Chapter Thirty-Six: Waiting for Draco
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
In mid-April, Harry was on the front page of the Daily Prophet yet again. "Harry Potter Saves Hogwarts" wasn't bad as far as an article reporting that you were a Parselmouth went. Harry wasn't really sure that he had saved much of anything, really. All he had done was hiss 'open' at a bathroom sink and then gone back to class. That the Aurors had managed to trap and kill the creature was very nice, of course, but really nothing to do with him.
Not, of course, that he was actually allowed to tell people that what he did wasn't important although at least he managed to remind people how important the Weasley twins and their identification of the creature as a giant snake was.
"You know," Blaise said thoughtfully, "you might be a big hero again but we haven't really gotten over the fact that you're still a big hero for stopping the dark lord."
"You really should have spaced your heroics out more," Daphne agreed.
Harry rolled his eyes. "And how was I supposed to do that when You-Know-Who was in need of stopping in January and then three months later a basilisk was in need of killing? I don't exactly plan these things out."
"Clearly," Pansy sniffed.
"You should complain," Theodore advised.
Harry laughed. "To who?"
"The Daily Prophet would probably listen and sympathize," Daphne suggested.
"You had just better be careful," Blaise told him. "Otherwise we're kicking you out and then you'll have to go and hang out with the rest of the Gryffindors."
Harry gasped dramatically. "Take that back!"
Blaise was unrepentant. "I would if I could, Harry, but the truth is that you've been acting an awful lot like a Gryffindor for quite some time now."
"Oh, is it time for the intervention?" Theodore asked brightly.
"Wait, intervention?" Harry demanded, unable to believe that they were thinking of throwing an intervention for him.
"We can't do that!" Pansy exclaimed. "Draco's not here yet!" She looked expectantly towards the door.
"What are you doing?" Blaise asked her.
"I'm waiting for Draco," Pansy announced.
"Are you going to stare at the door until he shows up? Because that might be awhile," Daphne told her.
"In stories, whenever someone mentions that they're waiting for someone, they always show up," Pansy explained.
"Well, not always," Harry argued. "I really hope Draco has more of a sense of punctuality than Godot."
"Hey, Harry, can you give me a hand with my intervention speech?" Theodore asked him. "I'm really not sure that this part sounds right and I think I might have just made up parts of your childhood at one point and so if you could fact-check it then that would be great."
"Theodore!" Daphne exclaimed, half-laughing. "You can't get the subject of you intervention speech to help you come up with your intervention speech!"
"Why not?" Theodore asked blankly. "Wouldn't it be, I don't know, getting him involved with the process or something? It might actually make this more effective."
"If Harry doesn't feel that he needs an intervention then how would he be able to write an effective intervention speech for himself?" Daphne asked practically.
"First of all, it's co-write," Theodore said clearly. "And I obviously have much more faith in my friend Harry than you do."
Before Daphne could say anything else, the door to the Common Room swung open and Draco shakily stepped inside, covered in chicken feathers and blood.
"Ha!" Pansy crowed when she saw him. "I knew it! Eat that, Godot!"
"Actually, that would be Beckett," Harry corrected.
"Sam Beckett?" Daphne asked. "I think I saw that show."
"No, it wasn't a show, he was a playwright," Harry corrected.
"No, I'm pretty sure I saw that one, too," Theodore disagreed. "It was something about a leap."
Daphne snapped her fingers. "Yes, a quantum leap!"
"Why were you even watching muggle television in the first place?" Blaise wondered, frowning. "I mean, I get Daphne but-"
"I am not obsessed with muggles!" Daphne exclaimed.
Pansy stared at her. "Nobody said you were, Daphne. But you're getting a little defensive."
"People always say that. Or at least Draco does. And everyone always thinks it anyway," Daphne retorted.
"Now you seem to be getting a little paranoid," Pansy noted, scooting her chair away from her.
"Sometimes elderly fathers aren't very interesting and summer can get very long," Theodore answered Blaise's question. "I can't spend all of my time at other people's houses and not all of us get to pass the time wondering when and how our stepfather is going to die."
"That is not fun!" Blaise objected.
"I never said that it was, just that it passed the time," Theodore informed him. "Or are you denying that?"
"Well…no," Blaise conceded.
"Isn't it a little strange to hate muggles and yet to have their technology in your house?" Harry inquired.
Theodore shrugged. "I don't see why it would be."
"You still didn't tell me what Sam Beckett and Godot have to do with each other," Pansy reminded Harry.
He nodded. "Oh, right. Well Samuel Beckett was a playwright who wrote a play-"
"Shocking," Blaise muttered, rolling his eyes.
"Called 'Waiting for Godot,'" Harry continued, ignoring the interruption.
"What happens in it?" Pansy asked.
Harry shrugged. "Um…these two guys wait around for someone named Godot. They talk about killing themselves at one point due to boredom but they're too lazy to actually do it."
"Well, what about when Godot gets there?" Pansy pressed.
"He never does," Harry replies. "Well, at least not at the end of the play. Maybe he never does."
"Wouldn't it be something if he shows up the minute the play is over?" Daphne asked rhetorically.
"Don't be absurd, Daphne, he can't show up once the play is over!" Theodore cried out. "He's fictional, remember?"
"That would explain why I called it a play," Daphne deadpanned.
"If he never shows up then what in the world is the point?" Pansy demanded.
"Guys," Draco (evidently tired of standing around covered in blood and chicken feathers and waiting for his friends to notice him) said, waving his hands and trying to catch their attention.
"I don't know!" Harry cried out, throwing his hands up in the air. "Ask an English teacher!"
"Why would I need an English teacher when English is my native tongue?" Pansy asked, confused. "And why would an English teacher be an expert on weird muggle plays that don't make sense?"
Harry shook his head. "I give up."
"But seriously, you should watch it sometime," Theodore was telling Blaise. "You could come over and I'd be less bored and you'd stop having to obsess about your soon-to-be-dead stepfather."
"I do not ob-" Blaise cut himself off. "Watch what? Waiting for Godot?"
"No, Quantum Leap. Do try to keep up," Theodore said disdainfully.
"GUYS!" Draco shouted.
They all looked over at him.
"What?" Pansy asked, a little annoyed.
"I've been standing here for the last several minutes and you've just completely been ignoring me," Draco told them.
"We're sorry if you're feeling neglected, Draco, but we were having our own conversation," Harry said gently. "You were free to jump in at any point."
"Can you guys please try to focus?" Draco begged them.
"But we are focusing on you, Draco," Daphne said, puzzled.
"That's now what I meant," Draco said wearily.
"Then maybe you should elaborate," Pansy suggested.
"Guys, look at me," Draco instructed.
They did.
"Do you notice anything…odd about me?" he asked slowly.
"Well, aside from the fact that your robes are covered with blood and chicken feathers, not really," Theodore said after eyeing him critically.
"'Aside from'-"Draco broke off, scoffing. "Let's not put any of that aside, okay? That's the part I wanted you to notice!"
"It's hard to miss," Daphne admitted.
"We were just trying to be open-minded and not judge you for your admittedly odd fashion choices," Harry claimed.
"Well judge away!" Draco ordered. "This isn't my new 'fashion choice'!"
"Then why are you wearing it?" Pansy asked, confused.
Draco threw his hands up in the air. "That! Is! Exactly! The! Question!"
"There's really no need to be so dramatic," Blaise complained.
"Yes there is!" Draco argued. "A bunch of roosters have been killed and this is the, what, third time I've woken up like this. At first I thought I could just ignore it or whatever but sooner or later that gets kind of ridiculous."
"I'd say that it got ridiculous the first time that you woke up like that and decided not to do anything about it," Harry said frankly.
"Is this your way of confessing that you've been murdering the chickens, Draco?" Daphne asked reprovingly. "Because I think that that made some Hufflepuffs cry."
"First, if that's true about the Hufflepuffs then good," Draco said darkly. "And as to whether I'm confessing…I…No…Well, maybe. Sort of?"
"How can you be sort of murdering them?" Pansy asked, confused. "You either are or you aren't. Unless you had an accomplice or are quibbling about whether or not it was really murdering them or not."
"Let's test that, shall we?" Theodore asked rhetorically. "Draco, did you kill any of the chickens…no, wait, it's been roosters, I think. Did you kill any of the roosters?"
"I…think that there is compelling evidence that I might have been," Draco admitted shakily.
Harry wished that Neville was there so he could ask Draco if he could stop being a Slytherin for five seconds and just give a firm answer. Since Harry was a Slytherin himself, he couldn't actually be the one to do that.
"Why?" Pansy asked, stunned.
"I suspect it's because that a rooster's crow kills a basilisk," Draco said slowly. 'He suspects'? Really?
"Draco, I know that we said that we didn't really mind what the basilisk was doing to the Muggleborns but I think actively helping the basilisk is going a bit far," Blaise said, eyeing Draco strangely. "And didn't we all agree that we didn't like going to school with a basilisk? Why would sabotaging any chance of getting rid of it seem like a good idea?"
"And why would you kill the roosters now?" Harry asked reasonably. "I mean, the basilisk's been dead for a few days now."
"Oh, I know that," Draco assured them. "I just don't think that he does."
Theodore decided to bite the bullet. "Draco…who are you talking about?"
"The man in the diary," Draco replied.
"Man in the…Draco, don't you think you should take a shower, clean up a bit? It might calm you down," Pansy urged. "Maybe even lie down. You can't be feeling well."
"No, I'm not and that's exactly why I can't stop and just take a break," Draco said firmly.
"Well, tell us what's going on then," Daphne prompted.
"Right after Harry did his big Gryffindor thing-" Draco started to say.
"Hey!" Harry protested.
Daphne shushed him. "Not now, Harry."
"He, Pansy, and I were in the library and found this blank diary belonging to Tom Riddle, that prefect who got Hagrid expelled," Draco said, nodding Theodore's way. "Pansy…convinced me to take the book with me and I was using it to take notes at first in class but then it started writing back, telling me that it already knew all of this first-year material. It requested that if I absolutely must take notes then would I please be so good as to do sixth or seventh year material instead? I wrote back explaining that, as a first year, I really couldn't and it went on from there."
"Why didn't you tell anybody that you found a talking diary?" Harry asked. "You know the old adage about how you should never trust something unless you know where it keeps its brain."
Draco rolled his eyes. "Yes, Mother. I'm not a child and I knew better than to trust it. And I didn't tell anybody for the same reason that any of you wouldn't have told anyone."
Harry, actually, would have taken the matter straight to Gilderoy but he understood now Draco's reasoning (even if he didn't agree). A Slytherin never gives up an advantage.
"But something went wrong?" Blaise prompted.
Draco eyed his ruined robes distastefully. "Obviously. I've had a few blackouts and I wouldn't have been that concerned except for what I looked like afterwards. And since I can't imagine anything that I've done that could cause this except writing in the diary…Well, I think I can safely blame that for all of this. I never wrote about the basilisk dying so it makes sense that he'd still go after the roosters."
"So you think that a prefect from fifty years ago was summoning the basilisk and attacking Muggleborns?" Harry asked skeptically.
"It would explain a lot," Theodore reasoned. "After all, it clearly wasn't Hagrid and I always thought that Riddle was just blaming him because he didn't want the school to shut. I can't blame him, really. I thought that the real culprit took advantage of Hagrid's expulsion and decided to pretend to be caught. I guess that's what Riddle did do. And it explains why he made sure to have a convenient scapegoat ready."
"I saw his memory of busting Hagrid," Draco confirmed. "And trust me, whatever that was was nothing like a basilisk. Although Riddle seemed to think that Hagrid was raising werewolf cubs under his bed."
Harry was horrified at the very prospect. "What? But…werewolf cubs? But wouldn't that mean?"
"Riddle, whether this is true or not, claimed that Hagrid was raising children who turned into a werewolf once a month under his bed and no one got bitten or noticed anything," Draco confirmed.
"Draco, I think he was insulting your intelligence with that one," Daphne told him.
"So what do you guys think that I should do with this probably evil diary that's probably been causing all of this mess in the first place?" Draco inquired.
"I would definitely give it to Dumbledore," Harry said immediately.
Draco rolled his eyes. "Honestly, Harry. 'Give it to Dumbledore.' Clearly I can't give it to Dumbledore or else I would already be there instead of asking you people for advice when you'd rather talk about muggles than help me in my hour of need."
"Well, you can understand how we might have missed that you needed us," Theodore told him."You were being very subtle."
"Why can't you tell him?" Harry demanded. "It's what I would do."
"Yes and you might get away with that because he's still not come to terms with the fact that you're a Slytherin," Draco replied. "But the minute I come to him and tell him that an evil diary has been possessing me and making me kill roosters and petrify students, Moaning Myrtle, and Peeves then even with the diary as proof, I'm still going to end up being asked some very difficult questions. Even if I don't get in trouble, my father will probably be called in and I'll look stupid and…I just won't, that's all."
"I understand that you don't want to look stupid, Draco," Harry said slowly. "But surely that's better than the alternative! The basilisk might be dead now and you might never write in that diary again but if it can really possess people just by writing in it then think of all the damage that it might do if someone else ever gets their hands on it!"
"I don't think that would really be my problem," Draco argued.
"It would be if the person who gets it is also a Hogwarts student," Daphne pointed out. "Or if Riddle's…spirit or whatever wants to hurt or kill you for breaking free and not doing what it wanted you to do."
"You guys are being too morbid," Draco complained. "Nothing like that could possibly happen."
Theodore shot him a look.
"Probably happen," Draco amended.
"Would you seriously rather risk it than look stupid in front of Dumbledore?" Harry couldn't believe it.
Draco didn't even have to think about it. "Absolutely."
"Draco!" Harry exclaimed.
"What?" Draco asked unapologetically. "Either come up with a way to get this safely to Dumbledore without involving me or let's just forget the whole thing. If I don't write in it anymore – which I won't – then it will probably be okay."
Harry waited expectantly for somebody to point out what a terrible idea it was for Draco to just ignore this and hope that it went away on its own. No one said anything.
"You guys can't possibly really believe that," he protested.
"I can," Theodore offered.
Harry rolled his eyes. "You don't count."
"I'm considering being offended by that," Theodore informed him. "I mean, I'll probably decide against it but I felt like you should know that."
"Duly noted," Harry said dryly.
"It's not a matter of really believing that," Pansy explained. "It's just, well, do we not believe it enough to get into an argument over it?"
"You guys can be kind of terrible sometimes," Harry said bemusedly, shaking his head.
"Go back to Gryffindor," Blaise ordered.
It took them awhile to come to a decision but ultimately, they left the book on Dumbledore's chair right before breakfast started one morning.
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