what had gone into that kiss: all the fierceness and the fury and the passion that he felt for someone, someone other than Blaise.
'You can love more than one person, you know,' she said.
His eyes flashed. 'Don't feed me platitudes, Hermione,' he said. 'You think I don't know that?'
'You don't love her,' said Hermione, now certain of it. 'You kiss her like you're trying to get revenge.'
'Revenge on who?' Draco said, his voice tight with exasperation, or maybe it was something else.
Hermione shook her head. 'I don't know.'
'Well,' said Draco, and shrugged. 'Owl me when you find out, all right?
Maybe there's a book in the library on it.'
'If you think — '
'Just leave me alone,' Draco said, and turned on his heel, and walked away. Hermione watched him go, the tension in her chest almost unbearable. It was getting worse — all of it. And there was no one she could talk to about it. Not Harry. Not Draco. Not Ron. Not anyone. Everyone, it seemed, was at a loss. And she suspected that Hermione Granger, smartest witch at Hogwarts, was the most lost of them all.
Exhausted, Harry walked slowly down the long corridor that led to the abandoned armory. Once a week, on Fridays, he made this journey, always at six-o'-clock, the hour before supper. On the first day of school, Dumbledore had shown him the way. Him, and Draco.
The walls here were dusty and bare of decorations and tapestries. Harry's feet echoed on the stone floor and the sound made him feel strangely lonely. He had been in the infirmary for a half hour before Madam Pomfrey had shooed him and the rest of the Gryffindor team out the door. He had made a cursory search of the castle but had not been able to find Hermione, and then it had been time for his appointment with Draco and he'd had to go. He felt the ache of not having been able to find her like a dull pain in his side. He did not want to be without her, especially not after the traumatic events of the game. But he also knew he had no right to require her company, not after the way he'd been acting lately.
He wanted to do something to show her what she meant to him, but he couldn't. He felt her being torn from him and there was nothing, it seemed, that he would or could do about it. A dull sense of inevitable loss immobilized him.
He had reached the end of the corridor. The door in front of him was old, scarred, dark-red wood banded with bronze. He pushed the handle down and the door swung open. He went in, and shut it carefully behind him.
He stood in a large oval-shaped room with high windows, at least twenty feet above Harry's head, that were barred with iron grilles. The room was empty of furniture save a long table that ran along one wall; the walls were bare of ornamentation. Instead they were lined with empty glass-fronted cases that had once held swords and shields, axes and lances, enchanted weapons of all types. Now, it was never used. Dust motes floated in the weak rays of winter twilight that lanced down through the grilled windows.
In one bluish ray of light, Draco was standing, his back against the table, his head down as if he were either thinking very hard or was very tired.
Terminus Est lay in all her steel-silver glory on the table behind him, the non-light catching the etchings all along the shaft and making them glow like fire-letters. The fragile light also lit his pale hair to a colorless sort of radiance, like mother-of-pearl. He was still wearing his emerald-colored Quidditch robes, although in the darkness they looked nearly black.
'Hallo, Malfoy,' said Harry, by way of greeting.
Draco raised his head. There were etched shadows along the sides of his mouth, his darkly polished eyes. 'Hey there, Potter.'
Harry took another step into the room. 'She's all right,' he said, 'since you wanted to know.'
'Is she awake?'
'No. Not yet.' Harry was in the center of the room now. 'Look, about what happened on the Quidditch pitch — '
'Yeah,' said Draco tonelessly. 'I'm sorry about that.'
Harry sighed. 'Malfoy…' He put out a hand and his fingertips grazed the other boy's shoulder. 'I've been thinking we should stop.'
'What?' Harry felt Draco's eyes dart towards the sword lying on the table behind him. 'Stop fencing practice? Why?'
'No, not that.' Harry dropped his hand and rested it for a moment on the hilt of the sword at his waist. It had, as always, a comforting weight. 'Stop the feud. Pretending that we hate each other. If it had come down to it on the field, if I'd had to throw you off and you'd refused to go on your own, I don't know if I could have done it.'
'We can't,' said Draco, 'stop the feud — remember what Dumbledore said.'
'I know, but we could go to him, explain — '
'Explain what? That it's not fun any more?' Draco's voice was bitter.
'That's doesn't matter to what we're supposed to do. Of those to whom much is given, much is expected. Or whatever it was he said.'
'I don't feel like I've been given that much,' said Harry, with a rare flash of bitterness, and Draco looked up at him for the first time. His eyes seemed very dark, panes of steel-gray glass leaded with black lashes. He looked almost angry.
Harry checked himself. 'I know, it's not true. I've got a lot. Hermione and Ron and Sirius — '
'I was thinking wealth, fame, and glory.'
'You would be.'
Draco smiled. It was a thin smile, but genuine. 'Oh, good, insults. You always know where you stand with those.'
Harry shrugged. 'Did you want to practice or do you want to do that homework assignment Lupin gave us? It's your choice.'
'I want to practice.' Draco reached behind him and lifted his sword off the table. The weak light rayed down the blade and over the gilded hilt, set with its black-glass stones. The light picked out the words etched along the hilt: Terminus Est.
This is the Line of Division.
Dividing what from what? Harry wondered, not for the first time. Dividing good from evil, light from dark, choice from destiny? Or perhaps he was overanalyzing and it merely meant that the sword had an unusually sharp cutting edge. Which flashed down towards him now, and he raised his own blade to block the thrust, stepping forward as Draco had taught him.
Walk into the thrust, not away; this will cut off your opponent's reach.
The swords clanged against each other and rang like bells in the silent room. Harry cut at Draco; Draco returned, and they moved in the slow unrehearsed dance of fencing around the room, neither rushing nor slowing their movements. Harry liked the practice times; it allowed him a space in which he didn't have to think; he merely let his body follow the movements it seemed to know by instinct. He cut, parried, riposted, and fell back as the blades spun against each other like sparking silver wheels.
He let Draco drive him back, six steps, seven, until his back was against the wall. He let the next thrust come and ducked up under it, pushing off the wall to get extra force. His blade clanged against Draco's hard, striking a haze of sparks that lit the air between them.
Draco fell back. 'Good,' he said. 'Good use of the wall.'
Harry didn't reply, only swung his sword again, attacking. Draco parried and riposted; Harry feinted and attacked again. He took a long step back, moving out of range, then ducked under Draco's guard and attacked. His sword rode high off of Draco's parrying blow, and struck the other boy's shoulder. There was the whisper of parting fabric, and a slice opened in the sleeve of Draco's shirt.
Harry froze immediately. 'I'm sorry,' he said quickly.
Draco, who had also paused, looked surprised. 'It's fine.'
Harry felt his fingers whiten as he gripped the hilt of the Gryffindor sword. 'I could have hurt you.'
