Chapter 23

"What are they doing here?"

Ginny Weasley stood frozen in the doorway, staring at Draco and Pansy. Then she turned her eyes to Potter, who stood by the window looking incredibly uncomfortable. Granger and Ronald Weasley had arrived right before Ginny and they look just as confused as her, but not nearly as angry.

They were in some obscure, hidden room on a non-existing floor that was possibly somewhere near the northern tower, or at least that was where the entrance had been. It was furnished like a small living room with a thick carpet on the floor, an ancient couch, where Draco and Pansy had seated themselves, a couple of armchairs, and a table between them. Draco had no idea how Potter had found the place, he seemed to have a ridiculously extensive knowledge of the secret rooms at Hogwarts. He had pulled Draco aside after transfiguration and asked him to meet him there. It had taken him a while to explain how to find the room and get the entrance to open, and he hadn't given any other details.

Draco had invited Pansy along on an impulse. He had run into her right after speaking to Potter, and the idea of having her with him had popped into his mind as an excellent way to make the whole thing more bearable. He thought it would be easier to deal with a heroic quest of these proportions if they had her cynical scepticism to ground them.

He regretted that decision now. He regretted a lot of things, one of them being telling Potter that he could bring half of Gryffindor if he thought that would help, because apparently the git had taken him on his word. He had expected him to bring Granger, maybe even hoped that he would. As obnoxious as she was, he could see the use of having Potter's smarter, more magically talented friend working along with them. He knew that Potter would probably bring Ronald, which would be a pain, but an unavoidable one that he would have to work with. He had thought it would end there. He had not expected Ginevra, and definitely not Lovegood or Longbottom, who had just followed her into the room.

"I have absolutely no idea," said Pansy, shooting a scathing look at Draco.

It had been difficult to get her to listen to his apologies. But they had fought before and they had made up before, and eventually she just sighed and said it was like 6th year all over, and what was it he needed her to do? He had told her that they were meeting the Gryffindors because of what had happened while he was in Azkaban, but not much else. She had agreed to come with him, not to be enthusiastic.

Ginny ignored Pansy's remark.

"You said this was a D.A. meeting," she demanded of Potter.

"I didn't know she would be here-" he began.

Pansy laughed sharply.

"Well, I would be happy to leave anytime."

"Please do," said Weasley.

"Pansy-" Draco began as she had started to stand up.

Potter interrupted again:

"Look, can everyone just calm down for a second? I said this was a D.A. meeting and it is, so I need you all to listen to me for just three seconds before you rip each other's heads off!"

Draco raised and eyebrow, but Potter wasn't looking at him. Still, this was interesting. He couldn't remember ever overhearing Potter telling his friends off or assuming any sort of authority over them. This was what he must have been like when they held all their secret meetings during 5th.

Ginny crossed her arms and looked at expectantly Potter.

Draco noticed that the Lovegood girl was staring at him. Her strange, protruding eyes had a glazed look, her face was expressionless; she could have been in a trance. She didn't look away when he stared back. It was like she didn't blink enough, that girl. He turned his attention to Potter and pretended he couldn't still feel her eyes on him. Potter took a deep breath.

"Okay," he said. "So maybe calling this a D.A. meeting wasn't exactly right, this is not about me teaching defence against the dark arts or anything-"

"It wasn't about that last year either, it was for fighting the Carrow's and hiding from the snitches in Slytherin."

"Ginny, three seconds," he said.

She rolled her eyes. Another deep breath on Potter's part.

"So… last year we defeated Voldemort, and we thought that was the end of the war, I thought it was. No, it was the end, but now there is something else out there that is almost as evil as he was, and I think we have to stop it, because no one else is going to try this time. It's not a dark wizard. It's something the Ministry is responsible for. That's why Malfoy is here. He asked me to help him with this, and I said I would."

Potter looked at him then, and Draco took that as his cue.

"I went to Azkaban during the holidays," he said. "To visit my father."

He had known that he would have to tell this story again. He had been going over the words in his head, sharpening them, trying to be precise, to tell it fast without leaving out anything important. He needed to tell it so that they would understand, but the more he spoke the less certain he became that he wanted their help. He wanted Potter's help, but he didn't trust the others. They wouldn't want to help. They wouldn't care, no matter what he said. Still, he forced himself to keep talking. He forced himself not to look down.

He was more coherent this time, more convincing, but he was still struggling with the words. More than once he simply gave up finding the right one and returned to that one he had already used: evil. There were more details this time. His voice died in his mouth and he had to start over several times. He told them about the sound that was swallowed by the walls, about the screaming. He told them how his father had tried to hold onto to the patronus when they left. He had not told that part before, and when he did he was looking at Potter. He pretended that it was only him who could hear it, that there was no one else in the room but them, because this was something private. He had to tell it, but he didn't want all of them to know. He would be okay with Potter knowing. Potter knew so much already.

"He didn't care about me and my mother, whether we were there or not," he said. "He just didn't want us to take the patronus with us."

He told them about the woman who had talked to him. How he had believed her, he thought that maybe she was innocent.

Somehow it was more painful to hear him tell it this time. He looked much more uncomfortable than he had during their detention and for a moment Harry regretted having asked so many of his friends to come.

"Sometimes people go to Azkaban without a trial," said Malfoy. "It has happened. Especially during the wars."

He didn't need to tell them that – they all knew two innocent people who had been sent to Azkaban too hastily. Hagrid had only been there for a short while. Sirius had been there for twelve years, and even though he had still been a person when he came back, Harry wasn't so sure anymore that it hadn't destroyed him.

Malfoy fell silent. They were all silent as the horrors of his story sank in.

"That's why I asked Potter to help me destroy it," he said. "I didn't ask him to bring any of you, but he said we would need help, and I trust his judgement."

"No," said Ginny firmly.

It was like a punch in the stomach. Harry glanced at Malfoy, expecting to see his own disappointment mirrored in his face, but instead Malfoy was smiling. A wry, bitterly amused smile, like this was exactly what he had expected.

"I can believe what he says about Azkaban and I'm all for blowing up the place if it's really that bad," she said. "But I will not be working with those two. We can do this as the D.A. without any snakes involved, or we're not doing it at all."

Harry sighed inwardly. He was so tired of this. Why was she so stubborn? Why did they all look like they agreed with her?

"Why does it matter if they're here?" he snapped. "Didn't you listen? It's not about them, it's not about what happened during the war-"
"It doesn't matter if it's not about the war – shit, Harry, you weren't even here last year, that's why you don't get it. You don't even know them. You don't know what they did."

"I came back! I was here for the battle and I was here every year before that, I started the D.A., so don't talk to me like I don't know anything-"

"She was torturing first years!"

Ginny pointed angrily at Parkinson.

"She liked it! She fucking laughed about it!"

"Shut up, you lying bitch. You have no idea what you're talking about."

Ginny turned to look at Pansy Parkinson, who had been sitting quietly next to Malfoy during the whole thing looking bored and like it was beneath her to care. Now everyone in the room was staring at her.

"What did you say?" asked Ginny icily.

"I told you to shut your mouth. You have no idea what went on in Slytherin last year," she said, standing up.

"Pansy-" Malfoy began, reaching for her arm to get her to sit back down, but she brushed him off.

"Don't, Draco. If you want to roll over that's fine, but I'm not going to sit here and listen to her telling lies about us-"

"How can you say that?" said Ginny, she was fuming. "After everything you did, you're not even ashamed of it?"

"I never laughed about it. I never did that."

"I didn't have Dark Arts with you, but I know what Parvati and Neville told me - they said you were practically begging to get to cast the cruciatus curse, and that you and your friends were laughing when you left the classroom."

She wasn't being loud, none of them were, but her voice was pulled tight as a wire. Harry hadn't known that she hated her. They had never talked about Parkinson except in relation to Malfoy, but looking at the way the two girls were staring at each other, he had never despised Malfoy half as much as Ginny despised Pansy.

Ginny looked at him.

"I don't know what made you think that we would want to cooperate with Slytherins about anything," she said, "but anyone who was able to laugh after one of those classes-"

"You're such a Gryffindor, Weasley," said Parkinson before Ginny could finish her sentence or Harry could think of anything to say. "You love simple stories with shiny heroes and terrible villains, but that's not how the world works."

"How does it work, then? Are you going to tell me that the cowards who lick the heels of Death Eaters are really just poor, misunderstood heroes?"

"We all had to find ways to survive last year, and some of us didn't have the option of hiding in secret rooms and trying to save the world by putting stink-bombs in Snape's office."

"Don't act like you didn't have a choice in this!" Ginny snapped. "You could have said no just like we did. If you didn't want to do what they told you, then you could have fought back, but you didn't."

"You think I wanted to do it? Really? I'm a person, Weasley! Or are you talking about all of us, all the Slytherins? Because Evelyn Selwyn snapped her wand after that time they made her crucio that little one from Gryffindor, the Creevy-kid. She said she never wanted to do magic again, but her mother works in the ministry, and what do you think they might have done to her if they found out? It wasn't a good time to decide to be a squib. You have no idea how long it took to get her to calm down, to get her to let us help her get a new wand so they wouldn't find out. And the next day they asked her to do it again. So yeah, I volunteered in those classes. If I could have volunteered then, I would have."

"How noble."

"Maybe it was! I did lots of things that weren't noble or brave and they weren't particularly cunning or ambitious either, but I know you walked into Dark Arts with all that spite and attitude because you were hoping they would make an example of you and not someone half your size. Did you ever think maybe we were doing the same thing when we volunteered? I didn't volunteer to practice unforgivables on muggleborn first years because I liked it. But I thought that at least it was me and not Evelyn Selwyn. At least it was me and not another first year."

Ginny crossed her arms. She was taller than Parkinson. She was using that height difference, looking down at her like she was something disgusting. Parkinson's knuckles were white.

"So you do think you're one of the heroes?"

"No, I-"

"Get your story straight, Parkinson. Maybe you could ask Malfoy to help you with that, I've heard his story is very neat, good enough to keep him out of Azkaban."

Harry glanced at Malfoy but not a muscle moved on his face. Neville looked like he wanted badly to be somewhere else and Luna like she already was.

"All the Slytherins were cowards – if you had just fought back with the rest of us, or at least showed some defiance, fucking anything, instead of just sucking up to get phony praise and special treatment, then-"

"Then what? What do you think would have happened, Weasley? Do you think Snape would have resigned and Voldemort would have pulled his Death Eaters out of the school because one more house was uncooperative? So what if we were cowards. There were kids in Slytherin too, but as far as I know you never let a single person in green into your little hideout."

"Don't you dare blame us for your spinelessness!"

"We would have been stupid not to take whatever safety we were offered! If the eleven year olds in Slytherin were punished with lost house points instead of some other cruel shit, that wasn't a loss even if it was favouritism, it just meant that one less kid was abused and that was a good thing. So you can all stop acting like we were spared at your expense."

"Stop talking like you were just innocent bystanders, you were all helping them, you were turning us in."

"What else were we supposed to do?"

"Really, you're asking me that? What do you want me to say? That I think you were a hero for bullying little kids and snitching on those of us who were trying to fight back last year? Because that's not going to happen."

"I know I wasn't a hero and I don't need you to approve of anything I did. I don't need anyone to do that. I'm just sick of your narcissistic hero-worshipping when the kids in Slytherin are ashamed of their house because of the way your lot tells the story. I think it would be fucking great, especially if Potter is serious about this inter-house cooperation-shit, if you would stop making us all out to be evil, because we're not. And maybe for the sake of cooperation, or truth or fairness, you could admit that it was sad what happened to us, what they did to us, just as it was sad and wrong what they did to you. It wasn't all our fault what we did to each other – you can admit that there were people and circumstances that made us do those things, or at least made it much harder not to do them, without having to compromise any of your sacred morality. We shouldn't be the villains of your story."

Pansy finally stopped for breath and there was a long, tense pause while Ginny regarded her coldly.

"I just said that there wasn't going to be any cooperation," she said.

Then she turned on her heel and the left the room, slamming the door hard. Pansy stood frozen. She looked like she would curse the first thing that moved. Then she hissed something that sounded a lot like "Gryffindors", before storming out the room just as Ginny had. When the door had slammed shut behind her, Hermione let out a sigh.

"I'm going after her," she said, standing up.

"Which one?"

"Ginny. I'll talk to her, get her to come back. After all, Pansy wasn't wrong."

"What do you mean she wasn't? It was all bollocks," said Ron.

"Not all of it."

"But Ginny is right that we shouldn't trust them, especially her. She tried to make us hand Harry over to Voldemort!"

"You're going to blame her for that?" snapped Malfoy. "For thinking that giving up one person to save the lives of hundreds of others was a good idea? Potter was the one who took that deal, remember?"

"Are you going to start now?" asked Ron, squaring his shoulders and turning to face Malfoy.

"No," said Harry before Malfoy could say anything nasty. "Hermione, just go find Ginny."

She nodded and left.

"You're really serious about this, Harry?" asked Ron, looking at him like he was still waiting for him to tell them how it was all a joke.

"Yeah," he said.

"I can't believe it," said Ron, and he didn't sound angry, just disappointed, which was worse.

Harry looked away from him and tried to avoid Neville too, as he was pretty sure he was looking at him just as reproachfully. It was strange that it felt like Malfoy was the only one in the room who wasn't against him.

"Are you going after Parkinson?" he asked him.

Malfoy shook his head.

"No. I'll talk to her tonight when she has calmed down a bit."

"Okay," Harry said.

He took a deep breath.

"I don't think Hermione and Ginny are coming back. We should probably call this a day, but we'll have another meeting later. This is important, so we have to do something about it, and we won't get anywhere with just fighting each other. I'll tell you when it is. Is that alright with everyone?"

Neville shrugged. Luna smiled brightly at him.

"Sure," she said, like she hadn't just watched this meeting crash and burn.

Ron didn't say anything; he just walked out the door without looking at Harry at all. Neville and Luna followed him, and Malfoy stood up to leave as well.

ø

Draco stood up to follow Potter's friends out. He was still shocked over Pansy's sudden outburst. He had no idea what she would be like when he talked to her later. Would she be mad at him for bringing her? But he couldn't have known the Weasley girl would be there.

"Are you leaving?"

He stopped and turned around to look at Potter, who was still standing by the window, watching him.

"Not necessarily?" he said.

Potter looked away as if he didn't know what to say, or maybe was working up to an apology. Draco sat down again

"Well, this was a disaster," he said when Potter didn't say anything.

He nodded.

"I shouldn't have brought her."

Potter shrugged.

"Maybe I shouldn't have asked Ginny to come."

"I don't know why she went off like that. It has never happened before. Whenever I talk about last year she just looks bored and tells me to get over it."

Potter frowned.

"She didn't sound like she was over it."

"No, not really."

"I didn't know Ginny hated her so much. What did she do last year?"

"Survived."

"No, seriously, Malfoy."

"I am serious. It's just as she said, the Carrows gave us special treatment, and in return they expected us to be cooperative and sympathetic towards their cause and sometimes to be cruel, so we were. Especially the older Slytherins, we were hoping to take some of the attention off the younger ones."

It felt weird saying that now. It felt weird saying it to Potter, who was leaning against the windowsill and watching him sceptically. Draco shrugged.

"Or that's what we thought we were doing, I'm not sure. It worked, though, the little Slytherins became invisible and we became the prime examples of good students to the Carrows. It just sucks now when being a Slytherin is apparently the same as being a death eater. Doesn't make much of a difference for me of course, but for the other's…"

He said the last part as a joke, but Potter didn't laugh. Apparently he wasn't much for dark humour, but it was hard to read his expression. He was leaning against the windowsill and the light came from behind him, so his face was in the dark.

"I can see why Weasley would be mad when she spent half the year in hiding and carrying out her little terrorist missions," he continued. "Maybe if all the houses had been allied before the Carrows came, some of us would have joined the Gryffindors, but it was too late for anything like that. It wasn't an option, they weren't about to reach out to us and we weren't expecting any sympathy if we had reached out to them. The roles were already given before the Carrows came."

Potter nodded.

"And the punishments were bad. Unpredictable. If you did something wrong they might punish your friends or your siblings instead of you. We would have been punished just as hard as anyone else for getting out of line, but we couldn't expect help from the ones already fighting. I mean, imagine if Pansy had stood up to the Carrows, do you think they would have let her into the room of requirement to hide her? Or hide Millicent or Evelyn or someone else that Pansy cared about who might have been hurt? So I think that's why she doesn't think she has to feel bad about it."

"But why is she mad at Ginny?"

Malfoy shrugged.

"I don't know. Because Ginny blames her?"

"I can see why she would."

"Of course you can."

Potter grimaced and Draco immediately felt bad for saying it. He didn't need to defend Pansy from Potter. It was stupid to fight him just out of habit when he really didn't want them to be fighting.

"She was very eloquent about it, wasn't she?" he said.

"She's good with words."

"Really?"

"Yeah. She's interning at The Prophet."

Potter snorted.

"That sounds like something she would be good at."

He was probably thinking of Rita Skeeter. He supposed there were certain similarities, if you didn't know Pansy well.

"I think she will be."

"I never really pictured her as the… you know, the most academic type of person, though."

"She's not stupid," he said. "She's just mean."

Potter raised his eyesbrows.

"Does she know you think that about her?"

He sounded like he disapproved. It was amazing that anyone could be so good and righteous all the time – even when it was Pansy, whom he obviously didn't care for, Potter apparently didn't like the idea of Draco talking bad about his friends behind their backs.

"What, that she's mean?" he asked. "Of course she knows."

"Right," said Potter. "I forgot. Allies."

It took a second before Draco understood what he meant by that.

"Oh," he said when he remembered. "No, it's not like that with her. I mean, we pretend it is, obviously, especially to each other, but it's really not."

Potter looked surprised.

"That's nice," he said.

It could have been sarcastic, but there was no edge in his voice.

"Why?"

Potter shrugged.

"It's just nice to know that it's real, you and Pansy's friendship. Honestly, I've been thinking about what you said about allies in Slytherin. It's been bothering me. I wouldn't know what to do with someone who doesn't have any real friends. I'd probably have to believe everything Hermione says about you. So it's nice when you act like a person."

Draco grinned and Potter's face split into a smile that sent a jolt through Draco. He had almost forgotten that they could be like this around each other – relaxed, easy, just talking. It felt like one of their flying trips, except with the exhilaration of flight replaced by the calm and warmth of the room that was turning golden as the sun sank and more light filtered through the window. He could see the shadows of the mullions drawing dark patterns across Potter's skin. He looked so relaxed as he stood there in his crumpled shirt, watching Draco. He didn't look like Harry Potter, saviour of the world, he just looked like a boy with a nice smile and terribly messy hair, and he thought how nice it would be if it could always be like that.

"What does Granger say about me?" he asked, grinning back.

Potter's smile faded a bit and Draco wanted to kick himself.

"Nothing, really," said Potter. "It doesn't matter."

So Granger had been slandering him to Potter – maybe he should worry about that, but at the moment he couldn't care less.

"Do you want to go flying again sometime?" he asked.

The smile resurfaced immediately, bright and genuine, and Draco's insides dissolved into tense, anxious fluttering.

"Sure," said Potter.

And Draco was about to say something else when he stopped himself, because Potter was smiling at him, and that wasn't supposed to make him feel fluttery at all. For a moment he was at a loss for words as a gaping hole of dread opened in his stomach. Because that couldn't be it. That wasn't right. Then he gathered himself, forced out words, hoping that Potter hadn't noticed his hesitation.

"We could ask the rest of our terrorist group to come too," he said.

He was careful not to let any of the panic register on his face.

"Inter-house unity and all that," he continued, blabbering away to stop himself from thinking. "It would probably be a better bonding exercise than plotting to prevent the atrocious crimes of our government."

Potter laughed.

"I don't know, I've found that treason and near-death experiences really bring people together," he said.

Draco reminded himself of the disaster in the astronomy tower.

"You should learn how to make friends in less lethal ways, Potter."

He wanted to leave.

"Haven't had many chances to."

Draco stood up.

"So should we get back to our common rooms?" he asked. "I'll check if Pansy has killed anyone and you can go see if Granger still has her head or if Weasley has bitten it off."

Was he imagining it, or did Potter look a little bit disappointed?

"Okay, I'll tell you when we're meeting again, yeah?" he said stepping towards the door.

"Good."

"At least they all believed what you said about Azkaban. Even Ginny, she said she was all for blowing it up."

Draco nodded.

"Yeah, that's really good."

He stood up. Potter reached for the door.

"We'll make it work out," he said.

Draco waited half a metre behind him while he looked out the door to make sure the corridor was empty. Then he stepped out and Draco followed quickly.

"See you around," he said, as he slipped past him.

"Right," he heard Potter say, but then he was already hurrying down the corridor.