Harry stopped for a moment with his back against Aunt Petunia’s door. His chest felt a bit cold and his throat hurt: he wanted to do something but he didn’t know what.
He went downstairs, to the sound of Dudley saying: “No it’s not a guard amulet for our house. It’s a barbecue.”
“Looks like a guard amulet,” Malfoy argued. “Very handy, guard amulets. A must for every home.”
“You’re mental,” Dudley returned, and then they looked up to the sound of Harry coming down the stairs. Hermione and Ron were already at the door, and Ginny standing behind Malfoy eyeing Dudley warily while Malfoy talked to him.
“C’mon,” Harry said heavily. “We’re going. Dudley, we need our wands.”
Dudley shoved past him on his way up the stairs. Hermione opened the door at once, while Ron came over to the bottom of the stairs to knock shoulders with Harry as soon as Harry reached him: the solid push of Ron’s shoulder made Harry feel a little better.
When Dudley came down, he was awkwardly clutching the cluster of wands like a bouquet of flowers he was supposed to present. He looked warily around at all of them, at Ron beside Harry and Hermione beside the door, and he went over and gave the wands to Malfoy.
“Uh,” Dudley said. “Bye, then.”
“Bye,” said Malfoy.
Ginny said nothing, and walked quickly over to the open door. Malfoy was barely able to keep up with her, and as soon as they went out Ron and Harry followed them. Harry closed the door of number four Privet Drive behind him.
It was not until they were a little way down the street, Malfoy silently dealing out the wands as they went, that Harry noticed Hermione hovering near Ginny, and realised that Ginny was almost in tears. “What horrible people,” she said. “What horrible, cruel people, no wonder you were always so glad to come to our house, Mum would have a fit—”
Hermione nudged Ginny and she fell silent. Harry was grateful to Ron and Hermione, who obviously knew he didn’t want to talk about it, and wished Ginny would stop looking at him with tear-shiny eyes.
He looked away from her to Malfoy, who might have become completely distracted by letter boxes and their inherent tragedy. He found Malfoy looking at him as well, but there was neither Ron and Hermione’s concern nor Ginny’s tears in his cool grey eyes. He just looked measuring.
“I’ve hassled you a lot about your family,” he said when Harry looked at him. His voice sounded cool, too.
“Well,” Harry said. “Yeah. Are you saying,” he stopped and wondered why he felt a bit hopeful. “If you’d known what they were like, you wouldn’t have done it?”
Malfoy’s mouth twisted, a little ruefully. “Oh no,” he said. “I would have done it. I would have been all over doing it. But I—don’t think the others would have laughed at it. It isn’t—actually very funny.”
“Right,” Harry said.
They walked on, searching for a spot with no cars whizzing by where they could Apparate without being seen, and after a while Hermione began to speak, doing a very bad impression of being casual.
“Well, good job everyone! I think the next place to look is—”
“We don’t need to look,” Harry said.
Everyone stared at him. Hermione, very carefully, said: “Harry, what do you mean? Of course we have to—”
“Nah,” Harry said, kind of enjoying everyone’s blank faces and the thought of how they’d look once they knew, feeling a little warmer. “We don’t need to look. Because,” he slid his hand into his pocket, and took out Gryffindor’s seal. “Because I’ve got the Horcrux.”
Their reaction was everything he could have hoped for. There was a sensation on that grey Muggle street.
Ron whooped, hit Harry on the shoulder again, and when Hermione was making for Harry either to hug him or grab the Horcrux and study it, he picked her up and swung her around and she laughed and let him, breathless. Ginny stared and then flung herself at Harry, arms tight around his neck, her red hair in his eyes tinting the world to look like sunset.
Malfoy in sunset did not seize anyone, perhaps unsurprisingly, but he crossed his arms over his chest, eyes flicking from Harry to the seal, and he smiled.
The sensation continued in the Burrow, warm and dear in the light of the immediate memory of Privet Drive.
On their return Mrs Weasley hugged them all around except for Malfoy, who stepped somewhat hastily to one side, and then started making a celebratory Found A Horcrux cake. Charlie was greeted from the window by Malfoy yelling: “Charles! Charles, we have another Horcrux! And I saw a letter box!” and he threw his case in the air and his lesson plans went everywhere, fluttering in the yard, being walked on by chickens. Mr Weasley, once he got back from the office, dashed off at once to tell the Order of the Phoenix and get them on finding ways to destroy the Horcrux. He came back a few moments later to collect Charlie to be consulted about dragonfire for that purpose, and to wring Harry’s hand once more.
Celestina Warbeck was put on maximum volume and her voice rang through the house.
Hermione, who had books out and was already on the mission of researching what might destroy a Horcrux, tapped idly on her book page with a biro, and Ron, composing victorious Owls to Percy and the twins and trying to stroke Pigwidgeon into a state of calm so he could deliver them, started to sing along offkey.
Malfoy seemed distressingly inspired by Celestina Warbeck, and he got out a piece of parchment and a quill, after fruitlessly trying to nick one of Hermione’s last biros, and sat down at Hermione’s table with Ginny.
After a few moments’ intent discussion, bright heads together and words like ‘Top of the Pops’ drifting over to Harry, Malfoy looked up and said: “Come here, Potter, I want you.”
Harry paused, tying an Owl to Bill onto Hedwig’s leg. Malfoy beckoned impatiently.
Had a bit of a masterful way with him, Malfoy, Harry reflected, rolling his eyes and going to him. Malfoy and Ginny were staring at a piece of paper with the words Addicted to Love written on it, the song Ginny and Malfoy’d danced to at Privet Drive.
“You were raised by Muggles,” Malfoy said, in much the same tone as he might have said ‘by wolves.’ “So you must know about this Top of the Pops music. Girl Weasley and I want to know more. In fact, we want to know everything. Tell us some songs.”
“Are you serious, Malfoy?”
Malfoy tilted his chair back and smiled, the end of his quill feathering against his curving mouth. “Yes. I’m musically inclined, Potter, and you wouldn’t want to deprive me or Ginny of knowledge about the Muggle world? That would be cruel.”
“Well,” Harry said as Malfoy nodded at him encouragingly. “Well, okay.”
He leaned his chin on his hands and tried to think of the songs Dudley used to blast all over the house. Malfoy looked happily expectant.
“Er,” Harry said. “You and me, we come from different worlds-”
“No, no, no,” Malfoy exclaimed, waving the words away like bothersome flies. “We don’t know the tunes, you do, and we want them. Sing, Potter.”
“Malfoy,” Harry said, feeling his face go hot. “I don’t really—”
Malfoy threw his hands up in despair. “Sing us a song!”
“All right,” Harry said, took a deep breath, and sang. “You like to laugh at me when I look at other girls. Sometimes you’re crazy—”
It was actually horrifically embarrassing to sing in front of four people, two of whom were paying rapt attention. His voice cracked after a minute and he paused.
Ginny said, “Wow, Harry, you’re really good!”
Malfoy, chair still tilted back and playing with his quill, grinned and said: “Yeah, not bad.”
Harry felt a bit better. He sang a few things for them until Ron, finished up with his letters, came over and started to try and copy him to mass hilarity. Ginny did so better, and Malfoy scribbled everything down on parchments and interjected into the singing, “So is living in a yellow submarine a state of mind?”
Hermione tapped her pen against the pages some more, smiled, and eventually said: “You lot do know you’re wasting your lives.”
“On the contrary, Granger,” Malfoy said promptly. “Someday—maybe at Durmstrang—I’ll do my NEWTs, and then, oh then, my O in Muggle Studies is going to be the most Outstanding, Outstripping all others and Obviously Overpoweringly intelligent O of them all. Sing us another, Potter.”
Harry grinned. “Oh Malfoy, why don’t you have some sense? Please do something-”
“Wait, wait,” Malfoy said, looking thoroughly overexcited. “Is a Malfoy really mentioned in a Muggle song? Really?”
“Well, no,” Harry admitted. “I changed it.”
Malfoy looked crestfallen. “From what? It scans,” he pointed out sadly.
“Er. Mary.”
“That’s a girl’s name,” Malfoy said, looking both amused and aggrieved. “I’m not a girl—”
“You might start looking like one if you don’t cut your hair soon,” Ginny put in amiably. She got up to peer at Malfoy’s song parchment, and ruffled Malfoy’s hair. “I could cut it for you, if you like. I cut mine.”
“No,” Malfoy said, suddenly looking alarmed. “No, let’s go to a real hairdresser’s. You come with me, I’ll treat you.”
“Thanks, Malfoy!” Ginny beamed and twisted her curls around one finger. Being no fool, she glanced at Ron saw his suspicious expression, and said hastily: “He owes me for nicking my shampoo all the time. Honestly, he uses quarts of the stuff—”
“I became used to luxury in the prefects’ bathroom,” Malfoy informed her plaintively. “Everything comes out of the taps there. I loved it there.”
Everyone looked reminiscent.
“Yeah, it was brilliant,” Ginny said. “All the purple and silvery bubbles you could get, and the—”
“Wait a minute,” Ron said, his eyes narrowing until they looked entirely closed. “You’re not a prefect.”
It was Ginny’s turn to look alarmed. “Ahahaha. Um. No.”
Ron’s almost-shut eyes opened in order to fire a look of dark suspicion at Harry, who put down the Horcrux and said, “Ron, I swear I never—”
He hadn’t, either. She was Ron’s sister and she was important to him: he’d thought they would have loads of time and it wasn’t like he had any experience aside from that disastrous kiss with Cho. He hadn’t wanted to mess up with her and it had all been so comfortable, anyway, sunny days by the lake and Ginny letting him feel her up a bit. He’d never even suggested anything like that.
“Do not try and tell me that Dean Thomas was a prefect,” Ron said. “Because Hermione and I were the only prefects around, and neither of us had any interest in taking a bath with you—”
Ginny was scarlet. “Dean wasn’t a prefect,” she admitted. “But—but Michael was.”
“Michael Corner?” Ron exclaimed. “That-! I’ll kill him!”
Malfoy took advantage of the scene by reaching over and sliding the Horcrux towards himself, holding it up to the light. “Ah, the prefects’ bathroom,” he said. “Good times. I remember Pansy and I, in the second week of fifth year—anyway, Weasley, you’re not telling me you didn’t use the prefects’ bathroom with Brown, she was all over you—”
Ron made a frantic gesture for quiet, but Hermione had already looked up from her book. “Is that so, Ron Weasley?”
“Hermione, it meant nothing,” Ron tried, and then with increasing desperation: “And we were in our bathing suits the whole time!”
“Well, so was I,” Ginny cried.
Harry raised an eyebrow at Malfoy, who paused, then let the corner of his mouth go up. “Not so much,” he admitted cheerfully.
The battle royal over bathing suits and the rules of decent behaviour for Weasleys in full swing, Malfoy seemed to decide it was time to introduce the Horcruxes to each other. He picked up Gryffindor’s seal and clinked it against Slytherin’s locket.
“Hello, tiny piece of the Dark Lord’s soul,” he said in a small voice. “Well hello, other tiny piece of the Dark Lord’s soul. How’s tricks?” He paused when Harry laughed and said in his normal voice: “Fetch us some more parchment, Potter, and then you can tell me everything about yellow submarines.”
Harry went and got parchment from the cupboard by the window, but as he did he lifted his head and saw there were people coming through the gate: Mr Weasley and Charles coming back, obviously, and with them Tonks and Lupin.
He was pleased for a moment, and then it occurred to him that last night had been a full moon. Indeed, from the glimpse he got of Lupin before Lupin disappeared inside the Burrow, he looked very pale and Tonks’ arm around him seemed like it might be actually supporting him.
It might be nothing. Lupin might just be coming to see the Horcrux and congratulate Harry, that was probably it.
He straightened up. “That cake should be done,” he said. “I’ll go get us all a bit, will I?”
“Good idea, Harry!” Ron said enthusiastically.
“Fine, I will perfect my plans for getting this Horcrux off,” Malfoy said, tugging at his chain and reaching for a book at the same time. “Come back ready to sing!”
Harry smiled briefly and without real feeling at both of them, and then left the room. His mind was working busily as he went down the stairs, giving himself a thousand reasons why he’d feel completely stupid when Lupin just smiled and said well done Harry, Sirius would’ve been proud—
When he opened the door he saw Lupin slumped against the wall, Tonks’ arm still around him, and Mr Weasley with his arm around Mrs Weasley, who was crying and saying in a very soft voice: “How horrible—how horrible—”
Charlie was standing as far away from the others as he could get, his back bowed, leaning against the kitchen table as if big, strong Charlie could not bear his own weight.
“I can’t,” he said. “It’ll kill him.”
Harry, standing in the doorway, stepped into the room and let the door creak inwards behind him. Everyone looked up at the sound. Lupin’s eyes were hollow and his face looked exhausted.
“What’s happened?” Harry asked. “Tell me.”
“Oh, don’t!” Mrs Weasley cried.
Lupin did not hesitate. “They’ll all have to know, Molly. I would prefer Harry to hear—certain things from me.”
When Lupin said that, Harry saw Tonks make an anguished face, expression fiercely, painfully contorted under all that spiky pink hair. She did not say a word, or move from supporting Lupin.
“You know, I think,” Lupin said, “that Lucius Malfoy recently escaped from Azkaban with Voldemort’s help.”
“Yeah,” Harry answered hoarsely. He could see the way everyone looked. He knew suddenly that whatever had happened, he did not want to know.
“Voldemort was determined to make Lucius Malfoy pay for being the unwitting agent of his first Horcrux’s destruction. He let Lucius languish in Azkaban, and next he used Draco’s willingness to serve him as a psychological punishment. I believe he intended to lead the entire Malfoy clan on with false hope and then have a pretext on which to kill Lucius’ only son, while still keeping Lucius around in case he proved useful. Of course, Draco upset all Voldemort’s calculations by succeeding in his task to a degree, and then vanished—as Voldemort still thinks—from the face of the earth.
“I’m telling you this so you’ll understand, Harry, the position Lucius Malfoy was in when Voldemort plucked him from Azkaban.”
Harry nodded and slowly realised what must have happened. It was no better than the man deserved, but—but Charlie was right, it would kill Malfoy—
“I understand,” Lupin continued, “that you have been receiving information from Narcissa Malfoy. I regret to say—that Voldemort knew this from the first. He had Death Eaters watching Narcissa in case she found her son, and instead—they saw her with you. Voldemort could have acted at once, but he wanted the proofs to pile up before he condemned Bellatrix Lestrange’s sister.”
Voldemort called Bellatrix ‘Bella,’ of course, Harry thought, his mind running away desperately from all other thoughts. He’d known all along, though, so Harry had not endangered Narcissa any further by bringing her to the Burrow, at least there was that.
His scar and Malfoy’s Dark Mark had burned last night, burned with Voldemort’s triumph.
“And as he collected evidence, I believe another—fitting punishment for Lucius occurred to him,” Lupin said, and his tired voice wavered at last. “When he took Lucius out of Azkaban, he told him to summon his wife. And then last night, in front of a court of Death Eaters and wolves baying for blood, he had Lucius execute her.”
Mrs Weasley gave a low moan as if hearing the news for the first time all over again, and Charlie shuddered. Harry stood there and felt dizzy. It was too horrible, even Lucius Malfoy couldn’t.
Harry had told her to go to her husband. Harry had sent her to her death.
“He had very little choice,” Lupin said, fair even now. “Tell Draco that, Charlie. Voldemort was not going to let Narcissa get away, he would have simply killed Lucius as well. It might be—a little easier, if you make him see that.”
“But why Charlie?” Mrs Weasley demanded. “Charlie hasn’t even known Draco three months yet, there has to be someone closer to that poor boy—”
“Severus asked for Charlie,” Lupin said, still sounding bone-weary, his voice without much affect at all as he continued this terrible, unbelievable story. “Snape protested the murder of Narcissa Malfoy most strongly. He argued that the balance of her mind was upset by fear for her son, argued for punishment that would fall short of death, bargained for clemency. Voldemort did not take kindly to what he saw as Snape’s defiance and—he cast Cruciatus on Snape. For a rather prolonged period of time. Currently Snape is in Voldemort’s stronghold, recovering as best he can. He will not be able to walk for several days, if then, and he was determined that Draco be told before he could find out in the papers or from common gossip. Apparently Charlie spoke kindly of Draco to him, at the vote in Grimmauld Place. He asked that Charlie tell him.”
Charlie managed to speak, with an effort. “I will,” he said thickly. “Of course I will, but God—God, what will I say?”
Harry spoke loudly. “I’ll do it. I’ll tell him.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Harry, you can barely be civil to him,” Charlie said, his voice rough. “I—”
“Can’t you do it, Remus?” Mrs Weasley asked, still weeping.
Lupin’s face fell into the lines of a death mask suddenly, and tears rose and fell silently down Tonks’ face. She turned to bury her face against Lupin’s chest so he would not see them and Lupin, as usual, spoke quietly.
“I am the last person who can tell Draco,” he answered slowly. “Once Lucius Malfoy had cast the Killing Curse on his wife, once it was all over—Voldemort threw Narcissa Malfoy’s body to the wolves.”
“No.”
Harry spun to the door, which had not fallen quite closed. It stood ajar, and in the small space, in the fading light, stood Malfoy. As Harry turned he saw a book slip from Malfoy’s nerveless fingers, saw his hands twitch empty at his side.
Malfoy looked perfectly normal for a moment more, and then he began to speak and his mouth twisted, trembled on the words.
“No,” he said again, and the line of his mouth was savage, his expression breaking up behind it. “No, it’s not—it’s not true, that filthy werewolf is lying—”
Harry heard steps behind him, but he did not turn around and he did not know who it was until Charlie was by his side and then a step closer to Malfoy, hand outstretched.
“Draco,” he said. “Draco, don’t—”
Malfoy gave a convulsive shudder. “Don’t touch me!”
He stepped back, into the hall, and stood staring, holding himself like an animal at bay, his eyes travelling desperately over all of them.
“Draco,” Lupin tried, quietly. “I’m sorry. I swear it’s true.”
“And why should I believe you?” Malfoy snarled. “Why should I want to believe any of you, that my—that my—”
He pressed the back of his hand against his mouth hard, as if he had to force the words back. He was trembling continously now, thin shoulders braced as if one of them was going to attack him.
The only sounds were Malfoy’s ragged, harsh breathing and the noise of Mrs Weasley weeping.
Harry felt frozen, as he had when he’d caught Malfoy crying, only this time was a hundred times worse. This time everything Malfoy had feared had come true, and there was nothing anybody could possibly do to help.
“Son,” Mr Weasley began hesitantly.
“I’m not your son!” Malfoy shouted. His chest was rising and falling too fast, and suddenly there were brilliant spots of colour in his cheeks. He was staring at them all now with an odd blankness, as if he had gone blind with rage or distress. “I—I don’t believe it, I won’t stay here, I—I want to go—”
He turned and almost blundered into the doorframe, hand out as if he really was blind, and then turned fast, faster than Harry had ever seen him move even when he was flying, and went for the door. The door of the Burrow slammed behind him with a crash and he was gone.
“God,” Charlie said, his voice scraping. “God, Draco. We can’t let him go—but if he needs to be alone—”
“You should leave him to it, Charlie,” Mr Weasley counselled.
“I—right,” Charlie said, pushing a rough hand through his hair. “But he might—if he Apparated or did anything—I’ll go get my Omnioculars. I need to make sure he’s all right.”
Charlie pushed past Harry and went for the stairs, taking them three at a time. Just then there was a sound in the kitchen and Harry turned fast to see what else could have happened.
Lupin’s knees had gone out from under him. Tonks was doing her best to hold him up by himself, and the Weasleys were rushing to help her.
Harry went into the hall.
He still felt frozen. His mind didn’t seem to be working properly and he had no idea, less than no idea, of what to do. He couldn’t possibly do anything, nobody could, and him the least of all, but—but he’d stayed frozen in the bathroom, and look how that had turned out.
And Malfoy—Malfoy’d even gone to Moaning Myrtle when he was upset. Harry did not think he would want to be alone, not really, not when he was more alone than he’d ever been before.
Harry stared at the door, and then reached out. Then he’d opened the door and was running down the crazy paving without another thought, cold wind in his face. He saw Malfoy, disappearing up a hill sparsely strewn with trees, going at a dead run, and he went after him without another instant’s hesitation.
The sky was slate grey with clouds and approaching night. Someone had been following Malfoy’s mother, Malfoy’s mother had been killed, it wasn’t safe for him to be running around outside the wards of the Burrow. Harry had to get him back.
On the rise of the hill, among the trees, Malfoy had stopped.
Harry stopped and watched him. Malfoy raked his hair back with his hands, pulled his head back so he was looking up into the dark sky, and then made a low sound and whirled, hit a tree with a loose fist, the blow clumsy and doing nothing more than rip his knuckles bloody against the bark. He sagged against the tree he’d just hit, face buried against his arm, back arched tight as a strung bow. Harry could see his shoulders shake. The terrible low sound continued and Harry realised Malfoy was sobbing.
“Malfoy,” he said, helplessly.
Malfoy whirled around, fast as a striking snake, and when he saw Harry his wet face contorted into ugly ferocity. His expression worked for a few minutes, trying to resolve into nothing but fury, and he spat out: “You. I bet you’re really pleased, aren’t you?”
“No, I—of course not,” Harry stammered.
Malfoy put his hand over his eyes for a moment, sobbed for another moment, a terrible choked sound he was clearly trying not to make, and then turned, back on the attack, his eyes glittering.
“I bet you are glad,” he went on, his voice jagged, tumbling over itself. “Come on. Secretly. A little. Don’t tell me you don’t think a little poetic justice has been—has been served. All those times I talked about your parents, your dead parents, your ever so pathetic orphaned state, and now I—oh God, not my mother, not Mother—”
He turned his face aside as if he could not bear for Harry to see him, let out another low half-strangled sob, and then another suddenly, a whole round of hacking dreadful sobs he couldn’t seem to control. He trembled and shook and before Harry could move forward, help him somehow, Malfoy was on his hands and knees in the dirt and still sobbing.
He looked up, his face crumpled and wet with tears, his nose running, and swiped savagely at his face as if he wanted to rub himself utterly away.
“Do you have to be here, Potter?” he snarled. “Must you be here for every single humiliation of my life, it doesn’t even matter anymore, you’ve won, go the hell away! The only thing I ever had you didn’t was a family, and now—I have worse than no father, don’t I, because Dad—Can’t you just go?”
Harry knelt down in the dirt and dead leaves.
“No,” he said. “No. Look, Malfoy, I—when your mother agreed to spy for me—”
Another shudder wracked Malfoy’s whole body. “Stop it,” he said between his teeth. “Don’t—I hate you, shut up about her, stop—”
Harry spoke rapidly, trying to make the words as forceful as he could. “All she wanted was for you to be safe. That was what she wanted, and you are safe, I promised her—”
He remembered Narcissa’s face, wearing the expression of a woman underwater, who knew she would never break the surface again.
“Swear it. He’s yours to protect. Promise me.”
“I promise. He’s mine.”
He had promised.
He cleared his throat. “I’ll be your family,” he said. “If you want.”
Malfoy lifted his head and stared at him. Then he burst out into hysterical laughter. It sounded tight, anguished, too much like his sobbing, and Harry just felt alarmed and uncomfortable and at a loss.
“What,” Malfoy gasped out at last, still staring. “What, are you crazy? You, my mother’s dead and you’re crazy, I can’t even—You don’t even like me.”
“Well,” Harry said, looking at his knees. “Well—I don’t like my real family much, either.”
That sent Malfoy into another round of hysterical laughter, this one less like sobbing, eased down from the edge a little. He was able to straighten up a fractional amount, get into a sitting position even if he did look more miserably curled up in the leaves than anything else, and then the quieter hysteria turned into nothing but crying. Malfoy’s hand was over his face, he was still unable to look at Harry, and his breath kept hitching as he struggled for control. Harry would’ve told him to go on and cry, but Malfoy obviously wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening at all.
Harry sat there until full night was almost upon them, and Malfoy determinedly choked off the crying. He straightened, set his mouth and was able to look Harry in the face again, even though his mouth wobbled out of shape the next instant and he was trembling in an exhausted sort of way.
He gave Harry a look that dared him to say anything about crying. Harry felt no temptation to say anything of the sort.
“Will you come back to the Burrow?” he asked quietly. “It’s not safe for you out here.”
“Not like there are many other options,” Malfoy answered, his voice a ruin. His throat must have been raw with sobbing.
He had agreed, though. Harry climbed to his feet, stiff with how long he’d been sitting there on the cold ground, and offered Malfoy a hand up since he must be in an even worse condition. Malfoy hesitated for a moment, and then took his hand. Harry helped him up.
Malfoy did not say much on their return to the Burrow. He stood with his arms folded over his chest, looking cold and brittle and as if he might bite if anybody touched him.
Lupin and Tonks were gone. Everyone had clearly been told.
Mr Weasley had absented himself from the scene completely, and Ron and Hermione were looking wary, as if they wanted to ask Harry exactly what was going on before they committed themselves to a line of action.
“Sorry, Malfoy,” Ron said in a low voice.
“Yes, I’m terribly sorry, Malfoy,” Hermione murmured, equally subdued.
Malfoy looked at them and nodded, mouth still set in a tight line.
Ginny said nothing, just looked scared that something this terrible and irreparable could have happened within her own personal orbit, younger and smaller than she usually did. She did sidle a little nearer Malfoy, and half-extend her hand, as if she wanted to pat him or something without having to talk about it, but Malfoy shied away. Ginny let her hand fall.
Mrs Weasley fluttered around and said: “Is there anything—any food I could fix you, Draco?” she asked, and added almost on a note of pleading: “Dear.”
Malfoy tightened his arms around himself. “No.”
It was not until Malfoy had wandered, perhaps aimlessly but still with that air of tight control, into the study and sat in an armchair far away from the table where all his songs notes lay, that Charlie spoke to him. He had been watching since Malfoy got back in the house.
He came over, touched Malfoy very deliberately, one big hand resting soothingly on Malfoy’s back for a moment, and then knelt down in front of the chair.
“Draco,” he said. “You need sleep. Come on up.”
“I’m not tired,” Malfoy said in a pinched voice, and then something in Charlie’s earnest face made him add: “I can’t—I couldn’t sleep. You go, Charles, you have teaching in the morning.”
Charlie paused. “Do you,” he said. “Do you want to—”
“Don’t ask me to talk about it.” Malfoy’s voice went stony. “I won’t.”
Charlie straightened and backed off. “All right,” he said. “All right, I’ll go. But Draco—I am sorry.”
Malfoy shivered and looked out the window. “I know you are.”
After that there was silence, broken only when Mrs Weasley came up and cast Lumos so they would not be sitting in the dark. Malfoy gave no sign he even knew she was there. His eyes were blank again and distant, as if all he could see, over and over again, was the imagined fall of Narcissa Malfoy’s body being thrown to the wolves.
After a while in the silence and flickering light, Harry began to feel a bit stupid. He’d been sitting near Malfoy’s armchair, with his back against the wall, for hours now, and Malfoy had given every indication to the others that he wanted to be left alone. He’d told Harry to go away, before. Maybe Malfoy really did want to be by himself and he was silently ignoring Harry because he thought Harry just wouldn’t leave him alone.
Maybe he wanted his vigil to be private.
Harry uncurled from the floor, putting a light hand on one side of the armchair so he could lever himself up, and then Malfoy’s hand shot out and he felt a tight grip around his wrist. He looked down: Malfoy’s knuckles were white. His grip on Harry’s wrist hurt.
Harry lifted his eyes. Malfoy’s face was ashen and strained in the low light.
He licked his lips and said in the same pinched voice, with even more difficulty. “Don’t—”
“No,” Harry told him at once. “No. Don’t worry. I won’t leave you.”