A/N Hey everyone, my friend Nina, inspiration for Nina in The Perfect Makeover, has two amazing stories up that I want you all to read. They are under one of my old pennames, PMS 4EVA, and are called Dear Student #432 and Last Will and Choice. Check them out, they're really good.
Chapter Eight: For Good
Draco left the room as quickly as he could. He felt as hollow as the day before, right before he arrived at the Dursley residence. Yes, Potter's behavior had been laughable, and he was making progress with Hermione, but still, in the end he felt alone.
He went into the bedroom and sat on the bed. He looked around. Everything was going blurry. He suddenly got a sharp pang in his stomach. His breathing became heavy.
'Maybe just a little nap before breakfast,' Draco told himself as he leaned back.
Sleep, unfortunately, wasn't what Draco's body wanted. Almost a second after he closed his eyes, he rushed to the bathroom, threw the toilet seat up, and vomited into the marble bowl.
"WHAT THE HELL IS ALL THAT RUCKUS?" He heard over his coughing.
'Did he hear me?' Draco wondered before another sweep of nausea hit him like a ton of bricks and he found it neccesary to throw his head back over the toilet.
"POTTER!" Oh, thank heavens. From what he could tell yesterday, he did not want to meet Potter's relatives.
Feeling all hints of nausea, or, well, wanting to hurl, Draco stood up, rinsed his mouth once, and walked slowly into the bedroom. Suddenly, he felt smaller than a speck of nothingness. He slid down the wall and sat on the ground.
The sounds of footsteps thundering down the stairs boomed throughout the house, but it all went unnoticed by Draco. Slowly, he felt his world begin to fill with darkness.
"Hermione, what was he doing? And the truth. No more sticking up and makinf excuses for him." Harry demanded.
"POTTER!" Harry, Ron and Hermione jumped up and turned around to see a purple faced Vernon Dursley.
"Mr. Dursley, please calm down. What could Harry have done? He olny just woke up?" Hermione got out in a calm voice.
"We have gone through this already Hermione. Butt out of family matters." He barked back.
Harry and Ron made an attempt to leap forward to defend Hermione, but she put her arms out, preventing them from taking more than a half of a step forward.
"And as I have told you, sir, Harry is our family." Hermione insisted.
The color rose to Vernon's face. "Just have breakfast ready soon," he said before turning around and leaving the room.
"Harry, I need to take a quick shower. I'll be right back down." Hermione rushed out of the kitchen before Harry or Ron could object.
"Don't worry Ron, we're gonna get our one-on-one time with him soon." Harry assured his friend.
Hermione ran up the stairs, barely avoiding Dudley on the landing. She softly knocked on the door.
"Draco, can I come in?" She whispered. After waiting a bit for a response, she decided that he was sleeping, or in the bathroom. She walked into the room and looked around, Draco was sitting against the wall with his arms wrapped around his legs. "D-Draco? Are you okay?"
No response.
Hermione walked over and kneeled beside him.
"Draco, please say something. You were just smiling ten minutes ago."
"It's all my fault." He mumbled.
"What?"
"It's all my fault. My mother, she wanted me safe. She wanted me happy. She's dead."
Hermione tried almost twenty minutes after to get him to say more, but Draco refused to talk.
Hermione didn't want to leave him alone, but she couldn't let Harry or Ron think anything was wrong and find them there.
"Draco," she whispered, "I told Harry and Ron that I would be back down soon. I don't want them to think that anything is wrong. I will be right back, I promise. I'm just going to change and wet my hair, and I'll come right up with breakfast." Hermione tried to hug him, but it was like hugging a statue.
"Hermione, why don't you just let me take Malfoy his food? This way we don't have to rush as much." Harry said. He took a plate from the counter, grabbed a glass of juice, and ran up the stairs.
"Hermione, come on, let's put everything on the table and start on the chores." Ron suggested as he grabbed a few plates of food and opened the door for Hermione to follow.
"So, Malfoy", Harry started as he placed the plate on the table, "you have information?"
"What's the point?" Draco mumbled into space.
"DAMNIT MALFOY! YOU SAID YOU WOULD ONLY SPEAK TO ME SO SPEAK!" Harry could no longer control his temper.
This was how the rest of the conversation went. Harry would yell, Draco would stare. No more, no less.
At nearly lunchtime, Ron came up into the guestroom. He looked around and saw an angry Harry pacing the floor, a sullen Draco sitting on the floor, and a cold. Untouched plate of breakfast that Harry had thrown to the ground in frustration.
"Harry," Ron whispered, "what's-"
"He won't talk. We should have done this last night." Harry said, exasperated and furious.
"What do you propose we do?" Ron asked.
"I killed her. It's my fault."
"What?"
"That's all he says Ron. 'I killed her, it's my fault'. Every once in a while. I think I heard him say something about how sorry he is to an Ami, but that's it." Harry sighed.
"What do you propose we do?"
"Wait I guess. Maybe Hermione will have an idea." Harry shrugged. He was losing hope.
"No!" Ron looked at his bedt friend. "Malfoy may know where Snape is! He know You-Know-Who's plans! We will not give in to defeat so easily!" He walked over to Malfoy, towering over the beetle-positioned body. His frail arms wrapped around his legs. "TELL US MALFOY! WHAT IS HE PLANNING?"
"IT'S ALL MY FAULT!" Draco yelled out. "Please," he whispered, "just let me..."
"WHAT? LET YOU WHAT? DIE?" Ron screamed. He threw his arms into the air. "WE SHOULD HAVE! WE SHOULD HAVE LEFT YOU OUT THERE, STARVING ON THE STREETS, ALONE, AFRAID, SHOULD WE HAVE?"
"Ron," Ron and Harry's heads whipped to look in the doorway. Hermione was standing there in disbelief. She would have expected this from Harry, but Ron? She took a step into the room. "Ron, no."
"Hermi-"
"I don't care Harry. Listen, he was like this before I went downstairs. I think he needs to be alone. Why don't you two sit down? You all seem distressed." Hermione mothered. She took Ron's hand and led him to her bed. Harry sat down beside him. "Draco, it isn't your fault your mother died. Voldemort sent you on your mission to die as revenge for your father. Why else would he expect a sixteen year old to do what he was unable to do himself? Your mother died trying to protect you. She wanted you to live."
"No. No. She didn't have to die. I should have. It's all my fault." He muttered.
"Draco, can we start out simple? Please? For me." Hermione looked at him with pleading eyes.
"Hermione?" Ron wanted to know why she was being so understanding to the boy who tried to kill Dumbledore.
"Draco, how long have you been running?"
"Fi-five weeks. The-the day after-after it happened." Draco whispered.
"Okay, that was a good start Draco." Hermione said. She kneeled beside him and tried to take his hands into her's. "How did you know where Harry was?"
"I-I-I was running. I ended up in a muggle village and saw a large boy who said something about Potter. H-he was talking about how his cousin talks about Cedric. I followed him home, but I was so weak that I nearly collapsed over here."
"Draco, did you really go the five weeks without any food?" Hermione asked. This was concern, it had nothing to do with why he was there.
"I fed on what I could steal, sometimes a day or two without food."
"How the mighty have fallen." Ron said coldly.
"Shut up Ron!"
"No Hermione! Why Should I cut him any slack? What has he ever done for us? What could ever have happened to make him deserve any kindness?" Ron was becoming more and more upset.
"Ron, I think Hermione is right." Harry said. "Professor Dumbledore would have shown him nothing but kindness. In fact, that was among his last acts. He tried to offer Malfoy protection."
Draco lifted his head and looked at Harry. "How did you know?"
"I was there." Harry nearly chocked on these wordsw, echos of the fateful night erupting all around him.
"That was why he didn't try to defend himself?" Draco stood up slowly, his weight crushing his legs.
"Yeah, and he woulda done it for you just as quickly."Harry forced out. It was too painful even to think about it.
"I am so sorry." Draco whispered.
"Well sorry won't being him back." Harry spat.
"But it will help clear his consience and then he can help us kill Dumbledore's murderer and destroy Lord Voldemort." Hermione's voice grew stronger with each word. "This time, for good."
