My Guardian Angel: Chapter III
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: 'Should I lie?' he thought to himself, knowing it was a stupid question in general. He knew he shouldn't, he knew it was a bad habit, but he had to. It wasn't even a choice anymore. It was just a requirement.
Pairings: Possible Draco/Harry — if so, very, very light.
Warnings: Fighting (aww poor Drake is hated and then hurt… like normal he is though! Every movie, Tom is somehow beaten up more or less!), angst
Author Notes: I didn't want this to center around Drakie Wakie but that's how it turned out. And oh my god, did I just write 'Drakie Wakie'?! Plus, what's the deal with people calling him Drake? It's just a nickname I guess; I picked it up too, I'm sorry to say. Jokaro (ha, used it Haley!) should really write 'Drake' from now on, and also write her name as 'Jokaro' as it makes her sound cooler. And, I'm not going to make up chapter names anymore. Sorry, but it's just too much work and they all suck anyways.
Betaing Notes: Haley is really busy lately and so she's not able to help me beta as often. We went over like a page and a half but that's it, and it's extremely hard for me to beta my own work as my mind wanders and I usually have to reread a sentence over five times to actually understand it, then another five to know if there are mistakes or not, plus a few more times sometimes, and I still miss a LOT. I'm not kidding. So, since we haven't fully betaed this, please excuse any mistakes and write them in a review, so I can fix them.
A blonde boy of seventeen with walked down the hallways slowly, not truly sure if he wanted to go back to the Slytherin Common Room. Everyone would be asking how his summer went, and unlike last year, he didn't know if he was actually up to lying.
But Malfoys were supposed to know how to lie; to like to lie. They were supposed to find fun in seeing others believe them, only to get their hopes crushed when they learned the truth.
A while back, only a few months ago, he used to love it. He loved to watch people get their hopes shattered or learn false truths only to get themselves in trouble. But now, it just seemed so plain and boring for some reason. The feeling of rapture he used to get was now so lost.
'Should I lie?' he thought to himself, knowing it was a stupid question in general. He knew he shouldn't, he knew it was a bad habit, but he had to. It wasn't even a choice anymore. It was just a requirement.
Slowly, his mind drifted to Potter and his friends. The feeling of loathe he had once had wasn't even there, just a small pang of annoyance – a simple little stitch in his side that never left. But, he knew he should have been almost… thankful to the Boy-Who-Lived.
The summer between his fifth and sixth year was the most hectic thing he had ever gone through. With his father locked away, the Ministry had taken everything they could get their greedy fingers on. Every inch of property, every piece of furniture, every knut that was hidden under a couch or in a corner, forgotten.
And at first, mother and child had been very angry and filed complaint after complaint. But after a few weeks, they were tired from each raid, from each unwelcomed guest, from each day that ticked by. At first, the main question was why. By the end of the summer, it was clear to them and to everyone else. Simply because they could. No other reason was needed, just because they could.
Everyone knew almost all of the Ministry were greedy bastards. No one even tried to deny it anymore, not even the Ministry itself.
But of course, he had come up with abundant lies ranging from how Fudge barely got his hand on a knut before he left from fear of the angry Malfoys, all the way to how Draco himself had kicked him out and how he had seen tears in the older man's eyes.
Even if everyone who cared enough to listen to his nonsense stories pretended like they believed, it was far from that. Of course Malfoys would be able to trick the keenest of wizards, but the shadows in his eyes and the robes that appeared to be from the year before tipped them off.
Even so, it had been almost pleasant. Unlike years gone by, the summer had been quiet when people weren't taking things. A morsel of serenity always lingered in the corners of the large house just because his father wasn't there. That meant no yelling, no fighting, and certainly no being woken up at all hours of the night to be taken to see certain people that would try and buy him over, telling him how great it was to be a Death Eater. Plus, his mother was almost always home.
His mother had never actually been home, with one excuse or another. Even if his father was too blind in basking in his ego to realize, Draco knew. He knew that his mother must have been cheating with someone, yet he didn't care.
How could one care about their parents cheating, when their parents didn't even attempt to play the role?
It was common knowledge that most Purebloods were assigned lovers when they were born, like it was just a simple class project and not the rest of their life. And it was also common knowledge that within a few years of marriage, most were cheating.
So when his father was finally gone, it meant his mother was around more often than not. Evenings were spent reading in the study while she wrote, and a comfortable silence lingered in the air between them. It was almost enjoyable.
When he arrived home, though, for the holidays between sixth and seventh year, the hopes of another peaceful summer were shattered.
As soon as he walked into the house, he saw his father sitting in the parlour with a smile on his face. The smile, a smile Draco had never seen before, still sent shudder down his spin for some reason.
"Of course he would be home. I don't know why I didn't think of it before. Since those bloody dementors joined Voldemort's side, and those blasted wizards from the Ministry were put in charge, he could escape and stay hidden since the Manor is like Hogwarts with more secret rooms than one could count," he sneered at the empty hall.
But something had been different about his father. It was almost like a shred of his sanity was gone, and not unlike the past, he had began to threaten Draco about what would happen if the teen didn't join the Death Eaters. Something had been different in his voice though, and the threats become worse while being held with such demeanor that it made Draco not doubt his father's threats. Before, there was no real reason to worry as the threats were always the same and so frequent but they became increasingly more harsh while a look that terrified nearly everyone grew in Lucius' eyes.
Draco couldn't help but shudder as he remembered but a small sound stopped his thoughts. Weird noises were coming from a statue off to his left.
"No, that's not the statue," he whispered to himself as he walked behind it only to almost scream at what he saw. There was Potter, laying on the ground while he seemed to be having a seizure. Making hissing noises and mumbling out words that were too hard to understand, his body trembled and shook in such a manner that Draco was actually worried.
He stared at the other boy for a few moments then leaned down to try and pick him up, knowing Harry needed to get out of the hall, but the boy seemed to shake more violently whenever Draco came closer.
Finally, he had had enough. Taking out his wand and aiming it at the boy, he whispered, "Petrificus Totalus!" All he could hope for was that no one heard him.
The raven-haired teen became stiff as a bored, and seizing his feet, Draco managed to drag him towards the Slytherin Common Room.
It wasn't as if he had a choice – everyone would think he had done this to Harry.
And maybe it was his own fault. At the beginning of sixth year, he was still coming to terms with himself as he didn't have a father telling him what to be, but to continue keeping his image up, he had to be twice as harsh as normal on Harry.
Maybe it was because he knew he didn't hate the boy anymore but couldn't let others know, or maybe he just didn't want himself to fully know. Whatever the reason may have been, he was almost sorry, as Malfoys were never to be sorry for anything.
As the blonde dragged Harry through the entrance and grunted something resembling, "You know, the desserts laying in front of you at dinner doesn't mean you need to be like Weasel and eat them all," a shriek and a groan sounded from behind him.
"Draco, we had orders and were so close to finishing him off! We wanted to practice on mice and then were going to kill him!" Blaise Zabini yelled.
Turning his head, Draco saw Blaise and Pansy with their wands out, a cage of mice next to them and several dead ones on the ground.
"Well… you hate him more than anyone else, don't you? Your father probably taught you how to use it. So just kill him off," said Pansy as she pointed to the wand still in Draco's hand.
He hesitated for a little while, not really sure what to do. 'If I don't do it, then my father will hear of it or they'll get mad at me. And the only bad part about being a Slytherin is getting other Slytherins mad but I don't want to go to Azkaban for the rest of my life – or kill Harry,' he thought to himself, remembering to add how he didn't want to kill Harry as an afterthought.
"Err… I want to do this in private," Draco said, then muttered, "Finite Incantatem" under his breath. After the spell wore off, he picked Harry up, but luckily he wasn't shaking anymore, and put the boy over his shoulder. "I'll do it in my room." Without even waiting for any approvals, the blonde managed to get up to his room without dropping Harry or himself down the stairs.
It was only then he realized how truly grateful he was that his father had pulled many strings to get him his own room when he was first year.
Laying Harry down on the green and silver four-poster king bed, he ran and quickly slammed his door.
But outside, unknown to Draco, Pansy and Blaise lay on the floor while gazing under the door. Since Pansy had learned a long while ago on how to know everything that was going on from inside Draco's room whenever he brought girls in or when he went in there mad or anything of the like, so the two watched the blonde pace back and forth across the room.
"He's bloody freaking Potter! Two quick words, and then throwing his body into the forest and everything will be okay! But… I don't want to spend time in Azkaban, even if it's run by wizards now," he muttered to himself, continuing to pace. "And what has Potter ever really done to me? Nothing. Well, okay, he didn't shake my hand but I almost have to admit that I deserved it. I was… sort of a prat then, and after that, I've given him a lot of reasons to hate me. Mostly making fun of him and his friends but… it's so bloody hard not to!" He yelled and kicked a chair then looked back over at Harry. But then he began to wonder exactly why the two had been getting ready to kill stupid Potter.
"Stupid gits. I really despise Death Nibblers…" he grumbled to himself. 'Death Nibblers' was his own little nickname (that a few other Slytherins were using nowadays) to describe people who were too young to become full-fledged Death Eaters, yet they still did small tasks. But this wasn't anywhere near small…
Blaise and Pansy exchanged grim looks, only to go back to watching.
"I don't want to kill him! And I'm not going to!" Draco suddenly yelled then began to walk towards to door so hastily that Blaise and Pansy barely had time to run into the seventh year boy's dormitory.
Giving a quick glance around, he was too worried and quick to notice the door with the sign 'SEVENTH YEARS' was slightly ajar. He turned around and pointed his wand at his room, said a spell so no one could enter or leave and then ran off for Snape's room.
When he ran out of the entrance to the common room, he was almost certain he heard someone say something about the spell being too powerful but he ignored it as he ran around a corner, narrowly missing three fifth year Slytherin girls who said something that usually would have made Draco grin, but he just ignored it and kept running. Almost missing the next corner, he slid while having to use his hand to balance him slightly but the Bloody Baron surprised him and Draco quickly collided with a large statue.
Snape walked from his room, looking annoyed with the fact that someone was making so much racket but when he saw Draco sitting on the ground and clutching his head, the robes behind him swung back and forth as he walked quickly to the boy.
"What happened?" the Potions teacher asked as he helped Draco up. For once, his voice held barely any sneer in it, instead with a bit of worry.
"Blaise… Pansy… killing curse… Potter… my bedroom…" Draco said as he held his head. It was getting harder and harder to remember what happened, and the headache just got worse and worse but he tried to pay attention. Something was important but he couldn't remember what…
With a brow raised, Snape began to drag Draco's arm towards the hospital wing. "I think you hit your head too hard, Mister Malfoy. Come on, let's go to the hospital wing."
Suddenly remembering, Draco yelled, "Hospital wing! Potter! Damn it, come on!" He began to run towards his room at such a fast pace that Snape followed him as he was worried about the teen's health.
After skidding around another corner, he thought in frustration, 'I need to buy sneakers to wear and not these damn slippery shoes…' From watching Potter and Granger, plus a large assortment of other Muggle-born/Muggle-raised children, he learned how much better sneakers were than shoes but could never wear any because of his father.
And as he slipped around another corner, he nearly screamed that he needed sneakers but stopped in front of the Slytherin Common Room entrance.
"Parsletongue," he said simply and the door concealed in the wall slid open.
Student followed by teacher who was still thinking the other had hit his head too hard ran towards Draco's room. When they got to it, there was pounding on the door coming from the inside.
"LET ME OUT!" Harry yelled from inside.
Draco glanced at Snape. "You do not tell him I found him. Tell him… whatever you want. Just that I had nothing to do with this," he hissed out and stood by the wall. "If you do, I'm pretty sure my father knows enough… information to get you locked away in Azkaban for years."
Snape's already pallid expression paled even more and then looked at Draco as if him standing there doing nothing would look skeptical.
Seeming to get the hint, the blonde yelled, "What the hell is Potter doing in my room?! And why can't I get in?!" he shouted and kicked the door rather hard.
Having to fight back a small look of happiness at the look of pain on Draco's face from kicking the door too hard, he looked at Draco. Once the other had taken the spell off, Snape aimed his wand at the door and said a bogus spell, then quickly opened the door.
Draco glared in from behind Snape. "What are you doing in my room? I'll probably have to replace everything now as it has your Mudblood(1) and Muggle-lover essence on it!"
Snape by now was almost sure that Draco had been just acting every time he yelled at Harry but entered. "Yes, I would like an explanation."
"How do you think I know?! I was in the halls and then something weird happened where I… oh, you don't even care about that! I passed out and found myself in here! Happy?!" Harry shouted, his anger flaring like fire in his eyes.
"The story sounds quite… ludicrous to me, but even so, you are going to the hospital wing now. And ten points from Gryffindor for you being rude, and then another ten for you trespassing into the Slytherin Common Room," Snape said.
Draco cast a glance that almost read 'he doesn't deserve that' but the small movement of Snape's lips made him think that the elder of them had just given the points back.
Harry was about to protest but as Pansy hastily walked by, he collapsed to the ground, once again passing out.
With a curse, Snape used his wand to have Harry float in mid air. "You need to go to the hospital wing also," he told Draco and headed off.
The next day as the sun slowly sat on the castle, Draco sat at a desk in his room while tapping a piece of parchment with a feather.
"Should I?" he whispered to himself. It was one thing for them to be 'Death Nibblers,' but another thing for them to actually plan to kill Potter.
"Stupid Potter. Always getting attention and somehow dragging me into it!" He shouted and then dipped the pointed end of the feather into ink.
Rather hastily, he wrote out on the paper about everything – how he found Potter in the hall, how he took him back to the Slytherin Common Room, how he found Pansy and Blaise performing the killing curse on mice with every intention of using it on Potter, which he figured was the reason why Harry was having the seizures(2). When he got to the bottom though, he wasn't sure how to sign it.
"Blaise and Pansy will tell everyone everything but they may not be believed. No one will think anything bad about me unless they saw it. If I write my name and someone finds it other than Dumbledore, they'll know what's going on…"
After hitting his head until he got a headache with a nearby book, he slowly wrote:
Even though you probably know who I am as you seem to know everything (which is quite annoying),
Anonymous
Happy with the way the letter looked, the boy stood and trotted off towards the owlery.
Once he was there, he strapped the letter to a common barn owl. A nip at his ear and a bit of weight on his shoulder told him that his snow-white with splatters and lines of black eagle owl, Midneot, was currently resting on him.
"I want to use Midneot," he grumbled to no one but himself as his bird continued to nip at his ear affectionately.
He felt guilty not letting her take the letter, as she loved to please him by delivering letters whenever possible, yet he had to use a common owl. As he told the barn owl to go to Dumbledore, he realized he had to demean himself or someone would find out, but it still wasn't right in his eyes. He was a Malfoy!
Midneot gave Draco a hoot of confusion as the other owl flew off that only made him feel worse.
"Sorry but someone would see. I'm going to go to bed, and I promise to use you tomorrow and give you a ton of treats, okay?"
Another hoot told Draco all was fine so he watched her fly up with the other owls, sitting next to a pure, snow-white owl that almost seemed to glare at Draco(3).
Giving a last glance at the snow-white owl, he knew it was familiar but shook it off and went to his dorm for the night.
In the early morning, Draco, as newly-appointed team captain, had wanted to talk to the remaining Quidditch team and walked to wake up Blaise.
The year before, the boy had joined the team as a chaser, so when Draco didn't find him in the seventh year boys' dorm, he wondered where the other was.
A mumble of words sounded from his left and he turned to look at a certain bed.
"Leave the damn room. It's still dark out!"
"Where's Blaise?" Draco asked but the sound of snoring angered him, so he walked over and shook the boy awake. "Where's Blaise?" he repeated.
The boy, Ian Jones, groaned and tried to cover his head with the blankets but Draco held them down and used Lumos to shine light in his face. "I think he got kicked out. Snape came up, got all his stuff together and left. Now leave!" he yelled, throwing his hands around and managing to hit Draco away then promptly fell back asleep.
Stunned, Draco stood there for a moment but then walked to wake up Crabbe and Goyle. But he froze again, only a few feet away from his cronies' beds.
'If he got kicked out, then so did Pansy. There goes two chasers. Since we needed to get another chaser and keeper this year…' his thoughts stopped and he quickly yelled, "DAMN IT!" at the top of his lungs.
Ian, Goyle and Crabbe all toppled out of their beds to look around and finally stare at Draco with wide eyes.
"Sorry," he muttered out and left. For the first time in his life, he felt almost guilty… one could even say he felt sorry. But he was both a Malfoy, and they deserved it… right?
The day went by very slowly – too slowly for Draco's liking. Crabbe and Goyle seemed to be avoiding him, and many of the Slytherins were ignoring him or saying things behind his back, stopping only when he came into view. Quite a few times he had heard traitor…
Finally, Draco found Crabbe and Goyle in Potions, and walked up to them, wondering who he would sit with today. The two though had different plans and sat down in the two seats, leaving Draco standing with a blink.
"Err… what is with you two?" he asked.
The two fidgeted around a tiny bit then Goyle looked at him. "I… we can't talk to you anymore. We're banned, and we're both taken off the Quidditch team until we graduate or you quit."
Crabbe nodded, with a muttered, "Sorry."
Unable to move, the blonde stood there with wide eyes then glared. "You're lying."
They both shook their heads and Crabbe handed Draco a letter that simply said:
You are not allowed to see that traitor, Malfoy's son, ever again. This ban includes
quidditch, I heard he is captain now. If you don't listen to me, you will be punished most severely.
Draco stared at it for a few moments then looked at Goyle who was clutching a letter to him. Ripping the letter out of his old friend's hand, he read over it. Unlike Crabbe's, it was much longer and explained how Draco had stopped Blaise and Pansy from complete ling the Dark Lord's orders, how Lucius was now in trouble, and also how any Death Eater's family who's child even so much as gave Draco a second glance would be given the Cruciatus curse, or worse.
Why did everyone hate him? In all truth, he had done the right thing, but it was making him feel terrible.
The day continued slowly until lunch rolled around. He knew Blaise and Pansy must have told their parents, and maybe even some of the students too because as he walked by the Slytherin table to get to an empty seat, a third year hissed, "Traitor," and all he felt and saw were glares.
Several people told him the seat next to them was taken when he tried to sit down, and one person even pushed him so hard he fell to the ground. Ready to punch the person, a few other people who seemed to be as big as Crabbe or Goyle walked up, ready to hit him when he made the first move.
Finally, he sat at the end of the table while staring at his shepherd pie. Twenty minutes ago, he had been starving but now he felt like his breakfast may be ready to join his lunch on the table.
'I did the right thing. If I didn't tell Dumbledore, someone would have gotten killed… So why do I feel so crummy?' Looking up at the staff table, he saw Dumbledore talking to Flitwick.
Dumbledore turned his head to look at Draco for a moment, and it was only then that the teen noticed the twinkle of happiness in his eyes seemed to be gone. But before he could completely check, Dumbledore turned to talk to McGonagall about something involving peppermint.
Worn out from getting yelled at by various Slytherin students all day, Draco almost missed noticing how Harry hadn't been at a class or meal all day.
He walked into his room and shut the door while forgetting to lock it, and took off his shoes.
"Stupid people," he grumbled under his breath and started to pull off his robe, completely angered at everyone in Slytherin – especially Snape, he seemed to only be there when he wasn't getting pestered.
The door was suddenly thrown open, and in came about twelve angry peers. Twenty-four hands grabbed at his body, pushing and pulling him out of the room while he tried in vain to get away.
"Stop! Get off!" he kept yelling but was pushed down the stairs.
Tumbling rather ungracefully down, he hit every part of his body at least once only to fall flat on his face on the floor of the Slytherin Common Room.
He pushed himself up, but someone roughly pushed him down again.
"I can't believe you, you traitor," a voice sounding like Ian hissed out, and then the person moved.
Draco scrambled to his feet and realized he had a bleeding lip. A glance at Crabbe and Goyle showed him no help would be given as they were standing just out of reach and gazing at the floor.
"You get out. You're banned from Slytherin," growled out Millicent Bulstrode.
Eyes wide, he yelled, "Where am I supposed to stay then?!"
With a smirk, Millicent said, "Well, you love to stick up and protect those bloody Gryffindors. It's almost as if you are one."
"I am a Slytherin!" yelled Draco, but a punch to the eye forced him stumbling back towards the entrance.
"Get out!" several students yelled at once.
Knowing he had no help, and was vastly outnumbered, the blonde walked out of the room.
Hours later, he had wandered almost all of Hogwarts and was pretty sure he had blisters as his shoeless feet were aching.
He still walked the halls though, tired and in pain. Quite a few times, he had to jump out of the way into the shadows or hide behind a statue whenever he saw Mrs. Norris' shadow, or heard Filch's footsteps.
'When does that man sleep?' he thought to himself as he crawled out from behind a statue and headed up some changing staircases.
Portraits around him grunted or snored as he walked past, and as he bumped into the fifth suit of armor that hour, he growled and pulled out his wand.
With a simple mutter of, "Lumos," the hallway lit up so he headed down it.
But from lack of sleep, things were starting to get a bit blurry and he was starting to feel dizzy. Hand against the wall, he continued on, determined to find some corner or room he could sleep in since the annoying Slytherins had kicked him out.
The spell ended, and darkness encased him again. "Where am I?" he whispered out and staggered a bit, suddenly falling to the ground.
"Ow…" he grumbled and tried to stand again but fell, this time hitting his head rather harshly and knocking out.
Silver-blue eyes opening, he groaned but felt himself being dragged. Who was dragging him? It had been about four when he fell… who would be up? Filch wouldn't be dragging him…
Unable to move his head up from pain, he just stared at the dark ceiling and continued to be dragged. But who was dragging him? Who had the strength and wasn't even grunting?
Managing to lift his head up, he saw a black figure of a… large dog? It's mouth was around his leg, and before he could say anything, dizziness ran through his body and he passed out.
A hand began to shake him. Where was he? Why was he there? And more importantly, why the bloody hell did his head hurt so much?
"Dizzy…" he groaned out and felt someone shake him a bit more.
"Wake up!" a voice shouted. "You're too heavy to carry, and I want to know why you're here anyways!"
Who's voice was that? And why was it so familiar? It definitely wasn't a Slytherin… it was too nice to be a Slytherin.
A mumble escaped Draco's lips, and he guessed he asked where he was, because the voice answered, "Entrance to Gryffindor Tower."
Draco's eyes widened and dizziness overcame him so he closed his eyes again.
"Come on. A bump on your head can't be that bad. And why are you here? Figured a Malfoy would be in his nice comfy bed…" it taunted.
Angry coursing through his veins, his eyes shot open only to glare into emerald green ones.
"POTTER?!"
1 - Okay, don't exactly know/remember/actually care about James' side, but Draco said that Harry was a Mudblood because Lily was born to Muggles so, of course, he has some of his mother's Muggle-born blood in him.
2 - In all (most, whatever) of the books, if something relating to Voldemort happens, then Harry's scar burns. Well, I'm figuring if the killing curse was being performed close by (and he wasn't watching in horror like with Cedric), he would have things happen to him like his scar burning or even as far as passing out, so that's what I wrote.
3 - Bwahahaha I wuveth Hedwig
I know there are mistakes, but please just review!