Disclaimer: Not mine. Really. If you don't believe me, take a look in my bank account.
I wanted to post this chapter before I go back to school, hence the quick upload. Unfortunately, when I do go back to school, I won't have much time to write my story (sob). It can't be helped, and I'll try and keep the updates at least monthly. Thanks in advance for being patient.
Reviewers: I love you all for the wonderful comments you make.
Jujube15 and jadewtch: Like I said, (or if I haven't said it now's as good a time as any) all reviews make me hapy. You don't have to go Hermione on me and write five pages (though if you did I'd bake lots of batches of cookies with your name on them, etc...). So, muchos gracias.
draco8448: Yes, the slash is going to take a while - I tried, I tried, but the boys are stubborn!You have faith in me? (blushes). This is about as ASAP as it gets.
Incandescence; After such a wonderful review, yes, you absolutely have my full permission to go all fan-ish (I have a fan! w00t!). It's not often you think, wow, maybe there is the occasional sentence in my stuff that's better off out of the bin.. On a side-note, the evil pink fuzzles of doom? Eeep! (runs, hides) Don't kill me! If you do There won't be any more story!
Ruby and Aura: Hi to both of you - and, yes, poor Harry. On with the story!
The Dark Is Cold
Chapter Seven – Work Your Magic
Draco didn't hesitate before turning and running to the Hospital Wing. Some part of him remembered that Harry had Medical Magic now, and he wouldn't need to fetch him. It was almost unconscious – the need to have Harry there when he asked what was wrong with Pansy. Even though perhaps he already knew. Perhaps Harry already knew.
He opened the door to find Harry and Madame Pomfrey discussing something in low, worried voices. Harry turned round almost immediately, without seeming to look up.
"Draco…it's about Pansy," Harry began.
"I know she's in here," he began, stumbling towards Harry. "What's wrong with her? I want to see her!"
He noticed Madame Pomfrey's gaze flicker to Harry, who nodded. She pulled aside some curtains round a bed.
Pansy was lying, motionless, her clothes ripped and visible skin beginning to purple with bruises. Even in unconsciousness, her face showed evidence of pain she'd endured while last awake. Her forehead was creased and her eyes scrunched closed.
Draco sank into a chair. "Pansy…"
Madame Pomfrey looked back at Harry. "Work your magic, Potter."
"On which one?" he asked, and she only shook her head absently before rushing off. Harry sat down wearily, taking Pansy's hand in one of his and placing the other on her forehead. Then he closed his eyes, and breathed out slowly. Nothing appeared to happen, but Draco fancied that some of the lines on her forehead evened out as she relaxed into natural sleep.
Madame Pomfrey came back in, wand and potions in hand. Harry stood up suddenly.
"How many, Madame Pomfrey?" he said, quietly, and Draco noticed for the first time how tired and careworn the woman looked. She didn't answer, but didn't look at him either, unstoppering a potion.
"I said, 'How many?'" he repeated himself more sharply, fixing the nurse with a gaze that was interrogative, but not overly harsh.
"I don't know – a dozen? Potter, you must understand, I can't do anything except treat their physical wounds and…and send them back. You have no idea how guilty I feel every time I have to do that," she said. Her eyes glistened a bit as she looked back at Pansy.
Draco had had enough. "Harry, what's going on? What's wrong with Pansy? Who hurt her?"
"Use your brain, Mr Malfoy!" It was Madame Pomfrey that spoke. "Who do you think?"
"Draco, we think…we think Pansy has been raped." Harry said, then took an uneasy breath and continued, "And she isn't the first."
Draco hung his head. Pansy, hurt…others too, at least a dozen, Madame Pomfrey said…Blaise…
And he had let him.
When Draco raised his eyes again, they were burning. "They're my Slytherins, Zabini, you hear? I'm supposed to protect them, and I won't let anyone hurt them!" he shouted at nothing, seeing Blaise's scythe-hard smile on the face in front of him. The image faded as he became more determined.
"We're going to stop him." said Draco.
SSSSSSSSS
In Medical Magic, Madame Pomfrey began a short lecture in something that almost resembled her usual brisk but pleasant manner.
"Today, we shall be looking at the Full Body Healing spell. With a relatively simple incantation, one can heal every ill on the patient – but be careful, because it tends to heal clumsily. Sometimes it knits broken bones together in the wrong place or misheals mangled or very deep wounds. It is also very draining for the healer if the patient is badly wounded."
She went on to describe the method and incantation, and finished by telling them that it was a hard spell to master, so not to worry if they didn't manage it this lesson.
The students formed a line, taking turns in attempting to heal a small first year who was lightly bruised from tripping over a few steps. Looking carefully at Harry, Madame Pomfrey placed him last.
No one succeeded; Hermione frowned and examined her wand when her attempt didn't work. At last, Harry's turn came about. Viewing the fidgeting first year, he wished all of the Mediwitch's patients could be treated so easily.
"Mr Potter…" she sighed. "What will I do with him? Before this, he cast an unpredictable unconsciousness spell on someone so I couldn't heal them, then waltzed in and woke him up with his magic blooming touch! I never did get a chance to heal him…I assume you took care of him?"
She fixed him with a questioning glance that was soft enough to tell him that she was glad of his 'magic blooming touch'. He nodded in response
"Who was it, Madame Pomfrey?" Hermione asked, frowning. Pomfrey spoke before Harry could object.
"I think it was the Malfoy boy, if I remember right."
All the Gryffindors present, even those who had not been involved, had the good grace to look abashed.
"What was it that happened, again? You never did say…"
"An accident," said Harry, tersely, looking pointedly at Hermione.
"Anyhow, we'll study this again next lesson. Class dismissed," she said, briskly.
Hermione caught up with him on her way out.
"Harry," she began, fighting the waves of utter indifference he was giving off. "Why?"
He stopped. "There are some things you don't understand, Hermione." Like the things he made me understand. And that I'm such a hypocrite for helping him when I did the same thing to him. Does he blame me? Does he even remember that I left him to bleed in a dark corridor not so many months ago?
"Wouldn't you have done the same thing? I know you're a kind person, Hermione; do you hate him so much that you'd leave him to hurt, and ignore your human compassion? Because there are only a few people who deserve that kind of hatred – and Malfoy is not one of them."
He didn't wait for her response.
"I'm – I'm sorry, Harry," she said to the empty corridor. "I'm sorry about everything,"
SSSSSSSSS
"The holidays start tomorrow," Draco said abruptly, as if he'd only just realised.
"They do?" Harry stopped, and turned. "And you're not staying." It wasn't a question.
"I have to go. And…I want to see my mother."
A loaded statement if ever there was one. It wasn't Harry's place to talk about Draco's family. He himself didn't have a family, so what would he know? Still, he couldn't forget how cold Draco's parents were with him – Harry's parents would have been mum and dad, but Draco's would always be mother and father.
He tried to attribute the twinge he felt to surprise at how quickly the term had passed; he refused to acknowledge it as jealousy. Unable to think of a response, he didn't give one. 'Oh' had no meaning on its own – it was the expression that communicated.
And sounded like the speaker was fumbling for words. Which was true, but it was much easier not to say anything.
Harry was left wondering what on earth he would do for two weeks.
SSSSSSSSS
He put in a rare appearance at breakfast; if anyone noticed, they didn't comment. Spending most of the time watching the door, he didn't get around to eating anything, if he had felt in the mood for eating in the first place. Draco didn't come, and Harry was about to go looking for him when some part of him wondered cynically if he was going to spend two weeks pining, and he shook himself.
He walked, noticing in a manner that he tried to construe as idle but failed miserably, that the train left in half an hour.
"Harry," There was quiet call a way behind him, but he heard it – Draco.
He turned.
"I – I'm going now,"
"Yes," he said, having found a substitute for 'oh'.
"See you in, uh, two weeks, then,"
"Goodbye," Harry agreed, wanting to leave and run after him at the same time.
But Draco didn't move, and neither did Harry, until they fell into another sharp hug that was another 'goodbye', but somehow a much more satisfying one.
"Owl me," was somewhere between a demand and a plea.
Harry didn't have to keep looking back on his return journey to the common room.
SSSSSSSSS
Hermione had stayed at school to study.
Ron, on the other hand, had gone home, knowing it was fruitless to stay behind for Harry.
But Hermione knew some things, or rather, she didn't, which was the point.
She knew Pansy was in the Hospital Wing, and wondered why Harry had been standing beside her bed. She had seen Malfoy leave the Hospital Wing before Medical Magic, and wondered why he had looked as though he should have been going in the opposite direction.
She wondered when Harry had stopped hating Malfoy. Or…perhaps he never had. Certainly she'd never seen that Look, when his eyes turned the exact colour of the Killing Curse, before the Department of Mysteries. A lot of things had changed after the Department of Mysteries.
Things that shouldn't have changed, like that she didn't know Harry anymore – and she didn't know if she ever had.
SSSSSSSSS
Draco,
There's nothing to do now – and don't bother with the how-are-yous, because you know I'll say 'I'm fine', and so will you. Even if we aren't.
Pansy hasn't woken up, but she's getting better. Madame Pomfrey wanted to keep her sedated until she can get up. To be ill in bed is depressing, and she doesn't need that.
God, I wish she'd wake up – then I could stop feeling bloody sorry for her and go back to the way it was. But you care about her – even though she sold you out to Zabini. Although I suppose she didn't have a choice.
Don't hate yourself for hating him – you told me that once. It works both ways, so don't forget it.
Harry
Draco held the letter, and thoughtfully ran his fingertips over its surface, bending and turning it as a hundred stifled thoughts were turned over in his mind. He wondered what this tugging in his chest was, and why it hurt, as if he could touch the place where it pulled and there would be blood running like water from a break in his skin. It felt wrong that he should hurt and yet be unmarked.
It couldn't be that he was lonely. He couldn't possibly be missing anyone. Malfoys, so said the stern-faced portraits on the cold marble walls, did not have weaknesses like that.
He hadn't gone near any of his father's portraits.
He closed his eyes, and imagined he was back at Hogwarts.
Yes…he was outside. He didn't have to imagine the cold. The Lake was freezing over in places, and would probably totally freeze before the end of January. He was walking…and Harry was beside him.
Their breath misted in front of them, and grass peaked in patches through the layer of snow. Even the Quidditch pitch was covered, and icicles dripped in a patch of frozen time from the goal hoops. The forbidden forest looked much less forbidding covered it white and crystal.
Acres of grounds stretched out around them. It could be said that they looked lonely – but Draco was not lonely. Not with Harry…
"Draco? Are you all right?" It was his mother, and he reluctantly returned to the Manor, whose freezing temperatures were not the only cause of the continual chill.
"I'm fine, mother," he answered, wondering if he was telling the truth. Narcissa smiled a little, guardedly, and left him.
Narcissa and Draco sat at the formal dining table. It was far too large for two people; extravagant even for three, but Lucius had always insisted they use it. It was an antique Mahogany piece, with ornate carvings on the legs and matching chairs, and rich old varnish that smelt musty and warm. It had probably been expensive – hence the reason, Draco had always thought, why his father had wanted to use it.
Now, he thought perhaps it was for intimidation.
"What were you thinking?" Narcissa asked into the silence that was made of the polite scraping of cutlery. Draco looked up from his lavish but barely touched dinner, wary of saying the wrong thing.
"About what?" he inquired with a careful air of mild interest.
"I had to call you twice earlier – you were in a little world of your own," She prodded. Draco worried him bottom lip with his teeth, wondering what she wanted to hear."Who sent you that letter that you stared at for fully ten minutes? Was it Pansy? Such a nice girl––"
Pansy could be a lot of things, a few of them admirable, but none of them even remotely resembled the word 'nice'.
Oh God, Pansy…
Draco didn't answer, burying thoughts of throttling Zabini in his sleep. The best tactic at this point, he knew, was to say something dismissive to put her off, but he couldn't think of anything to say. Suddenly he wanted nothing more than to be out of the room; in fact out of the Manor, and back at Hogwarts.
"No? Not Pansy then," She eyed him carefully for a moment, then said, "I hope she's a Slytherin, Draco," In a tone that suggested she had better be. "And you father always said to be careful of having close friends, lest they betray you."
Draco nearly choked. Betrayal – but Pansy had had no choice. And when she had tried…Draco would rather she had just betrayed him properly.
"So it is better not to have friends at all? Only minions?" Draco cut in sharply. He had spent most of his life believing that, and look where it had got him. He felt sick at himself.
She nodded slightly. "Be careful, Draco." He waited half a minute or so before pushing aside his uneaten meal and leaving at speed.
Narcissa pulled a letter from her sleeve and fingered it, sighing slightly. Then she stood up and hurled it into the fire.