DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter, nor am I affiliated in any way with J.K. Rowling.
If I were a ghost, where would I be? Draco thought to himself as he strode down the main corridor of the second floor. Not haunting my descendants, that's for sure. Maybe if I just called him…?
"Trayton?" he called, once he was sure no one was around. Everyone had either gone to lessons or their common rooms for a free period.
"I'm not a dog that can be summoned, Draco," Trayton's voice came testily from behind Draco.
"And yet, here you are," Draco pointed out with a smirk.
"I happened to be going this way anyway, it's the way to the place where past records are stored," Trayton glowered.
"Yes, the record room," Draco mused. "Funny you should mention that."
"Oh?" Trayton asked, stopping in his ghostly tracks and half-turning curiously. "How so?"
Draco began to walk, irritation welling up inside him. He motioned for Trayton to follow, all the while cursing that the ghost hadn't told him the whole story, and feeling incredibly stupid for not asking. He would do a lot to get one over on the Golden Trio, but what exactly was he getting himself into?
"You see, Hermione Granger, whom you seem to have the oddest fixation on, had a dream last night," Draco hissed, refusing to look at the ghost drifting silently beside him. "It featured a young woman, the necklace you want me to steal and your good self. Now is this all a coincidence or is there something you should tell me?"
Trayton was silent for a long while. He didn't speak until they neared the records room.
"Her name was Zella, the girl in the dream" he said softly, his eyes faraway. "She was Head Girl as I was Head Boy. She was beautiful and witty and smart. I loved her." His eyes, if such a thing were possible, hardened. "But not everyone did. Some were angry that a Son of Slytherin, a member of the most exclusive elite society, would consort with a Gryffindor. Slytherins thought that she would weaken me, Gryffindors feared that I would corrupt her." He laughed bitterly. "We couldn't win. Soon it seemed that everyone took sides, almost all against us and our relationship."
He disappeared through the records room door and Draco, eager to hear more, pushed open the door quickly and entered the room.
"I gave her a necklace as a gift. She loved it, the colours especially. She wanted people to know that red and green could coexist on a pendant equally as well as they could in real life." His voice trailed off sadly.
"Granger said that she thought something bad happened to Zella?" Draco prompted, his usual disregard for people's feelings shining through.
"Some saw the necklace as the final straw," Trayton whispered. "It was decided that action must be taken, otherwise the Houses and their integrity would fall into disarray. Late one night, Zella received the message that I wanted to see her on the fourth floor corridor. We would often meet up using trustworthy messengers but we had been betrayed. By the time I reached her, it was too late."
Trayton fell quiet again for some time, his eyes grazing over the photographs and trophies that adorned the walls.
"The Sons of Slytherin had been working on a spell to trap a person inside an object," he continued suddenly, causing Draco to snap his head up and pay attention. "Maybe the Sons got it wrong, or maybe someone overheard incorrectly, but either way the spell didn't work. Not entirely. Zella's body remained, as beautiful in death as it had been in life, but her soul…her essence…it was forever lost inside the necklace she had worn with such pride. I left Hogwarts soon after."
As Trayton came back to the present, Draco's mind was lost in the past.
No wonder Trayton's a bit testy, was his initial thought, he's lost everything.
"The necklace was sent to her family, who weren't told of what it held. I spent the rest of my life trying to retrieve it but it wasn't meant to be. I died not many years later. Disease was the official verdict of death but I knew that a heart can never fully recover from a loss of that magnitude." He sighed and, for the first time since entering the room, glanced at Draco. "That isn't to say that I didn't try. When the necklace became a lost cause, I began having…relationships with women-"
"That would never last more than a night?" Draco cut in, not meaning to sound judgemental but managing to get there anyway.
"Sometimes not even that," Trayton admitted with a rueful smile. "I just wanted to lose myself, wanted so desperately to get away from the everyday hell of my existence. I didn't know I had fathered a son until a few years after my death. As ensnared in self-pity as I was, I blamed myself for not being a gentlemen and at least obtaining the name of the boy's mother. But my parents somehow found out about my son and immediately took him under their wing, giving him the proud surname of Malfoy." He exchanged a momentary proud smile with Draco before continuing. "The necklace was passed down through Zella's bloodline, treated as nothing more than a family heirloom. The last time I checked, the family were all still magical, although I suppose something must have changed as Miss. Granger's parents are, according to you, muggles."
"They are," Draco was quick to confirm with contempt.
"I felt the necklace calling to me when it was set upon the right path, the path that led to me," Trayton explained, turning once again back to the wall. "For so many years I had been lost to nothingness. But now I have a purpose again, a reason to hope. If I can set Zella's soul free from her prison, we can be together at last."
"And you can move on?" Draco asked.
"Who cares, as long as I'm with her?" Trayton asked with a wistful smile.
A sudden and annoying stab of loneliness wracked through Draco's stomach at that moment. He soon sneered it away however; love was supposed to be this all-powerful thing and yet in this world all it seemed to do was get people killed.
"You see now why I have such an interest in the necklace?" Trayton asked sadly.
"I do," Draco answered with a nod, but couldn't help his question bursting from his lips. "What will I get once I give you the necklace?" He paused. "Not meaning to sound insensitive or anything."
"You're a Malfoy, it's to be expected," Trayton said with a shrug, as if this excused everything. "I will impart my knowledge when I get the necklace, and only then."
"Better get to work then," Draco nodded thoughtfully. "Snape will probably keep Granger back for that little stunt she pulled on me…if I can get there before she leaves then we'll be alone and I can, I don't know, threaten her or something."
Without another word, he walked briskly from the room and back down towards the dungeons, correcting and altering his plan as he saw fit. When students began to trickle from classrooms on the first floor, Draco stepped up his pace. Soon there would be floods of people and he'd never get where he needed to be. As he flew down the stairs, a few fourth years muttered angrily but didn't dare shout at him to his face.
Taking the last corner at high speed, Draco finally reached the potions lab. He leant against the wall to catch his breath, certain that Snape hadn't let the class out yet. For once in his life grateful for the potions master's lectures, Draco waited until the rumbling of voices and the scraping of chairs echoed from inside the closed door.
"…Stupid git," came the grumblings of the Gryffindor students as they stalked away for a short break.
Even the Slytherin students seemed irritated that the head of their House would cut into their precious few minutes of break just to shout at them all.
"I'd hate to be Hermione right now," Weasley muttered to Potter as they exited together.
"It isn't fair that Snape's punishing her," Potter agreed with a scowl. "If anything, Malfoy's the one who should…"
Their voices faded away down the corridor and Draco was glad that they had been too embroiled in their complaining to notice him. It would only incite awkward questions and he might miss his chance. The corridor quickly cleared and Draco was left to wait alone once more.
"It won't happen again, Professor," Granger's weary voice came after a couple of minutes.
"Ensure that it doesn't," Snape replied icily, opening the door, glaring for a moment and then shutting it firmly.
Granger sighed heavily and ran a hand through her thick hair discontentedly.
"Hello Granger," Draco greeted, deciding it was time to make his presence known.
For the second time in as many hours, Hermione jumped at the sound of his voice. Draco had to admit, he rather enjoyed it.
"Malfoy," Hermione returned with a curt, wary nod.
"Did I scare you?" Draco asked with a smirk, knowing full well that he had.
"You were hiding in a shadowy corridor all alone, of course you did," Hermione retorted with a glare, wondering as she did why she had assured Ron and Harry that it was okay for them to leave her. "Go and bug Snape, I'm not in the mood."
She turned to move but Draco was faster. He moved to the side and blocked her exit from the narrow corridor. She scowled and tried to step around him but he wouldn't budge.
"I'm not here for him," Draco told her evenly. "I'm here for you."
I suppose sounding like a stalker is a good thing, Draco thought as Hermione's eyes betrayed anxiety and…fear? Maybe it'll frighten her into giving me the necklace.
"Malfoy, I don't know what you think you're playing at, but-" Hermione started angrily but Draco cut her off.
"You have something that I need," he told her, praying that she didn't take that comment the wrong way.
"Another punch in the face?" Hermione asked, her eyebrows raising slightly. "I agree."
Draco scowled at the third year reference, a moment he would prefer to forget.
"Your necklace," he corrected, more sharply than was probably necessary. Then again, it was Granger. The sharper, the better with her. This in mind, he took a step forward knowing, as he did, that she would be forced to step back.
"It looks better on me," Hermione told him coldly, a protective hand flying up to the pendant. "I'm going to ask you nicely - though you certainly don't deserve it - to move out of the way before I force you to."
Draco saw Hermione reaching for her wand and opted for a pre-emptive strike.
"Expelliarmus!" he shouted. Hermione's wand clattered to the floor a distance away, useless. "The necklace," Draco continued coldly.
"Why?" Hermione demanded, determined not to show how much this was unnerving her.
"Because the ghost of my ancestor wants it so that he can bring back the soul of his dead lover and they can finally be together," Draco told her through gritted teeth, knowing that she wouldn't believe anything he said anyway.
"That's nice, pass on my congratulations," Hermione spat sarcastically, glancing at her wand and wondering if she could summon it before the psychopath in front of her knew what was going on.
This is ridiculous, Draco thought contemptuously, stupid, bloody stubborn girl!
"Zella Lennox," he said suddenly.
There was a pause.
"What?" Hermione whispered, staring at him.
"Zella Lennox was in your dream last night," Draco told her. "Want to know how I know? Well," he ploughed on without waiting for an answer, "it's the strangest thing. I'm visited by the Ghost of Hogwarts Past, telling me that I need to take your necklace away from you because the poor soul of his girlfriend is trapped inside."
There was another longer, more pronounced pause.
"Have you been hitting the Butterbeer a little too hard, Malfoy?" Hermione asked scathingly when she found her voice.
"You don't believe me," Draco said with a nod.
"Is it any wonder?"
Momentarily defeated, Draco stepped aside to let her past. She eyed his suspiciously before running over to her wand and snatching it up. She pointed it at him warily as she backed away.
"You had the dream about her for a reason," Draco said coolly. "I can safely assume that it won't be the last one. You know where I am when you're ready to admit I'm right and beg for my help."
"That will never happen," Hermione snarled. "You may be a Pureblood, but you're still beneath me."
With one last glare, she left the corridor before Draco, visibly shaking with anger, could retaliate.
It doesn't matter, he told himself whilst taking deep breaths. It seems like Zella's already begun to annoy the Mudblood. If she's half as persistent as Trayton, Granger will come crying for my help in no time.A/N:
Hello, hope that you enjoyed the chapter. Thanks for the reviews, they're very much appreciated :D
- Momo