分卷阅读41（1 / 2）

“What changed?” Draco did not want to hear this. Not when he was tired and wanting ten more hours of sleep, not when he was covered in bruises, not when he could not even hold his own if this turned into a shouting match.

“I watched you get buried under a pile of rubble and realized that despite how much of a gigantic arse you were in past, I wanted you to live.” Ron looked down at his hands, and Draco imagined that they were still coated in the dust from when the ceiling collapsed and the chandelier toppled. Ginny had been the only one to think that he was strong enough to hear the account of what had happened, and it was Ginny who told him that even though Harry was the first to fall to his knees beside the pile and start rummaging for any sign of life, it was Ron who had been the one to pull him out of the dust. “And because you saved her.”

“I didn’t do it for you.” Draco wasn’t sure why his first reaction was always to go on the attack with some snide remark that wasn’t even that hurtful. He would make all these jokes and drawl out all these insults and none of them were even funny. “I did it because she’s my friend.”

She’s my friend. The words echo in the room between them and for the first time he might be getting why he and Ron were suddenly on speaking terms—the fact that Hermione cared about both of them and they both cared about her, and Ron was willing to put aside any past feud to make her happy.

“Exactly. You saved her life.” Ron’s voice cracks on the last word and Draco can see his eyes shining in the lamplight. “You saved her even when I couldn’t.”

Draco knows about debt. About a gratitude that you never want to feel, about an account of rights and wrongs that you can never even out. He didn’t think he would ever have to face that same feeling coming from Ron.

“You don’t owe me anything for that.” It was an awkward sentence to force out. “I’d do it again.”

“You don’t understand,” Ron said, raking his hands through his hair, yanking so hard Draco thought it was likely he would rip some out. “I’m supposed to protect her.”

“Ron—” He wants to help him, but does not know how. Not that it mattered. Ron just kept talking.

“No, listen.” He looks like he might start crying, like he’s fully on the verge of toppling into a sea of panic. “We saved her from this troll, right? Me and Harry. But it didn’t really count as us saving her because I was the one who made her cry and hide in the bathroom in the first place, so I got it into my head that I would have to make sure she didn’t get hurt again, to make up for it? And I tried, I have, that’s all I’ve ever wanted, to protect her and my family and Harry, but you can’t do that, there’s never enough of one person to protect everyone they care about, so I thought—somewhere along the line I started thinking that it didn’t matter if I couldn’t protect anyone else, even myself, as long as I managed to protect her. All I’ve ever tried to do my whole life was take care of her, but I can’t even manage to do that.” He’s breathing hard. Draco half thinks he did start crying, the kind where your eyes are burning but there is not enough tears and there is no way to get any air into your lungs. “But you did. You saved her when I couldn’t, and nothing else matters. So just let me do this for you, alright?”

It was forgiveness. That’s what Draco was being offered in this moment, a promise that even after everything, all the horrible things he had said and the things he had done, Ron had finally gotten past it.

“I still think it’s creepy. You, lurking in the dark.” Draco wanted to go back to sleep, but he couldn’t bring himself to struggle back under the covers. “Just come visit during the day next time, okay?”

Ron didn’t smile like Draco had wanted him to, just clenched his jaw and took up his position again, ready for whatever may come through the door.

By the time Harry shows up, exactly a week after Draco had been buried underneath the better half of the ceiling, Draco had half expected he was not going to show up at all.

Draco’s almost annoyed that he hadn’t waited longer, because now that he got to lay eyes on him, with the fresh cuts and black eye and tousled hair and clothes that he obviously hadn’t bothered to change for days, the speech that he had been about to give died in his throat. He’s spent the better part of the past two days preparing it, but now it’s completely useless, because it is hard to stay angry at someone when you are busy thanking God they were able to come back to you at all.

“Merlin, Harry.” Draco feels something building in his throat and he is afraid it is tears, so he busies himself by clawing his way out of the blankets and lurching over to the doorway, moving from chair to chair for support. (He and George had positioned all the furniture so he can walk all the way around the room on his own.) “What took you so long?”

Draco sinks down to sit in one of the arm chairs that Molly had conjured with her wand the last time the Weasleys came to visit, and Harry just keeps staring at him, right until the moment where he drops to his knees in front of Draco and presses his lips down onto Draco’s bandaged knuckles. It was scaring him, the way that Harry still wasn’t speaking, so he’s almost glad that when Harry finally talked. “We got them.” There is no need to ask who they were, or ask for any further explanation of where all these fresh injuries had come from. “We got all of them. Every last one that hurt you.”

There’s a cut underneath Harry’s right eye, and Draco’s hands find their way to it, following the pathway of the wound with his thumb. In a few weeks, this would only be another scar, but in some way, Draco knows this one belongs to him. Is because of him. Is owed to him, somehow.

“Is it over?” Draco wants to fall into Harry, to hug him. “Is this it?”