A golden sunrise soaked through the fogged windows of the greenhouse, warming Draco's body where he sat reading in the far east corner surrounded by English ivy, Myrica Gale, Balsam, Meadowsweet, and ferns.
He'd watched the sun set and rise without sleeping in between. He enjoyed the hours when most were asleep because it was quiet. The portraits fell silent, footsteps along the castle stone lessened, and he was left alone to exist in peace.
Although now he had to go to classes, which he dreaded.
What was the use of continuing with school? What more could he learn here that he would need in the real world? He would take over the manor from his mother, along with his parents' inheritance, so he wouldn't need to work. However, that was the reason he had returned to school. Idleness had begun to consume him, trapping him in his grief and trauma. He'd been drowning at home in that big empty house. So perhaps he did need school and would need a job after graduating. If he didn't do something with his life after leaving Hogwarts, Draco wasn't sure he'd have much of a life to live for too long.
He exhaled, closed his eyes, and let the sun sink into him like a balm.
"What're you doing up here?"
Draco reluctantly pried open an eye and was surprised to find someone alive standing in the doorway. "Bugger off, Goyle." He'd managed to go the first couple weeks of term avoiding him and avoiding the conversation he was sure would follow.
Gregory Goyle, taller and more muscular than he'd been just a few months ago, took up the entire frame. His expression didn't change, and with his hair shorn close to his scalp, he almost looked like magical militia personnel standing there in his Slytherin robes. "What's up with you, Malfoy?"
Draco exhaled through his nose and sat up, closing the book in his grasp—Hermione's book, he realized. He'd forgotten why he had it. "What do you mean by that?"
Goyle folded his arms over his chest. "You're…soft now. Quiet. Brooding."
He gave a lipless grin that didn't meet his eyes. "Is that an accusation?"
"Hell yeah." Goyle took a few strides into the greenhouse but paused when Draco shot him a glare. "What happened to our plans? If the Dark Lord failed, we swore we'd continue his mission."
Draco shook his head. "You swore."
"You're getting technical?" The aggression in Goyle's tone hadn't faltered. Not even after such a gruesome battle months ago. Though Draco supposed he didn't have the intelligence to be able to process trauma even if he had any.
"Yes," Draco said, standing, "I am getting technical. You swore. You made an oath with an Unbreakable Vow. I did not."
Goyle sneered at him. "I've always wondered why you backed out of that."
"That's none of your business."
"It bloody well is when you're part of the reason I'm having to endure these bloody ridiculous Ministry meetings."
"You mean because when I was interrogated before a jury, I was found less guilty than you lot? Because I told the truth about what happened that day in the forest?"
"You threw us under the bus, Malfoy," Goyle growled, jabbing a large finger at Draco.
He shook his head. "I didn't say a single word about you. I only told the Ministry about what happened that day in the forest. Only the forest. I didn't say a bloody word about anything else."
"Doesn't matter," Goyle said, "because you're avoiding the real reason you were in the forest in the first place. Why you were in the dirt next to that Mudblood Granger. Perhaps that's where you're meant to be."
Draco clenched his jaw and swallowed the words he almost spat out. Instead, he said, "Watch your tongue."
"You betrayed us." Draco's heart pounded a little faster at the truth in those words, but he refused to look away from Goyle. "Nobody else knows, but I do. I do, Malfoy."
Draco smoothed his expression into one of cool composure and cocked his head. "If you really think I betrayed you, then why haven't you blabbed about it to the others?"
"Because telling them would ruin everything we've planned, and I won't let you ruin this for us a second time. They'd want you dead." Goyle took a breath and shook his head. A little quieter he said, "And because at one point in time, we were friends."
A cold chuckle reverberated through Draco's chest. "Friends?" he raised a brow. "We were never friends, Goyle. I used you to help me get what I wanted."
He regretted that now, but it didn't make the facts of the past any less true. He had used them not only because his father had demanded it, but also because Draco wasn't sure if he actually knew how to have friends. Real ones. He'd never had them before.
He thought about Potter, Weasley, and Granger. They were friends. Real, true friends. No matter what, it seemed they were always there for each other. They confided in one another.
He'd heard that Potter and Weasley had been fighting the majority of their fourth year—had seen them apart more than he ever had in the Great Hall. Yet they remained friends. Brothers. He supposed they worked everything out in the end.
Draco glanced at the floor. He didn't know if he was relieved Weasley hadn't been there when Potter died or if he hated the fact that Weasley hadn't been able to say goodbye. He wasn't sure if Granger really got to say goodbye and she'd been only a few meters from him. It had happened so fast. One moment Potter had been alive and the next…he wasn't.
"You're a bastard," Goyle snarled, though his eyes held a different emotion. Some semblances of sorrow, perhaps.
"Grow up," he snarled right back. Draco registered the words as soon as he'd said them. He sounded like his father and he hated himself for it. How could his father still be influencing him even in death? He rolled his shoulders as if that would shake loose the talon-like grip Lucius had in him.
"Are you that much of a coward, Malfoy? Too cowardly to admit your cowardice?"
"No. I'm intelligent enough to know when some wars aren't worth waging."
He'd been so blinded by his pride and wanting to make his father proud that he hadn't stopped to think about his own morals. Lucius had drilled in him from a young age that Muggles and Mudbloods were inferior to them. Draco heard the same speeches for almost two decades, and instead of questioning the validity of his father's accusations, he'd chosen to believe them.
It wasn't until he started attending Hogwarts did Draco realize his father's views may be flawed. All because of Hermione. She was brilliant in more ways than one, was a powerful witch, and had a fiery spirit that rivaled even the most passionate witch or wizard.
Filthy little Mudblood.
He would regret those words for the rest of his life.
"I won't let all our efforts be for nothing. No thanks to you." Goyle's voice drew Draco's attention back. "Doesn't this world drive you mad?"
Yes. Yes, it did, but not for the same reasons.
Unlike most of the former Death Eaters, the Ministry didn't have weekly check-ins with him, and that's only because of his actions in the Forbidden Forest. The actions that didn't even save Harry in the end. The Ministry had found them "admirable" and "redeeming" enough to keep a wary eye out for Draco instead of going through with a trial or interrogating him weekly with Veritaserum to sniff out the start of a revolt.
"How are the interrogation sessions going?" he said to Goyle, only a little smug in tone.
Goyle smirked. "They ask the same questions every time. It's become quite boring, actually." He sighed and waved a hand. "'Have you had outside contact with anyone previously known to associate with the Dark Lord?' 'Have you personally used magic in Voldemort's name?' 'If we look through the spells cast from your wand, would we find any damning evidence that would indict you of participating in another rise of Death Eaters?' No, no, and no. Always no. I have the questions and answers memorized at this point."
Draco tilted his head and nearly smirked. "That must have been difficult for you."
Goyle scowled. "Prick."
"Attempting another revolt to trample any people without pure blood is stupid. You're lucky—all you lot are lucky that the Ministry was so merciful. You could all be rotting in Azkaban or worse." He swallowed. "The majority of you could be dead."
"I didn't realize you cared about us, Malfoy," Goyle said, his voice low and vicious. "It's your actions that would have ensured our imprisonments or executions." He tapped a finger on the nearest wooden table. "Crabbe died for this cause."
At last, Draco stood from his perch. "No, Crabbe died of his own foolishness."
Goyle stood straighter. "Do you not remember your words you spoke over his grave?"
Yes, of course he did. He'd never forget them. "That's not relevant."
"So he's no longer the courageous hero you painted him to be?"
Draco had focused on the good that day. Had said truths even if they were weak truths. He'd had to. He couldn't have said his true thoughts in front of so many Death Eaters—in front of Crabbe's parents. Draco would have been ridiculed and humiliated if he'd done anything else. That's what life was with them—a mask. It was a Death Eater mask he had to wear in order to protect himself—his true self—from them.
Crabbe had been foolish. He'd conjured a powerful spell and he hadn't had the power or self-control to contain it. He died by his own hand, and he'd almost killed five others in the process.
"What I said at his funeral remains true," Draco said at last, "but it is also true that his death was a waste."
"His death achieved—"
"What did Crabbe achieve with his death?" Draco stared at Goyle, but the bigger boy looked away. "Please, tell me, because every time I relive the memories of that day, I am haunted by an unnecessary death." He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "Crabbe's own magic took his life."
Goyle prickled at that. He straightened and shook his head. "Potter killed him."
"Crabbe killed himself. He lost control of his own spell. In fact, if I remember correctly, it was Granger and Weasley who saved your sorry ass."
"I am not indebted to that Weasel and his Mudblood girlfriend."
Draco shot a glare at Goyle. "Watch your tongue." That word was a spark and it ignited his anger.
"For what?" He could see the gears in Goyle's head turning, and it was a moment before he chuckled softly. "You mean Mudblood?"
Draco tilted his head, jaw clenched. His fingers curled around his wand hidden in his robes. "She saved your life, so I'd suggest you watch your bloody tongue."
He barked a laugh. "I never asked that stupid little Mudblood to—"
Draco had his wand pressed to the soft part of Goyle's jaw before he could finish his sentence. "I dare you," he snarled, muscles shaking from the tension. "I dare you to finish that sentence." He readjusted his grip and pressed the tip of his wand deeper. "Please. Give me a reason."
Goyle's snarl morphed into an expression of disbelief. "What's happened to you? You're standing up for a Mudblood—"
His fist connected with Goyle's cheekbone, the smack of skin against skin like an explosion in the greenhouse. Before Goyle could right himself, Draco landed three more to the outside of his face and temple. Pain spread through his knuckles as Goyle's eye socket fractured beneath his hand on the fourth and final hit.
Goyle slumped against the far wall, a hand cupping the left side of his bloody and swiftly bruising face.
Draco stumbled back, wand falling from his hand. His ragged breaths filled the air and it took a minute for his hazy, rage-filled vision to clear. "I warned you," he breathed. He slicked his hair out of his eyes and adjusted the hood of his robes. "If you ever use that word to describe her again, I won't stop at a broken socket."
He stooped down to pick up Hermione's book, but faster than he thought he'd be capable in his stunted state, Goyle leapt up, grabbed him by his robes, and shoved Draco against the wall. The crash of ceramic breaking echoed in the open space as a potted plant knocked over from the wind of their robes.
Just as Draco had been beating on him only seconds before, now the roles reversed. Goyle's knuckles connected with Draco's face, and with every swing, Draco saw Hermione and heard her screams, felt her touch. He saw the forest floor and the canopy of trees overhead. Suddenly, it was the Dark Lord breaking his bones and kicking him in the face. When his nose broke and the skin above his eyebrow split open, Draco felt the wrath of the Dark Lord and the cruelty of the Cruciatus Curse.
Blood seeped down his philtrum and into his mouth, but Draco did not fight back.
He'd tried. He'd tried to do better that day, yet Potter ended up dead nonetheless.
It was his fault. It was all his fault. He'd betrayed his family and hadn't been accepted into a new one, so he was in exile, roaming between dark and light.
Maybe this was when the darkness would accept him back—take him home.
When Goyle let go, Draco crashed to the cold stone floor, head scraping the wall on the way down as his legs gave out. That jolt of reality tore him from the darkness and back to the brilliant morning sunrise and the onset of an aching, broken face. With a shaky hand, he swiped blood from his nostrils and spat the majority of it onto the stone next to him. The sharp, metallic taste coated his tongue and teeth.
Surrounded by plants with the smell of soil and blood around him made him second guess for a moment whether he really was back in the forest. No, he knew he couldn't be because that onslaught of pain had stopped. The trees in the forest that day had heard his screams for hours. Had heard Hermione's. Every living thing had endured their cries to each other as they attempted to keep the other from breaking.
Draco tucked Hermione's book to his chest, smearing blood on the cover in the process. He should apologize for that.
A rough hand shook him from his daze. Goyle glared at him, his left eye nearly swollen shut and blood running from his split eyebrow. His words were poison as he spat, "Maybe you and Granger should have died in the forest with Noble Potter."
Their panted breaths were the only sound for a few moments as Goyle seemed to fully take in what he'd just said. His expression softened slightly, but he replaced it with a new sneer that hooked the corner of his lips upward.
Draco knew he didn't mean it entirely, but the accusation came from a place of truth, no matter how deep it may be buried. "Maybe I should have," he whispered, staring hard into Goyle's eyes. "And maybe every day I wish it had happened." He didn't know Goyle's expression because Draco didn't tear his gaze from his scuffed boots.
The silence was only broken when a set of footsteps paused at the greenhouse entryway. "Bloody hell, Goyle," Blaise Zabini muttered, "what did you do?"
Draco looked up, but when he made eye contact with Zabini, the latter turned his gaze away.
Instead of answering, Goyle merely adjusted his black and green robes and said, "I have class, and if I'm late or don't show, I'll be punished." He kicked Draco's shoe and then saluted as he turned. "So long."
He mumbled something to Zabini and pulled him along, but before fully turning away, Zabini threw Draco a sympathetic look.
He wasn't sure if he'd ever seen that expression on Zabini's face before. Goyle and Zabini faded down the staircase and Draco was left alone once more. He clutched Hermione's book closer, and it may have been because of the pounding in his head, but for the first time in a while, his father didn't show.