分卷阅读5（2 / 2）

“Ginny took most of these.” Harry was crying, tears slipping down from his cheeks. The death of Fred had hit him the hardest. They were all hard, but it was especially awful to watch the shock waves that the grief sent through the Weasley family. “Her dad bought this muggle camera from a polaroid. Spent the whole summer snapping pictures.”

“You all looked happy.” Draco had always bought into his father’s idea that he was the lucky one, that what it took to make a great man was a pocket full of gold and a big house, a beautiful wife and a respected place at the ministry. He had been groomed to follow in his father’s footsteps and never even thought to question it, so it’s always hard to see things like this and be reminded of just how wrong he was.

(That was the worst part of all this, watching his heroes fall. When his mother was not strong and dangerous as a knife, when his father was not always right, when his family tumbled off the pedestal that he had placed them upon and no one was there to help Draco back to his feet.)

“We were.” Harry swallowed hard, and Draco reached out to touch him, but withdrew his hand at the last second. He was not sure that it would be welcomed, and if it was, he was never good at things like that, anyways.

They spend the rest of the night like that, shifting through the papers and filling in the holes that the other couldn’t figure out. Harry tells him about the Weasley family, about the good times, and Draco explains what the Order’s plans meant, what houses they were guarding and where they were infiltrating, who the names were referring to.

It’s not until they find a black leather box that things get exciting, one with no visible way to open it and latin etched into the side, all of it with the look of something that had been carried around very often, with care. There were marks worn into the sides where someone had carried it, and nicks in the top from where it had been thrown around, but despite how long they sat up in that attic and tried, he and Harry couldn’t find a way to open it.

“I know you’re not going to like it,” Harry said, tossing the thing over and over in his hands, raising it into the light to squint at it. “But I think we’re going to need to call Hermione.”

Draco agreed, because he was curious, and Harry called Hermione. Which meant that Ron came too. “You’re absolutely certain there was no one else around it?” She demanded, circling the thing three times and tapping it with her wand. “No clue as to what could be in here?”

They had already told her no three times.

“Could be anything.” So far, all Ron did was smile adoringly at Hermione and eat the food that Draco had made them all for dinner. Three servings of it. As far as Draco could tell, Ron was just waiting for the moment when he had to jump in and act as a body guard. “Could be cursed.”

“Knowing this house, it might be.” Harry had warned Draco not to go prying into the cupboards and closets without Kreacher there, giving him horror stories of Boggarts and evil pixies and robes that try to strangle you. “What do you think we should do?”

“We could call the ministry. Have Kingsley send an auror to get it.”

It was Ron who said it, and to everyone’s surprise, it was Hermione that shut it down. “Then they’ll take it from us, and we’ll never get to know. This has been our fight before it was anyone else’s, and this was found in your house, Harry. We have a right to know what hides inside.” She yanked her hair up into a ponytail, viciously, and then rolled up her sleeves. “Shall we open it?”

Ron shrugged. Harry raised his glass in what Hermione took for agreement. And then finally it was only Draco, left with the three of them all staring at him, clearly waiting for him to be the one to ruin this. But he couldn’t say no either, even when it was a clear possibility they could be unleashing something horrible onto each other. After sitting up in the attic, it felt like his, like it was theirs, something that just belonged to him and Harry.

“I’m in.” He sets his butterbeer down on the table and joins Hermione with circling it, taking another turn at poking at it. “There’s a book in the library that I think might help.”

It took them three hours, but he and Hermione had finally stripped it of its enchantments, to where it looks like an ordinary suit case, just waiting to be opened.

“Are you ready?”

Hermione didn’t look ready. She looked like she wanted to keep it closed, pale faced with a white knuckle grip on her wand.