AUTHOR'S NOTE: hey long time no update. Sorry. Are people still reading this? Anyway have upped the rating. In England I think this would be a fifteen but have made it R because not sure what PG-13 means. Anyway, rating for language really.
Chapter Six: Counting Sheep or Chickens or EggsAt the opposite end of the castle Draco Malfoy was also in bed. He, however, was not sleeping nor could he foresee sleep in his near future. He was far too busy being angry to consider sleep. He was angry at Pansy, at Potter, at Blaise and at himself.
FLASHBACK ~ ~ two hours previously ~ ~
"Bloody hell Draco what the fuck were you playing at? We've not been back five minutes and you're fighting. Are you deliberately trying to jeopardise everything we've achieved, everything we hope to achieve? This is our year. We're at the top now, our views rule. We've spent two years setting this up and you've probably sabotaged it before we've even begun. They will never trust us if you can't be civil to Potter. Civility, that's all we ask damn it, and its fucking ingrained in you. Please Draco," finally the tears began to form in her eyes, "please. You convinced us, gave us the strength to do this. We need you to lead us, not spend your time in schoolboy fights. Its too dangerous for that."
It was the tears that did it, bringing home to him what she had suffered, what they had all suffered over the holidays. Muttering soft apologies he held her close while she cried quietly. Pansy never cried but finally the stress had gotten to her and, unlike him, she had no other, more aggressive outlet available.
"I'll try Pansy love, I'll be good. Ok?" he repeated, stroking her hair softly as her sobs slowed then ceased. Pulling herself together she kissed him quickly before gathering the rest of their year together for their first meeting as seventh years.
END FLASHBACK
He knew he shouldn't fight Potter, not now, not if they were to be accepted, but only once since the start of fifth year had they been able to avoid a fight and that experience had disturbed him far more than any fight.
And none of Pansy's tears nor Blaise's more reasonable arguments could convince him that stopping the fights was the way to go. He needed them.
FLASHBACK ~ ~ end of the fifth year ~ ~
It was, had he known it, the week of the plan, the week when the Gryffindor's had set up a watching spell on Harry Potter to prove his innocence. But he knew none of that when he joined Potter at the lakeside.
"Ah, poor Potter, out her all alone."
"Sod off Malfoy
"Don't wanna"
"Not scared I'm going to attack you"
"Not bloody likely"
"What?"
"Any idiot could see you're not behind those attack, which, incidentally, explains why most of the Hufflepuffs are ready to tar and feather you. But really, of you were suddenly to take to attacking your fellow students I'd like to think that I've earned a place at the top of your list. Or do I flatter myself?" He sat down next to Harry and turned to face him, "you are no threat to me Potter."
The utter certainty in his voice, untainted by any sneering sarcasm or confident condescension shook them both. Eventually Harry broke the silence.
"Well that's bloody brilliant! The only person outside my own friends who truly believes in mu innocence is Draco bloody Malfoy."
"Actually I don't have a middle name," he smiled slightly.
"Oh," again they fell into silence.
"So," Harry began, then broke off.
"What, Potter?"
"Nothing."
"Ok."
And they sat their, neither having anything to say, neither willing to leave. Eventually Harry stood up and made to leave.
"Well, this was unusual. I'm off. Got to meet Dumbledore for a 'lets reassure Harry we believe in him meeting. They're fun."
"Sound it."
They shared a smile and Harry left. That was the same day that Ginny Weasley was attacked by a milder but more persistant variant of crutatius while talking to Harry. Hermione's spell was able to prove without a doubt that the curse hit her from behind whilst Harry's wand was still in his pocket. Harry was proven innocent and was welcomed back into the school as a whole but he could not forget that the most unlikely of people had believed in him.
It was an unspoken agreement between them, however, that their meeting had never happened. It was easier for both.
END FLASHBACK
The utter certainty with which he had always viewed Potter's innocence in their fifth year was present before the events to which he later attributed it and as such he did not care to dwell on it. He gave his friends to same reasoning he had offered Potter but he knew, deep down, it wasn't right.
So he didn't think about it.
And anyway other events had overtaken the Slytherins that year.
FLASHBACK ~ ~ early fifth year ~ ~
Draco had been in the library when he overheard the conversation between Hermione Granger, Dean Thomas and Jessica Clare.
"Couldn't we tell them something about it 'Mione?"
"I dunno Jess, I think 'Mione's right, people are already taking against Harry and I don't see how any attempt to highlight the parallels between You Know Who and Adolf Hitler, a muggle, would improve things. People will either see the connection or not as they will. It hardly seems relevant."
"But the lessons we could learn from it. Some of us…"
"Slytherins," Dean interrupted Jess and Draco bristled.
"Not just them. Anyway many purebloods imagine wizards are superior in everyway. Muggles are as children to them, comparatively harmless. But the truth…I honestly don't know what effect it would have. People view death by crutatious as a horrendous and barbarous attack. Maybe it would be simply proof that wizards are superior because they are more civilised or something."
"It's hard, I think, to judge. People need make the links themselves. We can be smugly superior at having got there before hand. Remember Churchill was warning about the danger of Hitler years before the rest of Britain accepted it."
"Fudge all over again," Dean muttered angrily, "why can't people see that Harry would never, could never do this. It's got You Know Who all over it."
"Oh for gods sake Dean," finally Hermione spoke, having listened to both opinions carefully, "if you can't say Voldemort call him Riddle. This You Know Who business is farcical."
"Does that really work, 'Mione? The anagram thingy I mean. I can't get it too."
"Yeah look."
And Draco watched as the words TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE appeared and then rearranged themselves to state I AM LORD VOLDEMORT.
"Wow," Dean chuckled, "I wonder how long he spent trying to make that work."
"Indeed," Jess smiled and the debate was forgotten.
But Draco's mind was racing and he stayed in the library until it closed trying to make sense of what he had heard.
END FLASHBACK
From that moment he had been doomed. Unable to ignore the tantalising hints unknowingly dropped before him he began to research Tom Riddle. And Adolf Hitler. And Winston Churchill.
Within weeks he had enough evidence to convince even the most doubtful of his Slytherin year mates that there was no level on which they could continue to support Voldemort.
He attacked them on every level. Pureblood pride revolted against the idea of serving a mudblood. The briefest of investigations into Harry Potter showed that with his background and heritage he was highly unlikely to be defeated by Voldemort. The parallels between the muggle and wizard dictators was an added incentive for if wizard history was to repeat muggle as muggle had repeated itself in the past then Voldemort would surely loose.
In short, each Slytherin was able to chose which ever reasoning they liked best to support their abandoning Voldemort.
Of course, for some the sheer fact that Draco was moving to oppose Voldemort was enough, for from their earliest years they had been taught to follow Draco, serve Draco. Just as Lucius was the leading Death Eater in Voldemort's court, so would Draco be the leading light in the Young Death Eaters. They had not factored in the possibility of Draco turning, however, and it was in Draco Malfoy, his stubbornness and independence combined with his mothers love that they would lose their children to stand for a cause which they lived to oppose.
END CHAPTER SIXHey
What did you think?
Louise