THIRTY-NINE: Betrayer

Oh, God, why didn’t I listen to Hermione? She had gone on in detail, once, about the spells that were and were not allowed on the pitch. It was why a cushioning charm had been used on Harry when he had fallen off of his broom so many years ago, rather than a simple levitation...

Cushioning would not do, he saw immediately. Cushioning would still break Draco’s neck.

The thoughts rushed through his head and back out like waters from a raging stream. Less than two seconds had passed since Draco had pitched out into nothingness.

Harry saw one recourse, and dove.

It was not the smartest of moves. Harry was weak, dizzy, scarcely hanging onto the broom himself, and with every passing millisecond, he was more and more certain that he himself would fall.

None of that mattered as he drew his broom into a nosedive, and then, when it became apparent that Malfoy was not drawing any closer, attempted to urge his broom to speeds greater yet.

To his dismay, he found himself decelerating. Of course, he realized, releasing his broom into free-fall again... the moment he engaged the broom, its inherent speed-limiting charms slowed him down... Draco was going to die, and there was nothing he could do about it...

In a spontaneous burst of raw, wild magic, Harry tore through the safety charms, ripping the carefully constructed spells asunder and speeding towards his target.

And then, ever-so-suddenly, he was on a level with Malfoy. Harry reached for him, reached for the other boy as though it were any other game, and he were a Snitch...

Harry saw the problem right away. They were still falling. Stopping at this speed would break his arms and probably Malfoy’s back. He had to find a way to correct their course...

...and, more urgent: he could not breathe past the rushing air, and he was dangerously close to passing out.

Pressing the other boy to his chest, Harry felt for that unnamable energy that allowed him to correct his course in any Quidditch game and swung himself around its axis, shooting up into the sky with a centrifugal force that nearly slid him off the back of his broom.

Harry let go of his control completely, allowing gravity to slow and then stop them nearly where they had started, one hundred meters above the pitch. Draco stirred and murmured in his arms, nearly causing Harry to drop him.

The entire affair had taken less than fifteen seconds.

Black spots were gathering at the edges of Harry’s vision, but he could still see someone with a banner of red hair approaching him... he had never been happier to see Ginny Weasley in his life...

As she came up alongside him, Harry gratefully relinquished consciousness, feeling her arms close around him as he slumped off the side of his broom.

Then he saw Draco Malfoy, passed out on the bed beside his and it all came flooding back so painfully that Harry had to tamp down on Obscura all over again.

Obscura. What would have happened if he had managed that Obscura while out on the Quidditch pitch? He would have let Draco fall, he was certain of it. He certainly wouldn’t have tried so hard.

He really was such a sucker, for caring so damned much.

“Mister Potter!” Madam Pomfrey bustled in. “So glad you’re awake! Are you feeling all right?”

Harry nodded, wondering how long it would take before he really felt all right again.

“Are you sure, dear? You look a bit queasy.”

“I’m fine,” Harry said; and he was. The dizziness was gone, although his vision was still a bit blurry.

Oh. My glasses. He fumbled for them along the nightstand beside the hospital cot.

“The poor dear,” Pomfrey murmured, gazing at Draco.

Harry didn’t snort, but it was a near thing. “He’s fine, isn’t he? He’s just passed out.”

Pomfrey glowered at him unexpectedly. “He’s in a right state, actually, malnourished and sleep-deprived and a half-dozen other things,” she said sharply, “besides the fact that his father died last night.”

Harry froze. I will not feel bad for Malfoy, I will not feel bad for Malfoy...!

“It was in all the papers this morning, too,” she commented, frowning. “Sometimes I do wonder why we insist on putting the pressure of such high expectations on our young people. Mister Malfoy is expected to live up to his name every bit as much as you are, Harry.”

Harry nodded, knowing this was true. It did not make him feel any better.

At that moment, the door opened, and Hermione and Ron rushed through.

“Ohmigosh, Harry!” Hermione exclaimed. “That – that you’re even in one piece...!”

Ron shook his head in amazement. “That was brilliant, mate,” he said with a grin, but Harry noted that he looked shaky and pale as Hermione. “Just – just don’t do it again anytime soon, yeah?”

“You have my word,” Harry growled, already wondering why he’d saved Draco Malfoy in the first place.

“What happened up there, Harry?!” Hermione demanded.

“Calmly, if you would, children,” Madam Pomfrey urged them, nodding in the direction of Draco Malfoy, who had turned over on his side and muttered something incoherent at the sound of their agitated voices.

“Sorry,” she whispered, then turned back to Harry. “We couldn’t see anything!” she exclaimed. “Only Draco falling – oh God! – and you catching him... and Ginny going for the both of you–” Abruptly and without warning, she burst into tears. “Now that you know I’m Ravenclaw,” she sobbed, while Ron rested one arm gingerly across her shoulders, “I might as well say it! This heroics stuff kills me! It’s not so bad when I’m doing it, but oh, Harry! When you or Ron are...!”

Harry wrapped his arms around her, exchanging a worried glance with Ron. “There, there, Hermione; I’m fine, now.”

“Oh, I know,” she said, obviously impatient with her own outburst. She pulled away from Harry and wiped at her eyes, smiling at him. “You just really scared me, that’s all.”

“Sorry,” he told her earnestly. “Malfoy passed out on his broom.”

Ron frowned, turning to view Draco over his shoulder. “Yeah, we saw that much. What happened, though? Did he get hit? Did somebody say something to him?”

“Say something to him?” Harry laughed harshly. “It’s what he said to me.”

“Things I say don’t knock me unconscious,” Ron said sensibly.

“I saw his Dark Mark, actually,” Harry told them.

There was a moment of silence. Then Hermione said, “you’re joking, right?” Then, “no, of course you’re not joking,” without missing a beat.

“Aw, hell,” Ron muttered, running an anxious hand across his red hair. “Aw, bloody hell...”

“Yeah,” Harry tightly replied. “And then I started feeling really miserable, and then he passed out, and–”

“You felt miserable, so Draco passed out?” Ron wondered. “Weird.”

“Well, I reckon he was feeling pretty miserable, too... he probably wanted to keep the Mark a secret...”

“Keep it a secret?” Ron puzzled, turning again to gaze at Draco. “Why would he want to do that?”

Hermione and Harry stared at him like he’d lost his mind.

“Well, Ron,” Hermione said in her most patient voice, “obviously he’d rather keep his Death Eater-ness a secret. Considering Hogwarts is practically the stronghold of the Light.”

“Ever consider maybe he didn’t want the Mark?”

Harry snorted. “God, Ron, you are so thick,” he blurted.

“Harry!” Hermione exclaimed, scandalized.

“Not like that’s a bad thing!” Harry hastened to add. “I mean, most of the time, it’s one of the things I like best about you, that things are so... simple for you. But Malfoy’s been raised for this, trained for it. He told me once that a murder is just taking control of someone in a final sort of way, like it was nothing. I knew he’d be a Death Eater then, a murderer. I should’ve listened to my instincts.”

“Oh, Harry,” Hermione whispered. “We all could have guessed it, but we didn’t want to believe it of him...”

Ron gaped. “You two sure do turn on a knut, don’t you?”

Harry blinked, exchanging a startled glance with Hermione. “Come again?”

“See, here I thought you’d actually made friends with him,” Ron returned conversationally. “Guess not, though. Just a Slytherin alliance is all.”

Harry, who really had wanted to be Draco’s friend, saw red. “What did you say?”

“You heard me. You haven’t even asked him what happened to him while he was gone. He might have been blackmailed, he might have been bullied, he might have been forced! I’m not even Draco’s mate, but I can see any of those things happening, and clearer than him going on with that smirk of his and deciding to become a Death Eater the moment he’d befriended you. I mean – I mean – it makes no sense!” Ron stood, and crossed his arms over his chest, as if forbidding Harry or Hermione to say anything more.

Harry felt cold from the inside out. He could not believe Ron was defending Draco Malfoy, and to him. “You don’t understand how Voldemort works,” Harry protested. “It doesn’t always make sense, not at first. Hindsight’s twenty-twenty – once someone has died...”

“Ron, Harry,” Hermione said in a would-be calm voice, her gaze swinging to Madam Pomfrey’s nearby office, “let’s settle down now. Either of you could be correct; only time will tell. There’s no reason to fight over it...”

The redhead was pink all the way to the tips of his ears; his fists were clenched, rage and pleading alternating on his features, gazing from Hermione to Harry himself. “I guess I just can’t turn it on and off the way you two do,” Ron said slowly. “I like someone or I don’t. I can’t flip from Draco’s-an-all-right-sort-of-guy to Malfoy’s-a-cold-blooded-murderer. It’s – it’s so stupid... don’t you see, this is exactly what they did to Sirius?”

“Ron!” Hermione looked shocked. “It isn’t the same – we’re not friends with Draco Malfoy–”

“Fine!” he exclaimed, storming away from them. “You two have no bloody loyalty!” He slammed the Hospital Wing door behind him.

After less than a second, he flung it open again. “FINE!” he tacked on even louder. “So I’m loyal! So it was Hufflepuff, all right?!” and slammed it again.

Madam Pomfrey came bustling out of her little room. “Just what has been going on in here, if I may ask?” she demanded. “I told you three not to raise your voices above a whisper!” She paused, catching sight of Harry and Hermione’s gobsmacked expressions, and frowned, turning slightly to face Draco Malfoy. “Well, I suppose since he’s still asleep...” she muttered, turning and heading back into her more private domain.

For a long while, Harry and Hermione sat rather silently, thinking of all Ron had said.

You could have heard a pin drop in the Hospital Wing.