Memoirs of a Serpent's Son

Memoirs of a Serpent’s Son

--Age 17—part 12

September 13 –continued

I waited, casually staring up at the place that his eyes had surveyed, until I heard the sound of his footsteps and then the door click open and closed again, before I would allow myself to do anything.

But it never came.

“No,” was the simple but strong reply from right next to me. I almost jumped. Thankfully, for some reason, my self-control has come back in some small increment.

“Excuse me?” I turned my head to see Potter, with his face set, standing very much like a board, next to the bed. He wore no shirt and somehow, though his face was set on ‘determined’, a sad kind of worry shone through to me. I blinked a few times to try and stop myself from crying or screaming… or just looking away.

“No, I mean you’re wrong,” he said with his ongoing lack of clarity. I screwed up my eyes and clenched my jaw.

“No, Potter, this really is your cue to run away,” I corrected him. I didn’t think that was what he was talking about but I said it anyway. Treating it all like it was some kind of farce… it would stop the whole thing from being real… At least I thought so.

“Not about that, you prat,” he snapped, regaining some of his composure. “You’re wrong about me.” He shifted on his feet and glanced away a few times. “I do know what I want… I just... I’m not ready for it….” He looked to the door briefly with a sadness I’ve never seen in his eyes. “I can’t…”

I flinched. Probably visibly but I rolled my eyes and angled my head back against the pillows to make up for it. Not this again… not this whole bloody mess again… how can he not see through that??

I’m not…. I can’t take his insecurities anymore! I have enough of my own already…

“Oh not this again,” I groaned softly. “You honestly mean to tell me that your golden worshipers would cast you aside just for your choices in a relationship? THAT’S what you are worried about?!”

“No!” he cried back, his movements jerky. “I told you, I don’t care about that. It’s about… me…and the way things are… what I have to do…”

I shut my eyes and sat up, rearranging my own trousers. I turned my head to him slightly, staring at him through the broken curtain of my own hair. What the hell was he on about?? I tried for a long time to understand just what he was saying but I couldn’t.

Why do I have to be in love with such an inexplicably daft and cryptic person?

….why do I keep letting myself write things like that?

‘In love with’…… Am I? Could I ever be?... why is it so easy?

Why is it so hard…

“Potter, please, for benefit of the audience, would you explain what the fuck it is you’re talking about?” I muttered, rubbing my fingers to my temples.

“You just wouldn’t understand,” he had the nerve to tell me with that defeated look on his face. I seethed and licked my lips.

“Try me,” I told him, echoing his own words. He stared at me.

He shook his head and looked as though he, just then, became painfully aware of the fact that he was not wearing a shirt. He cast his glance around the room to spot it but apparently could not.

“Voldemort uses people close to me to get to me,” he whispered, staring not at me but at the bed. “He has killed so many people that I’ve cared about just to try and break me… I can’t let anyone die for me anymore. I can’t get close and I just… I can’t… no matter how much I want it I can’t.”

He shook his head and turned to walk away. It took a moment for everything to sink in. When it finally did I yelled back at him with so much more venom and loathing in my voice than there was in a snakebite.

“You’re a bloody selfish arsehole, you know that?!”

He stopped dead and spun on his heel to look at me. His face was contorted in anger and confusion and I could only imagine what was going through his mind.

“What?!” he screamed, his face slowly turning red. “How did you come to that bloody conclusion?!”

“Where do you get off thinking you have the right to be so bloody selfish?!?” I hollered, getting to my feet to face him. His muscles were tense and he was shaking from the sudden, unexpected insults.

“How the fuck am I being selfish?! What because I don’t want people to die for me?! Because I want to protect them?!?” I’m sure we woke the house. If anyone was in it.

If anyone was, they could likely feel the waves of tension and frustration roll on the air and spread out in ripples around the house because there was no way in hell that all of that was contained in the small room.

“No! It’s not them you’re trying to protect, it’s yourself!!” My voice was hard and angry and full of knives. He was shaking still and his eyes widened in horror. “You just can’t stand to suffer the loss of any more of your loved ones but that’s not your decision to make! All of those people who died for you did it FOR YOU! They did it to protect you and give you a chance to keep going so that you could save everyone else and, most importantly, yourself! They KNOWINGLY died for your benefit and there are hundreds more out there that would do it in a heartbeat! The Weasleys, Granger, Lupin, the Order… ALL of them are prepared to do what they need to so that you can accomplish what you need to! Each of them is just waiting to follow you into battle, offering you the greatest sacrifice and gift that anyone could ever offer and you treat it like it’s some kind of curse!! But that doesn’t matter, Potter… it doesn’t matter what you think because whether you want them to or not, those people will still follow you and lay down their lives at your feet to pave your way to success. And I will stand among them.”

And then came the excruciatingly awkward silence as Potter allowed the words to wash over him and take their full effect. I was panting and heaving. My face was likely red and I was sweating as I waited for the blow to fall. Time was still as he kept his eyes trained on my face.

“You will never know just how much of a fool you are until you are forced to eat your own words,” he spat. “To you a life is only as important as what it can be sacrificed for! But not to me! I am not worth nearly enough to justify having to watch the people I care about just die at the hands of MY enemies!”

“Then you’re the bloody fool,” I shot. “You don’t think you deserve to live on to finish what you have started? You don’t think your cause is worth these people’s sacrifices?? If they HADN’T sacrificed their lives you wouldn’t be here now and then Voldemort would already have control of the wizarding world, maybe even the muggle world. Is that what you want, Potter? Do you really put so little stock in the great role these lives have played? Do you intent to make it seem as though they’ve died for nothing?! Sirius died too! He died for you, didn’t he?! As did your parents! Was that all for nothing?! Do you seriously mean to denigrate their sacrifice because you’ve had enough of suffering and have some serious insecurities?! Don’t make these martyrs into victims.”

“They shouldn’t have to die for this cause!” He looked as though he was about to cry. I saw the way he cringed at the mention of Sirius and his parents… I shook my head.

“No, they shouldn’t,” I agreed. “But they did and they will continue to do so. And the worst thing you can do is pretend as though their deaths were meaningless.”

And then came more silence. More silence and more tension and something ebbed away but I think it was only my resolve. I wanted to collapse on the ground and simply die. I wanted to get away from all this hurt and all this terror.

I wanted to leave… I knew Potter had to learn these lessons but… where exactly had I learned them? What gives me the right to force him to see this? When did I grow up? When did it happen that I was suddenly aware of these kinds of things… things that need to be done and sacrifices that need to be made?

What have I missed of my own life?

I thought of Lupin… how he told me that he was proud of me… that he was sure that Dumbledore was proud of me.

I felt my eyes well up with tears and unresolved tension and I wanted to hold him. I wanted to hold Potter and have him hold me and just stand there because that might be the only moment we got…

“I… I should go….” he mumbled, turning to walk to the door. I stood very still and watched him. I felt as though all I would ever see was his back retreating.

He opened the door and stopped. He stood there a moment with his head down and I wanted to run up to him and take him into my arms… and kiss him… but he lifted his head and turned half-way back to me.

“I… I know that all these things you are are just pieces of your puzzle, Draco,” he whispered, still holding the door. “I’ve known since that night in the tower… maybe even before. And I still… you know what I want.”

Then he left.

The door clicked closed and the tension filtered out.

I stared at the doorway for a long while before looking around the room. I found his shirt on the floor near a chair and picked it up.

After a few more moments of staring at the door, holding his shirt, I put it on and came to bed…

*******

September 30

It’s been a while since that night… the night that some of my dreams became real and some of my nightmares followed. It’s been a while…

Potter hasn’t ignored me all this time… which is something. I was almost tempted to avoid him but it was hard since there are few places I can go in this house where someone won’t run into me… if any.

No… instead of ignoring me, he’s begun to do some very strange things, just to confuse me even more.

He sits next to me at meals. He’ll come and sit in the library while I’m reading, just to think (or maybe stare, I don’t know) until his friends come along. He’s offered to play me in chess or inquires about what it is I’m reading. He’ll sit right next to me on the sofa when there are several other available seats as well…

But he won’t look directly at me. He won’t actually touch me. In fact, brushing against him in the slightest way sometimes makes him jump. He won’t say my name… Not Malfoy OR Draco. Nothing. He wouldn’t even say “hey you” if he could get my attention otherwise, I bet.

I just don’t understand it.

Then today…

I was sitting in the library, reading a book on Inferius and the undead, when Potter strode right into the room, dropped onto the sofa next to me and waited for his friends to take a seat.

“Great, you’re already here,” he said to me (I assume, since I’m the only one who was already in the room). I lifted my nose out of the book for a moment and glanced around the room with one eyebrow cocked to the sky, until my eyes landed on Potter.

“Fancy that,” I muttered, still absolutely lost. Granger and Weasel didn’t seem to have much of a better idea as to what was going on.

“We need to talk,” he told me, again, without looking at me directly. I agree but I didn’t expect our ‘talking’ to involve his two friends watching.

“Then talk,” I ordered, turning my attention back to the book.

“We are trying to figure out our next move,” he explained with his wonderful ineptitude at clarity.

I almost smiled at the interesting innuendoes he was using.

“Our next move?” I repeated, feigning mild interest. I was very interested but that wasn’t a good thing to give away.

“Yes, for finding the horcruxes,” he finished. Ah yes. Those things. Still looking…

Forgot.

“I see, and you need me because…?” I asked. I glanced at the two others and they seemed to be fighting hard to hold their tongues.

“Because you helped with the last one, you should be involved,” Potter stated simply. “He made six horcruxes as so far we’ve destroyed three: Riddle’s Diary, the Gaunt Ring and Slytherin’s Locket.We know that Voldemort has likely used Helga Hufflepuff’s gold cup as one of them, though we have no idea where that might be hidden. We also believe that his serpent, Nagini, is a horcrux simply because he needed an extra one and ran out of items I guess. Then there’s only one more that’s unidentified.”

“That’s fascinating,” I tried to say with as little sneer as I could manage. He frowned at me, without looking into my eyes.

“So what we need to do is locate Hufflepuff’s cup and destroy it,” he listed carefully. “And then figure out what the last horcrux is, locate it too and destroy it too…”

“Well when you put it that way it just sounds so simple,” I commented sarcastically, waiting for something to hit me upside the head.

“Malfoy, please,” Granger’s voice pleaded quietly. “We’ve been researching but we are having a lot of trouble… and you seemed so well-read on everything else you’ve told us… we thought that maybe you would have some ideas about what to do next as well.”

It looked like it took her a lot of effort to not only compliment me but identify her own inability to find the answers in books. It must have been the hardest thing she’s ever done.

“I’m well-read on many very dark things,” I told them without lying. “And a lot of history. But not on Voldemort’s thoughts. I have no idea of how his mind works.”

“Well, I have a bit of experience with dealing with his madness,” Potter remarked acidly. “I… we don’t need you to try and decipher him just yet. We need to know the history of the founders and such… can you think of any artifact that might have belonged the Rowena Ravenclaw? Something long-lasting and meaningful that he might have used?”

I sighed and put my book down, rearranging myself on the couch. I brushed Potter’s arm and leg all at once and he shivered when I did. I looked around the room at nothing in particular as I tried to remember everything I’d ever read about the founders of Hogwarts and the school itself.

I won’t lie, but most of the things I paid attention to had to do with Slytherin and Gryffindor… not Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff.

But then I thought of something…

“Well…I’ve read a lot about the history of those four,” I began, trying to remember the exact phrase that was coming to mind. “There was one book that talked about the contributions that each founder made to the school… things that were particular to them. Either an artifact of some kind… or sometimes a painting.”

“What did Ravenclaw give?” Potter asked immediately. I frowned.

“That’s just it,” I shrugged. “The book said that she was always vehemently against the idea that simple artifacts like rings or shields were of any meaning. She thought that the only useful material possession –apart from a wand perhaps –were books. She had a very extensive collection of books and donated them all to the Hogwarts library. Other than that, she would have had nothing material with any meaning. Nothing anyone would have kept, simply in respect of her memory.”

“Ha!” Granger exclaimed triumphantly. I nearly jumped out of my skin by the interjection but I quickly reasserted myself. She immediately turned to Weasel, shaking her finger at him. “See?? Books ARE useful! You-Know-Who could have used one of Ravenclaw’s books as the next horcrux and it could be sitting in the Hogwarts library right now!!”

Weasel shrunk away from her as she motioned frantically at him with a rather frightening fire in her eyes.

“I don’t think so, Hermione…” Potter began quietly, afraid to direct her wrath at him, I imagine. “I mean, it’s possible that he used one of her books… maybe if she wrote her own book, but I don’t think he would have simply left it in the Hogwarts library for anyone to pick up and read and throw around. What if it was lost? What if it was destroyed somehow? Why would Voldemort leave a piece of his soul in the hands of inexperienced students? He doesn’t think much of under-aged wizards remember?”

Granger seemed to lose some of her steam at that comment. I, personally, gaped at Potter. When did he get smart?

“You don’t seem to need my input so much, after all,” I said under my breath and Potter actually looked at me. He LOOKED at me this time. His eyes caught mine for a moment and he smiled before looking away again.

“Well, I think we should write a letter to Professor McGonagall and get her to have Madam Pince send us a message,” Granger reasoned, retrieving her fire. “If anyone can tell us what we need to know about Ravenclaw’s books, it’s her. She would know if any of her books ever went missing or were behaving strangely.”

I nearly choked at the wording of her sentence before realizing that most of the books in the Hogwarts library really did BEHAVE…. I simply nodded slightly before picking up my book again.

“Then write to McGonagall,” I told them, flipping back through the pages.

“Yeah, we should do that right now,” Potter agreed.

“We should ask Remus to help us word it,” Granger suggested. She and Weasel got to their feet.

“Yeah, you go and tell him, I’ll be along in a minute,” Potter told them. They shuffled off into the hallway and out to find wherever it was that Lupin was hiding, but Potter stayed behind and sat very still next to me for a moment.

I tried not to move. I tried not to look over at him. I tried very hard to concentrate on the words I was reading but I found myself rereading the same sentence about ten times before he spoke.

“Thank you…” he whispered.

Then he leaned in, gave me a quick peck on the cheek and bolted off after his friends.

------IIIIIII-------

A/N: GAH this was rough to write too… I had SO much trouble with trying to properly arrange and decide on Harry’s reaction after the last chapter… I had a vague idea but it was SO HARD to put into words without making them both either just break down and cry (which would not fit) or else hating each other again… (which is not good)…and they didn’t follow and BLAH it was just HARD. I don’t even know how much I like the way this turned out… but I feel like some of those things need to be addressed. I absolutely could not make Harry just fall in love with Draco and be with him willingly and openly after he’d broken up with Ginny to try and protect her from Voldie-poo. So I addressed that in a very Draco way. Yell at Potter and tell him he’s an idiot.

Do we like? Do we hate? I certainly hope you don’t hate. Geh

Also: HAPPY BIRTHDAY EHCIE-UTADA! Sorry I’m a day late in that but I’m sorry to hear it wasn’t so wonderful….I’m glad I could help make you feel better though! I’ve been feeling rather unhappy these past few days as well… *big hugs* Hope it all gets better soon!

Also, I know I didn’t have Harry actually mention what it was that Draco did to him… but I think that’s something in itself. If you don’t talk about it, it never happened… it’s not something he can deal with. It’s not even something that Draco can deal with because of how it was all done. I hope that makes sense X_X

But things will get better. I need to make a lot of time pass very quickly and I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to pull that off ehehehe but let’s all hope I can!

Thanks for all the fantasmic reviews and love! Honestly they keep me writing and make me feel so happy!

I also have a random question: If you were at Hogwarts, what house do you think you’d be in? I, personally, think I’d end up in Slytherin… or else Gryffindor. Lol which kind of seems cliché but ah well. What do you think? Just for fun ^_^

Cookies and love! *hearts too*