Jimmy wanted to spend his day with Ron and Hermione. Madam Pomfrey would not be ready until after dinner, and so the whole day was his to do with as he chose. Dumbledore readily agreed to excuse his friends from classes for the day, and so the three wandered down to the lake after breakfast and sat in a secluded area, not visible to the other students.
They looked across the gently rippling water. The castle rose on the hill behind them, and the small cemetery nestled into a clearing set back a little way from the lake.
"You and Harry used to come here sometimes," Jimmy said. "I remember those talks you used to have." He looked around. "It's beautiful."
"Yes, it is," Hermione replied.
"Did you ever learn to skip stones properly?" Jimmy asked Ron. "You were always terrible at it." Ron laughed.
"Yeah, just a few months ago." He picked up a smooth rock, stood and slung it across the water. It hopped a few times across the smooth surface of the lake before dropping to the bottom.
Jimmy watched the stone with interest.
"I wonder if, if you threw it hard enough, the stone would skip forever," he said.
"I don't think so," said Hermione. "Sooner or later, it would slow down too much to keep going."
"So you throw another one," Ron said.
"But eventually, you'll run out of stones," Jimmy replied.
The three stared out over the lake for a while longer.
"I'm not sad about it, not any more," Jimmy said, looking at his feet. "There's no reason to be. I'm going to do what I was born to do."
Hermione grasped his hand and held it tightly.
"I guess I'm lucky that way...I know what my purpose in life is, and I know that I can achieve that goal. All I have to do is stay alive until after dinner." He laughed. "So far, so good, right?
"Harry hates it, you know. He hates having to be The Boy Who Lived, knowing that sooner or later he's going to face Voldemort -- oh, Ron, get over it, that's his name -- and he will have the fate of the world riding on his shoulders in the toughest battle of his life. He hates that.
"But what he loves about it is the thought that he can do something to help the people he cares about. You two, Dumbledore, everybody...even Malfoy and Snape. He's had his moments when he is almost happy to be the one on the front lines. He figures that, since the battle has to come sooner or later, at least he'll be in a position to do something, and not have to watch and wait.
"And he couldn't do it without you two. He can't afford to tell you that...he doesn't want you to feel like you have to help him out and put yourselves in harm's way. But I can tell you, and I think you should know."
Ron nodded mutely, and Hermione squeezed his hand painfully tightly.
"We'd do anything for him, you know," she said.
"Can you do something for me?"
"Name it," Ron said.
"After tonight. I want you to tell him about me. I want him to know that I did what I had to do willingly, and that he need not feel bad about any of it. And, I want you to tell him that he owes me one." He smiled.
"Done," Hermione said.
They turned their gaze back to the lake.
Morning turned to afternoon, and Draco found his thoughts turning to the boy he'd met in the bathroom. That boy would be older now, almost his own age, and almost ready for...whatever lay beyond that veil.
What was he doing now? Was he preparing himself? Was he pleading for his life? What would he, Draco Malfoy, do in the same situation? Could he bring himself to go willingly? Or would they have to drag him, kicking and screaming?
Crabbe and Goyle lumbered along beside him like trolls.
An odd thought struck Draco. Why should two useless lumps like Crabbe and Goyle get to live while that boy could not? Potter or not, Jimmy was worth a hundred of those two. What was the point in that?
It went against all of his ideas of right and wrong and merit, but Draco found no point in it at all.
Just then, as afternoon was turning to evening and the lights were lit in the Great Hall for dinnertime, a noise from overhead caught his attention. His two companions scanned the sky above them, but Draco saw it first...a lone figure on a broom, buzzing the Quidditch pitch. The flying style was unmistakable to the eye of someone who had played against him in many matches on that same pitch.
"Who's that?" Crabbe said.
"Looks like...Potter?" said Goyle, squinting at the sky.
"Don't be daft," Draco snapped. "Potter's on his back at Pomfrey's, not up on a broom. Must be somebody else."
The figure dropped into a nosedive and spiraled downward faster and faster. Draco remembered Harry using that move once against him, when they were both Seekers on their house Quidditch teams. Harry had dared Draco to pull out of the dive before him, and it wasn't until they were mere feet from the pitch that Draco had pulled out of the dive. Potter had continued downward until the very last moment, then wrenched himself out and streaked toward the Snitch, leaving Draco in the dust. It was that same maneuver, and Draco watched with the same grudging admiration as the figure pulled out just as he had done in the past, and whipped off back up into the sky.
"Definitely somebody else. Doesn't matter who." He pulled his gaze away and turned toward the Great Hall. "Let's go get some food."
Dinner was a somber affair except for Jimmy, who was his usual self. He teased Snape, chatted with Lupin, flirted lightly with Pomfrey, and treated Dumbledore with respect. His long frame had started to fill out, and he looked every bit the seventeen-year-old he had become.
As Jimmy and Lupin
discussed the many non-defensive uses of the Riddikulus spell,
Dumbledore watched the young man out of the corner of his eye.
Jimmy was clearly Harry's twin, but he was just as definitely not
Harry Potter. The look in his eye was different, more confident, his
manner was slightly more carefree, and the ease with which he
addressed his seniors was something that Harry had never acquired.
Not yet, anyway. After tonight, anything would be possible. For Harry Potter.
The dishes were cleared away, and the conversation gradually ceased. All eyes were focused on the large clock on the wall that ticked away the minutes one by one.
Finally Pomfrey stood and said, "Jimmy, it's time."
The group filed back into Jimmy's little room, into which Harry's bed had been moved. A second hospital bed lay next to it, empty. Jimmy blanched as he entered the room, hesitated a moment, then went behind the screen in the corner.
The four adults stood waiting, not daring to look at each other, as Jimmy changed from his daytime clothes into the hospital gown he would wear. Finally, he emerged, and went to stand by the empty bed. There was silence for a moment, then:
"Why the long faces?" he laughed. Shocked, they looked up at the smiling face. "Sorry, but I had to get you out of standing there staring at your shoes."
He looked at his arms as if he'd never seen them before. "It's a strange feeling, to feel yourself living, blood pulsing through your veins, and to look at your flesh knowing that within a short while it will be dead." He looked around the room.
"I don't have much left to say. I think you know how I feel about all of you, and I think I know how you feel about me. You've given me something that Harry never had...a happy childhood. I grew up loved and taken care of, and, believe me, that's a gift that means more than I can say.
"I have to go now. But I go willingly, and I know that I can make a difference in my own way. That's really something I can hold on to."
He turned and walked over to the side of the other bed. As he crouched down to bring himself level with the pillow, not a single eye in the room missed the two identical faces side by side...one alive and animated, the other white and still.
"You owe me one, Potter. Nothing less than the best. Knock 'em dead."
He returned to the bed, and lay down on it slowly, lifting his bare feet off of the ground as if he couldn't bear to lose contact with it. He straightened himself on the bed, turned his head to Pomfrey, and said, "I'm ready."
Shakily, she cast the spell that would send him into oblivion.