"Ask whatever you want. You know what the question is."
Yes, Draco did. "Who are you?"
The 'boy' smirked. "My name is Padma Patil."
Draco heard Harry mildly gasp behind him; he himself felt almost shell-shocked.
"I've been using a glamour this whole time, you see. I'm surprised that you didn't figure that out Draco. I guess you're not as smart as I fancied you to be." She grinned maliciously at him with his own face.
"W-why, did you do this?" Harry asked. "I know that we were never actually as close as everyone thought, but I was sure that we we're at least friends. You seemed to not mind the rumours that were spread about us."
"I was covering my own ass, Potter. I never even liked you; you are so full of yourself, so full of power you don't deserve. You never did anything earn anything you have. You know that your friends were only attracted to you because of your power, including Draco. Especially Draco; Malfoys have always attracted to power. At least, that's what I believed at first." She ground her teeth slightly, not wanting to admit it.
"I wanted Draco so bad, it hurt. At first I thought, that twit, Pansy was my only obstacle. I felt I had to get of her; I pretended to be her friend after she had a bad bout with Trelawny. I got her just where I needed her and got rid of her."
"You pushed her off the tower, she didn't jump." Draco stared at her, non-believing. He had no real love towards Pansy, but she had been his cousin, one of the few in his family that he didn't outright hate. Irritated by... but not hate.
"Yes, I pushed her. I had to find out everything about you, Draco, but Pansy, and then Potter, was always in my way. Little did I know he was stalking you as well. And, he got you first. I had to sit by and watch you fall in love, and you fell hard Draco, believe it or not. Most weren't able to tell the difference, good acting by the way, I was able to tell.
"Then all of you disappeared. I was approached by Dumbledore soon after Potter and Hermione arrived back at the castle. I was surprised that they had the nerve to come back; Hermione had been a walking human disaster and Harry, a child of the dark arts." She switched her gaze back to Harry when she saw his head jerk slightly. "Yes, Potter, Dumbledore told me about all about you. You were using dark arts to gain more power and had dragged your friends down with you. I had heard about what had happened to Hermione, because of you. Dumbledore asked for me to keep you occupied; I realize know that he was worried that you would ruin his plans. He lured me into believing that Draco's love of power would outweigh his love of you, that he would give me the power need to make me stronger than you and Draco would come to me and leave you. I realize how naive that was. Honestly, if he had that type of power wouldn't he have used it to kill Voldemort first? I got tipped off and figured out the rest for myself. I realized that I had to get myself out of this before I couldn't go back. I don't want to murder anybody else because of my stupidity.
"I figured that even if I greatly dislike you, Potter, that maybe Draco knew what he was doing, and wasn't simply bewitched by you." She fell silent.
"That's why you changed sides? You killed my cousin because you were jealous of my lover. Is there something wrong with your head?! Are suffering from any type of mental disorder? Either way, get help." Draco glared at her, forgetting what she had said about him not betraying Harry.
"I honestly don't know. I could change sides again any minute, now..." Her eyes widened. /I didn't mean to say that/
"Oh quit the kicked puppy act. You don't really think we really trust you, did you."
"'Kicked puppy act'? You are the one who was so sure that you weren't trustworthy and waited until you were under veritaserum to tell Potter about your almost-tryst because you thought he wouldn't believe you! And you Potter, as I was telling you, you are so stupid to believe that Draco could really cheat on you, Potter. He wouldn't unless..." She left the rest off.
"Unless what?!"
"Unless he was spell." She said simply. "You two should have thought of that for yourselves."
"Who-"
"Un-uh." Padma shook her head, grinning. "Did you honestly think that l would tell you any more? Untie me first."
"No." Draco stated.
"Then you're not going to find out who cast the Imperious on you."
"Imperious? How do you know about who cast it?"
"We were given this person works very close with Lucius, who I have to work with. Now, who's going to untie me, I have an itch..." The grinned turned sly, once again unsettling Harry and Draco; Padma still had Draco's face.
"How do I end the spell?" Draco asked her.
"Simple, cast 'finite incantatum', to end the spell; never thought of that, did you?"
"Fine, I'll untie you, but you aren't leaving this room."
She shrugged. "That's fine with me; I've got nothing better to do than to watch you two make out... make up, anyway."
/did she just say that she wanted to watch us make out?/ Draco wondered.
"Why are you staring at me like that?!" She tried to scoot the charm back. The look that Draco was giving her was oddly... evaluating? Curiously calculating? /what is he thinking?/
"We need to talk Draco." Draco's head jerked around to Harry, who had been watching them. "I need to hear about what happened from you, please." Harry pleaded with him; a reproachful look of hope covered his face. He held a hand out for Draco to take. Would Draco still take it?
"Yes." He reached out to grab his lover's hand.
"Hey! What about me!" Padma yelled at them as they walked to the opposite side of the room. To her disappointment, Harry waved his hand and a wall appeared between her and them.
Hermione smiled. "You can be a real bastard when you want to be, you know that?"
He pulled her closer to him. "But, that's over now."
"Do you want it to be?"
"I only want to be you. I can barely wait until our wedding, I love you so much."
/...It's time. She blew cover.../ "What wedding?"
Immediately, Blaise released her, only to grip her arm. "Who are you and what have you done with Hermione?" Blaise asked, surprisingly calm.
She raised her other arm, wand in hand, quickly before he could stop her and cast 'finite incantatum.
It was her.
"You! What did you do with Hermione, Nagini?" He had to stay calm; otherwise, he didn't know what he would do to her...
"I'll tell you, no arguing. My partner has given herself away, anyway, so you would have found out soon enough from my brother and his lover." a light sneer covered her face when she said this. "Hermione... is in safe keeping Lucius won't bother her. I had him promise to not hurt her in return for helping him. Honestly, I expected for you to figure it out long ago, Blaise. I did everything I could to tip you off without making it to obvious. Turns out you're so oblivious to anything concerning Hermione that I had to be blatant before you even took notice that I wasn't her! Draco noticed that something was wrong with me long before you did."
Blaise released her only bury his head in his hands, his short black hair forced between his fingers; how had he been fooled like this? /she's right.../ He had refused to even listen to his best friend. Draco...
"Did he really try to sleep with you, or was that a trick too?"
"That was a trick, but not entirely on you. I'm still pissed at my brother, so this was mostly my way of messing with the two of them, than anything else. It also helped Lucius to trust me, though."
He looked up. "What was it? Imperious? Draco is probably tearing himself up over you, then. He's never experienced the Imperious, so he wouldn't know what it feels like to be under it. But you probably knew that already, didn't you, bitch."
"Why does everyone keep calling me a bitch?" She sighed dramatically only to sit beside Blaise on the bed. She attempted to wrap an arm around him, but Blaise forced her off. "I'm trying to help! Why do I have to be the bad girl? First, I was abandoned, because my mother left me than father didn't think that I was good enough. He decided to go after my mother because he cared more about her than he did about me and was killed because of it. Severus took me in after that; he was the only one that cared! He's the one that I'm doing this for; he treats me and Harry the same. But, he's the only good thing that has happened to me.
"My father came back, but I rarely saw him afterwards, because he's still mad at the world. Than he comes into possession of Harry Potter, and I think 'here's a cute and nice guy, I wouldn't mind having him around for a while', but then-" Nagini had gotten up and was pacing the floor by now, tossing her hands in frustration. "-it turns out that he isn't a 'Potter' at all and is my half-brother! Not only that, Harry steals all his attention!
"Oh and Weasly! I don't see why all of you, Severus and my father included, must hate him so much! Harry has been practically living in heaven here, thanks to Ron! I felt so sorry for him that I decided to give him back the last year of his life that he wasted on all of you. I sent him back home with no memory of anything he had to go thr-" She was stopped when Blaise grabbed both of her shoulders and pressed her to the bed. She bucked to try and force him of her.
Blaise felt he had to stop her. As he listened to her talk he only felt more infuriated, her logic was so... twisted! "Your father must not have told you about what Weasly did to Harry before he brought him here, did he?"
"It was only a couple of-"
"Shut up and listen!" He gripped her shoulders harder to get her attention, oddly pleased when she winced. "Weasly kept Harry in a trunk until he was ready to turn him over to the dark lord. When Harry wasn't in the trunk Weasly abused him, both physically and sexually. The only thing that mentally unstable loon didn't do was full-blown rape, but, then again, I guess that you never cared about Harry after all.
"Not everything is about you."
She stopped struggling and laid there for a few minutes. Blaise lifted up and left the room. He closed the door, but didn't lock it.
Nagini lay in the dark room, her blood-red hair framing her head on the pillow. She ignored the tear that slipped down her cheek.
/Harry?/
Chapter 21
Chapter 23
