BEHIND LOCKED DOORS
WARNING: Rated R for profanity and homosexual relations of the incestuous kind. But this actually a story with a plot, not plotless homosexual porn. Flames only keep me warm in winter.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Once again, I have had quite a delay between my updates, and I apologise as my life and my schooling (HSC and trials can bite my bum!) have a nasty habit of getting in the way. But here's the new chapter, and guess what? I officially finish school on September 24th!!! But then I have to do some studying, my HSC, sign out of school, my Year 12 formal, and I'm moving in with my Dad, so until sometime in November, my updates might be absent until I have free time once more. My apologies for those who are annoyed by this!!!
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: Changes
The first few weeks back at Hogwarts were pretty much uneventful as far as Draco could see. Classes came and went as they normally did, the Gryffindors were as irritable and unlikeable as they normally were, but he had begun to notice changes among his fellow Slytherins, himself included.
The first change he had noticed had been on a Thursday, probably around two or three in the morning. Once more, insomnia had taken a hold of his body, so Draco had decided to go and sit by the fireplace in the common room, figuring that maybe he could be lulled to sleep by the heat of the enchanted fire."You can't sleep either?" Said a voice as he entered the room. It was Pansy Parkinson, sitting on the Persian rug near the fireplace, her knees drawn up to her chest. He plodded over to where she was sitting and sat down next to her.
"Obviously not." She smiled.
"So what's keeping you up, Dragon-boy?" Draco couldn't help but smile at Pansy's use of her old nickname for him. He shrugged.
"I guess you call it a culmination of cigarettes, schoolwork and too much thinking."
"What's on your mind?" Draco frowned, a fine line cutting between his pale brows.
"A lot of things, to be perfectly honest. Mostly I've been thinking about what's going to happen to me once I graduate from Hogwarts. I know Voldemort is expecting my father to bring me to him to receive the Dark Mark, and I've been worrying about it because my father sent me an owl during the week saying that Voldemort may want to initiate me before I graduate instead of on my eighteenth birthday."
"You're excited?" Draco shook his head, and as he did, noticed a flash of surprise in his friend's eyes. "But isn't this what you've always dreamed of, Draco? You've been talking about this since we started Hogwarts. Don't tell me you've suddenly decided to become a Mud-blood lover." He snorted.
"Not a chance. I hate them as much as I ever have, Pansy, and I shall celebrate the day of their annihilation as much as any Death Eater, but Voldemort is a failure, and a dangerous, foolish one at that. He promises us so much, but have we ever really received anything that he promised? My father has blindly followed him from the age of sixteen, and all he has ever gotten in return for his unwavering loyalty is nearly three decades of pain and misery. He nearly went mad in Azkaban, and I don't recall Voldemort ever attempting to rescue any of his followers that have been to Azkaban. He demands our souls, and more often than not, our lives. But do we ever receive anything in return apart from a life of pain, misery and never-ending hard work?"
"I see your point, Draco, but it's not as if you have a choice in the matter, do you?" Pansy's voice was soft. "I suppose it might be a little consolation for you to know that you aren't the only one who feels that way. A lot of us are starting to see Voldemort in a new light ever since his demise and eventual resurrection, and not just those in our generation."
"I know…my father is one of those people." Pansy pursed her full lips thoughtfully.
"You know, Draco, maybe it's just me talking, but it seems to me that your relationship with your father has gone through some fairly dramatic changes since the beginning of this year. You had almost no relationship with him at all before we came to Hogwarts, you seemed to idolize and fear him simultaneously up until sometime until our Third Year, you went through phases of loving him dearly one minute and despising him the next through the Fourth and Fifth, and now you have a relationship with him that most of us would kill to have with our parents."
I don't think you would be saying that if you could see what we have behind locked doors… Draco thought to himself. He possessed the logic to keep that thought to himself, choosing to just shrug.
"We've all gone through our own sorts of changes, Pansy."
"Hmm…I guess so." She lifted a hand to rake through her ebony locks, and it was in that moment that Draco saw something on her hand glint from the light that was coming from the fireplace.
"What's that?" He asked, nodding towards the hand. She raised an eyebrow.
"Are you referring to this?" She held out her hand to him. On the third finger of her right hand was a thin platinum ring with a nicely sized marquise-cut diamond as it's main feature, flanked by tiny emeralds. "I've been wearing it all week, you know, and you haven't noticed it at all. Funny, huh?"
"Where did you get it?" Pansy smirked.
"I think you mean 'Whom did you get it from', Draco. It's my engagement ring." Draco's brows knitted together.
"You're engaged? To whom?"
"Marcus Flint, can you believe it? He asked me to marry him just after Christmas. It was all very sudden, and a bit strange. I only got my ring at the beginning of the week though. He took me shopping for it during the winter break so I could find one that I liked, but we couldn't find the right one for me in any shops. Then I came across this one in a Catalogue from Ireland and fell in love with it, so he promised to order it for me."
"Well…congratulations, Pansy." Draco said warmly, giving the petite Slytherin a genuine smile. "Does anyone else here know about your engagement yet?" She nodded.
"Mili knows, but that's about it. She's promised not to say anything because we wanted to keep it a secret until we can get all our friends together and announce it. I'm thinking that maybe we can all get together at Hogsmeade next week and then he and I can tell you all together."
"That sounds like a good idea, and you don't have to worry, I won't say a word either." Draco finished his sentence with a yawn, realizing that his insomnia had finally started to go away. "Well it looks like you're going to be left out here alone, Pans. I'm off to bed now, and congratulations again."
"Thank you, and sweet dreams, dragon-boy."
Draco fell asleep pretty much the moment his head touched his pillow, and slept a dreamless sleep until the seven o' clock morning bell went off to signify that it was time for them to awaken for yet another day if schooling. He noted, with mild interest, that his friends were still ignoring Blaise Zabini. The exotic youth had become a pariah in his own house, and things didn't seem to be changing for him.
They did however; appear to be changing for one Gregory Goyle, who seemed to be in unusually high spirits as of late. Not only did he seem to have a permanent smile plastered on his normally blank face, he had also started to take more care with his appearance. Draco and Theo walked in on him shaving in the bathroom and whistling a Weird Sisters song; much to their surprise. Goyle normally wasn't a morning person at all.
"You get laid or something last night, Greg?" Theo piped up, a sly grin on his face. Goyle ignored him and continued to shave away at the lather on his face, still whistling merrily.
"What are you so happy about, Goyle?" Draco asked, grabbing a towel to go into the showers. "Been stealing from the kitchens again?" The only reply he received was Goyle sending a rude hand gesture in his direction with his free hand before splashing his face with what looked like aftershave and exiting the room. He was already fully dressed.
By the time Draco and Theo had made it downstairs, most of the other Slytherins were already at the table, digging into plates piled with toast, waffles, pancakes, and for those who preferred it, bowls of cereal. As per usual, Draco found a seat between Crabbe and Pansy, while Theo took his usual place next to his twin, Lucas.
"Morning, Dragon boy. Pass the coffee jug." Was Pansy's greeting to him. Draco obliged and passed the heavy, white jug over to her along with the plate that contained the milk and sugar. Pansy rarely ate breakfast, but was a self-confessed coffee addict. Draco then proceeded to help himself to the hot, buttered toast on the platter in the middle of the table.
It only seemed like seconds later that the bell signifying the end of breakfast and the beginning of the first class rang, and the room began to rapidly empty of both teachers and students. Draco walked with Pansy, Lucas and Theo to Transfiguration.
"What do you think we'll be doing today?" Lucas pondered out loud. His three companions shrugged.
"Maybe we'll get to change our desks into pigs or something weird like that." Pansy suggested.
"Speaking of weird," Draco piped up "Did anybody notice that Goyle has been acting rather strangely ever since the semester started?"
"Well that depends…what do you mean by 'rather strangely'?" Lucas asked. Draco shrugged as they came to the classroom door.
"He's been taking extra care in his appearance, you know, using hair gel and making sure his robes are perfect in the morning, he disappears sometimes during the afternoon and evening with no explanation, and Theo and I found him humming of all things in the bathroom this morning, and we all know how grouchy he normally is in the morning." As Draco finished his little rant, he noticed Lucas and Pansy exchange a brief, almost knowing glance with each other.
"Hang on a moment." Draco grabbed the two of them by the backs of their robes. "You two both know something I don't know. Come on, what are you two hiding from me?" They both sent him almost identical smirks.
"Are you telling us that you haven't figured it out? Haven't you even noticed the clues? It's so obvious!" Pansy's smirk widened rapidly. Draco responded with a look that seemed to be a mixture of annoyance and cluelessness, and the two Slytherins began to laugh at him.
"What? What is it?" Draco demanded, feeling the growing frustration at being left out. Lucas grinned.
"I figured it out in the first week back, Draco. Goyle has a girlfriend, that's why he's been going through such a change from the Goyle that we've all become used to knowing."
"You don't say?" Lucas and Pansy both nodded.
"I'll tell you more later on, if you want." Pansy offered as she sat down near the back of the classroom and patted the seat next to her. Draco sat down next to her, while Lucas took a seat in the row in front of them. The classroom then began to quickly fill up with a combination of Ravenclaw and Slytherin students as Professor McGonagall swept into the class and took her place up at the front of the room.
"Good morning, class. Today we shall be doing a particularly difficult form of transfiguration. I shall be teaching you all how to transfigure the eggs that Mr. Boot is passing out, into live chickens. To do this, you must do exactly as I do."
Giving her wand a diagonal flick, she said "Ovumus Pullus", and her egg was transfigured into a live, baby chicken. "I don't expect you to get it right on the first go or even today, but don't worry, I admit it is quite an advanced level of magic, and I have taken the liberty of making sure that we have spare eggs if anything goes wrong."
Soon, all of the students were intensely involved in trying to master this new form of transfiguration. Three of the Ravenclaws – One was Padma, and the other two were a boy and a girl that Draco couldn't remember the names of – got it right on the second try and proceeded to help out those that were near them. Lucas got it right on the third try and then proceeded to turn around to face Draco and Pansy while swapping back and forth between egg and chicken and smirking and sticking out his tongue in an unusual display of immaturity - for him - as they both continued to get it wrong.
Goyle and Millicent were sitting in the same row as Lucas, but on the other side of the room, and both valiantly trying to get their eggs to transfigure into chickens. Draco couldn't help but wonder why either one of them had even bothered to continue with Transfiguration, as neither one of them had ever been very good at it, but then, it was one of the only compulsory subjects for the sixth and seventh year, including Potions and DADA.
He couldn't help but also notice the unusual body language between the two, as Draco had always been good at reading into a person's body language. There was just something about the way they were sitting just a little too close together, and the way in which they each seemed so focused on getting their spells right. Once or twice, either their forearms or their hands would brush against each other, and Draco also noted the short, intense looks they gave to each other when they thought nobody was looking. It wasn't hard for him to put the pieces together.
"Would I be right in assuming that Gregory Goyle's reason for his strange behaviour as of late is none other than Millicent Bulstrode?" He whispered to Pansy when McGonagall was busy with a student up the front of the class.
"Now what do you think, dragon boy?" She whispered back, a cross between a smirk and a smile on her lips. She knew that he was asking a rhetorical question.
By the end of the lesson, at least half of the class had managed to succeed, though Pansy, Millicent and Goyle were not among them, but none of them had really been that disappointed. After all, it was a difficult task, and they each had other tasks in which they did much better.
As the group of sixth-year Slytherins began to split into smaller groups to head off to their separate classes, none of them had been even slightly aware of the venomous glare that one particular Slytherin outcast had been sending their way throughout the entire lesson.