Their first flying lesson of the year was on Thursday, and of course it just had to be with the Slytherins. Just what Draco wanted, another class with his former friends, turned bullies, where they could taunt him. Not that they would be able to make fun of him for his flying abilities, due to a) the fact they did not get to really fly on their first day, and b) that he really was quite good at flying, and all of them were aware of it.
Pansy had always been terrible at quidditch, a fact she complained about on every occasion possible and everyone else found amusing. Blaise on the other hand had been one of the best Seekers Draco had ever known for as long as the blond could remember, though Draco did tend to beat him when they had played each other one on one. Vincent and Gergory, or as pretty much everyone called them despite the fact that they did have first names, Crabbe and Goyle, had also somewhat surprisingly revealed themselves to be rather good beaters the one time all of their little "group" had gotten together to play Quidditch the summer before they had all received their Hogwarts letters. Theo had never been all too sporty though, and unlike Pansy he didn't seem to care in the slightest, he much more preferred the company of a book or parchment and quill than a broom and a ball. He had been a somewhat decent keeper when they had played, though he kept getting distracted and just in general did not enjoy being on a broom in the slightest. Draco on the other hand was rather good at being a Chaser, and a Seeker, and felt more at home while on a broom than when he was doing anything else. His parents, and his past friends, had all told him since he was eight that if he was never placed on the quidditch team for his house, which "of course will be Slytherin" as his father had told him the very first time they had talked about it, then they were going to assume someone had jinxed the system because he was too good to not have.
As Draco wandered down to the small stretch of flat ground located right in between the castle and Forbidden Forest where their lesson would take place, all sorts of memories of playing quidditch with one or more of the five flashed through his mind. He tried his best to push them away, really not wanting to think about those that had turned their backs on him simply because of where he was sorted -though he begrudgingly had to admit had he been sorted into Slytherin and one of his other friends had ended up in Gryffindor, he likely would have shunned them as well-. His efforts were rather fruitless however, and things he had almost forgotten about came into his mind; how he had once fallen from his broom and broken his wrist, how Theo had once watched him and Blaise play against each other and had kept calling random ratings on how good their moves and tactics were, how Pansy had accidentally once gotten her hair tangled into the branches of a tree in his yard while attempting to fly and Draco's mother had needed to use a spell to cut the girl's hair to get it out.
Draco shook his head suddenly in a final attempt to get rid of the memories and they faded into the back of his mind just as he, Harry, Ron, and the rest of the first year Gryffindors made it to where the Slytherins were all already standing beside a row of twenty neatly lined up brooms that looked as if they hadn't had a good day for over fifteen years. Many of the Slytherins, including Pansy and Blaise, looked over at the Gryffindors with a mix of amused and angry expressions on their faces as the red and gold wearing eleven and twelve year olds came over and stood a good five feet away from them. Deliberately, to avoid eye-contact with those he had expected to be his housemates just two weeks prior, he turned to Harry and Ron, about to ask something completely random just to start up some kind of conversation when suddenly their flying teacher, Madam Hooch, walked down the path they had all taken and stopped in front of them. All of the students who had been talking immediately shut their mouths at the sight of the strict looking witch with sheared short silver hair and glinting yellow-gold eyes that looked like those of a falcon, even Pansy seemed to find the teacher intimidating judging by the slight widen of her eyes.
"What are you all waiting for? Everyone stand next to a broom. Come on, hurry up!" Madam Hooch snapped and immediately all of the students scrambled to get to a broom beside their friends before they were taken. The broom that Draco had decided to use looked almost worse off than the other ones lying out with its chipped and worn handle and half broken end. Had there been another one free that hadn't been directly next to Pansy he most definitely would have taken it, even if it wasn't next to Harry and Ron.
"Stick your right hand out over your broom and yell 'Up!'." The teacher yelled over the growing noise of excited chatter as she moved to stand in front of all of them.
"UP!" Everyone yelled and the broom at his side immediately flew up into his outstretched hand, just as Harry's, Blaise's, and a Gryffindor girl by the name of Amante's did. A small smirk of triumph spread across his lips and he looked over at the raven-haired boy next to him, intending to say something probably a bit arrogant. A look of clear shock was written on his face as he stared down at the broom which was gripped tightly in his hand and Draco couldn't help but snort with laughter at the expression, his previous comment forgotten.
This seemed to pull the other boy out of his stupor and he looked over the blond in confusion, his green eyes shining and his dark eyebrows furrowed. "What?" He demanded, but Draco simply shook his head, suddenly blanking a bit on what to say. "Nothing, Potter. Your expressions are just rather amusing." Harry blinked at him, about to say something in reply to that, only to be interrupted by Madam Hooch who yelled at them all to pay attention to what she was saying and then proceeded to explain to them all how to get their brooms without sliding off the end.
Draco, who had done this so many times that it felt instinctual to get on his broom and grip it tightly, quickly followed her instructions, watching as she walked down the line of first years and told each of them how to fix their posture. It took her a good two minutes to reach him due to how close to the middle of the line he was and when she did, he was very strongly hoping she would compliment him, just so that the Slytherins, even Pansy, would stop smirking at him as if they were ten times better than he was.
"Mr Malfoy," she said and immediately he could tell from the tone she used that he wouldn't be getting his wish. "You're gripping the handle wrong, you have to hold it like this." Draco felt his cheeks heat up in embarrassment as the teacher mimicked how he should have been holding the broom his entire life, but had not. Snickers broke out from the Slytherins and a few Gryffindors, including Ron, as he adjusted his grip and Madam Hooch nodded her approval before walking by Harry and nodding as well without a word. Draco averted his eyes from everyone else's, hating how embarrassed he felt for such a simple mistake as having his hands in a slightly incorrect position.
"Not as good as you thought, eh, bloodtraitor?" Pansy called, a smirk spread sinisterly across her face and Draco glared slightly at her out of the corners of his eyes, yet he didn't say anything in retort, not when the teacher was standing right there. "Ms Parkinson! That is two points from Slytherin, I won't have any of such name callings take place in my class." Madam Hooch snapped at the girl, whose eyes widened and she mumbled a quick apology when the teacher gave her a stern look. The silver-haired witch seemed satisfied enough with that and turned back to the girl with bushy hair who was standing next to Ron to help her.
"Can't believe she only took two points for that." Ron whispered in Harry and Draco's direction once their teacher was out of earshot, a swol tugging at his lips. "Snape took two points just because Harry didn't know the answer to a question in his first class and he didn't tell Neville not to do something, even though they weren't even working together! From the way Percy always talked about punishments here I would have thought she'd have gotten at least five points taken away or gotten a detention for saying what she did." Draco looked at the redhead in surprise, he sounded so angry about the lack of punishment Pansy was getting, despite the fact that she had been speaking to the blond and not him. Ever since the two of them had met, both had acted as if they hated each other, yet Ron didn't sound like he had any dislike for Draco at the moment, and sounded as if someone had insulted one of his many siblings and not the young Malfoy he had grown up to hate.
"Yeah, in muggle school she probably would've gotten written up for saying something like that so openly and loudly." Draco's surprised gaze moved over to Harry and he simply stared at him for a moment before beginning to respond, only to be interrupted by Madam Hooch again.
"Now pay attention. When I whistle, you're going to push off from the ground with as much strength as you can. Hold your broomsticks straight, fly up a few meters and then come right back down by leaning forward slightly. At my whistle - three - two -"
Madam Hooch broke off abruptly as Neville Longbottom, one of the other boys in Gryffindor who he could remember having heard a bit about from his parents before his time at school, pushed off from the ground with as much strength as he could. He was a pureblood, Draco remembered, his family was one of the sacred 28 after-all, and something to do with Draco's aunt had made it so that he was taken from his parents and given to his grandmother, or at least, that's what he had managed to understand.
"Come back, boy!" Madam Hooch yelled, her whistle hanging forgotten around her neck and she glared up at the brunet boy who had shot up high into the sky. Up, up, up he went until he was at least fifteen feet above the ground. Even from so far away Draco could see that his face had turned deathly pale and that his eyes were as wide as saucers, until they fell shut that is and he tipped to the side off of his broom.
He hit the grass face-first with a loud thud and a sickening crack, his dark robes seeming to pool and wrap around him at the same time in a weird, jumbled pile. Draco felt his own eyes widen at the sight of his dorm mate lying in the ground and quickly averted his eyes towards the sky just in time to see Neville's broom zoom off into the forest, never to be seen again. "Broken wrist.." Draco just barely heard Madam Hooch murmur under her breath and he looked back to see the teacher kneeling besides Neville, a worried expression on her pale face. "C'mon, boy, it's alright, up you go.
Nobody moves while I bring this boy to the Hospital Wing! You leave the brooms where they are, or you'll be out of Hogwarts quicker than you can say 'Quidditch'! Come, dear." Madam Hooch walked Neville, who had tears streaming down in his face, back towards the castle, leaving the rest of the first years standing there without anybody to make sure they followed the rules or were nice to each other. Great… Just great. I bet it won't even take 30 seconds for someone to do something. Draco thought and, sure enough, just fifteen seconds afterwards the voice of Blaise Zabini spoke out from a group of snickering Slytherins.
"That was pathetic! How'd that idiot even get in here? Can't even fly a broom! And did you see the look on his face? How didn't that wimp end up in Hufflepuff with all the rest of them?" He let out a bark of laughter, and even though Draco didn't really care all too much for Neville, he still felt a rush of anger towards his old friend because that was his housemate he was talking about, and people didn't insult the people he now basically had to, in a way, call family. He had nobody else after-all. His father had told him he was no longer part of the family, and he didn't have anyone beside his parents and those who used to be his friends. Those in his dorm really had, as McGonnagall had said they would, become his new family, in a way, even if he didn't necessarily even like some of them.
Draco opened his mouth to snap at Blaise to shut up, and leave Neville alone, but Parvati Patil, the twin who had been sorted into Gryffindor, beat him to it. "Shut up, Zabini!" Her voice had a dangerous, angry edge to it that made Draco glad he wasn't the one she was facing with her fists clenched tightly at her sides.
"Oh, standing up for the lameass, are you?" Pansy suddenly jumped in and Draco felt his own fists clench at his sides as she laughed in malicious amusement. "Have to be honest, Patil, I didn't think you were the type to like fat, crybaby losers like him." Draco took a step forward at the same time as Blaise knelt down a few feet from where Neville had fallen and grabbed something round that glistened like water in the bright afternoon sunlight. Neville's remembrall.
"Oh, look what little Longbottom lost when he hurt his dear, dear arm falling from his broom." Blaise laughed in amusement, his laugh sounding almost like a cackle as he smirked at the small glass ball in his hand, bringing it up in front of his face to inspect it better in the light.
"Hand it over, Blaise." Draco said at the same time as Harry said, "Give it here, Zabini." Draco's voice sounded eerily calm in a way that reminded him of his father when he was angry, causing the blond to repress a shudder at himself. No, he wasn't going to end up like his father. He wasn't his father. It took Draco a moment to realize that all of the other first years had gone silent as he and Harry spoke at the same time, saying practically the same thing.
"No, I don't think I will. I think I'll find some place to put this where the idiot can have some fun getting it and show us his Gryffindor pride at the same time. How about up in a bird's nest?" Blaise's smirk grew and Draco couldn't help but question how he could have ever been friends with the boy. He wasn't like this before Hogwarts. Draco told himself, except maybe that wasn't true, maybe all of them had, they just never did anything because they had nobody but each other to taunt and it was all meant more as meaningless teasing between them.
"Hand it over!" Draco yelled at the same time as Harry again, and despite the situation the blond couldn't stop himself from glancing over at the other boy to see if he thought it was strange. The raven-haired boy's face however showed nothing besides anger that was aimed at Blaise in a death glare. "No." The Slytherin said and swung himself onto his broom, launching himself into the air with the same grace he had a month ago, the last time he and Draco had played Quidditch together. Within seconds he was already hovering just above the tallest branches of an oak tree nearby. "Come and get it if you want it so bad, you two!" He called down in a teasing voice as he tossed the ball up a good foot and easily caught it again.
Draco growled slightly and reached towards his own broom, beginning to mount it, only to be stopped by Harry who looked up at Blaise for a moment, fire blazing behind his emerald iris as he grabbed Draco's arm. "I'm doing this, you stay here." His voice sounded clipped and quite angry as he said that and then he mounted his broom, pushing off the ground with surprising skill for someone who had never flown before. "No!" The bushy haired girl, Hermione, from Gryffindor yelled suddenly, and Draco looked over at her. Her cheeks were flushed with color, her brown eyes narrowed to slits and her slender hands clenched so tightly into fists that her knuckles looked as if they were poking out of her skin. "Madam Hooch said we aren't allowed to move - you'll just get us all into trouble!"
Harry didn't seem to fully hear her however, either that or he just didn't care, because he flew right up to level with Blaise. A small scowl tugged at Draco's lips and he glared up at his childhood friend. If anyone else got hurt or in trouble it would be Blaise's fault. Hermione and Draco seemed to be the only Gryffindors who thought Harry really was just going to get in trouble however. Yells and gasps of awe broke out around Draco and if someone who wasn't down here hadn't known something was happening down here, they certainly did now because the other first years were loud .
Up above, in the air, Harry and Blaise were speaking, though they were so high up and the wind had picked up just enough that Draco couldn't make out a word they were saying. All he could tell was that Blaise looked amused and seemed to be sizing Harry up in a way, only for his eyes to widen when Harry suddenly shot forward towards him. He easily moved out of the way, though the amused grin on his face had morphed into a scowl as he glared at Harry. Said Gryffindor spun sharply around on his broom as if he had been flying for years and a few people suddenly began clapping slightly around Draco, causing him to roll his eyes in disbelief and annoyance. Harry yelled something at Blaise who scoffed and rolled his eyes as he said something before suddenly throwing the little glass ball in his hand high up into the air for seemingly no reason. The Slytherin boy then sped back down to the ground, landing in a -though Draco hated admitting it now- rather elegant fashion in the middle of the Slytherins.
For a split second Draco thought Harry was going to follow Blaise's example and just fly back down, however instead of doing this he leaned so far forward on his broom that it tipped forward completely and he flew straight down, gaining speed the closer he got to the ground. The claps and awed gasps were replaced by screaming as Harry raced for the ground in a steep fall, his hand outstretched in front of him as if to… as if to grab something. It hit Draco then what the boy was doing and he found himself gaping in complete disbelief at the nerve and confidence the other boy had to think he could possibly catch something when it was falling like that.
The next thing that happened seemed to happen in slow motion. Harry's hand wrapped around the remembrall just a couple feet above the ground and he pulled his broom up sharply to straighten out before he crashed into the earth. Somehow, in a way that should have technically been impossible, the broom followed his movement and just a second later the boy was landing softly on the grass and striding towards the Gryffindors as if he hadn't been in the air in the first place. Nobody, not even Blaise, could pull something like that off, nobody. How could Harry possibly be such a good flier?!
"HARRY POTTER!" The voice of Minerva Mcgonagall suddenly rang out through the grounds and Draco spun around. His head of house was striding towards them, looking firmly out of it as she stalked towards Harry. There was no way this could possibly end well.
"Wait, you're joking right? McGonagall didn't just drag you off to make you Seeker of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, no way." Draco yelled an hour and a half later when Harry showed up at dinner, a slightly dazed look on his face as he sat down and explained to them what had just happened. Harry immediately shushed him, glancing around at the other house tables as he did so. "Wood wants to keep it a secret, surprise Slytherin during the first match." Harry explained and Ron wolf whistled quietly. "You're being used as a secret weapon, mate. That's bloody brilliant! McGonagall must've seen the entire dive if she thought you were good enough for that, first years never even get onto the team. You've got to be the youngest player..." The redhead said only to have his sentence finished by Harry. "In a hundred years, yeah, Wood told me. My training starts next week, I don't know how we'll hide it from the rest of the school. There always seems to be someone looking at me. It's a bit… creepy actually."
Harry glanced over his shoulder at that, frowning slightly when he spotted a Hufflepuff boy staring at him from across the hall. Just as he looked back at Ron and Draco, Fred and George marched into the Great Hall and headed straight for the three of them, grinning widely.
"Good job." George said to Harry in a voice so quiet that Draco could just barely hear it over the noise of the other students. "Wood just told us. We're totally going to win the cup this year!" Fred slid onto the bench on Harry's other side and leaned closer to Harry and the other two boys and his twin. "Wood told you about the little task that all of the Gryffindors have to do to get into the team, right?" He said and he and George both grinned at Harry, whose eyes widened in surprise and confusion. "No? What are you talking about?" He demanded and the twins both glanced at each other, their grins growing.
"To officially become part of the team you have to sneak into the trophy room and steal something," Fred explained and Harry's eyes widened in surprise. "At night ." George added and the raven-haired first year gulped slightly, looking uncertain. "Really? Why?" Draco asked just as Harry opened his mouth to most likely ask the same thing.
"We're Gryffindors, Malfoy. It's so you can prove you're brave and tough and stuff." Fred answered before his twin could and then smirked slightly at Harry, glancing back at Draco for a brief second when he scoffed. "How did I end up here of all houses?" He mumbled under his breath and shook his head slightly, feeling exasperated.
"We recommend going around midnight or so, that part of the castle's usually empty that part of the night. Good luck." George told Harry and then both of the Weasley twins stood up, simultaneously patted him on the shoulder and moved to sit down with their friend Lee Jordan at the opposite end of the table, still grinning. "Bloody hell... " Ron mumbled, looking after them for a moment before facing the raven-haired boy again. "I'm coming with you." He then told Harry firmly, who looked up at him in shock, and more than a little confusion. "Me too, just to keep you idiots out of trouble though." Draco quickly added before The Boy Who Lived could respond, causing him to gawk even more. "But what if we get caught?" He asked quietly and Draco shrugged. "We tell them we got locked out of the tower and were trying to find a professor to help, but ended up lost. But we won't get caught if we're careful, which we will be." The blond said without a moment's thought.
"I... okay. Midnight tonight, just to get this over with." Harry said, sounding slightly defeated as he sighed. None of the three of them noticed Hermione Granger scowling at them, nor did any of them know she had overheard their entire conversation with Fred and George and planned to stop them from doing anything.
"It's a quarter to twelve, we should leave." Ron muttered in a low voice just as Draco had begun to doze off, despite his efforts to stay awake by reading a book about Merlin. He threw his blankets off of himself and quietly ripped the curtains around his bed open, immediately pulling them shut again behind him as he stood up so nobody would notice his bed's lack of occupant were they to wake up and look in his direction. Harry and Ron had both grabbed their bathrobes and slipped them on over their pajamas when they got up and Draco followed their example, wandering quietly down the steps to the Gryffindor Common Room with them.
There were no older students still up and doing homework, so the room was almost completely shrouded in darkness and shadows when they entered. The only source of light was the pale moonlight shining in through the windows and the few dying embers in the fireplace. Despite the fact that Draco had slowly become used to this room over the past two weeks, it's usual familiar, warm, safe feeling seemed to have diminished and was replaced by an eeriness that unsettled the blond and made him quicken his pace towards the portrait hole, wanting to get out of the room with its looming armchairs.
"I honestly can't believe that you're actually doing this, Harry." Just before the three of them made it to the exit of Gryffindor Tower, a voice suddenly called out to them wit a tone of disbelief. All three boys froze in place immediately and Draco slowly turned to see Hermione Granger, sitting in an armchair wearing a dark pink bathrobe, a lamp now turned on beside her. The soft, slightly flickering, orange light illuminated her face and the concerned crease between her eyebrows looking like a streak of obsidian black paint against her deep, rich brown skin. Her chocolate brown eyes glinted angrily at them as she stood up, her bathrobe swirling around her ankles and partially wrapping around them, and her hair bounced slightly at her shoulders. She took a step closer to the three other first years and Draco realized in that moment that she was a good inch taller than him and at least four taller than Harry, while Ron towered over all of them with his tall and lanky stature.
" You! " Ron snapped angrily, and Draco flinched slightly at his tone. What had she done to make him so angry? "Go back to bed!" Ron's words didn't seem to affect the girl at all, and she simply continued on with her small little rant.
"I almost told your brother, Percy. He's a Prefect, he really wouldn't have allowed any of this." Her voice seemed to be speeding up with each word she spoke, and by the end of those two sentences she was slightly out of breath, cheeks flushed as she glared at the redhead, who in turn simply scoffed. "My brothers are the ones who told Harry to do it so we're going with him to help!"
Hermione rolled her eyes and her exasperated sigh sounded a tad bit dramatic as she crossed her arms over her chest. Why does any of this matter to her anyways? It's not like she'd get in trouble if we got caught! Draco thought and couldn't help but give her a confused and annoyed look as Ron pushed passed her and headed towards the Portrait hole again, all three of the other first years following him out. Hermione looked so angry, that were smoke to start coming off her hair and out her ears, Draco wouldn't have been all too surprised.
"You don't care about Gryffindor at all, just about yourselves. Well, I don't want Slytherin to win the house cup this year and I do not want you three to lose all the points I got from Professor McGonagall because I knew everything about Transfiguration spells." She growled and for a moment Draco was reminded of a lion, which seemed rather fitting in the situation considering she was defending Gryffindor, the mascot of which was a lion.
"Go away." Ron snapped and somehow the brunette seemed to get even angrier than she already was, though she also seemed to give up her attempts to stop them from leaving.
"Fine, but I warn you, you'll remember what I said when all of you are on the train home tomorrow, you are such -" Hermione froze and broke off mid sentence when she turned around to storm back inside the Common Room and leave them outside to do what they pleased. The Fat Lady had left her frame and wandered off somewhere else in the castle sometime during the night, trapping them all outside. There was no way to get back inside the tower now, without her there to open the entrance for them.
"What am I supposed to do now?!" She shrieked and spun around to face the three of them again. All anger had disappeared from her face and was replaced by complete and utter panic. Her eyes were wide and terror filled, while her face, which had previously been flushed with anger, was pale.
"That's your problem." Draco said, finally saying something, even though he felt a bit bad for the girl who looked as if she was facing some deadly monster that was about to rip her to shreds. "We have to go, otherwise we might miss our chance of being there when Filch is patrolling the other side of the castle, and then we really will get caught."
With that Draco turned away from her and began walking off down the corridor with Ron and Harry, only to hear footsteps rushing toward them from behind. "I'm coming with." Hermione said and out of the corners of his eyes Draco noticed that the fear on her face had once again disappeared. She now looked determined, though what exactly she felt determined to do, the blond had no idea.
"You will not ." Ron insisted, glaring daggers at his fellow Gryffindor as he said it. Draco rolled his eyes in annoyance and continued walking, he really couldn't care less if someone else came with, though he did have to admit that they had a higher chance of getting caught with four people instead of three.
"You think, I'm just going to wait out here until Filch catches me? If he gets all four of us, I'll just tell him the truth: that I was trying to stop you, and you can confirm it." Hermione said in response, her determined expression not leaving her face. Draco looked over at her in annoyance again, seriously, what was this girl's problem? Couldn't she just leave them alone, or at least let them do what they had snuck out to do in the first place?
"You have some nerve -" Ron started only to be cut off abruptly by Draco who suddenly clamped his hand over his mouth, just at the same time as Harry hissed at all of them to be quiet. "I hear something." He said, and the same sound Draco had heard that had made him shut Ron up came again. It sounded like a sniffle, as if there was some kind of animal, or other living thing, around the corner.
Ron tried to say something from behind Draco's hand and when all the blond did in response was glare at him, he stuck his tongue out and licked the palm of his hand. "Ugh!" Draco yelped and yanked his right hand away, wrinkling his nose in disgust as he frantically wiped the saliva off onto his bathrobe. The redhead himself looked disgusted, though also slightly smug as he turned away from the young Malfoy, who continued to attempt to get every last bit of evidence off his hand.
"You think it's Mrs. Norris?" Ron whispered to Harry before leaning around the corner to see if he could spot anything. Sure enough, despite the almost pitch blackness of the corridor, the form of a small, brown haired boy was curled up on the floor, fast asleep,illuminated by soft, silver moonlight. The redhead's shoulders immediately relaxed and he started towards their fellow student, who turned out to be Neville upon closer inspection.
The Gryffindor startled awake as the small group of first years approached him and after the brief look of panic on his face, he looked at them as if they had just saved his life. "Oh thank God, you guys found me! I've been out here for hours. I forgot the password and she didn't let me in." He exclaimed loudly and Draco resisted the urge to clamp his hand over the boy's mouth as he had done with Ron. He really didn't want to have someone else lick him.
"Speak quieter, Neville. Or we'll get caught." He hissed and was about to continue, only to be cut off by Ron, who beat him at saying what he had meant to. "The password's 'Pig Snout', but that won't help you much seeing as the Fat Lady ran off." Neville's eyes widened slightly at that, but he still nodded his thanks.
"How's your arm?" Harry piped up from beside Draco and Neville moved his gaze from Ron to him. "All better again. Madam Pomfrey fixed it really quick, it barely took a minute." he replied to the raven-haired boy's question and lifted his previously injured right arm, which showed so signs of its previous broken bone.
"Good, now, listen, Neville, we have to keep going, we'll see you later -" Harry said and started to walk away from his dorm mate, only to stop again when the other boy called out after him, ignoring what Draco had told him just moments before. "Don't leave me here alone!" The boy scrambled to his feet and stepped away from the wall he had been sleeping against. "I don't want to stay here alone, the Bloody Baron already passed by twice."
Ron looked down at the watch he had on his wrist and then glared up at Hermione and Neville in a way that made Draco seriously glad the redhead wasn't currently angry with him. He may not normally seem intimidating, but when he was angry he was honestly quite fear-inducing. "If we get caught because of you, don't doubt that I'll learn how to use that Curse of the Bogies Quirrel told us about and put it on you."
Draco couldn't stop himself from snorting as Hermione opened her mouth to most likely explain to Ron how the spell worked. If Ron could manage to perform that spell with the wand he had, Draco wasn't sure he would know what to believe anymore. From what he had seen, Ron's wand was slightly broken and definitely second-hand, making it practically impossible to cast any spell properly.
Before anyone else could speak, Harry shushed all of them and waved his hand at them to continue their trek to the trophy room. Fred and George seemed to have been right about Filch being on patrol at the other side of the school, seeing as they didn't so much as hear a single door falling shut or a voice saying something besides Harry's quiet instructions on which ways to turn to reach their destination. Draco hesitated at the bottom of the staircase leading up to the third floor, and looked nervously up it into the dark corridors beyond it. At the beginning of the year the headmaster had warned all of the students not to go up there, to avoid the right wing of the third floor unless they "wanted to suffer a very painful death". The Trophy Room's in the left wing. Draco told himself and surged up the stairs after the others, running to catch up with them.
The trophy Room was only the third door down the left corridor and was, to Draco's surprise, unlocked. The walls were lined with crystal display cases, their polished surfaces glinting in the silver moonlight falling in through the few windows the room had. Centuries worth of cups, plaques, shields, swords, statues and other awards stood on the shelves and the few pillars standing around in the middle of the floor. The trophies themselves seemed to shine in the light, some of the cups looked as if they had a glowing potion in them, even though they were empty, due to the way the light was reflecting off of them.
A small little plaque that stood in a case directly next to the room's wooden door caught Draco's eye as he and the other four Gryffindors walked into the room. It was made of glinting silver and was in the shape of a shield about the size of his palm. On it was a name, a Hogwarts house, and a date.
Andromeda Black; Slytherin, May 15th, 1976.
Draco froze in place and turned to face it completely, his eyes widening a bit in surprise. What had his aunt done to receive an award? From what he knew his aunt had been terrible, a bloodtraitor who terrorized everyone. Then again, he had heard all of that from his parents, and he had begun to realize over the past few weeks just how wrong they had been about a lot of things.
Without fully comprehending what he was doing, Draco stepped towards the glass case and slowly opened it. "Malfoy!" Ron hissed and said blond looked over at him for a brief second before returning his gaze to the award and hesitantly reaching forward to pick it up. "What are you doing?!" Draco didn't answer and just carefully wrapped his fingers around the small silver award and took it off the shelf, looking at it closer with his head tilted slightly to the side. He knew he probably looked rather peculiar to the other people in the room, studying an award that didn't appear to have anything to do with him, and looking so confused and curious about it at that. However, despite this, Draco really couldn't bring himself to care how he looked at that moment. When the front of the award gave no sign as to its reason, even after he had looked at all of it for any fine print, he carefully turned it over in his hand and looked at its back.
Award for Good Service
Given due to student having saved another from torture by means of a Cruciatus Curse cast by another student.
For a few seconds all he could do was stare at the small words inscribed on the back of the palm-sized silver shield, not completely comprehending the meaning behind them at first. She saved someone from the Cruciatus Curse… the unforgivable torture curse, which was and still is illegal. His aunt had saved someone while still attending Hogwarts, while she was still a kid , why would his mother tell him she was a bad person?
"Malfoy!" This time it was Hermione speaking and he finally snapped out of his shocked daze, looking over at her in surprise. "What?" He demanded and she rolled her eyes, shaking her head as if he was the most insufferable person she had ever met. Perhaps she thought he was. "We've been saying your name for the past five minutes!" Harry said and Draco blinked, his silvery grey eyes becoming a bit clouded with confusion. "You have?" He asked, feeling a bit disoriented and stupid when his voice came out quiet and a bit weak.
"Yeah, we need to get out of here again, Harry did what we-" Ron's voice broke off abruptly and Draco looked over at him in confusion, only to see that his blue eyes were wide with fright. "Wha-?" Hermione began to ask only to have Draco clamp his hand over her mouth as he had done with Ron before when he too heard the footsteps coming up the staircase nearby. "Shhh!" He hissed and slipped his aunt's award into his robe-pocket without really thinking about why he wanted it. Draco had never even met his aunt, had never even learned what she had done over the past decade. Was she married? Did he have any cousins he didn't know about? If he tried to contact her, would he even succeed? Would she even know who he was if he sent her an owl?
Hermione looked as if she were about to grab his hand and shove it away from her face so that she could freely protest being so blatantly stopped from speaking, but the brunette froze when the door to the room next door was opened with a loud Clunk! "Filch." Harry mouthed in Draco' s direction and said Gryffindor nodded in agreement, moving his right index-finger to his lips to signal for them all to stay quiet as he slowly lowered his hand from Hermione's mouth. She glared at him for a moment before slipping her wand out of her pocket and frowning in the direction of the door they had come in through.
"Sniff around a bit, my sweet. Maybe they're hiding in a corner." The voice of Hogwarts's caretaker, Filch, drifted through the walls separating them from him and Neville visibly gulped, looking as if he was suppressing a whimper of fear. Draco looked around the room, knowing that if Filch were to come into the room he would very quickly find them, no matter where in the room they attempted to hide. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Harry frantically looking around him, most likely for an escape as well, and then began to wave his hands around a bit, obviously trying to get their attention.
Draco looked over at him and then the raven-haired boy started towards the door leading out the other end of the room. After just a moment's hesitation they all quickly followed him, just barely making it out before they heard Filch enter the room, and begin searching for them there as he mumbled to himself. How did he know they were there? Surely the Weasley Twins hadn't told him, so who did? One of the ghosts? A different Gryffindor who had overheard like Hermione? Someone from a different house?
"This way!" Harry mouthed and motioned for them all to follow him down a corridor which was lined with suits of armor. None of them ran, that would definitely be audible from within the Trophy room, they all just walked as quickly and softly as they could, praying to Merlin that they wouldn't get caught. Suddenly, just as Draco thought they might actually have put enough distance between themselves and Filch that he wouldn't hear them, Neville finally let out the terrified whimper he had been holding in and began to run. He only made it a few steps however before he tripped over his own feet and crashed into Ron, sending them both falling into a suit of armor. It broke apart beneath their combined weight and clattered to the stone floor all around them, the sound echoing through-out the corridor, bouncing off the walls and back at them. If Filch, or the rest of the school for that matter, hadn't heard them before, they certainly did now.
"RUN!" Harry yelled and they all took off, Harry and Draco pausing for a brief second to pull Ron and Neville to their feet. None of them looked back as they raced down the corridors, too scared they would run into something or slow down if they did. Harry led the five of them through different archways, corridors and up small staircases, though every turn they took seemed completely random. Eventually, after at least five minutes of running at full speed, they reached a tapestry and Ron pulled it aside to reveal a secret passageway that led them all the way to the corridor where their Charms class took place.
They slowed their pace slightly until they were just walking quickly, knowing they were basically miles away from the trophy room, and there was no way Filch could have followed them or would find them very quickly.
"Think we lost him…" Harry gasped out as he leaned against a wall, wiping the sweat exhaustedly from his face and briefly taking off his glasses to wide them off on his robes and get the sweat off the bridge of his nose. Draco followed his example and leaned back against the wall next to him, running a hand through his for-once-not-gelled platinum blond hair as he let his eyes briefly fall shut.
"I - told - you." Hermione said, out of breath, and Draco opened his eyes again to look at her. Her hair framed her face in sweat soaked dark ringlets, her cheeks were flushed with adrenaline and she was gripping his side tightly, where she most likely had a stitch from the unusual amount of running she had just done. "I - told - you so." She repeated as she glared at them, fire seeming to burn behind her dark irises.
"We need to get back to Gryffindor Tower, as fast as possible." Ron said, ignoring Hermione's insistent "I told you we'd get caught"s, as he looked back the way they'd come as if to see if he could tell how far away the school's caretaker was.
"Someone must have told on you, someone must have overheard like me what you were doing. I bet you it was that Parkinson girl and her friends, they were walking by when the twins told you." Hermione said and Harry nodded ever so slightly, though whether it was in response to what Ron had said, or her, Draco had no clue. "Or it could have been one of the ghosts, we probably passed at least one on our way to the Trophy room." The blond suggested but Ron shook his head, not looking all too happy about agreeing with Hermione as he said: "It was definitely the Slytherins. I saw them walk by slowly and look at us before walking away with these big smirks on their faces."
Even though Draco really didn't want to believe his old friends would do something like that to him, get him caught and in trouble, he had to admit it probably was the truth. You're just a bloodtraitor to them now, nothing but scum they can squash beneath their shoes. A voice told him in his mind and Draco frantically pushed it back, now really wasn't the time to start thinking about that again.
"Let's go." Harry said a few moments later and they all began to walk back towards where Gryffindor Tower was, only to all freeze in place just seconds later when a classroom door swung open and Peeves, the school's residential Poltergeist, flew out. This wasn't going to end well, they weren't any less screwed now than they were before, Draco realized, when Peeves let out a high-pitched, excited giggle at the sight of them.
"Keep quiet, Peeves, please, we'll get caught and thrown out because of you." Draco found himself saying, but Peeves just cackled in amusement at the desperate tone his voice had.
"Strolling around the castle at Midnight, the little first-years, hmm? Tsk, tsk. Not very good, you'll get caught." He cackled again, the sound sending small shivers down Draco's spine.
"Not if you don't tell on us we won't, Peeves, please." Harry begged and took a small step forward as if this would make the Poltergeist feel threatened and do as he said.
"I should really tell Filch, yes, I should." Peeves drawled, a slightly quizzical expression on his face as if he were trying to decide what to do with the lot of them. "It's just what's best for you, you have to know."
"Out of the way." Ron snapped at him and stepped forward, attempting to throw a punch at the Poltergeist. Peeves didn't seem to like this at all, and immediately began screaming at the top of his lungs: "STUDENTS OUT OF BED! STUDENTS OUT OF BED HERE IN THE CHARMS CORRIDOR!"
The young Gryffindors all ducked under Peeves and took off running again, only to slam into a door at the end of the dead-ended corridor, which was, just to add to their luck, locked. Oh Merlin, we're going to be expelled. We're going to get caught and we're going to get thrown out of the school and have our wands broken. They're going to send me back home and my parents will hate me even more than they already do. Draco thought in a panic, all sound around him seeming to fade into a distant humming as his breath hitched and became slightly hysteric.
He was finally ripped out of his terrified stupor when Hermione shoved past him, raising her wand and tapping the lock on the door in front of them as she whispered a spell under her breath: " Alohomora ." The lock clicked and the door swung open, allowing them all to surge forward through it and slam it back shut behind them. The others all placed their ears to the door, hoping to listen in on the conversation that was bound to take place between Filch and Peeves, while Draco simply let his eyes fall shut again as he leaned back against the stone wall beside the door. He was fine, he was safe, he probably wouldn't get caught now, they were in a room that was supposed to have a locked door, Filch wouldn't suspect anything as long as Peeves stayed quiet. Knowing the Poltergeist, he would, just to annoy Filch.
"He thinks the door's locked," Harry suddenly whispered, confirming Draco's thoughts and allowing him to feel like he could actually breathe for the first time since they had heard Filch on the stairs. His brief moment of relief came to a rather brutal and abrupt end however, when he opened his eyes. For a second he thought he had passed out and was having a nightmare, but the scene in front of him was so vivid and terrifying, and he realized there was no way it couldn't actually be there.
The room they had slipped into turned out to not actually be a room, but a corridor. The forbidden third floor corridor, to be more exact, and in that moment Draco finally understood what Albus Dumbledore had meant when he told them that if they didn't want to die, they should stay away from the corridor. Standing in the middle of the Corridor, just ten or so feet away from them, was a giant beast that seemed to have jumped straight out of the story book his father used to read to him from as a young child.
A massive, three-headed dog stood in front of them, its razor sharp fangs bared at them behind three snarling lips, milk-white slobber hanging down from its mouths in strings. Draco tried desperately to push himself further back against the wall, a small whimper of fear escaping his mouth as he looked the huge monster over in terror, acknowledging the door built into the floor beneath its feet in the back of his mind but only being able to bring himself to care about the huge, two foot long claws that scraped the ground as it stepped towards them. A low, deep growl came from the thing's throats suddenly and Draco's head snapped up to look at its heads in complete terror, numbly trying to push his way towards the others, wanting to just get the hell out of there, even if it meant getting caught and expelled, because no matter what he had thought just moments prior, being sent home was much better than being ripped to shreds by three giant dog heads.
Just as Draco reached Harry, said boy opened the door behind him and they all stumbled out, walking backwards, all a bit numb with terror. Filch and Peeves had both disappeared from the Charms Corridor and Draco felt a mix of fear and relief at this revelation. They were just a bunch of eleven year olds, if that thing managed to get out of the corridor now and attack them they'd stand no chance. But, the door was small enough to keep it out, and since the caretaker was gone, they wouldn't be expelled. With this thought in his mind, Draco turned on the spot and took off in the direction he hoped Gryffindor Tower was, the other four following suit and running after him.
A/N: This chapter was really long, I'm sorry about that. I hope you guys enjoyed it despite it's length. I'd love to hear what you all think! Anyways, until next chapter!