Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling owns Harry Potter, and therefore everything in this fanfiction that you recognize.
CHAPTER SEVEN: Third Year, Part II
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Draco was as excited as he could ever remember being when his father told him they were going to go to the Quidditch Cup that summer. He couldn't wait to see his idols play.
The only thing better than flying, playing quidditch, feeling the wind in your face and tasting the freedom in the air was going to go see professionals, masters of the trade.
But he quickly discovered that he was not a fan of travel by Portkey, when, upon arrival, he emptied the contents of his stomach onto the pile of used Portkeys.
"It's all right," Narcissa soothed him, wrapping an arm around her son and offering him her handkerchief to wipe his mouth. Draco hid his face, waiting until he was ready to present a presentable face to the world.
This was an extremely inauspicious beginning to his vacation. Lucius, standing tall next to Narcissa, aimed a scathing look of disgust at his son when Draco emerged from Narcissa's handkerchief. The boy looked down in shame, cheeks reddening, as Lucius took instructions from the elderly wizard supervising the Portkeys.
"It will be all right, Draco," Narcissa told him in a whisper, hugging her son to her side as they began to walk down the grass, towards a muggle holding a clipboard.
"Don't coddle the boy, Narcissa," Lucius said coldly, hands behind his back. "He won't learn that way."
Draco shuddered at the thought of how his father expected him to learn. Narcissa quickly reached for her pocket, pulling out a small bag full of coins.
"Go buy some trinkets," she said, a smile for her son lighting up her eyes. "I'm sure there'll be plenty to choose from."
Draco grinned, and kissed his mother on the cheek, silently thanking her for the reprieve. He then walked away from his parents with a brisk step, taking in the scenery.
He missed seeing his father finish paying the muggle, and grab onto his mother with a bruising grip.
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Draco looked around, excitement bursting out of him as they ascended to the Top Box.
"Nothing but the best for the Malfoys," Lucius said, a rare smile gracing his face. Narcissa smiled, head down. As his father shot him a look, Draco schooled his expression to casual disinterest, even though his insides were fluttering.
"Ah, and here's Lucius!" Draco heard a familiar voice as they entered. Sure enough, there was Minister Fudge…with Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and the Weasleys.
Draco stiffened, and Narcissa's nose wrinkled in disgust as she took in the unkempt, red-haired family. But neither of them said anything. No matter how outspoken Draco was at school, this was his father's territory. If he felt the need to demean the Weasleys or Potter, well, that was his right. Draco would wait until school…or the Hogwarts Express. Whenever he saw Weasley next.
"I don't think you've met my wife, Narcissa? Or our son, Draco?" Lucius was saying, gesturing to his small family. Draco tuned out the conversation as Fudge introduced Lucius to the Bulgarian Minister, taking in the whole Quidditch field. His attention wandered over to the Weasleys, where Hermione was sitting, staring at Lucius and Narcissa. Draco's wandering mind focused in on the witch's hair. The light caught the separate strands, making some flicker gold, and others shine dark brown.
Hermione, noticing Draco's attention, made a face at him. He grinned back mockingly.
The grin soon faded as he shot a glance at his father, hoping he hadn't seen that last interaction. Luckily, or unluckily, Lucius was busy with Arthur Weasley. Draco smiled inwardly as he and his family took a seat, leaving the man sputtering.
Draco took out his Omnioculars as the match began, and settled in to watch.
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Draco was rudely awakened in what seemed like the middle of the night by a house elf shaking him.
"What are you doing?" he asked grumpily. The little creature grabbed its ears, crouching.
"Mistress is telling me to get Master Draco up," he croaked. "Mistress is telling Master Draco to go into the woods."
Draco groaned. For a moment, he debated rolling back over and going back to sleep, but decided against it.
Narcissa always had her reasons, and she had never given him a reason not to trust her implicitly. Draco threw on some pants and a jacket, then trudged out of the tent into the woods. The early morning was completely silent, no sign of the after-party save some partiers passed out into the grass.
Draco had gotten about half a mile into the woods, sitting down at the base of a tree, when the screaming started.
Draco stood, tensed against any danger. The woods were as dark as ever, but it wasn't the dark Draco feared. He paced back and forth for a few minutes listening to screams and shouts and laughter, and people trampling through the woods, trying to get away from whatever was causing the screams at the campsite.
Draco stayed put. He leaned against a tree trunk, whistling under his breath. His whistles stopped as he heard a group of people stumbling much closer to him than the others had been. He stood still, trying to blend into the darkness.
"Agh!"
"What happened?" a frightened voice asked. "Ron, where are you?"
Draco groaned mentally, shoving his hands into his pockets and leaning against the tree. He knew who he was dealing with now.
"Oh, this is stupid – Lumos!"
A bright light shot into existence, illuminating the faces of Harry Potter and Hermione, and the Weasel, laying on the ground.
"Tripped over a tree root," the red-haired boy muttered defensively.
"Well, with feet that size, hard not to," Draco drawled. The three spun to face him, and he smirked, folding his arms.
Draco raised his eyebrows, unsurprised as Ron displayed his language skills.
"Language, Weasley," he said, somewhat impressed.
"Malfoy, what are you doing here? Are you watching?" Hermione's nose wrinkled.
Draco didn't know what he was supposedly watching, and he studiously avoided looking through the gap in the trees that Hermione was indignantly pointing to. But he knew there was only one group that could cause the kind of panic he was seeing now in the wizarding world. And it was always one of two things that the drama was about.
"Hadn't you better be hurrying along, now? You wouldn't want her spotted, would you?"
Insults never fail. He laughed as the trio hurried away from him, farther away from the chaos in the camping grounds. He returned his gaze to the ground as the darkness took over again.
Hermione was going in the right direction – away. Draco sat down to wait for his mother.
He didn't have to wait long.
"Draco?!" Narcissa ran between the roots of the trees, an edge of hysteria in her voice, holding a glowing wand in her hand. As she caught a glimpse of Draco, she changed course, heading for her son.
"Mum…Mum, what's going on?" Seeing his mother's pale face, Draco overcame his fear, straining to see what was happening down in the camp.
"Draco, we need to go now." Narcissa put an arm around her son, wand in hand, ready to apparate.
"What about Father?" Draco protested, still trying to see around the trees. His father couldn't be a part of what was happening right now. He wouldn't…
"He wants us to go home, Draco," Narcissa said sharply, holding her son tighter. "He'll meet us there."
Draco relented, grabbing his mother's arm. Just before they disappeared from the forest, he was finally able to see what was happening in the camp.
And he had heard enough of his father's stories of the 'good old days' to know exactly what was happening.
Hermione went away from the camp, he reassured himself. She will be fine.
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On the day he was to return to school, Draco hauled his trunk down the stair to the main hall, setting it in front of the door. Leaving it there, he pocketed his wand, and went to knock on the door of his father's study.
"What is it, Draco," his father said in a tense voice.
"I was wondering if I am to get a ride to the station," Draco said.
"Ah." Lucius opened the door, allowing Draco to enter. The boy stopped when he noticed an overweight, rat-like man sitting on the sofa across from his mother.
"I didn't realise you had company…" Draco said uncertainly, bowing his head to the stranger.
"I'll take him, Lucius," Narcissa said, getting up smoothly. She shook hands with the stranger, who smiled, watery blue eyes blinking. Lucius kissed his wife on the cheek, then nodded.
"Come along, Draco."
With one last look at the man on his father's sofa, Draco turned and followed his mother out of the study.
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Draco almost got on the train without saying goodbye to his mum.
His mother and he had the good fortune to have arrived at the platform only moments behind a head of familiar hair. Draco started following the girl, unintentionally of course. And so, when Hermione boarded the train, he almost left his mother and his luggage behind.
"Draco, dear!" Narcissa called when he had one foot on the step. He looked back to see his mother smiling, a sparkle in her eye that he hadn't seen for a very long time. He raised an eyebrow. "Are you forgetting something?" she laughed.
Draco gazed back at her uncomprehendingly for a moment, before she pointed down to the trunk at her side.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, quickly trotting away from the train to his mother. He lifted the trunk with a quick levitation spell, grabbing his eagle owl's cage before turning to his mother. Narcissa didn't even have to bend down for him to kiss her on the cheek, and Draco noticed how short his mother was getting for the first time.
How fragile.
On an impulse, he set down his eagle owl and grabbed her hand.
"Will you be okay?" he whispered, eyes on her face, searching for any bit of hidden emotion.
Her brows crinkled for just a second before smoothing out. "I'll be fine, Draco," she reassured him tremulously. "You just – just focus on your studies. And write me, darling. Write often."
Draco nodded. Just then, the warning whistle sounded, a piercing sound. He flinched, then smiled at his mum. "Bye," he said.
"Bye," she whispered. He spun around and raced to the train.
Just before the train started moving, he looked back, and waved.
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It was halfway through the journey before Ron even thought to change into his school robes. Rolling her eyes, Hermione excused herself from their compartment before she could be asked to leave. She grabbed a book and her wand. Might as well practice, she told herself as she slid to sit on the ground, leaning against the wall.
She was a chapter into the Charms book when a voice with a posh accent interrupted her.
"Well, well, well," it said. "What have we here?"
"Sod off, Malfoy," she said without even looking up.
"Come now, that's no way to treat a friend," he said, sliding down to sit next to her. She still refused to look at him. "Whatcha reading?" he asked, resting his chin on her shoulder.
"Move," she ordered, but he noticed that she didn't move away from him.
"No," he pouted. "I ditched Greg and Vincent. I think I deserve some decent company on this train ride from hell, don't you?"
"I didn't think you'd consider me decent company," she fired back at him. "What with my filthy blood and all."
"That's what you think," Draco said. His instinct was to move away from her. But he knew that if he moved now, she would be offended and hurt.
She might even cry. Now that would be a disaster. Draco had no idea what to do with girls who were actually crying, not faking like Pansy was apt to do when she didn't get her way.
"Do you cry?" he asked abruptly.
"Why do you ask?" she snorted.
"Because Daphne does," he told her. "Pansy fakes, but Daphne really does cry when her feelings are hurt. She doesn't even try to hide it."
"Well," Hermione said. "What an interesting tidbit." She turned a page in her charms textbook.
"You're not even going to converse with me?" Draco whined.
"No," she said. "Ron's in there changing; that's the only reason I'm out here."
Draco chuckled. "Didn't want to see ginger and pasty shirtless, did we?"
Hermione scowled. "The point is, they're going to open this door next to us any minute, calling me back in. What are they going to say when they see me acting like 'best friends' with their mortal enemy?"
Draco still didn't move. "Let them," he said indifferently, closing his eyes.
"Not to mention all of these other doors in the corridor," Hermione continued. "Any one of those doors could open, too. And those people? They're likely to gossip if they see you here with me. Gossip spreads, Malfoy. What would your little pureblood friends down in Slytherin say when the gossip reaches them? Hm?" Draco sighed. "What would your parents say?"
At that, he finally moved away, putting a couple inches between them. "You have a point," he said in a cold voice, before getting up. "Good day, Miss Granger," he said, looking down at her. Then he strode off down the hallway, heels clicking against the floor.
Hermione sat there for a moment, listening to the train move.
She had gotten what she wanted. He had left.
So why was she so upset?
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He hadn't been kidding when he told Hermione that this train ride was the train ride from hell.
Greg was quiet. Vincent was quiet. Blaise was quiet. Daphne was quiet. He was quiet.
Pansy was not.
She chattered all through the ride, barely stopping when Draco left, not even acknowledging when he returned, nattering on about clothes, and the beautiful pink dress robes she had bought, because her mother had inside information and apparently something special was happening at Hogwarts this year, and –
"Will you shut up?" Blaise snapped. Pansy was cut off mid-sentence. She froze, head down, staring at her hands neatly folded in her lap.
The silence was deafening, the only sound the rattle of the train steaming along the tracks.
Finally, Draco reached out a hand. Grabbing Pansy, he pulled her closer to him, wrapping his arm around her. She looked up, and he could see the fear and unrest lurking in her eyes. The feelings that she had been trying to cover up with talk.
"It'll be fine," he said in a hushed voice. His words echoed around the silent compartment, reaching all five of the worried teens. "We'll all be fine."
"Will we?" Blaise stood abruptly, moving to the door. Opening it, he turned to face the five in the compartment he was leaving. "I'm not so sure."
It seemed that Blaise had taken the air out of the cabin with him. Pansy couldn't stand the silence. At the same time, she was afraid to fill it with talk again. Afraid that Blaise was not the only one who would rather she shut up.
After a moment, she excused herself, squeezing Draco's hand once before she left.
Alone in his seat, Draco stared out of the window and thought of Hermione.
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Hermione was mildly horrified when she saw who was going to be their Defense Against the Dark Arts 'teacher' this year. The old Auror looked as if he were carved from wood like his leg, all gnarled and hardened.
The flask at his side didn't help her first impression.
"Wonderful," she muttered under her breath, before pasting on a grin and applauding the man politely.
Grey eyes met brown across their tables. Hermione rolled her eyes, and he smiled.
Mudblood, he had called her. But he had been all politeness in the train car. Perhaps this year was the year that Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger began to get along.
Then she looked at the two boys she was sitting with, and she laughed at herself.
No way would Harry Potter and Ron Weasley agree to play nice with the Prince of Slytherin.
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Draco was filled with a rightful fury when he found out that Quidditch was canceled.
This year was supposed to be his year! Second and third year had been disastrous, with Potter defying the odds to humiliate and defeat Draco again and again. Draco had spent the whole summer in the garden, flying and practicing while his mother looked on and his father conducted meetings in the library.
Draco didn't want to think about who, exactly, his father had been meeting with.
The fourth year was slightly mollified when he realised that instead of Quidditch, there would be a tournament between all three magical schools, hosted by Hogwarts.
A tournament that had previously been cancelled because of the deaths.
Draco shuddered, and turned his attention to the other news. A Yule Ball would also be thrown, it appeared. That sent the entire hall into a flurry of whispers, girls excitedly speculating about who would ask who, and who they would go with.
Daphne was whispering. Pansy was not.
Draco glanced at his friend out of the corner of his eye. She was gazing in the same direction that he was apt to stare at; toward the Gryffindor table, directly across from them. At the trio of friends that had begun to earn the moniker, 'the Golden Trio'.
Draco was always looking at Hermione when he happened to peek in that direction.
Pansy's eyes were fixed on a person to the right of Hermione.
Draco suppressed a groan when he realised who Pansy was looking at.
This could not be allowed. This must be stopped. By any means possible.
Taking a deep breath, he accepted the inevitability of the best course of action.
"Yule ball with me?" Draco asked, swiveling on the bench to face the girl next to him. Pansy jumped, the wishful look on her face fading as she looked at Draco.
"Hm?" she said.
"Or are you waiting for someone else to ask you," he continued quietly, his eyes flicking toward the Gryffindor table. Where Hermione was sitting.
Where Harry Potter was sitting.
"No!" Pansy hissed defensively. "Never. I would be thrilled to go to the ball with you, Draco."
"Mhm," he murmured, unconvinced as he returned to his previous position, with its perfect view. Pansy pinched him.
"Are you sure you want to go with me?" she whispered, leaning in close to his ear. "Or would you rather go with…another…girl?"
Draco flinched. "Can't," he muttered, ladling some soup onto his plate. "You know why."
"And you know why I can't," Pansy replied, pouring herself some water. "So I think this conversation is over."
"Fine." He was perfectly fine with that. Pansy was far too perceptive for her own good, but then, so was he. And they both would keep the other's secrets until their dying breath.
Draco just hoped it didn't come to that.
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a/n: Read and Review :)
