The Lion and the Serpent

After a while, Draco stopped listening. The ache from Harry\'s words settled deeply into him, and turned into a noise that obscured all other sounds. Draco was still sitting on the bedroom floor, his back pressed against the wall, when Hermione entered.



“Let\'s go, Draco,” she said, her voice breaking through the noise in his mind. “It\'s time.”



Time for what? he wondered numbly, but went after her obediently, strangely reassured by her sad, calm voice.



In the living room, Harry was sitting at the table, his wand in his hands. Hermione sat next to him. Without being told, Draco knelt before them.



Harry\'s dark eyes narrowed, but he didn\'t say anything. Hermione placed her hand on Harry\'s, with a reassuring squeeze. “Are you sure you want to do it?” she asked.



“Yes. I\'ve been waiting so long for this moment.”



Draco found that Harry\'s wand was pointed at his forehead. He looked at Harry questioningly.



“Open your memories,” Harry said authoritatively. “I need to see. We both do.”



In absolute terror, Draco obeyed. He had no choice in the matter.





“Open the door, Malfoy," Ron pounded on the door. "Come on, this isn\'t funny. I need my spell-book."



"Fine, enter!" Draco growled. "Take your damn spell-book and get the fuck out."



Ron entered and surveyed Draco\'s quarters. "Nice place," Ron said, sounding friendly, but Draco could swear that Ron was amused by the mess in his dorm. Draco glared at Ron. He hated everything about him: the fact that he was poor, but completely unconcerned about it; the fact that he didn\'t care about protocols, traditions, and purity of bloodlines. And, pure and simple, that Ron appeared to believe that if he just studied enough and worked hard, he could best Draco Malfoy.



Ron\'s gaze fell on a locket that hung on a chain, from a nail in the wall. "What is that?" Ron asked curiously.



"None of your business. Get out," Draco said.



Ron came up to the wall and stared at the locket. It looked old, worn out, but it was unmistakably golden, with the small words "To Lily Potter - with all my love, James" exquisitely inscribed on it.



"What the hell..." Ron glared at him.



Draco smiled. "None of your business. Don\'t touch it."



"Where did you get it?" Ron demanded, quiet fury in his voice.



Draco stared at Ron with disgust, and then suddenly, a wicked thought crossed his mind. He could cast a protective spell around the locket, preventing Ron from touching it. But then again, he could just tell Ron the truth. He could tell Ron exactly what the locket was. Ron wouldn\'t believe him of course. But why should Draco care if Ron the Weasel was dumb enough to ignore him?



"Seriously, Weasel. Don\'t touch it. It\'s the most potent poison known in wizard world, crystallized and transfigured. It turns into liquid on contact with human skin, and gets absorbed. If you touch it, you die." There was a smirk in Draco\'s voice.



For a moment Ron hesitated. For a moment, he looked like he was going to back away from the wall. But Ron never believed a single thing Draco said, and he wasn\'t about to now - especially not when it looked like Draco had stolen something that used to belong to Harry\'s mother. Quickly, Ron grabbed the locket - and it shimmered, morphed, and liquefied, the glowing fluid seeping into his skin.







In Harry\'s quarters, heavy silence hung.



“I told you,” Harry spat finally, “This is your Malfoy for you, Hermione. Still think that I should be treating him as my little pet?”



Hermione shook her head wordlessly, her face streaked with tears.



Draco was still kneeling in front of them. Finally, he spoke weakly:



“I am so – so very sorry.”



“I know you are,” Harry agreed easily. “But you are not sorry because Ron is dead. You are sorry because, in a very small way, you are now paying for what you did.”



Draco\'s head was bowed low, as he listened.



“By the way, that was brilliant, just brilliant,” Harry continued with a brief, bitter laugh. “Great way to get away with murder... tell them the truth, in a way they\'ll never believe. Nicely done, Malfoy.”



Draco knelt frozen, numb. No tears, no fear, nothing. Only Harry\'s voice.



“You know what kills me about it? It\'s not that you did it. It\'s that you didn\'t even care. I could have understood it if you had killed him for a reason. Some perverse, Death-Eater, Voldemort-loving reason. But no. It was just a little game to you. Heads, he lives. Tails, he dies. The best man that ever lived – died in your little game. There was no reason for it. No meaning to it. He just – died.”



Harry stood, towering over Draco, his fists clenched. For a moment, it looked like Harry was going to attack Draco – but only for a moment. Harry gritted his teeth and turned away.



“Get out of here,” he hissed. Draco stood up and left, hastily, not looking back.



He ran through the hallways, alone, not noticing anyone around him. Harry\'s anger had settled inside him, became a pressure in his chest, driving him, pushing him forward. As Draco ran, the staircases and walls were parting of their own accord to let him through, and the portraits were watching him with curiosity. None of that mattered. The anger throbbed and the world around him started to dissolve and fade.



When Draco reached the statue of Boris the Bewildered, their eyes met, and Boris nodded at him grimly. Fourth Door on the Left still led to the Prefect\'s Bathroom, and Draco entered it. He stood at the edge of the enormous pool-sized bathtub. Responding to his presence, the taps opened, and the water gushed in. It didn\'t take long for the tub to be filled with water. Silently, Draco pointed the wand at the water, bringing it to boil. When the water bubbled furiously, and the scorching steam rose from the surface, Draco smiled. He stood for a moment, inhaling the heat, and then plunged.



His body never hit the water. He heard a shrill, panicked voice, that filled the entire bathroom.



“Wingardium Leviosa!” the voice commanded, and Draco found himself floating upwards, levitating just below the roof. Violently, he struggled, looking for his wand.



“Stop that!” The voice demanded, but the urge of the bond was stronger than the voice. Struggling in the air awkwardly, Draco nonetheless pulled out his wand. “Relashio!”



The spell holding him broken, he fell, plunging into the boiling water. But to his dismay, the voice wasn\'t about to give up on him.



“Glacio!”



When Draco\'s body hit the surface of the water, it was frozen solid. His head struck hard against the ice. The last thing he saw was a pool of dark blood on the surface of the ice – his own.





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