Out of Time

Chapter 37

I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

- The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot

The voice sounds just like one of the dreams he was having last night. The firewhisky had dulled the vividness, but Hermione had been crying in a small, shabby bed. She'd been alone, curled into an agonisingly tiny ball and shaking with tears, and just like ever, Draco couldn't do a single thing about it. She'd said "Draco" just like that.

No longer sleepy, he sits up and reaches for it. It won't let him touch it, like a reflection of light instead of the real thing. It's not a light source. His hand bumps the Deluminator and the ball of light pivots to the left.

He picks it up and the light hovers in the air a few centimetres above the top. Flicking the button on the side, nothing happens. The lights in his room are already out. But the ball of light does not retreat inside the Deluminator.

Maybe Snape will know what's causing it to act up. He's almost convinced himself he was hearing things when the voice comes again, as if out of thin air.

"Draco, I miss you."

That is Hermione's voice. He'd know it anywhere, unless his mind is playing tricks on him. Which could be true. In his haste to verify whether Snape can hear it too, he nearly trips over his own pyjama bottoms. Even though the voice is faint, she sounds tired, sad, defeated. Draco isn't sure what he wants Snape to say outside confirming that Draco hasn't lost his mind - but that still might happen if now Draco has to hear Hermione miserable and alone when he's awake and still not be able to do a damn thing about it.

A side problem pops up that if Snape can hear her voice, too, that means anybody could hear it. He'll tackle one issue at a time.

Snape is not in the kitchen, the study, or the little living room. Shit. He must be in his room. Draco avoids Snape's personal quarters as if they're infested with dragon pox and waffles on knocking. Should he risk disturbing his godfather? No, right? No. Definitely a bad idea.

"Draco."

It comes and he raps on the doorframe. Knocking can't be avoided. He has to know what this is - if Snape can even hear it. To that point, what if it doesn't speak again? How can he explain this?

Snape opens the door as Draco's knuckles rise for a second knock. He must own the same clothes in a half dozen black iterations. The familiarity is grounding and allows Draco to ignore the hostility radiating off Snape in waves.

"What is it? I am busy."

Draco has no more idea how to describe this phenomenon than he did three minutes ago and resorts to holding the Deluminator out in front of him. He refrains from pointing it in Snape's face like a wand, but it's a near thing.

"If you broke that, I can't fix it."

Snape pushes past Draco and breezes down the hall, aiming for the kitchen.

"No - it's not broken. At least, I don't think it is. But it's doing this... this odd thing, where I hear a voice, and -"

"If you're hearing voices, I can't help with that either."

That's just insulting. If he needed help with disembodied voices, Draco knows perfectly well that Snape could have a good crack at it. He'd be fascinated by it, actually, and it's plain that he's just in a bad mood. More's the pity for Draco, who's left jogging in Snape's wake, still holding the Deluminator.