分卷阅读9（1 / 2）

She shoves his shoulder, making him take another step back from the doors. Behind him, someone objects—a teacher, he guesses, maybe Professor McGonagall, warning Pansy about putting hands on other students. Ron and Hermione are making their way round the Gryffindor table, and the Slytherins are watching them warily.

All Harry can think is that Draco is getting farther and farther away from him.

“I am sure,” he tells her.

“You are about seven years too late for that,” she says, but Blaise looks at him consideringly. Harry’s throat is tight and there is a weight in his chest and his breathing comes in ragged spurts, and when he looks at Blaise, Blaise’s face changes, minutely. He twitches aside so casually there’s no way of telling if it was on purpose, and Harry takes it as his cue to lunge through the gap between him and Pansy, ignoring her outraged cries as he speeds through the doors and out the entrance hall into the crisp morning sunshine.

The cool, damp air soothes his throat, which is scratchy and aching as if he’s coming down with a cold. His eyes are drawn unerringly to the distant gates; he half expects to see a carriage trundling away down the road, and he’s ready, he’ll summon his broomstick and go after it if he has to—but then he realizes Draco is right there.

Draco stands, unsteadily, at the foot of the steps to the castle, his mother straightening his collar and smoothing back his hair. They both turn at the sight of him. And Draco’s eyes meet Harry’s.

The thing is—the thing is, nothing has changed. Draco looks at Harry the way he’s always looked at him: with his full, undivided attention. No matter what Harry has thought Draco did or didn’t feel for him over the years, no matter what happened between them, he has never once had to confront Draco’s indifference.

Draco might die today, and if he does not die, Draco might come back and never look at Harry like this again. It slams into him all at once. The thought of Draco’s gaze sweeping over Harry without pausing—the thought that Harry might meet Draco’s eyes and see nothing there at all, not even hatred—the thought of Draco not loving him back…is abominable, and makes a bottomless pain take root in his chest.

But the only words he has for this feeling are: “Don’t go.”

Narcissa Malfoy’s lips draw back in what might actually be a snarl. Draco pushes her hands away, gently, and watches as Harry takes the steps two at a time and staggers onto the grass a few feet from Draco.

“This again, Potter?” he asks tiredly.

Harry wishes Draco would’ve shouted at him. This exasperation, so close to outright dismissiveness, is very much worse, and Harry can’t take it right now.

He should be making some grandiose proclamation of his feelings, he’s sure. Instead, he does what he does best: he picks a fight.

“You’re doing this to yourself,” Harry tells him.

“Excuse me?” Draco says, his voice dangerously low. The spark of anger in his eyes goads Harry on.

“You don’t want to believe,” Harry says, fists clenched and face hot. “You’re scared of what that would mean. You don’t like things you can’t control. You’d—you’d rather die of pride than admit you were wrong about something!”

Harry’s voice climbs; he is distantly aware of people gathering at the open doors to the entrance hall and Narcissa’s hand tightening on her wand, but not aware enough to care.

“I’m not going to die!” Draco’s voice rises to match Harry’s, and now he is shouting. “I’m not going to die, but I’ll be free of this burden at last. That’s all this is—that’s all you are to me. A burden.”