In his head, Harry is thinking that all he o find him, to lear the dust and debris off Drao’s fae and rush him to his hest, hold him a him go. But when he does find him, half pulling him out of the disaster befrabs Harry uhe arms and pulls him away, it does not help, beause even though Harry had seen a lot of awful things, this might have to be the worst.
&rying to talk to him. Harry knows that, dimly, even reognizes her words, but he doesen. “This is a job for a healer, Harry,” She is saying, and Pery has grabbed him by one arm and Roher and they are pulling him away, but Harry ising, beause all he is looking at is Drao, with the blood snaking down from his temple a on his fae ahing so harsh and loud that it might be better if he ould he breath at all, beause at least it would not sound like he was in so muh pai me do my job.”
&ops fighting when Gee joi say t for the fat that if there is ohe s what is like to lose someo is so ual to your ow is Gee. Harry an’t imagi he would ask him to step away if there was a way for Harry to help.
“She’s going to take are of him.” Pery tells him, his jaw set and his fae smeared with blood. Later, Harry would learn that it ery’s ow him with ahe fae whe tried to pull Harry away. “She’s the best at her job”
For the first time, Harry an truly appreiate Pery and what he ae all his pomp, he really is ohe rare people in life who are able to walk inteny and ontrol a room, who an look at a situatio o be do lie, a have muh patiene for people he onsiders i, so whehat his girlfrie her job, it isery, it’s the best words of omfort he an think of giving.
“Okay.” Harry says, and sinks down to the ground. There is a hand on his shoulder and he knows with that it is Hermione, beause he ahe weight of it from so many years him bak and holding him up. He raises his o to meet her, and annot fio ask if she was alright, even though he hopes that she is. “Okay.”
“Hey.” Ginny throws herself down on the grouhey’re bak in some hallway iry that Pery had led him t to sehey have news. Drao was at St. Mungo’s in a magi indued oma, and was o anytime soon, so that it ortant for him to head ht away. “Thought you might want this.”
She’s holding his wand out to him. Harry had to go after it. If someo him, he art with his bare hahey were. “Yeah.” The weight of it makes him feel better.
“We’re goihem, if you want to ome.” She is dressed in what Gee had le armor—ombat boots and ah a path over the elbow, fiher dueling gloves and her hair pulled up in a tight ponytail. “The people who did this, I mean.”
“You thihem?”
& ied in it, if they ouldhem, if he ouldhem hurt like they hurt Drao.
“I thihe one who dropped the haold us a lot.” Ginny flexes her fingers, aime, Harry skin on her knukles. She is staring down at her hahough she wasn’t sorry, she ouldn’t quite believe that this ersouro. “I ersuasive.”
Harry thought about it, a some more. He ould stay here, sitting iy hallway, ao sittiable hair in a slightly leaner hallway in St. Mungo’s. Or he ould go fight, make someone pay, make them hurt. He had his wand bak, after all.
And he was done feeling helpless.
Chapter 31
Drao
One, when Drao was seven years old, when he was small and srawny and still hado use the p right beh his skin, he had walked to the edge of his neighbor’s pond a alooes skimming the surfae of the mud and muk like it was same. His mother had told him not to go i was dirty, and his father said that it was gerous, just as derelit ahe neighbor’s house was, but Drao had thought that it would be fun to go to a forbidde o was fun, uepped forward onto the bank just a bit too far, ehe wave of the otherwise still water that was only the bekoning of a grindyloled in.
& swim.
It was stra momehinking of all the things that he ould do, all the people that his father had paid to teah him—the lineage of old houses, violin, alligraphy, ihat he was ie ger, he ould how to move his arms or kik out with his legs well en himself bak to the surfae. There was only darkness up all the light and weeds brushing at his heels aion building up inside him, where he would kik up off the murky bottom of the pond and burst i just long enough for one lifegivih of air before the depths pulled him bak dain.
Trying to was somethi.
But he does , eventually, after what must have been h in and out of onsiousness, where he would opeo be blihe light and taken abak by the fire in his luire body ahed, ahough eah time there were voies he