"How could you not tell us?"
Draco sighed, rubbing his forehead and waiting for Pansy to run out of steam. She had been yelling at him for five minutes. Draco tried to shoot Theo desperate glances, but Theo was ignoring them because Theo could be a bastard sometimes.
Hermione had found the sitting room book-cases and was running her fingers along the spines of the tomes, oblivious to the fight behind her.
"You left her in their grasp! All through the war – how could you? Those people cut her mind up and you didn't even warn her! They could have hurt her again."
"They wouldn't need to," said Hermione, not turning away from the shelf.
Draco braced himself. Having Pansy yelling at him was enough without Granger adding to it. He cast an especially desperate look across at Nott – who ignored him.
"What her parents did to her the first time broke her," said Hermione. "They didn't need another shot."
Parkinson's eyes narrowed to slits as she glared at Draco. "I'm so angry at you," she said, voice shaking in rage. "If I had my wand on me I would hex you. And I don't know if I'd be able to stop."
"You could borrow my wand," said Hermione.
All three Slytherins swivelled to stare at her. She turned away from the book-case at last. "We could have helped you," she told Draco. "I get that you coming up to Bones and trying to convince her that she had…" She broke off, brow creasing as she tried to get her thoughts straight. Finally she shrugged. "She had loved you, hadn't she? That's what this was about?"
Draco turned away from her. He kept his shoulders straight, head high. He didn't trust himself to speak. Didn't trust that he could control his voice right then, so he controlled his posture instead.
"Yes," said Pansy, voice cracking at the edges. "Bones loved him."
She had; but it had taken everything Draco had to get her there.
She had been harder to convince than he had been; though he had slipped into loving her with such ease that for weeks he hadn't realised it. He had just known that he thought of her constantly. His nightmares about becoming a Death Eater – having the Dark Mark carved into his flesh and sealed with the Dark Lord's blood – faded; replaced by nightmares of her being killed and him not being able to get to her in time. When she began teaching him how to cast a Patronus, he thought of her and managed a Corporeal Patronus on the eighteenth try.
Bones laughed and clapped her hands in delight as the silvery kite skimmed around her. Draco watched the way her glow of happiness lit her skin and the next time around his Patronus was so strong that it didn't fade for a full five minutes.
He spent more time with her; and because she was always happy to see him he assumed that she knew how he felt. Assumed that she felt the same way. Which was crazy, because he hadn't even known how he felt at the time. Not enough to put it into words. The feelings were there, probably stronger than anything he'd felt before – even hatred – but he hadn't analysed them.
She still watched Ernie Macmillan. Every breakfast, lunch and dinner – and in any classes they shared between. Even Zabini noticed; smirking behind his Charms text and raising his brows at Draco.
"Guess she's moved on to greener pastures," he commented.
Draco scowled, sinking lower into his seat. He still sat with her in Potions, but she wanted to spend time with her friends in other classes. He'd agreed. Despite internal rivalries, he liked most of his fellow Slytherins and wanted time with them too. But she didn't have to laugh so much when she talked to Macmillan, and she didn't have to lean against him as often.
It all came to a head the day Draco left History to find Bones and Macmillan standing in the stairwell outside. Bones was facing away from Draco, rearranging her textbooks, when Macmillan reached out to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. Bones began to turn toward him, but stopped when Macmillan leant in and pressed his mouth against her cheek.
He stepped back, hand still curved to her jaw, eyes not moving from her face. She lifted her hand to press it against his, brow creasing as though she was surprised or confused.
"Some of us have places to be," Draco snapped.
Bones started and jerked back. Both she and Macmillan flushed brightly in embarrassment. Her gaze flew to Draco and then she laughed, light and easy. "Sorry, Malfoy." She stepped out of the way, Ernie doing the same, so that Draco could go down the stairs.
He didn't. "Bones," he said instead. "Let's chat."
She smiled, happy as always to spend time with him. Just obviously in a very different way.
History had been their last class for the day so she loaded Macmillan down with her textbooks and he headed back to the Hufflepuff Common Room. Bones watched him go, cheeks still flushed and a soft smile on her lips.
The corridor was too busy so Draco took the stairs, heading up and away from the other students. He didn't bother speaking. Bones was following at a distance anyway, so they wouldn't look as though they were together. They found a storeroom in a quieter corridor and slipped inside.
"What is it?" she asked finally, not looking at Draco, but at the shelves of old textbooks and caldrons.
He went to sit on the dusty window seat and watched her in bathed sunlight made murky by the grimy window-panes. "There's a dance on in a week," he said.
Bones shrugged.
"Has Macmillan asked you?"
That made her smile. "I'm not going to tell you about my personal life, Malfoy."
"It's hardly personal. If he's asked you I'll know it as soon as I see you at the dance. Has he asked you?"
Bones chewed on her lower lip, studying the faded labels of a dozen glass vials. "He will ask me," she said decisively.
"He hasn't yet," said Draco, shoulders relaxing at the relief of it.
Bones turned to frown at him in confusion. "Does it matter?"
"Go with me instead," said Draco.
Bones stepped backwards, almost hitting the shelf behind her as her frown deepened. "I can't," she said. "I'm not…I mean…"
"You haven't been asked yet. At least Macmillan hasn't asked you," said Draco. He was good at convincing people to do what he wanted, but he'd never had to convince anyone to go out with him. He'd never asked anyone out unless he'd been sure that they would accept.
Bones bit her lower lip, eyes darkening. "I'd rather go with Ernie," she said, voice soft.
Draco frowned at her. She was telling the truth – she hadn't lied to him since she'd told him that she wouldn't, but it didn't feel right. If she wanted to go with Macmillan, she should have led with that. Instead she'd told him that she couldn't and only used Macmillan as an excuse when Draco had brought him up. "Do you actually like him in that way?" he asked.
"Malfoy, this is really uncomfortable," Bones protested, eyes going to the door as though she was considering making a break for it.
"Is it? Here I was thinking that friends tell each other things. I am your friend, aren't I?"
She scowled, looking cross and cornered and as though she hated him a little for it. "You know you are."
Draco did know, but her admission unfurled something warm and pleasant in him anyway. "So tell me then, do you have a crush on Macmillan?"
"I've already talked to you about this," said Bones. She was trying too hard to avoid the topic. Draco was sure that whatever it was she felt for Macmillan didn't go beyond friendship.
"You talked to me about it when you were lying to me. Now I want you to tell me the truth."
She sighed, giving up. "No. I don't have a crush on Ernie." She lifted her head and winced at Draco's expression. "He doesn't have a crush on me either," she assured him, as though she thought that Draco would think less of her for leading someone on. "He was just helping out."
That was cunning. Draco leant back against the window pane, surprised that he wasn't upset at her for playing him. "You were trying to make me jealous."
She stared at him, eyes widening in shock.
Draco reconsidered. It wouldn't be the way a Hufflepuff would go about getting someone. They were too loyal. If Draco had thought that Bones was in love with Macmillan, he wouldn't think he had a hope of taking her from him. "What then?"
"I wanted you to believe that I wasn't available," said Bones. "You kept asking things that made me think you were checking and you – and you kissed me that once so…" She shrugged, voice trailing off.
Draco threw his hands up in frustration. "You couldn't have just told me that you didn't like me like that?" he demanded.
Bones bit her lower lip and looked away, working her hands into her pockets as though she didn't know what to do with them. "The world isn't always as simple as it should be. I'd think that you'd know that better than anyone."
Draco did. The world was a mess and he was mostly just as screwed up as it was. But she was meant to be different. Since she'd been around she'd been the one simple thing in his life. The one thing that he could trust. And now even that was breaking. Draco clenched a hand into a fist. "You can't lie to me anymore," he said, watching her closely. She pulled her hands out of her pockets and hugged her arms around herself, refusing to turn back to him. As though, after all this, she finally realised that she needed to protect herself from him.
"I don't know what you want, Malfoy," she said, voice tight as though she blamed him for this situation when it was her fault.
"Why didn't you just tell me that you didn't like me like that?"
"Because I couldn't," said Bones.
"Because you do like me," said Draco, voice coming out as bitter as blood when he wanted to sound coldly amused. "And you're not allowed to lie about it."
Bones' mouth compressed, eyes shining a little brighter. She nodded still not looking at him, but studying the vials again. Her shoulders were tighter, and her hands trembled.
Draco pushed himself forward and jumped off the window seat. "You're just like everyone else," he said. She flinched, but turned to look at him finally. "You act as though you're above judging people based on their House or based on their family but when it comes down to it you're just like them. They're just more honest about it."
She crushed her hands into fists to keep them from shaking and nodded, spine ramrod straight and eyes like cold flint. "I thought that we were the same," she said. "I thought that you were as against anyone knowing about me as I was about anyone knowing about you. When things happened that suggested you weren't, I started taking precautions. They were meant to protect you."
"Don't," Draco snapped. "Don't act like you thought of me at all. You wanted to see what the other side was like, you just didn't bother to mention that it was temporary."
"I told you that I would never want anyone to think that we were together," said Bones. "You seemed to feel the same way."
She had. Draco remembered her reaction when he'd told her that Zabini had thought they were dating. His own reaction hadn't been much better; he'd wanted to salvage his reputation at any cost. He had changed though. He had introduced her to all of his friends. Some of them even liked her. And she had stayed just the same. He hadn't met anyone from her side. He'd gotten in so deep and she'd barely gotten in at all. "Maybe then," he said. "But things are different now."
Bones' mouth compressed, eyes flaring a little before dulling. "Things will never be different, Malfoy. Not for me."
"Based on what? My House or my name?"
"We live in a world where those things matter," said Bones.
Draco smirked at her. "Yes. In our world my House and name do matter. And yours don't mean a thing."
She looked cornered and miserable but gave a tight, jerky nod of agreement. "That's how it is," she said, voice soft and sad as though she pitied him for being so well-known and didn't feel any pain at her own obscurity.
"And how it will always be," said Draco. "Hufflepuffs have no ability to stand for anything. They don't deserve to be remembered."
"Please don't," said Bones, voice sharp as though she was panicking.
"Don't what? Don't judge you for being such a coward that you can't handle what people might think if you admitted that you liked me? Why not? You get to judge me based on something that I have no control over, so why can't I judge you..?"
"Because I can't stand it!" Bones exclaimed. "You're my friend. I want you to just be my friend…"
"I don't want to be friends with someone like you," said Draco. "And if everyone knew what you were like, no one else would either."
He turned and headed for the door but she reached out and caught his elbow. "Malfoy!"
He stopped, staring down at her slim fingers, pale against the fabric of his robes. "You will not speak to me again," he said, measuring his words as carefully as he measured Potions ingredients. His voice came out like his father's; silky and merciless. She didn't let go, and usually Draco would have no way of threatening her. She had told him how to hurt her though. "Unless you want me to go after Hannah Abbott."
Bones pulled her hand back like she'd been stung and Draco walked out the door.