The Slytherin common room was sparser than it had been in recent years, with only a handful of students milling about. Draco walked in to find Goyle and Crabbe sitting by the fire, talking. Their eyes met, heads jerking in a nod of acknowledgement.
"Hey," Goyle said tentatively.
"Hey," Draco answered in the same manner.
He thought about walking by and going to his room, but he and Goyle hadn't had a decent conversation since the year started. So, he shoved his hands into his pockets and went to the hearth to stare into the dancing flames. Crabbe, as if sensing the impending and uncomfortable conversation, stood up and wandered off.
"Have a good Christmas?" Goyle asked when he'd gone.
"Yeah. You?"
"Yeah."
Draco gave a single nod. "Good."
"Yeah," he said again, nodding, too. After a long bought of silence, Goyle murmured, "Is it true her tutor used to slap her around?"
Draco started in surprise, whipping his head in the big man's direction. "How did you know about that?"
Goyle snorted softly. "So it's true." He fiddled with the edge of his sleeve for a moment before asking, "Why?"
"You know why."
Goyle nodded. "Because she's a blood traitor." He picked at his sleeve a moment longer before saying, "She was nice to me. Even when we were all mean to her, she still talked to me like," he grimaced as he looked away, "like I wasn't stupid." A muscle in his jaw feathered for a moment. "I liked that."
Draco was momentarily taken aback to hear his confession. Even to Draco, Crabbe and Goyle had been little more than bodyguards. He called them friends, but he treated them like hired help. Some saw them as thick-headed meat-lumps with more power in their fists than in their wands. Others were afraid of them. He had always assumed it never bothered them…but now Goyle was confessing he fell for Amaris because she treated him with a little dignity and apparently that was all it took to win his heart.
Draco had no idea what to say and so he just stood there quietly. He wasn't about to reciprocate with the reason he fell for her, and he didn't think it appropriate to mock the poor bastard. Not this time. So he just stood there, waiting. He didn't have to wait long.
"My dad said your family killed the tutor."
Draco's jaw clenched. "My aunt."
Goyle nodded. "Good. She got what she deserved."
"Amaris doesn't think so."
"I know that. Of course, I know that. We were awful to her for years and she was nothing but nice to us," he said, and Draco couldn't help but notice how he kept repeating that 'we' were mean to her, even though it was mostly Draco, Pansy, and her friends. Goyle himself said very little to her, and yet he felt just as guilty. "So naturally she wouldn't want that toad hurt even though she hurt Amaris first. She doesn't have a cruel bone in her body." He shook his head and quietly admitted, "I liked that, too…"
So did Draco, but he didn't say it. He was too preoccupied with something else Goyle had pointed out that had sparked a revelation: to Amaris, Draco and his friends had been like her tutor, just bullies making her miserable. She had told him that she didn't want her tutor in her life anymore, but she didn't wish ill on her. Was he also someone she didn't want her in life but was tolerating because they were stuck together? After all, she had said she enjoyed spending him with his family, not him. She said she would marry him, but not because she wanted to, rather because she told her uncle she would. And now his aunt had gone and murdered her tutor—a woman who had lived with her for two bloody years—and she was sure to be reminded of how much she did not want to be part of his world.
Draco leaned his forehead against the fireplace mantle and closed his eyes as cold swept through him despite the heat radiating before him. He was losing hold of everything before he even had a solid grasp on it.
"What's the matter with you?" Goyle asked.
"Nothing," Draco replied on a sigh, and then recited his favorite lie, "I'm fine." He pushed away from the mantle, muttered a goodnight, and went to bed.
-o-
The sun was trying desperately to shine through the thick cloud cover, resulting in a mid-morning sky that was utterly white and bleak. It was under this sky that Draco ran into Amaris for the first time since returning to school. He had been crossing the courtyard to his next class when she appeared coming the opposite direction. He stopped walking as their eyes met. Her steps faltered for only a second before she came the rest of the way and stood before him.
"Hello," she said quietly. He just stared at her, waiting for the oncoming rejection. "How are you?"
Always playing nice, she was. He wished she would just get it over with. He could feel her tutor's death like a chasm between them, yawning wider with every second. His every impulse urged him to chase her, to hold onto her even if she hated him for it, but he just stood there, the fire in him guttering as he thought about Christmas Eve when they had kissed and how, less than a day later, that happy future was being dragged away from him, possibly already beyond his reach.
"I didn't know my aunt was going to do that," he rasped. The sympathy on her face put his chest in a vice.
"I know…"
"I don't think my parents did either," he blurted, unsure why he was speaking honestly. He should have lied and said they absolutely had no idea, but he wasn't sure if they did or not.
"I don't blame them, Draco," she assured him. "I don't think they—" She hesitated. "We were having such a lovely time. I was so happy. It was easy to get caught up in that feeling, to forget what was at stake." She wrestled her expression into one of determination. "But I won't forget again."
"What do you mean?" he whispered, but he knew exactly what she meant.
"You tried to protect me—and by the end, I think I was ready to let you," her mouth trembled briefly but she reigned in her emotion and continued, "but I can't, Draco, because you can't kill someone because you don't like them. That kind of world—it's not right. And I'm going to fight back."
"You're going to throw your life away!" he shouted, realizing only then that the courtyard was empty and they were late for class, but he didn't care. "You can't win. Dumbledore is dead. You can't stop him."
"Well, there's no way we can win if we don't try," she said firmly.
Panic seized him. He knew she was right. Of course, she was. But he didn't believe that any amount of effort of any number of witches and wizards could change the outcome.
"What do you want me to do?" he yelled, feeling as though he was being corralled into a choice: her or his family, living or death. "He's living in my house, Amaris! What do you think he'll do to me, to my family?" He stepped closer, bearing down on her. "You don't know the things I've seen, the things he's made me do. You don't know what he's capable of!"
She reached out and tenderly cupped his cheek and he flinched against the contact as though she had struck him. In her eyes, he saw all of his emotions reflected—pain and fear and love.
"I want you to do exactly what you think is right," she said. "And even if that leaves us as enemies, I will still care for you and your family."
Draco slapped her hand away, anger injected into his panic. So what if she cared about them, if she wound up fighting against them? She cared about him but was going to go off and get herself killed anyway? Was that knowledge supposed to make him feel better? It was nothing but an empty platitude.
"The fuck does that matter?" he sneered. "You care, but you're going to do exactly what you want to, anyway."
"That's not fair! The world is—"
"I don't give a damn about the world," he snapped, and it wasn't entirely the truth but it wasn't entirely a lie either. He didn't want to see the world become the awful place the Dark Lord would create, but he also didn't care about Muggles or Mudbloods or even most Purebloods. He was sick of it all.
Draco pushed around her and walked away, feeling the rift between them widening with every step.
-o-
There was a soft knock on Draco's bedroom door. He was lying on his bed, staring up at the ceiling, still in his school uniform. Melancholic thoughts swirled in his head. The situation at home had gotten worse after Christmas, reminding him how precarious their survival was, and now he and Amaris weren't even speaking. Not because she didn't want to, but because Draco didn't know what to say after their fight, and so weeks had gone by without so much as a simple greeting between them.
Everything felt so hopeless, like there was no way out of this war.
"Come in," he said without moving an inch. The door creaked open and someone shuffled inside.
"You look terrible, mate," Theo said and closed the door. Draco didn't respond. "Lover's tiff?"
"None of your business."
Theo snorted. "What's the matter? Christmas not go the way you wanted?" He came closer to the bed. "You won't even look at her." When Draco didn't respond, he continued. "What's wrong?"
"Ask her."
"I did. She told me I had to ask you."
Draco scoffed but didn't speak. Instead, he just stared at the ceiling, debating how to answer him.
"I'm not going anywhere, mate," Theo said, leaning against the dresser. "I'll wait all night if I have to."
Draco doubted that very much and almost called his bluff, but there were too many other thoughts in his head distracting him. After a long stretch of silence, Draco quietly asked, "Do you want him to win? The Dark Lord."
It was Theo's turn to be silent before responding—something Draco wasn't sure had ever happened before. Theo had always been quick-witted, never without an answer or jest. That he was thinking about it meant he was taking the question seriously, and it made Draco anxious.
"I don't know…" he finally replied with a sigh. "Feels wrong to say no, doesn't it? I mean, that was the end-goal, wasn't it? The ideal outcome our parents told us about—that everything would have been better had the Dark Lord won that night. But the way things are now…" He paused long enough that Draco tilted his head in Theo's direction. His face was screwed up in a frown, gaze cast downward. "I can't say I like it. Not at all."
Theo's green eyes cut to Draco and there was something serious, something forbidden in them. His eyes said what his words hinted at: no, he didn't want the Dark Lord to win.
"Do you?" Theo asked.
Draco looked at the ceiling again before Theo read the answer in his eyes. No, he didn't, but saying it out loud made him a traitor. "…I don't know," he muttered, but even uncertainty made him feel slimy with betrayal.
The two boys marinated in those three words for what felt like ages. Both were Pureblood wizards, sorted into Slytherin, and taught their entire life supremacist rhetoric and that the Dark Lord was the true champion of the magical community. And yet here they both were, quietly confessing to treason…
Draco swallowed the lump in his throat, feeling a sense of camaraderie with Theo that he hadn't felt before. "Amaris is going to fight," he told him. "The Dark Lord, she plans to fight back."
Theo nodded. "You didn't really expect her not to, did you?"
Draco sighed and sat up, hunching over with his elbows resting on his knees. "I almost convinced her not to," he said. "But my aunt had to go and ruin it. Now she's determined to die."
"She made her choice," Theo reminded him, but his expression was full of regret.
"And now she's making me choose," Draco blurted. "Her or my family."
"And you can't choose?"
"How can I?"
Theo's brows lifted. "Awful strange you're so twisted up over a girl you claim you don't even like."
"Of course, I like her," Draco spat.
Theo scoffed. "I know that. You've been in love with her since fifth year. Why do you think I messed with you so much? Sure, it was just fun at first. I wanted you to admit it. But you were such a bloody bastard to her, and I got to admire her resilience."
"You're a prat, Theo."
Theo grinned. "What are friends for? Seriously, though, took you long enough to sort out your feelings for her."
"It doesn't matter now, does it? I won't betray my family."
"You'll betray her?"
"She made her choice," Draco said, echoing the sentiment from earlier. "I can't change her mind. She said the Dark Lord won't be defeated if no one tries. She won't back down."
"She's got a point."
"I know she does," Draco ground out. "But even if I wanted to, I can't."
"Do you want to?" Theo asked.
"I…" Draco slumped over again, resting his forehead in his hands. "I want it to be fifth year, before this nightmare started."
Theo hummed knowingly before saying, "Don't be a coward, Draco. You can't go back. You can only go forward, and you should go toward a future you find worth living. If she's in it, you have to fight for her. If she's not, then stop wallowing."
Draco wished it was that simple. It was one thing for Theo to spout his wisdom, another thing entirely to live it. There were a dozen other variables to consider, most important being his family.
"And do you?" Draco sneered. "Know where you're going, I mean."
Theo thought a moment before answering, "I'll fight for my friends. That includes her."
Draco frowned. "Why?"
"Ah, what can I say," Theo sighed. "As much as it pains me to admit it, she was right: you do catch more flies with honey." He quickly recovered from the sentimentality by adding, "Not that I want to shag her or anything. I prefer my women more buxom, if you catch my meaning. Still, she's a good girl and I enjoy a chat here or there."
"A chat, Theo, really?"
"Sure, over lunch or something."
"Lunch?" Draco echoed, remembering over Christmas that Amaris had pointed out how she and Draco had never had lunch together.
"Well, I'm not a snob like you. I don't have to skulk around in dark corners just to talk to her."
Draco leveled him with a glare. "Get out."
Theo chuckled. "Sweet dreams," he said, and then left.
Author's Note: I just want to take a moment to thank everyone for their reviews! It means so much to me to read your feedback and I'm so glad you all are enjoying this story!