She shook her head. 'You have to forgive him, Harry.'
'Why?'
'Because whatever it was he said, he was just trying to save your life.
And he must have known you?d hate him for it. Can?t you understand how hard it must have been for him to make that sacrifice?'
'You?re defending him?'
Hermione set her chin. 'Would you rather I didn?t tell you what I really thought? Would you rather I didn?t tell you when you were wrong?'
'He could have done it some other way.'
'What other way? Anything that would get you that angry would make you hate him, theres no way around that.'
Harry was silent. He looked strained; the skin of his face seemed to be pressing back against the bones.
'Harry, he would never hurt you on purpose. Not like that. I mean sure, he?ll jab at you and he?ll try to unsettle you and part of that is because he doesn?t even really understand how he feels about you, only that you mean something to him, but he doesn?t know what. It doesn?t fit into any recognizable category of experience for him. Hes never had a brother, Harry. Hes never even really had a friend. Not someone who could match him intellectually. Not someone whose good opinion he?d have to exert any effort to keep.
He doesn?t know how to act towards you. So he falls back on being sarcastic, or nasty, and then when he is kind, you don?t trust that kindness, and you throw it back at him. Come to think of it, hes actually pretty patient with you.'
'Patient?' Harry spluttered, staring at Hermione with a disbelief so huge it was almost funny. 'Malfoy?'
'There you go again, calling him Malfoy,' said Hermione serenely.
'Whats the point? Can?t you say his name? Hes going to be related to you-'
'I am not related to Malfoy! He is not a part of my family!'
'But in a way, Harry, he is. What do you think family is? People who are tied to you, and you don?t get to choose who they are, and you can?t change them and you have to live with them and you just have to love them anyway.'
Harry looked at her sideways and she realized how inapplicable this was to his own upbringing. She bit her lip.
'Its a bit much,' he said flatly, 'asking me to love Malfoy.'
'Well, you could start off just by using his first name, and work from there.'
Harry look mutinous. 'He calls me Potter.'
'Yes, he does.' Hermione tilted her head up, and, to Harry's surprise, kissed him lightly on the temple. 'Because if anything between you two is going to change, you?re going to have to be the one to change it. You?ve got the advantage over him, Harry. You?ve had friends. You know how to treat them. He doesn?t. He just reacts instinctively. If you treat him like a friend, he?ll be the best friend you ever had. And if you treat him like your worst enemy, then thats what he?ll be.'
'He doesn?t think of me as a friend,' said Harry truculently, but Hermione could see the stubbornness crumbling away behind his eyes, leaving a clouded anxiety that she could read as easily as she could always read his expressions.
'No,' she said, gently, 'maybe not. You?re less a friend in his mind than you are the better part of himself.'
Harry looked down at her. And she reached over, and took the Epicyclical Charm out of his hand. She felt its weight in her palm, so familiar, and so light for what it was — the essence of a human life, made manifest. She had grown so used to its pressure around her throat that for the past few days she had woken up reaching for it, startled and bereft to find that it was not there. Now she unclasped the chain, and looked at Harry.
He bent his head, and she fastened the chain around his neck, dropping the Charm down into his shirt. 'Thats a lot of responsibility,' he said, staring down at it.
'Not for you,' said Hermione. 'Its just…what you are.'
Ginny stood frozen, Invisibility Cloak wrapped around her, looking at Draco. For a moment, when she had first come in, she almost turned around and left, wanting to talk to him, and not wanting it. It seemed like every time she saw him these days he looked different: another step away from his known and recognizable self. In the cell, he been so cold, removed and frozen she had hardly been able to look at him. She had expected to find him alone the same way, but instead he looked faintly… relieved, as if some burden had been taken away from him. He slumped as if quite relaxed in the armchair before the billowing red-gold fire, which itself laid a tawny glow over everything in the room, including Draco, turning his silver hair blond, warming his pale skin to gold.
She let the Invisibility Cloak slide down around her feet, and waited for him to see her.
He didn?t. At least, he didn?t seem to. He continued staring into the fire as if hypnotized. She took another step towards him, and another. She was close enough to reach out and touch his arm when he swung around, gray eyes snapping open, fixed on her face.
She held out her hand to him. 'Draco?'
The glass he had been holding fell out of his fingers. It hit the floor without breaking, and rolled into the fire. Ginny stared after it, blinking, not wanting to look at his face.
He did not look glad to see her. He looked horrified. 'Ginny?'
She could feel her heart pounding in her throat. 'Are you all right?'
she ventured.
He simply stared at her, still with the same stunned, frozen expression. Finally, he laughed. She was, briefly, taken aback. Surely even Draco didn?t see anything funny in their current situation.
