Ron didn't look at her. His eyes were on Harry, the lines of strain around them very dark. “It's the truth,” he said. “I know what you want to do. Do it.”
Harry raised his right hand and pointed it at Ron. “Veritas,” he said.
Hermione shrieked out loud as the jet of black light shot from Harry's hand and hit Ron in the chest. Ron doubled over, gasping, then slid slowly down the wall, holding his arms tightly across his body, his legs splayed out in front of him.
Harry looked at him, still with that odd distance on his face, as if he was regarding something that was happening very far away.
“Ron,” he said, and Ron raised his head. His face was creased with pain.
“What you just told me — is it true?”
Ron took a deep and shuddering breath. The pain had its claws in him, and when he spoke his voice cracked. But it was strong, and there was resolution in it, and surety.
“Yes,” he said.
Hermione went white, and swayed on her feet. She put out a hand and steadied herself against the wall; she seemed to be beyond speaking.
Harry, however, was not. “You're in love with Hermione? You've…been together?” he demanded, his voice hard and sharp.
Ron nodded. “Yes, like I told you.”
The skin of Harry's face seemed to have tightened, pressing back against the bones. But his voice was steady. “How many times?”
Ron flushed. “I don't know. A lot…I can't count…almost every night.”
“Where?”
Ron ducked his head, struggled, and said, “The prefect's meeting room.”
Harry's breath was coming quickly now, but his voice was still expressionless. “And does she love you?”
Hermione found her voice. “Harry —”
“Shut up,” said Harry, his tone cold and flat. He was still looking at Ron.
“Does she love you?”
“She said she did,” said Ron. He was looking down at his hands now. “She said she did.”
“She said she loved me too,” said Harry and there was nothing in his voice: no anger, no pain, no love and no hate. Just a terrifying emptiness.
He raised his hand and pointed it again at Ron, “Finite incantatum.”
Ron jumped. The pain faded out of his eyes, although the tension remained apparent in every line of his body. Very slowly he began to rise to his feet, his hands behind him, flat against the wall. “I'm sorry,” he said, and looked at his feet. “I'm sorry.”
Harry raised his head, and looked at Ron. Somewhere inside his eyes was the eleven-year old boy he had been, begging his best friend to say that he lied. Behind that child, the man that Harry had become knew that he did not.
“How could you,” he said, his voice flat and utterly toneless. “How could you do that to me?”
Ron said nothing. He couldn't seem to meet Harry's eyes with his own. All the color in his face had gone, and he stood stock-still, his back pressed against the wall. At the base of his throat his pulse beat, fast and hard and visible beneath the skin.
“Harry.” It was Hermione, her voice a thin shell of itself. “Please. It isn't true.”
Harry turned on her. “Don't talk to me.” His voice was fierce, his eyes like chips of green ice. “Don't talk to me, don't look at me. Don't ever come near me again.”
Hermione's face crumpled. “Please listen—“
“I said don't talk to me!” Harry yelled, his composure cracking at last.
“He's telling the truth, how can he lie under the Veritas curse? Tell me that, since you're so goddamn clever! How is it possible that he's lying?”
“Harry!” Hermione said, her voice a half-scream, and then Harry's hand went to his wrist and ripped away the watch she had given him, and he flung it at her, so hard that she cried out when it struck the arm she had raised to protect her face.
“Get away from me,” he said, and his voice cracked, through and through like glass shattering. “Get away from me before I hurt you, because I will if you come near me, I swear to God I will.”
Very slowly, Hermione bent down and picked up the watch. When she straightened up, there were tears on her face, although she did not move to blot them or wipe them away. She looked not at Harry, but at Ron, and her face was very white. “I hate you,” she said, “I will always hate you for this,” and then her voice broke and she turned and ran to the portrait hole, and it swung open and let her through.
It was a cold walk from the prefects' bathroom back to his bedroom in the dungeon, but Draco was not in a mood to hurry. He'd washed off the sweat of fencing practice, and had been soaking meditatively in the bath when he'd noticed that the blood that seeped from his injured arm, as it washed away down the drain, was slightly phosphorescent — it was glowing.
This had killed his enjoyment of his bath. He'd gotten out and toweled off, and left the bathroom without bothering to dry his hair. He shivered in the cold air of the unheated dungeon, and turned the last corner on the way to his room with a feeling of relief — relief which faded quickly as he saw that the hallway in front of his room was not deserted. A cloaked figure stood there, hood pulled up, almost but not quite melting into the shadows. The figure was slender, and obviously female. She straightened up as he approached.
