Disclaimer: I do not, in any way, shape or form, own Harry Potter. Obviously.

Author's Note:

Ah, school sucks. I haven't done most of my homework, but they're easy stuff, and I consider this a much higher priority, anyway. And hey! Draco has a soft side in this chapter! Haha! Anyway, here's the next chapter! Enjoy!

In which Fawn faces a terrifying visual of her worst fears.

Damage Control

Everyone stayed in hiding, afraid that this was a fluke.

"Where do you live?" Draco asked me gruffly, hauling me to my feet and dragging me towards the fireplace.

"I'm not telling," I replied, still in shock. It was my standard response to that sort of question, and right now, all I wanted was some normality. All I could see was the man in the striped suit—the man who had been alive a few minutes ago—the man who had been alive enough to ask me if I was alright. Now, he was lying on a dusty floor, pale, motionless.

"Tell me, goddammit!" Draco shouted, making the customers around us flinch. He was, in their mind, one of them, after all. He grabbed my shoulders and gave me a shake. "I can't get you home otherwise!"

"My home is very well-protected, the Floo-network won't get you in." It was true. And it didn't tell him too much about where I lived. And Merlin bless that man—I had never even gotten his name.

"We need to get out of here, you understand? They won't spare you twice!"

"We need to help these people." I blurted.

He let go of me in frustration and ran his fingers through his tousled, dusty hair. "What part of danger do you not understand? You know, I should just leave you here. Get home yourself."

"What part of selflessnessdo you not understand?" I argued back, staggering over and helping the bartender out from under a flipped over table. "You know what? Just leave, Draco. I'll get myself home." Good thing I hadn't told him where I lived before, because I would be regretting it immensely now.

"What are you doing?" It was not a question. It was a demand.

"Damage control," I replied coldly.

"Episkey," I added, pointing my wand at a man whose back had been broken by the falling pieces of brick that had once been part of the ceiling. With a grunt as thanks, he stood up, and went to collect his wife who had been crouched in one corner of the room. Without further hesitation the two disapparated from the Leaky Cauldron.

"See? Even they know when to run." Draco called from the fireplace, arms folded stubbornly.

"And they wouldn't have been able to run had I not helped them first." I snapped back, still moving from person to person. It was true, people were disapparating here and there, but a few others stayed to help. There were still others selfless enough to take the risk.

"Well, you've helped your conscience," Draco said again after a while. "Now can we go?" He quickly 'accio'ed our shopping bags and caught them deftly with his hands.

"Go where?" I mumbled, backing away from the damage. Mostly everyone was up on their feet now, and those who weren't were being helped out by others. My job was pretty much done.

My mourning process for the fallen wasn't done yet, though.

"Malfoy Manor." He replied, grabbing my hand forcefully. The world distorted around me, and in a flash, I was standing on the steps of a large grey mansion. The heavy oak door stared me in the face. I staggered backwards.

"No!" I snapped, jerking my hand back from his harsh grasp in shock. I thought of disapparating elsewhere but—I realized that I hadn't learnt how to apparate yet. "Wait… how did you…"

"Stupid question." Draco sneered at me before dragging me through the now open door. A wide-eyed house-elf peered out from behind the door, regarding me with a creepy (but also kind of cute) amount of interest.

"Err… Hi?" I told her hesitantly, taking in the pillowcase she was wearing. This wasn't Dobby. I flinched a little as I passed through the grey smoky screen: but nothing happened. Probably thanks to Malfoy's hand on my arm. "Thank you for letting us in. What's your name?"

"Her name is Winky, and don't waste your time talking to her like that." Draco answered rudely before the poor house-elf had a chance to. "Creatures like that aren't worth the effort. And Winky! I'm skipping dinner. I'm not hungry. Prepare a room for our guest. Then—scram!"

Before I had a chance to apologize for Draco, Winky had disappeared.

"Why do you talk to people like that?" I asked indignantly, scurrying to keep up with the Malfoy's long, smooth strides. And then I realized that was yet another stupid question. "Why didn't you even ask me whether or not I wanted to go to your house first before dragging me here with some use of illegal magic? It's against the rules, remember?"

"Who cares?" Draco replied offhandedly, marching me up the grand staircase before I even had a chance to take in my surroundings. A large glass chandelier hung on the ceiling. Everything else was grey. Yet, it wasn't as dark and desolate as I thought it would have been: Malfoy Manor still had a supply of healthy sunlight streaming through the windows.

Although I really didn't appreciate the way he shoved me up the stairs. I'm an acceptably talented witch, not his freaking doormat. "Let go of me, for goodness' sake!"

He did. "Your room's the second one to the right, right across from mine." He drawled, releasing me with yet another rough shove. He turned to head back down the stairs. "I'm going to get some dinner."

"But you just said to Winky that you weren't hungry!"

"Well, I wasn't aware that it's illegal to change my mind." He called back, taking on his trademark sarcastic tone and smirk.

I rolled my eyes, too weary to come up with a retort. I padded my way down the eerily bright hallway—wasn't Malfoy Manor supposed to look like some kind of dungeon? —and finally reached the door to what was supposed to be my room.

I hesitated. Would something jump out at me if I opened the door? What if all this was some sort of sick joke? Suddenly, the look on Draco's face when he came between that death eater and me flashed in my head. He deserves this bit of trust from me, I thought.

I pushed the door open.

The room was surprisingly luxurious. A four-poster bed was covered by a shocking amount of bloated pillows. A canopy floated above the bed, draping a mist of wispy, white-tinted cloth over the whole bed, like translucent curtains. The walls were a light, fairy-tale blue. A vanity sat in the corner, next to the huge window that stretched from the ceiling to the floor. There was a door in the middle of the expanse of glass, and it led to a balcony.

Definitely not what I expected of Malfoy Manor.

Forgetting about my trauma for a moment, I dropped my shopping bags and flounced over to the bed and sat down gingerly. Of their own accord, my fingers drifted over the soft blue of the blankets. It was so, so soft.

Would Malfoy's hair be that soft if I ran my fingers through it?

Nah. It would probably be as coarse as a pig's nostril hair.

It doesn't look like it, though. It looks like it would be soft like… silk.

But it's Malfoy. Nothing about him is soft.

Why the hell was I thinking about Malfoy's hair!? I thought suddenly, realizing the exact subject of my train of thought. Maybe it's the shock. Either way, I wasn't about to spend one more second thinking about Draco's hair of all things.

My whole body felt leaden all of a sudden, as if something was dragging me down and sucking all the energy out of me. I shrugged off my dusty, dirty clothes that still smelled like butter beer and fell backwards onto the welcoming bed in my underclothes.

My muscles ached. Especially my lower back, for some reason. Reaching back, I kneaded the taut muscle to the best of my ability through the thin tank-top I wore as an undershirt. The spot was sore, and when I kneaded it, it ached. But it was the good kind of aching, like rubbing an old bruise.

I sighed.

"Well then, what do we have here?" The unmistakable drawl of Draco Malfoy drifted through the fog of perfectness around me. His footsteps came slowly, one by one as he closed the distance between us. Ugh. Just perfect.

I tilted my head to look at him. There it was: that indecency in his silver grey eyes. He was thinking something particularly bad at this moment, as he prowled towards me, eyes wandering. And given my state of undress, it wasn't hard to guess what he was thinking of. I couldn't help but smile a little at his predictability, even though this situation was pretty embarrassing.

He faltered, stuttering to a halt a few feet away from me. His eyes flickered towards my face—and stayed there. There it was again. That tectonic plates shifting look that softened his sharp Malfoy features and made him Draco.

I sat up and blinked at him. Since when had I gotten so poetic?

"Well? Are you going to leave and let me get dressed, or what?" I said mildly after an awkward pause.

"Or what." He shot back (as expected), but his tone of voice was just as mild as mine. But just the same, he turned his back and closed the door behind him. "By the way, dinner is served."

I stayed sitting, blinking. I wasn't sure what to think—would he pop back into the room, cackling with laughter at my shock? Was this some kind of joke? Or was it… some kind of dream?

A loud crack broke through my reverie, and I jolted upright, half expecting Draco or even death eaters to appear. Instead, it was Winky. I breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing her, and gave her a little smile.

"Fresh clothes for you miss!" The little house-elf held out a bundle of muggle clothes that were around my size. I took them gratefully, wondering if Malfoy had ordered her to get these for me.

"Thanks, Winky." The clothes were obviously freshly washed, but there was this lingering scent of sunscreen mixed with that unique smell of old things. These were someone else's clothes—someone long gone.

Awkward.

Hurriedly, I put those clothes on in case Draco changed his mind and decided to barge in again. The smell of oldness wasn't unpleasant at all, and I rather liked the smell of sunscreen, but to know that I was wearing someone else's clothes made me wrinkle my nose a little.

I descended the stairs two steps at a time, and Winky led the way through the house towards the dining wing. Halfway there, Winky gathered enough courage to make conversation with me.

"Miss… if you do not mind me saying…" Winky was clearly afraid of a scolding or even a beating from me, a 'friend' of her master's, yet there was something she wanted desperately to say to me.

"Yes, go on?" I prodded gently, heart melting for the poor, mistreated house-elf.

Hesitant relief spread over her wide-eyed stare. "It's just… for a mermaid, you seem more like a bird than a siren." At the word 'mermaid', Winky lowered her voice to a hush.

I froze. "How did you know that?" I demanded sharply, wincing when I saw the terror in Winky's eyes. "I'm sorry, it's just... surprising. I never told anyone."

"It's a secret, so naturally, everyone knows." Winky replied, accepting my apology graciously. "At least among the… the purebloods." She shuddered at the word. "They know everything. They knew your father. They knew your mother."

"They killed my mother! And my father!" I snapped back, forgetting where I was for an instant.

"I'm sorry for that miss. All I wanted to say, Miss Saffron, is that you don't fulfill the expectations of a half-siren. I've met those like you before but they were all very… mysterious and dark. And graceful. Not that you're not graceful—you're graceful as a bird in flight, not like… not like a jaguar." She struggled to make me understand.

I did. I knew I was a disappointment to my half-siren genes. I couldn't help it—I was just more human than mermaid, you know? And I hated fish. Gross, slimy things. Tasted horrible the only time I tried it, too.

"Thanks, Winky." I called over my shoulder as I stepped into the dining hall. There was yet another chandelier hanging on the ceiling. The walls were painted red, and the dark wood color of the red-cushioned seats contrasted greatly against it. The heavy oak table was big enough to seat ten people at least, but it was completely empty. Save for the seat at the head of the table, which had been taken by Draco.

His head snapped up when I walked in.

"I told you not to be so kind to house-elves like her!" He scolded me as I plopped myself down (very ungracefully) on the seat next to him. Then, the asshole took in what I was wearing, and stiffened.

"Did Winky get you those clothes?" His eyes were steel.

"No." I lied smoothly, covering for the poor elf. "I stumbled upon it myself. Why do you ask, Malfoy?"

"Those were my aunt's clothes." He replied curtly, avoiding all eye contact now and glaring at his food.

"What, Bellatrix's?" I gasped, feeling disgust cling to my skin wherever the clothes touched me. No way in hell would I wear anything of Bellatrix's. The damned woman had killed Sirius! She was Voldemort's right hand woman! His best lieutenant!

Malfoy sensed my panic. "No," he cut in hastily, shaking his head a little. "Not her. My other aunt. Andromeda? You might have heard of her. Your friend… the one married to that wretched werewolf? Yeah. That's her daughter. It's her room you're staying in."

"Oh." I didn't even bother to scold Malfoy about calling Professor Lupin a 'damned werewolf'. All I felt was relief that I wasn't currently clothed in that madwoman's old clothes.

"Andromeda… I've heard of her. She was a good person, wasn't she?" By 'good', I meant that she was on our side.

"She betrayed our family name by marrying that muggle," Draco replied.

"No, she didn't! She was open-minded, and she fell in love. It's awfully romantic," I argued back, looking down on my food for the first time. Steak, with peas and mashed potatoes at the side. Plus a cup of pumpkin juice.

Draco never bothered to reply.

Night fell, and I stared at the light blue ceiling (or what I could see of it through the canopy), finally able to mourn the people who had fallen today at the Leaky Cauldron. So many people, so many innocent lives. And I had sat frozen on that damned stool—unable to even lift my wand to help due to my drunken state. Oh, I had sobered up the moment the green tipped wand had pointed at me, all right. But it had been too late. I could almost imagine tomorrow's headlines.

Deaths in the Leaky Cauldron After Death Eater Attack!

Six People Killed After Attack!

Or maybe: Attack on Diagon Alley!

Or even… "A Malfoy Involved In Death Eater Attack",a little voice whispered in my head. I wasn't quite sure why that worried me so much—why did I care about Draco's reputation?

I bolted upright suddenly, and the world began to spin, just like it had in the Leaky Cauldron. A green-tipped wand was pointing directly at me. I could feel its deadly, nucleonic warmth burning directly in the middle of my chest. And on my forehead.

Dead bodies lay around me, staining, tainting this ridiculous room where baby blue colors dominated. Its light, carefree colors made the dead bodies look so out of place. However, that little artistic mismatch was wiped away from my thoughts when I spotted my parents lying on the floor.

"No!" I shrieked, launching myself at them. But I couldn't move. Not with the dreaded green-tipped wand pointing at me. "No!" I screamed again, willing every fiber in my body to move. But I couldn't. I was stuck there—just like I had been stuck today at the Leaky Cauldron. "No, no, no! Mommy! Daddy!"

Tears blurred my vision, and the pool of dark maroon blood that pooled around their bodies blended in grotesquely with the light blue of the floors. "No! No! No!" They began to fade.

I tried to glare up at the holder of the green-tipped wand, but I couldn't quite see past the green glow. The glow began to brighten, and expand, and soon it was shooting straight towards me as I sat frozen.

And then suddenly, the bed tipped sideways, and I scrambled, grabbing at everything I could to prevent myself from falling into the great, black abyss beneath me. The wind rushed past me, screaming its lungs out.

My two greatest fears. Heights… and death.

"No!" I gave one last shrill, defiant shriek, clawing desperately for a handhold.

"Shut up!" Someone yelled back.

I blinked. I bolted upright. Wait—hadn't I already bolted upright? My mind was a swirl of confusion as I tried to differentiate reality from… the dream I had been having. In the meantime, I drank in the sights before me.

Light, pleasant blue everywhere.

Fairy-tale like canopy.

A platinum haired boy with his heart-wrenchingly familiar grimace, leaning over me. Tufts of his hair fell before his wide, silvery orbs.

The solid, firm ground beneath me.

I wasn't about to be killed.

"Oh, shit," I groaned, still clutching the sheets so hard my hands were getting numb. "Nightmare."

"I kind of fucking figured, okay? You woke the whole bloody house up." The platinum haired boy snarled, batting a few wisps of the translucent canopy away from his face barbarically. It would have been funny if the green glow of the wand wasn't still hidden behind my eyelids every time I blinked.

"There's no one except you and me in this 'whole bloody house', Draco," I hissed back, clutching the blankets to my chest. I hadn't even realized I had fallen asleep.

See, the thing about me is that I don't fall asleep slowly, then all at once. For me? One moment I'm awake, and then the next I'm plunged headlong into the dark, unconscious blindness.

My dreams are vivid. But when I wake up, it's so much better. I don't care how vivid or even sweet good dreams can be. It's not worth the risk of a nightmare.

Kind of how you're like in the subject of love, a little voice whispered to me.

I ignored it and stared desperately at Malfoy. I didn't care that I looked like a mess—with him, I never cared. He was the exception, seeing as I usually cared so much about what others thought of me. "Why did you save me?" My voice didn't come out as demanding as I wanted it to be.

It was cracked and raspy and soft. And desperate.

He had heard it, I was sure. But he didn't answer. Instead, his grey eyes stared into mine as he ran a long, pale finger down my cheek, tracing the path of something wet.

Tears.

I had been crying. I hated crying in front of others.

But in the face of his proximity, of his intense, burning grey eyes, I found myself thinking of something else entirely.

Something indecent.

With a sudden movement, Draco ripped the sheets away from my body and crawled in next to me.

"What are you doing?" I asked, a little scandalized but not able to stop the little tingle that ran up my spine as his warmth wrapped around mine. He was attractive, that was for sure. They didn't call him a 'Slytherin Prince' for no reason, after all.

He paused, shuffling a bit to make the both of us comfortable. We lay on our backs, side by side, staring up at that pale blue. His pale lips twisted up into a little smirk. Somehow, that sight (at the peripheral of my vision—I was not staring at him) relaxed me. That was normal. That was reassuring.

Just before I thought he had completely fallen asleep, he whispered his answer to the question I had blurted out. His words drifted above us, among the happy-ever-after bright white canopies.

"I'm doing damage control," he murmured, mimicking my words from before. He sounded as if he was trying to sooth me, and it worked. Consider me soothed, I thought wryly, feeling the beginnings of a little smile grow on my cheeks.

I plunged into the unknown, in more ways than one.

You should love me for getting this chapter up so fast. But I completely understand if you love Draco Malfoy more than me. Don't worry, I won't tell. Anyway, this was a little filler chapter. They just sort of realize at the corner of their minds, but they don't fall in love. Yet. ;)

As always, review, please! It would mean a lot to me.

Until next time!

~Nightingalelynx