Chapter 29

Some time later, Draco awoke to find himself in the Infirmary with his Quidditch team surrounding him. They did not look pleased, nor did they seem very concerned with Draco's condition.

"What happened, Malfoy? Why did you fly in front of Flatley's Bludger?" Flint asked Draco menacingly.

"I…" Draco started saying.

He could not finish what he was saying because he felt like someone had just punched him really had in the chest. He just groaned in pain. But with Flint and the rest of the team staring at him, he bit the bullet and attempted to finish his sentence.

"…didn't…watch where…I…was flying…" Draco finished with great difficulty.

I hope they don't keep on my back for too long…this really hurts! Draco thought, laughing internally, remembering when he thought that getting attacked by that hippogriff was a big deal.

"Well, Malfoy, that is what cost us the game and the Cup because when you were on the floor of the pitch, Potter got the Snitch!!!" Flint yelled.

Luckily for Draco, this was loud enough to attract attention from Poppy.

"All of you out!! My patient needs his rest!!" she yelled.

Flint and the rest of the team glared a little at Draco when Flint finally said, "We'll discuss this later, Malfoy."

With that, the Slytherin Quidditch team stalked out. Now Draco laid alone with his pain.

Flint's going to have my head later…but I'm not going to worry about that right now…I need to do something about Weasely. I can't lose her to him, I can't! Draco thought desperately.

But he just did not have the energy to deal with the problem right then, so he gave himself up to sleep.

Now many days had passed since Snape had come to stay with Sirius and Remus, and with every passing day, the tension grew in the house. Remus attempted at times to start some conversation with Sirius or Snape only to get a half hearted response from Sirius and an answer and a glare from Snape. Soon Remus gave up on it, knowing that there was nothing he could do to stop the situation from blowing up eventually. All he could do was wait. Finally the time came that night at dinner. As they were all eating at the table, the glaring between Snape and Sirius was at an all time high. Remus was very uncomfortable as he looked between the two. Finally Sirius jammed the fork he was using into the table, causing it to stand straight up and make an odd twinging sound in the air.

As the sound began to lessen, Sirius suddenly turned to Remus and said angrily, "I can't do this anymore, Remus. I can't stand to have this traitor in our presence!"

This caused a sneer to come to Snape's lips.

"Funny that I am the traitor when it was you who divulged the information of the Potters whereabouts to Pettigrew." Snape said evenly.

Sirius then quickly advanced on Snape and drew his wand on him.

"I should have killed Pettigrew the moment I laid eyes on him two years ago. I won't make the same mistake with you now." Sirius said very slowly and deliberately, his fury making his wand quiver ever so slightly.

"You think I'm afraid of a coward like you?" Snape said, his voice dripping with scorn, also bringing up his wand.

Remus knew that he had to step in now before they killed each other.

"Severus, Sirius, you both have to stop. We all have to get along for Dumbledore's sake." Remus said tensely.

Both Snape and Sirius lowered their wands and calmed down slightly, but still glared intensely at each other.

"At least I wasn't with the one that killed Lily and James and countless others!" Sirius said, not quite ready to give it up.

Snape stared at Sirius for a long moment, narrowing his eyes and piercing him with the coldness they held.

"Nor was I" he hissed in a slow and dangerous voice.

Sirius made a noise of disbelief.

"Then what do you call that on your arm!?" Sirius said, pointing to the Death Mark on Snape's left arm.

Snape looked down at the mark hidden by his sleeve with disgust etched all over his face. He placed a hand over it firmly and said in a bitter tone, "This," he paused, letting the hiss escape his mouth, "This is a mistake that I will regret for the rest of my life."

He ended in a low voice and drew a deadly silence. He showed the first slight sign of fear as he stared unapprovingly at the mark on his arm. Sirius laughed at him mirthlessly.

"I really doubt that. I bet you enjoyed taking the life of every person you killed. I don't even know why Dumbledore trusts you now. If anything, that's the mistake." Sirius said.

Remus looked between them helplessly. He knew that whatever was going to happen, had to happen now, and there was nothing he could do to stop it in the end.

"I don't know why Dumbledore bothers helping someone as useless and arrogant as you. I imagine that he has a lot of pity for you." Snape countered.

"I know you only wished that you could have had been the one that could lead Voldemort to the Potters! Lily didn't want you, so you thought you could have it out on both her and James, isn't it?" Sirius replied.

"As much as I loathed Potter, I would never have done such a thing. Especially not to Lily." said Snape, furious.

"Oh, please." Sirius said scathingly.

"It may be beyond your pitiful abilities of understanding, but I did not join the Death Eaters to kill. Although, I can make an exception with you." Snape growled.

"Oh, really? Then why did you join the Death Eaters? To cure world hunger and spread happiness throughout the land?" Sirius said very sarcastically.

"No." Snape replied derisively, "You may not have realized while you and Potter strutted around Hogwarts like you owned it, I was alone. I don't know how you pulled the wool over everyone's eyes with your arrogance, but I was not fooled. I saw you for the useless, overconfident people you were. In the beginning, the Death Eaters gave me what you made me lack. I will always regret joining them, but not the reason why."

Sirius was taken aback slightly. Even if this was someone he despised, he did feel slightly guilty for partly driving Snape to find acceptance with such a group of people, but he did not want to show it.

"I'm not proud of a lot of things I did when I was young, but blaming a mistake as huge as that on me and James is not fair." Sirius said defensively.

"Oh. Now Mr. King of the Castle wants to make clear what is and isn't fair." Snape said, mocking Sirius with his eyes flashing.

This comment caused Sirius's anger to light up once again. He was about to come up with a biting retort, but Remus cut in to try to keep the fighting at a minimum.

"Look. All of these things happened so many years ago. We all have things we regret doing. Young people don't always make the right decisions, in fact, most of the things that they do are mistakes." Remus said.

"Oh, and might one of the things that you regret be that you just sat there and watched Potter and this one treat me the way they did, and did nothing to stop it?" Snape said angrily, pointing at Sirius when he referred to him.

Remus hated the fact that it was Snape pointing this out, but he was right.

"Yes. I do regret that. But what's done is done. We have to try to come to some sort of understanding so that we're not at each other's throats all the time. Especially you two." Remus said, pointing to Sirius and Snape.

"I don't think we can do that, Remus. This pitiful excuse for a human being has been out for blood the moment he got here." Sirius said with much annoyance.

"You actually think that I wanted to come here? You have got to be joking." Snape said slowly and sarcastically.

"Well, like it or not, we're stuck together until Dumbledore says otherwise." Sirius replied angrily.

"That is unfortunately so." Snape replied, derisively.

"I think I'm going to go for a walk before I change my mind about killing him." Sirius said to Remus as he stormed out the front door of the cottage.

Snape then gave Remus a glare and stalked off into the next room with a swish of his robes, leaving Remus alone in the dining/living room of the cottage.

He sighed, shook his head, and thought, Well, things could have turned out so much worse…

He then took a seat in the living room not knowing what else to do with himself.

As the weekend wore on after the Quidditch game, Violet just could not keep her mind off of Draco. She tried to be as ecstatic as the rest of her house about the win and receiving the Quidditch Cup, but she was failing miserably. Ron, who was in just as good a mood as mostly everyone else in the Common Room, picked up on Violet's mood.

"Hey, Hermione…why do you think that Violet doesn't look too happy? I mean, we just won the Cup!" Ron asked, pointing out Violet.

Harry and Hermione looked over to where Ron pointed and saw Violet who was sitting in a corner of the Common Room looking fairly miserable.

"Look, Ron. Everything isn't always about Quidditch. Maybe we should go talk to her." Hermione replied, curious as to why Violet seemed to be in a bad mood.

"Maybe she feels bad about Malfoy falling off of his broom. I don't know why she might, but she was right there when it happened." Harry ventured a guess.

"Yeah, I'll go talk to her…" Ron said to Harry and Hermione.

Ron walked up to Violet. She realized that he was coming up to her when he was pretty close. He was one of the last people she wanted to talk to right in that moment.

"Hey, Violet. What's going on?" Ron said, not sure how to start a conversation with her.

"Nothing." Violet replied rather flatly, trying to discourage conversation.

"How come you're in a bad mood? I mean, we just won the Cup when half of our team never played on a Quidditch team before and the other half was out of practice for a whole year!" Ron said in his best attempt to boost her spirits.

"I am thrilled about that, really, but I just – " Violet stopped in the middle of her sentence, shook her head, and finished, "Oh, never mind…"

"What? Do you feel bad because that scumbag fell off his broom? He got what he deserved, trust me. I mean, I thought you hated him just as much as the rest of us do. Wasn't that what the truth telling spell you cast on him at the beginning of the year was for?" Ron said.

Violet's eyes flashed and she started talking before she could even think about what she was saying.

"Ron, he could have died! If he didn't block that bludger for me, then it would have been me in the Hospital Wing! I don't think I could live with myself if he's not okay!"

Ron just gave her an extremely confused look while Violet silently kicked herself for temporarily losing herself and saying a bit too much.

"I don't know why you're getting all touchy over this. You shouldn't worry. He'll be back much too soon to rub his nose in our faces and pointing out exactly why we're not as good as him." Ron said.

Suddenly Violet stood up, surprising Ron. She didn't really trust herself to say anything else.

"Look, Ron. I'm going to go take a walk, okay?" she said.

"I'll come with you." Ron replied.

"No, no. I want to go by myself. I'll see you and Harry and Hermione when I get back." Violet said.

With that she left the Common Room and Ron staring after her. He walked back over to Harry and Hermione, who were watching the whole thing from far away.

"What just happened there?" Hermione asked.

"I don't know exactly. She was all defensive about it for some reason. She didn't tell me anything about what might be bothering her." Ron said.

"I guess she'll just come back and tell us later." Harry said.

"Yeah…" Ron said reluctantly.

"And where did she go?" Hermone asked.

"I don't know. She just said she wanted to go for a walk." Ron said.

"Maybe she wanted to clear her head or something. When I do that, I just go to the library." Hermione said.

"But, Hermione, you always go to the library no matter what!" Ron pointed out.

Hermione gave Ron a sarcastic look and said, "Oh, shut up Ron."

Ron just shrugged his shoulders and looked at Harry. Harry was smiling because he knew it was true.

"Well, Ron does have a point there." Harry said in a teasing voice.

"Harry!" Hermione said indignantly as she threw a pillow at him.

Ron and Harry just laughed.

After Viole left the Gryffindor Common Room, she just wandered around the school thinking of Draco.

I wish I knew how he was! It kills me thinking that he did all of that for me…and I've done nothing but ignore him and cause him pain. Violet thought sadly, I'm sure I completely misjudged his character…

As she walked down the hall, she realized she had landed near the Hospital Wing.

Wow, I can't believe that I subconsciously walked over here! It's probably because I'm so worried about him…I have to see him. I have to make sure he's okay. Violet thought, now making her way to the Hospital Wing.

Draco lay in his hospital bed, feeling lonely and in pain. But at least the pain was slowly subsiding, though not as fast as Draco might have liked. He decided that since there wasn't much else he could do, he would just go back to sleep. It sure beat lying there alone and in pain. He made himself as comfortable as he possibly could and then shut his eyes. Some ten minutes later, Violet walked into the Hospital Wing. She saw that Draco was near the back. She tried to walk as lightly as she could up to his bed since her footsteps echoed loudly inside the quiet room. When she got close to him, she saw that he was sleeping. She knew she didn't have long since someone from Slytherin could walk in at any time, but she just didn't have the heart to wake him. She looked at his broken body and once again felt the tears welling up in her eyes.

I can't believe that this is all my fault…Violet thought, feeling very horrible.

Then, without thinking about it, she reached out and lightly touched his face. This caused his eyelids to flutter and then he slowly opened his eyes.

Oh, it's just Violet…Draco thought sleepily.

He nearly closed his eyes again, but then the thought caused his eyes to snap open.

"Violet?!" he said in surprise as he sat up suddenly.

Then he groaned in pain and propped himself up as comfortably as he could.

"Violet…" Draco said a lot more carefully and quietly, "What are you doing here?"

"Why did you do this?" Violet asked, completely ignoring Draco's question.

"Because I saw what the Beaters on my team were up to. If I had let them do what they planned, you'd have ended up worse than me. How could I knowingly let something like that happen to you? I could never…" Draco replied.

"Oh, Draco…I'm so sorry…I can't believe you did this even after I was ignoring you…" Violet said, almost crying.

"No, don't be." Draco said softly while he put a hand on her cheek, "I'm the one who's sorry. I didn't tell you everything that I knew. I understand if you still wouldn't want to trust me…"

"Of course I trust you." Violet replied, leaning slightly closer to him as she put her own hand over Draco's.

Suddenly Draco's face got dark.

"And what of you and Weasely?" he asked spitefully, "If you are with him, then this is no – "

Violet interrupted him by pulling his head towards hers and kissing him. Draco was at first surprised, but quickly gave in. It felt so nice after such a long break, Draco and Violet almost never wanted it to end.

Finally Draco pulled slightly back from Violet and looked into her eyes. She saw that his eyes were full of love and passion, and she was sure her eyes looked the same. She was now even more certain that she could never look at Ron this way.

"Violet…" Draco said softly and breathlessly, "I – "

Draco stopped suddenly in the middle of his sentence when they both heard some voices carrying inside from the hall. He couldn't recognize one of the muffled voices, but he knew the other well. It was Pansy Parkinson.

"Pull the curtains around the bed, quick!" he whispered frantically.

Violet quickly complied and looked at him.

"What are we going to do? How am I supposed to get out of here?" Violet whispered back just as frantically.

"Umm…help me get my shirt off!" Draco whispered.

Violet forgot about the current situation and her mouth dropped in shock as she looked at Draco.

"What?!" Violet said, barely remembering to keep her voice down.

"Just help me! And throw it on the table by the bed! I need an excuse to not let her past the curtain!" Draco replied quickly, knowing that they needed to act fast.

Violet's hands shook so much as she unbuttoned his shirt for him that the buttons kept slipping out of her fingers since she was extremely nervous and anxious.

I wish this was under different circumstances…Violet thought, slightly annoyed that she couldn't be enjoying this a little bit more, due to the situation.

Finally she got it off and tossed it on the table next to the bed. She dived behind the curtain as she saw Pansy coming in view. Violet crawled to the other side of the bed behind the curtain, making as little noise as possible. Draco glanced over to where Violet was hiding and then did his best to lie down and pretend he was resting.

"Oh, Draco, I came as soon as I could to visit you!" Pasny's simpering voice came from behind the curtain, "Is everything all right? Can I open the curtain?"

"No!" Draco said rather sharply.

Then he softened his voice so Pansy wouldn't get suspicious.

"I'm just not fully dressed. I really wasn't expecting any visitors…" Draco said, hoping that Pansy would leave soon.

"Oh, but you should have known that I would visit you!" Pansy said, sounding slightly disappointed.

"Yeah, I should have." Draco said, struggling to keep the annoyance out of his voice.

"Umm…can I help you get dressed so that we can talk? I don't want to keep talking to you behind a curtain." Pansy said slightly playfully.

This statement caused the jealousy to flair in Violet, but she contained herself since she knew bad things would happen to them both if anyone knew about them.

"No!" Draco said with a little bit more disgust than he planned.

Then he took a deep breath and willed away the bad thoughts of Pansy helping him dress and then spoke again.

"No. I really do want to get some rest." Draco said, desperate to get Pansy to leave him and Violet alone.

I have to find a way to get out of her undetected! Violet thought frantically as it became obvious it would not be easy to get rid of Pansy Parkinson.

Then the idea hit her. She knew exactly what she would do to get Pansy to leave. Pansy had seen where Draco's shirt was and so she got up from the chair she was sitting in, picked up the shirt, and tried to hand it to Draco without looking inside the curtain.

"Here. You can do it yourself if you don't want my help." Pansy said, closing her eyes and sticking the hand with the shirt in the curtain.

It was then that Violet dared to crawl around to the same side that Pansy was on while Draco took the shirt that was being handed to him with much difficulty. After Draco took the shirt, Pansy began to sit down, but Violet had other plans for her.

"Mobilarbus." Violet whispered, pointing her wand at Pansy's chair from under the curtain.

Violet then moved her wand to the left, causing the chair to move that way as well. Pansy did not realize the chair had move and so tried to sit on empty air. When she felt herself missing the chair, she screamed as she fell to the ground. This was more than enough noise to get Madam Pomfrey's attention. She rushed in and looked pretty enraged for her.

"Out!! He needs his rest!! Stop disturbing the peace!!!" Poppy yelled, ushering Pansy outside.

"I'll see you later, Draco!" Pansy said right before she was pushed outside.

Poppy muttered something about the peace of her Hospital Wing being destroyed and then walked into her office. This is when Violet finally stood up after crouching a long time.

As Violet stretched out her legs, Draco said, "Finally, she's gone."

"Yeah…but I have to go now too. I've probably been away from the Common Room much too long. They'll probably come looking for me, and I don't think it would be a good idea for them to find me here. I'll see you soon, okay?" Violet said, lightly touching Draco's cheek.

"Okay." Draco said reluctantly, "I'll see you later then…"

"Bye, Draco." Violet said, giving him a quick wave as she walked out of the Hospital Wing.

"Bye, Violet." Draco replied.

I'm glad I got to talk to him…now I feel so much better…But there's still Ron to worry about! I don't even know what I'm going to do now…Violet thought sadly, as she walked down the hall to get to the stairs.

She barely got to the end of the hall when she bumped into someone.

"Oh, I'm sorry! I – " Violet started saying.

Violet suddenly stopped when she saw it was Ginny who she bumped into. And she did not look pleased.

"How could you do this to Ron?" Ginny said angrily.

"But, I just – " Violet tried speaking again.

"Don't even try defending yourself." Ginny said, shaking her head, "I saw you talking to Draco. I thought that you finally realized what a bad idea he was, and now I see that you're just playing with my brother's feelings!"

"No, Ginny, I'm not playing with Ron's feelings!" Violet said, starting to get angry herself since Ginny kept cutting her off.

"What do you call giving your word to him and then going off to spend time with his main enemy and kissing him!" Ginny said with her eyes flashing, "I told Ron and Harry and Hermione I would come look for you and this is what I found! I should have just let Ron come look for you so that he could see the truth for himself before he trusted you too much!"

"Look, I really do like Ron, and I would never hurt him on purpose! But it probably was a mistake for me to say I would go steady with him." Violet replied

Ginny had another biting retort for her, but Violet cut her off this time.

"I had talked to Draco on the night of the Valentines Ball. He told me that he was involved in Voldemort's plot to get the Scepter, but he did not want to be. I had then decided that I could not be with him since his family was that way. I had just said yes to Ron because I thought that way I could bury my feelings for Draco and move on."

"So you were playing around with Ron's feelings from the very start?!" Ginny said in absolute revulsion.

"No! I do have feelings for Ron, but in time I realized that even if I liked him, I probably never could love him!" Violet replied.

"What, and you love Malfoy?" Ginny said, making it seem that the words love and Malfoy were the most disgusting combination in the world.

"I…don't know." Violet said hesitantly, not wanting to Ginny to get more enraged with her than she already was.

If I did tell her that I thought I did, then she would go straight to Ron right now. I can't let her do that. If anyone tells him anything, it had better be me. I got myself into this mess, and the only way to get out is to tell Ron the whole truth. Violet thought, knowing that there was no other way out of this now.

"You are being so bloody stupid! You don't know the Malfoys the way that we do. They are all bad to the core! Draco is no different. He is just tricking you into thinking that he changed so that he can find more things out about the Scepter to tell Voldemort! I tried telling you this before, and I thought you got the point, and this is why you let Draco go and said yes to Ron finally. But I was so wrong." Ginny said, her mouth curling in disgust.

"Ginny, please don't tell this to Ron…" Violet said, slightly pleading.

"Why? So you can have Malfoy and him on the side?" Ginny replied sarcastically.

"No! I would never do something like that! I have to talk to him personally and make him understand how I feel. I know Ron well enough to know that if someone else told him about this, he would most likely hate me and never speak to me again." Violet said.

"And why would that be a bad thing? At least that way you couldn't lie or cheat him anymore!" Ginny said, letting her anger get the better of her.

Violet also felt her anger beginning to flare, but she also knew that she probably deserved this. It was her fault things got to such a level.

"I am so sorry…I never meant for things to go this far…when I said yes to Ron I was only thinking about myself." Violet admitted.

Ginny was still very angry at Violet, but she knew that it would be a bad idea if her brother's girlfriend was with him and was thinking about someone else.

"Fine. I won't tell him…for now. You can't let this go on, Violet! If you don't talk to him and fix this, then I will." Ginny said, walking off and leaving Violet alone.

Now Violet felt even worse than when she first suddenly left the Common Room.

I can't face Ron now…I have to think about what I might tell him. My life was so much easier at Notalans…I wish I was there now instead of here…Violet thought, slightly bitter at the complicated path her life was taking since coming to Hogwarts.

Violet made her way towards the grounds where she felt she could be alone with her thoughts. As she did this, Ginny angrily made her way back to the Gryffindor Common Room. Ron, Harry, and Hermione were still in a fairly good mood, although Hermione was once again pushing them to study for the O.W.L.s now that the excitement of the Quidditch win had died down. After much grumbling Harry and Ron complied, knowing that she was probably right, even if they didn't outwardly show they thought that. They were halfway through their Potions notes when Ginny stalked back into the Common Room. Ron stopped her before she could get to the stairs that led up to the dorms.

"Hey, Ginny! So did you find her?" Ron asked.

"No." Ginny said shortly, deciding to keep her disagreement with Violet to herself for the time being like she promised.

"Well, okay then. Why are you in such a bad mood?" Ron asked curiously.

"No reason." she said, still keeping her answers short.

"Was it something Seamus did?!? Because if it was, I'll have his hide right now!" Ron said, starting to get worked up.

Ginny impatiently waved him off.

"No, Seamus didn't do anything." Ginny replied, getting tired of this conversation.

"Darn, I thought I might have had him that time…" Ron said, slightly disappointed.

"Look, I'm going to study upstairs, okay?" Ginny said, leaving the conversation like that.

Ron found that strange, but he just figured she was just being weird like girls were sometimes.

"So did Ginny find her?" Harry asked when Ron rejoined Hermione and him.

"No, she didn't." Ron replied.

"Oh, well, she'll be back eventually…she'll talk to us when she's ready." Hermione said.

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Ron said reluctantly.

With that, they all got back to studying for their O.W.L.s.