Warning: Nothing but some name-calling.
AN: Thank you readers, thank you reviews. Especially reviewers!
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Bundled up in two robes, boots, long socks, a scarf and a hat, Draco was sweating, but prepared to face the cold that was the winter here in Cumberland. The warmth of a few days earlier had given way, relapsing into bitter cold. This change had brought snow with it, blowing down from Scotland it now coated the ground in a powdery layer of virgin white. He left by the dungeon door, a little known port that had all the gloom normally associated with such doors who's main function is the admittance of the damned.
The snow lay lightly on the ground and here at the back of the school, stretched untouched and glittering painfully. Draco squinted, eyes aching for the sudden adjustment as he trod off purposefully, leaving the first footprints in the pristine snow. Hogwarts had extensive grounds, however much of which was taken up by the lack, in front, and the forbidden forest to the south which stretched out east and the Quidditch pitch behind that occupying the north. The west side was the only side on which there was no development or point of interest of attract those out for a Saturday morning stroll. This was exactly why Draco chose it.
Keeping to old and much disused cow tracks Draco made his was down the small dales and up the slight rises. The sun was clear and bright and even in the cold birds chirped industrously all around him. He once thought he glimpsed a field mouse scuttle across the snow and dissapear into an unruly hedge it's black twigs crowned by snow. Outside it was calm. Quite, save for the noises of nature subdued by winter, and his own footfalls, which only sounded as soft thuds in the powdered snow.
He pressed forward searching out the furthest boundaries of Hogwarts. After what seemed like hours he felt his feet began to tire. His nose was red and his hands felt cold, even buried as they were in the pockets of his thick robes. His breath formed in white misty pants, as he searched for a stile, bench or stump on which to rest. He was approaching a little copse, perhaps no more then fifty trees, but by some chance he spied under one of the nearest a roughly hued wooden seat. Covered as it was in snow, it looked from the back like a stump but as Draco approached he saw it was a throne like chair carved from the sump of what must have once been a great oak.
Draco brushed it off with his scarf before plopping him self down exhausted. If anyone from the school could have seen him then they would have scarcely recognized him. His usually pale cheeks were red and rosy as were his nose and mouth, so teased were these last by the cold wind, that they had started to become quite read and raw in protest. His eyes usually squinted with suspicion or malice were open and reflecting a clear gray, that of a lake in early morning before light can be said to have truly reached the earth.
The oak chair was tilted slightly, the seat slopping up to the back instead of down, this Draco attributed to the creator wanting to preserve his creation by letting water run off instead of collecting and rotting the seat. It must have worked but made for a less then comfortable place to sit. He leaned back trying to ignore the unpleasant slant of the chair.
His back to the open fields behind him he looked into the little copse, the trees were almost black, and threw deep shadows all around, their bare branches so thickly tangled that they broke the sun into a million tiny shards that scattered the ground. In the shade it was colder, almost uncomfortably so. As the wind shifted the branches made a rasping sound.
Finally he could bare the chair no more. Getting up he waked in to the trees, a small brook its edges encrusted with crystallized ice trickled though them, on a whim he decided to follow it. The cold seeped into the soles of his boots thought the ground and froze his tows and he noticed a deepening of the shadows, taking out a hand he shock back the sleeve of his robe to get a look at the time. His wrist, pale and defined in the semi-dark startled him triggering the memory of an ankle. It flashed suddenly in his mind, dreamlike from the night before. He felt a deeper chill, and a lump rising in his throat choked him. It felt as if he were on the border of thinking about something that he didn't want to. Like a worry one has put off for too long until it has grown so enormous in one's subconscious that it is impossible to think any thought with out treading on it.
Shacking himself Draco laughed. It was a false laugh and its hollowness was magnified by the cold around him, so that to Draco it sounded small and futile. He shuddered. What was so wrong with what he had seen? Relax, He told himself. But he found that if either from the cold or unease he found could not. There was nothing to do he guessed other then confront this demon.
What had he seen? A girl and a boy having underage sex in the trophy room. That was all, what the bloody hell was so disturbing about that? Yes they were the friends of his worst enemy and he didn't exactly ever wish to see them being so intimate. But that was no reason to feel panicked every time he thought about an ankle.
He had concluded in the shower; it was just because he was gay. Well, that explanation worked up to a point. Just the thought of having heterosexual reactions made him feel uncomfortable. Yes that was logical, but he had seen such things before in books and in the pornographic pictures that circulated around the Slytherin dorm and he hadn't panicked over them. Why then did he panic now? Perhaps he was looking at it from the wrong angle. Irritated, he kicked a stick. Why why why? The questions would not go away.
At last thoroughly frozen he turned to begin the long trek back to Hogwarts. Leaving the copes, he noted that the shadows were much longer then they had been stretching far up the hill as if dark spindly fingers were reaching out to grab something. This thought didn't appeal to him in the least, with tepidity Draco looked back just to make sure that there was no childish monster lurking behind him. There was none. He was too agitated to day. Afraid of harmless shadows, this was ridiculous.
He suddenly felt an overwhelming desire not to be alone. He wanted to sit in the common room and play Chinese Poker with Crabbe, Goyle and Zabini, and to hell with what anyone thought of him. He started to run, racing across the snow along the trail of his foot prints, until his breath ran ragged and he felt the nausea of fatigue over take him and he had to slow to a jog then a walk cramps biting at his sides. It was almost full dark before Hogwarts was back in view looming welcomingly in front of him lights shining in the gloom.
He consulted his watch, it read; "Seven thirty eight, you missed lunch, at this rate you're going to waste away to nothing." He smiled, so motherly. Tramping down the halls he headed straight for the Slytherin common room. Rushing though it to the room, he burst vigorously into the 6th year dorm startling his fellow roommates.
"You're back!" Goyle sounded both surprised and relived. "You enjoy the walk?" Draco nodded stripping off his outer robe and struggling out of his boots. "Where did you go, Hogsmeade?" this was Crabbe looking decidedly too hopeful Draco thought. Shame to disappoint him, oh well.
"No, I walked west." Draco responded nonchalantly, Crabbe's face fell visibly
"poor Crabbe" Zabini interjected, sneering "Master Draco didn't bring you back anything, maybe he'll remember to bring you something next time, provided you lick his boots enough."
Though having his boots licked was something Draco would not pretend to dislike metaphorically speaking only, he didn't like Zabini insulting his boys. It rankled and somehow he felt usurped. "Why don't you shut up Zabini, you wouldn't think to bring your own grandmother something were she on her deathbed." Zabini merely sneered.
"That kind of insult might work on that thin skin Potter but if that is the best you can do Malfoy you're losing your touch." Zabini smirked as Draco 's face ignited with annoyance. He was head cock in this roost and Zabini better learn that.
"You loathsome little squib, so you what to take this up with your wand!" Draco felt enthused, this was what he had looked for, a release of tension. Something, anything. He really loathed duels of any sort, but right now he felt immortal, impermeable, invincible.
"Oh stuff it Malfoy, you wouldn't show anyway and as a matter of fact I wouldn't either and we both know it." The balloon burst abruptly.
Draco reflected bitterly, Zabini hadn't learnt his place thus far and there was little chance that Draco would be able to impress it on him now. It was true, it was so horribly true it was funny. Draco laughed and laughed. His own weakness and false perception joining in so that he couldn't stop until Goyle slapped him on the shoulder. Hard.
"Draco you are being hysterical" Crabbe looked at him, he was not prone to out bursts of excess happiness
"It wasn't even that funny." Zabini drawled.
"Oh shut up, and play the bloody game will you." Draco said sharply to hide his embarrassment. It hadn't been funny at all he had just needed to let something out. Something that still festered inside him.
"But I thought you didn't like…"Crabbe trailed off when Draco shot him a look.
They played till dinner exchanging snippets of gossip as they did, Draco lost all but one of their games and he remembered why he did NOT like the game, but the company and the conversation were bearable enough so he stayed.
***
Laying in bed that night his stomach full, Draco's out look on like was a decidedly more optimistic one. He had managed to get the upper hand in the verbal staring match with Potter over dinner and even Zabini had passed the salt when he asked him to. A good day, and an excellent dinner. Now that he was comfortably warm under the heavy eiderdown that covered his bed, curtains drawn he could think with out interruption over his reaction to the events that morning.
But first he needed to get his mind in order. In his mind's eye he conjured up a pen and a fresh roll of parchment. He had found long ago that the most effective way for him to work though a problem was to write down the main points. This however proved to backfire when it fell in to the hands of someone for whom it was not intended. So Draco had had to find away around this, and his trick was to cerate such a record mentally. This two had its drawbacks but was infinitely more desirable than having someone get wind of a carefully crafted plan or personal detail.
So he proceeded to out line what points he had so far: 1. He was gay. 2. He was upset by the Mudblood and Weasley having sex. 3. He did not like ankles.
The reason for his feeling uncomfortable was surely not because he was gay, no this was untrue because he did not react the same way when he had encountered similar situations on paper. This being so, was it then because he knew the people involved in the act? That might be it, but he hated both of them. the mental quill scribbled. To understand he would have to go over the event again.
He had talked to that damn picture, old Ed would be seeing him tomorrow for sure. Damned picture. Draco made a mental note to take something particularly nasty with him when he went. Then he had opened the door and saw her damn ankle, he had to admit it looked… what, what did it look there in the dim light, this was the key. Draco thought he had found something. Did he desire it, did he like it, what? He didn't know so he continued. He had seen them together. Granger, looking pure and saintly like the Madonna upon talking with Gabriel. How could she remain so pure? He had felt dark in need of some redemption, some writ of purification. Did he want to posses her light? He remembered feeling something almost instantly suppressed something he could not pin down, then sick, and he had run. What then had he felt?
This was not helping at all. Sighing he forced his mind to shut down, and think of pleasanter things, like how to bring about Potters ultimate downfall. Preferably in front of the Dark Lord, were upon he would be granted his place as heir to all that Voldemort possessed. Were upon the old geezer would conveniently drop dead. And he was already asleep.
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