voldemort watches me every minute.”
Harry started and his elbow knocked violently into Malfoy’s. Harry was sort of glad about the pain: it proved Malfoy was solid and here, for now.
“Does he suspect something? You’re not going back!”
“No, he doesn’t suspect anything. I’m not an idiot,” Malfoy said in a voice which clearly would have been combative if he hadn’t been so tired. “But my mother was a traitor and my father lost one of his Horcruxes, and he’s got—a nasty sense of humour, besides. Got the idea somewhere that I’m delicate or something and thinks it’s fun to—poke around in my head for something that scares me. I had to throw a lot of things at him so he wouldn’t see anything important.”
“Things,” Harry said darkly. “What. What things?”
“It doesn’t matter!” Malfoy snapped. “It’s good. I amuse him. I’m learning a lot being his favourite scared mouse, it’s—I can’t fight about this, I’m too tired. I wanted to sleep in my own bed. I didn’t know that it had been invaded.”
The reproachful look and the Potter-is-crazy eye-roll soothed Harry almost as much as the casual way Malfoy had said my own bed, had come here for comfort. It would be all right. He could sleep now, he thought, really sleep.
“OK,” he said awkwardly. “We can fight in the morning.”
“I suddenly recall an urgent appointment elsewhere,” Malfoy mumbled. “Actually, I really might have to…”
His voice became a sort of incoherent slur, which actually went on for some time. Evidently Malfoy liked the sound of his own voice so much that it sent him to sleep, even when he was talking total nonsense. Well, he was probably used to that.
Harry shut his eyes and listened to the weird gurgling near his ear, filling up the bleak silence.
When it stopped he looked over at Malfoy, at his sharp face tucked into the pillow. He was curled in on his side in a way that didn’t look relaxed and his grip on the pillow was white-knuckled even in his sleep, but at least he was curled in towards Harry. He felt safe enough here not to sleep facing the door or the window.
Voldemort’s favourite scared mouse, Harry thought with slow-burning fury and something awfully like panic, and thought at the same time of the clock hand saying Ginny was scared.
It wasn’t that Malfoy was a coward—he wasn’t a coward, he’d gone to Voldemort, this had all been his idea—but Voldemort had Occlumency, didn’t he, and Malfoy had admitted to throwing a lot of things at him. Anyone could see that Malfoy was easily hurt. You could score a direct hit and really hurt him and he’d let you see it, Voldemort probably really enjoyed that, and then he wouldn’t give up and you could hurt him again. Just as much. More.
Snape wasn’t protecting him. His stupid father wouldn’t lift a finger for him.
Harry had the urge to reach out and touch him, but he wasn’t—it would be a bit odd, and it might wake him. He just wanted to be sure he was here, that he wouldn’t leave.
This was all right, though. He could feel Malfoy’s warmth and weight on the bed, hear his breathing in his ear. He wasn’t alone in this house anymore. He could sleep.
Harry did sleep, instantly and deeply. He woke up feeling lighter, relaxed, so relieved that was almost happy.
That lasted for about a second until he realised that Malfoy was gone. The house was empty again, Malfoy was with Voldemort again, they were all in danger except for Harry. Again.
Harry didn’t sleep properly again for the rest of the week and obviously he had to stay in Malfoy’s room. What if Malfoy came back again—to sleep in his own bed—and left before morning, how would Harry even know he had been there? It made perfect sense to stay.
Besides, Kreacher made Malfoy’s bed beautifully every day, and Harry suspected the house elf was plotting to slip dead mice into Harry’s. He hadn’t done it yet, though. Harry thought perhaps that seeing the Ancient House of Black silent and shadowed again might be bringing back old, mad memories. The house elf crept about in the dark like a cringing ghost and did not speak to Harry, just mutely performed the tasks which kept the house ready for Malfoy’s return.
“Don’t you see, Harry?” said Hestia Jones. “We can’t possibly let you go.”
Megara Prewett , Kingsley Shacklebolt and even Tonks, that traitor, all nodded agreement. Harry felt like a cornered animal.
“But I have to,” he said. “Snape said I had to, he won’t tell me where Nagini is otherwise and anyway I want to, I have to do something—”
He stopped because his voice had risen into something that was alarmingly like a wail and he didn’t want to sound like a child, not helpless and lonely. He had to convince them not to do this.
The band of chosen members from the Order of the Phoenix looked at him soberly.
“Try to understand, Harry,” said Megara in her cool, well-informed voice. “Recent reports from young Mr Malfoy indicate that the ritual You Know Who has planned might involve children. You are absolutely essential to the war: we cannot possibly risk you.”
“I’m not a child,” Harry snarled. “I’m the same age as young Mr Malfoy and I can help. I saved those kids at the orphanage.”
“Your death could mean the death of us all,” Hestia said, her voice measured. “We will have to guard you and that won’t help us. This situation might well be a trap for you. Your sympathy with the Muggles is well-known and your rather spectacular rescue of the children may well have given You Know Who an idea for how to trap you. You Know Who has emptied a Muggle orphanage for his ritual, and I fail to see why he would be interested in Muggle children unless—”
“Was the orphanage in London?” Harry asked grimly, seeing a building as grim and square as a vast brick, hemmed in on all sides by high railings. On Hestia’s bewildered nod he said: “He wasn’t doing it to get to me. He was doing it because he’s—a creature of habit.”
It always came back to Voldemort’s past, to Hogwarts, to his father’s grave, and now to his orphanage.
Megara Prewett’s voice was gentle but firm. “We cannot risk your life on conjecture.”
“But I know things—about Voldemort, about his past. I can help you!” Desperate, Harry wheeled on Mad-Eye Moody and gave him a look that he’d meant to be beseeching but which he thought might’ve turned out demanding. “Sir, I have to—”
“I agree with you, boy. No better way to test your abilities than in the field,” Mad-Eye rumbled. “But I’ve been over-ruled.”
He swivelled an accusing magical eyeball around at Shacklebolt and the two witches. Harry thought about Snape, who wouldn’t listen to any excuses and wouldn’t let him do anything if he didn’t do this. He thought about another night in this house with Kreacher lurking in the attics, thinking about Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Malfoy, all in danger, waiting to hear…
Harry looked at the concerned, treacherous faces surrounding him. He could help, he knew he could. He had information about Voldemort that nobody else did.
He couldn’t bear to wait in this house another minute longer.
“We cannot and will not let you go,” said Kingsley Shacklebolt, speaking for the first time.
“Yeah?” Harry said. “Try and stop me.”
Before anyone could act, he strode over to the table and seized the Portkey that Snape had laid there seven days before.
No sooner had his fist closed around the black stone than their horrified faces whirled away from him and he found himself standing on a cold cliff. He stood paralysed, not by the chill wind, driving rain or the roar of the sea, but by how familiar this was.
He was on top of a cliff that he and Dumbledore had stood at the foot of, once, six months ago. On the night Dumbledore had died.
A creature of habit, he’d called Voldemort, and he was amazed by how true it was. The place he’d taken children to terrify them was the same, everything was the same, but God knew how many children he’d taken or what he would do to them. This was real: this was serious, Harry had to go back and let the Order deal with this. It wasn’t just his life he was gambling with.
That was when Harry realised that, fingers numb from cold and shock, he’d dropped the Portkey.
He fell to his hands and knees on wet rock, the icy chill seeping into the knees of his jeans and the stones scraping his palms as he scrabbled through them and cursed Snape for choosing such a stupid Portkey and kept searching until he heard the noises under the howling and forced himself to be still. He forced himself to accept that the Portkey was lost and that there was no way to bring the Order here.
Harry could have Apparated back, but he didn’t know where here was. There would be no way back. This was up to him.
Harry inched forward, found a fissure in the rock and lay flat on his belly with the ice water seeping through his t-shirt, and waited.
He could see points of light that meant lit wands, coming towards him from the little village along the cliffs that Dumbledore had spoken of. He could see movement.
The sound he had heard under the wind was children crying.
Leading little children in the dark, it took the Death Eaters a while to reach Harry. Once they did, Harry did nothing. He just lay there and tried to observe everything from his admittedly terrible vantage point, where really all he could do was count feet.
There were thirteen kids and half of them had no shoes on, must have been taken from Voldemort’s orphanage in the night. Their feet were mottled white and blue. They kept sliding on the slick rocks and Harry had to grasp the stone hard, cutting his hands, to stop himself leaping up and grabbing children who looked like they must fall.
They were stumbling but their feet were trying to march in a file: they were terrorised into obedience. At least some of them might be under the Imperius Curse, and if Harry tried to do anything at least some of them would get hurt. The Death Eaters wouldn’t hesitate to use them as hostages for Harry’s good behaviour. Or it could be even simpler and more horrible than that—if there was a scuffle here in the darkness, the children might be knocked off the cliffs and into the hungry sea below.
Harry counted seven Death Eaters. Too many to risk it.
“Right,” said a rough voice Harry didn’t know. “So what we do is, we Apparate the kids down to—”
“Are you completely stupid?” said a voice that made Harry’s heart leap for an instant and then plummet a long way down, a supercilious snotty voice with every vowel extremely distinct and only a little deeper, now, than his son’s.
Lucius Malfoy.
“The Dark Lord was extremely specific about the fact that we could not use magic at any time, he’s set up very delicate spells for the ceremony. Even the knives were enchanted beforehand, as you know very well, Amycus, so please do not make any more inane suggestions!”
The knives, thought Harry, and remembered a knife in a graveyard years ago, and the blood spurting from Pettigrew’s wrist.
He did not dare close his eyes. He just closed his hands over and over on the sharp little rocks. His hands felt a little warmed by his own blood.
“I will climb down,” said Lucius Malfoy with dignity. “Then you can lower the children down on the ropes and climb down yourselves after me. Do not drop either a knife or a child, or the Dark Lord will be most displeased.”
Harry was scared that if he lifted his head even a fraction, the light of the wands might reflect off his glasses. The rain had washed over the glass a hundred times by now: the whole world looked drowned.
He waited, planning, as Lucius Malfoy set up ropes and he watched Malfoy’s father disappear, going carefully but with what seemed to be a certain amount of expertise, over the cliffs. They didn’t have that many ropes, Harry saw.
He wanted to act, he was gripping his wand so tightly it hurt, when he saw Amycus put a rope around the first child. But he couldn’t. Not yet.
One by one, the children were lowered over the cliffs, held above the raging sea and drawn down to the stone and the tender mercies of Lucius Malfoy and his knives.
A little boy screamed, the sound carrying thin and despairing over the wind, and Harry swallowed and locked his muscles, refused to move.
Eventually, at long last, all the children were gone from the clifftop and Lucius Malfoy’s imperious voice rang out, telling them that he’d secured the rope down below and telling the other Death Eaters to hurry up.
Just as Harry had thought, the other Death Eaters didn’t seem to be all that familiar with mountaineering. He saw one man grab the rope in clumsy hands, saw the way they went down close together, for the comfort of nearness.
Only one Death Eater remained at the top of the cliff. He turned and Harry saw his profile, recognised the scared face of Avery.
“I’ll come down when you fellows reach the bottom,” he called down, his voice quavering, and Harry struck.
His body was stiff and cold from lying on stone in the rain, but he would only have one chance, he wouldn’t let himself be weak. He was behind Avery in a single determined movement and in the exact voice he’d planned, quiet but distinct and surely not loud enough to be heard over the storm: “Stupefy.”
Avery crumpled and collapsed, just as Harry had planned.
He hadn’t planned the way Avery fell, his long slow fall over the cliffs. For a moment Harry just stood there, the limp figure spinning down into the waves burned into his sight, seeing Dumbledore hurtling over the battlements of Hogwarts.
No time, there was no time to think of that! There was no time to think of anything.
There were five Death Eaters climbing down a single rope, and this was Harry’s one chance. He couldn’t think. He knelt down on the terribly cold stone and took hold of the rope, feeling the scrape of the sodden fibres against his cut palms. He could barely see and his lips felt numb, but he said the words to sever the rope in a calm voice.
Not all of the Death Eaters fell into the sea. He heard the screams and the sounds as their bodies hit the rocks.
Harry didn’t let himself think then. He just Apparated, found himself standing at the foot of that terrible stretch of cliff and facing Lucius Malfoy, who looked so stunned by Harry’s sudden appearance that he didn’t even lift his wand.
“Stupefy,” Harry said, feeling his mouth stretch into a horrible grin.
The last Death Eater fell, this one safely to the ground. Harry left him there on the rock and strode forward to the children. About four of them, he judged, were under Imperius and stayed absolutely still, their little faces blank, but the other nine gave faint cries, as if by now they were exhausted by their own terror, and cowered away.
“No, don’t,” Harry said, and knew his voice sounded rough. He still felt numb all over. “I’m here to help you,” he told them. “I’ll—I’ll take you somewhere safe. Where do you want to go? The, the orphanage? Would that be a good place?”
A little girl with black braids who couldn’t have been more than eight visibly screwed up her courage and blurted: “No!”
Harry knelt down on the rock, trying to look less threatening. He tasted the bitterness of salt spray between his lips. “Where, then?”
The girl looked slightly encouraged by this. “The v-village,” she said. “There were people there who wanted to help if—if—and they could call the police! They didn’t have… sticks.”
Harry saw her eyes go to his wand and he felt ashamed, suddenly, as if he should hide it. He couldn’t, though.
“I’ll take you to the village,” he said instead, promising them adults and a removal of the magic which had come upon them so terribly. “And I’ll go away.”
They stared up at him, a tiny cluster with huge, watchful eyes. He wondered what they saw when they looked at him, aside from the wand, a stranger with a white, scarred face and an awful resolution in his eyes.
“Please,” Harry said, and was horrified to hear his voice breaking, like ice breaking. He made a useless gesture. “I can take you two at a time—if you’ll just come—”
They stared at him and then made for him in a rush, almost knocking him over, but it didn’t feel like a joyful rush. It wasn’t trust, it was desperation, and he felt as if he was being dragged underwater by the pull of all those tiny grasping hands.
“Stop—stop,” he gasped, and held them off, held a small fragile arm and tried to be gentle. “Only two of you at a time. I’ll have to leave the rest of you alone—I’m sorry—”
There was a wordless wail of protest from every throat. Harry focused on the girl with the black braids: something about the tilt of her chin reminded him, a little and painfully, of Hermione.
“Can you keep the others calm if I leave you in charge?” he asked in a thin voice, and after a moment she nodded.
Harry beckoned to two children, a boy and a girl, and took them up in his arms. The boy twined his legs around Harry’s waist, the coldness of his small freezing feet pressing against Harry’s soaked t-shirt. The little girl was like a wooden doll in the crook of his other arm, if dolls could shake.
Harry closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see the children he was leaving behind and Apparated, trying really hard to get it right, into the midst of a village he had never seen. There were people standing at a window who ducked out of sight when they saw him—no, he realised. Not him. When they saw his wand.
He walked over to the window and knocked, with an armful of children, on the wet windowpane.
“Will you take the children in?” he asked in a loud voice. “Hey! Open the window. Can you take these children and call the police?”
There was a pause, and then a cry of alarm as a tall woman stood up and, despite another woman’s efforts to stop her, opened the window. Harry passed the little, still girl in to the woman, and saw the girl put out her arms and slip them around the woman’s neck.
“Catherine, what are you doing,” the other woman said in a strangled voice from the floor. “He’s one of them—”
“He’s just a boy,” said Catherine, her eyes cold on Harry’s face, and held out her other arm for the little boy.
“So was the other one!”
“The other one,” Harry said. “Was he—oh God. No, there isn’t time, I can’t—I have to get the other children. Can you take them in? Will you call the police?”
Catherine hesitated and then nodded.
Harry Apparated back and forth, from bare rock and screaming children to Catherine’s window, in a daze. He tried not to think about—they’d had their hoods up, but he would surely have known, surely, surely he would have known.
He kept seeing the rope fraying under the touch of his wand, hearing the sound of the bodies falling, breaking against the rocks.
When he took up the last little girl, the one with the black braids, she held onto his neck in a stranglehold that reminded him of Hermione’s sudden fierce hugs. He closed his eyes and tried not to hold her back too hard, and when he was back at the woman’s window, at Catherine’s window, he felt a sudden terrible reluctance to hand the girl over. She hung on a little as he passed her through and he was grateful for that much.
“Can you tell me where this village is?” Harry asked. “I can send people to—to watch over all of you. You’ll be safe.”
“This is St Deodatus’s in Cornwall,” Catherine answered, and then swallowed. “Do you want to come—”
“No,” Harry said. “No. I—I scare the children. I’m sorry this happened to them, I’m sorry this happened to all of you. This isn’t your war.”
“Is it your—your war?”
“Yes, mine,” Harry said, holding onto the window sill hard. “The other boy—the one with, with the men in hoods—did you, was he blond? About my height?”
Catherine gave him a long look. “No,” she said at last. “He was black. Very handsome. There was a tall blond man—older—”
“Yes,” Harry said with an impatient gesture.
“—He sent the boy back—somewhere. He disappeared into thin air…” Catherine’s lips pressed shut. The woman on the floor, who had not risen in all this time, moaned.
“Oh,” Harry said. “Oh. Thank you.”
He had not killed Malfoy, nor even Blaise Zabini. He was aware somewhere in the midst of all the whirling terrible thoughts that were so painful he could not bear to touch them, like open wounds, that he would be grateful for that one day.
“Thank you,” said Catherine with another long look, and then she shut the window.
He stood out there in the storm, so tired that he couldn’t seem to think, he had to Apparate back to Grimmauld Place, only it was Unplottable so he should Apparate back to… He tried to think, and made a hopeless useless gesture with the hand that held his wand.
Ridiculous in this storm, purple and impossible in this dark remorseless night, the Knight Bus screeched to a halt between two thatched white houses in a Cornish village. Harry stumbled up the steps, dripping onto the floor, and stared into the face of a stranger.
Of course Stan Shunpike had been replaced, he thought. He was dead.
“Can you take me home,” Harry said, his teeth chattering. “Please.”
They didn’t speak to him on the bus. Maybe they were scared of him, too. He curled up on one of the beds and was grateful to be out of the rain he saw slapping against the windows. He couldn’t see very much else, just the silver points of rain and the opaque night. He couldn’t seem to get warm.
They dropped him off on a corner a couple of streets away from Grimmauld Place. He could see the house from here, even though he knew they couldn’t, the door with the snake doorknocker and every window empty and dark as dead eyes.
Except there was a light in one window.
Harry was on his feet suddenly, uncoiling from his chilled miserable curl. It was an upstairs window. Surely Order members wouldn’t—it might be Mrs Weasley or Lupin, of course it would be good to see them…
The bus lurched and he almost lost his footing trying to get off fast, his feet slipping on the rain-drenched pavement as he ran. He fell on the steps and scrambled up, finding his key with numb hands, opening the door and dashing into the dark hall, up the stairs in pitch blackness.
The door to the drawing room slid open, showing a sliver of shining light. Harry had to stop then, and hold onto the rail, his heart hammering too hard in his chest and leaving it aching.
Malfoy opened the door all the way, standing with the light behind him. The chandelier was bright enough to make his hair look white, there was the sound of a fire crackling and he looked a little sleepy and a little grouchy, hair ruffled and jumper askew, as if he’d been dozing off in the warmth of his drawing room in winter, a world away from storms and long falls into the sea.
Harry’s heart turned over—it really felt as if it did, wrenched out of place, and he almost fell to his knees.
“Who’s there,” Malfoy began, sounding cross and suspicious, and then he stepped out into the hall and his voice changed. “Potter?” he asked, and he sounded suddenly terrified. “Potter, oh my God—”
“‘M glad you’re here,” Harry said, and the darkness was rushing towards him and the cold, roaring and enveloping him like the sea must have swallowed all those bodies. He felt his head knock against the stair rail, and then he felt nothing else, nothing at all.
He woke lying on the rug beside the fire. His head hurt, and Malfoy was hovering over him squawking, which did not help at all.
“Potter, what have you been doing? What happened? You look like death, you actually fainted—” His voice trembled. “What’s happened?”
Harry tried to sit up, failed and felt his throat closing. He didn’t think he could say the words if he waited a moment, so he said: “I’ve been killing people.”
There. That was over with.
Malfoy paused and then swallowed hard. He said: “You haven’t been eating, have you?”
“Don’t remember.”
“Or sleeping, by the look of it,” Malfoy rambled, refusing to meet his eyes. “What have Granger and Weasley been doing, letting you get in this state—”
“Oh, they’re gone,” Harry said, faintly surprised that Malfoy didn’t know. He sat up and Malfoy caught his elbow as a rush of dizziness tried to drag him back down into the dark. “Ginny too. They’re all gone, I’ve been thinking they might all be dead and the Order wanted to keep me in here penned in like an animal waiting to be s-sacrificed, thinking about what might be happening to them, but it’s all right.”
“I can see that,” Malfoy said in a voice that was shaking too much to be properly sarcastic.
“I saved the children,” Harry told him. His own voice sounded really stupid, trembling all over the place, which was so absurd because everything was fine, he was telling Malfoy good news. “They’re all okay. I didn’t let anything happen to them. I murdered six people. It really wasn’t so bad. There was this woman called Catherine and I think she’ll take care of them, we should tell the Order, will you tell the Order that I was fine and I didn’t let anything happen to them and—”
He was talking too much, maybe saying the wrong thing again because Malfoy looked scared. He was shivering uncontrollably with the cold, it shouldn’t be so cold in front of the fire.
“OK,” Malfoy said, his voice still shaking but trying to be soothing now, too. “OK, hush. Right. I can—I’ll tell the Order. Come here—let me—”
Malfoy had a fluffy white towel in his hands, Harry saw, and was mildly curious about it until Malfoy pulled off Harry’s heavy, soaked jumper by main force and started towelling his hair dry. Harry stopped shaking so much, felt a little warmer, and Malfoy kept up brisk, efficient drying and Harry tried to breathe deep, regular breaths and stop Malfoy looking so scared, words tumbling over each other as he tried to explain that everything had actually turned out all right.
“Yes, all right, I understand,” Malfoy told him.
He let the towel fall in a damp pile on the hearth and Harry leaned his forehead against Malfoy’s shoulder and shut his eyes. He remembered wanting to, a week ago, and wondered why he hadn’t: there didn’t seem a reason why not to. Malfoy had almost stopped shaking, now, though his heart was beating fast and hard like something caged and battering against the bars. Harry thought for a moment that Malfoy had kissed his brow, the skin at his hairline, but that didn’t really make any sense. Harry curled up close.
“I keep thinking of something that Dumbledore said,” he whispered. His throat was burning, it was so dry. He hadn’t realised he was talking that much.
“I hate Dumbledore!” Malfoy said with sudden, shocking violence, but the arm he put around Harry’s shoulders was comforting, he didn’t seem angry. “What was the matter with him, he raised you to fight a war and he never even suggested that there would be casualties! That you’d—that you would have to—”
“I can, though,” Harry said, almost calm now. “You’re not a killer. But I am.”
“Slightly different circumstances there, Potter,” Malfoy told him. His voice sounded really strange, like he was going to cry. Harry’s face was already warm and wet: maybe Malfoy was crying already.
“Don’t be sad,” he muttered.
Malfoy was silent for a moment, and then said: “I’m not sad, I’m just terribly disappointed. I was led to believe you had a Hippogriff tattooed on your chest.”
Harry laughed, the sound shocking in his mouth and all wrong for a laugh, like a wet, startled hiccup. Malfoy made a humming sound and stroked Harry’s hair. Malfoy was kind of girly like that.
“What Dumbledore said, what he said was—killing someone tears your soul.”
“And he told you that you were going to be the one to kill the Dark Lord, as well!” Malfoy said, his voice torn between soothing and savage. “Very helpful, I must say.”
“Not just Voldemort,” Harry said, and felt a shudder course all the way through Malfoy’s thin frame at the name.
Malfoy didn’t stop stroking his hair, though. Harry burrowed his head into Malfoy’s shoulder, held on tight to his jumper, and kept telling him what he was thinking in a weary, cracking voice. He was so tired. He’d sleep soon.
“You’re right. This is a war, and I have to—I have to be in the middle of it. I just wonder…” Harry’s voice stuck in his throat. “I wonder how many pieces my soul will be torn into, by the time all this is over.”