Draco wasn't sure what he was doing, but it sure wasn't standing in that Great Hall with the digusting platter of food and the symphathetic losers and the people who were grieving frieds and family as they all shouted at the idea of more death.

Death. It was such a constant thing. Never let up, did it? Someone died in almost every year of his Hogwarts life - Quirrel, the memory of Tom Riddle (the whole school had heard, naturally), that Pettigrew guy came close in third year, he'd heard, in fourth, it'd been Cedric Diggory, and in his fifth year Sirius Black had been killed by none other than Aunt Bella. In his sixth year, the Death Eater had died, and he'd watched Snape kill Dumbledore. But last year... last year, there had been over two hundred and fifty deaths while Voldemort had reigned. And most of them had simply been because they were in the way or because he was bored. Then there were the ones like Charity Burbage that he killed because they had different opinions than he did; and then there was Snape, because he supposedly had something Voldemort wanted.

Snape. He missed his favorite teacher regularly. More than once, he'd wonderd if his portrait was hanging up there in the Headmaster's office, almost always to lie to himself and say of course it was. But he realized now that it probably wouldn't be. He'd been a good man with a lot of bad qualities, but he'd stayed loyal to Dumbledore even after killing him, something Draco had never been. He'd hidden his secret so well, the castle probably wouldn't even recognize what a good man he was, and that he deserved to be on the wall.

Draco knew that the gargoyle would let him past even if he didn't know the password; he'd heard Flitwick mumbling about it when he was entering his classroom. And so he changed his path abruptly and whirled around to the direction of the Headmaster's office. It'd be empy; McGonagall was still in the Hall.

He was halfway there when he heard the voices from around the corner. He pausred slightly to hear.

"Hermione, what is that?" came a hushed whisper, almost as if the whisperer was afraid to speak out loud.

"It's a Kneazle," came a steadied reply from Granger. "Kneazles are very intelligent magical creatures. They resemble flecked, speckled or spotted cats with a lion's tail and outsized ears -"

"We know what it bloody looks like," muttered Weasley. Granger ignored him.

"Although independent and occasionally aggressive, they can take great liking to certain witches or wizards, making excellent pets. Kneazles have a knack for identifying suspicious persons and for guiding their owner home when lost. Their owners need a license because Kneazles look unusual enough to stifle the curiosity of Muggles. They can cross-breed with cats."

"How will this give us nightmares?" said Weaslette's voice, slightly louder than the other voices.

Kingsley spoke next in a regular voice - he, apparently, wasn't afraid of the Kneazle. "This one isn't particularly disturbing. Given what it shows, I'm surprised this came up."

"What does it sh-"

Potter never finished his sentence, because Granger squealed, Weaslette cursed, Weasley gasped and Potter choked on his words quite literally.

Draco thought only for a moment about his next action. He peeked around the corner.

The Goblet of Fire stood there, unchanged from those many years ago. But the flames dancing at the top of it had an image weaving through the flecks of fire; and the image was gruesome. It showed -

"A Manticore," breathed Granger.

Draco looked as a beast with a human-like head, a lion's body, and a scorpion's tail with a stinger began to eat a young child alive. There was no sound from the picture, but Draco knew the young boy would be screaming.

"What the hell is a Manticore?" demanded Weaslette.

"The Manticore is one of the wizarding world's most dangerous creatures. It is a sentient beast, capable of intelligent speech, but has not been classified as a being due to its violent tendencies. Sometimes the Manticore is reported of having a tail like a lion's, except it has a spiked ball on the end. These spikes are supposedly able to be shot out of the tail, and new ones grow in their place immediateley. A Manticore's skin repels all known charms, so is effectively hard to subdue a Manticore with magic. The Manticore originated in Greece, and is very rare. The sting of the Manticore causes instant death, and it is reputed to croon softly to its victims as it devours them."

Silence. And then Weasley muttered, "Bloody hell, Hermione, you know too much."

"I beg to differ," said Granger. "You wanted to know what it was, so I explained. I wouldn't be able to if I didn't know so much."

But Draco's eyes hadn't left the image. The blood from the boy's torso, lying on the ground, was seeping through the blades of grass and into the air, making it red and damp around him. He cried, the tear streaks easy to see. The Manticore chewed on his arm - that it had ripped off - for a while before deciding the living piece of flesh was better. And Draco found he couldn't top watching as the Manticore walked slowly over, made a soothing face, and opened its mouth -

All too quickly, the boy transformed into Pansy. Draco jumped back as its jaw closed on the neck -

And then the flames erupted and the image was gone.

Draco was understandably shaken. Nobody else had appeared to see the hange from boy to Pansy. He tried to force the image out of his head, but it wouldn't leave. It rattled around in his mind's eyes, causing him to dwell on the moment where her face had been the one crying, her face had been the one screaming, crying, the one knowing she was dying, going to die. And he couldn't help as the warm liquid spilled over his eyes and ran down his cheeks to his pointed chin, slipping easily off the end and dripping onto the floor.

Draco knew the others were talking - he could make out Granger's annoying voice biting through his shield of pain - but he couldn't understand the words. He tried shutting his eyes, but the tears leaked from between his eyelids; he tried covering his face with his hands, but it just got his hands wet; and lastly, he tried wiping his face off with his sleeve, but it was a loose sleeve, and pulled back to reveal the Dark Mark he'd been permanently branded with.

And he collapsed.

Where had all of his self-control gone? Where was the brave, stuck-up, snotty Draco that would ignore a jibe with just another petty insult? Where was his pride?

It had never existed; or if it had, it had been a shield (and a very poor one) against reality. He'd been living in a made-up world, a made-up world where nothing could go wrong. That world had shattered in sixth year. But he'd still foolishly tried to put it back together like a child's puzzle. And that was what he was, he thought bitterly. A crying child. He might as well have been the boy eaten by the Manticore.

"Ferret?"

He remembered that he was in a hallway filled with other people. Thoroughly embarrassed, he got to his knees, using the wall for support - but he found he was shaking too hard to get to his feet.

A soft hand grabbed his elbow and helped him up. He smelled the scent of a far-away lilac.

He couldn't see who the hand belonged to because his eyes were covered so completely with blurry water. He saw red hair, brown eyes, green eyes, more red hair, and dark skin. He wasn't sure where he was going, but he attempted to back away, to get away from there, the humiliation of being seen like that simply after watching nothing more than a child being eaten, something he'd laugh at three years ago. But he was trembling so badly he could barely move, and he ended up falling completely backwards.

His head hit the floor and for a few seconds, the world was black.

And then his sight returned, still extremely blurry, and shapes were looming over him, a little clearer to see now, to distinguish.

He whipped out his wand. "Obliviate," he gurgled through the thick blockage in his throat.

He saw everyone lost focus for a few moments; just enough time to leap to his feet and begin running.

He hoped he'd done the theory correctlly. Think of exactly what you want them to forget, and then try and forget it yourself while saying the spell. That should do the trick.

But soon, he heard them waking up and finding themselves in different positions than they remembered, but he was already out of sight. He wiped the tears angrily away from his eyes, not caring if his hands got wet this time, so he could see as he crashed into the door to the Room of Requirement.

He forgot about the common room enchantment, and paced in front of it three times, thinking, 'I need to be totally alone, I need to be totally alone, I need to be totally alone.'

And when he looked, there was the door to the Prefect common room.

He gave a strangled cry, but leapt into it anyway, praying for solitude.

But of course there was none. The Abbot girl was lurking just inside the door. "Malfoy?" she asked, clearly surprised to see that the Slytherin goody-boy had run into privacy (or so he'd hoped) crying.

"Obliviate."

And then he made a break for the boys' dormitory, closing the door just as she awoke and saw she was once again alone.

He fell onto his bed and tried to be as quiet as possible, letting himself relieve everything and letting himself sob into his pillow, hoping she wouldn;t hear him in the next room. but he found he needed to be loud - he wasn't getting everything out quietly. He pointed his wand at the door. "Muffliato," he whispered.

And then an idea occurred to him.

He pointed the wand at his face and thought of the memory. Forced himself to re-watch her being swallowed, weeping, screaming, bleeding, dying -

"Obliviate," he whispered.

The white light echoed around his head, clearing some things. He felt like he was being torn from everything. Torn from life itself...

No, life was being torn from him... and it hurt, very badly...

He gave a cry for help as he slid off the bed and his wand clattered to the floor.


There was nothing but a bright light. Nothing but a bright light, and that was all. There was nothing more. Nothing more...


"Mr. Malfoy, wake up!" someone begged him. "Stop, stop, wake up!"

He fluttered his eyelids open to see Madame Pomfrey staring at him, eyes as wide as they could be, her hand on her chest to steady her heart, her face one of the palest he'd ever seen.

"What?" he demanded.

"You... you were..." she looked ready to pass out. "You were screaming... about M-Miss Parkinson..."

"It's alright," he said, but his cringed at the name. "I tend to have nightmares."

"Mister Malfoy," she said, attempting to calm herself. "This was... I have... never... do you know what you were even saying?"

"No idea," he said truthfully, trying to be cheerful, just so he could fool himself into thinking he was.

"You were... you were saying, 'L-leave her b-be, it's my faut, kill me t-too'..."

Draco lost all feeling, all emotion. "I wish he had," he said darkly, closing his eyes again.