The Lewis House 22 страница

"No you’re not. You’re slower than a History of Magic class. Goldie must’ve been mad to hire you."

Ron felt himself about to say something less-than-polite, regardless of the rules. But the remark died on his lips when he saw who was taunting him.

"Oy, shut it, Sirius."

Sirius grinned, and leaned back in the stool next to Goldie’s. He looked to be enjoying himself immensely, and Ron found himself cheering, slightly. He liked Sirius a lot – they had similar natures.

"Where’s the respect for your patrons and elders? I’m Mr. Black to you – and get a move on those drinks."

Several customers’ heads swiveled toward Sirius when he announced his last name, and more than one of them sidled quickly away from the bar. Sirius looked after them, his expression unreadable.

Ron merely snorted. "Right. I’ll give you the Madman, but believe me, you don’t want twelve Lucky Ladies."

Sirius turned back to him and laughed. "Just one’s enough for you, then?"

"You have no bloody idea," Ron sighed, shaking his head. He retrieved a Madman from beneath the bar and sent the bottle hurtling toward Sirius with force he wouldn’t have used normally. But it was fine in this case – Sirius caught the bottle deftly and downed it in two gulps, exhaling loudly and grinning again.

"One more, if you’ve got it."

"Think fast –" Ron sent the next bottle hurtling, and this one did several intricate aerial flips on its way to Sirius’s hand.

"You’re learning bar tricks!" Sirius noted, clearly delighted.

Ron’s ears went warm. "One or two yeah. Hang on." He quickly fulfilled the orders of his remaining customers, and headed down toward Sirius to begin cleaning the bar. "Maybe everyone’ll take the hint," he said, gesturing to the crowd with his towel. "I need to get home and get some sleep."

"I think we’re all overtired," Sirius agreed, pulling his eyebrows together. "Last night was very difficult."

Ron nodded, not sure that he wanted to get into the subject of last night. "Yeah," he said noncommittally. "That was tense."

"It was." Sirius drew deeply at his bottle, and set it down. His face was solemn. "Actually, I came to apologize."

"Huh?" Ron frowned at Sirius in surprise. "What for?"

"For last night. I was... not myself. I get extremely worried about Remus. I took it out on Ginny and it wasn’t necessary. I’ve apologized to her already, but as she’s your sister, I just wanted to make it clear with you." Sirius looked at him soberly. "She did an incredible thing."

Ron flushed with both pride and immediate irritation. "Yeah she did," he mumbled. "Anyway, it’s fine. I thought she was mental for trying it, too."

"She was." Sirius dragged on his Madman again, and smiled. "But she pulled it off."

"Just luck, maybe," Ron offered, keeping his voice neutral.

"Remus doesn’t think so." Sirius set down his bottle with a decided thud. "She’s a talented girl."

"Yeah." Ron looked to his left and saw the brunette from Jimmy MacMillan’s table sitting expectantly at the bar, her money in her hand. He was glad for the distraction. This conversation was getting the better of him, somehow, and he didn’t want it to show in front of Sirius. "Hang on," he said quickly, walking toward the brunette and spending a lot more time on her order than was necessary. Usually he didn’t let the girls chat his ear off, but she was pleasant and had a few funny things to say about Quinn - and, though Ron hated to admit it, he wasn’t in the mood to talk about how talented Ginny was. Instead, he listened to Quinn’s girlfriend go on about how they’d met in Hungary, avoided Sirius’s questioning gaze, and hoped that something else would happen to keep him distracted. He didn’t have to wait long.

"Find yourself a new girlfriend, Weasley?"

Ron stiffened. The arrogant drawl was instantly recognizable. He didn’t have to turn to know it was Malfoy.

A thousand things went through his head at once - but his immediate desire was to pull his wand and strike. His hand moved on instinct, and he only held it down when a second, stronger thought entered his head. He’d promised Hermione. He’d sworn he wouldn’t fight Malfoy, no matter what.

Ron dropped his hand. "Excuse me," he said to the girl he’d been waiting on. She nodded, shot a bothered look at Malfoy for his comment, and took her drink back to her table.

He turned to Malfoy, willing himself to stay calm, though he could already feel the urge to fight rising in his blood. But the summer was almost over – Malfoy would be going back to wherever he lived quite soon – Ron knew that he could manage a few short days without rising to it. He had to manage. He made himself take a deep breath, and forced out a few polite words.

"What can I get you?"

Malfoy laughed. It was a raucous sound, totally unlike his usual, cool laugh. Instead of his predictably lazy, controlled movements, his entire posture drooped heavily. He leaned on the bar and fixed a stare on Ron, raking his fine blond hair back from his face. "Now this is more like it."

Ron drew himself up to his full height, stepped up to the bar, and glared across it at Malfoy. "And what’s that supposed to mean?"

Malfoy laughed again, and Ron smelled liquor on his breath. It definitely seemed he’d had a few drinks tonight – Ron had never seen Malfoy pick a fight without his bodyguards around, but he was certainly picking a fight now.

"It’s just like my father always said. You’re behind the bar and I’m in front of it." Malfoy smiled. "Get me a drink, Weasley."

Ron flexed his fingers, and clenched them tightly into balls, talking himself down from the battle he itched to initiate. Don’t rise to it. Don’t rise to it. Hermione, Hermione, Hermione...

"What are you drinking, Draco?" Ron worked to say the name calmly, worked not to spit it with all the venom that he felt.

"Oh, are we on a first name basis? I don’t think so. Get me a glass of wine. Now."

Ron had to turn away from the bar. It was either that, or knock Malfoy’s head in with his bare hands. He turned around and stared blindly at the rows of bottles that sat against the mirror behind him, not sure how he was going to get through this without cursing the hell out of something. Or someone. Malfoy’s reflection smirked at him as he reached for a glass and a bottle.

"I drink red."

Ron clenched his jaw. Don’t do it. Don’t curse him. Hermione. He shifted his gaze away from Malfoy’s image and down the bar, his hands automatically and calmly going to the bottle of red wine, though in his head he was plotting a series of violent movements. In the mirror at the end of the bar, he saw Goldie and Sirius watching him intently. He forced himself to nod at them, then poured the wine and turned resolutely back toward the crowd, his mind racing.

"Fourteen sickles, three knuts," he said, through gritted teeth, putting the glass on the counter in front of Malfoy and barely resisting the urge to toss it into his eyes.

Malfoy glanced disdainfully at the glass. "I suppose there’s no point in asking the year," he muttered, then withdrew a money pouch, searched in it, and let a galleon fall from his fingers onto the bar. It spun crazily a moment before landing, and he laughed again, his pale, pointed features flushing a dull pink as he swilled his glass and sniffed its contents contemptuously.

"Have the change, Weasley. I don’t need it."

The insult was old, but it hit with direct force. Ron’s hand moved recklessly to his wand as it so often had in school, his mouth opening on an ugly hex. Malfoy grinned, settling his hand on his own wand and waiting.

Ron nearly growled with impotent frustration – he wanted to hurt him, to make him suffer, but Hermione’s protests were clear in his mind. Don’t do it. Don’t give him the satisfaction. Ron forced himself to release his wand, pulled a shallow breath, withdrew the appropriate change from behind the bar, and coolly settled it on the counter.

"No, thanks."

"Take it." Malfoy took a swallow of wine. "God knows when you’re going to see money enough to have a life. Working in this place? You’d think someone like you would take a lesson from his parents and aim a bit higher."

"It’d be hard to get higher than Minister of Magic." Ron’s heart flashed with fierce pride. He knew he was rising to the bait, knew Malfoy wasn’t worth the trouble. But he couldn’t let it pass. It was too good, being able to throw that fact at Malfoy. It was about damn time. And Malfoy was getting into dangerous territory now – touching on the Weasley family. Ron noticed that most of the patrons at the bar had backed off, and were watching the mounting tension between the two of them with curiosity and trepidation.

"That’s a position of convenience and you know it," Malfoy whispered, leering. "He’s only in there because it’s a mess. Must be just like living in your house."

Ron shivered, and clenched his hands so tightly that they hurt. "Get some new material, why don’t you, Malfoy."

"The truth hurts, doesn’t it, Weasley? Your father is a fluke success. He’s nothing but a murderer. And your mother -"

"My dad’s no murderer." Ron’s voice was loud, suddenly, and his hand was tight on his wand, ready to pull it at any moment. He’d kill him. This was instinct. This was three years of war. This was what he had always expected it to come to with Malfoy.

Malfoy’s eyes were suddenly bloodshot. "And what would you call him?" he whispered. "My father is dead."

A hush fell across the people who were left in the bar. Ron’s eyes didn’t leave Malfoy’s, but he could feel the energy of the watching crowd. Everyone in the wizarding world knew at least something about the events that had ended the war. Everyone knew that Arthur Weasley was the acting Minister of Magic, and that Lucius Malfoy had been a feared Death Eater - they might all have put the situation together by now. Ron didn’t know how much they’d figured out. It didn’t matter. They’d know it in a minute.

"Your father..." Ron gritted his teeth, hard, "...tried to kill mine first. You were there, you know what happened." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sirius stand.

"I saw my father die," Malfoy insisted thickly.

"You saw him set a Killing Curse on my father - you saw it."

"I saw my father die."

"He was aiming for my sister, Malfoy – were we all supposed to stand and watch?"

"He was aiming for Potter," Malfoy spat, swaying on his seat. "Your sister was making a fool of herself, as usual, she should have got out of the way."

Ron gripped the bar with both hands. "Your dad was a Death Eater." His voice was very low. "It’s nobody’s fault but his if that curse came back on him." Ron knew that to say these words about someone’s father, even to a person like Malfoy, was cruel. But he didn’t care.

"It was your damned father’s fault," Malfoy slurred. His eyes were so narrow that they’d almost shut, and he seemed to be struggling against some display of emotion. "And you – the three of you. You and Potter and your girlfriend. With your spells."

Ron suddenly realized just how drunk Malfoy must be. He was showing incredible weakness – and insecurity. Even jealousy. Ron relaxed his grip on the bar. "Go home, Malfoy. You’re drunk."

"Don’t give me directions!" Malfoy hissed. "Get me another drink."

Ron shook his head. "You’re over your limit," he stated flatly. "No more."

"And you’re acting like that obnoxious Peter Prefect you used to be related to," Malfoy said softly, smiling. "Sad about him, isn’t it?"

Ron mouthed soundlessly, trembling with fury. Even Malfoy had never struck so low. "His name was Percy," he whispered. "Have some respect."

"Why should I be more respectful of your dead than you are of mine? Peter was careless, that’s what my father -"

Ron reached across the bar with lightning speed and seized Malfoy by the collar of his robes. The two young men faced each other over a mess of spilled wine, wild eyed and furious, barely even breathing.

"You show my brother respect," Ron barely managed. "Your father was there when he died. You want to talk about murderers, you bastard -"

Malfoy’s hands seized Ron’s collar a moment later, and Ron felt a jolt of massive surprise. Malfoy had never stood up to him – not physically. Not alone. Not like this.

"It was Wormtail that killed your brother," Malfoy whispered. "My father had nothing to do with what happened to Peter –"

"Say his name wrong one more time –"

"Hard to keep you all straight, Weasley. Shocking your mother even noticed one of you was gone."

Ron knew that he had to let go of Malfoy. He had to. His mind screamed at him to pound the enemy with his fists, to rip out the blond hair, to put his wand to Malfoy’s chest and finish it all. But behind the blinding anger in his brain was the echo of Ginny, telling him how frightened Hermione was that he’d do something rash and get taken away – that Hermione could bear anything but that. And then there was Hermione’s face – the livid fear in her eyes whenever there was a chance that he might fight.

He wasn’t going to do it. He wouldn’t hurt Hermione over Malfoy.

"Go home," he managed hoarsely, releasing Malfoy’s collar with a violent yank and tearing Malfoy’s hands from his own shirt. "Get out."

"Scared?" Malfoy laughed. "Don’t know what to do without Potter?"

"Get out."

"Or do you want me to get out of the way so you can get back to the new girlfriend? Does that Mudblood you sleep with know you’re having it off with someone else –"

There was a rush of noise and air. In seconds, Ron had released Malfoy, grabbed the bar, and hurled his body over it, barely landing on his feet. He heard glass shatter on the floor, but didn’t heed it. Blood pounded in his ears. His wand was in his hand and he held it at the ready for a duel. Malfoy stumbled from his stool and pulled his own weapon, pointing it out at Ron.

They circled each other slowly. Ron felt there was nothing – nothing – stronger than his hatred at that moment. His heart pounded furiously, sending a rage of blood through every vein. Over Malfoy’s shoulders he saw Jimmy and Andrew rise from their table, hands on their wands. The girls they were sitting with did the same. Even Lipsett got up, suddenly quite sober, and pulled his wand. Goldie watched Ron intently, and Sirius stood still, waiting, ready to step in at any moment. The other patrons had backed against the walls.

Malfoy didn’t seem to see any of it. He looked delighted, as though he knew he’d tapped successfully into the sorest spot of all. Ron could barely bring himself to speak. It was bad enough that his brother was dead. Bad enough that his father had been accused of murder in public, and that his own pride had been wounded. But Lucius Malfoy had been entirely to blame for the attack on Hermione’s parents, and everybody knew it. Malfoy knew it. Malfoy had given his sick father the idea in the first place. And now Malfoy was smiling, and opening his mouth to throw another taunt.

I’m not going to do it. I won’t. I won’t...

Malfoy took careless aim with his wand and spoke. "Careful, Weasley... Don’t get sacked... How will you support that orphaned bitch and the next litter of paupers – "

Ron lunged. He had forgotten his wand, he only wanted to attack – attack – he had almost hurled himself onto Malfoy when he felt a strong grip on his arm. His body was yanked unceremoniously back from the fight before it could even begin and he stood, his back against the bar, panting.

"That’s enough." It was Sirius’s voice. Ron was still shaking with rage – he lunged toward Malfoy again immediately but Sirius blocked him. "It’s all right."

Ron looked into Sirius’s face and knew it was over. He was at once incredibly incensed that he wouldn’t be allowed to finish this himself, and incredibly grateful that someone was going to stop him from committing a serious crime.

Malfoy, in the meantime, had whirled to look at Sirius. His face, which had been flushed with alcohol and anger, turned pale. He had apparently been unaware that Sirius Black was present in the room. The bitter anger in Malfoy’s face didn’t waver, but he took several steps backward, slamming into a table. He raised his wand unsteadily.

"Expelliarmus." Sirius didn’t even raise his voice. Malfoy’s wand flew across the bar and Sirius held onto it. "Get outside."

"I vill show him de vay out." Goldie was out of his seat and walking toward Malfoy, who was cowering and clearly humiliated. The old barkeep reached out a stout hand to guide the young man to the door by his shoulder, but Malfoy threw him off.

"Don’t touch me," he hissed, stumbling along the table toward the door, blond hair falling in his eyes.

Ron followed in Malfoy’s inebriated wake. He followed until he’d backed Malfoy up against the wall beside the door to the Snout’s Fair, and held out his wand, not quite sure what he wanted to do. He only knew that the glittering hatred in Malfoy’s eyes was real, and that his own matched it.

"Ron." Sirius’s voice was steady behind him. "Don’t. It’s all right."

"I know it. I’m not going to do anything."

To his own surprise, he found he was telling the truth. He still ached to inflict pain on his enemy, but the fight was over. Malfoy was shaking. Ron muttered a spell in his direction, making him flinch in terror - but it was nothing more harmful than a Sobering Charm. Ron then turned and handed his wand to Sirius, not trusting himself to carry it. "I’ll take him outside," he announced flatly.

Sirius took the wand and nodded.

Ron turned back and pulled open the heavy wooden door; Malfoy stepped sideways and backed through it, practically falling backwards down the stone stoop and into the cobbled road.

"Give me my wand, you son of a bitch," Malfoy demanded, when he’d steadied himself. "Go and get it from that escapee and give it back."

Ron felt a sick lurch of anger, but he was unwilling to start up again; he turned back to get him his wand and get him out of there.

He wasn’t expecting to be punched in the side of his head.

It was a blind side – Malfoy waited until Ron had turned just a fraction past his line of peripheral vision, then struck. Having no wand, he’d struck with his fist.

The blow was intensely painful. Ron staggered to the side, wondering if some bone was being shattered - he felt several cracks and tasted blood in the ridges of his teeth. He’d bitten his tongue. There was also something dripping down his cheek. Ron knocked into the outer wall of the pub, his head ringing with pain, his eyes glazing over. He looked dazedly at the faces that were pressed against the window, watching him – Jimmy and Andrew and Sirius – but their faces seemed to swim in his vision before disappearing from the window. Ron imagined they were running for the door, but he didn’t have time to consider it. The moment he steadied himself and turned to face his assailant, he was forced to act.

Malfoy’s fist was coming back toward him – it was within two inches of his nose, and sailing at light speed. Ron had no time to think; he raised his arm to ward off the blow, swinging his fist in a wide arc toward Malfoy’s arm in an effort to beat it away. A loud crack told him he’d connected with something. A thud told him that Malfoy had hit the ground.

Ron gaped in disbelief at Malfoy’s unconscious form, sprawled on the cobblestones, then slowly reached up and felt the side of his head with his hand. His temple was a mess of sticky wetness, and he drew his fingers away, wincing. Blood glistened on his hand, in the moonlight.

"Hermione," he mumbled. Ron stared dumbly from his hand to Malfoy, whose fist was lying slack and seemed to be sticking off his arm at a bizarre angle. Ron wondered if the bones he’d felt cracking had been Malfoy’s.

Sirius barreled through the door with Jimmy and Andrew on his heels. Behind them, Ron could see the customers in the Snout’s Fair straining for a look outside, while Goldie ushered them all back to their seats and took up Ron’s post behind the bar. Jimmy shut the door; he and Andrew stepped out into the street, their eyes on Malfoy’s crumpled form.

Sirius made straight for Ron. "You all right?" he demanded.

Ron looked dazedly away from Malfoy’s pale hand and glanced at the blood on his own. "He asked me for his wand, I turned to go in and get it, and he tried knocking me out..." He turned his face so that Sirius could see the damage.

Sirius let out a low whistle. "He did a number on you," he mused, raising his wand and muttering a spell that Ron recognized from his episodes under Madam Pomfrey’s care as a Disinfecting Charm. Ron’s temple stung, and the throbbing in his head worsened. A moment later, he felt the wet trickle begin to run down the side of his face again; he raised his hand and felt more blood.

"Don’t know how he broke the skin," he mumbled, gazing down at Malfoy’s fist. "What do we do with him?"

"Take him back to Lewis’s house. Let his mother deal with him." Sirius did another quick spell, which stopped Ron’s blood from flowing on his face, then turned to Andrew and Jimmy. "You two," he demanded. "You witnessed this?"

"Yeah," they answered together, and Quinn raised his wand. "Recorded it, I think. I don’t know if I got anything."

"But what did you see?" Sirius pressed.

"Malfoy punched him," Quinn answered at once.

"And Ron punched back to block another hit – self defense – I saw it from the door," Jimmy finished.

"All right," Sirius said gravely. "Good to know, just in case. You can both go in – we’ve got it from here."

Ginny’s old classmates shot a last, dubious look at Malfoy’s body before going back into the pub.

Sirius magicked Malfoy’s body off the ground in order to float it up the road and back to his summer home, and Ron watched, not sure what to feel. Hanging in midair, slack and defeated, Malfoy looked suddenly vulnerable and sad. His right hand still appeared to be twisted. Ron pointed the injury out to Sirius, who came around and examined it closely.

"Broken. In several places."

"What, on my head?" Ron asked in surprise, reaching up to gingerly touch the sticky, throbbing wound.

"Hardest bone in your body." Sirius let out a snort of contempt. "He’s a fool. And here’s the reason you’re bleeding." Sirius lifted Malfoy’s ring finger. The moonlight glinted on the ornate, golden ring he wore, which bore a large ‘M’ in Gothic script. It was ostentatious and wet with blood, but was clearly a costly heirloom. Sirius dropped Malfoy’s broken hand without regard for its injury and surveyed him for a moment with open disgust before turning and waving his body up the street ahead of them. "Let’s go." He motioned to Ron.

"My shift’s not over," Ron protested vaguely, gesturing to the pub.

"Yes it is. Come on."

Ron followed Malfoy’s body alongside Sirius, thinking about the fight, and the gash on his head, and the ring that had probably belonged to Lucius. He couldn’t help remembering how Malfoy’s eyes had been bloodshot when he’d first mentioned his father’s death. Ron shuddered at the thought that it could easily have been Arthur Weasley’s death on that day. This fight could easily have taken place in reverse – and something close to pity surfaced in him. It might even have been real pity, if it hadn’t been for Malfoy’s ugly remarks about his father. His finances. His family. Percy. He’d had to go and say those things about Percy, who was dead and couldn’t fight for himself any longer.

And Hermione. Ron shuddered again, but this time it was out of loathing and hatred. Nobody called Hermione anything. The words Malfoy had used were unforgivable – calling her an orphan, as if it wasn’t his fault that she was one. Calling her a... Ron didn’t even want to remember the words, though they came back and rang loudly in his mind anyway. He trained his eyes on the sleek, pale blond head that hovered just a meter ahead of him, and silently told Malfoy how lucky he was to be alive.

"I would’ve killed him." Sirius’s voice broke into Ron’s string of mental threats. His tone was mild and even, but Ron sensed the truth behind it, and he turned his head to give his honest answer.

"I – I think I was about to."

"That’s why I stopped you. He’s not worth twelve years in prison." Sirius stopped walking in front of Lewis Manor’s wide, manicured lawn, and looked straight at Ron. "Not much is."

"Hermione is." Ron felt a burn in his face, saying those words aloud on the dark, quiet street. But they were true.

Sirius smiled briefly. "Her life is. Absolutely. But that wasn’t at stake."

"Her parents – Percy –"

"I know. Like I said, I’d have killed him. Especially at your age."

Ron returned Sirius’s focused gaze, but was not sure what to say. He couldn’t possibly understand what was behind those words, coming from a man who had spent twelve years in Azkaban. Ron didn’t feel nearly equal to him. It was odd, standing out here with Harry’s godfather, the powerful wizard who had served at the head of the Order of the Phoenix, having a conversation of this magnitude.

So he shrugged it off. "Guess we’d better get him inside."

Sirius looked at Ron a moment, his eyes very distant. He shook himself and turned his gaze toward Malfoy’s inert shape in the air. "I’ll deal with his mother. You go do something about that cut before it gets any more revolting."

Ron snorted, and felt his temple, which was a congealing mess. "Thanks a lot."

Sirius grinned. "See you in a few minutes." He walked up the path toward the massive front doors of the Lewis house, driving Malfoy’s body before him. Ron headed up and across the road to Lupin Lodge, hoping for a dark house and a sleeping Hermione. He needed to get this blood off him. He opened the door and went in, listening for voices, but it seemed quiet enough. Making as little noise as possible, Ron went down the hall and cut into the front room, going straight for the stairs.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-04