Draco Veritas

Chapter Thirteen: The Malfoy Family Code of Conduct (Part Two)

into that world inverted where left is always right,

where the shadows are really the body, where we stay awake all night,
where the heavens are shallow as the sea is now deep, and you love me.

–Elizabeth Bishop

***

Hermione sat on the edge of the bed in Fleur and Viktor's room, turning the silver antidote flask over and over in her fingers. She had managed to wake Draco up and get him to drink some of it before he'd sunk back into unconsciousness; Viktor had carried him to the bedroom, and laid him down on the bed before Fleur had shooed him out, muttering, "This is all your fault."

The bedroom was suffused with a soft, mellow light, a light that made Hermione think of warm autumn evenings and sleeping cats. The torches on the walls burned with a rosy, shaded glow and there were fine red openweave curtains all around the bed. The light that came through them was tinted and threw a deceptive, healthy flush across Draco's sleeping face.

"He's not getting any better," Hermione said, in a small dull voice. "I'd thought the antidote was going to fix things, but it hasn't. I just don't know what to do."

Fleur was sitting on the bed beside him, her head inclined. Her long hair spilled down and over her shoulders and veiled Draco's face behind a curtain of white silk. When she raised her head and looked at Hermione, her blue eyes were very dark. "Poison, you said?"

"Poison," Hermione confirmed.

Fleur put her slim fingers against the pulse in Draco's throat, her expression thoughtful. Hermione watched the two of them, so similar in looks, the torchlight burning up their pale hair. A matched set of fair-headed Flemish angels. Hermione had had plenty of occasions to watch Draco sleeping over the past few days, but the change in his face when he was not awake never failed to surprise her and catch at her heart. In sleep, all his malice was stripped away, all those carefully cultivated manners and graces, and he was just an ordinary boy, eyes blue-hollowed with tiredness, the soft pulse of his breath stirring the hair that fell across his cheek in uneven strands like pale unraveled thread.

"Is everything all right?" Hermione asked, concerned by Fleur's intent expression.

The other girl said nothing, only let the tips of her fingers glide down his throat to his collar. Hermione fought back the urge to protest, even when the older girl's hand slipped into the collar of Draco's shirt, and drew out the Epicyclical Charm on its chain. "So here it is," she said, her tone reflective. "I asked Harry what he had done with it, but he was so feverish..."

"He gave it back to Draco," Hermione said.

"Typical," said Fleur. "As if such a gift, once freely given, can so easily be given back." She let the charm fall and sat back, drawing the covers up absentmindedly over Draco as she did so. It struck Hermione as odd to see Fleur being so gentle, but then she remembered Fleur's little sister, and the fierce mothering possessiveness Fleur seemed to feel towards Gabrielle. "I watched over Harry like this," said Fleur, "just last night."

"Thank you for taking care of Harry," Hermione said. "And for telling us he was here. I know Viktor didn't want you to – "

"Viktor is honest to a fault," said Fleur. "But he did not sit with Harry while he was feverish; he did not hear him shouting out in his sleep for you...both of you." Her blue eyes, tracing Hermione's face, looked nearly black. "I did not do it to be compassionate," she said. "I did it because Harry is our one chance against the Dark Lord, and if he does not accept that truth then I will accept it for him."

"I know he is," Hermione said. "But I also love him. I'm thankful that you took care of him, whatever your reasons. I know we haven't always gotten along – "