Chapter 22: Home Again
Sometimes I wonder if I'm ever gonna make it home again
It's so far and so sight
I really need someone to talk to, and nobody else
Knows how to comfort me tonight
Snow is cold, rain is wet
Chills my soul right to the marrow
I won't be happy till I see you alone
Till I'm home again and feeling right
Home Again by Carole King
I wasn't lying before when I said I hated Malfoy.
I wasn't telling the truth either.
The best I can come up with is that I sort of left out some things. That can happen, right? You go shopping and forget the list, you forget your homework, you lie about why you were out until 2 in the morning when you were expected back at 11, white lies to protect people.
Of course it's slightly more serious when you claim hatred when sometimes you feel... something entirely different.
No, that's not right either. I do hate him. He has tormented me from our first meeting on the Hogwarts Express when I refused his hand. He has insulted my friends and my beliefs, heaped scorn upon the things I cherish and generally been a bastard in every possible way. Which is why the other feelings came as really rather a shock.
The first time it happened it knocked me for six, I can tell you. It was during that detention in the first year, when we went into the Forbidden Forest (which is a bloody dangerous place for a detention if you ask me. I've never been able to forgive Dumbledore for that, because I know he let it happen, let me see Quirrel, let him be in danger).
When we saw what turned out to be Quirrel/Voldemort drinking the unicorn blood Malfoy screamed and ran and to be honest my first instinct would normally have been to follow him. Hell, I'd probably have gotten out of the forest before him I was that terrified. But when he ran I felt something I'd never felt before. Anger. Pure, unadulterated, unrestrained anger. Usually I hold back from it, because things happen when I get angry. Bad things. But the strange thing was that I didn't feel angry at Malfoy for leaving me in danger, rather I felt anger at everyone, everything that had served to put Malfoy in danger. The anger didn't feel bad or wrong this time, so I didn't fight to control it. I found that I couldn't leave, couldn't run because there was this primitive part of me that wanted revenge on the thing that had scared my...well, for want of a better word, my mate. Mate. The word makes it sound worse that it is, because really mate is too emotive a word. At that moment, when put in danger, it all became very simple. Draco was mine, he'd hurt something of mine and so he had to pay.
Fortunately Firenze came along before I was reduced to a righteously angry corpse.
But God it shook me up, to feel something so...pure for someone I hated so much.
From that moment I let things sort of fragment in my mind or I would have gone insane. So while Potter hated Malfoy, Harry felt something else for Draco. And to this day I still don't know what it is.
It wasn't until our third year that I began to suspect that he was suffering under something similar. It was after Buckbeak bit him, during potions he went out of his way to make sure I understood that he was faking it. To Ron, to everyone else I guess, he was just being Malfoy, rubbing it in like the git he was, but to me, the way he said it was like Draco was trying to make sure Harry didn't worry. Like maybe he'd had to worry sometimes too.
It was the Quidditch World Cup that sealed it for me. He had no business being in that forest when the Death Eaters had their little party, but he was there and warning me to keep Hermione out of it. To everyone else he sounded his usual superior self, but I felt his eyes on me, checking I was alright. I saw the flicker of fear in his face when the noises got louder. He knew. I knew. We knew.
I guess the logical thing would have been to talk about it, to try and understand what was happening to us, but the truth was I didn't want to know. I could deal with the odd bout of possessiveness and anger better than I could deal with the idea of conversing with someone I hated so truly.
That is the biggest truth in the whole sorry mess, that I really do hate Malfoy, that I may very well hate him more than I hate Voldemort.
We have nothing in common, we hold entirely contrasting views about several important things, we come from totally different backgrounds and even our appearances contrast. We were not made to get along. The bickering, the rivalry, none of it is forced, faked to cover up for some other, nicer emotion. Everything is genuine.
As far as I know he has only ever made one slip, only once made any effort to act on the other side, the silly side of us. Fifth year, when he came to find me, sought me out. God, it meant more than it should have done, just to have him sitting beside me, believing in me. Something in me was comforted by his presence and he didn't need to say anything. Which was a bloody good job because we can't speak without fighting. Heck, as we've proved on more than one occasion we can even fight about who enters a room first. But that one day, that one moment, it was like Draco had taken over.
I kinda liked it.
Most of me hated it.
So we pretended it never happened.
And yes, the past tense is deliberate because I've spectacularly fucked things up now haven't I? No one is going to believe that I hate the prat, I mean I threatened my best friend, sent waves of magic around which freaked out most of the castle, claimed him and oh yes, the piece de resistance, I healed him. And sorry, but where the HELL did that one come from?
I am getting more powerful but sometimes I wonder if any of it is connected to him. And what it means if it is.
I like my life, amazingly enough, and I like it as it is. Ron and Hermione as my best friends, Sirius and Remus my surrogate parents, Voldemort trying and failing to kill me (I really like the failing part of that) and Malfoy as my enemy.
For six years I've created a life I like and everyone had their place within it. Enemy, friend, parents. I don't want it to change but I when Hermione gives me that look or I replay how I found Remus and Snape in my mind I know that things are going to change.
And I can't see it being for the good.
END CHAPTER TWENTY TWO