Underwater Light

The train journey back was almost exactly like the one to Surrey. They were all tense and miserable, only more so. Ron kept trying to put his arm around Hermione, but she was hunched and twitching away and he flinched back every time. Lupin and Sirius looked grey.

They were the only ones left. Dumbledore had sent them away to get picked off piecemeal, and they all knew he hadn't meant it to happen but it had, and Harry had known they shouldn't do it! He had promised Natalie that he was going to kill Voldemort and that there was no reason to be scared.

He was going to kill someone. He was sick to the teeth of being angry and not doing anything about it. As soon as they were back they could all sit down and make a plan. They could talk about what the Aurors were doing, they could all join the Aurors. He could finally do something.

Draco was drumming his fingers on the window. Harry thought he would be cheered up if he was irritating someone, but nobody had noticed. He glanced over and Draco nodded.

He got up and followed Draco into the corridor. Draco started to tap against the window there, too.

"Don't humour me, Potter," Draco returned. He gave him a half smile all the same, stopped tapping, and leaned against the window instead. "So," he said. "Dumbledore sent off Owls and got no responses, and he thinks everyone's been taken. Not the spy, though. Obviously, they turned in everyone they were with and went underground, and we will never know who it was. Unless..."

It had to have been that way. Someone in one of the groups had turned them all in. Ginny might have seen the face of her betrayer and it must be horrible, to see a friend you trusted turn into the spy in the night...

"Unless it was one of us," Draco continued remorselessly. "Don't you find it a little strange that we are the last ones? Nobody in the Dark Lord's gang said wait a second, hang on, who got that speccy boy - name's on the tip of my tongue-"

"Draco, shut up. None of us did it. Lupin didn't do it, Sirius didn't do it, Ron and Hermione certainly didn't do it and you-" After all this time, after everything he'd said, there was still a tension about Draco's shoulders. Harry took hold of one, hard, and shook him.

"Who's talking about me?" Draco asked. "It's clearly you. It's always the one you least suspect."

"Draco, shut up." He took hold of the other shoulder and shook them both. Draco and he exchanged exhausted smiles.

"You've been plotting it since first year, it's obvious," Draco continued. "Behind those round glasses works the mind of an evil genius." He took them off and through the sudden blur Harry thought he saw him peer exaggeratedly. "Yes, I see it now," he concluded.

Harry leaned in and then Draco's face was clear, much closer than he'd planned. Draco blinked once, slowly, and when Harry let one hand fall uncertainly from Draco's shoulders Draco caught it. They stood, Draco leaning against the glass and Harry leaning against Draco, and Harry realised they were breathing in time when they were both caught on a shuddering exhale.

Harry was not sure how much weight attached to his argument when he had Draco pressed up against the glass, but he thought he should try.

Harry was confused, furious and restless and lost because Draco was so close. Draco's breath was coming fast against his cheek, and he felt like his heartstrings were doubled up, tangled in his chest. He wanted to push Draco up harder against the glass and do - something, anything, then go out and kill something, fix something, and come back to Draco and rest.

"You're the one who's confused," Draco snapped at him. "Do you remember what we were talking about last time on the train - about us - about what you wanted?"

Harry's fingers were locked over the back of Draco's hand, pressed against the slick cold glass of the window. He looked at Draco, who looked sullen and awkward, and he thought of all the things in the world worth killing to protect, worth dying for. The grey shape of Hogwarts looming in the distance like home. Sirius doing his best and failing, Hermione looking up from a book and smiling at him, Ron at eleven years old with a grubby nose.

"Chances are good we're going to die soon," Draco told him, thoughtfully. "Even I can't let you down in the amount of time we have-"

Harry stared at his sharp, wilful face, and thought of all the things worth killing for in the world.

He reached out with the hand that still held Harry's glasses hooked over two fingers, and Harry felt the scrape of the glasses against the back of his neck as Draco kissed him. The kiss was forceful even if Draco was shaking.

Restraint completely failed Harry and he moved in, pushed Draco harder up against the wall, felt Draco's mouth slide open hot under his own as their locked hands held fast against the glass. He held Draco pinned against the window with the other hand, felt Draco pull his hair as they kissed.

Draco moved, struggling against being pinned, and Harry might have thought he actually wanted to get away except for the deep, ragged gasps that were Draco's breaths and the fingers tightly tangled in Harry's hair.

Harry tried to push in closer, rubbed helplessly against Draco's body as Draco writhed and trembled against the glass and sank his teeth into Harry's lower lip.

"Er, Hermione. Look. Let me explain," he said, and then looked over at Draco to make sure he knew Harry wasn't going to lie. Draco was breathing hard and looked a bit amused.

"Don't bother," Hermione said. She looked tired. "This isn't the time and besides, I've known for months. If you hurt him, Malfoy, I swear to God I'll kill you."

"It hasn't been going on for months," Harry protested, outraged. "And I don't need you to look after me, either."

Hermione folded her arms. "Oh, really? We're the only group left, Harry, doesn't it strike you as a bit suspicious-"

"We're the only group left, Hermione, so doesn't it strike you as a bit counterproductive to start hurling accusations at each other?" Harry snapped.

"Dumbledore's an important man. You think documents in his handwriting aren't easily accessible to the entire wizarding world? I could copy his writing. That Owl could be a fake, and we could be walking right into a trap."

Hermione and Draco both looked very grave, but something about the thought made Harry smile.

"Could be," he conceded. "But we still have to walk into it, just in case it's not. So - how're everyone's Unforgivables?"

Hermione had gestured that they should all go back inside, but she stopped with her hand on the door when Harry said that.

Hermione went in. Harry paused before he followed her. "Before," he said, and stopped. "Did you mean that? That you'd be - that you'd want to be-"

Draco looked at him almost defiantly, and then kept looking for a moment. A slow, hesitant smile crept over his face. "I did."

Harry realised they were still holding hands, and he tightened his grip. "Okay," he said. "Good."

They went into the carriage and Sirius grimly volunteered to be put under the Imperius curse.

Platform 9 ¾ was a still, empty stretch of concrete walkways and rail. No gleaming red Hogwarts Express could be seen, and none would come, no matter how long they waited.

Sirius and Lupin broke efficiently into the store-room where magical engineers kept brooms in case they needed to fly to a place where there was a malfunction and no Apparating possible.

A little of the seething tension within Harry was relieved by the pressure of a broom handle against his palm. A little more was relieved by the thoughtful smile that appeared at the corner of Draco's mouth.

"I'm worried, Draco," Harry returned, leaning in and not kissing him, but filled with the consciousness that he could. "I could end up so far ahead I won't even see you fall."

Draco's mouth twisted with appreciation of the challenge, and Harry kicked off and into the wind. There was nothing in the sky but the gleam at the edge of his eyesight that was Draco catching up with him. Draco shouted something Harry could not hear and Harry almost laughed, the knot in his chest eased for a few moments.

As they approached Hogwarts, even that relief was gone, and he was grounded with all his fury and fear before the school doors.

Harry had never seen Hogwarts deserted before, but now it stood black against the dimming sky. There were no owls flying to the Owlery and no lights shining in any window and the familiar shape of towers and slanted roofs seemed suddenly sinister, far too quiet, like the still shell of someone you loved.

They stood in a small, close group outside the door, quivering as if they might fly apart at any moment. Harry felt uncertainty in the push of Ron's shoulder against him, and the press of Draco's elbow on the other side. Now they were here, they all wanted to leave.

He remembered Draco's words about this being a trap, and he remembered that McGonagall's murderer was in there, and he could lose them all.

"What would you all think," he said, "if I went in first and - sort of had a look around?"

There was a taut sound to his voice that the others did not have, and he was slightly drawn when Harry looked around. Harry recalled that Draco had a lot less experience with life-threatening situations than the rest of them, and - for just a moment - recalled a first year in the Forbidden Forest uttering trembling complaints. He pushed his shoulder, solid and reassuring, against Draco's.

"Any brilliant ideas, Malfoy?" Ron asked, and it was a measure of his desperation that he only sounded a bit sarcastic.

Sirius' black brows drew sharply together. "Harry's right, someone should go in. I'll do it, I want to do it-"

He went on. "I'm sure it's occurred to some of you that this is a trap. If it is, there's no sense all of us walking into it. One person can go in, and if they don't come out, Sirius can get in contact with the Order of the Phoenix - or what's left of it. " He paused, and added: "Of course, I should be the one to go in."

"I cannot allow anyone else to go in!" Lupin returned, and it was the first sharp note Harry had heard in his voice for years. "It's right for me to be the one, at least I've lived. I wasn't trapped in Azkaban for twelve years, and I'm not a child just beginning on adult life-"

Lupin's face looked greyer and more tired than ever in the gathering twilight. "You're still a student, and you are my responsibility. I will not let anyone else go in there. I am going in."

Harry saw the matching expressions of astonishment on the faces of Sirius, Ron and Hermione before he looked at Draco. Draco himself bit his lip, and met their startled eyes defiantly.

Lupin looked just as unsurprised as Harry was. "Don't be ridiculous, Draco," he said. "Of course you would be. And of course I won't allow anything of the kind. I am going in by myself."

He stopped, not uncertainly but as if waiting to answer more argument. Harry looked at him helplessly.

Lupin nodded, as he used to when all business was settled at a meeting of the Young Order of the Phoenix.

"Give me half an hour, and then get away as fast as you can," he said, with that same air of concluding everything. He walked up to the large doors of Hogwarts that Harry had rushed through a thousand times, and pushed it open. Then he turned around for the last time. "It's been an honour to know all of you," he said, and disappeared into the darkness.

Draco had cursed after the door closed, and after that nobody spoke for some time. Sirius was engaged in what seemed to be a staring contest with the door through which his last friend had disappeared, and Ron was engaged in a battle not to let anyone see what everyone had already noticed, that his eyes were full of tears.

Harry sat down before the door of Hogwarts with his hands locked around his knees, trying not to punch anything. He gave up after fifteen minutes and punched the stone wall.

He hit the wall hard and felt his skin break against the stone, the hot bite of blood like getting a little of his anger out. Draco knelt beside him and took his hand, pulling it away from the wall.

"Why the hell not?" Harry asked roughly. "I might be in too much danger from this stupid wall?"

Draco's attention was apparently caught by Harry's tone, and when he looked properly at Harry his eyes warmed. "Let me rephrase," he said in his most condescending manner. "Don't do that, you idiot, because you might need your wand hand."

His fingers were biting into Harry's wrist and he was the most unsympathetic person in the world. Harry was aware, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he was ridiculously glad Draco was here.

He couldn't quite reach that feeling now. All he could think about was Lupin going through that door in his place. He could have borne anything but this, he thought, anything but being kept safe.

"You're the idiot," he said, his voice rough. "I would never have let you go in there without me."

Draco bowed his head with a small sound. "I'd like to see you try and stop me," he said, almost tenderly.

Hermione had her arms tight around herself, as if clutching herself together. Her mouth was shaping spells but she tried to smile around them when Ron glanced at her. Sirius never looked away from the door.

Draco kept his head down with his usual dread of showing the emotions he always betrayed. Harry looked around at all of them and wished he could say something appropriate like Lupin had - but what he really wanted was to do something.

Being the person he was, in the world they lived in, he'd say I love you by killing anything that tried to touch any of them.

It sounded close and it sounded bad, and if not for that, perhaps Sirius would have stopped a moment and done what Lupin said, taken them all away to the Order. But the scream was still in the air when Sirius dived for the door and disappeared inside.

Harry was already on his feet. "We don't know where the Order of the Phoenix are. Our only choice is to go after him and try to save him at least."

He would feel sick that he was able to plan for Lupin's death later. Now it was time to act.

"C'mon," Harry ordered, and they all went inside. Harry felt everyone else at his back, rushing in together so they would have no chance for second thoughts.

"We have to do something now," he said. "We have to find Sirius, he can't have gone far."

No, Harry thought instantly. That was how they had all gotten into this mess. You split up and the spy picked you off one by one. But Draco was talking fast.

"I know what you're thinking, but it's the only way. Like you said, he can't have gone far, but now if we all choose the wrong direction they could both be killed or - put with the others - It's not a good choice, but it's the only one we have left! If we all meet back here in twenty minutes..."

He stopped, because he knew there was a chance none of them would get back to the meeting point. Hermione gave a small, decisive nod.

Harry thought fast. If he had to bet, he would bet that the scream had come from lower down in the castle.

"You go upstairs, and then up another floor if you don't find anything. I'll search here and then in the dungeons, and that will take up all the time we have. Then we all come back here. Be careful! I'll be fine."

Ron and Hermione nodded together, with no time left for words, and they ran up the stairs as they had a dozen times when Ron had forgotten his scarf, or Hermione urgently needed a library book.

Hogwarts was dark now, all memories tainted, and Harry thought of the third task of the Tournament and went cold. It had been another world where all your fears came true, and now fear had taken over his world.

He was so angry there was almost no room for fear. He and Draco walked through the Hall and its adjoining rooms, finding only shadows, and Harry almost wanted to stumble upon an enemy.

The only thing that laid claim to Hogwarts was the shadows, and Harry could not fight them. He and Draco exchanged quick glances and began, quietly, to descend the stairs to the dungeon.

Harry grabbed his wand. Draco grabbed Harry, and pulled him into an alcove that Harry could have sworn was not beside the bottom of the stairs a minute ago.

"Be still," Draco commanded, his voice a hiss on the cusp of hearing, his mouth against Harry's ear. "We're here to find people, not fight!"

Harry went still, every muscle in his body protesting. Cheated adrenaline beat a hot path through his body, and he pressed his palm hard against his wand and turned his face against Draco's. They tried to breathe stealthily, and it came out harsh.

The people around the corner were Death Eaters, a bunch of them walking in the robes, hoods drawn over their heads so Harry was reminded of nightmare monks. Sirius and Lupin were not among them.

Harry's locked muscles screamed at him to move, but he stayed still, Draco's chest hitching against his back. The Death Eaters, in a few endless moments, passed on. Harry and Draco waited until even the sounds of their footsteps had faded.

"And it was the right decision, if Black hadn't charged in after him! And this is the right decision. You saw me just now, Snape's showed me every secret place in the dungeons. I can hide here better than any other Slytherin I know. If Black or Lupin is here, I can find them, and I can do it fastest by myself!"

Draco gave him a look that did not so much suggest as shout that Harry was being an idiot. "We all left everything magical bar our wands at school so we wouldn't blow our cover," he said, and on Harry's puzzled nod he hissed, "Don't you think the Cloak and the Map might prove useful at a time like this?"

Harry did not waste time calling himself an idiot. "You're right. Stay right here and I'll get the Map and we can look together."

"We're a bit pushed for time, in case you didn't notice," Draco snapped. "If you have the Map, you'll know where to find me, and them, and everyone. I'm going to try here, and you're going to go there. I want to do something, I'm not scared-"

Unexpectedly, Draco smiled at him. "I'm a liar. You should know that. But I want to go anyway, and I think it's our best chance."

He could see it once he was looking, in the tight line of Draco's jaw. Draco was scared. Being scared seemed remote to Harry, with nothing but a buzzing urge in his blood to act, but... scared and thinking, Draco had remembered the Cloak and the Map.

Draco stepped away from him and blinked rather than look directly at Harry. Then he stopped blinking, and did it.

He took Harry's face in his hands and kissed him, and that was hard as well. There was no time and no space left on the edge of danger for gentleness, and Harry's back hit the wall as Draco's teeth grazed the inside of his mouth. He could not let himself moan, so he grasped Draco roughly against a moan and against the thought of death. He tipped his head back against the wall and pulled Draco in, so all he could feel was stone and the planes of Draco's body against him. His back under Harry's hands, under his shirt, was slick with sweat.

Harry wanted to leave bruises all over him. Harry's own back was painfully pressed against the stone and his thighs were strained, bearing Draco's weight, and he didn't care. Draco pushed him harder against the wall, as if he wanted Harry to be in pain, wanted him to ask for mercy. Harry's hips rose against Draco, his breath coming uneven as a plea.

Draco might be scared, Harry thought dimly, but there was the same thrill of excitement in his blood as there was in Harry's, the same urge to do something, anything, God, and if Draco stayed there and shoved against him for another moment - but Lupin and Sirius were in danger. Draco's teeth dragged light and sharp over Harry's lower lip, fingers curling tight in his hair. Then he pulled back.

The Fat Lady had no dust on her, not yet, but she still had a dazed look about her when Harry ran up to her and said the password.

"Weasley's Wizard Wheezes," he whispered, remembering the Third Task. He had said those words then too, when he should have recalled that you only needed the password to get out. He had had things backwards all along.

He knew the common room would be cold and still, with everything everyone had left behind lying like relics in the grey light of approaching night. He did not spare a glance for Hermione's discarded book, or the stairs to the girls' dormitory that he could have safely gone up to because all the girls were gone. He had other things to worry about now.

He ran up the stairs, and with his eyes already adjusted to the night, he made out the shapes of all the empty beds at once. His own looked forlorn, a corner of the sheet tucked back invitingly by house elves, and the chest at the bottom of his bed... ransacked.

Harry dropped to his knees. His books were tossed around, his broom broken, and his Invisibility Cloak was gone. His breathing harsh in that deep, lonely silence, he grabbed Flying with the Cannons and opened it at the place where he kept the Map hidden.

Harry unfolded the map quickly, the parchment shaking in his hands. When the familiar black lines and dots scratched their way across the yellow parchment he followed each line avidly with his eyes.

Ron and Hermione, safe on the first floor. Draco, apparently safe in the dungeons with no-one nearby. Sirius and Lupin were there, alive, but almost lost in separate groups of Death Eaters, and clusters of Death Eaters or what Harry presumed were Death Eaters were scattered all over the castle. Wormtail was there but not near either of them and... In one of those groups Harry saw the floating words Tom Riddle.

Harry's thoughts spun wildly out of control and into panic. It was all happening, all really happening, and there was nothing he could do and no help anywhere, for any of them...

He snatched up the Map and ran, ran, ran as if all the Death Eaters were already chasing him out of the horribly deserted Gryffindor rooms and through the dark, echoing corridors to the place where a stone gargoyle waited.

There was no need for a password. The gargoyle leaped aside as Harry approached and as soon as Harry stepped onto the ascending spiral staircase he remembered the Third Task again, and the appearance of Voldemort, and he closed his fingers tightly about his wand as Dumbledore's gleaming oak door came into view, the griffon doorknocker glistening in the half light.

The circular room was as lost to darkness as the rest of Hogwarts. The silver instruments stood dull and silent, and the pictures of past Headmasters and Headmistresses had been stripped off the walls. Dumbledore was sitting in the dark at his huge desk, staring at a pile of ashes in front of him.

"Fawkes," he explained, misinterpreting Harry's stare. "It's very sad, but even phoenixes die and do not rise in the end."

He looked small and hunched in his high-backed chair. The moon was out now, a gibbous thing peeping through the windows, and its light made a faint, tired halo of his white and straggling hair. His chin was almost touching his chest, but the light-blue eyes that watched Harry were as sharp as ever.

His voice was so calm that Harry's first feeling was one of relief. It was all right, Dumbledore had a plan, and as his breathing came more regularly and the first rush of adrenalin faded, he began to feel cold.

"I invited you all back to meet him," Dumbledore went on, still so serene. "Are you beginning to understand now, Harry?"

His heartbeat had slowed down now, slowed down so a terrible thought could occur between each beat. His chest felt like there was cold water dropping at regular intervals inside it, dropping and hollowing out a stone.

He remembered the images in the Somnasieve, and saw what his dreams had been trying to tell him.

When Draco was swimming in the lake in his dream, he'd whispered the first password Harry had ever heard for Dumbledore's office. Sherbet lemon.

The faces of the dangerous creatures in his dream - griffon, chimera, basilisk. All things that had threatened him... all save the griffon. The griffon that was Dumbledore's doorknocker.

"You're the spy," he said slowly. The words felt strange in his mouth, as if he was speaking a foreign language, a Parseltongue that would never make sense because the whole world suddenly made no sense.

"You're too late. What good does knowing this do you now?" Dumbledore asked. "You never were quite quick enough, Harry - but I'm sure you did your best."

He made a soothing gesture with his hands, pale skin twisted like crepe around the blue knots of his veins. They looked frail and old, his hands, invested only with the authority of a kindly grandparent.

Harry could not piece words together without effort. Even language seemed to have turned against him.

It would have been. No matter how hard Harry had studied the Marauder's Map searching for the spy, he would never have thought to question Dumbledore's presence anywhere. No student would have been alarmed at the sight of Dumbledore, no student would have made an outcry when Dumbledore raised his wand.

He thought back, numbly, to the leaks of information. Lupin had said he was consulting members of staff. Anyone would have told Dumbledore anything he wanted to know.

Only one person had, only one and why hadn't he seen it? McGonagall had not gone flying to the Headmaster with her revelation. She had asked Harry for Lupin, and she had said something about the book Hermione had chosen in Harry's dream...

The old book, Harry remembered now, that they had examined in first year. About Nicolas Flamel... and his partner, Albus Dumbledore.

"You killed Professor McGonagall!" Harry shouted. "How could you - how could you? We trusted you and you - you're evil - you've been evil all along-"

Dumbledore's tranquillity did not change. He still sat there, hunched, head down, old and untouchable and pitiless.

Harry was outraged to discover in himself the furious, confused impulse to burst into tears. He wasn't a child anymore, damn it, but he felt like a child, staring in utter incomprehension at an adult he had trusted.

"How can you say that?" he asked. "You killed-" His voice broke as he spoke, and he swallowed hard. "You killed her! You took all those people!"

"You're such a child, Harry," Dumbledore said, more in sadness than in anger and as if he could read Harry's mind. "You're so very young, and you think everything is so straightforward. Do you have any idea of how long I've lived? Do you have any idea of what I've seen?"

Harry was cold again, using everything he had to swallow down tears. The night was as grey and lifeless as the phoenix's ashes.

"I am over a hundred years old, and I know there is no way to conquer evil. I conquered Grindelwald, and Voldemort rose. Before Grindelwald, there was another, and throughout history there have been evil leaders and wars in which both sides had to embrace evil and if you did not you died, and all good has ever been in the whole history of time is a dream, a wish, a fragile construct built up in a lull between two evils and then inevitably destroyed. I know this. I have learned this. I was young and stupid and hopeful, and I won so many victories, but all that fades. Evil is the only thing that lasts, and so I... decided to give up, and survive."

"I decided to live. I stopped struggling, and negotiated a treaty. For the price of my life, I began to drain Hogwarts dry. I handed over students to Voldemort - but I never handed over you, or any friends that might help you. Even now, you have your chance to stand against Voldemort, just as the prophecy said."

He leaned forward, his eyes pale and watchful. "But you're not going to win, are you, Harry? We both know that. I set you the Third Task in the Tournament to see what you could possibly do if confronted with Voldemort, and we both know you could do nothing. That was when I lost all hope, but after all, it matters very little."

Harry remembered reading about battle fatigue in Muggle books, and tried to think of it spread over a century of struggle. He could not imagine how incredibly tired Dumbledore must be.

He could not bear the sight of this wizened old man, with all that had been glorious about him worn away.

"The best and brightest are always taken, and every generation is poorer than the last. You should have met Nicolas Flamel in his prime. You should have known your father, Harry. I loved him. Did you ever have the strength to make anything like the Map in your hand, or become a secret Animagus? You never did. There was never any hope."

"You say you loved my Dad," Harry said, and let his voice tremble. The Marauders' Map fell from his hand and floated gently down to the floor. "And you'll let his death mean nothing?"

Dumbledore had never been the man Harry believed, all the time Harry had known him. That man had been as dead as Harry's parents, all the years of Harry's life.

"Death always means nothing, Harry. It reduces people's whole lives to nothing, and it always happens. Your parents, other students of mine, all the friends of my childhood... They are nothing now, nothing but words on a page, ashes on the wind. I was sorry to kill Minerva, but what did it really matter if she died then or a little later? I am the one with the Philosopher's Stone. I am the one who is going to live forever."

"I said I destroyed it, but you did not see me do it. You never questioned it, though, any more than you questioned any of my convenient absences. You were never clever enough not to rely on other people."

That was because I trusted you, Harry thought. He felt he had gone through fury and betrayal, and out the other side. He wasn't cold, or hot with outrage. Everything was still, and he only felt sad.

Dumbledore sounded mildly regretful, as if they were talking about Harry's bad performance in his NEWTs.

"I am going to live, and life is better than death, and anything is better than the constant grinding struggle against something that is everywhere. I am going to live, and perhaps after a time I will forget the best people I have ever known, all destroyed by this world, but even if I do not... your death will only be a small regret next to James', next to Minerva's. I've done what I could for you. I thought you might like an explanation. It's all been very sad, but there is nothing that anyone could have done."

He seemed to be finished. He folded his hands and watched Harry with a certain incurious, weary patience. Harry knew he would not be moved by either rage or tears, by any emotion at all.

Harry realised for the first time that he had loved him. He had loved him, and there was something gibbering and crying inside Harry now, but all he could reach was sad certainty. He remembered, with perfect clarity, killing the snakes he had thought were the spies because they were too dangerous to be allowed to live.

Hermione had thought they should check it, since they had a few spare minutes before meeting up with Harry and Malfoy, and they were only just inside when they heard footsteps coming towards the door.

Ron seized her hand and dragged her up the stairs to the observation balcony, where some telescopes still stood at windows. They ignored them and knelt, and Hermione hoped they would be hidden by the railing even while they peered over it.

Lupin grunted as he hit it, his hair in the dust. "Nobody. I was by myself the whole time."

Wormtail flinched. "You needn't - you needn't speak to me like that! I never did anything to you - I left you out of it!"

"I - I'd be happy to leave you out of it again, Remus," Wormtail quavered, "but we have to know where Harry Potter is."

He turned away, unable to look at Lupin any longer, and Hermione saw his face properly for the first time. It was twisted into weak, ugly resolution.

Ron jumped in horror and Hermione pulled him down, pulled him close, and felt his mouth make shapes of horror and despair against her neck. She stroked his hair with frantic gentleness, clung to him closely, and thought if they had seen Ron they would have to rip him away from her.

She shut her eyes and hid her face in his hair, trying not to think of what they were going to do to Lupin.

Then she realised she was being stupid, and she looked over the railing again. Lupin was looking up at her, his eyes wide, and her hands tightened on Ron's. But nobody else had seen them.

No sooner did Hermione feel her heart rise with the beginnings of a plan and hope, when the door opened again.

One was Voldemort, and she felt her heart race like a rabbit's, as if it would burst out of her chest and flee somewhere safer.

The other, not restrained, not a prisoner, but walking willingly and casually beside the Dark Lord, was Draco Malfoy.

"Still working up your courage, Wormtail?" drawled Malfoy, his voice as unmistakable as his hair. "Let me show you how it's done."

Second Place- Alternate Universe Third Place - Romance

Second Place- Alternate Universe
Third Place - Romance