'Oh. no!' announced Harry suddenly, leaping to his feet with a start.
Draco looked alarmed. 'Well, maybe devastatingly charming was a little strong. How about 'wickedly alluring'?'
'Oh, bugger,' wailed Harry, dropping to his knees and scrabbling around on the floor for his Invisibility Cloak. 'I was supposed to be helping Snape in the Potions dungeon and I forgot.'
Draco chuckled lightly. 'My antidote?'
'Oh, damn, damn. He's going to kill me.' Harry was on his feet, shoving the cloak in his pocket. 'I have to go.'
'Sure, you sleep over and then you bail out first thing in the morning…and you'll probably forget to call…'
'Shut up, Malfoy,' said Harry, running his hands through his ridiculously untidy hair in a futile attempt to tame it. 'I'll see you in the common room later, okay? Stay in bed, and if you need anything, you know, you can just look for me, and Ginny said she was going to drop in later, and remember to get rest and-'
'Go away, Potter,' said Draco. 'I'll see you this afternoon.'
Harry went.
When Harry arrived in the Potions dungeon, Snape was not there, but Hermione was, industriously crushing Ashwinder eggs with a small mortar and pestle. She dropped the pestle with a little clatter when Harry came in and clapped her hand over her mouth. 'Oh — Harry!'
'Well, who else?' Harry came a little ways into the room, glancing apprehensively around. Hermione noted how disheveled he looked, as if he'd slept on the floor. His hair stood up around his face, a halo of soft black thorns. The laces on his boots were untied and was that…a pajama top he was wearing under his robes? 'Is Snape here?' he demanded, looking worried.
'No,' Hermione said slowly. 'No, he was here, but he left when you didn't come. He was really angry, Harry. I've hardly ever seen him so furious.'
Harry sighed. 'I was with Draco,' he said.
'I thought you might have been,' Hermione said. She bit her lip. 'Is he all right?'
'He's fine. I went to see him and I fell asleep on the nightstand. Damn.'
Harry flung himself wearily down on a stool across from Hermione's and looked entreatingly at her. 'How furious exactly?'
'Very furious, Harry. It was stupid of you not to show up and you know it.' Hermione made her voice as severe as she possibly could. 'Was there some reason you had to spend the night in the infirmary?'
Harry looked away from her. He was playing with something he held in his right hand, nervously turning it over and over. It glinted brightly between his fingers. Finally, he said, 'Look, I know it's ridiculous. But I have this feeling like nothing can happen to him if I'm there. So I feel like I should stay.'
'You mean you think he can't die with you there,' Hermione said flatly.
Harry looked down, his long eyelashes brushing the tops of his cheekbones. 'Well, you sure know how to make it sound stupid.'
Hermione sighed. 'Oh, God, I don't know,' she said. 'If anyone could keep him alive through sheer force of will it'd be you, Harry. He'd do anything for you and maybe that includes not dying.'
Harry spun the small gold object he was holding between his fingers.
When he spoke, his voice was constricted. 'You make it sound like it's my fault.'
'Your fault that he's ill?' Hermione's heart softened, he looked so brokenhearted. 'Oh, no, I didn't mean that.'
'I sometimes feel,' Harry said, in an odd, distant voice, 'as if that Polyjuice potion or whatever it was hammered these sharp hooks into me, into my skin. Hooks attached to a cord. And on the other end of the cord are more hooks, and they're attached to Draco. And the cord is flexible and infinitely long, and however far apart we are it connects us. Most of the time I don't think about it. It's part of me now, and who I am. But sometimes I look at him and I…'
'And you what?' Hermione asked, her voice very gentle.
'And I can see where the hooks go into him,' Harry said in the same distant voice. 'Where they cut and make him bleed. It's still an injury, Hermione. And I think…what has this done to him, to me, to both of us?
Maybe we were better off when we hated each other.'
'You mean so you wouldn't care he was dying?' Hermione demanded, half indignant and half bewildered. This was not like Harry; he did not think or speak figuratively. He saw things as they were; he did not have visions of invisible cords and sharp hooks that drew blood from unresisting flesh.
Hermione shuddered.
'So he wouldn't be dying at all,' Harry said.
For several hours Harry helped Hermione in the Potions classroom, both hoping and not hoping that Snape would return. On the one hand, he wanted to get his apology and explanation out of the way. On the other hand, he didn't like getting yelled at.
On the other other hand, as Ron had once been wont to say, Harry was enjoying the time with Hermione. Given the current state of their non-relationship it seemed something of a guilty pleasure, but there it was. He wasn't sure how helpful he was being, as in his distracted state he several times handed her the wrong ingredient — when he passed her a jar of beetle shells instead of the mandrake leaves she had asked for, she rolled her eyes at him — but it was pleasant to be around her nonetheless. He liked watching her work, crouched and serious over a low-burning flame, adding ingredients to a small cauldron. Liked the way she wailed Harry, this isn't burdock root! It's nettle powder! Liked the way she pushed her hair back while she worked and finally, with a scrunched face of despair, wound it in a bun atop her head and thrust a quill through it.
'That never works,' Harry pointed out. 'Your hair always falls down anyway.'
'Merh,' said Hermione, or something very like it. 'Hand me the newt's blood. Not that I think there's any newt's blood involved here, but Snape did say to try everything.'
Wordlessly, Harry pushed the vial of newt blood towards her, then went back to toying with the coin he'd picked up in Lucius' office. It was heavier than an ordinary Galleon and had a comforting weight in his hand.
'Harry,' said Hermione slowly.
He looked over at her, surprised by the tone in her voice. She sounded surprised, and more than a little nervous. 'What?' he said.
'Is that…'
He followed her gaze. When he realized what she was looking at, he jumped in surprise, dropped the coin in his hand, and tried to pull his sleeve down. It did no good, however — she'd seen the watch around his wrist, its cracked face reflecting the light of the cauldron fire.
Hermione went back to work again, her scarlet cheeks the only sign of her agitation. A few moments of tense silence passed, during which Harry's fidgeting reached near-record proportions. Finally, he spoke.
'Just go on and ask me,' he said, in a resigned tone.
'I haven't got anything to ask you,' Hermione said tightly. Her cheeks were the color of the vial of newt's blood. 'You want to wear that watch, it's your business. It's your watch.'
'Hermione — '
'Runespoor eyes, please,' she said tensely.
'Hermione, listen — '
'Fine, I'll get them myself — ' she broke off, her hand partly outstretched to reach past him. 'Harry, why've you got a Bulgarian galleon?'
Harry blinked at her. 'What?'
'This.' Hermione picked up the gold coin he had been playing with and looked at it closely. 'This looks like one of those coins that Viktor used to…but this isn't Bulgarian around the edges…' She turned it over, looking perplexed. 'Where did you get this, Harry?'
