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The characters and universe in this work are property of J.K Rowling.
Thrashing against the hands that held him, Draco almost escaped their grip before he was pushed against the wall tucked behind the opening. Panic brought his breath in short bursts, and flashbacks to the summer of '97 overtook Draco's body, making his struggles only grow in desperation. Death Eater masks, though Draco knew they couldn't possibly be there, crowded his vision, and he could feel the phantom touch of cold white hands wrapping around his neck with a vice grip. It was as if the strange men were bursting into his bedroom and dragging him before the Dark Lord all over again. A scream worked its way up to the top of his throat, but fear kept it down, and Draco lashed out again and again. His elbow struck the stone wall behind him in his flailing, and tears swam in Draco's eyes.
"Stop it, you ponce!" a familiar voice whispered near his ear, snapping him out of his hallucinations. "If you hit me, I swear to Merlin-"
"I told you this was a bad idea, Zabini," Draco could hear Pansy Parkinson rolling her eyes as Blaise Zabini tried to hold him more firmly. "I tried to tell you that he wouldn't take well to your plan."
Draco's struggling slowed and eventually stopped altogether as a weight ballooned off his lungs, yet he turned a glare on the boy pushing him into the stone regardless. His chest was heaving as he sucked in the air locked out by adrenaline, heart beating too fast in its attempts to recover, but a quick check told Draco that he wasn't hurt outside of his bruised elbow. Though his anxiety and moment of helplessness had subsided, his fury was rushing back in full force, and Draco shoved his old friend away from him.
"What the hell were you thinking?" he hissed, his face growing hot with a cocktail of shame, fear, and anger. "What is wrong with you?"
"Draco, my love, I'm sorry, but this has all gone on for too long," Pansy said appeasingly, reaching out to stroke his shoulder. "We just had to do something about it."
Draco jerked away from her and shrank against the wall. His heart rate had still not returned to a normal pace, and he found, to his surprise, that he could not meet their eyes.
"I don't know what you mean," Draco said evasively.
"Come off it, Malfoy. It didn't slip past us that you've made yourself Potter's little shadow now," Zabini's tone made it clear that he would not coddle Draco as Pansy had. "You ditch us for the stupid Boy Who Lived, and you get to sit with his obnoxious friends, and for what? So people will leave you alone? That's a real git move of you to abandon us while you get to live in the shadow of the Saviour," he spat bitterly. "You don't know how hard things have been for me and Pansy – "
"What Blaise is trying to say is that it's awfully mean of you to act like you don't know us. You haven't spoken a word to us since we started the term. That day in potions class? You should have sat by us and showed everyone that you're still our friend too."
"Am I?" Draco shot back at her.
"Are you what, love?"
"Am I your friend?" He asked with venom, but the wounded look that crossed Pansy's face did not stand a chance against the monstrous rage that had begun stirring in the pit of his stomach. "You act like you two have been such great friends? Don't make me laugh. Where were you when I needed you? Hiding behind your mummies and daddies while he made me do terrible things. You got to come to school Seventh year and pretend like everything was fine. Like I wasn't in danger. Your choices were your own. You had a say in everything that happened to you."
"Draco, that's not fair –" Pansy started, but he did not let her get far.
"Not fair? I'll tell you what's not fair. What's not fair is that you got to stay here cursing First years and getting praised for breathing, while I was trapped in my home begging for my life. You didn't have to see him. He wasn't going to kill your mum and dad for not hexing Thomas in the corridor, or keep you prisoner. Neither of you wrote to me. Neither of you checked in on me after the war. You were more than happy to stay away from me while I was being tried."
"Oh please, Malfoy, like you can blame us," Zabini fired back. "As if you would have done any different if the wand had been in the other hand. We did what we had to, just like you. It's not our fault that our fathers aren't Death Eater trash –"
"Don't you dare talk about my father –"
"Well, Draco, he has a point," Pansy interrupted, annoyance creeping into her tone. "Because our family had no real tie to the Dark Lord, it's not like we could understand your position. However, you don't understand ours either. You don't know what it was like here."
"Oh, don't I?" Draco gave a scathing laugh as he crossed his arms. "Crabbe and Gregory kept me updated. Told me all about how you two were living it up, making the younger kids do embarrassing tricks, so you wouldn't turn them into the Carrows. I wonder if that Nigel kid from Gryffindor would make you two skinny dip with the giant squid if he had the chance? Or if he would simply have you stand up in the Great Hall and shout horrible things until you got detention with the Carrows? I wonder, would he laugh as much as you two did in the common room? Or would he wish he had never sunk so low?"
"At least we weren't out getting dodgy tattoos and gallivanting with the Dark Lord. You had a choice too," Zabini cut in. "You could have said no. It would have cost you, but you didn't have to do those horrible things. You made your choice just the same as us."
"How dare you –"
"Blaise isn't wrong, Draco," Pansy almost whispered, and Draco turned to her with a wild look of betrayal. "You did have a choice. You could have confided in us, and we would have helped you at the start of it all. You could have stopped it at the beginning, and we would have fixed it."
"Yeah, instead you chose to tell Crabbe and Goyle. The biggest idiots in Hogwarts couldn't have helped you even if you combined their brains into one body."
Draco stiffened at his words, his fists closing into tight balls as his arms fell to the side.
"Crabbe got what was coming to him, if you ask me."
"Blaise, that isn't fair," Pansy said sharply.
"What does fair matter if it's true? He was an idiot, and his stupidity orchestrated his downfall. Making friends with him was your first mistake, Draco."
"Shut up," Draco spat out around the bubble of hate rising in his oesophagus.
"Am I wrong? He was the one who cast Fiendfyre when he knew he couldn't control it. It's better for you that he's gone. I will admit that it's quite unfortunate for you to have lost the better half of that pair…"
"Blaise!" Pansy tried to cut him off once more, desperation colouring her words.
"And speaking of Goyle. You are such a bloody hypocrite, Malfoy. You think you're better than us? Take a look at your vile boyfriend. He's no better. Should be rotting in Azkaban for what he did while you were gone. Keeping tabs on us? When no one was keeping tabs on him, he was worse than the Carrows. Honestly? Goyle should have gone down with Crabbe. You would be so much better off if you had someone around who could at the very least actually contribute to a conversation. Goyle just sits there like a Quidditch post. Can't do much more than stare at you with that blank look on his face –"
It did not matter what the next words to leave Blaize Zabini's mouth might have been. He would never get the chance to say them. Not after Draco pulled his fist back and threw it into the handsome boy's nose. Draco was unnerved by the satisfaction that the resounding crunch gave him, but he did not have time to dwell on it as Zabini's hands flew up to his nose and a cry spilled from his lips.
"If I ever hear you speak another ill word about him, it'll cost your life," Draco snarled, his lips pulling back into a fierce sneer.
Shrugging past Pansy, Draco strode back into the hallway. Though his legs shook, his back was straight, and his hands were balled tightly. He could hear Pansy calling after him but had no time to turn around before he ran into something solid. Falling back a few steps, his eyes flicked up to take in Gregory's face. The shock found there reflected Draco's, and a moment passed before either of them spoke.
"I was –" Gregory began, but stopped to clear his throat. "I was coming to find you to apologize."
"Oh, it's you," Zabini's voice came from somewhere behind Draco.
"Parkinson, Zabini," Gregory answered softly, giving them a short nod.
"Why don't you just crawl back into the hole you came from? No one wants you here, you shouldn't have come back to school."
Draco's wand was out before he quite realized what he was doing, the tip pressed firmly against Zabini's chest. He could vaguely hear Pansy's frightened scream, but all Draco could process was the rage roaring in his ears and pumping through his veins. The calm, smug look on Zabini's face did nothing to quell this fury. Draco was opening his mouth to hex him when Gregory grabbed his hand and gently pulled him away.
"Once a Death Eater, always a Death Eater!" Zabini called after them triumphantly as Gregory led Draco around the corner.
Draco didn't realize he was shaking until Gregory finally came to a stop outside of the library. His free hand jittered by his leg, and his knees felt like they were made of pudding as he tried to even out his breathing. Ire made him tremble, and when Gregory pulled him in for a tight hug, Draco was embarrassed by the tears that stained his cheeks. Who was he to cry over someone like Zabini? What did the prat matter in the grand scheme of things?
These thoughts, distractions that would have once cheered him up, only served to spiral him further into his sadness. Zabini had once been a good friend. Draco couldn't remember having a better partner to study with, nor a more worthy Wizard's Chess opponent. And Pansy had been with him from the start, always supporting his hairbrained schemes to torture Potter. Sure, her devotion initially stemmed from an unhealthy obsession with Draco, but once she had stopped trying so hard to get him to notice her, Draco truly began enjoying their time together. The loss of these friends, regardless of the cruel things they had said, hurt deeply.
"I'm sorry, Draco," Gregory said softly. "I heard what they said. I wasn't trying to eavesdrop, but I know this is my fault. You shouldn't have to suffer because of me."
"This is not your fault," Draco fired back, pushing himself away from the other boy's chest to look him in the eye. "You didn't make them say those things to me. You didn't cause the rift between us, that was between me and them. You're the only one who's stayed with me through all of this." A hiccup broke his stream of thought, and Draco was alarmed to find his eyes growing watery. "I would be lost without you. So, don't you dare say this is your fault."
Draco couldn't be sure where this vulnerability was coming from, and so he chose to blame it on his close contact with those emotionally volatile Gryffindors. An outburst from one of them was practically contagious these days, and Draco could remember at least three crying fits in the past week that had involved an overly emotional student decked out in scarlet. And so, by giving one last sniff and straightening his tie, along with a healthy dose of suppression, Draco was able to compose himself quite quickly.
"Understood," Gregory answered though his eyes still searched Draco carefully. "I also came to give you this. It came for you at lunch, I didn't know if it was urgent."
Draco took the envelope Gregory was handing to him and glanced down to the writing on the front. Eyes growing wider in trepidation, Draco recognized the lettering before him and could do little more than stare at it. His hands shaking once more, Draco was hit with the sudden urge to run away. To throw this letter to the ground, grab Gregory's hand, and run far away from this place. What had once been a welcoming second home was ever evolving into a nightmare that Draco couldn't seem to wake up from. His lungs finally seized, the only sign up until then that Draco had stopped breathing, and he sucked in a long breath.
"Draco, what's wrong? You're shaking again, and you've suddenly gone pale! Who's it from?" Gregory asked, craning his neck around to see the front.
Snatching it from his view, Draco shoved the envelope into his back pocket and shook his head. His fists clenched tightly to stop the shaking, he raised his head to give Gregory a terribly forced smile.
"It's nothing, just some junk mail. Nothing to worry about."
"You're being very suspicious, Draco, I'm absolutely worried. You can tell me anything, you know that?"
Draco felt a pang in his chest at that, and opened his mouth to tell him everything. He wanted to tell him about it all so badly. About the threatening letters, about the students who hexed him when his back was turned, about how confusing his friendship with Harry was, about how even more confusing his feelings for Gregory were. But he couldn't. That pesky fear was once again stopping the words from spilling out of Draco in a messy torrent, as he knew they would if he could only find some way to begin. Instead, something else was pushing its way up past all the blockades.
"Don't I already tell you everything? I promise, it's nothing. I've been getting these annoying subscription letters about Witch Weekly that are supposed to go to my mother."
"Draco-"
"You can be as surprised as you like, Gregory, but my mother is a woman like any other. Just because she's unwaveringly proper doesn't mean that she doesn't enjoy gossip," he carried on with a frivolous wave. "Is that so wrong?"
Gregory looked as if he were wrestling with himself, his face flipping between suspicion and resignation until it finally settled on the later. Shoulders slumping in defeat, Gregory finally nodded and rubbed a hand down his face. Draco felt a twinge of guilt at how tired he looked, but gave him a convincing smile regardless.
"Alright, Draco. If you say so, I believe you. But, please," he almost begged, his eyes boring seriously into Draco's. "If you're in trouble, or you need to talk, or you need anything, come to me. I will always help you. Always."
"And I you," Draco promised.
He reached out tentatively and took Gregory's hand in his own, giving it a small squeeze. Draco's heart lifted minimally when Gregory gave it a squeeze in return, but that was enough for him. He told himself that he would confide in Gregory someday, but he was not sure when that day would come.
...
Having escaped his friends at dinner, Draco slunk back to the common room and into their dormitory. Checking the room carefully, Draco glanced around himself once more to be sure the room was empty before he pulled the letter out and crawled onto his bed. Holding it up near the window to get some light, Draco bent closer and read through the print.
Malfoy-
I never thought seeing you squirm could bring me this much joy. It almost makes up for the suffering you've brought me. Almost. Knowing you have no idea who to watch out for, which enemy of yours this may be, or where I could be lurking is the best part. I saw you show your ickle photo album to Potter. You and Snape are cowards, one in the same. But don't worry. By the time I'm through with you, you'll be together again. Better watch your back if bad dreams keep you in the common room. I'll be there too, and I won't be as sweet and kind as Potter.
I'll be watching.
A gasp falling from his lips, Draco dropped the letter as if it had burnt him, only to realize that it had. Where he had touched the parchment, his skin had turned red and was slowly blistering. Draco quickly flipped the parchment over with the corner of his blankets and saw that the paper was coated in a thin layer of dark green paste. From the side effects, and the colour of the paste, Draco could assume that his assailant had smeared dragon poison across the back of the parchment with the assumption that Draco wouldn't look first. Clever bastard.
Draco folded the parchment back up and stuffed it inside of its envelope, shoving the whole thing under his bed. He couldn't get rid of it, not now. Burning it would cause an explosion, and leaving it lying around was too risky. With hands now covered in growing welts and blisters, Draco Malfoy rushed down the stairs and into the common room. He bowled into Harry in his haste.
"Ouch, hey, what's the rush, Draco? Where are you going?"
Draco looked up quickly, his eyes taking in the situation he'd run into. Harry seemed to have been on his way up, Weasley in tow, but Draco did not have time to be surprised by the fact that they were finally on speaking terms again. Instead, he laughed nervously and skirted around them.
"Sorry, Harry. No time to talk, see you later!"
"Oh, so it's Harry now, eh?"
Draco heard Weasley ask Harry, but did not stick around to hear his answer. His head was swimming now, the floor rolling underneath his feet. That must have been a particularly potent batch of dragon poison to be working so quickly, and as Draco reached out to the wall to guide his steps, he was unsure of whether he would be making it to the Hospital Wing. He was only able to take a few more steps before the ground was lunging upwards to meet him.
Several images passed through Draco's black out. Madam Pomfrey leaning over him, speaking in a language he thought he should understand. Strong arms dragging him across the cold stone floor. Being hoisted into a hospital bed. Madam Pomfrey's face, usually stern and unyielding, twisted with worry. Her voice in his ear, demanding to know what substance it was that had done this to him. And, finally, fighting desperately against his body's will to whisper those two words to her.
When Draco's heavy eyes finally cracked open, it was dark, and he could not be sure where he was. He tried lifting his hands up to rub at his weak eyes, but they felt as if they had been made of lead. Picking his head up proved to be no easier, and a groan slipped from his mouth. This alerted a figure by his bed who had previously gone unnoticed by Draco, and they reached out to brush his bangs from his forehead.
"Oh, my dear, are you alright?"
That voice was too sweet to be true.
"Mother?" he murmured back, turning his eyes to look at her with some difficulty.
"Yes, my boy. It's me," she said soothingly, and a cold, damp rag descended on his forehead. "Headmistress McGonagall wrote to me as soon as she heard, and I came right away. I'm so glad you are alright."
"I'm sorry, mother. I didn't mean to make you worry. Do you know what Madam Pomfrey's treated me with? All I really needed was some Dittany on my hands. Maybe Cure for Boils if my hands were in a bad way."
"And indeed, that brings me to the question, my son. What were you doing with dragon poison? You know how dangerous that is."
"Ah, I was –" Lying to his mother had always been a supremely difficult task for Draco. "I was experimenting with a new potion. Something to cure burns. The phial was old, though, and it broke in my hands when I went to add some in. I'm sorry I wasn't more careful."
She seemed to buy it, nodding carefully as her son spun his lie. When he finished, she leaned down to place a kiss on his forehead.
"All that matters is that you will recover," she answered warmly, but stood up and brushed off her skirts. "I suppose I should get back to Margaret and Minny now. They were both quite upset for you when I left. Do as Madam Pomfrey tells you now. Please let me know how you're faring tomorrow."
With one more kiss to his forehead, she was gone. As Draco stared up at the blank ceiling above him, he was hit quite suddenly with the emotion of the day. Questions swirled endlessly in the back of his mind.
How? How could they have known about the photo album? No one had been in the common room; Draco was sure of it. The windows had all been shut, and even if they weren't, they were so high up off the ground that it would have been nearly impossible to hear anything from below. Then there was the matter of his late-night talks with Harry. No one was ever in the common room that late; how did this person know all of this? Who would do this to him? Unfortunately, the list of people willing to hurt him in this way was much longer than the list of people who wouldn't, and Draco felt a wave of helplessness wash over him.
Tears fell from his eyes, and soft sobs left him with no shame as Draco took comfort hiding in the darkness. Disappointment, fear, rage, and paranoia all swirled and churned and shook deep within his core, and all Draco could do about it that night was cry. That would be enough for now.