Cooped up

Where the Dragon is bored and answers are hunted for

Draco Malfoy had been cooped up in the dingy room in some dingy hide-out of the Order for too long. He had slept four days straight on when he had been brought in, after a quick five minute check on if the place was really safe (though that would not have been trustworthy on any scale, as Draco was near dead, but his nerves needed the assurance), then eaten anything brought in front of him, confronted Potter and Granger and after bathing, slept another two days, eaten and then finally awoken on the seventh day feeling better for the first time since…Salazar knows when. He could not remember a time when he did not feel so hunted and haunted that it poisoned the very essence of Draco.

Draco had the seventh day to rest. From there on there were people. Of course there were. Of course they wanted answers. Of course they would get pissed when they would not get answers.

The Weasel was the easiest. The raving idiot would give up at the first sight of Draco and start ranting at him, threatening him and so on, to get Draco to own up the evil plots that he had in store. The Weasel was soon prevented from coming into Draco's room, after almost attacking him.

Granger wasn't too difficult. She would try kindness, sense, basically anything that involved a lot of talk, but no, Draco was not going to tell anything to the Mudblood. He could stare at the dreary walls (seriously, had no-one even entertained thought of tapestries or paint or anything that would make walls look something else than wet cardboard smeared with indescribable dirt?) bored, until she would finally give one last frustrated sigh and leave.

Mad-Eye Moody was terrifying, growling at him and mumbling about punishments and ferrets and gosh, Draco hoped Moody would be kept away from him. The grizzly man had luckily been there only two times; apparently he was a very busy Order member. Arthur Weasley tried too, soon driven out by sneers. Draco truly found him most plebeian.

Lupin was a hard nut to crack, but luckily the man was rather busy with the Order and all the werewolf business probably on top of that too. There was however a suspicious cheerfulness in the normally gloomy eyes, and Draco had a painful flashback of certain blue, twinkling eyes that… No those thoughts were not to be wandered into. Lupin too finally believed that Draco was not spilling anything.

Potter was the hardest one. He always was. The problem with him was that he never worked in the way he was supposed to, not when things really mattered. Oh, he would grab the bait and shout match with Draco at Hogwarts before DADA. But when Draco really craved for one, Potter found other ways of annoying him. Standing by the door, silently staring, those green eyes of him shimmering like glowing embers, waiting to burst into flames. Draco, wanting to keep a steady front, didn't try to feed the flames but when non-verbal prodding had no effect after several days and several hours of glowing green embers, his Malfoy pride snapped.

"Alright, Potter. Spit it out."

"What?"

"Still the slugbrain, I see. The poison you're digesting and for some Gryffindor reason saving me from. I'm a big boy, I think I can handle it."

"There's no poison."

"Then what the bleeding hell are you standing there and glaring at?"

"That would be you Malfoy."

Gripping his nose between two fingers, Draco counted to ten. He would gain nothing from jumping at the git's throat. Except… Pure, deep satisfaction and deep pleasure for hurting him. Yes that was a good enough reason. Draco opened his eyes ready to pounce at the… annoying idiot that didn't even have the manners to stay in place. The Boy Who Lived to Annoy Draco Malfoy was not leaning to the wall and couldn't be seen in the room.

Draco flopped on the bed. He could handle this. He could handle being prodded and questioned. He could handle the Boy that Bleeding Lived. He could handle losing his life. He could handle everything; he was a Malfoy. A Malfoy that had betrayed everything, and lost all footing, and there was no floor, no ceiling, no walls, no sky, no ground and everything was crumbling, falling nothing to hold on, and it was all his choice, all his choice…

"Breathe, Draco. Breathe." Long shuddering breath. Another. Yes, there was still air. There was a hand in his hair. Soothing, like Mother's –

Wait a moment. Mother was not here. Jumping up Draco turned and saw the Weasley cow sitting calmly at the bedside. "Great, this is the last weapon the Order has? Molly Weasley coming to coax everything out of the Malfoy?! Get the hell out of here, bitch!" But she just sat there taking it and staring at him with those warm eyes of hers. Draco was losing all control of himself and he hated it. The only thing he had control of was himself and if he lost that, he lost everything.

When Draco finally had to draw breath she finally spoke.

"Draco…"

"Don't call me that," gasped Draco.

"Mr. Malfoy then. I must talk to you now. You do understand that you cannot come and find shelter from the Order without a price. We have too much in play for full forgiveness, even though we know that you spared Dumbledore's life," Draco shuddered at the name, cradling himself, "you are still marked as a Death Eater or at least one of our enemies. We want to know if we are sheltering a spy or not. We have given you already a week and a half for free. You have not given us any explanation willingly, and now I deliver to you the last warning. If you will not tell us anything, we are forced to put you under Veritaserum."

Draco thought for a while and gave in. Molly Weasley, it seemed, was a last resort for the Order. Draco had been fooling himself with the thought that he might have stayed like this forever sleeping and escaping. It was probably not how this world worked. He would have to face it.

"I do not know how you think you can trust me without Veritaserum. I can only tell you that I have left the Dark side and am now running. Why? is the question you want answers to. Many reasons, of course, only one reason is not enough for a decision this size. First, cowardice; I was not strong enough for what I was required of, I found soon enough, I think Potter can prove me right on that matter. Second, self doubt, I am questioning myself rather extensively, and I do not know if I want what my father wants of me. Third, madness, every step of the way. Especially when I decided to come to the Order; if you didn't notice, I was delirious with fatigue, hunger, stress… That is coming more evident every moment," and with a bitter laugh he broke off.

The small speech seemed strangely practised in his ears. Maybe he had been practising it all these hours in this room. Always having a back-up plan somewhere in his mind. He felt so lost and alone and very, very broken. The Weasley woman regarded him with moist eyes and left. Apparently he had earned peace for a while. He did not know for how long however. This was the second time Veritaserum had been mentioned and the third time would be the one he would swallow it. Draco had no illusions about the fact that the Order had to find the truth and there was no other way.

Draco felt like collapsing on the bed and sleeping until the war was safely over, which probably meant forever - a very amiable thought. But he knew the nightmares would be coming and he chose to go and try and drown himself in the bathtub Potter had supplied him.