CHAPTER TWO


Draco felt a cough tear itself from his throat, and his chest ached with it. His whole body ached with it, vibrating through his bruised rib cage and his throbbing wrist and his cold, muddy face. He didn’t know who had attacked him—one of them had jumped him from behind and held him in a chokehold while the second one punched him in the face. After that, he had been in too much pain to care who it was, kicking him and beating him until he couldn’t see straight. They hadn’t let up, not for a second, only now, it seemed like it had been several seconds since that last kick. Vaguely, he heard a shout—too far away to hear what it was—and then, only silence.

The next thing he heard was footsteps, squelching through the mud towards him. He should get up, he thought—try to run—but the thought of even getting to his feet was laughable.

He peeked his eyes open just as the footsteps stopped, and found himself peering at a pair of short, fur-lined boots. The sort of boots girls wore. That was odd. Not that a girl couldn’t have jumped him, he supposed…

“Are you all right?” a girl’s voice asked. A familiar voice. “Can you…”

The voice trailed off. Draco hissed in pain as he drew a deep breath in and uncurled enough to raise his head.

The Weasley girl stood there, towering over him. Ginny Weasley.

Malfoy?” She looked gobsmacked, staring down at him. Draco gawked up at her in turn.

“It…was you?” he managed to get out, still breathing shallow breaths. Breathing was very painful at the moment.

The Weasley girl crouched down so that her face was close to his, though she didn’t touch him or make any move to help him. She didn’t look so much concerned as wary. “What did you say?”

“You…” Draco grimaced “…jumped me?”

“What? Don’t be stupid, of course not! I just chased off the two that were beating you!”

Oh. That made more sense. Well, he was not sure why any Weasley would come to his aid, but then, it wouldn’t be the first time. And besides, she was a bloody Gryffindor. She just couldn’t help it, he supposed.

Draco groaned and managed to roll onto his back. He sucked in another careful breath. There was mud all over his face, and it was sludgy and cold. He tried to wipe it off with his hand, but the moment he moved his arm, another shooting pain lanced through his wrist.

“That looks broken,” Weasley told him, very clinically. She still didn’t sound concerned, and she still didn’t move to help him. Draco was a little annoyed about this, but then he remembered her face when she’d run into him the other day, outside of the Transfiguration classroom. He remembered how all the color had drained from her when she’d seen him, he remembered the look that had come into her eyes, so hostile…no, more than hostile.

In that moment, he’d known that she hated him.

So maybe asking her to help him wasn’t such a good idea. After all, he was pretty sure he deserved her hatred.

“What did you do, anyway?” she asked him.

“Wh-what?”

“What did you do? Why did they attack you?”

A surge of indignation rose in Draco, completely at odds with the thought he’d just had about deserving her hatred. “I didn’t do anything.” He raised his other arm to wipe his face, but that hand was just as mud-caked, and all he really did was move the mud around.

“So you expect me to believe that two people jumped you for no reason?”

Well, they probably had reason, or at least, they thought they did, Draco reflected. But— “I wasn’t doing anything, all right?” Another raspy cough escaped his lips, and his ribcage burned with pain. He lifted his arm further, trying to get at his face with his sleeve. “I was only—walking—going back to the castle—”

“Oh, stop that, Malfoy. Here.” Draco blinked through the mud, and when he lifted his arm from his face, he saw Weasley unwinding the scarf from around her neck. She thrust it at him. “Use this.”

Draco was surprised, but he didn’t hesitate to take the scarf. He winced as he dabbed it at his face. His jaw felt tender and his lip was swelling up.

“Can you stand?” she asked briskly.

That was a good question. Tucking her scarf inside his coat, he rolled onto his left—onto the arm that wasn’t broken—and tried to push himself into a seated position. He grit his teeth against another moan—which he did not quite manage to suppress, resulting in a pitiful, mewling sound escaping him—but he had done it. Well, he wasn’t standing, but he was sitting. That was an improvement.

He looked at Weasley. He could see her better now that he was upright and there wasn’t so much mud covering his face. Her freckled cheeks were flushed from the cold, her hair still bound in the same braid she’d worn during the match. He had watched the match by himself from beneath the stands, and waited until everyone had gone before making his way back. Which now seemed quite stupid, as it had left him alone and vulnerable to the two who had attacked him.

Of course, that begged the question whether anyone would have stopped them, even if they’d jumped him in front of everyone else. He supposed a teacher would have put a stop to it, out of principle, if nothing else.

One thing was for sure—no one from his House would have helped him. Probably not even Goyle. The thought hurt more than it should have.

Weasley was staring at him, her brow wrinkled. Then, abruptly, her face cleared and she said, all business-like, “Well, come on, then. You’d better get to the hospital wing.”

Another surprise. Though she hadn’t said she’d help him get to the hospital wing. But when he shifted all his weight onto his left arm to push himself up, she ducked around and got beneath his arm, helping him to stand. It was a good thing too, because as soon as he stood, a wave of dizziness swept over him.

“Careful, Malfoy,” Weasley muttered, staggering a little, as though he’d nearly fainted on purpose. “If you pass out, I’m not levitating you to the hospital wing. I’m just not.”

“Good to know,” he mumbled. It was certainly incentive to hang onto his consciousness with every pained step he took.

For a long while, neither of them said anything, as they slowly wound their way back to the castle. It was a long way, and Draco needed most of his attention to focus on not passing out. But as they left the pitch behind and ventured into the dark, Draco bit his cheek and said, “Did you…see them? Who they were?”

“I—no.” Weasley sounded rattled. “No. I didn’t.”

Draco thought there was something a little too hasty about her answer.

An hour later, he was in the hospital wing, mercifully if not comfortably tucked into a bed, with Madam Pompfrey fussing over him. She’d mended his wrist at once, and his bruised ribs too, though she said he’d still have some pain for a day or two.

Weasley was still there, too. She stood some ways away, speaking to Professor Sinistra and Professor Slughorn about what had happened. Professor Slughorn actually seemed concerned, which Draco thought was decent of him, although the man hadn’t actually talked to him at all.

“But you didn’t see who these attackers were?” Professor Sinistra asked Ginny. She was a small woman, dainty even, with jet black hair that was lined with gray. Small though she was, she could be very stern. An apt replacement for McGonagall as Head of Gryffindor.

“No…no, I’m sorry.” Ginny shook her head. “It was too dark, and…I just couldn’t tell.”

Professor Sinistra left shortly after that, and so did Slughorn, once he’d had a quick word with Madam Pompfrey. Draco sipped carefully at a glass of water, watching Weasley out of the corner of his eye. She was pulling her jumper on, and she didn’t look at him once as she zipped it up and turned to go. Draco let her take a step towards the door before he said, “Weasley.”

She stopped dead. It seemed a long time before she turned around, though it was probably only a second or two. “What, Malfoy?” she asked wearily, tucking her hands into her pockets.

Draco took another sip of water. “You’re not a very good liar.”

“Excuse me?” She stamped over to him in an instant, and Draco reflected, with some humor, how easy it was to provoke her.

“You hesitate too much,” Draco said into his glass. “I suppose it’s that Gryffindor nobility. Some part of you just doesn’t feel right being dishonest, even if it is to protect one of your own.”

“What are you talking about, Malfoy?”

Draco dipped his head in a nod towards the door, through which both professors had left. “I’m talking about what you told them. That you didn’t recognize the people who attacked me. That’s not quite true, is it?”

“It was dark, Malfoy, I couldn’t see anything—”

“See?” Draco said, and he even managed a pleasant tone. “Right there? You dropped your eyes when you said it. You wouldn’t look at me.”

Ginny glared. She took another step forward, her knees knocking against the side of his bed, and then she leaned forward, looking him right in the eye. “It was dark. I couldn’t see anything.”

Draco felt his pleasant expression slip. It was too disconcerting, her close proximity, and he sank back a little. “So maybe you heard something, then. Something they said.”

Her venomous expression wavered. That was all the confirmation he needed.

Weasley blew out an irritated breath, leaning back. “I thought I heard…but I can’t be sure, Malfoy. I really don’t know, all right? I just…it couldn’t have been, anyway—”

“Why? Because it was a Gryffindor?” Draco felt his ire rising, though he tried to conceal it from her. “And that’s not something a brave, noble Gryffindor would do, jumping someone from behind, two on one?”

Weasley’s eyes narrowed. “It does sound more like something a Slytherin would do, doesn’t it?”

“Merlin.” Draco set his water glass aside, grimacing at the twinge of pain in his middle. “It’s almost funny, Weasley. Ironic, even.”

“What is?”

“How prejudiced you are.”

“What!” Weasley gaped at him. “You’re calling me prejudiced? You, a—a Death Eater—”

“Former Death Eater,” he corrected her, ignoring the wash of guilt that flooded through him.

“You, who sided with Voldemort against Muggles and Muggleborns, you, who’s always hated me and my family for blood traitors—”

“Yes, my prejudices are well-established, Weasley, thank you,” he said waspishly. “But we weren’t talking about me, we were talking about you.”

Weasley was stone-faced. “I am not prejudiced.”

“You can’t credit that someone outside of Slytherin would have attacked me, much less someone from your own House.” Draco clasped his hands together in his lap. It was amusing, provoking her, but about this, he was dead serious. “And though no one in my House is very fond of me right now, none of them hate me. None of them would have attacked me.”

“Yes, I’d noticed you don’t quite occupy the grand place you used to, in your House. Vaisey seems to think he’s in charge now.”

“Vaisey’s a punk,” Draco said bitterly. “I don’t care what he thinks.” That was true. Draco didn’t miss being “in charge,” he didn’t miss the stature he used to command in Slytherin House. He barely remembered what that felt like, or why it had ever been so important. What he was missed was…someone, anyone, to talk to. He missed Crabbe, even though he’d nearly gotten Draco killed. He missed Goyle. He even missed Zabini, annoying sod that he was.

Maybe that was why he was talking to Weasley. God, that was low, even for him.

“Anyway, you’re missing the point,” he told her. “Or avoiding it, more like. You’re a blind fool if you don’t think a Ravenclaw or a Hufflepuff or yes, even a Gryffindor would attack me, Weasley.”

“Well, you’ve certainly given them plenty of reason to, Malfoy!” she burst out. Fury shone in her eyes. “Haven’t you?”

Another wave of guilt swooped through him, stronger this time, harder to ignore. He felt his hands began to shake, and he clutched them together as tight as he could. “I suppose I have.”

Weasley goggled at him.

“But not every Slytherin is to blame for what happened last year,” he added, and he didn’t bother to hide his ire now. “And yet, that hasn’t stopped every single person in Slytherin House from being targeted by the rest of you.”

“What?” Ginny spluttered. “No one is targeting Slytherins. That’s ridiculous.”

“What’s ridiculous is that you haven’t seen it, Weasley.” Draco leaned his head back against his pillow and closed his eyes. He was suddenly very, very tired, and he desperately wanted that dreamless sleep potion he’d turned down from Pompfrey a little while ago. “Like I said. A blind fool.”

********


Draco remained in the hospital wing for another day, and by Monday he was back in classes, and more or less back to his full strength. His ribs still ached a little, especially if he coughed or laughed, but since he didn’t have much to laugh at these days, that wasn’t really a problem.

It was a little nervous, going back to class Monday morning, walking the corridors with all the other students, knowing two of them had attacked him. Still, he wasn’t as frightened by the idea as he would have been once. Draco had never been especially brave, or in fact, brave at all, but after everything that had happened the last two years, it was just hard to be afraid of a couple of students, even after the beating they had given him. There was a time when Draco had feared physical pain, probably more than almost anything else, but he had learned that there were things far worse.

Taking a beating seemed a meager fear, after being forced to torture so many others. And Draco wasn’t about to let anyone else do that to him ever again.

His last class on Monday was Ancient Runes, up on the second floor of the castle. It was a small class, made up mostly of Ravenclaws and, of course, Granger, who was in all the same classes Draco was, and probably more besides. Still, there were a handful of Slytherins as well—Tracey Davis and Cole Harper, neither of whom Draco was very friendly with, and also, Blaise Zabini.

Draco had never really been friends with Blaise either, though they had sometimes run in the same circles, given that they’d always shared a dormitory and most of their classes. Draco had just never really liked Blaise. He never said much, and yet Draco had always had the sense that Blaise was laughing at him. As though Blaise was so much better than he was. He’d never gotten better marks than Draco, he didn’t play Quidditch or do anything to distinguish himself, and his family, though enormously wealthy, was not a name that earned a lot of respect in most circles. Really, all Blaise had going for him was that he was ridiculously good-looking, and the fact that he seemed content with that annoyed Draco to no end.

They had never really been friends. And everyone in Slytherin House seemed to be doing their best to ignore Draco these days, which was why he was surprised, after Ancient Runes, to find Blaise walking back to the dungeons with him.

He was not precisely walking with him. It was more that they were going in the same direction, and walking at relatively the same pace. Judging by the startled look Blaise gave him as they rounded a corner, he’d probably been lost in thought and hadn’t even realized they’d been walking together. Blaise quickly broke eye contact with him, and Draco half-expected him to pick up his pace, or maybe even pull some stupid trick, like stop to “tie his shoelace.” But Blaise did neither of those things. He just kept walking, keeping pace with Draco, as they reached a stairwell and started down towards the ground floor.

Draco supposed Blaise was too cool—or thought he was too cool—to let on that he didn’t want to walk with Draco.

But then Zabini surprised him all the more by actually speaking.

“What are you doing back here, Malfoy? At school, I mean.”

Draco stared at him dumbly for a moment, too staggered that Blaise had spoken to him to reply. Then he processed what he’d said, and his defenses flew up. “I have as much right to be back here as you do, Zabini.”

“So defensive.” Blaise’s eyes glittered with amusement. “Did I say you shouldn’t be here? I just asked why.”

“Well, why’re you here? You didn’t have to come back, so far as I can tell.”

“Some of us have to work for a living, Draco,” Blaise said dryly. “We can’t all be independently wealthy and lounge around a manor all our lives. And one typically needs
N.E.W.T.s to get a job.”

Draco snorted. “No, I suppose we can’t all be independently wealthy, but you surely can. Your mother is probably wealthier than my family, by now.”

“I doubt that,” Blaise demurred, “and anyway, that’s my mother, Malfoy. She doesn’t want me living off her for the rest of my life, and frankly, nor do I.”

Draco found that hard to believe. He was pretty sure Blaise had a brother who had graduated from Hogwarts several years ago and didn’t do anything at all. But he put that aside for now. If Blaise wanted to pretend he needed or wanted a job, Draco could play along. “All right, then. So you’re back taking Ancient Runes and Potions and…what else? Or are those the only classes you’re taking?” They were the only two they had together.

“I’m taking Charms,” Blaise said lightly.

“Charms.” Draco stared at Blaise as they rounded the stairwell landing. “Ancient Runes, Potions, and Charms. Exactly what kind of job are you planning to get with those N.E.W.T.s?”

“Who knows? Maybe I’ll be a Curse Breaker.”

“Except you’re not taking Defense Against the Dark Arts,” Draco pointed out, “which I think is fairly important if you want to be a Curse Breaker. And I don’t remember you being particularly good at that class either, so it’s not like you could take your N.E.W.T. without another year of it.”

“Draco, I had no idea you paid such close attention to my class performance,” Blaise said, but there was a thin layer of malice beneath his voice now, belying his calm demeanor. “And you never answered my question. What are you doing back here? Since we both know you don’t need a job.”

“I still have to take my N.E.W.T.s,” Draco said quietly. “It’s not like I can just drop out of school.” That was a matter of status, which Blaise knew very well.

“And you couldn’t take them without more schooling? Only, I would think you could manage a sufficient amount of them without another year.”

He wasn’t wrong, though nor was he probably as right as he thought. Last year hadn’t exactly been conducive to learning, not even for Draco—maybe even especially for Draco, though most of the other students would never believe that. Part of that was his fault. He had done everything he could last year to stay on top, so to speak, to continue as he always had, throwing his weight around and looking down on everyone else. It had made things easier, to go on as though nothing had changed at Hogwarts, even though everything had changed—even though the school corridors were so much like the same terror he faced at home, with Death Eaters and the Dark Lord in and out of the manor all the time.

But though outwardly, Draco had probably seemed unruffled by the changes in the school, inwardly, he had been so often terrified and distressed that, frankly, it was a miracle he’d managed to learn anything.

None of which was the real reason he was back at Hogwarts. He probably could have taken his N.E.W.T.s and scraped by with enough to please his parents. But he didn’t feel like divulging one of the most vulnerable parts of himself to Zabini, so he was rather ridiculously overwhelmed with relief when, as they reached the bottom of the staircase, Draco spotted Ginny Weasley coming in from outside with a slew of other students.

Before he had thought about what he was doing, he raised an arm and called, “Weasley!” And he waved. At Weasley.

Weasley looked over at him. Judging by the look on her face, she rather thought he had gone mad, and judging by the look Blaise shot him, he thought the same thing. As the other students flowed in through the open doors and dispersed up the staircases or into the Great Hall, Weasley hesitated, glancing at the girl beside her—the Lovegood girl. Lovegood shrugged at Weasley, with the same vacant expression she always wore, and then, half-resigned and half-suspicious Ginny trudged over to him, with Lovegood in tow.

“What do you want, Malfoy?” Ginny demanded. “I see Madam Pompfrey managed to heal all your bruises.”

Draco cleared his throat. “Yes, my face is just as handsome as ever.” Now why had he said that?

Weasley scowled. “I wouldn’t go that far. Now what do you want?”

He took a step away from the staircase, back towards the passage down to the dungeons. “I still have your scarf,” he told her. “If you come with me, I can give it back to you.” He jerked his head towards the way to their common room.

Now Weasley looked more suspicious than ever. “Why don’t you just bring it to dinner and give it to me then?”

“Yeah, right,” Draco scoffed, “like I’m just going to walk up to the Gryffindor table in the middle of the Great Hall. I don’t actually want to get jumped again, Weasley.”

Weasley rolled her eyes. “No one is going to jump you in the middle of dinner—”

“Will you just come with me?” Draco demanded. He was not sure why he was being so insistent about this; only that, now that she was arguing with him about it, he didn’t want to back down. “It will only take a minute.”

Once again, Weasley exchanged a look with Lovegood, who was still wearing that dotty smile. “I’ll come with you, Ginny,” she said.

“Thanks, Luna,” Ginny said sourly. “Fine, Malfoy. Lead the way.”

Blaise—who, for some inexplicable reason, had not moved on during this exchange—arched an eyebrow at Draco as they headed down the stairwell to the dungeons. “I had no idea you and Weasley were so chummy.”

“We’re not,” Weasley said curtly, half a step behind them.

“And yet you lent him your scarf,” Blaise said.

Lent is a strong way of putting it,” Weasley grumbled, even though, Draco reflected, that was exactly what she had done. It wasn’t as though he’d taken it from her against her will.

They walked in silence for a couple of minutes, the four of them traversing the dim, winding corridors towards the Slytherin common room. Then Lovegood said, very pleasantly, “I’ve never seen the Slytherin common room before. Is it as dark as all the rest of this is?”

“Yes,” said Blaise.

“You’re not going to see it now,” Draco said, his old House loyalties flaring up by rote. “No one outside Slytherin House has ever been in our common room, not in seven hundred years.”

Weasley snorted a laugh at that.

Draco eyed her sidelong. “Something funny, Weasley?”

“No.” Weasley widened her eyes innocently. “Not at all.”

Draco frowned. “You wouldn’t let anyone into your common rooms, surely.”

“No,” Weasley admitted, “but—”

“I did let Harry into the Ravenclaw common room last year,” Lovegood said, perfectly serene, “but then, that was when the battle against Voldemort was going on, so they were rather extraordinary circumstances.”

Draco and Blaise exchanged quick, uncomfortable glances.

“It’s just,” Weasley said, breaking through the tension—perhaps not even noticing it— “no outsider has been in your common room for seven hundred years? Doesn’t that seem a bit unlikely?”

“It’s true,” Draco said stoutly.

“Supposedly,” Blaise added.

Draco glowered.

“What?” Blaise asked, as they rounded the final corner to their common room. “It does seem a bit unlikely, especially since—” He broke off short, staring up ahead.

Draco followed his gaze, and when he did, he stuttered to a halt in the middle of the corridor, his annoyance evaporating. Lovegood bumped right into him from behind, but Draco barely noticed.

“What…?” Weasley slowed to a stop. “Is that your common room?”

It was the common room. Exposed, for everyone to see. The stretch of wall that usually concealed it was pulled back, and stuck open, it seemed. There was something on the wall beside it—something…red…it looked like, like red paint or maybe…

Weasley took her wand out at once. She ventured around Blaise and started down the corridor, approaching the open common room door. Taking out her own wand, Lovegood followed and Draco, reluctantly, did the same. Blaise stayed where he was.

Weasley came to a halt right in front of the open door. Draco joined her a moment later, and what he saw made his stomach sink.

The common room had been trashed. All the armchairs were overturned, the tables too; one of them had even been blasted to bits. Graffiti was inked all over the walls, foul language and insults, from what Draco could see. Rubbish littered the floor, some of it just parchment, possibly from their own rubbish bins, but there was other refuse as well, rotten food and worse.

“Well,” said Blaise, and Draco jumped; he had not realized the other Slytherin had come to join them, “it looks like someone did get into the common room after all.”

“Is that the lake?” Lovegood pointed through the windows in the back wall. “That’s quite pretty, isn’t it?”

Draco did not bother to respond to this rather inane comment, and neither did Weasley. In fact, Weasley looked quite pale. She was no longer gazing into the common room, but at the wall beside the entrance. Draco looked too.

There, on the wall, someone had left a large message in dripping red paint. Definitely paint, he noted with relief, not blood. When he read the message though, he was far from comforted.

It read “GO HOME, SLYTHERINS.”

Grimly, Draco looked at Weasley. “Still think the Slytherins aren’t being targeted, Weasley?”

********


The dead quiet at dinner in the Great Hall that night spoke clearly to the tension and dread overlaying the castle. Professor McGonagall addressed all the students, condemning the actions of whoever it was that broke into the Slytherin common room, but, Draco thought bitterly, he wasn’t sure how effective those words were coming from her, since she was a former Gryffindor and had chucked all the Slytherins out during the battle at the school less than six months ago.

The Slytherins were all to sleep in the Great Hall that night, while the common room was cleared and cleaned and, Draco suspected, checked for any sabotaging jinxes left behind. Puffy, green sleeping bags were conjured for them all. Draco thought the sight should have been comforting, that sea of Slytherin green, but he couldn’t help but remember the purple sleeping bags Dumbledore had conjured in third year, when Sirius Black had broken into the castle—purple, a neutral color, because the whole student body had been under attack that day. Not just the Slytherins.

Though it was barely eight o’clock, most of the Slytherins were already in the Great Hall, not sleeping, but doing homework and talking in hushed, worried whispers. Draco didn’t want to hang around until it was time for bed, so he decided to see if they would let him into the Slytherin common room, so he could fetch his half-finished Potions essay and work on it in the library. The Slytherin prefects and a couple of teachers were “on watch” around the Great Hall, but no one tried to stop him when he left and started down the stairwell to the dungeons.

When he reached the bottom of the stairwell, however, he found someone blocking his way—not intentionally, and it was not a teacher or a prefect. Instead, he found Ginny Weasley, of all people, sitting on the bottom step. Her back was to him, and she sat hunched over, but her red hair was unmistakable. When his foot came down on the stair behind her, she jumped up, her hand going into her robe—presumably for her wand. She was white-faced—just like she had been earlier, when they’d found the common room broken into—and for some reason, the sight irritated Draco. After all, it was not her common room that had been broken into, it was not her privacy and safety that had been violated.

“Merlin,” she gasped when she saw him. “You scared me.”

“What are you doing down here?” he demanded, his tone more accusing than he meant it to be.

“None of your business.” She was still a little wild around the eyes, and Draco could not think why. “What are you doing down here?”

Draco gestured impatiently. “That is my common room down that way—”

“You can’t get in, or did you forget?”

“I left something—”

“Well, they’re not letting anyone in, not even Slytherins, I was just there.”

“Why?” Draco demanded for the second time.

Ginny scowled. “I told you. None of your business.”

“Maybe it is my business, Weasley,” he shot back. He was trying not to do this. He reminded himself that he was trying not to do this, stirring things up with anyone, especially a Weasley, especially one of Potter’s lot. But he wasn’t picking on her because she was poor or even a blood traitor; he was angry, because they had been targeted, and she was still acting like it was somehow their own fault. Draco could admit that he might have had it coming, but that didn’t mean that all of Slytherin House did. “After all, someone broke into our common room this afternoon, and here you are, for no reason at all—”

Ginny let out a disbelieving laugh. “Are you accusing me of breaking into your common room? I was in Herbology before I met up with you in the entrance hall, Malfoy—”

“And yet, here you are, acting very jumpy, for some reason—”

“Like you said, someone broke into your common room!” she snapped, and her voice was a little tinnier than usual. “So if I seem jumpy, I should think it obvious why!”

“Obvious? Because you’re so concerned for us Slytherins? Or, no—” Draco came down the last step, putting him on even footing with Weasley, and also putting him in closer proximity to her. “What, are you worried your common room is going to be next? Because I doubt that will happen, Weasley. Go home, Slytherins, that’s a pretty specific message, don’t you think?”

Weasley looked paler than ever. “I know what it said, Malfoy.”

“Good, I’m glad you remember.” He took another step towards her. “So maybe, then, you want to explain what you’re doing down here.”

She had her wand out and pointed at him in a flash. “Stay away from me, Malfoy.”

Draco froze. And it was not just from fear for himself, fear of what she might do to him. It was also because he realized what he was doing, exactly what he didn’t want to do. Threaten and bully and intimidate. He took a step back, but the rush of shame that tore through him was too much to bear, too unwieldy, and he didn’t want it, so he said, “What is wrong with you, Weasley? The war is over, didn’t anyone tell you?”

Over?” Her eyes flashed, and Draco knew at once that he’d said the wrong thing. Not just a wrong thing, but the wrong thing. “Over? Is that what you think? The war’s not over, Malfoy, it can’t be over, not for me, not for the rest of us—” She was trembling from head to toe, and though she’d lowered her wand, she still clutched it tightly enough that Draco was worried. And not just worried for himself.

“Maybe it’s over for you,” she pushed on, relentless, like a runaway train barreling down the tracks, uncontrolled and unstable. “You and your family, you just name some names, get Harry to vouch for you, and everything’s back to normal, isn’t it? You can just go on living your life, like nothing’s changed—”

Everything has changed, Weasley.” He was almost afraid to speak up beneath her onslaught, but this point hit home so acutely, he couldn’t stay silent. “Merlin, why do you think I’m here? Why do you think I came back?

“I don’t care, Malfoy!” She came at him then, not with her wand but with her fists, and Draco was too startled to do anything as she shoved him, hard, in the chest, so hard that he stumbled against the stairs. “I don’t care why you’re back, I don’t give a damn about what you think you’ve suffered, you don’t know anything—” Now she hit him, pounding a fist against his chest, and it was such a feeble hit, such a useless gesture. “You haven’t lost anyone, you haven’t been tortured, you haven’t watched your friends die, your brother isn’t dead—”

That’s not true, he wanted to say, thinking of Vincent with a twinge of regret, but he couldn’t say anything now, not while her eyes were gleaming with angry, unshed tears, not while she was yelling at him in a voice so raw—

“So don’t tell me it’s over,” she seethed. “Nothing is over. Don’t you get it? I’m still fighting. I can’t stop.”
Her voice really broke on that last word, and she gulped in a breath, as though she had spent it all, every bit of breath in her lungs. It was silent then, so silent, the only sound that of Weasley’s shallow breaths.

Draco felt as though something had lodged in his throat. When he spoke—when he dared to speak—his voice was as wrecked as hers, as though he had been the one screaming for the past five minutes. “But you don’t have to fight us,” he said, and he didn’t mean to sound so pleading, so desperate. He gestured in the direction of the common room. “We’re not the enemy, I’m not—you don’t have to fight me, Weasley.”

“So, what, then? We’re all in this together?” Weasley’s voice rose with incredulity. “Why? Because you have no other option now? But none of you were there before, where—where was Slytherin House when we were battling Voldemort in this very school? Where were the Slytherins when the Carrows were stalking these halls, where were you, when the rest of us were being tortured?” The helpless note in her voice hardened into something much darker, much nastier. “Standing and watching, is where you were. That’s all you ever did.”

That was a slap in the face. Not because it was unfair, not because it was unearned—no, the opposite. Because as soon as she said it, he could see himself, standing in an upstairs corridor, watching Crabbe use the Cruciatus Curse on her and doing nothing to stop him, watching Amycus Carrow use the Cruciatus Curse on her and doing nothing—

He had never been ordered to torture her himself, but he had never stepped in to stop it, either. And if he had been asked…?

There really was no question what he would have done.

She shook her head at his silence, and suddenly, Draco couldn’t stand to be under her gaze any longer. The loathing that filled him—loathing for himself—was so strong he thought he was going to be sick, and he wondered how he lived with it, every day, lurking in the back of his mind. He turned away from her, lurching up the stairs, up and up and up until he reached the entrance hall, and there was no one there, though Draco did not know what he would have done if there was, because his legs would not hold him anymore, and he crouched down on the floor, at the top of the stairs, and put his head in his hands and tried not to retch.
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