Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

Harry was still holding on to the tabletop but he could no longer see it properly. "You don't understand," he said unevenly. "I'd do anything — "

"You've done enough." Snape's voice cut through his like a knife snapping a slender cord. "Perhaps you could not have helped the initial enchantment which bound you to Draco but certainly you could have resisted taking advantage of his attachment to you. Just because someone would follow you into hell does not mean you have to send them there."

Harry blinked at Snape. Something tugged at him, something like a half-recalled memory or a dream. He swallowed. "I've never tried to hurt him," he said, hearing the weakness in his own voice. "Never. I've always — "

"You mean you've never thought about it," Snape said harshly. "How long did it take you to notice he was ill? He begged me not to tell you, not to spoil the wedding, and I refrained because I was not sure. But I myself could see it in his face, although we spoke only briefly. I could see the shadow of approaching death. Where have you been looking, Potter, that you didn't see it? Not at Draco, for all you call him your brother, your friend. And now I suppose you're planning to drag him after you on some insane wild goose chase after Voldemort — "

"No." Harry was shaking now. "No, I told him I wouldn't go without him and I wouldn't go with him until he was better — "

"He packed his bags. Did you know that? I found them at the foot of his bed this morning. If you stay, he'll kill himself with guilt that he's the one thing keeping you here. And if you go without him, he will kill himself trying to follow you. He isn't strong enough-"

"I would never leave him while he was dying!" Harry shouted fiercely, his chin jerking up. "Never. But you're not giving me any choices — any bloody choices at all — stay or go, it doesn't matter, does it — what do you expect me to do?"

Snape stood still a moment, looking at Harry. His black eyes were narrowed, but Harry could see, somehow, in Snape's expression, that underneath the sneering disdain some rusty part of him really did care about Draco. Really did want what was best for him. And that part of Snape Harry could not push away or deny or declare to be wrong, for in his heart he felt the same way. "I plan to find the antidote," Snape said at last. His voice was cool and for the first time, not ungentle. "And when I find it, I will come and tell you that I've found it. And you, Potter — you will go away. Without Draco. This final battle, whatever it is, is your battle. If your other friends are stupid enough to wish to come with you, that is their lookout. But it will be a long time until Draco is entirely well again and he needs rest. He needs to be left alone. Since he was born, he has been someone else's puppet, a contrivance to be played with and put to use. His father's. Slytherin's. Ours. And now yours. Whether you use him in love or in hate, it hardly matters in the end. It is still use. Cut your ties with him and let him decide what use he wants to put himself to. Do that, and I might perhaps begin to believe that you are not in fact like your father. Do it, and I might begin to believe that you actually are his friend — that he is not simply yours."

Shock has a way of crystallizing a moment. Harry looked at Snape, and seemed to see right through him, somehow, a blind imperfect seeing, through to the truth of what the Potions master was saying. It made sense, in the way that one's greatest and worst fears always make sense, in the way that when they come true there is a recognition and realization that strikes at the heart — as if one were greeting an old friend. Oh, there you are. I knew you were coming. I've been expecting you.

"All right," Harry said, and was startled by the clarity and steadiness of his own voice. "All right. I can do that."

Snape looked taken aback, so much so that in another world or time, Harry would have been pleased. "Do you think so? It will hardly be easy."

"Find the antidote," Harry said. He was barely aware of what he was saying. "I can't do that — nobody else can — you have to. And I don't care about easy. I just — " He broke off, and steadied himself against the table.

He could feel the beat of his own heart, hard and painful, against the inside of his ribs. "You didn't like my father," he said. "And you thought he was selfish. But you didn't say he was a liar. He kept his word. And I keep my promises. I promise you, I'll do it. Just find the antidote and I'll-"

"This is not an exchange," Snape cut in, his tone severe. "I plan to find this antidote whether you keep your promises or not, Mister Potter. As for whether or not you are a liar, that remains to be seen."

"I don't care what you think of me," Harry said. He drew back from the table, straightening up. "I don't think much of you. And I hate it that I think you're right. And maybe you aren't. But I can't take that chance. I'll do it. But not for you." He raised his chin, looked steadily at Snape one last time. And for the first time in their long unpleasant acquaintance, Snape looked away first. "You know why," Harry said, almost in a whisper, and turned away.

He half expected Snape to call out to him as he went across the room to the dungeon door, and opened it, and went through. But Snape was silent.

Harry shut the door behind him. He had made it almost halfway down the corridor before he had to run to the nearest window. He pushed it open and was violently and desolately sick into the cold winter air outside.

Slowly the darkness ebbed away and the room began to come back into focus for Ginny. The scattering pages of the diary, having already imbibed the spilled blood of Tom Riddle that day, proceeded to drink up the tears that spilled from Ginny's eyes and clung to her damp hands as she tore at them. She did not notice.

A soft noise, like the inhalation or exhalation of a breath, rose from the pages as they fluttered down around her, but Ginny, in the extremity of her hysteria, did not notice. "Tom," she sobbed aloud, ripping at the book's binding now, "I hate you Tom, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you — "

The binding came apart in her hands, rending itself in half with a sound like tearing flesh. A sticky dampness oozed from it — half-coagulated ink.

With a guttural noise, Ginny flung the ripped remains of the book away from her and buried her face in her stained hands, swaying back and forth. She did not see the light that rose from the broken binding, a pale echoing ghost of the light that had burst from the book when Tom Riddle had bound a piece of his soul into it fifty years before.

Ginny rocked herself. The metallic taste of ink and old parchment in her mouth was like the taste of blood. "Tom," she said again, whispering now into the darkness behind her hands. "Where are you, Tom…?"

All around her, the pages of the diary fluttered and rustled softly in the still air, like the wings of restless birds in the moments before a storm breaks.

The light of sunset came creeping slowly into the infirmary like blood spilling slowly into water, tinting the air scarlet. The west wall of windows gave out onto a rose-gray sky chased with the last threads of clouds, streaked gold and black. A sky full of spangles and tinder. One of the loveliest sunsets Harry had ever seen and he barely looked at it.

He had stopped in the center of the room upon coming in and now stood where he was, letting the bloody light coalesce around him. All the beds in the room were stripped bare except the one Draco lay on, several feet away, a huddled shadow in the dimming light.

The infirmary air was cool but not cold and the faint wind whispered to Harry of his own shortcomings, failures and blindness. He wanted Hermione — wanted her with him, badly. But how could he tell her what Snape had just told him? She might hate him and either way it would break her heart. He wanted Ron. But Ron was gone and that was his fault, too. He wanted Sirius. But Sirius would try to prevent him from doing what he had to do. He wanted his parents. But they were dead.