Draco stared at the letter sitting on his desk. The owl had been and gone twenty minutes ago and he still hadn’t opened the stupid thing. It was sitting there, taunting him. There were only two things it could say. Like the toss of a coin, deciding his fate.
“Just like that.” He whispered. Of course, it wasn’t just like that, he knew it wasn’t just like that. The verdict wasn’t particularly random. It had been decided a long time ago, possibly even before he was born. This was just the first time he would know for certain. He reached out with one trembling hand and stopped himself.
He wasn’t going to tremble. And he certainly wasn’t going to cry. He stood abruptly, leaving the letter on his desk in favour of going and finding himself a glass of something strong and preferably alcoholic.
Another ten minutes later he returned with a glass of wine. He drained it and stared at the letter again. It unnerved him. He wasn’t brave, he knew that. He liked to think of it as a survival trait most of the time. Right now it was just frustrating him that he couldn’t seem to touch the damn letter. It wasn’t like it had burned him when he’d taken it from the owl, though it would have been far more dramatic and somehow satisfying if it had.
With a muttered expletive he stood and left again, taking the empty glass with him. He came back with the bottle.
He wasn’t entirely sure how many glasses or how much wine he’d had some time later. He evidently wasn’t even sure how much time had passed. It seemed a waste, perhaps. The letter might carry it’s own limit. Perhaps if he didn’t know the limit then the time wasted wouldn’t matter. Wouldn’t count against him.
He did know it was getting dark outside by the time he finally found the courage, near the middle of the bottle, to touch the envelope. His parents wouldn’t be home for weeks, he knew, so it didn’t really matter what time it was.
It didn’t seem to matter so much anymore that his hand was shaking as he picked up the letter, because everything else seemed a little wobbly too. He could tell himself it was just the alcohol working it’s way through his system. Perhaps he should even enhance the shiver a little, for the look of the thing. Fingers shaking he pulled up the top flap.
And promptly dropped the piece of paper inside. It seemed like a lot of effort to get out of his chair and pick it up really. Not terribly worth it. Maybe he should just let it sit there. It could sit under his chair until time wore it away to nothing but dust. Which wouldn’t happen of course. The house elf would never let anything just sit on the floor, but it was a striking image, all the same.
Finally, another quarter of the way through the bottle he bent down and pulled it towards him, flicking it open before he had time to rationalise a reason not to.
His eyes flicked rapidly over the lines of handwriting, made somewhat illegible by the amount of alcohol he had consumed. Once he finished the letter he went back and read it once more, feeling considerably more sober. This done he put the parchment down and stared blankly into the fire, rapidly finishing the bottle of wine.
When he downed a hangover potion for the morning and crashed into bed the alcohol kept him from thinking and he drifted quietly off to sleep.
The next day Draco refused to look at the letter. He wouldn’t pick it up or even think about it. It was sitting there on his desk, staring accusingly at him when he woke up. He groaned and rolled over, burying his face in the pillow.
When the stare on the back of his neck became too much for him he rolled out of bed. He opened his wardrobe without looking at the letter. Kept his eyes averted as he got dressed and left the room.
The dining room was blessedly dark and cool, if depressingly empty. For the first time all summer he didn’t feel the need to insult the house elf as it put his food in front of him and scurried back into the gloom. He ignored its tiny squeaks and ate while staring moodily at the wall.
He still didn’t look at the letter.
He ventured back into his room to retrieve a book he had been reading and caught a glimpse. He was too far away to read the neat words on the heavy white parchment but they seemed to jump out at him anyway. He ignored them and left for the library.
But after that he resorted to summoning the things he needed.
He kept spotting words from the letter on the pages as he tried to read and after the fourth time his eyes stopped focussing he gave up. His school books offered little distraction. He kept coming across words that somehow connected in his mind.
He finally resorted to walking. Outside the air seemed slightly clearer. The wind whipped the words from his ears and he stayed out until it was too dark for him to see. He skipped dinner in favour of dropping into bed, where the letter floated in front of his eyes with accusing tenacity. He finally slept sometime around midnight and then he dreamed.
He dreamed of the previous summer when he had attended his father’s meetings. He dreamed of the pain.
Dolohov crawling forward as around him murmurs grew. They knew what was coming but not one voice raised in protest. Not one person cried out in sympathy as their comrade writhed on the ground, keening in agony. They were simply grateful they had kept their feet. That they were not the ones who had failed. They were not the ones suffering the Dark Lord’s wrath.
He dreamed of the suffering.
The little girl was sitting in the centre of the circle. She couldn’t be older than eleven. A first year then, excited to be starting at Hogwarts come September. Excited to read about the red train and the big castle. She looked a little like Granger, even with the tears streaming down her face. The woman was already dead.
“This girl.” The Dark Lord hissed, sweeping around the circle as the girl sobbed softly. “This girl thinks she is one of us.” The woman’s blood was slowly staining the girls jeans. “This girl thinks she is a part of our world.” Around the circle the jeering got louder.
“Is she?” The Dark Lord roared. “Is she one of our own?” The Death Eaters howled in response while Draco clung to the shadows, terrified. The girl looked up, her breath catching in her throat.
“Please…” She whispered, her eyes fixed directly on his. “Please…”
“Crucio!” The Dark Lord’s voice was high and cold as he pointed his wand and the girl screamed…
Draco woke up screaming with her. Screaming as if fire ran through his veins. Slowly the pain dissipated and he was left breathing softly and staring blankly into the darkness.
The girl had been real, he knew. He also knew she was dead. He didn’t know her name but he knew she was dead. As dead as the poor muggle woman who had tried to protect her.
He hadn’t known her. He hadn’t cried for her. But she haunted him as surely as if she had been his sister, he had known her all his life or he had killed her himself.
He kicked the tangled and sweat soaked covers away from his legs and rolled out of the bed. For a few long moments he stood panting in the middle of the dark room. The night air was slightly cooler than he was used to but he welcomed it, running fingers through matted hair.
He turned and crawled back across the bed, fumbling for his wand on the bedside table.
“Lumos.” He whispered into the hushed room, then blinked in the sudden light. He sat for a moment, looking around. It was all so different with the huge shadows. Slowly, he got to his feet and went to the desk. He stared at it for what seemed like eternity, then reached out a trembling hand and picked the letter up again.
He ran his eyes over the text, breathing deeply. The words were still there, as neat and irrefutable as they had been the day before.
It couldn’t be real…It wasn’t happening.
He needed to tell someone, to see someone. To know that the letter was real and not just some product of a living nightmare.
So he did what any sensible pureblood boy would do if he needed help at three in the morning. He threw together an outfit as best he could and went to visit his godfather.
Severus Snape woke up as the silent floo alarm went off. It was a recent marketing ploy of floo providers to offer an alarm system, alerting the owner of a house to a floo connection. They were even offering different tones for specific connections to ‘facilitate personal communication procedures’. Severus had sneered in the mans face. Ever since he’d moved out of home he’d been setting various ward and warning spells on his fireplace as well as all the entrances and exits to his house.
Over the years he had developed the spell more and more until there were various alarms. The silent alarms meant one of two things.
Either Lily Potter had risen from the dead and was arriving at his house through floo. Which seemed unlikely to say the least. If Lily’s spirit was raised, while it might seek him out, it probably wouldn’t travel through fire. The dead were notorious for avoiding things like that. Ghosts were really just a superstitious bunch.
The other option seemed far more likely. That Draco Malfoy had just seemed at his house. Of course, considering some of the reasons Draco had visited him at, he rolled over to check, three in the morning and other similar hours, he might soon wish it had been a vengeful spirit.
Despite his misgivings he rolled out of bed and headed for the living room.
He found Draco rifling through his desk in true Slytherin fashion. He leant against the doorway, silently taking in his godsons appearance. The boy’s back was to him but his clothes were obviously chosen on short notice and in the dark. He shifted slightly and the sound alerted Draco, who turned slowly.
“Hey.” Severus raised his eyebrows. While Draco seemed composed, not even ashamed to have been caught rifling through the desk, there were dark circles under his eyes and his greeting was unusually casual.
The relationship here was an abnormal one. The entirety of the school assumed that Severus Snape was proud of Draco and close to his father and therefore awarded him points. In fact, Draco was one of the most disappointing students Snape had ever taught. Not because he was a bad student but because he could be so much better.
It didn’t help that Severus never saw Draco at his best. It was never good report cards or Quidditch trophies that Draco brought to his door step. It was black eyes and broken arms he couldn’t take home. He showed up drunk or to ask for help rectifying something horrible and usually illegal. Never with homework.
Draco fidgeted and Severus gestured to a chair, coming forward into the room but declining to sit down. Draco settled into the seat with a distracted air, pulling a piece of folded and somewhat crumpled parchment from his pocket and holding it lightly in his fingers. Almost as if the contact was distasteful to him. He licked his lips nervously, eyes fixed on his trembling fingers. Suddenly he lifted his head, grey irises strangely shadowed as his gaze fixed on Severus.
“I’m dying.”
Severus watched the ancient, pyjama-ed wizard sip his cocoa.
“And you’re sure about this?” The headmaster’s eyes were grave over the top of the cup and Severus tore his attention away from the light sprinkle of brown powder adorning the white haired top lip.
“I am.” He told the old man. Dumbledore sighed, suddenly looking very old and very tired. For a moment the younger man felt a flash of guilt. The sun was barely approaching the horizon and he had woken one of the most important wizards in the world up to deal with a teenage boy. But remembering the look in Draco’s eyes and the tone of his voice…
“He sounded almost…surprised.” He said, mostly to the headmaster but partly to himself. “All his life Draco Malfoy has been an actor putting on a show. But what we have to ask ourselves is: who is he trying to fool?” The white head nodded once and Dumbledore sighed gustily.
“Very well Severus.” He said, hauling himself to his feet and crossing the study. “Let me attire for the day, as it seems unlikely I will be getting anymore sleep, and we will see what can be done for young master Malfoy.”
Draco leant against the wall moodily. He thought Snape’s response had been shockingly cavalier and being dragged out to visit Cootmaster Dumbledore did not strike him as a terribly productive way to spend his time.
He glared at the stairs constantly moving towards the door. It freaked him out. And he was certain that they were making some kind of sound. Slowly, glancing furtively around, he crept towards them, leaning his ear down.
Yes! There it was, a faint whispering sound. It was subtle but it was there. He grinned to himself and lowered his head even closer, eyes narrowing. Oh yes, it was definitely there.
A strange prickling at the back of his neck alerted Draco to the fact that he was being watched. He straightened slowly and turned to find both Professor Snape and Dumbledore outlined in the doorway. Dumbledore twinkled annoyingly at him over his half-moon spectacles and smiled a little. Snape simply raised an eyebrow at him.
“Headmaster.” He greeted coolly, not deigning to answer the unasked question hanging in the air. The man smiled anyway, that stupid all knowing smile, and stepped forward, taking Draco’s arm and guiding him onto the staircase.
“Severus has told me of your predicament dear boy.” He said and the godforsaken understanding just dripping off his voice made Draco want to rip his arm away and run for a very long time. But he didn’t. He stood there, frozen beside the headmaster on the staircase because he had to know. Had to know if the letter had been right. He had to know if it was true. At the moment it all seemed like some horrible dream. He was so sure that he was going to wake up screaming in his bed any minute now.
And yet…
And that was the real problem wasn’t it. It was why he had gone to see Snape. It was why he’d let Snape convince him that Dumbledore was the person to go to and it was why, right now, he was letting himself be guided through the door of the Hogwarts infirmary.
Madam Pomfrey was already up, bustling about as the sun poked its fingers through the long windows at the end of the room.
“Good morning headmaster.” She greeted, trotting over to where they stood. Dumbledore took a few steps forward, leaving Draco and Snape by the door. Draco was sure this was for his benefit as Snape still seemed unaffected by the news. Despite the thought he could still here every word.
“Poppy.” Dumbledore began, so softly Draco was unconsciously straining to catch each word. “I was wondering if you could recheck this for me?” The nurse took the letter, scanning it quickly.
“Certainly headmaster.” She agreed, her voice considerably louder than Dumbledore’s hushed tones. “But I doubt it will be off. Healer Guarit is one of the best.” Draco felt his heart sink as Dumbledore nodded gravely.
“Even so.” He said, falling back on his usual ambiguous phrasing and glancing over his shoulder to Draco. Pomfrey’s eyes lit on Draco and her eyebrows shot up.
“Very well.” She said, nodding briskly and folding the letter up with neat movements. “I will inform you when I have the results headmaster.” She said. It was an obvious dismissal and Dumbledore withdrew, taking Snape with him. For a moment Draco felt a childish desire to ask for someone to stay. Someone to hold his hand. He immediately stepped on the impulse and met Pomfrey’s eyes squarely.
“Come along young man.” She said, her voice considerably more gentle than he had ever heard it before as she put her hand under his elbow and guided him deeper into the infirmary.
What felt like hours later Draco was seated on one of the multitude of infirmary beds, clothed in the infamous white pyjamas.
Dumbledore and Snape were back and Pomfrey was standing in front of him somewhere explaining something to the two professors. What it was exactly didn’t matter. It was a technicality, and not the kind that could save your life. Not when you only had a year to live.
Snape was looking at him with something strange in his eyes, something that might have been sympathy and Draco finally felt something pierce the numbness. He wasn’t used to numbness and he didn’t like it. But this was anger. This he knew and could deal with. He felt a familiar burning chill settle over his heart and he stood up.
“I’m going home.” He said in a measured tone of voice.
“My boy…” Dumbledore began, reaching out towards him, but Snape stopped the old man in time. Draco let a familiar smirk settle across his features and he nodded at his potions teacher.
“Wise move.” Without another word he stood and made his way to the fireplace, collecting a pinch of floo powder before stepping into the emerald flames and proclaiming.
“Malfoy Manor!”