Chapter 18:
Blaise
That night, Draco couldn't sleep. It evaded him even in the darkest hours, his mind running rampant with thoughts of the day's events. He had lost his appetite, retreating to his bed with the curtains drawn long before his dormmates returned from the Great Hall. Goyle's snores now drifted lazily to his ears, the silence of the dorm broken by the rustle of bed sheets as Crabbe rolled over in his sleep or Theo's soft breathing filled the small pockets of blissful silence.
Sitting up, Draco swung his legs of the bed, letting his feet touch the luxurious rug that lay over the stone floor. Keeping his eyes trained on his sleeping dormmates, he leaned over and grabbed his black slacks from underneath his bed, slipping his bare feet into the shoes as quickly as he could. Cautiously, Draco stood up, careful not to make a sound as he opened the chest at the foot of his bed and grabbed a woollen jumper, pulling it over his silk sleep clothes. After carefully closely the wooden chest, Draco straightened, picking up his cloak as he silently made his way out of the dorm, wincing when the door decided to shriek in protest upon his exit. Luckily, the most damage the squeaky hinges did was cause Crabbe to mumble incoherently in his slumber and roll over. Sighing in relief, Draco slipped out of his dorm room unnoticed.
The common room was empty, meaning Draco found few obstacles when sneaking out into the corridors. Step by step, he made his way through the dark castle, casting a simple lumos charm to light the way. He had to jump behind a Knight's armour or a stone statue once or twice to avoid Filch as the squib walked past, who was muttering to himself, but otherwise, his journey to the Hospital Wing was one of success.
Sneaking inside, Draco ducked behind a cabinet of medical supplies, spotting Madame Pomfrey talking to a student in one of the cots who looked like a transfiguration spell had gone horrifically wrong. She soon turned around, causing Draco to quickly duck his head out of sight, listening as she made her way over to a curtained area. Draco watched intently as she pushed the curtain aside to step inside, catching a glimpse of Blaise's form just before she pulled the curtain shut behind her. Draco's eyes narrowed.
It took another five minutes waiting before Madame Pompfrey finally reappeared. Draco watched as she disappeared from sight, returning to her office before finally leaving the safety of his hiding place. Careful to not wake the other patients, he moved as quickly as he could in his crouched position, intent on making this quick.
Draco risked one last glance behind him, content Madame Pomfrey was nowhere to be seen, before pushing the curtain aside and slipping into the enclosed space. The curtain chain links rattled at the action, causing the occupant of the medical cot to look up.
"Blaise." Draco greeted, swallowing at the sight of the wizard's bandaged state. His whole right arm was wrapped in clinical white bandages, a small patch of red visible from where the blood had seeped through.
"Draco?" The young teenager frowned, eyeing Draco from head to toe as he awkwardly rose into a sitting position. "What are you doing here? How did you even sneak past Pomfrey?" He hissed.
"I was quiet. You alright?" Draco whispered, moving closer. Blaise remained silent for a few moments, eyes narrowed on Draco (they weren't close, hadn't been for years, so Draco understood his barely veiled concern was slightly suspicious) but eventually Blaise shrugged, the movement making the teenager wince. Draco moved, hand outstretched, as if to somehow help him, but forced himself to move back. Guilt coiled angrily in his gut, a feeling he wasn't familiar with.
"Won't be playing Quidditch for a while, unfortunately." Blaise raised his arm that was tucked neatly away in a sling. "It's not so bad though. I mean, it hurts like hell, but then I got thinking about the amount I'll be able to get away with. No more six-foot essays for me, mate." Blaise winked, though his smile was strained, probably due to the pain.
"Aren't you left-handed?" Draco asked, confused, deliberately ignoring Blaise's clear discomfort. Draco doubted Blaise would appreciate acknowledging his weakness directly.
"Yeah, but the professors don't know that, do they?" Blaise whispered, smirking. Draco chuckled, shaking his head. The grin plastered across Blaise's face was infectious. Some things never changed.
"If it had been me, I'd make the most of it. Every girl in our house will be scrambling to take care of you by tomorrow." Draco joked.
"Oh, don't worry, I intend to. Though, I want to get out of this thing as soon as possible. I can be out of this thing in a week, surely-"
"Blaise, the hippogriff attacked you. You… You could have died." Draco's serious tone cut Blaise off, making the boy's shoulders slump in defeat, the false bravado withering away.
"Technically, it wasn't aiming for me, mate." Blaise pointed out softly.
"Yeah, I know." Draco sighed, running a hand through his hair. He spotted a metal stool and quickly pulled it over to sit down beside Blaise's bed. "Look, I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what?" Blaise scoffed, a light laugh of disbelief. "You didn't force me to jump in front of you."
"No," Draco agreed, looking down at his hands, "but my father certainly encouraged you."
Blaise froze as Draco looked up, meeting the boy's gaze with his own. The smile vanished from Blaise's face almost immediately, replaced with a cold realisation.
"He told you."
"That you're like me? Yeah." Draco paused, looking down at his hands again, watching as they clenched into fists. "Why didn't you say anything?"
"You mean on the train?" Blaise clarified, raising an eyebrow.
Draco shook his head. "Not just then. What about the last three years? We share a dorm Blaise. You could have told me, you don't know what I-"
"Can we not talk about this here? What if we're overhead?" Blaise hissed, glancing furtively around, as if someone would pop out from behind the curtains. Draco glared at him.
"Where else are we going to talk?"
Blaise paused, thinking. "Pomfrey said she'd keep me here for another day but let me go back to our dorm tomorrow night. We can talk at the lake after curfew. I know of a sheltered area off the lakeshore where we won't be seen."
"Alright, fine." Draco grumbled. "Where do you want to meet?"
"Courtyard. 7 tomorrow night."
Draco stood, glaring down at Blaise, and jabbed a threatening finger in his direction. "You better be there, Zabini. I want answers."
Blaise swallowed, but looked Draco in the eye. "I'll be there."
Draco considered him for a moment, as if debating whether or not his words could be trusted, before he nodded and turned around, leaving without another word.
Despite the promise of finally confronting Blaise, Draco failed to get much sleep once he returned to his dorm. In fact, the anticipation of what would happen the following day probably only served in keeping him wider awake. He managed to drift off around four am, only to wake up fifteen minutes before the breakfast hour finished. He barely had time to rush into the Great Hall and grab some bacon before his first lesson of the day.
Theo joined him for Arithmancy, and Draco spent most of the lesson trying to ignore the fact that Granger kept sending him curious looks from across the classroom. In all honesty, the rest of the school wasn't any more subtle, students from all years whispering behind his back as he walked past on his way to transfiguration class. Theo even had the audacity to claim that it was Draco's own fault, causing such a scene the day before. Predictably, Draco ignored Theo for the rest of the day for that comment, sitting with Crabbe and Goyle in Charms, even politely declining to accompany Daphne and Pansy to visit Blaise in the Hospital Wing when he found out Theo was going too. It certainly didn't help that at lunch he received an owl from Lucius, who was enraged to find out he had nearly been attacked by a Hippogriff and had not told him, that Blaise had actually been attacked and nearly killed (Draco felt even guiltier realising that wasn't really an exaggeration), and he was going to converse with Mrs Zabini to rectify this disgraceful event immediately. The letter only left him feeling sick to the stomach, and even when Pansy read the whole thing over his shoulder, announcing gleefully to the whole Slytherin table that Hagrid would no doubt get the sack now and that monstrous bird would be dealt with, he didn't find any pleasure in it. By the time the school day had ended, everyone returning to their dorms, Draco's mood was horribly sour. The first years had learned quite quickly to give him a wide berth, lest he snap and hex them if they got too close, and his classmates equally became more cautious around him.
At quarter to seven, Draco slipped out of the common room, deliberately causing a fight between two sixth years in order to distract the prefects sitting near the fireplace. He probably could have bribed them to let him past, but the less people who knew he had sneaked out, the better. When he arrived at the Courtyard, he immediately spotted Blaise, dressed in casual wizarding robes, the sling still supporting his injured arm.
"Blaise." Draco greeted. The dark-skinned wizard nodded in return.
"Draco."
Awkwardly, they walked alongside each other, heading towards the lake. An uncomfortable silence smothered the air around them, and Draco tried to think of something to say.
"It hasn't healed yet?" Draco asked, pointing to Blaise's arm. Dragonborns were gifted with a higher metabolism, and as a result, healed faster, even without the aid of magic. Draco tried to veil his concern, but Blaise didn't seem to notice, or if he did, didn't comment on it.
"Madame Pomfrey was suspicious about how fast it healed. Made me wear this, in case the muscles are still damaged on the inside or something. I have to go to the Hospital Wing tomorrow morning, check in with her."
"My father sent me an owl." Draco paused. "Lucius, that is." He clarified after a moment, realising Blaise knew of his true parentage.
"Oh?"
"He informed me he would talk to your Mother. He seemed furious, from his short sentences I wouldn't be surprised if he gets Hagrid sacked."
"Right. Mother owled me too, mentioned something like that. To be honest, I was afraid she would send me a howler."
Draco smirked, looking down at his feet as they walked. "At least you weren't in the Great Hall. If everyone stared at me any harder, I'd have a hole through my back."
"You didn't have to deal with Peeves. The bloody poltergeist visited me this morning, asking if I needed him to kiss my arm to make it get better."
Draco laughed, grinning madly. "Aww, did 'ickle Blaise have a boo boo?" He teased, tone childish.
Glaring, Blaise shoved Draco, harder than expected given he only had one available arm, causing the laughing boy to stagger to the side, off the path. "You're a fucking prat, you know that?"
Draco seemed to preen under the insult. "Why thank you, Zabini."
Blaise, unable to do anything else, rolled his eyes.
They walked the rest of the way to the lake in silence, Draco's infuriating smirk seemingly fixed onto his face while Blaise tried to suppress his own smile, despite his annoyance. However, when they finally arrived at the spot Blaise had mentioned, the lake stretching out before them glittering under the moonlight and little ripples indicating where the Giant Squid was probably residing, the awkward atmosphere returned, both boys remembering why they were there in the first place.
Blaise coughed awkwardly, eyeing Draco from the corner of his eye. "So… what do you want to know?"
"Well…" Draco ran a hand through his hair, combing through the long strands as he shuffled his feet nervously. He leaned down, picking up a smooth pebble of the lakeshore, perfect for skimming across the water. "I guess I just don't understand. Well, I do – Atlas explained to me that Dragonborns aren't exactly outgoing, secretive and that..."
"You just want to know why I didn't say anything, since we were friends as kids and then dormmates here at Hogwarts." Blaise correctly guessed.
"Yes. More or less." Draco frowned down at the pebble resting in his palm. "I mean, for Merlin's sake Blaise, you knew about me, so why didn't you say anything? I could have…" Draco growled, his dragon eyes flashing. He hated feeling this vulnerable. He bit his tongue, refusing to say something too… feely. Too weak. "You just could have talked to me." Draco finally ground out, moving to skim the pebble across the lake.
"I didn't know about you, actually." Blaise admitted, causing Draco to pause mid swing. Lowering his arm, Draco turned to face Blaise to give him his full attention.
"Atlas… he never told me." Blaise bent down to pick up a stone from the shore. "I never knew my Dad. He died during the war and my Mother…" Blaise's jaw clenched as he looked down at the stone in his hand, rolling it around in his palm. "She doesn't talk about him. Neither does Atlas, really." He looked back up at Draco, his expression turning bitter. "I think there's times when he forgets that he died and for brief moment he'll share something about him, something that makes me feel, for at least a moment, close to my father. But then Atlas will remember and for the next hour it's like you're talking to a damn brick wall." Blaise straightened, pulling his arm back and letting the smooth pebble fly, skimming the water in the lake with powerful force.
"Blaise-" Draco awkwardly moved towards Blaise, to say something or do something, he didn't know. Blaise saved him the discomfort, his figure unflinching and immovable, staring out across the lake and refusing to meet Draco's eyes.
"Don't. Just don't. I've had enough of condolences to last a lifetime."
"Then why tell me this?"
Blaise sighed, sending Draco a glance. "Because Atlas is the closest thing I have to a father. He taught me everything I know about my heritage, even took me to the Dragon World when I was eight. So, when I found out about you, his son, I guess I was jealous. What made it worse, was that it was you. Draco bloody Malfoy." Blaise bitterly spat.
Draco narrowed his eyes. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You're a Malfoy, if only by name. One of the sacred twenty-eight – one of the most prestigious and powerful wizarding families in Britain. You have both your parents, along with Lucius. Me, my father's dead and Atlas I don't see regularly because my Mother hates him for reasons I don't know why." Blaise exclaimed, throwing his arm up in exasperation. He huffed, shaking his head. When he spoke again, there was a note of defeat to his voice. "So, when I found out, I was jealous and then I hated you on principle. Its why I stopped talking to you these last three years."
Draco's gaze softened, the tension in his shoulders dissipating as the hostility in his body lessened. "At least you know who you are. I didn't know, still don't to be honest." He muttered, finally throwing the stone, watching it fly across the water, skimming its surface.
Blaise scoffed, sending him an irritated glance. "You're Prince Draco Ambrosius. What's so hard to understand about that?"
Draco released a bitter laugh as he bent down to pick up another pebble. "Well, for starters, I didn't know my surname was Ambrosius until three months ago."
"What?"
"Atlas didn't tell you?" Draco asked, surprised, halting mid swing once more. When confusion only marred the other teenager's features, Draco's eyes widened nearly as much as Blaise's had only seconds ago. "I didn't know. That I wasn't human. I've spent the last thirteen years of my life believing I was a pureblood wizard. Didn't even know I wasn't a Malfoy." Draco turned back to the water, letting the pebble fly. Behind him, Blaise gaped. Only when the pebble pitifully disappeared into the lake after one bounce, causing Draco to curse, did Blaise snap out of it.
"Wait, so you only found out when Atlas told you to prepare for your first shift?"
Draco glared at him. "Didn't even give me that. I found out when scales started growing all over my arms and my eyes had turned into reptilian glow sticks. Only then did they feel the need to finally break the news." He finished, with fake, sarcastic cheer as he threw another pebble across the lake. Blaise winced.
"Shit."
"Yes, shit indeed." Draco muttered, sporting a horrible scowl as he looked out at the lake.
"So, the last three years, all that pureblood shite, the attitude, you… you weren't faking it?" Blaise eventually questioned. Draco glanced at him, clearly confused.
"Faking it?"
"Well, yeah, we're Dragonborns. In pureblood eyes they'd probably calls us half breeds. As low as any muggle. I thought you were just putting on a show, you know to fit in or to hide but you…" Blaise stopped, seeing the dark expression on Draco's face. "…you believed it all?"
Draco swallowed. "I thought my father – I thought Lucius – would cast me out. Tried to carve out my scales when I couldn't get rid of them. So yeah, I think I believed all that pureblood shite, Blaise."
"Bloody hell."
"I've never been to the Dragon World. Atlas only started teaching me about my heritage since my first shift which wasn't long ago. From where I'm standing, you're the one who got the better deal." Draco fell – rather than sat - down on the embankment, pulling up strands of grass with his fingers. Tentatively, Blaise joined him, sitting down carefully beside him.
"Sorry, mate."
Draco sighed. "You're not the only one who's heard that too many times before." He bitterly muttered.
"Do you still believe in it? The pureblood stuff?"
"Do you?" Draco countered.
Blaise lifted a shoulder, in a slight non-committable shrug. "Never mattered much to me either way. Not that I advertise that."
"If my Mother or my father asked then… yeah, I'd say yes." Draco answered, after a pause where he no doubt considered Blaise's response.
"And honestly?"
"Honestly?" Draco frowned, leaning back on his elbows. "I don't know. I mean, just because I'm not a pureblood doesn't mean purebloods aren't wrong."
"Technically, if you applied their beliefs to our world, Dragonborns that grow up in the wizarding world would be called wizardborn."
"You're point being?" Draco frowned, turning to face Blaise.
"We're basically the Dragonborn equivalent of a muggleborn or halfblood. That didn't occur to you?"
Draco paled and turned his gaze back to the lake. "No. It occurred to me I'd be considered a halfbreed by wizards, but no, it didn't occur to me that my own kind would consider me lower too."
"Dragonborns aren't serious about superiority. Respect is given to older families, highborns, but apart from that we're all equals."
"Doesn't mean they don't think about it though." Draco muttered.
"You're a Prince. A descendent of one of the seven Ancients. Your mother may be a witch but you're a highborn, even in our world, mate."
"And you?"
"My father was a Shadow - Dragonborns that are sent out to live in the wizarding or muggle world. They infiltrate the worlds, build lives here so that if the wizards ever did find out about us, we would know their weaknesses, their strengths, their way of life – we would know our enemy. Shadows also often deal a lot with trade too, shipping stock between the three worlds, dealing with relations between creatures that live in each, under the public eye of course."
"Smuggler. You're saying your father was a smuggler aren't you?"
"No, he was a highly trained warrior that protected the secrecy and prepared for war if that same secrecy was ever broken. And yes, he dealed with trade, and the Black Market-"
"Basically a smuggler."
"He was a Shadow."
"Which is another word for smuggler."
"You know, Highborns look down on people like me and my family because they associate themselves with wizards. More than that, we are not hesitant to do the dirty work, unlike some other Dragonborn families."
"Hey," Draco cried indignantly, "my family has integrated themselves into the wizarding world."
"Didn't exactly keep a low profile though, did they? Oh no, they just had to become the most powerful wizards to ever walk the earth-"
"Yeah, well, being Merlin is still much cooler than being a smuggler." Draco retorted, interrupting him.
"The point is," Blaise continued, raising his voice so Draco would get the message, "they respect us, if only because Shadows are hand-picked as our world's most dangerous warriors."
"Or in other words, Dragonborns like your father are so terrifying they don't want to piss them off?"
"That's one way of looking at it."
A silence stretched in as Blaise internally fumed while Draco's smirk returned. Eventually, Blaise relented, lips curling at the sides. He glanced back at Draco, who only smirked wider.
"Has Atlas taken you flying yet? In Dragon form?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Does he do that thing where he performs a manoeuvre flawlessly and then encourages you to try it, only to laugh at you when you spectacularly fail?"
"O Salazar, yes. All the time. I actually snuck out one night and flew on my own to practice, just so I could wipe that damn smirk off his face the next day."
"Did you?"
"Course not. I performed the manoeuvre flawlessly, only for him to show me another one which when I tried it, caused me to crash into a bloody tree. Again. He reminded me about it for days." Draco muttered.
Blaise broke out in hysterical laughter, his smile wide. Draco just rolled his eyes, attempting to keep the scowl firmly in place, but his eyes gave the game away. Chuckling, Blaise clapped his uninjured hand on Draco's shoulder, turning to face him completely.
"You're not as bad as I thought you were, Ambrosisus."
Draco's face fell, turning away. "Malfoy. I'm a Malfoy, more than an Ambrosius."
"Well then Malfoy, what do say be join forces and aspire to teach our obnoxious mentor a lesson about the pitfalls of hubris?"
"Maybe we should add our parents to the hit list." Draco commented dryly. "Your Black Widow of a Mother and my sadistic egotistical Father are quite the pair."
"You know, you're absolutely right. Losing husbands under more than suspicious circumstances, bathing in all the wealth of the generous will enacted upon their untimely death – and your father, carrying on the family name by pulling the strings of his favourite puppets, including the Minister himself. How the hell did they seduce our parents?"
"Well, from what I've heard, your Father knew her before she turned wicked and my Mother has kept hidden a ruthless heart ever since she was born. Even Atlas is scared of her."
"No way. Your mother was the golden child of house Black."
"Maybe so, but I'm telling you, Atlas is terrified of her. Half the time he was teaching me he was warning me not to get hurt. Not for my safety, no, but for his. 'Don't fall of the cliff, Draco your Mother would kill me' or 'don't crash into that rose garden, Draco, your Mother would skin me alive'. To be fair, he's not wrong. She threatened to put my father's hounds in the next stew if she found them digging up her roses again."
"Sounds like my mother. God help you if you spill wine on her carpets. She once transfigured Theodore Nott Sn into a mouse and gave him to our kneazle to play with when he spilt red wine on our pure 'macaroon cream' white carpets."
Draco grinned. "Oh, I'd love to meet her."
Blaise snorted. "She'd petrify you and lock you up in our dungeons."
"You have a dungeon?"
"No, I was joking, moron."
"Well, I was going to say cause we have a hidden basement but I wouldn't quite call it a dungeon, to be fair, its more of a wine cellar in the summer months-"
"Ah, a wine cellar. Of course, Malfoys don't have dungeons, they're too classy for such savage practices."
"Oh, shut up. At least we collect wine and not husbands.
Blaise's expression fell, and Draco knew he had took the teasing too far. "My Mother never killed those husbands you know. She never loved them like my father, she just married them because she was expected to but that doesn't mean she killed them, despite the rumours."
Draco swallowed. "I believe you. My Father is many things but I've never been able to picture him ever…"
"Killing anyone?"
"No. I guess I've always idolised Lucius, you know? The way he described it, being a Death Eater sounded so…. So powerful. Like an honour."
"Atlas said my father joined the Death Eaters, before he died. The Ministry never found out because they never found his body."
"Blaise…do you, I mean, do you know how your father… how he…"
"Died because he was protecting Atlas? Yes, my mother is quite vocal about it."
"And you don't hate Atlas? Or Lucius? You do know that he…"
"Lucius didn't kill my father, Draco."
"That wasn't my point, Blaise."
"No. I don't blame him. Or Atlas either."
"Why?"
"Growing up, experiencing Dragonborn culture, our heritage… We're warriors, Draco. That's our way of life. Always has been. My father died in a war, a war he chose to enter. He was loyal, perhaps not honourable, but loyal. I would always wish that he never died but… I'm proud of how he did die. Protecting Atlas. And as for Lucius, he's a wizard. His actions are kind of expected in Dragonborn circles."
Draco considered the young Dragonborn's words, both of them settling into silence again. This time, it didn't feel as heavy, or uncomfortable, an unspoken understanding passing between them. They'd both suffered, just in different ways - Blaise, with his father's death and the loss that came with an absent father figure, and Draco, from the betrayal of everything he had ever known. Salazaar, he was turning into a snivelling Hufflepuff with the way the conversation was going. Draco cleared his throat, making Blaise look at him.
"Filch might be on his way. I heard he sends Mrs Norris to look around the grounds each night." Draco excused, quite badly in retrospect. But Blaise didn't seem to question him, nodding in agreement.
"Yeah, maybe we should leave. I know a secret passage into the dorms, if you want to come." He suggested, standing with Draco.
"Really?"
"Yeah, I found a collection of my father's old notebooks. There's everything from secret rooms and passageways to blackmail worthy intel on all the purebloods inside them. Some of its information that my family have been gathering for centuries."
"You're joking." Draco breathed. Blaise only grinned wider.
"My father was a Shadow, remember? It's his job to infiltrate and gather information about different worlds."
"Can you show me them?" Draco asked eagerly.
"Only if you show me Merlin's journals."
Draco froze, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. "How do you know about the journals?"
"I saw Atlas reading one once. I also may have tried to read it when he wasn't watching but…" Blaise trailed off, suddenly aware of Draco's presence and worried about what he would think. Draco understood what he had been about to say though, his lips curling into a mischievous smile.
"You couldn't get past the security charms."
Blaise smirked, gesturing to Draco. "Which is why I need an Ambrosius."
"Zabini," Draco clapped a hand on the Slytherin's shoulder, grinning wildly. "You've got yourself a deal."