Chapter 5: The Hallway
Draco felt eyes on him the moment he entered the common room. It was a prickly sensation, being watched like that. This was not the adoring gaze of besotted first years, but something else, something more intrusive.
He realised quite quickly that the offending gazer was Pansy. And while maybe he should have been pleased that she was focused on him rather than Zabini, he had a feeling that the look in her eyes did not bode well.
She wasn't the only one looking. In fact, the whole little group was sitting there, in the corner, looking at him. Zabini whispered something in Pansy's ear. Crabbe and Goyle looked distinctly uncomfortable.
Pansy stood and flounced toward him, a little sway in her walk that he felt certain was for Zabini, not him. Draco was even more sure of this as she descended upon him, slipping her arm into his and saying, "Draco, dear. We're so glad you're here. We want to talk to you."
Annoyance tainted with something very bitter pooled in Draco's stomach. Pansy smelled like lavender and vanilla, sweet and cloying. It made him want to pull away from her violently, to leave the common room and Pansy and the whole lot of them behind. But instead he let Pansy guide him to the corner of the common room, where her court awaited, unpleasant curiosity plastered all over their faces. Draco noted distantly that this used to be his court, but somewhere along the line he had been dethroned. The fools.
Pansy settled Draco into an elegant, cushioned chair. Mahogany and velvet, it was one of his favorites. He had spent many comfortable evenings sitting in it by the fire, with Pansy leaning up against his knees while he ignored the inane chatter of his classmates. But now the chair was set conspicuously at the center of a circle, and they were all eyeing him as if he might explode.
Once she seemed satisfied that Draco was seated and not about to bolt, Pansy took her place next to Zabini. She held her head high, her eyes open in abundant concern. "Draco, we're all quite worried about you." She looked to the others for support, and they nodded, especially Zabini, who had a disgustingly presumptuous look in his eye. Draco wanted nothing less than to punch him.
Pansy clasped her hands before continuing her clearly prepared speech. "We know that you feel you've been entrusted with some special task, but being that you won't tell us what it is, we're at a bit of a loss. And, to be honest," she swallowed a little, as if to underscore her earnestness, "we're not entirely sure anymore what type of task you would have been given, or why you would have been chosen in particular." Pansy brushed her hair behind her ear, and Draco thought distractedly that the gesture reminded him somehow of his mother. "If it turned out to be something that you've just... misrepresented, for our benefit, then... you can tell us." Here Pansy paused dramatically. "We're your friends, Draco. We'll forgive you. We know it's been a difficult year for... your family."
Draco felt a flush rise to his cheeks. He wanted to laugh at this entire situation, but he didn't have it in him. His eyes started to burn again. He blinked once, to get himself under control, and stood. "I'm not making it up, Pansy." He used his most cutting tone, and hoped to Merlin that in the dim firelight of the common room no one would notice how their little coup d'etat had thrown him. "I assure you, I have a task to do, and it's an important one. If you choose not to help me..." now his gaze fell coldly on Crabbe and Goyle, "I'll remember that for the future."
Crabbe shook his head slightly, although he wouldn't meet Draco's eyes. Crabbe had always been just a bit smarter than Goyle. "No, Draco, we'll help," he said quietly, still staring at the rug. Goyle didn't second this statement, but didn't disagree.
Draco nodded slightly in acknowledgement, and eyed the others. They all seemed subdued, almost as if they were scared of him. His performance had passed muster. Good. He settled back into his chair, smirking. After a moment of uncomfortable silence, Pansy and Zabini returned to their flirting, and the others broke up into quiet, self conscious conversation. Draco pulled out a book from his bag and pretended to read.
Draco was angrier than ever. His anger had now settled on the figure of one Harry Potter. Potter, who dared tell him how he should handle his interpersonal relationships, Potter who had no fucking idea what Draco was facing.
Potter, who thought he was invulnerable because of his stupid little friends.
To think the sanctimonious prick had the nerve to eavesdrop on him, and then to instruct him on how to deal with Crabbe and Goyle. Potter had no clue what it was to be Draco, what Draco had to deal with every day. While Potter and his friends were chummily hunting out the truth about horcruxes, Draco had to fight for his life alone. And why did Potter care about what Draco was doing anyway? Since when had Potter become Crabbe and Goyle's advocate? This was the second time Draco had discovered Potter sticking his unwanted nose in Draco's business this year. Didn't he have other horcrux-related things to be thinking about?
So Draco was now more furious with Potter than ever, and as a result he'd been coming to the Room of Requirement in every spare moment. He had to beat Potter, and this was how he'd do it.
This morning he'd even come without a guard. Crabbe and Goyle had finally rebelled. Despite their lukewarm proclamation of loyalty during that little Slytherin intervention in the common room, it seemed that they had seen the tide turning. Not that they had the guts to tell Draco to his face that they were abandoning ship.
Maybe he should have handled them differently. Maybe Potter had been right; if he'd confided in them, they might have been more willing to help.
Ha. Not likely. Why was he even wasting time contemplating Potter's know-nothing opinion? Draco was no bloody Gryffindor, and neither were Crabbe and Goyle. Nor would either have been his choice for bosom confidante, if such a thing were forced on him.
But in the end it didn't matter whether Crabbe and Goyle were trustworthy or not. In the end it came down to the fact that Draco was a Slytherin and a Malfoy, and he needed to do this alone.
So this morning he had awoken early and made his way on his own through the hushed halls of Hogwarts to the Room of Requirement.
The room felt especially hollow that morning. It always felt empty and cold to Draco, like a husk or a shell created for one purpose only, without a life beyond that moment. He didn't know whether it felt the same to everyone, but to him it was always a desperate, vacant place. And this morning it felt like the most desolate place on earth.
The ceilings were high, with stone, windowless walls surrounding him and stretching up and up. The cabinet was always waiting for him there, looming and immovable. He spent half his time each day at a worktable nearby, with a few spellbooks, and half his time kneeling at the cabinet, hoping he'd finally get it right. His knees ached from constantly being pressed against the cold, hard stone.
He'd knelt there for two hours this morning with no success. Spell after spell failed, each one more complex than the last. As the minutes ticked on, Draco felt panic begin to flutter in his chest.
He was hungry. He had skipped breakfast altogether, since food seemed trivial and he had no desire to ever see the faces of his classmates again. All he'd wanted was to be in the room, to finally fucking get somewhere with the cabinet, to show Potter and Pansy and everyone else too.
But now, after hours facing the cabinet and the hollow room, all he wanted to do was scream. He wanted to break the cabinet into a million pieces.
He was going to fail. In his gut he knew it.
And Harry Fucking Potter, boy who could do everything because he was too much of an idiot to realize he couldn't, would waltz right up to Voldemort with an army of horcruxes, whatever the fuck those were, and kill him with one swoop of his hand.
No. There was no way Draco would let that happen. He'd rather anything than that, he'd rather fucking kill the Dark Lord himself.
Draco caught his breath. The cabinet stood before him, smooth and impassive, seemingly unaware of the thought which had just filled Draco's mind so that there was no room for anything else.
Slowly, Draco stood. He half expected to be struck dead by Voldemort just for thinking such a thought. He stepped back, away from the cabinet. The cabinet stared back at him, as if a deadly witness. Some part of Draco's mind imagined that the cabinet had already communicated his treachery to Voldemort, and it would all be over for him before it even began.
Draco stepped falteringly back and back, his eyes still glued on the cabinet.
He knew only one thing. He would be the one to kill the Dark Lord. He needed to be the one. He would not leave this to Harry Potter.
And if his parents died as a result?
Draco's throat tightened. He felt as hollow as the room. He was about to risk his parents' lives. He should fucking feel something.
This was crazy. Pure insanity. Pansy was right to be concerned; he was clearly delusional.
With all the will he could summon, he turned away from the cabinet. He walked slowly toward the door. He had no lookout; he'd just have to hope that no one would see him leave.
As his hand grasped the doorknob, his eye caught something strange to his right--a pattern of light that he was ready to swear hadn't been there before. Sure enough, cool yellow sunlight was streaming in from an arched window, playing in soft patterns on the floor, and he was sure that there had been no window there when he entered this morning, nor any of the times he had been in this room. There had only been another inescapably tall stone wall.
He walked disbelievingly toward the window, which was cut into the wall of a very long hallway that also most certainly had not been there before. Cursing under his breath, Draco peered out of the window into an empty, snow covered courtyard. A small, barren tree stood at its center, alone, bowed under the weight of snow.
Draco stood and watched the little tree for a moment. His mind raced. Was the tree real? Was any of this real? He smudged away frost from the window pane. The glass felt cool and solid to his touch, and when he took his fingers away they were smudged with dirt. It seemed real enough.
Carefully, as if it all might disappear, Draco turned away from the window to continue down the hallway. It narrowed slightly and bent at a right angle before coming to a dead end. The walls were unadorned, and there was only one piece of furniture, at the very far end. A bookcase.
Draco knelt before the bookcase, on a soft rug that seemed as if it had been created for that very purpose. The bookcase was filled with old, leather bound books. He looked at them closely, barely believing what he was seeing. Some of the books Draco thought he recognized from his father's study. Others he had never seen before.
He read a few of the titles aloud, the sound of his voice confirming that he was not dreaming or hallucinating.
Secrets of the Soul. Darker Magic. Splitting Apart: Myth or Possibility?
Draco ran his finger across the bindings. He knew, with a strange, undeniable certainty, that inside these books he'd find the answers he was looking for. And just as surely, he knew that after he'd read the contents of these books, there would be no turning back.
Taking a breath, Draco pulled the farthest book down--a slim, simple-looking volume--and began to read.
So now he knew what horcruxes were. Pieces of your soul, broken off, with implications for power that were hard to comprehend. But what did Potter want with them? Did he think that he needed that level of power to take down Voldemort? Or did he just want to secure the golden Potter soul for posterity?
If Potter thought he could make a horcrux, than maybe Draco could too. Maybe that's what he needed to do to get out of all of this. It would give him something to wield over all of them. Voldemort. Snape. His father. Potter.
The idea was appealing, and not just because of the promise of power. The thought of immortality itself beckoned to Draco. It seemed that death swirled all around him, every day, with the faint smell of dementors always in the chilly air. And with the Dark Lord's threat, Draco felt his mortality more than he was sure any sixteen year old should. Death seemed almost inevitable, closing in around him with the edge of panic each time he failed.
But if he made his own rules, if he succeeded in creating a horcrux--and here the room seemed to promise all but step by step instructions--then everything would be different.
Draco carefully closed the book he had been reading. He was afraid to stop reading, to leave the room, for he didn't know if he would ever be able to find his way back. He had only made his way through a few of the books, but he knew hours had slipped by, and he would be missed. His stomach had long passed asking for food, with a slight giddiness and dizziness the only signs that he hadn't eaten or drunk for hours and hours. If he kept focusing on his reading, he could hold his body at bay.
But wait. Could he remove these books from the room? Or maybe if he worded the question just right, and wanted it badly enough, he could find his way back here. It wasn't really any different from needing to fix the cabinet. And if anything, he needed this more.
Feeling somewhat calmer, he slipped one Slytherin green volume into his bag, and stood. He had a new plan. And even the Room of Requirement felt different. Instead of seeming cold and endless, it now seemed cool and centering, a space apart. A space where he could think. He would come back.
No one saw him enter the hallway. He was glad not to have to face Crabbe and Goyle.
Once outside of the room, though, it all began to sink in. What was he thinking? Fuck, what was he playing at? This was his parents' lives at stake as well as his own. Panic crawled back into his chest and began to claw its way through his throat. The suddenness of it caught him off guard. He was going to be sick again.
The boys' toilet was right there and he pushed his way in, glad to find it empty. He tried to keep himself calm but the hand that reached to turn the water on was shaking. He splashed cold water on his face and willed his body under his control. If he couldn't control his own body how could he hope to achieve any of the things he had planned--the cabinet or the horcruxes?
He looked at himself in the mirror. So thin. So pale. Dark circles like bruises under his eyes. His hair, far from its usually carefully coiffed state, was messy and wilted. It looked worse than Potter's.
With that thought, Draco began to laugh--a manic laugh that came complete with tears as he sank to his knees in front of the mirror. It was no use trying to fight the tears off this time; they came with a will of their own, hot and stinging and bitter. He closed his eyes and let them stream down his face, his arms clutching his own now skinny chest just to hold himself together. If he let go, he was sure he'd break into a million jagged pieces there on the cold tiled floor.
Draco just sat there, holding himself tightly and crying. It felt so good to cry, good and bad all at once, and he was so caught up with the release of it that he didn't realize when he was no longer alone.
"You came back!" Moaning Myrtle sounded positively gleeful to have discovered Draco crying on the toilet floor. Draco saw her floating toward him through his tears, but he was too exhausted. He couldn't bring himself to stop crying. He just stared at her, and ineffectually swiped at the tears on his face with his sleeve. New tears replaced them within moments.
"You poor dear!" Myrtle went on, seeming to realize that he was in no state to greet her. "What's wrong? You can tell me! Is it about that red-haired boy?"
Draco swallowed and tried to stop crying. He shook his head slightly. Finally he managed a few words. "What red-haired boy?" He didn't really care what the answer was, but somehow Moaning Myrtle distracted him, and he wanted to know what she was on about.
"That Weasley boy," she replied. "The one who was poisoned in Professor Slughorn's office. Was he a friend of yours? I haven't heard yet if he's dead or not. I hope not. He's quite cute."
Draco rose, his tears having suddenly stopped. "No, he's not a friend of mine," he said, as numbness took over his body. "The opposite, really. I hate that Weasel."
Moaning Myrtle looked at him, shock imprinted on her round face. She seemed to be thinking about what she could possibly say in reply, but Draco didn't give her the chance. He walked out into the hall, once again disregarding Myrtle's vocal protests that he should leave so soon. He didn't care what she thought. He didn't care about anything.
Away from Moaning Myrtle and the toilets and the Room of Requirement, Draco glanced at his watch. It was time for dinner. He ran his hand through his hair and headed for the Great Hall.