A/N: Thank you for the reviewers again and my lovely beta reader, Marijn!

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Chapter four: Bending the Rules

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;26th of May, 1944, Buchenwald

I could say that everything went on normally after the last encounter with the blond but then I would also be lying through my teeth. I often found myself looking for him as I went to work with the prisoners. It was unconscious, I didn't do it on purpose, and, too often, I caught myself looking around, trying to find a blond head amongst the working Jews and other scum. That made me incredibly angry with myself although my behaviour was completely understandable.

It's not our job to get into too much contact with the prisoners. They spread diseases and some of them are extremely cunning, trying to manipulate us. It was not my fault I was having these thoughts.

'That charlatan is doing this on purpose. He knows exactly what he's doing; this is what they warned us about. God, I can't believe I let him affect me like this!'

'Affect you how?' An amused voice at the back of my head sneered. Internally, I tried to glare it away.

As I lay in my bed, hands cushioning my head, I swallowed and stared at the bottom of the bed above mine, the bed in which Blaise was having a nap. As if the answers were carved into the dark wood of the bunk bed, I tried to sort myself out and leaf through the pictures of Draco Malfoy that I had saved in my memory.

Afterwards, when I thought about those grey eyes, deep as my hatred towards Jews, the eyes started reflecting something I hadn't noticed before. The sparkling irises got a tint of deception in them, a small spark speaking of menacing thoughts and I saw how sinful suggestions swirled in the intense gaze he was giving me. I knew that there was a name for a look like that, but I couldn't remember what it was, nor did I truly want to, because that would have meant that I understood him and what he was presenting to me. Knowing that I did not understand made me pure.

Still, that look made something aggressive and primitive growl inside of me and bare its teeth. I wanted to shred him into tiny pieces, watch as the tissue ripped apart in front of my eyes, feel the stickiness of his blood between my fingers and I wanted to hear him cry, scream and beg for me to stop.

-

That night I dreamed of seeing Draco get killed by a group of SS men. As someone carved the Swastika on his stomach with a knife and as someone broke his thin fingers one by one like twigs, he screamed for me to help him. Eventually his screams faded into faint pleas with no emotion behind them anymore.

'Harry… Please, come and help m-" His throat was slit open.

The voice died away as his eyes fluttered closed. There was a pool of blood around him and his blond hair turned black. I had done nothing to stop the slaughtering. Draco's body started to cool down and his lips were blue.

Suddenly, I woke up with a start, remembering nothing of the dream.

;5th of June, 1944, Buchenwald

After being shaken awake by Ron, who was sitting next to me on my bed and after finding my glasses I instantly noticed that something was off.

The whole room was very quiet, even though all of my comrades were there. I could sense the unusual atmosphere; I could feel that something must have happened. From the looks of the very silent, expressionless roommates of mine the reason behind such a radical shift in the normal atmosphere had to be something horrible. I felt an enormous sense of foreboding. On his bed, Jerry was holding his head in his hands.

"What's going on, Ron?"

Ron turned to look at me with sad eyes, his lips were pale. I could see sombre lines in the corners of his mouth. "Alvin is dead."

Alvin was… dead?

A lump formed my throat and I gasped, "What?"

"He's dead, Harry. Died last night."

I just couldn't believe it. My roommate was dead. I turned to look at his untouched bed and it felt like a ghost had touched my neck with its cold fingers. "How did it happen?"

Blaise stood up from where he had been leaning against a wooden desk. "They found him dead this morning in Block 34."

"So the prisoners did it?"

Blaise's voice grew grimmer, if possible. "I think it was Alvin himself rather than the prisoners…"

There was a shocked silence in the room.

"Y-You mean… He went there on purpose? Unarmed?" Jerry stammered, looking up.

Blaise nodded solemnly. "In the middle of the night I saw him get up and make his bed."

Everyone in the room was listening.

"I asked if he was going somewhere but he didn't give me an answer in return." Blaise hung his head, voice wavering, and I heard him swallow. "Had I know that he – That he'd actually –"

"No", I interrupted him quickly.

I saw Blaise jump a bit.

"You mustn't blame yourself for this. None of this is your fault, there's nothing you could have done. This would have happened eventually anyways." People were nodding in agreement.

"That's right, Blaise, Harry's right. You can't be everywhere to watch over everybody." I was grateful for Emerson's support.

Blaise went back to leaning against the desk. "He never looked like someone who was really strong enough for this job, though. I remember how we all agreed he was too soft. We should have made him –"

"Blaise! Just listen to yourself!" I exclaimed. "You didn't make him come here. You didn't force him to c- to do what he did. It was him and only him."

"Life is about the survival of the fittest, after all", someone pointed out from the other end of the room.

The others went out to go to breakfast, although I was sure they weren't hungry at all.

I walked up to Blaise and went to sit next to him on the desk.

"I know it's not my fault, Harry. It still doesn't change the fact that he killed himself and might still be here, at this very fucking moment, had I been bothered to force an answer out of him. I'm very good at noticing if someone is lying, you know, I could have made it more difficult for him to leave the room."

It was very difficult to say anything in situations like this. Blaise had obviously taken Alvin's suicide very heavily, and at moments like this I almost wished I was a woman. They always managed to find the right words when someone was feeling down and having a guilt trip. I patted Blaise in the back and he gave me a brief smile that contained no real happiness.

"There is probably going to be a small memorial event held for Alvin later this evening. We might be able to say a few words there, I dunno. I haven't been here long enough to find out if there is such a habit here in Buchenwald."

The knuckles of Blaise's fists turned white as he squeezed the edge of the desk. "There isn't going to be any memorial shit for Alvin. They've never had those here. Not once", he spat out, boring holes into the wooden plank floor with his eyes.

"We could still have one of our own here in our room…"

Blaise's head snapped up to look at me with wide eyes.

"… completely non-official, of course. Just for those in our room."

Blaise looked at me for a moment, really looking at me like he'd never seen me before. His eyes were bright and very blue.

"Yes", he nodded. "Yes, that would be brilliant."

;8th of June, 1944, Buchenwald

I was absolutely flabbergasted when I read the day's newspaper. It said that on the 6th of June the Allied forces had landed in the Second Front, Normandy, and although something like that had been in the air for quite some time, it was still a surprise. From what I'd heard from other guards, the troops were heading towards Cologne, across the Rhine, perhaps they were there already! I had no idea what to think of it, the situation was becoming increasingly worrying.

The days felt longer somehow and one could feel the tension in the air. A couple of the other guards had even came up to me to ask just 'how English I was'. I had not expected to get a reaction like that from my colleagues, not at all, and for a few seconds I had been speechless.

'I am as German as you are! I believe in the same things and both of my parents are German, just like your parents are.'

The reserved look melted from their faces. 'Oh, sorry, we just had to make sure, you know.'

The food was even more terrible than usual. Either the fish delivery had taken longer than intended or they had mixed our food with that of the prisoners'. As I walked past the prisoners' food queue, however, I noticed my mistake as I saw the lumpy, grey mass on the plate, accompanied by one or two dry pieces of some vegetable. The sight of it made me want to dart to my chocolate stash that I kept under my bed. As much as I had wanted to do just that, I had to do my duties and meet my father in ten minutes time at his office.

'And don't be late, Harry. 12 o'clock, sharp.'

Although my mum was desperately and obviously trying to recreate a bond of sorts between my father and me, it was not working at all. The day I had come to Germany, leaving England behind, I had realised that things would not be the same between us. I hated myself for wanting his acceptance and recognition, but I felt that I owed him. At the same time, though, he owed me so much more for not being there for me during those important years of my life that I had spent in England, away from him and locked in a private school that was as cold and merciless as the Siberian winter.

;10th of June, 1944, Buchenwald

The newspaper headlines that had evoked so many emotions a couple of days before had not been forgotten, but the anxiety had most certainly subsided. Life at the camp went on normally, although the barracks containing prisoners too sick to work and too far-gone to get medical attention had started to get crowded. Most of the inmates there were probable to get exterminated in a matter of a few days.

Indeed, that was definitely one of those days when a big percentage of the prisoners in Buchenwald were taken into gas chambers to 'take a shower'. The workloads were heavier than usual and spontaneous and loosely justified executions were more common. The day was a very hot one, there was no wind and some parts of the camp reeked of rotten flesh and who knows what.

I was assigned to lead prisoners into the chambers that day, which was a small jackpot for me since this meant that I got to spend a good five hours in the shade.

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I had been wrong. By the time I got to the gas chambers the sun had already moved so that it was roasting everyone directly from above. Silently I cursed and opened the top-most button of my shirt.

The first queue of twenty political Jewish prisoners that was led to the gas chambers built in the cellar of the high, firm building that I was leaning against was a rather tiring sight. Some of the prisoners clearly knew what was about to happen, while others remained gloriously oblivious. As I pushed the slower ones inside they often tumbled to the ground and one even died there in the doorway. Out of exhaustion, disease, injury or heat stroke, I don't know and basically, I didn't really give a damn. The body was quickly carted off somewhere.

The next group of walking skeletons was obviously from the barracks where no one lived for longer than ten days. This lot was falling apart in front of my eyes, and while they weren't leprous, quite a few were in the process of losing some part of their anatomy.

Queue after queue, the chambers started getting full. Luckily it wasn't my job to take the bodies outside and get rid of them. The last group that Emerson was urging forwards was a sight that I had waited for. It was my ticket for a 30-minute-long break before the next groups were to be taken in.

The grey faces and haunted eyes that I got to see as the prisoners walked past me spoke of pain and weakness, which made my job even easier since what I was doing was almost like euthanasia. After locking the doors and letting some gas in the prisoners would start screaming like animals and their voices would echo the in the chambers for quite some time until the silence would fall. It was comforting to know that after such hideous cries the Third Reich would be a slightly more peaceful and safe place to live in.

Those musings of mine were severely interrupted, however, once the lagging end of the last queue arrived. What I saw made my blood run cold, and my throat became suddenly very tight.

'He - No, not him.'

The grey eyes were void of any emotion and defeat shone through the skinny form of the blond prisoner. Draco Malfoy was the last of the lot and a guard I didn't know was shoving him forwards every now and then.

"Get going! Quickly, quickly!"

He was terrible to look at. The healthy flush that I had seen on his cheeks the day he had arrived was gone and replaced with a white, ill hue and his high cheekbones were terribly pronounced on his once-gorgeous face.

It hurt to look at him. I know I shouldn't have paid him any attention in the first place, I shouldn't have made any of it personal, but it had just happened. I should probably have blamed him, he was the impure one, after all, but at the time the logical part of me didn't know what to think, say, or do. And so I just responded the way my instincts told me to.

I grabbed Draco by the arm and pulled him aside.

"Harry, what –"

"Shut up, Emerson, if you know what is good for you."

A/N: If you want more, review, please. I'm getting a bit frustrated.

-Devilita.