Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

Draco was leaning against the wall, Ginny sitting on the floor at his feet.

She had a book on her lap, but she wasn't reading it. They both looked at her and Ginny smiled waveringly; Hermione smiled back as best she could, not wanting Ginny to think that she was in any way angry with her because of the situation with Ron.

Then she opened the door and went in. The door swung shut behind her, and she was alone in the room with Harry.

He was standing next to the bed, with its colorful counterpane, holding on to one of the bedposts. He looked up as she came in, and for a moment his eyes lit up with relief. Then they darkened, and he looked down at the tops of his boots.

Hermione turned and shut the door on Draco and Ginny, who were waiting in the corridor. She turned to face Harry, and took a deep breath.

"Hello, Harry," she said.

The sound of her voice seemed to galvanize some electric response inside him. His head went up, and he crossed the room to her. She didn't move.

He reached out a hand to touch her shoulder, and she stiffened. Slowly he lowered his arm. "Hermione…"

Her voice was raw with exhaustion. "What?"

"I'm so sorry," he said.

She just looked at him. She could tell he meant it. He looked half-desperate to make her understand: he was very pale, and the eyes behind the glasses were intently green. She noticed, vaguely, what he was wearing: a black sweater that was at least three years old, with frayed, far too short cuffs that showed his thin wrists. It was a sweater Ron had given him; she wondered what that meant.

He seemed unnerved by her silence. "I know now. I know it wasn't you — "

"Draco told me," she interrupted shortly. "I'm glad you listened to him.

God knows, you wouldn't listen to me."

"No — it wasn't like that."

"It was exactly like that."

He was silent for a moment. Then he said, "You're right."

The tone of his voice made her look at him again, and she was startled at what she saw. He looked pale, tense, unhappy, but he was there — present in a way he hadn't been present in months.

"I'm right?" she echoed.

"You're right," he said again, heavily. "I didn't listen to you. I didn't let myself listen to you. And there's no apology that I could construct that would make it up to you for that. I didn't trust you even though you've never given me a reason not to trust you. And I hurt you, and I'-"

"You did hurt me," she interrupted. "If you'd spent years thinking about it, and planning it, I don't think you could have come up with anything that would have hurt me more."

He winced. "I know," he said. "Tell me what to do. There must be something I can do…to fix this."

"I think," she said coldly, "you've done enough."

"Don't — " he reached out for her again, and this time she let him. He put his hands on her shoulders and looked down into her face. She had stood this way with him so many times — it was familiar, and yet she felt as if she were looking at a stranger. Despite their physical proximity, she had never felt further away from him in her life. "I'll do anything," he said.

"Anything you want me to do."

"Make last night never have happened, then," she said.

His hands tightened on her shoulders. "Something I can do," he said.

"Hermione — help me."

"That's all I ever do," she said. "Help you. But I can't if you don't let me."

"Let you? I'm asking you. Hermione, I'll apologize to you every day for the rest of your life, if that's what you want, because you deserve it. I'll get down on my knees and beg you to forgive me — "

"I do forgive you," she said.

"I'll — " he broke off. "You what?"

"I forgive you," she said.

A look of relief so enormous it almost undid all her plans passed over his face. He ducked his head and kissed her. She had been expecting it, and let him. She tried to lose herself in it, knowing as she did that it might be the last time, but she could not. Those words, the last time, the last time, echoed in the back of her head. She closed her eyes, and put her arms around him. Holding him tightly was more satisfying than the kiss itself, which seemed as if it was taking place somewhere far away. But the feel of him under her hands, the slightness of his body, the fragile bones, the sharp blades of his shoulders, made her want to protect him again. But this was one thing she could not protect him against.

She drew away. "I forgive you," she said again. "But that doesn't mean things are going to be like they were."

"What do you mean?" he asked, the look of relief beginning to fade from his expression.

"You don't really think things can be the same again, do you?" she asked, her voice wistful. "Not after what happened."

"Nothing happened," he said fiercely. "Nothing happened — I was a git, that's all. Nothing happened to us."

"That's not true, Harry. You showed me something important last night.

You showed me you don't trust me."

"That's not true — "

"It is true," she said inexorably. "You don't trust me. You don't trust anyone. And I know why."

He just stared at her. From the look in his green eyes, she could tell he was dreading her next words, and she wished in some way she could spare him, even as she knew that this was necessary.

"You don't trust me because you know you can't be trusted," she said, her voice very flat. "You lie to me, so you imagine that I could lie to you. You hide things from me, so it makes sense to you that I could hide something so huge, so horrible, from you, and pretend as if everything was all right.

It makes me wonder…how bad is it, Harry? What you're not telling me?"

He went very white, and stared at her as if she had turned into something monstrous. "It's not the same," he said.

"How? How is it not the same?'

"Because what I don't tell you — it has nothing to do with us. It has nothing to do with you and me, or how I feel about you."

"That's where you're wrong," she said, suddenly furious. "I'm your friend, your best friend, and I'm your girlfriend. And I'm sick of asking and getting evasive answers, or no answer at all, or patronizing half-answers.

Something's eating at you, something's chewing you up from the inside out. I love you and it kills me to see you suffering, Harry, but it makes it ten thousand times worse when you won't even tell me what it's about.

You can't keep some huge secret and expect it to be separate from the rest of your life. It doesn't work that way. We don't work that way. I'm not Draco, I can't read your mind, but I can see what you're feeling. It shows on your face. Except lately…I can't even look at you." Her voice dropped, miserably. "I don't know what to do."

She waited, braced for him to say anything — to say something angry, or bitter, or defensive. He raised his head to look at her finally, and she was shocked at the look in his eyes — the bleakness in it, the despair. "So you're going to leave me?" he said. "Because of this…you'd really leave me?"

"Harry," she whispered. She wanted to go and throw her arms around him, wanted it badly, but she held herself tightly where she was. It was the hardest thing she had ever done. "I'm not leaving you — I could never really leave you."

"Then what are you doing?" he demanded, and some small part of her cursed the Dursleys bitterly and for the thousandth time for all of this. "I don't understand."

"I'll still be with you, Harry, just not the way we were — "

"In other words," Harry interrupted, his voice suddenly sharp, "we should

'still be friends'."

She stared at him. "You say that like it's nothing."

"You love me, and you're still my friend, but things can't be the way that there were. Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but before, we were friends, and we loved each other, so what exactly is different now?"