Hey guys, sorry it's been awhile, but I'm really trying to do my best work for every chapter, so you'll have to bear with me. Happy reading!
Chapter Nine: Withdraw
My eyes are barely open, and I can feel the bags underneath them when I begin to shake my head furiously, trying to wake up a bit.
"Mr. Zabini?" Professor Flitwick calls from the front of the room, "Do you have an issue with sympathy charms?"
I gulp, regretting shaking my head so hard but slightly relieved of the struggle to keep myself functioning.
"Yes sir," I reply in a Slytherin sneer and demeaning tone, "How can we sympathize with those who are of less value than us?" I settle my gaze onto Hermione, praying that she's not taking me seriously.
"For instance, someone of a lesser mind might struggle to remain sane with the weight of all that might go through, say a stronger person." I curse myself for such language, language which seems to have not been noticed by the other Slytherins (who are pretending I died) and to have outraged everyone else in the room. I have to keep up pretenses, however, because even though they're pretending I'm dead, I know they're watching. They're watching and owling parents who are discussing me with the Dark Lord. Image is everything if my plan is to work.
"That will be a detention for you, Mr. Zabini, in my office tonight. You—and the rest of the class—are well aware of the fact that there is no difference. There is no better—no purer—and you'd do well to remember that." I'm surprised at how strong the professor's voice is, but then again, supporters of Albus Dumbledore don't have much to fear. After all, Death Eaters fear only the Dark Lord himself more than Dumbledore.
"Yes, sir." I say, raising my voice at the end in further disrespect. I almost want to apologize to him right then and there, though I can't manage to make myself actually care about his feelings, which makes me feel even worse. Combined with the burn that I can feel from Hermione's gaze that screams 'Let up already!', I am about ready to leave, but I quickly remember why I even bothered to show up for class today, one of the few times I've been all year.
"The sympathy charms, as I was saying, are important to the . . ." I quickly tune him out and instead go over the plan for the next few minutes. I hope that the incantation works. I hope I'm able to pull it off. It needs to be wandless, of course, but will it be doable? Will Hermione and Draco have a link to each other's minds?
I take a deep breath, ready to begin. I close my eyes and think solely on linking, picturing a few chain links in my mind and imagining them fusing together. I then force all thoughts out of my mind, a feat that is becoming more and more difficult as time goes by. I push away thoughts of my mother and thoughts of the distress this is probably going to cause Hermione. I push away the pain from Draco's rejection and the loneliness from all of Slytherin's consequent rejection. I push away thoughts of what the headmaster knows and how it could ruin my plan. I push away the fear that's building inside as my time in Azkaban draws nearer. And finally, I push away the worry that my plan isn't a good one or that it won't work at all and I'll simply rot in Azkaban until the ministry falls and the Dark Lord comes to kill me. Then I open my eyes and glance back and forth between my targets—between Draco and Hermione—and mutter the incantation softly in the hope of no one overhearing it.
The wait is agony, and the next few seconds roll into what feels like hours. I notice my fingers beginning to drip with sweat and I feel like I'm standing inside a boiling cauldron. I'm literally at the edge of my seat and I lean towards the front of the class, appearing as though this is the most interesting lecture I've ever heard, though in reality I'm looking for some sort of sign.
Finally, I get what I'm after. Hermione's head jerks up from the notes she's been taking, her eyes wide, and Draco begins glancing about the room (though he still refuses to acknowledge me), an expression of terror on his face.
Taking my cue, I stand up and roll my eyes dramatically at Flitwick. He turns and—with an exasperated look—asks, "What is it this time, Mr. Zabini?"
"Sir," I smile evilly, "I do believe that PDA is entirely uncalled for in this class. Do you not agree?" I motion towards Ron Weasley, who is currently drooling as he gazes at Hermione. Not enough to actually be PDA, but enough to merit a blush, or in Ron's case, an entirely red complexion.
"Sit down, Mr. Zabini." Flitwick sighs and looks over at Ron, then back to me. "I do not tolerate public displays of affection in this class, true. However, I do not tolerate disruption of my class by anyone, and that includes you. Now sit. Down." Instead of obeying, I stroll away from my desk and out the door, not bothering to look back. I doubt that I could sit through the whole lecture with the guilt, anyway.
Not five minutes after strolling out of class, I enter the Astronomy Tower, hoping for some peace of mind. I spin slow circles, taking in everything beneath me: the laughter of carefree first years, the clumps of gossiping fifth year girls, the occasional couple strolling hand in hand. I could almost forget up here. I could almost push the thoughts of everything I've done and everything I will do. The world seems so . . . ordinary here, like nothing's wrong. I can almost pretend that the Dark Lord isn't having secret meetings at Malfoy Manor and plotting to kill hundreds of thousands of people simply because of their "filthy" blood.
My stomach lurches at the thought of so many deaths, and I double over, disgusted even more with myself for forgetting that than for linking Draco and Hermione's minds. I vomit all over the stones of the floor, spitting forcefully to clear my mouth of the rubbish. I rock dangerously on my heels as my head fills with fuzz. Sinking to my knees, I focus on my breathing and try to forget that there's vomit at my feet. Thinking about forgetting again, however, causes me to throw up again, retching for the better part of ten minutes.
"Blaise?" A voice questions behind me, full of concern, but I'm too focused on the awful gagging to catch who it is. I vaguely hear footsteps coming to stand beside me, but I could be mistaken. After all, it's hard to hear over the shaky breaths and the slap of the contents of my stomach against the hard floor.
Finally, my stomach settles, and I collapse, breathlessly sprawled across the floor, the reek of the vomit making everything worse. Whoever is in here with me decides to clean up the remnants of my lunch. I hear a squelching sound that is presumably my vomit followed by a screech from the students below as it presumably falls to the ground. I don't bother to lift myself to see who it is, though, and instead close my eyes, figuring anyone who wants to hurt me would've done so already.
"Blaise?" This time it occurs to me that Ginny Weasley has been watching me puke for the last five minutes. I open my eyes a bit and push myself up with my elbow, the shaky feeling beginning to fade away. Still, I nearly crash back to the ground a couple of times until I successfully force myself against a wall for support. Glancing up, I notice Ginny watching me with a look of concern that makes me jump, not used to anything but fire on the face of the redhead.
"What . . . what are you doing here?" My voice sounds pathetic, but it's the best I can do right now.
"Blaise, it's the Astronomy Tower." I stare back dumbly. Ginny rolls her eyes. "Anyone can be up here. It's the Astronomy Tower . . . fair game."
"And yet I don't see the rest of your year up here for their Astronomy lesson. I meant specifically, Ginny." I nearly cringe at how utterly exhausted I sound, but it's pointless to pretend otherwise.
"Fine," she snaps, "I'm mad at Harry and there's no way I'm going down for dinner when all he'll do is look all confused. It's all he ever does when I'm mad at him! He should know what he did!"
"And what did he do?" I'm certainly grateful for any subject that isn't me, so I answer probably a little bit too enthusiastically.
Ginny narrows her eyes, "Why should I tell you? I heard what you said about me, you know. I heard that you think I'm ugly and a filthy little blood traitor who isn't worth anything." She scowls at me with a frown so wide that you could practically write a book on it.
My mind instantly jumps to my words on the train ride, the words I said to my fellow Slytherins: "I wouldn't touch a filthy blood traitor like her whatever she looked like."
I bite my lip slightly, wondering what I can safely reveal. You know what, I tell myself, enough with the lying!
Ginny stomps her foot and declares, "I didn't lie to you!"
"Excuse me?"
Ginny glares at me. "You! You said, 'enough with the lying'! What are you on about?"
"Oh. Sorry." I gulp and pretend that my knees are exceptionally intriguing. "About what you heard on the train . . ." I begin, meeting her eyes, "It's a little game, basically. It's called saving face."
"Well saving face certainly didn't win you any of my favor," Ginny huffs, her nostrils flaring.
"I'm sorry, I mean it. I'm beginning to tire of hurting people."
Ginny scrunches up her face in confusion. "Then don't. Stop hurting people." She says it plainly, as if it were the simplest thing in the world.
"One year, Ginny. One year." I hold up a finger for emphasis.
"One year and you'll stop hurting people?"
I can't decide if she's playing with me or not, so I decide to take the bait, "Ginny, Ginny, Ginny . . . you can't have forgot already. I told you that I will explain everything to you if you come and find me next year. Heck, I'll be extra generous this once and change the terms. If you come and find me, I'll tell you at the start of next school year."
"Oh, how kind, sir." She says this in a bored tone, sticking her tongue at me.
"Well if I told you now, there would be absolutely none of my favorite thing in the world: suspense." I stick my tongue out, too, winking playfully at her.
She suddenly jumps to her feet and claps her hands, "I have the greatest of ideas! You should come to Slughorn's Christmas Party with me!"
"Why on earth would you want that?"
"Easy: it's the perfect revenge against Harry and it's much, much better than Hermione's Cormac McLaggen."
"McLaggen?"
"Well, she invited him several months ago to make Ron jealous. Ron only had eyes for Lavender Brown, see, and I convinced her that he was worth pursuing . . . but he broke up with the girl over some stupid stunt that I paid Fred and George to pull. He may or may not have thrown up all over her, repeatedly." Ginny laughs at the memory.
"Anyways, Ron and LavLav—that's what he called her when they were together. Totally disgusting, I know. They broke up, and Ron went almost immediately to Hermione, but the thing is, Hermione told me that she really doesn't like him like that anymore, and I guess him with Lavender hurt her too much or something to even be worth keeping the option open. Hermione put off saying anything to him, saying she didn't want to hurt him, though I think that she should've just broke his imbecilic heart.
"Anyways, she told Ron a few days ago that she thinks they should just be friends, and Ron of course blew up, saying that they were meant to be and implying that she wouldn't find anybody else anyway. Conveniently, Cormac McLaggen is pretty thick and pretty full of it, so I guess he never realized that the Christmas thing was off for them. Hermione's just going to go with him and make Ron realize what an idiot he is, though Hermione swears it's only so she won't have to go alone."
"Well." I swallow down the slight anger towards Ron for hurting Hermione that's beginning to bubble to the surface. "That's quite a story, but I don't see how it has anything to do with you taking me to this party to piss off Harry Potter."
"Blaise, Blaise, Blaise . . ." she laughs again, "Harry's great, but I need them all to understand that I'm not a baby anymore! He thinks that I'm too young to face the dangers of life. I'll certainly show him! If he could just . . . see it, I think we could be happy together! I guess step one is to show him that I can go to the Christmas party with whoever I want to, because a baby would wait for Harry to ask her, and he probably won't ask anyway. He'll probably just assume we're going together, yet another event where he can protect me. I know we're dating, but sometimes it just feels like he's . . . my bodyguard. I can't possibly live with that!"
Now it's my turn to chuckle, "I appreciate your situation, but I can't go with you. I have to keep up appearances. I'm sure you'll understand."
"No, I don't!" She glares at me, "Why won't you just help me! You did it once already, so—"
"—Don't bring that up anymore!" I feel myself stiffen. "And anyway, that was different! That one I could lie my way out of. This one, this one is too . . . deliberate. A Zabini can't be seen taking a Weasley to a dance. It just isn't done."
"And why would you care about that?" Her glare darkens. "You said yourself that your mother is a horrible person and the only family remaining. Why would you care about what Zabini's do or don't do?"
I sigh tiredly, pulling up my left sleeve to reveal my Dark Mark.
"Woah," she gasps, "It's come through already? I thought I'd covered it up with the burns."
"It's pretty powerful dark magic," I mutter.
"So . . . you insulted me on the train and won't come to the Christmas Party with me because of this?"
I smile weakly, "Exactly." I pull the sleeve back down before looking back to Ginny, expecting another scowl. Instead, I see a vague smile.
"One year, Blaise. One year." Then she leaves the room, the door clicking shut behind her.
I sit at the Great Hall the next morning, picking at my eggs and waffles and trying my best to pretend that the outright rejection by the rest of my House is beneath me. The students of Hogwarts need to find something new to occupy their time because I'm quite tired of the complete silence every time I enter for my food and the sidelong glances in the halls. The worst is the other students of Slytherin, because in Slytherin, we all stay united . . . supposedly.
What's really going through most of their heads is how to get the most they can out of the whole situation. Those who aren't actually plotting how best to benefit are pretending that they are because one must keep up appearances. The trouble is that some of them will decide that the best use of their time is to show the rest of Hogwarts what it means to be a real Slytherin. In fact, some of them have decided it already. I've seen them, the clumps of older students standing near the shadows of doorways or walls. They likely feel the need to beat me into submission.
Everyone knows that Draco is the real leader of Slytherin, and I was second. Pansy was third, and she made the decision between the two of us. While Pansy and Draco won't physically hurt me, I'm not certain that they'll actively forbid the rest of Slytherin from doing so. I'm an adequate wizard, but against a hoard of them I don't stand a chance.
I have this feeling that the decisions are happening right now. I can feel the tension between the entire house. It is of course now them versus me, but I don't think they've decided how this whole thing is going to play out. I catch Theo staring at me for a few seconds before looking away. He does this a few times before I catch what he wants me to catch: the split second that he bites his lip. I repeat the action the next time he looks, to which he nods ever so slightly. It means that I should be concerned. Next, he lets his gaze rest on a few specific individuals, including Marcus Flint—a mean person anyway—Millicent Bulstrode—who is personally invested because I kissed her in front of everyone—and Adrian Pucey—a particularly adamant fellow. I nod slightly in return, to which he mouths 'leave' right before yawning widely. He probably means that I should stop staying in the dungeons. I pretend to itch the edge of my nose, raising a single eyebrow to question where Theo thinks I should go. He simply gazes up at the ceiling as if staring off into space.
The Room of Requirements, I think to myself before nodding again and excusing myself by pushing my full plate away from me. I'm not really that hungry anyway. I make my way towards the Common Room and my dormitory, preparing to grab anything that I want with me for the remainder of my school year. Theo's right. I need to leave before things get too difficult. I can't deal with threats to my safety, not when so much is about to be at stake.
Entering the room, I reach into my trunk and stuff some things into my bag: the books I need for the rest of the semester, my cauldron, the suit I'm wearing to the Ministry of Magic, and a small glass dragon. The glass dragon was a gift, a gift from Draco. We've spent so many years here. There are so many memories, some painful and some pleasant, but right now I feel like they're all being sucked away. Our friendship has ended, most likely for good. It scares me to no end, but I know that I'll likely die in Azkaban. I remember the day we became friends so clearly . . .
I stood by the windows of the main entrance, staring after the carriages as they drove through the blanket of snow. I swore I could hear the students laughing inside, heading home for Christmas. I wished that I could go, too, but it wasn't home that had me jealous. I knew what awaited me at home: my mother and her fourth husband. My mother mostly avoided me, and her husband (I never, ever called any of them my stepfather nor will I ever) insisted that I stay in my room, even taking my meals there. I hated it. I still hate it. Looking back on it, I hate that they did it to me, I hate that my mother allowed it.
What I was coveting wasn't toys or Christmas Hams or even snowball fights. What I wanted was to be happy, to know that my parents loved me no matter what. It had been four years since my father left, but fours years wasn't nearly long enough to take away the sting. My father left me, and my mother hated the sight of me. That's all I knew, and at eleven, it hurt even more than it does now.
I ran away from the windows as soon as the last carriage rolled out of sight. I told myself that Slytherins never cried, but I couldn't help it. I ran straight to my dormitory, tears flooding my vision. I swung open the door in the hopes of having a good cry privately, but when I entered, I heard a sniff coming from the room. I looked over and caught sight of the sniffer: Draco Malfoy. His eyes were red and puffy, his cheeks streaked with tears that were still falling, his lip trembling. He looked exactly like I felt: miserable.
We stared at each other for several moments, him on his bed and me in the doorway. I couldn't shake the terror of breaking the Slytherin vow of secrecy. I waited in dread for him to laugh, for him to scowl, for him to do anything, really. Still, he made no attempts at movement, and I saw a reflection of my own terror etched on his face. He hadn't moved at all and I suddenly felt a bit less frightened. It dawned on me that he was as sincere in his tears as I was.
Finally, I walked over to where he sat. I stared into his features for a few lingering moments before plopping down beside him. I wiped my tears clumsily on my sleeve and focused on the in-and-out motion of my breathing.
It was Draco who broke the silence. "I take it you didn't stay to explore the castle?" He kept his tone even, as though we were talking about the weather, but I was already learning to read into things. I could see the slight tremble of his lip, the tremble that likely meant he was still as scared as I.
"No, it's my mother." I ducked my head in shame, for surely no one else would ever understand.
"Is she . . . is she okay?" I normally would've jumped back from offers of real concern like this one, but Draco looked so . . . frightened. It was like he knew what it meant to live in a world where everything was uncertain, where nothing was as perfect as it seemed. It was a world that I began to realize we were both trapped in, a world where the truth cannot be known.
"Yeah," I answered, "She just hates me is all, that and her stupid fourth husband makes me stay in my room."
"Fourth?" Draco raised his eyebrow, but this was already going much better than I could've hoped, so I answered candidly.
"Yeah. My father . . . left. Four years ago. She's married three times since."
"Oh." Draco had a dark look on his face, as if thinking deeply about whether or not to be open with me.
"And you," I questioned, "Why are you here?"
Draco swallowed and looked to the floor. He was silent for several minutes, and I was beginning to think that he wouldn't answer me at all when he finally spoke.
"It's my father." He glanced at me and winced as though expecting laughter. "He hates me too, thinks that I'm not good enough. He also beats my mother, though don't tell anyone that. He used to beat me, too, but she stopped him. Now he just beats her."
"Oh." I almost wanted to cry with Draco for hearing that he'd been treated this way, but I knew even then that it wasn't the answer. "You know, if we're stuck here, we may as well stay together." I tentatively smiled at him through the puffiness that was my face. He smiled slightly back.
That was the beginning. That winter I received word that my mother's fourth husband had tragically died. That summer, she remarried. Her and her fifth husband preferred to be alone, so when I asked if I could visit the Malfoys for a week, she was overjoyed to give me permission. When I got to Draco's house, I stepped out of the fireplace to hear a loud slapping noise. I wondered what could possibly be wrong, so I rushed towards the noise. The noise was coming from a room nearby, and when I went to enter it, I saw Narcissa Malfoy on the ground, Lucius standing above her viciously as he struck her again and again. I went to open the door, but Draco grabbed me by the shoulders and led me to another room, where we talked and he told me all about it, how it happened at least once a week now, though when it started it was nearly every day.
A week later, I brought him to my house, and he witnessed the calloused way my mother spoke to me and the many men she brought home. He watched the men do strange things, things that I never thought about until Professor Moody brought up the Imperious Curse. The next Christmas, Draco bought me the glass dragon to match his own. We promised that we'd always be there for each other: strong like a dragon.
As I stuff the last of my things into the now heavy bag, I feel tears in my eyes, remembering all that we've been through, all the storms that we've roughed. I only wish we could have roughed this storm. I can only hope that my plan works. If my plan works, then everything was for something. If it fails . . . well, I'd like to not think about that.