The Observer Effect

      ‘What in Mordred’s bloody name,’ Harry’s first thought ran, ‘she is meant to be with Tom!’       But a heartbeat later he understood that a ghost, even the most lachrymose, was unlikely to interest a troll gastronomically. Trolls were interested in nothing besides mating, and, given their contempt for such a social nicety as clothing, one could be sure it was not that, either. No, it was someone else, and not Myrtle at all, who had let out that thin, plaintive cry as the hideous, stinking, tusked creature, snorting, peered through a doorway far too low and narrow for it.       Harry had never counted himself a knight-errant. By nature, he was neither kind nor selfless, and he certainly did not throw himself into rescuing unknown girls from bullying louts. But, in that particular instant, one thought seized his whole being.       ‘Who will pay for me? Will Myrtle be getting company?’       And if anyone was to die tonight, it was Harry who would decide it, not some stinking troll.       He hurled himself forward, wand in hand, as he ran.       ‘Glacio!’       A runnel of ice spread before him, giving him just enough to slide down on hands and knees, curl up like a ball, and roll into the lavatory between the legs of the troll, whose head swung about in startled confusion.       Delighted by an extra course for its supper—or, perhaps, enraged by its opponent’s impudence—the monster bellowed. It smashed its club onto the floor, squarely where Harry had been a second before, but it was too late. The ice flew apart in shards. The troll growled, lower and more frightening. Anger, it seemed, had stimulated what passed for its brain, for it finally thought to wedge its head, right shoulder, and weapon‑hand through the doorway. Encouraged by its success, it began to batter about, smashing everything. Splinters flew—the stone floor and walls were far tougher than the wooden bludgeon—a mirror went with a ringing crash, raining a heap of glittering fragments; the iron brackets groaned, and the two basins nearest the door tore free and fell, splitting with a sharp crack like a gunshot.       In the midst of the bedlam, Harry sprang up, ignoring the stab in his knees and the scraped palms. His spectacles were still in place; the wand he had clenched between his teeth was safe—nothing else mattered. He darted a look around—where was that idiot?       The idiot was in the far corner, in the cubicle with the door torn off—Myrtle’s cubicle—crouched in panic, wedged into the angle between the wall and the loo. Her timid, broken cries had become the rending, desperate shriek of a creature bidding life farewell. One part of him, detached, watching, recognised her with cold amusement as Granger. Another part, far too busy with rapid analysis and planning, ignored the recognition, and fixed on the essential. He pressed his back to the wall, just—for the moment—out of reach of the deadly club, and hissed as loudly as he could, ‘Open!’       The few seconds while the enchanted mechanism engaged felt interminable. The troll sniffed greedily, and gave another hungry roar. It dropped the club, and reached for Harry with its apelike paw. It could not reach; it fidgeted angrily—the doorjamb cracked—and the troll’s claws scraped across the floor. At last, the glowing tap completed its turn, and the sham basin slid aside, freeing the passage behind it.       Nag poked his head from the pipe first. The fraught atmosphere did not appeal to him—he plunged at once into what, to his mind, was the nearest safe place, namely, Harry’s right trouser leg, and tried to coil round his calf. Alas, the little serpent was still too small; for all his efforts, he could not secure a firm hold. With a hurt hiss he tumbled out again, and slipped away towards the cubicles.       Harry had no leisure to catch a scatterbrained pet. As soon as Nag appeared, two things happened at once.       Firstly, the troll managed to twist its unwieldy bulk so that both shoulders squeezed through the mangled doorway. The fortress had fallen—snatching up its club en route, the monster wriggled into the lavatory with surprising speed, like a dog through a hole under a fence.       Secondly, from the underground shaft there thrust a narrow, predatory-looking head, more like a dinosaur’s or a lizard’s than a snake’s, for the multitude of horned ridges marching from nostrils to brow, and the bony spines over the eye sockets forming a sort of crown, were in no way characteristic of serpents; least of all a snake furnished with a third eyelid—a thin film, like the skin beneath an eggshell—which now veiled each vast yellow eye with its slit pupil. The king of serpents was not a serpent as such—a creature of pure magic, a complex construct, a wizarding analogue of a bioengineering miracle, as unnatural as it was perfect. It gaped a monstrous maw lined with two ranks of needle-like, slightly inward-canted fangs. A forked tongue flickered—the basilisk was scenting.       Without taking his eyes off the troll, which was scrambling to its feet, Harry ordered, ‘Kill.’       Perhaps troll-kind could not be harmed by magic—though common sense told Harry that a lump of rock, levitated smartly into the crown of an ogre’s head, would do the trick nicely. But venom—venom is always venom. Compared with a basilisk, kraits, boomslangs, and taipans are as harmless as garter snakes. There is no antidote, except for phoenix tears, which heal anything at all. One true strike—and silence fell, as sudden as a plunge into water, disturbed only by the soft gurgling always heard in sewer pipes.       The pause did not last longer than a heartbeat; loud hissing and a girl’s piercing scream tore the silence to shreds.       ‘No! No!’ Harry yelled himself hoarse, and kicked at the armoured, bright-green flank. ‘Leave it! Don't you dare eat him! You’ll never fit down the pipe, you great idiot! Leave it, I said!’       ‘Harry! Harry! The basilisk!’ Granger was screaming; something was very wrong with her tone, though the words themselves were, as far as they went, exactly what one might expect. ‘It is not a legend! Oh, God—it exists! Harry, no one has seen one for over a thousand years!’       The last two sentences made it clear: the unhinged chit had switched from terror to rapture, and it was rapture she was pouring into the air now. Realisation came to Harry, late, but sharp—no, the Sorting Hat had not been wrong. Ravenclaw, my eye. He ought to have guessed earlier—Harry himself loved books, perhaps even more; yet knowledge and intellect had always been tools to him; the point lay somewhere else entirely. Granger had left her unreliable refuge, and was capering beside him, now flinging up her hands, now trying to seize his elbow. He shook off the small, tenacious hand, but it came back again, and again.       ‘A real basilisk!’ the girl’s voice sank to a fervent, inspired whisper. ‘And you can speak to it! Oh, Harry, ask it…’       ‘Oh, be quiet!’       Everything was spiralling out of control. Granger babbled, muddling through a bestiary. The basilisk ate—to Harry’s relief, it was not trying to swallow its prey whole; perhaps its jaw structure did not allow it. Instead, it tore off great hunks with those sharp, curved teeth, and gulped them down at high speed.       ‘Hungry,’ it confessed between bites. Harry smote its spine in disgust—and only bruised his knuckles the more: the skin, shimmering with a diamond sheen, was scarcely softer than stone. To crown the chaos, a strange, wide-eyed face popped up in the doorway.       Harry, frightened to death at first of a teacher’s appearance—the troll alone must have made an unholy racket—was relieved to see it was only Malfoy, with idiotic mirrored sunglasses on his nose, and his wand at the ready.       ‘Where did I tell you to wait?!’ he snapped at him. Draco, unable to wrench his gaze from Salazar’s ravening legacy, stammered, ‘I… it… Merlin’s sake!’ Then he gathered himself at last, and produced a nearly coherent sentence: ‘There was such a din, and the screams, like someone was being killed. So I thought—you. Was I supposed to stand by and do nothing?!’       ‘So you turned up so that, if we are for it, we are for it together!’       Their squabble was cut short by the Mudblood, who suddenly announced, ‘You… Harry, you saved my life!’       Malfoy groaned, and clutched his temples with a gesture worthy of Snape. Harry gave a nervous bark of laughter.       ‘I did say being a dark wizard was fun,’ he proclaimed with a touch of bravado, turning to her.       Seeing her anew, he was as if glimpsing the tiresome girl for the first time: filthy beyond belief, and generally a touch deranged in appearance, hair a wild thatch—minus five points for sense, how had he not noticed before; a true swot would wear a plait, or a bun—eyes ablaze in a pale, tear-blotched face. For a second he was tempted—a single command, a single word, and he would be rid of a problem for ever. No more competition in lessons, no hectoring that set one’s teeth on edge. Her name was not on the List, but the death of a Muggle-born would go down a treat. Draco, perhaps, would understand—and if not, Tom could take care of his memory. Removing her now would be so easy—altogether too easy.       But there were other considerations. That part of him which usually skulked in shadow, the one with sharp teeth, and a cold mind that could turn the memory of pain into motivation, hissed: ‘Opportunity.’       The strongest witch of their year. A Muggle with a wand, easily outperforming pure-bloods. Stubborn past the bounds of reason. She would grow powerful, very powerful. And, from this day, she owed him.       A life debt is no empty phrase, not for wizards—no more than an oath is. Claim Granger for himself—why not? Besides…       He liked, liked exceedingly, the look with which she had whispered, ‘You can speak to it!’ Hungry, avid, admiring. Even Draco had never looked like that. No one on earth, no one in all his life, had looked at him like that. For a fleeting instant, he felt that she would drop to one knee, and say something else, something just right—but the vision flashed by and died, leaving him to wonder: whence was it? What on earth was that? Like a dream, like a strange déjà vu—the memory of what had never been.       Harry wanted more.       And that—precisely that, not anything else, however sorry he might be to admit it—was the real reason the basilisk did not receive the order to open its eyes.       ‘You are not a dark wizard,’ Granger objected, swiftly donning her familiar repellent aura, and her insufferably dreary manner of speech. ‘Though you behave quite dreadfully, if you want my opinion. You are rude, and do not think I have forgiven you for—’       The self-righteous lecture was cut off almost at once. A white, opalescent figure seeped through the ceiling—Moaning Myrtle. The ghost bared her teeth, and rolled her eyes wildly behind her spectral spectacles. The rat-tail tufts of her hair stood on end, streaming in a breeze no living being could feel.       ‘Alarm!’ she breathed. ‘Professor McGonagall is coming! Professor Snape is coming! Professor Quirrell is coming! Alarm!’       Plainly, the role of ill-omened messenger suited Myrtle down to the ground.       Harry started all over again. Yes, it had been naïve to hope Malfoy would be their only witness. He cast about. The place was a wreck—but, at a glance, it would be hard to say what, precisely, had happened. All that was left of the troll was a great pool of blood on the floor—in theory, they could clear it with Scouring Charms—but would they have time? Never mind, he decided. The basilisk must be hidden; that was the main thing. And run, run! The solution that came to him at once did not please him in the least—but he saw no other, and the seconds were slipping away, causing almost physical pain.       ‘Right,’ he said briskly. ‘I am going to get you out of here by an awfully secret passage, all right?’ And, without waiting for an answer, he hissed, ‘Open!’       By then the basin had slid back into place—the passage, fortunately, closed of its own accord; at least there was no danger of anyone wandering in on an intriguing hole—and it shifted aside again. Harry was not looking at it—he was instructing Myrtle: ‘Do not let anyone in here until the entrance to the tunnel vanishes. Do whatever you like, but hold the line to the death. If you fail—tough luck; it will be as with Peeves. When the professors arrive, watch closely, and listen to what they do and say. Then go straight to him, and report. Understood?’       The ghostly girl nodded, frightened, and gave him a wheedling smile. Harry turned to the basilisk. Quite content, it had coiled up, and was quietly digesting its late supper. Harry jabbed a hand towards the yawning pipe.       ‘In you go! Quickly, quickly!’       Draco, mouth slightly ajar, watched as all twenty feet of the basilisk slid into the opening that had, until recently, been masked by a basin.       ‘Salazar,’ he whispered, ‘so it is here…’       To give him his due, Malfoy put two and two together superbly. At times, excessively. Harry gave him the most eloquent shush he could manage, grabbed his hand, and hauled him towards the pipe.       ‘Shut up, and get in! You too,’ he said, clamping his other hand round Granger’s arm. She dug in her heels—both literally, and verbally.       ‘Harry, where does this pipe lead? And would it not be better to wait for the teachers? We—’       ‘Either you go down, or I throw you down myself,’ Harry threatened, then a thought struck him. Everyone had their own kind of irresistible argument, did they not?       ‘Do you want your House to have points docked? How many, do you reckon? Fifty? A hundred? I would take no fewer than a thousand—you were nearly eaten!’       Hermione shuddered, and, without further objections, thrust herself into the pipe.       ‘Not like that! Feet first—it is a steep drop; you’ll break your neck!’       Waiting until the mop of tangled curls vanished, Harry swung his legs into the opening, conjured Lumos, gripped his wand tighter, and shot down.       This time the ride did not seem long at all—whether it was the vanishing of the unknown, or something else, he could not tell. He had not got through half his stock of swear words—yes, at last there was time to have a go and consider the eternal—when the disappearance, for a heartbeat, of gravity told him the journey was over. He thumped onto the floor—at least those who had arrived earlier had had the sense to clear a landing spot. Bones crunched—it felt as if not only those underfoot, but his own, had. ‘We should put a mattress here,’ Harry thought, with somewhat unhealthy mirth. ‘A trampoline!’ He could not help it; he burst out laughing, burying his face in his knees.       Lumos went out at once, answering to his loss of focus. ‘He’s lost it!’ Malfoy breathed in the dark, but Granger at once corrected him, with authority, ‘It’s just stress. Harry, try to take a slow, deep breath!’       Harry, who feebly flailed a leg at this advice, brought himself under control, and calmed down without using breathing exercises. Malfoy, meanwhile, conjured a bright, bluish flame. Harry stood, shook out his robes—filthy again from head to foot, what a surprise—and cleared his throat.       ‘Right then,’ he announced, ‘your choice is simple. A vow now, or Obliviate later. After the latter, we can still go our separate ways; after the former, I am afraid that will no longer be possible. At all. So think on it.’       ‘Vow,’ Draco said at once, lifting his chin proudly. Harry did not press the point—if anyone had already weighed it up, and made a mental table of pros and cons, it was Malfoy.       ‘Hermione?’ Harry tilted his head, and clarified, ‘Do you even know what a magical oath is? An Unbreakable Vow—have you read about that?’ Because, if she knew it at all, it would, of course, be out of books. Hermione shrugged, and, almost absent-mindedly, cast her own Lumos.       ‘Well, a vow is a vow, is it not? A solemn promise. An “oath”… the same thing, I suppose?’       ‘More or less—only, if you break your word, you really do lose whatever you have sworn by. Got it?’       The Mudblood merely folded her arms, and drew her brows together, unyielding.       ‘I do not permit anyone into my head. And memory is the basis of personality; have you heard of that? If you want me to promise not to tell, I shall promise. But this place… adults know about it anyway, do they not?’       ‘They do not,’ Malfoy said, drawing out the syllables, shining like a freshly minted Galleon. He, of all people, was the least troubled—he had wanted to come here from the start, as had, no doubt, every Slytherin. ‘Do you even grasp, Muggle, what an honour you have been shown?’       Hermione might be an endlessly exasperating know-it-all, but one thing she certainly was not was a fool. She drew her conclusions at once.       ‘The Chamber of Secrets,’ she brightened. ‘Oh, you should have started with that! I am already dying to know. All the more reason for a Vow—nothing to discuss.’       Harry sighed heavily. This was not how he had planned to acquire followers. The setting was suitably solemn, true, but time was pressing, and, besides, he could not stop thinking about Tom—how would he take the divulgence—yes, even a hundred Unbreakable Vows would not change the fact, a divulgence—of a centuries-old secret? And something had to be devised regarding the List, for this was the very night, the last one—but that was a thought he was particularly unwilling to dwell on, because he had not an idea in his head. All of it together made it rather difficult to savour the moment as it deserved.       They were standing at the beginning of the tunnel—damp on the walls, a scatter of bones bleached by time underfoot, the stone vaults overhanging. The basilisk had slithered off, and was doubtless already dozing in its nest—when full, it grew as apathetic as any ordinary reptile. The harsh light of three Lumos spells sharpened every shadow, and made their faces look like skulls. It was clammy and cold—the mass of rock all around stole the warmth without mercy—and, of course, Harry was without a winter cloak, having bolted straight from the feast. It felt as if hours had passed, but Harry knew that, in fact, it was likely only creeping towards lights-out.       ‘Then,’ he decided, ‘repeat after me.’       ‘I, Draco Lucius Malfoy…’       ‘I, Hermione Jean Granger…’       ‘…swear by my life, and by my magic…’       ‘…to keep the secrets of the one born under the name…’       ‘…I promise that everything told me tonight will remain between us alone…’       ‘…I promise never to speak, write, show, or divulge in any other way, by Muggle or magical means, personally, or through others, under any circumstances, the secret entrusted to me.’       ‘And may magic and you bear witness to this.’       ‘Harry, who is this Tom Marvolo Riddle?’ Hermione asked, when they had finished.       ‘If you're unlucky, you'll find out,’ Draco answered for Harry. Hermione blinked in surprise, and said, ‘You mean, “if I am lucky”?’       ‘No.’       They made their way along the tunnel in silence. The stone circle with its entwined serpents parted, and admitted them. Salazar’s statue loomed, bearing down with its gaze like a temple idol—a god displeased with his descendant. Harry stopped at the giant stone feet. He knew the alarm charms had fired—and, this time, at intruders indeed. He waited.       ‘Whatever happens, whatever you see or hear—do not interfere,’ he said quietly. ‘Draco, see to it. And… the most foolish thing you could possibly do is draw your wand. Understood? That is all.’       Hermione, who seemed not in the least impressed by the ominous tenor of his speech, was turning her head this way and that, mouth ajar with greedy curiosity. If she started quoting Hogwarts: A History, or anything else she had read on the subject, Harry would definitely hex her with a tongue of horn. For now, however, she held her peace. Draco’s gaze wandered no less spellbound, but much more warily. A bead of sweat glittered at his temple.       Harry felt it—he could not have said how, for there were no footsteps to hear—but nonetheless he turned. A tall figure was coming towards him across the hall. Robes stirred; a pale face showed in the gloom; hair black as night merged with the darkness, and a contrary lock curled over the brow. Harry moved to meet him.       What mood was Tom in? To what degree had Harry botched his mission? How was he to conduct himself, what to say? He did not know. Tom’s closed, empty expression lay on his face like a mask, offering no help. Except…       ‘He is furious,’ Harry realised, taking in the hand that gripped the wand so hard the knuckles had gone white. But there was something else, something odd…       ‘It seems,’ Tom observed, coolly, ‘that even if one locked you in a completely empty room without windows, you would find a way to commit suicide.’       ‘He was frightened’—that was what lay there, under the layer of anger—‘frightened for me.’       It was logical, it was understandable. Harry was an ally, a valuable asset, the keeper of the phylactery—the keeper of a soul, Mordred take it. He had sworn to restore his brother, whatever it took. By every Slytherin rule, Tom should prize him. Even so, it cost Harry a great deal not to smile. Instead, he did something else entirely.       He went down on one knee, and bowed his head.       ‘Forgive me, my lord,’ he said softly.       If it worked on himself—and even the thought of it had the tang of something forbidden—if it worked that way, then perhaps Tom…       Tom drew breath sharply, hissing it in through his teeth—and Harry knew he had not misjudged. He hid his smirk—so that was what deep cowls were for; next time he must remember to pull one up.       ‘You have no right to that form of address,’ Tom objected, sternly, but even the deaf, and the dull, would have noticed that his thoughts had changed their tone, and their course, entirely. Good, very good.       ‘I think I earned that right a long time ago,’ Harry answered without a tremor. If, earlier, there had been a sense that Unforgivables might slip in as parts of speech, it felt… otherwise now. ‘In the room with the boggart, my lord. I am sure you remember. You yourself said it, as plain as plain.’       Tom pinched the bridge of his nose, and, when he let his hand fall, it was as if he had truly taken off a mask—the frozen expression drained from his face. He looked down at the kneeling Harry, grim, and weary.       ‘Oh, for Merlin’s sake. Get up, and tell me properly what happened. How did you contrive to lock horns with a troll? And why did you drag these two here?’       Harry stood, and gave a thorough account, not denying himself the odd aside as he went. Tom rubbed his chin.       ‘You will have your work cut out scrubbing the Mudblood up for presentation to our House,’ he said. ‘But a person of ours among the red-and-golds will be useful; on that, you are right.’       ‘I have a plan about her blood status as well,’ Harry replied, briskly. Tom liked the plan—Harry could tell from the smirk lurking at the corners of his mouth. One matter remained unsettled, though—the chief concern of the evening.       ‘I do not know what to do about the basilisk,’ Harry admitted with a sigh. ‘For the time being, it is useless.’       Tom smiled indulgently.       ‘Not that I was expecting you to fail,’ he said, in that fond tone he used for things like, ‘you are, after all, a touch dim,’ ‘but, knowing the general trend… I thought it necessary to be prepared. Tell me—how many people know exactly what weapon Salazar bequeathed to his heirs?’       Harry did not need a second to think.       ‘Everyone who knows is here,’ he answered, wondering where Tom was going with this. Ah, the endless charades; without them it was hardly a conversation.       ‘Precisely. Thus, only those present could assert, with any proof, that so-and-so had not fallen to it,’ a new smile, far wilder, and more sinister, unfurled across his face. Harry breathed out, admiringly.       ‘Tom!…’       ‘Where has your reverence gone?’ Tom clicked his tongue. Harry shook his head.       ‘Do you dislike your name that much?’ He had noticed, now and then, Tom’s barely perceptible wince; it had taken him a while to guess the reason. ‘But why?’       ‘The pitiful name of my filthy Muggle father? Hm, let me think…’ Tom retorted, poison-sweet. Harry shrugged.       ‘When I say it, I am not thinking of your father. I even find it hard to imagine that anyone else has any right to that name—yes, fancy that, such nonsense. Your name, to me, is only you. If magic had a human name, it would be “Tom”. Yours,’ he said honestly. These were old thoughts of his, perhaps only half-shaped until that moment. Tom lifted an eyebrow.       ‘Flatterer,’ he said, tenderly. ‘But you are getting better at it. Much better.’       They traded smiles.       ‘So who was it?’ Harry asked curiously.       ‘Someone altogether useless.’ Tom narrowed his eyes unkindly.       When Harry went back to Draco and Hermione, who had been waiting with reasonable patience at the statue’s feet, the very first thing he heard was: ‘What was that scene from Star Wars supposed to be? You look exactly like Sith, both of you!’       Hermione was plainly having fun—for the first time, Harry saw her in a playful humour. Astonishing—she was, in fact, a girl, and not a crabby, tedious old woman.       ‘Join me, and together we shall rule the Galaxy,’ he answered in kind. She snorted.       ‘Go on, say I do not know the full power of the dark side!’       ‘You do not know the full power of the dark side,’ Harry agreed, cheerfully. To Malfoy, who was listening to their brief exchange with amazement, he explained, ‘Muggles can make something a bit like wizarding moving pictures, only—’       ‘Are you taking the mickey?’ Draco cut in. ‘I know what the cinema is!’       ‘So much the better. Well, this is from one of those. Very popular.’       Draco narrowed his eyes, suspicious.       ‘You have watched Muggle cinema? Seriously? You?!’ There was so much disbelief in his voice that Harry felt deeply flattered. Yes, he ought to shake his own hand, and offer congratulations—no one had a clue he had grown up with Muggles. ‘Thank you’ was due to Tom as well—at last all those constant rebukes, and his eternal, ‘Harry, mind your language,’ had paid off.       ‘It is about a Dark Lord,’ Harry felt bound to justify himself. Draco’s jaw dropped.       ‘What, really?’       ‘No!’ Hermione interjected.       ‘Not exactly,’ Harry admitted. ‘But very like it all the same.’       ‘Oh, you are telling it wrong!’ Hermione turned to Malfoy. ‘Listen. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…’       Whilst she poured her version of the famous trilogy into a dazed Draco’s ears, Harry was thinking. So, Tom had judged it possible to show himself to her—to show himself to both, since Malfoy was not tapping his temple and asking whom she meant. Interesting. Encouraging. His knights had been acknowledged.       Very gently, without breaking the flow of Granger’s tale, Harry drew his followers into a secret passage that led into Slytherin’s section of the dungeons. It was time to pay the piper—and first of all he meant to surrender himself to the Head of House. There was, of course, a hope that he had not been missed, but a feeble one—Farley must have discovered the absence of two of her charges very quickly. Harry had not only slipped out of sight; he had taken Snape’s godson along, into the bargain. The latter ought to be produced safe, and sound, as soon as possible. By the by…       ‘Who knows Scouring Charms?’ he cut across Hermione, who had reached the destruction of the Hoth base. Between three wands, they managed to make themselves decently presentable—only the girl’s hair remained a veritable gorgon’s nest. But that, alas, was its natural state.       An unpleasant surprise awaited them at the Head of House’s door—the office was locked. Harry groaned, and bumped his forehead against the panel.       ‘Mordred and Morgana!’ He was not keen on going into the common room to face the prefects’ wrath. Hermione unexpectedly rolled up her sleeves.       ‘Stand aside!’ she ordered, businesslike, and flicked her wand. ‘Alohomora!’       To Harry’s astonishment, the charm worked—either Snape kept nothing of value in his office, or he had been in a great hurry on his way out. They entered, and collapsed by the fire, right onto the rug. Weariness came down on them like a weight, as if it had been storing itself up for this very instant. Draco dropped his fair head onto his knees, and seemed to doze off at once. Hermione, too, began to nod—but Harry nudged her shoulder.       ‘Do not sleep,’ he urged. The girl yawned.       ‘I ought to go to my own House,’ she admitted, unwillingly. ‘I wonder if lights-out has happened already?’       To Harry’s surprise, it was only a quarter past nine—once again he saw how time stretches when so much happens.       ‘Stay a little,’ he asked. ‘We need to discuss something.’       He glanced at Malfoy. Draco was snoring softly with his mouth ajar—either out like a light, or pretending with great talent. The talk to come was not a secret he would keep from Draco in any case, so it made no odds. Harry adjusted his spectacles, settled himself more comfortably, and hugged one knee in his arms.       ‘Hermione,’ he began. ‘When one wizard saves another’s life, a special bond is forged between them. All the more so if, before that… they were not on the best of terms. At odds. These are the inmost depths of magic, its inscrutable essence. A life debt. Do you understand what it means?’       She nodded slowly, her face serious, almost dour.       ‘That you can ask me for anything. And that I cannot refuse. For your sake, I do hope you are not going to say ‘marriage,’ Harry! Too silly, even for a fairy tale.’       ‘Goodness, no,’ Harry soothed her. ‘That is banal. And far too little. I do not want your hand, and your heart—no offence. I want the whole of you.’       She looked at him in horror—as she had when he had explained that torture is, in essence, very intimate. Harry smiled—not Tom’s smile, but the pleasant, kind smile of a Good Boy.       ‘You do not understand, do you?’ he said gently. ‘Hermione, why do you try so hard in lessons to answer first, every time? Why is it important that the teacher call on you in particular?’       ‘I like it,’ she answered, wary now, puzzled by the change of subject.       ‘What exactly do you like?’ Harry went on patiently. He knew the answer, but she needed to find it herself. This too, to his surprise, he had learnt from Tom—how to build a dialogue out of questions alone.       ‘That… that they praise me,’ she was clearly unhappy with the words, and corrected herself at once: ‘I like earning points.’       ‘And why?’       ‘So that there are lots of them!’ she flared. ‘So that the House wins the Cup!’       ‘Yes, but why? The House will get the points, and the Cup; what will Hermione Granger get?’       ‘I… they will…’ She struggled for words, as though she had opened some hidden door in her own head, and been surprised by what she saw there. ‘They will say ‘thank you’? Acknowledge my efforts?’       It was plain she herself understood that this was only part of the truth, and Harry prompted: ‘Acknowledge you? Love you?’       Hermione glared at him with hatred. She bit her lower lip; her eyes shone.       ‘I think,’ Harry observed softly, insinuatingly, ‘that it is not points you want. What you want is friends. And you have not got them—neither in your Muggle school, nor in the wizarding one. Am I right?’       With an angry sob she sprang up, fists clenched. Her hair flew up in a mane—as though of its own accord again. It seemed her magic affected it.       ‘You!… You again!…’ There was fierce hurt in her voice, but Harry was already up too—and he gathered her in, holding her tight, rocking her like a little child. She kicked him savagely in the shin, and drove an elbow straight into his liver. Her Muggle parents, it seemed, had not stinted on unarmed self-defence classes.       ‘There, there,’ Harry soothed, swallowing a cry of pain—Miss Granger’s elbows were sharp, and her little leg, heavy. ‘Hush now, all is well. You do not need to strive any more. You have been doing it wrong, but that no longer matters. I want you for myself. I saved your life, and I choose you. I am already your friend. I am your friend.’       ‘You… that is not true… you cannot…’ she burst into tears at last—bitter, and inconsolable. ‘You hate me!’       ‘Of course not,’ he said into her hair, cheerfully, and spat out a curl that leapt onto his tongue. ‘You get on my nerves, but that is different. You are the best witch of our year, Hermione. I would not risk my life for just anyone. Your mind is magnificent. But you really are behaving quite wrongly. Look—imagine, m-m… a tribe on some islands in Oceania. You know—they go naked with spears, wear beads, live in huts with thatched roofs, keep pigs… Have you got it?’       She hiccupped, stifled, but the crying gradually ebbed into a silent stream of tears. The robes would need cleaning and pressing again—what a nuisance.       ‘Would you despise them for their way of life?’       ‘N-no,’ she answered. ‘Of course not!’ Exactly the answer Harry expected. He carried the thought on.       ‘Now picture this as well. They live as they live, and along comes an Englishman. A missionary, an anthropologist—it does not matter. He tries to make friends, to preach, and all that. But they do not like him, not one bit. What do you think he must do to be accepted into the tribe?’       There he felt the verbal arrow strike home. She jerked in his hold—and then suddenly went still.       ‘Hermione,’ Harry whispered into a brightly flushed ear, hidden among the tangle of curls, ‘it is time you stripped, put on beads, and picked up a spear. Do not drag Muggle rules in here; we have a different world. You will have a heap of friends if you choose. But I am already your first friend. That is what I demand of you for the life debt. You cannot refuse me.’       ‘You are a Slytherin,’ she said at last, very softly.       ‘And there I was, thinking you were above discrimination. Or is it that I am not black?’ Harry needled. ‘May I let you go? No more fighting?’       She snorted. Taking that for assent, Harry carefully loosened his arms. His hands were already numb. Hermione looked up at him from under swollen lids, blotchy with tears, and not wholly convinced—but she doubted; she had almost let herself be persuaded.       ‘And you really are a dark wizard.’ So, she had conceded that much. Denial behind them; time to bargain.       ‘If I were “light”, the troll would have eaten us both tonight. Think on that.’       She sighed—and promptly produced a fresh objection.       ‘I am from a non-magical family. And you—all of you in Slytherin—hate people like me.’       Poor Hermione; she had no inkling she had just stepped into a snare laid precisely for her. Harry smiled.       ‘Nonsense. A powerful witch like you simply cannot be Muggle-born. You must have wizards in your line; you just do not know it. My own mother thought she was born of Muggles—and in fact, what is the truth?’       ‘What?’ Hermione frowned.       ‘I am the Heir of Slytherin, that is what. The kinship is not on my father’s side. Which means it is my mother—and her parents were not Muggles at all, but Squibs. And with you it is the same, I would wager. I will even prove it—it will take time, of course, but there are specialists who research genealogies. We shall find it all out.’       ‘I think you are wrong,’ she objected, feebly, and began to sink back to the floor. Harry steadied her by the elbow.       ‘Do not. The armchair will do you more good. There are Dagworth-Grangers, by the way—one of them was a splendid potioneer, founder of a learned society. A relative of yours, most likely.’       She fell quiet. The tears had run out; so had the arguments. She stared into the fire—very thoughtfully, brows drawn, lip between her teeth. Harry, who had dropped into the other chair—the Head of House’s chair, but he did not feel the least compunction—watched her blink more and more slowly. Hermione forgot the time, and the fact that she had meant to go back to Gryffindor Tower. In the enveloping hush, sleep crept up on her. When her lids finally closed, Harry allowed himself the smile he had been holding back all this while.       ‘Draco, are you truly asleep?’ he whispered.       ‘Yes, my lord,’ came the reply, without the eyes opening, and Harry smiled wider.