look that said that he knew perfectly well that she'd never let up until he told her the truth, and that part of him was annoyed by this, while another part was grateful. He said, 'You remember the Polyjuice Potion that Harry and I took, that turned us into each other?'
'I think I can cast my mind back that far,' she said dryly.
'You remember how it lasted much longer than it was supposed to?'
'Right. I thought Dumbledore said that was because of your Magid powers?'
He didn't answer this directly. 'And you remember how we've guessed that its ongoing effects led to — to our ability to speak to each other silently? The feeling of each other's feelings, that sort of thing.'
'The telepathic bond.'
'Yes. That.' He shifted slightly, bending to pick up a twig, from which he began methodically stripping the leaves. 'Well, as it turns out, Dumbledore wasn't quite truthful with us.'
'Wasn't quite truthful — what do you mean? Did he lie?'
Draco chuckled softly. 'Sometimes I wonder if the old bastard ever tells the truth.' He stripped another few leaves from the twig; sap oozed like blood from the torn patches on the bark. 'Well, apparently they — that's Dumbledore and Snape — didn't quite trust our Magid powers to do the job, so they added a little something extra to the mix, and voila. An instant telepathically-bonded, Voldemort-fighting unbeatable team.'
'But…why?' Hermione was bewildered. 'Why you? Why did they want that?'
'Well, it had to be someone who was a Magid, would be my guess, so it couldn't have been you or the Weasel. I think they considered Fleur but dropped her as a candidate — too flighty. I'm the only other Magid in the school.'
'I still don't understand.'
'I think they wanted someone who'd follow Harry anywhere, who'd die for him, protect him to the end. He's the priceless resource, you know. Or he was. That prophecy. No one else could have killed Voldemort. And they knew his nature, of course. How likely he'd be to cut himself free to face the final battle by himself, not wanting to endanger his friends. So they created someone he couldn't cut himself free of.'
'But you — you hated each other. Despised each other. You're the last person Harry would have — '
'It doesn't matter,' Draco said, in an odd, dead sort of voice. 'After what they did to us, we couldn't have hated each other. When they realized I was the only available, acceptable Magid in the school, it must have presented something of a knotty problem for them. After all, my training -
with weaponry, with the Dark Arts — must have seemed extremely useful, but at the same time, how could they be sure I'd stay loyal?' Draco tossed the twig, now thoroughly denuded, into the lake. It landed with a gentle splash. 'They had to make sure that Harry's safety would be as important to me as my own. They had to tie us together. Indissolubly.'
'So they made you one soul,' said Hermione, remembering something, 'in two bodies.'
'Not for much longer,' said Draco.
'What do you mean?'
'I mean it was an experiment, and it worked wildly better than they'd hoped. But if it hadn't well, Snape would always have been standing by with the antidote, to put us back the way we were before.'
'Back the way you were before? Well, but it did work. If what they wanted was to create an inseparable team — to keep Harry from going it alone -
they did that. I mean, just because the bond between you was magically initiated, so to speak, doesn't mean it's any less real.'
'Perhaps not,' said Draco, 'but it will be less real next week when Snape gives us the antidote.'
Hermione stared at him. Her face felt stiff, and not just because of the cold. 'The what?'
'There's an antidote. Some sort of second potion to counteract the effects of the first one. So that'll be it. No more funny mind-speak. Back to normal for both of us.'
'But I — is that what you want?'
'I don't think it matters what I want. Dumbledore hinted that they'd hardly expected the original potion to have as intense an effect as it did.
He seemed to feel that since the eventual effects couldn't be guessed at, the safest thing to do was go ahead with the antidote. He said they'd only waited until now because they didn't want to disrupt the rest of our school year.'
'What did Harry say?'
'He said, 'All right, fine, when do we do it?''
Hermione found this hard to believe. 'Wasn't he angry?'
Draco picked up another twig and ripped out a few leaves. 'Maybe. I think he's used to having the needs of the wizarding world run his life for him.
Hell, maybe I am, too.'
'They can't make you do it, Draco. You could tell them — '
He turned his head and looked at her, his eyes coolly disdainful. 'You really think,' he said, 'that I'd refuse the antidote if that wasn't what Harry wanted?'
'I'm sure it isn't what he wants.'
'Are you?' said Draco meditatively.
Hermione didn't answer.
'I wouldn't blame him if it was. He must be tired of it by now.'
'Tired of what?' she said.
Draco stood up. The sun had set completely now, but the lake seemed to have gathered the remains of the daylight into itself and shone like a polished mirror. 'All of us.'
Harry isn't tired of me, some small voice in the back of Hermione's head protested. But she said nothing. Draco, despite all his evasions and deflections, had an unerring instinct for the unpleasant truth at the heart of the matter, at least when it pertained to other people. She thought of the unanswered questions between herself and Harry, and shivered again.
'Do you know what he's doing when school ends?' she asked abruptly.
Draco turned to look at her, and she saw the faint surprised turn of his mouth, though his voice was even when he spoke. 'No. I don't.'
'Do you know what you're doing?'
'I think I'll travel,' he said, easily — too easily, she thought. That polished, casual voice sounded false to her. 'Nearly dying made me think about all the things I haven't done. I think I'd like to see the world, maybe for a year or so.'
'Oh.' A pang shot through her. 'Surely there are other things you haven't done that are a bit closer to home?'
The curl at the corner of his mouth turned wicked. 'What exactly are you suggesting?'
'Oh, forget it,' she said with a glare, wrapping her arms around herself for warmth.
Now he was all contrition. 'You're shivering. Should we go back?'
Hermione half-closed her eyes. Through her narrowed lids she could see the crescent of silver metal that was the lake, the budding choirs of branches, wet black and dark green studded with the shards of new pink flowers, the saturated-cobalt of the sky overhead — and she realized, with a jolt, that she would never again sit by this lake at twilight, never again see the sun set over the Forbidden Forest, setting the tops of the trees ablaze. She had thought she would pass this moment with Harry, but things didn't always turn out the way you had planned them. 'We can't ever go back,' she said, 'not really.'
Draco raised an eyebrow. The wind off the lake blew a veil of silver across his eyes. 'What did you say?'
Hermione stood up, brushing leaves and damp petals from her skirt. 'Oh,' she said. 'It was nothing.'
Ginny's stomach growled. She had gone back to lying in bed with the hangings drawn, though, she thought, if she'd had some foresight she would have brought a tin of biscuits or at least some crisps to gnaw on, since she had no intention of going down to supper. The last night before the end of the year in the Great Hall always had a
