the lake at school, he had sensed her reluctance, her desire to return to the castle and to Harry. But now, her emotion matched his, all his desire, hope, ardor and confusion mirrored in her own; it was her arm that hooked around his neck, drawing him down to kiss her, her bare feet that locked themselves around the backs of his knees. She slid her hands inside his shirt and he felt her small, cold, delicate fingers against his skin. His heart was trying to bang its way out of his ribcage and he couldn't get enough air, but it didn't matter. All that mattered was her, her whispers against his mouth, his hands tangled in her hair; she was saying his name over and over, a feverish and desperate whisper and she wanted him, and more than that. She loved him. He could feel it in the way she had looked at him, and even more in the shuddering tension of her grip on his arms. She loved him.
And then a sharp, unwelcome voice in the back of his mind spoke.
You shouldn't be doing this. It's not right.
Draco was outraged. Not right?
You should stop.
I'm not going to stop. It's a miracle, that's what this is, one chance in a thousand, and you want me to just give it up?
The small, cold voice in his head sounded smug now. It's what Harry would do.
I'm not Harry! I don't want to be Harry!
For a moment, the cold voice was silenced, and he tightened his arms around Hermione. He kissed her mouth, kissed her eyes, kissed her throat and the fluttering pulse there. He could actually hear her heart beating, he had never really been close enough to her before to hear it like that. Had never been close enough to anyone to hear it like that.
The voice spoke again, and now it was very, very cold. When they take the spell off her, she'll hate you for this. She'll hate you forever.
He froze. Hermione looked up at him, brushing hair out of her dazed eyes. 'Draco, is everything all right?'
'No,' he said, and rolled off her, landing on his back in the grass.
'We can't be doing this.'
He heard her sharp intake of breath. 'What? Why?'
'You know why,' he said, staring fixedly up at the sky. He had a feeling that if he turned at looked at her, even once, his conviction would dissolve like so much smoke. 'It's not real,' he said leadenly.
'This isn't you.'
She reached out. He felt her cool hand against his face. 'I love you,' she said.
He closed his eyes. 'No,' he said. 'No, you don't.'
'It hurts,' she whispered.
'I know,' he said, with a spark of anger, 'You think I don't know?
The difference between what you feel and what I feel-'
'Is what?'
'Is that you can tell yourself that what you're feeling isn't real, and you can get rid of it with a spell. And I can't. Now get out of here, Hermione. I mean it. Get the hell out of here.'
He heard her sharp intake of breath, heard her getting to her feet.
'You're right,' she said, in a muffled voice. 'I'm sorry-'
'Don't apologize,' he said. 'Just leave.'
She didn't say anything at all after that. He turned over and buried his face in his arms, listening through the ground to the echo of her footfalls as she walked away, growing fainter and fainter and finally fading altogether into silence.
Lupin took his glasses off and rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes. He felt half-blind with exhaustion, but at the same time utterly unable to sleep. Brilliant moonlight poured in through the windows, tinted pale green and pale blue by the stained glass, throwing moving blocks of color over his hands as he turned the pages of book after book.
He was sitting behind the desk in what had once been Lucius Malfoy's library, engaged in what seemed more and more like a fruitless search for some way of translating the centaur's book.
Guides to dead languages lay strewn across the desk and floor, but not one of them had yielded up any kind of Rosetta Stone that might allow him to make sense of the meaningless squiggles.
It was a cramp in his shoulder than finally prompted him to move.
He stood up, stretching his arms out, and as he did, he knocked the centaur's book to the floor. Sighing, he reached down to pick it up.
As he lifted it, it fell open to the last page of text. Only it wasn't just text. There was an illustration there as well.
Lupin sat down rather suddenly, staring at the open book in utter disbelief.
He had no idea how long he might have sat there, staring. His spellbound astonishment was finally interrupted by the sound of the library door swinging open.
It was Sirius, in black silk pajamas, blinking sleepily. 'Moony, what the hell are you doing up?' he said, without preamble. 'It's the middle of the night.'
Lupin didn't reply. He was still staring, astonished, down at the book in front of him.
'I know you're a night creature,' added Sirius, with a tired grin. 'But you should really get some sleep.'
Lupin cleared his throat, trying to force his voice to function.
'You're awake,' he pointed out.
'Because I got an owl,' said Sirius. 'Landed on my head. Woke me up.'
