Title: In this Tableau of Melancholy
Summary: He recognized the body she had thrown herself over as one of his classmates. Draco/Astoria beginnings.
Rating: T (for language)
Genre: Angst/Hurt/Comfort
Prompt: "I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best" - Marilyn Monroe
A/N: For AmazonStar. Written for the Fourth Fic Exchange at the Bellatrix Lestrange: The Dark Lord's Most Faithful forum.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. If I did... hell if I know. I'd probably make a mess of things.
Draco wandered the halls of Hogwarts in a daze.
So long as he was away from the Great Hall, he didn't care where he went. He couldn't stand to be in there, where the stench of death was overpowered only by the grief rolling off the mourners in waves. It made his stomach twist to see the survivors so distraught, and the dead looking so bloody peaceful.
He found himself on the second floor corridor, glancing at the door to Myrtle's bathroom. He briefly considered going in, but his feet walked him right past it. Not even talking to a ghost would ease the choked feeling.
Draco turned another corner, slouching a bit. His father used to chide him for bad posture, back before he turned into the nervous wreck he was now. He automatically straightened himself again. For the first time, he wanted to curse his Pureblood upbringing for instilling such habits in him.
A distant noise from up ahead put him on alert. Walking a bit more quickly, he was able to identify it as a shout. He emerged on the main staircase, where a few levels up there were several students forming a group.
He instantly recognized Pansy and stepped back into the shadowed archway. She had an impatient look on her face, but that was nothing to the utter rage on the face of the girl across from her. She was practically spitting as she screamed, her eyes wild.
The other girls were beginning to edge away with wrinkled noses. Obviously they didn't think much of the younger girl, who appeared to be losing it.
Draco focused, trying to hear what she was saying.
"…up! You didn't help her, you ran away, you bloody cowards! You with all your pureblood bullshit and superior status! You think she wanted this? You're all so stupid, just so bloody stupid, can't you see that? You— don't you touch her!"
These last words were shrieked at Pansy, who had inched a bit closer.
"Go to hell!" the girl spat. "The lot of you! I hope you go to hell and that you're screaming for all of your miserable eternity, because you deserve it! Now leave, before I make you."
He watched Pansy and her gang look at one another with bemused expressions, before Pansy shrugged and led the trudge back downstairs. He could hear them muttering as they passed him.
"She's gone completely mad…"
"How were we supposed to help her, the blood traitor…?"
"It's only right that she goes to her parents…"
Draco waited until their voices faded. He ventured out from his hiding spot and climbed the stairs slowly. It took him two levels to get to where the girl was, and when he did he saw that she had draped herself across something. She didn't appear to be sobbing. Her head was on its side, staring blankly across the staircase.
His gut twisted as he realized what the girl was lying on.
She noticed him then, eyes snapping to him with an almost audible sound. They narrowed at him menacingly; he couldn't help but noticing that they were brown. Since when could brown eyes be so cold?
"You won't take her from me either," she said.
He recognized the body she had thrown herself over as one of his classmates. Daphne. One of the girls that had hung around Pansy like flies to rotting meat. He couldn't remember what her last name was; she had always been one of the Slytherins in the background. Watching, but never quite willing to take glory for themselves.
He guessed that the younger girl was her sister. She was smoothing back the hair from Daphne's face. Draco noticed that her eyes were closed. Either she had died that way, or the girl had already closed them for her.
He wondered if they had the same eyes.
When Draco didn't move, the girl spoke again.
"She was so happy after her first year." Her voice was hushed, as though she thought Daphne was sleeping. "Happy when she became part of Parkinson's gang. She was glad to be accepted. She was always afraid that they'd reject her because she wasn't willing to step on mudbloods. I don't know if they ever found out about that— well, apart from now."
Draco sat on a step, alternating between looking at the girl and Daphne.
"She joined the fighting. Looked at me and said she was going back, because she couldn't stand for it anymore. She said how idiotic it all was. We both knew our parents were getting worse the more they helped Voldemort's cause." He flinched at the name. For a moment, she looked at him mockingly, but then the expression slid off her face, leaving it blank.
"So she committed the ultimate blasphemy. She joined their side."
The emphasis on 'their' wasn't the usual disgust a Slytherin would show, but instead resigned admission. Draco knew how she felt. No longer did he feel any allegiance to the Dark Lord, but at the same time he knew he was a long way away from being able to call any on the opposing side his allies. He felt a weird in-between-ness, knowing that rejection awaited him on both fronts.
"Her friends—" now her tone became haughtier— "fled. They left her to die. And the Death Eaters— they must've been able to see that she was a Slytherin. She's wearing the bloody badge. Didn't stop them from killing her, though.
"She looked so tall before she went back. Said that she was going to honor the true Slytherin house, that she was going to fight for what was right. Look where it got her."
Hopefully somewhere better than here, he thought dully.
The girl suddenly looked at him suspiciously. "Why are you here?"
He didn't know why, but the question threw him off. "I heard you shouting," he said dumbly.
"Making too much noise, was I?" she sneered.
"No, I—"
"I don't see what business it is of yours— wandering around, acting like you care, Draco Malfoy. I know what you did. Fat lot of good you were in the end, weren't you?"
Every word stung, but rang true.
He stood up, walking up the last few steps until he was staring down at Daphne. Her sister looked like she was going to attack him if he moved any closer, so he stopped. It occurred to him in that moment that maybe— just maybe— he could do something right for once.
"We should move her to the Great Hall," he said. "With the others. They're having a memorial in there later."
The girl shook her head in disbelief. "She's a Slytherin. They'd never take her."
"They will."
Daphne's sister regarded him warily, but nodded. He bent down to pick up the body, but was shoved away, nearly falling down the stairs. Scowling a bit, he watched as the girl lifted up her sister, clearly struggling under the weight but unwilling to give it up.
"Will you let me help you?" he sighed.
"Do you want me to punch you?"
"Not really."
"Well shut up then."
As Draco had predicted, no one took any notice of the two of them entering the Great Hall. Daphne's sister struggled all the way to the end of the room, where the line of the fallen ended. She tried to gently place Daphne on the floor, but nearly ended up dropping her instead. He stepped in to help lower her and got a venomous glare in return.
The girl sat cross-legged next to her dead sister and stared. Draco thought she was willing her to wake up again.
"I think I want you to leave, now."
He nodded. As he began to walk back to the doors, a thought suddenly struck him.
"Will you need help arranging the funeral?" he asked, turning around.
Daphne's sister smiled bitterly. "We might not be the richest pureblood family around, but we can at least afford to give her a proper burial."
"Right." He still wanted to do something. "Would it be all right if I went to it?"
She stared at him. Then, shaking her head slowly, she murmured, "I don't think so. You didn't know her very well. She didn't talk about you much. Just mentioned you a few times. Not that I blame her for not paying attention to you." The barb was weaker this time, but it still had the desired effect; Draco looked away.
"Although… I mean, you've… made it right. Sort of. And I'm certainly not inviting Parkinson and her cronies." Draco gave a ghost of a smile at the nickname. She saw it and returned it. "I think she'd want you to be there."
Relief swept through him. "Send me an owl with the date and location." He had to pause to think; he'd never had to ask something of his fellow Slytherins before. "Okay?"
"Okay." The brief light in her eyes faded, but the wispy smile remained. "Now go away, Draco Malfoy. You should probably find your family, anyway."
As he left the Great Hall once again, he realized that he never asked her for her name.
She didn't send an owl.
Draco understood.