The next morning was bright as June, even though it was September. Harry woke early to the sight of a sky washed clean clear blue, and the sound of music downstairs.
He found some clothes, refrained from waking Ron, who looked worn and broken down by the regime of book-reading, and went downstairs pulling his jumper over his head and grinning a bit.
Charlie was wearing a big dark-purple Weasley jumper and poking suspiciously at a panful of eggs, and Malfoy and Ginny were dancing around the kitchen to ‘You Charmed The Heart Right Out of Me.’
Everyone grinned at him and got on with what they were doing. Ginny was wearing her little sundress, and Malfoy was in his pyjamas, and Harry maintained complete calm and congratulated himself on some personal growth.
Besides, Malfoy’d said she was this friendly towards Malfoy when he was around, so she was still interested, and she couldn’t be too upset about him siding with Mrs Weasley. The important bit was that all this swaying across the kitchen floor with her arm around Malfoy’s neck was in fun.
“Oh I never thought that such a sweet charm would do me such, do me such harm,” Malfoy carolled plaintively, using a wooden spoon as a makeshift microphone.
Ginny laughed and Malfoy laughed with her, hers bright and his deep, and it went with the music. Their mingled hair was bright in the sunlight.
“Draco, I think the eggs need to be—made to go on the other side,” Charlie announced doubtfully.
Malfoy forsook Ginny at once and she gave Harry a sideways sort of look: he grinned at her.
“We all love Saturdays,” Malfoy informed the kitchen at large. “Saturdays mean Charles is safe at home.”
Charlie leaned against the sideboard and grinned at him. “Your girl was asking after you,” he said after a pause.
Malfoy’s voice was sharp. “Not when anyone could hear her?”
“No,” Charlie said, and sounded amused despite himself. “She gave the impression that she wanted to have, ahem, a private word with the new teacher.”
“The scandalous wench,” Malfoy commented with obvious pride.
“So,” Charlie asked, and hesitated. “Should I give her your love?”
“Tell her I’m thinking about her,” Malfoy answered, and reached behind to adjust his pyjama collar. “Please, thank you, Charles,” he added, and smiled winningly at him.
Charlie rolled his eyes and Malfoy got them all plates. Soon Ron, called from his book-worn sleep by the call of food, joined them and they all settled in to eggs leaning against the kitchen surfaces.
“You see how my Levitation Charm is so perfect,” Malfoy said, demonstrating how he had been wronged and cheated and distracted during his OWLs.
Harry caught his glass of orange juice, floating on the air at a dangerous angle, and took a drink. “I see how it’s a good thing I have the reflexes of a Seeker.”
“The best Seeker at school,” Ginny put in loyally.
“Pfft!” Malfoy said comprehensively.
“Youngest in a century,” Harry said. “I just mention it.”
“I believe I just mentioned, pfft!” Malfoy said. “Slytherin was lulling you people into a false sense of complacency. This year will be our year.”
“Oh my God,” Ginny exclaimed. “D’you know, they don’t have a Seeker now we’re both not there! And, with Ron—Cormac McLaggen’s left school—we’ve no Keeper, either!”
“Slytherin’s year, what did I tell you,” Malfoy announced. “Heh heh heh.”
He floated a glass of juice over at Charlie, who snagged it while lying on the floor, and thus made Malfoy look very pleased with himself.
“You see how my Levitation Charm is so p—”
“Proves nothing!” Charlie said, through a mouthful of egg. “Could’ve played for England!”
“Gryffindor ingrates,” Malfoy grumbled.
When Pigwidgeon brought in the paper, wobbling slightly as he came, Ron took it and unrolled it peacefully. Harry didn’t really notice it arriving, since everyone but Ron was lying on the floor by this time Levitating empty glasses over their heads.
Then Ron said: “Harry…”
The tone of his voice made Harry sit up and hit his head on a floating glass.
“Sorry,” Malfoy said, sitting up too. “What’s wrong?”
“You-Know-Who’s broken everyone out of Azkaban,” Ron said slowly. “Everyone who was actually a Death Eater, that is. Everyone else—Stan Shunpike—they were found dead.”
Harry was standing up and holding the paper in under a second. It was all there: all the people that idiot Scrimgeour had used to help encourage the public killed. All the innocent people in Azkaban, put in Voldemort’s path by their own Minister.
“So—” Malfoy exclaimed, and even that one word was jarring, was hopeful in the sudden gloom of the kitchen. “So—Dad’s out?”
Harry stared over at him. Ginny’s face changed and she moved away from Malfoy, suddenly, got up and went to stand beside Harry.
He dropped the paper beside Malfoy.
“See for yourself,” he said shortly.
Lucius Malfoy was free.
Harry watched the look of wondering brightness creep over Malfoy’s face, and wondered how this changed Malfoy’s plans, or if perhaps it did not change them at all. He couldn’t be trusted, even if he meant well, not with loyalties to Snape and Lucius Malfoy. He wore the Dark Mark under his fragile pyjama sleeve, burned on the skin of the arm whose hand Harry had clasped only hours ago. He’d stolen some of Harry’s hair for God knew what purpose.
Harry put his arm around Ginny’s sundress-clad waist for a moment, and then he left them all to go wake Hermione, and ask her for the Veritaserum.
Harry got his chance at midday. He went downstairs to make tea and coffee for everyone while they studied, and added the Veritaserum to Malfoy’s coffee.
It would be for the best, he thought. Malfoy was being stubborn because he’d promised to keep a secret for Snape, but he’d see once they all knew what was going on, how much better it was. He wouldn’t be tempted by any loyalties to his father, and he might even see that Snape couldn’t be trusted.
That was if Malfoy wasn’t for Voldemort already, but—he wasn’t. Harry’d seen what he thought of Voldemort. He was almost certain.
He stirred the clear liquid into the coffee, and slipped the vial into his pocket just when Malfoy came in.
“Hi. Thought since everyone was having tea, I’d make myself a—”
“Coffee,” Harry said, offering it over his shoulder so he wouldn’t have to see Malfoy smile. “Four sugars, no milk.”
“Thank you,” said Malfoy, unfairly slipping the smile into his voice.
“No problem,” Harry responded, and busied himself with the teacups and the sugar basin to let Malfoy have time to drink some of the coffee.
It would be for the best, he thought. This was a war: he had to have all the information.
Besides, Malfoy could keep all those secrets, shove them away even from himself. If he wanted to understand Malfoy—which he might, he might want to do—well, that would be helpful, too. For the war.
Hermione had said to lead up with small, innocuous questions, to make sure the Veritaserum was working, to lull Malfoy into a false sense of security so he would answer the questions calmly.
Harry tried to think of something small to ask. Something he wanted to know the answer to. He abandoned the pretence with his tea tray, and turned around, bracing himself against the kitchen surfaces. Malfoy looked to have drunk more than half his cup already.
Harry said: “What do you want?”
“My mother,” Malfoy answered, and then he froze. They looked at each other for a long moment, and then furious realisation crystallised in Malfoy’s eyes. “You bastard!”
He threw his cup, so agitated that the throw went wide and so violently that the cup shattered against the wall. Harry barely glanced in the direction of the noise, at the slide of dark liquid down the wallpaper.
He let go of the side, and took a step towards Malfoy. “Your father, you’re really glad he’s out? Why? Don’t you know the things he’s done?”
“Yes, I don’t care, he’s my father, I love him—” Malfoy went white with mortification. “I can’t believe you’re doing this. I won’t tell you anything else.”
“I’m sorry to break it to you, Malfoy, but you don’t really have any other choice.” Harry came closer. Malfoy was white and braced as if he was about to undergo torture: he didn’t need to make such a production of things, Harry wasn’t going to hurt him. Harry just wanted the answers to a few questions.
“I’m not going to!” Malfoy shouted at him. “I’m not going to let everybody down again!”
Harry stared at him, let another precious moment slip by in silence. Malfoy’s jaw was working: Harry’s throat felt dry.
“Do you really think,” Harry asked, his voice rasping in his own ears, “that not murdering someone means you failed?”
Malfoy looked at him, eyes clear and seeming almost tranquil for a moment, though that could have been a trick of the sunlight, one of the sunbeams all around the kitchen catching his pale eyes and filling them with light. Harry’d always thought of them as Lucius Malfoy’s eyes, but Sirius had had grey eyes too.
Malfoy opened his mouth and blood gushed down his chin.
Harry jumped back. “Oh, God,” he said. “God, Malfoy, what have you done?”
Malfoy made a low wounded sound, lips bloody, and staggered back against the wall. He held himself up for another minute, long enough to give Harry a bright, savage look, and then he fell down.
The sound of him falling obviously attracted attention, and Harry barely registered the movement at the door before he was suddenly flying backwards, slammed up against the coffee-stained wall with Charlie’s hands clenched in his jumper.
“What did you do?” Charlie growled, dark eyes burning. “What did you do to him?”
“Charlie!” Ginny was kneeling beside Malfoy, her voice a high wavering thing. “Charlie, come here, help me—he’s bitten his tongue half out!”
“Well, I think it’s obvious you just let the opportunity slip through your fingers,” said Hermione. “You had a chance to ask him three questions, and you let your personal agenda with Malfoy come first—something you do far too often with Malfoy, I might add—”
They were all sitting in the study with their books open, because it was that or sit around downstairs while Charlie, Ginny and Mrs Weasley fretted around Malfoy. Hermione was talking a little nervously, her tone demanding agreement, and Harry stared at his book without seeing it and let her speak.
It was Ron, unexpectedly, who slammed his book shut and answered her. “I think you’re completely missing the point.”
Harry looked up at Ron, startled, and saw he looked pale and determined.
“I’m sorry?” said Hermione, as if she was not sorry but she was very surprised.
“I know this is a war,” Ron said, slowly. “I know the stakes are high. I know we’re going to have to do a lot of things we don’t want to do. But I think both of you are willing to do too much.”
He looked at both of them, blue eyes moving steadily from one face to the other, and when neither of them spoke he seemed to take this as an encouragement to go on.
“Harry,” he said. “You need to decide what you want to do with Malfoy. Either he’s evil as well as a prat, and we can drug him or—or tear his chest open in bathrooms, or whatever.”
“He almost poisoned you,” Harry muttered.
“I know that!” Ron shot back. “Because he was on the wrong side. We’re not, and now maybe he’s not either. If we think he is, like I said, let’s drug him with Veritaserum and tie him to something so he doesn’t carry the locket back to You-Know-Who, and let’s not give my brother and sister a chance to go all soft about him and go into fits when someone harms a hair of his precious head. If we think he’s not on You-Know-Who’s side, if we’re going to trust him to study the locket and make friends with people here, then we don’t get to pretend to be all pally with him and then slip something into his drink.”
“That’s not how it was!” Harry exclaimed. “I wasn’t—”
“It’s how it looked to me,” Ron told him stubbornly. “And I bet it’s how it looked to Malfoy. You can do a lot of damage without meaning to! Decide whether you want to or not. And you, Hermione—”
Hermione folded her hands in front of her and managed to look like McGonagall and Pince’s secret love child for a terrifying moment.
“Yes?” she said. “What are you going to lecture me about, and why do you think you have the right to do it?”
“Why shouldn’t I?” Ron demanded. “It’s not like you’ve never lectured me. What’s the difference?”
Hermione looked as if she could think of so many differences that the sheer number of them choked her.
“The problem with you, Hermione,” Ron said, staring at the cover of his book rather than at her. “I mean, you know when someone else is wrong. You didn’t trust that Half-Blood Prince book, and you let Harry know he was out of order after the whole Malfoy thing. You mind about the house elves and you told Hagrid how to make his lessons better and—you’re good at all that. But just because something is your idea doesn’t make it right.”
“I never said—”
“I didn’t know Marietta would be scarred for the rest of her life because of something you did! I didn’t want you doing anything to help me with Quidditch—and yeah, you dropped enough hints, I know you did! And now you made this Veritaserum and I told you what I thought of it, but of course you were totally convinced you were in the right! I love you, Hermione—”
Hermione made a small sound and Harry wondered if he should throw himself out the window to give them some privacy.
Ron went dark red. “Well—well, you knew that,” he said. “I do. But sometimes you’re completely wrong. And both of you need to stop assuming whatever you do is right, and if it ever occurs to either of you that you might be doing something wrong then you need to cut it out! And—and that’s it,” Ron finished, looking at his hands. “I’m done.”
Harry had no idea what to say, but neither he nor Hermione got the chance to say anything before Malfoy came in.
“Malfoy!” Hermione said, still looking pink and shaken. “Er—how are you feeling?”
“Oh, absolutely fine,” Malfoy assured her. He looked a little white and he had changed from the T-shirt with blood all over it into the shirt Snape had given him, but he was speaking normally, at least. He was also carefully and entirely avoiding Harry’s eye. “I’m trapped here and I may have to go on hunger strike because I can’t even trust the food and drink, but if you don’t mind, I also need to study until I drop because if I don’t Potter will kill my mother.”
Not surprisingly, this caused a bit of a lull in the conversation. Malfoy placed himself in a chair as far away as possible from Harry, and opened his book.
Harry waited until Ron went downstairs to make a sandwich, and Hermione made an utterly unconvincing excuse before leaping from her chair and rushing to follow him.
“I’m sorry, Malfoy,” he said as soon as the door shut behind her.
“I’m not listening to you,” Malfoy answered.
“I—look, I didn’t mean to do it, I wasn’t going to do it until this morning—”
“I’m not listening to you but I do know exactly how long Veritaserum takes to make,” Malfoy snapped.
“Well, all right, I did mean to do it but I changed my mind,” Harry admitted, realising that this was unlikely to make Malfoy cry that all was forgiven. “I meant it yesterday when—I wasn’t going to do it. But then this morning, you looked so pleased that Malfoy had escaped—”
“He’s my father!” Malfoy shouted.
“He’s a Death Eater!” Harry shouted back. “He tried to kill Ginny!”
“He did—When would he have done that?” Malfoy demanded. “Why would—no, never mind. I’ll ask her. I can trust her more than I can trust you, which is not at all. I told you I wasn’t listening to you. You had your second chance, all right, Potter, and I don’t care what your reasons were, you spat in my face again. We’re done. I’m not going to listen to you ever again.”
“You don’t think that the escape of a convicted Death Eater might—”
Malfoy looked at him steadily for a few moments, and then slowly began to roll up his shirtsleeves. His mouth had an ugly sort of curl to it as he did so.
When both his forearms were exposed, he settled back down to reading his book in absolute silence. The sun filled the study from edge to edge: the Dark Mark could not have been plainer, the black lines of the sign they had floated over Harry’s dead parents and hundreds of other victims stark against Malfoy’s white skin.
It was a deliberate, vindictive gesture: throwing murder in Harry’s face just to satisfy Malfoy’s spite. It was typical of Malfoy to overreact in the vilest way possible.
Harry’d been an idiot to offer the bastard his hand, or to imagine that there could ever be peace between them.
Ginny hovered over Malfoy a little, but she told Harry she believed he’d only done what he had to. Harry held onto her hand and was glad that she understood, at least.
Charlie certainly did not understand, and when in the same room as Harry for any prolonged length of time looked sorely tempted to hit him.
Dinner would have been a deeply awkward occasion, except for the fact that Percy and the twins stopped by. There was an edict out against discussing political affairs in front of Percy, so the twins turned the conversation to the joke shop. Percy was extremely courteous about it, and used words like ‘commendable entrepreneurial spirit.’
“Yeah,” George said, beaming. “That’s us. Enterprising.”
It was a strange world, when Percy and the twins were the ones carrying the conversation. Ron and Hermione seemed to have taken Ron’s declaration of love as a cue to be unable to pass the salt to each other without blushing, demanding why the other one wanted it, and spilling it everywhere. Mrs Weasley seemed to want to cut up Malfoy’s food for him.
Charlie and Malfoy held themselves apart from the general conversation. Malfoy kept tugging at Charlie’s jumper and when he did so Charlie leaned towards him and Malfoy spoke in his ear. Once or twice they both laughed.
“Are you all right, Harry?” Ginny asked as they washed up.
“Fine,” Harry said. “Absolutely fine.”
“You’re not,” She hesitated. “You’re not planning to do anything else to Malfoy, are you?”
Harry slammed a soapy glass down on the draining board. “No, I’m not! Why would you think that? D’you think I hate him?”
“Well—yeah,” Ginny answered. “But I said I didn’t blame—”
“Well I don’t hate him!” Harry said. “I didn’t do it because I hate him! I did it because I needed to know things, I—if he’d just tell me everything then I wouldn’t’ve had to ask, would I?”
“No,” Ginny answered. “No, you’re right. I’m sorry. Of course you know what you’re doing.”
Harry realised he was breathing hard. “Right,” he said. “Right.”
Out in the gathering evening, Charlie and Malfoy were walking alone together in the garden. The moonlight turned Malfoy’s hair silver: he was gesturing wildly, and Charlie was laughing again.
“Would it help,” Ginny asked, “if I got Charlie to talk to Malfoy? Malfoy trusts him, I think: he might tell Charlie something.”
Harry did not answer Ginny one way or another, but later he saw her perched on the sofa beside Charlie, their red heads bent together, deep in discussion. Harry wondered where Malfoy was.
He got his answer when Malfoy slipped in through the front door. As night fell, so must have some slight rain: he was shaking a few raindrops from his hair.
Behind him, coming through the door with the cool night breeze, was Snape.
Harry leaped up and grabbed his wand.
“You!” he shouted. “What’re you doing here?”
Malfoy’s eyes were glittering maliciously as he replied: “I invited him.”
Harry’s mind worked with a calm that had gone past rage. This time, he was going to kill Snape. He’d got through the Burrow’s defences. He’d killed Dumbledore. There was no other choice, and that was fine with Harry.
Behind Snape came another dark-cloaked figure, and for a moment Harry imagined a legion of Death Eaters. Then the figure pushed his hood back, and revealed Lupin’s face.
“Hello, Harry,” he said. “Snape’s come to tell you something. I think you should hear what he has to say.”
“I don’t want to hear anything he has to say!” Harry spat.
He stared at Snape’s sallow, sneering face with more loathing than he would have thought possible.
“I can’t believe you came here with him,” Harry said. “I can’t—no, I bloody well can believe you let him in,” he said to Malfoy, hovering at Snape’s side like an attendant demon. “You treacherous little snake.”
“Charlie, Ginny, if you could,” Lupin said softly under the sound of Harry’s own voice. “The fewer people who know about this the better—”
Charlie and Ginny nodded and climbed to their feet, leaving the room. Ginny glanced back at him, as if looking for some signal: Harry didn’t have a clue what she wanted him to do, so he let her go.
“I don’t know what lie you told Lupin,” he snarled to Snape. “But I know what you did, you murderous bastard. And I’m not going to let you get away with it.”
“Don’t you dare talk to him like that,” Malfoy snapped.
“I’ll talk to him any way I damn well please,” Harry snapped back. “What do you want here?”
Snape drew his hood back smoothly from his greasy head: the hanging curtains of his hair still left his thin face in shadow. “Not to see that you are still the bumptious, overbearing child you’ve always been,” he replied. “I had every confidence you would be. You never learn, do you?”
“What would you know about what I can learn?” Harry retorted. “Who ever learned anything around you? Bloody Malfoy’s a better teacher than you’ll ever be!”
For a moment Harry could have sworn Malfoy looked thrilled with himself, and then his brows drew together and he said: “Shut up!”
“Draco, believe me, I understand the temptation,” Snape told him, “but Lupin and I do not have much time. We took a great risk coming here, and I have every faith you and Potter can and will be sniping at each other tomorrow. If you would leave us for a moment.”
Malfoy looked briefly hurt, and Harry wondered if Snape realised that Malfoy was probably the only person in the world who actually liked him, and he might not want to go alienating him like he had the rest of the human race.
“Of course, sir. Sorry,” Malfoy said after a pause, and he turned and went upstairs, leaving Harry almost alone with Snape.
“Now, Potter,” Snape began. “I understand from Lupin—” he sent a faint sneer Lupin’s way, as if he needed to make Harry hate him even more “—and from Draco that you need the location of the Dark Lord’s headquarters. Draco has explained your plan to me—”
“How? When?” Harry’s mind was racing: God, he’d been a fool to trust Malfoy with anything, he’d gone and told everything to Snape, he should have known.
“Exactly how many times does Draco have to mention that he uses enchanted coins to communicate with people before you realise that he, in fact, uses enchanted coins to communicate with people?” Snape inquired. “My God, if it was possible, I would say that you are even stupider than that preening idiot, your—”
“Enough,” Lupin said, very coldly. “Did you send Draco upstairs so that you could snipe at Harry yourself, or do you want to tell him where Voldemort is? There will be questions asked about our whereabouts, you know this! We cannot afford to waste time.”
“Forget it,” Harry told them both. “D’you think I’m going to believe a word he tells me? I don’t know what you were thinking—”
“I seriously doubt you can think,” Snape cut in. “Shut up for once in your self-obsessed little life and listen to me! Draco thought that he could give you the information and you might simply accept it, but he no longer thinks that you’ll be inclined to accept his word. I do not imagine you will question that I know the Dark Lord’s whereabouts?”
“No, and I don’t question that you’ll set a trap to kill me, either,” Harry snarled. “The same way you killed Dumbledore. I’m not going to make a mistake like he did—I can’t believe he ever trusted you—”
Snape’s face looked even thinner for a moment, lips skinned back over his teeth, so his whole face looked like a skull and made Harry think of the Dark Mark.
“And I cannot understand why he had such faith in you!” he hissed. “He never wanted you to know, and I thought you were totally incapable of keeping any important information secret, but if you must know everything then I am delighted to tell you.”
“Know what?” Harry demanded.
“Snape, be gentler—” Lupin began.
“I will not!” Snape shouted. “I am done with being judged by Potter and his kind, with people who have no idea what I have had to do! Dumbledore destroyed the Horcrux ring at severe cost to himself. He found it mere days after he had to save you and the rest of your stupid little band from the Dark Lord at the Department of Mysteries, and he would not husband his failing resources when there was evil to be combated. Despite all I could say, he poured all his energy into destroying it, and he ended up corrupting his own flesh!”
Harry remembered, with a sudden violent clarity, Dumbledore’s twisted and withered hand. He opened his mouth and nothing came out for a moment.
“You killed him,” he said. “I saw you. You—you swore a Vow to do it—”
“Dumbledore knew he did not have much time,” Snape pursued. “He wanted to save Draco: he asked me to make the Vow. But do you imagine that I would not have died—gladly died—rather than sacrifice the greatest wizard this world has ever seen, if he could have been spared to us for a year, for another month? And he could have been! He could have been!”
“Yes!” Harry shouted. “If you hadn’t k-killed him—hit him with the curse that killed my parents and—and I saw him tumble off that tower, I had to stand there and see him fall, and I’ll never, I’ll never forgive you!”
“No,” Snape answered, his voice low and compelling.
“Severus!” Lupin said. “He’s a child!”
“No,” Snape said again, and threw each word at Harry like a weapon. “We’d been working to heal him for a year. He could have lived. If he had not been so determined to take everything on, to spare you everything he could, he would never have gone down into those caves where you poisoned him!”
Harry stood and shivered like a wet, sick dog. He thought of his own voice, in the cold depths of the cave with the dead, saying as Dumbledore pleaded for someone to kill him: “This one will. Just drink this. It’ll be over… all over.”
“No,” he said. “No, Dumbledore said it wouldn’t—he thought it wouldn’t work like that—”
“Oh, it might not have been fatal for someone in full health,” Snape said dismissively. “But for a man already worn out in your service, a man already on the point of death? You could have drunk it yourself!”
Harry could not think: he could not believe it. His breath kept hitching in his chest. He was blind with his own sweat, rolling down his forehead and making his eyes sting. “I wanted to—he made me promise—”
“You could have gone to me when he asked you to come with him!” Snape raved. “I knew Regulus was looking for the Slytherin Horcrux. I suspected he had found it! I would have come, I could have helped, I could have saved him. But no, you always have to know better, Potter, and the result was that Dumbledore was dying from the moment you, you forced that Potion past his lips! And then I had to stand there under the eyes of foul, gloating Death Eaters and see him beg me to end it when his death might save Draco, see him beg to be put out of his misery. I had to do it! And my God, Potter, I will never forgive you!”
“Snape, be quiet!” Lupin shouted, and Harry turned to him, wanted to hear him say that it was all a lie, that Snape had killed him, he had. But Lupin said: “Harry, you couldn’t know—”
“No,” Harry said, stumbling back from Lupin’s outstretched hand. “No—no…”
He couldn’t stay with them, he could not look at the truth in Snape’s glittering, hateful black eyes for a moment longer. He couldn’t stand there and think of Dumbledore shaking and leaning against him as they left the cave, shaking like a dying man…
He turned and ran up the stairs. He ran away.
He burst through Malfoy’s door and found him stooped over his clock, a little commonplace task that was almost done, metal gleaming in his hands, light falling on his hair. When he looked up at the slam of the door light fell on his startled face.
“Potter?” he said, and then his voice changed. “Potter, what’s—what’s happened?”
Harry stumbled forward. “Nothing,” he said, and then found himself laughing. It was a terrible, ragged sound.
Malfoy left clock and desk with one abrupt movement. “I’ll,” he said, his voice sounding distant to Harry’s ears and vaguely panicked. “I’ll get someone. Stay there.”
Harry laughed again: it hurt his throat. “Turns out you have something to thank me for,” he said, shaking and laughing at once. It was horrible: his head hurt with thoughts of Dumbledore falling, falling.
“Sit down,” Malfoy ordered, and Harry slid down to the floor, sitting there, heard Malfoy make a small stunned sound and fall to his knees beside him. “What’s—” Malfoy paused. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Potter, you’re clearly overwrought, look, I can—Weasley or someone—”
Harry was laughing so hard he was hiccuping, and then suddenly he was laughing, hiccuping, crying and raging all at once. He had seen it: he’d known how it was, it wasn’t supposed to be this way.
“You were supposed to kill Dumbledore,” he said, his voice wild and strange in his own ears. “And you couldn’t, but I could—I did.”
Malfoy looked even more stunned, arm propped against one knee and peering into Harry’s face. “No you didn’t,” he said flatly. “Don’t be more of an idiot than you can help, Potter. Of course you didn’t.”
“I did!” Harry shouted. “And he begged me—he begged me not to and I kept on giving him the potion—I kept—”
He made an ugly sound, stifled it with his hand, and Malfoy said: “Oh, God. Come here,” and then reached over, patted him on the back, lightly touched his hair a few times, the kind soothing touches of someone gentling an animal gone wild. “Shh,” Malfoy said. “Shh. Calm down. You didn’t do it. Tell me what you did.”
He poured out the whole story, how he’d gone, how he’d promised. How Dumbledore had writhed and screamed and pleaded and Harry had given him the Potion, all for the sake of a false locket, a useless toy, and how when Dumbledore stumbled back to the school he had been already doomed.
“So it was me,” Harry gasped. “If it wasn’t for me, he’d still be alive. It was me.”
Malfoy stilled in his patting, hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Sounds to me,” he said, slowly, sounding a bit shaken but still sure, “that it was him. He made you promise, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” Harry said between his teeth, “but I would never have kept the promise, not if I’d known—”
“Well, no, ‘course not,” Malfoy replied. “But you didn’t know, did you? Since he didn’t tell you. He knew what he was doing. You couldn’t know, he did know. He did it to himself.”
Malfoy’s determinedly cool voice, crystallising into a drawl as he went on, made Harry feel a bit calmer. It wasn’t like Malfoy was going to go easy on him. He forced in a proper, not hysterical breath, and managed to stop crying. There was an empty-feeling space in his chest, but at least he wasn’t falling into pieces on Malfoy’s floor.
Malfoy looked into his face, removed his hands and sat back. “Your glasses are all foggy,” he said in a neutral tone. “Hand them over.”
Harry handed them over blind. “Thanks,” he said unsteadily.
Malfoy made a noncommittal sound. “Sounds to me, too, that I was wrong before,” he said after a moment. “When I said I didn’t owe you an apology. I suppose I do. Because you never meant to hurt Dumbledore, but I—I did, and—well. I didn’t know you loved him. So.”
Harry took the glasses when Malfoy handed them back: he could feel himself flushing: he hadn’t exactly thought of it as… though Dumbledore had said once, that he did love Harry.
“So?” he said, because he didn’t really know what else to say.
Malfoy shrugged. “So. D’you want me to go down there and get the Dark Lord’s address?” He raised an eyebrow. “You’ve got to have some idea where to send all those love poems.”
Harry laughed: it came out sounding still too close to hysterical, and he stopped himself. “Right.”
Malfoy got up and Harry’s eyes followed him: he looked back at Harry slightly warily, as if he was expecting Harry to explode. When he opened the door there was the sound of hushed voices in the corridor and then Ron and Hermione were at the threshold.
“Oh, Harry,” Hermione exclaimed as soon as she saw his face, and ran across the floor to fall into his arms. She hugged him tight, and Ron strode across the floor to join them.
At the open door, the view half-obscured by the cloud of Hermione’s hair, Malfoy turned and glanced back at him: then he nodded and disappeared from sight.