The ball theme died down over the next two weeks but was replaced by an even worse theme, Valentine's Day.

For reasons I can't explain, the students of Hogwarts were totally into this day.

Only I wanted nothing more than to curl up in my bed and read all the time on that day.

Valentine's Days had never interested me until I had received a card last year.

It had been my first and I was more than surprised but overjoyed.

The card didn't say much just a time and a place.

Naïve as I was, I actually went there and as was to be expected, no one came.

I waited for ten minutes but just before I was about to leave, someone came.

The group that caused me the most problems at school.

That was the moment I knew I was being made fun of.

They laughed at me, how stupid I was.

That no one would ever write me a Valentine's Day card.

That was enough to humiliate me but it wasn't over yet.

They took out little water balloons filled with milk and threw them at me.

They found throwing milk at a cat incredibly funny.

I had never told anyone about it, not even my grandma.

It was another secret I carried around with me that I never wanted anyone to know.


I startled.

It was just a dream.

Well more like a memory.

I was breathing heavily and when I looked at my alarm clock and still had two hours to go before I actually had to get up.

So I let myself fall back onto the bed, annoyed.

Now I would definitely not be able to sleep.

Maybe I should say I'm sick and spend the day here.

But then Min would drag me to Madame Pomfrey and at the latest she would realise that I was perfectly healthy.

The good thing about this Valentine's Day was that it was on a Thursday, which meant that at least I didn't have lessons with Malfoy today.

I constantly had the image of him shirtless in my head and I hated myself for finding him attractive.

Outwardly. He was outwardly attractive, nothing more, I kept telling myself.

But whenever I thought of that I also had to think of the scars that adorned his chest.

They had been on his back too, fine long scars that seemed to stretch across his entire torso.

They had to come from a curse, that was the only reason why scars remained despite healing spells.

Just what kind of curse?

Who had cast it against Malfoy and why?

From what he had told, probably his father.

What kind of person did he have to be that could do such a thing to his own son?


Still tired from my shortened night, I sat in the Great Hall eating breakfast.

I had made up my mind to go down and was already regretting it.

On the way down alone I had spotted four couples snogging in some corner and I was glad it was only that.

And even here at breakfast they were hanging on each other and eating each other more than their breakfast before them.

Even Neville and Hannah were more strenuous than usual.

Neville was pining at her from the side the whole time and I lost my appetite.

The owls came flying in and what I could already see from below were loads of red and pink cards and letters they carried in their beaks.

I sighed.

A small package with a red bow landed in front of Hannah and from the way Neville was grinning it was definitely from him.

Inside was a bracelet with a heart charm.

I could puke.

I quickly averted my eyes from the courting couple and searched the hall for anything to distract me.

And that's what I found.

Luna, the light blonde girl from girls' night was sitting at the Ravenclaw table and had built a tower out of whatever cutlery she had found.

Fascinated I watched her expand it fork by fork and realised that she was doing it all without magic.

The last fork was too much and the tower collapsed with a deafening crash.

My laughter caught in my throat as I spotted Malfoy's grey eyes behind the collapsed tower.

No!, I admonished myself inwardly before my thoughts could wander back to the situation in the locker room.

Instead I looked from him to the one sitting on his lap.

Astoria, pretty as ever, smiled at him and played expertly with a strand of her hair.

Malfoy, on the other hand, didn't smile a bit and I knew why.

He didn't love her.

He was with her because his father wanted him to be. However, he hadn't taken my advice to heart and was still with her.

I quickly looked away again before either of them noticed that I was staring.

I looked at my half eaten breakfast but I really had no appetite with all the disgusting romance in the room.

So I packed my things and just as I got up to leave a voice drowned out the myriad conversations in the hall.

Malfoy.

Goosebumps spread up my arms again.

"There is no engagement ring, Astoria!

And there never will be!", he shouted loud enough for everyone to hear.

All attention was on him and that included mine.

"I don't love you! And I won't marry you either!

You fuck Blaise anyway, let him propose but not me!"

Malfoy had jumped up from his seat and Astoria was still sitting on the bench in shock.

She was cheating on him, with a friend of Malfoy's.

That was new.

Furious, Malfoy stormed out of the hall, leaving us all transfixed.

My gaze, as well as many others, still lingered on Astoria, who looked less sad than one would expect for someone whose fiancé had just broken up with her in front of the entire school and revealed that she was cheating on him.

After she got over the initial shock, on the other hand, she looked almost pleased.

The conversations continued and it was almost as if nothing had ever happened.

Still in shock I walked out of the hall, through the door Malfoy had stormed out of just two minutes ago.


I sat outside the classroom for my first lesson and enjoyed the peace and quiet that the empty corridor brought.

This quiet didn't last long, the first students arrived shortly after me and when they weren't snogging, the topic was Malfoy.

Merlin, that guy is in my thoughts far too often.

It was the first time I'd eaten alone in months. Neville and Hannah were elsewhere and I felt lonelier than ever.

So after class I decided to get to my room as soon as possible and just be alone.

If no one cared about me today, then I at least wanted to be alone where I felt comfortable.

A Valentine's Day alone wasn't that bad.

I finished the book I had started. Luckily not a romance novel.

I had dinner with Min. She had allowed me to and I was very happy about that.

No one would notice anyway.

I didn't understand what was so great about Valentine's Day. And for the life of me, I couldn't think of a better way to spend the evening.

Snuggled up in my bed, with a good book and a hot chocolate.

It was a perfect evening in my eyes.

The day yesterday still reverberated a little but most couples were not as exhausting as yesterday, I noted contentedly as I dropped into my seat for lunch on Friday.

The joy that the weekend would be soon didn't really come yet because I still had to get through the dance class before that.

And the likelihood of getting through that without any major problems was very low, I reckoned.

All the students were already in the classroom, only Malfoy was missing.

Potions had been cancelled today because Professor Slughorn was ill, so I hadn't noticed it there but yes, I hadn't seen him today yet.

"Where's Mr Malfoy?", Min asked when she saw I was standing there without a partner.

"I'll go find him", I said quickly before any of his classmates caught on.

The more time I wasted looking for him, the less time I had to dance with him.


So I walked very leisurely through the corridors, looking here and there into open classrooms but I didn't really look out for him.

I knew that I would get into trouble with Min if I didn't come back and so would he.

I could have just gone back without him but then I would have had to sit on the sidelines for the whole lesson and I really didn't want to do that.

So I decided to check on him after all.

And the place I would be if not in class, would be the library or my room.

I guessed that Malfoy was more the type to go to his room when he wanted to be alone.

So I went down the stairs to the dungeons.

I had to change because it was quite busy but Malfoy's room was luckily at the end of a corridor, so no one could see me go in.

I knocked on the door.

No answer.

I knocked again.

"Malfoy?", I called loud enough for him to hear me through the door.

But still no answer but I could hear noises from inside.

So he is in there.

I knocked again and then just walked in.

What I saw frightened me.

The room looked like a battlefield, books and clothes were lying everywhere and I could hardly see anything of the floor.

In the midst of this chaos, Malfoy was sitting huddled on the floor with his knees drawn up to his body.

In front of him were shards of glass that had probably once belonged to glass bottles, I guessed.

That must have been the noise, a bottle being thrown at the wall.

Malfoy looked up at me standing in the doorway, aghast.

He looked completely wiped out, like he'd barely slept the last few days.

Fucking helper complex, I cursed to myself as I swallowed down all my anger at him.

I could have screamed, shouted at him asking what this was but I did not.

I carefully made my way to him, put a hand on his shoulder and said quietly, "We'll deal with it later.

Right now we need to get up to dance class or we'll both get detention."

He looked up at me and his grey eyes were so empty it almost scared me.

I stood up and held out a hand for him to get up.

He grabbed it and pulled himself to his feet.

He didn't let go of my hand and put on a mask.

Not literally, he just put on his arrogant expression again, stroked his hair and with a small movement of his hands he straightened his clothes.

If I hadn't seen him just now, I wouldn't have guessed what kind of shape he was in.

I pulled him along by my hand, out into the corridors and up to the front of the transformation classroom.

I didn't care that a few people had seen us because Malfoy was glaring at everyone so viciously that I was sure no one would say anything.


"I don't want to go in there", was the first thing Malfoy said.

His voice was low and sounded broken, not at all like I usually knew him to be.

"It's only another three quarters of an hour.

I'll stay with you. You can do it."

I looked at him encouragingly and squeezed his hand which I was still holding.

Without saying a word but visibly struggling with himself, he released his hand from mine and nodded slightly.

I pushed the door open and immediately we were overcome by classical music.

Min came up to us and looked at Malfoy with a scrutinising gaze.

"He forgot the time while studying and no one told him", I explained to her before he could say anything.

She nodded and gestured us to our places.

The music stopped and without the others having a breather the next song began.

My hand was on Malfoy's upper arm, the other held his hand.

I had trouble getting into the rhythm at first as it was slower than usual but I quickly got the hang of it.

"You lied to McGonnagal", Malfoy spoke softly when he noticed that I had found my rhythm.

"Wasn't the first time and won't be the last", I grinned mischievously.

"Why?"

What an odd question.

"Because it's not her business.

If you want you can tell her you didn't learn, your choice."

He was silent for a moment and I realised what part of the dance we were at.

I closed my eyes and let myself fall without hesitation.

I just let myself fall.

And he caught me.

His strong arms held me and I didn't feel unsafe for a second.

"Thank you for lying for me", he said softly.

"You have to let me help you in return."

It was a broad request, it encompassed his battlefield of a room but also his mental state.

He just nodded and for the next few minutes we were silent.

There was nothing to say.

I had seen what I shouldn't have and we both didn't quite know how to deal with it.


Just before the lesson ended I interrupted our silence.

"Meet me outside the library after dinner.

You're not going to your room before then."

It sounded like an order and it was.

He wouldn't be able to go down there on his own and if he did I was sure he would have a panic attack or worse, hurt himself.

Even now his answer was just a nod.

He was standing outside the library casually leaning against the wall when I came back from dinner in a hurry.

Neville and Hannah had stopped me because they wanted to do something together tonight and it had taken me some convincing and a Saturday off to dissuade them.

"Not the smartest idea Harper walking around Hogwarts together in broad daylight outside of class", came it bitingly from the blond.

"Don't you think I've thought about that?"

I had indeed and the solution was simple as well.

I pulled the hood of my cloak over my head, drew my wand and a small movement and muttered words later, yellow and black had become green and silver and the badger had given way to a snake.

"Two Slytherin in the corridors don't stand out.

And as long as you stay close to me no one will look closely either", I explained my plan based on my observations this afternoon.

All the students we had met had quickly looked away, for fear of Malfoy.

And now it was working perfectly.

"Pretty sneaky, you could almost be a proper Slytherin", Malfoy teased me.

"Thanks but I'm a very proud Hufflepuff."

Because I really was. I was proud to be in the same house as my Grandpa was back then.

Malfoy snorted.

"Green looks better on you though."

I didn't have a glib reply to that.

I also thought the green was prettier than the yellow but I wouldn't tell him that.


As we stood in the corridor outside Malfoy's room I pulled the hood off my head and looked up at him.

The arrogant mask he had put on was gone and had given way to expressionless eyes again.

"You can do this. And when you can't, we'll stop and take a break", I tried to build him up.

I pushed down the door handle and beyond it stretched the visible extent of Malfoy's condition.

I made my way through the masses of things strewn across the floor, careful not to break anything.

Malfoy stopped in the doorway.

"What would you like me to start with?", I asked cautiously.

I knew I wouldn't want him to see certain things in my room and I was sure he felt the same way.

I looked to my right and ended up at the bookshelf from which almost all the books were missing and scattered on the floor.

One of them was lying right at my feet.

I picked it up and held it out to him.

"Are books okay?"

He nodded mutely but still remained in his place in the doorway.

I grabbed the first books I could from the floor and pushed my way to the bookshelf.

Luckily there were still some books in there and from what I could make out the books were sorted by author.

That was an easy sorting, I thought and had to smile when I thought of my bookshelf.

Min would have said there was no order but for me it was clear and distinct.

In the middle were my favourite books, at eye level, so I could always see them.

Further up were books by magical authors, sorted by how much I liked them and at the bottom the same but with no-maj authors, starting with non-fiction and then the novels.

I found it simple and logical but I was very glad that Malfoy had an even simpler way of sorting his books.

I put the books I had in roughly the places I thought they should go and grabbed the next pile.

The shelf filled up and when I had picked up almost all the books from the floor, Malfoy also broke free from his rigidity.

I wouldn't push him to help me.

He had to decide for himself when he was ready.

Slowly he moved into the room and began to pick up clothes.

We were both silent.

I had nothing to say and he would say nothing.


After the books, I turned my attention to his desk.

This included quills, inkwells, parchments and notes. It seemed very impersonal to me, so I took it.

I put his wax seals back in order in the box that went with them and wondered why he had so many seal stamps.

I had one and that was more than enough.

I found his potions book on the floor, picked it up and a note fell out.

I left it folded up and interrupted the silence.

"This fell out of your book, do you want me to put it back in there?"

He turned around jerkily and snatched the piece of paper from me.

"Don't read it!", he hissed in panic.

Surrendering, I raised my hands.

"Don't worry, I didn't read anything."

Until just now I hadn't cared about that piece of paper, I hadn't been interested in what it said but now that I had seen his reaction I became curious.

He put the note in his pocket, depriving me of any chance of catching a glimpse of it.

Defeated, I turned back to cleaning up.

Surely it would have been easier and quicker with magic but Grandma had always said that you should solve your own problems and I didn't think that included magic.


I don't know how long it took us to get the room back to the way it was, maybe an hour, maybe three. But that was irrelevant, only that we did it was important.

The last thing left was the shattered glass bottle and that was something I couldn't do.

These shards were Malfoy's work, like everything else here but they symbolised how broken he was and he too would have to sweep up the shards.

Had to pick up the symbolic shards of his life.

He looked at the shards on the floor and clenched his fists.

"Shall we take a break?", I asked when I noticed his tense posture.

"A bit of fresh air might do you good", I added before he had a chance to reply.

"No!", he snapped at me and I was almost startled at how angry he was about this suggestion.

"I have to do this now. A Malfoy doesn't run away."

'A Malfoy doesn't run away', that sounded like a mantra.

As if it had been drilled into him since he was a child.

Teaching a child to be brave was good but you also had to be afraid of things.

It was okay if tasks were too hard and it wasn't cowardly to get help or take a break.

He had never seemed to learn that and again I was happy to have grown up with people who had taught me such things.

And for the first time I really thought about why Malfoy was the way he was.

What kind of childhood he must have had that made him the way he was today.

Certainly the war had contributed to his condition but as I knew from stories that he had not been a pleasant contemporary before the war either.

Was he perhaps never taught things like gratitude?

Had he never learned to feel empathy for others?

Had he ever experienced real love at all?

All these questions were buzzing in my head and led to only one conclusion, the mask he had put on earlier had been on his whole life.

He never took it off and the number of people who had seen the man behind it I estimated to be dwindling.

But I had seen it, had seen him.

Why was still not clear to me, but it was the greatest sign of trust he could give.

He trusted me, it flashed through my mind again and again.

And I had had nothing better to do than reproach him and insinuate that he wouldn't catch me.

He would, that was clear to me now.


I looked up at him and the eyes that had been expressionless all this time were now shimmering from the tears he was holding back.

"It's okay", I said quietly, reaching up and gently stroking his arm.

He flinched at the touch but did not pull his arm away.

A deep breath later he squatted down.

I followed him and watched as he picked up each shard one by one from the floor and collected them in his free hand.

A handful of glass, pointed and sharp and highly dangerous.

I could see him struggling to resist the urge to close his hand and let the sharp edges penetrate his skin.

I quickly placed my hand protectively on the shards in his hand to stop him from closing his hand.

"It only takes the pain away for a short time."

"But it takes it away."

"It shifts it", I explained calmly.

Shifting pain, I had tried that many times since my grandma died.

I'd never gone so far as to hurt myself but I'd gone days without sleep, for example or punished myself by not eating enough.

It only shifted my grief temporarily though.

When I moved to Hogwarts I stopped.

Maybe it was because of all the new impressions or the distraction, but in any case I felt better since then.

So I knew exactly what he wanted to achieve but also how useless it was in the long run.

I could see that he was about to launch into another 'but' but I interrupted him.

"It won't help you, trust me."

I knew he already did but whether he knew that I doubted.

"But talking helps."

I looked at him with an expectant look.

He actually conceded defeat but did not let go of the broken pieces.

Now we were sitting here on the floor, he with a handful of shards and me with my hand protectively over them.

For outsiders, it would certainly have been a strange sight.

"I always fail", he began quietly and I was amazed at how quickly he started talking.

Before I could even think about what the right response to this confession was he continued.

"I am one disappointment. To everyone, Astoria, my parents, to you."

"For me?"

For his parents and Astoria made sense maybe but for me?

"I'm a bad person Harper.

You shouldn't be here, you should never have helped me.

You're right, my life is small and shitty and it would be an improvement for everyone if I ended it."

It didn't answer the question I asked but it was a reason for all this.

"That's not true", I retorted stubbornly.

"It wouldn't be an improvement if you weren't alive. There are enough people who would mourn you because they care about you."

He had many friends and I was sure his parents loved him too, even if they might not have been the best parents.

He snorted contemptuously.

"No one, and I mean no one, will miss me!", he literally spat out.

"I would miss you."

He looked at me with wide, sad eyes.

"Who else is going to help me with Potions?

Who's going to teach me to dance if not the best dance teacher?

And most importantly, I won't have anyone to drive me mad."

"Are you serious?"

Did I sound sarcastic? That was definitely not my intention.

"I mean it. Every single word."

"Then there's something wrong with you", he said dryly as if it were a doctor's diagnosis.

"I know." I shrugged and smiled at him.

"You're not a bad person", I added.

"You don't have to lie to me, I know just as well as you do how shitty I've been to you and everyone else."

"I didn't say you weren't shitty to people, because that would be a lie.

You're arrogant, conceited, think you're better than everyone and you let people know it.

You may not always be nice to people but that doesn't make you a bad person."

With his free hand he pushed up the sleeve of his shirt, revealing the bandage that still hid his Dark Mark.

"But what's under there does."

I shook my head.

His father had made him wear the mark and just the fact that he hid it showed how much he hated it.

It didn't make him a bad person, it made him someone with a story, someone who maybe didn't always make the right decision but also had regrets.

And I wanted to hear it, his story.

Every little detail, no matter how insignificant because I loved stories.

With my free hand I reached for my wand and without him being able to do anything about it I let the bandage disappear from his arm.

"I'm not afraid of it, you know that", I said quietly as he tried to pull his arm away.

"You should be."

"I should quite a lot but my stubborn head doesn't think so", I laughed.

Very slowly my hand moved a tiny bit closer and closer to the tattoo on his forearm.

Gently I put each of my two fingers on the scar he had made on Christmas Eve.

The skin there was uneven and even a little lighter than the rest of his skin.

He flinched, which I attributed to my cold fingers.

"See."

Slowly I stroked from the scar over to the mark.

I didn't know what I was expecting but it was normal.

Nothing felt different from any other forearm.

If I had closed my eyes, I wouldn't have known what I was touching.

I had been so scared of this mark, which of course I would never admit to him and yet it was like a normal tattoo.

"Why are you doing this?"

His voice was louder than before and sounded almost angry.

"To prove to you and myself that I'm not afraid of it."

"You're completely insane", he laughed and for some reason I had to start laughing too.

His laughter sounded sincere and all this was so abstruse that laughter actually just made sense.

He dropped the pieces.

We both looked into each other's eyes and started laughing again.

He laughed so incredibly beautifully.

He really drove me mad.