What Draco Malfoy Knows
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You asked your parents to be allowed home for the Easter holidays. School is a nightmare more terrifying than sixth year ever was, and you thought you'd survived the worst of it. But you didn't know about the Carrows' hatred of the Malfoy name; you didn't know what bitter malice Vince was capable of. You didn't know how badly you'd wish for Harry Potter to be around, damn the murderous, stupid, arrogant git. The last time you saw him was at the gamekeeper's hut, chasing after Snape as if anyone could possibly escape the Carrows' Crucios. Your dreams all year have been drenched in red and filled with Potter's screams of agony.
You didn't know your home has become Death Eater Central.
You didn't know you meet Potter here again, in the Manor's drawing room.
And now Mother says, "Come here," and that stinking werewolf dares call you "boy," and Father, his voice filled with a need as desperate as your own, asks, "Is it? Is it Harry Potter?"
The brainless oaf got himself hexed into a balloon-faced, pink-skinned monstrosity. Only Granger would think to cast a Stinging Jinx for disguise. She and Weasel are standing beside Potter, faces deathly white with fear. Father must be blind not to know him, but you, you'd recognise that brilliant green anywhere, no matter that Potter's eyes are swollen slits behind his ugly glasses, glittering in the light of the chandelier.
"But look at him carefully, look! Come closer!" Father urges, so eager at this chance to redeem himself before his Lord.
You look at Potter – carefully, closely – and for the first time your eyes meet. You've never seen him panic before but now your own sickening fear is mirrored in his face. You know this instant that you will not, that you cannot betray him.
"Draco, come here, look properly! What do you think?"
You think that this is the scrawny git who refused your hand when you were kids. The Parselmouth who talked down the snake you conjured up. The Seeker who snatched the Snitch right from your grasp, at every single game of Quidditch you two played. The bloody Saviour who locked Father into Azkaban. The Golden Boy who turned you and your mates into oozing slugs. The lunatic who cut you open with a curse so Dark it would have taken your life if not for Snape.
You think how he makes you loathe the Mark on your wrist. How he makes you want to be a better person, brave and loyal and true, someone whose hand Harry Potter will take in friendship and more.
"I don't know," you say, hoping against hope that for once Potter will understand.
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Author's Notes: All dialogue is quoted from the chapter "Malfoy Manor" of JK Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.