How We Shine

How We Shine

~*~*~

Part Two: Albedo

It is in men as in soils where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not.
~Jonathan Swift

~*~*~

Rare are the people who believe the truth even when the truth isn't obvious, rarer still are the intelligent ones. The truth was that Harry hadn't put his name in the goblet of fire. His age wouldn't have allowed him, and he knew far better than to risk himself for only a pittance and a silly title. Still, there were those who doubted him, the bumbling fools jealous of his name and his talent. He never let their taunts or their envy dissuade him. The youngest of four by at least three years, and still he became the champion of champions, the first to enter the maze and the only to complete it. He first saw death then, in that graveyard he was carried to by the portkey, and he first saw the Dark Lord returned. The gathered crowd gasped at the sight of him bringing back the lifeless body of the Hufflepuff champion, and many began to murmur to themselves, false speculations about what really happened. Harry Potter would tell the truth again, and again, he would be doubted and questioned and mocked, but just as before, he knew his courage and Hermione's cleverness would see him through.

~*~*~

Though Luna was wrong about the house elves hiding gold in the kitchens, she was certainly right about it being cold in the dungeons, not only cold but dark too-- dark in a way that makes the cold feel twice as sharp and silent, save for her whispered singing and the echoes of his footsteps.

"Long ago, yes long, long ago 'bout a thousand years or more,
There was a school, yes a lovely, lovely school built by the founders four."

For a while now, Ron's been suspecting that Luna really is smart, not like normally smart people, who read their school books and study three hours for every one they spend in class, not like Hermione, not even like ordinary people given to brief flashes of brilliance, but like Dumbledore was when he was alive, mad and bright and knowing, a way Ron admired once when he felt more alive then he does now.

"First was Ravenclaw, then Hufflepuff, Slytherin and Gryff-in-dor."

She walks through the world like it's just a dream and nothing can really hurt her, and she smiles like she understands all of its secret rules. It's uncomfortable, really, and it puts him off balance, but he begins to think that maybe he'd rather have her here than Hermione. Maybe she was given this job for a reason. Maybe he was too.

"Though I may be quite little, you shouldn't judge me by my size,
And I may seem rather gritty, but I'm actually quite wise"

This is the last part of the castle to check. They'll nothing left after the dungeons. They agreed that the spell would be done tonight, when the moon is at its fullest. And they know Hogwarts won't last another month in this state. The school is the center, not the ministry in London or the order's headquarters at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. If they let Hogwarts fall then all of Wizarding England will soon follow.

"For I took it as my duty to see that the school goes on,
And I may not be a beauty, but you should listen to me, Ron--ald!"

Luna's song ends when they come to the potion's laboratory. Ron forces open the door, which has been barricaded from the inside by a pile of desks, and Luna pulls the sorting hat off and uses it to cover her nose, coughing. "It smells worse than a nest of nargles down here."

"We'll there's the reason!" Ron says, catching sight of the hunched over figure of Malfoy in the front of the room.

"Quiet," she whispers, climbing over the desks, and Ron follows as she moves a bit closer to examine Malfoy. "You'll wake him by being too loud."

"So?" Ron asks, stepping in front of her and poking Malfoy's side with his foot. "Hey! Hey, Ferret! It's probably not a good idea to be down here right now!" Ron pokes him again and is rewarded by a soft jingling sound. He looks up at Luna with a slight smile, and then pulls ten galleons from the pocket of Malfoy's robe. "Hey, he actually came in handy."

Luna nods. "I knew we'd find something if we kept looking."

"Yeah, I guess." He turns back to Malfoy and kicks him hard in the stomach. There's no jingling this time, just a squashy noise and the thud of Malfoy's head falling back against the stone floor. "Wake up!" Ron shouts, but Malfoy doesn't wake up. He just flops about like a limp rag, and it's a few seconds before everything catches up with Ron, and he drops the galleons and stumbles backwards, feeling sick.

Luna regards him curiously for a moment. Then she kneels down beside Malfoy, and taps him on the chest a few times with her fist. "Get up," she tells him matter-of-factly. "You'll suffocate if you don't get up."

"Luna, he's . . . I don't think he's going to get up."

"Oh," she says. It's more of a breath than a word-- a shape she makes with her mouth before straightening herself and covering Malfoy's face with the sorting hat and using her hands to smooth down his robes. It's odd, and it's tender, and it's entirely wrong, and Ron has to look away when she starts talking to Malfoy in that even voice of hers, as if he's really listening, as if he can really hear.

In his peripheral vision, he catches sight something unpleasantly familiar, and it makes him take the kind of deep breath a person takes when they're about to do something very, very stupid. "Well," he says, picking Creevey's book up off the floor, "now we know what killed him. He probably got sick to death reading this." It's a bad joke, and it's horribly inappropriate, and Ron knows it, but he's beginning to tear up over bloody, stinking Malfoy when he hadn't even managed to for Harry. And he starts thinking that Malfoy was probably as crap at being an evil minion as he is at fixing Hogwarts. And they're all just stupid kids, anyway, but instead of casting jumping jinxes or melting cauldrons, they end up getting butchered by Dark Lords, or dying alone in stinking dungeons, or failing everyone they've ever cared about.

"Ronald--"

He keeps going without looking at her, because he knows he won't be able to listen to what she has to say, and he doesn't think he'd be able to stop talking if he tried. "Let's see how long he got before it did him in," he says, skimming the page it was opened to and fighting to keep his voice from breaking. "Well there it is. I'll just have to tell Hermione I was wrong. See, I am mentioned here. Apparently, I'm the poorest of people, how about that! And it even says that Harry graciously stayed at my humble dwelling. I didn't even know I had a humble dwelling!"

"Ron."

"Oh, and look here, will you! Here it says I'm a bumbling fool for doubting Harry! Only, it doesn't bother to say my name! I wasn't the only one, though." He turns back to Malfoy, and his stomach lurches slightly. "I guess you fit into that category too."

"You'll see him again."

"I don't want to see him again! I hate him!" Ron realizes a bit too late that she's probably talking about Harry and not Malfoy, but that doesn't matter now, because his answer would have been just the same. "And if you haven't noticed," he says throwing the book across the room and watching it land in a smoking cauldron, "I really, really hate that bloody thing!"

"It's wrong about what's important," Luna half-whispers. "And it doesn't matter what it says, anyway. Colin was never very smart about some things."

"He's bloody delusional-- that's what he is!" Ron wonders if screaming loud enough will drown out the voice in his head that tells him Creevey was right and he really isn't even worth a footnote.

"No one will believe it."

Ron glances at Malfoy again, just in case he might have woken up and started moving, but of course he hasn't, and Ron quickly shifts his eyes back towards the floor. "No, Luna, you won't believe it, and that doesn't mean anything, because you don't believe what's right in front of your face, and the things you do believe aren't real. But people-- regular people do believe things. They believed Lockhart, and Skeeter, and Fudge, and they'll believe Creevey too. And you'll be able to go on just fine when they do, because what people believe doesn't bother you at all, but I can't do that, because it's about Harry, and he is-- he was my friend."

Luna sighs and taps her foot and twirls a strand of hair around her wand. "You're a Gryffindor, and you're brave. You should trust yourself more than some book."

"No," he says "No, I'm not brave. I just used to think that I was or that maybe I could be. Sometimes, I thought I'd die to save him. And sometimes, I thought if it happened this way-- the way things are now, it would be because of me-- because I messed up somehow, miscalculated something or barged in taking a stupid chance, but Harry took stupid chances too. He was just lucky and got away with most of them. I wasn't there when it happened, and that's almost a relief, because it's over, and I wasn't the one who let him down."

"You weren't there?"

"Ha," it's a bitter sound, not quite a laugh, but it's all he can manage. "Hermione thought it would be better if I stayed at Grimmauld Place. I never figured out how to throw off the Imperius like the rest of them did, and I never got the hang of Bill's Dementor resistance thing. And guess what? I was relieved about that too! So I'm not brave like you said! I'm a coward! I'm almost as bad as-- as Malfoy!" He sighs, absently rubbing his still-bleeding finger against the front of his shirt, and he looks back at Malfoy, this time longer than before, probably longer than he ever had while Malfoy was alive, and the bloody annoying voice in his head whispers, 'Hey, Ferret, we're just the same.'

"Ron," Luna says. "Ronald, we have to keep looking.

Ron wrenches his eyes away from Malfoy, but can't help turning back every few seconds to make sure that he really hasn't started moving. "Where, huh? What are we supposed to do about this?" He points to the galleons scattered across the floor, and he almost feels bad about taking them now, even though they were probably just stolen anyway. "This is all we have, and we've looked everywhere."

She smiles, but there's no mistaking it for happy. "Not everywhere."

~*~*~

Perhaps because of his upbringing or perhaps because of the humble company he kept, Harry Potter never expected that there was anything truly spectacular about himself, though there had been indications of true brilliance that were clear to anyone who looked closely or even casually studied the way he hardly had to concentrate to perform the most difficult of spells. And those who didn't notice this needed only to recognize the way the great Albus Dumbledore regarded him. But Dumbledore's hold over the school was weakened that year by a ministry, trying its hardest to disprove Harry and prevent news of the Dark Lord's return from spreading. Instead of becoming angry or bitter at the accusations made against him, Harry sought to spread not only the truth but also the hope of victory. And he began to teach others the spells that came so easily to him, never becoming angry or losing his temper, even when a malicious professor prevented him from playing Quidditch. So the Gryffindor team struggled through on what little talent it had left, and with him cheering them on, they won the Quidditch cup. But there were things lost that year too. Harry's godfather was tricked by the Dark Lord and killed by one of his servants.

~*~*~

When Luna's upset-- really upset-- she gets normal. It takes Ron some time to figure this out in the way it takes him some time to figure most things out, but ever since seeing Malfoy in the dungeons she's stopped talking about the Quibbler and blibbering humdingers, and her eyes seem to have gotten just a bit less wide and just a bit more focused. Ron, on the other hand, finds himself spinning out in the opposite direction and is thankful that Hermione's not around to scold him about his temper. He can't even figure out what's made him so angry or why he's losing control now when what he needs most is to concentrate on not screwing up again.

Luna had dragged him out onto the grounds, and he followed, stumbling behind, not sure what to expect, what gold there was to find out in the weeds of the overgrown fields. But now, she just stands in the muddy sand by the lake looking lost.

"So?" he asks, but she doesn't answer. "SO?"

"What is it, Ronald?" she says, sounding perfectly fine and entirely unlike herself. "What do you want?"

"We have to keep looking," he says. "We can't just give up."

"Well . . ." she starts and then pauses to calmly brush some dust from the hem of her robe. "Well, you've been making it perfectly clear from the beginning that you already have."

"I haven't!" Ron shouts, and he doesn't know what made him say it, whether he's just trying to be difficult or he's actually started to believe they might have a chance. "I haven't quit anything."

"Fine, then don't."

They stand there in uncomfortable silence for a few seconds before he works himself up to asking again. "Well?"

She turns to him, face completely blank. "It's up to you now, isn't it?"

"Oh no," he stammers. "No, you can't do that. You can't put this all on me now that we know we don't have anything to work with. We can't just make gold. Maybe somebody can, but we can't. We can't get something from nothing."

"Then you'll have to find it, won't you?"

"You sound like Hermione now, I hope you know." Ron says with a scowl, and he's slightly pleased to see her offended by it. "You're also making even less sense now than you usually do. Where am I going to find gold out here?" He trails off when he can't think of anything to fill the silence, and she doesn't speak either. So they just stand there for a few more minutes, him in the grass and her in the sand, and it slowly dawns on him that however different they are, they're probably thinking the exact same thing, 'it's over.' But neither of them can say it. Neither can say anything, because he's too proud to admit defeat, and she's too open to tell him something that she doesn't believe herself.

He takes a few steps closer to the lake and looks out over the water, which is only half as deep as it once was and covered with the thick, black sheen of oil. Luna speaks without looking at him. "The thestrals are watching us."

"Oh." He snaps his head around in the direction of the forest, but he can't see anything except for the trees and the lengthening shadows. The sun's barley visible over the western horizon. Soon it will be too dark. Soon it will be tomorrow. Soon it will be too late.

"They're right behind us," she says. "You should be able too look at them through the lake. It's dead, you see."

He squints and studies the surface for any reflections. He certainly doesn't doubt that it's dead-- everything--all the fish and the mermaids even the squid. He feels kind of bad about that, even if the fool thing had saved Creevey's brother. "No, I can't. It's too dark. I can't see anything."

"You're not looking hard enough."

He lowers his head and squints at the water, trying to make out any shapes reflecting on its surface. "Okay, I'm looking, but I still don't see anything."

"Look harder," she says calmly. "You have to look harder."

"How?!" he tries to shout, but as if the anger catches the word somewhere in his throat, it comes out rasped and quiet. "I can't look harder! There's nothing there!"

"You don't see things, Ronald," Luna says, starting to walk away. "There's so much right in front of you that you never even see. You can't even look at yourself properly or Harry."

"I can't look at Harry because he's dead," Ron mutters to himself, crossing his arms over his chest. But Luna keeps walking, and if she's heard him, she shows now sign of it. "Fine. Whatever," he says louder and takes a few steps toward the water. "I'm looking at the bloody lake again. Maybe I just can't see the thestrals because I've never seen anyone die. Did you ever think of that? Maybe I don't want to see them either. Maybe the castle is about to fall down, and I don't care whether I can see a few stupid, ugly horses! I'm looking, though! I'm here, and I'm looking, and I can't see anything through all the black and the-- the . . ."

Luna's footsteps stop, and he hears her suck air in through her teeth. "The what?"

"The rainbows," he says, twisting his neck so he can see her.

Her shoulders go rigid for a second. Then she turns back to him with a very familiar, very strange look on her face. "Rainbows?"

He shrugs and points to where the fading light bends in all colors over the water. "They block out any real reflection or twist it so much . . . I can't see anything."

Luna skips a few steps towards the lake so that she's standing right next to him. "Maybe you can."

"What?" Ron asks, feeling horribly confused and wishing she would just make up her mind about whether he could see or not so he can go on seeing or not seeing just as he always has.

"Ronald, you've done it!" she shouts, peering into the lake and moving one hand through the air as if tracing some invisible curve.

He shrugs and uncrosses his arms. "I've done what?"

"Rainbows," she says, laughing, and Ron notices that her eyes have gone wide again.

"What are you talking about?"

"There's gold at the end of every rainbow!"

"Gold?" It takes Ron a few seconds for his mind to switch gears and catch up with her. "No, that's not-- that's leprechaun gold. That won't work. It won't even last."

"That's okay," she says with a half smile.

"No, it's not okay. I don't think you understand. It won't last."

"Nothing does," she says, looking impossibly hopeful, "not forever. Things don't have to be permanent to be real."

~*~*~

You need to find something in nothing. You know that much. And it seemed so simple when it was all just words on parchment, but things usually do and you remember another book that was easier to disbelieve but harder to get out of your head-- a book about Potter.

"You want to beat me," Potter says as if he's telling you something you don't already know, and then his voice becomes almost imperceptibly softer. "That's all you've ever wanted, isn't it?"

"No," you say. "This has nothing to do with you." But you can tell he doesn't believe you. And you try not to think of him and concentrate on the stone and what you'll be able to do when you have it.

"You only want it for yourself," he says. "You'll never get it that way."

"Shut up!" you shout, wondering how he's seeming to read your thoughts and why on earth he would claim to know anything about this. And, you think, it's typical Potter for him to be so ridiculously convinced that he's always right. And maybe he is. Maybe he was summoning philosopher's stones since first year. But you know that he's been wrong before. Unless he meant to get himself killed, he's been wrong at least once. "Shut up, Potter. You don't know anything."

"Fine," he says with a shrug. "Have it your own way." And for a few seconds, you expect him to leave, to retreat back into the darkness behind him, but he doesn't, and you don't know whether to be annoyed or relieved because of it, but you don't dwell on this long.

Pain blooms in the pit of your stomach, pain worse than anything you've ever felt before, and it spreads through your body so that even your ears and toes and fingernails ache. "Ow-- ouch."

Potter rolls his eyes and you know this, somehow, even though your own eyes are shut tight. When you open them to look at him he seems smaller and blurred and less real than you remember, but his voice, the same voice he always had, echoes in your mind when he speaks. "What now, Malfoy?

"I . . . It-- it . . ." You can't speak, and you want to shut your eyes again, but you know that if you open them again Potter might be gone, and that scares you more than you'll ever admit. So you force your eyes to stay open, even though sight doesn't mater and soon fades to a black-grey haze. For a few seconds, there is only pain-- pain stronger than your hate and more terrible than the darkness around you. And then you focus on Potter, and slowly, he seems to become more defined, sharper around the edges. "It hurts," you manage to croak out while doubling over. "It hurts."

"What?" Potter asks, and he sounds almost surprised.

"Everything," you say. "Everything hurts." And you don't know how it could hurt here when your body is so far away, but it does-- everything does, and you don't really want to think about why.

"Oh." There's a look on Potter's face that, if you didn't know better, you might have mistaken for sympathy.

"It hurts!" you say again, louder this time and with as much hate as you can get behind it, but he only nods and gives you a strange stare that you refuse to acknowledge.

"Did you really think it wouldn't?" he asks, and you wonder if he was always this good at being vague or if he picked it up out of boredom shortly after dying, but you can't hold on to that thought long, because even thinking hurts too much.

"What?" you spit. "Some help you are, Potter."

His stare hardens, and you would have taken this as a victory if your skin didn't feel like it was burning and freezing at the same time. "You don't want my help," he says with a definite glare. "And I'm sure whatever I could do would only be a disappointment." He tilts his head back slightly and sighs. "I was crap in most of my classes, you know. By sixth year, I just stopped caring. I don't know if you noticed that. You weren't that great either, but I'm pretty sure you got better marks than me, or would have if Dumbledore hadn't suggested my 'special circumstances' be considered," he says this, looking very much like he wants to punch someone, and you try to take an awkward, shuffling step back, but end up toppling over onto your side.

If Potter notices that you've fallen, he doesn't show it. He just keeps talking-- talking about himself and his tragic little life, which is over, of course. He's dead, and he's still complaining that he got better grades in school than he deserved. And his self-righteousness isn't so annoying, now-- it can't be. It's funny and pathetic and completely ridiculous. You laugh, and it hurts, but you don't care. And you try to stand and manage it, somehow, despite feeling like your insides are melting.

Potter flashes you a quick grin and keeps talking. "I never learned Occlumency. Snape tried to teach me, but I never learned. I just couldn't get it, and you know what I did? I gave up. You wouldn't have given up, would you? You would have kept going even if it killed you. That's the way you've always been."

"I'm not stupid," you say, just incase Potter is capable of listening to a voice other than his own.

He gives a quick nod and looks at you from the corner of his eye. "And I was a disaster at chess. I couldn't even beat most first years. I would always take my queen out too early. I guess I just wanted to get the game over with, but that's no way to win, really. That's no way to do anything."

"What's your point," you ask, and you're surprised that your throat seems to hurt less than it did before.

He smirks. "I'm just trying to explain how little help I can be to you. I wasn't that great at Quidditch either. Nobody seems to remember how Cedric beat me in third year. Everyone blamed it on the Dementors, even me for a while. But it was wet and cold, and windy, and in the end, Cedric was better than me. When things got bad, he was better than me, most people were-- Hermione, Ginny . . . Ron . . . definitely Ron, even if he never realized there's more to magic than throwing off Imperius or resisting Dementors."

You start shouting, "Of course . . ." And you trail off, unsure of where you're going or where you really are, and Potter's still smirking like he knows something you don't. Your arms are waving about, and you're breathing hard, and you're in more pain than you've ever before imagined, but all you want to do is wipe the smirk of his face. And then you realize why the smirk's there and what Potter knows. He knows you. He knows you far better than he should. That's why he's going on about himself. That's why you got up after falling, because if you didn't, you wouldn't be able to knock him over the head, which is exactly what you feel like doing now. You scowl at him. "I get it."

"Yeah," he says with a look that you can't quite place. "Yeah, I figured you would . . . And I got killed, Malfoy, incase you haven't noticed. I got killed." He stops to take a deep breath and when he speaks again his voice isn't so steady. "Feel better now?"

"It still hurts," you say, and it does hurt, and it's slowly starting to hurt worse than before. Your legs are getting weaker, and a part of you wants to sit down on the stone floor, but you're pretty sure you won't manage to stand up again if you do, and then you definitely won't be able to hit him, but you're not so sure you want to anymore. And this isn't how things were supposed to be.

Potter's voice is quiet and bitter. "I know it hurts," he says. "You think I don't know?"

"No you don't!" you snap, more out of habit than anything else and because concentrating on Potter made the pain almost go away before, but you don't think that's the kind of thing that can ever happen more than once. Whatever magic was there is lost now.

"Yes I do," he says, and he opens his mouth like he's going to say something more, but you don't let him.

"No-- no, Potter!" you shout before he can get any words out. And it doesn't matter whether Potter believes you. It doesn't matter how many times Potter's been put under Cruciatus and suffered more than any normal person could with having their mind turn to mush or if didn't suffer at all, because he was so far above normal that little unforgivable curses couldn't touch him-- because that first curse certainly didn't, and he's the boy who lived. But he doesn't live now. And it's funny, really, because it was always in past tense-- you just never noticed. "I don't think you understand!" you shout, and he gives you as strange look. "I don't think you understand at all!"

"Understand what?"

"It--it feels like I'm dying here," you say. It's not a pleasant thought, but it's true. You can almost taste it.

Potter's eyes narrow, and keeps staring like he's not quite sure what to make of you, and you glare back at him, but he just swallows and opens his mouth a few times, teetering somewhere between anger and pity. When he does manage to speak, his voice is soft and strained. "Malfoy, you are."

There's a sinking feeling in your stomach, and something seems to be balled up in your throat. You close your eyes so you don't have to look at him. "No-- no, I'm . . ."

"If it makes you feel any better, I really wanted you to get it, the philosopher's stone, I mean." You open your eyes, and Potter smiles, looking like his usual smug self. "An eternity without you-- I wouldn't have minded that at all." He shrugs, and the smile falls away. "But I suspect I'll be able to deal with this as well."

"Deal with what?" You ask, trying to sneer, but finding your lips unable to do anything but tremble.

"With you," he says. "You're going to make me absolutely miserable, aren't you?" He waves an arm, motioning for you to come closer.

"What?" you ask, even though you know just what he's talking and when the realization comes crashing down, it doesn't hurt nearly as much as you thought it would. And maybe that's just because you're hurting so much everywhere else that it dwarfs the pain you feel upon learning you're going to die, but maybe it's not. Maybe it's because Potter's there complaining about how irritating you're going to be, and you don't even care that he's about to be right one last time, because he was wrong enough times before. You both were. "Don't tell me I ever got to you, Potter. Me? Annoy the boy who lived, the great hero of the age?"

"You were absolutely maddening," he says with a smile that doesn't look so smug anymore. "It's good to see you haven't changed."

"Really?" you ask stumbling a few steps forward, and you don't even care that he's laughing at you.

"Well, come on then," he says nodding. "It'll stop hurting once you get through." And he holds out his hand for you to take. "Come on, Malfoy. I can't go any farther." And you reach for it. You reach for it even if it means dying.

They say your life passes before your eyes at times like this, but what you see isn't your life at all. It's something much bigger, something that your life was just a part of-- a small, barley significant part. You see yourself flying over still water and then land, burning forests and desolate, abandoned farms and deserts, constantly expanding until they mix with the darker sand of another shore. And then everything's dark. The sky is so black that you can't see your hands in front of your face, and it's cold. You'd forgotten about the cold or you didn't feel it, somehow. You can feel it now, and it's not long before it turns your whole body numb, and the pain you felt before slowly melts away.

You don't know how long it is you stay there, feeling nothing and seeing nothing and hearing nothing but your own shallow breathing. You don't know if time is real here or if it ever was. You stare out into the emptiness and decide that you quite liked being alive while it lasted. It was frustrating and embarrassing and completely unfair, but you liked it all the same. And you know you won't be remembered for any great deeds or even petty evils. And trying fudge your way through a dangerous alchemical process probably wasn't a very good idea, even though it seemed like it at the time. But you laugh, and you think of the stupid look on Potter's face when he told you, you were absolutely maddening. And you feel a strange weight in your hand as a warmth spreads up through you arms and quickly surrounds you.

There is consciousness, suddenly-- rapid flashes of color and light that you can't properly make out, but time slows and the nothingness around you becomes so full with everything that your eyes strain to look at it. You see the sky opening up before you and the stars spinning and blinking in and out. You see the world and all that's in it, and you fight to hold yourself there in that moment that Flamel described when all questions are answered, but it's too much, and moments were never meant to last long.

Your eyes are burning and you legs are weak and your head feels like it's going to explode. So you relax and close your eyes let it flow past you, and you understand all of it, all of the questions you could never find the words to ask. When you're not standing in the center anymore, you can see far more than you had, and everything makes sense. Then you open your eyes, and Potter's looking at you in complete shock, and nothing makes sense anymore.

Your legs wobble underneath you, and your bones feel like they've been replaced with jelly. You sway back and forth for a bit, enjoying the feel of solid ground beneath your feet, and against your will, you let out a rather pathetic sounding whimper.

"You've done it," Potter whispers, and after being surrounded by the nothingness, his whisper sounds like a scream.

"What?" you ask, feeling dizzy and clumsy and wondering if you're properly dead now so you can finally lay down and get some rest.

"You've done it, Malfoy."

You try to focus long enough to glare at him, hoping it will make him stop staring, but it doesn't, and you never really expected it to. "What? Done what?"

He tilts his head downward slightly, and you follow the invisible line of his gaze until you find where his eyes are set. Sitting in the hand you were about to give to him is a deep red stone. "That."

"Oh," you breathe. "Oh." You want to say something more, but you can't seem to manage it. You want to jump up and down shouting, 'Oh! Ha! You were wrong about me! You were wrong, you idiot! See how wrong you were!' But you don't. Your legs are still too shaky, and your throat's too sore, and you're still confused about what just happened and what's happening now and what will happen next. You don't say anything. You look up at Potter he's still looking at you.

"Well . . ."

"Uh . . ."

"So . . ."

You force yourself to focus on the stone, and you feel your strength and surety returning. "Guess I won't be joining you after all, Potter," you say, feeling more like yourself than you have in a very long time. "Don't look so disappointed."

Potter gives an indignant snort. "You think I'll be disappointed never to see your git face again? Don't count on it."

"I won't," you say, and you're not sure what you mean by it, except that for a second you would have followed him into the darkness, and that doesn't scare you as much as it should.

"You're supposed to go back now, you know," Potter says with another snort, and you wonder just how long you've been standing there lost in thought. "If you're waiting for me to kiss you goodbye, you're going to be waiting a long time."

You stick out your tongue and then think better of it and cover your mouth with your free hand, so Potter doesn't get any ideas. "Don't be disgusting."

"No," he says rubbing the back of his neck. "I'll leave that to you, Malfoy. Try not to contaminate everything in the world with your general sliminess when you get there."

"See you later, Potter," you say, starting to feel cool stones against your back and smell sulfur in the air.

"No," Potter says, without any hint of feeling in his voice. "No, you won't."

You could say something, and a part of you wants to try, but you're already slipping back into the real world and fighting against it, and trying to hold yourself here with Potter would make you look absolutely ridiculous. So you sigh and shrug and give a little half-hearted wave. And you wake up.

~*~*~