Guess: If I get the time, I'll try to look at your story. I really am very busy and I'm sorry if I don't get around to it.
Oda: It does not sound silly at all. I appreciate being someone's favorite. In fact, its kind of intimidating and I hope I keep up to what you think are my standards. Here is the update!!
BlackAmazon: I thought it was only right to balance his antisocial brooding with a bright, social, chipper person. Like I say in the story, someone has to keep him in touch with the human race.
Dark Peppermint: No, you typically aren't supposed to get a happy feeling from a story like this. I guess that makes you okay. As far as critiquing, I don't mind it as long as it stays constructive and away from flames. As far as suggestions, I don't mind them but they typically aren't used as I write the next chapters way in advance of posting so that I have a better feel of my characters and don't have to take so long to update. Some days I'll write six chapters in one week and none for two weeks. If someone has a critique to improve my writing, I have said before that they can send it to my email. That way I can discuss it with the person rather than with everyone who's reading. Here's the post. Hope you love it.
Mj: You have no idea how much your review made my day better. I was having a really lousy day and I came on here to read your review and it really made me feel better. I've only been seriously writing for a year and a half but its really a passion for me. Enjoy these next two chapters.
Tsuyuno: I'm glad you're loving it. Of course I know Order of the Phoenix is out on June 21. My sister and I are already counting down the days and planning strategies to getting it.
Deedee: I don't know. I didn't feel bitchy but all of a sudden I was like, "Don't dictate what to write to me." I really don't like that, though. I feel like people can tell me what about my writing is weak but I don't think they should tell me what should happen in my plot, as it is mine and I feel like I have unlimited freedom in it. If people don't like it, I really don't give a . . . er – sorry. J I didn't think Kali was Mary-Sue when I first started writing her, though I did think I was putting her in too much. I justified it by it being that she's around so many of the characters its impossible not to. Great pains were taken to fit her in.
Osiris Centauri: First, I'd like to admire your name. Second, I am a Blaise fan as well and I would be terribly crushed if, in the next three books, Blaise ended up being a girl. Draco/Blaise makes me all warm and fuzzy inside despite the fact his gender still remains undetermined in the book.
Tine: I'm glad you liked reading the Potions class as much as I enjoyed writing it. Kali is kind of evil, but only when it comes to Snape. And don't worry, Draco won't be hurting himself forever.
For everyone else who read and/or reviewed, thank you for taking the time. Onward!
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter the world within. All I do own is my plot and Kali. …And Servius, but you don't know him yet. Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling and she is the most wonderful person ever as we now have a date for OotP.
Falling Chapter Nine: Research, Interrupted
"Miss Strauser," drawled Snape's voice as Draco collected his things. "Please come see me."
Draco tossed his bag over his shoulder and headed for the doors passing Kali on the way out. They had locked eyes for a moment and Draco felt his insides cringe because she knew about him. That bloody new girl, Potter's friend and the Weasel's bitch, knew the most well-kept and secretive part of his soul. She had more control over him than anyone really ever had before, besides maybe his father, and just seeing her ensured Draco that he didn't like it one bit.
As he left the classroom, one of the last to do so, he caught Blaise and the Weasel, himself, leaning against the wall across from the doors. His eyes locked with Blaise, the other boy looking like he was daring Draco to say something, and just as Draco was about to muster the smallest hello, Blaise's eyes flickered to his arms. Sneering at him, Draco pulled his arms into his body and stalked off down the hallway only casting one look back. Weasley and Blaise were watching his retreat and the fact only pissed him off more. Draco could feel the speed of his legs pick up as they swept him farther and farther away from the Potions classroom.
"Polaris," Draco muttered before walking into the Slytherin common room. This afternoon he had Divination but he figured that Trelawney could go fuck herself because he wasn't going. If she really wanted to know where he was, he'd just tell her that he had been on the verge of dying but miraculously pulled through. Naturally, Trelawney would be disappointed that he hadn't actually died but the fact he brought it up at all might put him in good standing. Either that or he'd just tell her that his horoscope forbid him to go to any afternoon classes. Bullshitting his way out of Trelawney's class was a snap, and after he'd gotten out of Transfiguration yesterday, he was feeling rather confident.
Lying on the couch, Draco let his mind wander before forcing it to go blank. He grabbed his wand, muttered a few almost indistinguishable words, and sighed as soft music began to fill the room. Rolling over to bury his face into the cushions, he focused all of his attention on the beauty of the notes before it soothed him and sent him into slumber.
Dark corridors with lit torches adorned the walls as Draco meandered down the stony halls of the dungeons. He didn't know where he was going, exactly, but his mind seemed to have a destination that his legs couldn't bear to refuse. His footsteps were light, but with each movement of his foot, small clouds of dust billowed out from beneath the soles of his shoes. Coughing once, he pulled his cloak closer around his body and moved on.
In the low light of the dungeon, Draco could make out the silhouette of a form up ahead. He stopped in his tracks, cocked his head to the side, and strained his eyes to take in as much of the stranger as he could. Before he noticed, his feet were moving again. The curiosity to find out the stranger's identity and get a closer look was too much to refuse.
He was no more that three meters away when he stopped, the figure finally clicking into recognition. Draco gasped and stepped back, almost tripping over his robes as they got caught beneath his feet. When he looked back up again, he saw that it was really there. Draco was staring into the eyes of himself.
The other Draco reached a hand out to him, grasped his forearm, and roughly pushed the sleeves back to reveal the pale flesh of his forearm. Draco didn't want to look but the reflection of himself shoved his arm in his face. Despite the low lighting and the fact that he could see nothing else properly, his arm seemed to glow, and in this soft burn, the scarred flesh was unavoidable.
"Look at what you do to yourself," his mirror image said. Draco tried to reply but his words caught in his throat. His mouth was moving but sound refused to come out. "You can't speak here, you can only listen.
"Lucius is dead and it's not your fault. You know it's not your fault. It was a horrible accident but nothing is going to bring him back." The reflection threw Draco's arm at him rather brutally but Draco still could only look at his arm or into the eyes of his reflection. "That isn't going to bring him back. It's only going to hurt you. You're only hurting yourself."
The other Draco looked at him sadly and then began to fade. At first he was only slightly opaque, but he became more and more translucent until it was if he had never been there at all. Draco held up his arms, staring at the scars that covered them both. Then came the blood.
It was as if every scar on his body had reopened. The pain was excruciating. The only time Draco had ever felt such pain was when Draco, at the age of nine, asked his father why it was wrong for boys to be with boys, and Lucius had used the Cruciatus curse on him. It had only lasted fifteen seconds, but for Draco, the pain came with him for a lifetime. Now, the pain seemed to be back ten-fold as blood oozed from his scars on his arms, his legs, and his chest. Blood was everywhere; so much so that Draco never even imagined that much could come from one person. It soaked through his robes, it pooled on the floor, and it splattered against the walls in odd patterns like modern art. His body grew weak and Draco could feel his legs going numb before he collapsed face first into the puddles of crimson liquid.
A sharp pain seared up Draco's back and he moaned as he rolled over to see the common room fire flickering at him. Standing up, Draco saw that the offending piece of furniture had been a small metal table that divided the sofa from the two chairs that sat across from it. A dream, or more accurately, a nightmare. It had only been a nightmare and what did nightmares know? Nothing.
He pushed the image of himself claiming he needed help, telling him to stop hurting himself, to the very darkest chasms of his mind and locked it away. That wasn't something he needed to deal with. He'd deal with those demons tonight when he was alone without the chance of Blaise or someone equally nosy walking in on him. Checking the time, Draco was happy to see that it was time for dinner. It was one more distraction to keep him busy until he visited with his dagger this evening. Draco had truly missed it after being locked up in the hospital wing the night before.
By the time Draco made it to the Great Hall, most of the students were already there. Sitting by himself, though partially surrounded by the other seventh years, at the opposite end of the Slytherin table from where Draco usually sat, was Blaise. Draco sulked past him as he headed for his seat, stealing a glance at him. His throat went dry at seeing him in better lighting than at the dungeons, and at a better angle than he had been permitted before. On his neck were ten, rather purple, finger-shaped bruises. Biting his lip, Draco hurried the full way past him and down closer to the first years where they were accustomed to having him sit. No one bothered him down here. Draco liked it that way.
As usual, Draco piled small portions of the food onto his plate and began to push it around without even attempting to eat it. He had forced a bit of turkey into his stomach when a barn owl came fluttering in the Hall and headed straight for him. Sighing, Draco shoved his food away, not too terribly disappointed as he was never really hungry anyway, and waited for the owl. When it landed before him, Draco removed it of its burden and it immediately took off again. Unrolling the parchment, it read:
Dear Mr. Malfoy,
Effective tomorrow, you are to report to Mr. Filch's office at seven p.m. every night for two weeks in order to complete your detentions for the assault of another classmate. It would not be wise to complain about this decree. You are very lucky you haven't been suspended or expelled as Mr. Zabini reported that the attack was provoked.
Professor Severus Snape
Draco almost had to grin. He hadn't even considered being expelled, but had he really thought he would get away with almost killing Blaise without even losing house points? Lucky that he hadn't been suspended or expelled, indeed. Only Snape could have gotten him out of this mess. That and fucking Blaise Zabini who was stupid enough to tell the teachers he deserved it just to keep Draco in school and under his eye. Don't feed the fucking suicidal boy, indeed. Not that he ate, anyway.
Suddenly not very hungry anymore (as if he had been hungry to begin with), Draco stood from his seat and shoved the parchment in his pocket before heading for the door. It was still too early to go back to the dormitories, he decided, and a visit to the shower would thus have to wait for later. With nothing better to do, Draco retrieved his Potions book from the Slytherin dorms and headed for the library to start on the essay Snape assigned about the history of fatal wound potions and why Blessure Fatale was the most practical to use.
Madam Pince looked him over with extreme caution. Once again, he felt like he should have 'seriously unhinged Slytherin' tattooed across his forehead. Even the fucking librarian at his bloody school was staring at him. Draco was a fucking psycho time bomb ready to explode, or at least the teachers seemed to think so considering that McGonagall insisted on putting a ruddy charm around Blaise's bed. Don't feed the fucking suicidal boy, indeed.
After grabbing multiple books from the shelves, Draco seated himself near the Potions section and began to leaf through the pages, taking notes. It wasn't the most interesting essay he had ever researched but it was easy enough, and Draco was halfway through the second resource when he heard the shuffling of feet and pages. Looking up, he scowled at seeing Blaise pulling a book off the shelf. Almost as if he could sense being watched, Blaise's eyes flickered to Draco. They locked for a moment before Blaise's lips pulled down into a sneer and he closed the book in his hands before heading to check it out. Even bloody Blaise didn't want to be around him anymore. Was he a seriously unhinged Slytherin freak?
A few minutes later, the same sound of books being flipped through could be heard, and Draco's head snapped up hoping that it was Blaise so that maybe he could find out where the cold shoulder had come from. He hadn't been like this last night when Draco apologized and he so foolishly accepted. Maybe he had finally come to his senses and realized what a psycho time bomb he really was.
Potter. Bloody fucking Potter was standing where Blaise was supposed to be. Like the last time, Potter shifted his gaze to him just long enough to notice Draco staring. A slight blush came into both pairs of cheeks and Draco jerked his head down to the many books and pieces of parchment scattered about in front of him. Now where was his bloody quill?
"Looking for this?" asked Potter. Draco looked up to see Harry extract a quill from underneath a rather large book entitled Medi-Potions: A Comprehensive History. Revised Edition.
"Er - yeah," he said, snatching it away. Potter was still standing there, looming over him. "Is there something I can help you with, Potter?"
"Actually, there is. You've got all the Potions books Hermione asked me to check out."
"You mean Granger actually hasn't committed these books to memory?" Draco tutted. "She's losing her touch."
"It seems that everyone is surprising me lately," said Potter, rather pointedly. Now what was that supposed to mean. He couldn't have possibly been making a reference to Draco, could he? From the look on Potter's face, that's exactly what he had been doing. "How are you doing, Draco?" And how dare he call him 'Draco'.
"What's it to you, Scarface?"
"Can't I be concerned?"
"About a Malfoy? No. Besides, I don't need your concern and I don't need your fucking pity, either. Who put you up to this? It was Zabini, wasn't it?"
Harry held up his hands in surrender before sitting down across from Draco. "Okay. I yield. It was Kali."
"Weasel's bitch?"
"She isn't Ron's bitch . . . yet."
"What does she give a fuck for?"
"How should I know?"
"I bet Blaise said something to her," Draco muttered to himself. That fool was always too trusting for his own good. He proved that the night before when he accepted Draco's apology.
"I don't know. All I know is she said that someone should talk to you who could understand what you were going through."
"You can't understand what I'm going through. No one can understand what I'm going through unless they're me, so unless you can pop inside my head, Potter, don't waste my time."
"You could talk to someone, Draco, if you're having a hard time coping with what happened to your father. Even if it isn't me."
"It wouldn't be you and since you're so hot on the subject, I'll talk to someone about my father when I'm good and ready. I wish all you fucking pricks would just get off my arse about it already. I'll deal when I'm ready. Now leave me the fuck alone."
"Look, Draco, all I'm saying is that if you ever go insane and do want to talk to me, I'd be here to listen. As we've never been friends and I've never had an actual loathing for you like Ron has, I'd be willing to listen objectively. You know, since I'd have no actual personal attachment to be biased. And I haven't been where you are. You're right. But I was around during the chaos with Voldemort. My parents are dead. I never got to know them or have a family. And there was once a time when I thought I couldn't go on living with the Dursleys and I considered suicide. I never attempted it because I knew I had friends who loved me, but I did consider it."
"Well, Potter, that's very Gryffindor of you but even if I did go nutters and decide to talk to you, it wouldn't be tonight. You've come to say what you were forced to say . . ."
"I wasn't -"
"Save it, Potter. I know you'd never come talk to me unless a friend of yours asked you to. Now that you've been the hero, please leave me alone. I don't care to be in anyone's company, much less yours, tonight."
"Okay. Just remember what I said, Draco."
"Believe me, I won't be able to forget," he practically seethed as Harry stood up, grabbed one of Draco's books, and went to check it out at the front. "Stupid Gryffindor."
With Potter gone, Draco looked down at his parchment and books, no longer having enough of an attention span to actually research. A few trips back and forth between the shelves and table left the books properly put away. It was still earlier than Draco would have liked it to be and so he decided to wander around the library for a little while longer.
He passed through books on Potions, Transfiguration, Charms, Quidditch, and a few muggle texts among others before coming to the back of the library. Here were shelves, much like the others, that went to the ceilings. Unlike the others, each of the books' spines had the Hogwarts crest toward the top. Pulling one from the shelf, Draco blew off a sheen of dust and looked at the cover.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry said the top in emerald green. The cover was violet and the crest, also in emerald green, was even larger on the front. Below the crest it said, Class of 1932. Yearbooks. Yearbooks given to the seventh years at graduation. Flipping through the pages, Draco could see that he was holding the yearbook for the graduating class of 1932. His father and mother each had one of these at home but they were packed away in some remote area of the manor and Draco, while hearing of them, had never been able to actually see one.
Looking at the shelves, Draco located 1994 and pulled it out. There had been Marcus Flint, that Quidditch freak, Oliver Wood, and flipping a few pages back at Slytherin activities, he found a picture of Flint, himself, and the rest of the Quidditch team. He was amazed at how much older he looked since then. Draco's features were still amazingly girlish, a trait that he had always particularly abhorred, but he was taller and a little more built than he had been back then. He shut the book and placed it back on the shelf.
He was about to turn away when a particular spine caught his eye. 1977. The year his father had graduated, immediately followed by 1978, his mother's graduation year. Draco reached out a hand, hesitated, and then grabbed 1977 from the shelf. Holding it to his chest, he made his way back to his table with Madam Pince still eyeing him as she passed by him with books to be shelved in her arms.
Sitting down at his table, Draco placed the class of 1977 book on the surface before him. It was with delicate touches that he opened the cover and began to leaf through the pages. The first one he came to was a large Gryffindor crest and too much red and gold for his eyes to handle. Along the sides of the pages were colored bars to signal which house the pages belonged to. Sirius Black immediately greeted him as he turned the page, and before daring to go further, Draco flipped right to the Slytherin section.
Avery. Bross. Chaucer. Lestrange. Macnair. Malfoy. Draco stopped and looked down at his father's name in large letters in the top left corner of page 44. Lucius Malfoy. According to the book, he had been an honors student, a prefect, and Slytherin Seeker since his third year (So that's why I had to play Seeker). Next to the blurb about his activities in school was a headshot of his father that kept winking at him. He was a cocky, arrogant prick even then. The thought made Draco form a smile.
He had always been told that he looked like his father but now that he was staring at the pictures of his father in his seventh year, something Draco had never been given the chance to see before, he didn't look like his father. He practically was his father. Had they been in the same time, they could have passed for twins.
Most of the pictures, Draco noticed, confirmed the tale that Lucius and Snape had once been practically inseparable. Alas, all but two of the pictures featured on the two pages dedicated to Lucius had Snape in the photograph as well, one of which excluded him being the headshot. They were in the Great Hall together. In the Slytherin common room. In Quidditch gear, both grasping their brooms proudly. At the bottom of the second page of pictures was a snapshot of the two at Three Broomsticks. Next to Lucius was a girl Draco recognized as a younger version of his mother minus the scrunched up nose. On the other side was Snape, and next to the now Potions Professor was a stunning girl with wavy, golden-blonde hair who was clutching Snape's arm while animatedly talking to a red-head beside her. Both his father and Snape were glaring across the table at - wait. That was Potter!
Looking down at the caption, he saw the names, Narcissa Delacroix, Lucius Malfoy, Severus Snape, Drusilla Strauser, Lily Evans, and James Potter at Three Broomsticks. Lily Evans and James Potter? Weren't they Scarhead's parents? What were they doing sitting with Snape and his father? They obviously weren't friends from the murderous glares that Potter was passing with his father and Snape. Snape and his father were discussing in hushed whispers what appeared to be some sort of a plan and the blonde - Drusilla - kept slapping Snape on the wrist as if to discourage him.
Draco turned a few pages later to find Snape's pages. As it had been with his father, most of the pictures contained both Lucius and Snape, but there was a lot more of Drusilla on this page than the last. The headshot was a much younger and less bitter version of his professor. The worry wrinkles at his eyes were gone, his hair was far from greasy as if he had recently forgotten what shampoo was, and his nose was still straight. Must have gotten it broken somewhere along the way, Draco thought.
And the blonde! The blonde had to be Snape's girlfriend. Draco had always been told that Snape's girlfriend from back at Hogwarts was a looker but Lucius hadn't been kidding. He shook his head and sighed. If she were still alive, she would be his aunt. What had been her name again? Drusilla Strauser, said the name next to Snape's under most of the captions. He flipped to the index.
Finding Strauser, Drusilla in the list, he flipped to page sixteen and frowned. The woman was a ruddy Gryffindor. She was an honors student as well as a Chaser on the Quidditch team. Her pictures had far more variety than Snape's or his father's had. Most of them had Snape in them, Lucius in a few of them as well, but almost all of them also had Lily Evans and a girl by the name of Elizabeth Fielding. Even Potter, Black, Pettigrew, and - was that Lupin? It apparently was. Snape dated a fucking Gryffindor. Draco sighed.
A Gryffindor just like Potter who had paid his respects only a half hour before thanks to Weasel's bitch. Weasel's. . .Draco's thought process drifted off. Mikailah, hadn't it been? Mikailah, or Kali as Blaise was calling her. Strauser. He could still her Snape calling on her in class. "Miss Strauser. Please come see me." Strauser. Strauser just like Drusilla and a Gryffindor as well.
"Her mum was a Gryffindor but her Dad's a Slytherin so she can't be all bad," Blaise had said to him. Draco was almost certain that if this had been one of those muggle cartoons he heard some Hufflepuffs talking about, the proverbial light bulb, whatever that was, would click on.
And just when he least expected it, even his own father's words came into his head, said when he didn't know Draco was eavesdropping just outside Snape's office. "You were the smart one sending Kailah away." And she had been staring at the head table an awful lot during her sorting. She had the sallow skin, the dark hair, and her eyes - her eyes were exactly like Drusilla's and Draco knew Snape had a daughter with his girlfriend from Hogwarts. A daughter who was living in America and hadn't Dumbledore said that was where she transferred from? How hadn't he pieced this together before?
Fucking arseholded bugger. Weasel's bitch was Snape's daughter!
Closing the book before he made any more discoveries that he didn't care to unearth, Draco returned the yearbook to the shelves in the back. He gathered his things and made a rather hurried return to the common room, unable to look Snape in the eye when he passed him on the way. Between his rage at Potter, his guilt over Blaise, and his - well, he didn't know exactly what over Kailah who insisted that Potter of all people be his new best friend, he had an intense headache. Fuck that and fuck Snape with his fucking Gryffindor daughter who was fucking the Weasel of all people. Bloody gits.
Draco grunted "Polaris" at the wall and slipped inside when the space was big enough for his body and things to get through. Studying on the sofa was Blaise who merely looked at him with sad and distressed eyes before returning his attention back to the book before him. He didn't know if it was the fact that Blaise was ignoring him or not, but Draco almost snapped at him before stopping himself. This is what he had asked for, wasn't it? For Blaise to give him some space until he was ready to move on? If this was what he wanted, why did he feel like he had just been run over by a stampede of hippogriffs?
Unwilling to wait any longer, Draco dumped his things on his four poster bed and grabbed his dagger before heading into the bathroom. He stripped his body free of clothing and glanced into the mirror before his nightmare earlier today came back into his head. With a rather abrupt turn, Draco felt inside his robes for the knife and clutched it in his palm as he turned on the spray. In went Draco and in went the dagger beside him.
Draco wasn't in the mood for thinking tonight. With the dagger clutched as proudly in his hands as Snape and Lucius had clutched their brooms in their schoolday picture, Draco made a long and rather jagged slash across his chest. He bit his lip hard as the pain seared through his nerves but it wasn't enough to distract him and so he slashed a series of random slashes along the scabbed and healing wounds from the previous cutting. The dagger dropped from Draco's hand and clanged against the porcelain when it landed. He leaned against the wall, breathing ragged, and watched with his chest heaving as the pink water disappeared down the drain.
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