hands beneath his chin. Draco did his best to return the Headmaster's gaze steadily, but found he couldn't — Dumbledore's eyes were too piercing; it made him feel as if his own head were made of glass. 'Young Mister Malfoy,' Dumbledore said. 'I know better than to assume you will tell me why you went to the top of the North Tower, or who you were meeting there. No — ' he held up a hand as Draco began to speak. 'I am well aware you weren't meeting Harry. I understand all that, and that is not why I called you here.'
'Oh…' Draco said slowly. If there was one person in the world who robbed him of his ability to make smart comebacks, it was Dumbledore. 'If you're not going to ask me about that…what are you going to ask me about, Professor?'
'I was going to return something to you,' Dumbledore said. 'Something you lost.'
Draco's eyes widened. 'Yes?
Dumbledore stretched out his hand, and Draco's eyes widened further. In the center of his wrinkled palm something glittered blackly: a signet ring, carved out of onyx, in the shape of a griffin. 'My seal ring,' he said blankly, and reached for it. 'I thought I'd left it somewhere…'
'You did,' said Dumbledore. 'At the top of the North Tower.'
Draco's hand closed spasmodically around the ring he had just retrieved.
I shouldn't have admitted it was mine…
'I knew it was yours, Draco,' said Dumbledore, as if reading his mind.
'The moment Charlie brought it to me…How many times did I see that ring flash on your father's hand when he was at school, and on your grandfather Julius' hand as well. Your father especially was always so particular about wearing it…I am surprised he would have taken it off.'
'He said it was time for me to wear it,' said Draco, sliding the ring back onto his finger. 'He said I had become a true Malfoy at last.'
Dumbledore sat forward slightly. His eyes were very kind. 'Is there anything you want to tell me, Draco… anything at all?'
Draco hesitated. Then he shook his head. 'No, Headmaster.'
'Then I suppose it falls upon me to ask you questions,' said Dumbledore.
His light blue eyes had gone very grave, wise and kindly, but penetrating.
'I assume that you have noticed a certain…change in Harry?'
Draco looked down at his hands. In the faint light coming through the window, the bones seemed highlighted through the skin. He thought of the way Harry had looked earlier in the graveyard, as if a light were shining through him. 'I've noticed it,' he said, and felt an internal wrench, as if he were somehow betraying Harry but admitting it out loud.
'But you might want to talk to someone else about that, like Hermione or Weasley, someone a bit closer to him.'
'There is no one closer to him,' said Dumbledore. 'Not in the way you are. Although I am sure they would protect him if they could. Would you?'
'Protect him? Against what?'
'Does it matter?'
Draco raised his eyes from his hands. 'I suppose not,' he said. 'Yes, of course. I'd do whatever I had to do.' He shifted slightly in his chair. 'But I've tried talking to him, and what he says…well, I don't know what I can do. If there was something I could do, I would do it.' He looked directly at Dumbledore, who alone with Sirius knew what he had seen when he had died, and Sirius did not know the details. 'I caused this, didn't I?'
'You did not cause the situation, only revealed it. And perhaps you think because of that you should be able to mend it, but you cannot, and he would not welcome it if you tried. You cannot come between him and his suffering. It is too complicated and too unique to Harry. One happiness is much like another happiness, but each great sorrow is profoundly different. You might know the loss of a parent, in fact, like Harry, in some way you know what it's like to never have really had parents at all. But you cannot know what it's like to have adored those lost parents, to have turned them into the idealization of everything good in this world. And then to discover that they, to who you owe so much, are in torment and it rests upon your shoulders to save them from that state, and yet you have no idea how such a thing might be accomplished.'
'Don't,' said Draco, anguished, and stood up, knocking his chair over.
'Don't — it's my fault.'
'I wondered if you thought that,' said Dumbledore gently. He waved a hand at the chair, and it righted itself. 'I suspected you might, and because of that I have held back perhaps longer than I should have in telling you something I have long wanted to tell you.'
Draco blinked. 'Something about me? Or Harry?'
'Something about neither of you, and at the same time something intimately connected with both of you.'
Okay, Draco thought, could you be a little more vague about that? But…he didn't say it out loud. 'Is it important?'
'Yes,' said Dumbledore. 'It is important.'
Draco's heart had begun to beat hard in his chest. He had a feeling that 'important' meant 'bad,' and the look on Dumbledore's face only confirmed this. 'Is it going to hurt Harry?' he asked rapidly, 'because if it is, I'd rather not know, if you don't mind.'
Dumbledore looked surprised. 'Wouldn't you? Why not?'
'Because I don't want to have to decide whether to tell him or not.' He stood for a moment with his hands in his pockets, looking straight at Dumbledore, before he burst out, 'Hasn't enough happened to him already? Does there have to be more?'
Dumbledore sat looking at Draco quietly. Finally, he said, 'Harry is strong, and can endure much. And for what he cannot endure alone, he has you.'
'And Ron and Hermione,' said Draco, 'And Sirius…'
'But this particular secret is not their legacy. It is yours.' Dumbledore waved a hand towards the chair, and Draco paused. 'Sit down please, Mister Malfoy, and listen to me,' he said, and Draco sat. 'Now,'
Dumbledore went on. 'Before you go haring after Harry on this quest of his for personal vengeance, there is something you should know…'
The Gryffindor team had been waiting just outside the changing rooms for almost ten minutes after the game was supposed to start when Harry slipped off to talk to Madam Hooch. He was back in a moment, looking slightly ruffled. He glanced around at his jumpy-looking team — they were all standing around in the ankle-deep snow off the clean-scraped path.
They couldn't see the pitch from here; it was blocked by the fence that surrounded it. Seamus was leaning up against the wall of the hut in which the changing rooms were located, looking bored. Ron was snapping his wrist guards on. 'Game's on hold,' Harry said briefly. 'One of the Slytherin players isn't here yet.'
Colin snorted. 'Don't they have to forfeit, then?'
Harry shrugged. 'Madam Hooch says we wait. So…we wait.'
Ginny squirmed irritably. She already felt tense enough, standing here with the other players, only a few feet away from Seamus, who wasn't looking at her. Elizabeth, Dennis, and Colin were standing together, discussing Transfiguration. Ron was busy snapping on his wrist guards. 'I wouldn't want to forfeit anyway,' he said. 'I want to beat them.'
'That's the spirit,' said Harry, looking weary.
'Ron's right,' said Ginny. 'Especially after last time.' She scanned the team and noted how bored everyone looked. 'I think we need a pep talk,' she said, and winked at Harry.
He looked put upon. 'You guys don't need a pep talk,' he said. 'We're the unbeatable team already. All we need to do is go out there and play, and we'll win. We don't know the meaning of the word defeat.' Ron made a muffled choking noise, and Harry grinned at him. 'Well, we know the meaning of it — we're not stupid — just, you know, not in this context.'
Harry's eyes scanned the room. 'So, was that peppy enough?'
Elizabeth looked up from her conversation with Colin. 'Sorry, Harry, did you say something?'
