Out of Time

Chapter 45

"Now."

Harry unbinds Draco but hands him the sword rather than his wand. The hiss in the air has both faded and drawn out, becoming akin to a whistling breeze in the distance. It ebbs and flows as Draco's fingers tighten and relax around the sword's hilt, feeling its heft.

It's not the first time Draco has handled the sword, but it's the first time with purpose. Hermione steps back another few steps, doing her best to look confident when Harry's tense eyes find hers. He's poised on the balls of his feet, wand held on Draco. His hand shakes the smallest amount and he tucks his elbow closer to his side for subtle stability.

Keeping a wide berth around Draco, Harry carefully places the diadem on the ground. Hermione fights a sharp desire to pick it up, clean it off with the hem of her shirt, put it somewhere more fitting - high on a shelf, maybe, behind protective glass.

Or even to hold in her hands - just to keep it safe, of course...

No. She wrenches herself back from that mental cliff, and winds her fingers together to keep her hands occupied.

Harry's focus on Draco is now total. "Go ahead, Malfoy. The longer you give it, the harder it becomes. Remember the locket?"

Draco's chin dips once in assent and his knuckles whiten around the sword's handle. His Adam's apple bobs.

"There's no - no other way?"

"No."

The sword moves to Draco's other hand and back again as he stalls. "Is there a way to... destroy the Horcrux but not the crown?"

Hermione also wishes this could be true. She didn't care much for Salazar Slytherin's creepy old antique locket, which was ugly anyway, or a random diary, or a ring that was someone's family heirloom. But this is a stunning object, one of serious magical significance! It's been lost for generations! Wizarding society would revere it. This could be the biggest discovery of their time.

"I don't think so. It might just be a consequence of being hit with the sword, but I don't think it would work if the sword didn't break the surface of it. The basilisk venom has to get inside somehow."

This is perfectly logical in a way that irritates Hermione. She's growing antsy.

Draco tests this at once. He prods the diadem with the tip of the sword. It's a gentle nudge but the crown scoots backwards in the dirt, completely disproportionate to the contact. Hermione jumps backwards too, as if mildly electrocuted.

Stepping forward, Draco pokes it again and gets the same reaction. The crown does not like the sword. The relative proximity of it is displeasing, and this alone is enough to show that the Horcrux is alive and well inside.

"Stop dicking around and do it, already," Harry snaps, losing patience. He rakes his hand backwards through his unruly hair, displacing flecks of soil and browned grass. It's long enough now to fall to a casually dishevelled arrangement by sheer gravity.

"Get off my back, Potter! I'm going."

But he doesn't. He still stands there, fidgeting with the sword and Harry seems to be wrestling with whether or not to continue heckling him about it. When it was the locket, Hermione had screamed and screamed at Harry to cut through the horrible apparitions it was taunting him with. This is different.

It's silent, save the ambient hissing that's become merely part of the background. It's remaining still now, no longer antagonised by the goblin-made silver of the sword too close to it. It seems so harmless and Hermione has another urge to scamper over and tuck it under her arm.