Draco shook his head. 'Not unless I let you. That was a good trick, but you're still telegraphing your moves. What's the problem, Potter?'
'I guess my mind is elsewhere.'
'Hermione?' Draco said, and Harry felt himself nod. 'Look, why can't you just tell her what you told me last night? She'll understand.'
Harry looked down at his hand which, sheened with a light sweat, gripped the hilt of the Gryffindor sword. 'There's one problem there.'
'What?'
'I don't remember what I told you last night.'
Draco's mouth twitched. 'I don't suppose you'd believe it if I reminded you that you told me you're actually carrying on a mad secret affair with Professor Sprout and you've been exchanging photographs with her that involve you dressed like a giant woodchuck?'
'Nonsense,' said Harry.
'Of course not.'
'I would never dress like a woodchuck.'
'Naturally.'
'Now, a lemur maybe. A marmoset even. But a woodchuck? With those teeth?'
'Now you're scaring me.'
Harry laughed. It was the fist time he had laughed aloud that day.
'Anyway, this is Hogwarts. Everyone knows everyone else's business. Who could carry on a mad secret affair here?'
'I thought I heard someone coming,' she said. She twisted out of Ron's grasp and stood up. He tilted his head back and she could feel his blue gaze on her back as she crossed the room and looked anxiously out through the high grilled window set in the door. Outside, she could see an expanse of empty corridor stretching in two directions. There was no one there.
'You worry too much,' said Ron. He was seated on the floor, shirtless, in jeans and trainers. His Gryffindor Quidditch robes were tangled in a heap beside him, where the two of them had been lying. His eyes were shadowed. 'Maybe I should go,' he said. 'Ginny — '
'You told me they wouldn't even let you into the infirmary,' she said. 'I thought she was going to be fine?'
'I know. But I feel responsible.'
'Well, you aren't.' She came back across the room and sat down beside him, putting her arms around him. 'And you say I worry too much.'
He twisted around in her embrace and looked at her. 'If we did get caught,' he said tightly. 'If someone did find us — what would you do?'
'Ron, I-'
'What would you choose?'
'It would be just as bad for you if we were caught,' she said in measured tones, 'as it would be for me.'
'Worse,' he said. His voice was a little hard. She sensed he was probably trying to hurt her, feeling hurt himself.
She reached up and cupped his face in her hands. 'I love you,' she said.
He blinked. She had never said this to him before. 'You do?'
She nodded. 'I thought you should know.'
For a moment, he still looked startled; then his face lit up and he reached for her, pulling her close. 'I thought you'd never — '
'Shh.' She kissed him.
'I-'
'I know.' She put her fingers over his lips. 'You don't have to say it. I know you do.'
'Hmm,' said Draco. 'I suppose you're right. Unless you're willing to stand in line for the Astronomy Tower every Saturday night, there really is nowhere for would-be snoggers to go here that's private.'
'What are you complaining about, Malfoy? You've got your own room, don't you? You're a prefect.'
'And spacious it is, too. I only call it a room because I'm too lazy to call it
'the broom closet with sconces.''
'We could sell tickets to this place,' said Harry, glancing around the nearly-empty chamber. He grinned. 'Especially considering the soundproofed walls.'
'Nice thinking, Potter. Glad to see Hermione hasn't got all the brains in that relationship.' Draco cocked his head to the side. 'On that note, you seem cheerier.'
'Yeah.' Harry lifted his sword, and made a half-salute towards Draco.
'Thanks for the workout. It helped.'
'Good.' Draco paused, and looked at Harry seriously. 'Potter, I've never asked you this before, but…'
'But what?'
Draco hesitated, then asked his next question in the manner of one taking a step into the abyss: 'Where are your parents buried?'
Harry stood for a moment, very still. There was a strange sort of painful buzzing behind his eyes. Finally he said, slowly, 'I have no idea.'
Draco blinked but otherwise showed no surprise. His voice was careful.
This was obviously something he'd thought about asking Harry before, but hadn't done it. 'Well, someone must know.'
Harry nodded, distantly. 'Someone must…' Why has no one ever mentioned it to me, ever offered to take me there? Dumbledore, Sirius, Lupin, they've never — and I — why didn't I ask?
'Potter.' Draco's voice was sharp. 'Steady on. You all right?'
'Uh-huh.' Harry's vision snapped back into focus; he saw Draco standing in front of him, looking worried. 'Sirius would know.'
'Or Lupin,' said Draco.
'I'd rather ask Sirius. I was supposed to talk to him tonight anyway.'
'Okay.' Draco shrugged elegantly. 'I just thought… it might help. You know. Closure. Maybe help you feel, uh, a little closer to them.'
'Closer?'
'Sometimes you have to see things,' Draco said quietly. 'See them yourself — to know that they're real.'
'I know they're dead,' replied Harry flatly. 'I've always known they're dead.'
'I know,' Draco said. 'But lately sometimes I wonder if you know you're still alive.'
Harry looked down. He felt disconnected, as he often did these days: disconnected from the room around him, disconnected from Draco, disconnected even from his own self, as if the body he looked down at, slender and clad in jeans and blue sweater, was somebody else's and not his own. One of the laces on his left shoe was broken; he had no memory of having retied it. 'I used to be able to go to the Mirror of Erised and see my parents,' he said. 'I can't do that any more.'
A slight line of confusion appeared between Draco's eyes. 'Because you don't know where it is?'
'Because I don't want to look in it,' said Harry. 'I'm afraid of what I might see.'
The fluttering pink numbers on the clock beside the bed told Ginny that it was two in the morning. She lay where she was, letting her eyes adjust to the half-lit darkness of the room. Her body ached all over, but her arm,
