分卷阅读40（2 / 2）

All in all, by the time the evening healer comes in to give him his late night potion that sends him off into a dreamless sleep, he’s grateful.

When he wakes next, it is dark, but he is certain that there is someone watching him.

“Hello?” He fumbles for his wand on the bedside table and only succeeds in knocking it to the floor. “Who’s there?”

“Relax.” The light flares on and Draco comes face to face with the last person he thought he would see sitting vigil at his bedside—Ron Weasley. “It’s only me.”

“That’s supposed to put me at ease, is it?” Draco snaps, grudgingly accepting the helping hand pulling him into a sitting position. It’s harder to start moving again after he had been asleep. “My knight in shining armor.”

He’s angrier than he would normally be. He and Ron have come to a sort of truce over the past few weeks, where Draco does not expect anything but civility from Ron and Ron restrains himself from doing anything that may be considered rude or threatening, but still, he cannot help himself. When Draco saw the shadow in the corner of the room, part of him was hoping that it was Harry, even as the other part prepared for an attack.

Ron didn’t take the bait. He didn’t answer at all, actually, just sat back down in the chair without another glance at Draco and kept staring at the door, Ron laid flat across his knees. He looks casual, but Draco had seen Harry sit that way often enough to know that it was a by-product of their auror training, where they could look unbothered but still be ready to send a curse at a moment’s notice.

“What are you doing here, anyways?” Draco shifted himself out from under the street and let his legs hang off the edge of the bed. It hurt, but this was the only way to be able to look at Ron when he insisted on avoiding eye contact with him. “Didn’t think they’d let a visitor in here, no matter how big of a war hero they are.”

Ron squirmed after the use of the word war hero, but other than that, he made no sign that this was anything out of the ordinary. “I’m not visiting. I’m your guard.” Draco wondered, briefly, if everyone else that was here earlier was only part of Harry’s makeshift order, like if Harry can’t be here to protect him himself, he would make sure someone was, but threw the thought away. “They don’t know I’m here.”

“Does anyone?” What he really means to ask is does Harry, and the question must have came through, because something in Ron’s face softened.

“No.” Ron makes hasty eye contact with him and then breaks it to go to the window, poking away the curtains to peer down at the street below. Not like he could see anything. “Well, Hermione does,” He amends, shrugging. “but it’s self-appointed guard duty.”

Draco blinked. “Why?”

At some other time, he would like to think that he would be better at this. That he would be less trusting of a man that claimed to still hold all kinds of childhood grudges over both their heads, that he would have snappier retorts, more biting questions. That he would be able to demand for him to leave or else ask about Hermione, anything other than this passive acceptance that anyone who wants to wander in through this room was allowed to be here. But he wouldn’t do any of that, he would just sit here and not wonder how strange it was that Ron would make himself Draco’s self-appointed guard after eighteen years’ worth of solid dislike and not even bother to try to turn him away. Draco was simply too tired for it, and in too much pain, and his nightly potion was still there fogging up the brain.

That doesn’t need to happen, he distracts himself, watching as Ron jiggles the lock on the window and lets the curtains fall back into place. If I was the one to make it, I would be able to take the grogginess out of it entirely. Too bad they won’t allow that here.

“What do you mean why?” Ron throws himself back into the chair and glares at him, stubborn as always. “Someone has to keep those people from coming to finish you off.”

“I meant why you.” Draco attempted to stand up, hut couldn’t, just fell back down to the mattress instead. “Why you would even agree. You hate me.”

“I don’t.”

“You do.”

“I don’t.” There was a desperate plea to Ron’s voice, a underlying wish for Draco to understand. “I thought I did, but I don’t. I know that now.”