Wow. Two chapters in one night. I've impressed myself. ^.^

So, this is a plot bunny that attacked, inspired by Shelter In The Storm by WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot. If you like Star Trek: 2009 stories, or Harry Potter stories for minor/unexpounded on characters (I really, really like her Daphne Greengrass and the Sixth Year From Hell) then go read her. In fact, just go read her stories, period. I mean it. She and BittersweetSummer are my favorite HP authors (I can't tell you how excited I was to find a review from you, BittersweetSummer! And I'm not trying to suck up, either, just so you know. ^.^)

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any aspect of the Harry Potter franchise. I am not J.K. Rowling or Warner Bros. I do not have any claim over the characters, their personalities, or actions. I just like making their personalities bounce off each other in these little tales called fanfiction. So please, don't sue me. I can't afford it right now.

And everyone who reviewed...THANKS!

Mark
by Shu of the Wind

***

"What does the Dark Mark look like?"

Draco could feel all of the blood rush out of his head, and all the hair prickle up his spine. Greengrass was calm, and curious-looking, frowning at him with her back propped up against the wall of the stands.

It was after one of the few Occlumency lessons they were able to have during the week – when Draco wasn't obligated to report to the Carrows and Greengrass wasn't stuck in the library finishing the mounds of homework assigned to O.W.L. students. Out of habit, he'd gone to figure out where she was – couldn't leave a traitor unattended – and she'd asked if there could be an impromptu lesson that evening.

Having nothing to do, he'd obliged.

That had been a mistake.

"I know the theory," Greengrass continued, still frowning; she looked as though she was puzzled. "But I've never actually seen it."

Draco said nothing. He closed his fist around the blades of pale new grass.

He'd grown to understand her a little more, since these sessions had started. Sometimes he was able to follow her strange leaps in thought, though those were extremely difficult. She hadn't touched him since what had happened that second lesson, but for some reason, she seemed to be behaving the slightest bit differently; revising some things before she said them, refusing to speak about some things and driving on others. She hadn't mentioned the Dark Lord in days, or the D.A., his inadequacies as a human being, etcetera, but she seemed unnaturally interested in the Death Eaters; he'd caught her several times in the library reading about them, frowning in thought or confusion, and he hadn't quite understood why.

Until now.

He should have known that she was plotting something.

"And I've read everything the library has on the last rise of the Dark Lord. Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts, that sort of thing," Greengrass continued, now studying him as though he was some interesting plant she'd found in the forest. "But none of them have drawings."

"Maybe there's a reason for that." He said angrily. Greengrass tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, the movement somehow both frustrating and pleasing. "What do you want to know about it for, anyway? It's –" Terrifying. Tainting. "—a mark in the sky. Or in skin," he added, surreptitiously flexing his arm in the memory of it.

"I want to know why everyone is so scared of it." Greengrass said simply. Her eyes darted to his arm. "And I want to know why you went out of your way to get it."

Draco pulled his arm away from her, but didn't get up off the ground. He saw no reason to lose the comfortable spot he'd found just because Greengrass was pressuring him. "That's not a reason."

"It's a better reason than you've given me for not letting me see it." Greengrass replied tartly, scowling at him. "Oh – wait – you haven't said anything about it, yet."

"No." It felt as though his heart had turned into an icy rock, and plunged downward, into his stomach, through his feet, into the earth, far out of reach. "No."

"That's not a real answer." Greengrass searched his face. "Aren't you going to storm off in a tizzy? That's what you usually do when I ask something you don't want to answer."

Draco rolled his eyes and stayed right where he was. For some reason, Greengrass looked satisfied with this arrangement; she crossed her legs, playing with the grass.

"Why not?" She said finally. "What harm could it do? No one will know."

"No." He repeated. Couldn't the stupid girl get this through her thick head? "You don't know what you're asking."

"Don't I?" She said, and she looked positively dangerous. "Don't you think I know just what I'm asking? I'm in Slytherin, Malfoy. I'm not an idiot. And I'm most certainly not on your side. I know exactly what I'm asking."

"No, you don't." Draco said. "No one could know unless they have –" He bit his tongue. "Unless they knew."

It stung his arm to even mention it. Draco clenched both fists in the grass, unable to look at her. This was why he didn't like spending much time with Greengrass. A few minutes without Occlumency or arguments and she asked strange, penetrating questions that forced him out of calm, out of forgetting. She seemed to do it on purpose.

"Malfoy." Greengrass turned towards him, but didn't reach out a hand. She simply looked at him. "I don't have the Mark. But I doubt anyone – not even Pansy Parkinson – has kept an eye on you for as long as I have. All of us had to, because you were and are the most powerful person in Slytherin House, but none of them watched you and your yearmates like I did." It was the first time she'd admitted keeping an eye on him before she'd confronted him in the common room, and for some reason, that went a little to soothing his temper. "You and the others said things around me because you never noticed me, and that let me know enough to keep an eye on you. Do you think I don't know what sixth year forced you into doing? Do you think I didn't notice the fact that you degenerated every day because you were swallowed by pure unending fear? Do you think I didn't see or hear when you screamed at me for trying to help you?" She hesitated; then her fingers found his hand, pressing his palm gently. Draco looked at it, uncomprehending. "Believe me. Please. If anyone in this castle – other than maybe Potter," she added thoughtfully, ignoring the fact that he scowled, "—who knows what that Mark has done to you, it's me."

She said nothing more. She simply looked at him.

"I – can't." Draco said jerkily, without pulling his hand away from her. Greengrass turned fully towards him, her eyes focused and determined.

"You can."

"You don't understand." He shook his head angrily. "You couldn't unless –"

"Malfoy." She shook her head. "I know that. But you haven't heard me. You hide it because you fear it, because you're ashamed of fearing it, and you're terrified of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named." He jumped at the moniker, and Greengrass nodded. "It haunts you. He haunts you. He scares you."

"He doesn't scare you?" Draco asked furiously.

"Of course he does. I'm scared of the Dark Lord, I'm scared of death. I'm scared of a lot of things." Greengrass said. "But one thing I'm not scared of is that Mark."

He didn't move.

Greengrass's face slowly softened, her eyes searching his. "Please. Let me see it."

Draco almost said no again. He could taste the bitterness of the word on his tongue. But she compelled the absolute truth from him, had never really allowed him to tell her anything else. He said nothing.

"Show me what you've hidden all this time, Malfoy." She said.

His hands were shaking. She helped him roll up the sleeve of the cloak, exposing the black Mark to the air, and he refused to look at it, focusing instead on the grass around his feet. He tore up another two handfuls in the time it took Greengrass to look at it. Her fingers danced around it, like skaters on an icy pond, unwilling to activate it. After a long moment, she looked up at him, focused and grim. She didn't roll down the sleeve.

"I see nothing here to be frightened of."

"I do." Draco said. He looked her in the eye. "Anyone else would."

"I don't." She repeated. She held his arm firmly in both hands, smoothing fingertips over skin. Without another word, she lowered her eyes again. "I see nothing here but skin –" she touched his wrist gently, and he could feel his skin prickling at the softness of her fingers "—and ink. And there is nothing there to be frightened of."

After a moment longer, she rolled down his sleeve and leaned against the wall of the stadium again, closing her eyes. "You really are a fool, Malfoy."

He stood, and walked away, leaving her there to lay in the sun, content to remain in her strangely defined world.