“Not that bad!” Ron threw himself bak down onto the ouh. “You ould have died, mate.”
“Do you know,” Harry said, teeth gritted, eyes losed, maybe beause of the pain, maybe hoping for patiene. “how many times you’ve said those exat words to me?”
“But this time you ould have died beause of pure stubbornness!” Hermione said, and her hair was flying out arou had beerified, she was so frazzled. “You ould have died, and all beause you hado sleep a it was a good idea to !” She k down on the ground in front of him, took his hands in her own. “I know it’s hard Harry.” Drao wao look away, beause this was suh an obviously private momeween this family he would of. “We’re all havi. You a be fine. None of us, and I mean none of us, are fine, Harry. You o ask for help.”
“I an ask for help!” Harry protests, pulling his hands out of hers. “Drao makes me a sleeping pht!”
Drao had thought that the yelling had bee it’s not until Harry mehe sleeping potion that all hell really broke loose.
Drao ahe reaso, holy. Sleeping perous things to py with, normally, beause they an ruin both your physial aal health, make you ompletely depe oion, rui a normal sleepihere would be no moving forward if Harry was turning to a sleeping pht. But that ohe regur way to make it, not to how Drao makes it, whih, if he was right, would have no ill side effets at all, sh term.
And he was very rarely wrong about his potions.
Not that that seems to matter to ahinks, a really think anything at all, beause Ron was o and oming trabbing by the arm and hurling him bakwards, bak into the wall, where there would be no esape.
“You make him ohht, huh?” He asks, ahiihese hands and these eyes. Drao had e maie how big Ron was bak at Hogwarts, but that was bak when he had d G him every hour of the day and his father’s reputation to hide behind. Noihe wall, t over him, keepih a forearm aross his throat. There was et him now. ( Harry, anyways, a in any positiorying to be helpful?”
“It’s additive!” Hermio, and her voie was e ain. She always had beeo make ry. Theurned on him, a seem weak anymore, she seemed terrifying. “How ould you let him do this?”
After all he’s done for you, Drao heard, ahen that that’s goihe li follows him arou of his life, this guilt that omes with every heartbeat, the debt that staks up with eah seoays here. He tries not to look at Harry, but thehe sight makes him want to sink to his knees ao take him away, to send him to the ministry, to stik him in Azkaba of his life if that’s rotet him. Beause Drao will ruiually. In the end, he ruihing.
“It’s not,” He roaks out instead, looking past them all at Ginny, beause Ginny was safe, Ginny was strong. “Not that way that I make it.”
&o shok them all, even Roo do that. “That’s impossible.” Hermione says, faintly, but she looks ied too. “You would have had to find your way around a doze least. It would be revolutionary.”
& believe him, but she wants to. That roblem with everyohis room: they always wahe best in people.
Drao shoves Ron away and stands straight, tries to make himself look what he believed a Malfoy should be, beause this, at least, is something he knows. “Wath me.”
Harry
& Hogwarts, there were times when Harry had to admit that Drao was smart. He was very good at magi, espeially transfiguration, and even as muh as he despised She favoritism he showed Drao, even Harry ould see that the praise wasn’t always unjustified.
“Is he atually right?” He asks, wathing as Drao talked in muttered voies with Gee and Hermione, goies and expihe smoke from the auldron fillihen. Roo report bak to the auror department about Harry’s ondition, but other than that, no one seemed very ohe m’s i ahis was learly something importahiing, and Gee and Hermione a up in the raze of aademi ahievement that Harry had always assoiated with Hermioudying habits.
“I don’t know.” Luna ed over the table, wathing it all with might be i but ould easily just her staring off into spae. “I never was muh good at potions.”
“Yeah, well.” Harry doeshink about potiorain of thought he would rather stay away from. “Me either.”
But learly Drao was. Harry liked to wath him do this, beause it was oimes that he looked like the boy he was before the war, the ohought the ground that he walked on was made from gold. Ahough Harry had Drao nearly as muh as this was, there was a ertaio him, a harm, a onfidene (a wholeness, an innoene, a was o see shining through.
&iful, Harry thought, ahough he pushed the thought away as soo li was the truth, the way he looked, with the sleeves of his shirt rolled bak up