you think I would say to that?'
Draco's hand, where it held the banister, was vibrating like the plucked string of a violin. 'I thought-you being you-that you might forgive me.'
Harry took a deep breath. 'Well,' he said. 'I don't.'
Gently, Sirius moved Hermione aside and bent to examine Harry. She drew a sobbing breath. 'Sirius…it's… it's my fault…'
'No, it isn't,' he said, absently. 'He's just fallen asleep; passed out, more like. It's not as if he's slept in days.' He brushed a stray lock of hair off Harry's forehead. 'In fact, it's probably a good thing.'
'But he won't wake up--I've shaken him, and he won't wake up-'
Sirius was about to reply when the loud shrieking noise that had been echoing through the castle stopped abruptly. 'Thank God,' he said, looking up. 'Now, what was that about Ginny? Is she in some sort of trouble?'
Hermione just stared at him, paralyzed. For the first time in her life, she thought, she felt actually stupid, as if her mind had been numbed by all the trauma she'd endured. Should she lie to Sirius, could she lie to Sirius?
'She went,' she said, finally, in a whisper, 'to get the antidote…'
'Antidote?' Sirius stood up, his voice sharp. 'What antidote? What are you talking about?'
'You mean the antidote for Draco?' It was Narcissa, wan and pale but with an eager lift to her voice,pushing past Sirius to stand between Harry's chair and Draco's bedside. She sank slowly down on the bed beside her son, her eyes wide. 'Has Severus had a breakthrough? Finally?'
'There was a breakthrough,' Hermione admitted, 'but the ingredient that was needed-it wasn't easy to get. So Ginny went to Dumbledore and he-'
Narcissa, who had been listening, suddenly screamed once, piercingly, and bent over her son. Draco, white and waxen, did not move. 'Poppy!'
Narcissa shrieked. Madam Pomfrey whirled and stared. 'Poppy! Come quickly! Draco isn't breathing!'
'I see.' Draco's eyes shone, reflecting the dull light outside the windows, the swirling, uncolored light of nothingness. 'I suppose it was foolish of me to-'
'I don't forgive you,' said Harry, enunciating very clearly, 'because you do not require my forgiveness. After what I did-to both of you-I'm the one that should be forgiven. What you did-I understand it.'
Draco looked at him, a strange light dawning on his face. His eyes said, You tore out our hearts, and we comforted each other. His voice said, 'If I said I never meant to hurt you with it, that would be a lie.'
'Did you hate me?' Harry asked. 'When you did it?'
Draco, who would not lie, said, 'No.'
'I won't say it doesn't hurt,' Harry said, measuredly. 'It does. Hurt. But you can hurt me, and I'll still stay. I've hurt you, after all.'
'That's different,' said Draco. 'You're a hero. You have to choose the world, sometimes.'
'Bollocks,' said Harry. 'Why are you so desperate to damn yourself, Malfoy? Why do you want me to despise you?'
Draco said nothing. His eyes were shining.
'Is it so I'll let you go? I'll tell you right now,' Harry said, raising the sword in his hand again, 'I never will. Do you see that now?'
Draco looked as if he were about to reply, but at that moment the huge double doors of the Manor blew open, and a tearing, icy wind ripped through the room.
Madam Pomfrey reached Draco's side at a run, wand in hand, and seized an open vial off the bedside table. She tipped the contents into Draco's mouth. He made a choking noise, breathed once, choked again- and gasped for another breath, and then another, as if he were breathing through sand or tar. 'He's going,' said Madam Pomfrey, setting the vial down, her face crumpling. 'It's moments now.'
'Cissy-' Sirius turned to hold Narcissa, as if he were afraid she might collapse, but she sat very straight beside Draco, and took his hand, and held it tightly. She reminded Hermione of the statue of a Greek goddess: Niobe, perhaps, weeping over her lost children.
'My son, my son,' she whispered. 'Go, if you must. Go, with ease and grace and dignity, where your ancestors have gone before you. I never meant for you to pass to the land beyond the river before I did, but I know you will wait for me there.'
Hermione, on her knees on the floor, felt the tears like a flood behind her eyes. She knew when they came, she would break all over, like a dam smashing before the force of pent-up waters. She reached blindly for Harry, clasped one of his cold, unmoving hands in her own-she saw Remus clasp Sirius' shoulder; Sirius was bent over, his face in his hands-The door of the infirmary burst open. Charlie erupted into the room, carrying Ginny in his arms and followed by Ron and a white-faced, starkly hysterical-looking Blaise, who clutched something to her chest as if it were the most precious cargo in the world.
Charlie bent to lay his sister on an empty bed, calling hoarsely for Madam Pomfrey. Madam Pomfrey looked up, her crumpled face smoothing with utter surprise-she had been prepared for Draco's sudden turn for the worse, but not for this. She took an uncertain step back-And Draco stopped breathing. Hermione couldn't help herself; she gave a little cry, a sound like a wail, and Blaise, who had been staring uncertainly from the doorway, broke into a run, tearing across the room with her red hair flying like a banner. As she neared, Hermione saw that what she clutched in her hand was a vial of something that shone like melted Galleons.
Hermione bolted to her feet. 'Is that the antidote?'
Blaise nodded, too out of breath to speak, and thrust the vial at Hermione.
Hermione could see all the white faces in the room turned towards her, like pale sunflowers following an erratic solar progress, but they meant nothing to her; they might as well have been in a dream. In the same dream, she took the vial from Blaise and unstoppered it: a strong scent, like herbs and copper and clean spring wind, rose from the vial. Still in the dream, she moved to the bed and leaned over Draco, and tipped the contents of the vial into his mouth through his slightly parted lips.
Draco looked at Harry. The icy hair lifted his hair and whipped it into his eyes; despite the wind's fierceness, it was strangely silent where they stood. Harry could hear muted voices crying out in the distance, the sounds of grief and agony, but they were muffled as if they traveled a great distance. 'Potter…'
Harry took a step forward. 'You're worried I won't need you after all this is over. Well, I say it doesn't matter. I don't have to need you, I just have to want to be around you, and I already do. Need isn't friendship. You know that as well as I do. All your life, Malfoy, you've given all you had to other people because you hoped they'd need you. Your father. Then me.
You can't live for me-you were right, what you said before. You've given all you have. You haven't got any more.'
He took another step forward, and now he was standing just in front of Draco, tipping back his head a little to look up at him. 'You have to live for yourself, Malfoy. Your life has to be about you now. Not about anyone else. Love where you want to and do what you want to, and live for your own life, and be a whole person and you still won't ever lose me. I promise you that.'
Draco was silent, but he took his hand off the banister and stepped down, and now they were face to face, exactly eye level since they were the same height. And Draco said, 'And it came to pass that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul.'
Harry looked at him, blinking. 'You want to make a covenant?' he said.
Draco's mouth twitched, and then he laughed, a clear, unhurried, and honest laugh. 'Potter,' he said, 'you're so astoundingly literal,' and he knelt down, and laid Terminus Est down flat at Harry's feet. Harry did the same, laying down the sword of Gyffindor across the other sword so that they formed a makeshift X, and when he stood up Draco was smiling at him. He reached to put a hand on the other boy's shoulder just as the Manor collapsed all around them.
