分卷阅读17（2 / 2）

“So, now you have a mate to deal with. A mate, who a few moments ago, you said does not love nor even like you.”

“Oh.”

And that summed up Draco’s feelings quite nicely.

As Lucius had pointed out, Harry had been given three days of time to mull over his current situation. And reading that book from cover to cover had given him a lot of time to think…and to berate himself. Well, he’d started berating himself after he’d met Draco’s father waiting for them at the doors to the castle…or more like waiting for him to carry Draco’s sleeping form to the doors of the castle. Draco had exchanged hands and been carried off to wherever it was thought proper by Lucius to take him, and Harry had walked up to the boys dorm lost in thought. He’d never gotten there. Ron had been waiting for him in the Gryffindor Common Room. The conversation had been awkward to say the least.

“You know, you could have told me Harry,” Ron said, looking into the cheerfully blazing fire. “I would have supported you. I told you that.”

Harry frowned. “Ron, I don’t know what to think right now…can we talk about this later?”

Ron had agreed, and they both had gone up to bed, not saying another word. Well, Ron had gone to bed. Harry had stayed up, reading and thinking. At about four in the morning, he’d given up on reading and had just sat on his bed thinking. He’d done it again, and this time he really couldn’t say why. At the moment he’d felt he had been doing the right thing yet looking back on the moment, he felt all confused. The feelings between this night and the now, and that night and the then were identical…sort of. Except this time no one had died. Last time…the last time Harry had given in to his impulses like that…Sirius had died.

I can’t believe I did that again, he berated himself. He didn’t know what to think, he decided at exactly 4:09 in the morning. He really didn’t. He’d saved Draco’s life, that much he knew, but why? Now that the moment was gone, he could look back and see that he’d acted purely on impulse.

But an impulse of what? His mind asked rebelliously. Harry ignored this question he could not answer and went on with his analyzing.

Without complete knowledge of the information he could have had, he’d taken the plunge. Yes, there were somewhat “better” results this time, there was a bright side to look to. No one had died. No one had even gotten hurt…well, except for the window. But was what he had done truly the right thing? Harry didn’t know.

In fact, three days later Harry still didn’t know, and still hadn’t come to grips with the strange feelings that had prevailed that night. The ones that had told him to save Draco’s life at all costs because it was important, necessary…even, maybe, mandatory was the right word to use. Whenever he thought of how he’d felt during that night, he eventually had to come back to those feelings that had driven his impulses, and whenever he thought of those…he hit a roadblock. Because he truly couldn’t say he understood how he’d felt. He could go over the exact same arguments now, three days later, in his head, and yet they didn’t have the same compelling force. Maybe that was because Draco’s life wasn’t in danger at this moment in time, maybe he was just being ignorant, but something inside him was downright glad that Draco wasn’t dead. The other parts of him that were more logical were…dealing with the situation as best they could.

And for these three days that he’d been thinking, Ron and Hermione had turned, almost, into shadows around him. Ron must have told Hermione of Harry’s request to talk about it later, as she wasn’t prying for details. In fact, surprisingly, the whole school wasn’t prying for details. Well, at least not from him. The entire Slytherin house was in a state of panic over Draco’s current health issue. Of course they had been told that he was very sick, enough to be quarantined in his room (“The Slytherins get their own rooms?” Ron had choked out when the announcement had been made), and couldn’t see anyone. Of course this went in one ear and out the other of the Slytherin house, but were met by the jurisdiction of one Lucius Malfoy when they tried to sneak in to see Draco anyway.

The Hufflepuffs were curious but not as compelled as the Slytherins to find out about his welfare. The Ravenclaws were nonchalant, nodding and going back to their books.

And the Gryffindors…well, they (all par three) were celebrating on different levels of seriousness. There were several in Harry’s year who were talking about actually throwing a party if Draco didn’t recover in time for the next Slytherin vs. Gryffindor match because surely Snape couldn’t somehow manage to postpone that as well. (Of course, Harry, who knew all the reasons why Draco wasn’t well enough to play the morning after that night didn’t comment on this.) And then there were those that just shrugged and went on with their lives. Harry had a suspicion that Hermione would have been in this group and Ron would have gladly been part of the latter had they not also been privy to the real reasons behind Draco’s sudden lack of mobility and overall activity. And for his own sake, Harry assumed, they had said nothing about that matter and had waited for him to make the first move towards them.

And three days later, they sat facing each other (somewhat in a triangle form) in an empty classroom, waiting for someone to speak the first words.

“Well Harry,” Hermione spoke at length. “It seems you should catch us up. The last time we spoke, you weren’t going to bond with Draco.”

“And it’s a little too late for that now isn’t it?” Ron asked, surprisingly without malice, although Harry could tell that Ron was putting out a valiant effort to not be emotional.

“Yes. It’s a bit late for that,” Harry spoke. He still didn’t know what Ron and Hermione knew about the situation. He assumed Hermione had done what he had and read the book cover to cover, but she might not have told Ron the full details within.

“So you are going through with it, then?” Hermione asked.