Chapter 6
Draco had claimed the armchair by the fireplace in the elegant Slytherin common room and was flipping through the Prophet from that morning, reading the headlines but only skimming the articles. He was half listening to Daphne, Tracy and Millicent's conversation. The returned 7th years had claimed this corner of the common room as their own, mainly the ones who used to be in his clique, so it wasn't long before Pansy joined them as well. The conversation broke of when Blaise showed up.
"Where have you been?" asked Tracy eagerly. "I haven't had a chance to talk to you all day."
"I had to go to the library."
"What happened? Is it true you attacked a Hufflepuff?"
Blaise slid gracefully into one of the empty chairs.
"I didn't attack anyone. Hasn't Daphne or Pansy told you?"
"She just said you were being an idiot and didn't elaborate further," said Daphne. "And I didn't have anything to add."
"I wasn't being an idiot. It's not like she was the first one to act like that, right? It's been like this all year, disrespect and unfair judgement from all the other houses, even Ravenclaw. Someone had to speak up sooner or later, remind them that their insolence is unacceptable."
"They won't respect you just because you start throwing curses at them," mumbled Pansy. "You're just confirming their prejudices."
"Well, I didn't just throw curses at her, did I? I reminded her of what she did last year. I mean, after the Carrows none of us are entirely innocent. How many students actually refused to practice the dark magic they were teaching us? And everyone was telling on everyone, that was just how it was."
"Yes, that was the other houses just as much as it was Slytherin," said Tracy.
"The entire Slytherin House has lost status because of a few individuals. Of course there are several noble and ancient pureblood houses that are known for their associations with the dark arts, but that's not the same as supporting a madman like Voldemort. No true noble would ever have become a servant, and yet people seem to be confused as to which pure families proved themselves to be true and which ones were the Voldemort-supporters."
Draco folded up his newspaper quietly.
"But it should be quite obvious. The actual Death Eaters were either as mad as Bellatrix Lestrange, or they were pathetic and desperate people," Blaise continued, now looking directly at Draco.
"Children shouldn't be blamed for the crimes of their parents," said Pansy, managing to make it sound like they were still having a conversation.
"No, of course not. Just like it would be ridiculous if the reputation of the entirety of Slytherin House and all the noble families of Britain was ruined by a few corrupted people who were too eager to grovel in front of some self-proclaimed lord, right?"
Draco stood up.
"Is something wrong, Draco?" asked Tracy innocently.
"Don't you agree with me?"
Blaise grinned at Draco, an excessively charming flash of white teeth.
"I'm tired, I'll go to bed. Goodnight," he said and headed for the dorms with long, even strides.
He heard Daphne speaking softly, he couldn't make out the words, but the others laughed. He started shaking as soon as he reached the stairs. His fingers were twitching, he wanted to strangle someone, to beat holes through the walls without his wand, and he was going to explode from forcing himself not to stomp up the steps – he was out of sight, but they might still hear him. He couldn't even slam the door to their dorm, but as soon as it clicked shut behind him he had his wand out.
"Homenum revelio!" he hissed.
Nothing happened. Only then did he allow himself to scream. He kicked angrily at his bed and then his empty suitcase under it. He threw his wand on the bedside table and started beating one of his pillows, sinking his fist into it again and again and again, and it did nothing to ease to the twisting anger in his stomach or the burning humiliation stretching under his skin.
"Merlin, Draco, would you calm down?"
He stopped the pounding immediately. Pansy was standing in the doorway with her arms crossed, watching him.
"Why?"
"You're embarrassing yourself."
"No one is here."
"I'm here."
"I don't care."
"You should, I'm your friend, remember? You don't have as many of those as you used to."
"Didn't you hear him?" he hissed.
"I heard them. I think you could have handled it better."
"How?"
She shrugged.
"You knew it was coming. What did you think Blaise was going to do? Just continue to be pals with you after being publicly called a death eater? People might interpret what he did as him defending you, and you know he doesn't want that. He's playing politics and being friends with you does not benefit him in the least."
"I couldn't just sit there and listen to him talk about my father like that."
"He wasn't talking about your father."
Draco's jaw was working, his hands clenching and unclenching.
"They're headed for the astronomy tower. I'm going to go join them; I just said I would check on you first. I don't suppose you're coming?"
He shook his head.
"I'm not."
"See you later then," she said and left.
He sat unmoving on his bed for close to a minute. When he finally stood it was with a collected calm that seemed almost excessive, as if trying to distance himself from the tantrum he had thrown. He picked up his wand from the table and placed it back into his pocket. He walked down the stairs to leave the Slytherin dungeon while the common room was free and before anyone returned to his dorm. He wouldn't be back until he felt absolutely certain they were all asleep. Perhaps he should also get up early in the morning, since minimal interaction seemed to be the best strategy for now. And he needed some time to think. He should try to analyse the situation, figure out how to handle it, how to best run damage control, possibly spin it to his advantage and definitely plot how to take Blaise down for good. His thoughts kept slipping. Out in the empty halls even productive anger was hard to hold onto. He ascended to the upper floors without managing any more useful plans than a satisfying fantasy about pushing certain individuals into great, roaring fires.
They all knew it wasn't his fault, that she would have called them death eaters whether they walked around with Draco or not. It was almost like the silly Hufflepuff was in on some great conspiracy to take him down, along with everyone else in the whole wizardring world. It might have helped his situation a little bit, he thought, if he hadn't looked so much like his father. He had no trouble imagining how his friends saw him now: He simply had to conjure up an image of what Lucius had become in the last months of the war. He had seen his father slowly fall apart, had seen the powerful, lethal, elegant and dignified wizard he had admired shrink back into exactly the type of person Blaise had described – grovelling, weak, mad with fear and pathetic. Draco had never thought he would see his father become pathetic. He had never thought he might see himself become pathetic.
Lost in comfortable self-pity, Draco drifted down empty corridors and followed changing staircases randomly. The halls were empty and quiet this time of night, since only 7th year Slytherins had classes and they were all away in the Astronomy tower with their star-charts and arithmancy books. He soon found himself in a part of the castle he didn't know, but he had a pretty good sense of where he was en relation to the great hall, so he wasn't lost. It had grown dark outside and he saw his own passing reflection in the black glass of the windows. There was the soft glow of oil lamps in some corridors, and magical, sourceless light in others. Even when deserted the halls of Hogwarts had an unpleasant occupied quality, and he got the sense that someone was listening, following him, that they were breathing just quietly enough for him to be unable to trace the sound. Powerful magic could have that effect on you; he knew there were no real sounds in the corridor apart from his own soft footsteps and the low mutterings of people in the paintings. But after a while Draco resigned and pulled out his wand, chiding himself for being paranoid and childish.
He passed a portrait of a fat woman in an extravagant, pink dress. She was fast asleep, resting her head against the frame of the painting and snoring loudly. He thought perhaps he recognized her, but it might just be that she was some noble woman he had seen paintings of before.
"What are you doing here?" called a voice, loud, hard and accusatory.
Draco flinched at the sound. He spun round, raising his wand as he did so, his heart pounding away in his chest. At the other end of the hall stood Potter with his wand in one hand and his broom in the other. His hair was even more of a mess than usual, his robes looked windswept and dishevelled and he wore en expression of tense surprise and suspicion on his face. Draco's pulse was still hammering. A surge of adrenaline pouring through him and curses ready on his tongue but right beneath the sudden rush of alarm, he felt drained. Despite all his hatred for the arrogant git, he didn't have the energy for a confrontation or for Potter. Not tonight. He was another living reminder of all the ways in which Draco had failed.
"Had a nice flight, Potter? It's past curfew, you know," he drawled.
He forced himself to relax his stance. Potter walked a few steps closer. His eyes didn't leave Draco for a second and he held his wand level and aimed at Draco's chest. He wondered vaguely if he would still be able to beat Potter in a duel.
"I asked you a question."
Draco shrugged.
"Just taking a walk. Would you mind not pointing that thing at me?"
"Yeah, I would mind. Why are you walking here?"
"Well, since I live in this castle that does make it a very convenient place for me to take a walk. I have a hard time seeing how this can bother you, Potter. You're also not allowed to curse me, so I suggest you stop waving your wand in my face," he said with all the exasperated boredom he could muster.
"Put yours away first."
"Fine," he said.
Slowly and with exaggerated care he placed the wand back in his pocket and held up his empty hands.
"There. Have we gotten a little paranoid lately?"
Potter finally lowered his hand though he still looked just as belligerent.
"I've had good reason to."
"Well if you start acting like Mad-Eye Moody, the Prophet might change their angle on you again. Not that I would mind, I do think they were onto something when they ran their "Potter the nutter"-articles. It might help deflate your ego a bit as well."
"Shut up, Malfoy. Why are you out past curfew?"
He decided there was no real reason to try to keep it a secret from Potter, and Draco thought actual honesty might be the best way to get him to shut up and leave him alone.
"I had a fight with my dorm mates," he said, "so I thought I would keep out of the way."
Potter looked taken aback for a moment, but then he snapped back into his paranoia.
"You all seemed to be getting along pretty well earlier today."
Draco rolled his eyes - it was like speaking to a troll.
"Well you see, that's how it works with fights. Before the fight people get along and afterwards they don't," he explained.
"What did you fight about?"
"That is none of your business. Now may I remind you that I am not the only one who is out past curfew, and I suspect that our new headmistress might punish even the chosen one for breaking school rules. Personally I'm not enjoying this conversation in the least, so unless you're going to hex me in the back when I turn around, I am going to leave."
"Sure, piss off, Malfoy."
"Manners, Potter. You are our saviour after all, you could at least try to act like you weren't raised in a barn, so as not to embarrass the rest of us."
He was about to leave, but Potter kept talking.
"Why do you keep doing that?"
"What?"
"Calling me the saviour and the hero and being an arsehole to everyone?"
Draco hesitated. There was something in Potter's tone of voice that made him think the question was not just another insult. There seemed to be real curiosity there and also something else, something that made him feel immediately sick – pity. He did not need Potter to feel sorry for him.
"It's a way of coping with your presence," he said. "Besides, I'm not the one who keeps jumping people in the hallways at night."
"It's not my fault you're always sneaking around-"
Draco cut him off:
"As far as I recall, I have had perfectly good reasons for being out, whereas you seem to be breaking the rules just for the fun of it. Is that a Gryffindor thing?"
"It's not and I don't."
"You know, I admire how you've perfected the art of self-righteousness."
"Why did you come back to Hogwarts?"
"I had to. Goodnight Potter," he said firmly.
And he stalked away past the other boy before he had time to start talking again. He went back the way he had come, down the hall until he reached the stairs. It was the second time he had run into Potter like this – did he never sleep? It seemed like quite an achievement that they had managed to meet twice with no witnesses and hadn't tried to kill each other. Perhaps he should go back and start a duel after all – he could use the distraction and he still had about an hour to kill before he could return to the dungeons. He headed for the library instead, where he could borrow ink and parchment. He wasn't stupid enough to go around fighting in the corridors and besides, he hadn't written his mother since he left for school. He might as well write to her now, instead of just walking aimlessly around the halls.
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Half an hour later he watched Nephtys, his great eagle owl, soaring soundlessly out of one of the owlery windows. The sky was black and starless, and he quickly lost sight of her in the dark.
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When he finally returned to the common room the house-elves had been there and it was as tidy and proper as the rooms at Malfoy Manor. He found the books he had left earlier in a neat stack on the polished wood of the table by the fire. There were still glowing embers in the fireplace, they were the only source of light in the room, so it took a moment before he realized that Pansy was half asleep in one of the soft armchairs with an open book in her lap.
"Draco?"
She straightened up at the sound of his voice, closing her book and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
"Why are you still here?" he asked.
"Oh, I was reading up on some things for tomorrow and drifted off for a second."
She had been waiting up for him.
"You should go to sleep, it's late."
"You risk detention being out after curfew. It isn't worth it."
"I couldn't stand dealing with them for one more second tonight."
"No, I know."
He picked up his books.
"I'm going to bed."
"Draco…"
"I don't want to talk about it."
"Fine, just don't overreact on this, please. If you could just stop making everything about your future political career this wouldn't be such a big deal."
"It's not a big deal, just a minor set back. And it was humiliating."
"Okay, well I know you don't like Tracy and Millicent, but they are nicer than your other friends, so come hang out with us if you want to."
He was looking into the fireplace where the embers had gotten hold of a crumpled up piece of parchment and little flames were flaring up.
"It's not all politics," she said.
"I'm a Malfoy."
"You're an idiot."
He cracked a tired smile.
"Whatever you say. Please let me go up to my dorm now," he said. "The others are asleep, right?"
She stood up.
"Yes, I think so. All sane people are."
"Good. Goodnight."
"Goodnight," she said, and they headed up their respective staircases.