Harry again awoke suddenly, covered in sweat, and hesitantly walked outside to tell Ginny what he had seen. She once again took the news in stride, but Harry sensed that she was hiding a great deal of worry and stress from him. The two resolved that they would have to go after Ron and Hermione sooner than they had originally planned. Harry was now hopeful that they could manage, because along with dismay at learning that Ron was also a captive of Lord Voldemort, he felt jubilation at learning where he and Hermione were being held. On the wall of the room Harry had seen, there was a portrait of a medieval wizard with cold grey eyes and a pale, pointed face. After six years of seeing that face at Hogwarts, Harry knew that it was an ancestor of his long-time Hogwarts adversary: Draco Malfoy.

But knowing that Ron and Hermione were being held at the Malfoy home did not do much to help Harry and Ginny get there. Neither of them had ever visited the Malfoy's home before, so they didn't know exactly where it was. Plus, Harry remembered Dumbledore once telling him that most Wizarding dwellings have magical protection against unwanted Apparitions. He and Ginny wracked their brains for several hours before the answer came to him.

"Dobby!"

"What?" said Ginny, confused.

"Dobby!" Harry exclaimed. He used to serve the Malfoys! He knows where they live!"

"Oh, good thinking Harry!" said Ginny excitedly. "Can you call him?"

"I don't know," said Harry, "I'm not his master, so I don't know he'll know. But it's worth a try… Dobby!"

Harry and Ginny froze, waiting hopefully for the familiar crack and arrival of the friendly house-elf, but nothing happened.

"Oh well," said Harry, "we can just go visit him at Hogwarts!"

"Harry, Snape is headmaster now, we can't just walk in the front doors!"

But Harry's grin didn't leave his face. "Blimey Gin, I forgot, you don't know about the secret passageway!"

Harry rushed over to Hermione's handbag and pulled out the Marauder's Map. Harry quickly unfurled it and showed Ginny the tunnel behind the statue of the one-eyed witch that led to the Honeydukes cellar.

"So we just need to Apparate to Hogsmeade, and then sneak into Honeydukes under the Cloak!"

"I don't know," said Ginny apprehensively, "don't you think there will be extra security?"

"Fred and George told me that Filch doesn't know about this passageway," said Harry with a shrug, "I don't see any reason why Snape would know better than he did. Plus, Fred, George, and I have used it loads of times, and Snape never caught us!"

"Well, we'd better get going then!" Ginny replied, now convinced.

Harry felt a rush of exhilaration, but when he looked outside he saw that it was nearly dusk. With a frown, he said, "We'd better wait, Gin. We probably shouldn't break into the shop when it isn't open, I don't want to alert the owners before we can get back out."

"Oh all right," said Ginny, crestfallen, "well come and keep watch with me, Harry, and we can make a plan!"

Harry and Ginny sat outside together for the first time in weeks, and although it was rather cold, it felt good to finally be making noticeable progress. He had just finished telling Ginny about the portrait of fruit that led to the Hogwarts kitchens when a bright silver light appeared right ahead of them, moving through the trees. Harry screwed up his eyes as the light became blinding, the trees in front of it pitch-black in silhouette, and still the thing came closer… Then, the source of the light stepped out from behind an oak. It was a silver-white doe, moon-bright and dazzling, picking her way over the ground, still silent, and leaving no hoofprints in the fine powdering of snow.

She stepped toward them, her beautiful head with its wide, long-lashed eyes held high. Harry stared at the creature, filled with wonder, not at her strangeness, but at her inexplicable familiarity. He felt that he had been waiting for her to come, but that he had forgotten, until this moment, that they had arranged to meet. They gazed at each other for several long moments and then she turned and walked away. "No!" Harry shouted, "Come back!" She continued to step deliberately through the trees, and soon her brightness was striped by their thick black trunks.

Caution murmured it could be a trick, a lure, a trap. But instinct, overwhelming instinct, told Harry that this was not Dark Magic. He suddenly set off in pursuit, Ginny a couple of steps behind him. Snow crunched beneath their feet, but the doe made no noise as she passed through the trees, for she was nothing but light. Deeper and deeper into the forest she led them, and Harry walked quickly, sure that when she stopped, she would allow him to approach her properly. At last, she came to a halt. She turned her beautiful head toward him once more, and he broke into a run, a question burning in him, but as he opened his lips to ask it, she vanished.

Though the darkness had swallowed the doe whole, her image was still imprinted on Harry's retinas; it obscured his vision, brightening when he lowered his eyelids, disorienting him. "Lumos!" Ginny whispered, and her wand-tip ignited. The imprint of the doe faded away with every blink of Harry's eyes as he stood there, listening to the sounds of the forest, to distant crackles of twigs, soft swishes of snow. Concern suddenly flooded back into Harry's mind. Were they about to be attacked? Had she enticed them into an ambush? Was he imagining that somebody stood beyond the reach of the wandlight, watching them? But nobody ran out, no flash of green light burst from behind a tree. Why, then, had she led him to this spot? But as soon as Harry had asked the question to himself, Ginny shouted, "Harry, look!"

Something gleamed in the light of the wand, and Harry spun about, but all that was there was a small, frozen pool, its cracked black surface glittering in the wandlight. He moved forward rather cautiously and looked down. The ice reflected his distorted shadow and the beam of light, but deep below the thick, misty gray carapace, something else glinted. A great silver cross... His heart skipped into his mouth: He dropped to his knees at the pool's edge and told Ginny to angle her wand so as to flood the bottom of the pool with as much light as possible. A glint of deep red... It was a sword with glittering rubies in its hilt... The sword of Gryffindor was lying at the bottom of the forest pool.

Harry pointed his wand at the silvery shape and murmured, "Accio Sword." It did not stir. He had not expected it to. If it had been that easy, the sword would have lain on the ground for him to pick up, not in the depths of a frozen pool. As Harry turned to ask what Ginny thought they should do, however, he was shocked to see that she was jumping headfirst into the icy water.

Harry chortled loudly at her nerve. But he scanned their surroundings again, still unable to shake the sensation that someone was watching them. However, he still could not see anyone or anything in the trees. How was this possible? How could the sword have come to be lying in a forest pool, this close to the place where they were camping? Had some unknown magic drawn Harry to this spot, or was the doe, which he had taken to be a Patronus, some kind of guardian of the pool? Or had the sword been put into the pool after they had arrived, precisely because they were here? In which case, where was the person who had wanted to pass it to Harry? Confusion filled Harry's mind as he returned his attention to Ginny and the frozen pool.

Ginny still had not emerged from the water. Harry dropped to his knees to get a better look at what was happening, when he suddenly was filled with horror as he noticed Ginny, sword in hand, struggling with something around her neck. The locket was strangling her.

Without a second thought, Harry jumped into the water after her. By the time he was completely submerged, Ginny's face had turned slightly blue. Harry rushed to cut the chain off her neck, grab her around the waist, and summoned all his remaining strength to hoist her body upward onto the snowy forest floor.

The two lay there coughing for several seconds, shivering violently in the bitterly cold night air, before Ginny rushed to Harry and kissed him fervently. "Harry," she finally breathed, "oh my… I thought I was going to drown!"

"So did I," Harry panted, "that Horcrux isn't going down without a fight, is it?"