分卷阅读18（2 / 2）

Draco looks at him disbelievingly. “You went to the Forbidden Forest on a hunch?”

Potter shrugs. “It’s not the first time I’ve been to the Forest. And you didn’t manage to get very far.”

He’s not mad. Potter’s mad. He thinks of all the things that could have happened, all the ways that this day could have gone horribly wrong. “Merlin, Potter, you mean to tell me I almost got the Saviour of the Wizarding World ripped apart by wolves because he was stupid enough to come after an ex-Death Eater on a hunch?”

Potter’s frowning again. “Stop calling me that. Stop calling yourself that.”

“They’re both true, Potter. Don’t be so sensitive over it.”

“So,” Potter irritably cuts off, probably because if they continue talking about this, they are going to have another argument. “That’s how I found you.”

Draco huffs in reply. He shakes his head, still incredulous, but that movement reminds him that he still has a headache and so he lies back down on the mattress. It’s ludicrous, that’s what this whole thing is.

Potter being here, being so meddlesome with him and his life, and him enjoying it. Enjoying Potter’s attention, his time, his concern, and those godawful smiles that he sends Draco’s way when Draco’s said something particularly funny.

He wants Potter to stop. He doesn’t deserve it.

The Dark Mark burns, hot and heavy on his forearm, under his sleeve. He throws it over his eyes, and takes a deep, shuddery breath. He thanks his lucky stars and whatever higher being there is in the sky that nothing happened to either of them today, because he doesn’t think he can forgive himself if something had happened to Potter all because he was crazy enough to wander where he’s not supposed to wander and stupid enough to fall in love.

“Next time, don’t do it. My life’s not worth yours.”

There is a pause, one that lasts long enough for the tears to prick his eyes, before Potter murmurs, “That’s for me to decide.”

Draco laughs, low and empty. “You can’t save everyone all the time.”

“I know. But I wanted to save you.”

“It got easier, the more I did it,” Draco finds himself explaining a while later.

He’s still lying vertically on the bed, turned to his side, watching the ribbons of names glide over the Map. Potter didn’t go back to the other bed anymore and had settled for lying down horizontally, just below the pillows. His thigh is just above Draco’s head.

Draco had just Scourgified his clothes and his bed, unable to stand the grit and the dirt anymore, when Potter asked if he knew that it was the Forbidden Forest he was walking to, which evolved into the conversation they are having now.

“I had always been good at Occlumency. My aunt said I had a natural talent for it.” He closes his eyes, smiling grimly as he remembers Bellatrix Lestrange and their late-night Occlumency training sessions to prepare him for his mission. He opens his eyes again, unwilling to dwell on the details of those. “Growing up trying to live up to my father’s expectations to be ambitious and…cruel, I suppose, made it easy for me to, in my aunt’s own words, empty myself of emotions.”

The memories that he recalls now are a different kind, one that consists of stone floors, metal bars, a sinking coldness that penetrated your very bones, and the choice he made to avoid it.