Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

Charlie bent to lay his sister on an empty bed, calling hoarsely for Madam Pomfrey. Madam Pomfrey looked up, her crumpled face smoothing with utter surprise-she had been prepared for Draco's sudden turn for the worse, but not for this. She took an uncertain step back-And Draco stopped breathing. Hermione couldn't help herself; she gave a little cry, a sound like a wail, and Blaise, who had been staring uncertainly from the doorway, broke into a run, tearing across the room with her red hair flying like a banner. As she neared, Hermione saw that what she clutched in her hand was a vial of something that shone like melted Galleons.

Hermione bolted to her feet. "Is that the antidote?"

Blaise nodded, too out of breath to speak, and thrust the vial at Hermione.

Hermione could see all the white faces in the room turned towards her, like pale sunflowers following an erratic solar progress, but they meant nothing to her; they might as well have been in a dream. In the same dream, she took the vial from Blaise and unstoppered it: a strong scent, like herbs and copper and clean spring wind, rose from the vial. Still in the dream, she moved to the bed and leaned over Draco, and tipped the contents of the vial into his mouth through his slightly parted lips.

Draco looked at Harry. The icy hair lifted his hair and whipped it into his eyes; despite the wind's fierceness, it was strangely silent where they stood. Harry could hear muted voices crying out in the distance, the sounds of grief and agony, but they were muffled as if they traveled a great distance. "Potter…"

Harry took a step forward. "You're worried I won't need you after all this is over. Well, I say it doesn't matter. I don't have to need you, I just have to want to be around you, and I already do. Need isn't friendship. You know that as well as I do. All your life, Malfoy, you've given all you had to other people because you hoped they'd need you. Your father. Then me.

You can't live for me-you were right, what you said before. You've given all you have. You haven't got any more."

He took another step forward, and now he was standing just in front of Draco, tipping back his head a little to look up at him. "You have to live for yourself, Malfoy. Your life has to be about you now. Not about anyone else. Love where you want to and do what you want to, and live for your own life, and be a whole person and you still won't ever lose me. I promise you that."

Draco was silent, but he took his hand off the banister and stepped down, and now they were face to face, exactly eye level since they were the same height. And Draco said, "And it came to pass that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul."

Harry looked at him, blinking. "You want to make a covenant?" he said.

Draco's mouth twitched, and then he laughed, a clear, unhurried, and honest laugh. "Potter," he said, "you're so astoundingly literal," and he knelt down, and laid Terminus Est down flat at Harry's feet. Harry did the same, laying down the sword of Gyffindor across the other sword so that they formed a makeshift X, and when he stood up Draco was smiling at him. He reached to put a hand on the other boy's shoulder just as the Manor collapsed all around them.

Hermione had expected something to happen suddenly, but nothing sudden did. The liquid from the vial trickled into Draco's mouth, and he seemed, reflexively, to swallow-which relieved her, as she had been afraid he would choke. She laid the vial down and took a step back, her breath held.

For a moment, and then another long and terrible moment, nothing happened at all. Then Draco's eyelids twitched, and he took a breath, long and slow and easy, and the color rushed back into his face in a flood. His hands moved, restlessly and gently, on the coverlet, and then his eyes opened, bright and luminously silver.

Narcissa made a little sound in her throat and threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly.

Draco looked appalled. "MOTHER," he said. "STOP THAT AT ONCE."

Sniffling and laughing a little, Narcissa drew back; Draco sat up; he was pale, but moved with his old grace, and clearly without pain. He looked around at the faces crowded around his bed: Remus, Sirius, Narcissa, Blaise, Hermione, and his eyes lingered on each. Then he said, "Where's Harry?"

"I'm here." Harry stood up from the chair he'd been sitting in, grinning all over his face. "Right here."

"You look terrible," Draco observed.

"Well." Harry glanced down at himself. "You ruined my shirt."

"Then I did you a favor. It's a hideous shirt anyway. Why must you wear polos? They made your head look like a postbox." Draco drew himself up, looking around, bright-eyed. "So," he said. "I take it you found the antidote."

Harry looked quickly at Hermione, who nodded. "We did," she said.

Draco waved a breezy hand. "I always knew you would," he said. "No worries here."

Only Harry laughed, and Draco glanced around, his eyes suddenly narrowing. "Where's Ginny, then?" he asked.

A sudden and terrible silence fell. Only Harry looked honestly bewildered; seeing where everyone was staring, he slewed around and Hermione heard him suck in a breath. "What happened?" he said. "Is she hurt?"

Draco's eyes narrowed further. "What? What do you mean?"

In answer, Sirius and Narcissa moved aside so that Draco had a clear view across the room to where Ginny lay on her narrow white infirmary bed, Madam Pomfrey bending over her. Ron and Charlie hovered beside her, and even from this distance, the blood on Charlie's shirt was clearly visible.

Draco sat up straight, all the light gone out of his face. "What happened?"

It was Blaise who answered. "Your antidote," she said. "It turned out it only existed in the past. So she went back to get it-and then forward again, and back again, and forward again, all in a short period of time, and I guess it was too much for her, too hard on her system. The last time she came back, she collapsed."

Draco stared at Blaise, his lips parted, then shoved his coverlet back and tried to stand, but he was too weak. Sirius moved to take his arm. "Sit back down, Draco. You're not well enough to walk-"

"I can walk," Draco said, in a flat, steely voice. "Let me go. I have to see her."

Harry stepped forward. "It's fine," he said, locking eyes with Sirius. "He can lean on us."

Sirius looked at Harry for a moment, then nodded, and together they helped Draco to his feet. Each with a hand under his arm, they moved slowly towards Ginny's bed. Blaise and Ginny followed them; Narcissa stayed behind, biting her lip as she watched her son make his slow progress across the room. Remus stood beside her, his arms folded and his face impassive.

Hermione had heard of time sickness before; she'd been warned about it by McGonagall third year, though the trips she'd taken through time had always been such short distances that it had never posed much of a risk.

She knew that it got worse the greater the chronological distance you traveled, and even worse when you carried objects back and forth with you. But she was still unprepared for the sight of Ginny, deathly white except for the crusted, dried blood around her mouth and under her eyes, her breath rasping in and out of her throat. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, the Hufflepuff Time-Turner pulsing at her throat.

"My God." It was Sirius who spoke first, his voice tense with distress.

"What's gone wrong? What's being done for her?"

Madam Pomfrey lifted a haggard face. "Everything's gone wrong," she said. "Time sickness is very difficult to treat-it can cause a total collapse of all the systems. Even as I repair one, another fails. Please stand back," she added, fixing Blaise, who had stepped forward, biting her fist, with a steely gaze. "She's very delicate right now."