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Letter to No One

By RowanRhys and Dancingkatz

July 1996

Damn it! Zabini, Crabbe and Goyle are here (with their parents and other hangers on) and I haven't been able to work on Cordelia's Quidditch music for over a fortnight. In addition, I haven't heard back from Cordelia finalizing the details of our meeting in Diagon Alley. The house doesn't have an empty guest room and it seems as though there's always somewhere I have to be or something that I have to do with one or another guest, or something Father wants me to "help" him with. I'm managing to get my hols revision done only because Zabini and the other two have to do theirs as well, but the only time I really have to myself is between when everyone goes to their rooms or to the dungeons after midnight and when the house elf wakes me to get ready for breakfast, and I can't work in the music room then without waking my parents. And Pffingley has started badgering me about what I plan to do once I leave Hogwarts, saying that a stint in his department is just what I need to get me started on the fast track in the Ministry. Except that I know he was on the Slytherin Quidditch Team as a Beater when he was in school, I'd swear he's a Hufflepuff.

The first couple weeks of the summer weren't too bad. I managed to keep out of Father's way, and kept Mother happy by accompanying her to some of her charity events. But ever since the big house party started, it's just like being back at Hogwarts. I'm writing this now because I hurt too much to sleep, in spite of the hot soak and the massage I had one of the House elves give me. I was cleaning up in the mud room just inside the doors separating the conservatory from the south wing when Zabini had Crabbe and Goyle jump me.

Blaise is more inventive than the other two. They just use their fists and feet. Blaise gets creative. Today he decided that the handles of a pair of pruning shears would make interesting looking bruises so he charmed them into bludgeoning me once Crabbe and Goyle finished blacking my eyes. You'd have expected that one of Hopkirk's owls would have come winging in with one of her snippy little notices. But now I'm sure Father has an arrangement made so that Blaise can do non-assigned magic outside of school with impunity, so long as it's used to keep me in line.

By the time they got bored, it was tea time. I managed to stagger into the hallway where a house elf saw me and roused damn near the entire house. I blamed my injuries on the small whomping willow that is planted not too far from the Bitterstars. It's usually quite well behaved towards the members of the family but has been known to start flailing around for no apparent reason every so often during the summer. Father's grandfather took a cutting off the Whomping Willow at Hogwarts as a dare his seventh year and it got planted in the conservatory. Actually, it's small just in comparison to the original monster. It's more than large enough to knock someone off their feet. I made a good show of wanting to uproot the thing and making a bonfire, while convincing everyone that I was going to be fine. By the time I got up to my room I almost believed it. But then I saw a note lying on my bed.

Great performance, Draco. Think you can do the same thing tomorrow? - B.Z.

Then just as I headed towards my bathroom, Aldona tapped on the window. I limped over to let her in and she dropped the note she carried into my hand. It was the last one I'd sent to Cordelia, unopened. Aldona hadn't been able to deliver it. I threw it in my desk and went to clean up since I hadn't been excused from supper.

I could have demanded to be seen at St. Mungo's but I don't think that all the bruises and cuts they'd find would be consistent with falling from my broom or having an accident while doing my potions practical revision. I certainly can't tell them that we have a whomping willow in our house. Not only was the cutting stolen in the first place, but the thing is a class B forbidden creature. Going to St. Mungo's would cause so much more trouble that it isn't worth it even if a medi-witch could heal me completely with no scars left to show for it. At least I have first aid supplies in my bathroom; even an anesthetic potion that casts a Glamourie on you so no one can see your healing wounds. I'd prefer to use the spell; it doesn't have any of the potion's annoying side effects.

I didn't want to go down to dinner but my dress robes were laid out again and just as I reached to pick them up one of the house elves appeared with a message from Father.

Be in the library at six o' clock.

He doesn't need to sign his messages; his writing is unmistakable and no one else in this house uses ink the color of dried blood. Whatever appetite I had has vanished. When he makes his invitations in writing it means it's either very important or very bad and, sometimes, both. Why do I have the feeling that tonight is going to be one of those "both" nights?