"Draco!"
The boy looked up. His face was pale and tired, scratches, burns and bruises adoring it. His white-blond hair drooped from its usual gelled-back state, flopping into his face. His light grey eyes were weary, but relieved. The man that had been trying to kill both him and his father was dead. His family were all safe and unhurt. Yet this seventeen year-old had witnessed things no teenager should ever have to see - death, sacrifice, massacre…and it was going to take a long time for him to heal.
"Draco!" the cry came again, before a smothering hug of relief and happiness.
"Pansy." Draco croaked. It was all he could say. She was strangling him.
"Oh…oh Draco, I thought…people said…you're safe."
He felt a dampness soaking through the shoulder of his ash-stained school shirt.
Pansy, the Slytherin queen, the bitchiest girl he knew, was crying.
Because he was safe. She cared.
No matter how much she might deny it, she cared about him.
Enough to be worried. Enough to be worried, anxious, terrified out of her mind that something would happen to him.
A warmth flooded through him that had nothing to do with extra body-heat. It was a strange feeling, sort of like the shrouded affection that he had been sharing with his parents as they huddled together in the Great Hall. They were finally reunited. And no one was on the run from a psychotic mass-killing wizard.
He glanced over Pansy's shoulder at them now. They were sitting side by side on the flagstone floor, arms round each other and talking quietly. They didn't seem to mind that he was busy.
With a jolt, Draco realised that he had his arms wrapped around Pansy, hugging her tightly like she was some kind of life support. That perhaps, if they hugged hard and long enough, the past few days, weeks and years of fear and suffering would all disappear. There would be no Dark Lord, no pain, no battle, no dying…
Draco closed his eyes and rested his chin on her head, breathing in the musty scent of her shampoo, mixed with the smell of ash, rubble and…oh Merlin…blood.
He pulled away. She gazed up at him, emerald eyes red and puffy with tears, hair all mussed up, hours of brushing and styling gone to waste.
The Slytherin part of him wanted to scorn her for crying. Silly girl! To show fear is to show weakness. He had learnt that a long time ago. But something inside of him pushed that aside. Perhaps it was the circumstances. Perhaps he was shaken from all this carnage. Or maybe, just possibly, Draco Malfoy was concerned about her.
"Are you alright?" he asked softly. "You're not hurt?"
She shook her head, "You?"
He paused for several seconds, "Not physically." He replied, voice low. When he replayed this scene in his mind later, he would edit out the tremor.
"I heard about Crabbe." She mumbled. Her lip trembled a little.
War had always seemed so far away. It had never concerned them. Then the Dark Lord came along, but still it seemed like just a game. They were playing to win, and if they got scared or bored they could always pull out.
And then Crabbe had died. His life had been snuffed out, like a flickering candle. Just like that. No warning, no goodbye. They would never see him again.
Draco opened his arms to her and once again they embraced. They cried together, tears dripping down and mingling on each other's cheeks.
Moments where Slytherins displayed some kind of expressive emotion were few and far between. Displays of weakness were truly rare.
But the war changed all that. Not only Gryffindors were killed. Many Slytherins that had stayed back to get a glimpse of the action had fallen. Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws comforted each other in a desperate attempt to build themselves back up. The house rules were trampled underfoot as friends were united and boundaries forgotten. For the first time in many, many years, all the students at Hogwarts were working together. They had stood side-by-side to fight for their school, and now they stuck close, helping each other get through the sorrow of this night.
As the two young people embraced, they didn't care about such trivial things as homework and house-rivalries.
What are you doing? Slytherins are cold, aloof, Slytherins don't care!
No, the youngest Malfoy thought, Slytherins care for their own. Although he would deny it, he cared for Pansy. He was glad she was safe. And Goyle too. But Crabbe…oh Crabbe. They would remember him forever.
Draco hugged Pansy tightly and thanked everything under the sun that this terrible night was over. In time, he would heal.
He had learnt a lot, too. The value of a human life. That every person was worth a second chance.
Even him.