The first step is him starting to sit in the library.
Not at the same table as her.
Not talking to her.
Or even looking at her direction,
but staying in the same room nevertheless.
And it does help.
Even if they're not talking.
After all this silence she seems to be comforted only by the sound of him breathing.
The sound of his breathing also means he's still alive, still holding on.
He's drinking.
She doesn't know where he gets the Firewhiskey, but she rarely sees him without a bottle.
Does it worry her? She thinks of the question one night in her bed.
Maybe it should.
But to be honest, she wouldn't mind a drink every once in a while herself…
Sometimes, when he doesn't notice, she studies him.
Dark shadows under his eyes, face pale and eyes glued to the text he's reading.
He looks torn,
broken,
lost,
and tired.
And she can't help but wonder if Harry was right after all. If there's really something going on with him.
Something serious?
Something dark?
Wasn't that what he said in the night he tried to jump from the tower: That getting back wouldn't be any better?
She always thought she hated him.
But now, looking at him, she realizes, she doesn't hate him.
She never did.
She pities him…
maybe that's even worse.
.
.
.
She takes the next step.
Because she feels like it might be her turn. And because it has been days, sitting in the same room with him, and he still hasn't insulted her once.
Not that they had talked anything else either. But surely he would have already made up something if he felt like it.
So in one evening she walks to his table and slides a glass to him.
It clicks against his bottle.
Slowly, he looks at the glass and then to her.
She just raises an eyebrow.
And still with no insult, he pours the liquid into her class.
"Thanks." She says cheerily, picks the glass up and goes back to her table.
The whiskey burns her throat, but warms her insides, as she sips it down slowly.
It's not the first time she drinks, but she never was the biggest fan of the haze alcohol gives her.
Or the fuzziness it causes in her brain.
But when he comes to stand by her table and waves the bottle to her, she nods and lets him pour her another glass.
"Never took you for a drinker, Granger." He says so quietly she barely hears.
"Never really knew me, did you Malfoy?" She looks straight at him.
He shrugs, "Never really."
And then he's gone.
She stares after him for a while, before gulping down the whole glass.
Realizing he left her the rest of the bottle.
So she pours another.
That's a huge mistake!
If you've only had a few drinks of wine and a few cocktails in your whole life, it's not wise to move to full glasses of Firewhiskey, gulped down all at once.
She stumbles in the corridors, trying to make her way to the Gryffindor tower.
The world seems to be swimming in a haze. The corridors suddenly crooked.
She tries to balance herself against the walls.
When the stairway under her feet starts to move and change direction, she stumbles down on the steps and starts to laugh.
After a while, her laugh turns from bright into somewhat maniac.
She laughs and then she might be crying.
As the stairway stops, she stumbles up and lies down on her back to the corridor, staring at the rocky ceiling.
It's hopeless! She's not any closer to finding an answer, than she was the day this all began.
They're trapped forever!
And the uncontrollable cry starts again.
Lying on her back she gulps air and hiccups every now and then.
Maybe they should both just jump.
"Granger? What are you doing?"
She has no idea how he has found her.
Not does she really care.
He's interrupting her very private desperation moment!
"Go fuck yourself Malfoy!" She spits and starts to laugh again through her tears.
"You're drunk."
"Yeah. So let me be!"
"Maybe you should go to sleep?"
"Or maybe you should piss off!"
Suddenly only him being here makes her irritated.
If it was anyone else...
anyone!
They'd help each other! She's sure of it!
If it was anyone else, he'd help her get through this! Not just sit silently, drinking whiskey all day long!
But this is Draco fucking Malfoy!
High and mighty,
who waits for the mudblood to figure a way out before he kills himself.
Like he's the only one in this world who has problems!
She shoots up, to sit on the ground, looking at him still standing there.
He looks irritated too.
What right does he have?
He could just go and leave her alone like she asked him to.
"Go to your room, Granger."
"Who are you to tell me, Malfoy? Who are you to order me around? Why is it always about you anyway, huh?"
She wants him to fight her!
To yell at her!
To anything!
Just to get some interaction with another human being!
Just to get to use her voice, that has been so quiet for so long she was briefly afraid she'd forget how to talk at all!
"Why is it always about you, Malfoy? Why do you get to decide what you talk and to whom? Why is it your call to choose if you'll sit in my company or not? Why, in this fucking silent hell, is it still you who gets to decide if we talk or not?!"
She's yelling at him, not even sure if she's making any sense.
"Why can you go and decide to just kill yourself and leave me on my own? Why can you make me fear every fucking day that that's the day you can't stand it anymore and I'll be left alone? Why is it in your hands if I go crazy in this solitude?!"
Tears roll from her eyes, angry and unstoppable.
"I gave you my word!" He spits back, clearly annoyed.
"And what should your word mean to me?! You've never shown me any decency! Why would you care about my plea!"
"I've shown you decency this whole time! Not once have I insulted you."
"And not talking is decency? Fuck you Malfoy!"
She stumbles up and starts to make her way towards where she thinks will be Gryffindor tower.
In the morning, she wakes up with a massive headache.
And she's not in Gryffindor.
She's on a bathroom floor nowhere near the tower.
"Shit…" She mutters and stumbles up.
When she falls to her own bed and buries her head to the pillow, she swears she's never going to drink whiskey again!
.
.
.
Two days later he joins her in her morning jog.
Doesn't talk.
Doesn't explain.
But follows on her heels.
That's probably the point where the world shifts.
Still they barely talk.
She tells him good morning and he nods back. But she feels like he's more here, like she's less alone.
They run together and sit in the library together.
There are still days she doesn't see him at all. But then the next morning, he's there again ready to run with her.
Finally, she gives up and starts to tell him her speculations. Mostly he just grunts a response. But it does seem to change the way he goes through the books.
"We need to see the books in the teacher's offices." He tells her one day, "There's nothing in Slughorn's, that I checked already."
He's right, so she nods and gets up.
One by one they go through the teacher's offices and take with them the books they think might be useful.
And little by little they also talk more about their findings.
She's not sure how hard he has to concentrate to not to insult her.
Or sneer at her.
But he does make an effort.
She can't help but appreciate it.
Their interaction seems to start things in motion.
In meals, they start to sit on the same table, sometimes in Gryffindor, sometimes in Slytherin.
She even begins to try and make light conversation with him.
Mostly he doesn't say much, but grunts in response, so at least she knows he's listening.
But he's better than nothing. And since her drunken outburst, she has decided to make the most of the company she has.
As days go by, she notices he doesn't look quite so sick anymore. The shadows under his eyes have disappeared and his eyes are not that dark anymore.
And sometimes, rarely, but sometimes, she sees a hint of a smile tugging his lips as a response to something she has said.
She doesn't remember ever seeing him genially smile. Somehow that, even when it's just a hint, makes her insides warmer.
"You know, I've always wanted to see the other houses." She tells him one morning at breakfast.
"What's stopping you?" He mutters, flickering his eyes briefly at her.
She shrugs and then gets up, "Come on then."
"It's your fantasy, not mine."
"And it's no fun doing it alone!"
Reluctantly he follows her anyway.
And finally, they end up having a genially nice afternoon. First trying to the answer a riddle to get into Ravenclaw tower. Then trying to guess the password to Hufflepuff and arguing whether to go in the Gryffindor of Slytherin next.
She leads him up to the Gryffindor tower and lets him look around her home.
He doesn't say a word.
But there's no sneer in his face, so she thinks he kind of approves it.
"Different than yours?" She asks after a while.
"Quite…" He mutters, not turning to her but reading the information board next to the fireplace, "you'll see soon enough."
Silence falls once again.
And maybe being on her soil.
Or maybe the niceness of the afternoon.
Something makes her ask him the question she's been holding for days.
"How come you haven't insulted me once since we've been here?"
He turns around to look at her.
In the middle of the room of red and gold he looks somehow different.
softer…
"Why would I? There's no audience here,"
She stares at him as the words sink in. Then she shrugs, "Because you hate me? Because you can't stand the sight of me? No audience can change that, can it?"
He looks at her,
long and serious.
Then slowly he answers, "I don't know you. How can I hate you?"
There's nothing she can answer to that.
No coherent thought that comes to her mind.
Doesn't he have enough reasons? Hasn't he voiced them time and time again?
She's a mudblood. Filthy, lower, undeserving her magic.
She's a know-it-all. Always her hand in the air, thinking she knows best.
She's a Gryffindor. A natural enemy.
She's a stuck-up, holier-than-thou nerd. Hasn't he told her so enough of times?
And now he tells her he doesn't know her.
The thoughts run wild in her head when they make their way to the dungeons.
The moment she steps in the Slytherin common room she knows she has misjudged them.
That it was wrong to think something down here must be dark and cold and uninviting.
The place in front of her is everything but.
The fire cracks in the fireplace, just like up in Gryffindor. The sofas and chairs are just as inviting.
But it's the hue that makes it so magical.
The soft greenish light, that makes it feel like they're underwater. And the view of the big windows at the furthest wall, tell her that it's not just a feeling.
He stands in the middle, studying her as she makes her way to the windows.
"We're under the lake?" She whispers looking out at the fish swimming by and the green weeds flowing with the water.
The room throws her completely off balance.
This is not what she thought the Slytherins live in. This is magical, and calm,
and beautiful.
She walks around the room, traveling her hand trough velvet fabrics of the furniture.
A poster on the wall with a Slytherin crest stops her.
RULES OF SLYTHERIN, it says with big green letters.
"You have your own rules?" She asks, but he still doesn't answer.
She's about to turn to him.
To tell him it's rude not to answer, but the rule number one catches her eyes:
1. Your house is your family. Family stands united.
Family stands united.
All the times the Slytherins have formed a united front, return to her.
Not once has she seen them stand against each other in public. It had made her think they all must think alike, all must agree.
"Until today I thought every house had their own rules."
She flinches because he's standing closer than she anticipated.
She thinks of all the times the Gryffindors disagreed with one another.
All the times she fought with Ron or even Harry in public.
"Especially Snape was strict with us following the rules. All disagreement was to be dealt inside our house, never in public."
She thinks of her and Harry and Ron always thinking Snape favored his own house. This means they were right; he did!
For the public eye.
"Family stands united" She whispers silently.
"An old Pureblood code of conduct. We were all already used to it when we first came here."
She looks at him, and suddenly he looks different.
Part of it might be this greenish hue of his home in Hogwarts, but there's more.
Suddenly it all makes much more sense.
"You follow it? The families?"
"Of course, we follow it! There is nothing less honorable than betraying your family and legacy!"
She thinks of his words when she goes to sleep that night.
Thinks of his family,
the Malfoys,
and Slytherin…
Then she remembers Sirius and Andromeda. Where were their families when they should have stood together?
No, it wasn't the case!
It was the other way around: you either stood with your family, or left it.
Their rules,
codes of conduct,
the ideas rooted generations deep,
make it easier for maniacs like Voldemort rise to power.
'Family stands united' The pureblood parents taught to their children. Then they went to school and to Slytherin, that only empowered the message.
What power did children have against Voldemort if their family was a supporter?
None…
Because the family stands united!
It's not an excuse. It doesn't take the blame away from people like Draco. But at least now she understands where he's coming from.
Even understands why he might have thought dying was better than the life he lived at home with Voldemort rising.
Now she understands she doesn't know him.
Not at all…
Not even the little she thought she did.
And all the reasons she has had to hate his guts, may not be real at all.