Both Hermione and Draco stared at him. Hermione had never heard Snape use the word 'pleasant' before. She wondered if something was going on with him. He seemed to be trying to distract Draco, although from what, she couldn't imagine.
'Hmph,' said Snape, interrupting her pondering, and left in a swirl of dark robes.
Draco was on his feet. 'Pull the curtains shut, will you?' he requested, shrugging off his pajama top.
'Oh!' said Hermione, and stepped outside the curtains, hastily tugging them shut behind her, although not before the image of Draco, shirtless, unknotting the tie at the waistband of his pajama bottoms, branded itself against the back of her eyes. He was ill, she reminded herself sharply.
Doubtless this was just her concern and the urge to take care of him mixing itself up in her brain and sending her all the wrong sorts of signals.
Draco emerged from behind the curtains, tugging a long-sleeved white cotton jumper down over charcoal trousers. 'I need my hairbrush,' he muttered. 'I can't find it.'
'We're going to wake up Harry, aren't we? You can borrow his.'
'Harry owns a hairbrush?'
Hermione stuck out her tongue. 'I think your hair looks nice,' she said. It did look nice, she thought, it was too fine to tangle properly and so simply looked slightly ruffled. She was sure its disarray was driving Draco to distraction. 'Do you want to tell Harry, or should I? He'll be so happy.'
'That you think my hair looks nice? Oh, he'll be dead chuffed, I'm sure.'
'About the antidote, idiot!' Hermione squeezed her hands together. 'Or did you, you know…' She tapped the side of her head. 'Tell him already?'
'No.' Draco shook his head, faint concern wavering behind his eyes. 'I haven't been able to find him since I woke up…I guess maybe he's asleep.
I thought I remembered him being here last night. Did you see him?'
Hermione shook her head. 'No. I thought he was off helping Snape.'
'Maybe I dreamed it.' Draco shrugged. 'Anyway. Yeah. I guess he'd want to know, so we should tell him.' He smiled then, almost as if he couldn't not smile, a real, genuine smile that flickered fast across his face and was gone as soon as he could hide it. 'He'll be happy, right?'
Later, Hermione would remember that smile, and wonder if she would ever see him smile like that again.
'Of course he'll be happy,' she said. 'You complete idiot.'
'Watch who you're calling an idiot, Granger.'
'Come on, Malfoy. Let's go.'
Outside the train window, the scenery slid by peacefully. Mountains had given way to hills, hills to flat country dotted with trees and small towns.
The snow had melted away, though ice still sparkled in nets against the windows of passing houses and between the branches of trees.
Harry sat and looked out the window of the express train from Hogsmeade and tried not to think.
He was surprised he had managed to stay awake so long. He had lain down on the stiffly padded seats, his bag under his head, and tried to sleep, but had found himself, after a time, drawn to staring out the window instead. Perhaps it was that it was so cold in the compartment, and the scar on his hand was bothering him. It was raw with pain as if it had been newly made. He almost expected, when he glanced down, to see blood on his palm, but his bare hand was pink and clean and looked as it always had. The silvery scar bisecting the familiar whorls and scrolls… too bad he had never paid attention to Palmistry during Divination class…
The door to his compartment slid open. Harry looked up, expecting the conductor or the snack cart witch, but it was Ron.
How awkward, he thought.
Ron slid the door shut and came to sit across from Harry. He sat down and they looked at each other, as boys do, somewhat guardedly. He was as Harry had remembered him. A little thinner, perhaps. His blue eyes had blue shadows under them. He wore a gray cableknit crewneck jumper and corduroy trousers. He said, 'I was just thinking that you've never taken a train without me before. Have you?'
Harry shook his head. 'No.'
'How is it?'
Harry looked back out the window. The sky outside was darkening and the window gave him back his own reflection. Pale skin, green eyes, hair like tangled black thread. No scar. No glasses — he'd spelled his eyes back at the train station in Hogsmeade. 'It's lonely,' he said.
'It's funny,' Ron said, conversationally. 'I never thought about you as being lonely. You always seemed to have everything so well in hand.
Everyone always wanting to be with you. Everyone always watching you. I didn't see how you could be lonely, with all that attention. I mean, heroes don't get lonely. Or if they do, you never hear about it.'
'I think it doesn't make for good stories,' said Harry. 'But I do get lonely.
That time you stopped speaking to me fourth year, half the time I was so lonely I wished I could die. The rest of the time I wished I could kill you.
But nobody wants to hear about that. Reporters don't ask about that. They want to know about my dead parents and who I'm dating and where I get my clothes and how I plan on offing Voldemort — '
'I notice you don't deny it,' said Ron.
'Don't deny what?'
'I called you a hero,' said Ron. 'And you didn't say 'No, I'm not.''
'Well, this is my dream,' Harry said. 'I guess I can say what I like in it.'
Ron leaned back against the seat. His hands were open on his knees. In reality, perhaps, they would have been full of Chocolate Frogs, Exploding Snap cards, half a bag of sherbet lemons, and the other half spilled out over Harry's lap. Now they were empty. 'It's because of Malfoy,' he said.
'Ironic that he turned out to be the one to teach you what you really are.'
Harry remembered Draco up on the tower, saying This is a hero's choice.
Your friends, or everything else. And he had not argued or denied it.
'Ron,' he said. 'Why are you here? Not that I'm not glad to see you. I mean, I miss you. But if I'm dreaming you up there must be some reason beyond that. Especially since we're not really friends right now.'
'Maybe your mind thought you'd be likely to listen to me,' Ron said. 'I don't know why. You never listen to anyone. You don't think you need anyone, Harry, that's your trouble, because you don't trust anyone, not really. Remember the Second Task? You thought you had to save everyone under that lake because you couldn't even trust that Dumbledore wouldn't let a load of students drown during a school event. I said you were thick, but it's more than that. You're not thick. You just don't trust anyone.'
'Well, why should I? I trusted you, and look what you did.'
'You never trusted me. And you never trusted Hermione, either, not really. Look how you shut her out. I thought you trusted Malfoy, but I guess you don't. Not that I much care. It'll half-kill him, what you've done, and I say just as well. Hermione's strong. She can take it. But not Malfoy.'
Harry narrowed his eyes. 'So now you're my guilty conscience,' he said. 'I didn't know my conscience was so…Victorian-sounding. Look, I know I did the right thing. That doesn't mean I don't have doubts. Everyone questions the things they've done…but they'll both be fine without me.'
Ron shook his head. 'Haven't you ever wondered how you've managed to make yourself so necessary to so many people?'
Harry rubbed the back of his hand wearily across his eyes. 'No,' he said.
'No, I haven't wondered that.'
Ron smiled. It was a bright and cheeky smile, so familiar and so very much like Ron. He leaned forward and
