Afterwards

Title: Afterwards

Author: Nita Riddle

Feedback: Be nice, send feedback to sireofangelus@yahoo.com. Please, I need it to live.

Rated: R for adult content and language. I said fuck a few times.

Pairings: Draco/Harry, Draco/Ron

Summery: The aftermath of Draco\'s rape, sequel to Abused

A/N: I am a cruel woman, I really shouldn\'t be allowed to use Draco in fiction. I keep upsetting him. Neither should I be allowed to use Gryffindors, I keep turning them evil. Oh yeah, and on a sidenote, this contains spoilers for OOTP. I just realized I should add that in.

Dedication: This is dedicated to my Beta, Aurelia Aims, who is a total goddess. Also Devon, who has no one to blame but herself for being the first person to request a sequel, my friend Zanne, Tiny who knows very well who he is and why I call him that. And my friends at AvKav, Bonibaru, for no good reason other than she rocks, Libertine, because she scares the crap out of me, and all the wonderful people who sent me feedback. I luff you guys! Sarah edited this for me, for that, I consider her my new god. I shall put her on my worshipping shelf next to Libertine and Maeglin Yedi. Thank your Sarah!!!!!!!

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Draco had really started to recover when it happened. His life was getting back on track when the incident happened, but that\'s not how you tell the story. You always tell the beginning before the end.

He stopped calling her Bulstrode after these last few days because she acted far too much like an older sister or a mother to keep calling her by her surname. Not that I blame him, she treated him the way Mum treats Ginny when she gets sick. Which makes me fear and admire her at the same time.

She\'s a lot stronger emotionally than people believe.

When the whole ugly story got out about Draco and Harry, Dumbledore only made Harry go to counseling for the rest of the school year, two sessions a week. Draco had to undergo the same thing by the same psychiatrist, two sessions a week for four months. Their sessions were right after each other so it wasn\'t a very uncommon sight before the incident to see Harry lingering at the door, sharing small talk with Dr. Kaldrona while Draco would stand, surrounded by Slytherins to protect him from Harry.

Draco was still terrified of Harry, but that wasn\'t why he needed to be protected from Harry. It was because he still loved him. You could tell every time Draco saw Harry because his eyes would be filled with unshed tears and he would shake from the effort of trying not to cry until he was safe and out of the sight of the rest of the school, protected by hislow low snakes.

The Slytherin\'s were really looking out for him, but it was like a few members of other houses were looking after him too. I had to work hard to keep from smiling each time Ginny and Luna would run up to him in the hall and tell him jokes to cheer him up him when they saw him looking gloomy.

Millie would drag Draco to his classes, to his shrink, to Hogsmeade, and at the end of the day Draco would threaten to adopt her when the subject was mentioned around him in the Slytherin Common Room as a joke. No one ever left Draco alone, it wasn\'t safe. He tried committing suicide a couple times after he saw how lightly Harry was punished.

No amount of money his father gave the Ministry would get them to do anything against Potter. He even showed up at the school in a veela-like rage trying to kill Harry for defiling his son. Mr. Malfoy had to be sedated and sent back to the Manor. It only added more to Draco\'s other danger. restrest of the students at Hogwarts.

The school had taken sides from the beginning of the rumors. The Slytherin\'s were on Draco\'s side, believing him and being disgusted at the Gryffindors behavior. They may not have liked The Boy Who Lived but, this was too much, even for them.

The rest of the school was on Harry\'s side, saying Draco was just lying about the entire thing to get Harry in trouble, or saying that Draco had an abusive boyfriend but rather than name the real guy,guy, blamed it on Harry to get him in trouble.

I didn\'t know what to believe entirely. All the Gryffindors except for me, Luna, and Ginny are on Harry\'s side. They call us traitors because we wanted to get the facts first before believing anything. Harry may have been my best mate, but rape isn\'t a crime you just accuse someone of.

All I know is that Draco didn\'t lie about a thing. Whatever happened between the two of them resulted in this school wide war. It\'s not safe to walk ugh ugh the halls anymore if your house considers you a traitor. Not without people who believe in the same things you do, which is why the girls and I would walk with the Slytherins every chance we got.

People glared at us, and the one with the worst of it was Draco. They would send him Howlers, try to hurt him, trip him, and try to poison him. Draco had it worst of all. Funny, after all these years of being that git Malfoy, he\'s become Draco.

I didn\'t know what to think when I heard the news. It didn\'t seem possible. My best mate, a rapist?! It\'s Harry for gods sake. I didn\'t think he even knew what sex was. I couldn\'t believe it then, he was my best friend.

After all this I can\'t emphasis that part enough.

He would never do anything like that. I knew him. Harry wasn\'t a violent person. Hell, Harry wasn\'t even gay! Why would Malfoy say that Harry dated him for a year and a half. Harry\'s not that kind of person.

Bloody hell, what if Mum hears about all this? Well, anyway...

It was ugly, how we all found out. Malfoy was skipping dinner, again, when Dumbledore stands up to make an announcement. He said for Harry to go to his office after dinner and sat back down without any explanation. For some odd reason none of us could figure out at the time why the Slytherin\'s started cheering at the words. If looks could kill, Bulstrode would have had us dead and rotting that moment.

Before the announcement was made, there had been rumors all over the school about Malfoy. The git deserved some of the things that I heard, but all of it was far fetched. Malfoy was being bullied and beaten up every other day.

They all came from Parvati and Padma Patil, who swore that they had it from a reliable source.

Actually, him being as scrawny as he was, the truest rumor I had heard was the one about Draco having an eating disorder. He used to look anorexic as hell. Well, anyway, after dinner, Harry went to Dumbledore and we stayed in the common room. He came back an hour later fumeing.

He threw a rather long piece of parchment at us and Hermione picked it up to read. The more she read the more horrified she looked. Harry sat down in a huff until she put down the paper. I still remember how sickened she looked when she asked him, \"Is it true?\" He shook his head and yelled no.

I read the paper after her. I mean, it couldn\'t have been true. It was all a hoax from Malfoy, was what was running through my head over and over again. That it was all lies. Hermione believed him of course.

By the next morning, everyone in Gryffindor knew Draco was spreading the lies about Harry, especially the lie that said Harry was his boyfriend and that Harry was abusing him. Everyone except Ginny and Luna, who believed the rumors and packed their things so they wouldn\'t be jumped in the their Common Rooms. They went and spent the night in the Hufflepuff common room with some friends until they could find a permanent place to stay. There was one other student in Hogwarts who had doubts and that was me.

I, unlike everyone else, wasn\'t so sure it was true that Harry wasn\'t a rapist. Harry\'s my best mate, and he wouldn\'t do a thing like that ever, but Malfoy never lies. He insults and yells and hexes you, but he never lies. He believes everything he says.

I didn\'t know what to believe, so I decided to find out. Dumbledore just gave Harry a strong lecture about serious accusations and made him go to counseling with a psychiatrist. Other than Draco\'s word, there was no proof Harry was the one doing that to him.

Then I decided to confront Draco about it.

I went up to the mass of Slytherins guarding him and demanded to know what happened between them. I knew for a fact that Draco had never confirmed or denied anything to the other students. It made fighting between the houses even worse, if that\'s possible.

I had never seen Draco that fragile before. It was really pathetic the way he backed away from me, looking so small and childlike.

I demanded over and over again for him to say if the rumors were true and he just kept staring at me. Crabbe and Goyle tried to make me leave and then he said it. In words so quiet I scarcely didn\'t believe him the first time he said it.

\"He raped me.\"

Everyone turned and stared at Draco.

I knew I wasn\'t the first to ask that question but I was the first to be answered. If that wasn\'t enough he started to scream it as if forcing the word out would empty him of his pain, \"He raped me, okay! HARRY FUCKING POTTER RAPED ME! Harry USED me, he HURT me, and he made me think he loved me!\" He seemed to withdraw into himself after that fit of rage only to say in a childish manner that didn\'t befit him at all, \"He told me he loved me Weasly, why did he lie?\" His eyes opened wide, and I could see the pain and honesty that lied in his words. he opened himself to me for a moment and the words he had spoken echoed in my head. \"He told me he loved me Weasly, why did he lie?\"

I couldn\'t answer him. I couldn\'t think with his voice repeating itself over and over again. Instead I ran.

I felt confused and hurt. All I remember was running and crying and trying to think. Everything was so screwed up in my head. I couldn\'t focus on anything.
It had to be true. One look at Draco would show he was telling the truth. He was being honest. My perfect world shattered. My thoughts and my ideals of my best friend were gone, and all that was left was an ugly monster that used and abused someone. I couldn\'t go back to the tower.

I got McGonagall\'s permission and I spent the night at Hagrid\'s. He welcomed me in. He was upset at Harry, but was one of the people who thought it was all ridiculous, something carried out too far and exaggerated.

For his lack of knowledge on the truth I both pitied and envied him.

If he had known my standing now on the whole Harry/Draco thing, I don\'t think he would have let me stayed. Maybe he would have, he\'s a good man.

I felt like my childhood had died. I used to feel that as long as I was with Harry and Hermione that I would always be safe, because they were my friends and they would look out for me. But Harry had betrayed what ever trust I used to have of him being a good person, and Hermione, with her ability to see through lies and rumors, hurt me just as bad by her refusal to see the truth. After nights worth of thinking, I decided that I had been just as bad before I had confronted Hermione when this started.

At breakfast I refused to sit with Hermione and Harry. Instead I sat with Ginny and Loony ol\' Luna who wasn\'t so bad. They were being shamed for their beliefs in Draco and it became apparent to the rest of my house that I had \'betrayed\' them too. They sat with the Slytherin\'s because if they tried to sit with the Gryffindors, it got very ugly, so they didn\'t bother to try anymore.

Ginny had looked elated when I sat down with them that morning and Luna blinked at me and calmly stated that she knew I was going to join them soon.

Harry tried to confront me about it after breakfast, but I wouldn\'t look him in the eyes. Finally he lost his temper and asked me if I really believed Draco. I think the thing that shocked him most was when I looked in his eyes in a cold fury and told him calmly and dilydily, \"Yes.\"

Neither he nor Hermione ever spoke to me again outside of class.

I spent my nights sleeping in the Slytherin dorms along with Ginny and Luna. The houselves had placed extra beds in the dorms so we could stay there. Houselves know everything that happens in school.

If it wasn\'t for some of our classes, you would never know we wGryfGryffindors. If you looked at our uniforms, you would simply see large ink stain over the place the lion or eagle should have been. Even Professor Snape treated us like an honorary Slytherin\'s.

For some reason, Draco only opened to me, Millie, Pansy, Crabbe, and Goyle. It was a shock to see him talk to me and not the other Slytherins. When is mes me and him, the name Harry Potter never came up. I did my best to forget that bad start we had had years ago and Draco tried as well.


We became quite close. Closer than Harry and I ever got and in a completely different way. Different jokes, and different smiles. Even the Slytherin style of thinking grew on me. No one was surprised the first time the insult \"mudblood\" left my lips towards a Muggle born Ravenclaw who threw a dungbomb into the dungeons.

Draco Malfoy is raped and abused and the only action against his abuser is to be sent to counseling. Professor Snape was right, no matter what The Golden Boy did, Hogwarts was blind to the whole thing. First Sirius Black and now Harry Potter. Life\'s never fair, but it\'s by lack of sight, not lack of trying.

The Weaslys left at Hogwarts had gotten ourselves a new name because of our views. We were no longer known as Mudblood lovers, but the Betrayers. Ginny and I stopped owling the rest of our family, instead growing closer to the Slytherin\'s families.

We laughed with them over a Dark victory and cried with them when a family member was killed or arrested by Aurors. In ways I saw lived in their world of bloodlines and old magics that were beyond labels of Dark but had knowledge of ours, a world of equality for those Muggle born and rules. I learned rules and etiquette, financial management, languages, stores, things I would have never learned in Gryffindor. The magic I learned in the dungeons made everything worth it. The thrill you feel after using Dark Magic is a high unlike any other.

Ginny was the first to submerge completely into the darkness. She was the stronger of the two of us, but I guess the dark lured her the way it always had in the past. It may sound terrible but you didn\'t hear her shrieks of delight at learning a new spell, or the glow that surrounded her for days when she learned her first Unforgivable.

She was happier than ever thanks to our change in politics, but she had changed. When she showed up in my dorm one night to ask me if I would be upset if she decided to support Voldemort\'s cause, but not becoming a death eater or anything yet, I felt like I had been expecting the question for a while now. She didn\'t seem surprised either when I said I wouldn\'t be upset at all, but in fact, I\'d be quite proud of her.

The question showed me how dead the old Ronald and Virginia Weasly were. We had become something else. Something entirely different. And neither of us cared.

That\'s why when the Daily prophet declared the next morning that the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix had been raided and several lives had been lost, I looked in Harry\'s eyes with defiance, a cruel smirk playing on my lips.

I know the deaths that happen. I also know this, death is a small price to pay for eternal freedom in the wizarding world of things like Draco\'s abuse from ever happening again.

I never had anything to do with the raid, but the thrilled look on my sisters face showed just too clear who was.

Percy tried to send me a letter, as if he could change the person I\'ve become. \"Ron your being ridiculous\" he said, \"Do stop hanging with those cretins. You\'re a prefect and you should behave yourself better. First you stop being friends with Potter and quit the Quidditch Team, now this?\" I just wish I could have seen the look on his face when he got the Howler Draco and I sent him on discrimination and the lack of compassion for one fourth of the wizarding nation due to the work of a bloody hat.

I regret nothing.

Ginny and Luna fit right in with the younger Slytherin girls. I\'ve never seen Gin so happy as when she\'s here, in the dark dungeons we\'ve moved to. They admired her for her work with the Dark Lord in second year, and even more so because she chose to go back to the Dark Lord, even after she had giv given a chance to redeem herself.

Dumbledore used to try to \'talk some sense\' into me, but it quickly became obvious I didn\'t care and he gave up. He would have a better chance of telling me Fudge was a 200 pound German woman named Ivonna Humpalot.
My life was perfect for me. I was happy, and my sister was happy. I had friends I cared about that I looked after and who looked after me.

That\'s when it started, or rather we started. Draco and I became more than friends. It scared him a lot more than me.

The firime ime he kissed me he flinched and didn\'t speak to me for days. I was sort of glad. because it gave me some time to think. When I confronted him about it he said he didn\'t want the thing with Harry to start all over again... His voice cracked at the end of it and he burst into a flurry of tears.

Since the counseling started, he\'s been more emotional. Trying to comfort crying people always felt awkward to me, but with Draco it was just natural to gather him close and sooth his fears. It was with that second kiss, a soft meeting of lips and salty tears, that started our quiet relationship.

Seeing us hold hands only made the others lash out more at Draco. Calling him a queer and destroying me and Ginny\'s reputation more. They would wave an accusatory finger at Luna and her, accusing them of being something more than friends.

If I was a different person I would think I was the reason that Draco died, but I\'m not. I know where the blame lies. I also know how his death began, and it began with a kiss.

I left him on his own to go the Library for lunch before going to Care of Magical Creatures. When I left him in the hallway, giving him a quick peck on the cheek before going to return a book I felt uneasy about leaving him there. I asked him to come with me, but he laughed at me, saying he\'d be fine. That Millie would be waiting for him by the doors out of the castle to walk with him to class and look after him along with Crabbe and Goyle.

He called me mother, with a teasing tone, when he walked away. He made a small joke about incest and left me to my work. I stayed in the library a bit longer than I expected and had to hurry to get to class on time.

When I reached the doors out of the castle I started to walk towards Hagrid\'s hut, but then I spotted that something was wrong. I could make out the Slytherin\'s panicking and I could just barely hear Millie and Pansy\'s shrieking voices in a tone too panicked to make out.

I ran down there and was grabbed by a hysterical girl. It was Pansy, and she kept asking me where I last saw Draco. Then my eyes told me what I hadn\'t noticed before. Out of the small mass of students, one petite blond boy was missing.

I watched Harry and Hermione talking nonchalantly, giving the Slytherins scornful looks at our panic as the Gryffindors mocked us since it was \'clear\' he was skipping. Harry gave a cold glare and a smirk as if he knew something I didn\'t. He told Hagrid that he had seen Draco going to Madam Pomfrey, trying to skip class.

Hagrid believed Harry\'s words instead of me when I told him that he had been coming straight to CoMC. I guess it still hurt him that I refused to be associated with Gryffindors or Harry. I felt extreme agony all the way through class. As if it would never end.

After class we went straight to Professor Snape\'s classroom and begged for him to help us find Draco. When he heard that Draco was missing, he began to organize a search immediately. Snape notified Dumbledore that Draco was missing while the rest of us scoured the castle.

It was Blaise Zambini that found him. Blaise ran into the common room yelling about this corridor and nearly hysterical, muttering the word \"blood\". He lead us to the third floor corridor and refused to go on from there. I felt sickened as I lead the Slytherins down an all too familiar route that seemed worse, even if it was devoid of three headed dogs, killer plants, and deranged chess pieces.

It made the find in the final room all the worse.

A bloody, beaten body of Draco Malfoy. The open eyes that accepted their fate made me throw up, Millie break down, and Pansy faint. The rest of the Slytherins were screaming or crying. I looked at Draco\'s cold raped body and knew that Harry had done this, and the Dumbledore had let it happen. I saw the blood and the bruises. I saw the Gryffindor scarf still tied around Draco\'s neck that had suffocated him to death. His nails had broken from trying to rip the scarf off and knife cuts covered his body in a decorative pattern that only made the blood look unimportant. The word scrawled in blood read, \"You should have never touched another.\"

If anyone else had been the one to kiss Draco, to have loved him like I did, they would have blamed themselves. I knew who was to blame, Harry Potter, and I knew what I had to do.

That moment is what drove me to be here today and stand tall next to my sister. Is the vengeance of Draco Malfoy a good enough reason to join the Death Eaters my Dark Lord, because if it isn\'t, who the fuck do I have to Cruciatus to get the job?

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