Draco looked at Harry and batted his eyelashes. 'Thats right, Harry,' he said in a falsetto imitation of Rons voice. 'Why don?t you save me from the nasty man?'
Harry looked at Draco crossly. 'You?re not helping things,' he said, with an edge to his voice.
Draco shrugged. 'Do I ever?'
'I wish I?d never saved your life,' said Ron, abruptly. Then he looked startled, as if he couldn?t believe he?d said something quite so dreadful. Hermione gaped at him, although she could tell from his expression that he hadn?t meant it.
Draco was a different matter. He gave Ron the angelic smile that meant he was very annoyed indeed. 'How charming, Weasley,' he said. 'You know, all this really reminds me of something I thought of yesterday while I was kissing your sister-'
Ron lunged at him, and was restrained by both Harry and Hermione, each of whom had efficiently grabbed an arm. They couldn?t stop him from shooting Draco a look of death, however. 'Keep your hands off my sister,' he snarled in fury.
Draco rolled his eyes. '?Keep your hands off my sister?? Who says that?'
'Both of you, stop it,' snapped Hermione, holding on to Rons arm.
'What we?re doing right now is more important than this -
bickering.'
'I?m not going anywhere without a guarantee that we can trust him,' said Ron, pulling away from Harry and Hermione and jerking his chin at Draco.
'Sure, you can have a guarantee,' Draco smiled. It wasn?t a nice smile. 'The same guarantee I gave when I promised I?d never sneak into your bedroom at night and slit your throat.'
'You never promised that,' Ron pointed out.
'How right you are, Weasley. Sleep tight.'
'All right, enough,' announced Harry. He had drawn himself up to his full height and his green eyes were blazing. Bloody and scratched and bruised as he was, he retained the ability to draw a sort of dignity about himself like an adamantine cloak that nothing could penetrate. For a slight sixteen-year-old he had quite a commanding presence when he wanted to exert it. So did Draco, Hermione thought, but it was of a different sort. Draco was the sort of person who people would follow and obey out of a mixture of fear and respect for his innate brilliance and ruthless charisma. Harry, people would follow because they loved him. It was very hard not to love Harry, even when he was being his stern self, which he was now. Both Ron and Draco shifted uneasily under his gaze. Ron stared mutinously off in the distance, and Draco looked at the floor.
'You will both,' said Harry coldly, 'from this point onward, shut up and leave each other alone.'
'But, Harry…' Ron protested, albeit weakly.
'I said shut up!' said Harry firmly, grabbed Draco by the arm, and hauled him protesting several feet away, where he turned and glared at him with such intensity that Hermione knew perfectly well that he was telling Draco off telepathically. Harry had never told her in so many words that they communicated that way, but it hadn?t been hard to figure out, especially since she had heard them in the Weasleys? kitchen. Her hand strayed rather guiltily up to the Lycanthe at her throat, and as her fingers closed around it their voices leapt audibly into her consciousness as if she had tuned a radio to the Harry-and-Draco station.
…no reason to act like that, Harry was saying sternly. You?re not eleven years old any more.
Draco looked sulky. He started it.
You started it.
I did not.
Anyway, Harry added, Rons got a point.
What? Draco demanded, looking as if he were resisting the urge to take Harrys glasses off and whap him on the head with them. Are you trying to say you don?t trust me?Still?
Harry looked surprised. Of course not.
Draco continued to glare at him with suspicion.
Look, Draco, I told you I trusted you, and I do.
Draco gave him an incredulous look, then sputtered with mirth.
Harry turned pink. What is it?
You. Saying my name like that. Look, don?t give yourself an aneurysm. It sounds funny when you say it, anyway. You can go ahead and call me Malfoy.
Harry looked taken aback. You called me Harry.
Only when I thought you were going to die, said Draco, with complete frankness. He leaned back against the wall and half-lidded his gray eyes at Harry. What do you mean, Weasleys got a point?
I?d agree hes got lots of points, all of them bad, but somehow I don?t think thats what you meant.
No. I was thinking of that. Harry glanced at the Dark Mark on Dracos arm. I trust your intentions, but there are some things you don?t have control over. Slytherin does. That Mark links you to him.
What if he suddenly decides to use it to control you?
So you?re worried I might wind up hurting one of you?
Not so much as that you might get hurt. Sirius told me that the Dark Lord used to be able to control the Death Eaters from a distance with that Mark. If they resisted him, he could burn them alive.
Harrys green eyes were somber. He could burn you.
Draco shrugged, gaze steady. Then let me burn.
