分卷阅读1（2 / 2）

“It’s quite sad, isn’t it,” Hermione says.

“No, it’s not,” Harry snaps. “This is his own bloody fault. If he wasn’t such a self- centered, bigoted prat, maybe someone other than his mum would love him.”

Even Ron looks shocked. The other Gryffindors, absolutely failing to pretend they weren’t eavesdropping, shift minutely away from him. Harry grabs a bread roll from a basket in the middle of the table and bites into it viciously, chewing like his NEWTs depend on it.

Ron launches into an impromptu Quidditch discussion a second later, and Neville jumps —as if a red-headed someone had kicked him under the table—and chimes in. Soon, half the table is overtaken by a rousing debate about who’ll win the next World Cup. Harry is an island of furious silence in the middle of it all. No one is fool enough to try and talk to him. Hermione gives him one of those injured looks of hers, the sort that doesn’t say you hurt me but rather seeing you hurt hurts me, which grates on him right now, because Harry is perfectly fine, and sometimes Hermione thinking he’s hurt is worse than actually being hurt.

His next mouthful of dry bread is painfully hard to swallow. He looks up, through the gap between Ron and Hermione’s shoulders. Draco chatters at his housemates, gesticulating passionately as he delivers a punchline, probably at someone else’s expense. It’s business as usual except that every so often he has to stop and turn away, gasping and sputtering as his mouth fills with petals so white even across the room it almost hurts Harry’s eyes to look at them. They fall into Draco’s lap like shards of frosted glass.

Dying of love? He thinks he’s never heard anything so pathetic; leave it to Malfoy to escalate a crush to such stunning heights of drama. He thinks, also, of what Dumbledore had always said about love being the most powerful magic of all. He keeps forgetting—or perhaps just doesn’t want to believe—that this particular magic can be destructive, too.

Most of all, though, Harry thinks: who is it?

You’d think Harry’s the one who’s sick, the way people are avoiding him. Like he’s catching and even eye contact will pass the symptoms on.

“It’s sixth year all over again,” Hermione chides him. “You’re obsessing.”

“I’m not obsessed,” he says, defensively. “I’m just interested, that’s all. I’ve never heard of this. Do Muggles get it?”

“No,” says Hermione, “and neither do Squibs. Unrequited love causes Hanahaki Disease, but it’s magic that makes the symptoms manifest the way they do. But listen, Harry, please,” she adds. She sounds impatient, which is unusual, because she never passes on a chance to impart knowledge, especially when Harry’s actually asking her for it. “You’re following Malfoy around. Brooding over the Marauder’s Map when you’re pretending to do homework. Eavesdropping on the Slytherins—don’t look so surprised, you’re no good at being sneaky, Harry, I don’t know why you think you are. There’s nothing you can do for Malfoy, and since we’ve been given an once-in-a-lifetime second chance to do our NEWTs, we should really focus on—”

“Who says I want to do anything for Malfoy?” Harry asks, incensed.

Hermione sighs.

He figures Hermione’s right about one thing, though, which is that he’s wasting his time eavesdropping on the Slytherins. He needs to actually talk to one, and it’s obvious which Slytherin he should start with.

The summer before they’d all returned for eighth year, Pansy Parkinson had owled him a very stilted letter congratulating him on his defeat of the Dark Lord, expressing her gratitude for his service to Wizardkind, and burying an apology under layers and layers of semantic posturing. Harry had rolled his eyes and responded with a note which read, in its entirety: “Thanks. -H”

On Fridays, Draco and Pansy fill their plates in the Hall and then take their lunch outside; he’s seen them in the courtyard. He knows that Draco and Pansy come from different classes—Draco from Astronomy; Harry doesn’t know what classes Pansy takes— and that Pansy always gets to the Great Hall before Draco.

Harry skulks outside the doors and waits for her. She doesn’t take a second look at him, almost passes him by, but he hisses her name and beckons her down the hallway.

“What’s this about, Potter?” she asks warily.

“I wanted to talk to you for a minute. It’ll be quick. Please,” he says. She looks around as if nervous to be seen with him and follows, just around a corner and into an empty classroom.