'Now don't tell me,' Draco interjected, 'then one day James saved you from a horrible fate, and you realized what a great guy he was after all and you were friends ever after.'
'No,' said Sirius, 'actually, one day I finally pissed him off royally, and he threw a punch at me. I hit him back, of course. Actually, we beat the hell out of each other. Dumbledore forbid Madam Pomfrey to fix our cuts and bruises, so we just had to heal the old-fashioned way, locked up together in the hospital wing. When we came out, we were friends, and stayed friends.'
'Are you suggesting I beat the hell out of Harry?' asked Draco, with a shadow of his old grin. 'Because that's the kind of advice I could really get into.'
'If you want his friendship, it's an unorthodox way to go about it. Is that what you want?'
'No,' said Draco. 'Oh, hell.' He lowered his wand. 'I don't know.'
Sirius was very still. 'I learned a lot of things about myself in Azkaban,' he said. 'I thought about James a lot, as well. I realized that part of the reason we'd been such great enemies and then such great friends was that we were so alike. Proud.
Stubborn. Determined…'
Draco grinned again, a little more strongly this time. 'When did Dog Man become Advice Man?' he said.
'Obnoxious,' added Sirius. 'I forgot obnoxious.'
'I do see what you're getting at,' Draco admitted. 'But I'm not like Harry. I should know. When the Polyjuice spell was working…it was like someone switched a light on inside my head and I could see into every part of my mind, knew why I was doing things, knew what I wanted, knew what the right thing to do was, and wanted to do it. And now…' He snapped his fingers. 'It's gone.'
'What you're saying,' said Sirius gently, 'Is that when you had Harry in you, you could be good without trying. Now you'll just have to try. Like the rest of us do.'
'Don't preach at me,' said Draco. 'I hate that.' But he didn't look angry. He looked sad, and even more like Narcissa, with the same pale and melancholy beauty. 'There's still no point in my going back with you,' he said. 'They hate me now.'
'No, they don't. Harry doesn't hate you, and Hermione definitely doesn't hate you.'
Draco looked at Sirius quickly. 'Did she say — anything?'
'If you want to know what Hermione's thinking, you'll have to ask her,' said Sirius. 'Trust me on that one. She's that kind of girl.'
'Why are you being so nice to me?' asked Draco, squinting up at Sirius.
'I told you,' said Sirius. 'You remind me of me. And besides, I think Harry needs you.'
'Harry doesn't need someone like me.'
'That's where you're wrong,' said Sirius. 'He needs you a lot more than you think.
Now come on.' He reached down a hand, and Draco took it. Sirius helped him to his feet. 'I should tell you the Weasleys are here,' he said.
'Okay, I know they hate me,' said Draco with finality.
'No, they don?t,' Sirius began, and stopped. 'Okay, they do. But as a wise man once said to me, if you?re holding out for universal popularity, you?re going to be here a long time.'
'Hermione.' It was Harry's voice. She opened her eyes and looked up. He was standing over her, a cloudy Harry-shaped shadow backlit by a canopy of stars. For a second she just smiled up at him — it was like a lot of dreams she'd had, and she thought she might not quite be awake. In her dreams, though, Harry hadn't been looking quite so anxious.
'Harry,' she said, sitting up. 'Is everything all right?'
'Yeah,' he said, looking at her with a funny expression. 'Will you walk with me?'
'Where?'
'Just a little way,' he said. 'I don't want to be overheard.'
'Okay,' she said, getting to her feet and following him. He was walking away from the car, along the side of the chasm.
'I wanted to thank you,' he said. 'For saving my life.'
'I didn't, Harry, you fell,' she pointed out, regretfully.
'If you hadn't held on to me as long as you did, Ron and them would have been too late. Did you hear what I said to you?'
'What?' she replied, thrown by his abrupt question. 'When?'
He stopped walking and looked at her. His face in the moonlight was dark, lined with silver shadows, the most familiar face in the world to her and yet somehow, the least known. Looking at him had that effect on her, as it always did, of making everything else in the world seem not quite real. 'When I was about to fall,' he said. 'Did you hear me?'
'I thought you said you loved me,' she said, looking away. 'But maybe you didn't.'
There was a long silence. Then he said, 'I did.'
Her heart started to pound and she looked down at the grass. 'I know you love me, Harry,' she said. 'I'm your best friend. Is that what you mean?'
'You know it isn't,' he replied, dropping his voice.
'I told you,' she said, 'I told you I wasn't going to have this conversation with you again.'
