Raika

[Sensurround @ShamashAran]

All right, i'm going to throw my hat in the ring, too.

---

Harry had several excellent reasons for being inside the Slytherin girls' washroom after midnight. None of them would have sounded nearly as good if he got caught.

See, Malfoid had stolen his photograph. Technically, according to Malfoid, she had not stolen it; she had "confiscated" it. It was an old Muggle photograph of his parents, taken before he was born. His mother was laughing at something outside the frame while his father looked at her instead of the camera. Malfoid had stared at it for longer than Potter expected. Then she'd put it in her pocket.

"Give that back."

"No."

"Malfoid."

"You shouldn't carry something this important loose in your bag."

"So your solution is stealing it?"

"I'm teaching you a lesson about keeping your things safe."

"Give it back."

"I'll consider it. Later." She grinned that lopsided grin he kept thinking about.

That had been six hours ago. Which explained why Potter was now creeping through the girls' washroom near the Slytherin dorms, wearing his invisibility cloak. He knew Malfoid secretly kept a little silver case in the cabinet beside the sinks. He knew this because Malfoid had once complained at considerable length that someone had moved it.

Potter had called her insane.

Malfoid had informed him that Gryffindors probably stored their belongings in piles on the floor like livestock.

Potter had asked how she knew what his dormitory looked like. She had gone scarlet.

Harry smiled at the memory.

He didn't know what she kept in that case, but he remembered her reaction when it went missing. He could teach her a lesson, too.

He heard someone crying. Harry stopped smiling. This wasn't ordinary crying, it was what Hermionie once called "Ugly crying." Someone was absolutely sobbing. Potter froze. The sound came from around the corner.
He should leave. Every sensible part of him knew this immediately. He was invisible, after midnight, inside a girls' washroom where he absolutely did not belong. Leaving was the only remotely decent option.

"Oh, stop wailing. You're making me depressed. More than usual, I mean."

Potter recognized the voice. Moaning Myrtle. The crying stopped for several seconds, and another voice answered. "Shut up, Myrtle."

Potter's heart stopped. Malfoid. He should absolutely leave. Immediately, if not sooner. He took one silent step backward to find the door, trying as hard as he could to insure the invisibility cloak didn't move and expose him.

"I still don't see what the problem is." Myrtle said.

"You wouldn't."

"Of course I would. I know all about boys."

"You died when you were fourteen." Malfoid said, matter of factly.

"Exactly. I've had decades to study them."

Despite himself, Potter almost laughed. Malfoid did not.

"From the Bathroom? Please. You don't understand."

"Then explain it again." Myrtle said

"I've explained it three times."

"And you've cried four."

"Thank you, Myrtle."

"You're welcome."

Pregnant silence. Harry was afraid to move, in case his footsteps revealed him.

Harry knew he should leave, but was also terrified of accidentally making a noise that could reveal him, so he remained exactly where he was.

Malfoid sniffed. "It's Potter."

Harry's stomach dropped.

"What about him?"

Harry heard a lonely drip from one of the washbasins. It echoed impossibly loud.

Malfoid said something so quietly Potter almost didn't hear it.

"I think I'm in love with him."

Potter forgot how legs worked.

Myrtle made a delighted squeal. "Oh, I KNEW IT!"

"Shhh!"

"You LOVE Harry Potter!" Myrtle said, squealing in delight.

"Myrtle!"

"Malfoid and Potter, sitting in a…"

"If you finish that, I swear I will find out whether ghosts can be exorcised."

Myrtle giggled. Potter leaned against the stone wall, desperately trying to remember how to walk. His heart was pounding so loudly he became genuinely concerned they might hear it.

"You've kissed him, haven't you?"

"No!" Malfoid screamed. Harry's ears rang from the shout.

"You want to."

Malfoid looked directly at Myrtle, and said nothing.
"Ooooooh."

"Myrtle."

"You do!"

"Of course I do!" The words exploded out of her.
When she spoke again, her voice cracked.

"That's the problem."

Potter's smile disappeared.

"I don't understand." Myrtle said.

"No. You wouldn't."

"You keep saying that."

"You don't understand because your parents were Muggles!" Malfoid snapped.

Myrtle went very still. The wounded look on her face was clear. Malfoid saw it.

"Oh, for… No. Myrtle, that isn't what I meant. I said it badly."

Myrtle folded her arms.

"Very badly."

"Yes. Fine. Very badly."

Malfoid took a breath.

"What I mean is... your parents didn't know about any of this. About our world. Our history. Our customs. You couldn't grow up with something they couldn't teach you."

Myrtle's expression softened slightly, although her arms remained folded.

"That doesn't mean there was anything wrong with them." Malfoid added quickly. "Or with you. I don't mean that."

"Then what do you mean?"

"I mean my mother sang wizarding songs to me when I was little. My grandfather taught me our family history before I could properly read. I knew the names of the old families before I knew half the names of the countries in Europe."

Malfoid sniffed.

"I grew up hearing stories about Hogwarts. About Slytherin. About people whose portraits are hanging in my house. There are things we do at Christmas because Malfoids have done them for hundreds of years. There are things Mother owns that belonged to her grandmother, and someday they'll belong to me."

Her voice became quieter. "This isn't some club I joined, Myrtle."

Myrtle unfolded her arms. "It's where I came from." Malfoid said, silently.

"Oh."

"That's what I mean when I say you wouldn't understand. Not because you're..." Malfoid waved her hand helplessly. "Not because your blood is wrong or any of that."

She grimaced.

"I'm trying. Myrtle. I really am. It's hard to change… something you thought your entire life."

"I know."

"And Potter makes it sound so easy. Just decide this tradition is stupid. Decide that one is unfair. Throw this away. Stop believing that. And sometimes he's right, which is the absolutely intolerable part."

Malfoid sniffed again.

"People like Potter think I'm just supposed to decide Father is wrong about everything. That my family is wrong. That everything I've been taught since I could speak is stupid and evil and I'm supposed to throw it away because Potter has those beautiful eyes and stupid hair and smiles at me like an idiot."

Potter instinctively touched his hair.

"And his hair is stupid." Malfoid added bitterly.

Harry frowned.

Myrtle said, "I like his hair."

"Nobody asked you."

"I think it's romantic." She said, dreamily.

"It's ridiculous."

"You touch it."

"I do not." Malfoid said, stubbornly.

"I've seen you."

"When?"

"I float through walls, Dracena"

"That's horrifying."

Myrtle giggled again.

"My family matters to me." Malfoid continued. Something about her voice made Potter straighten.

"My name matters to me. Our history matters. My grandfather used to tell me stories about our family when I was little. About things we've accomplished. Things we've survived. Traditions that are hundreds of years old." Her voice trembled. "Potter hears ‘tradition' and thinks it means 'I hate Granger.'"

Potter looked at the floor.

"Do you?"

"No!"

The answer came immediately.

"I don't know."

Potter frowned.

"I don't hate her. She's irritating and smug and correct about things far too often, but I don't hate her."

"So you're friends now? Great!."

"Shut up."

"Do you think you're better than her?"

Another long silence.

"Father would say yes."

Potter stopped breathing.

"But me? I don't know anymore."

Malfoid's voice had become small.

"I don't know what I think anymore. Do you have any idea how scary that is, Myrtle?"

Myrtle was silent now.

"I know things Potter doesn't." Malfoid continued. "He acts as though everything old is just some stupid rule somebody invented because they were bored. He doesn't understand what it's like to grow up in a magical family. He doesn't know the stories. He doesn't know the customs. He doesn't know why some things matter."

Potter felt an unexpected sting, because she was right. He'd entered their world as a stranger and sometimes treated the parts he disliked as though their age alone made them ridiculous.

Malfoid sniffed.

"But then he asks me why. And I hate him for it." Myrtle said nothing. Potter's heart sank. "Because sometimes I don't have an answer."

His heart rose again.

"Father says something, and I've always believed it because Father said it. Then Potter looks at me with those stupid beautiful eyes and asks, 'Why?'"
A tiny laugh escaped her through the tears. "And sometimes I want to hex him."

"Sometimes?"

"Most of the time."

"Ah."

"And sometimes I want to kiss him until he shuts up."
Potter's entire face turned bright red, and boiled in heat.

Myrtle sighed dreamily. "That's much more romantic."

"It is NOT romantic!"

"Sounds romantic."

"It's horrible!"

Malfoid started crying again, and suddenly Potter didn't find any of this funny.

"I don't want to lose my family." Malfoid sniffled. "I don't want Father to look at me differently. I don't want Mother ashamed of me. I don't want to become some cautionary story they whisper about at Christmas."

Her breathing skipped.

"And I don't want to lose myself. I like being a Malfoid."
She sounded apologetic, lost.

"I like our stupid enormous house. I like Mother's ridiculous formal dinners. I like knowing which fork to use. I like the old songs. I like hearing Grandfather's stories. I like our Christmas traditions. I like knowing my family has been part of this world for hundreds of years. I like knowing how we fit into the world."

Her voice broke. "Why does everyone act as though loving Potter means I'm supposed to hate all of that?"

Potter's chest hurt.

Myrtle, surprisingly, didn't answer immediately. "Does Potter ask you to?"

Malfoid was silent.

"Has he ever asked you to?" Myrtle repeated

"No." Malfoid whispered.

"Then perhaps you're arguing with a ghost"

Malfoid sniffed. "You're funny."

"What i mean is, perhaps you're arguing with something that isn't real. You think you know what's going to happen, but you really don't."

"What?"

"You keep telling me what Potter thinks you have to become." Myrtle said. Her voice had lost its usual theatrical whine. "But have you ever asked him?"
The washbasin faucet dripped somewhere in the background again

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because he'll say something noble and infuriating."
Potter smiled under the cloak.

"And then I'll love him more."

Harry's smile disappeared again. He stood absolutely motionless, afraid to breathe.

Malfoid began crying again, exhausted little sobs
"I've tried not talking to him. "That lasted two days."

"Thirty-seven hours." Myrtle said.

"I remember. "I tried being horrible to him."

"You gave him a Christmas present."

"It was a book."

"You wrapped it."

"Mother says presentation matters."

"You put a little silver ribbon on it."

"I LIKE RIBBONS, MYRTLE."

Potter covered his mouth. Myrtle was laughing, too.
Malfoid was trying not to.

"I stole his photograph." she whispered, shame dripping from her voice.

Potter's eyebrows rose.

"Why?" asked Myrtle.

"I wanted to look at it." Harry's anger evaporated so quickly it embarrassed him.

"It's his parents."

"I know."

"They're dead."

"I know, Myrtle."

"That's rather cruel."

"I KNOW." Malfoid sounded miserable.

"I was going to give it back tomorrow."

"Why did you take it?"

Malfoid was quiet. "Because I wanted to understand him."

Potter's throat tightened.

"He looks like his father. Everyone says so." Another sniff.

"But he looks at people like his mother." Potter's hand dropped from his mouth.

"I noticed it in the photograph."

Malfoid's voice softened.

"She looks at his father the way Potter looks at people when he thinks nobody's watching."

"How?"

"Like they're important."

Potter stared into nothing.

"He does it with Weasley. Granger. Longbottom. I never would have thought of them as important until Harry did."

A pause.

"Sometimes he looks at me that way, too."

Myrtle said, very quietly, "Maybe you are."

Malfoid broke. Harry heard her sob into her sleeves.
"I don't know what to do."

For several moments there was nothing but crying.

"You could tell him." Myrtle said.

"Absolutely not!"

"Why?"

"Because I'd rather die."

"I did that. I don't recommend it."

Despite everything, Malfoid laughed. A broken, watery little laugh.

Potter looked toward the exit. He could leave. Perhaps he should. He needed to. This wasn't meant for him. He'd heard something Malfoid would rather throw herself into the Black Lake than let him hear.

"What if he loves you too?" Myrtle said, as if it was the simplest thing in the world.

Malfoid became completely silent.

"He doesn't."

"How do you know?"

"Because I'm horrible to him."

"Yes."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"And because he thinks I'm a snob."

"You are a snob."

"Myrtle!"

"You are."

"SIGH. Fine."

"And because you insult his friends."

"I've been trying not to."

Potter blinked. He thought back. Malfoid hadn't called Ron "poor" in weeks. She had stopped calling Hermione "the Muggle-born mudblood" months ago. Harry never would have noticed.

"And because." Malfoid continued, "even if he does..."

She couldn't finish.

Myrtle waited.

Malfoid finally whispered:

"What if loving each other isn't enough? WE're so different!"

Potter felt that one, because for the first time that night, she had asked the question he'd been avoiding himself. Attraction was easy. Flirting was easy. Arguing in corridors and pretending not to enjoy it was easy. Even kissing her (something he had spent an increasingly unreasonable amount of time imagining) would be easy. Everything afterward was difficult. It wasn't like the movies.

Their friends.
Their families.
Their houses.
Their ideas about the world.
The parts of Malfoid Harry would have actually wanted her to change.
The parts he slowly realized that she shouldn't have to.
And, perhaps most frighteningly, the possibility that she might ask the same of him.

"Maybe it isn't." Myrtle said.

Malfoid sniffed.

"You're terrible at this."

"I've never had a boyfriend."

"Despite studying boys from the bathroom? Clearly."

"But maybe..."

Myrtle hesitated. "Maybe loving somebody doesn't solve the problem."

Malfoid was silent. Myrtle continued, "Maybe it just makes the problem worth solving."

Potter stared at the stone floor.

For once in her afterlife, Moaning Myrtle had said something astonishingly wise. "That's disgustingly sentimental." Malfoid said.

"I thought it was rather good."

"It was awful."

"You're going to remember it forever."

"I hate you."

"No, you don't."

"No." Malfoid sighed. "I don't."

Potter quietly backed toward the door. He had forgotten entirely about the photograph. He didn't want it back anymore. He had reached the doorway.

"Myrtle?"

"Yes?"

"If you ever tell Potter any of this, I'll deny everything."

"Of course."

"And if he somehow happened to be standing under a cloak of invisibility, in the washroom listening to us?" Myrtle looked right at him. Harry froze.

There was a terrible silence. Malfoid stopped breathing. Potter stopped breathing. Then Myrtle shrieked with laughter. "I'm joking!"

"Myrtle!"

Malfoid threw something. It passed directly through the ghost and shattered against the wall.

Potter slipped through the doorway before his heart could explode. He made it halfway down the corridor before his head felt like it would shatter. Slowly, Harry reached beneath the cloak and touched his crooked tie. For months, he'd been trying to decide whether Malfoid was becoming someone he could love. Despite his anger, earlier. Mabe his anger came from the fact he knew the same things, and refused to face them. He had never seriously considered the other question. He suddenly realized how brave Malfoid was for admitting it to Myrtle.

Could he could love Malfoid without requiring her to stop being Malfoid?

Potter looked back toward the washroom.
"Oh, no." he whispered. This was much worse than he'd thought. He was in love with her, too.

[Devon Eriksen @Devon_Eriksen_]

Now that I've dabbled in this trend a bit, and played around with what's possible, I'm going to put on my *other* Serious Professional Author Hat, and explain why you like her so much.

Draecena, or Draconia, or Drakenia, Malfoy — the "Mal-foid" — is NOT a gender-swapped version of Draco Malfoy. That's why her eyes are green and not grey.

She's a completely different character.

She fits into the socket that Draco fills in the story, but for an author, characters are defined by their wants. Because their wants determine their choices, and their actions, and these determine the ultimate outcome of the story.

Draecina is a different person from Draco, because she wants different things.

Draco, as written, is a simple creature, created for a simple utilitarian role in the story. He wants power and attention. He wants to advance his family's political agenda. He wants to defeat Potter. Rowling may have put a little spin on the ball in the later books, but he never strays too far from this.

Draecina is completely different. She not only wants more things, she wants conflicting things, and she is torn between them.

She is split between duty, love, and pride.

She wants to advance her family's cause and political agenda, to help them, to earn their love and make them proud. And for this, like Draco, she must defeat Harry Potter and everything he represents.

But she is also a teenage girl. And she wants to kiss the most popular boy in the school. The hero, the sports star, the celebrity.

No, she takes that back, she doesn't just want to kiss him. She wants him to kiss her. And more fundamentally, she wants him to yearn for her, as she yearns for him. Look at me, Harry Potter, her soul cries. See me. Do you think I'm beautiful? Please think I'm beautiful. Please want me.

But she cannot say a word of this. Because she also has pride. She cannot, she will not face the humiliation of anyone else knowing how she worships her mortal enemy. No one must ever see the stolen scarf she presses to her face, in the darkness of her bedroom.

But if she is to say nothing, how will he ever know? How will he ever look at her?

This is the rack she is stretched upon, torturing herself inside her head late at night, tossing and turning when she should sleep.

Conflicting wants make the best, deepest, most living characters, and drive the best stories.

Through the alternate set of books (that exist now only as a shared idea in scattered heads) these drive her actions towards Potter himself... not simply opposition and aggression, but a dance of approach and avoidance, of fights and arguments and timid, plausibly deniable bids for something more.

Until, as in the originals, the two are driven to crisis point, a violent confrontation, each desperate not to hurt the other, but also driven to violence by the fear that this other holds no goal but lethal hate.

And Harry, seeking only to defend himself, strikes her down with a magic that does not merely disable but *cuts* with lethal force, tearing into her body, almost killing her, and leaving her with a terrible scar across the smooth, soft, perfect white skin that his eyes used to devour the merest glimpse of.

This is the worst point, the pit, the long dark night of the soul that every author must eventually walk a character into.

Draecina curses herself for a fool. None of it meant anything. He never cared for her. He hates her with every fiber of his being, and why would he feel otherwise? But try as she might, she cannot actually blame him. He overheard her plotting his death. They fought. Is it any wonder that he struck at her with whatever weapon he had to hand? She cannot stop loving him, even though she knows now that it is utterly hopeless.

In her hospital bed, left unable by her injuries even to toss and turn, she stares at the ceiling and weeps in despair.

Harry feels... sick. He fought for the right cause, he knows that. But this doesn't feel like goodness, and it doesn't feel like winning. It feels wrong, like he has destroyed something beautiful. He has left her with terrible scars, and terrible memories, that she will carry for the rest of her life.

More than anything he wants to go to her, to kneel beside her hospital bed and beg her forgiveness. But that is foolish. She hates him. He is the last person she would ever want to see, and she would never, ever forgive him. It's hopeless.

This is the greatest task of the author, to create this terrible moment, and then, somehow, perform some magic to walk these characters to the ending the story demands, where the day, the hero, and the world are all saved by the very thing that started the story to begin with... the love of a woman who would give her life to save his.

Except this time, that love is not an inheritance, for Harry is no longer a child. He is a man now, facing a dark and terrible enemy, and that love is not simply given, nor can it even be earned.

It must be inspired.

And the two lovers must defeat their enemy together... not through a cheap magic trick, nor through a vague and sappy appeal to ill-explained abstraction like "the power of love", but for the very real and concrete reason that heroes have friends and allies, families and lovers, while tyrants have only reluctant and fearful slaves.

And from that first inflection point, the pit of despair, it is difficult to see the second, the moment of triumph.

In all the best stories, the ones that really matter, there is a moment so dark that sometimes we don't want to go on, because how could the ending ever be happy?

But we must go on, because that is the third moment the story demands, the moment we must reach. And it is not Harry, but Draecina, who must give it to us, that happy ending.

Look at me, Harry Potter, she must say. Look at my scars. I will not hide them from you, not anymore, though they make you flinch with guilt and turn away. Look at me. I forgive you, my love, not merely because I love you, but I because I understand in my very soul the impossible trap you were caught in, the conflicting forces that tore you apart inside.

But you must look at me, all of me, and see me as I am, flawed and scarred and imperfect, for I must know if I am still beautiful in your eyes, if you can accept my love and forgiveness as I have accepted yours.

We must bury the anger and bitterness that passed between, and pass on only good to the next generation. Because I have just learned that the next generation is coming very soon now, and I hope we are ready.

It takes a wise character to say this, so she must grow throughout the story from a scared and lonely little girl to a woman who can face the future, even though she is afraid.

This is why you love this character. Because she makes a beloved story into something that is even more about the things that matter, the universal experience of what it feels like to be a human.

And it's why I'm not ashamed, nor embarrassed, to "fix" a billion-dollar success story. Because humans are a pack animal. We hunt together, and build on each other's work. Everything we have achieved as a species, from great stories to great civilizations to rockets to the stars, was built on foundations laid down by others, and will be the foundation for others to build on.

Frodo carries the ring across Middle-Earth, through Mordor, and halfway up the mountain.

And then it's your turn to carry him the rest of the way.

[John Kafka @john_kafka02]

Rkgk

[Breekeki @breekeki]

I Yearn.

[J. Y. Song @Critical_Scribe]

“Honestly, Potter, our first night out in months and you linger at the walls like some decoration.” Draceana huffed through her nose. “It’s unbecoming.”

Harry grabbed her hand and smiled. “It has just been so long since I’ve seen you like this, completely in you elements. I figured I admire it from afar, Mrs. ‘Potter’.”

A faint blush brightened her cheeks. “…I suppose it may be confusing to call you that now.”

“Perish the thought, no one will ever be able to say it like you can.”

Draceana looked back towards the hall, seeing the crowd that mingled together, filled with familiar faces, yet older, and new ones altogether. She was delighted to be able to see them again, but there was still a spark of anxiety that burned in her chest.

She leaned back against Harry. “…I wonder if Lyra is alright.”

Harry pulled her closer. “She is with Ron and Hermione, she couldn’t be more safe.”

“That’s precisely why I ask. Hermione will have enough of a time wrangling that oaf that they may neglect her.”

“If that held any measure of truth, you would have never agreed to leave her with them in the first place.” Harry kissed her cheek. “It will be fine, my love, be at ease.”

“Maybe if my husband was with me more often, I wouldn’t have time for these thoughts.”

“Why, because your heart would be racing too much to think about anything else?”

Her face grew hotter, but she said nothing and pressed her lips into a pout.

Harry raised her hand to his cheek. “I am sorry, my wife. I will never leave your side from now on.” He smiled at her. “Will you forgive me?”

She looked into his eyes, still silent for a while. The light within them was bright, steadfast, and not an ounce of wavering was to be found. How could she ever be truly be mad at those eyes?

Not that she would tell him that, of course.

Draceana sighed. “Perhaps if you take me out for desert after this.”

Harry laughed. “Gladly.” He leaned in and kissed her, letting his lips linger on hers before pulling back with a grin. “Now, lead the way, Potter.”

Scarlet filled her ears. It was all so unfair, but she would have it any other way. She pulled him towards the crowd. “Do try to keep up, Potter.”

[佐伯俊 @Syunsaeki]

ギャルフォイ

[moonlightbro @moonlightbro]

"Affectus remotio" Draconia whispered, gritting her teeth and clenching her wand. Waiting, desperately, for something to happen, for something to change. The stack of books around her growing taller by the hour, with titles such as "Basic Hexes for the Busy and Vexed", and "A Compendium of Common Curses and Their Counter-Actions". She had been at it for hours, late into the night, casting counter-curse after counter-curse on herself. Feeling nothing change but her level of anguish.
She hadn't showered or left the library in two days. Her hair was greasy, and the bags under her eyes were heavy. "Stupid Snape. Stupid potions. Stupid magic. Stupid Potter!" Draconia shouted, knocking over one of her stacks of dusty tomes.
"Shh." Instructed a passing ghost, much to her irritation.
"Stupid ghost." she muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose.
She looked a mess, and smelled even worse. Luckily it was several hours past midnight, and the library was completely empty. She had special permission to be out of bed this late of course, from Snape. "Good luck with your research Miss Malfoid, however, I don't suspect you will find the answers you seek in the library." What did he mean by that? Something about the way he said it bothered her. What does it mean? She looked down at her notes, full of hastily scratched spells and their counter curses, references to books that referenced other books, old anecdotes, and rumors of love hexes.
She pulled her hair again, and slammed her fist on the table. If Snape knew what was wrong with her, why wouldn't he tell her? Is this a test of some sort?
As she thought, she absent-mindedly sketched a lightning bolt in her notes.
Suddenly, she knew. Of course. It was unthinkable, but it was the only explanation. Potter used the imperius curse on her. One of the three unforgivable curses, used to control people like a puppet. Probably when she was sleeping, he snuck in and cast it on her, with a subtle enough command that it would go unnoticed. Of course! A spell that dark and that powerful wouldn't be released by simple counter-curses found in the student library.
Draconia was more relieved than angry. Finally, an explanation. Now she just needed to find Potter, get him to release the curse, and tell her father. Finally, something to get that half-blooded creep expelled.
She took out her silver hairbrush, ran it through her platinum hair, and sighed, ready to return to her dorm and get some much needed sleep.
After returning the books to their proper home, she exited the library quietly, smiling to herself. "I'm probably the first witch in history to be relieved to discover she's under the control of the imperius curse", she mused. The castle was unnerving at night, but it was never quiet. The soft roar of the torches in the corridor, the sleepless ghosts floating around, the soft snoring of the living paintings. Though she was apprehensive, at least she wasn't alone.
Alone. The word echoed in her head.
She heard footsteps around the corner in front of her. They were hurried, but light. Someone trying not to be caught. Before she could think, Draconia dove into an alcove nearby, hiding next to a suit of armor who turned to look at her, seemingly confused. She held up a finger to her mouth to quiet the armor, to which it simply shrugged and returned to it's resting position.
Draconia peeped around the corner and saw a Gryffindor robe and untidy black hair speed by. Harry?! What in Merlin's beard is he doing here?
Is he... looking for her? He must be. She gritted her teeth in anger. That creep is up to no good. Probably sneaking around looking for more ways to torment her. Though she was exhausted beyond measure, and yearned for her bed, she decided to follow him.
Harry was going somewhere she had never been before, ducking through hallways and secret doorways. Behind paintings and through dark corridors. Never once did he turn and notice her. How did this oblivious fool manage to cast such a high-level dark curse on her?
Finally, after squeezing into a dark and dusty room, Harry stopped. Draconia ducked down, peeking around a dusty sheet hanging over an abandoned globe to look at him from behind.
He was just standing there, staring at himself in a mirror. What? She continued watching him for minutes, waiting for him to do something, but he just... stood there. Staring at himself.
Draconia couldn't hold it in anymore, and she started laughing.
Harry whipped his head around, wand in hand.
"Malfoid?! What are you doing here? Did you follow me?"
"Honestly Potter, sneaking off to stare at yourself in the mirror? Such vanity!"
"I wasn't... that's not..." Harry stammered, looking away from her shyly.
"That's pathetic, even for you." Draconia giggled, her hair falling forward as she clutched her stomach.
"It's no ordinary mirror, Malfoid," Harry shot back, "It... well... come take a look."
"Sure", she laughed, approaching him. "And what exactly am I supposed to be seeing?"
"What do you mean? Just look in the mirror."
"I am, I don't see anything unusual."
"It's supposed to show you your heart's greatest desire. It's called the Mirror of Erised. Dumbledore told me about it." Harry said, his face turning red.
"Well it seems your mirror is broken, Potter." Draconia giggled, "Because I only see you and me."

[space @S_16135]

#malfoid #malfoy

Neville Longbottom had begun saying something as Dracaena was quickly whisked away by her mother, almost catatonic, she numbly followed as her family slunk away from the standoff. Laughter bubbling up from the crowd of death eaters, she glanced back only for a moment.

In her haze she saw a glint of a blade as Neville drew the sword of gryffindor against Voldemort, some of the death eaters flinched, even the dark lord took pause. It was then, her heart soared.

Harry rolled out of Hagrid's arms and fired off the blasting curse towards the snake at Voldemort's side. The spell ricocheted off her scales and blew away a few of the death eaters. Rage boiling over, Voldemort let off a series of blasts at Harry as he ran for cover, firing his own volley spells back.

As with herself, life had been breathed back into Hogwarts, and the second wizarding war had finally bared it's ugly fangs.

As the Malfoys hurried away from the erupting battle Narcissa had to fight to drag her daughter along. Dracaena could hardly take her eyes off of Harry as she traced him along the battlefield; the school was a bloodbath, she had watched classmates and housemates alike vanish before her eyes.

"I had potions with that girl."

"Crabbe said that was his best mate from home"

"Goyle was going to ask her to the next Yule ball"

"She was my sparring partner in Defense against the Dark Arts"

One by one, both student and death eater alike loosed those ugly green bolts of magic-if one could even call it such-upon each other. Professors who once upheld the standards and the rulings against cruel magic, let slip the words "Avada Kedavra" all too easily.

She watched in horror as Harry disapparated right as a Crucio flew towards some poor Hufflepuff.

"Come now Dracaena, Hurry!"

Narcissa urged her daughter forward, but she would not move. Her eyes remained fixed on him.

"I'm not going"

"What?" Her parents barely caught it, her voice no more than a whisper.

"I'm not going, I have to go to to him."

"To HIM?" Lucius, her father, was beside himself with anger.

Her mother kept silent while he raged on, "That filthy scheming lowborn! The enemy of the dark lord!"

"Harry is not-" she raised her voice back at him, her own emotions boiling over.

"SILENCE!" He boomed, "I did not realize I had raised such a fool! I might as well kill you myself!"

It happend fast. Just on the edge of her perception, she saw her own father motion to draw his wand. Dracaena knew he was not one for hyperbole, and that in the next moments the killing curse would be flying at her, so she began to draw her own.

Lucius' wand had not cleared his cloak, as she fired at him. He hesitated, though imperceptible, for the name he heard was alien, a spell known only to three.

Dracaena's body ached at the memory, the tears welled up as she roared,

"Sectumsempra"

[3/naptime before I go for the next nightshift, also I will draw and finish that first drawing]

[space @S_16135]

Numbered among the death eaters were her parents; many moons ago her wretched father had given his life, and in turn his family to the dark lord. Dracaena was merely a child when she received the mark, a burden she would have to keep secret even from those she loved.

Narcissa beckoned her to come. Her voice was icy, grating, void of any warmth.

The words "Come, Dracaena" sliced the silence that blanketed the space again.

All eyes were on her, daggers, from every direction. The world came into view again, Dracaena was surrounded on all sides by people who could not care less whether she lived or died this day. Harry would have cared, he would have fought for her, and in the end, she was sure he would have died for her. And die he did. Harry was gone, and so she went.

Shakily she made her way across the courtyard. Each step felt impossible, the current situation pressed upon her like a weight. Then Voldemort moved in close, blocking her path. She stood in stunned silence as he wrapped his arms around her.

"Well done, Dracaena. Well done"

Bile crept up as she felt a wave of nausea wash over her. This, thing, which she deigned to call a man, had taken everything from her. As they stood there locked in an awkward embrace, mere feet away, lay her heart. Folded over in the arms of a half-giant, you would think he was only sleeping. Dracaena trembled, weeping silently for she hadn't the strength to scream.

[2/I was on lunch break sorry guys, be back soon]

#malfoid #malfoy

[Zerochroma 💜🤖 @zer0chroma]

[There’s been too many cute and wholesome fics, so here’s some angst.]

A few days before the match against Ravenclaw, Harry finds himself walking down to dinner alone. Ron had made it only halfway down the spiral staircase from the boys’ dormitory before turning and bolting for the nearest lavatory. Hermione had departed almost as abruptly, clutching her Arithmancy essay and explaining that Professor Vector had to see a correction before she marked it.

She had asked whether he would go straight to the Great Hall. He had said he would, and at the time he had more or less meant it. Then the folded parchment in his pocket begins to occupy his thoughts before he reaches the first staircase.

It will only take a minute to check. That’s what he generally tells himself, although a minute has a way of becoming twenty when Malfoy is involved.

It has become a habit that Harry prefers to call it an investigation, though Hermione had pointedly referred to it as an obsession.

Whatever it is, Harry finds his hand slipping beneath his robes almost as soon as he turns down the next corridor. He withdraws the Marauder’s Map, unfolding it as he does. He taps it with his wand and speaks the familiar words under his breath.

His eyes are seeking one name in particular. Dracona Malfoy is not there. Crabbe and Goyle are easy enough to locate, lumbering together towards dinner, but Dracona’s name appears nowhere near them. There’s nothing particularly unusual about failing to find her and the map has been frustrating him for weeks. Nevertheless, the familiar irritation tightens under his ribs. Under that irritation, he can’t stop the small undercurrent of worry.

Harry tells himself, as he always does, that this is because Malfoy is up to something.

That is the only reason.

It has nothing whatsoever to do with how he immediately notices whenever she’s absent from meals, or how easily he can pick her white-blond head out of the Slytherin table from halfway across the Great Hall.

It certainly has nothing to do with the uncomfortable, inexplicable twist low in his stomach whenever he catches sight of her looking thinner than she had been at the beginning of the year, her once immaculate appearance increasingly frayed around the edges.

Those are details relevant to the investigation and nothing more.

Harry is just about to fold the map when his gaze finally catches upon a familiar name one floor below.

Dracona Malfoy

There she is. She is standing motionless inside a bathroom, and another name hovers near her, that of Moaning Myrtle. He descends the marble staircase two steps at a time, crosses the landing below, and makes his way along the passage toward the bathroom where he had seen Malfoy’s dot.

Only then does he properly notice the sign on the door, and his hand stops short of the handle. Following Malfoy into the girls' bathroom is the sort of thing Hermione would have a great deal to say about, and none of it would be favourable. On top of that, Harry can already imagine how it would sound if Malfoy told the story first.

For a moment he considers just waiting in the corridor, but first he leans forward, putting his ear almost against the door. Inside he can hear running water, faint but steady, followed by a sound that makes him stop thinking about explanations altogether.

At first he mistook it for Myrtle. The ghost’s usual complaints often rise and fall in much the same way. This sound is lower, caught painfully behind someone’s teeth, and interrupted by a breath drawn too quickly to fill the lungs. He presses his ear completely to the wood and hears Myrtle speaking in a voice softer than any he’s heard from her before.

“Don’t do that to yourself.” There’s a small, watery movement on the other side, and Myrtle continues, “Tell me what’s wrong. You can tell me, you know. I can help if you’ll only tell me.”

Harry eases the handle down. He slips just far enough inside to see the sinks, and stops with his fingers still curled around the handle. Malfoy stands with her back to him, leaning so heavily over one basin that her shoulders seem to be holding up the rest of her body.

Her robes hang crookedly from her shoulders. Beneath them her white shirt is creased and the green-and-silver knot of her tie is askew. Her hair, usually so carefully arranged, has come loose in tangled lengths.

Her hands grip opposite edges of the sink with such force that the knuckles look almost as white as the porcelain. Water runs beneath her bowed head, washing past a stain near the plughole, and every few seconds her arms tremble.

“I can’t do it,” she says. The words come out broken, barely louder than the tap, and she swallows before trying again. “I can’t. It won’t work. I’ve tried everything, and it still won’t-”

Her breath catches, cutting the sentence apart, and Harry feels his fingers tighten on the door. Malfoy is crying. He takes one silent step farther into the room and finally sees her reflection.

Tears stream down her pale cheeks and drip from her chin into the grimy basin. Black mascara has run beneath her eyes, streaking downward in thin, messy trails. Her silver eyes are swollen, and every few seconds she clenches her teeth as though desperately attempting to regain control.

Myrtle drifts out from one of the cubicles, her translucent spectacles catching a dull reflection from the lamps.

“Then don’t,” she offers, with the earnestness of someone who had discovered a perfectly simple solution. “Whatever it is, just don’t do it.”

Malfoy gives a laugh so short and broken that Harry wishes she hadn't tried.

“I don't want to do it.” She says it with a frightened emphasis, as if admitting that much is somehow worse than admitting failure. Her head bows lower, hiding her face from the mirror. “I don't want to, Myrtle. I don't want any of it.”

“Then tell someone,” Myrtle says, “There must be somebody.”

A single question bursts from Dracona with such bitterness that Myrtle recoils slightly.

“Who?”

Dracona lowers her head even further, and her hair spills forward over both shoulders.

“Who am I supposed to tell?” she whispers. “My mother? She already knows enough to be terrified every time an owl arrives. My father?”

Her fingers flex against the sink. “He’s in Azkaban because he failed. That’s the whole reason this is happening. I’m supposed to fix what he ruined.”

Harry’s heartbeat changes and he stands perfectly still.

Dracona continues before she can fully process what she had said.

“I thought I could do it,” she whispers. “I thought I had to. Everyone kept looking at me like I should be proud, like this was some great honor, and I pretended it was because what else was I supposed to do?”

Her voice cracks, and another sob escapes despite her effort to swallow it.

“I thought there would be another way,” Dracona whispers. “I kept thinking if I could just make it work, nobody else would have to be involved. But it won’t work, and if I fail-”

Her shoulders begin shaking again.

Myrtle moves closer. “What happens if you fail?”

Dracona stares down into the basin. Her reflection trembles across the thin layer of water beneath the tap.

“He kills me.”

Harry stops breathing.

“He kills my mother,” she continues. “And maybe Father, if he ever gets out. He said he would.”

Her mouth twists, fighting another sob. “He said this was my chance to prove that the Malfoy’s are still useful.”

Harry knows who she means. She doesn’t need to say a name. A strange sensation spreads through his chest, part horror, part vindication, part something he has no name for. He had been right. Malfoy is involved with Voldemort.

He should feel triumphant. Harry had spent months thinking of Malfoy as a willing conspirator, somebody delighted to prove herself worthy of joining the Death Eaters, and now he had proof. Yet the girl standing before him looks as though the weight of the task is crushing her piece by piece.

Myrtle says something Harry doesn’t catch. Dracona shakes her head, her hair brushing the wet basin, and the movement seems to exhaust her. When she speaks next, the effort has gone out of her voice, leaving it small and horribly matter-of-fact. “I'm on my own. Whatever happens, I'm on my own.”

Dracona draws a long, unsteady breath and lifts her head. Her gaze moves towards her own reflection, stops, and fixes on the dark-haired figure visible over her shoulder.

In the faded mirror above the sink, silver meets green.

Her eyes widen until the grey irises seem almost lost within them. The color drains from her already pale face, and her lips part soundlessly. Harry has never seen anyone look so utterly exposed. Black streaks from her ruined mascara mark both cheeks beneath those enormous, despairing eyes, her hair hung wild around her shoulders, and the haughty mask she had worn for as long as Harry has known her simply does not exist.

For one suspended moment, they simply stare at one another.

Harry does not see the girl who had mocked Ron’s family, laughed at Hermione’s blood status, sneered at Hagrid or spent six years making herself one of the most infuriating people Harry had ever met.

He sees a terrified girl backed into a corner and believing she’s completely alone with no escape.

And Harry, without understanding why, has the overwhelming urge to tell her that she’s wrong.

Dracona’s expression empties with shock before something harsher rushes in to cover it, and he sees the moment she understands that he had heard her.

“Malfoy,” he begins, lifting his free hand a little. “I wasn't-”

She turns so sharply that her hair whips across her cheek, while her hand swiftly reaches into her robes. Harry knows that movement well enough for his own body to answer it before his mind catches up. His wand is in his fingers as she spins away from the mirror.

Her wand is in her hand, black against her fingers, and the look she gives him makes the rest of his explanation die in his throat. Anger tightens her mouth, but it arrives too late to hide everything else. Behind it is the same naked alarm he had seen in the mirror, now directed entirely at him.

“Get out!” Her voice cracks on the demand, and Harry sees her eyes flick to his raised wand.

He has time to say, “Wait, just stop-” before the black wand in her hand snaps towards him and a jet of light strikes the lamp beside the door, which shatters in a spray of glass and sparks.

Harry flings himself sideways as glass and metal scatter across the doorway, one hot fragment catching his sleeve before dropping away. He lands badly on his shoulder and rolls, bringing his wand up out of instinct.

Levicorpus, he thinks, aiming at the shape of her through the sudden dimness. He just needs her to stop, he just needs a moment to speak with her.

Dracona brings up a shield at the last possible instant, and the spell ricochets away into the ceiling, knocking loose a shower of dust and plaster.

Harry scrambles behind the nearest bathroom stall just as another curse strikes where his head had been a moment earlier.

The rubbish bin explodes.

Metal clangs across the tiles as scraps of paper, damp rubbish, and shattered pieces of the container scatter through the room. The blast leaves Harry’s ears ringing, and before he can recover, Myrtle’s shrill voice rises over everything.

“No! Stop it! Stop fighting!” She swoops between the stalls and sinks, hands pressed against the sides of her head. “Stop! STOP! You’ll destroy everything!”

Dracona barely seems to hear her. Her face has transformed completely.

The crying girl Harry had watched in the mirror has vanished beneath something wild and defensive. Harry knows Malfoy’s sneer. He knows the slow, superior smile she uses whenever she thinks she has found some new way to irritate him. He knows the gleam in her eyes when she is enjoying herself.

None of that is present now. She looks hunted.

“Expelliarmus!” Harry shouts.

Dracona twists aside and the spell clips the edge of a sink, blowing a porcelain chunk from it.

“Impedimenta!”

Harry throws himself behind a cubicle partition just in time to dodge.

“Malfoy!” He shouts, wiping his lenses with his sleeve as he crouches behind the partition. “Just listen to me!”

“Why?” Dracona screams. “So you can run to Dumbledore? So you can tell Weasley and Granger?”

Harry tries to reason with her. “I haven’t told anyone!”

“You will!” She snaps back.

“You don’t know that!” He says.

“I know you!”

The answer strikes Harry with surprising force.

Dracona appears around the end of the cubicles.

Her wand is raised, but her hand trembles so badly that its tip shakes.

“You’ve spent six years hating me,” she says, her voice cracking. “You’ve spent this entire year following me. You wanted proof. Congratulations, Potter. You were right.”

Harry pushes himself upright. “I didn’t know-”

“You never know anything,” Dracona says through gritted teeth.

Harry lowers his wand slightly motioning at the surroundings. “You think I wanted to find you like this?”

Something changes in her face. “Don’t.”

Harry stops. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t look at me like that.”

He stares at her, slight confusion leaking into his expression. “Like what?”

Her face contorts with rage as she yells, “Like you pity me!”

Harry opens his mouth to protest, but she cuts him off immediately.

“Liar! Stupefy!” She screams with a force that scrapes her voice raw.

Harry jerks his wand across his body, deflecting the spell with a motion that sends a painful jolt through his wrist. The red flash hurtles towards the stalls, passes through Myrtle’s drifting shoulder, and shatters a cistern behind her. Porcelain flies in every direction, and water bursts out in a rush that strikes the floor and spreads beneath the stalls. Harry staggers as water surged around his shoes, carrying shards of debris along with it.

“STOP!” Myrtle screams. “STOP IT! STOP IT!”

Dracona fires another spell, but Harry smoothly blocks it. Blue light flashes against red, rebounding into one of the mirrors and cracking it from corner to corner.

Within seconds the bathroom becomes bedlam.

“Expelliarmus!”

Dracona blocks.

“Impedimenta!”

Harry twists away.

“Petrificus Totalus!”

“Protego!”

Magic bursts across the bathroom in violent flashes, reflected a dozen times in the surviving mirrors. Harry ducks beneath a curse that carves a smoking mark through a cubicle door, then sends another disarming charm toward Dracona that she knocks aside with a frantic sweep of her wand.

Their duel has none of the rhythm of practice. There are no measured attacks, no calculated counters.

Water streams from the ruined cistern and broken plumbing. Broken glass glitters beneath the shallow flood. Myrtle flies overhead in frantic circles, wailing at both of them while Harry and Dracona exchange spells through the chaos.

As Harry dodges around another spell, his heel lands on slick tile and his foot goes out from beneath him. Pain jolts through his back as he strikes the floor, and his wand nearly slips from his hand.

He looks up and finds Dracona standing a few paces away, her wand raised, the broken cistern still pouring behind her. Her robes have been soaked, and a wet strand of hair lays across her mouth, but she seems unaware of either.

There is none of her familiar satisfaction in having gained the advantage. Harry had seen Malfoy look pleased at his expense often enough to know the expression by heart, and this is something else entirely. Her silver eyes are wide, her breathing ragged, and terror has pulled every feature taut beneath the anger.

“Cruci-” she begins. The syllables scrape out of her, driven by panic and the need to make him stop looking, stop asking, stop standing so close to everything she can’t bear to have discovered. Her grip tightens, and she sees him flinch beneath the wand she has pointed at him. For that fraction of a second, she can no longer pretend he’s merely Potter, merely the enemy whose name gave her permission to do what she’s about to do.

What am I doing?

The thought strikes with such sudden clarity that her breath stalls. Harry is on the floor, one hand braced in the water, looking up at her through glasses that have slipped crookedly across his face. A face she knows far better than she had ever allowed herself to explain. The final syllables catch in her throat, and her wand hand falters.

Harry does not see the hesitation. He hears the beginning of the curse, and his body answers before fear can become anything as deliberate as a choice. There is no plan or conscious decision. Only the memory of cramped handwriting in the margin of an old Potions book.

For enemies.

“SECTUMSEMPRA!” he bellows. His arm sweeps upwards in a wild, desperate movement, the tip of his wand cutting across the space between them.

Dracona’s body jerks as though something has struck her across the chest, and a scream tears out of her with a violence that makes Harry’s own breath stop. Sudden red lines begin to appear from under her white shirt. She jerks backwards, and blood strikes the sink behind her in a scattered spray. A cut appears beneath one silver eye, sharp enough that Harry sees it form before he understands what he was seeing. Her free hand flies towards her chest and the wand in her right hand dips towards the floor.

Blood strikes the pale tiles beneath her, her knees give way, and she collapses into the water with an impossibly loud splash. The black wand falls from her hand and rolls away beneath a wash of pink, while her hair spreads around her head in pale, tangled lengths. For an instant her fingers still move, closing weakly against the floor, and then the water around her begins turning red.

Harry can only stare. His own arm is still raised, his wand pointing at the place where she had stood, and some part of his mind remains stupidly fixed on the expectation that she will get up. Her mouth opens instead around a desperate breath, and blood runs from the wound beneath her eye into the hair beside her face.

“No,” Harry says. It comes out as little more than air, and he pushes himself to his feet so quickly that he slips again, catching the edge of a basin before he falls. “No, Malfoy- I didn’t-”

He lurches towards her, splashing through water and broken porcelain, and drops to his knees hard enough that the impact ought to have hurt. He feels nothing beyond the sickening shock of reaching her and finding the blood warm against his hands. It has soaked the front of her shirt, stained the loosened green-and-silver tie, and spread beneath the edge of her robe. He presses his palm against the worst of it, then shifts it because another place is bleeding, then realises there is no position in which his hands can cover everything.

“I didn’t know,” he says. The words are too small, absurdly useless beside the wounds opening beneath them, but they are the only ones he can make himself say. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know that it would…”

Dracona shudders under his hands. The movement brings a thin, broken sound from her throat, and Harry snatches his palms back for half a second, terrified that he had hurt her more, before the fresh rush of blood makes him press down again.

Myrtle is screaming overhead. “Murder! Murder! There’s been a murder!”

“She’s not dead!” Harry shouts. The desperation in his own voice frightens him.

Harry bends closer to Dracona’s face, trying to see whether her eyes are still following him. They’re open, silver beneath lashes clumped with tears, but their focus slips past his shoulder before finding him again.

“I'm sorry,” he says, his voice thick with desperation. He sweeps wet hair from her cheek with the back of his wrist, leaving a red smear across her skin. “I'm sorry, I know. Just- just hold on. Please.”

Dracona trembles again. Harry slides an arm beneath her shoulders, meaning to lift her out of the cold water, and draw her awkwardly against him while trying to keep his other hand pressed to her chest. She is lighter than he expected. He had scarcely touched her except through the collisions and hostility that passed for contact between them, and some stupid part of him had assumed she would feel as immovable as she always tried to appear.

Her eyes move towards his face. Harry bends over her at once, holding his breath so that he could hear whatever she is trying to say. He sees her lips part with a faint, painful effort. He expects an accusation, his surname spoken with the last of her anger, or perhaps a plea for him to stop pressing against a place that hurt.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. The words are quiet, yet he hears them with perfect clarity. Her gaze lingers on his for one brief moment after she says them, before slipping out of focus again.

Harry shakes his head. It‘s a small movement at first, before panic makes it sharper. Why is she apologising to him? He is the one with her blood on his hands.

“No, don’t say that. You haven’t- you don’t have to say that.” His fingers shift uselessly against the soaked cloth, and he looks from her mouth to her eyes, trying to find proof that she had heard him. “Dracona, please. Just stay awake.”

Her eyes open a fraction wider. She manages one coherent thought before consciousness leaves her.

He said my name.

The door slams open hard enough to strike the wall. Harry looks up so sharply that the movement tugs at his arm, and he immediately looks down again to make sure he didn’t hurt her.

Severus Snape stands in the doorway, his face rigid with fury, his black eyes taking in the shattered fixtures, red water, and the girl held against Harry’s blood-soaked chest. His wand is already drawn by the time he reaches them.

“Put her down.” Snape says in a low voice.

Harry blinks. “Professor, I-”

Snape drops to one knee beside him and repeats, with a force that finally breaks through, “On the floor, Potter. Now.”

Harry lowers Dracona onto the wet floor as carefully as he can, supporting her head until the back of it rests against her soaked robe. When he pulls his hands away, they leave bloody prints against her blouse.

His bloody hands remain lifted before him. He numbly stares at them.

Red has worked into every line of his palms, beneath his fingernails, across his cuffs. His robes are soaked in water and blood until the fabrics are almost indistinguishable.

Dracona’s blood.

Snape pushes Harry aside with one arm. His expression becomes intensely controlled, which somehow frightens Harry more than open anger would have.

He begins murmuring an incantation. His wand follows the course of each wound with exact care. Harry watches the tip move, willing it to work with such force that his own chest hurts. At first there seems to be no change at all.

On the second repetition, the edges of the wounds begin drawing together. Harry simply watches, a helpless frustration gnawing at him.

Snape performs the countercurse a third time. His voice never wavers, and when he finally draws his wand away he remains bent over her for a moment, examining what is left.

“Is she-” Harry begins. His gaze moves helplessly from her face to Snape’s. “Professor, is she going to be all right?”

Snape slides one arm beneath Dracona’s knees and the other behind her back.

“I was too slow to prevent scarring,” he says, in a voice so tightly controlled that Harry feels each word as an accusation. Snape lifts her from the floor, gathering her carefully against him, and the trailing edge of her robe sends a few red drops back into the water. “I am taking her to the hospital wing.”

Harry feels cold. His eyes immediately fix on the thin mark crossing Dracona’s cheek. She will have a scar.

The idea strikes with almost nauseating force.

Harry knows what it meant to carry evidence of someone else’s violence across your face. He knows what it means to wake up every morning and see it in a mirror.

Now Dracona would have one because of him.

Snape stops in the doorway. He looks back, and the cold fury in his expression holds Harry where he stands more effectively than a hand against his chest.

“And you, Potter,” he says, each word deliberate, “will wait here for me.”

It does not occur to Harry to disobey. He remains beside the broken cubicle as Snape carries her out, listening to the footsteps until he can't separate them from the running water.

Across the floor, crimson stains open and drift like flowers, their edges loosening as the water carries them around fragments of porcelain and the fallen black wand. Her apology won’t leave him.

Harry stares at his hands, still shaking too badly to hold them still.

What have I done?

The question circles without finding anywhere to settle, while Harry watches the crimson flowers spreading over the tiles. He can’t make sense of her saying she was sorry, or of the terror that had seized him when her eyes began to close.

But most of all, he can not understand why hurting Dracona Malfoy felt so much like reaching into his own chest and tearing out his heart.

Fin

[J. Y. Song @Critical_Scribe]

“You have her eyes.”

A phrase holding meaning that Draceana never really understood and one that so many had said it to her husband over the years. Each time his chest swelled with pride, his back straightened, and his steps grew more powerful. In those early years she thought the idea preposterous, who could ever be proud to be the child of a muggle? Who would ever say that having the eyes of them was something worthy of praise?

And yet, when she held their daughter, she understood. The girl’s hair was white-blonde, like her own, something she’d been smug about with Harry the longer it grew, but her eyes…

She had his eyes.

Irises of green looked up at her from the small one in her arms, filled with the same light Harry’s own held when her looked at her. Their daughter laughed with glee, and that sound was also her husband’s as well.

What filled her were contradictions. Her heart raced, but she was utterly calm. She felt lighter, yet was sinking into the ground. She was melting, but had never stood firmer in her life.

Perhaps their next child would have her eyes, a son with that unkempt tangle of brown Harry claimed was styled, but with orbs of silver beneath. Maybe both children would puff their chests out in pride upon hearing how much like their parents they looked. A pride that was not tied to purity of blood, but instead of the love that made them.

Thoughts for another time, for in this moment, looking down at her daughter, she indulged in a moment of selfishness. Those eyes, that laugh, were proof of their union, an existence that could have only been brought about by them and them alone…

And that was worth more than any treasure could hope to be.

[Spooky @spookyh8r]

Harry loses a bet and asks Malfoid to the Yule Ball.

It started, as many of Harry’s worst ideas did, with Fred and George Weasley.

"You haven't asked anyone," Fred said, as if this were news.

"He hasn't asked anyone," George agreed, "because the only person he wants to ask is going with Diggory.”

Harry told them to shut up. He was in the common room. Ron was practising looking like a person who would rather die than wear dress robes. Hermione had a book open and was not reading it.

"Tell you what," said Fred. "A Galleon says you won't ask Malfoid."

"Which Malfoy?" said Ron, alarmed.

"There's only one at school, Ronald. Do keep up."

"I'm not asking Malfoy," said Harry.

"Malfoid," said George, pleasantly. "That's the bet. You don't. We collect. You do — well. Then you've got a partner, haven't you? Everybody wins. Except you, probably."

"She's not going to say yes."

"Then you've lost nothing," said Fred. "Go on. Champion's privilege. The worst she can do is hex you, and she does that on Tuesdays anyway."

Harry should have refused, but he was anything but a coward.

He found her in the library, after asking around a bit, which would have been embarrassing were it not assumed he was looking for a fight. She sat at a table in the corner by a window. Her pale hair was pulled back so tightly it seemed to lift the pointed bones of her face. She was alone. That was the first piece of luck. The second was that she looked up before he could lose his nerve.

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “What do you want, Potter?”

"I lost a bet," Harry said. "So let's get this over with. D'you want to go to the Yule Ball with me?"

She looked at him for a few seconds without changing her expression. Then she looked to the side. She appeared to be blushing.

“You must be desperate.” She attempted a laugh. “Is this some kind of joke, Potter? Me, going to the ball with a half-blood like you? Get real.”

“Alright, good,” he said firmly. He turned to leave before she could humiliate him any further.

“Yes,” she proclaimed with an upward lilt, as if she had surprised herself.

He stopped in his tracks. “What?” He almost raised his voice too loud for the library before turning around to look at her again. She had a mischievous smile.

“Yes.”

“Why,” Harry asked, exasperated. This was not what he expected.

“Why? Because I can’t resist the opportunity to torture you. I am going to embarrass you, if you are even brave enough to follow through.”

Harry sputtered. “What? You can’t find a date?” It was his best attempt.

“Oh I could. I have been asked many times already. I have no interest in those inferior specimens. The Malfoys have standards, you see. But I will make an exception for you, because this is just irresistible.”

He stood there, speechless. He looked out the window. Before he could come up with a response, she picked up her book and stood up. She walked over to him, grabbed his tie, and pulled him close, staring him down with malevolent eyes.

"Eight o'clock on Christmas Day. Dress robes. Not a Muggle dinner jacket. Not whatever the Dursleys think is formal. If you arrive smelling of broom polish I shall hex your shoes together and let you open the dance like that. Do we understand each other?"

Before he could come up with a response, she walked away.

…

"You asked her."

"That was the bet."

"You asked her and she said yes."

Ron was pacing around the room. Seamus and Dean were laughing it up.

"She's going to hex you," Ron said. "That's the game, that is. She says yes, you show up, she hexes you in front of four schools and tells her father you begged."

"She already said she'd hex me. That part's settled. It's only if I step on her toes or dress like a Muggle."

"You are Muggle-raised," Ron said, as if this had only just become legally relevant. "What does she think dress robes are? You can't wear trousers from the Dursleys, Harry. She'll know. They've got a look.”

Hermione, when they took it downstairs, pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Fred and George," she said.

"Fred and George," Harry agreed.

"And she said yes."

"She said yes, and then she said a lot of other things."

Hermione was quiet for a moment.

"Wear your green dress robes," she said at last. "The ones from Madam Malkin. Not a tie. Not Dudley's anything. If she tries to pull something nasty don’t let her get away with it."

“Right,” he replied. He had no idea what that meant.

Fred and George, passing the portrait hole with the satisfied air of men who had invented Christmas, flipped him a Galleon.

"Don't spend it before she kills you," said Fred.

"Buy a card," said George. "Something tasteful."

Harry told them to get stuffed. He put the Galleon in his pocket anyway.

….

The green robes made him look, he thought, like a Christmas tree that had learned shame. Harry checked his shoes three times. They were the same shoes.

"If she hexes you," Ron said, struggling into maroon velvet and a quantity of lace that history would not forgive, "I'll — I'll do something. I don't know what. Don't look at me like that. I'm in this."

By ten to eight the entrance hall was a crush of dress robes and panic. Parvati went by in shocking pink and gold and did not look at Harry at all, which he deserved. He had spent two weeks looking as if he might ask her and then asked the worst person in Slytherin for a Galleon.

"Potter."

He turned.

Malfoid was on the marble stairs.

She wore a black dress. Her hair was down. She even had makeup on. Harry’s stomach did a flip. The weirdest part was, she was smiling at him. And it wasn’t a mischievous grin, like her usual sadistic glee. She looked like she was happy to see him. But she quickly changed her expression, as if she remembered, to one of disdain.

"Green," she said. "Acceptable. Not Muggle. You may keep your toes for the present."

She stepped down and took his arm, with surprising ease. "Do not grin. You look simple when you grin. We are going in. If you tell anyone this was a bet I will kill you."

"It was a bet."

"I know it was a bet, Potter. I would not have said yes to a sincere request. Do not flatter yourself.”

…

The house tables were gone. In their place stood a crowd of smaller ones, each with a lantern that burned without smoke. The walls were covered in silver frost. Overhead the usual black, starry ceiling had been crossed with garlands of mistletoe and ivy.

It seemed like everyone turned to look as they came in, and whispered to each other.

Malfoy’s fingers tightened once on his sleeve and then went loose, as if she had remembered an audience.

"Breathe," she said, barely moving her mouth. "If you faint I shall leave you on the floor.”

"I'm not going to faint."

McGonagall met them before they could sit down. She looked at Harry. She looked at Malfoy. Several decades of House warfare passed behind her eyes and sat down, exhausted.

"Potter. Miss Malfoy. You will line up with the other Champions after the meal. I expect decorum."

"Yes, Professor," said Malfoy, with only a slight hint of sarcasm.

McGonagall's mouth thinned.

"The robes will do," she told Harry. "Try to remember, a waltz is not a tackle."

She swept off.

"She likes you," Malfoy said. "How unaccountable."

They were seated next to Cedric and Cho of course, at the Champion’s table. Starting the torture already, Harry thought. Krum arrived last with a girl Harry did not recognise for three full seconds as Hermione. Periwinkle blue. Hair up. Ron looked at Harry with wide eyes. Harry just shrugged, as if to say: “What of it?”

Cho smiled at Harry as if she were sorry and not sorry. Cedric poured pumpkin juice like a man determined to be decent.

"Didn't know you two were—" Cedric began, and stopped, which was why people liked Cedric.

"We aren't," said Harry and Malfoy together.

They looked at each other.

“I lost a bet,” she said suddenly, smiling. Harry just shook his head. She stole his excuse. Typical.

Neither Cedric nor Cho seemed to know if she was serious, or how to respond.

Dinner arrived and passed without a major incident, besides that Malfoid was making faces across the room, playing it up.

"You're enjoying this," Harry muttered.

"I enjoy winning. It is not the same as enjoying you." She narrowed her eyes as she set the goblet down. "Do not look at Granger like that. It is a hair potion and a neckline. We manage it before breakfast."

"She's my friend."

"I know. It is one of your more baffling hobbies. It is quite beneath you.”

Was that a compliment? Harry just sighed. There was no point in arguing. She only wanted to get a rise out of him.

Suddenly it was time for the dance.

Harry stood. His chair shrieked on the floor. Malfoy stood up smoothly, as if chairs had never misbehaved in her life. She put her hand in the air and waited for him to take it, sighing with irritation.

Her palm was cold in his hand.

They walked to the floor and waited for the music to start.

"If you make a mistake I will kill you. If you look at Chang I will kill you. If you count, count silently. If you talk, do not talk about Quidditch,” she whispered.

"You're nervous."

"I am Slytherin. I am never nervous. I am prepared."

Harry put his hand at her waist as the music started to play. He thought he could see a glisten of sweat on her forehead. He used to tease her about her forehead for being much too big. Undeniably, however, she looked absolutely beautiful that night.

Despite all his practice, it felt completely different in front of everyone, and with Malfoy no less. She was quietly counting as they stepped. Whether it was for his sake, or because she was afraid he would embarrass her, he wasn’t sure.

"You can close your mouth," she murmured. "You have fallen off a broom in front of the whole school. This is only dancing."

"You're counting."

"I am not."

They turned. Mistletoe swam. Ron's face went by, maroon and betrayed. Pansy went by, personally wounded. Snape, at the staff table, looked as if he had bitten a fork.

"Your Head of House wants me dead," Harry said.

"He wants a great many people dead. You will have to queue." A pause. Her voice dropped, unwilling. "You are not as catastrophic as I expected."

"Thanks."

"It was not a compliment. I am, against my better judgement, not hexing you."

"Yet."

"Do not make suggestions."

The dance ended before he had decided whether to bow. Cedric bowed. Krum nodded the way Krum did everything. Harry let go of her waist.

"Well," she said. "Your twins may keep their Galleon. I am going outside. I am tired of being stared at. Besides, it is much too warm here."

For some reason, Harry went after her.

…

He thought he had lost her, when he saw her through a frosted window.

She stood outside, leaning on the balcony, despite the fact that it was snowing and she was wearing only a dress. She clutched herself in her arms, clearly freezing.

"You followed me."

"You walked off before we had time to bow.”

"I said yes to a dance. I did not say yes to stay until midnight." She did not turn. "Go back in. Granger will want to lecture you on fraternising. She has her hair up. She will be unstoppable."

“It is freezing out.”

She didn’t respond, but her body was shivering.

He almost put his robe around her shoulders, but thought better of it.

"Why'd you say yes?" he asked.

"You asked."

"That's not a reason. You could've said no. You do that all the time."

She tilted her head up, looking up at the stars.

“I told you already. I like to see you squirm.”

She came up to him slowly, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. He flushed, not knowing how to react. He could hear his heart beating in his chest. She just looked into his eyes, smiling with glee. For some reason beyond himself, he thought of kissing her.

“Besides, I couldn’t stand to see you go with that Patil-girl. Totally beneath you.” She remembered herself suddenly and added “For a half-blood, anyway.”

"You're a real piece of work, Malfoid."

“Don’t call me that!” she said, forcing a pout. She stepped back, pretending to be upset, but she could not hide from him the impression that she enjoyed it somehow. She went back to leaning on the railing, looking out, as if that would be the end of it.

He leaned against the railing right next to her. It was only fair that he got his revenge now.

"I didn't step on your toes," Harry said.

"Do not fish."

“Since I did a good job, I think you owe me another dance.”

She paused, and then burst out into laughter, almost maniacal. It caught him by surprise.

“I don’t owe you anything.”

Harry took that for a no. He turned to leave.

“Are you coming inside? You’ll catch a cold.”

Suddenly she grabbed his left arm and hooked her arm under it.

"You may have one more dance," she said. "After that I am returning you to that rotten Weasley boy. If you tell anyone funny stories about what happened tonight you will not wake up the next morning.”

He couldn’t help but laugh at her idle threats. The rumors about them were already spreading and there was nothing to do about it now. Hell, he wouldn’t be surprised if they made the front page of the Daily Prophet. They made a striking couple, he had to admit. But he didn’t say anything about it, lest she change her mind.

When they got back into the ballroom, everyone was dancing. Thankfully, hardly anyone noticed them come in. She grabbed his hand, and put the other hand onto her waist.

They danced for a while without speaking. Harry hoped that nobody noticed when she laid her head on his shoulder and sighed.

“You are quite serviceable for a half-blood. I think I will keep you.”

[Milk Tea September @MilkTeaSept]

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Perverted freak with a pure heart that only
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