分卷阅读3（2 / 2）

“Far from it. This is the best thing that’s happened at Hogwarts in years,” Harry says, which of course is absurd, he flew through Fiendfyre to save this boy, of course he doesn’t want him dead—and somehow he’s still going. “If I knew who it was, I’d shake their hand.”

Draco smiles, then, but it’s an awful smile; it looks like it hurts more than the coughing did. Harry opens his mouth to apologize, to take it back—he’s finally gone too far, hasn’t he —but Draco says, “Not even you can have everything you want,” and walks away without a backward glance.

Harry stares at his back as he disappears around a corner and wonders how, as always happens with Draco, everything went out of his control so fast.

Draco skips dinner that evening.

Harry’s eyes scan the Slytherin table over and over, searching for him, but halfway through dinner he has no choice but to conclude Draco’s not coming. It’s only the sight of Pansy, spooning salad onto her plate and seeming no more unhappy than usual, that sets him at ease.

Hermione nudges him. “Looking for someone?” she asks, brows raised.

He shakes his head and drops his eyes to his plate. He can’t exactly tell her that, after seeing Draco hack his insides out while Harry stood there uselessly, the sight of Draco still breathing would have been a relief.

“Well,” says Hermione, “if you were looking for someone, I’d advise you to check the hospital wing.”

Harry looks around at her, amazed, but she’s engrossed in a book she’s propped open in the spot where her plate should be; the plate is in her lap. Ron’s too busy arguing with Seamus and Dean to notice when Harry gets up; Ginny and Neville sneak glances at him but know better by now than to try and stop him. Hermione just sighs, a little, and turns a page with one hand while scooping a bite of shepherd’s pie onto her fork with the other.

Once he’s out of the Great Hall he breaks into a run, racing to his dorm to grab the invisibility cloak and throwing it on before doubling back down to the infirmary. He waits by the entrance for a few minutes, until he catches his breath, before nudging the door open and slipping inside.

Draco is the only patient. He lies in the cot farthest from the door, winged by two wizards dressed in the lime green robes of St. Mungo’s Healers. Madam Pomfrey and Professor McGonagall stand off to the side, watching as the Healers cast, in tandem, a spell that bathes Draco in shimmery white light. As Harry nears, he sees that the light hovers a few inches above Draco’s body, and seems to follow the outline of his silhouette, like a magical X-ray. It’s riddled with threads of black and red, which converge in masses over the places where Draco’s heart, lungs, throat, and stomach would be. Harry has a feeling the projection is not supposed to look like that.

The Healers finish their spell, and the light dissipates.

“Did it work?” Draco asks, propping himself up on his elbows.

“The results are quite clear, yes,” says one of the Healers.

“Mrs. Malfoy is on her way,” says Professor McGonagall. “Perhaps we should wait for her.”

Draco looks about to object, but the door swings open at that moment and Narcissa Malfoy sweeps into the room. She ignores everyone and bends over her son’s prone form on the bed. He sits up gingerly to kiss her cheek; she brushes his white-blond fringe out of his emaciated face and urges him back against the pillows. They don’t say a word to each other, but a single shared glance between them seems to communicate more than any number of words could. Mrs. Malfoy straightens and turns to the huddle at the foot of Draco’s bed.

Professor McGonagall introduces the two wizards as Healers Ross and Donovan, specialists in Hanahaki Disease.

“Well?” Mrs. Malfoy says, turning her penetrating stare on the Healers; for a chilling instant Harry is back in the Forbidden Forest and he can almost feel Narcissa’s breath on his face as she asks whether or not her son is dead.

Pull yourself together, mate, he thinks grimly. It’s got to take more than one syllable from the Malfoy matriarch to shake him.