Vonne: Wow! I am blown away with all the interest this story has collected so far. I've gotten so many hits, alerts, favorites, and reviews! Thank you so much! I appreciate it more than you know!
Miss. Lila-Russel: I am so impressed with all the reviews you left me! Thank you so much for reviewing every chapter, you definitely did not have to do that. Nonetheless, I appreciate it so much! I read every single review you submitted and I was floored. Thank you so much for the interest! I hope you enjoy this chapter just as much as you've enjoyed the others so far! Thanks again!
Isabella120: Thank you so much! I'm not too fond of this chapter because I felt rushed, but I'm so happy that you've liked this story so far. I hope you end up liking this one, despite the rush and the shorter length of chapter thirteen. I promise to have longer chapters in the future, ah! Anyways, thank you so much!
CoreyFitzwilliam: Draco's found himself in a bit of a pickle, hasn't he? Either way, he's kind of screwed, you know? I guess you'll just have to read on to find out what happens. Of course, he's got to face the consequences either way, doesn't he...
Carl: Thank you so much! I hope you like chapter thirteen just as much, too!
Stupidamericanidoms91: Crabbe has definitely not turned into a very nice person, has he? He's definitely a bit over his head. Ha, I agree with you and your friend. Crabbe needs a nap, perhaps the lack of sleep is making him grumpy.
TragicSlytherin: Ah! Okay, I promise never to compare you to Harry Potter ever again. ;) Anyway, I love reading your long reviews, they really motivate me to keep writing. I'm glad that you're so into this fanfiction and I'm so happy that you like the way its written. That's such a big compliment. Sorry it took me a little while to upload this chapter, but I hope you enjoy it just as much!
Blackandred17: Thank you! I feel like rushing things makes Dramione fanfictions less believable, you know? It's important to me that the two have an actual connection before they dive into a relationship right off the bat. That's why I drag things on when I write a bit. It just seems to flow better. I'm glad that you're enjoying this fanfiction so far. Thank you so much for your review!
PirateKnightoftheRings: Aw, thank you so, so much! Your review made my day. I'm so glad that you've liked this story so much and that you've decided to stick with it, despite usually reading canons. You really motivated me to get this chapter in. I'm sorry about the bit of a wait, though. I was so busy and I finally got everything caught up with enough that I had time to update. I hope you like this chapter!
Sarah: Yay! I'm glad you liked it! I tried to make it longer for you, which is my goal. Unfortunately, this chapter is not too long, but the next one will be. I've been running low on time lately, so I'm trying to submit new chapters as fast as I can lately. I hope you like this chapter! Thank you so much for your consistent reviews. I appreciate it so much!
"Did you see the frightened ones ? Did you hear the falling bombs? Did you ever wonder why we had to run for shelter when the promise of a brave new world?"
Chapter Thirteen
Goodbye Blue Sky
"M-Malfoy?"
The shadow of Hermione Granger was bent double, her head poking from the shadows as if to get a better look. She'd been so relieved then, once she'd first laid eyes on the blond, timidly stumbling down the steps of the Cellar with a limp. Yet it was the very moment that her eyes found Vincent Crabbe that everything fell to pieces. Malfoy heard her let out a little gasp and she staggered back, her head almost colliding with the stone wall behind her in the process. And, confused, she glanced up, eyes narrowed and palely translucent- she reminded him of a child, then, but Draco was too numb to even look back at her.
"Get up." The command came from Crabbe and Hermione glanced over at Draco. She didn't move. Rather, she kept herself hunched over on the floor with her long, shaggy hair covering her face completely. And yet, her lack of obedience did not please Crabbe in the slightest. "I said, 'get up'!" he demanded, and his complexion morphed into a rather cruel one. He then lunged, balling a fist to clamp it around the collar of Hermione's pink jacket. Once secured, he ignored the hoarse little yelp that emitted from her throat as she was pulled to her feet. Yet the moment the soles of Hermione's shoes touched the stone ground, Crabbe shoved her back, pinning her against the wall and thrusting an outstretched arm in the space nearest her head. He said, "when I tell you to do something, you better fucking do it!"
Hermione's brown eyes flashed. She was not looking at Crabbe, but at Draco, her gaze wide and intensified. However, her confusion only managed to last a moment; once she'd found Malfoy's bent head in the darkness, she'd seemed to understand everything. Malfoy heard her meek sob in the very moment that she had realized what was happening around her; he had, of course, given her a fair warning. Crabbe had been waiting and now it was Draco's turn to prove to him that he was, after all, just like the others.
So sneering, Crabbe bent in further towards the Gryffindor. Spit flew from his gaping mouth in every possible direction. "What are you looking at?" he spat, grabbing her by the hair. "Look at me!"
Draco watched Hermione's head snap around, obliging. However, her face was not blank with submission, but rather twisted. Raising a hand, Hermione lurched forwards, her fists seizing tightly around Crabbe's fat neck in the process. And, while it had been rather obvious that Hermione did not stand a chance, she had certainly caught Crabbe by surprise. Retching, the fat Death Eater reeled back, shoving Hermione away from him as he fumbled towards Draco in the darkness. Eyes wide, his hands grabbed at his collarbone, gasping for breath, and it took him a fair amount of sharp inhales to even manage to regain his composure again.
When Crabbe reeled around again, however, he did so with blatant intensity. "You filthy little Mudblood!" he roared, and he advanced back on her again, pushing her so hard into the stone wall that Hermione had been instantly winded. Then, as the scene around him moved far too quickly, Draco watched Crabbe raise his own hand again. This time, however, he directed it not at the wall behind Hermione, but instead at the white surface that was her tear-stained face. "Bitch!"
In all the years that Draco had lived at the Manor, he had never seen his father raise a hand to his mother. Yet, stunned, he almost lost his own balance at the mere sound that it had made. Echoing and powerful, Crabbe struck Hermione with such force that Malfoy had almost felt as if he had been hit himself. The contact with Crabbe's fist sent Hermione's head against the stone for the third time, another yelp sounding out from her throat.
"HEY!" Malfoy couldn't help himself. The outraged cry had escaped from him before he had even seen it coming. Thus, he wasn't even certain he had been the one to protest, only realizing it so once the noise in the room had stopped. Crabbe, so frantic beforehand, had turned his attention to Draco and Draco alone.
The boy took in several breaths, his shoulders still hitched up near his ears. "What?" he panted, still unsure that Malfoy had even objected at all. Draco stood still, mentally backtracking. Yet, even Hermione's eyes were watching him. Her chest rose and fell with exhaustion. She gaped back at him fearfully, frozen beneath the clutches of the meaty boy ahead of her. Nonetheless, Draco was far too stunned himself. He didn't say a word and so, as it was, Crabbe kindly took the responsibility for him. "What did you say, Draco?" he heaved.
"Don't hit her," Malfoy muttered, and Crabbe's eyebrows skyrocketed.
"Excuse me?"
Malfoy's mind rushed spastically. He glanced over at Hermione only for a moment, a silent apology, before turning his head back to Crabbe wearily. "J-Just d-don't knock her out before I've had a go." Hermione let out a little whimper and Draco felt almost ashamed at the guilt that flooded through his entire being.
Crabbe, however, seemed almost absolutely unconvinced. "Is that so?" he asked. He was red in the face, wild and reeling. For a split second he regarded Draco as if he had never seen him before in his entire life. Nonetheless, as soon as the gaze had sprung into light, it faded. Crabbe pulled out his wand, shoving it in the direction of his captive's heaving chest before making yet another grab towards her person. He pulled to seize her collar again and thrust her carelessly towards the center of the Cellar. Though Draco could practically see the venom dripping from his grimace; he was certain Crabbe had never been so angry in all his life.
The two watched Hermione stumble. Draco's grip on his wand was almost nonexistent. "Go on then," Crabbe was saying, but Malfoy could barely hear him over the pounding thunder that was his heart behind his sternum. "Do it." Hermione was looking at the ground, her lip split from having bitten down on it in her turmoil. Crabbe cocked his head towards her, his frown immense. He looked nothing like the friendly companion that Draco had spoken to only days before. He looked nothing like the boy he had always known.
And he was saying awfully, "prove it, Draco; prove it, like you said." Every hand gesture snapped back out to Hermione, every word spoke as if he were sending hypothetical daggers into her unsteady back. Crabbe was looking up, his aim solely to lock his eyes within Draco's gray ones. Through the fuzziness that overtook Malfoy temporarily, Crabbe commanded again, "do it!"
Draco Malfoy tried as hard as he could. He thought of Hermione and her letter and the goody-two-shoes Gryffindor she was secretly trying to turn him into. He thought of her stupid S.P.E.W, and the pathetic way she'd cleaned up for the Yule Ball. Even, in his desperation, he'd remembered the way in which she'd raised her hand with the correct answer for every class, the way her smile broadened every year when Albus Dumbledore had announced, once again, that Gryffindor had won the House Cup.
He thought of her filthy, disgusting blood as a last resort.
He thought of her inferiority.
He thought of her low status and how undeserving of magic he had always thought her to be.
Yet, this time, something wasn't the same. Nothing made him hate her.
Her scream had reminded him of his mother's, her intelligence of his father. She'd been strong enough to try and fight back, been determined enough to stick out her captivity as long as she had. The look in her eyes was panicked and terrified but, despite everything, he knew that she knew his thoughts and it drove him bloody insane.
"Do it, Draco!"
Malfoy's head snapped up; Crabbe, he'd almost forgotten about him. The boy's eyes were bloodshot and heavy, his visage churned into something almost horrifying. It was not the look that he had grown to associate with Crabbe, but instead Lord Voldemort himself. The realization hit Malfoy hard. He had to do it; he, Draco Malfoy, had to torture her. As horrified as he was, he really saw everything in the light; this was only Crabbe, this was nothing. Not going along with the plan would destroy everything he had put together, would end his existence. And it wouldn't be just him, knew; they would go after his mother, go after his father...
Malfoy was shaking before he even knew it. Though he'd almost lost himself, he found his wand again. He looked back at Hermione- looked back at her one last time before his mouth formed the spell at all. "Crucio!"
Crabbe's smile spread, infatuated. Hermione had dropped before his feet on the ground like a ton of bricks and he couldn't have been more pleased. He watched the way in which she writhed, a satisfied little chuckle making its way from his mouth into the stale air before him. And the Cellar was filled with nothing but screams, Hermione's hoarse yells bouncing off of every wall, echoing throughout Malfoy's ears. She wiggled before the two of them, kicking and screaming, and gagging. He held the spell until she was sick, until her eyes rolled back in her head, just waiting for Crabbe to give him the heads up... until he told him to finally let go.
Crabbe's eyes were wild, snapping. "Do it, again," he urged, and Draco reluctantly spat the curse again.
"Crucio!"
Hermione's body reeled upwards. She tried to grab at her stomach, pulled her knees forcefully into her chest. And- oh, God- maybe he was going to be sick as well. Every fiber in his very being was calling out to him to stop. Crabbe, on the other hand, had been so absorbed. His eyes watched her every flicker, took in every jolting flinch. It was as if he lived for such moments, breathed for them. Everything about him stood proper and easy and he took in the sight of the tormented girl with such happiness that Malfoy was almost consumed by the way in which Crabbe observed it all.
Whether it was a dream, or a nightmare, or Malfoy's fucked up reality, it was happening. He couldn't stop it, he could only spectate.
"Please!" Hermione's tortured cries sounded out from underneath him and Malfoy stumbled back, glancing down at her for a moment as he turned back to to Crabbe, asking silent permission. As expected, however, none was given. In turn, the fleshy boy only reeled back, delivering a kick to her crumpled abdomen in the process of his laughter. "Oof!" Hermione was bleeding from her lip, from her tongue, and from her neck. She'd snapped her head around so quickly that Draco could almost physically hear her crack. And then she crumbled back into herself so that she was just a tightly wound ball and nothing more
"Do it, again!"
Fuck, fuck, fuck! Malfoy didn't want to, but his hand was moving forward and he couldn't help himself. All he could think about was his pretty mother and his father who had never laid a hand on her. Lucius Malfoy, despite the bad decisions he'd made, had always been a good father, had always been a good husband. He didn't deserve to die, didn't deserve to be betrayed against everything and everyone he had ever known to believe in. And Draco couldn't let that happen, couldn't pull his family apart anymore than he already had.
And Crabbe was saying, "do it, Draco! Do it again!" and Malfoy was holding back the lump in his throat as his heart burned and his chest dropped.
He was saying, "crucio!" all over again before Hermione's body even had a chance to settle.
The girl's body convulsed, seizing spastically on the hard floor of the bloody Cellar. And Draco was certain she'd taken more of the curse than Rowle had, perhaps even more than he, himself, had the night he had failed to kill Dumbledore. He was surprised she'd held on as long as she did, surprised in the way that she contained so much will power to do so. Thus, when he finally heard the sounds of her screaming stop, he released the spell, staggering backwards into the stone wall, past the spare bodies of the two Muggle girls, and into the newfound silence. Crabbe only breathed out, his exhales nothing more than hard pants that rattled and croaked with every impulse.
Blinking, Crabbe looked almost incredulous. "Why'd you stop?" he asked.
Malfoy's throat was dry, but he managed a hoarse, "she's unconscious," before even starting to breathe normally again.
Crabbe sniffed. He leaned his body forward and lifted Hermione's outstretched hand with the tip of his foot. "It's about time, too," he said, sniffing contently. "Know-it-all Bitch."
Unresponsive, Draco swallowed the lump that had been bothering him. He couldn't believe it himself; he'd actually pulled it off. Yet the timid and lifeless body of Hermione Granger beneath him made him feel anything but victorious. He couldn't place his finger on it, but he felt something like a ping of guilt before Crabbe cut off his wandering thoughts once and for all.
The boy was shuffling, kneeling down towards Hermione in a desperate grab for her legs. He hoisted her up from the ground as Pettigrew had with the chubbier Muggle girl, though he found that Hermione was far easier to drag. And grunting, Crabbe glanced up from his work. He cocked his head to one side and gestured towards Granger's lulled back head. "Get that, for fuck's sake," Crabbe breathed, and Draco nodded, numbly making his way over to the girl's bloody face.
So Malfoy slipped over towards Hermione, hands outstretched, to grab the space underneath her arms. He felt sullen at the way her hair fell from her eyes, revealing the surface of her injured face. In the process of the curse, somehow Hermione had acquired a bruise above her right eye, and a split on her bottom lip. Unconscious, she allowed the two to drag her towards the wall, and Draco followed Crabbe's direction as he moved her towards the stack of Muggle girls in the corner. Thus, once he'd made it to the spot, he released her legs and let them crash violently to the ground, a pair of limbs among other limbs.
They stared down at Hermione for a long while, each too hazy to say a word. Then, when Crabbe finally looked up, he regarded Draco in a new light entirely. For a second he appeared as if he were not going to say a word, however, he blinked, taking Malfoy in strides. "Didn't- know," he said in between pants, "you- had- it- in - you."
Malfoy stared down at Hermione's unconscious visage. Her features were not relaxed, even in her slumber. Truthfully, he didn't know he'd had it in himself either. "Yeah, well," he scoffed, trying to sound bitter.
"I guess..." Crabbe exhaled, ignoring the fact that Draco had not let Hermione's upper half down to the ground yet, "guess I was wrong." Draco glared at him, his gray eyes flashing. Crabbe unexpectedly backed down. "Hey," he said, dipping his head low, "its not like I didn't have every reason to be suspicious... I mean," Crabbe continued, "you haven't exactly been yourself lately, mate."
Draco felt his chest tighten. He wished Crabbe hadn't called him that. "Is that so?" he asked, his fingers still holding on to Hermione. He resisted the urge to brush her hair out of her eyes.
"Yeah," Crabbe informed him, looking slightly submissive, "I mean, I just wasn't used to it, you know." He shrugged, surrendering slightly. There was something about him that seemed to have broken, as if all the suspicions he'd had about Malfoy had been washed away completely. Draco was not quite sure how the boy seemed to be handling it.
"Well now you bloody well know," he spat nonetheless, blond hair falling across his own sweaty head. He gave Crabbe a forceful glare and the boy seemed to almost shrink within himself.
"Right," he said, "now I know."
It was a weird feeling knowing that he, Draco Malfoy, had the control again. Years ago, he would have relished the notion of not being looked down upon, however, something now was different. Holding Hermione's top half up from the stone ground, Draco almost felt equally as uneasy, equally as unstable. He'd done nothing to earn his place above the others, yet he'd clarified his commitment in the mind of Vincent Crabbe. He should have felt proud or, at least, better. He felt nothing. After all had been said and done, Draco Malfoy felt no power.
There was a slight scramble and Crabbe reached slowly to readjust his coat. Then, shakily, he lifted his hand and wiped the sweat from his dripping brow. He waited a moment, breathed in and asked almost timidly, "s-shall we head back up?"
And Draco shot him another venomous glance. "You can, Crabbe," he said. There was something about his stare that was commanding and almost horrifying at the same time. "I'll join you later."
"But-"
"Crabbe, if you don't get out of here right now..."
The boy's face visibly fell. He considered Draco for a moment, eyes finding Hermione on the floor lifelessly. Then, after a split second of consideration, Crabbe's shoulders dropped. He swallowed uneasily after he had soaked in the sights before him. However, sure enough, once he had retreated several inches into the shadows, he vanished behind the bars of the Cellar and Malfoy didn't move until he heard the door at the top finally swing shut.
And even then he was at a loss.
Dipping Hermione's body gently to the ground, Malfoy fumbled into a low crouch nearest her. He didn't touch her. Instead, he watched her unconscious face as it softened with the ignorance of sleep. He muttered a quick healing spell to rejoin her split lip, finally slumping back against the stone wall to give his own body time to breathe. "Fuck," he said to no one but himself, certain that even the dead Muggle girls wouldn't have given him the time of day to hear him out. When he spoke, it was in a voice not higher than a choked up whisper. "Fuck!"
Hermione Granger shifted in her sleep. She turned on her side so that she faced away from Malfoy. The blond took it almost offensively, his brows knitting together as he studied her every move. Gently, Hermione moved her hands up underneath her chin, pulling her knees to her chest. She let out a sleepy moan and Draco froze. He watched her for a moment before crawling back over to her front. No, he refused to be turned away from. Hexing her was not his fault and, by God, she would not subconsciously treat him as if it were.
"Granger," Draco whispered, reaching his clammy palms to her face and brining it up slightly, "Granger, wake up now, he's gone."
The Gryffindor didn't even flinch. Instead, her eyes remained bruised and purple in the lack of light. Yet, with Malfoy's closer view, he saw something new on her face that he had perhaps overlooked before. There, dribbling down from her skull, had been a trickle of bright crimson blood. It looked like nothing, but the bright red fountain down Hermione's pale white skin did something to his stomach. Unable to help himself, he looked towards the Muggle girls. Hermione did not look much different. Still and lifeless, she could have just as well have been one of them.
"Hey," Malfoy hissed, helpless to decipher the feelings of nausea that arose in his throat. "Hey, wake up, okay?" he patted a sweaty hand gently on her cheek, causing her hair to bound across her emotionless face. "Come on, wake up, alright?"
He didn't know why he'd cared, but when the slow rhythm of her gently rising chest caught up with him, a wave of relief spread throughout his hunched over torso. Clumsily, his fingers found her slender wrist and he counted the seconds in between each slow pulse of her veins.
He forgot about the letter and her plan to reform him. He just couldn't let her die. Breathing out, Draco slipped back down to relax, releasing Hermione's face to settle her upper half into his lap. It was almost a subconscious gesture, done more over to calm his own body than to make her comfortable. Yet it did not feel wrong for her to be lying there with him; Malfoy, however, was not thinking about the specifics. Numb, Draco only thought about death and how hers would mean that he would be alone. Certainly he'd convinced Crabbe for the time being that he was on his side, but Malfoy was not even sure how long he could keep that up. Hermione was his only confidant, his secret keeper. If she died... then there'd be no hope left.
When Hermione Granger didn't wake up, but only breathed into Draco's half-bent lap, he found himself at least fractionally content. He ran his hand through her nappy brown hair without realizing it, an almost mechanic action that surprised him once he'd caught himself doing it. And then, the moment he'd pulled his fingers out of her messy locks, Draco finally seemed to snap back into reality. What was he doing? There, in the corner of the Cellar he, Draco Malfoy, was comforting his prisoner. He shouldn't have felt guilty- being a Death Eater was not only his mission, but his destiny. Yet, despite it all, he did; the thought scared him half to death.
Scrambling away, Draco regained his footing. He panted at Hermione's shadow in the dark and tried to swallow the urge to readjust her torso. Thrusting his hands into the depths of his pockets, Draco stumbled backwards, away from the girl and away from the Cellar entirely. However, when he pulled open the door and locked it instantly behind him, he still didn't feel any stabler.
A strange feeling washed over him as he stared into the empty contents of the stretched out hallway before him. He couldn't, however, place a finger on it.
"Meet me in the clearing just before sunrise."
The sky threatened an outright downpour as Draco scanned the front of Potter and Weasley's second letter. Too tired to even move, Draco had remembered the thing there the very moment he had heard it flapping desperately at the other side of the balcony doors. He dragged himself upwards, fingers clasping around the parchment almost bitterly before yanking it open. And there, in Potter's horrid schoolboy print, was nothing more than a single sentence.
Clearing before sunrise, Draco thought to himself, scanning the gently lightening sky, how vague.
Clad in his pyjamas, Malfoy surveyed the scene around him before slipping back carefully into the Manor. He retreated towards the back of the grand house, pulling his dark coat from the coatrack near the closet. He stuffed his feet into a pair of the closest leather shoes he could find, forgetting socks entirely. Nonetheless, he stumbled back out towards the balcony, hugging himself in the cold before staring out into the vastly open space before him.
He didn't have time to think about Potter and his stupidity. Certainly they had taken him for a bit of a pansy with his constant running around, but something about this night forced Draco not to consider any of their concerns. Instead, he descended down from the steps of the balcony, out into the great emerald yard with determination, head cast down to avoid being spotted by Vincent Crabbe from the window by their room. And yet, only when Draco broke through the barriers of the yard did he immensely pick up his pace.
He was beginning to think that this was going to be a long night. He couldn't remember the last time he got a fair amount of sleep. Nonetheless, he continued walking through the brush that was the yard behind the yard. He slipped passed the trees and fumbled with the letter in his coat pocket. His hand gripped the end of his wand tightly and, holding his breath, he edged further and further through the branches.
He hoped Potter and Weasley would keep their promises and be on time. He was not sure that he could stand another long night out without Crabbe getting on his back about it. Nonetheless, there was something that edged him forward and he breathed slow. Draco tried not to think about Hermione Granger and the current state of her in the Cellar below his big, grand house. For a moment he thought that he did not feel guilty, but something about him crumbled. He was not exactly sure what he'd felt about the situation, but the way that his knees locked together made him almost anxious. And, wobbling, Draco thought that perhaps it was not his fucked up ankle that made him swagger in his step.
As he stumbled by the trunks of the trees around him, Malfoy tried not to think about the way she'd screamed. Nonetheless, the wind seemed to hiss her voice in his very ears. It was as if he could not escape it. Every quick gust of air was saying to him, "M-Malfoy?" and every speedy whirl was crying out for him to stop. His head was spinning before he could help it; he felt so rushed, so heated, so... guilty. The broken and bloody body of Hermione Jean Granger was no one's fault but his own. And he'd done it, he'd done it, he'd done it...
"Hey!"
Malfoy swiveled around. His gray eyes locked into Potter's green and he almost lost his footing in the process. He gasped, stumbling back, and used the nearest tree trunk for support. Weasley, unnoticed before, gave a distinct grunt. "Jumpy tonight aren't we, Malfoy?" he asked, lifting an eyebrow and frowning rather suspiciously.
Potter and Weasley looked almost just as awful as Draco. Their hair was unwashed and greasy. It stuck to their heads and struck out in all different directions. As if a pair, their clothing had been slightly tattered and torn- perhaps more so than when Draco had seen them last. A large and heavy scrape lined the front of Weasley's face, gliding across the surface of his freckled visage. A dark bruise covered a small fraction of his left cheek. And Potter, too, looked just as broken. His glasses were slightly tilted on the bridge of his nose. Neither of the two had shaved. From the distance that Draco stood, he could even smell how much they reeked.
Only sneering, Draco regained himself and smoothed back his messy hair. It did him no good, but he was able to busy his hands with the process of it. Potter only gave a half-hearted frown. He studied Draco up and down, seemingly taking in the dripping sweat that drooled down from the top of his clammy forehead. "You're late," he informed him, and Draco's head snapped back up.
"Yeah, well," he hissed, "I was busy."
Turning towards Harry, Ron's face only contorted slightly. He huffed, crossing his arms across his chest stubbornly. Harry, on the other hand, nodded understandingly. However, something behind his eyes seemed to remain tightly upon Draco's entire person. He took in the sweaty mess of him, seemed to see past the act that his body stature had taken on. He did not say a word, but only regarded Draco instinctively. It was as if he could sense something rather obviously off about him.
Nonetheless, when Harry drew in his breath, he only asked, "how's Hermione?"
Malfoy stiffened. How was she? Well, she was unconscious on the floor of the Manor's stone Cellar. She was bleeding from her head and she'd been tortured with Crucio three times over, thanks to him. Still, Draco considered his options. However, he backtracked, feeling somewhat fuzzy. "She's..." he mused distantly, "sleeping."
"Sleeping?" Even Weasley seemed to doubt it.
Draco's eyes narrowed. He didn't say a word, but the look on his face seemed to ask, 'did I stutter?'
There was a slight shuffle and Draco watched Potter turn towards the pocket of his trousers. When he lifted his head back up, he revealed a tiny clear vile of a potion that Malfoy had become almost too familiar with. He looked a bit guilty when he stretched it out to him. Though Malfoy knew far too well what it was, he asked anyway, "what's this?" Neither of the boys answered him and Draco, heated, shook his blond head. When Potter stretched out the vile in his direction, the Slytherin forcefully shoved it away. "Fuck off," he demanded.
"It's only fair, isn't it?" Potter said, lifting the vile of Veritaserum up into the fading light of the day. He watched Draco's face drain, shuffling his feet in his sneakers against the brush below him. Draco watched the boy's eyes behind his glasses closely. He knew he had no choice, knew that refusing the potion would only work against him. Thus, snappingly, Draco's delicate fingers curled around the vile and he whisked it so forcefully from Harry Potter's hands that the glass almost fumbled to the ground with the sheer force of it.
He glared down at the vile. Ron's eyes practically sparked. When he cocked his chin forward, his lip curled only to say teasingly, "bottom's up."
And then Draco downed its contents.
Vonne: Shorter chapter, I know, I'm so sorry. I've been a bit slow on time lately, but I definitely want to submit something. I will be updating this fiction's next chapter as soon as possible. Please don't hesitate to let me know what you think! Thank you so much!