“I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep. Not fuck, like in those movies. Not even have sex. Just sleep together in the most innocent sense of the phrase. But I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was hurricane.”
- John Green, Looking for Alaska
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Two minutes. That’s how long it took for Nott to drag the unconscious forms of his Death Eater buddies close enough together to safely Disapparate back to wherever they’d came from. Nott had always been unnaturally good when it came to Apparition, so being capable of Apparating with two other injured people accompanying him did not come as much of a surprise, and even if it did, Draco doubted whether he’d actually care, what with the state he was in.
Once they were gone, he was left with nothing but the scarlet stain of blood beside him. He waited for his pulse and breathing to slow down as close to it’s usual rhythm as he could, waited for the fuzziness of his eyesight to fade, and while he sat there, his bones not quite rid of the burning the Crucio left in its wake, he thought back to the time just after sixth year, not long after he’d escaped from Hogwarts and let all those Death Eaters in. He remembered all those prisoners his Aunt Bella had sought out, thinking of them to be some use to her Dark Lord. He remembered how, even though Draco had put as much distance between himself and the cellar, he could still hear their screams no matter how many floors up he was, and then those dreadful occasions when his Aunt would force him to watch, as if in the hopes he would suddenly ask to join in. He remembered how her torture sessions went for as long as the person stayed conscious, which could sometimes take up to hours and hours at a time, and Draco now wondered how the ones who didn’t beg for death did it.
He thought about Longbottom’s parents and the day Bella had told him what she’d done. The way her face had lit up, with that crazed smile and the dreamy, glazed look she’d gotten in her hooded eyes (it had been all Draco could do not to shudder). She’d even laughed hysterically when she’d talked about how much they screamed and sobbed, had a proud and satisfied expression as she described the pure agony on their faces.
But they still hadn’t given in. And now Draco found it hard not to admire them for it. He thought back to how he’d just felt in those few or so minutes of torture and wondered how long it would take to break him. He knew there was no way he could hold out like the Longbottom’s, and Draco made a mental note to be just that little bit more patient with Neville the next time they saw each other.
He stood up, deciding Diagon Alley was completely deserted and that there was little chance of being found and because, in the small chance that someone would come along, he did not want to be found so vulnerable. Hugging the wall when his legs trembled, Draco’s eyes scanned the area for his wand.
When he did not spot it immediately, panic hit him. One of the advantages about being rich was that you rarely ever lacked transportation. The disadvantage was that, should the odds not be in your favour, you had no idea what to do if you were to get stranded.
He knew there was something called the Knight Bus for situations like these, but that still didn’t help him much, having never seen nor rode the thing before.
He found his wand eventually a few feet to his left, and when he began to relax and move away gingerly from the wall to Apparate, keeping close enough to it in case his legs gave way, that brief feeling of relaxation was swiped away when he realised he couldn’t Apparate like this. The Apparition lesions he’d taken in sixth year were not forgotten entirely – of how a Hufflepuff girl (whatever her name was) left her leg or arm or head or whatever it was behind, and then the cry she’d gave. If Draco were to try Apparating in this state there was a very good chance he’d get splinched.
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A Wonderful Fortuitous Love
Fanfiction"You see, Draco Malfoy, without your sarcastic replies to endure each morning and that arrogance only you could carry, I find myself somewhat missing you." Draco thought the biggest problem living for a year under the same roof as Hermione Granger w...
