Puzzle Pieces

Section 12:

When debating appropriate Christmas presents for Draco, (*presentable* presents, that is) it had occurred to me that he might benefit from some sort of guide to spying. For a supposedly subtle Slytherin, he had positively no knack whatsoever for maintaining a poker face and pretending that the events surrounding him held no interest for him. Though he held his Defense Against the Dark Arts book in front of him and pretended to be studying with suitable concentration, a first year Hufflepuff could have told you that he was really paying attention to the study session right next to him, between Hermione and myself. The way that he snuck looks at us every five seconds or so might have been a hint. Another clue was the way his eyebrow twitched whenever one of us said something that he disagreed with. For another, he opened his mouth at least half a dozen times, obviously on the verge of throwing in a comment of his own before managing to stop himself. His deception was not aided by the fact that his book was upside down.

I knew he was aching to join in and I had, in fact, devoted the last half hour to goading him into it by constantly bringing up subjects I knew he loved to debate. Alas, my success had been limited to more twitches and careful glances and the opening, followed by the shutting, of his mouth. It was discouraging, of course, but I hadn’t given up hope. No one knew how to push Draco’s buttons like I did, and I knew I’d hit the right one sooner or later… hopefully sooner rather than later.

I couldn’t get the thought of Draco, Hermione, and me together out of my head. Worse still, I couldn’t get the images out of my mind, and I knew that they’d drive me crazy before long. I had left denial behind: I wanted them, *both* of them. I wanted the three of us to fit together in every way possible. Better than that, I wanted to show the two of them (stubborn fools that they were) that we *already* fit together, if they could just see it. We belonged together, I was sure of it. Now all I had to do was convince them. The first step would be getting the two of them to interact again, which was why I was working so hard to trick Draco into joining us. Well, that plus the fact that he and Hermione were damn sexy when they argued, and I wanted to watch.

Of course, in lieu of live footage, I still had my fantasies to turn to. In fact, I blame the fantasies for what happened next. Under normal circumstances, I would have put more thought into my responses when talking with Hermione, but I was so distracted by the mental image of Hermione with a mouthful of Draco’s cock that I absent-mindedly answered her question about my Christmas plans with the truth: that I was planning to stay at Hogwarts over the break.

Big mistake. Big. Huge. On the bright side, I got my wish. Draco joined in the conversation, with a vengeance.

“You’re *what?!” he screeched, standing up from his chair so fast that it tipped over behind him with a crash. Hermione, clever girl that she was, obviously sensed that the sound effects were far from over. She immediately grabbed her wand and cast a quick sound bubble spell before Madam Pince came to see who had let a dying jackal into the library. Fortunately, we were tucked away in the back corner of the library with no other students in sight, so Hermione and I were the only ones even aware of Draco’s outburst. We were also the only ones subjected to the rant that followed after.

To be honest, I didn’t really listen. Oh, I caught scraps of it.

“… do you ignore *everyone* who tries to help you or is it just me?”

“… would it *kill* you to listen to me when I …”

“… told you in *small, simple* words to go home …”

“… help if I tattooed it on your forehead?”

I knew Draco had the tendency to get nasty when he went on one of his rants, and I had long since learned to block the majority of it out. It wasn’t his words that I focused on, it was his face. He was scared, *really* scared, so scared that it almost looked like he was in pain. I’d never seen *anything* scare him like this before, not even his father. Instead of making me feel sympathetic towards him, the fear just made me angry. Oh, I was definitely angry at whatever or whoever (and I had a pretty shrewd idea of who was responsible) had done something to make him this scared, but I was also more than a little angry at him. He was supposed to love me, wasn’t he? How could he let something hurt him, scare him like this and not share it with me? How could he hide something so essential away from me? How dare he presume to send me away when he so obviously needed me? When he said that if I didn’t go home of my own free will, he’d hex me into a box and send me there himself, my temper snapped.

“You’ve no right,” I hissed. “No right at *all* to tell me what I’m going to do when you won’t even tell me what’s wrong!”

Draco literally growled at me. “I *love* you, you bastard; doesn’t that give me some kind of right?”

“Right to *what*? Right to tell me how to live my life? Right to make all my decisions for me without even consulting me? Right to treat me like a two year old who can’t know the real reasons why things are done?”

“Right to protect you, you idiot!”

“From *what*?”

“From dying! *Damn* you, Blaise!” Draco yelled. “Why the hell did you have to pick *now* to be a stubborn fool when all I’m trying to do is save your life! Do you have any idea what will happen if you’re here when the Death Eaters come here this Chris—” All of us froze so completely, that for a moment, I thought time had stopped. Draco’s voice cut off abruptly, and his wildly gesticulating hands stopped in place as his mouth hung open slightly and his eyes went almost comically wide with shock over the information he had just confessed.

None of us moved for several moments. I’m not certain any of us breathed. Draco triggered us all into live again when he made the first move, slumping into a desk chair and looking remarkably like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

“What is it, Draco?” Hermione asked, her voice soft and tentative. “What’s going to happen over Christmas?”

“The Death Eaters are going to attack Hogwarts,” Draco replied, his face blank of emotion, his voice utterly flat and lifeless.

“Why?”

“For Potter, of course. There’s a ritual the Dark Lord wants to perform on New Year’s Eve; don’t ask me what ritual, because they haven’t told me. I haven’t ‘earned’ my right to know the secrets yet; I’m only told what I need to know to make myself useful. But they’re afraid to perform the ritual while Potter is still alive. They knew he’d be staying here over Christmas, and decided that it would be the perfect time to get rid of him once and for all. Most of the professors will be away on holidays, and most of the students as well. There will be hardly anyone able to put up any kind of defense when they attack.

“How are they going to get in?” Hermione pressed when Draco fell into silence.

“Emergency exits,” Draco answered obediently. “The ministry installed them over the summer. The students aren’t supposed to know about them, but the professors were informed, and the school governors. Some of the parents kicked up a fuss about what would happen to their children if Hogwarts was attacked. Fudge wanted to shut them up, so he had emergency exits installed that could only be opened from the inside. If Hogwarts ever was attacked, students could escape without having to get through to the front entrance. Dumbledore preferred the idea of emergency portkeys, but he was overruled. The exits are charmed to open only for Hogwarts students and staff, but once they’re open, anyone can go in or out.”

“How many are there?”

“Seven, but for the invasion, we’re only supposed to open three. It’s risky enough having three students wandering around to the emergency exits, most likely in the middle of the night, without getting caught, even if we do have invisibility potion.”

“Invisibility potion?”

“Yes. My father sent me three vials in a package. It only lasts an hour, but that’s long enough for us to get to the exits and get them open. Once the Death Eaters can come in, it won’t matter if we’re invisible anymore. My father will send an owl on Christmas eve, telling me when all the Death Eaters are in position. I’ll distribute the potion to two other students, and take one vial for myself. The three of us will split up and go to our chosen exits. We’ll let in the Death Eaters and assist in the attack. When the dust clears, if we’re still alive, we’ll be immediately inducted into the Death Eaters.”

“Who are the other two students?”

For the first time since spilling the beans, Draco showed some true signs of life. His expression tightened, leaving behind the slack lines of resignation and shaping into something firmer. “Pansy’s one of them,” he answered. “I tried to tell my father that she wasn’t exactly the most reliable girl I’ve ever known, but apparently her father vouched for her, and his word carries a great deal of weight with the Dark Lord. Besides, it’s not like there were that many other options. Greg, Vince, and Millicent aren’t bright enough to pull off that kind of thing without giving themselves away, and Theo, Tracey, Daphne, and Elise don’t have strong enough ties to the Death Eaters. It would have to be someone who could be relied on completely to follow orders, meaning it would have to be someone with strong Death Eater allegiances. Anyone unaffiliated might chicken out at the last minute, but when you know they’ve got a wand on your loved one, ready to punish him if you don’t follow through, you obey orders.”

“Who’s supposed to open the third door?” I asked, forcing myself to breathe. Draco had just discounted every seventh year Slytherin except himself and Pansy, who I already knew were part of the plan… and me.

Draco’s face softened a bit as he turned to look at me. He didn’t bother responding to the question; he could tell I already knew the answer.

“I tried to talk him out of it,” he said. “I should have known better than to think my father would ever listen to my opinion. If anything, I think it made him more determined that you would be the third person.”

“But I don’t have any ties to the Death Eaters,” I protested.

“You have ties to me,” he replied, his voice cracking a bit on the last word. “And my father knew it. He knew this whole *fucking* time.” Draco’s voice grew harsh, “I thought I was keeping you safe from him by not letting anyone know that we were together; the bastard was laughing at me all along.”

“What did he say, Draco?” Hermione asked, bringing Draco back to himself with a gentle hand on his arm. It worked. He calmed down noticeably.

“He said that I was to use my ‘influence’ over you to convince you to open the third door. I honestly think he imagined you’d jump at the opportunity. After all, you’d be ‘rewarded’ with initiation if you survived.”

“And that’s when you decided that you’d talk Blaise into going away over the vacation?” Hermione questioned. Draco nodded in response.

“Pansy didn’t know any of the details; even her father didn’t trust her discretion that much; so no one but me and my father knew that Blaise was supposed to be the third party. No one would be suspicious if he decided to go home over the break, and once he was in Italy, he’d be out of harm’s way. Father would be upset not to have the three doors opened in unison, but by then, there wouldn’t be anything he could do about it. I’d be punished for not telling Blaise what he was supposed to do, but Blaise wouldn’t be hurt.”

“Why would you do that, Draco?” I asked softly. “Why would you let your father hurt you just to protect me?”

Draco smiled at me sadly. “I love you,” he answered. “That matters more to me than *ten* fathers; especially ten of *my* father.” The smile faded and his face hardened again. “I’m eighteen years old, heir to one of the greatest fortunes in the world, and I’ve never had a single thing that was wholly and completely *mine*, except for you. Everything was held over my head, subject to my father’s approval, ready to be taken away from me at a moment’s notice if I displeased him. Well, *fuck* that. You’re *not* under my father’s control, and I won’t let you be. I’ll be *damned* if I let my father take you away from me. I’m getting you *out* of this if it’s the last thing I do, and Lucius can rot in hell if he thinks I’ll accept any other outcome. I’ll send him there myself, if it comes to that.”

“Draco…” I said softly, not knowing what to say. What *is* there to say when you realize that someone loves you that much? How do you reply? What words could I use to show him that he meant more than the world to me, as well? “I love you,” I said helplessly. It was all I could think to say.

A fire sparked off in Draco’s eyes at my words. I half expected him to pounce on me, to show me just how much he loved me back. Instead, he reached over with aching gentleness and picked up my hand from where it lay on the table. Lifting it up to his face, he placed a single soft kiss on the palm before resting his face against it. It wasn’t until I felt the wetness on my fingers that I realized he was crying.

“I love you, too,” he whispered.

I looked over helplessly at Hermione who was watching us with a soft smile on her face and a hint of tears in her eyes. “What are we going to do?” I asked.

To my shock, her smile twisted into a surprisingly devious smirk. “Well, since you asked,” she answered coyly. “I just might have a plan.”


End Section 12