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Draco Malfoy had always suspected that it would be Harry Potter who killed him. Whether it would be accidental or deliberate, done with wand or poison or a simple shove down a flight or ten of stairs, had been open for debate until just a few minutes ago.

Poison, quite possibly my poison if some of that mead got to Dumbledore after all. And it looked deliberate enough to me, or why was he smiling like that?

Still, he certainly hadn’t expected Potter to take out Weasley and Granger (and himself) just for a clear shot at him.

I’m not that important to him anymore. The Dark Lord’s his priority, or was.

But the Dark Lord was dead now. He’d been killed not three hours earlier, by an apparently miraculously resurrected Potter.

Resurrected. Might be something in that. Did he see whatever’s on the other side—if there is anything, I reserve my judgment—decide it was too good to pass up, and come back long enough to finish his business and pick up his best friends?

But why take me along, if that’s what he was after?

The questions were both legion and unanswerable, and would remain so as long as he stayed face down on this grassy hillside...

Wait, grass? We were indoors, in the Head’s office. Cold fear prickled down the back of his neck. Could this be—

No. I’m not going to play games with myself. I feel alive, I want to be alive, I’m going to assume I’m alive until I see some reason to believe I’m not.

And since I’m alive, I might as well see where I am.

He rolled over and opened his eyes.

Blue sky arched over his head, coming down all around to meet green hills like the one on which he lay. Potter, Weasley, and Granger were strewn across the sloping ground near him, looking like a set of Hogwarts student dolls dropped by some giant child. All of them were breathing, and Weasley and Potter were starting to stir. Granger lay quietly, her chest the only part of her that moved.

She almost looks like she did after...

Draco shook his head, trying to banish the image. No. No, no, no. Not going to think about that.

But it was too late. His mind was already showing him Granger’s pain-wracked face, reproducing her piercing screams interspersed with her terrified insistence that the sword the Snatchers had brought in along with her and Potter and Weasley was a fake they’d found in the forest. He ground the heels of his hands into his eyelids, trying to block it out, but the screams in his ears went on even though the vision had vanished—

"You!"

Draco snapped his head up. Weasley was on his feet, wand pointed straight at a groggy Potter, looking angry enough to play Beater with his bare hands. "Don’t even think about it," he snapped as Potter made to reach for his own wand. "Keep your hands where I can see them!"

"Ron, what are you doing?" Granger asked, sitting up. "Why are you threatening Harry?"

"Harry?" Weasley laughed, a brittle sound without any true humor in it at all. "You think this is Harry, Hermione? After what he just did?"

"What he just did?" Granger looked bewildered. "You mean poured us a drink?"

"A drink? He poured us a poisoned drink!" Weasley’s hand tightened around his wand. "We missed a Horcrux somewhere, Hermione, this isn’t really Harry, it’s You-Know-Who, he’s taken Harry over and now we’re dead!"

"No, we’re not," Potter said wearily.

"Bollocks," Weasley retorted. "You might’ve forgot, or maybe you didn’t know, since you’re not Harry, but I’ve had poisoned mead before and I know what it’s like—"

"I am Harry, and I didn’t forget." Potter got slowly to his feet, keeping his hands away from his pockets. "Yes, the drink was poisoned, but it had to be, and I don’t know if I can explain why, because we’re not where I thought we’d be by now."

"And where’s that?" Weasley produced a sneer Draco would have been proud of. "All tucked up cozy in bed with Mummy and Daddy? In case you forgot, Harry, if that’s really who you are, some of us have families who’re still alive, and who might have liked to see us the same way again!"

"Which is why I did what I did!" Potter yelled back, lifting his head with an effort. "You think I’d have scared you like that if I had any other way to do it? I was on a timetable, Ron, I had to get you all to drink within a certain number of words, and it looks like we ran over, because this isn’t anywhere I recognize—anyone else?" He turned to look at Granger and Draco. "Either of you know where we are?"

"I’ve never been here before," said Granger as Draco shook his head. "And what do you mean by ‘number of words,’ Harry? What’s going on?"

"I—" Potter shut his eyes for a second, and Draco was struck by his pallor, by the lines in his face. "I really don’t think I can explain right now, Hermione—"

"Hardly surprising," said a woman’s voice, strong and cool, as its owner materialized practically at Potter’s elbow. She was tall and dark-skinned, broad of shoulder and hip, wearing robes of a rich sapphire blue, and Potter sagged against her with a moan of relief.

"No, given that you seem to have worn through all your reserves and be operating strictly on the power of your will, I find it not surprising in the least that you cannot explain something as complicated as the current situation," the woman went on, stroking the back of Potter’s neck. "Rest for a moment. I will do what I can."

"Excuse me," said Granger diffidently, "but who are you?"

The woman smiled at her. "I am Harry’s godmother," she said.

"Harry hasn’t got a godmother," said Weasley shortly, his wand now aimed at the woman. "He had a godfather, but he’s dead now."

"Which would make it foolish of me to pretend to be a person you know does not exist, would it not?" The woman kissed the top of Potter’s head. "So perhaps you should amend your statement to say that as far as you know, Harry has no godmother."

"What good would that do?"

"It would make your second statement, unlike your first, the truth." This smile was slow and teasing. "A subject about which I know a great deal."

"So how about some truth about us?" Draco said, deciding the moment was ripe. "Are we dead, or aren’t we?"

"You are far from dead," said the woman, looking up at him without any mockery that he could detect. "The shells you inhabited in the world you left behind, those are indeed dead, but that world was ended in any case, so those deaths have done no harm."

"Pardon me for asking," said Granger rather squeakily, "but did you just say the world ended?"

"I did indeed."

"Oh." Granger looked as though she’d have far preferred discovering she’d been hearing things.

"But my family!" Weasley finally managed to articulate. "Our friends! They’ll all be—"

"No." Draco had seldom heard so flat a negative. "Your family and friends live, and are safe and well. You will see them again soon, after you have conquered this final obstacle." The woman pressed Potter’s arm, and he lifted his head from her shoulder, looking surprisingly restored for such a short rest. "Trust in one another and in yourselves, be ready both to make and to accept sacrifices, and you will escape this place safely."

"And if we don’t?" Draco asked flippantly. He wasn’t trusting any Gryffindors, especially not the one who’d just poisoned him, without a bloody good reason.

The woman pointed past his shoulder.

He, and the Golden Trio with him, turned to look.

A wall of blackness covered the horizon, soaking up hills and sky, moving perceptibly nearer to them with every passing moment. A breeze blew past, bringing a chill and the stench of death.

Draco felt his knees go weak.

Black monsters...

It had been his childhood nightmare, dreamed once a week when his life was going badly, never gone for more than a month even in the best of times. He could run as far and as fast as he wanted, he could hide in as many tiny cracks and crevasses as he pleased, it didn’t matter to the black monsters. They were tireless and inhumanly patient, they could follow him anywhere and wait outside any hiding place, trickling in the cold and darkness they brought with them to let him know they were there. And when hunger or tiredness or some other need brought him stumbling out, there they would still be, and even if he could escape them this time, he knew it wouldn’t always be so easy.

They caught up with me a few times. And I knew, when they gathered around me, what they wanted me for. They wanted to eat me, not my body but my soul—everything that makes me really me—to destroy me, make it like I never lived, like there was never a Draco Malfoy at all—

He had always managed to wake, gasping for breath, before they could get that far, and been able to comfort himself that the black monsters were only in his nightmares. But then had come his third year at Hogwarts, and the escape of Sirius Black from Azkaban, and he had been forced to face the knowledge he’d been avoiding for most of his life.

Black monsters, or something so much like them that it made no difference, were real.

That stuff out there is to do with them. I know it is. He stared into the distant blackness, aware that he was shaking and unable to spare the energy to do anything about it. Maybe it is them, just so many of them that they look like a wall. And they’re coming closer—we have to move, we have to get out of here—

There was nothing, nothing he would not do to avoid being caught by the black monsters.

Even work with Gryffindors.

Under protest, but that was going to happen no matter what.

Draco turned around again. The woman was gone, and Potter, Weasley, and Granger were all watching him. "Well?" he said, drawing his wand. "What’re we waiting for?"

"You," said Weasley, giving him an unfriendly look. "Did you have to drag him into this, Harry?"

"Yes." Potter’s tone was flat.

"You couldn’t have left him behind for the world to end around him?"

"Ron, shut up," Granger snapped. "Before that black thing gets here, please, let’s go!"

"I..." Potter flushed. "I don’t know which way."

"Away from that," said Draco, pointing at the advancing blackness. "Do we need another direction?"

"You stop it too," Granger said, shooting him a glare. "I’ll do Silencing Charms on you all if I have to, don’t think I won’t."

"And she will," Weasley muttered.

"Hermione’s right," said Potter, drawing his own wand. "We should go. Come on, everyone."

At a half-jog, they set out.

Draco let his mind wander as he ran. "Be ready to make and accept sacrifices," eh? I’d rather be accepting than making, if it comes down to it... but I suppose there are a few things I could give up, if it means I get away from that. A glance over his shoulder confirmed their speed was just barely equal to that of the black wall—it seemed to be holding still behind them, but would surely make up ground on them if ever they had to stop—

Just as he thought that, he ran slap bang into Granger, knocking them both to the ground. "Stupid Mu—" he started to say furiously, and discovered a wand tip in his face.

"I’ve been looking for an excuse to hang you up by your bollocks for years," Weasley informed him. "Call her that just once and I’ll have it."

"Will you back off, please, Ron?" said Granger from underneath Draco, her voice bearing the unmistakable sound of frayed patience. "I can take care of myself, you know."

"Apparently not well enough to know not to stop when you’re running away from something," Draco retorted, rolling off her. "Why did you, anyway—"

He looked up and felt his mouth dry.

Their way was blocked by an immense stone wall, stretching from horizon to horizon and up to the sky, perfectly parallel to the approaching blackness behind them. He could see the door in it, just behind Weasley, but he could also see the immense padlock, and the sign dangling from it.

If only it said "I open when stupid blood traitors stop running their mouths."

Granger got up and examined the sign. "It says," she announced, "‘Pay me with the proof of your trust.’" Her forehead wrinkled in thought. "That sounds familiar somehow..."

"Everyone come here," Potter interrupted. He was several feet away, peering into a large round hole in the ground. "I think I’ve found the key."

Granger and Weasley crowded in beside Potter, leaving the other side of the hole free for Draco. Granger pointed her wand into the hole. "Clavis revelo!"

Ten feet down, hanging on a projection of rock, the key to the lock on the door sparkled in Granger’s spell.

"Merlin’s stones," said Weasley, staring down at the key, which Potter’s wandlight was now pinpointing. "And let me guess—it’s just like the cup and the diadem, we can’t Summon it?"

Potter nodded. "I tried Summoning already, and Wingardium Leviosa, and a couple other things. I think it’s proof against magic; the only way to get it is to grab it."

"And I don’t think any of us want to try levitating ourselves, or each other, down there," said Granger, paler than usual. "What if we got hold of the key and it made the magic on us stop working? We can’t see how deep this hole is..."

"Could even be bottomless," said Weasley, peering into its depths. "So what are we supposed to do, then?"

Granger and Potter both looked at him. So did Draco, as the obvious answer came to him.

"What’re you looking at me like that for?" Weasley asked in a tone which said he already knew the answer and was trying to hide from it. "What’re you thinking?"

"I’m thinking we need that key," said Potter, glancing over his shoulder. The black wall was three hills away but closing the gap relentlessly. "And we don’t have a lot of time to argue about it. Malfoy."

Draco jumped at being addressed and met Potter’s eyes.

"You take one leg, I’ll take the other?" his rival asked, indicating Weasley with his head.

I never thought in a million years I’d be cooperating with them—but it’s a choice between them or that...

Draco nodded and stood up to come around the hole.

"Hold on a second!" Weasley protested. "I haven’t said I’ll do it!"

"We don’t have a choice, Ron," said Granger quietly. "We need that key, and we need it now. Harry and... Draco won’t let you fall."

"Since when d’you use my given name, Granger?" Draco demanded.

"Since we need each other to survive this!" she shot back. "And since, for some reason which is still a mystery to me, Harry thought you were worth saving out of a world which has apparently ended!"

"It wasn’t about being worth it, Hermione," said Potter with a sigh. "You’ll understand when we get out of here. Ron, lie down, we’d better tie our hands on to be sure we don’t slip, and we should probably be anchored up here so you don’t drag us in..."

A few moments later, Draco found himself in a position he wasn’t sure he’d have been able to imagine until it happened. His legs were flat on the grass of an otherworldly hill, with a rope around his waist keeping him from plunging headfirst into a bottomless pit, where his top half was currently dangling, supporting the left leg of Ron Weasley.

With Harry Potter on the right. And Hermione Granger hovering up above us, calling commentary.

"A bit to the left, Ron—no, sorry, my left, your right—careful, don’t knock it down—you’re almost there—easy—easy—"

"Got it!" Weasley shouted at the same moment as Granger’s joyous shriek. "Pull me up!"

Draco pulled with a will, getting his own body above ground on the first yank and most of Weasley with the second. Granger Vanished the ropes as she passed, Weasley scrambled to his feet and stumbled to the door, Potter was up and holding out a hand for Draco—

Why does he have to be so nice?

Draco took the hand and pulled himself up by it, and he and Potter ran for the door Weasley was now holding open, just as the black wall swept over the last hill but one to theirs. Weasley let the door go, and it slammed shut and melted into the wall.

"Oh, wonderful," said Potter.

Draco turned around and silently seconded this.

They’d got through a wall just in time to run into another wall. This one, instead of being smooth and featureless stone, was overgrown with ivy and other clinging vines, and it had a very definite top about thirty-five feet up. There was a large archway in it, blocked by a portcullis, but Draco could see the raising mechanism on the other side and it looked to be in order.

And if there were anyone on the other side, or any of us could get over this thing, that would help...

Another sign hung on the portcullis. Potter squinted at it. "‘Pay me with the joy of your youth,’" he read aloud. "What’s that about?"

Granger sighed. "I had a feeling this would happen," she said. "All right, I’ve been able to keep it hidden for the past seven years, but I can’t keep it hidden anymore." One hand drew her wand, the other went to the clasp of her robes and opened it—

Weasley goggled as Granger’s body, clad only in a tee shirt and soft trousers, was revealed. Draco allowed himself a look of tolerant amusement, though secretly he was rather impressed himself. Who’d have thought she’d strip down so nicely?

"What’ve you been hiding, Hermione?" Potter asked, sounding bewildered.

Granger kicked off her shoes, performed a charm on the bottom of each bare foot, then did the same to the palms of her hands and tucked her wand into the waistband of her trousers. "This," she said, and turned to the wall and grasped two handfuls of ivy. A moment later, she was higher than any of their heads, grinning down at them, her cheeks flushed. "I like to climb things. Trees, walls, rocks—clay cliffs are fun, but you have to take a shower after and you’d better not expect to wear whatever you went climbing in again—"

Weasley made a little moaning noise, his eyes fixed on one portion of his girlfriend. Granger sighed. "They’re called legs, Ronald," she said. "I’ve always had them."

"They didn’t always look like that," Weasley said in a monotone. "And they weren’t always right there..."

"This is exactly why I didn’t want anyone to know," Granger said with a sigh. "I was afraid you’d never take me seriously again once you found out."

"How about you just climb, Granger, and worry about being taken seriously when there aren’t things out to eat our souls?" Draco said, dividing his tone nicely between sneering and patronizing, in his own opinion.

"How about you shut your pointy inbred little face, Malfoy?" Granger replied coolly before turning back to her climbing.

Good. She’s off her "all in this together" kick. I’ll help them as long as I have to, but if I could get out of here myself and leave them behind for that black wall to get, wouldn’t that be great?

A voice in the back of his mind stopped him cold. It was his father’s, and it was intoning one of the first lessons he’d ever learned, one of the first tenets of the pureblood code of honor.

"Debts must be paid."

Draco looked sidelong at Potter and Weasley, who were both watching Granger climb—she was good, she’d nearly reached the top already—then returned to his thoughts.

They didn’t have to come back for me and Goyle at the Room of Hidden Things last night. Plus, it’s starting to sound like Potter saved me again this morning. By poisoning me, yes, but let’s not get into sophistry. As much as I might not want to admit it, I owe them my life.

And debts must be paid.

Potter and Weasley cheered as Granger waved down cheerily at them from the top of the wall. Draco managed a half-hearted wave in return. His mind was churning.

I’ll help them through whatever else this place has to throw at us. Save them if they need saving. But will that be enough? Will it put us even? Or will I still owe them?

The portcullis clanked and started to rise. Potter, carrying Granger’s robes, and Weasley, with her shoes, were ducking under it before it had even reached shoulder height. Draco followed, mired in thought.

Play it as it flies, he decided. Get out of here first, and figure it out when we’re somewhere that makes sense again.

He looked up.

Whenever that might be.

They had come to the bank of a wide river. It looked too deep to wade and too fast to swim, and there was no bridge in sight. For one wild moment, he wondered if he should help Potter and Weasley conjure up a bridge, and expect to find Death waiting in its center to give them gifts...

Er, no. For one thing, that would require them to be my brothers. For another, I’ve already had as much experience with that particular story as I want, given what Potter said in the Hall and what he was telling these two on the way to the Head’s office...

The inevitable sign was posted on a stake at the edge of the river. Draco went to one knee to scan it. "‘Pay me with the points of your pride,’" he read aloud. "What’s that supposed to mean?"

Do you truly wish to know?

It was a woman’s voice, whispering in his ear, gentler and less strident than that of the dark woman who had called herself Potter’s godmother.

Speak softly, as if to yourself. I will hear.

"Go on, then, tell me," Draco muttered without moving his lips. "What’s this one mean? Who’s it for?"

It is for you, child, and it is the final obstacle to pass. If you can overcome it, you and these other three will be free of this place and able to go home. If you cannot, the black wall you have seen will overcome you, and you will be forever lost.

"I think I like the first one better," Draco said dryly, and heard the woman chuckle. "What’s involved?"

You must give up the three things which make you proudest to be you. The woman paused, as if she were nervous about telling him the rest. You must be willing to forever abandon your Hogwarts House, your purity of blood, and the name you bear.

For the first time since he could recall, Draco Malfoy was stunned speechless.

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