分卷阅读6（1 / 2）

“Ready as we’ll ever be.” Ron was taking the lead, seemingly thinking that if his girlfriend said it was ready to be opened, that should be the end of discussion.

“Alright.” Hermione’s hand was shaking a little, enough that Draco knew that she was afraid. (And when did that happen, that she stopped being Granger and started being Hermione?) “On three then.”

“Wait. Let me.” Draco stepped in front of her, eased her hands off the latch. She didn’t argue too much, and when Ron stepped in front of her, Draco saw something in his eyes that felt like it was a flicker of gratitude. “Wands out?”

It was Hermione that had been steering this whole project, but it was Harry that Draco looked to. “Whenever you’re ready.” Harry said, and Draco didn’t feel like anything to worry about, when he had Harry watching his back. “Just take your time.”

“On three.” Draco said, and he felt the tension in his arms building, the magic pooling in his wrists and his fingertips, that familiar feeling of when he was ready to take action. “One. Two.” The last syllable seemed to stretch out, and when he finally did open it, it was with a loud bang and a puff of dust. “Three.”

“You know what this means, don’t you?”

There weren’t times that Draco had thought that he belonged, that he was part of things, but as Hermione leaned into Ron’s open arms and Harry turned to him, it was one of the rare moments of his life that Draco got to feel like he had become a central part of a team. This was a team, a team of three, and here he was, being pulled along for the ride.

He didn’t know what it means. All he was looking at was blueprints and notes scrawled in the handwriting of Mad-Eye Moody, a fact that had sent Hermione into tears as soon as she realized it. They were names of death eaters, and suspected death eaters, and werewolf dens, and terrorist cells in other countries just waiting to be unleashed.

And it felt bad. It felt like when the announcement came through the corridors that all students were to return to their houses and Draco had to wait to hear the news, when he sat outside the court room waiting for the verdict for his father, when he was meeting the Dark Lord for the first time. It was the feeling that came with all bad things, that animal instinct that served only to tell them when they should start running.

Hermione knew. And so did Ron. And even Harry, reaching out and gripping Ron’s shoulder when Hermione left him to flip through the journals written in someone’s spidery handwriting (Dumbledore’s, he would learn later), seemed to know it. And really so did Draco, the truth settling somewhere in his stomach even before Hermione spoke.

“It’s not over.” This marked the beginning of something new, the first battle cry of the end, marking the moment where owls flitted from house to house and the call to arms was sent through all the old, weary soldiers, the ones with enough scars to last a lifetime but were nowhere near the end. “We’ve still got a long fight ahead of us.”

Chapter 6

Harry

He knows he shouldn’t have done it.

He had felt it when he dragged himself out of bed this morning, the effects of one too many sleepless nights finally creeping up on him, the ache in his muscles and the fog filling up his mind. He was so close to calling in sick, but that would have kept him stuck at home, and the fight seemed very important again, now that he had that box to think about, the one that he and Ron and Hermione (and Draco, Draco is a part of the three of them now, too, however reluctant they all are to admit it) still haven’t told anyone about.

So he went to training.

And when they told him it was time to practice fighting with real spells, with a trained healer standing on the sidelines, he didn’t tell anyone that maybe it would be better if he sat this one out.

And when it was time for his turn, he stepped into the ring, faced his opponent, ignored the thumbs up that Ron gave him, didn’t listen to all the safety warnings that Hermione had forced he and Ron to sit through when they first decided to choose this as their career plan. (Because really, you think the two of you wouldn’t have killed yourselves by the third year if you didn’t have me with you?) He just stood there, adjusted his grip on his wand, gave a nod to the instructor, and then waited for the spell to come at him.

Only when it came, he didn’t block it. He didn’t raise his wand to defend himself, or try to move out of the way. If Harry was being honest, he didn’t really even see it, or if he did, he didn’t register it, just saw a flash of light and then the shock wave that went through his chest, blasting him backwards into the wall.