Chapter 156: 3-2

"Sympathy, is it?"

Ron muttered the words without even turning around toward the single set of footsteps following behind him. Draco, stepping up beside him with a feigned air of indifference, looked up slightly at the freckled face next to him, unable to hold back a snide smirk.

"Hardly. To be frank, your little temper tantrum is nothing special. Mine was much worse."

"Huh?"

Always acting cool, standing a step back alongside Maria, making no secret of being her partner-in-crime while keeping Ron at arm's length—that nasty piece of work. That was Draco Malfoy in Ron's eyes. Just like Maria, he was someone special in a way quite different from Harry. Completely different from someone plain like Ron—the only reason Ron couldn't bring himself to accept Draco as an ally, despite recognizing him as one, was pure, simple jealousy.

And now—what was that supposed to mean?

"I’ve hurled the absolute vilest words at someone before. I’ve endlessly tormented them in ways that make me despise myself looking back. I don't have the noble character to actually regret doing it—but if it were now, I could do a much better job."

"Nasty smile on your face."

"Well, I am a nasty guy."

The light banter landed surprisingly well, leaving Ron caught off guard. It was strange, but only now did he realize that this boy with the exquisite, doll-like face was actually a human being with the same red blood pumping through his veins.

Though feeling Ron's gaze on him, Draco kept his eyes fixed straight ahead as he continued.

"Even after I went out of my way to extend my hand, that idiot ignored it. After all the trouble I went through, he chose two inferiors over me instead. Irritating, isn't it?"

"So... does that lead into you picking on someone?"

"Yeah. I tormented him plenty. ...Though he paid me back in kind."

Strangely enough, Draco's expression looked gentler to Ron than ever before. —He probably only made that face in front of Maria.

"If it were now, I could say it. I know what I should have done back then. —If a fool won't take my hand, then I'll just go and grab theirs."

".........."

Though there was nothing ahead except fog-shrouded trees, Ron felt strangely uncomfortable watching Draco gaze at someone who wasn't there, and he averted his eyes. But it wasn't a continuation of the darkness in his mind caused by the Horcrux. It was a much greener—childish—feeling.

"...You're a weirder guy than I thought, Draco. You don't even like me, so why choose to come with me?"

Draco, having no way of knowing Ron's inner turmoil, answered as if it were the most casual thing in the world.

"Just pure spite."

Amidst the days spent agonizing over an incomplete spell and Asteria, an unexpected turn of events was waiting for me.

"Dobby?"

My little friend, whom I had entrusted with the general care of Grimmauld Place and the four of us, appeared right before my eyes, looking as though he had barely escaped with his life. Appearing right in front of me, hidden away in Hogwarts—which had now effectively become enemy territory.

"Why are you here? Did something happen? Come on, calm down—"

"Maria Potter, Dobby could not keep his promise to Maria Potter! But Dobby is a free house-elf, so Dobby will not punish himself!"

"Ah, of course. I didn't give you an order; I asked a 'favor' from a friend. You are free to agree or refuse as you wish."

I had the wheezing Dobby sit on a cushion. With just a glance from me, Kreacher instinctively understood and Apparated to the kitchenette. He knew that next, I would ask him to offer a glass of water, even if he didn't like it. In that gesture, I saw his pride as a servant.

Without him, my siege inside enemy lines wouldn't have held up. It was thanks to the help of my little friends that I was standing here today.

"So, Dobby, what on earth happened?"

"Dobby could not protect the house! Harry Potter and the others have gone... so Dobby followed them! And Dobby found out! Winky is—"

Wait. Dobby was rattling on so fast that my voice instinctively dropped to a whisper.

"Winky...?"

—To be honest, I had completely forgotten that name.

Because, of course. Ever since then, even if I went toward the kitchens, I never saw her—whenever I needed something, I left it to Kreacher, and Dobby never brought up her name either... which meant, that is...

"...Winky isn't at Hogwarts?"

"? Yes, she left long ago! Winky gained a new master and left Hogwarts. And Dobby found out who it was so he could tell Maria Potter—"

"Wait, hold on────Why Winky, now?"

And then Dobby told me. I came to know the truth. A disastrous mistake and a tragic misunderstanding had brought about this catastrophe.

"Winky broke into the Black house! On her master's orders, she tried to capture Harry Potter! Winky's master is... Daphne Greengrass!"

Since that day three years ago────I had been decisively, fatally wrong.

"Who... no, I see────it wasn't Dobby."

The puzzling pieces rapidly connected. The house-elf of the House of Black other than Kreacher that Uncle Arthur had verified wasn't Dobby, but Winky. Come to think of it, Uncle Arthur didn't know Dobby. Rather than an unrelated Dobby looking after the Black house, it was infinitely more natural that Winky—whose name he knew and whose unfortunate history before being hired at Hogwarts he had witnessed—had come to rely on me.

And Winky had never found her place at Hogwarts. She despised Dobby's way of life—rejoicing in freedom and accepting wages as a rightful entitlement—viewing it, just as Kreacher did, as a shameful mindset for a house-elf. Her happiness lay in serving.

What if, after losing every member of the family she had once served body and soul, wounded in heart, Daphne Greengrass—no, Theodore Nott—had set their eyes on her? House-elves do not operate on human morality—they accept the words and ideology of whoever is gentle to them. Kreacher himself had proven that, hadn't he?

I should have talked to her. I was supposed to. Yes, I made a promise to her. I said we would talk...

And yet, caught up in the immediate problems before me, I completely pushed it aside────and forgot. Until this very moment, when Dobby uttered her name, I hadn't even recalled her existence!

This was the result of my own cold-heartedness.

"Ah, damn it..."

I clutched my head. I took a deep breath. Hermione would never have made a mistake like this. I lacked the fundamental spirit of universal benevolence that Hermione possessed.

So, it couldn't be helped. There was no point in seeking atonement now. What Greengrass was plotting—that was the issue requiring my utmost focus right now.

I had a responsibility. I had a responsibility to protect the person precious to Draco.

"...Dobby."

Dobby, who had just accepted a steaming mug from Kreacher, turned his tennis-ball-like eyes toward me.

"I need your help."

Dobby gave a bright smile.

"Dobby is a free elf! So Dobby will help his friend of his own free will!"

Though they were friends, a rather pathetic wandering journey began between two young men who had utterly failed to gauge the distance between them. There was no convenient adolescent magic where being forced together naturally brought their hearts closer; Ron and Draco's journey was awkward through and through. Ron wished from the bottom of his heart that he wouldn't have to spend Christmas like this. He was simply filled to the brim with regret.

"Hey."

While leaving the protective enchantments to Draco—who, while not quite on Hermione's level, seemed to be the most skilled at magic after her—Ron muttered.

"Don't you think you'd like to spend Christmas somewhere warm?"

Draco, having just finished casting the bare minimum barriers around them in imitation of Hermione, replied in a completely indifferent tone.

"Are you going to strike a match?"

"A match?"

"No—never mind. That was a Muggle fairy tale."

The more Ron got to know him, the more surprising he found the man named Draco Malfoy.

"You... know about Muggle stuff. I thought you had no interest. You know—being a pure-blood and all."

"Allow me to return those words right back at you. You blood-traitor Pure-blood Weasley."

"That right there. You completely look down on people like us."

As the snobbish boy chuckled dryly without denying it, Ron shrugged, feeling strangely disappointed in himself for not feeling as enraged as he used to. Spending a night casually fostering friendship and making toasts with Butterbeer was an impossible relationship to build with this guy of all people at this point—but familiarity has a way of sneaking up on you, taking the liberty of loosening the tension in your heart when you least expect it. It was as meddlesome as Hermione.

"—In truth, I have no interest in Muggles themselves."

At Draco's continuing words, Ron's freckled nose twitched in a noncommittal "Hmm."

"However, if someone I favor happens to favor them—you can't help but notice, can you?"

Ron felt like he understood what Draco was trying to say. Precisely because Ron was a pure-blood who loved Hermione, there was an underlying nuance he could grasp.

"So, getting back to the point."

Ron had no desire to feel any more embarrassed in front of this unpleasant guy. When Ron forcibly steered the conversation back, Draco nodded with a look of knowing smugness.

"I might have an idea for a house where they'd treat us to a Christmas dinner—or is that an unnecessary invitation for a rich boy who's always in high demand at parties?"

A smile—no less sharp than Draco's, and quite different from the face he showed his close friends—spread across Ron's freckled face. It was a nostalgic exchange—taking the hand he originally never should have been able to hold, Draco took a step forward.

Now, the "lead" Ron had mentioned already had guests enjoying a lavish Christmas dinner.

"Luna?"

Luna Lovegood tilted her head curiously while relishing the French cuisine served up by Bill's new bride, Fleur. Her protuberant eyes dreamily gazed at the two travelers.

A girl who didn't quite fit the picture of the young newlyweds starting their new life in the midst of turbulent times sat at the dinner table as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"Good evening, Ron, Draco. So Ron came home for a visit. Ginny gets lonely, you see."

"No—wait, what? What is the meaning of this, Bill?"

"It was a request from Maria. The magazine Luna's dad publishes was a bit too provocative for those lot. Maria contacted us saying there was a chance they'd target Luna as a hostage during the Christmas break, so she asked us to protect her here."

"What's all that...? Where is Maria, then?"

"Who knows. She didn't say. But it was definitely her voice, and it came via a stag Patronus."

Fleur grimaced in annoyance at Ron, who sat down right across from Luna in his utterly filthy robes. With a flick of her wand, the two men's outer robes were stripped off without argument. However, seeing that their clothes underneath were in a similar state, Fleur let out a heavy sigh. Seeing Fleur like that reminded Ron of his mother, Molly, making his chest tighten with emotion.

"Daddy's magazine is wonderful. Daddy always tells the truth."

"That's certainly true. Especially when it comes to Harry Potter... So, why are you two here? It doesn't look like Harry and Hermione are hiding under an Invisibility Cloak eavesdropping behind you."

The older brother watched with an urge to laugh as his younger brother shrank back awkwardly. It was the exact image of a young Ron caught red-handed in a prank—the look of a boy who had already been scolded by his mother and was sulking. No matter how old they got, no matter how adult they became, to older brothers and sisters, a younger brother was still a younger brother, and a younger sister was still a younger sister. And to parents, they were always children.

"...Well, fine. I'm the Secret-Keeper for this house. Make yourselves at home for as long as you like. Ron, Draco—Merry Christmas."

Judging quickly that Ron wasn't going to spill the beans anytime soon, Bill exchanged a glance with Fleur, and the two left the table. That left only Luna, who was picking at the extra servings of chicken and Christmas pudding, along with an ill-at-ease Ron and a restless Draco.

"Looking well, Lovegood."

"Yes. You too, Draco. Ron... doesn't seem to be doing quite so well."

The girl, completely unbothered by worldly social tact like reading the room, smiled. Draco felt a deep sense of emotion at that. She was the very girl who had once suffered the misfortune of being kidnapped and imprisoned in his own manor. Maria—no, Harry—had remembered.

"I..."

Taking his sweet time, Ron poured his heart out at the dining table. I ran away... He felt as though it was okay to tell Luna.

Perhaps it was her unique atmosphere—always floating with her mind somewhere in the clouds—that allowed him to do so. Perhaps it was because he knew Luna wouldn't offer pity or sympathy. Her airy distance, where she seemed far more interested in Nargles than in him, felt just right to Ron at that moment.

"I didn't mean for it to happen. Harry... you know, remember? Harry and Maria had a fight, and it caused quite a mess. The thing that drove Harry crazy back then was the locket—and it's the same now. I didn't mean to say those things from the bottom of my heart—"

This was likely a story Luna couldn't comprehend at all. In fact, Luna seemed far more interested in whether there was any soup left than in Ron's confession.

"That's just an excuse. That was how I really felt."

A deep silence fell over them. To Ron, it felt as though this eternal quiet would torment him forever. That can't be right... there's no way that's true.

"I don't know anything about your journey, so I can only speak about what I know... but I think he just really loves you, Ron."

To Luna Lovegood, Ron's inner struggle made no difference.

"He loves you so much that he wants you by his side. I know I always want Ginny and Daddy by my side."

The stooping young man let out a sharp gasp—a sound that failed to become a sneer.

"...Did Maria say that? That girl... she overestimates me way too much. She's so weird."

Even though she was the one instilling an inferiority complex in him, she made it blatantly clear that she loved Ron more than anyone. She trusted Ron. Even more than Harry, her twin brother—she trusted Ron and Hermione.

That was what was so unfair about Maria Potter.

"Yeah. Maria loves you very much, Ron. But it wasn't Maria. —Harry said it. Harry and Maria love you just the same."

"────"

Blue eyes widened, staring into the pale, silvery eyes in front of him. This time, Luna's gaze truly locked onto Ron.

"Is that really not enough? Is it not sufficient? I think... that's quite a luxury."

They were soft, gentle words that carried immense weight precisely because they came from Luna. It was more than enough to wake Ron up, who hadn't been looking for an escape route to begin with.

"—It's not insufficient at all. It's the best."

Crumpling his face in emotion, Ron began wolfing down the chicken at a terrifying speed, as if pouring oil into a wound-up spring mechanism—the kind his father loved so much. Had Fleur seen it, she would have been furious at her food being treated so rudely, and Bill would have reprimanded his brother for bad manners as a father figure. Draco also twisted his mouth as if wanting to lodge a complaint, but Luna broke into a wide, cheerful laugh.

Because—if he didn't eat, he wouldn't have the strength to catch up to those two!