The Prophecy of Valeo

Finally giving up on smacking him in the face - which was a lot more fun than it was systematic - Harry ran over to the sink and poured a glass of icy water. He rushed back to Draco's body and dumped it on his reddened head. He jerked up and began to cough violently.

"What the hell was that, Pothead?" he asked exasperatedly. Harry snorted and it hurt his wounded lip.

"You're my mortal- and maybe immortal- enemy. What did you expect me to do, round about a herd of kittens and let them lick you awake?"

"Yes, about that, I would had liked it quite a bit more if you rounded about a herd of Italian virgins who only knew one word of English, and that word was yes," Draco replied, covering his feelings with sarcasm. Harry, for once, did the sneering in the conversation.

"You're a putz, Malfoy. I know for a fact that something is bothering you."

"And how, exactly, do you know that?" Draco asked childishly. Harry cocked his head to the window. Massive gray clouds covered the sky. "Oh." And he realized that he would have to tell Harry she was gone, sooner or later. He was already kneeling by her body, not wanting to try and smack her away like he had with him, not wanting to wake her as she slumbered peacefully. Or so he thought.

You don't want to know, He told Harry, fighting back an urge to shed a tear.

Tell me.

You don't want to know, I'm telling you, Draco repeated.

JUST TELL ME, GODDAMIT!

He took a breath before continuing.

"She's...," he sniffed. "She's gone, Potter. She's dead. I'm... sorry." Harry shook his head, his eyes welling up.

"You've pulled some sick shit before but nothing like this, Malfoy. No. She's not. No, No, no." Harry swallowed and sat on the couch, silently crying. "Kill me," he whispered pitifully after awhile. "I'll get her back."

"As much as I'd like to," Draco replied, clenching his fists together. I won't cry, I won't cry, he thought. "We have to find a more logical way. Maybe I can contact my mum. She's the one who saved me."

"When she'd smile," Harry said, ignoring Draco's thought process, "It's like everything in the world was perfect. And when she'd cry..."

"You want to curl up with her and just die there," he finished.

"She's amazing."

"We'll get her back, Potter. We will."

* * *

Harry, Thinking it was finally time to bury the hatchet (or what was left of it, after being burned and beat to shreds by the sledgehammer that was Malfoy) with Ron, he knocked quickly on his door that afternoon, tears still stinging in his eyes. He tried to keep them down, but the wound was too fresh.

It was too soon. Tears started silently pouring over his face, one after another and they began to leave his skin blotchy. When there was no answer, Harry took a deep breath.

"She's dead, Ron," he tried to bellow like a man, but sadness and a shattered heart cracked his voice badly. "Ginny's dead." He began to weep again, and Ron opened the door, his face screwed up in disbelieving anger.

"You son of a bitch," he whispered. He didn't know what else to say. Someone had to take the blame, and he knew that Harry wouldn't lie. He didn't need details. He'd get them soon enough. All that mattered was that his little sister was dead, and the last thing he'd done was fight with her furiously. "No. She's not." He pursed his lips and squinted his soft blue eyes, hardened by all he'd been through.

Harry tried to choke out some other words, but all he could manage was a barely-coherent "I'm sorry."

Together, they stood and cried. Ron had lost a sister, and Harry a love.

"I'll do whatever it takes," Ron finally managed to choke out, and Harry knew it was very true.

* * *

That night, Harry, Ron and even Draco put away their differences and tried to piece together a plan to get Ginny back. They sat at the round table in the dining room, tentatively putting the jigsaw puzzle together.

"I think first we need to get to Diagon alley and get some books on death spells," Harry thought out loud. Draco shook his head, countering the boy who lived's observation.

"They won't have anything there. What we're dealing with here is dark magic, because we're trying to raise the dead. They won't have anything on that."

"What about Knockturn Alley?" Ron asked. Draco bit his lip in thought.

"Maybe. That's definitely a thought," he put in. "But there's only one bookstore there; Turpis's, and the books are basically full of drole spells."

"What are drole spells?" Ron asked, hatred curling in his lips, but he managed to keep it back.

"Drole spells. Drole means strange or weird in French. Strange spells. So unless you want to know how to grow a duck's beak in six shades or green or make pencils sing Yankee Doodle, it's probably not the best place to look."

"Perfect," Harry muttered. Ron crossed his arms on the table and laid his head in them exasperatedly. And then it came to him. Books. What always went along with books? His head shot up, eyes wide.

"Hermione!" he said. The two other boys look at him. "We need Hermione!"

Harry grinned at him, Draco attempting not to do the same.

"All we need to do is get her here. She's in New York with her pen pal Bella, remember?"

Draco nodded as to make him look bored, though he was quite the opposite.

"I could Apparate us there," the blonde murmured. "But it would be safer to use floo powder, since I don't know if I can travel that long of a distance yet." Ron shook his head.

"There's no powder left. Our only chance is if you can Apparate us. That, or fly."

"Even my broom can't make that trip, let alone yours, Weasley," Draco countered. "There's no choice." Harry took a deep breath and glanced at Ginny's limp, cooling body on the couch.

"Let's do it."

* * *

Draco moved back his chair, stood up, and brushed his silver-blonde hair out of his eyes with his fingers.

"Alright boys, Brush your teeth, shave your legs, put on your frilly pink tutus, and get ready for the flight of your life."

Ron and Harry both rose up as well, and Draco gestured for them to grab his arms. Both were skeptical, but agreed in the end, looking utterly disgusted as they clung to his shoulders.

"You may want to hold on for this," he urged. "And be sure you can swim, because I may just decide to drop you off in the ocean." He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and Harry felt a pull in his back. The floor was gone, and they continued to move backward at warp speed.

They stopped quite suddenly and Ron heard Draco mutter "uh-ho." Harry opened one eye fearfully and looked down. His heart stopped.

They were directly over the Atlantic ocean, frozen in midair about two hundred feet above the water. Just standing there.

"We're in trouble," Harry said.

"Gee, you think so?" Draco mocked sarcastically. They just stayed like that for a moment, and Ron made the mistake of looking down for too long.

He felt his stomach turn menacingly.

"So what do we do now?" he asked.

"Well, we could just wait until a friendly passerby plane gives us a lift, or I could find a way to channel back my powers," Draco said.

"I think I'll take number two."

"Malfoy, I just thought of something," Harry said.

"That's new," Draco said.

"What if I tried to Apparate us the rest of the way?" he asked, ignoring Malfoy's snide remark.

"You don't know how! You'd get us killed!"

"No, think about this. We both have the powers, and we were both mentioned in Ginny's prophecy. If you can get us half way, I'll try the rest." Harry knew that Draco was thinking about it.

"Okay," the Slytherin said hesitantly. "But I need to put a breaking spell on you to unleash the power." Harry nodded. Draco took his wand from his pants pocket and pointed it at Harry's forehead, just above his scar

"Liberare corporalis potentia," He muttered. There was a flash of white light and then he put the wand back, nodding at Harry as a sign that the spell had worked.

Harry gulped, took in a gasping breath, and before he knew it they were lying in a heap in an alleyway of a dingy looking bar called Deeno's.

Ron blinked a few times, and then asked the question that was on everyone's mind.

"So. We're in the middle of New York with no money, no idea where we are, and I'm pretty sure by the way that I landed that I'm not going to have kids anytime soon. So what do we do now?" he said, looking from one dumbfounded face to the other.

Not to mention that my little sister's body is lying on the couch in the living room, he thought.

"Well," Draco said, scratching his head thoughtfully. "We could use the Accio spell, but a girl flying through mid-air in the heart of America probably wouldn't be good publicity."

"We'll just have to do it the old fashioned way," Harry said, rising to his feet and wiping the dust and gravel off his shirt.

"And what's that?" Draco asked. "put me up for hire at a women's strip club and hope that she comes to see me?"

"No," Harry said disgustedly. Ron pretended to hurl from behind him. "We'll have to go from hotel to hotel and ask for a Hermione Granger."

"Perfect," Ron muttered to himself sarcastically. "Do you know how long this is going to take? I was looking forward to retiring at age sixty, but if I go with you guys that might not happen."

"So did Hermione tell you anything about where she was staying?" Harry asked and they walked out of the alley and into the streets of the city.

"She said something about the statue of liberty outside her window," Ron stated.

"That's on the coast," Draco murmured. "Over there." He pointed at the grayish-green sea water about two miles away.

"So that narrows it down."

Draco signaled a taxi with his hand and one stopped at their feet. They piled into the back timidly, because it smelled suspiciously of macaroni and fish.

"Just to the shore," he told the fat, hairy driver. "Would you happen to know a hotel with a view of the statue, would you?" the driver grunted.

"The Madison."

"We'll go there, then," Harry said. The man nodded.

The cab stopped just off the sidewalk a mile farther in front of a large sky scraper with an enourmous sign out front that stood fifty feet off the ground like a billboard. The Madison.

"Thanks," Ron muttered, opening the door.

"Ten bucks," the cabby muttered.

"Uh... could you wait a second?" Draco said and the three of them ran out of the car and into the double doors of the hotel.

A few minutes went by, and finally Harry peeked around through the glass.

"He's gone," he said to the others as the man drove off, shaking his head and giving the building an innapropriate hand sign.

"Good," Draco said and walked to the front desk.

"Is there a Granger in the building?" he asked the thin bellboy at the counter. The bellboy clicked the mouse at the computer and shook his head. He turned to Harry and Ron, shrugging.

"What about a Bella Sullivan?" Ron suddenly cut in. The man checked the computer again, his expression businesslike and blank.

"Yes sir," the bellboy said. "Room two thirteen."

"Great," Harry said happily.

"Third floor, left side," the boy called as they walked off.

* * *

Once they found the room the bellhop had told them, Ron knocked on the door, his heart skipping.

"Hang on," a familiar voice said from inside. Hermione opened the door a few seconds later and Ron had to keep from gasping.

She was wearing a short cut, white tank top tied at the waist and dark blue shorts, her hair in a shiny ponytail. She looked nothing like herself.

"Ron?" she said, grinning disbelievingly. "Harry? Draco?" It bothered Ron more than a bit that she'd called Malfoy by his first name. "What are you doing here?"

"It's a long story," Harry said as she let them in the room.

***

Bella Sullivan placed a gold loop earring in the piercing just above her lobe. She stared at herself in the mirror, her dishwater blonde hair flipped up and sparkling in the light. She liked the way she looked.

"Hermione," she called from the other room.

"Bella!" Hermione yelled. "Get out here! You won't believe it!"

Bella rolled her eyes.

"What is it?" she asked. "If it's that naked guy in the apartment facing ours, we've already seen him, remember? Last Sunday? You even made us skip the weekly movie so we could watch..."

"No!" Hermione said, embarrassment crawling at her voice. Bella heard snickering in the background, and immediately she ventured out into the living room and gasped happily as she saw the three boys next to her friend, all quite considerable as good dates.

There was a long silence before who she suspected was Malfoy chimed in.

"What are you?" he blurted, covering his mouth. She laughed.

"Believe it or not, I get that a bunch. I think that my great-great-great grandma was part veela, if that's what you're asking," she said, plopping down beside Draco on the sofa, running her finger along the rim of an empty coke can on the end table.

"No, You've got to be more than that," Ron said in awe. "I've been under the spell of a whole veela. It's nothing like this." He blushed considerably. "I mean...I saw your picture, and all, but...,"

Bella went into a fit of giggles, and Hermione rolled her eyes. He blinked.

"What?" he asked. Hermione snorted.

"Nothing," Bella said. "It's just the look on your face." Ron closed his mouth quickly. Harry attempted to casually place a pillow on top of himself. "Anyway, You're right. 'm not sure, but I think I'm a quarter angel." Draco's eyes grew wide.

"Angel?" he asked, and uncharacteristically stuttered a bit. She smiled and Harry felt his knees go weak.

"An angel isn't what you think it is. It's sort of like a veela, only they're creatures that were once living humans, but died and their souls contained so much good that they just turned into an angel," she said. She shrugged. "I guess my family just really likes magical creatures."

The boys laughed and Hermione rolled her eyes again. But, she noticed that Bella had taken a bit of a liking to Draco as the dirty blonde scooted closer to him.

Not that she liked Draco, at least not much, but she sort of wanted someone to notice how much she'd changed, too.

"Ron?" she called. He cocked his head at her questioningly. It seemed as if the effects that Bella had on him were wearing off faster that the others. Maybe she was just imagining it, for her own benefit. "Can I talk to you in the other room?" He nodded and followed her into the small kitchen to the left.

Now what do I do? she thought.

"So whatcha need, Mione?" he asked, eyeing the cheesy fries on the table.

Nice going, idiot, Do something!

Hesitantly, she took a step closer and pressed her lips quickly against his. It was a kiss, and a question.

He stood, frozen in shock. She began to feel embarrassed. She absentmindedly bit her lip, and Ron kissed her again, this time harder.

Hmm. This is new. They backed into the table at the far corner and knocked over the bag of cheesy fries haphazardly. Hermione steadied herself on the fridge and Ron lifted her onto the island clumsily. This is very new.

She felt dizzy from lack of air and pried his face off her for a moment, and he pulled back, jumping off and leaning on the side of the table. Hermione felt a little silly, because she was still on the countertop.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, crossing his arms.

"Hey," Hermione said, laughing. "We're hormonal seventeen year olds in a New York apartment without any adults. You don't have any right to be sorry."

"Which reminds me," Ron cut in. "Where are your parents?"

She grinned.

"The Marriott was filled up by the time they rented us out a room," she said. "They're in the hotel next to us on Oppidum Boulevard." She gave him a quick kiss on his cheek, lowering herself from the counter and walking out the kitchen door.

Ron pressed his palms together and looked towards the ceiling in a prayer.

"Thank you," he mouthed.