Chapter Thirteen: What's Good for You

November was cold, I decided. But I defied all former convention and wore blue jeans and cashmere sweaters instead of the more fashionable wardrobe my father probably would have had me wear. Of course all these things would go under my school robes but that made it all the more comfortable. I didn't feel like I was on display wearing blue jeans. I was sent a package of scarves I was supposed to wear for the winter fashion from BonneChique but I'd only taken out the few I'd liked. I wasn't a model when I was at school. I was a student, and I was determined to keep up with my studies.

With the potential of facing next year away from Hogwarts, I wanted to do and learn as much as possible. I didn't want to fall behind, though I had never really felt I belonged in the magical world. My wand was my companion, this was true—and I used it daily—but there was probably a time in the not too distant future that I would not use it very much at all except for daily conveniences. I was a witch by blood, but not in my heart.

I fell into a regular pattern, doing schoolwork, spending as much time with Racquel as possible, and on the nights when I had completed my homework and I could feel the darkness creeping in under the doors I would steal away from the common room in quick silence and run towards the Room of Requirement. Often he was there when I arrived, but other times I would be there alone, which was fine because it was a space that I could think. The Room felt impenetrable to the dark, lit with dozens of candles and comforting with all the pillows. I have always had a thing for pillows, I admit. I could sit on the sofa couch or curl up in the bed. Sometimes I spent the night alone, while others I would fall asleep and wake to find Draco beside me, wrapping his arm around me.

We talked much more now than we ever had before. It had ceased to be a game to us and had somehow turned into a very trusting relationship. I did not expect anything of him, and he did not expect anything from me but there was this unwritten rule that we would always be there for one another. We laughed more too. It was like someone had cracked the seal on a bottle that contained our friendship. We had only ever been drunk with lust and power, trying to accomplish something. It was very different now, and it was something I was getting used to.

Sometimes I backed up, gave myself a mental shake though, knowing somewhere inside me that this would all end and that it could go no further than this year at Hogwarts. I needed to shake my heart free of the hold he had taken, just from time to time when I felt his hold becoming more than just something ephemeral. This happened a lot when we argued, which was as often as we laughed.

I entered once and he was smashing things around, breaking anything he could physically. I entered and stood by the door, just watching the rage wash over him. It came in waves. He would smash something that would make a loud noise and then just stand there, his breathing coming in pants. When he was calm enough and had stopped staring at the broken pieces he would bring his wand out of his robes and repair whatever he had smashed and then just break it again.

It was a process and I never interfered, not unless he was about to do bodily harm to himself. There was another time when I watched him wreak havoc on the room we had come to know so well and when everything was broken and torn he grabbed a shard of glass and made to cut his arm open. I intervened, grabbing at his wrist that held the glass, putting myself in his line of vision. By this time I had seen his Dark Mark and knew all too well what he was planning to do. It would not have worked, but it would have rid him of a certain kind of pain, replacing it with something else, at least for a time.

After these episodes he would sit and I would repair everything he'd smashed. Sometimes he would lie on the bed and fall asleep. Other times he would watch me, looking extremely guilty and ashamed. He would either refuse my touch afterwards, wanting to sit by himself, or he would crave my touch, yearning. He would set my skin on fire and when it was over his incident would be all but entirely forgotten.

I didn't have the heart to berate him. He could take care of himself and so I would just let him. One night after an episode he thanked me. "You're very kind to just accept me like this."

I smiled, "I accept you as you are, Draco. Why should I get upset? Clearly it's a way to get rid of your frustrations. Who am I to deny you that release?"

He hooked his arm around my neck and brought me closer, kissing my forehead, every bit the tender lover he truly was showing in that very moment.

"When are you going to talk to your father?" he asked me after a few moments of silence passed.

I sighed, "I don't know." I had thought about it. But every time I decided it was time, something else took precedence. I would be doing a paper or spending time with Racquel, each taking priority over going to speak to her father. She reasoned she could always send him a letter, but she'd seen him read personal letters before. He merely glanced at them and had his secretary respond. I didn't want that to happen.

"It's the middle of November, Sadie. You are running out of time."

"Ugh!" I let out, moving out of his arms and into a sitting position. "I know."

He sat up behind me, his hands moving over my shoulders, gently stroking my skin and massaging my muscles. It was a wonderful cure for almost everything that ailed me—except for the problem with my father.

"Let's go next weekend," he said quietly.

"What!" I squeaked.

"Hear me out a minute before you start protesting." He paused, waiting to see if I'd say anything. I stayed quiet. "There is no better time like the present. We both know that time is fleeting and before you know it, it will have slipped through your fingers like sand through an hour glass. You know everything you want to say to him, right?" I nodded. "Then what's stopping you? You turn seventeen in March, just a few months away and then he will certainly have no further say in your life. Besides," he slowed and looked away into the room, as if looking out a window to another world, "if you go to live with your mother next year you won't need him. Do you want to be a model the rest of your life?"

I cringed, "Merlin, no! If I ever thought about that it would only be on my terms and far away from my father."

"Exactly. You're a very bright woman and once you are legal you can get a job anywhere you like, even in Australia."

"I won't be finished though. I'll be missing a year of school."

"Do you want to go into Charms or Potions or Herbology? I think we both know the answer to that one. You are far more ready to take on the world—the muggle world—than most people finishing their seventh year. Do something else. You won't need your last year of Hogwarts. I doubt it will ever be the same again anyway, not after…" his voice trailed off.

I waited to see if he would finish his sentence. He wasn't going to. It made me fear for him. Made me fear for him and for the people I would be leaving behind when I left Hogwarts for good. I admitted to myself I was excited to live with my mother, though I hadn't broached the topic with her. It might be different with her living with Flynn. It might be different in a good way though. I wasn't a child anymore but I would be getting a real mother and possibly a real father for the first time in my life.

"Think about next weekend," he said, startling me out of my thoughts. He kissed my shoulder, lay back down, keeping his fingers my bare back. "I will follow whatever you decide, but a decision has to be made, and soon."

I knew what Draco thought now. Now I just had to find out what two other people thought. Then I would make my decision. I hate procrastinators and I had become the Queen of Procrastination. While I knew time was running out I just hoped it wasn't too late.

When she wasn't busy my owl liked to hide in the Owlery instead of the dorm room. I didn't mind, I needed to stretch my legs and I'd decided to kill two birds with one stone (figuratively, I did NOT kill any owls, I promise) and brought Racquel with me. She was the other person I needed to consult about the father issue. She had been privy to all my thoughts previous to this, knowing everything about Draco and me, including his idea for me to move to Australia next year. I wasn't going to keep secrets from my best friend.

I explained everything to her before finally saying, "So he wants to go see my father next weekend. I want to know your opinion, please."

She smiled and tugged at her scarf, one I had given her from the BonneChique fall line I'd been sent. "I want to know what you're waiting for first though?" she said.

"I'm waiting for my brain to stop spinning and my stomach to stop feeling like it's going to drop out my butt," I blurted before I completely finished that thought in my head.

She burst out laughing. "Oh. My. God!" she laughed, clutching her side. "That is awesome! You have to write that down."

I probably didn't look impressed. "Sure, I'll get right on that."

"Seriously though," she said, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes, "what's wrong? It's all laid out in front of you, practically step by step. Just follow it. And Malfoy is going to follow you no matter what so what's the problem?"

"What if he doesn't listen?"

"Who? Malfoy?"

"No! My father! The asshole that's doing all this to ruin my life."

"I'm pretty sure—" Racquel began.

"—he's not doing it to ruin my life, I know! I don't know why I care so much," I sighed.

"I do. He's your father, and even with all his faults you still wish he would be a father to you, his daughter. My advice hun, is to just to tell him how you feel and what you're thinking. You feel victimized and he doesn't listen. If he in fact does not listen to you, then cut him off. Let Candy be the new face of BonneChique and you can move in with your mother as planned."

"I suppose," I replied.

"Don't suppose Sadie, come on! Where's your sense of conviction? Be the Sadie I know and love, the one who doesn't take any crap from anyone. You're almost seventeen and he's almost out of time. You won't be his little girl any longer."

"Do you think he'll listen?" I prompted.

She shrugged, "You tell me."

"Ugh, I hate it when you do that."

She laughed, "Yeah I know. Take your own advice. What do you think he will do?"

I looked away from her, thinking about it. My father had never listened; I don't know what would make him change that now. I had threatened to leave before too, and he had always called my bluff before. The difference this time was that I had options and a place to go when I finally did leave. At least I think I did. I had written about it to my mother, asking if it would be okay. I had faith that she would agree. Flynn had really changed her, for the better. I had a feeling that Candy was going to change my father for the worse though.

I shook my head and replied, "It's not going to make a lick of difference."

"But you've still got to do it," Racquel countered firmly.

I nodded, "Yes, I do. I will regret it my entire life if I never say anything. It's my life and he's my father and things have to change, whether he wants them to or not."

She unhooked her arm from mine and wrapped it instead around my shoulders. "That's my girl! Conviction!" she laughed. I laughed in return.

The response from my mother was prompt. I read it and rushed out of the common room towards the Room of Requirement. I couldn't walk by the door three times fast enough, requesting entrée. When I entered the room it was not to find Draco smashing things, nor was it to discover him sitting calmly awaiting my arrival. He sat on the couch, his arm clutching his chest and when he turned his head his robes shifted and I thought I caught a glimpse of a bandage and blood wrapped around his torso.

The letter in my hand forgotten I rushed over to sit beside him. He flinched and I was taken aback. I knew instinctively it was from pain but still it hurt me to find him moving away from me.

"Draco, what happened?"

"It was Potter!" He said Harry Potter's name with the typical heavily pronounced "P" and I knew at once he was very upset but in too much pain to smash anything. "He attacked me in the washrooms."

"On purpose?" I had to ask, knowing Draco was usually the more confrontational one when it came to Potter.

"He startled me. It went by so quickly and then I was in so much pain. I'm still in pain."

"What did he do to you?" I didn't dare touch him, despite how much I wanted to.

"I'm not sure, exactly. He slashed his wand in a diagonal, yelling something, and all of a sudden a flash of pain and my entire chest was cut open and bleeding. I couldn't breathe. I thought I was dying. If it had been the Killing Curse I would not have felt such pain, and I know Potter is too much of a goody-two-shoes to use that curse anyway. Snape rushed in and Potter took off. I blacked out. I woke up in the Hospital Wing this morning and when no one was looking, I left."

I nodded. I would not have done the same, but Draco was defiant like that. It was usually something that I admired. This time I thought it utterly foolish but never said anything. Madam Pomfrey probably would have had several healing tonics and pain relieving medicines he could drink and never feel any pain at all.

He was punishing himself again though. It brought up the question what he had been doing in the washrooms to begin with that had made Potter's appearance so startling to him to begin with. I never asked. I never interfered, even when I wished I did.

"What about the pain now?"

He shifted slightly and grimaced. "What pain?" he said through clenched teeth.

I sighed, took out my wand and set it on the coffee table in front of me. "What can I do?"

"Let me suffer."

"If that's what you wanted you should not have come somewhere you knew I would find you, Draco. Give me something else to do," I replied stubbornly. If he was going to be stubborn then so I was I.

His chin jutted towards the letter I'd set on the table beside my wand; "Tell me what your mother said."

I shook my head, "Later." I stood before him then, "Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to help you out of your shirt and your pants. Then I'm going to help you to the bed. You're going to lie still and get some rest. I don't want arguments or complaints. You wanted out of the Hospital Wing and came here. This is how it's going to work."

He looked for a moment like he was going to get angry at me. Instead his look softened and nodded his head. Good, he was going to comply and do what was good for him, for once.

"I don't know why I put up with you," he teased, wincing as he got to his feet.

I smiled, holding on to his arms. "I don't know," I admitted. "But it's what's good for you."

He nodded, "I know."