Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

"She was using the Time-Turner," Blaise began, but Charlie cut her off.

"Tell me later. We have to get her to the infirmary." He turned to go, but Ginny had moved, reaching out her hand to catch at the front of Ron's shirt. Her fingers left bloody marks.

"Ron," she whispered, beckoning him, her eyes shut. Very pale, he leaned down over his sister, listening as she whispered in his ear. When he drew back, there was a scarlet mark on his cheeks where her lips had touched, like a macabre lipstick stain.

"Five up from the floor, ten over from the wall," said Ron, looking bewilderedly at Blaise. "What does that mean?"

Blaise sucked in a breath. "She pointed at that wall earlier," she said, indicating the west wall of the library. "I think she's trying to tell us where the antidote is."

Charlie's voice was terse. "You look for it. Meet us in the infirmary," he said, but as soon as he made as if to leave, Ginny began to struggle. The struggling brought on a fit of coughing; blood splashed up and onto Charlie's shirt, wetting it with scarlet. He blanched.

Blaise whirled and ran to the wall, scrabbling feverishly at the stones — five up from the floor, ten over from the wall, five up from the floor, ten over from the wall, she repeated to herself-until she seized on the correct one.

Indeed, it felt as if it sat almost loosely in its mortared space. One of her fingernails broke off as she pried it out; another time she might have mourned, but not now. She dropped the stone, which might have crushed her foot if Ron, silently on hand, had not caught it, and felt around in the dark space it left behind.

The walls of the space were cool and rough. In a moment, her hand closed on something: something cylindrical and smooth. She drew it out, and recognized instantly the vial with its golden stopper that Snape had given to Ginny in the Potions dungeon. Suddenly terrified that she might mishandle it, she thrust it at Ron in a blind panic. "It's the antidote," she said, in a shaking voice. "To Draco's poison."

Ron backed away. "Great Wizards," he whispered. "No-don't hand it to me, are you mad? I might drop it."

"Ron!" barked Charlie. "Blaise!" He sounded as if his temper hung on a frayed thread; the antidote recovered, Ginny lay limp in his grasp, her face turned into his shoulder. "To the infirmary. NOW." He spun on his heel and stalked towards the door.

Blaise scuttled to obey, the precious vial cradled like a baby against her chest, her heart pounding in rhythm with her steps. After a moment, Ron followed them, pausing only to use the sleeve of his jumper to wipe his sister's blood from his cheek.

Harry found his voice. "Why are you telling me this now?"

"I wanted you to know." Draco's voice cracked slightly on the last word, like a delicate fissure in glass. "What you're fighting so hard for."

"Malfoy…" Harry took a step back. He was intensely conscious suddenly of everything around him: the gray of the Manor, translucent as a shell through which winter light shines; the gray of Draco's eyes, the color not of water but of the memory of water, not of tears, but of the sorrow that brings them forth. "God, Malfoy. What did you think I would say to that?"

Draco's hand, where it held the banister, was vibrating like the plucked string of a violin. "I thought-you being you-that you might forgive me."

Harry took a deep breath. "Well," he said. "I don't."

Gently, Sirius moved Hermione aside and bent to examine Harry. She drew a sobbing breath. "Sirius…it's…it's my fault…"

"No, it isn't," he said, absently. "He's just fallen asleep; passed out, more like. It's not as if he's slept in days." He brushed a stray lock of hair off Harry's forehead. "In fact, it's probably a good thing."

"But he won't wake up--I've shaken him, and he won't wake up-"

Sirius was about to reply when the loud shrieking noise that had been echoing through the castle stopped abruptly. "Thank God," he said, looking up. "Now, what was that about Ginny? Is she in some sort of trouble?"

Hermione just stared at him, paralyzed. For the first time in her life, she thought, she felt actually stupid, as if her mind had been numbed by all the trauma she'd endured. Should she lie to Sirius, could she lie to Sirius?

"She went," she said, finally, in a whisper, "to get the antidote…"

"Antidote?" Sirius stood up, his voice sharp. "What antidote? What are you talking about?"

"You mean the antidote for Draco?" It was Narcissa, wan and pale but with an eager lift to her voice,pushing past Sirius to stand between Harry's chair and Draco's bedside. She sank slowly down on the bed beside her son, her eyes wide. "Has Severus had a breakthrough? Finally?"

"There was a breakthrough," Hermione admitted, "but the ingredient that was needed-it wasn't easy to get. So Ginny went to Dumbledore and he-"

Narcissa, who had been listening, suddenly screamed once, piercingly, and bent over her son. Draco, white and waxen, did not move. "Poppy!"

Narcissa shrieked. Madam Pomfrey whirled and stared. "Poppy! Come quickly! Draco isn't breathing!"

"I see." Draco's eyes shone, reflecting the dull light outside the windows, the swirling, uncolored light of nothingness. "I suppose it was foolish of me to-"

"I don't forgive you," said Harry, enunciating very clearly, "because you do not require my forgiveness. After what I did-to both of you-I'm the one that should be forgiven. What you did-I understand it."

Draco looked at him, a strange light dawning on his face. His eyes said, You tore out our hearts, and we comforted each other. His voice said, "If I said I never meant to hurt you with it, that would be a lie."

"Did you hate me?" Harry asked. "When you did it?"

Draco, who would not lie, said, "No."

"I won't say it doesn't hurt," Harry said, measuredly. "It does. Hurt. But you can hurt me, and I'll still stay. I've hurt you, after all."

"That's different," said Draco. "You're a hero. You have to choose the world, sometimes."

"Bollocks," said Harry. "Why are you so desperate to damn yourself, Malfoy? Why do you want me to despise you?"

Draco said nothing. His eyes were shining.

"Is it so I'll let you go? I'll tell you right now," Harry said, raising the sword in his hand again, "I never will. Do you see that now?"

Draco looked as if he were about to reply, but at that moment the huge double doors of the Manor blew open, and a tearing, icy wind ripped through the room.

Madam Pomfrey reached Draco's side at a run, wand in hand, and seized an open vial off the bedside table. She tipped the contents into Draco's mouth. He made a choking noise, breathed once, choked again- and gasped for another breath, and then another, as if he were breathing through sand or tar. "He's going," said Madam Pomfrey, setting the vial down, her face crumpling. "It's moments now."

"Cissy-" Sirius turned to hold Narcissa, as if he were afraid she might collapse, but she sat very straight beside Draco, and took his hand, and held it tightly. She reminded Hermione of the statue of a Greek goddess: Niobe, perhaps, weeping over her lost children.

"My son, my son," she whispered. "Go, if you must. Go, with ease and grace and dignity, where your ancestors have gone before you. I never meant for you to pass to the land beyond the river before I did, but I know you will wait for me there."

Hermione, on her knees on the floor, felt the tears like a flood behind her eyes. She knew when they came, she would break all over, like a dam smashing before the force of pent-up waters. She reached blindly for Harry, clasped one of his cold, unmoving hands in her own-she saw Remus clasp Sirius' shoulder; Sirius was bent over, his face in his hands-The door of the infirmary burst open. Charlie erupted into the room, carrying Ginny in his arms and followed by Ron and a white-faced, starkly hysterical-looking Blaise, who clutched something to her chest as if it were the most precious cargo in the world.