Hermione and Ron didn't find us until we'd both calmed.
It had thankfully taken a bit for them to get up, and then for Ron to convince himself that Hermione was alright. Then they had pelted after me. By the time they found us Draco had collapsed into a graceless tangle of long legs and robes, arms wrapped around me, sobbing into the crook of my neck like the world had ended.
Perhaps it had.
When I looked up at Hermione, an infinitesimal part of me ashamed for knocking her away but mostly engrossed in what I felt just now, my heart breaking and my eyes full of rage and tears, she took an instant step back before stumbling forward and wrapping her arms around both of us. It wasn't until much later that I realised I'd frightened her.
Ron held back for a moment, shocked and aghast at the heap of Hermione/me/Draco all crying, before he shook his head helplessly and put his arms around all of us. His hair mingled with mine and Hermione's and Draco's, from above a swirl of colour and pain and sympathy.
It was then that Dumbledore strode swiftly into the courtyard.
Ron looked up at him, freckled face suffused with pain and fury.
"Get Madam Pomfrey. Now. Please, sir."
* * *
It wouldn't stop bleeding.
Madam Pomfrey had healed the burn, closed the flesh and smoothed it to apparent perfection, except that the skin was still blackened and though there was no wound to be seen whatsoever Draco's flesh still oozed clear fluid and blood.
Finally Pomfrey poured a sleeping draught down Draco's throat and headed for her reference books. Hermione and Ron pulled me away once even I could be convinced that Draco was sleeping deeply.
Dumbledore had left to do gods-knew-what shortly after fetching Pomfrey. I was glad. I didn't want to talk to him just now anyway.
Hermione sat me down on a staircase and stood a few steps below me, arms crossed. Ron sat just above and behind me. I looked intently at the stone between my feet like I could melt into it if I just stared long enough.
It was Hermione who spoke. "What haven't you told us, Harry?"
I said nothing.
"Harry. We're your best friends. What haven't you told us?"
It was too late to lie. Too late to pretend anymore. I'd already given it away.
"The potion never faded, Hermione."
Ron caught his breath behind me, but when I glanced up, Hermione was nodding.
"I told you it did because we didn't want you to go to anyone and have it stopped. We didn't want it to stop. We found we needed each other...needed not to be left alone. So I lied."
"You thought that without being in each other's minds you'd be left alone?" Hermione asked quietly.
I looked up and met her gaze. "Thought? No. We would have been. More alone than we'd ever been before, even if we were in the same room, even if we were skin against skin, so fucking alone. We needed each other. And the stronger it got, and the longer it went, the more we needed each other. And after a while it wasn't just that we'd be so―" ―my breath caught― "―so incredibly alone, it was that even the thought of being without it made dying seem easy, and then I really couldn't tell you because I'd already lied and then if it was taken away―and you hated me for lying to you―I'd have lost everything―I couldn't tell you―"
Hermione knelt on the steps in front of me just as Ron's hand clasped my shoulder. "It's okay, Harry," he said. Hermione nodded.
"...Are you going to tell Dumbledore now?" I asked, hopelessly.
They both said no at the same time.
* * *
Pomfrey discovered how very stubborn I can be that night. She asked me nicely to leave, and I politely declined; she insisted firmly that I go, and I more firmly insisted on staying; eventually she outright ordered me, and I outright refused. Finally she gave in to the inevitable and left me with a detention and Gryffindor fifty points poorer. I didn't care.
It was sometime in the middle of the night when Draco woke, crying out. I sat up with a start―I'd drifted off, sitting on the floor, leaning against the bed next to Draco's hip where I could watch his face―and seized his hand. :It's alright, love, you're safe!:
He struggled under the sheets for a moment, frantic like a small bird held in the hand, his mind fearful and incoherent. I stood up and tore the sheets away from him, freeing him. For a fraction of a second he cringed away from me―and oh gods how that hurt―but then his eyes unclouded and he opened his arms to me, exposing his chest crusted with blood along the jagged line that was supposedly healed. I sank down onto the bed and held him, kissing his forehead while he wept in my arms like a child.
When he quieted, I sat up on the edge of the bed and looked down at him. He clenched my fingers in his fiercely. My shirt was stained with tears and blood.
"I'm going to kill him, Draco." My voice echoed strangely in the dark Infirmary ward.
"I know you are. And I'm going to help." Draco's eyes lit with fury...that silver grey I so loved no longer reflective but glowing from within, almost red in the dimmed light. "No one does that to my family and lives. I'll tear his eyes out with my bare hands."
I shivered. I didn't like Draco like this. "Wouldn't it be easier to just cast Avada Kedavra on him, trap whatever might be left of him afterwards, and talk to Dumbledore about getting rid of him for good?"
"I wasn't talking about what would be easy, Harry."
"That's not quite what I meant―it's just that defeating him at all might be all we can do, arranging to have him held down and helpless so you can mutilate him could be more than we can handle―and I don't like the thought of you doing something like that."
"Don't misunderstand me, Harry. I love you very, very much. But I intend to avenge what he did to my father, no matter what gets in my way."
"What he did to your father! What about what he did to you?!?" I was shocked.
Draco dismissed that with a wave of his hand. "Whatever. Pomfrey will fix it, someone will fix it eventually. But he hurt my father, he disgraced him and hurt him and made him cry, Harry, he humiliated him and hurt him and I will not tolerate that. Voldemort will pay for that."
Now I was growing angry. "You don't care at all what he did to you? What about what he's done to me by touching you!? What makes you think that your own pain is so fucking worthless, Draco? What makes you think that you're not worth avenging? What the hell is wrong with you?" I stopped, speechless, unable to do anything more than clench my fists into the blankets and shake my head. "One of these days, Draco, you'll realise what you really are."
"Harry, believe me. I know what I am. I have no illusions about it."
"No, you don't. You don't. You have no fucking idea what your true value is." I turned away, arms wrapped around my ribs and fingers biting into my upper arms. I couldn't look at him anymore; couldn't see his face with that white-lipped determination fouled by his disregard for himself.
"I will do this thing, Harry, whether you help me or not."
I spun around and glared at him, fists clenched. "My god, Draco, do you honestly think I'd let you go off and fight Voldemort alone? You bloody fool. You say you know me, what the fuck do you THINK I'm going to do? Let you run off and die while I sit behind safe walls and pretend nothing's wrong? You think I could wait on the sidelines while you ran into a situation that would probably kill you? Sit back and do nothing? I thought you knew me, Draco."
...He cringed back into his dune of pillows. His arms were crossed on his chest, but his fingers dug livid grooves into his arms. :Don't argue with me, Harry. Just...don't.:
His mind ordered. In the shadows of his head, though, it was pleading with me.
I ground my teeth. Nearly all of me wanted to break something. The rest of me wanted to stop his mouth with mine. My pride wouldn't let me do either.
:Shut up, Draco. Please.:
:If you wish.:
:Shut up and love me.:
And finally he was silent and reached his arms out to me and this time when I wept my tears fell on the bloody reddened line that wavered drunkenly down the left side of his chest...and where they fell, the crusted blood melted away and the red flesh still weeping clear fluid faded to a healthy, pale pink...for a few minutes...
...but returned. In the end, it returned.