Harry Potter and everything affiliated with it does not belong to me.
Four.
Pansy waited impatiently at her seat, constantly resisting the urge to twist and look to the door to see when Draco came in. Most of the Hufflepuffs they shared Herbology with had arrived already and were suiting up for the greenhouse lesson, chattering jovially and jostling each other to find a good pair of gardening gloves that were not too big or worn through.
To busy herself Pansy went to pick a smock. She was among the first to do so (everyone always rushed for the gloves first, since the majority of the stock were full of holes and dead bugs-she had her own pair sent from home) so she got the best one-cleaner than the rest and still tough as it probably had been in the shop-most of the others were threadbare and offered little to no protection. She picked the second best for Draco-he would have to fare for himself on the gloves-she refused to touch any.
Once she reached her place she tied her hair into a small knot at the base of her head, and then pulled the smock over her head. After she'd made sure her hair was still in order she tied the strings of the smock snugly around her waist, and just as she'd finished Draco came in.
He walked in smoothly, looking regal as always in that insufferable manner he always had, but effortless, which so many envied him for. Even in the old, dusty greenhouse, shabby and earthen as it was, he looked like he belonged. All the green surrounding him was reflected in his eyes, making them appear green themselves. The other students unconsciously made way for him-or consciously-she could never tell. He didn't notice, just walked past them without saying a word.
He scanned the room casually, and when he caught sight of her she held up the smock and gave him a look to summon him. He went accordingly, and stood beside her without facing her.
There was a moment of silence as she pulled on her custom-made gloves, and he was busy in putting on his smock, doing this also with that dignified manner that made known he would be embarrassed by very little. She remembered when they were both small, and he'd protested violently about wearing the smocks, and smiled.
There was an awkwardness between them that had never existed before, which she hated. They'd been best friends since they were infants, and though their mothers had hoped they would marry (a notion she'd very briefly entertained when entering her teen years) she only saw him as a brother.
Since the argument around the end of fifth year, they hadn't talked once. Not even over the summer, which had never happened before. She'd figured he wouldn't reply, or that because of their argument, he simply would not want to be her friend anymore, which hurt her to think about. Even during fifth year there'd been that easiness between them and now she felt its absence like a knife in her side. She almost regretted having left him that note—would he still be her Draco? Or had that change manifested him into something she could hardly bear to know anymore?
She'd heard of his initiation, and had desperately wanted to talk to him but by then it had already happened. As children, when they'd spoken of it, he'd said he would wait until he was seventeen to join, but he'd apparently not wanted to wait, and she couldn't help but wonder why.
Her father had come home the day it had happened and she'd asked what happened, despite knowing they were forbidden from speaking of what happened in those ceremonies. He'd smiled at her, however, meaning it had gone well, and she knew he was thinking to himself when she would take the Mark.
Would she? It was an honor, everyone said. She'd believed them for so long, until she'd begun having the smallest of doubts. And when she'd learned Draco had done it, she'd been so terrified. What had they made him do? Did he like it? Was he really going to turn into one of them? Would she join him? It wasn't as much a rite of passage or even a requirement for women to join the ranks-Bellatrix had been the first woman to ever take the Mark, and from then on few women had followed suit.
Pansy pictured the crumpled up letters she couldn't send him over the summer, each one bearing the same message—Don't do it. Why hadn't she sent them after all? Maybe he would have listened to her.
But the more she thought about it the more she realized how little her pleas would have affected anything. It had been inevitable for him. She'd dreamed she could talk him out of it but knew it could not be. With his father in Azkaban, someone needed to fill his place. Her father had said as much several times. And he was just the right age, and in Hogwarts no less, where he could spy and infiltrate whenever the Dark Lord chose. Suddenly she was filled with dread. If he couldn't say no, what about her?
Professor Grubbly-Plank had begun the lesson, and she paid attention as best as she could, given her current state of mind. She and Draco worked together as she talked on, collecting the sap from some hairy plant and cutting the thorns off another. Their classmates were wincing; some drew blood. She felt none of the thorn's sharpness in the safe confines of her dragon-hide gloves. Draco worked swiftly, almost with rhythm, as if he worked with silk rather than thorns. She caught the annoyed glance some of the Hufflepuffs sent them, and pretended she hadn't.
By the time class ended she hadn't had the chance to tell him anything. They took off their gardening gear quickly, stepped around Lovegood, who was draping a handmade scarf over a potted sapling, and exited the greenhouse.
Outside, the air was sharper, suffused with cold. The sun shone colorless in the grey sky, bereft of its cloud playmates. The group of students were making their way back to the castle, where the bells for lunch had just begun to ring, startling birds from their perches in the surrounding trees.
"You wanted to speak to me," Draco said quietly, startling her, who had been taking her hair down.
She was afraid of his reaction, what he would say, but she had to get through with it. Else there was no point to having sent that note.
"I'm worried about you."
"Still?" he didn't sound angry. "You said as much last year. There's nothing to worry for."
"I'm not so sure," she said. "How are you? How have you been? I've missed you."
He inclined his head towards her in acknowledgment. "Me too."
"But how are you?"
"Sleeping poorly, but I'm well," he lied, knowing that she could see right through it immediately. She stepped closer and felt his forehead.
"I believe the first part, you look like you haven't slept in months."
"I've managed."
Pansy tsked. "Still devilishly handsome though. No hope for the rest of us."
The corners of his lips lifted. "Shove off."
"There's no need to lie to me, Draco," she said carefully after a short pause. "Tell me how you feel."
They were at the front doors, stepping through. Groups of students were entering the Great Hall, the sound was almost deafening. The place was so full and swarming with people they chose to wait until it all thinned a little.
"Tired, mostly," he said distractedly, his voice barely carrying over the din, "but I feel nothing out of the ordinary."
"And your Father?"
He took a moment to respond, and when he did, there was a biting tone in his voice.
"As well as he can manage, I suppose, being locked up and surrounded daily by Dementors."
Pansy edged away from the door-someone had just pushed past her to step out into the grounds, and she looked after them, frowning, but turned back to Draco after a moment.
"I know you blame her for your father being in prison," she said carefully. There could be no doubt as to whom she referred to. "She had nothing to do with it."
Draco kept his eyes trained on the wall opposite them.
"And how can you be so sure?"
"She told me herself what happened at the Ministry. She was in another room with Weasley when the Dark Lord and Dumbledore fought. She didn't see any of it until the Minister had come and your father and aunt had already been taken away."
"And you believed her?"
"What would she gain by lying? She didn't tell me all of it at first, but from what I heard from the other's and Potter's own account I put two and two together." Her hand found his shoulder. "What made you think she did it?"
Draco thought of the kiss, her threat. The way she'd looked the morning after the breach of the Ministry, weary but content and surrounded by her friends and admirers. The warning look she'd flashed in his direction when she'd felt his eyes on her. He felt himself deflate suddenly, and remembered how very tired he was. There was the tiniest sense of him being relieved at Pansy's news, too, but he squashed it out.
"I thought she might have done it perhaps to get back at me for how I treated her last year," he said. He caught sight of dark brown hair, and followed it, but when that person's head turned he found it wasn't her. "I was angry and irrational. It was a misguided thought."
"Do you hate her still?" Pansy's tone was offhand, her delivery careful. Draco looked at her from the corner of his eye.
"Why does it matter?"
"I want to know if you're my best friend again, not the power-obsessed fool you turned into last term."
Her words were blunt, but hit their mark, and Draco looked away.
"I wasn't-I'm not..." he trailed off, tried to keep from scowling. "I don't know what happened. I'm embarrassed at how I acted. I should have listened to you. I was so angry all the time, and latched on to her to let it out."
"I'm glad to hear it," she said after a short pause. "All of it, not just the last part, though it's always refreshing."
"Umbridge brought out the worst in me," he said, grimacing.
"Yes, she has that effect on everyone. I couldn't look at her without feeling angry...Even being around her, felt like standing beside a Dementor, almost. She was less vile to our House, but classes with her were always hostile."
"I let it all go to my head," he said quietly. "The Inquisitor Squad, the immunity from the rules, her favor. And having to constantly interact with someone who hated me as much as I hated her made me more irritable than ever."
"You've always been of risible temper," she said, leaning against the wall. Someone else went outside, and as the door opened and closed after him a gust of wind blew Pansy's hair in disarray. "But I'd never seen you quite like that. You were like a whole different person."
"I don't like talking about it," he said. "I'm not proud of what I did. Nor should I ever have been."
"You may not like remembering it, but the fact of the matter is that you did do some very horrible things," Pansy told him sternly. "I'm happy to hear you've come out for the better but I think you owe someone a very great apology. I'm sure she doesn't like remembering it as much as you do."
"She wouldn't speak to me so much as she'd step on a House Elf."
"You've got to try, at least. She deserves that much."
"I meant it, Pansy. She's blackmailed me into never speaking to her again. I can't even look her in the eye without repercussion."
"What would that be?"
"That's none of your business."
Pansy tsked, shaking her head. "Gods, Draco, what else did you do?" He could hear the implication in her voice—Did you hurt her?
"No, of course not," he said quickly, but then fell silent, remembering the ring of bruises he'd left around her throat. The altercation outside the library, when she'd punched him and he'd knocked her to the floor. The way he'd held her arms so tight she'd screamed to Umbridge, of all people, for mercy.
Pansy was watching him. She sensed his thoughts. Perhaps Granger had even told her of the things he'd done. Suddenly he felt sick with shame.
"You need help, Draco. But you also need to make things right."
"How?" he snapped. "Nothing will change her mind. I made her very angry and she got me back and I learned my lesson and I won't bother her again."
"You're afraid of her." Pansy tried to keep the goading tone from her voice, and failed.
"I'm sure she doesn't even want an apology, so long as I follow her rules."
"Well," Pansy said, crossing her arms. "I love you, and you're my closest friend, but I won't defend you in what you did. I'll even be a brute and say that you brought it on yourself." She made a face. "What an awful taste those words leave on the tongue."
She was so relieved to have her best friend back that she couldn't help herself—she laughed.
Draco said nothing.
"Hungry?" she asked, jerking her head towards the Great Hall's doors. Draco looked around the room and realized it was nearly empty. Though the doors leading into the Great Hall were thicker than the gamekeeper Hagrid, a muffled sort of noise seemed to emanate from it, and he thought of all the people that were seated inside, the raw noise held within. The very subject of his thoughts, smiling and chattering along with her friends, the scars on her hand as prominent as ever.
So quickly, the image of his own hands covered in red flashed through his mind, and his stomach knotted with fear. All trace of appetite disappeared.
"No. You go on-I've got something I need to do."
"Alright then," she came forward and embraced him briefly. "I'll be in the library after, if you need me. I might have a few friends with me, if you'd like to join."
Draco knew who one of those friends might be. He'd seen them sitting together more often in the library and sometimes, to everyone's astonishment, in the Great Hall.
She wouldn't want me anywhere near her, much less seated at the same table, mutual friend or not.
Pansy had already gone past those great doors, and he made his way to the Slytherin commons, where he intended to have some time alone.
That he'd finally reconciled with Pansy was relieving, but there was still much to think about, and this was currently the least of his concern, no slight meant to her.
He'd dreamt of his initiation again, and had woken feeling so agitated it had taken some time to slow his breathing and calm his heart, though it still pounded forcefully for several minutes afterwards. It was every night now, that it came, and every attempt he made to block it out worked for only a short period of time. A Dreamless Sleeping Draught would have been just the thing in ordinary circumstances, but the thought of having to rely on it every night for who knew how long was exhausting, and he didn't want to make Madame Pomfrey suspicious and call attention to him.
The images from that night flashed through his mind not only in his dreams, but had even begun to bleed through into his thoughts while he was awake, and it was everything he could do appear unaffected and calm though his heart skipped beats and his skin grew both hot and cold and broke out in sweat.
It's manageable, he told himself. I am in control of myself. I will conquer this, and it will go away.
But his hands were shaking.
He had to be strong. There was no time to dwell on what he'd done. If he began to regret it, the Dark Lord would know, and he would suffer for it.
I wanted this. I made my choice.
A voice spoke softly in his head. But you didn't think it would be like this.
Draco flinched. Poisonous, doubtful thought. He had to be careful.
What I thought doesn't matter. This is the reality. I am not a boy anymore. I must serve.
The voice returned, faint. Or die.
Draco pretended he had not heard it. That night, there was no sleep.
Happy Thanksgiving to any of you who partake in the holiday. I'm always grateful to have the chance to share my stories and love of Harry Potter with you guys. There's such an audience on here that I never thought I'd find and I just want to say thank you for taking the time to read and comment and even follow my work. You're all the best. Have at it, and in the spirit of giving, please leave a review!
xoxo
C