But Madame Pomfrey was of no help at all. "I'm sorry," she said, "but there's nothing I can do."
Draco's stomach dropped. "Nothing?"
She shook her head slowly. "I've never even heard of the spell that did this, so I don't know how to fix it."
"There's got to be something you can do!"
She looked down her nose at him. "Would you rather be bald?"
By the time Draco's hair had returned to normal, it was almost time for the Christmas holidays. They were only one night away. Draco was staying at Hogwarts this time, as his father was 'busy' so there was no need to be at the Manor to try (however much in vain) to protect his mother.
After dinner, he was approached by Crabbe and Goyle, both of them looking overly pleased with themselves. "What are you two so happy about?" he asked them.
Before either of them could even open their mouths to reply, Alexas came storming up.
Draco sighed. "What is it now McDougal?" he drawled wearily.
"You know damn well what it's about!" she shouted, pushing him hard. "If you've got something to say, say it to my face instead of sending your two pet gorillas here." she rounded on Crabbe and Goyle. "And you two! I bet you feel real manly after threatening one girl! You're all such IDIOTS!" Without even waiting for a reaction, she walked off, still muttering under her breath.
"What was that all about?" Draco asked his cronies quietly. His tone was dangerous, even the dull brains of Crabbe and Goyle couldn't fail to miss that.
"We– we just told her to leave you alone or there'd be trouble." Crabbe stammered.
"And you think I'm incapable of handling her myself?" his tone of voice still deadly. "Next time you have a brilliant idea like that, ask me first, you brainless buffoons." He left too, pushing over a third year Ravenclaw on his way out.
Her yells rounded on the hall as Goyle looked bewilderedly at Crabbe. "What was that about?" Goyle asked. But Crabbe only shrugged. This was far too complicated for him, but so was tying his shoelaces sometimes. (Has anyone guessed that I don't like these two?)
Darkness. A black void full of pain and loneliness. The sound of his father's voice echoed throughout the emptiness. "Your initiation will come soon." His face filled the horizon, contorted with displeasure. "Do not fail me again."
That image dissolved, only to be replaced with his mother's downcast face, her eyes brimming with tears. "We all have to do things we don't want to. It's probably best if you just do as he wants."
Then a slightly younger version of himself appeared. "But I don't know if I can do that."
The ensuing answer haunted him, and it had one so for several years now. "You may have to. I'd rather that others died if it meant I didn't, wouldn't you? Do you want to die?"
Draco awoke with a gasp, drenched with sweat. Freezing, he strained his ears for any noises. Hearing only the muted sounds of sleep, his dread of someone discovering his weakness subsided. Letting his head fall into his hands, he wept silently in the darkness.
Next he knew there were a pair of arms wrapped around his neck and a cheek pressed against his own. "Oh Draco, please don't cry." Alexas whispered as her tears mixed with his.
"You really are crazy. You're the one crying." He muttered as he surreptitiously wiped his other cheek with the back of his hand.
"Oh come on!" She said hotly, pulling back to look him directly in the eyes. "Your nightmare was so bad that it woke me up, and I could feel your pain all the way from my dorm." Her expression softened. "What was it that hurt you that badly?"
Draco thought for a moment that the question had almost sounded like she cared, but brushed it aside and asked one of his own. "What do you mean that you felt my pain?"
"Ah. I suppose there's nothing to be done here but to tell the truth. I'm an empath." From the look on her face, Draco could tell that she hadn't wanted to tell him, and was now awaiting his judgment.
"An empath?" A thought clicked into place within Draco's mind. "So that's how you were able to tell when I was lying."
She nodded. "Yep. At any one time, I can sense the emotions of about half the castle, or at least what the general trend is. That made first year really fun." She paused and shrugged wistfully, then went on. "Of course, at that stage, I could only recognize the baser emotions. Love, hate, fear, anger, that sort of thing."
Draco was intrigued. His curiosity overrode even the terrible memories of the dream. "So it's not all automatic?"
She shook her head regretfully. "No luck there. I had to painstakingly learn what all the others were like. My mum taught me." He voice filled with respect and awe. "You should see her; she has such total command of her power. I still have to be concentrating to be accurate."
"So what if you're not concentrating?" Draco asked, his mind afire.
"Well," she paused thoughtfully. "Sometimes everything just runs together in one big blur, and other times I don't even notice anything around me." She shrugged. "It all depends that's going on in my head at the time. Now," she said, fixing him with a piercing stare. "I've shared my secret, time for you to share yours. What was that dream of yours about?"
Draco looked away. Then he started to speak softly. "My father's always just assumed I'll become a Death Eater, he doesn't care whether I want to or not."
"Do you want to though?" She didn't quite know why, but all of a sudden this was incredibly important to her.
Draco chuckled, but there was no happiness in it. "When I was ten, I told him he could stuff it, I'd had enough. I wouldn't have cared if he'd killed me then. You know what he said?"
"What?" she whispered. She was crying again. Draco's pain was so intense, it was nearly killing her.
Draco bit his lip and took a deep breath. "He said if I disobeyed him, he wasn't going to kill me outright. He'd lock me and my mother up, and let us both starve to death."
"But she's his wife!" she hissed incredulously.
"Like that matters. He doesn't care about anyone or anything. Just power and how he can get more."
Alexas rested her hand on Draco's and squeezed it. "I'm so sorry, I didn't know."
Draco returned the pressure. "You're the only one outside of my family that does."
"Truce?" she asked tenuously.
His head whipped around. "What?"
"Truce." She said much more decidedly, extending her hand. "I thought you might like a real friend."
Without hesitating, Draco grasped her hand firmly and shook it to show that he agreed.
"Right, it's all settled then." She shivered, thought about it for a moment, then jumped under the covers.
"What the hell are you doing?" Draco shrank away from her as if her insanity was contagious.
"It's warm in here and cold out there. Duh!" this was said as if it were the most obvious fact in the world.
"You CANNOT stay in here."
"Fine then." she stood up haughtily. "But these are coming with me." She whipped the blankets off the bed and wrapped them around herself, leaving Draco sitting there in his boxers, dazed.
It took him a few moments to process this, but soon he was dashing off after her. When he got down to the bottom of the girls' dorm, he prepared himself for the task of pulling himself up by the handrail. But it was unnecessary as his blankets hit him right in the face.
Alexas smiled down from the top of the staircase. "No more bad dreams, okay?"
As she turned and shut the door, Draco wondered whether or not this new truce was a good or a bad thing.
A/N: Ah, but will this truce last? I'm not telling... Well obviously I will later, but I'm not telling you right this second so nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah! (Sorry. Got a major dose of the night-crazies. Please R R!)