Tea Leaves Unfold
"Say something I'm giving up on you,
I'll be the one if you want me to" -"Say Something" by A Great Big World
TWO WEEKS UNTIL EASTER HOLS
"So? What did she say after you told her?" Draco uttered this, afraid that by raising his voice in a castle that could think, and thus listen, his words would be swallowed up.
Afraid, too, of the answer that he may receive back.
Theo lay flat on his back on a perfectly made bed. Draco wagered the elves had done that since Theo was never one to spend time on such mundane activities. The brunet cracked open a single eye at Draco's utterance, swiveling the somber midnight blue his way until Draco felt like squirming under the silent assessment.
Malfoys didn't squirm.
Blaise, also present in the dormitory, was the one to take pity on Draco.
"She said what you would expect."
The dark-skinned boy was the antithesis of Theo's irreverence as he stood straight, controlled, by the corner of his desk.
Turning his chair around, Draco allowed himself a moment of weakness and sought out her journal, which he had finally unearthed from his trunk after the incident with Pansy. The pages fluttered through his fingers until he landed on the last entry. The February one in which she had been straight as an arrow, perpetually a perfect shot.
She pierced him, still.
Belatedly, he got around to responding to Blaise's enigmatic answer.
"Some bloody Gryffindors shite, eh?" but the words came out rounded by affection.
Theo sighed disgustedly, "Why don't you just talk to her?"
oOo
TEN DAYS UNTIL EASTER HOLS
"I don't understand why you can't just talk to him!" Hermione started to exclaim, only tempering the volume of her voice at the synchronized head turns she and Ron received as they walked down the corridor. Ron shot her a dry, impatient look.
"Wouldn't you know, he's not the easiest sell right now, Hermione," and the verbal barb, only one of many Hermione had to endure since the fallout three days ago, had her biting her cheek in restraint.
Their combined shuffling echoed in the low-walled spaces of the basement as they made their way to Advanced Potions; after constraining herself to sit through Ron's THREE helpings of breakfast so that they could traverse to class together, she had hoped to be having a more productive conversation.
"It would probably be best," he continued, the bite in his voice acrid as ever, "if you gave us- " at this pointed emphasis, Hermione flushed red, "a little space. So we could come to terms."
The embarrassment was naked on her face as she felt the heat tingling in her cheeks, but Hermione resisted Ron's dismissal.
"What terms, exactly?" She bit out and Ron stopped at the threshold of the Potions classroom, blessedly out of view and earshot. They stood closely, almost intimately, but the lack of space between them felt less knitted and more burdensome, the canyon-wide gap in their perspectives shining clearly in Ron's stare.
"How about the terms in which you thought it was more important to continuously lie to your best friends in order to rehabilitate a Death Eater?"
Hermione's teeth ground down on the word. "I've tried to say I'm- "
Ron cut through her apology. Like always. "Or how about the terms that this bully somehow magically became deserving of your love?" His eyes continued to penetrate her, so somber that they froze Hermione to the stone she stood on, speechless.
An angry red started to creep into Ron's ears but at the rumble of Slughorn's voice, he exhaled the emotion gustily, a feat Hermione never thought she would witness.
"I told you I would try with Harry but for now, space would be best. Consider it penance for your betrayal," he concluded before turning to rush into the starting class. Slughorn could be heard droning on, his words inaudible and insignificant to Hermione as she reeled from the reality slap.
Ten days. Less than a fortnight before Easter holidays arrived and she would have to go home, hopefully to unharmed parents who now needed an escape plan to remain unharmed, and Draco would go home, likely to a torture session unfathomably long and -
Hermione bit her lip to stop the spiral, and drew blood. It slipped along the fragile skin, her tongue swiping it and painting the pink, red.
Red like anger.
Red like love.
She forced herself to enter the classroom, bowing her head in apology to the Professor, before tilting her eyes to take in the seating arrangements. Naturally, Ron took a seat by Harry, both boys resolutely looking anywhere but her. She scanned to find Theo and Blaise with Draco today who, for the first time in forever, lifted his head to make eye contact.
The momentary attention seared her and Hermione could feel her chest burn with the weight of insufficient words and unshed tears, the whole of their shared history churning under her skin but then he dropped his gray gaze and she was propelled back to the present, left standing idiotically in the middle of the classroom.
She slunk to the only other occupied table, where Belby was chatting quite amiably with Dean, and avoided the sharp, assessing stares of Theo and Blaise. Slughorn hummed good-naturedly before booming, "Page 301, class. Time for polyjuice potions and don't get too excited- we won't be testing them in class!" He winked at Harry, his go-to whenever he believed he said anything particularly witty.
"The potions needs a month to mature fully which means this is a short-term project; however I will also be reviewing regularly since the consistency is key, a fact which if you look at your texts states that you are aiming for… "
Hermione stopped listening because she was quite aware of the consistency of Polyjuice, in any of its month-long iterations. Her second-year self was as well, and the memory of it slipping mud-like down her throat prompted a look in the boys' direction, anticipating shared nostalgia.
They merely whispered between one another.
Once Slughorn finished his instruction, the Advanced Class set to work, fires poofing to life under the cauldrons and the sound of chopping knives filling the air. Dean and Belby had an easy, unexpected camaraderie which suited Hermione just fine as it left her alone.
She scanned the potion recipe, its familiarity a balm in such tumultuous circumstances, and started to pull ingredients from her stock. She knew that she owed Draco an update now that Harry and Ron were aware of their involvement. In some fanciful aberration, she had hoped to be able to confront him confidently, victoriously even, with a solution at her fingertips after receiving aid from her friends.
The largely logical portion of her brain knew where fancy belonged. It wasn't in bloody real life, that's for sure.
After prepping most of her ingredients, Hermione realized she would need boomslang skin from the school stores so she went to retrieve it, walking by her friends in the process. Bitterness at their dissociation built in the notches of her spine, the bones becoming straighter and more brittle the longer she mentally circled the matter of Harry and Ron, her "friends".
The term seemed, laughably, an insult now.
What kind of friends would choose to abandon her in such desperate straits?
The kind that were more concerned with cultivated animosity for another human than a bond forged from shared suffering, Hermione closed the door over hard as she made her way back into the classroom. Blaise tracked her path, intent buried in the espresso irises as usual, but Hermione felt too deep in the undercurrents of her resentment to surface for him.
She sliced thin strips of the boomslang then set it to stew in the water so that her mind could continue to stew over everything else.
The sting of their dismissal, all encompassing, drove her hands to restlessly tear through the sage leaves in her potion kit, their bitter scent curling into her nose, cleansing her. Hermione should have known all along that just because she responded when her friends needed her, didn't mean they would reciprocate when it was her turn to need. It was likely never a scenario they prepared for- brightest witch of their age, seeking aid.
Or, her mind rustled uncharitably, the boys only knew how to need her. Her only purpose- to be needed… instead of to need.
Hands falling still, Hermione absently reviewed her potion as the remaining minutes ticked down in the class. The circuitous thoughts drained a body already devoid of hope, of promise, and they always eventually led back to the stark reality that Draco deserved to know it all.
Slughorn cleared his throat and announced the students should move their cauldrons to the brewing station in Lab 3. "We'll meet there moving forward, until the Polyjuice is complete!"
Hermione tarried behind the others, vanishing the bruised bits of sage leaves scattered on the table, as they all levitated their cauldrons down the corridor. Much of the class moved hastily in setting up their cauldrons in the lab, proceeding quickly back to the classroom to gather their things and beeline for the next class.
Hermione's feet were less cooperative, as if they caught in Devil's snare, and she became the last to place her cauldron and the last to collect her bag and she was certain, the last to traverse the corridor-
Until she saw Theo leaning against the corner of the staircase at the end of the hall. His ankles were crossed, the lankiness of his body defined even in the billowing set of school robes draped around his frame. The position indicated patience, unhurried nonchalance but as Hermione made her way to him, she felt snagged on the intensity flooding his dark blue gaze.
"Blaise wanted to be here," he opened. He pushed off the wall and matched her pace as they climbed the many stairs to Arithmancy.
"What for?" Hermione tried for innocence.
Theo chuckled. "Nice try." He sliced a sideways look at her as he said, "Gryffindor is the house least known for its subtlety."
"Not Hufflepuff?"
Theo practically guffawed at that, his hand landing on Hermione's shoulder as he tried to remain upright. The elation softened the otherwise sharp features of his cheekbones, his jaw, and for a moment Hermione basked in the easiness of Theo in her messy, complicated life. He wiped away a tear before replying, "Nobody cares about the Hufflepuffs."
Hermione bristled for an argument despite not having a single friend from Hufflepuff, but Theo cut her off, stepping in from of Hermione's path to catch her eyes.
"But you digress," he punctuated with a raise of his eyebrows, hardly visible under the overgrown brunet fringe. "That was a pretty direct cut from the dimwit duo," he prodded.
A half-hearted thrum of protest beat in her chest, so fleeting that it was gone before she could latch on and scold Theo with it. Instead, she dropped her eyes and started to mumble.
"It's- "
"Something," he cut off, chucking up her chin in the process. His lips were quirked up in a ghost of a smile that was not so much encouraging as it was conciliatory, and it gave her a renewed sense of energy for what she had to do.
Talk to Draco. Confess her shortcomings.
Then likely lose him for good.
Sighing, Hermione grasped Theo's arm and started pulling him in the direction of Arithmancy. "We're going to be late for class," she said although her hold cradled him gratefully. He looped her arm into the crook of his and escorted her the rest of the way.
The class had settled into another set of problems by the time Hermione and Theo entered the room; although quiet had already settled into the air molecules around them, the energy turned from studious to shocking as the brunet Slytherin ushered Hermione directly to her seat and with a saucy wink, deposited her before moving to his own. As he strutted to his seat, Hermione's eyes followed his trek and collided with Draco's.
For the second time that day.
The sensation was bittersweet, his pupils flitting back and forth across her face, continuously snagging on her own unwavering gaze, as if she contained all the clues to the mystery of life.
And for a split second, she felt completely open to Draco, now that all pretense and deception had disintegrated- like he could read her whole story, the best of it and the worst, and that revelation calmed her.
Then Professor Vector spoke.
"Well, Mr. Nott, I see you have yet to learn the importance of timeliness. Perhaps if your daily problem set was due before everyone else, you would finally get a sense of why I stress it so. I expect your work, say, ten minutes before the end of class."
She turned her scolding stare from a subdued Theo to Hermione. "Miss Granger," she sighed. The two words dropped into the ether, plummeting like Vector's expectations of Hermione.
Finally she added in a resigned tone, "10 points from Gryffindor."
Hermione kept her eyes down on her work after that.
The class moved slowly. Even though her eyes were on a complex pattern of numbers that required an advanced level of intellect, her mind flitted far away, to the imminent, the inevitable notion of what her new...est confession to Draco would bring about.
At precisely ten minutes before the end of class, Theo stiffly deposited his work on Vector's desk and then took his seat with crossed arms and a wooden expression. Not long after, they were all dismissed. Hermione squared her shoulders as she pulled her school bag up, resolve feeling like it etched itself into her features. She walked behind Draco and Theo as the two left the classroom and once they cleared the first corridor, she blurted out, "Excuse me."
The blond head froze. Theo paused nonchalantly and threw a look over his shoulder.
"Yeah, Granger?" He said, a wary curiosity building in his eyes. Hermione exhaled shakily.
"I need to talk to Draco." She gripped her bag fiercely, her knuckles turning as white as Draco's face once he turned to confront her. The pause stretched, thin and tenuous, before Theo bowed his head in acknowledgment and exited the hall.
Knowing a fair few of the classrooms in the corridor would be vacant right before lunch, Hermione led Draco to a classroom nearly off the beaten path then sealed the two of them inside the space with a Muffliato and simple locking charm.
Darkly, depressively, she assumed Draco would want an easy escape.
The boy in question kept his eyes plastered to the narrow, mullioned windows, his body a couple meters from the outer wall.
When Hermione trusted her voice she asked, "How have you been, Draco?"
She could catch the slightest tensing of his jaw, teeth clenched around an answer that Hermione couldn't begin to fathom would be true or deceitful, polite or poisonous. After a moment he growled, "Fine."
Ah. Poisonous in its politeness. Also bloody deceitful.
Draco did not turn around to address her and the implication of dismissal again drove Hermione through her insecurities and stomping until she was face to face with him.
"There's no point in lying to me," she hissed. Draco finally dropped his eyes to her own, although the cold expression in them was less than inviting.
"Ah. Don't care for deception, then?"
Hermione's hair sparked.
Ten days. They had ten days to figure this mess out and all anyone wanted to do was dissect her sins.
"A fault which I'm trying to reconcile," and her eyes tracked the minute changes to his person… the sharpening of flint in his irises, a calculated relaxation with his shoulders. She imagined the changes becoming less subtle with her next confession.
"I told Harry and Ron. About us."
Draco inhaled swiftly, stealing all the oxygen in the room, requiring Hermione to rush out an explanation lest she black out under the tension. "After I was told to not go home for the holidays- a suggestion you must know I would never follow- I knew that we needed help, that this was more serious than I believed. I knew that if there was anyone who could convince Dumbledore, it would be Harry."
Draco scoffed loudly, cutting her off. His face was carved with disdain.
"Again with Dumbledore. Was it not clear enough the first time that the bastard held no interest in saving me?"
She stared, conflicted. "But Harry- "
"Oh yes," Draco sneered, the disdain leaking into his tone, darkening to something seething, "Saint Potter- the savior of all. Of course since he's the favorite of Dumbledore, he would certainly be able to convince the fool to save his schoolyard enemy. A Death Eater, no less."
Hermione felt bombarded. Boxed in by the cutting words and glacial tones, his body cultured to cool stillness and the tepid explanations evaporated off her lips as Draco expertly connected the dots himself.
"It makes sense now," he mused, "what happened this morning in Potions. Have they abandoned you, knowing that you've been tainted?"
Hermione recoiled at the word then pressed forward, reaching a hand out. "That's a terrible, inaccurate description, Draco, and you know it."
He dodged her hand with a swift step back, closer to the door. To freedom.
His jaw clicked as he said, "All I know, Granger, is that you seem to be awfully comfortable asking everyone for help after I explicitly told you I don't need it." Draco took another step back, as if the conversation was over, but Hermione refused the idea of another brush-off.
She was not lint to be picked from clothing.
Quickly, Hermione moved and launched a hand out, grabbing hold of his wrist. His eyes went wide as he froze.
"You didn't trust me," she said firmly, watching the quicksilver as it flashed in his eyes, "I was- open with you. And you didn't trust me at all."
Draco pulled his arm but she only tightened her grip. His voice dropped a register until he was nearly growling. "I didn't realize lying and going behind my back counted as being open."
They physically tugged back and forth, a veritable battle of his tempered efficiency against her passionate outbursts, then he continued his verbal onslaught. "Trust...what about trusting me? You didn't trust me to find my own way out."
Despite the mild interaction, Hermione's chest heaved like she was running a marathon and the blood pumped through her body rapidly, flushing the skin. She circled back to her same argument, her only option, even as the newfound closeness to Draco shuddered through her.
"I only wanted to help."
At that, Draco wound his arms until he could squeeze both of Hermione's wrists in his hands, vised by her hips and bringing them chest to chest.
"And I don't need it. Surprise though it may be, I am not your lack-wit friends who require your help to survive."
The words sliced with their finality, with their indelible accuracy to the very thoughts Hermione had harbored not two hours ago. Such a conclusion bled Hermione of whatever optimism still existed that she could indeed solve this problem.
Keep Draco safe.
Keep Draco as hers.
The muscles of her arms relaxed as the fight flowed right out of her and, sensing the change, Draco released Hermione's wrists abruptly and strode until there was considerable distance between them. Waves of emotion lapped in the space between, gaining strength the further away he tread, and yet Hermione couldn't decipher much over the salty taste of defeat as it sloshed into her mouth. She wiped at her face and felt her hand dampen from tears.
Draco was unsheathing his wand to counter the charms she placed on the room, mere moments from stepping out into the corridor and removing himself from her life, when the last shreds of tenacity coalesced in her chest.
Deprived of knowledge for too long, Hermione grappled for a final thread of comprehension, something she could knit into her imperfect mental tapestry that was Draco Malfoy.
Finally as his hand hit the door knob she whispered, "Draco".
He paused, turning back towards her. "Is there anything you require?" She asked, knowing help- her main asset, her one strength- was now irrelevant in the scheme of things.
She watched as Draco's face contorted in almost painful confusion. Then, he inhaled and a visceral change echoed throughout his whole body, the unnameable emotion palpable as his gray eyes once again found hers.
"Just myself," he stated.
oOo
8 DAYS UNTIL EASTER HOLS
Sleep had long since abandoned Draco so, at the earliest possible hour, he was striding to the Great Hall to sit alone so that he could reflect. No breakfast foods had yet been sent up by the elves, since no one else was awake at this bloody obscene hour, but coffee and tea sat steaming in their respective ceramic carafes.
Draco poured himself a cup of his preferred, fragrant brew; after going through his usual preparations, he inhaled the aroma greedily and took a sip. The hot liquid tumbled down his throat, scorching a path, but Draco relished the feeling.
It had been quite a while since he felt, period.
The peaceful atmosphere of the empty hall in the early morning had Draco releasing the tension built up over the course of the year. He sipped his coffee and rolled his shoulders, the stress shuddering off his body in response to the motion. He breathed in the quiet air and the secrets he had kept in his spine unlatched, keys falling from open locks.
Draco felt open and unburdened because for the first time, Draco understood that he was completely in charge of his fate.
Morosely, his mind recalled the argument yesterday with Granger. She had been a whirlwind of golden brashness, stalwart in her perspective of the situation and determined to get him to agree, and even with the second stab of betrayal of divulging to the dimwit duo, her impact was nothing short of mind-blowing. Much of her argument had just roared along in his blood, past comprehension now that their fates had been sealed, but then she asked a question.
"Is there anything you require?"
The question struck him like he was a divining rod, like Granger had been in search of precious somethings when she asked.
And consequently it echoed off something precious, an epiphany, and Draco's muddled mind cleared when he realized that the "you" she was asking about- and of and for- was not the Death Eater or the Slytherin or the Malfoy.
It was just Draco. And that had made all the difference.
Tilting his head up, he saw the pink of dawn in the enchanted ceiling shifting with the blinding white of the rising sun. The spring morning settled fully onto the Great Hall, bathing the worn tables and benches in a warm glow. Draco knew, before long, they would fill up with other students and his moment of quiet will have dissipated with the dawn.
His moment of peace, however, stretched before him, unbroken and unending.
The minute the food popped onto the tables, Draco prepared himself a full plate of breakfast. Blaise was the earliest riser of the Slytherins and he was just sliding onto the bench across from Draco as the blond swiped the last of his toast through the remaining egg yolk on his plate.
Draco's focus drifted up to see polite inquiry raise one of Blaise's eyebrows. Draco ignored it and proceeded to pour himself another cup of coffee, the action enough to spur Blaise into motion.
Other students started to file in, sitting at their respective tables, and increasing the hum of noise as they conversed and clinked their dishes. Before long, breakfast was well under way and the mail was being delivered. A third cup of coffee sat cooling in Draco's hands as he listened to Theo and Blaise chat inanely, then he was being smacked in the nose with a letter.
His mates went quiet as the letter tipped right-side up onto the rim of his cup, revealing what he already knew- that the letter was from his father.
He broke the seal and slipped the single sheet of parchment out.
Draco,
Our house guest has recently learned some interesting news and expects to see you during Easter holidays. He is anticipating a lengthy visit in which you owe him an explanation.
As you do me.
Lucius
The word "expects" jangled around in his head, an echo that started in his father's imperious tone before ebbing away to something quieter and yet more resolved. Something that sounded more like himself.
Scanning the table, he found Pansy to be seated closer to the middle of the room. Draco grasped his wand in his left hand and the letter in his right, winding his way purposefully through the socializing throngs of people, until he stood just behind Pansy.
He released the letter. It floated gently down to land on her plate, drawing her focus. After about ten seconds- enough time, he wagered, for the stupid bint to scan the lines- he growled 'Incendio' and lit it on fire.
The red-orange flames licked at the parchment edges angrily, the intention driving the spell work explicit in the flames' dance.
Pansy bore it dispassionately. The ashes speckled her half-finished breakfast and a perverted smirk quirked Draco's lips, at least until Snape strolled up to them. He vanished the mess while studying first Pansy, then Draco. Silkily he said, "Detention this evening, Mr. Malfoy," and his eyes flashed just as he turned back to the head table.
Evening came quickly. Draco finished dinner, two helpings of cottage pie, and then waved off his friends before heading to Snape's office. The door was closed when he arrived so he rapped smoothly on the wood.
"Enter."
Straightening his tie, Draco opened the door and crossed over the threshold. As much as he wished to assume the detention was purely pretense, it wouldn't do to show up bedraggled in his godfather's office.
Snape stood behind his desk which was devoid of pretty much everything. His arms folded, he looked down his nose as Draco came to stand dutifully on the other side of the desk. Snape's arms twitched momentarily before he shook out his robes and rounded the obtrusive piece of wood.
"I'm curious, Draco," and the blond felt the intrusive drilling of his godfather's eyes as he attempted to press into Draco's mind, "what motivated such a… public instigation against Miss Parkinson."
The drilling turned insistent, painful, but fruitless against mental walls that had been made impenetrable by conviction. Without flinching, despite the throbbing behind his right eye, Draco answered, "A letter, sir."
"From who." Snape's tone deepened into warning.
"Lucius," Draco said and did not miss the way his godfather's eyebrows flicked near imperceptibly in question.
"And its contents?" The words turned from ominous to downright dangerous so Draco sighed his compliance and then closed his eyes, rousing the memories in question.
The letter. Granger's confession. The mistake in the Room of Requirement with Pansy and any other miniscule moment on the thread of events that led to now…as he flicked through and studied the images, Snape tugged hard on the thread to release every relevant vision until in an audible snarl of frustration, he ripped his consciousness from Draco's mind.
"Ow… fuck!" The blond cursed loudly. He looked to his godfather, still looming a meter or so away, the expression of pure frustration on his face unchanged.
Snape breathed through his nose, nostrils flaring, before hissing, "It's as if you have a death wish."
Draco was sorely tempted to shrug but wouldn't put it past Snape to strangle him, so he merely stood as still as possible waiting for the broody man to collect himself. After a few more moments, Snape straightened and gave his back to Draco, asking steadily, "Do you have a plan?"
Draco shook his head even though Snape couldn't see it.
"No. But I refuse to abide by His plans any longer."
The older man made a sound of distress stifled in the back of his throat, but Draco's mind had already set to churning over what his next steps would be. Before he stated it, even when Snape asked, Draco hadn't a clue that his instantaneous reaction would be to defect.
He cleared his own throat and asked, "May I be dismissed, sir? I need to think this through."
Snape seemed to shudder in his robes, or perhaps he billowed them extravagantly, before turning to face Draco, words of protest already parting his lips.
"Please, sir."
And his godfather silently, albeit begrudgingly conceded. He waved him away wearily.
Draco sprinted for the 7th floor. The halls were crowded as he pushed through the pockets of students too slow to make room as his shoes slapped against the stone, muffling the yells from his disgruntled peers.
He called forth the Room breathlessly, flying down the twisted, cramped aisles until he reached the only remaining impediment- the Cabinet.
Well, perhaps it was the only impediment; he still hadn't decided what defecting actually looked like… and hadn't a clue how to extricate his parents…
Collapsing into one of the empty chairs, Draco brooded into the black wood of the Cabinet. At present, there was no knowing if his father, at least, would agree to defection. Ice-cold disquiet trickled down Draco's spine as he thought back on the year's burdens, all brought on by a man blinded by a desperate need to remain in the good graces of a murderer.
No. Father won't choose me. Has he ever? He couldn't help but wonder. The blond threw his hands out in frustration, the left hitting the empty seat beside him and the finality of the wood tingled in his palm, jarring his body. Draco realized belatedly that the books on the Cabinet previously piled on that chair were now missing.
They belonged to his father. He would be most aggrieved if they weren't returned.
Draco stared a final time at the still-broken Cabinet and wagered that missing books would be the least of Lucius Malfoy's grievances in the coming days.
It certainly was the least of Draco's.
Unsheathing his wand, Draco sent the chairs careening into a nearby tower of junk. They landed with a resounding thud, almost toppling the pile. He then accioed a sheet from the bowels of the room, levitating the cloth until it could cover the majority of the Cabinet. Draco turned on his heel and never looked back.
Once he hit the 7th floor corridor, the adrenaline of the day caught up with him and suddenly his lungs felt collapsed in his sternum. The air was stuck in his throat with nowhere to go and the harder he inhaled, the more his pale skin flushed from the futile exertion. Draco stumbled down the hall to the bathroom.
His hands connected hard with the porcelain sink and he locked his arms before his knees gave way, before he collapsed into a pile of raw nerves. He heaved and heaved and the air didn't make a dent in the blazing hysteria backing up in his throat, so he wrenched the cardigan from his body, ripping the buttons free of his oxford in order to push the sleeves up off his forearms.
The cool air of the bathroom hit his skin and the Dark Mark raised on goosebumps.
Black. Distinct. Permanent.
The observation brought tears to Draco's eyes and before he knew it, they were falling in earnest down his cheeks, streaking the skin shiny.
For one awful moment, as he gulped around the tears Draco wondered if perhaps the choices he made… the mistakes that resulted from them were too big to reform.
Hermione never thought so. Blaise and Theo too. Even Mum thought there were more options…
Shuddering a final tear-choked gasp, Draco raised his eyes to find Harry-fucking-Potter standing in the entryway of the bathroom.
Draco felt utterly exposed; nevertheless, he turned fluidly towards Potter and rested his hip on the sink, simultaneously sliding the Hawthorn out of his trouser pocket to rest at his side.
Potter's wand arm flinched.
"Stalking me around the castle now, Potter?" Draco observed lightly even as the tension radiated down to his fingers.
"Yes," the Gryffindor responded blatantly. "We need to talk, you see."
Fucking Salazar, Granger.
Draco cocked his head to the side, superficially contemplative. "About what?"
Potter hardened at the innocent lilt in Draco's voice. "Stop manipulating Hermione."
Unwittingly, Draco snorted at that. "You do her a disservice assuming she can be manipulated."
Potter's eyes dropped momentarily to the partially visible Mark as if to make a point. "You do her a disservice breathing the same air as her," then he threw a silent hex that hurled right over Draco's shoulder and shattered the mirror.
He ducked to avoid the falling glass and shot an Impedimenta from his crouch. Potter side-stepped to take cover behind the row of bathroom stalls. He continued his taunt, the words echoing off the tile.
"I really want to know how you did it," he pressed viciously, throwing his wand arm out blindly. The reducto curse burst like a comet across the small space and blew up a sink, covering Draco with the grimy water.
"She's supposed to be bright. How could she have possibly fallen for evil like you?"
The insult dripped from Potter's words like acid, causing a stir of protectiveness in Draco's chest. Granger is bright. There's no "suppose" about it.
The ire tingled in his fingers. Draco attempted to bounce an Incarcerous off the outside wall but Potter assumedly ducked again since the blond never heard the thud of a falling body. He answered the boy in hopes of drawing him out.
"I suppose evil is subjective."
Harry huffed. "So is righteousness, I guess. I'm fucking disappointed in her."
The sheer condescension of Potter's perspective vibrated ugly through Draco and the ire shot up from his fingertips and into his chest where the possessive streak for Granger mixed volatilely with the suppressed anger.
Inching out from his section of wall, he trained his wand on the empty space and muttered, "Another disservice," but Potter wasn't listening.
He was too busy raging, near insensible.
"- Had to fall into bed with just anyone. Of course it would be her pet project- "
Draco immediately bristled at Scarhead's implication, as if the oblivious git who's known about the two of them for all of 24 hours could just skim the surface of their relationship and throw out the harshest, most inaccurate insult.
She had been a virgin, for fuck's sake.
And more importantly, she had been his. Intellectually and emotionally his long before he claimed her.
Draco prowled the edge of the sink-lined wall, feeling almost blind with rage at Potter's slander. And you call yourself her friend, you pathetic arsehole-
He caught sight of Potter, raised his wand, and the magic shot down his arm as he growled, "Cruc- "
Harry cut him off with a quick slice of his wand.
"Sectumsempra!"
The spell collided squarely with his chest and as if in slow motion, he was falling backwards onto the flooded bathroom tile. The impact was hard, knocking the wind right out of him, and dazedly he turned his head to find Potter rushing toward him with a petrified look on his face.
His ridiculously cheap shoes sloshed through the rose-tinted water… and vaguely, Draco marveled at how it could be changing color…
He ran his hands down his chest, brought them up sluggishly to find them covered in blood.
The pain from the curse felt muted, as if the sensation was leaking out all over the floor right along with his life force.
Too soon, he turned cold. Potter's face swam into view above him but Draco slammed his eyes closed against the vision. He wanted to see his mother behind the curtain of his eyelids. Safe. Happy.
Draco felt a numbness spreading up from his feet, a creeping indication of what was to come.
He clenched his eyes tighter, willed his Occlumency walls to drop. Hermione came bursting forth, all tangled hair and amber eyes, fierce determination and bottomless hope. Her mere memory warmed Draco and it leaked out of his eyes.
He tried to catch them with his uncooperative fingers; he didn't want to lose a drop of her.
The digits were cold. Lifeless.
An unrecognizable cadence floated above him out of reach but the voice…
He knew that voice.
It wasn't Hermione's.
The tears fell harder. She always had all the words and she gave them freely, gave her love without condition. He took it all without ever telling her-
Now she wouldn't know.
He didn't get to say goodbye.
She wouldn't know he loved her…
Say goodbye.
A/N: I swear I'm not cruel! The last chapter is being looked at by the bestest of betas and once it's given the green light you will get it! I hoped to keep these last updates rather close together... no one wants to needlessly suffer.