Expiry Date

Part Three

Warnings etc: See first chapter

Notes: Yup, the end of the last bit was confusing, I know that, but hopefully some clarification here, for Ron at the very least! I hope no one who sees the films hasn't also read the book, because from the films you'd think that Ron existed solely to make amusingly scared faces at the camera and faint occasionally when Harry needed a chance to be heroic. Ooooh, I swear, one day I am just going to write something absolutely Harry-bashing just for the sake of it….until then, however, read and enjoy (I hope) and please let me know what you think…

~~***~~

'I could ask you the same question.'

I jump in surprise as Draco Malfoy strides into the bare room in the Infirmary where I'm being 'kept'…

…they'd kill me if I went to Gryffindor tower…

…and, despite everything, I almost laugh at the way he anticipates my question. He seems remarkably cheerful, and, though his arm is still bandaged, after his night in the Infirmary he seems much better. It's remarkable that they weren't injured more badly -I'd worried. A lot. Because if enough people think you're responsible for something it begins to feel as though you are.

They didn't say it. Dumbledore asked me if I did it. I said no. He and the other staff decided to investigate the site further, test the remainder of the spell to see where it originated from, before condemning me. There eyes always darting away before I could meet them, and their frowns all the worse for Snape's sickly smile of triumph.

I've never seen Dumbledore at a loss for words before. 'I'm not Volde-fucking-mort' That's what I wanted to say, although I didn't.

I know they don't want to think it's true, but Harry said it was. Harry Potter hath spoken…

'Is Harry alright?' I ask, trying so hard to make the words light that they come out weird and artificial.

Draco frowns, and looks inexplicably annoyed. When he scowls his slightly-too-long fringe falls over his eyes. It must be highly irritating, but he doesn't brush it away. I can almost feel the tickle on my own skin, and my fingers itch to brush it off his face.

When he speaks I want to scratch him too, hard.

'Oh, the precious Potter left a few hours ago. He had some bad grazes from the brooms, but not much else, I've no doubt you'll be * overjoyed * to hear. Quite capable of telling me at least twice how shocked he is that you did it…'

The _lightness _ of Draco's tone is disgusting.

But then, Harry's well away from you now. Draco has his shot.

'And you? How long are they keeping up this ridiculous charade - keeping you in isolation, hah! They can't honestly believe you did it?'

'You…you don't think I did?'

My voice is horribly soft and hesitant, and conveys his answer all too well. I'm shocked, because he is the first person in all this to doubt my guilt, the first to…well, to take my word over Harry's.

He looks at me strangely for a moment, then sneers.

'Haven't done your homework have you, Weasley? The spell that was used was called Gravitas Regenerens, they've found out that much from testing the brooms - it's the only thing that can disenchant a broomstick from flying like that.'

This conveys nothing to me, so I wait for more, and, as I think he was planning, he sighs theatrically at my lack of knowledge. 'That spell, Weasley, requires a long term setting, in this case 84 hours before the application. We fell at 1:05pm Thursday, which, if you work it out, puts the initial casting of the spell at 1:05am Monday morning, which we consider Sunday night, which was when…'

'…when you talked to me in the cellar, where I was quite obviously * not * casting complex spells. I see.'

I…joy. Bursting screaming joy. Proof! Proof that I didn't try and hurt Harry. Now the teachers can see, and he can see, and when Malfoy tells them…

Then it occurs to me:

'Malfoy, why the hell didn't you tell anyone this earlier? I've been sitting here whilst everyone despises me and you wait until I'm a captive audience before you tell me? Have you any * idea * what this is like? What it is to have everyone believe you did something like this?'

'Oh but I do,' he replies, icily, and with a fixed and businesslike stare he walks closer, places one hand on my shoulder, with that smile that can't reach his eyes.

'I know, Weasley, that whatever they may say no one thinks you had the intelligence to do this alone. They all think * I * was in on it too, the prejudiced bastards. As if any of this was worth a broken arm! If I give you an alibi they'll just take it as proof we were working together. After all, you're my alibi as well for that night. No one else saw us.'

'Why would I ever want to work with * you *?'

I put all the venom that's built in me over the past twelve hours into that jab, and maybe it's a little unfair, to take my anger out on him, but somehow I feel as though it _ is _ his fault. If the proof of my innocence didn't cover him as well, I'd certainly think him capable of it.

He recoils, slightly, something flashing across his eyes for all of one millisecond that could just be the electric light.

Or hurt.

Then after a blink they look so cold again, and hard and shallow of feeling.

He takes his hand off my shoulder.

'Well then you believe my innocence and I believe yours, but you seem to have forgotten the most important question, Weasley.' He is back in that superior tone again, patronising me. Perhaps that's why I answer so sharply, why I feel as though some tension has mounted in the room that I wasn't aware of earlier.

'Yeah? What is this revelation?'

'Well, if you didn't do it, why do Creevey, Patel and Potter think so? And if you didn't do it, and I didn't do it, who did?'

He has reached the door, and pauses theatrically. 'Oh, and I was sent here to tell you that Dumbledore wants to see you in five, oh no, wait.' He looks at his watch. 'Fifteen minutes ago, now, and to tell you to hurry.' He is being excruciatingly annoying, and he knows it, so I try to resist the urge to hit him and give him what he wants.

But what does he want? Why come here to tell me this? What * is * his agenda?

~~***~~

I admit I thought at first that he might be lying - playing tricks, giving me hope where there was none or covering for himself, after all, if there weren't the extenuating circumstances I'd suspect him before anyone.

But no, Dumbledore told me more or less exactly what Draco had said - Gravitas Regenerens, 84 hours and did I have an alibi?

'No, sir.' It was true, because as Draco pointed out the cover wasn't really worth anything.

It was funny though, all through the interview I felt this sense of…awkwardness, as if Dumbledore was uncomfortable about something. He wasn't as earnest as one would expect, and, well, I don't know really, I just wondered what he was thinking sometimes.

Oh yeah, and Harry won't see me and half the pupils are out for my blood so it's suggested that I stay in isolation a little longer. Because that won't convince them I'm guilty or anything…I've talked to Hermione, a little, and I honestly think she was telling the truth when she said she didn't believe I'd done it….and yet…she too had this strange distance about her. Maybe it's just weird to be on the outside looking in.

I don't understand why Harry's acting this way. But, after all, I nearly messed up our friendship anyway, even without this fiasco…

And it's just now that I can see what I feel, and how wrong my interpretation was before…

I think my world had already quietly dissolved at some point and I didn't notice and it's taken this to show it to me.

And the one constant? The only stable thing in the world is blond and cruel and refuses to call me by my first name.

~~***~~

I went there because I was thinking of him - no point in lying to myself.

Of course, I had to then, just to persuade myself to walk down those cold stairs, barefoot and in pyjamas.

The cellar was as dark as it had been the other night, when some cruel fate gave me an impossible alibi, and Draco asked the first question. And now he has more questions, challenges and means to shake up every piece of complacency I have and I don't know why.

And yet the coldness only crept into my muscles when I realised no one was waiting in the dim room.

So I jumped all the higher and screamed all the more embarrassingly when I felt a soft touch on my arm.

'Honestly, Weasley, you don't think Harry's the only one with one of these?' And a blond mass emerges from thin air, followed by the rest of him, until the cloak only covers one arm.

'Malfoy: One, you nearly killed me, and two, let's skip the interrogation this once, hey? I have unresolved issues, yeah, I got it.'

I can't remember the last time I saw him laugh spontaneously like that.

'OK, if I can't question, what about some answers?'

'Give me one good reason to listen to you.' And it's funny, because being pissed at Draco really isn't fun any more. I owe him an alibi, and by extension probably my sanity, and he, well…he seems to have noticed that I've changed, and no one else has.

So I pre-empt his answer: 'Where are we going?' I ask, as nonchalantly as possible, trying not to show how pleased I am by his look of surprise. He collects himself, however, and answers briskly.

'Nowhere, technically. I have a portkey that can take us where we need to go from here.' He produces a hairbrush, stray golden strands still caught in it, from underneath the cloak.

'That place being?'

'A place where I guy I know works. He has…connections. If anything outside Hogwarts was responsible for this he'll know.'

'* Why * are you doing this, Malfoy?'

There, you asked, not so hard was it?

'Why the hell do you think, Weasel-brain? Some soon-to-regretting-it areshole made me fall several hundred feet off my broom for godssake!'

Nuh uh, it surprises me that I know him well enough now to know that he's dodging the question.

'And, I don't know, say, _ Harry Potter _, has nothing to do with it?'

'Excuse me?'

'You don't want to get in his good books? Or possibly in elsewhere?'

'Are you asking me if I want to shag Harry Potter?' His tone is disbelieving, but also too quiet for the outrage he is trying to suggest.

'I might be'

The air has become very thick, too warm, and moist somehow. I feel some current tugging at the base of my stomach, and just to the left of his ear play all the dream images, which I stare at to avoid meeting his eyes.

I can smell the sensitive-skin conditioner he uses, electrically.

I tell myself this isn't important.

He opens his mouth to answer with a soft sound of parting lips.

'I could ask you the same question.'

And he can, because confused as I am; I do know this answer.

'No.'

'No what, Weasley?'

'I don't fancy Harry.'

'Well, neither do I.'

Suddenly I don't want this conversation to go any further, and, breathing carefully and too deeply the air of this strange new world, I touch the portkey that he holds out and am sucked into a place of darkness and noise…

~~***~~