A/N: Hi all! Happy Passover and happy Easter to those of you who celebrate.
Thank you SkyeMoor, Kiari Ferrari, Happydragon5, Kasy2112 and all three Guests who reviewed!
The last chapter had a mixed reception (as I predicted, heh). I'd like to remind everyone that in JKR's canon, Umbridge was 100% ready to institute flogging as a punishment (see the chapter where Fred and George leave the school) and that when it comes to getting what she wants, she's also 100% willing to hide what she's doing so she can go way too far without approval from on high (see the chapter where she tries to use the Cruciatus curse on Harry). Also to clarify, if her actions mid-chapter don't seem to make sense, that's because she's being mind controlled, really badly, by a complete amature. More specific Q&A responses are at the end of this chapter.
Warning continues: this chapter is still pretty bloody; it takes place immediately after chapter 13.
Past's Resolution
Hermione's eyes searched Draco's face, looking for something like an explanation and finding none. His Slytherin ability to keep his face inscrutable had not yet gone the way of his ability to mind his own business when it suited him, thank Merlin, but there was still the matter of his heavily bleeding back, for which he already knew he didn't have enough of an explanation to satisfy the curiosity of the cleverest student in his year.
"Why?" she breathed. There was no energy left in her voice, but something was burning behind her eyes, and he knew not to underestimate her. Taking a step back and to the side to retrieve his shed clothing (and have an excuse to break eye-contact) he tried to evade the question.
"I already told you," he started, but she cut him off.
"You really didn't," she responded flatly, and it felt like she was trying to snap at him, trying to be angry, but her confusion and residual fear were dempening the heat she needed to get a real temper going. He surveyes himself critically through her eyes; so much paler than usual, making his limp blond hair look almost honey-colored in comparison. Horrifying crimson trails were dripping forward from over his collarbones and around the sides of his ribcage; it was preventing her from thinking straight, and reminding him just how much pain he was in.
"You need to go to the hospital wing," She finally got out. Her voice sounded unnaturally loud in the empty, echoing chamber.
"Madam Pomfrey's already been threatened with immediate sacking if she does anything to meddle with Umbridge's discipline methods," he responded, trying haltingly to pull on his shirt, but pausing to hiss and groan, his face twisting involuntarily in pain. "Plus, my father will be much, much angrier if he thinks I might have scars," he continued, some of his old devious glint returning to his eyes. "Speed up the process. Besides, I know what Murtlap essence does; I passed second year potions, thank you."
"Do… do you need help?" Hermione asked nervously as she watched him struggle with his shirt. Hesitantly, she approached him, unsure of what to do in such a ridiculous situation. He looked her in the eye again, wishing he could just throw the damn thing on and escape this incredibly awkward, potentially exposing situation without help, but knowing that he'd never manage it on his own.
"Yeah," he murmured, lowering his arms with another hiss. He watched Hermione swallow, then take the shirt from him and walk around him to where she could slide his arms into the sleeves from below instead of him stretching the material across his back like he'd been trying to do. However, her eyes immediately riveted on the wounds, purpling bruises fading into running red, crossing his back. She couldn't stifle a mix between a gasp and a sob.
Draco cringed. He'd known that letting her see would be a bad idea; she was never going to let this go now. That mind of hers wouldn't let her rest until this fever-dream-made-real started to make sense. Carefully and silently, she eased the shirt over his torn shoulders, and reached for his robe, but he could feel her mind churning away.
"Wonder if I can get her thrown into Azkaban," he murmured, as much to distract Hermione as anything else.
"Wonder what your father will have to say about you protecting me," she responded flatly, seeing the distraction for what it was and refusing to bite. She knew there was something amis and wasn't about to let it go so easily.
"What he doesn't know won't hurt him," Draco assured her, buttoning the robe she'd helped him slip on. "If I start with her beating me, then even if he finds out later that you were involved, he'll still be angry enough to do something."
"I hope you're right," she sighed darkly, walking around to stand in front of him. "Otherwise I'm afraid of how much worse things can get." Draco breathed out a humorless laugh, nodding in rueful agreement.
"Make sure word circulates with the troublemakers in your house," he warned her. "Tell them she's getting worse. Though," he added quickly, realizing how far into the fire he'd just hurled himself, "if you mention my involvement I will deny it."
"Why do it at all?" Hermione demanded. With Umbridge's absence and the fact that she could no longer see his wounds, she was getting her head back under control. "You're not exactly the type to shed your own blood, Malfoy, pride or no pride," she reminded him, eyebrow raised.
He surveyed her through guarded eyes for a long moment. He was tempted, so, so tempted, to tell her that it was because he'd changed, he was better now, he was sorry for ever having been anything else. But if he admitted he'd changed she'd want to know how and why he'd changed, and that didn't lead anywhere good.
Although, a mutinous voice in the back of his head murmured, having a research partner would make this whole debacle so much easier…
"I am, however, the type to get what I want by any means necessary," he reminded her, knowing that he was in no shape to be making potentially life-threatening decisions. Without giving her a chance to respond, he turned on his heel and strode out.
"See you in potions," he called over his shoulder, and didn't slow down until he reached the Slytherin common room, sensing that Hermione had shaken herself a little and headed back up to the relative safety of Gryffindor tower.
-0-
Applying murtlap essence to his own back was significantly more challenging than Draco had anticipated.
On a good day, he could reach one hand over and the other hand under and just touch his own fingers behind himself, but today was by no means a good day, and even at his best he wasn't flexible enough to gently smooth a liquid onto the center of his back without some kind of assistance.
He didn't have enough of the substance to fill the bathtub and just lay down in it—plus the very idea of laying directly on his battered back made him shudder with horror—and pouring down it from the top of his back wasn't getting it on evenly; once it mixed with his still-dripping blood, it would roll right off without soaking into the areas that really needed it.
The bathroom floor was a sticky, bloody mess, his trousers were no better, and he had less than half the murtlap essence with which he'd started. Resigning himself to the fact that this was going to be a difficult recovery, he laid on his stomach, and levitated the medicine as best he could so that it splashed onto his back. Resting his forehead on his folded arms, he sighed, and prayed to any spirit or deity who would listen that no one would need to use this bathroom until he'd at least scabbed over enough to lay in his own bed.
Without Hermione's fear and curiosity to focus on, Draco had nothing to distract him from his own pain, and it was so much worse than he'd realized; burning and throbbing like his skin was still being ripped open. Sweat ran down his face in disgusting rivulets as he lay on the cold tile floor, covered in a sticky, dripping mess of red and sickly yellow, and reminded himself for the thousandth time that evening to leave the heroics up to people who enjoyed that sort of thing from now on.
That was when he sensed the presence of another mind; another set of eyes observing him, torn between fear and pity. He lay still, trying to recognize the person and wondering why he could sense their emotions but not quite make out their thoughts, before it clicked. This wasn't a human mind. In fact, to be specific…
"Dobby," he greeted his former house elf softly. Dobby nervously eased his way out of the shadows, child-sized trainers tapping softly against the tile, his little body nearly lost in an oversized maroon jumper with the letter R emblazoned across the front. He'd rolled the sleeves up to half their original length so that his spindly little hands could peek out the bottom. He was trembling slightly, probably remembering every time that he'd been the butt of one of Draco's cruel jokes as a child, and Draco's stomach turned. That was a whole other level of his own cruelty that he'd yet to confront—and to be completely honest, he really didn't want it to be tonight.
"I know you're afraid," he said quietly, figuring that the house elf's body language was enough of a giveaway that he wouldn't look too intuitive. "You don't need to be here; I'll use scourgify when I get up."
Slowly, Dobby approached him, huge eyes searching his face, then scanning his open wounds.
"They are saying that you were hurt protecting Hermione Granger," he finally responded. "They are saying that Umbridge—" his face twisted in revulsion, "was going to have her beaten, but that you stopped her."
Draco groaned.
"Does every Hogwarts house elf know about it already?" he grumbled, realizing that keeping his exact involvement a secret was going to be much harder than he thought—especially if his father's former servant was as loyal to Harry Potter as he had sensed the few times he'd been in range of him this term.
"They is not spreading stories, sir," Dobby exclaimed quickly, suddenly afraid for his coworkers' safety. Draco didn't even have the energy to flinch at the newest stab of fear. "The ones that cleaned up the dungeon know, and Dobby overheard them." Of course, Draco reasoned, that just meant that the house elves didn't all know yet, which wasn't really reassuring.
"Look," he sighed, painfully reaching up a hand to rub tiredly across his eyes, "like I said, you don't need to be here. I'll clean up after myself—"
"You need help," Dobby cut him off, quietly but resolutely.
"I have it sorted," Draco insisted, trying not to lose patience; he didn't need one more wound on Dobby's already mangled heart on his conscience, but it was hard to think about how he'd feel later when all he could feel now was pain and exhaustion and the house elf's bone-deep (and fully justified) fear. "I can see you shaking from across the room. Just leave—there's no reason you should force yourself to be here."
"Were you afraid?" the house elf inquired, voice calmer than his quivering knees. Draco blinked, confused for a moment as he fought to sort out Dobby's difficult-to-catch thoughts. "Of the lash," he eventually clarified, right when Draco had worked out what he meant.
"You were afraid of pain, and humiliation, and of what you know she will do to you next time and the time after that," he continued, edging forward. Draco didn't say anything—his former servant was right.
"But you chose to do it anyway," he continued, kneeling at Draco's side, his too-long fingers glowing with magic, which when he applied it to the torn and bruised skin of his lower back produced the most intense sensation of cooling relief that he thought he'd ever felt in his life. "It was the right thing to do, even though it scared you. It was…" Draco felt Dobby struggle with himself, trying to find a way to say this that wouldn't offend the wizard that he still didn't trust not to turn around and hurt him.
"Very unlike myself," the blond finished for him in a tired monotone. "I know." Grey eyes met huge green ones as the pleasant healing sensation spread all the way up to his shoulders, and then faded, leaving a dull ache behind to replace the horrific burning he'd felt before.
"Being brave," the elf explained as he stood up, carefully using more magic to clean the blood and murtlap essence off the bottom hem of his jumper, and then off the tiled floor, "means setting fear aside to do what's right. If you aren't afraid, then there is no need for courage, is there?" Draco sat up, reaching behind him to feel the scabbed-over ridges on his back that had replaced his open wounds.
"This is all Dobby can do with his magic," the elf explained as he turned to leave, and he sounded a bit apologetic. "They will still scar."
Before Draco could get out a word of thanks—and his whole body was nearly fainting with gratitude; he'd forgotten house elves could do that—the elf had scampered back out the door without another word. Draco breathed out a nearly silent laugh. His little speech on courage only got him so far, it seemed.
But by all of Merlin's magic, it had been enough.
A/N: Heh, remember when Ron gave Dobby his Christmas sweater in Goblet of Fire? I had to show him wearing it for cute value. It's my headcanon that while Dobby hates the Malfoys (and rightly so) he'd have compassion for Draco if Draco ever did go through an extreme personal crisis in an attempt to leave Voldemort's side. My thought is that Dobby probably watched Draco grow up from infancy, and since infants aren't born evil, would have watched him descend into his family's pureblood mania during his childhood. Seeing him struggling his way towards the light might strike a cord in someone who changed his nappies and rocked him to sleep at two in the morning.
Review responses!
RE: All the fuss about Patronuses: Okay, so, to produce a patronus, a person first needs to pull up something in their mind that will spark joy (yes I do like Marie Kondo memes). When Lupin explains it to Harry, he says it has to be a memory, but Harry is shown on multiple occasions doing the charm using only his imagination (most notably in OOTP when he imagines Umbridge getting sacked).
It follows, then, that in order to produce a patronus you have to be able to experience real, genuine joy—Harry proves that you don't have to have had a lot of happy memories, you just need the capacity to feel a certain level of happiness. The fact that in JKR's canon the Death Eaters (minus Snape) can't do this represents (in my headcanon) the way that their experience of joy has been warped (as it would have to be, in order for them to genuinely enjoy breaking into the houses of Muggles who haven't done shit to them and killing them, etc).
The reason why Snape can do it is that his memories of Lilly Evans are (to JKR) the last untainted part of himself. I've touched on this concept in SD as well; Draco has the awful realization that he still feels guilt, he'd just been misdiagnosing it for years because that's what he's been taught to do, and it's been messing him up in the head. Most people naturally feel bad when they do bad things, but if they've been taught to do so, by role models or culture or whatever, they can repress that bad feeling, and may even do so habitually.
However, Dolores Umbridge, while sitting in a courtroom tossing innocent people into Azkaban just because she's racist, is so genuinely, guiltlessly happy that she can produce a patronus without breaking a sweat. What she does (canonically) aligns perfectly with what Voldemort and the Death Eaters do, but unlike all of them, the deepest part of her subconscious has absolutely no problem with it.
That's the big deal about patronuses.
(Well, that and the messed up fact that you're supposed to conjure one using a memory, but Harry's happy memories aren't happy enough, see PoA, to the point that he regularly has to fake new ones in order to do the charm, and no one seems to bat an eyelash. That's a big deal too. But this story isn't really about Harry, so I digress.)
RE: Filch! That is a really good question actually. I have her getting along with him because she did in the book, but you have an excellent point that she probably should have disliked him because he's a squib. My thought on that is, she—like most purebloods—thinks that only purebloods are real wizards; muggleborns must have "stolen" magic (see her trials in Deathly Hallows where she asks Mrs. Cattermole from whom she took her wand). So if you follow that line of thinking, if Filch is a pureblood, then squib or not, he's a wizard.
He also follows her every whim, enthusiastically and without question. I think she'd think that having a squib occupying a useful position (in this case, of her lackey) is a worthy endeavor.
(Oh, and why was there a cliffhanger? Because the last chapter and the first half of this one were originally intended to be all one chapter, but it got hella long, and I realized that cutting it off the moment their eyes met would be dramatic AF, especially in a slow burn fic, so I ran with it, hehe!)
RE: Umbitch: Dolores Umbridge is the major antagonist of Order of the Phoenix, yes. That isn't going to change within the context of this story, so if you're bored of her, you might want to consider reading fanfic of the other six Harry Potter books, as I think she's a pretty common character in OOTP works. (You know. Being the major antagonist of the book and all.) With regards to her being stupid, yeah, she is a bit; see the note above about being mind controlled by a total n00b.
To answer your dissatisfaction more broadly, this fic falls into a sort of Universe Alteration category; it's an exploration of the idea "what if just 1 thing was different—how would that change things overall?" The one different thing is "how the war/Voldemort impacts people becomes personal for Draco Malfoy in a number of ways, and he is forced to wake up and give a shit." That's the catalyst for change, and the changes to book canon ripple outwards from there.
The fic is NOT "Beth's version of OOTP in which everything gets immediately fixed to her liking." If it was, Minerva McGonagall would have rolled up to a Death Eater meeting on her broomstick, killed Voldemort before he'd even had time to get out three words of his Sinister Villain Monologue, and then gone back to Hogwarts to advise Harry to go into teaching after he graduated. Remus Lupin would have signed Sirius Black (pardoned after McGonagall captured Wormtail and he testified) for much-needed therapy and Vernon and Petunia Dursley would have died in an ironic car crash, just for funsies. While an easy fix like that would be pretty sweet in real life, it wouldn't make much of a story; I'm afraid the characters will need to struggle a bit more.