DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING JK ROWLING DOES!
Meanwhile, Draco was lurking outside, waiting to talk to Rose himself. As she walked out he fell into step beside her, but she distanced herself from him and allowed herself to get lost in the crowd.
Several more times during the next few days, the same type of thing happened. She began to be known as the Slytherin girl who was friends with the Gryffindors, and also the student favored by Snape, even more than Draco. But Draco wasn't willing to let her go. Though the Triwizard Tournament was soon to start and he was still trying to take Potter down a notch, he wanted to focus most of his attention on getting to know her. From what he saw of her, he liked her.
He noticed that she seemed to get paler, if that was possible, and somehow smaller. He also noticed that Snape (Snape!) seemed to be concerned about her. So he was too. Draco started to become more distant, sneaking glances and cataloguing them into his memory. After a couple of days, he realized that something was seriously wrong. She was no longer the girl he first met in Dumbledore's office. She was introverted and withdrawn, and wary of people around her. He asked Pansy and Astoria about it, but all they said was that they didn't care about the Mudblood. But he did. He had to know.
Finally, he found his chance.
He was in the library, a place he went to think when things got too crowded elsewhere. He was wondering who the champions would be, when he walked around a corner to see Rose reaching for a book. It was well within his reach, but her hand barely touched the shelf it sat on. He went to get it for her but as soon as he touched it she fell backwards. He caught her with his empty hand and steadied her while she regained her balance. After she did, he reached for the book, intending to keep it until he knew what was wrong.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I must have blacked-out for a moment there."
"What's wrong?" he said.
"Nothing," Rose replied as she tried to take the book from Draco.
"No," he said quickly. "You're not getting the book until I get answers." The librarian witch came around the corner just then, giving them a glare. He smiled at her, and she left. When he turned back to Rose, it seemed she was wobbling again. He quickly took her arm and led her back to a table that looked like she had been studying on it. She sat.
"What do you want to know?" she asked him wearily as he sat down.
"What was that?" he whispered angrily. "What if I hadn't been there to catch you? You could've been here for hours and nobody would've found you. What is going on?"
"I'm a little tired and hungry is all," she mumbled, avoiding eye contact.
"No," Draco said. "No, that's more than a little. Look at you," he said as he reached out to touch her face. "You're white as a ghost. Why?"
She turned so that he couldn't touch her. "If you really must know," she replied, "my roommates call me names and insult me and threaten to do terrible things to me when I sleep. So I don't. I wait until I can come here, or somewhere else I can hide. And as I am deprived of sleep, I have lost my appetite." He stared at her with a shocked look on his face. "Anything else?" she asked.
"Why have you been avoiding me?" he asked. "I've been trying to talk to you, but every time you wander away like you don't even see me. Why?"
"You're just like all the others," she said softly. "I thought you were someone else, someone like me. But you aren't. You're cold and thoughtless, just like them."
She stood up, wavered a little and started to walk away. "Wait," he said as he pulled her back to her seat. "I can explain."
"So do it. Explain yourself," she said accusingly.
"My entire life I have been surrounded by people – family, peers, other…older people – who expect me to be somebody. They've instructed me on who I should hate, what I should think, and how I should act. And I hated every bit of it, but I did it because it was expected. I've been a prisoner in my own head. And then I met you, who had no preconceived notion of what the Malfoys were supposed to be. You were so nice, I just wanted to be my real self with you. But I can be that only with you; not with anybody else. They can't know. I'm sorry, so sorry, alright? But this is all I can do." He looked down.
"But how am I supposed to know? How am I supposed to trust you?" she asked.
"You can't know. And you just have to trust me that this is really the person I am." Draco shrugged. Rose nodded.
"Any more questions?" Her voice had softened and she looked at him with empathy instead of accusations.
"Have you really lost your appetite because you're afraid of Pansy?" he asked.
She sighed. "No. I'm worried about my brother, Danny. We used to be best friends until my parents started feeding him lies. But even after that…well, he didn't believe all of them. We always took care of each other. But now he's not answering my owls, and he's never ignored them before. In fact, they all come back to me unanswered and unopened. But I don't know. Perhaps they moved," She yawned.
"Perhaps," Draco agreed.
"And really, the staff here has been very kind." Her head was slowly drooping. "Especially Professor Snape," she said, her head finally falling onto her arm. "He really is a very kind man." And with one more blink of her green eyes, she was asleep on the table.
She was asleep, and he felt terrible about what he had done but knew that it had been unavoidable, so he took her hand and hoped he could make it up to her.
A moment later he heard a noise, not loud enough to wake the sleeping girl but intense enough to attract his attention. He looked up to see a glaring Snape at the end of the shelves, so he carefully snatched his hand back and stood. Snape made a slight motion with his head, and Draco followed him towards the back of the library.
As Draco began to attempt to defend himself, Snape shook his head.
"Mr. Malfoy," he sneered. "I do not care about anything I have heard or seen, in fact I have already forgotten it. However, if you should hurt her or if you should be the one causing her obvious distress, it will not bode well for you. She is the responsibility of the faculty and it would be extremely unfortunate should a student case her harm." Snape's glare became more intense.
"I had nothing to do with this," Draco said, hooding his eyes to make him look distant and cold as he knew how to do so well. "Her condition is not my doing, nor does it have anything to do with me."
"Whether you suspect it or not, Draco, it does have something to do with you, though I think not directly. I would, however, be content if you would enlighten me on the reasons why Miss McGenny has not been eating or sleeping," Snape said with disdain.
"Well, she said she was worried about her brother – " Draco began.
"No!" Snape yelled. "I meant something I – we could do something about!"
"It's her roommates, alright? They're not very polite. Can I go now?" Draco said. Snape sighed and nodded.
Draco hurried back to the common room.
