Chapter 8:

-

"ARE YOU MAD?!" Chang screamed at me in the middle of the empty courtyard, so that even the trees shivered under her shouts.

I had known that she wouldn't help me with my mission, and I had known that I would be mercilessly denied, but nothing prepared me for her hateful words, the spite in her eyes, the disgust in her voice.

"Not only did you demand it of me to keep such an evil secret," she spat flames at me. "You want me to HELP YOU WITH IT TOO? Honestly… YOU HAVE SOME NERVE!"

She grabbed her book bag from the bench, glaring at me all the while.

"Even if your parents are in danger… better them than our wonderful Dumbledore, who could very well end this war, save Harry, or even us all!"

Yet somehow, those words were worse than the look on her face, and the tone in her voice. Those words dug deep into me, more than he rejection ever could have.

"I see," I said, a low growl drifting into my voice. "So this has been about Potter all along, has it? You have a real problem with letting go of your exes, Chang, do you know that? Pathetic."

Her eyes grew wide, and she began to shake with holding back her anger. She looked ready to slap me at any given moment. She spoke clear and slow, as if to fully accentuate her words.

"Don't… you… EVER… come near me again, do you hear me?" she commanded me with so much disdain. "You never even THINK it! If you see my face in the corridors, you just look away, so I won't have to see your WRETCHED FACE! I'm NEVER speaking to you AGAIN!"

"YOU PROMISE?!" I shouted back with strong cynicism.

With that she covered her wet eyes in her palms and ran off, crying heavily as she headed back to the castle.

As if the day wasn't dark enough, the sky had to add to it with a sudden swarm of black clouds, followed by an almost immediate downpour of rain right onto my head. Or maybe I had just stood there watching the place she had gone out of my sights longer than I thought I had.

I was in complete bewilderment of my own self and my foolishness… because I had never felt more horrid in my entire life.

I lifted my hood over my head to shield myself from the rain, but I was already beginning to shiver.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a hand reached out of the nearby trees and grabbed my cloak, yanking me into its cover. A grubby hand was placed over my mouth to keep me from calling out.

"You will listen," said a deep growling voice. "And you will listen good. I have a message for you. From him."

My throat clenched shut and my heart raced in fear. I couldn't answer even if I wanted to, for the man's smelly hand was still firmly over my mouth.

"He wants you to get it done… very soon… or you will die with them, do you understand?"

I squealed in fear and protest behind his hand. He would dare kill me as well? It was unfair! It was an outrage! It was…

Terrifying.

I stopped squirming and was paralyzed in horror. The stakes had just been raised… again. I was now faced with the dire realization of this game I had been playing. I had been talking this evil talk for so long, as if being evil had some glorious status, and I now had to walk the walk, or… die.

It was such an abrupt phrase, to die. So stunning, so that I was at a loss at what to say. Death was not a thing I thought would ever come to me, and certainly not while I was serving the Dark Lord. He was the giver of death, and if you were on it's side, it shouldn't come to you, right?

The Death Eater turned and left me to my thoughts, disappearing into the cover of the trees.

Oh god, I wasn't ready for this. Everything seemed so surreal and invincible until now, the realism not truly in my face.

So I ran. I ran fast and hard up the hills toward the castle Hogwarts, the rain not the only reason my face was wet.

What was I going to do? I wasn't meant to be an assassin. Surely there was more training involved. Surely there was a better person suited. Why me? My pathetic attempts had already proved less than worthy, and the most harm I had done to anyone was only to the stupid Gryffindor Katie Bell. My luck was rotten and useless. Everything I had done so far had been with dire consequences, and for every step I had taken, I was thrown three steps back again.

The cursed necklace had been a disaster. The practice sessions and attempts to repair the cabinet in the Room of Requirement were serving for no improvement whatsoever.

I should just consider himself dead already. My parents too. It was the end of the Malfoy line.

Suddenly I felt sick to my stomach. I ducked to the nearest bathroom, which was the abandoned girl's lavatory again, closing the door after me and rushing to the closest sink, hands clutching either side, my head bowed over it.

"Awww…" Myrtle said as she exited from a cubicle. "I missed our visits, Draco."

I just wanted to be alone, but couldn't bring myself to snap at her to go away. My throat was tight, and my eyes watered, the tears involuntarily poured freely into the sink.

"Just go back to your stall, Myrtle," I commanded at last through my clenched throat.

She seemed concerned, but thankfully listened to me.

"You're crying!" she observed. "What's wrong?"

"None of your blamed business, Myrtle, just leave me be!"

"Don't," crooned Myrtle's voice from one of the stalls, as a pathetic attempt to try and comfort me. "Don't... tell me what's wrong... I can help you..."

"No one can help me," I said. My whole body began to shake beyond my control. "I can't do it, I can't... it won't work... and unless I do it soon, he says he'll kill me..."

I gasped and gulped and then, with a great shudder, looked up into the cracked mirror and saw Harry staring back at me in the mirror.

I wheeled around, whipping out my wand, and he did the same. I tried one hex, but it missed Harry by inches, shattering the lamp on the wall beside him. He threw himself to the floor, while flicking his wand in my direction, but I blocked the jinx and raised my wand for another attack.

"No! No! Stop it!" squealed Moaning Myrtle, her voice echoing loudly around the tiled room. "Stop! STOP!"

There was a loud bang and the bin behind Harry exploded; Harry attempted a Leg-Locker Curse that backfired off the wall behind my ear and smashed the cistern beneath Moaning Myrtle, who screamed loudly; water poured everywhere and Harry slipped as I, in deep concentration, cried:

"Crui--"

"SECTUMSEMPRA!" Harry bellowed from the floor, waving his wand with determined intensity.

A sudden pain came over me, sudden and shocking. I saw blood spurt from my face and chest as though I had been slashed with an invisible sword. Millions of needles stabbed me repeatedly all over my body. I staggered backward from the sudden pain and collapsed onto the waterlogged floor with a great splash, my wand falling slowly from my limp hand.

I heard Harry gasp, like he hadn't known what he had just done. I could barely hear him slipping around on the wet tiles, making his way to me like he actually cared. Blood, my blood, was everywhere, and I was drenched in it, shaking madly and I couldn't stop.

Moaning Myrtle let out a deafening scream:

"MURDER! MURDER IN THE BATHROOM! MURDER!"

Next thing I knew, Snape was kneeling over me, waving his wand it over the deep wounds on my face, muttering an healing incantation that sounded almost like a song. It soothed me to almost beyond consciousness, and the flow of blood seemed to ease. Snape wiped the residue from my face and then repeated his spell. I was healing rapidly, though the pain was still very great and the shock still intense.

I could still hear Moaning Myrtle sobbing and wailing overhead. Snape did his best to help me stand, but I was still weak.

"You need the hospital wing," Snape decided. "There may be a certain amount of scarring, but if you take dittany immediately we might avoid even that... Come..."

He supported me across the bathroom, turning at the door to say in a voice of cold fury,

"And you, Potter... you wait here for me."

Somehow, it brought me strange relief to hear those words, knowing that Potter would indeed pay for what he had done to me. I would make him pay later too, if ever given the chance.

-

'Pain' was not a good enough word to describe my next few days. 'Misery' was close. 'Anguish' was closer.

'Utter agony' was perfection.

The scars were sure to be lifted, as Madam Pomphery promised, but the sting was rather intense for the next couple of days, and I didn't dare show my face around Potter, for fear of him laughing and gloating in my humbled face. I decided it best not to mess with him for a few days, just out of wise precaution…

But then, fate decided I was due for a little luck. On the second day in the hospital wing, I had a visitor.

I had been sleeping when she came in, but like a sixth sense, my eyes flicked open at her presence. I watched her as she talked a bit with the school nurse, then came towards my way. She said nothing to me, just sat down on the edge of my bed and examined my wounds. I knew I was a rather ghastly sight, and was about to snap something rude at her, but when her hand came close to my skin, I quickly decided against it.

I watched as she lifted a hand to one of my cuts on my arm, brushing a finger on it gently. It burned to be touched, and not just because of the wound, either. Then she accidently hit an especially tender spot, and I winced in pain.

"Ow! What the hell are you doing?!" I exclaimed.

She jumped, probably not realizing I had been awake.

"Nothing," she replied quickly, then scurried away to wait on the bed next to me. "I'm just here for a checkup."

She sounded a little congested, and I feared she was going to cry again. A closer look at her red nose and pale skin made me realize she just had a common cold, which was probably the reason she was here.

Or was it? The way she looked at my wounds with such sorrow and pity made me think otherwise.

"You heard about what Potter did to me, didn't you?" I guessed.

"How could I not?" she answered back. "It's all anyone is talking about. You look as bad as they say, too. Was it really Harry who did this to you?"

"Of course," I retorted forcefully. "I told you he wasn't such a saint. No one is."

"I can't believe he would attack you like that, it's so…" she searched for the right word and I volunteered one.

"Evil?" I offered.

She sniveled and looked away. She looked as if she didn't know what to believe, as if the lines between good and evil were starting to blur.

"Draco," she said softly, then sighed. "I didn't want to care… you don't deserve it."

I narrowed my eyes slowly, wondering what she could possibly mean by that.

"What are you saying?"

"When we kissed… did you feel anything?"

I shut my mouth quickly. Then I smirked. It was just like I had predicted. She had fallen for me. Pathetic.

"For you? You're joking right?"

"I didn't feel anything for you either," she said stoically.

We were silent for many moments. I glanced over to Madam Pomphrey, who was just leaving the room, if only for a moment. I grinned smugly. Yes, fortune was now in my favor.

"Then I guess it wouldn't matter if we did so again, would it?" I announced.

"Certainly not," she retorted determinedly. "I still wouldn't feel anything for a wretch like you!"

"And neither would I for a wench like you."

"Not a thing!"

Together, we crashed our mouths on one another again, though I groaned a bit through my pains… oh, but it was worth it.

I disconnected us all too quickly, not wanting to let it go too far.

"See?" I exclaimed perhaps a little too loudly. "Didn't feel a thing."

"Me either!"

Then she grabbed my face and kissed me again. A little longer this time… and deeper.

"Still nothing!" she insisted when she let me go, but I was feeling a little light-headed.

"Yes, not a thing," I agreed. We gave each other a long look, searching for something in the other's eyes. Cho frowned, as if realizing something she didn't see in me before, then got up from her bed.

"I need to… I have to go…" she said quickly, a little flustered. She walked right to the door just as Madam Pomphrey was just coming back in through it.

"I have your cold potion, deary," the nurse explained as Cho came rushing past.

"I'm actually feeling much better now, Madam Pomphrey," she lied anxiously. "Please, excuse me…"

I watched her leave with some sorrow at seeing her go. Something had spooked her, and I could only imagine what.

-

The next day, Madam Pomphrey's potion wasn't retrieved in waste, seeing as I was now sneezing up a storm.

"Oh, Mr. Malfoy!" Madam Pomphrey said, rushing to my bedside. "Are you coming down with a something?"

That was just what I had been thinking. I could only hope she wouldn't realize I had caught it while Cho was administering her own form of mouth-to-mouth.

"I wonder how you could catch Ms. Chang's cold so quickly?" she said as she poured me a cup of potion.

I glared up at her distasteful tone. She wondered, indeed.

She then gave me a look, one I wouldn't soon forget. It was one that was a sort of scolding grin, as if saying with her suspicious eyes: "you sly dog, you…"

I fought a grin in her presence, but after she turned her back to me, I smiled in immense satisfaction. This was certainly the best cold I had ever received.

-

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Signed,
--RedRogue