Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

"Would you leave him?"

That made her eyes fly open. She stared at Ron, who stared grimly back, his blue eyes steady. "You mean if he wanted me to? If he — despises me now?"

"No," said Ron. "Not exactly." He took a few steps towards her, and then, seemingly assured that she was not going to lunge at him and slap him, came to stand beside her. The gray light from the window cast a sickly pallor over his already pale skin. Hermione wished she had a Pepper-up Potion to give him. Then she tried not to wish it. She was, after all, still angry. "Hermione…" He took a deep breath. "I know you won't believe this, because you're too angry, and you — you have every right to be angry. But when I say I don't know why I did it, I mean it. It was like I went mad for those few hours every night. Pieces of my memories come back to me now and they seem like hallucinations — not like dreams, too real and vivid for that, but like waking nightmares. And yet they're memories of happy times. At least, I thought I was happy."

"Ron…what are you trying to say?"

"That maybe I don't know why I did it because…because I wasn't in control of what I was doing. I know it sounds like an excuse, but I'm not making excuses. I blame myself, I do, but at the same time — at the same time, maybe you're right, and all this really is about Harry. After all, what better way to get at him than through you and me?"

"No." Her nails dug into her hands. "Don't say that."

"It's true. You know it's true. They used us to get at him."

"Who are 'they'?"

Ron spun away from her and stared at the wall. "I don't know. But I know I'm right."

"Is that why you're leaving?" she asked, in a small thread of a voice. "To keep him safe?"

"Maybe. A little bit." He covered his face with his hands. "I don't know. I'd like to think so. But… I've spent all these months missing him, wondering where he'd gone, where we went. Us, our friendship. I blamed Malfoy for all of that being lost. But now I wonder." He took his hands away from his face. The redness of his eyelids (so he had been crying) made his eyes look bluer, his face consequently even younger. "I don't think it is Malfoy.

I think it's something inside Harry. There's something he's dreading, but he's obsessed with it, too. I just don't know what it is." He looked at her, hard. "Do you?"

After a long moment, she shook her head. "No. And I still don't see how you can justify leaving him."

"Leaving him?" Ron gave a short bark of almost-laughter. It was the most unhappy sound she had ever heard. "How can I leave him? He's already gone."

"You think…you really think…that I'm putting him in danger?" Hermione asked. "I try…I try to protect him, however I can."

Ron said, flatly, "You can't do him any good if he won't let you."

Hermione looked at him. "Why," she whispered, "do things have to get this bad before we can talk like this? You never said any of these things.."

"Yes, I did," Ron said. "Just…not, apparently, to you."

She stared at him, a question blossoming in her mind. "How did I never know," she whispered. "How did you never say anything to me, anything that would have given you away…"

Ron looked at her out of haunted eyes. "You…there was a spell…" he began, but the door opened then, interrupting him, and Ginny came in.

She had her dark brown cloak pulled around her, and her cheeks were red with cold.

"The carriage is here to take you down to the station," she said softly. "We have to go."

"Are you leaving as well, Ginny?" Hermione asked, not taking her eyes off Ron.

"No," Ginny said. "I'm going to stay."

"Okay," said Hermione slowly, ""Okay," and then, looking at Ron, she said, "And you're really going to go?"

"I have to go, he replied, not looking at her. "I have to," and he looked so miserable that she took a step forward towards him — it was her instinct to put her arms around him, but he stepped away from her violently, almost knocking into his sister. "I can't," he said. "I look at you — I see her."

"Ron," Hermione said miserably, but Ginny had already taken her brother's arm shaking her head. She cast a desperate look at Hermione, who blanched and stepped back. She kept her eyes fixed on the floor, and waited until she heard the sound of the door clicking shut before she raised her eyes.

They were gone.

He had sworn not to do this unless it was an emergency, but he had begun to think that all this was exactly that. Sitting at his desk, Lupin reached with a sigh for the brass-bound box that sat on the left side of his desk, and drew it towards him. He opened it, and took out a parchment, which he unrolled across the desk blotter.

He remembered Sirius asking him to make a new map, at the beginning of term, handing him the last of the Zonko's Reality Pencils. He'd demurred -

it was hardly something a Hogwarts professor wanted to have discovered stashed in his office. But Sirius was very persuasive when he wanted to be.

"Just make a rudimentary map," he'd said. "One that shows the boys, at least."

And so it did: as Lupin's eyes scanned the parchment, he saw the two blue dots that were Draco and Harry — Harry seemed to be sitting in Gryffindor Tower, and Draco was making his way up from the Slytherin dungeon.

Lupin sat and watched the progress of the second blue dot, his mind awhirl with confused thoughts, until it drew near enough to the corridor where his office was. Then he got to his feet, and went to the door, slipping the map into his breast pocket.

The hallway was empty, and for a moment Lupin almost rechecked the map. Then Draco came around the corner up ahead. He was walking with his hands in the pockets of his black trousers, his silver head bent, but he seemed to sense Lupin's presence, and glanced up as he rounded the corner. "Hey," he said, slowing down slightly, "Professor Lupin. Hi."

"Hello, Draco," Lupin said. "Have you got a moment to talk to me?"

Draco glanced down at the silver watch clamped around his slender wrist.

Lupin spared a moment towards wishing that the Malfoys weren't biased quite so heavily towards that particular metal. "I'm meant to be meeting Harry and Ginny…"

"This," said Lupin firmly, 'is important."

Draco lowered his arm and shrugged. It was an elegant shrug. Everything he did was elegant. Sirius, at his age, had had much the same panthery grace. "All right."

Lupin ducked back into his office, and Draco followed, shutting the door behind them without being asked. He leaned against the door, and looked at Lupin with wide-eyed, put-on innocence. In the faint winter light, his eyes were bluish, like the shadows under them. "What is it, Professor?"

"The wedding," Lupin said, feeling it wise to start off with something safe.

"It's in less than a week, and since everything has been… chaotic, I wanted to make sure you have everything you need — "

"Harry and I had our clothes tailored months ago," said Draco coolly.

"And sent to the Manor. We're fine."

"And Harry, he is — "

"Just say what you want to say, Professor," said Draco, rubbing the back of a hand across his tired eyes. The scar across his palm flashed once: brightly, vividly silver. "I know you know. Harry told me. You're worried about him."

"I'm worried about you."

Draco looked momentarily surprised. "Me? Why be worried about me?"

"Because you're obviously not doing well," Lupin said bluntly. "You lost that Quidditch match, your marks are down in your classes, you seem distracted and upset, you've not written your mother in over a month…"

"I also forgot to send my grandmother a toffee cake for her birthday,"

Draco supplied helpfully.

"And you look…"

Draco's eyes narrowed. "I look what?"