Draco Veritas

Chapter Two: New Skin for the Old Ceremony

Draco sat in the embrasure of the window in his small bedroom, watching the sun rise over the Forbidden Forest. The sky was a pale wash of mother-of-pearl, scorched with fire just over the treetops; the crystalline winter air was without any clouds. Dawn light poured in through the arch-shaped window, the shade of blood and roses, touching his pale face with a color it would otherwise not have had.

It was light enough now to read without a torch or candle lit. In his hand was the parchment that Rhysenn had delivered to him the night before. It was a sheet of clean white parchment bearing a single word in stark black unfamiliar writing.

Venio.

Slowly he let the letter fall from his hands, and as it fell it burst into flames, so only ashes landed on the bare stone floor, and settled into the gaps between the stones. In a few moments, the letter might never have existed at all.

***

Hermione jerked awake with a start. Her lids felt heavy and her eyes were dry with exhaustion. She turned over, careful not to wake Harry, who was asleep beside her on top of the coverlet. He had fallen asleep with his red cloak wrapped around him and she had given up trying to get him to loosen his death grip on it: she figured it was warm enough in the room, so he wouldn't freeze.

She turned so that she was lying on her side, and looked at him. He was sleeping, a heavy drugged sort of sleep. One arm was flung wide, the hand resting on her pillow and half-open, the fingers curled in. It made her think of a baby sleeping: a trusting, undefended sort of gesture. His other arm was curled in against his stomach, his fist shut tight over the lightning scar that bisected his right palm. His black hair rayed out over her pillow; the shut lids of his eyes were bluish with tiredness and his jaw and chin were also bluish, where he had not shaved.

A lancing pain went through Hermione as she looked at him: fear mixed with protectiveness mixed with love. Through the clear pane of his unconscious face, she could see through to the child he had been, the little boy with the too-big clothes and the uncooperative hair, tough and stubborn and trusting and brave. She remembered the first time she had ever put her arms around him. Harry, you're a great wizard, you know.

He had shaken his head. I'm not as good as you.

Me? Books! And cleverness! There are more important things—friendship and bravery—and, oh Harry – be careful –

She remembered seeing him after that, in the infirmary. She had been quite sure he was dead, and when she had seen him alive again a sort of terror had possessed her and kept her from embracing him—a terror perhaps that having not lost him in that instance, she was once more vulnerable to losing him again. She carefully moved closer towards where he lay on the bed, so that her hand rested on his side and rose and fell with his breathing as he breathed. He seemed to tense under her touch, and very slowly his eyelids fluttered and rose, and he opened his eyes. Without the glasses, they were clear windows of green glass, fringed with black lashes.

She held her breath, waiting. Would he be angry – would he remember their fight – would he remember last night, after she had brought him upstairs to her room? Although all he had done was fall asleep immediately, pushing away her hands as she tried to help him off with his boots, his wet jacket.

But his green eyes were still foggy with sleep, and he smiled at her tiredly but without surprise, as if he had expected to see her there when he woke up. He turned so that he could hold his arms out, and she went into them and let him clasp her tightly, feeling the residual dampness of his cloak under her hands, his soft breath stirring the hairs at the nape of her neck. They lay like that for several minutes without speaking before she felt his grip on her slacken, and he released her, moving his right hand up to touch her face.