Disclaimer: All characters belong to J.K. Rowling. Any recognisable quotes are taken from the book Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, which also belongs to J.K. Rowling.
Unmasked
Back in September, when Draco Malfoy had said goodbye to his mother on Platform 9 ¾ before he joined Crabbe and Goyle on the Hogwarts Express to begin his second year at school, and she had told him tearfully that she couldn't wait to see him again at Christmas, he had assumed that this Christmas would be like any other: he would be at home, sitting by the large fireplace in the drawing-room, with his parents watching proudly as he counted each and every present, making sure that they had bought him even more gifts than the previous year.
He had never, even in his wildest nightmares, imagined that it would involve siting sulkily on his bed, not his bed at home but the one in the boys' dormitory at Hogwarts, all alone without even Crabbe or Goyle for company and looking at a picture of Harry Potter.
As the realisation dawned that the picture was in his hand yet again, he quickly let go of it and watched as it fell slowly onto the bed.
No, he would never have thought that something like this could happen, but unfortunately, this was his miserable reality. Apparently, his father's tireless campaign to get Dumbledore sacked and a Christmas party with wealthy wizarding families took precedent over a family Christmas at home.
When his father had first sent a letter complaining about how busy he would be in December with school governor meetings and asking Draco if he would mind staying at school for Christmas so that his parents could avoid being at home when the Ministry of Magic decided to pay a visit, Draco had simply accepted that he would have to stay at Hogwarts, feeling almost proud that his father was in such high demand, even during the holidays.
But as November had turned into December and he had had more time to think about it, he had grown increasingly angry about the situation. He had thought that his father might have been slightly more concerned about his safety during the holidays, what with the fact that some sort of monster was supposedly on the loose at Hogwarts.
However, when Draco had pointed this out to his father in a long letter involving many exclamation marks and even a few statements beginning with: If you really cared about me you would…, his father had simply pointed out in his reply that he was from a pure-blood family and was therefore unlikely to be attacked.
His father's apparent indifference, although extremely irritating, was definitely not the worst thing about this situation. No, the worst thing about it was that last Christmas, when he had found out that Harry Potter would have to stay at Hogwarts for the holidays, he had been beside himself with glee, talking loudly and sarcastically in every Potions class about how he felt so sorry for every student who had to stay at school because they weren't wanted at home. And now he was in exactly the same situation. How humiliating.
He had half-expected Potter to make some sort of comment about it during the last few weeks of term. After all, it would have been an ideal way to get back at Draco for last year's insults.
Draco had even waited around at the end of Potions class every week, just to see if Potter would run over to him to smugly remind him of the fact that he had been forced to stay. It would have been the perfect opportunity to try to hex him in retaliation, with Professor Snape sitting there watching appreciatively in the background, but he had had no such luck.
Draco glared accusingly at the picture on his bed, as though the moving image was somehow responsible for his predicament.
This photograph had been sent to him weeks ago, but for some reason, he had not yet disposed of it. It was a picture of Harry Potter, dressed in his scarlet Quidditch robes and flying eagerly around the pitch.
He turned it over slowly so that he could read the message written on the back for what felt like the hundredth time: I was thinking about it and I decided that maybe you'd like one too, really. Don't worry, I won't tell anybody.
Draco felt his lips curl into a sneer. He knew exactly who had sent it-Colin Creevey was the only student who followed Potter around obsessively with a camera. But when it came to any information beyond the name of the sender, he was completely clueless.
At first, he had worried that Creevey had somehow managed to put a curse on the picture, or had at least asked one of the older Gryffindors to do it for him. A perfect Gryffindor versus Slytherin practical joke. He had been afraid to touch it for weeks in case it somehow exploded in his hands or caused him a serious injury.
When he had eventually worked out that it was completely harmless (with a little help from Blaise, who had looked from the picture to Draco's agitated expression and practically collapsed on his bed in fits of hysterical laughter as though the whole thing was some kind of hilarious joke), it had only served to increase his confusion.
If the picture hadn't been sent to do some damage, then what was it for?
Why would Creevey think that Draco Malfoy wanted a picture of Harry Potter? He obviously had no idea what Draco, Crabbe and Goyle actually did with Harry Potter pictures. It had become one of Draco's favourite games-whenever he found a picture of Harry Potter in the Daily Prophet, he would take a copy and hide it under his bed for 'safekeeping'. Eventually, he would share it with Crabbe and Goyle and the three of them would sit there laughing as they put endless spells on whatever picture it happened to be, usually changing the image around with their wands so that it showed Potter in embarrassing situations or getting attacked by the Slytherins. Sometimes, when they were feeling lazy or tired, they would simply stick a picture on the wall of the boys' dormitory and throw things at it.
Even if Creevey had somehow worked out that Draco had this strange obsession with collecting and defacing Harry Potter pictures, it was highly unlikely that he would have used this fact as a reason to send the picture to Draco, not when Creevey blatantly idolised Harry Potter.
Draco was therefore left without any sort of explanation for Creevey's behaviour. All he knew was that it was very lucky for Creevey that he had already been Petrified, because if he had got to him first with Crabbe and Goyle, his injuries would have been a lot more permanent.
As Draco thought about Crabbe and Goyle, he started to wonder where they actually were. He was currently extremely annoyed with the two of them. They had both slept in that morning, which meant that he had been forced to go to the Great Hall for the Christmas Feast alone.
It wouldn't have been so bad, if some of the other second year Slytherins had stayed at school, too. As it was, almost every Slytherin had been desperate to get home for the holidays, apart from a few of the fifth years, and most of them had no interest whatsoever in speaking to Draco.
The older Slytherins were still angry with him for not catching the Snitch during their first Quidditch match of the year. Draco himself was still unsure as to how he had failed to catch it, especially when the Snitch had apparently been right under his nose at one point. What had been so distracting that he had managed to miss something that was fluttering around so obviously right in front of him?
As soon as he had sat down in the Great Hall and started to eat Christmas Dinner, he had caught sight of Potter and Weasley wearing their disgusting matching jumpers. Abandoning all attempts at eating, he had instantly launched into a barrage of insults about Potter's choice of outfit, hoping that the fifth years were at least finding it amusing.
Whenever Draco launched into a similar anti-Harry Potter rant in the Slytherin common room, something in his mind took over and nothing could stop him from throwing the insults around, not the strange smirks from girls like Daphne and Tracey nor Blaise's constant muttering of, "Shut up, Draco, it's getting annoying now."
The fact that Potter had sat with his back to him the whole time in the Great Hall, completely indifferent to his comments, only made the situation worse. Draco had been sourly tempted to run over to the Gryffindor table and grab him, forcing him to at least look at him when he insulted him.
He often found that being ignored by Potter was a lot worse than being insulted by him. On the rare occasions when Potter actually managed to throw a decent insult back at him, Draco found that in a strange way he could actually appreciate the intelligence of the comment. He might even have found some of Potter's insults mildly amusing, if Potter had been sorted into Slytherin rather than Gryffindor.
However, nothing about that Christmas dinner had been amusing. He remembered that he had just started to make a sarcastic comment about how Potter and Weasley should do everyone a favour and skip off hand in hand into the Muggle world wearing their matching jumpers when he had taken a look around and realised that he was talking to himself, the other Slytherins having long since moved away from him to the other end of the table.
A few minutes later, he had stormed angrily out of the Great Hall, shoving aggressively past Crabbe and Goyle, who were only just arriving to eat.
Draco sighed heavily and stood up. Even though he was still angry with Crabbe and Goyle, he decided to try to find them. Anything was better than sitting alone on his bed all night with only that stupid picture for company. Besides, he really wanted to show them a copy of an article from the Daily Prophet that his father had sent him.
He smirked to himself as he imagined the two of them laughing when they read about how his father had got Arthur Weasley into trouble over the flying car incident at the start of term.
He grabbed one of his school robes and wrapped it tightly around himself, hoping that the black jumper which his mother had made for him was hidden from view. With a final fix of his blond hair in the mirror, he stormed out of the dormitory and towards the common room door.
It didn't take long to find the two of them. Draco had only just turned the corner of the dark corridor outside the entrance to the Slytherin common room when he spotted the large outline of his two best friends, standing with their backs to him. He could also see the unmistakeable red hair of one of the Weasley brothers, Peter or whatever his name was, who was heading towards Crabbe and Goyle with an irritated expression on his face.
He was just about to shout their names and walk towards them, when suddenly, the all too familiar warning signal triggered in his mind. In one swift movement, he had backed up against the wall, his eyes shifting rapidly from side to side as he groped for his wand in his pocket and tried to ignore the fact that all of the hairs on his arms were standing on end.
Draco knew what this bizarre reaction was all about. For some unknown reason, he had always had the uncanny ability to sense Harry Potter's presence. Sometimes, it wasn't even a feeling but rather a prediction-he would be standing in some location like Diagon Alley and he would start to think that Harry Potter should probably be there, too, then all of sudden he would appear in exactly the same place.
And at that moment in the dark corridor, his 'gift' was telling him loud and clear that Harry Potter was somewhere close by.
He felt around blindly in the darkness, just in case he really was standing next to him.
Draco had never really questioned this strange ability or wondered why it only worked on one person. He had always put it down to a simple 'know thy enemy' defence mechanism and he appreciated the fact that he could often use it to his advantage-it usually gave him plenty of time to compose himself and prepare his insults before he finally jumped out at Potter and took him by surprise.
As his eyes frantically tried to find him in the darkness, the rational part of Draco's mind tried to tell him that there was no way he could really be down here in this particular corridor. There were no statues against the wall to hide behind and he could clearly see Crabbe, Goyle and Peter Weasley a few feet away.
Besides, his senses were only about ninety-eight per cent accurate. There were a few occasions when he had been mistaken. Like back in the summer when he had accompanied his father on a secret visit to Borgin and Burkes in Knockturn Alley. From the moment he entered the shop, he had been almost certain that Harry Potter was in there, even though he knew that this was practically impossible. He had walked all around the shop, ignoring his father's command of, "Touch nothing, Draco," as he looked behind shelves and under tables.
But then he had forgotten all about his search as he was drawn almost magnetically towards a black cabinet in the corner of the room, desperate to open it and see what the green light was that was flashing from the inside. It had probably been lucky that his father had led him out of the shop at that point, as he later realised that the cabinet had most likely been full of dark magic, waiting to curse him the second he opened the door.
Then there was another time back in first year when he had been wandering the corridors late at night, sulking after yet another argument with his father. Draco had heard Filch approaching and darted into an empty classroom to hide. Even though his instinct had given him no warning whatsoever that Potter might be close by, as he checked his reflection in the mirror at the front of the dark room, he had been horrified to see not only his own face but also Potter's looking back at him. He had spent at least fifteen minutes frantically searching the room with his wand at the ready for an attack, but he definitely wasn't in there.
He had later decided that either he had dreamt the whole thing or the mirror was some disturbing invention of Albus Dumbledore's, designed for Potter's fans so that they could see his face whenever they looked into it. He had never found out for sure though as the mirror had mysteriously disappeared the next time he dared to go back to that classroom, further confirming his theory that it had probably all been a dream.
"Well, get off to your dormitories…" Draco could hear the sternness in the Weasley brother's tone as he bossed Crabbe and Goyle around.
That did it, Draco was not going to stand there hiding in the shadows whilst one of the Gryffindors ordered his friends around. He took a step towards the three of them, trying his best to ignore the fact that his heart rate was rapidly increasing as he got closer.
He heard Weasley's voice again as he approached: "I am a Prefect. Nothing's about to attack me."
I wouldn't bet on that, Weasley… he thought angrily as the snarl crept back on to his face and his pace quickened.
"There you are," he drawled, pushing himself between Crabbe and Goyle. He looked from one to the other. Something definitely wasn't right about the situation, but he couldn't quite pinpoint what it was.
He looked at Crabbe, who appeared to be glaring at him as though he was the one who had a reason to be angry with Draco rather than the other way around. Then he looked at Goyle, whose eyes were darting frantically from Draco to Peter Weasley, almost as though he was scared about something. Draco looked over Goyle's shoulder, irrationally afraid that Harry Potter was standing right behind him.
In the end, he decided it must be Weasley's presence that was making the pair of them so uneasy, so after making an insulting comment about the two of them pigging out in the Great Hall and trying to hint that he had something really funny to show them back in the common room, he directed what he hoped was an angry glare in Weasley's direction. "And what're you doing down here, Weasley?" he sneered at him, happy to see the look of fury on Weasley's face.
Weasley shouted something back about a lack of respect and a bad attitude, something that Draco must have heard a thousand times before, even from his own father. He almost responded with an insult about how it was hard to show respect for somebody who was walking around wearing a tatty jumper and a badge that had clearly been bewitched to read 'Pinhead' rather than 'Prefect', but he was already bored of standing in the dark corridor. Instead, he simply motioned for Crabbe and Goyle to follow him as he headed back in the direction of the Slytherin common room.
"That Peter Weasley," he muttered to himself as they turned the corner.
"Percy," he heard somebody mutter behind him.
His head jerked up angrily as he realised that Crabbe had just corrected him. Crabbe could sometimes be more assertive than Goyle, but still, he never usually went so far as to contradict him.
He thought that Crabbe would have been more supportive, especially after he had provided him with hours of entertainment yesterday afternoon with his impressions of Colin Creevey, followed by a new and (in his opinion) equally hilarious impersonation of the youngest Weasley making puppy dog eyes at Potter, who seemed to be completely indifferent to her.
"Whatever," he sneered at Crabbe, hoping that he would take his threatening tone of voice as a warning to shut up.
He started to make a joke about how Percy Weasley was trying to catch the heir of Slytherin single-handed, but then he had to stop himself as he realised that he had unconsciously angled his body away from Crabbe and towards Goyle, and was now standing unnaturally close to him.
"What's the new password again?" he hurriedly asked Goyle, hoping that he would accept the question as a valid excuse for standing next to him.
Draco had expected his heart rate to return to normal the moment he entered the safety of the Slytherin common room, but if anything, his heart started to beat even faster. His eyes quickly swept over the room as some inner instinct continued to insist that Harry Potter was in there somewhere.
He noticed that Crabbe and Goyle were staring at him uncertainly. "Wait here," he told them, pointing to three chairs which were set as far away from the fifth years as possible. "I'll go and get it-my father's just sent it to me."
He ran to the boys' dormitory to grab the Daily Prophet article, hoping that sharing it with Crabbe and Goyle would help to calm his nerves and stop his mind from playing tricks on him.
He picked up the article from where he had left it on his bed and stuffed it into his robes pocket. He looked over at the picture that Colin Creevey had sent him and briefly considered taking it to show them as well, just to see if they could tell him what it meant, but in the end he decided against it. He was well aware of the fact that they were even more clueless than he was when it came to the inner workings of the Gryffindor mind.
Just before he left the room, he decided that he had to check, for his own peace of mind.
Holding his wand out defensively in front of him, Draco dropped to his hands and knees and quickly looked under the five beds in the dormitory, just in case he was hiding under one of them.
Finally satisfied that he definitely wasn't under one of the beds, he straightened up, brushing any traces of dust off his robes.
"If you are around here somewhere, Potter…" he muttered threateningly into thin air, "and the three of us find you; we'll get you so badly that you'll be lying in the hospital wing wishing that you'd left last week to spend Christmas with your Mudblood family."
With another quick wipe of his robes, he ran back to Crabbe and Goyle in the common room.
Draco thrust the article right under Crabbe's nose, so excited that he was unable to sit still. "That'll give you a laugh," he told him eagerly, hoping that Crabbe would take the hint and start to laugh hysterically and maybe even offer a few words of congratulations now that Draco and his father had got one over on the Weasleys.
Stupid Weasley with his stupid idea to fly a car to Hogwarts with Potter, Draco thought bitterly as he waited for Crabbe to work out exactly what the article was about. What a waste of an hour that had been, searching for Potter to torment him on the Hogwarts Express. Or maybe it had been three hours, he couldn't quite remember.
However, Draco was disappointed to see that Crabbe didn't appear to be particularly interested in the contents of the article. His laughter even sounded slightly forced as he handed the page over to Goyle.
Draco turned his attention to Goyle as he waited to see how he would react to the news that Arthur Weasley had been forced to pay a fine of fifty Galleons. As the light from the flames of the fire in the distance flickered onto Goyle's face, Draco couldn't help thinking that there was something different about him, especially compared to how he had looked several hours ago when he passed him in the Great Hall.
It wasn't so much his appearance but rather his body language. His eyes were definitely more alert than usual and he seemed to move further back in his seat every time Draco leaned towards him, which really annoyed Draco, even though he wasn't sure why. He briefly wondered whether Goyle had eaten too much sugar in the Great Hall or whether one of the older Slytherins had slipped some sort of potion into his drink as a practical joke.
"Well?" he asked Goyle impatiently after a few minutes. "Don't you think it's funny?"
Goyle eventually laughed and Draco started to feel slightly more relaxed, even though he was still unable to completely shake off his belief that at any minute, Harry Potter was going to jump out from under one of the tables and try to hex him.
He changed tack and launched into some of his usual insults about the Weasley family, hoping that he would get a better reaction out of the two of them now that they didn't have to strain themselves trying to understand the more complicated words of the article.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of the expression on Crabbe's face. If he didn't know better, he would almost have thought that Crabbe was snarling angrily at him. "What's up with you, Crabbe?" he snapped at him.
Crabbe muttered something about having stomach ache and Draco suggested that he go to the hospital wing, surprising himself with his sudden eagerness to get rid of Crabbe and take his place in the seat next to Goyle.
As he thought about the hospital wing, he was reminded of all the students who had been Petrified. He felt a smug smirk creep to his face as he shared his prediction about Dumbledore's imminent sacking over the attacks.
He hoped more than anything that his father would be successful in that particular campaign. As far as Draco was concerned, it would be the ultimate Slytherin victory over the Gryffindors. Then he would just have to persuade Professor Snape to apply for the position of Headmaster and hopefully everything would be perfect.
"A decent Headmaster would never've let slime like that Creevey in," he told them with conviction. He said it as though it was supposed to be yet another criticism of Albus Dumbledore, but privately, Draco was more focused on insulting Colin Creevey.
He looked at Goyle, who was momentarily watching him with a tiny bit more interest, and the phrase, "You won't believe what Creevey sent me back in September…" was literally on the tip of his tongue. However, he looked back over at Crabbe and decided against it at the last second.
Instead, he opted for his impression of Creevey taking pictures of Potter, hoping that Crabbe might remember how funny this had been the day before and get involved with the joke. But still Crabbe sat there watching him with a blank expression on his face and Goyle appeared to be averting his eyes from Draco.
"What's the matter with you two?" he asked them in exasperation.
After several weeks of feeling like a complete failure over the lost Quidditch match, he desperately needed his friends to laugh at his jokes and tell him how hilarious and intelligent he was. He needed their reassurance that he was so much better than the likes of Potter, Weasley and Creevey and that really everything was okay in the Slytherin common room. Maybe then he would be able to forget about his sense of unease which had been steadily increasing from the moment he started talking to them.
Eventually, the two of them seemed to catch on to the fact that the impression was supposed to be funny and they started laughing.
Deciding that the delayed reaction was better than nothing, Draco quickly started on his Harry Potter insults whilst he had their full attention: "Saint Potter, the Mudbloods' friend…" He said it slowly and deliberately, almost as though Harry Potter himself would be able to overhear it.
He went on to express his disgust that Potter spent so much time with the likes of Granger, trying not to feel nauseous at the thought of the two of them sneaking into the girls' bathroom on the second floor all the time. Not that he had been following them or anything; it just always seemed to work out that they were in that particular corridor whenever he was.
He still couldn't believe that some of the less intelligent students actually thought that Harry Potter could be the heir of Slytherin. He shared this disbelief with his two friends. Noticing that they were now watching him with even more interest, he started whining about how much he would love to know who the heir really was, so that he could help them.
It was true in a way; he was sure that by aiding whoever it was, he would be able to regain his reputation as one of the most influential members of Slytherin House. That way, they would all forget about the times he had inadvertently taken away their chances of winning the House Cup, from lost Quidditch matches to detentions in the Forbidden Forest in first year.
"You must have some idea who's behind it all?"
As Draco listened to Goyle's voice he had a sudden flashback of that particular detention. Hagrid had forced him to walk through the forest with Potter as a punishment for sneaking up on Longbottom. He had thought at the time that he and Potter would end up killing each other amongst the trees the second they were left alone, but strangely enough, without all their friends around and with the very real threat of an attack by one of the creatures that lived in there, the two of them had actually managed to walk along the dark pathway side by side for at least half an hour, barely even communicating apart from throwing the occasional stare at each other.
Draco had almost forgotten about that detention with everything else that had been happening over the past few months, but as he thought about it again he realised that it had been quite a strange experience.
Mentally berating himself for missing out on an opportunity to attack Potter when he had been standing right next to him in the Forbidden Forest, Draco took his anger out on Goyle: "You know I haven't, Goyle, how many times do I have to tell you?" he snapped at him.
As he started to wonder if Goyle ever actually listened to a word he said, he thought about his father again. He told the two of them about how annoyed he was that his father wouldn't tell him anything about the last time the Chamber of Secrets was opened.
Well, apart from one important detail…
"Last time the Chamber of Secrets was opened, a Mudblood died." He said it barely more than a whisper, but the two of them were watching him intently. "So it's only a matter of time before one of them's killed this time…I hope it's Granger," he smirked, not really sure that he actually meant it but also relishing the idea of Potter's friends being taken away from him one by one, so that he was finally left all alone.
Crabbe was clenching his fists. Draco wondered when he was going to go to the hospital wing to get his medicine, because he definitely looked sick.
He was distracted by Goyle asking him if he knew whether the person who had opened the Chamber last time was caught. He offered a vague response about the culprit probably still being in Azkaban, only to be met with a confused stare and the question, "Azkaban?"
That was strange. At the start of the Christmas holidays, Goyle had definitely known what Azkaban was. He clearly remembered the first Saturday evening of the holidays when he and Goyle had lazed around in the dormitory, drinking Butterbeer and half-heartedly playing a game of: Ways we could get Potter/Dumbledore/Hagrid sent to Azkaban.
The game wasn't supposed to be taken seriously, but Goyle had definitely been an eager participant. Yet only a week later, he had already forgotten about it. Draco was seriously starting to worry that Goyle was getting stupider as he got older.
He shifted restlessly in his chair, the feeling of uneasiness coming back as his eyes fell on Goyle's dark hair. In the low light of the common room, he noticed that Goyle's hair looked almost jet black, even though in reality it was a shade of dark brown.
Trying to think of something else to say, he went back to talking about his father, telling them about how he had ordered Draco to keep his head down and not get involved with everything that was going on at Hogwarts.
Then, perhaps foolishly, he shared another piece of private family information with the two of them: "You know the Ministry of Magic raided our Manor last week?"
He looked at Goyle, who was looking back at him with a look of concern and sympathy that he had never seen on Goyle's face before. Draco felt his breath catch before he started to speak again.
"Yeah…" he responded hesitantly, and in that moment, as he looked into Goyle's green eyes, he was momentarily overcome with the overwhelming urge to tell him so much more.
He wanted to tell him about how in theory, he should be extremely happy right now, what with all the attacks on the Muggle-borns and the fact that Dumbledore would probably be suspended in the next few weeks, but in reality, he couldn't bring himself to jump for joy because he still felt like something was missing.
He wanted to tell him that he was still in shock about the fact that his father had forced him to stay at school over Christmas whilst almost everybody else got to go home. He would then go on to talk about how bored he had been for the past week, maybe even lonely if he stretched his emotions far enough.
He also wanted to insist that they find some way of destroying the ever increasing pile of Harry Potter pictures that were hidden under his bed, because they hadn't done anything with them for ages and if they didn't do something soon, it might appear to the untrained eye that he was simply collecting pictures of Harry Potter and hiding them under his bed for no apparent reason, and that was just wrong.
Then he wished that he could tell him about that stupid photograph from Creevey, about how he didn't get what the joke was supposed to be and how he wished that he could find somebody intelligent who would just tell him what it was all about. That way, he would be able to stop thinking about it every night as he tried to get to sleep and maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't have felt like kicking something when he looked over at Potter and Weasley wearing their awful matching jumpers in the Great Hall that afternoon.
For a second, he actually thought that he had started to say something along those lines, but as he listened to the sound of his voice, he realised that he had instead opted to boast about how his family had their own secret chamber under the drawing-room floor to hide their valuable Dark Arts items in and…wait a minute…
Since when did Goyle have green eyes?
He was distracted by a loud cry of surprise from Crabbe. He looked over at him, and the terrible realisation hit him harder than any hex could.
His eyes darted frantically from left to right, taking in the red hair, the scar, the freckles and the untidy black hair. Of course. It was so obvious now, looking back. The whole time his mind had been screaming at him that Harry Potter was around there somewhere and he had refused to listen.
For Merlin's sake, how could he have been so stupid?
He heard one of them mutter something about going to get medicine before they both ran away.
Instead of reaching for his wand and taking off after them, Draco sat further back in his seat, frozen in shock. His hand gripped the side of the chair so tightly that he could hear the fabric tearing. His heart was now beating so hard against his chest that he was finding it difficult to breathe.
His mind asked the same two questions over and over: How? and Why?
Less than five minutes later, he could hear two familiar voices outside the common room door. He sat there waiting for them to come in, hoping against hope that he had imagined the last few minutes of the conversation and that it really had been Crabbe and Goyle the whole time and they were now back from the hospital wing.
The door slid open and the two of them strutted into the room, various items of food still in their hands. They greeted Draco happily as they sat down in the empty seats opposite him, their expressions and body language completely different to before.
"Well? Did you get the medicine already?" Draco asked them hurriedly, hoping that his voice wasn't shaking.
"What're you talking about?" Goyle asked him stupidly, stuffing his mouth with more food.
"I thought that you were going to the hospital wing?" he asked Crabbe hopefully.
"Nah," Crabbe responded, "we've just come back from the Great Hall."
With that last statement, Draco's worst fears were confirmed. He continued to grip the side of the chair as he tried to process what had just happened.
Somehow, Potter and Weasley had managed to disguise themselves as Crabbe and Goyle. He didn't know how they had done it, but he knew that he would be spending every waking hour in the school library until he found out.
Then there was the matter of why they had done it. If they had done it as a way of pushing Draco into a state of unease and panic by proving to him that they could infiltrate his territory, then it had definitely worked. He was certain that from now on he would never feel completely safe in the Slytherin common room.
He frantically thought about everything that he had told them during the conversation, trying to remember if he had said anything incriminating. His heart sank as he realised that he was going to have to write to his father to tell him to remove all of the items from the secret chamber. His father would be absolutely furious, and of course it would all be Draco's fault and he probably wouldn't be able to go home for the Easter holidays either as a punishment.
Draco knew that he himself should be furious, and he was really, deep down. He was sure that in the next few hours the fury would completely take over, but as he sat there in his temporary state of shock, another strange thought came to mind. For fifteen whole minutes, Harry Potter had been his best friend. Not Weasley's, not Granger's, not even the youngest Weasley's who followed Potter around obsessively and talked about him all the time, so blatantly in love with him, but his. This thought should have filled him with complete disgust, but instead it made him feel something else that he didn't recognise.
He had no time to dwell on that feeling because he was suddenly and inexplicably hit with another memory that didn't appear to have anything to do with his current situation.
He was five years old and it was Christmas morning. He had been desperate for a racing broom as a present that year and he had dropped endless hints about it for months, talking about it all the time and collecting pictures of it. For fifteen glorious minutes on Christmas morning, he had actually believed that he was going to get it.
But then, as he opened his final present, he had realised with a crushing blow of disappointment that his parents hadn't bought one for him. After that, he hadn't cared about the other presents he received or how expensive they were because he had been denied the one present that he really really wanted.
He later felt very glad that Crabbe and Goyle hadn't paid a visit with their families that day, because it had all been rather embarrassing, especially when he had thrown one of his classic childhood tantrums, falling to the floor and starting to-
"Draco…your eyes…"
Draco's head snapped up in time to see Goyle pointing and staring at him with his mouthing hanging open.
Within seconds, Draco jumped angrily to his feet. "I already told you yesterday, Goyle, I have a cold! Do you ever listen to a word I say?"
Draco had said nothing of the sort the previous day, but still Goyle was nodding along as though he had suddenly remembered.
"I'm going to bed," he told the two of them, taking a few deep breaths to calm himself. "I'll need your help tomorrow though, we have to try to get into the Restricted Section of the library. Then we might have to go and find Professor Snape. I may have just thought of a way that we can get Potter and Weasley detention for the rest of the school year…" He managed a smirk at that last statement and the two of them grinned appreciatively back at him.
Tomorrow, he would be furious. Tomorrow, he would frantically grab books from the library shelves without pausing for breath before he knocked eagerly on the door to Professor Snape's office.
But tonight, he wanted to spend some time alone, sulking in the dormitory with only his 'cold' and his photograph for company, before he finally woke up the next morning, put his Slytherin uniform on, muttered, "I hate him so much!" and tore the photograph to pieces.