分卷阅读38（2 / 2）

But Draco had known. He had seen. And he had been the first to move, so by the time everyone else was just pushing back their chairs, he was lunging across those last few feet of space, shoving her so hard that he is half worried he might have hurt her, but he knew that it would not have hurt as bad as having an entire chandelier fall on top of you.

Ha, he thinks, even as he hears her scream. He has enough time to notice that she has cleared the wreckage and to curl up in a ball, enough time to cover his face with his arms and catch sight of George barreling towards him, leaping over Draco’s fallen chair, but he was not fast enough. Seems like I’ve done something great after all.

Chapter 30

Harry

After fighting off monsters for the past seven years, Harry had learned to never stop watching over his shoulder, but that doesn’t mean he always realizes what he’s seeing.

Like, he got asked for his wand just like everyone else, and instead of thinking about how strange it was that they were claiming it was for security when it had never been done before, he only thought about how everyone else was handing it over without a problem (everyone except Draco, who hesitated just for a fraction of a second, so fast you could blink and miss it) and how his lingering unease must have just been a product of the war, another way that he was scarred, so he hands it over and tries to push away how naked and vulnerable it made him feel.

Or how when Hermione got called to give her speech, everyone sat in their seats and cheered for her, all of the ministry people with stiff smiles on their face and all of her friends genuinely happy, except for one man in the back dressed in black like the waitstaff but not, because his clothes did not have their insignia on it, and also that same man was the one who crept from the back of the room down the side and finally edged his way up to the podium, close enough where he might have been distracting if he was not the kind of person who people looked right past.

Or the fact that the chandelier was swaying, just a bit of a tilt, like it was caught in a soft wind, and for once, the only time it would have been helpful, he was not comparing it to a moment from the war, was not thinking of dungeon doors and Hermione’s screams and a beautiful place to die with friends, he was thinking how it was sort of pretty, up until the moment where Hermione herself realized that it was happening, her expression changing from annoyed to panicked as she half raised her hand to block the light that had lit up across her face.

Harry sees it all, but he doesn’t understand what it means, not like Draco, who is up and moving before anyone else puts together what is happening, screaming at Hermione to move, get down, get out of the way with such desperation that despite everything, Harry is struck by the thought that he really must love her, to yell like that. Their table is in the very front row, so other than having to duck around George’s chair, there is nothing to block his path to the podium, so it’s a straight path from them to Hermione.

They all watch it happening. He sees it like it’s in slow motion, like he’s back in battle and his survival senses are trying to give him extra moments to figure out which way to dodge. This time, there is nothing to do, because he had been so confident in their own safety that he could not yet figure out that something bad was about to happen, and anyways, what was he supposed to do without a wand? There was nothing for him to do, except for watch.

He can hear Ron yelling, screaming for people to move, to help. He can see George understand what was going to happen at the same time that Harry had, how he moves to his side for a wand that is not there. He can see Kingsley, running, his mouth half open in a yell, but he could also see that he would not get there in time.

He can also see Draco, running, leaping, closing that last gap to throw himself at Hermione. She is knocked to the side and rolls down the few steps to George and Harry’s feet, and even though she is crying out in pain and clearly is having trouble breathing (they would find out later that she broke two ribs and bruised three more on her left side) he does not stop, just hurtles over her, trying to get to where Draco is lying in time.

There is not enough time. There’s no time for anything, just for Draco to curl in on himself and throw his hands over his face, and Harry just barely catches a glimpse of how relieved he looks, how proud before he’s covered up in the rubble.

Somewhere, someone is screaming, crying out for Draco to be alright. It’s only later, when all the sounds come rushing back and he becomes aware of the stinging pain in his hands that Harry realizes it was him.

“Come on.” He is digging through the rubble, pulling away twisted lengths of metal and sweeping away the scattered crystals. They crunch under his feet and grind into his skin when he drops to his knees, rip through his palms when he starts to dig through it all. For the first time in his life, he feels bad for the people who did not know what it is to be magic, who have to watch things like this happen and be helpless to stop them. “Come on, Draco, come on.”

Because he was helpless. He was helpless before it started and he was helpless as he watched it fall and he was helpless now, moving this mess away from where he thought Draco had been buried, when for all Harry knew he was three feet to his right and Harry was only burying him deeper.

Someone falls to their knees beside him, and without looking he knows it is Ron, because he knows those hands, those scars and those freckles and the one mole where his palm meets wrist, and he is filled with an overwhelming wave of gratitude to him, knowing that he must have passed by Hermione to come stand beside him, to help Harry find the one he loves even though the woman that Ron loves had just been attacked.

“Come on, Draco,” Harry says, and he is not sure what that means, if he is calling for him and really expecting an answer, if it is a plea or a prayer or something stuck between, if he actually thinks there is someone out there listening. “Be alright. Be alright.”