Title: Restraint (14/?)
Author: Sonya
Rating: R - blood and nastiness here
Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I don't own. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all associated characters, settings, etc., belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, UPN, etc. Harry Potter and all associated characters, setting, props, etc., belong to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Inc., etc. No copyright infringement is intended, so please don't sue - all you'll get is a really bratty bird and some really spoiled rats.
Spoilers: Up to 'Wrecked' in the Buffyverse, up to "Goblet of Fire" in the Potterverse.
Pairings: Willow/Snape, Hermione/Viktor Krum, Draco/Ginny, Fred/Angelina. Other 'ships to be decided.
Summary: Draco snaps.
Author's Note: Just a reminder that this story takes place following "Goblet of Fire" - as in, "Order of the Phoenix" never happened. There will be overlaps, but there will also be differences, and there are no intentional spoilers. So, if you've read the book, you'll see some things familiar and some things not. If you haven't read the book and don't want to be spoiled - use your own judgment. If I don't tell you what's my idea and what's from the book, then you're not really being spoiled, right?
***
"ATTENTION ALL STUDENTS - PLEASE CHECK THE LISTS!" read the notice in the Slytherin common room. Below that, in smaller script, it instructed, "The names of all students remaining at school for the holidays MUST be on the list marked 'STAYING'. The names of all students leaving for the holidays MUST be on the list marked 'GOING'. Please check that your name is on the appropriate list, and is not on both lists. If you have been listed twice, incorrectly, or not at all, please see your Head of House."
Below that came, of course, two lists marked 'STAYING' and 'GOING'.
Only Dumbledore would phrase it like that.
Draco stared tiredly at the lists. His name was exactly where it should be, halfway down the 'GOING' list, right after 'MacMillan' and before 'Midgen'. Malfoy, Draco (5th year, Slytherin). It was not on both lists. It was not forgotten. It was right there where it was meant to be and staring at it wasn't going to make it disappear.
In one week, two days, and about eight hours, he was going home. A lot of people were going to his home, actually. Malfoy Manor was the location of choice for the final ceremony to welcome initiates fully into the fold. There would be Crabbe and Goyle and Millicent Bulstrode, all to be marked this December 21st.
Oh well, if I'm going to have to get a really ugly tattoo, at least it'll be a *fashionable* ugly tattoo.
Oh, and I'm to invite Pansy, apparently. She won't be getting a really ugly tattoo; not full Death Eater material, it seems. I wonder if she knows she's the party favors. I wonder what her father thinks of that.
As if he'd have the balls to complain no matter what he thought of it. As if any of them would. They ought to just skip the mark-on-the-arm shit and just fucking castrate you. Maybe stick a tag in your ear, or a ring through your nose. Screw symbolism, let's be literal. I, Draco Malfoy, will have the honor of joining the illustrious ranks of the Dark Lord's fucking cattle.
And ought to be grateful for the chance. Ought to be sick with bloody fucking gratitude that I was found worthy. Better that than being slaughtered.
Though that is what you keep cattle for. To slaughter them, eventually. Well, not milk cows, but . . oh, screw this.
He stormed away from the board with its lists and stomped out the common room door into the hallway, hitting it with his elbow so hard it bounced off the wall. He nearly ran into a crush of heatedly whispering females trying to come in through the door. He recognized one of those hushed, scandalized tones immediately.
"Hello, Pansy," he greeted her cheerfully, grinning. The girls pulled up short, blinking at him a little apprehensively. Pansy crossed her arms below her ample chest, pursing her lips and watching him warily. I wonder what my face looks like right now. Not all full of goodness and light, I'd guess.
Or maybe she's still pissed about what I said the other week.
Well, get used to it, snookums. Such is life. I get a really ugly tattoo. You get to be the milk cow. Personally, I think you got the better deal.
One of the younger girls was staring at him with huge doll-like eyes, looking like she wasn't quite sure what was going on but she knew it wasn't good. The other was giggling inanely. And what rock did she find this pair under? She used to at least have taste.
"Hello, Draco," Pansy said coolly.
"No kiss?" Draco inquired, quirking an eyebrow.
"You ought to be glad she's speaking to you," the doll-eyed one leapt to Pansy's defense.
"Why?" Draco asked her, in his best reasonable and civilized tone. "She doesn't have to talk. Talking's overrated."
Pansy got it immediately, and flushed; doll-eyes just stared, blinking in confusion.
"Go to hell, Draco," Pansy muttered, but he thought he saw a flash of tears as she pushed past him. Something in his gut screwed up a bit at that. Something else was very pleased.
"Planning on it!" Draco called into the common room after her, as the giggling little brunette tried to squeeze past him without actually touching him at all. He didn't move. "You're invited too! Malfoy Manor. Solstice night. Don't bring your knickers!"
"Has anyone told you lately that you're a pig?" inquired another female voice, from behind him. He turned. Blaise Zabini was coming down the hall, with . . Weasley?
Zabini and Weasley? Oh, no. The universe is not that unfair. Never was my type really, too mouthy and a bit too inclined to keep her knickers on, but there is something intrinsically wrong with Weasley ending up with that hot a piece of tail.
Behind them walked Potter and the other, youngest Weasley. The other, youngest, female Weasley. The one with freckles on her little kinda peachy-colored lips. She was watching him intently as Potter prattled away about something or other, completely unaware he'd lost her attention. Her brother was also watching him, but it was a very different look; one that wavered halfway between nervousness and dare. Come on, say it, that look said. I'm holding hands with the hottest girl in your house. Make an issue of it.
Wouldn't I love to. Considering I've never given Blaise a second thought in my life, it's a kinda pathetic excuse to pound someone, but hey, any port in a storm.
"Not lately," Draco shrugged, and sauntered up to them, giving Blaise his best dashing smile. He stopped just a little too close. Ron's face had started to go that shade of plum that only redheads seem able to manage.
"Oh, well then, let me remind you," Blaise retorted, smiling sweetly. "You're a pig. Want to get out of my way?"
"Have places to go, people to do?" Draco asked, sliding his eyes towards Ron.
"See?" Blaise said, ignoring Draco and turning to Ron. "This is why I don't date in my own House." She frowned at the murderous expression on Ron's face. "Oh please, you can *not* get in a fight over this. We haven't even gone on a real date yet, you don't need to be defending my honor."
"Take it back," Ron ground out, reaching for his wand. Blaise rolled her eyes, and glanced backwards towards Ginny for help. Ginny was frowning; not the sort of frown Draco had expected. She didn't look outraged; she looked .. concerned?
She knows I'm picking a fight. She knows exactly what I'm doing and it's . . worrying her?
"Is he always like this?" Blaise asked Ginny. Potter seemed to have finally taken notice of his surroundings, and had his wand out. His frown was everything Draco could have wanted. All righteously outraged. Perfect Potter, defender of all things weak, stupid and pitiful.
And Ginny.
Not sure when she got put in a different category but . . she's not. Weak. Or pitiful. Jury's still out on stupid.
No, not stupid. Maybe Gryffindor too-brave-for-her-own-good style stupid, but not lacking brains.
"Only on days when the sun rises," Ginny responded, obviously trying for cool humor, but looking a little uncomfortable with the Slytherin girl's sudden camaraderie. Her eyes were flicking to Draco even as she was answering Blaise. She was still frowning.
"Ah," Blaise acknowledged with a sigh, and turned back to Ron. "We're standing right outside the Slytherin common room. If anybody's going to catch us, it'll be Snape. He'll give you detention and give Draco points for skilled hexing. Think about it." She said it all flatly, like she was discussing the weather. Draco was grudgingly impressed.
"It's the principle of it," Ron answered tightly, wand still pointed in Draco's direction. "Besides, you're in Slytherin. You can say he started it."
"He didn't start it if you hex him first," Blaise pointed out, very reasonably.
"What's that have to do with you saying he did?" Ron asked. Blaise tilted her head, considering.
"Good point," Blaise said a moment later, turning and grinning nastily at Draco. "Very well, hex away. I've never had someone fight for my honor before. This is kinda fun."
Draco stood there. So did Ron. They glared.
"Well?" Draco asked, spreading his arms wide. "You heard the lady."
"Are you trying to get me in trouble? Is Snape standing just inside the door or something?" Ron accused, face screwing up in confusion.
"Don't think so," Draco answered.
"Then what're you just blood standing there for?" Ron demanded.
"Ron, let's just go," Potter suggested. He'd tucked his own wand back away.
Aw, come on. Somebody throw a hex. I really want to make something bleed today.
"You're right, he's acting off," Blaise commented, eyeing him closely. Her comments were starting to make Draco feel a little like a bug in a jar. "He's always a smug bastard, but he's not usually a stupid smug bastard. Maybe he's got some sort of charm or ward or something that'll make your hex bounce."
This is just not bloody fair. It's Weasley. He's got way more temper than brains. How is it that I'm not managing to pick a fight with fucking *Weasley*?
"No wards," Draco insisted. "Come on, Weasley, I thought Gryffindors were supposed to be all brave and noble. You're gonna let me insult your girl and get away with it?"
"I'm getting bored," Blaise commented.
"Let's just go," Harry said again, tugging on Ron's arm. Ginny was still a few paces back, still just watching, frowning, her books clutched to her chest.
"You sure you don't mind?" Ron asked Blaise.
"Not at all," Blaise assured him. "There'll be other opportunities, I'm sure."
Oh bloody fucking hell! Come on, how hard is this? Just take a swing at me. You can't just leave.
Then Blaise leaned towards Ron and gave him a little peck on the cheek. Ron went from purple to a sort of burgundy color. Harry dropped his friend's sleeve and backed away as if Ron had suddenly developed leprosy. Ginny blushed, not as darkly as her brother, just a slight haze of color behind the freckles. Draco had sudden inspiration.
He marched past Ron and Blaise, right up to the youngest Weasley, and kissed her soundly on her freckled little lips.
She made a little meeping sort of sound and dropped her books. Her eyes were open wide, shocked. There were little flecks of gold in the brown. Her lips were soft, warm, very tightly closed but that was okay.
Potter's fist crashing into the side of his face was neither soft nor warm. Stars exploded behind his eyes. Now that's more bloody like it! Draco stumbled away from Ginny, who stood still as a statue; he ducked as he heard Weasley shouting something that sounded suspiciously like a full-out curse, not just a hex. Then Potter was in his face again, grabbing his robes by one shoulder and throwing him into the wall.
"Don't you ever - don't EVER -" Potter was sputtering, incoherent with rage. When the pain in his ribs where his elbow had been crushed into them when he hit the stone wall subsided enough that his facial expressions were again under his control, Draco just grinned. He winked at Ginny.
She said something. He thought it might have been "stop it," but he wasn't sure, because Harry and Ron both rushed him then. He let his shoulders fall back against the wall and kicked at Potter, hard, catching the Boy Who Lived in the stomach. Weasley's wand was in his face, too close to miss; Draco didn't hear the curse, but he felt immediately like he was being stuck all over with pins.
He watched Potter stumble and found he suddenly didn't care; not about Weasley, or the pain, or the horrified look on Ginny's face as Blaise tried to pull the other girl away.
Perfect Potter. The Boy Who Lived. The boy that everything was always about, always about Potter, Potter wins the House Cup, Potter defeats the basilisk, Potter gets to be a Triwizard Champion, be nice to Potter, try to win him over, can't let anyone know you don't like Potter, our hero Potter, Potter who defeated the Dark Lord.
Potter whose blood resurrected the Dark Lord.
He wanted to spill perfect Potter's perfect blood more than he could ever remember wanting anything in his life. It was a hot rush that ran through him, obliterating sanity.
Draco fell on him, and knew he was hitting the other boy with everything he had, kicking and punching and spitting, no decision or conscious thought involved. He felt fists and feet hitting flesh that gave way, fell, tried to hit back and couldn't match Draco's berserker rage. Somebody was screaming. It might have been Potter. For all Draco knew it might have been himself.
***
Seventeen students, mostly Gryffindors. Well, I suppose that isn't so bad.
Not everyone wants to start an elective mid-term.
Okay, almost-end-of-term.
I should have just waited for next term.
Willow sat down behind the desk at the front of her classroom, eyeing the seventeen desks arranged in three rows before her. It seemed like an awful tiny number of desks. Only one of them was already occupied. Hermione sat in the front row, sipping the cup of hot chocolate Willow had conjured up for her. She had the mug cupped in two hands, and continued to clutch it for warmth after she was done drinking. The dungeons were damp and drafty, and Hermione was a little shaky.
"Better?" Willow asked.
"Warmer," Hermione offered. "Less likely to burst into tears."
"That sounds like 'better' to me," Willow suggested.
"I'm still so mad I can't see straight," Hermione confessed.
"Understandable," Willow nodded. She'd heard all about the letter incident.
I suspect Ron's harboring some more than best-friendly feelings. I wonder if I should tell her about the clothes fluke incident . . or if that'd make things worse . . somehow I don't think the idea of Ron wanting to be more than a friend would be well-received right now. The idea of Ron turned into something small and amphibious, maybe, but not -
"Professor!" Willow's thoughts were cut off abruptly by the panicked shout from the doorway.
"Ginny?" Hermione said worriedly, turning in her chair and frowning.
Ginny Weasley came skidding into the dungeon classroom, face flushed and panting with exertion and generally looking as if she were being pursued by demons. She was gasping for air, obviously trying to say something but unable to get the words out; that single shout seemed to have used up all the spare breath she had. Blaise Zabini came tearing into the classroom right behind her, stumbling to an awkward halt a moment before she would have run into the younger girl.
"Potter. Malfoy. Fight," Blaise managed to sputter. "Two floors down."
Ah. Yeah, the running up two flights of stairs will leave you a little winded.
Potter. Malfoy. Fight.
Oh CRAP!
"Oh, Harry!" Hermione exclaimed. "Is he okay?" Ginny was shaking her head as Willow rushed out of the room.
"- lost it completely," Willow heard one of the girls saying as she sprinted out into the hallway, but she didn't catch which boy had evidently taken leave of his senses. Great, Harry and Draco beating on each other to a degree that qualifies as "losing it" among kids who regularly hex body parts off each other just 'cause they got annoyed. Great. Wonderful.
Willow heard the fight before she could see it; that was not a good sign. Years of palling around with Buffy had taught her that fighting in real life doesn't sound like fighting in the movies. Very few things make the sort of clean, resounding thump that always comes along with a punch being thrown on TV. Real flesh tends to make more of a dull sort of thwap, and a body hitting the ground isn't nearly as loud as, say, a chair falling over. Bodies are soft. They just don't make that much noise. If there's blood and guts involved the noise is even less, sort of a squelching sound.
She was hearing a fair number of squelching sounds. That was bad. Very bad.
"Stop it, you're crazy, get off him, you crazy bastard, you're gonna kill him, stop it, you're crazy -" someone was shouting in a rather panicked litany. Willow rounded the corner at a run.
The person shouting was Ron. The crazy bastard was Draco. The body providing the blood squelching noises was Harry's. The entire scene was red. Draco's pale face and paler hair were splattered with blood. Ron, standing over Draco and trying ineffectually to pull him off Harry's prone form, was speckled with little dots of dark red fluid. There was a small puddle forming on the floor.
Oh god he might have killed him that's too much blood that's way fucking too much blood oh SHIT
"STOP!" Willow shouted, hand thrown out, power rushing down her arm and out her fingertips. Draco and Ron were flung backwards away from Harry; the dark-haired boy just lay there and bled. She ran up to him, skidding to her knees in the blood.
Why do I bother buying new clothes? she thought, some other part of her mind recognizing the inappropriateness of the thought as a sign of impending panic. Nice pretty new green robes to teach in. All professional looking. Yeah. Right. I should just do my whole wardrobe in blood red or black and be done with it.
Oh god please don't be dead!
She pressed two fingers to Harry's neck, tight up under his jaw. To her great relief, she found a pulse immediately, but it was slow.
"Harry!" someone screamed shrilly behind her. Hermione had evidently followed her. Willow lept to her feet, grabbing the younger girl by the arm and trying to block her view of her friend's mangled and bleeding body.
"Get Madame Pomphrey, now!" Willow ordered. Hermione didn't seem to hear her, trying to wriggle out of her grasp to get to the boy on the floor. Okay, no time for this crap. She let the girl go, turning to the other occupants of the hall. Ron was regaining his feet. Draco sat propped up against the wall where he'd fallen, eyes wide, staring at Harry in utter shock.
"Get Madame Pomphrey!" Willow ordered the red-haired boy. Ron blinked at her for a moment, then nodded, and took off at a run. Willow turned back to Harry and Hermione; or rather, she expected to see the girl at her friend's side. She wasn't.
Oh, hell, Willow thought, turning the other way just in time to see Hermione's fist connecting with Draco's nose, snapping the pale boy's head back so hard it bounced against the wall with a loud, echoing crack. Like the earlier squelching noises, Willow knew that was not a good sound.
***
Why does my head feel like it was repeatedly banged into a wall?
Oh yeah.
Probably because my head was repeatedly banged into a wall.
I tried to kill Potter.
Oh, fucking hell ..
Draco tried to open one eye to assess his surroundings. His eye of choice, the left one, wasn't cooperating. He tried to work the little muscles that usually resulted in open eyes, but now they just resulted in stabbing pains across his forehead and down his nose, and caused no movement whatsoever from his eyelids.
Oh, wonderful. My eye's swollen shut.
He tried the other one, and it opened, a tiny painful crack.
Through that tiny painful crack he saw white, domed ceiling. Hospital wing.
"He appears to be waking," a familiar deep and grating voice announced.
And Snape is here. Better and better. Couldn't somebody have just avada'd me in my sleep? Is that too much to ask?
A frowning, faintly wrinkled but kindly face appeared in place of the white domed ceiling.
"Can you hear me?" Madam Pomphrey asked briskly.
"Yes," Draco tried to say. It came out more like "eth", somewhere between a wheeze and groan. He coughed, and instantly regretted it as something in his chest siezed up in agonizing protest. That only made him cough harder. Madam Pomphrey tsked loudly, vanished, reappeared with a tiny jar of something minty smelling that she shoved under his nose. It burnt his one open eye, but it calmed his throat and stopped the coughing. He collapsed back against the pillow.
"You're lucky to be alive," Madam Pomphrey informed him crisply. "Now lay still, don't move, and don't talk."
"Potter," Draco rasped out.
"What did I just tell you? Do. Not. Talk!" Madam Pomphrey ordered, and then bustled away, out of Draco's narrowed field of vision.
"Potter is alive," Snape informed him, leaning his sallow, hook-nosed face into Draco's view. "You are very fortunate there as well."
I didn't kill him, then.
I wanted to kill him. There was screaming..
I made the screaming happen. I lost it. I still lost it with the screaming and the blood but I didn't throw up, I beat someone almost to death.
The image of Potter raising a bloody-knuckled hand in front of his face, trying to ward off a blow, rose fresh and new in his mind, as if his brain had recorded it for later use but he'd never really experienced it the first time around. All he *remembered* was rage, pure red fury, and screaming, then nothing, then shock. Potter's body on the ground. All the blood. He didn't remember the point where he'd beaten Potter so badly that it wasn't a fight anymore, it wasn't two people, it was just him and this thing on the ground that broke and gave way too easily, too quickly, not enough, never enough for how bad, how inescapable everything had gotten . .
"Didn't want to . . not to kill him . ." Draco croaked. But I did. I wanted to end him. Wanted to end everything. Wanted to make the whole fucking world bleed.
"In the future, if you do not wish to kill a person, you should perhaps refrain from beating their skull in," Snape commented.
Something wet was running down Draco's face, and it wasn't blood. It stung, like salt in a wound. I'm crying, oh fuck it all I'm crying.
I don't want to be like this, please, I don't want to be my father, I don't want any of this, I just want it to end, just end it, somebody just make it stop.
Something dabbed at his face; he blinked through the tears, and saw Snape's hand retreating with a handkerchief. It was such an un-Snape-like gesture that it shocked him a tiny ways out of his misery, made him pay attention
"Is there anything you wish to tell me?" Snape asked, and the tone was oddly careful.
No, nothing I can tell you. Can't ask if you'd please go talk to my father, good buddies that you are, if you could please ask him if he'd mind terribly much if his only son and heir didn't take the Dark Mark after all? Would that be okay? You wouldn't *mind*, would you?
Draco said nothing. Snape sighed, and it sounded very tired.
"Very well," Snape nodded. "If you were to change your mind, my office is always open to the students of my house." He paused, seemed to weigh his next words. "Things are not always as they appear, Draco. There are ways out, even when you can see none."
Draco blinked, with the one eye that would.
Why on earth would Snape be saying that?
He's in as deep as you can get.
Isn't he?
But Snape had already gone before Draco could think of a way to ask the question that wouldn't give too much away.
***
Willow stood in front of her desk as fifteen students shuffled into the classroom, two hours later than the class had originally been scheduled. Harry was still in the hospital wing; Hermione had locked herself in her dorm and was not coming out for anything short of the appearance of Voldemort himself. The rest were subdued, murmuring amongst themselves.
Blaise and Ginny had their heads together, whispering, made sudden friends by shared trauma; Ron was seated to Blaise's other side looking pale and a little dazed. Colin Creevy sat beside Ron, and he kept glancing towards the door, as if he expected a miraculously-recovered Harry to walk through it at any moment. Next was an empty seat, saved by Neville Longbottom for Hermione, just in case she changed her mind. Fred and George Weasley flanked Angelina Johnson in the next row back. Cho Chang was seated next to George with Roger Davies on her other side, both of them looking bored and a little uncomfortable, as if they felt out of place. There were a few more faces around the room that Willow didn't know, but the badges on the robes were Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, two each.
Here goes . .
"Well, I had a lesson plan," Willow announced. Thirteen sets of eyes turned to her; Colin was still watching the door. "You were going to tell me how these objects -" she gestured to her desk, which held a full salt shaker, a pocketbook, a piece of smokey quartz and an old umbrella with a wooden handle "- could be used as weapons. There's been a change of plans, though. I'm assigning that for homework."
Cho dipped her quill and jotted something down; everyone else just kept staring expectantly.
"New plan for today; you're learning physical and magical means of restraining someone. Everybody pair up."
TBC . . .