Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

Oh, yes Draco would understand his desire for revenge as Hermione and Ron had not and never would. He'd always known Draco comprehended that dark part of himself because he shared it. He'd understand revenge, all right. But he wouldn't understand being left.

There was really no way around that no matter how Harry tried to look at it. Draco wouldn't understand why Harry had to go away or why he had to go away alone. He'd be horribly hurt. He'd feel betrayed and abandoned. He would hate Harry. And that was the worst thought of all somehow: that Draco would hate him. Hermione wouldn't hate him for this. She'd known him too long and been through this too many times.

She'd always known that at some point he would face the ultimate last danger alone because however much she tried, she'd never been able to go to the end with him. At the end of everything, he'd always been alone.

But Draco. Draco would have thought they would go to the end together.

He would not have been able to comprehend separation and that Harry would be the artist of that separation would not be something he would have imagined or could understand. Harry knew this. With a terrible compassionate clarity, he knew it. He'd promised not to leave Draco while he was dying and no, he wasn't doing that. That he couldn't have done if he'd wanted to. Some things were beyond any act of will. And yes, he was glad about the antidote. So glad that every so often while packing he'd had to stop and sit down on the bed and let the violent shudders of relief run their course. So he was grateful to Snape. But he also hated him for what he had said. And more because it was true.

I promised to go, he thought, still staring at himself in the mirror. I promised to leave and not to let myself be found. But I didn't promise not to say goodbye.

He turned away from the mirror and went over to his trunk. From it he drew his quill and some parchment. Wearily settling himself on the edge of the bed, he began to write.

He'd never been very good at writing letters. In fact, he'd always been terrible at it. But this time it seemed easier, maybe because he wanted so very badly to say what he was saying now. Maybe some of what was inside him now, some of what was Draco, lent him Draco's casual eloquence. Or maybe it was just that he was too tired to dissemble or to try to sound as if he cared less than he did. Eventually he was done, and he set down the quill and looked tiredly at the two short letters he'd written. One for Draco. One for Hermione. He folded each in half and laid them carefully on his pillow.

There was one last thing to do now, one last thing before he could leave.

Shutting his eyes, he reached up and undid the clasp at the back of his neck that fastened the slender gold chain around his throat. It had become slightly tangled in his hair. He pulled it free and the chain and the charm it supported slid into his cupped hand. He held the Epicyclical Charm for a moment, gently. Then he laid it down on top of the letters.

When they came to look for him in the morning, they would find it here.

He stood up then, and slung the knapsack over his shoulder. He walked out the door.

Hermione, sitting beside Draco in the infirmary, wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. Heading to the infirmary to say goodnight, she had discovered Snape and Dumbledore leaving, and they had, with some reluctance on Snape's part, explained to her that Snape had identified every ingredient in the poison but one, and had constructed from that blueprint an imperfect antidote. An antidote that would slow the effects of the poison without counteracting it. "A treatment, then," she had said to Snape, "but not a cure."

Muggle terms, she realized. He had blinked at her, nodded sourly.

Dumbledore had rested a hand on her shoulder, asked her if she would prefer explaining this to Harry, or should he?

She'd said she would do it. And, not knowing where Harry was, she had come into the infirmary to wait for him. She was sure he'd be here eventually. Which was good, because she ached to see him. She wondered how he'd react — she wondered if he'd be glad at the extension of life offered to Draco, or simply enraged that it wasn't a proper cure, that all their troubles weren't behind them. Harry was an absolutist and was not one for understanding gradations.

She turned her gaze back to Draco, then, wondering how they were going to explain it to him. Thank God she would have Harry with her for that.

Draco had managed to wriggle his way out of the blankets again and lay on his back with his arms over his face, his sleeves pulled up, showing the dark bruises along his wrist where they had taken his blood for the antidote tests. Without warning his eyes flew open, and Hermione jumped back, frightened, as he sat up suddenly as if propelled by some invisible force, knocking the pillow off the bed and onto the floor.

She reached for him. "Draco — "

He turned to look at her. His eyes were dizzy, full of dreams and confusion. "Hermione — what happened?"

"Nothing happened." She put her hand on his shoulder. He was warm from sleep; she could feel the bones of his shoulder through the material of his shirt. "You had a nightmare?"

"No." He shook his head. "I felt something. Something's wrong."

"What's wrong?"

"I don't know." His voice was exhausted, almost fretful in its weariness.

"Maybe it was a dream. I felt like — I had lost something, but I don't know what." His eyelids fluttered closed, the potion pulling him back down into sleep. "Something important."

"It's the sleeping potion." Hermione pushed gently on his shoulder, indicating he should lie back down. "It gives you strange dreams."

"Maybe." He lay back, and she put her hand over his. "Where's Harry?"

"He's coming," she said. She waited for him to ask something else, but he did not; he was already asleep again. She sat with him, her hand on his, waiting for Harry to come back. It turned out to be a longer wait than she had expected.

The fire in the common room fireplace was as high as spells and liberal applications of the poker could make it, but still Ginny could not get warm.

She opened her hands in her lap and stared at them. They were red and blue with her own bruises where her nails had dug in. They were black in other places where ink from the torn diary had stained them. She did not remember dropping the shreds of the diary or stumbling out of Ron's old room. She remembered, what seemed like aeons later, being in the girl's bathroom, scrubbing at the ink on her hands with harsh soap and cleansing spells. Nothing had worked. The ink would not be removed.

Eventually she took a shower, scrubbing her whole body. It didn't budge the ink but she felt slightly better, less shaken and unstable. She put on her nightgown, wrapped a robe around herself, and went down to the common room to wait for Hermione. She was determined to tell her everything that had happened. Hermione would know what to do. And even if she didn't, Ginny didn't think she could go one more second without telling someone.

It had been a long time now, though, and Hermione had not come back to Gryffindor Tower. Ginny herself was beginning to wonder if she should go along to the infirmary, although she dreaded seeing Draco, for reasons she could not quite define. And she was so cold, and so tired. She shivered again, and wrapped her arms around herself.

I should have known better than to try to fight you, Tom. You always win.

She heard his soft voice in the whisper of the wind against the window pane, the crackle of the fire. Destroying the book had not destroyed the Tom in her mind; he would never leave her.

Thee to me.

The faint creaking noise of feet on the tower stairs made her lift her head.