Whoever called it 'memory lane' was a cretin, Sirius thought, looking around him. Lane conjured up the image of a pretty country road lined with flowers, blue sky, birds chirping. Maybe that was what it was like if you were lucky. As far as he was concerned, however, memory was a black road lined with cruel thorns, paved with jagged rocks, bordered with the gravestones of his friends.
Sirius turned around slowly. It was cold in Gringott's vault #711 and his exhaled breath came out in a cloud of frost. It had been years since he'd been down here; usually his withdrawals and deposits were handled by owl post, and there was no need for a personal visit. And no wish on his part to see the detritus of his former life.
There in one corner was his motorcycle, gleaming and perfect thanks to anti-rust charms. There were the chests that held his old clothes, his schoolbooks, albums of photos, his Auror's Certificate.
There was plenty of gold, the penalty money the Ministry had been forced to pay him when the original ruling that had sent him to Azkaban had been overturned. One thousand Galleons for each year he had spent in prison. It was quite a lot of money. Sirius had touched very little of it.
He walked over to a corner of the vault and knelt down among the various books and papers. It took him a few moments of shuffling through them to find what he was looking for.
A book. Very fat, bound in leather, a silver-stamped spine.
Dialectical Interpretations of the Art and Science of Arithmancy, by K. Fraser.
Sirius closed his eyes, and heard James' voice, sharp and amused, telling him that it was the most boring- sounding title he could think up.
He opened his eyes, sighed, and pressed down hard with his thumb on the F in 'Fraser.'
— pop-
The book's cover ratcheted back, exposing a hollowed-out space inside. It had once been the hiding place for the Marauder's Map, before its confiscation. Now, it held something else.
Sirius' eyes widened. 'James,' he whispered, his breath escaping from his mouth in little white puffs. 'What on earth d'you expect him to do with this?'
The moment Harry left, shutting the door behind him, an awkward silence descended on Draco and Hermione. Hermione looked at the floor. Draco looked out the window.
Finally, Draco sighed. 'Hello,' he said.
Hermione cleared her throat. 'And hello to you too,' she replied, and hesitated.
He half-sat up in the bed, the covers falling away from him, and even though he was wearing ridiculous too-big pajamas, and even though his hair was standing up every which way like a platinum version of Harry's (unbidden, Hermione experienced a sudden vision of Harry with his hair bleached blond, and nearly screamed), there was still an odd sort of dignity about him. 'You can come near me, you know,' he said. 'I drowned, it's not contagious.'
She tried to smile at him. 'I didn't know if you would want me to,' she said, and walked over to sit down in the chair recently vacated by Harry.
Draco shook his head. 'I'm not angry with you, if that's what you mean.'
'I thought you might be,' she began, and hesitated. Almost unconsciously, she reached up and touched the silver Lycanthe which she had strung on a chain around her neck; somehow she had found that doing this gave her strength. 'Because I was utterly awful to you and I'm so sorry. I don't know what to say except that it wasn't really me. I never would have treated you like that if I'd been in my right mind. I never would have asked you to lie.'
'Well, I managed to get around it by just not saying very much,' said Draco, with a crooked smile.
'Knowing you, that must have been nearly as bad.' Hermione smiled back at him.
'It's all right. I understand why you did it,' replied Draco shortly, and his smile vanished. 'Anyway, it's over now.'
Hermione felt a flutter of uneasiness at his tone. 'Well,' she said, as lightly as she could, 'at least now we can be friends.'
'No,' Draco replied without looking at her. 'We're not going to be friends, Hermione.'
She let go of the Lycanthe in surprise. 'What? Why not?'
'Because I say so.'
'That's not an answer.'
Draco sighed. 'Because someone once told me that there's a natural balance to all things. And this — ' he indicated the space between them — 'you and me, whatever we are, it upsets that balance.'
'What? No! That doesn't make any sense, Draco. You know it doesn't.'
'It makes sense to me.'
She bit her lip. 'I love you,' she said, in a voice that wobbled. 'I told you that before. Maybe not the same way I love Harry, but I do love you. Do you know what happened to me when I thought you died?
Do you know how I felt?'
'Stop it.' Draco had thrown the covers back now and had slid to the edge of the bed, facing her. 'Don't you see that's what I mean?'
She shook her head. 'I don't understand.'
He reached out at the same time she did; their hands met, and she gripped his tightly, trying not to wince at its coldness.
'There's something tying us together,' Draco said. 'Like I'm tied to the sword, like my father was tied to that Dark Mark branded into his skin. Do you remember what Slytherin said when he saw you with me? He was pleased. He was glad. Because he sensed that this tie, this bond, whatever we have, was working.'
'What's wrong with having a bond? It doesn't necessarily have to be something evil.'
