分卷阅读10（2 / 2）

“You didn’t tell it was going to be everybody.” Draco said, but doesn’t argue, just throws his coat over the chair and rolls his sleeves up to the elbow in the way that he can’t know Harry likes. “It’s not really my place.”

“You’re fine,” Harry tells him back, and he is. Truthfully, Harry didn’t know that everyone would be here, but maybe they should have. This is what they always did after the war, through the reports and the trials and the rebuilding and the grief, find a bar and drink until they can’t stand on their own. Maybe it was a bad way of dealing with things, but it was the only tis he could rember being happy in that ti right after the year, and they deserved a chance to be young and dumb, just for a few months of their life.

It’s all of them. Ron and Hermione are at a booth sharing a plate of fries that neither of them are eating, and Ginny and Luna are slow dancing in the corner to the song on the radio, never mind the reporter snapping pictures of them. Neville had found his way to the bar, and George was right beside Draco, where he had already seed to be halfway down the road to being a drunken ss. Padma and her sister are there, too, the space beside them reminding them all of Lavender, who should have been here with them but still won’t leave her house because of the scarring. And that’s just the ones close enough for Harry to see.

“I heard.” George says, being the first one to break the silence about why they had gathered here. “Bloody ss.”

He seems to regret his use of the word bloody as soon as he said it, and they both kick Draco under the table when he snorts into his drink. “I went to see them.” Draco perked up at that, staring over at Harry, because Harry had not told him that. Harry knew he should have, but he couldn’t bring himself to talk about it, with the way that Dean was crying and Seamus was not waking up, how big that cut went along his arm. “It was awful.”

“How’s Dean?” This was from Neville, who ca arm in arm with Hannah Abott. Harry could see Hermione and Ron behind him, ing over to join the group.

“Bad.” Harry didn’t want to think about that. “I probably wasn’t helping. Got better once Hermione got there.”

Hermione was good at things like that, the fort, the bedside manners. He’s not sure how she does it.

“I can’t still can’t believe he would do that.” Hermione said, ing up behind them all. Her voice was quivering, a sure sign that tears were about to follow if soone didn’t intervene. No one did.

“Yes, you can.” George’s voice cut through them all, through the noise and the music and the hiss of the drinks ing from behind the bar. “None of us are even surprised.”

We aren’t, Harry thought, looking around at all of them. How many tis have they gathered here after a report or funeral that dredged up sothing awful? The worst stops being surprising and starts being sothing that you have learned to live with, after a while. We aren’t surprised at all.

Draco

They are very much about to be drunk.

Draco’s not sure why no one has threatened to throw him out yet, but he thinks it’s because that Harry is right beside him and George has taken him under his wing, like a sort of substitute sibling when his own aren’t within arms’ length. Whatever the reason, he’s grateful, to have been included in this and not been left waiting ho alone for Harry to e back, but he cannot stand the knowledge that when the lines were drawn he had found himself standing on the wrong side, the guilt of it all clawing at him, choking him.

This was my fault, he thinks, when Hermione succumbs to sothing between a laugh and a sob while leaning on Draco’s shoulder. I do not deserve this, when Harry gets drunk enough that he actually drags Draco onto the dance floor. You should not let be one of you, he knows, but that does not stop him from accepting the shot that George shoves into his hand, draining the silver liquid in one go and ignoring the burn as it goes down.

Only Ron seems to think that maybe Draco does not belong, but he is also tied to doing whatever it is that Hermione wants, so he does not ntion it. Still, Draco can feel his eyes tracking him throughout the whole night, only letting his guard down when they all tumble down to sit at a table together, trying to sober up before they have to stumble ho.

It’s Hermione that breaks the silence that had settled around all of them, downing her beer in one go and then slamming the bottle back onto the table. “I just can’t stand it,” She said, voice too loud, cheeks flushed, seeming not to care that everyone was staring at her. “Why is there nothing to help us? No dication, no therapy, no anything?” She stares at all of them for agreent and is only t with blank faces. “Don’t tell you don’t have that sort of thing. Even muggles have it.”

Ron reached out for her, but she batted him away. Draco had seen her like this before, when she was in the library and searching through the shelves for that one book, not letting anyone distract her until the problem was solved. (They hung out a bit, their third year, back when she was on the outs with Ron and Harry and Draco took a mont to realize how close to each other’s level of intelligence they really are. That was the year she slapped him. He tries not to think about that.)