Omg, I couldn't write it in the notes of the last chapter because I didn't receive the gift until several hours later but a huge THANK YOU to everyone who participated in the beautiful book my best friend gave me with your messages written inside! I can't even express the emotions that ran through me when I received this extremely precious gift, other than a huge thank you, I'm so grateful to have you in my life and that you love my fic so much, I hope you'll still enjoy the chapters I create every day...
Thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday, either here, or on Insta, or on Twitter, or through this magnificent book that brings together all the most beautiful messages of wishes and compliments that I'll cherish for the rest of my life! !
And finally, thank you to my best friend who will recognise himself, whom I love very dearly :) I don't know what I'd do without you, quite literally! Thank you for this beautiful gift full of symbolism!
And now for today's chapter! Given that I've only recently started a job that's taking up a lot of my time and energy, I don't have all the time I'd like to write, so I'm hoping that my advance will be enough for me... I'll keep you posted as the weeks go by!
tw: anxiety attacks, discussions about parents (abandonment/abuse)
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Hermione
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Without knowing exactly why, Hermione felt a deep sense of relief. She had been terrified of running into a snarling Slytherin, a Prefect, or worse, a Professor, but Theodore Nott had never crossed her mind.
"Merlin, you scared me!" she squealed helplessly.
He stopped frowning and his blue eyes narrowed slightly.
"I scared you?" he whispered, scandalised. "I'm not the one breaking into Snape's potions cupboard in the middle of the night!"
Theodore glanced over the shelves behind her, then at her hands holding the vial.
"Essence of Dittany?" he asked quietly.
Hermione was surprised that he could guess the potion so easily.
"Er... Yes."
"Is it for you?"
He looked up at her, a worried wrinkle between his eyebrows hidden by his curly hair.
"No, it's... It's for a friend." Hermione said awkwardly.
"Potter?"
Hermione didn't answer. He could sense her reluctance to admit it because his posture changed drastically: one second he was alert, the next he was leaning against the wall, looking at her with genuine interest.
"Is that for his scar?"
Hermione realised he meant the lightning bolt shaped mark on Harry's forehead.
"What do you care?" she asked in a whisper. "If you're going to report me, do it now, instead of trying to find out why I did it."
It was the second time she had been caught by a Slytherin in this corridor. The first time, she had received a cutting spell to her neck. But this time, her intuition told her she was in no danger. She didn't know Nott, but after hearing all the descriptions and stories Draco had written in his letters this summer, she felt a sense of security that she didn't really understand.
After all, he was a Slytherin. Her many conversations with Draco had taught her that one should always be wary of their changing moods...
"I won't tell on you." Nott said calmly, and without knowing why, Hermione immediately believed him. "I find it surprising, that's all."
"Well, that's because you see me as a Know-It-All, incapable of breaking any rules..."
"Oh, believe me, Granger, I don't see you that way at all." Nott cut in with a mischievous grin. "I haven't seen you like that for a long time. In fact, I'm... Impressed by what you're doing with Umbridge."
He spat out the last name so much that Hermione raised her eyebrows inadvertently.
"I'm not doing anything..." she started, but Nott cut her off again:
"No, I'm not doing anything." he said firmly. "You stand up to her. You say what you think. A Gryffindor quality, because I'd never have the courage to do that, so I admire you. You say out loud what the rest of us think privately."
Hermione was grateful that the torches in the dungeons were out, because she must have blushed.
"Er... thank you." she said, not sure how to react to the compliment. "I didn't know the Slytherins could be against her."
"Unfortunately, I think I'm the only one." Nott sighed as he removed a lock of hair that had settled in front of his eyes. "No one realises that her presence implies..."
"... A total Ministry stranglehold on Hogwarts." Hermione finished in his place, and Nott looked at her in surprise.
"Yes... Exactly." he said after a few seconds of hesitation. "That's exactly right."
Then, he pulled himself away from the wall he'd been leaning against and approached her very slowly, as if he was afraid she might recoil if he got too close.
"Look, Granger, I understand that you don't want to tell me anything, but I just want you to know that I'm not against you." Nott admitted under his breath. "I just wanted you to know that."
Hermione thought the boy was very brave, despite what he said. She had never spoken to him directly, and yet she couldn't help but feel a surge of affection for him. She looked into his blue eyes and found no malice, no guile. He was sincere.
"It's not for the scar on his forehead." Hermione admitted. "It's for... other scars."
Nott frowned, surprised that she would confide in him such a secret.
"Caused by someone?" he asked. "Or self-inflicted?"
Hermione twirled the Essence of Dittany in her fingers for a few seconds, considering how to phrase her answer. She didn't want to give away Harry's secrets, but at the same time, although she couldn't explain it, she trusted Nott. She had the feeling he wanted to help her.
"By someone." she finally whispered. "Someone very bad."
He frowned as he considered the words. Then, in one fluid, quick movement, he pulled his wand from his pocket and pointed it at Snape's shelf, not even looking in the direction he was pointing, and whispered:
"Accio."
Another vial, much larger, flew into her hand. Hermione looked at it for a moment, recognising the sticky yellow liquid inside.
"Murlap's Essence?" she guessed.
Nott smiled again, a mischievous little smile that made the corner of his lip curl up and carve a small dimple in his cheek.
"Exactly. Five points for Gryffindor."
To Hermione's surprise, he handed it to her.
"Let him soak his hand in it for a good hour." he advised. "It'll make him feel better, unlike the Essence of Dittany, and it'll heal faster."
Hermione took the bottle hesitantly.
"I didn't know you were so good at Potions." she confessed.
Nott did not lose his smile, but his eyes clouded a little. There was a moment of silence, and Hermione thought he would not answer her, until his whisper echoed softly against the stone walls of the dungeons:
"Let's just say, Potter isn't the only one with scars."
Hermione didn't know how to react to this painful statement.
Suddenly the door to Snape's office opened and footsteps echoed down the corridor. Hermione's breath caught in her throat for the second time that night. She tried to put the vials in her pocket to hide them, but Nott was quicker. In a heartbeat, he was over to her and snatched them out of her hands, just as Snape emerged from the darkness to face them.
The beam of light from Snape's wand illuminated Hermione's face for a second, and his dark eyes widened slightly at the sight. A sadistic smile curled his lips.
"Miss Granger." he greeted, barely hiding the satisfaction in his voice. "What are you doing in the dungeons at this hour?"
Snape's eyes drifted to the door of his potions cupboard, still wide open, and his smile tightened, giving him a stern face.
"Ah, stealing ingredients as well? Very well... Then, I suppose a month's detention should be enough..."
"Actually, Professor, that was me." Nott interjected, stepping between Snape and Hermione.
He showed him the potion vials and Snape's eyes widened even more. He probably hadn't noticed Nott standing next to her. He let the beam of light pass over Nott and the boy didn't even close his eyes.
"Nott?" called Snape in astonishment. "What are you..."
"Granger caught me, Professor." Nott spoke calmly. "She was doing her prefect rounds and caught me stealing from your restricted supply of potions. She was about to punish me when you arrived."
Snape obviously hadn't expected such a confession, and Hermione even less. Her hands were still clenched, as if she still held the vials between her fingers, and she was looking at Nott in amazement.
Snape studied the boy's face sceptically, but Nott was indecipherable, his chin slightly raised and his eyes blazing.
"What did you take?" asked Snape, in a much more measured tone than he had used when addressing Hermione.
Before he could answer, Snape took the vials from his hands and inspected them.
"Essence of Dittany and filtered solution of Murlap's tentacles..." the professor said half aloud. "Why in Merlin's name would you need that, Nott?"
Snape moved the tip of his wand to illuminate the Slytherin. Hermione saw Nott's Adam's apple creep up his neck as he swallowed. Without looking at Hermione, he said in a clear voice:
"To heal the scars my father kindly gave me, Professor."
Snape and Hermione jumped to their feet as if he had slapped them.
The gravity of his sentence contrasted with the almost mocking tone the boy used, and it was unsettling. Nott did not take his eyes off his teacher. His blue eyes were full of challenge, as if he dared him to answer.
"I see." Snape replied simply.
The way he talked, it sounded like a logical explanation, almost as if Snape didn't doubt for a moment that his father was capable of such a thing. Hermione didn't know the history of the Nott family, but from what little she'd heard, she suspected that his father was just as evil as Draco's. She knew he was a Death Eater, because Harry had told her he was in the graveyard the night Cedric died.
A knot tightened in her stomach as she imagined all the horrors Theodore must have endured with such a violent father.
"You should have told me." Snape grumbled in a relatively soft voice. "I could have helped you, Nott..."
"I don't think so, sir." Nott replied with a shrug.
The Head of Slytherin pursed his lips and looked down. Hermione still hadn't caught her breath since Snape's arrival. Absent-mindedly, Snape weighed the vials in his open hand before holding them out to Nott:
"Take them." he said. "I'll make you some more when you've... finished these."
The boy nodded. He didn't thank him, but Snape wouldn't have expected one anyway. Slytherins rarely expressed gratitude.
Snape turned his wand towards Hermione again, who tried to hide the surprise on her face. She couldn't see Snape very well because of the darkness, but he looked troubled.
"Um, Miss Granger, that will be all." Snape said, as if embarrassed that she had witnessed such a personal exchange. "Go back with your partner and finish your patrol."
Hermione couldn't believe her ears. Not only had Theo managed to save her weeks of punishment, but he was leaving with the precious vials. She let out a breath that caught in her throat.
She thought back to Draco's words a few days ago: "Ingenious, determined, cunning..." Nott had all the qualities of a true Slytherin.
Snape closed the door to his potion storage and muttered the locking spell as Hermione turned on her heels, stunned. She couldn't believe Nott would do such a thing to help her. He hadn't hesitated a second. He hadn't blushed or stammered. He had revealed himself to Snape, just to save her from punishment.
She walked back up the stairs to the dungeons and waited patiently in a dimly lit corner of the Hall. The portraits were asleep around her, the odd snore emanating from every corner of the vast room. Hermione looked at the stairs, wondering if he would come. Maybe he did need those potions, and he wasn't going to give them back to her.
After several minutes, however, she heard muffled footsteps and saw Nott coming up the stairs, his figure emerging from the darkness of the underground. When he saw her, he grinned:
"I was sure you'd be waiting here."
He ducked into the corner where Hermione was hiding and stood in front of her. He was taller than her, but not as tall as Draco. She was surprised at how close he was to her: so close, in fact, that she could smell his scent coming from his shirt: ink, cocoa and a faint hint of cigarette smoke.
"Here." he said, showing her the yellow liquid. "Tell Potter to dip his hand in it."
He thrust the vial into her hands, but Hermione pushed it away:
"No!" she whispered. "Nott, if what you said is true..."
The boy grimaced:
"Please, don't call me that." he pleaded. "Call me Theo."
Hermione almost smiled as she remembered a certain line in a certain letter, but quickly regained her seriousness:
"Theo." she corrected. "If what you said is true, you need it as much as he does."
"I have stocks in my room." he assured her, as if it were a simple conversation over tea. "Don't worry about me, Granger."
"Hermione. If I can call you Theo, you can call me Hermione."
Theo grinned briefly and nodded.
"Granger or Hermione, either way, you must give this potion to Potter." he urged as he handed her the Murtlap Essence again.
"I..." she whispered. "I don't know how to thank you..."
He let out a small laugh that echoed around them.
"Why are you thanking me? I should be thanking you for standing up to Umbridge today. She really is terrible, especially with Potter."
Hermione nodded in agreement, not hiding her amazement that he could share her opinion so fervently. He continued his whispered tirade:
"I think she's afraid he's going to get enough people to believe him. If everyone rallied behind Potter, he'd have no trouble taking on the Ministry. That's probably why she's holding him back so much. To keep him from raising an army or something."
He shrugged vaguely as Hermione's brain clicked.
An army.
Sirius had said that, in the fire. Fudge was terrified of Dumbledore forming an army. He was afraid he could convince enough people to defeat the Ministry.
She'd thought it was a stupid idea, at first. But when put like that, Hermione wondered...
What if that was exactly what had to be done?
"Hey, you there!" a female voice called from behind Theo.
For the third time that evening, Hermione had been caught breaking the rules. Quickly putting the potion back in her pocket, she looked behind Theo, who was blocking her view, ready to confront the patrolling Prefect.
She found herself face to face with Pansy Parkinson, whose features, drawn together in exasperation, froze at the sight of her. A brief expression of surprise animated her eyes before they returned to their usual coldness.
Draco was behind her. When he recognised Hermione, he stopped dead in his tracks. She saw his grey eyes move back and forth between them, as if calculating the distance between Theo and her.
It was then that Hermione realised that the two Prefects on patrol that night were none other than Draco and Pansy Parkinson. Merlin had probably decided to test her tonight.
Theo turned and the hostile expression on Parkinson's face turned to shock. Draco's eyes widened, and Hermione could see the anger on his face.
"Theo?!" Parkinson squealed. "What the fuck are you doing with her?"
"Good evening, Prefect." Theo said cheerfully, as if seeing her was the highlight of his day.
"Answer my question!" chirped Parkinson in a voice so pitched it scratched Hermione's eardrums.
"I'm allowed to be wherever I want, I'll have you know." he said, with the mischievous grin that creased his cheek.
"It's way past curfew..."
"Oh, don't give me that crap, Pans'." Theo exclaimed, laughing. "You've been out past curfew every night since your first year, and you said yourself a week ago that I deserved to be Prefect far more than you did."
"That doesn't answer my question!" said Parkinson, crossing her arms over her chest. "What the fuck are you doing with her in the middle of the night?"
"It's... A secret." Theo replied in a detached voice.
Hermione subtly turned to him to study his face: it was perfectly calm, almost nonchalant, unlike Parkinson and Draco, who had two completely opposite attitudes. Hearing this, Draco frowned and took a few steps closer:
"A secret?" he repeated, his voice much huskier than usual. "What kind of secret?"
"That's the thing about a secret, Draco, I can't tell you." Theo replied cynically. "You've got plenty of secrets, I'm entitled to a few of my own, aren't I?"
"You can't stand to be excluded from one of ours!" Parkinson countered in her shrill voice.
Hermione felt like she was watching a mad game of Quidditch, as if three players were passing the Quaffle too fast for her to see. She had never heard three people talking so fast before. It was obvious they argued a lot like this.
"Let's just say Hermione and I have found... Common ground." Theo said.
Hearing this, Draco's face seemed to drop considerably.
""Hermione?" Since when do you call her by her fucking first name?"
Parkinson turned his dark gaze on Draco, but he didn't seem to notice: his was fixed on Theo, and Hermione could almost see the lightning flashing in his pupils, so full were they of rage. Theo, on the other hand, watched him without batting an eyelid.
"I'm going back to my Common Room." Hermione yelped, embarrassed at the thought of being in the middle of their argument. She walked around Theo, who was standing across from her in a protective position. "Er... Good night, everyone."
She started to take a few steps before Parkinson called out to her in a loud voice:
"Not so fast, Granger! You don't really think you're going to get away with this, do you?"
Hermione stopped and glared at the girl in front of her.
"You're not going to give her detention, Pans'." Theo warned calmly.
"And why's that?" asked Parkinson, her lip curling over her teeth in a menacing grimace.
"Because I'm asking you not to." Theo explained gently. Then, he added in a breath, "Please."
His plea barely echoed in the Hall, like a hiss.
Hermione then witnessed a bizarre scene, as bizarre as Snape's offer to help Theo. She could see the angry expression on Parkinson's face melt away as soon as she heard the word. She sighed and continued walking, as if she had suddenly forgotten the existence of Hermione in front of her.
"Very well, let's go then. I'm tired."
The two boys obeyed and moved to either side of her to follow her into the dungeons. Draco gave Hermione a confused look over his shoulder before disappearing into the depths of the Hogwarts corridors.
Hermione returned to the Common Room, her head filled with more questions than before. The events of the evening had been so fast and absurd that she had to replay them in her mind several times to make sure they were true.
"Ah, there you are, finally!" exclaimed Ron as he saw her enter, clearly relieved. "I thought you'd had trouble with a teacher..."
Oh, you don't know how much, Hermione thought bitterly.
She placed the vial on the table:
"Essence of Murtlap tentacles." she announced. "Apparently it helps heal scars more effectively than Essence of Dittany..."
"Perfect." muttered Ron without looking at the vial. "It's a good thing you're studying Herbology, Mione..."
Hermione gave a quiet "hmm" and filled a bowl with the sticky liquid under Ron's weary gaze. The Common Room had emptied in her absence and Harry still hadn't returned. Hermione sat down at the same table as before, while Ron fell half asleep on it.
That's probably why she's holding him back so much. To keep him from raising an army or something.
Theo was brilliant. He didn't know it, but he'd just found the answer to a problem that had been on her mind ever since she'd heard Umbridge's speech after the Sorting ceremony. A way to save Harry from repeated cuts without having to tell a teacher. A way to benefit from the lessons they no longer had because of the insipid Defence Against the Dark Arts classes. A way to get revenge.
A Slytherin solution.
The painting swung round and Harry entered the Common Room, his complexion grey. He was holding his arm to his chest, wrapped in the scarf Hermione had seen earlier. It was covered in blood.
He sat down in front of them without a word and Hermione handed him the bowl she had prepared for him:
"Here." she said. "Dip your hand in this, it's a filtered solution of Murlap tentacles, it should do you good."
Harry didn't hesitate and dipped his bloody hand into the bowl. As soon as his skin touched the potion, he sucked the air between his teeth and closed his eyes. It seemed to help, just as Theo had predicted. Hermione watched as he became more colourful with each passing second.
Crookshanks meowed at her feet and pulled himself up to curl into a ball on Harry's lap, purring loudly. Harry scratched his ear absently.
"Thank you." he said gratefully.
Through the yellow solution, Hermione could make out the distorted phrase "I must not tell lies" on his hand and gritted her teeth in anger.
"I still think you should complain to someone." Ron said in an anxious voice.
"No." Harry replied categorically, just as Hermione had imagined.
"McGonagall would go mad if she knew..." insisted Ron.
"Yes, I suppose she would." Harry said. "And how long do you think it would take Umbridge to pass a new decree that anyone who complained about the High Inquisitor would be sacked on the spot?"
Ron opened his mouth, but closed it again when he couldn't find anything to argue with.
"That woman is despicable." Hermione said in a quiet voice. " Abominable... We should do something about her."
"I suggest poison." Ron said glumly.
"No... I meant something about her classes, where we learn nothing about how to defend ourselves." Hermione explained. "Actually, I was thinking..."
Ron turned to her expectantly. Hermione tried to formulate what she had prepared in her mind:
"I was thinking that maybe the time has come to... do things ourselves." she announced in a low voice.
"Ourselves'?" Harry repeated suspiciously.
"Yes... learn Defence Against the Dark Arts ourselves." Hermione continued.
"What are you talking about?" growled Ron, who hadn't expected this. "You want to give us extra work? Do you know that Harry and I are behind on our homework again? And it's only the second week!"
"Yes, but this is much more important than homework."
Harry and Ron stared at her with round eyes.
"I didn't know there was anything more important in the whole universe than homework!" said Ron.
"Don't be silly, of course there is." Hermione replied. "It's about preparing us, as Harry said in Umbridge's first class, for what awaits us out there. To make sure we can really defend ourselves. If we don't learn anything for a whole year..."
"We won't get very far on our own." Ron sighed, overwhelmed. "Oh, sure, we can always go to the Library and study curses and try to use them..."
"No, this time I agree, we're past the stage where we can only learn from books." Hermione said firmly. "We need a teacher, a real one, who can show us how to use spells and correct us when we make mistakes."
"If you're thinking of Lupin..." Harry began.
"No, no, I'm not thinking of Lupin." Hermione cut in. "He's too busy with the Order and anyway, we'd only be able to see him on our weekends in Hogsmeade, which wouldn't be enough."
"Then who?" asked Harry, his eyebrows furrowing.
Hermione sighed deeply. Did he have no idea?
"It's obvious, isn't it?" she said. "I want to talk about you, Harry."
There was a small pause, answered only by the crackling of the fireplace. Harry stared at her blankly.
"Me for what?" asked Harry.
"You as a teacher of Defence Against the Dark Arts." Hermione snapped.
As if by reflex, Harry turned to Ron and seemed stunned to see that he was taking Hermione's idea very seriously.
"It's an idea." Ron said at last.
"What's an idea?" said Harry.
"You." Ron replied. "That you become our teacher."
"But..." Harry smiled, as if he expected Fred and George to turn up any minute and tell him it was a prank. "I'm not a teacher, I can't..."
"Harry, you're always the best at Defence Against the Dark Arts." Hermione said.
"Me?" he wondered, smiling even wider. "Of course not, you beat me in every exam..."
"No, I haven't." she replied coldly. "You beat me in the third year, the only year we both took the exam with a teacher who knew what he was talking about. But this isn't about exams Harry, think about what you did instead!"
"What do you mean?"
"You know, I don't really want to have someone that daft as a teacher. after all." Ron said to Hermione with a small mocking smile. He turned to Harry. "Let's see, er... first year, you saved the Philosopher's Stone from You-Know-Who..."
"Just luck." Harry said immediately. "It wasn't my personal skill..."
"Second year." Ron interrupted. "You killed the Basilisk and destroyed Riddle."
"Yes, but if Fawkes hadn't been there..."
"Third year." Ron continued, raising his voice. "You took on a hundred Dementors at once..."
"Again, a stroke of luck, if the Time-Turner hadn't..."
"Last year..." Ron went on, almost shouting now. "You fought You-Know-Who again..."
"Listen to me!" exclaimed Harry, almost angrily. Ron and Hermione chuckled at his modest reaction. "It sounds good when you say it like that, but it was just luck. Half the time I didn't know what I was doing, I hadn't planned anything, I just improvised as best I could and almost always had help..."
Ron chuckled and Hermione smiled tenderly at him.
"Don't stand there smiling like you know everything better than me!" Harry snapped suddenly. "I was there, wasn't I? I know what happened! And if I managed to do all that, it wasn't because I was brilliant at Defence Against the Dark Arts, but because... because I got help at the right time, or because I guessed right... but believe me, I was completely lost, I had no idea what I was doing... STOP LAUGHING!"
He had shouted so loudly that Hermione had gasped and slammed her arm against the table. Harry had stood up. He swung the bowl of Murtlap Essence and it smashed on the floor, spilling the yellowish potion all over the floor. Crookshanks fled under the sofa.
"You don't know what that's like!" shouted Harry at the top of his voice. "None of you have ever had to face him! You think all you have to do is remember a few spells and throw them in his face, like we're in a class? The whole time you're facing him, you know there's nothing between you and death but your... your brain, your guts, whatever. As if you could think normally when you know that in a split second you're going to be killed, or tortured, or see your friends die... They never taught us that at school, what it's like to face something like that... And here you two are, acting like I'm a brave, intelligent boy just because I'm alive, and that Diggory's just an idiot who missed... You don't understand, I could very well have died in his place, that's what would have happened if Voldemort hadn't needed me..."
"We didn't say any of that, mate." Ron defended himself, horrified. "We were never after Diggory, not at all, you've got it all wrong..."
He looked helplessly at Hermione, who was petrified. Seeing Harry scream like that reminded her of Grimmauld Square when he had returned from the Dursley house without hearing from them for a month.
For some time now, Harry had had angry impulses that had the gift of nailing her to the ground. It was so rare to see him so angry... She could hear the sobs threatening to explode in his trembling voice, and the brutal image of Cedric's body falling heavily to the floor flashed behind her eyelids.
"Harry." Hermione said tentatively, not daring to look at him. "You don't understand. That's... that's exactly why we need you... we need to know what it's like... to... to face him... to face... Voldemort."
She dropped his name in one breath, feeling the word burn her throat. Ron let out his usual exclamation and Harry turned his angry gaze on her.
As soon as he met her gaze, he seemed to calm down. He sat down again, still breathing heavily.
"Listen... Think about it." Hermione asked in a small voice. "Please."
Her pleading reminded her of Theo a few minutes earlier, and the way Parkinson's face had instantly relaxed. Harry had the same reaction. All the anger he'd felt evaporated like the Murlap's liquid on the floor.
"Right, I'm off to bed." she announced as she got up, even though she was wide awake and knew full well she wouldn't get any sleep. "Good night."
She climbed up the stairs to the girls' dormitory and heard Ron asking Harry uncomfortably:
"Are you going to bed?"
"Yeah, in a minute while I clear this up." Harry said.
Hermione saw him bend down to the broken pieces of the bowl that littered the floor of the Common Room.
And with a pang in her heart, she realised that Theo had sacrificed a potion for nothing.
.
.
Draco
.
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"So? What the fuck were you doing with Granger?" asked Draco as soon as they reached the dungeons.
"Why do you care?" replied Theo sharply.
"I just want to know, that's all!" Draco grumbled, trying to gauge his voice. "What the hell were you doing with Granger in the middle of the night?!"
"Oh, Draco, grow the fuck up!" cried Theo without looking at him. "Can't you put your shitty prejudices aside for just two minutes?"
Draco was so shocked by this response that he nearly stopped in his tracks. He hadn't even realised that Theo could see his anger in that way, he'd completely forgotten that he was supposed to hate her.
"It's not about that." he felt compelled to murmur. "I just find it surprising."
Then a new fear suddenly settled inside him, paralysing his muscles:
"You've spoken to her before, haven't you?" he asked so brusquely that Pansy turned her head towards him. "You've been seeing each other in secret?"
Theo didn't answer, preferring instead to give the password to the door hidden in the wall of the Common Room. When he opened it, Draco was startled as music assaulted his ears.
"Why is there a party?" asked Theo, surprised. "You weren't even there, Pansy..."
"I'm not the only one who organises parties." she pointed, heading straight for the sofa occupied by Blaise.
Draco followed her without even seeing where he was going. His vision was blurred by the anger that seemed to be burning his retinas. How long had Theo and Granger been talking to each other? How long had they been seeing each other? Since when did he call him by his first name? Why had Granger never told him?
"Ah, at last!" exclaimed Blaise as they arrived. "It's nearly midnight, what took you so long?"
Pansy sat down next to him and took his goblet from his hand to take a sip.
"We found Theo at the end of our round of prefects..." she began.
"Theo?" exclaimed Blaise, who almost had to shout over the music. He turned to the boy who had just settled into his favourite armchair. "What were you doing outside? I thought you were in the dormitory!"
"I was out doing something..." said Theo.
"...with Granger." Pansy finished, before taking another sip of Firewhisky.
"With Granger?!" repeated Blaise, a little too loudly.
Hearing her name sent an unpleasant shiver down Draco's spine.
"Yeah." Theo said with a shrug.
His indifference was so frustrating! Draco wanted to grab him by the collar of his shirt and slam him into the back of his chair to get some answers. He wanted to wipe that mischievous smile off his face and replace it with fear. Through the anger he felt rising dangerously inside him, it was hard to remember that the boy in front of him was his friend. It was Theo.
He clenched his fist as tightly as he could and tried to breathe softly to calm himself, but the waves of rage kept coming at him harder and harder, each one hotter than the last.
"Since when do you hang out with Granger?" asked Blaise, looking half surprised and half amused.
Theo hissed in annoyance between his teeth, not losing the grin that made Draco want to break his jaw.
"I don't hang out with Granger, I just bumped into her in the dungeons." Theo said, rolling his eyes. "She needed something and I just helped her out!"
Hearing this, Draco was stunned. He wondered why Granger had been in the dungeons. Had she been looking for him? Perhaps she was worried that she hadn't seen him in the Library, or on the bench... But that was a rather disproportionate reaction... Why look for him outside his Common Room, where dozens of people could bump into her? And why did she need to see him? Was she just surprised that he hadn't shown up? Or did she have something to tell him? Something urgent?
He was so lost in his own questioning that he almost missed the rest of Theo's sentence, drowned out by the party music:
"...has a lot in common, she and I."
"Really?" replied Blaise, his voice full of sarcasm. "Like what? Your rebellion against Umbridge?"
"Your status as the school's biggest nerd?" continued Pansy with a mocking laugh.
"Your daily subscription to the Library?" Blaise went on.
"Your ridiculous hatred of Divination?" offered Pansy.
"That neither of you know how to comb your hair?" tried Blaise, laughing.
Pansy burst out laughing too, and the sound echoed off the walls of the Common Room, drawing the attention of the dancers around them.
"Shut up." Theo interrupted, not smiling at all. "All I'm saying is that Granger and I are the only ones who realise the danger Umbridge poses to the school..."
Hearing this, Blaise and Pansy let out the same sigh and Theo glared at them.
"You won't be sighing when she's in complete control of Hogwarts!" he warned, pointing a finger at them.
"And what did Granger need your help with?" asked Blaise, either to change the subject or because he was genuinely interested in the answer.
"Something." Theo replied vaguely.
"What?" asked Draco, his tone a little more aggressive than Blaise's.
"Well, if you're going to keep talking about Granger..." Pansy cut in with a scowl. "I'm going to have a drink."
With that, she stood up. Draco was sure that if he looked up at her, he would see pain on her face, but his gaze remained fixed on Theo and his mischievous smile that had returned.
"I can't tell you, it's a secret." he said proudly.
"You have a secret ? With Granger?" asked Blaise, almost impressed.
"I do. And I know she's Muggle-born, and a Gryffindor, and a friend of Potter's, and that I shouldn't be talking to her..." he said, pointing at Draco, who tensed even more against the sofa. "But actually, I've realised that I don't really care about her blood status. I think she's interesting, and I agree with her about a lot of things. So I don't think it's a crime to talk to her, contrary to what you think, Draco."
Draco didn't miss Blaise's confused look in his direction. Striving for a reasonable tone, Draco played nonchalant as best he could.
"I don't care." he said, with difficulty. "It was just... strange to see you with her in the middle of the night, that's all. Aren't you supposed to have a social phobia or something?" he added with an imperceptible grunt.
Theo leaned back in his chair and looked lazily at the dancers crowding around the fireplace. A couple were kissing passionately under the candelabra that projected green light onto their skin. But Draco couldn't focus on anything but Theo. The questions he so desperately wanted to ask him threatened to explode as they burned his tongue. He wanted to know everything they had said to each other, what Granger had thought of him, if Theo felt anything other than admiration for her...
The last question was so painful that he stood up impulsively. Blaise looked at him strangely:
"Where are you going?"
"To get a drink."
Without waiting for an answer, Draco made his way to the drinks table. He hadn't planned to drink at all, but alcohol suddenly seemed a tempting alternative to the torture his own mind was inflicting on him. He poured himself a large glass of cherry mead and downed it in one gulp. He hadn't had a drink since the night Theo had cried over his Muggle book in the dormitory. The burn was so intense that Draco winced unintentionally. Then, he poured himself another and returned to his seat.
Blaise had gotten up to go dancing with a girl and Theo was sitting in his chair with another book in his lap. Draco wondered, for the hundredth time since he had met him, how he could read with such a racket going on. But he soon had an answer: Theo often looked up from his book to watch Pansy in the crowd, as if to check on her.
The questions about Granger kept running through his mind, and every time he imagined Theo with her, or wondered what they might have said to each other before he arrived, Draco took a sip of mead. He finished his glass very quickly. When he went to get a refill, a girl clung to him to dance, but he ruthlessly shoved her away and sat back down on the sofa.
"Blaise looks like he's having fun." Theo commented.
Draco scanned the crowd for his best friend and found him dancing with a blonde girl Draco had never seen before. A little further on, Daphne was making out with a boy younger than them. Draco wondered who had started to make the other jealous.
"Yeah." he said in a voice he didn't even recognise.
Theo turned back to his book and Draco couldn't control the question that came out of his mouth against his will:
"What did she need help with, Granger?"
Fortunately, Theo didn't take his question as an insistence, but still as contempt. He rolled his eyes again.
"Potions." he finally admitted.
Draco had expected many answers, but certainly not this one. An overwhelming, crushing rage gripped him. Potions? His subject? Why had Granger asked Theo for help and not him?
"Draco, look out!" shouted Theo.
Draco looked down at his lap and saw that he'd squeezed the cup too hard: all the mead had spilled everywhere.
"I..."
Pansy returned just then, and her appearance helped distract Theo enough that he didn't question Draco about his angry outburst. She was smoking a half-finished cigarette, removing it from her black mouth to take a sip of her vanilla whisky. Her forehead was dripping with sweat. She practically threw herself onto the green sofa.
"Wow, I haven't danced like this in months!" she exclaimed happily. "Did you see Blaise carry me over his head?"
"Yes, we saw that." Theo said with a fond smile. He pointed with his chin at Daphne, who was leaning against the granite fireplace with the boy still glued to her lips. "Is Daphne trying to make him jealous?"
"I think so, yes, but it's not working too well." Pansy said, pointing at Blaise. He was kissing the blonde Draco had spotted earlier. "He didn't even notice Daphne kissing Simon."
Draco would have liked to be more involved in the discussion, but the anger didn't fade.
Potions, Potions, Potions...
"I'm going to get some fresh air." he muttered as he stood up.
"What? What did you say?" Theo asked loudly.
Draco didn't even bother to answer: he threw his torn cup on the floor and left through the door of the Common Room. He crossed the dungeon corridor, trying not to feel the burning rage coursing through his body. His whole skin felt hot, as if the rage was boiling inside him more and more, but his head was painfully cold.
It didn't take him long to reach the bench, but instead of sitting down, he paced in front of it. He couldn't get the image out of his mind: of Granger in a corner, hidden by Theo's body in front of her. Of her flushed cheeks and her embarrassed expression. Of the way Theo had positioned himself in front of her, as if to protect her from him. As if he was afraid he would hurt her.
The thought rekindled his anger and Draco punched the foot of the bench with all his might to get rid of it, but it did nothing.
At first, he'd thought he'd caught her kissing a boy. It had literally petrified him. All he could do was stare at the boy's back, which was far too close to her. But when the boy had turned and he'd recognised Theo, it was as if every vein in his body had exploded with rage.
Theo.
His best friend Theo.
With Granger.
Helping her with Potions.
That was his role. It was the subject he had managed to defeat her on, she was supposed to talk to him about it. Why had she asked Theo?
He looks a lot more like her than you do, echoed the inner voice in the back of his skull, the one that had a knack for making situations even worse.
The voice was right. Theo and Granger were alike in so many ways, he'd noticed it since their first year. From their academic achievements to their characters, their values, their interests...
"I think she's pretty." Theo had said on the Hogwarts Express in his second year. Draco remembered his own shock that day. How could Theo have found her pretty before him? How could he say that in front of everyone, when Draco still found it hard to admit his own feelings?
When Theo had found out in third year that she was using a Time Turner, Draco had been outraged. He had wanted to report her, just to annoy her. But Theo hadn't let him. He'd said he was "impressed" by her, a word Draco had found completely inappropriate in this context.
When Draco had distorted her mouth with his spell, Theo had been the only one who had been horrified. He'd been the only one who'd confronted Pansy and said he thought it was stupid.
Draco had often wondered if Theo didn't have feelings for Granger. They'd always had a special bond without even talking to each other. They'd always had this strange competition that Draco didn't really understand, and a kind of unspoken mutual respect.
Perhaps Granger had never told him that she saw Theo the same way she saw Draco: in secret, in a place that was theirs alone. Maybe they'd studied together and he'd told her he'd thought she was pretty for a long time and they'd been seeing each other in secret...
Just thinking about it made him kick the bench again. But this time, he must have kicked too hard, because the impact against the metal made him curse between his teeth. He'd obviously just broken his foot.
He sat down on the bench and held his face in his hands to suppress the urge to scream. He could feel his body heating up as thoughts raced through his mind. He imagined Theo kissing Granger, and no matter how hard he tried to push the image away, it remained etched in his skull.
He tried to meditate, but the anger and the alcohol didn't help to clear his mind. The pain in his foot throbbed, but it couldn't make him think of anything else.
"Let's just say Hermione and I have found... Common ground."
He'd called her by her first name.
Suddenly, the anger became too much. It squeezed his heart too tightly, it churned his insides, and small white spots appeared in front of his eyes, blurring his vision. His forehead burned, he couldn't breathe, every breath he took was painful and seemed to tighten his stomach even more. Draco suddenly felt claustrophobic, even though he was standing in the middle of the Hogwarts grounds. He looked around, but couldn't see the horizon in the night. He felt suffocated in this space that was too big, in his thoughts that were too dark.
Then, amid the chaos of his mind, a phrase suddenly stood out.
One night, long before Hogwarts, he'd had a nightmare about his father and had taken refuge at the fountain. Even now, Draco had no idea why Pansy was there in the middle of the night. Probably for the same reason he was. He'd come up to her and pointed to his throat to tell her he couldn't breathe, and Pansy had stood up and looked at him for several seconds, her forehead furrowed in worry.
Then, in a whisper, she had simply advised him:
"Lie down, and look at the stars."
At first Draco hadn't wanted to do it: he thought it was a stupid solution to such a pressing problem. But Pansy had insisted, and he had finally given in. Anxiety had taken control of his head, and he was on the verge of fainting from lack of air. But Pansy had remained perfectly calm, simply pointing to all the stars she could see above their heads:
"There, you see those four stars forming a square? That's the constellation of Pegasus. And just above that is Andromeda, which is particularly bright tonight. And at the top, if you follow Andromeda's star northwards, you can see Cassiopeia, but it's hard to see. It has five stars, can you count them with me? Follow my finger: one, two..."
Draco had never thought that Astronomy could distract him enough to forget his nightmare. But it had worked. Pansy had named every star she could see, and Draco had managed to breathe. The fear had slowly stopped choking him. It was just in his head.
Lie down, and look at the stars.
Draco slid off the bench and landed on his knees on the grass. He lay down, ignoring the pain in his foot, his breathing still ragged. The sky was clear that night. He tried to gather his meagre knowledge of Astronomy, but since he couldn't name any of the stars, he imagined Pansy's voice in his head and made up names instead. For the constellation right in front of him, she would probably say it was the constellation of the Lion Cub, just below that the constellation of Merlin, and the one on the left was probably the constellation of the Key, because it was shaped like a lock.
Draco had no idea what those stars were, but he was surprised to find that his anxiety was diminishing. It was hard to feel suffocated when looking at the infinite expanse of the black sky.
After a while, he was able to breathe.
Then, as the anger slowly dissipated from his pores, he even managed to meditate. He went to his mental library and leafed through the hundreds of books about Theo. Theo reading in his armchair, Theo laughing at the dinner table, Theo sunbathing in Blaise's garden, Theo crying in his bed, Theo losing colour as he read his father's letter, Theo rolling his eyes as he heard Pansy talking about Divination, Theo writing in the Library...
These images managed to make him forget the ones of him kissing Granger.
Draco took a deep breath, using the autumn breeze to wash away his fears. He looked up at the sky for a few more minutes, enjoying the silence. Finally.
After a good hour, he got to his feet, suddenly remembering the pain in his left foot when he put it down. He limped up to the Castle, stifled groans of pain with each step, slowly descended the stairs, then limped to the door of the Common Room. He said the password through clenched teeth, barely noticing Pansy's black hair swaying in the crowd. He headed straight for the dormitory.
The room was half dark, except for the greenish colours of the lake and the beam of light under the bathroom door. Blaise was in the shower and Theo had closed the curtains around his bed.
Draco tiptoed over to Theo's bed (at least one of them) and heard the boy's sleepy breathing.
Theo had not closed the curtains on his four-poster bed completely: there was still a very slight half-opening. Draco peered through. Theo was asleep, half curled up, the covers pulled up to his chin. His mouth was slightly open, letting out soothing, sleepy exhalations. His face had none of the usual furrows or dimples: he was completely relaxed, serene, calm.
Draco couldn't believe it was this boy he was jealous of. This boy who was so innocent, so familiar. He had seen him as an enemy instead of a friend. He'd seen Krum instead of Theo. Panic had overtaken him, wiping out his reason.
The bathroom door opened and Draco moved away from Theo's bed.
"Dray?" called Blaise into the darkness. "Is that you?"
"Yes. Shh, Theo's asleep."
Blaise nodded. He was wearing a T-shirt with the Italian Quidditch team emblem on it and white boxer shorts. He sat down on his bed and gave Draco a funny look as he passed.
"Why is your shirt all green?" he asked in a whisper.
"I was lying on the grass." Draco replied.
Blaise raised an eyebrow but said nothing. He put a few things in his trunk and lay down on his bed.
"Who was that blonde you were kissing earlier?" asked Draco, trying to make conversation.
"Why, Malfoy, are you jealous?" replied Blaise quickly. He couldn't see his face, but Draco could tell from his tone that he was smiling.
Draco might have laughed, if he hadn't spent the evening feeling really jealous.
"Is Pansy still over there?" he asked instead.
"Yeah, with Daphne." Blaise replied.
He was fully lying on his bed now, ready to sleep. Draco could make out the shape of his body in the bed. Blaise had always had a strange habit of stretching out completely when he slept, knocking the covers off the bed every other day.
"Why are you standing in the middle of the room?" asked Blaise suddenly, his voice already drowsy. "Are you drunk or something?"
Draco took a step and suddenly remembered why he had his foot up. He grunted in pain.
"What's wrong with you?" asked Blaise, a hint of concern in his voice.
"I've broken my foot." Draco groaned as he massaged his ankle.
"What?" cried Blaise. "Were you in a fight or something?"
"No, I fell..."
Blaise sighed in exasperation:
"Well, go to Pomfrey then, and stop pissing me off!"
But of course, he stood up anyway and took his wand from his bedside table, pointing it at Draco's foot. He barely had time to exhale before Blaise called out:
"Episkey."
Draco felt a point of heat in the exact spot where he had been hurt, then a freezing cold that quickly dissipated. When he put his foot down again, he felt no pain.
"Thank you." Draco said with a sigh of relief.
He hadn't wanted to go to the hospital wing in the middle of the night. Blaise muttered something Draco didn't hear, put down his wand and closed the curtains on his bed. Draco changed into his pyjamas and lay down in bed to meditate. He could still hear the faint sounds of the party through the stone walls.
He let his mind wander into his memories when he heard a knock at the door. He stepped out of his library and looked at the door, frowning, sure he had imagined it. It was almost 3am.
A few seconds later there was another knock at the door. Draco got up with a grumble, put on a T-shirt and went to open the door.
It was Pansy.
There were traces of mascara on her cheeks, and her lipstick had been smeared. She was clearly drunk: Draco could see the effects of the alcohol on her face even in the dim light: her eyes bloodshot, her face flushed, the sweat beading on her forehead. Her hair was more dishevelled than usual, probably from all the dancing.
For a few seconds they just stared at each other, then Pansy opened her mouth and said in a tiny voice:
"I don't want to sleep alone."
Pansy hadn't slept in his bed since New Year's Eve the year before. It was as if the last time they had sex, they had unwittingly sealed the promise that she would never sleep there again. Draco had gotten used to it, but he had to admit that her presence had always managed to soothe him, even in his sleep. So, he didn't hesitate:
"Come in."
He let her in and closed the door gently so as not to wake Blaise and Theo. He rummaged through his trunk and threw her a T-shirt, which she put on in the bathroom. When she returned, her make-up was gone, but her eyes were as red and puffy as ever.
She lay down in bed, on the left side, just as before. He drew the curtains and Pansy curled up in the duvet. Draco gave her his second pillow and she mumbled "thank you".
"When was the last time you had a good night's sleep?" asked Draco quietly.
He watched Pansy's reaction: a slight frown. She was always surprised when he noticed details about her, even though he knew her by heart. Perhaps even more than himself.
"A long time." she admitted. "What about you?"
"I wake up a lot." he admitted.
"Do you have nightmares?"
"No, not really. Do you?"
"When I sleep alone, I do."
"You know you can always crash here?" Draco asked, turning to her. "You can always come, Pans', if you need to sleep next to someone."
"I'm afraid it would remind me of..."
"I understand." Draco cut in. "But it'll be like before. Like when we slept next to each other. I don't want you to be afraid to come here because you're afraid of how I'll react. I want you to feel safe with me. You can come whenever you want, I would never turn you away."
"Promise?" she asked in an almost pleading tone.
"Promise." Draco replied without the slightest hesitation.
"Even if I take the whole duvet?" she asked with a smile.
Draco smiled back.
"Even if you take the whole duvet." he conceded.
She closed her eyes and Draco did the same, ready to drift off into what he hoped would be a restful sleep after all the little insomnia that had interrupted his nocturnal rhythm of late.
"Why do you smell like mud?" asked Pansy out of the blue.
Even with his eyes closed, Draco could make out her snub nose and inquisitive eyes. He didn't open them and his lip curled into a sad little smile:
"I lay down to look at the stars." he replied simply.
Pansy gasped in surprise. He felt her small, cold hand on his arm.
"Oh." she murmured. "I'm sorry."
And Draco fell asleep, lulled by her voice.
.
.
.
.
When Draco woke up the next morning, Pansy was gone. She'd had to get up before everyone else so that no one would have noticed her presence in Draco's bed, for which he was grateful: he would have felt Blaise's dark stare all day if he'd known.
He found her at breakfast, much fresher and more rested than the day before. She didn't mention where she'd spent the night and was acting exactly as usual.
Blaise read his Daily Prophet, as he did every morning, and handed it to Pansy when he had finished, so that she could read the horoscopes, as he did every morning. Pansy complained, as she did every morning, about the mediocrity of the day's predictions and reminded them several times how much she missed Rita Skeeter, and Theo sighed, as he did every morning.
It was a perfectly ordinary day, but Draco still had that little cruel memory of the day before that would pop into his head at random moments. In Arithmancy, the vision of Theo's body in front of Granger's suddenly appeared and he dropped his quill, staining his entire diagram and earning him a reproach from Vector.
At lunch, instead of his usual observation of Granger in the Great Hall, Draco spent his meal analysing Theo from a different angle. He read his book quietly. His behaviour hadn't changed from the day before. In fact, he was acting exactly as usual, and he never mentioned his "secret" with "Hermione" again. Draco didn't know if that was for the best, or if he would have preferred him to talk about it so that his questions could finally be answered.
In History of Magic class, Draco's mind wandered away from Binns' boring lesson, preferring to imagine the excruciating scenario of Granger and Theo secretly dating. He imagined him like Krum, taking her under the trees or studying with her in the Library. Maybe he would take her to Hogsmeade to buy quills and inkpots...
He Occluded immediately to avoid another anxiety attack.
So it was with excessive impatience that Draco went to the Library that evening. He even skipped dinner and made up a lame excuse with his friends to get there as quickly as possible. Of course, when he arrived, Granger hadn't sat down yet. He waited for her, tapping his foot on the floor without looking at his homework.
She finally arrived half an hour later, her eyes widening briefly when she saw him already seated.
"Did you skip dinner?" she asked imperiously, setting her bag down on the table.
"I wasn't hungry."
She raised her eyebrows, as if that wasn't exactly what she'd done the previous Sunday. She pulled out her Arithmancy stuff and made herself a cinnamon tea, without looking at him.
Since patience was not one of Draco's main qualities, he asked her directly:
"What the hell were you doing with Theo last night?"
Granger didn't seem surprised by the question. She settled calmly in her chair and soaked her tea bag in the hot water for several seconds.
"Didn't you ask him?" she asked in a detached tone.
"Yes, I did. And he told me it was a secret, and he wasn't allowed to say anything, and that it had to do with Potions."
Granger raised an eyebrow.
"Really, he said that?"
"Yes." Draco said dryly, feeling his anger rise. "He wouldn't tell me because he said it was your secret, so I demand that you tell me, because Theo is my best friend and I think I have the right to..."
"You demand?" Granger repeated, smiling as if he'd just told her the funniest joke she'd ever heard. "You demand that I tell you?"
"Yes!"
"Why? I'm allowed not to tell you everything, as far as I know."
Draco clenched and unclenched his fist.
"Not when it concerns my best mate and my favourite subject!" he challenged vehemently.
Granger's laughing eyes dropped slightly as she realised.
"Oh, Draco. Don't tell me that you're actually jealous?"
"No, I'm not!" he shouted forcefully. "I just want to know what the fuck you've been doing with Theo, that's all! How would you react if you saw me lurking in a corner in the dark with Weaslette?"
"Who?" asked Granger, frowning.
"Weaslette!" he repeated, a little too loudly for the Library. "Weasley girl!"
Granger understood abruptly, automatically rolling her eyes.
"You don't even know her name?"
Draco realised then that he really had no idea. He'd got so used to calling her Weaslette in his head that he'd never remembered her real first name. He was so taken aback by the question that he stopped clenching his fist and thought.
"Er... Emily?" he tried.
The stern look on Granger's face told him it was the wrong name.
"Whatever!" he continued. "How would you react then?"
"I don't know, I'd be surprised, no doubt..." Granger began.
"What if you found out I was asking her for advice on Arithmancy?"
"Ginny doesn't do Arithmancy." she replied immediately.
"Ginny, that's it!" he yelled, slapping his hand to his forehead. Of course it was Ginny, he'd heard her name many times before. He concentrated on the conversation again. "In Rune Studies then!"
"She doesn't..."
"I don't care Granger, just imagine!" he growled in exasperation.
Granger closed her mouth and thought for a few seconds. Draco could have sworn he saw red spots forming in the hollow of her neck.
"I wouldn't like that." she admitted, almost embarrassed.
"So? Can you see why I'm a little annoyed?" asked Draco.
"You're not a little annoyed, you're practically screaming in the Library." she pointed out before throwing a silent charm around the table with her wand.
"Listen, Granger." he said seriously as the spell finished surrounding them. "I can accept Weasley. As much as it boggles my mind that you can feel anything for that pathetic boy, I can accept Weasley. I can maybe accept Danny, or even Longbottom, although I find them even more pathetic than Weasley, let's be clear. I have a lot of trouble with Krum, because he's older than you and can't pronounce your first name properly... But Theo, that's too much for me."
As she listened to his tirade, Granger's eyes widened more and more until they were completely wide open, the red marks on her neck more visible than ever.
"Oh, God, Draco, you know there's nothing going on between me and Theo!" she cried, suddenly panicked.
"You were in a corner, in the dark, inches from each other, and he called you Hermione..."
"I've never spoken to him until last night!" cried Granger with a shock that made her eyelids glow. "That was the first time we'd exchanged a word! How could you possibly think there was anything between us?"
Seeing her so unchained, so outraged, Draco felt the relief he had been waiting for since the day before. Suddenly, all the images that had tormented him seemed utterly ridiculous. They faded from his mind and he felt as if he had taken a deep breath of fresh air after holding it for too long. His muscles relaxed instantly and he let out a trickle of air through his teeth, a "thank you" hidden in one breath.
"Okay, good. That's all I wanted to know." he said, his voice much calmer than before.
Granger, on the other hand, was as revolted as ever.
"How... Draco, he's supposed to be your friend! How can you think I'm attracted to him? Don't you know anything about us?"
"And how do I know you're not seeing each other in secret?" he asked with the urge to justify his own unreasonable panic. "He called you Hermione."
"So you don't trust me that much?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
Draco looked at her for a few seconds, surprised by her question. In fact, he had no idea at all. He was in love with her, but he didn't know if he really trusted her. After all, she had never explicitly told him that she considered him as close a friend as Potter and Weasley. She could leave overnight or expose all of Draco's secrets to bring him down. There was nothing holding her to him. In fact, as far as he knew, all those secret meetings could be shared by all the Gryffindors, a way of getting back at him for all the horrors he had done to them.
Seeing that he didn't answer, Granger pursed her lips in annoyance.
"Something needs to be done about this jealousy, Draco. It's not healthy."
He thought vaguely of his broken foot and his distress the night before and said nothing. Granger opened her Arithmancy textbook a little more eagerly than necessary and hurriedly dipped her quill, obviously troubled.
Then, just before writing, she muttered:
"I needed a potion to heal some wounds Harry got recently. I went to steal some Dittany Essence from Snape's storeroom..."
"You did what?" asked Draco, shocked at her confession.
"Oh, come off it, you did the same thing last year!" she squeaked, glaring at him.
"Yes, but I'm not the best student in all of Hogwarts..."
The student in question rolled her eyes, again.
"So I went to Snape's storeroom..." she continued, annoyed. "And Theo surprised me. He asked me why I needed such potions, and I told him it was for Harry. He told me that to treat recent injuries it was better to use Murtlap Essence instead, so he gave it to me."
"Then why did I meet you in the Hall?" asked Draco.
"I'm getting to that!" Granger snapped. "Snape has arrived. He saw the door to his room open and realised I'd tried to steal potions from him, so he wanted to punish me... But Theo took the blame. He snatched the potions out of my hands and pretended that it was he who had stolen them and that I had found them on my prefect patrol. Snape saw nothing of it. He asked me to return to my dormitory, and when Theo escaped, he found me to give me back the Murtlap Essence."
Draco listened to her story without finding the slightest flaw in it. He knew she was telling the truth. He recognised Theo perfectly in the description of these events. But he couldn't admit to her that he had overreacted, so he said bitterly:
""Theo?""
"You asked me to call him that in your letter!" she exclaimed, clearly irritated by his attitude.
"So you two are friends now?" asked Draco, with a hint of contempt he couldn't hide.
"No, he just helped me." Granger said flatly. "And in any case, even if we were friends, you'd have no say in the matter. I'm entitled to be friends with whoever I want, whether you like it or not."
She finished her sentence with a click of her tongue and began to calculate her prediction with the diagram in the textbook.
Despite the anger that continued to roll off his muscles, Draco couldn't help but smile. He loved it when she was like this. Feverish.
He set to work, suddenly much more relaxed. He studied the last chapter of Transfiguration, because he hadn't understood a thing and he absolutely had to manage to make an object Vanish before the next lesson, at the risk of getting another dose of work from McGonagall.
He was reading the magic formula that accompanied the Vanishing spell when a small, frightened voice interrupted his reading:
"Draco...?"
He immediately looked up at Granger, alarmed by her worried tone. She had not written anything on her parchment and seemed agitated. She twirled her quill between her fingers, not daring to look at him:
"Theodore mentioned something yesterday..."
Draco frowned, surprised that this memory could bother her so much that it prevented her from working.
"What?"
"He said that he'd needed Murtlap Essence before..." she said carefully, lost in her memories. And that Harry wasn't the only one with scars. And when Snape asked him why he needed the potions, he said... He said it was to heal the scars his father had given him."
Draco felt a lump suddenly form in his throat.
"Was it true?" Granger asked in a whisper, her eyes full of compassion. "His father really... did that to him?"
"Yes, it's true." Draco said in a voice that he tried to keep steady, but which turned out to be a little shaky.
Even after all these years, Draco could still hear the sound of Theodore's body landing in Blaise's fireplace, covered in blood and soot. He could still see the red gashes along his torso, his arms, his shoulders. He could still smell the blood, so strong he could almost taste the metal on his tongue.
He swallowed, but the lump in his throat didn't go away, it crushed his oesophagus.
"I had no idea..." Granger whispered in shock.
Draco wondered how she could feel so much pity for someone she barely knew.
"His father is a monster." Draco said in a weak voice. "They don't speak to each other anymore. That's why he lives with Blaise."
Granger nodded as she listened to his words, as shaken as ever.
"He was right to cut ties with him." she finally decided in a determined voice.
Draco nodded, though it wasn't exactly the right story, but he wasn't keen on telling Granger all of Theo's secrets. He'd never told anyone he'd been disowned by his family and he knew it was far too intimate a secret to share like that.
"How can a parent do this to their child?" asked Granger, and Draco realised it was a rhetorical question. "It's cruel and purely atrocious. Poor Theodore, he must be suffering terribly."
"I think he's gotten used to it." he said to reassure her. "It's been a long time."
"I don't think anyone ever gets used to the absence of a parent." Granger said wisely. Then she frowned for a second as she remembered something in particular: "Is that what you meant when you told me it was sometimes better to lose your parents than to have them?"
He was surprised that she could quote his own words so accurately. He nodded, his jaw clenching.
"I understand what you mean a little better now." she confessed with a shudder. "And it helps me to be grateful."
"Grateful for what?"
"To have parents who love me." she replied, resting her chocolate eyes on him. "I mean... I tend to see the differences between us these days. More than I used to. They're glad I'm growing at Hogwarts, but as I told you in our letters, there's still this barrier between us. This... misunderstanding. They don't see the world the way I do, at least not anymore... And I can't even show them Hogwarts because they'd only see a pile of ruins, and I can't send them pictures, because Muggle cameras don't work here, and I can only talk to them in letters sent several days apart... Our lives are separated by this witchy barrier that gets a little bigger every year, and they get further and further away from me, but..."
She looked down at the table and Draco thought he saw a tear glistening in the corner of her eye.
"But I know they love me and support me no matter what I do. And I'm sorry that Theodore doesn't have that, or that you don't have that... It must be a terrible feeling, and I feel for you."
Draco let a few seconds of silence pass, unable to say anything. He'd never thought Granger's compassion could do him so much good. He'd always seen compassion as pity and hated it. But this time, Granger's words had the opposite effect: they lifted his spirits, and he didn't even know how much he needed it.
"Thank you, Granger." he said with unexpected sincerity.
She nodded several times, wiping away the small tears that had formed at the corners of her eyes.
"I think I'm a bit emotional." she admitted with a small, trembling laugh. "I haven't slept much lately and I think my emotions are coming out more than usual..."
"Is something bothering you?" asked Draco, noticing the dark circles under her eyes.
"No..."
"Is it because of your fight? With the Weasley twins?" he guessed.
"No, that's sorted..."
"Is it Potter?" he tried.
Granger didn't answer, and he realised he'd hit the nail on the head. It was always so easy to know what she was thinking, it was written all over her face. An open book.
"I'm going to bed, it's late and I can't concentrate." she decided, closing her textbook.
She put her things away and slung her bag over her shoulder, still as thoughtful as ever. He watched her do this and then, just before she left, she turned to him, her eyebrows furrowed, and said:
"You know, Draco, you may not trust me, but I trust you." she said confidently. "If I promise you I won't repeat anything, I won't."
Draco nodded, but before he could answer, she asked in a less sure voice:
"Harry's scars... will you keep that to yourself too?"
"Of course, Granger." he replied without hesitation. "Malfoy's promise."
She nodded, satisfied, then turned on her heels. Draco knew her well enough to know that something was still bothering her. His intuition was confirmed when she hesitantly danced from one foot to the other, then finally turned and approached the table, a worried wrinkle between her eyebrows.
"Um, and, Draco...?"
"Yes, Granger?" he asked, amused that he'd been right.
"Do you have any scars?" she asked, looking everywhere but in his direction.
Draco's smile fell from his face as soon as he realised her insinuation. He swallowed to get rid of the lump that was still in his throat.
"No." he assured her in a whisper. "No, my parents would never do that to me."
He thought Granger would just nod, but to his surprise she sighed, a long sigh of relief that she'd had to hold back ever since she'd heard about Theo's scars.
Draco was taken aback. He'd never thought she could be so concerned about him.
"All right, that's... All right. Good." she stammered, blushing.
She turned and fled quickly through the shelves, not without throwing a "Good night, Draco!" over her shoulder as she went.
And no matter how many times she said it, hearing his first name from her mouth still made him smile in spite of himself.
.
.
.
.
At breakfast the next morning, Ebony brought Draco two letters. The first was from his mother, giving him the latest news from the Manor and promising a box of chocolates for Theo the following week.
The second letter was much shorter, just a piece of parchment with a few words scribbled on it:
I expect you for your private lesson this Thursday at 6pm.
Professor Snape.
The first time he had received this note from his Head of House, Draco had nearly fainted. This time, however, he showed it to his friends without the slightest fear.
"You're still doing that?" asked Blaise in astonishment. "I thought you'd figured out how to Occlude."
"Snape probably wants to see for himself if I can do it. I won't really know until someone attacks me." Draco replied, crumpling up the note and putting it in his pocket.
"Does it hurt?" asked Pansy worriedly.
"No, not really." he replied after a second's thought. "It's uncomfortable, like having a needle poked into your head. And if I Occlude too long, I get a headache. But it's bearable."
Pansy pursed her lips, obviously not very reassured by this answer.
"And when are you going to teach us Occlumency?" asked Blaise, who was opening the Prophet his owl had just brought him.
"Before I can teach you Occlumency, you must learn to meditate." Draco said.
Pansy nodded, but Theo looked up from his porridge in shock:
"Really?! Is that mandatory?"
"Occlumency is the art of knowing how to close your mind, Theodore." Pansy retorted. "You obviously have to know how to meditate."
"But I don't like it!" he complained.
"How do you know? You've never tried it!"
Theo frowned and ate his porridge with less enthusiasm. After a moment, he asked Blaise to his right:
"Any interesting news?"
"No, not really." Blaise said, closing the newspaper. "Nothing about Umbridge, just a small article about Fudge's views on education. As if we give a shit about his views on education..."
Pansy reached for the paper and Theo raised an eyebrow at her:
"Well? I thought you weren't interested in horoscopes any more since Celeste I-don't-know-what wrote them?"
"I'm not, I just want to see what crap she's come up with again today." Pansy said, putting down her honey toast to open the Prophet on the right page.
No sooner had her eyes scanned the first line than she laughed:
"Aries, you will have a fit of giggles today..." she read with a mocking laugh. "Nonsense..."
She continued reading the horoscopes until the first class of the day, Spells. As they waited in front of the class, Pansy read a few predictions, probably expecting everyone to scream, while none of the three understood why these horoscopes were worse than before.
The Gryffindors arrived next to them to go to Transfiguration. Draco had no trouble spotting Granger in the queue. After years of discreet observation, he was getting used to it. Her hair was loose and her uniform was perfectly pressed. She was reading a book as she walked, but Draco couldn't tell if it was a textbook or a novel.
"Sagittarius, smile, life is good..." Pansy read with a sigh. "If I say that to Daphne, she'll probably punch me in the nose."
She closed the paper and handed it to Blaise.
"I miss Rita." she thought in despair. "I wish she'd at least announced her return!"
"She didn't tell anyone she wasn't going to write anymore?" asked Theo, half-interested because he had his nose in a book.
"No, and the Prophet doesn't write about it either." Pansy sighed. "It's never happened, and it's been going on for almost three months!"
The last sentence she'd just uttered clicked in Draco's head.
Without looking at Granger, who was now talking to Weasley in a jerky tone, he asked quietly:
"When exactly did Rita Skeeter stop writing?"
Pansy didn't even think:
"Since Third Task Day, 24th June!" she squealed, offended. "No news since then! Maybe someone threatened her and she was forced to stop writing..."
"Yes... Maybe..." Draco muttered, not even noticing that he was speaking aloud.
His eyes were still glued to Hermione.