'I wouldn't know,' Draco said. 'I think that's maybe why I…' He trailed off, unable to formulate the statement properly.
Ginny smiled at him, a little sadly. 'You want to know what I think? I think you don't know a good thing when you have it,' she said, 'that's what I think,' and she disappeared back up the stairs.
By the time Draco found the room again, through some amount of trial and error, it was full morning. Night had passed like a wheel turning, and in his exhaustion, the corridor walls and even the floor beneath his feet seemed to shimmer in the pale gray light.
He knew where he was going. A dark room, not that far from the main staircase, a room filled with old furniture and dusty unused books. And on the wall, a mirror framed in tarnished gold, a mirror he had never looked in. I show you not your face, but your heart's desire.
He had been there once, and walked out — it was not a place that figured happily in his memories. But for Harry, it would be different. That he knew. Standing by the lake, drenched in rain, that afternoon, he had felt what Harry was feeling as if it were water pouring through a sluice gate that could not be closed. Harry's happiness had layered itself over his own pain until he was no longer sure exactly what he was feeling, his emotions wavering light and dark like a Flickering Charm: happy/sad happy/sad happy/sad. He had put his hands over his ears and slid down the trunk of the tree, waiting for it to be over. He was not used to feeling with such intensity: not such happiness, nor such misery. It was like bleeding to death.
And I'm here.
He remembered the door now, the corridor outside. It had been wide open that day, now it was open only a crack. He put a hand on it, pushed it wide, and stepped into the room.
The pale dawn light drowned the walls of the room in silver. The furniture, shrouded in white sheeted coverings, looked like icebergs looming up out of the grayish darkness as Draco navigated his way across the room. Through the bay window in the east wall, he could see the world outside: white sky, white snow, the slender penciled shapes of winter trees. And on the window ledge sat Harry.
He had his legs drawn up, his hands clasped loosely across his knees. He was looking out the window, and the faint light chased the planes of his face with silver. As Draco approached, Harry turned and looked at him.
He seemed unsurprised to see him there, or if he was, Draco couldn't tell.
Harry's face was a mask.
The two boys looked at each other across the dark space that separated them, as if they faced each other across a Quidditch pitch. Had the mirror on the wall been a true mirror, it would have cast back a curious reflection: the two boys both the same height, the same slenderness, one so fair and one so dark, one in black and one in white. Some odd tableau of perfect opposites seemed to be being enacted. No living soul could have failed to notice it, but there were no other souls in the room, and Harry and Draco could not see themselves.
'I thought you'd come,' Harry said.
Draco hesitated. A bitter voice spoke in the back of his head, wanting to snap back at Harry, Why did you think I would come? Because I have nothing better to do, because I follow you, pathetically, believing in our friendship, while you call me a liar to my face?
But another voice shouted that voice down. Oddly, it was Sirius' words, words he had spoken months ago… I would forgive you if my forgiveness were required… The things we do for love, those things endure.
'Well,' Draco said. 'I'm here.'
'I see that,' Harry said. 'How did you find me?'
Draco glanced around the shadowed room, and back at Harry. 'I thought you'd come here.'
'Because?'
'It's what I would do.'
Harry looked down at his hands. When he spoke, his voice was rapid. 'I'm sorry.'
Feeling suddenly exhausted, Draco leaned against one of the sheeted white pieces of furniture. He suspected from its shape that it was an ottoman. 'Sorry for what?'
'For what I said.' Harry's voice was deadly quiet. 'All of it.'
'Even the part where you said, 'Hey, Malfoy, what're you doing here?'
Draco asked, but Harry didn't crack even a slight smile. The faintness of the light smoothed the lines of strain from his face, made him look younger, a solemn-faced child.
'I hate everyone right now,' Harry said. His voice was still even. 'I looked at you, up there in the dorm room, and I hated you too.'
'I know,' Draco said. 'It's okay.'
'It's not okay.' Harry took a ragged breath. 'I've got no reason to hate you. You were just trying to help.'
'Don't,' Draco said, and straightened up. He began to cross the room towards Harry, who was still looking down at his hands with that same look he had worn in the graveyard: that look like blindness, as if were seeing through this world to another and terrible place beyond.
'I wanted to hurt you,' Harry said. 'I had to keep my mind locked down so I wouldn't hurt you.'
It occurred to Draco to remark that Harry had managed to hurt him just fine anyway, but that seemed a childish and petty thing to say. Most of his anger was gone, now that he had seen Harry; he felt only terribly exhausted and horribly sad. 'You apologized,' he said, 'does that mean that you believe me now?'
Harry nodded, ever so slightly. I believe you now, he said, and Draco almost jumped at the unexpected contact. Some part of me believed you then, but I didn't want to admit it.
Why not? Doesn't it make things easier? She still…loves you.
Except that she hates me. Harry unclasped his hands from around his knees and swung to face Draco, dangling his legs over the side of the window sill. And not without good reason. I was horrible to her. I wouldn't forgive me, either.
She'll forgive you, Draco replied. She'll understand.
How can she understand when I don't understand? I don't understand what happened, and I don't understand why I never noticed anything, and I don't understand why Ron would…Harry raised his eyes to Draco's; in the half-light, they were black. Do you?
Understand what happened? No, although I have my guesses, Draco replied. Do I understand why Weasley did what he did? Yeah. I think I do.
I also think I'm not the best person to explain it to you.
Harry's mouth tensed. Why not?
Because I hate him for what he did, Draco said flatly. And a big part of me wants you to hate him too, but my reasons for that are selfish reasons, and I know that.
There was a short silence and then Harry, apparently having decided that pressing Draco on this point would be a bad idea, nodded again, and scooted sideways on the window sill. Draco accepted the unspoken invitation and went to sit beside Harry. They sat for a while without speaking, in neither a companionable nor an awkward silence — Draco felt it was somehow a watchful silence, as if he were waiting for Harry to reach some sort of conclusion. He sat where he was as the sky outside the window lightened and lightened, the clouds parting to reveal strips of silvery gray sky.
The light began to spill into the room, turning the mirror on the far wall into a gleaming sequin, starring Harry's pitch-black hair with jewelry light. The light showed, as well, the lines by the side of his mouth, the mother-of-pearl half circles under his eyes. He held out his hand, and for a moment Draco just looked at it, unsure what Harry wanted. It was his right hand, and along the flat palm the thin zigzag scar shone like silver wire. He turned his own hand over to see the counterpart scar there, and flinched in shock when Harry took the hand he had extended, and held it tightly.
Draco looked at Harry in surprise. He had always watched Harry and Ron with wonder and some envy of their easy physical camaraderie — the pats on the back, the hugs when they won a Quidditch match, how Ron would hold Harry up if he was laughing too hard to stand, or casually shove him while they were walking, and catch him when he fell. He and Harry had none of that: they touched each other only in extreme circumstances,
