Draco


"Oi! Are you trying to jinx me or kill me?" Nott shouted across the garden as yet another one of Draco's spells hit the cement birdbath and sent shrapnel flying at Nott's head.

"It's this bloody wand!" Draco replied. He wiped the sweat off his forehead as he resisted throwing the useless piece of wood to the ground. For the last several days, it seemed the wand would be better served as a projectile than as a magical instrument. "It won't aim, or if it does, it produces a spell so weak it wouldn't hurt a baby."

Nott cast a Mending Charm on the birdbath as he walked over to his distraught roommate. "You might consider taking some time to get to know the wand."

Draco scoffed. "It's a wand. It's supposed to do what I want. That's its entire purpose."

"Do you know anything about wandlore?"

"Old men with nothing better to do arbitrarily mix and match a dozen woods with magical cores and shape them into sticks of various sizes," Draco said flippantly. In truth, he knew there was more to it than that, but it all came down to the same thing: wands were meant to obey wizards, thus this wand was clearly faulty.

"There is nothing 'arbitrary' about designing a wand, and there is nothing simple about wandlore. Wands have loyalties. You, shining example of wizardkind that you are, nicked a wand off a dead guy—who was on the opposite side of the war, I might add—and expected it to work. At best, the wand is grieving its previous master. At worst, the wand is getting so fed up with you that it might backfire at any moment just to get you to stop using it."

"It's a piece of wood. It's not sentient."

"For being a pure-blood, you're awfully dense about magic."

"I am literally a genius when it comes to magic," Draco retorted. "No one got higher marks than me."

Nott rolled his eyes. "You know that's not true."

Draco sneered at Nott, who had been second in their class. For years, the same five students fought for top marks—two Slytherins, two Ravenclaws, and a Gryffindor. More often than not, Draco found himself fourth on the list. "No one who matters got higher marks than me."

The other man narrowed his eyes in a show of uncharacteristic annoyance. "You know, when Granger finally joins up with the Aurors, I hope she's the one to bring your arse in. I want a front row seat to that duel. If I remember correctly, every time that witch pulled her wand on you, you ran for your life."

"I did not."

"Ten Galleons says Granger is the one who catches you. Another ten says you don't even put up a fight."

"You're supposed to be on my side, Nott," Draco snarled. "Remember that. If I find out you're passing information to the Ministry about me..."

"Chill out, Malfoy. I am on your side, and for your sake, I hope I'm wrong. But if you do get caught, Granger'll be the one to do it. It's poetic justice for all the hell you put her through at school."

"I put everyone through hell."

"You called her a Mudblood."

"Yes, but I did that with all the Muggle-borns—"

"You hexed her teeth."

"It was an accident—"

"You tried to sabotage her O.W.L.s."

"Umbridge tried to sabotage her—"

"You stole books from the library so she couldn't revise with them."

"I needed those for my own studies!"

"And she still beat you." Nott folded his arms and levelled an unamused expression at Draco. "You had it out for Granger more than any other student—"

"Not true. Potter—"

"Including Potter."

"You're delusional."

"You were as obsessed with beating Granger as you were with ruining Potter's life. The thing is, Malfoy, I think if things had been just slightly different—if she wasn't so brave and you so bloody selfish—you would have been a pair of Ravenclaws having a friendly competition."

Draco stared at Nott as if the man had just started speaking Parseltongue. "Take that back."

"No. It's the truth. You're both brilliant—no one's going to deny you that—but you're both completely blind to each other's good traits mostly because you deigned to be an insufferable git for six years."

"She's a Muggle-born! She doesn't have any good traits!"

Nott raised his wand and directed it at Draco. "You're going to stop that now."

"Stop what?" the blond demanded.

"Pulling the Muggle-born card. She's a brilliant witch and you can't stand that you were raised to believe that Muggle-borns were inferior only to get to Hogwarts and be consistently shown up by one."

Draco spat on Nott's shoes. "You're starting to sound like a blood-traitor. Maybe you should be using Weasley's wand and I'll take yours."

"Don't ever call me a blood-traitor," Nott said with a sudden storm in his eyes. Gone was the jovial, easy-going roommate Draco had become accustomed to; instead, a fierce warrior stood in his place. "Pure-bloods need to start earning their—our—place in this world rather than feeling entitled to it. You want to be better than the Muggle-borns? Earn it. You can start by figuring out how to make nice with Weasley's wand. Otherwise you'll never stand a chance."

"I'll just go to Gregorovitch and get a new one. One that actually works."

Nott put a hand to his forehead as if he had a headache. "Gregorovitch died almost a year ago. You can go to Ollivander, you can go to some no-name, sub-par wandmaker, or you can take my advice and study wandlore until you figure out what the problem is between you and that wand."

Draco spun the offending wand through his fingers. "I don't understand you."

"What about me is so complex that you're having trouble?"

"'Pure-bloods need to earn their place in the world'? You're everything the Ministry wants pure-bloods to be. Why are you hiding? Your father was the Death Eater, not you."

Nott scoffed. "You honestly didn't think you, Crabbe, and Goyle were the only ones whose fathers forced them to get the Dark Mark, did you?" The lithe man pulled up a sleeve to reveal a faded brand on his tanned left arm. "The Ministry's not going to give a rat's ass if I wanted it or not. Not this time around."

Draco felt stunned at the sight of the Mark on Nott's arm. "When did that happen?"

"Seventeenth birthday, just like I knew it would. My father was so damn proud." He grimaced.

"Seventeenth—but that was sixth year," Draco interrupted with clear confusion.

"You were distracted," Nott replied blandly. "And then seventh year happened, and the Carrows...and Snape...I was their little servant when you and your goons weren't around." A long silence fell over the garden as Nott closed his eyes. "It wasn't my choice any more than it was yours."

"At least you never—"

"'At least I never' what, Malfoy? Used an Unforgivable Curse? Did that. Watched somebody die? Did that. Duelled someone in the name of the Dark Lord? Did that, too. I'm not hiding out here for fun. I'm just as guilty as you. Probably more so, since I was of age when I took the Mark."

"I didn't—"

"No, you didn't know, because I wasn't about to tell anyone. And the Dark Lord and my father—they turned that into a weapon. I was 'undercover', they called it. As long as nobody knew I was a Death Eater, I could get the half-bloods and the blood-traitors and the Mudbloods to trust me." Nott raked a hand through his brown hair and kept going; a dam seemed to have broken and he needed to spill his secrets. Draco got the distinct impression that if he tried to interrupt this confession, he would learn another of Offensively Defensive's curses first-hand.

"Do you realize they went after the Muggle-born Slytherin first? No," he answered his own question. "You wouldn't have realized it. You were too busy doing—whatever it is Head Boys do.

"He was a second-year. The Dark Lord gave him a choice: snap his wand and return home to his parents, or stay and be used as an example. He stayed. Should've been a Gryffindor, that one." Nott shook his head, his eyes looking at something Draco couldn't see. "That was the first time I ever used the Cruciatus Curse. The second time was on a half-blood Ravenclaw during Muggle Studies. She got injured—cut her arm open pretty bad—and Alecto wouldn't let her go to the Hospital Wing. Didn't let anyone help her at all. She had to rip a piece of her own robes to bandage it when they weren't looking."

"I—"

"I'm not finished," Nott snapped. "I used the Cruciatus Curse eighteen times last year on ten different children, and I can tell you the name of every single one. I can tell you the exact spot where they fell in the classroom or in the dormitory or on the grounds. I didn't want to, but I had to put on a show. So I'd imagine it was one of the Carrows I was torturing. I even pictured my father once.

"But I'd suck Merlin's hairy bollocks before I let that define me, so that first Hogsmeade weekend, I smuggled the second-year out of the school. Remember the day Snape and Amycus sent the rest of the Muggle-borns down to Filch's office? That's why."

"I also seem to remember all of the Muggle-borns disappearing," Draco said, remembering the Carrows' massive tantrum that resulted in the destruction of the Dark Arts classroom and requisite move to another room. He raised a disbelieving eyebrow at the former Slytherin. "I always assumed it was those bleeding-heart Gryffindors that got them out."

Nott cracked a bitter grin. "We may have crossed paths." He straightened his shoulders and his expression sobered. "We got twenty-seven Muggle-borns out of the castle in two hours, but we couldn't help them past that. Think about it, Malfoy. Twenty-seven kids had to go home and tell their Muggle parents they had to go into hiding. There wasn't a support system for that. How do you, as a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old, explain to people who don't know the first thing about what's going on—how do you explain that you have a price on your head?

"Of course, seven of the bloody idiots couldn't stay away—six Gryffindors and a Hufflepuff—wanted to fight instead. Amycus killed one personally down in Filch's office after he was caught. A couple of others died in the Battle of Hogwarts." Nott looked stricken. "We did that. I did that."

"It wasn't your fault," Draco said quietly.

"I will never stop hearing them scream. I can't sleep, Malfoy, because I see them constantly. And the Ministry won't give half a damn that it wasn't my choice." The man sighed and headed for the door as if he was suddenly exhausted. He kicked at a potted lily as he reached for the handle. "Just—figure out your wand."

Draco looked down at the weapon in his hand with surprise. With becoming immersed in Nott's story, he'd forgotten he was holding it. "Yeah. Okay. I will."

"Thank you. I'm tired of duelling someone who can't even perform a decent Shield Charm."

It was several minutes before Draco went into the house. He pulled his Potions kit and cauldron out of their hiding place in a kitchen cupboard and opened his textbook. For hours, he carefully prepared his ingredients, stirred the potion with precise movements, and cast the appropriate charms. He fell into a trance-like rhythm, enjoying the engrossing task for the first time since...he couldn't remember when. Fifth year, maybe. Fifth year had been the last time he'd enjoyed much of anything. His world went to Hell after that.

As he cast the final charm over the turquoise solution, he felt the wand settle comfortably in his hand. "You like Potions, hmm?" he murmured. "Maybe we do have something in common, after all."

After another ten minutes, the potion faded to a deep purple, and Draco siphoned it into several phials. He cleaned up the work area and packed all but one phial behind his cauldron in the cupboard.

It was nearing midnight by the time Draco stepped into Nott's room. The other man was sitting on top of his bedclothes with an open book to his left and a half-filled parchment to his right.

"What's that?" he asked, looking up from his revising.

Draco rested the phial on the bureau just inside the door and bit the inside of his cheek. "Something to help you sleep." His lips twitched up as Nott stood to collect the potion. "I can't duel someone who's too tired to cast a decent hex."

An easy but tired grin slid across Nott's face. "I could hex you in my sleep with that pitiful Shield Charm you put up." He took the phial off the bureau and sniffed the contents. "Dreamless Sleep?" he asked with surprise. "That's what you were making?"

Draco tried to shrug as if making the potion was no big deal. "I know what you mean about the nightmares. I used to nick this stuff from Pomfrey last year. It helped. Not a lot, mind you, but enough."

"You sure it's safe?"

"Of course it's safe. I made it."

"That's my main concern." Nott held the phial out. "You drink half, I drink half. That way we both get poisoned."

Rolling his eyes, Draco took the potion and drank a little less than half. "Satisfied?"

"I will be tomorrow, when I see you've actually woken up from it."

"You scheming little snake!"

Nott raised his hands and snickered as he backed away. "I promise I'll take it tomorrow night if it turns out to be safe."

"You really don't trust me," Draco stated with a hint of hurt in his voice.

"I've watched you make several potions over the last four months and they're always almost right, but not quite. You can't blame me for being cautious."

Draco glared at his roommate but gave a grudging nod. "Tomorrow night, then. I expect you to be fully alert by Friday. I suspect this wand and I will be much better friends by then."

Nott set the potion back on the bureau and led Draco to the door. "I look forward to it. And Malfoy?" Nott gave a genuine, if tired, smile. "Thank you."