Thicker than Blood

Chapter 8: His Master's Voice

It came as something of a shock to Harry to realize that he had not actually looked at Draco Malfoy in years. He hadn't needed to, because he knew exactly what Malfoy looked like: slim, pale, sharp-featured, sneering, with an arrogant lift to his chin and a snotty curl to his lips that made Harry itch to pound him senseless. Oh, Harry noticed little things right enough, things he filed away in his brain as useful details about his rival - like the fact that Malfoy wore his hair long these days, or the fact that he was now nearly a head shorter than Harry - but those things didn't sink in and alter his mental image of the other boy. He just assumed that, in essentials, Draco had not changed. But the events of the last two days had thrown him into Malfoy's company and forced him to recognized just how wrong he was. Malfoy had changed. They had both changed.

They were sixteen years old now, not the scrubby schoolboys who had met in Madam Malkin's robe shop and conceived such a violent dislike for each other. Both had grown, but while Harry had sprouted like a weed, Draco had grown more slowly and gracefully. Not for Draco Malfoy the awkward knees and elbows of the half-finished stripling. Harry might look as though he'd been strung together from random pieces of firewood, but Draco always looked perfect. And while his extra inches gave Harry an advantage at Quidditch, they did nothing for his confidence when confronted by Draco's effortless poise.

Now, in the privacy of his own head, in the long quiet of this night, Harry could admit to himself the true crux of the problem and the main reason why he avoided looking too closely at the other boy. Draco was beautiful. As much as he had always hated him, or thought he hated him, Harry had not been able to ignore this fact. And Draco's beauty made Harry feel all the more awkward and childish around him, in spite of his superior height. When people spotted Harry in the hallways and pointed or whispered behind their hands, he knew they were discussing his stupid scar or his imagined heroics. Just once, he wished someone would look at him and see a face that was worth remembering for its beauty, not its oddities. A face like Malfoy's.

As he sat in the dark, quiet dungeon, listening to Draco's soft breathing and waiting for him to wake up, Harry thought of all the years he had spent not looking at that beautiful face, for fear he would see something in it that he could not hate. He had wanted so desperately to hate Malfoy - had needed to hate him - but why? Because he was a sneaky little rat with the soul of a Dementor? No. That wasn't Malfoy. That was the image Harry had built of him, nurtured over years, and plastered with the pale, pointed face of the child he had despised on sight.

Well, they had both grown up and learned a few things. Draco didn't wear that face anymore. He wore a face as strong and spare and fine and perfect as the rest of him, and he had learned that parents did not always know best. Harry still wore his own scarred, bespectacled, undistinguished face, but he had learned a thing or two as well. He had learned that people weren't always what they appeared, that a sneer did not always hide a black heart, and that hate was not always the last word. He had learned that he did not have to be afraid of Draco Malfoy. And he had learned that he didn't want to wear Draco's face; he wanted to look at it.

Quietly, so as not to disturb Draco's sleep, Harry conjured a faint ball of wandfire and set it hovering a few feet above the bed. In its bluish light, Draco looked even less human than usual and incredibly fragile, with his face so drawn and the shadows in it so pronounced. Even the way his hands lay against his chest, the fingers curled slightly, heightened the sense of fragility about him and stirred Harry's protective feelings.

Harry's fingers fairly itched to brush the loose hair back from Draco's face and throat, to touch that spot on his temple where the shadows darkened to purple, to trace the long, clean line of his cheekbone showing so sharply beneath his skin, but he did not dare. He did not, in fact, dare to touch the other boy at all without invitation - an invitation he was not likely to get in this lifetime. He would just have to contain himself until the urge passed. And surely it would. It must. He couldn't live like this indefinitely, keyed up and confused, scrambling to understand his own emotions while he untangled them from Draco's, and always fighting that current of longing that ran through him, growing stronger and more insistent all the time.

He did not want Draco Malfoy. Not the way his itching fingers and unruly thoughts seemed to suggest. He wanted to help and protect him, bring him through the ordeal of breaking his ties to his father, but that was all. He wanted a friend and ally. He wanted a powerful wizard to stand with him against Voldemort. That was all he wanted! The rest of it was just a figment of his overstressed imagination. A symptom of the enforced closeness of the Blood Link.

Banishing the wandfire so that he couldn't see Draco's face in the darkness, Harry knotted his hands together in his lap and told himself, again, that it was not real. None of it. When Dumbledore severed the link, life would go back to normal, his feelings would be under his control, and Malfoy would mean nothing to him.

Of its own volition, his hand slid across the blanket until his fingers brushed the flannel of Draco's sleeve. He hesitated for a moment, then moved his hand upward, touching more fabric, then the rough gauze of a bandage, and finally chilled flesh. It was Draco's left hand, the one injured by the charm, and it felt lifeless in Harry's clasp. He curved his fingers around Draco's, wanting to warm them. The sleeping boy stirred and gave a sigh of pain as Harry jarred his wounded arm.

"Sorry. Your hand is so cold..." he whispered, but he did not let go. Instead, he clasped Draco's hand in both of his own and lifted it away from his body, while sending a calming impulse through the link to make sure the other boy did not awaken. Pulling Draco's hand closer to him, he held it flat between his own palms.

His hands were larger than Draco's, Harry noted, and rougher. Draco had calluses from holding onto a broomstick for hours at a stretch - Quidditch players always had distinctive hands - and ink stains on his fingers, which rather surprised Harry. He'd always assumed that Malfoy kept his hands as immaculate as the rest of him. Maybe the attack had come while he was doing his homework, and he had not found the time to wash off the ink. Interrupted in the middle of a Potions essay by the summoning charm. Harry shuddered at the thought and turned to look curiously at the pale blur of Draco's face. The current of longing tugged at him again, stronger than before, offering to sweep him off his feet if he would only let go...

"You know something, Malfoy?" he murmured, surprise plain in his voice. "I don't want this to stop. I like it. I like feeling this way, even if it means you're doing it to me again - making me crazy like you always do. But it isn't like always, is it? This is a different kind of crazy. It scares me to death, but I like it. How weird is that?"

Draco did not answer him, but Harry had not expected an answer. He was banking on the fact that Draco was safely unconscious and couldn't hear a word he said.

"Hermione was right, as usual. This Blood Link is dangerous." He bent his head to breathe warm air onto Draco's chill fingers, then he went on, softly, "It's got me thinking like you, which is highly weird and definitely dangerous. Only someone as warped as you would enjoy being scared silly or having your stomach tied up in knots because you can't do the one thing you want to do most in the whole world... It's so sick. It's so... Malfoy. I must be getting it from you, because I never felt like this on my own."

Of course I didn't, he thought, a wry smile tugging at his lips. I couldn't feel it for anyone but him. But he didn't dare say that much aloud, even with Draco asleep.

Madam Pomfrey bustled in with an armload of fresh candles and a breakfast tray to announce that morning had arrived. Harry had not slept. He wasn't tired, after spending most of the previous day asleep, and his brain was spinning in too many different directions to relax. But he was plenty hungry, and he greeted the nurse with a bright, grateful smile.

She returned his smile with a look of benign satisfaction that surprised him. Madam Pomfrey was a kindly witch and devoted nurse, but she was not one given to satisfaction. Her world was one in which students did stupid things, teachers interfered with her best efforts, and no one listened to her. The last time he'd seen her look truly happy was when she had watched Hagrid eject the entire Slytherin Quidditch team from the hospital wing - one at a time, by the scruff of the neck. A thing of beauty, as Harry recalled, and a great balm to Madam Pomfrey's nerves. She wasn't fond of Slytherins.

Oddly enough, she seemed ready to include Draco - by far her least favorite Slytherin - in her good graces this morning. He woke up to the sound of her clattering about with trays and candles, and when she turned around to confront the boys, she found Harry's bright eyes and Draco's sleep-bleared ones fixed on her. She smiled at them both and said, "Time for some breakfast, you two."

Then, to Harry's utter amazement, she helped Draco sit up, fluffed the pillows behind him, and conjured up a spare one to support his left arm. Draco just blinked at her, either too sleepy or too surprised to say anything. Madam Pomfrey smiled at him again, and Harry could swear that she was about to pat him on the head.

"Take your time and have a good meal, boys. You're going to need it." She did not give either of them a chance to ask her what she meant, but went on cheerily, "We're moving back upstairs this morning, so I'll be in and out, but you don't have to go for a while yet. The Headmaster will send for you when he's ready."

"Ready for what?" Harry asked.

"Why, to break that..." She grimaced and flicked her fingers at Harry's pocket. "That thing. It can't be done in the middle of a crowded hospital ward, with who knows what kind of spells flying around! Dumbledore is preparing a safe place to work."

When she had taken herself back around the screen, leaving the two boys alone, Draco gave Harry an odd look and said, "Do you suppose that's why she's being nice to me? She figures I'll be dead in an hour, anyway?"

"Don't be morbid," Harry snapped, ducking his head to hide his reaction from the other boy.

Draco stared at his breakfast with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. After a few minutes of near silence, in which the only sound was Harry chewing, he asked, "So... what did Dumbledore say when you told him?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Well, nothing much. I think he was expecting you to stay."

Draco made a sour face and muttered something about crazy old coots. He stabbed at the sausage on his plate with his fork a few times, watching it ooze grease from the puncture wounds, then ventured, "You gave him the charm, though. Right?"

Harry shook his head. "He told me to keep it."

"You still have it? Can I... see it?"

Setting down his own fork, Harry eyed the other boy in some concern. "What's up, Malfoy? Are you having second thoughts?"

"It's too late for that."

"No, it's not." Harry couldn't believe he was saying these things, but they kept coming out of his mouth without his permission. "Dumbledore can still work it out with your father. He promised he'd let you go, if you want to, and I know he'll keep his word."

Draco stared at him, eyes dark and distant, and Harry felt his stomach turn over in a slow, queasy roll. His breakfast suddenly felt like lead pellets inside him. Then Draco said, "I'm not going. I just want to see the charm."

"I don't think..."

He held out his hand, his face closed and unreadable. "It's mine, Potter. I want it."

Harry slowly reached into his pocket and brought out the velvet bag. It felt incredibly heavy, as though Draco's desire to hold it had somehow made it stronger, and even through the protective bag it was uncomfortably hot to the touch. He clutched it for a moment, unwilling to give it up, but Draco's hand did not waver and his eyes compelled Harry to obey.

"It's really heavy," Harry said, as he moved to set the bag in Draco's hand.

"I remember."

The weight of the charm pushed his hand down to the blanket, and Draco slid it from his palm to the bed. The guarded look had left his face to be replaced by curiosity and an aching regret that made Harry's throat tighten in sympathy. He opened the neck of the bag, pushing the soft velvet aside to expose its contents, and both boys leaned forward to look.

The charm lay there in a nest of midnight blue, glowing softly where the candlelight touched it. It looked so innocent and so lovely, a graceful oval of polished silver and purple crystal, exactly the size and shape of Draco's wrist. There was not a mark on it to show that it had nearly killed a person or to betray that it had been removed by force and with great pain. Harry shuddered at the sight of it.

"It's hard to believe you wore that thing all these years and didn't know it."

"Oh, I knew it. Sort of. I couldn't see it, but I could feel it, and I knew Father had given it to me as a present when I was a baby."

"Did you know what it was?"

"No."

Draco reached out a finger to touch it, and Harry cried, "Don't!"

"Why not?"

"Dumbledore said not to touch it with your bare skin. That's how it forms a bond."

Draco smiled crookedly at him. "How much more bonded to me can it get?" He scooped up the charm, still inside the bag, and rested his hand on his knee, cradling it. His eyes had that distant look again and had turned a dark, stormy grey. "It feels strange not to wear this. All my life it's been there, a piece of my father that I carried with me, a reminder of how much he loves me. When it's broken..."

"You'll be free of him."

The dark eyes lifted to Harry's face for a moment, then fell again. "Are you free of your parents?"

"No. But I don't want to be."

"Because they were perfect," he murmured, his voice faintly mocking, "just like you? The Perfect Bloody Potters?"

"They weren't, and I'm not. They were just people - good people - who loved me enough to die for me. Why would I want to be free of a family like that?"

"Did it ever occur to you that my parents would die for me?"

Harry answered promptly, without thinking. "No."

Draco smiled, but there was no humor in his face, only sadness. "You're probably right, but it's a nice fantasy. Your father gave you your life. Mine gave me this." He caught the bag by a lower corner and tilted it over his left hand, which lay palm up on his knee. Harry saw what he was doing and made a move to stop him, but he was not fast enough. The charm slid out of the bag and landed in Draco's palm. "But he meant it for the best..."

As the sleek oval of metal struck his palm, Draco's words cut off and his eyes flew open wide. Harry had a split second to register the shock in his face, before his own head exploded with pain. Then he was bent over, clutching at his head, his eyes screwed shut against the hideous noise battering at his skull from the inside.

It was the charm. Harry recognized the terrible burning, the swirling, shrieking agony, and the sense of urgency that threatened to burst his heart. But this time, the call had a voice, and Harry could hear the words it formed in his mind. Bring him to me! Bring him! Obey me, or I will crush you! Bring me Potter!

He knew that voice. High and cold, utterly evil. He knew it, because he still heard it in his nightmares, and the touch of it in his mind was like a Dementor's breath upon him - filthy, rotten, full of death and despair.

Harry gasped and flung himself out of his chair, reaching blindly for Draco's hand. He found it by instinct and gripped his wrist tightly, oblivious to the fresh burns he crushed beneath his fingers. Then he shook it hard, trying to dislodge the charm. Nothing happened. The screams did not fade. The hand he clutched felt as heavy as lead, and he could smell burning flesh.

"Voldemort! It's Voldemort!" he shouted, once again trying to shake the charm loose from Draco's hand.

Draco was screaming something, but his voice was lost in the chaos that raged in Harry's head. Harry wiped a furious hand across his eyes and willed himself to focus. The charm could not take him, because he was not subject to it. And it could not take Draco so long as Harry was linked to him and able to shield him. Harry told himself these things, as he battled his own consuming desire to run out of the room and into Voldemort's arms and fought his way up out of the flood of madness and pain that assaulted him.

Slowly, he became aware of which sounds were coming from inside and which from outside. He could see Draco hunched over on the bed, doubled up in pain, and the charm pulsing grotesquely as it melted into his palm. And he could hear Draco crying furiously, the words tearing at his throat, "No! I won't! I won't!"

Harry abruptly let go of Draco's arm and pulled the other boy against him, wrapping both arms tightly about his shaking body. His eyes fell on Draco's left hand, which lay palm up on the blanket, and the sight of it made him want to be sick. "Why in bloody hell did you do that?!" he gasped, knowing it was a pointless question.

Draco ignored him. He was completely lost in the torment of the charm, beyond Harry's reach, beyond the reach of everything but Voldemort's deadly voice. Harry clutched at him helplessly, feeling a gibbering panic rise in him to mingle with the other hideous noises in his head. He looked around wildly, hunting for inspiration, but there was nothing. No one. They were alone.

"Help!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. "Somebody help!!"

He felt Draco stiffen in his arms, then something warm and damp flowed down the front of his shirt. Harry looked down, horrified, to see his pajamas soaked with blood. Draco choked again, and more blood gushed from his mouth to stain Harry's shirt. Harry began to sob. He knew it was useless to cry, but he couldn't help it. He was terrified, in pain, full of the Dark Lord's hissing demands, with Draco bleeding to death down his front, and he was completely helpless to do anything about it.

"HELP US!"

There were no answering footsteps, no voices. They were all upstairs in the hospital wing, getting ready to break the charm. Harry's only hope was to get Draco upstairs to Dumbledore before the charm killed him, but he didn't know how. He had his wand in the pocket of his dressing gown, but he had no clue what to do with it and knew that he couldn't focus his power well enough to use it in his current state. He could try to carry Draco, but even in peak physical shape, he wouldn't be able to carry someone nearly as tall and heavy as he was himself.

The terrible call inside his head was growing stronger, and Draco's attempts to fight it were growing weaker. Harry knew he was out of time. "I don't know what to do!" he howled at Draco's bent head. "Somebody tell me what to do!! Somebody help us!"

The door at the end of the room banged open, and running footsteps came down the ward. "Potter?! What's wrong?!"

"Professor Snape!" Harry had never been so happy to hear another voice in his life, and he didn't even care that it was Snape's. "Hurry! It's Voldemort... he's got the charm! He's..."

The screen went flying, and Snape was suddenly looming over them. He took in the scene on the bed in one glance, his face tightening in fury, then he elbowed Harry aside and scooped Draco up in his arms.

"Close the link!" he growled.

"What?" Harry stared blankly at him, unable to grasp his words. "I can't!"

"Close the link, you bloody fool, before Voldemort takes you along with him! Close it!"

Harry obeyed. He didn't know what else to do, and part of him understood that Snape was right. He couldn't let Voldemort find him through the link. So he closed it.

Instantly, the howling stopped. The terrible call was silenced. An aching pressure filled his chest and pounded in his ears, but it was almost a relief after the chaos of the charm. In Snape's arms, Draco gave a single, nerve-shattering cry and went limp. Harry caught a glimpse of his face as Snape turned for the door, and he saw thick, blood-red tears sliding down his pale cheeks.

Harry clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle his own cry and started down the ward after Snape. He had to run to keep up with the Potions Master, and the growing pressure in his chest made it difficult to breathe, but he clutched a fold of Snape's robe in one hand and forced his legs to keep moving. Snape ignored his clinging hand.

Out of the dungeons, across the entrance hall, up the wide marble stairs they went without breaking stride. Harry vaguely heard Snape bellowing for Dumbledore, and he thought he saw Hermione's startled face looking at him as they hurried into the hospital wing. But he could not bring his mind to focus on anything beyond the pain building in his chest and the fear clutching at his heart. He followed Snape into the room and over to a bed, where Dumbledore waited.

"Put him down," Dumbledore said.

Snape laid Draco on the bed and stepped back to allow Dumbledore room to work. Harry scrambled around to the far side, and he picked up Draco's right hand, clutching it against his bloodied shirt in both of his own.

"You stupid bloody Slytherin," he gasped out, between choking breaths. "I'll never forgive you for this! I'll never..." The strain of holding the link closed was becoming unbearable, and he found he did not have enough breath in his body to keep haranguing Malfoy. Struggling to pull air into his lungs, he closed his eyes and tightened his hold on Draco's hand.

He could hear Dumbledore murmur something and Snape answer in a hard voice. McGonagall asked, "What can we do?"

Dumbledore answered, very clearly, "Break it. Everyone out of the room except Severus and Minerva. Go on, Poppy, there's nothing you can do here. Are there any students still on the ward?"

"No, Headmaster."

"Good. Harry?" Harry opened his eyes, startled to hear Dumbledore address him. "Keep that link closed, and cover your eyes."

Harry obediently closed his eyes again and ducked his head, wondering what horrible thing was going to happen next. Almost before the thought formed in his head, he heard the tap of a wand against crystal, and the room erupted in light and noise. An enormous blast of power plucked Harry off his feet and hurled him backwards. He crashed into the empty bed behind him and slid down to the floor, his ears ringing.

"Open the link!" Dumbledore called sharply.

With a sob of relief, Harry snapped the link open, and power rushed out of him in a torrent. He lay sprawled on the floor, his head against the metal frame of the bed, his glasses hopelessly askew, his eyes and ears full of the humming, golden light of his own wizarding power. Around him, tall figures moved in a ceaseless blur of activity, but he didn't care. All that mattered was that the link was open and he could breathe again.

Dumbledore spoke from very close by, his voice gentle but urgent. "I need everything you can give, Harry. Everything."

The words filled him with panic. Draco was dying! The charm was killing him, and Harry didn't have enough power in him to stop it! His heart racing, Harry pushed himself upright and leaned against the bed, bracing his hands on the floor and screwing his face up with the effort to force every scrap of strength he possessed through the link. It had to be enough! It had to be! He had promise, and Harry Potter never broke a promise... he had promised, and he would rather die himself than let Draco go now...

A hand came down on his shoulder and a familiar voice said, "Relax, my boy. That's enough."

Harry took a shuddering breath and let the rush of power subside. He opened his eyes and blinked up at Dumbledore, frowning when he could not bring the old wizard's face into focus. Then he remembered his glasses. He shoved them into place with trembling fingers and asked, in a voice as unsteady as his hand, "Is he dead?"

"No, Harry, he's alive. You did it."

Harry gazed at Dumbledore for a stunned moment, disbelief writ plain in his face, then he did something he had not done since he was a child. He buried his face in his hands and burst into tears.

* * *

Hermione stared at the blank door, unable to grasp what had just happened. One minute, she and Ron were sitting in the hospital wing, waiting for Harry. The next, they were being hustled out of the room by a frantic McGonagall, Snape was running down the corridor with Draco bundled up in his arms and Harry hanging onto his robe, there was blood everywhere and Harry looked like he'd just been hit in the stomach by the Whomping Willow. Then all three of them had disappeared into the room and the door had slammed in her face.

She could hear confused voices on the other side of the door and Dumbledore giving orders. Suddenly, the door flew open, and she had just enough time to leap back before Madam Pomfrey, Professor Flitwick and Professor Moody came through it. Moody shut it behind him and put a locking spell on it that Hermione had no illusions about her own ability to counter. Then he shot her a glare from his normal eye and stumped away, muttering.

The nurse came bustling over to the two Gryffindors and grabbed them each by an arm. "Away from the door, you two. This is no place for students."

"But we were told we could visit Harry," Hermione protested.

Madam Pomfrey shook her head and marched them to the far side of the corridor, muttering darkly under her breath.

Flitwick, who had his ear pressed to the door, suddenly shrieked in his high-pitched voice, "Get ready!"

He jumped back, just as a loud, splintering crash and a roar came from the other side of the door. The thick oak trembled under the force of the blast. Wisps of smoke and a few sparks flew out around its edges.

Hermione, taken unawares by the explosion, gave a cry of alarm and threw her arms up to cover her head. Ron stared at the door in awe, his eyes going round and his mouth hanging open.

"What was that?" he whispered.

"The summoning charm," Flitwick said, looking unusually grim. He was a terminally cheerful person who even seemed to enjoy a good crisis, and Hermione could not ever remember seeing him so worried. "Dumbledore broke it."

Hermione felt the blood drain from her face. She had listened in on enough of Dumbledore's conversations over the last few days to know how dangerous that charm was, and what might happen when they broke it. "But that means..." Her eyes flew to the door, and she began to gnaw her lip. "Oh, dear."

"There was no choice," Flitwick assured her. "You-Know-Who got hold of it."

"What?!" Hermione gasped. "Harry! He could have gotten to Harry through the link!"

"Professor," Madam Pomfrey protested, "don't go frightening these children with such tales."

"Oh, no!" Hermione put out a pleading hand toward Madam Pomfrey. "You must tell us, please! Is Harry all right? You-Know-Who didn't get him, did he?"

"Now, don't you worry, Miss Granger. The Headmaster will look after Potter."

"But Harry's linked to Malfoy, and if Voldemort's got..."

"Don't say that name," Ron wailed, clapping his hands over his ears, "especially now!"

"But Ron..."

"Madam Pomfrey's right. Professor Dumbledore would never let anything bad happen to Harry. And You-Know-Who can have Malfoy, for all I care."

"Oh, Ron!"

"Stop looking at me like that. You don't care what happens to Malfoy any more than I do. You're just afraid to say it in front of a teacher."

"How can you even..."

"Best to go back to your common room," Flitwick suggested, kindly. "There's nothing you can do here."

"But..."

Ron tugged on her arm, trying to draw her down the corridor to the stairs. "Come on, Hermione, let's..."

"Everybody stop interrupting me!"

They all froze to stare at her - the adults in some surprise and Ron with the air of one who knows what's coming and isn't looking forward to it.

"I'm not going anywhere until we find out if Harry's all right," she snapped at Ron, eyes blazing, "and I do care if Voldemort gets Malfoy, because Harry cares if Voldemort gets Malfoy, and I care about Harry. So stop telling me what I do and don't think and stop talking to me like I'm a confused toddler and stop pulling on my arm!" Ron dropped her arm immediately, looking contrite. "Harry must feel just awful. He looked awful, when he went in there. I think he must be able to hear You-Know-Who through the link, and now, if the charm is broken..."

She wrung her hands together and turned woeful eyes on Ron. "What are we going to do, if something dreadful has happened to Malfoy?"

Ron looked very much as if he wanted to say, 'Throw a party,' but didn't. Instead, he reached out and took Hermione's hand in his. "There's nothing we can do."

"Harry will feel responsible!"

"Well, that's just plain stu..." Ron caught her eye and bit off the rest of his protest. "Oh, okay. Harry was born a hero, and he can't help taking everything too seriously, and yes, he'll feel responsible if the nasty little git croaks on him."

Hermione shot him a glowing smile, proud of his restraint, however grudgingly applied. Ron blushed and muttered, "Too bad we didn't feed Malfoy to the squid years ago. It would've spared us a lot of grief."

Before Hermione could come up with a suitable response to this, the door opened and Professor McGonagall stuck her head out. "Albus needs you, Poppy. And thank you, Professor Flitwick, but we have everything under control."

Madam Pomfrey slipped into the room, Flitwick headed down the corridor, and McGonagall was about to shut the door again when she spotted Hermione and Ron standing against the far wall.

"Why are you two hanging around here? Get back to the common room."

"Please, Professor," Hermione said, "is Harry all right?"

McGonagall's severe face softened. "He's had a good scare, but he'll be just fine."

"What about Malfoy?" Ron asked.

McGonagall cocked a cynical eyebrow at him. "Hoping for the worst are we, Weasley?" Ron flushed a shocking red, and McGonagall relented. "Malfoy will also be just fine. Now both of you, run along. Potter won't be up for a visit 'til this afternoon, at the earliest. I'll let you know when you can see him."

"Thank you, Professor." Hermione turned to leave, once more slipping her hand into Ron's for comfort, but she halted abruptly before she'd taken three steps. There, standing in the shadow of a suit of armor and staring intently at them, was Vincent Crabbe.

"What are you doing here?" Hermione demanded, her voice sharp with suspicion.

Crabbe stepped into the middle of the corridor, looking huge and lumpish with his hands stuck in his pockets and his shoulders hunched defensively. He glanced from Hermione to Ron and shrugged. "Same thing you are."

"I thought you'd left the castle."

He shrugged again, and Hermione gave an exasperated sigh. Holding a conversation with Crabbe was a bit like trying to discuss philosophy with a flobberworm: frustrating and unproductive.

"You heard Professor McGonagall, Crabbe. No one can visit 'til this afternoon. So why don't you go back to your dungeon and... eat something."

"What's going on with Potter and Malfoy?" Crabbe asked, unexpectedly.

"None of your business," Ron snapped.

"Malfoy's my friend, same as Potter is yours. Why is it your business and not mine?"

Hermione opened her mouth to retort but realized, much to her chagrin, that he had a point. Ron did not feel the same compunction and answered, flatly, "Because nobody would trust you with anything that mattered, that's why."

Crabbe shuffled his feet awkwardly, and Hermione got the uneasy feeling that he was genuinely hurt by Ron's words. "I haven't done anything to you, Weasley."

"Not this week, anyway."

"And I haven't done anything to Potter, even though I know there's something funny going on. I don't want to fight."

"Then you're the first Slytherin in history who didn't!"

"Shut up, Ron," Hermione hissed.

"Do you believe him?"

"I don't know, but I don't want to stand here and shout about it. Let's just go, okay? Crabbe, if you want to know about Malfoy, ask Dumbledore, not us. We can't tell you anything."

With that, she strode determinedly away, pulling Ron after her. She did not turn around, so she did not see Crabbe staring after them, his face glum and his eyes full of frustration. He watched until they had rounded a corner, then he slumped back into his shadowed corner and sat down on the floor to wait.

* * *

"Come, Harry." Firm hands reached down to clasp his arms and draw him to his feet. He had stopped crying, but he was still shaking so violently that he did not have command of his limbs. Only Dumbledore's grip on his arms kept him standing. The old wizard guided him away from the bustle of activity in the middle of the room, toward a quiet corner.

"Sit down, my boy. Try to relax." The hands pressed him into a chair. "Something to calm him, I think, Poppy."

"I don't... want to s... sleep..." Harry stammered through chattering teeth.

"It won't put you to sleep, Harry, just calm you a bit. Though I expect you'll be ready enough to sleep very soon."

"No." Harry huddled forward in the chair, his elbows on his knees and his face buried in his hands, fighting to hold his body still. "No, I can't."

A moment later, someone wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and Dumbledore held a steaming cup to his lips. "Drink it, Harry. That's right."

The drink flowed through him like liquid fire, easing the shivers and bringing life back into his numb fingers. He unclenched his muscles a little and took another swallow. It was good to feel warm again, good to feel alive. Harry put one hand to his chest and rubbed it, remembering the terrible pressure of the closed link, but then he felt the huge damp spot on his pajama shirt and jerked his hand away in alarm. He wiped his palm on his leg, leaving a red smear on the flannel of his trousers.

"Have another drink," Dumbledore urged.

Harry complied and felt the knots within him loosen still further. He could breathe comfortably now, without gasping, and his teeth only chattered very slightly on the rim of the cup. Finally, he lifted his head to look into Dumbledore's kind, worried eyes.

"Are you feeling better?"

Harry nodded. "What happened?"

"You went into shock."

"It was Voldemort." He clenched his teeth against a fresh muscle spasm, then whispered, fiercely, "He was in my head! I heard him!"

"Yes, I know."

"He wanted me. He ordered Draco to bring me to him."

Dumbledore's hand tightened on his shoulder, reassuringly. "There's nothing to be afraid of now. I've destroyed the charm, and there's no way for Voldemort to reach you without it."

Harry shuddered and choked on the rising bile in his throat. "How could Malfoy do that? How could he let Voldemort into the charm, knowing that Draco was wearing it? He could've... killed his own son, just to get to me."

"The Dark Lord wants you very badly, Harry. It would not be in Lucius' power or in his nature to deny Voldemort what he wants."

"He's a sick, twisted, evil bastard, and I hope Voldemort roasts him over a slow fire for not delivering my head on a platter!"

"You are certainly entitled to your opinion, and I can understand why you feel that way. But I suggest you get those sentiments out of your system now, before Draco wakes up." Harry looked up at the old wizard, startled, and Dumbledore smiled. "He won't take kindly to hearing you say such things about his father."

"I guess not." Harry pulled the blanket more firmly about his shoulders and slumped back in the chair. As the convulsive trembling left him, he felt unutterably tired. "If I had the sense of a slug, I'd go in through the link and fix it so he doesn't care about that... that..."

"Then it is a very good thing that we'll be severing the link soon."

"What?!"

"You won't be tempted to tamper with Mr. Malfoy's feelings in such an underhanded and - may I say it - unworthy fashion."

Harry swallowed noisily and looked into the kindly blue eyes behind their half-moon spectacles in some trepidation. They were not smiling. "I was joking," he ventured, meekly.

"You know better than that, Mr. Potter."

"I'm sorry. You know I won't do anything like that. But... you didn't mean what you said about the link, did you?"

"Certainly I did. Another day at the most, and Draco will be well enough to finish healing on his own." Harry just stared at him with a stricken look in his eyes. Dumbledore pulled up a chair and sat down facing him, his eyes now intent and frowning. "What's the matter, Harry?"

"I thought you would leave it. The link, I mean."

"That would be a serious mistake."

"It's not a mistake. Draco needs it. You can't just cut the link and leave him alone, after everything that's happened!"

"Mr. Malfoy will be just fine, and it is clearly time that you were both freed from the constraints of the link. You need to be separate people again."

"I don't want to. Not yet!" Something very like panic was rising in Harry, filling him with cold dread at the thought of losing the Blood Link. "Please, Professor, just leave it for a little while. Give Draco time to get used to everything and... feel better about being here with us. You don't know how sick he's been! And how messed up he is about his father!"

"This cannot go on indefinitely, Harry."

"Not indefinitely, just for a while longer, 'til the siege is over and things get back to normal and we can all forget about Voldemort and the Death Eaters. Just 'til then."

"That simply isn't possible. If nothing else, the link would not allow you to function normally outside the hospital wing. Think about it, Harry. You can't get more than thirty feet from Draco without collapsing in pain. How would you two attend classes or reach your separate dormitories to sleep?"

"Make him a Gryffindor!" Harry urged, the panic in his chest pushing him to the edge of tears again.

Dumbledore's face grew stern. "He was sorted into Slytherin House and he will stay a Slytherin."

"But he doesn't belong to the Slytherins anymore!"

"He doesn't belong to you, either."

"But..."

"Love does not grant you ownership, Harry. If you learn nothing else from the mistakes Lucius Malfoy has made, you must learn that."

Harry gazed at Dumbledore through a haze of confused and agonized emotion. He heard the word 'love' and felt his insides turn to water. Then he thought of Draco's father and everything he had done in the guise of loving his son, and he felt sick. Then he looked into Dumbledore's wise, kind, infinitely sad eyes, and he wanted to bury his face in the old wizard's robe and cry like a wounded child.

Instead, he asked, "Did you plan this all along?"

"I told you exactly what I planned, and you have done an admirable job of it."

"No. Did you plan that Draco and I... that I would feel what I feel now? Did you know that it would happen?"

Dumbledore eyed him gravely for a moment, then answered, "Some of us have people in our lives who are tied to us in ways that cannot be rationally explained. Those we love most deeply, those we hate most fiercely, those we fear, those we need. They are not simply lovers, friends and enemies. They are a part of us, of our very souls, and the bonds that hold them to us cannot be broken by anything save death."

Harry shivered in apprehension. "I understand."

"Yes, I know you do."

"Draco is... is tied to me that way."

"I knew it almost from the first moment of seeing you two together. The only question in my mind was what sort of tie it was. The passions that form such bonds are nearly indistinguishable at times."

"I thought I detested him," Harry whispered.

"How close are love and hate, in the place where they are born? You, perhaps more than anyone else I know, could answer that question, Harry."

"Why did we pretend to hate each other all these years?"

"Was it pretense? I doubt it."

"What was it, then? How could I hate him so much, and now... not hate him?"

"I believe that you and Draco felt the strength of the bond between you from the moment of meeting, but you did not understand it and had no chance to acknowledge it. You sized each other up, decided you didn't like what you saw, and chose the direction of your relationship based on that first moment's fear. The hatred was real enough."

"But... if I had chosen the other way... if I had decided to love him instead of hating him..."

"Then your world would be a very different place, but who's to say it would have been better? We choose a path and we follow it, Harry. Sometimes we are given the chance to pick a side-turning that changes our course. Sometimes we are not. You and Draco have been offered a change of course at a crucial time in your lives. The fact that it is also a crucial time for the entire wizarding world is not a coincidence, but it should not concern you at this particular moment. What matters to you, Harry Potter, is where you will go from here... and who goes with you."

He answered without thinking, "I won't go anywhere without Draco."

Dumbledore's eyes gleamed at him in an unsettling way. "That is something you'll have to work out with Mr. Malfoy. Remember Harry, love is not ownership. You did not free him from his father so you could have him for yourself."

Harry shuddered and turned wounded eyes on Dumbledore. "Is that really what I'm doing? Trying to own him? You make me sound as bad as Malfoy. Or..."

As usual, Dumbledore knew what he was thinking without Harry having to say it. "We've talked about this before - your connection to Tom Riddle and Voldemort. You know that it does not make you like him in any way that matters."

"I've been thinking about it a lot these last few days."

"I know you have."

"There's something about the Blood Link, about being in control this way, that makes me feel like I can do anything. It was so hard not to make Draco choose the way I wanted him to! And even when I didn't make him, I still used the link to manipulate him. He never would have chosen to break the charm and stay here, if I hadn't..." He swallowed noisily and looked away from Dumbledore's piercing gaze. "Sometimes I wonder if I am just like Voldemort, trying to make my own kind of... of Death Eater out of Draco. But it isn't because I want to use him, Professor! I swear it isn't! It's just that I can't stand the thought of him leaving. Ever."

"Harry." Dumbledore waited until Harry turned to look at him again. Then he went on, softly, "Look into your heart and tell me, honestly, did you do anything to Draco through the link that changed who he is or how he thinks? Did you do anything to him that he couldn't choose to reject, later?"

"I turned off the link."

"To make a point, not to force his hand."

"It hurt him." Tears stung Harry's eyes. "It hurt him so much... I hate that I did that to him."

Dumbledore smiled in understanding. "Would Voldemort weep for the pain he caused?" Harry shook his head. "Then stop flogging yourself, Harry, and accept that you are simply a human being. An exceptional one, with a depth of feeling in you that few of us can boast, but just a boy when all is said and done."

"Professor, you won't sever the link yet, will you?"

"Not just yet."

"Thank you. I really don't think I could stand it."

Dumbledore stood up and clasped Harry's shoulder again, warmly. "You can stand far more than you think, but you won't be called upon to do it until you're prepared. Get some rest. And Harry... might I suggest that you change that shirt?"

To be continued...