(AN: So, here's chapter seven!)
(This Chapter is From the Point of View of Draco Malfoy)
"Having a last meal, Potter?" I sneered at Harry at dinner later that day. Crabbe and Goyle scowled at him from my left and right, like giant bodyguards. In a way, I'd earned them with my first act against Gryffindor.
"It would be your fault if he were," Hermione snapped at me when Harry acted as if he hadn't heard my voice. But I caught that she said this as if he hadn't been expelled, and had to choke back a sudden surge of relief. I hate him, I reminded myself sternly. I wish he'd been expelled. "Some bloody friend you are, Malfoy. Is Pansy still speaking to you?"
I felt the blood rise into my cheeks, but I didn't answer her…because Pansy wasn't speaking to me. "If that's how you treat your friends, then I want nothing of you. Just stay away from me," she'd informed me tremulously there on the Quidditch pitch, her bright blue eyes wet with unshed tears. God, I had never felt this alone before they'd come along. And now I'd lost all three of them, and I could barely stand to look at myself in the mirror for the morose expression that I could only seem to mask behind distain.
"Does everyone hate you so much that you need bodyguards?" Harry asked emotionlessly, shooting me a cold look through his bangs.
I contorted my face into a heavy sneer to hide the way my heart twisted. God, I wanted him to hurt the way that I was hurting. "I'll take you on anytime on my own, Potter," I replied, my voice betraying none of the emotions that hung with crushing heaviness in my chest. Malfoys did not emote; cool exteriors were expected. "Tonight, if you want. Wizard's duel. Wands only-no contact. What's the matter? Never heard of a wizard's duel before, I suppose?" I asked. I felt a tinge of lingering anger at his being sent away to Muggles, and had to remind myself that this was cause for distain for him, not this horribly deep empathy.
"Of course I have," he lied bravely. That stupid, stupid boy would plow into anything headfirst and totally blind. Who would protect him if I didn't? But then I knew: Hermione. He'd chosen her friendship over mine to begin with. Tears of rage and jealousy pricked at my eyes just thinking about it, but I wouldn't cry. Malfoys didn't cry.
"Fine. Who's your second?" I asked, planning to catch him in his lie. But of course, much to my horror, he connected enough dots to reply easily.
"Hermione," he answered without a moment's hesitation. God, was I ever jealous of his trust in her! If that damn boy had only been in Slytherin, like he was supposed to have been, it would be me that he trusted so fully. I should have been me! If I didn't do something to remedy this, these feelings would surely kill me eventually. Hermione's jaw fell open but she snapped it closed at once, and I knew that she would be there. Her anger at my betrayal of hers and Harry's friendship was greater than her fear of expulsion. Was this what it was to be hated? It had never sounded so bad before, but now I didn't think I could stand it. But Malfoys did not go mad.
"Midnight, then. In the trophy room; it's always unlocked." With that, I turned and walked away.
That night, I snuck out of the boy's dormitory and strode silently across the common room.
"What the bloody hell is the matter with you?" a voice demanded in a shrill whisper. I jumped and wheeled around to find Pansy standing behind me in her nightdress with a jacket and trainers.
"Go back the bed, Pansy," I advised, walking toward to the door again.
"You're planning to fight Harry?" she demanded, a sob embedded in her voice. "Why? Why are you doing this, Draco? I don't understand!"
"I have to," I replied simply. There was no way that I could explain to her the pain that had me needing desperately to either lash out or get down on my knees and beg forgiveness. But Malfoys never begged. Pansy followed me out of the common room and into the dungeons. "How did you find out about it?"
"I heard Crabbe and Goyle mumbling in their stupid way about you not having a second," she shrugged. "Whatever that means."
"My second would take over and finish the duel if I died. So unless you want to be my second, go back to the common room," I ordered, almost hoping that she would agree. I could have one friend, at least.
"I've never heard anything so ridiculous in my life!" she shrilled, completely incensed by the very notion. I supposed she hated me as well, then.
"Are you trying to get us caught?" I whispered furiously. She followed me the rest of the way to the trophy room, all the time hissing like an angry goose. "Hush! I heard something," I whispered when we were just outside the trophy room, holding up my hand to silence her. She bit her bottom lip and glared at me.
"Sniff around my pet. I'm sure someone is out of bed tonight," the raspy voice of Filch, the caretaker, reached us. I met Pansy's terrified gaze for just a second before we both turned and ran. I nearly cried out in surprise and heard Pansy gasp when we rounded a corner and almost bowled over Hermione and Harry.
"It's Filch," I hissed before either of them could say anything, grabbing Harry's sleeve and wheeling him to run with us. He did so, as did Hermione, who was running hand-in-hand with Pansy. I released Harry and we dashed up a flight of stairs. We paused, panting and listening. Then we heard footfalls on the stairs and I met Harry's wildly terrified gaze with my own. There were no thoughts of enmity now; only escape.
"Alohamora," I heard Pansy whisper, and then there was a click.
"In here," Hermione ordered, and we all bolted inside. I turned around to face Harry while Pansy and Hermione listened at the door. For a moment I was frozen in shock. A few yards behind Harry rested the face of a gargantuan dog. My heart stopped beating as the dog head, and two more just like it, rose up and glared at us with eyes like glowing embers.
"He's gone," Pansy whispered, breaking my trance as well as the dog's. I don't know who moved first, but I lurched forward, knocking Harry to the side at the same time that a set of enormous jaws closed around the space that he had inhabited only seconds before. We sprawled on the floor together, an immobile tangle until I felt a pair of hands on my arm, dragging me up. Harry came with me as we scrambled out of the room and into the deserted corridor.
"What was that?" Pansy hissed hysterically.
"In Greek Myths, there was a three-headed dog that guarded that gates of Hades named Cerberus. I think that was him," Hermione said breathlessly.
"And he was guarding something," Harry said shakily, staring at me. "Did you see it?" he asked me. His green eyes glowed in the darkness as he looked at me, his bright gaze burning into me. I'd just saved his life. I had rips in my robe to show what we'd barely missed. He owed me a life debt now, but he wouldn't have any idea what a powerful magical principal that was once it was finalized. And he never would, because he was raised by Muggles, and because I wouldn't tell him.
"It was standing on a trap door," I nodded, grasping for anything else to concentrate on. "I can't imagine what it could be guarding, though. Must be something either really powerful or really dangerous. Why would it be here, though?"
"Bloody hell. I know what it is. Come on; let's find a place a little more hidden," Harry said suddenly, leaping to his feet and offering me a hand. I accepted it and he pulled me up. "Thanks for that back there, Draco," he said, still gripping my forearm in the same way that I gripped his. I nodded firmly, and I felt the lightness of forgiveness and gratitude from another fill me up as we snuck into the Charms classroom.
"Out with it," Pansy said at once as we all sat down on chairs and desks in the middle of the room.
"Okay, the first day I met Draco, the grounds keeper of Hogwarts, Hagrid, was the one who'd taken me to Diagon Alley earlier. He told me that Gringotts Bank was the second safest place in the world, and that Hogwarts was the first. When he took me to get my money, he took something out of a huge vault. It was a little package no bigger than my fist, and it was the only thing in that whole vault. That's why I was alone; he told me he had to deliver it to Dumbledore. That's got to be what the dog's guarding!" Harry explained quickly.
We all gaped at him. Pansy was the first to recover.
"So what do you think it is?" she asked eagerly. God, that girl was a curious thing.
"Haven't the slightest," Harry sighed, shaking his head. "Let's just get back to our dormitories without getting caught, and we can try talking at breakfast tomorrow, okay?" We agreed, and made our way to our beds. I was exhausted, and the last conscious thought in my head was that maybe we could be friends, even if those two were in Gryffindor.
(I don't like how close my plot is to the actual book. I don't know. Tell me what you think please? Reviews for Aryana?)
