Chapter 7
As challenging as the romantic entanglements of Gryffindor tower were, they were nothing compared to the formidable task of being friends with a Slytherin. It wasn't just Gryffindors who weren't keen on the idea. The entire house of Slytherin acted like I was trying to secretly poison them. I don't think it was so much that Draco was acting all that differently around them; it was just the whole idea of such a thing.
Actually, it's a lot tougher being friends in the wizarding world than in the Muggle world. At home, I could just pick up a telephone and call my Muggle friends. But there are no phones in the wizard world, and it's a bit of a nuisance trying to send messages between houses, in the same building, by owl. That meant if we wanted to talk to each other, we first had to find each other. If either of us was in our house common room, we had to figure out where the other house's entrance was (though we could tell each other that - albeit risking even more animosity from our fellow students) and then just loiter outside until we convinced someone to tell the other person we were waiting outside to see them. Not the most practical way of maintaining a friendship. Luckily, we had most of the same classes, so there was at least that for communicating with each other.
But an even greater challenge was trying to begin a romantic relationship with one person, a friendship with another person and still do everything else I normally did. Made for pretty full days. To his credit, Harry was very good about the whole thing. I'm sure he still wasn't too thrilled by my spending time with Draco, but as long as I tried not to let it interfere too much with us, he said nothing.
Draco and I had discovered that the Astronomy tower was usually pretty deserted, and even though students generally weren't supposed to be up there, as a Prefect it was okay for him to go. That kind of became the place we'd go to talk. Like I mentioned before, there isn't a lot of privacy in this place and no one wants to bare their soul with a lot of eavesdroppers around. It took awhile, but Draco finally opened up to me. I think he was being careful what he told me at first, until he could be certain that it really wasn't going to go any further. But when he did finally begin to tell me about his life, it made me want to weep for him.
Lucius Malfoy is never going to be made 'father of the year', not unless he buys the title like he does so much other stuff. All Draco's life he has been both verbally and physically abusive. His mother is pretty much useless to him. With her, his father always comes first and she lives and breathes by whatever Lucius says. IF Lucius isn't around, she pays some slight attention to her son, but mothering isn't her strong point, and she never made any effort to protect Draco from Lucius' abuse. And in one of the twisted little quirks of nature, Draco still has feelings for them. Well, mostly for his mother, but even at that he realizes she doesn't particularly love or care about him in return, though he so desperately wants and needs that. I think maybe he even used to love his father, but over the years it has turned from love to fear, and finally to hate. He can't seem to stop himself from trying to please his father, and much of his behavior is tied up in that, even while he knows deep down that nothing he can do will ever be enough to satisfy Lucius.
If I didn't have Harry in my life now, I'd be totally depressed after spending time with Draco. I always thought it was a shame I never knew my real parents, but I did have people who loved and cared about me. Then I met Harry and learned about the Dursleys, who are pretty awful in their own right, but then along comes Draco and completely shatters any illusion I may have had that being an orphan is the worst thing in the world. Sometimes having a 'family' IS worse.
There wasn't really anything I could do to make things better for Draco, but I think he was glad to at least have a sympathetic ear, finally. So he did a lot of talking, and I did a lot of listening. And I grew to hate his father almost as much as he did because of what he had done to his son.
Luckily for Draco, most of the Slytherins were still kind of afraid of him, even without Crabbe and Goyle dogging his every footstep. I wasn't so fortunate. I pretty much kept the Rebounding Spell on me during all my waking hours. Never could tell when one of them was going to try and sneak up behind me and curse me. I noticed they never dared try and take me head on. I managed to stay well enough surrounded to avoid any conflicts the first few weeks, but Crabbe and Goyle finally managed to find me in a deserted hallway. What they hadn't realized was that Draco had seen them following me from a good distance away and he knew that wasn't a good thing. Before he could get to us, the buffoons had made their lame attempt at cursing me. Probably because they did it at the same time, the force of it knocked me off my feet, but the Rebounding Spell held and flattened both of them with their own curse. My head had contacted with the stone floor, but luckily for them I wasn't knocked out, and Harry had seen Draco racing down the hall and followed him. It took both me and Harry to keep Draco from killing the two of them.
After that, I decided it was probably wise for Draco to know that Rebounding Spell as well. It wouldn't help much if those two goons tried to physically assault him, but at least they wouldn't be able to hex him when he wasn't looking. I taught it to him that very day.
My other big problem was Pansy Parkinson. She had always fancied herself as Draco's girlfriend. I'm pretty sure she knew Harry and I were a couple, but maybe she thought I was dating both of them. Or maybe he finally realized he didn't really care for her simpering and fawning all over him. He not only spent less time with her, he was less tolerant of her in general. And I got blamed. And maybe, in a way, it was my influence that had brought about the change in him that changed his relationship with her. She made it a point to insult and harass me at every opportunity.
Through all this, I ended up with an unexpected ally. I had never really gotten to know Ginny Weasley very well, but she occasionally hung around the four of us, and with her being on the Quidditch team with Ron and Harry, we had met several times. Granted, Draco was still obnoxious sometimes, but there was a big improvement in his behavior in general, and toward my friends in particular. They weren't 'friendly', but most verbal hostility had ceased and he had heeded my injunction that he avoid them if he couldn't get along with them. They seemed willing to do likewise. And that's where Ginny came in. Apparently, she put more stock in my opinion than I knew, because she decided she should try being friends with Draco also.
It was slow going at first. He didn't really trust her motives, especially with her being a Weasley and all. But Ginny's nothing if not persistent. And living with six older brothers, she knew how to deal with difficult males. She first approached him in the library where he and I were working on a Potions paper together. She came up and joined us; just made herself right at home in our company. Kind of surprised me at first since usually no one I knew ever came around when I was with him, or if they did they only spoke to me briefly, ignoring him, and left as soon as possible. Ginny was actually talking TO him. I couldn't believe it. Draco couldn't either.
But apparently she hung around after I left to meet Harry, and Draco had stayed to work a little longer. Ginny's really good about drawing people out who are reluctant to talk. By the time she returned to Gryffindor tower, they had not only held a reasonable conversation, she had gotten him to agree to help her with a Potions essay she had been assigned.
Ginny initiating a friendship with Draco took some of the pressure off me of trying to spend time with everyone. I didn't feel so bad going off to meet Harry if I knew Ginny was spending time with Draco in my absence. He had become pretty alienated in Slytherin house so I'm sure he got lonely. Even though he had never really considered any of them true friends, at least he had a companionship of sorts with them. Now they pretty much steered clear of him, even in his common room and dormitory. Needless to say, I taught Ginny the Rebounding Spell also. Ron would be furious when he found out I had gotten his sister involved with Draco Malfoy, but he'd murder me on the spot if she got hurt because of it.