Thirty-Six
"So, let me get this right," Draco began as he took a seat in the Quidditch pitches. "Granger is sleeping with Snape?
Lena nodded.
Draco pretended to dry heave. "Ew." He looked away from her for a second and she took advantage of his silence.
"We have a lot to do, Draco. You haven't learned nearly enough to survive your tasks..."
"Ey, you act so smart, but you're younger than me, remember?" He pushed her playfully on her shoulder, cooing the girl to fight back. Lena giggled and shied away. Draco leapt at her, imprisoning her in his arms beneath him on the grass. He placed his arms around her and pulled her back upwards in a hug. Lena was just thankful she could move without pain encasing her entire body.
"I've missed you so much," he said solemnly.
Her gaze shot downwards and she looked away, towards the Quiddich hoops. The Hufflepuffs were practicing for Quidditch season, but there was no hope for them, Lena admitted sadly.
"What else has been going on?" he asked.
"I've told you most of it, everything important," she said defensively. She was thinking about Tom.
Guilt rushed through her body and clogged her throat. She wanted to get away from Draco, but he had somehow managed to snake her hand in his while she hadn't been looking. She tried to swallow the clump but failed miserably.
"I've gotta go, Draco," she choked quietly and pulled herself away from him. Walking as quickly as she could without running back to her dormitory.
Lena bumped into someone as she walked through the halls. She pushed through the crowd but somebody grabbed her shoulder.
"Watch it, Yavari," Potter growled.
The girl fumbled for her wand, but Potter had the element of surprise. "Perificus Totalus," he whispered beneath his breath. But as she saw the words form on his lips, she collapsed into his body. He smoothly pulled her into an empty classroom without anybody even slipping the two of them a glimpse.
Potter threw her on the floor. Lena tried to scream, but she couldn't move a single muscle in her body. Except for her eyes.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk," Potter began. "You're up to something, Yavari." He paused and turned his back to her. His breathing was heavy. "I hate you. All of you. You think you're better than everyone else because of your family tree?"
He spat at her. Lena wished her gag reflex would work as the gooey mess landed on her cheek.
"You walk around saying 'mudblood' like it's normal, or polite in civil conversation..."
He continued to pace.
"I need you to fill in a few pieces of this puzzle for me, Yavari."
He fired the counter curse, but fired a silencing spell at her mouth. "Oh! Don't scream." Potter laughed, tossing his head back in appreciation his own conceited brilliance.
He pulled out a vile of clear liquid.
Veritaserum.
"You know what this is, don't you?" he smiled widely. He kneeled down until he face was an inch from hers. "Your loudest scream won't even be a whisper."
He dropped several drops of the truth serum into her mouth. "So tell me," he continued, "What exactly are you doing, Lena Yavari-"
The door to the classroom slammed open. Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle strode in.
"Furnunculus!" Draco shouted at Potter. Boils sprouted all over his body and he crippled over in pain.
Draco muttered the counter curse for Lena, and she rose to her feet. She immediately waved a wand at her face to clean off the spit. She waved her wand to clean it a second time and it still felt spoiled.
"Another time, then, Potter. I have matters to attend to."
Draco dragged Lena out of the room before she could shoot anymore curses at Potter, and then dragged her out of the school until they were on the front lawn of the school. Crabbe and Goyle followed loyally. Draco produced Lena's cloak and her magically extended purse.
"We have things to do, Lena, and not much time to talk about it. So let's get going, okay?"
Lena nodded and looked back at Crabbe and Goyle, who were starting to look more like body-guards.
Suddenly, the girl stopped.
"What are we doing, Draco?" she demanded.
Draco looked back at her, frustrated. He grabbed her wrist and forced her to follow. She squealed.
"Draco, you're hurting me!"
He stopped suddenly, loosening his grip, but didn't let go of her wrist. He moved his head to her ear. "Shut up, Lena."
It was a threat. Don't make him angry.
Lena trotted along next to him. She had to run to keep up, he was so tall, his legs so long, his strides so extended. Each step was a new level of torturous pain.
Under the dark cover the Forbidden forest, Crabbe and Goyle stopped walking and Draco did as well. He pushed Lena into a tree and began to kiss her passionately. The two goons simply turned their backs on the situation.
Tears were welling up in Lena's eyes. All of the pain that Tom had been causing her lately still plagued her body constantly, and Draco pushing her into a tree didn't help. She pushed Draco away slowly and looked in his eyes for a moment, pleading for him to stop.
He did, surprisingly.
She found herself glancing at Crabbe and Goyle but their backs were still turned and they weren't looking at Draco and Lena.
"What?" He demanded after a moment.
"My back hurts," she whispered breathlessly so the goons couldn't hear.
Draco smiled and wrapped his arms around her back, caging her in his arms, and kissing her more deeply, gently rubbing her back with his large, warm hands. She flinched ever so slightly as he went over every scar, so slightly that she wasn't sure if he noticed. He hugged her for a few more minutes, before explaining that his parents had told him to meet in Hogsmeade. Lena nodded and he took her hand as it hung numbly at her side, dragging her back towards Hogwarts. For some reason, perhaps noticing Lena's uncomfortably fast pace to keep up with him, he walked slower. The only warm part of Lena was the hand Draco held.
Finally, they stopped at the Slytherin broom cabinet.
"Nah uh..." Lena began, backing away.
"Hence," Draco paused, "Crabbe and Goyle." At the exact moment he said their names, they grabbed either of her arms. "I thought you might need a little convincing."
"What the fuck, Draco?!" But he didn't answer. She struggled to get away from Crabbe and Goyle's grip, but they were as strong as they were dumb.
"Are you blind, Lena?" Draco started. He nodded at the two bullies behind her to let her go. Lena was taken aback, what was he saying to her? He pushed a strand of hair from her face and held her chin so that she could not look away.
"You may be brilliant, but while you disappear for hours on end to heaven knows where, things are happening all around this school. Potter-"
"Potter has his little army he's training up, the bunch of gits...Umbridge is casually taking over Hogwarts and overall dumbing down the population of the school, while keeping a group of Slytherins to do her dirty work; which, you are at the top of...The Order of the Phoenix is trying its so very hardest to come back," Lena batted her eyelashes in horror at the trivial statement, she removed her frown before she continued, "But they know that the Dark Lord is aware of them."
"I guess you do pay attention. A little."
Lena scowled at him and waited for his explanation.
"We must go to speak with him, Lena. The Dark Lord. He is expecting us, he wants an update on the happenings at Hogwarts."
He has a better idea of what's going on at Hogwarts than you know, Draco, Lena mused to herself.
Draco unlocked the storage closet and pushed a Nimbus 2001 at her.
She scuffed and looked at it with degrading eyes.
Withdrawing her wand, "Accio broom!"
A broom whizzed out from a dungeon window.
"Whoa!" Crabbe began, "That hasn't even been released yet. A Firebolt V5!"
"Where did you get that?" Draco held an odd annoyance in his tone.
"A gift from my mother and father for my birthday. They think I love flying." Lena laughed aloud at the ridiculous lie she had kept with her parents.
"Your birthday isn't until August," Draco muttered, but Lena pretended not to hear him.
Lena felt her pulse speeding up as she realized that Crabbe and Goyle were mounting their brooms, and soon Lena would have to fly with them. Which was impossible. She couldn't fly, she didn't know how. She would fall.
She tried to breathe slowly. Her gaze dropped to the ground and Draco approached her.
"Everything okay?" he asked.
She knew he was asking because she had told him of her fear of heights. She felt queasy.
Lena nodded, but she began to blush furiously when she realized that even if she managed to get this broom off the ground, she would probably manage to fall off and break her hip, humiliating herself.
A sixteen-year-old witch not knowing how to fly in the wizarding world, was like a sixteen year old muggle not knowing how to swim.
Breathing slowly, she mounted the broomstick. She wished that her and Draco could fly together again, it would be less scary with his strong arms wrapped around her.
The broom lifted from the ground and she tried to will her feet to touch the ground again, but when she looked down, she was three feet off the ground, trailing Crabbe and Goyle by fifty or so feet.
She dropped back to the ground before she dared go any higher. Draco turned his broom around and landed smoothly next to her. She hadn't even noticed him watching her the entire time.
"Okay, princess." He straddled the broom behind her, his own broom flying back to the broom cabinet. She felt him up against the small of her back. Everywhere he touched erupted with warmth, temperarily allieviating the constant shiver.
Her heart was pulsing faster than she wanted it too, but she couldn't control it. Forcing herself not to look down, she followed after Crabbe and Goyle, Draco behind her, his arms protecting her from falling.
City lights glowed beneath her and she knew that they were flying over the Scottish countryside. She braced herself and didn't allow the vomit to surface.
Draco wrapped himself closer to her and she felt a new eruption of butterflies in her stomach.
Lena's head was spinning, her vision was getting blurrier, she gripped the broom tighter until her knuckles turned white.
She couldn't breathe. She struggled to inhale, but the fast wind blowing by her seemed impossible to breathe in.
Everything went black.
The scent of lemon cleaning solution stung her nose as she inhaled. Her eyes snapped open and her body forward.
Hospital wing.
"Draco," she said as she saw him from the corner of her eye. "What happened?"
"You kind of just blacked out..."
Lena looked downward at her lap and held her hands together; she swallowed a lump in her throat, praying that the majority of her wounds had healed before she'd been looked at.
"Did you meet with the Dark Lord?" Lena asked Draco, blushing at the thought of the Dark Lord seeing her passed out.
"I'm so glad you're okay...that's an incredibly fast broom for a beginner, by the way..." He said smartly.
Lena smacked Draco on the shoulder and he pulled the girl into a hug. She crawled out of the hospital bed and into his lap. Pressing her face into his neck, she kissed him, and nipped lightly at him until he pushed her face so their mouths would meet.
She let him slip his tongue inside her mouth and kiss her passionately.
Checking out of the Hospital wing was incredibly difficult. Poppy did her best to keep the rare company she had. Also, she spent half an hour saying how cute Draco was and wondering if he was okay from the last time he was in.
"He's fine," Lena replied for him. She rolled her eyes as Draco gave the nurse a sad look and cringe of pain.
The girl dragged Draco away before he would be put back in hospital care. She headed toward the Great Hall, her hand clasped in his still. For some reason, she did not let go.
"Right." Draco said aloud.
"Wha-?" Lena began, but immediately followed his gaze to the Golden Trio.
"I've been meaning to deal with these three." Draco strode forward. "Fifty points each for standing around in the halls before classes begin. Granger, another fifty for being a mudblood."
"Why you foul-" Granger began in defense.
"Densaugeo," Lena spat quickly, and Granger's teeth grew out of control, and she collapsed to the ground, clutching her mouth, and trying to shout counter curses but she couldn't pronounce any words properly.
Potter and Weasley were too stupid to know the counter curse.
"Ah, now we're evened out," Draco noticed, inching towards the frightened bunch,.
"Expelliarmus!" Draco and Lena shouted at the same time, and the two wands shot to the ground in front of them.
"Let's see..." Lena said, approaching Potter and Weasley.
"Get away from us, Death Eaters!"
Lena scowled. "Do not speak to me. Emorphius Arachnidia!" Hundreds of bugs began to swarm out of boils forming on Potter and Weasley's skin. Weasley screamed as the hundreds of baby spiders exited endlessly out of the side of his face.
They screamed in fear on the ground in front of Draco and Lena.
Lena walked forward, and put her wand at Weaselbee's throat. "So tell me... Why did you attack me?"
"I- I- I DON'T KNOW, GET THESE THINGS OFF OF ME."
"Wrong answer."
She looked down pathetically.
"I wish I could find a worthy enemy," she mused.
"One day," Draco replied, holding out his hand expectantly for hers.
She looked in his eyes for a long second before accepting the offer, inhaling as the now familiar butterflies erupted as his fingers slid in between hers. walking away from the blood traitors easily with her own sense of hubris.
For the first time in a long time, everything actually felt...right.
"You're going to leave them like that?" Goyle droned from behind.
"They're in no harm..." She laughed coldly, and it echoed throughout the corridor.
Draco pushed her against a wall and pressed his lips against hers, hard. She kissed back.