Draco can tell time's getting short. Greg is too cowed to question him, but Vince is getting bolder. He suspects they're being pressured from outside the castle and it makes him extremely wary that no one outside said castle is pressuring him. Why the roundabout method?
Alternatively, Vince is trying to carve out a new space for himself. Draco isn't sure which is the bigger threat, but he could address the latter possibility. He decides he'll do that this evening, in the common room, in front of everyone.
This has the benefit of testing Pansy's, Theo's, and Blaise's loyalties as well. By seeing how they react, Draco will be more confident in Pansy's stated motivations. He's more certain than he was, solely because there have been no Hermione-related repercussions, but he still doesn't fully trust it.
So after tonight he could confide in them. Maybe.
It would be a load off his chest. He can't deny he's been tempted to talk to Hermione about it. It's so easy to forget that she's Potter's closest friend - outside Weasley, that knob - when they're tucked away together. Aside from occasional (read: increasingly spare) coursework and revision, mostly they spend their time naked. Usually exploring one another's genitals in myriad ways that are all extremely satisfying, but when it's all finally quiet again, Draco wishes he had someone to talk to.
He's never had that, not really. He's always held himself apart. His reasons have changed over the years, but the end result is that he's isolated. It's never bothered him before this year, but before now, he's never felt like the kind of people he might confide in were even there at all. Suddenly there's a possibility of three, in his own dorm, and he cautions himself not to get anxious and rush it. He must be sure.
Hopefully he can be sure tonight.
Vince doesn't disappoint. He bows right up and asks Draco outright, "How close are you to being done?"
Draco weighs a verbal answer for about four seconds before rounding back and landing a punch to Vince's jaw. Crabbe reels back, staggering under the unexpected blow, and Draco rolls his sleeves up - starting with the left. He knew if anything were going to happen, Vince expected a hex - not a punch. He'll use it to his advantage.
All other movement in the common room has stopped, people clearing backwards to hug the walls or stand behind sofas. He sees Pansy whisper something to Theo and then Vince is on the rebound.
"What the fuck, Malfoy?" he growls, swinging slow and wide. Draco dodges easily, fists up.
"I've had it with you digging for details. Back the fuck off, Crabbe. It's my mission, not yours. I don't know what you're playing at, but back the fuck off."
Vince moves in again, still far too slow, and Draco lands another punch. Crabbe tries to turn and Draco's fist hits squarely on his nose. He follows it with a left to Crabbe's side, and as he bends with an 'oof,' Draco finishes with a final punch to the other side of his jaw. Crabbe drops.
"Don't make me tell you again."
He steps over Vince and eyes Greg squarely. "Got anything to add, Goyle?"
"No, Malfoy," he grunts, eyes averted. Scanning the rest of the room, Draco sees a mix of awe and fear. Perfect. He straightens his shirt sleeves back to his wrists, flipping the cuff down with a snap.
He catches Theo's eye briefly as he walks towards their dorm. He thinks Theo will follow him, but that might depend on whether Crabbe or Goyle tries to follow him first.
While he waits for someone - whoever - to enter the dorm, he casts a series of quick charms on his trunk and side table, where he keeps his own clothes and personal items. He should have done this sooner, but these will tell him if people go snooping. Now that whatever this is with Crabbe is bubbling to the surface, he needs to be careful. He doesn't have anything in here to hide but he expects someone to pry through his things nonetheless.
That would have been unthinkable even a year ago, but Draco finds he isn't minding the gradual change. Before, he'd been a little shit, ruling their year, the clear alpha at the top. No one questioned him, but he was also alone.
Now, the hierarchy is shifting. He is the only one of them with a Dark Mark, but he wishes it weren't there. The Mark on his arm means he's still at the top, but now he only wants to be at the top over Vince and Greg. He'd rather have friends in Theo and Blaise, and Pansy isn't so bad.
It leaves Daphne and Astoria on the other side of the fence, and Millicent, too. But he doesn't care about them. Now, if he can only keep Vince in line for a few more weeks.
The worst-case scenario would be Vince poking around on his own. He knows Draco spends most of his spare time in the Come and Go Room, but not what he does there, or even what the room turns into for him. He doesn't think Vince is smart enough to figure it out, and nobody else knows what he does in there either, so there's no one to ask. But if Vince does start trying to get in by himself, it endangers not only the mission, but he and Hermione.
They might need to find a new place to start meeting.
Also, he has to fix the blasted cabinet. He's been delaying on purpose, but time is almost up and he'll have to have it fixed - and properly tested - before the end of term.
His mother sent him another pleading letter the day before yesterday. His father in Azkaban, please hurry, he's wasting away. Draco is his only hope.
Well, it's his fault Draco has this bloody sodding Mark on his arm, and so Lucius can wait a little longer. His mother is making a mistake assuming the Dark Lord will free Lucius anyway. It's equally likely it's all a big tease, a motivation that he'll constantly keep scooting back out of reach. In this way, Draco's delay might be a savvy move. If Draco is competent without being too competent, it'll be a mission complete but maybe Draco won't seem to have any serious value. Maybe it'll be the perfect balance of helpful but not crucial, and the Dark Lord's gaze will fall on somebody else.
Otherwise, the dangling carrot of Lucius's freedom will be dangled right in front of him again and again.
Theo enters, dropping his bag on his bed like nothing happened. Pansy follows and sits on the bed. Theo climbs up behind her, arms wrapping around to Pansy's knees and it makes Draco miss Hermione keenly.
"Is Zabini coming?"
"He's in the library."
Draco nods and locks the door, silencing the room. Everybody seems to be waiting for somebody else to speak, and Draco decides to ask outright.
"Are either of you expected to report back to anybody at home?"
Pansy shakes her head but Theo hesitates. "My dad asks. I don't know if he's told to ask or just curious. All I tell him is that I don't know what the mission is, but that you're working on it."
"He still wants you to take the Mark?"
Theo's face goes pale but he nods. "Right at the start of summer. Pansy's, too."
Pansy's looking out the glass into the lake, swallowing hard.
"And Zabini's getting off lucky. His mum has other pursuits." Theo cracks a wan smile.
"Do you know if Vince is just curious, or if he's being told to pry?"
Theo cocks his head. "I don't know. We aren't close enough to ask, but after that display, I think I can get away with asking if he's lost his bloody mind. Maybe he'll reveal something."
Draco is trying to decide where to take this conversation. How much is smart to reveal? He thinks he can tell them what he was tasked to do. He'll hold back how he's doing it and where. But first he wants to know something else.
"How are you going to avoid the Mark?"
Pansy shifts between Theo's legs and his arms tighten around her. "We think... we're going to run. Without a Mark, we don't think anybody will follow. Our fathers will try, but if we're smart..."
He trails off and Draco kindly doesn't point out the dozen or so immediate difficulties he sees with this plan - not least of which that they'll both likely be disowned. He doubts they care about that as much as getting locked out of Gringotts. Trying to run without resources will be hard.
"What about you, Draco?" Pansy asks, finally speaking. He thinks her eyes look a little bright.
"I'm stuck here," he says bitterly. "I do have a Mark, and they would follow me."
"What about... her?"
He doesn't know and can't speak. A single tear slides down Pansy's cheek and she turns back to the window. Three grindylows swim past.
"Whatever happens, Potter's path leads to the Dark Lord. I think we all know it. We don't understand it, maybe, but we all know it. And she and Weasley will probably be right there."
Draco finds this intolerable in at least six ways and struggles not to shut down the conversation altogether.
Theo finishes the thought in an equally depressing manner. "Or the Dark Lord's path leads to Potter. It'll be one or the other."
They all sit on this for a minute, and Draco ends up spilling out how much he resents his Mark, resents his father for being the catalyst to him getting it in the first place, his fears that no matter what he does, the Dark Lord won't free Lucius.
"I wish I had run," he says. "I didn't then. I wouldn't have then. But I would now. You should run, if you can."
"What are you going to do?"
He looks straight at Pansy. "I've been tasked with finding a way into the castle. Getting past the wards and enchantments. They want to infiltrate."
They both go pale and Theo's hand leaves Pansy's knee to cover his mouth. "Fuck..." he breathes. "When? To do what?"
"I have no idea what they want to do, and I'm stalling," Draco admits, checking the silencing charm. "I think they'd do it tonight if they could. I'm waiting until right before summer. Surely whatever they want to do in here doesn't require a bunch of screaming children running around in panic. Surely they'd rather the castle were almost empty."
"But you don't believe that, do you? Otherwise, you wouldn't be stalling. You'd trust them to do it over the summer, but you don't."
Pansy always knew him too well. "No, I don't."
"The way you say it makes me think you know how to do it," Theo says flatly.
"I do. I do know. I'm just not telling them I know yet. I want... her to be far away from here." But what if they are reporting back? Draco's paranoia flares up again. "It's not done. It couldn't happen tonight anyway. There's a final thing I have to do - maybe two things, I haven't tested it. But I know what's next. Look, I'm not going to fail the mission. I'm just waiting to... minimise the damage, that's all."
As the days tick by, his stress level goes back up. Hermione helps without even knowing it. Having Pansy, Theo, and Blaise's support helps even more, but in a different way. No, they can't help him with the mission, but he's finally not alone.
But nothing can stop the clock and as the end of term gets nearer, Draco feels himself dreading every day. He sees Hermione less by necessity. Even though he thinks he put Crabbe in his place, he doesn't trust the appearance of not working on his task. He redoubles his efforts when he knows Crabbe and Goyle are watching, spending hours in the bloody Come and Go Room as the Room of Hidden Things. It's a travesty of a place, a full junkpile of detritus that could be interesting if he were inclined to stall - which he is, but only if the room takes an entirely different form with his sexy little witch waiting for him in it.
Instead, he stares at the cabinet, wanders around, releases a Snitch that only buzzes with one wing in a tired and pathetic circle. He's gotten so good with the Charms work needed to fix the cabinet, he knows he should be proud of the accomplishment. As a standalone achievement, it's significant, but he can't feel any pride. If this were a year ago, he'd have been bragging about it left and right. Not now.
There's one final piece, he's almost certain. Then he'll test, first with something inanimate, then something small but alive. He's done a dozen tests on inanimate objects already, all failures, but now he thinks he has the missing enchantment. It's NEWT level and it'll probably take him a few tries, and he knows he ought to finalise it all with enough time to troubleshoot.
He can't fail it, after all. He just doesn't want it done earlier than it has to be.
Gods, he's bored. He sits in a chair losing half its stuffing and leans back.
He thinks about Hermione, and thinks how having a wank would pass some time - but that's begun eluding him again, too. That's probably an unfortunate combination of mounting stress and the absolute abundance of shagging they're doing already, so he can't be too dismayed. He'd rather have the real thing anyhow.
His girl, his girl, his girl... he tries not to think about what Pansy and Theo had said. Sooner or later, this confrontation ends with Hermione in the crosshairs - either because she's helping Potter or because she's a Muggle-born. Or both.
That's not helping his stress levels. He finds himself growing more irritable, snappier, day by day.
And really, is that all he thinks this is going to be? A 'confrontation'? It isn't. it won't be. It'll be war, unless Potter somehow dies early - which would mean an earlier takeover by the Dark Lord and Hermione in even more danger because of her birth - or something happens to the Dark Lord. Which Draco can't see happening.
He wonders what the Order's plans for the coming 'confrontation' are.
Later that week, he sees the necklace on the outside of Hermione's robes and is absurdly self-satisfied to have given it to her. It wasn't a big deal - monetarily, anyway, and it's not like it was some antique. He just thought she'd like it. She seemed to and now she's wearing it openly.
Her Muggle Studies essay with Finchy must have been turned in because he doesn't see them working together anymore. No, Draco's newest concern is Seamus Finnegan. He sits next to her in Charms - and History of Magic, in fact, and, now that Draco thinks about it, Transfiguration. She used to sit squashed in between Potter and Weasley, but now Potter seems to be the focal point, leaving one of Hermione's two coveted sides open.
And of course, the classes segregate seats when allowed to. Hufflepuffs with Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws with Ravenclaws, and even though Draco always sits at the edge of the Slytherins he can't quite break away.
Would she want him to? He isn't sure. Probably not. No, definitely not. She wants it a secret.
Now he hears Finnegan's stupid sodding Irish accent everywhere, chatting to Hermione, joking with Hermione, and every single time it makes Draco's blood boil.
At least Finchy belonged to a different house. They didn't share a common room every evening, and Hermione's evenings have largely been open of late.
How long has it been since he marked up her neck? Too long, is the answer.
He prefers kissing the spot right under her jaw, soft and smooth, but that's not the most visible. Squarely in the middle of her neck, right above her shoulder, is best. Too far back and her hair hides it too much. A perfect compromise? To the side and under her jaw. One for Draco and one for Finnegan, that twat.
And what about over the summer, when Draco won't be able to leave love bites all over her? What then?
As this disturbing little parasite of a thought latches deep in his brain to fester there, he hears Finnegan laugh. With irritation, Draco glances over his shoulder in time to see him put a hand on Hermione's shoulder as he stands, saying, "Good one, 'Mione!" as he grabs his bag.
He sees red. A nickname? He has a nickname for her?
Draco doesn't even notice that she looks a bit down, that Harry and Ron are turned towards each other and away from her. Weasley glares at him, but he misses this, too. All he sees is how her face brightens the smallest bit at Finnegan's words, the corners of her mouth turning up.
Rooted to the spot in rage, people begin filing out past Draco. Harry and Ron leave Hermione behind and now Draco does notice. Her shoulders slump a little and Finnegan pats one. "Ignore them. I like that necklace, by the way. It looks good on you."
She smiles a little. "Thank you, Seamus." She hoists her bag up higher and turns to go. Draco isn't sure if he would have been mollified by her saying it was a present - one that maybe came from her boyfriend - but as it is, he can't see anything but Finnegan's hand touching his girl. Finnegan comforting his girl.
Draco doesn't even look to see who's around as he steps directly into Finnegan's personal space. "Fuck off, Finnegan."
The Irish knob looks at him, bemused. "What?"
"I said - fuck off. Get the fuck out. Go the fuck away."
Hermione is staring at him wide-eyed, mouth ajar. Finnegan looks between the two of them, gives her a bewildered look and hesitates. "Are you alright if I go, Hermione?"
As if she needs Finnegan for anything. Draco's hands tighten, blood coursing through his veins. "She's fine. Fuck off."
Finnegan finally figures out what's good for him and departs, casting another worried glance over his shoulder. Ha - as if he needs to be concerned about Hermione in all this, when it was Draco's fist that was about to break his nose. After breaking Crabbe's, he found he rather liked the feeling.
He's watching as the twat turns the corner until Hermione shoves him in the chest. "Are you mental?" she hisses as he takes a step back.
That particular phrase, something he's heard out of Weasley's freckly mouth at least a dozen times, turns his focus back to her. "He's got a nickname for you, he's touching you. He needs to get the fuck back."
"He is my friend," she spits. "I understand that you might not trust Seamus, but I need you to trust me."
"You're mine and he needs to know. No one touches what's mine."
Fire blazes in her eyes and she drops her voice. "That's something we say in bed - fine. But you need to know that I'm not a fucking thing you own. I am not yours like that."
Her own fury is beginning to cut through his. In fact, his begins to branch off neatly into fear as she closes her fist around the necklace and yanks it off, breaking the clasp. She shoves it at him and his heart stops.
"Wait," he says, holding up a hand and trying to regain control of the situation. He blinks several times, short of breath, and tries to track how they got here.
She's said she wanted it a secret and he essentially told Finnegan they're shagging every chance they get. That's the message Draco would have received if their places were reversed, and it's the exact message Draco was hoping to impart.
"Wait. Let's just slow down. What was wrong? He -" his mouth twists around the pronoun but he forces it out, "- said to 'ignore them.' What did Potter and Weasley do that upset you?"
"None of your bloody business," Hermione shouts, pushing the necklace into his chest again. "And it doesn't matter now, anyhow!"
He doesn't take it and she drops it on the floor. "And don't follow me, Malfoy!"
She spins on her heel and storms off, bag swinging. Draco stares after her, dumbstruck, the necklace in a pile of delicate chain on the floor.
Wait. Is this - is this it? His heart starts again, staggering wildly and his chest feels tight.
What just happened?
'Don't follow me!' Returning his gift. Leaving him standing there.
Is this it?
His chest feels so tight and inhaling isn't working very well.
He's not even sure how he ended up bent over a sink, feeling like he's going to retch. He hates to throw up, hates it, and can't stop a dry heave.
Somehow the necklace is tight in his hand, a fist on the side of the sink, and he can feel the points of the star digging into his palm.
No, no, no.
The tears come next and Draco hasn't cried in years. He's not even sure he knew how it felt - but he could never have guessed any of this would feel like this. Fuck. Fuck! He can't breathe and his chest hurts and he heaves again.
"There, there," soothes a female voice and he nearly comes out of his skin. Looking up, he's horrified at his face - red, unhinged - and at the visual of a ghost hovering nearby. "Tell me what it is, and maybe I can help."
"No one can help," he gasps. Why is this happening? Can't he just be alone?
"No one can help." The tears come again. How can he fix this? He knows a stupid fucking ghost can't fix it, but how can he? There must be something, there has to be.
He can't lose her. This can't be it.
He punches the mirror, relishing the cracking of the glass under his knuckles.
Somewhere behind him, he hears the door open and shut and he curses all over again. What now? He just wants to be alone. He has to figure this out.
It's probably some snot-nosed second-year brat and he'll have to hope they don't know who he is. Bloody perfect.
He looks up in the mirror again and locks eyes with Potter.
