Author's note: Here you go, new chapter! I was quicker this time, lol. Actually, it was ready since Monday but I kept forgetting to post it. Enjoy and review!

Chapter 35:

"Gin?"

Her eyes snapped open and she laid there frozen. She had heard a voice. She looked around but no one was there. The dungeon was dead silent, as always. The voice repeated her name again, but this time it seemed familiar.

"Draco," she whispered.

"Gin, is that you?"

She smiled at the realization that their mind bond had progressed again. "Yes," she laughed.

Draco's eyes snapped open and he quickly sat up in the infirmary bed, only to be scolded at by Madam Pomfrey. "Mr Malfoy, do you really want to cancel all the work I've done to make your wounds close?"

Draco looked at her blankly, not sure he understood. But then, his brain started to register the pain and sore feeling overwhelming his body and winced. He cursed under his breath; how could one be stupid enough to forget something self-inflicted and so painful?

"Don't swear Draco," admonished another familiar voice from the side of his bed. The boy turned his head slightly and saw that his head of house was sitting there, toying with something in his hands. Draco quickly averted his gaze as he realized it was his knife and cursed, although this time, in his head.

"Don't swear Draco," answered another voice. Ginny's voice. Draco suddenly remembered why he had sprung awake.

"Professor-" he started but the school nurse immediately stopped him. "Drink this, and this. All of it, and I don't want to see a frown." She was fussing over him so much that he didn't notice the potions master slip out of the room, still holding Draco's knife.

Once she was done and had stepped back, the blonde boy looked around for his head of house and was very disappointed to see him gone. He lied back down and curled up on his side in his favourite sleep position. He didn't see Pomfrey glare at the door that had just closed behind Snape; he just wanted to understand what Ginny Weasley was doing speaking in his head like the bugger that she was.

"I'm NOT a bugger!" she complained loudly, to which he merely rolled his eyes, fully aware that she wasn't there to see him. She wasn't there… What was he doing, wasting his time with chit chat when she had been kidnapped?

"Are you alright, Gin? I was worried sick."

"Right, and I'm the reincarnation of Rowena Ravenclaw. I'm just peachy, if you want to know." Her cynicism cut him deep. He knew she had every right to hate him. He suddenly felt sad at the thought of what he'd lost. He had screwed up, badly. He was an idiot and he knew it. He couldn't handle anything that touched him. His mind drifted towards Snape and he wondered what he would do with the knife.

"Banish it, I hope," answered Ginny's light voice. Her tone suddenly changed to fear. "Draco, what have you done?"

"Nothing."

He could feel her prying into his head, discovering his lies and realizing, slowly but surely, just how much of a screw up he really was. It was disturbing, to have someone able to know every single thought or memory. He was thankful his brain was such a mess, because it meant she couldn't find out everything. But still, she knew too much, she could read him too easily and that, more than anything else, scared him to death.

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Ginny squeezed her eyes shut at the painful discoveries. She didn't have full access to Draco's mind, of course, that would be too easy. But what he was thinking about the most at the moment could easily be discovered. She remembered how she used to be able to feel his physical pain, and she couldn't understand why it wasn't working this time. Had their bond progressed so well that she could shield herself from that now? Or perhaps he was blocking it?

"Why did you do that?" She wasn't too sure she wanted an answer.

"Let it go," Draco replied. He didn't want her to know that, more than anything, her own father had triggered him into the train of thoughts that had led him yet again to the hospital wing.

She was about to protest when she remembered what had happened last time she'd pushed him too far. She was in a dungeon, prisoner of Voldemort himself and probably about to be tortured and killed. Did she really want to lose him again now?

She decided that it definitely wouldn't be a good idea and dropped the topic altogether. They talked about her situation and he was relieved to hear that they hadn't hurt her. She told him about Pod and Snape; she tried to sound joyful.

Draco wasn't fooled though. He could feel something had changed in her and it was unsettling. He rolled on his other side and hissed in pain. He had to get up, he had to find Dumbledore, and quickly. Ginny heavily protested but what could she do to stop him?

He grabbed his shirt and frowned at the dry blood tainting the sleeves but put it on anyway. His school cardigan was black, so that would hide the stains. Shame he didn't have his robes though. That would definitely have resolved any problem. Ginny was still scolding him and he wished she was there so he could kiss her to shut her up.

"Now, there's an idea," she chuckled. He cursed at that damn telepathy, he would never get used to it.

"Hey, since I'm far and probably soon to be dead, can I ask you what you would deem an embarrassing question?"

"Do you really have to joke about your situation Ginny?" replied an upset Draco.

"So, can I?" He rolled his eyes and waited. He knew she would ask anyway. She was a pest for that kind of things. Typical Gryffindor. They would never ever mind their own business or stop when asked.

"Do you like me?" She sounded unsure.

"No, I am your friend because I hate you. That's the basic concept behind people hanging out with each other: they profoundly despise each other but for some odd reason, spend time together." He couldn't let her know. Couldn't couldn't couldn't!

"Sarcasm won't save you," she replied amused. Her voice in his head became soft and quiet. "I overheard Blaise pestering you about me."

Ah shit.

Draco sighed of relief when he spotted the headmaster heading towards him. He had a decent excuse not to answer Ginny. He told her to keep quiet while he was talking to Dumbledore. He wasn't sure how well his brain would handle two conversations at the same time, especially one being real and the other being… well, strange.

"Mister Malfoy, what are you even doing up?" the headmaster asked.

"I needed to talk to you, professor. About Ginny." He paused and remembered the last time he had tried to talk to the headmaster. "Please, listen to me this time," he begged.

The headmaster watched the blonde boy thoughtfully. What could possibly have dragged him out of bed when he was in such pain?

"Alright, follow me." He turned around and headed for the entrance of his office. "Haribo gummy bears!"

Dumbledore sat behind his huge and messy desk and watched Draco gingerly sit in one of the armchairs in front of him. Fawkes was napping in a corner and the silence in the office was overwhelming. He could tell that the young Slytherin was uncomfortable there.

"So, what is your concern Draco? We still haven't managed to get Miss Weasley back if that's what you're wondering about," he said kindly.

"Oh, I knew that. But she told me she's okay," shrugged the boy.

"She… told you?" Albus was perplexed.

Draco shifted in his seat and gritted his teeth as his left ankle hit a foot of the table and sent awful pain signals to his brain. Last time he would cut his ankles, definitely.

"Draco, are you telling me that you actually talked to her? How is that possible?"

"Telepathy," Draco mumbled, unwilling to look at the old headmaster in case he was laughing at him and not believing him.

Albus sat back in his chair and thought about it for a while. It made sense… a bit. He didn't know why the bond had progressed right now, but he knew it could have happened. And it did. And Merlin, would it be useful.

"She's different, Sir." This time, Draco looked straight into Dumbledore's twinkling eyes. "Something changed. She's not exactly the Ginny I know."

"Could you fight have affected your relationship that she's changed the way she talks to you?" Albus asked while tapping his fingers on the edge of the desk. 'Please, let that be the answer.'

"Maybe" conceded Draco. "But it feels deeper than that."

Dumbledore nodded, and the teenager felt relieved. He was being taken seriously! The old man stood up and circled the desk. "I'll talk to whoever I can about this Draco. I'm sure there's an explanation. Now go back to the hospital wing and get some rest, it's getting quite late. And tell Miss Weasley to do the same, we need her to stay strong."

The headmaster watched his Slytherin student swiftly walk down the stairs and tapped his nose with his finger, a habit he had when he was lost deep in thought.

"Well, at least neither of them is alone anymore," he said to the phoenix who had opened a glittering black eye and watched the Malfoy boy depart.

Blaise was walking pensively towards the hospital wing when a flash of unmistakable blonde hair caught his attention. He ran in the deserted hall to catch up with his friend but didn't reach him before Draco was back in the hospital wing. Blaise pushed the heavy oak door open just as Draco was kicking off his shoes and trying to lie down without hurting himself more.

He stayed with his back against the door for a couple of seconds. He didn't know how he should react. Be mad? Be sympathetic? Tell Draco that he'd just spent the past hour kissing a Gryffindor behind bookshelf 13 of the History of Magic section? Blaise pushed that particularly scandalous thought aside. Not only he had snogged a Gryff and enjoyed it, but he had done it instead of being dead worried for his friend who had just made another pseudo suicide attempt.

"Blaise, when you're done talking to yourself, you can talk to me," Draco drawled with his trademark smirk firmly in place at the corner of his mouth.

The sight made Blaise furious. The smirk, the light tone, like everything was alright when in fact, nothing was. "Quit it, Draco!" The black-haired Slytherin snapped and walked towards his friend. He knew Draco was slightly taken aback: Blaise Zabini, larva extraordinaire, was extremely difficult to anger. Numerous valiant housemates had tried to no avail and only in extreme situations had they been graced with Blaise's wrath.

Draco had sat up already when Blaise reached him and violently grabbed his left arm. The blonde Slytherin yelped and winced and tried to pry his arm out of Blaise's grip without twisting the sore skin but Blaise was stronger than he had thought. He gritted his teeth and stopped struggling, knowing it would only make things worse. Pain was already shooting up his arm, making him see dark patches in front of his eyes.

"Let go Blaise, it hurts," he finally managed to spit, trembling all over. But Blaise's eyes flashed with madness and he gripped Draco's arm tighter, making a few wounds reopen and soak the white bandage.

"It hurts, eh?" Blaise leaned forwards "It hurts, Draco? It hurts?" He was shouting now, but the nurse wasn't in her office or in the wing itself and no one came to see what the commotion was about.

"Yes it hurts!" Draco screamed back, tears prickling his eyes. Why was Blaise doing that? Blaise was supposed to be his friend; friends don't do that! The blonde boy's head filled with flashbacks of Lucius and the numerous times he had acted like Blaise was acting now. He was getting scared. Could nice, composed, equal Blaise hurt him like his father could? He shut his eyes tight and tears escaped, which made him curse in his head.

He could feel blood slowly roll down his arm now and spill on the hospital sheets. "Stop it Blaise!" he screamed again, opening his eyes again and taking in Blaise's furious expression and the bloodied hand still gripping his arm; he started struggling again. He could hear Madam Pomfrey's heels in the hall now, running fast towards them.

"Enough Mr Zabini! Enough!" she yelled while pulling Blaise away from Draco with all her strength. The stern voice of the nurse seemed to get through to Blaise and he let go of Draco's arm and let the woman pull him away. She was standing in shock between the two boys, looking from one to the other, trying to grasp what was going on. Draco was curled up, cradling his bloodied arm and Blaise was shaking, looking at his hand and at the floor.

"It hurts Draco?" he softly murmured and looked at the other teenager. "I can tell you, even if I had ripped off your whole arm, it would never have hurt as much as finding your best friend lying in a pool of blood one morning when you wake up."

Madam Pomfrey grabbed a wound cleaning salve and a pile of bandages and sat next to Draco to try calm down his sobs and clean up the mess Blaise had made of his arm. "Mr Zabini, go to my office, sit, and don't move until I come. And trust me, you do not want to disobey this order," she snapped in a cold voice.

Blaise turned on his heel and headed towards her office without one look behind. He couldn't look at Draco. Not after what he'd just done. He sat down in an armchair in a corner and waited for the nurse to come in and probably behead him or at least inflict on him a phenomenal punishment. The dark-haired boy looked at his hand covered with his friend's blood and he felt sick. What had he done? He certainly deserved whatever punishment was coming his way; he had gone way too far. He had snapped. Blaise Zabini never snapped. What the hell was wrong with him?

Time seemed to stretch beyond everything possible while he was waiting. His eyes kept searching for the clock above the door. The designed brass handles seemed to be hardly moving at all, it was unnerving. Madam Pomfrey finally pushed the door open and looked at the Slytherin boy in the armchair. "Wash your hands Mr Zabini."

He did as he was told and went back to his seat. The nurse was looking through some files and sometimes checking information from the huge collection of black and gold bound books that lined the wall behind her. He watched her minute after minute, while she kept on with her activities without so much of an interruption except when she had broken her quill and had turned the whole place upside down to find another one.

He didn't know why she was so blatantly ignoring his presence and he didn't dare ask. The clock eventually struck nine and he sighed. He knew he had to remind her of his presence or Snape would kill him. He was supposed to be in the common room by half past nine as it was a school night and he knew she wouldn't let him go without a lecture or something of that sort, which could take time.

"Madam Pomfrey?" he called her timidly.

"We are waiting for your head of house, mister Zabini. I suggest you use your time wisely to come up with an explanation for your behaviour." Her voice chilled him to the bones. She was obviously beyond furious and he didn't say another word.

Another ten minutes passed, the silence only troubled by the scratching of madam Pomfrey's quill on the parchment. Blaise shifted in his seat as he heard the sound of decided and fast footsteps in the hall. Snape was coming.

Snape was rightly annoyed when Pomfrey asked for him. Today had been hectic. He had not taught any lessons in the morning and Dumbledore had appointed Trelawney to cover for his absence. Trelawney! The only available teacher, the headmaster had said. Snape couldn't help but scoff at that. Of course she was available, more and more pupils dropped Divination and it was becoming a less and less popular elective as her reputation as hopeless teacher spread.

He had planned to fix the mess she'd done in the evening, but no, of course not, Pomfrey needed him! And he knew it was not about Draco, because she would have sent an urgent message. This one was just saying "come when you're available".

Being Severus Snape, he had considered not going at all, but he was head of house… He had to give some sort of example. And it was Pomfrey… You just couldn't ignore the school nurse. Maybe it was important.

So Severus was marching towards the hospital wing, his black robes billowing behind him and his scowl particularly accentuated. He was pissed off and he wanted people to know it. He watched a flock of first years trot away in fear as he approached them and nearly laughed. Stupid Hufflepuffs.

When he stepped in the hospital wing, everything was silent. He briefly looked towards Draco, but the boy seemed asleep, tightly curled up in his bed. He shook his head and turned around to knock on Pomfrey's office door, but instead of being let in, she joined him outside and closed the door behind her.

"What is it you need Poppy? I'm really busy at the moment, I only have five minutes to spare you," he declared haughtily before she could trap him into spending his evening doing stuff for her.

She glared at him and put her hands on her hips. "I'm afraid this is a matter that will take more than five minutes to sort out. And as head of Slytherin, you will take your responsibilities and you will give more than five minutes to your pupils." Obviously, this wasn't open to discussion and the potion master was really starting to wonder what was going on.

And indeed, once Madam Pomfrey had filled him in with what had happened just one hour before in the hospital wing, he frowned and knew he would have to spend more than five minutes on both boys. He sighed; he hated drama. Drama was for Gryffindors. The house of Slytherin was equal, calm, composed. Where had all of this gone?

He rubbed his face with his hand and looked at the nurse who was waiting for his reaction. "I'll talk to Blaise tonight and to Draco tomorrow, if you don't mind." He then opened the office door and motioned Blaise to follow him and let the nurse go back to her activities. He knew she trusted him to take care of the matter, and he would.

He marched back down to the dungeons and soon, he was facing one pale and quiet Blaise Zabini in his office. Blaise sat down without a word while Snape quickly cleaned his desk from the mess of parchments Trelawney had asked from the Ravenclaw-Hufflepuff third year class.

"Right Mr Zabini. What do you have to say for your defence?" his voice was smooth and calm, but Blaise knew that the suaveness was only superficial. The boy looked at the floor.

"Nothing sir. My actions are not defendable," he replied in a monotonous voice.

Snape sat back and watched him with interest. "Why do you say that?"

"I acted on impulse and didn't think of any consequences, and attacked a friend who was already hurt. It was low of me and not defendable," Blaise mechanically explained.

"Why did you do that, Mr Zabini?"

The teenager shrugged. "I don't know, sir." He wanted this to be over. He wanted Snape to just give him detention or expel him and be done.

"You don't know? That's a very Gryffindor answer, coming from you. I'm going to tell you what I think, Blaise." The boy's eyes snapped up to meet his teacher's gaze at the mention of his first name. "I think you are upset that Draco does not think of the people who care about him when he goes off on a craze like that."

Blaise nodded, glad someone was understanding. "I worry about him and he doesn't seem to care at all. He cares about nothing; he refuses to see that he's being selfish!"

"I understand, and to be honest, my instinct often tells me to slap his brain back into place. Unfortunately, you cannot act on such impulses. You will apologize to your housemate and you will serve a whole month of detention. One hour, every single evening, with whomever on the staff needs you. You may go now."

Blaise nodded in agreement, stood up and walked to the door. "Mister Zabini." The boy twirled around. "Do not give up. Insist until he realizes you are there. Good night."

Blaise left the office and Snape returned to his thoughts. Yes, he understood Zabini. He understood his pain more than he was willing to admit, but he also knew Blaise had done the wrong thing with Draco. He just hoped that it could be mended.

'Merlin, I truly hate drama.'

Snapey hates drama but we fanfic addicts love it. Review!