分卷阅读24（1 / 2）

“Dad.” Dudley looked pained. “Don’t.”

“Well, we did!” Even Aunt Petunia looked afraid, now. “We fed him, and we clothed him, and we brought him up as one of our own—”

Harry couldn’t take it anymore. It felt like that night with Aunt Marge, where it became one thing too many. And he wasn’t going to pretend that this hurt more than he thought it would, because after all those nights with Dudley and how well dinner had went, he had actually convinced himself that they might start to like him. He was wrong.

“How you raised me?” His voice was low, but everyone could hear it. “You didn’t raise me. Him—” He jerked his head towards Dudley, who was clinging to his wine glass and looking like he wanted to sink through the floor. “Him you raised. He’s the one you fed. He’s the one you bought all the presents for, and threw birthdays for, and gave him a real bedroom. The one you cared for. He was your son. And what was I?”

No answer.

He wanted an answer, and he was going to get one. “What was I, Vernon?” If he was younger, this level of anger would send his magic spiraling out of control, but as it was he could just feel himself shaking with the injustice of it all. “Say what I was.” Nothing. “I was the thing that showed up on your doorstep that you wanted to send out with the week’s garbage, wasn’t I? A stain on your perfect family image. I wasn’t the one you raised. I was the one you starved. I was the one you hated. I was the one you locked in the closet and lied to, for years.” No one moved. Only Draco tried to make it better, reaching out to grab at Harry’s hand, but he flung him off. “Tell me if I’m wrong.”

Mechanically, Harry sat down the wine glass. “You want to know something? After all these years, all the horrible things I’ve seen, all the people I watched die, I still find myself thinking that what happened in this house was what ruined me.” He was saying everything he had never had been able to say before, but suddenly, he didn’t want to be there anymore, so he left, yanking on his jacket and turning to go.

“Wait just one minute!”

Uncle Vernon seized him by the wrist, and Harry was done, was going to turn and hit him and never stop, but he didn’t have to, because Draco was there, the threat clear even without the wand. Vernon let go and Draco moved between them.

“Don’t touch him. You don’t deserve to lay a hand on him, you understand?” He was speaking softly, but in the way that made it clear he was used to being listened to. “You said he was a war hero, but he’s not, he was the war. He saved this whole damn world ten times over, and not even one of your filthy fingers should come close to him again or I’ll personally see to it that you lose a hand.”

Draco lets him go. Uncle Vernon staggers back, leaving Aunt Petunia and Dudley staring at him. Harry thinks he would rather die than deal with the fall out of this.

“Thank you for dinner, Mrs. Dursley.” Draco said, back to perfectly polite, buttoning up his coat and smoothing out the wrinkles. “It was lovely.”

The looks on their faces almost made it all worth it.

Draco

He could hear Harry talking on the phone, carrying on a conversation with Dudley.

“Listen, no, I’m sorry.” Pause. “I should never have come, I knew I was going to lose my cool, it was my bad.” Pause. “I just feel horrible, I ruined your birthday.”

A long pause, and then Harry made a sound that Draco thought was a sob but was actually just a strangled laugh.

“She did what?” Uncontrollable laughter. “Lucky bastard. Should tell her it’s your birthday every night.”

Probably the girlfriend. Do guys always discuss their girlfriends? Draco wouldn’t know.