分卷阅读9（1 / 2）

“Thanks.” It was the only thing Draco could think to say.

“We made those before the war. Kind of tacky now.” George picks one up and throws it back into the bin. “Maybe it was then. Should get rid of them.”

Draco pictured George dragging this back to alley, dumping them all out into a dumpster. It was a sad thought. “What do they taste like?”

George blinks. “Grape. Sometimes blueberry.”

Draco rummages in his pocket and comes out with a galleon, because he wants candy, damn it. “I’ll take three.”

That’s how they end up in the back with candy wrappers spread out around them, tongues stained black. “Got to admit,” George said, licking the last of the candy off of a wrapper. “Much better idea than throwing them all out.”

“No kidding.” Draco reached out for another one, his twelfth. “I’m going to be sick.”

“You can’t.” George propped himself on an elbow and looked over at him. “We promised to eat the whole thing.”

“This was stupid.”

“It was fun.”

“Stupidly,”

“Stupidly,”

“Fun.” they finished the last word together and laughed, and Draco couldn’t get over the surrealness of the conversation, how the two of them were sitting in the storage room of a Weasley’s shop, working their way through candy dark marks.

“I didn’t want to come back here, you know.” George said, suddenly sober. “But Hermione sat me down and said that I was going to have to face up to it, sooner or later, so here I am.”

“Granger’s something.” Draco didn’t want to admit how much he owed to her, how much her instant forgiveness had helped him. there’s something to it, mending the broken bridges of your past. “Always seems to be right.”

“She’s annoying like that.” George ran a hand along the side of his head, the one with the missing ear. He’d been careful to keep it facing away from Draco, but Draco had still seen it, the twisted skin and red scar tissue coming to a circular bump at the side of his head, so small you never would have guessed it used to be an ear. “But what I’m trying to get at, is that it helps, forcing yourself to do normal things.”

Normally, Draco would have gotten angry when someone tries to give him advice. But this was coming from George, who was asking for calming droughts from Draco once a week because his hands shake too badly to handle a knife, and who clearly had done his fair share of hiding. Maybe it was time for Draco to come out into the open again.

“My normal sort of got smashed to pieces. Wouldn’t know where to start.”

“Start here. With me, hiding in the back.” It was a large leap to make in one afternoon, but George seemed serious. “It’ll do us both some good.”