𝐃𝐑𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐘 𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐌𝐀𝐆𝐔𝐒 2008

Ain't No Friend Of Mine (3/4)

Sure, it was possible to pick up and go on after . . . after detention in the Forbidden Forest and falling off your broom in Dementor drag and getting Bat Bogey Hexed and having your dad arrested and getting disemboweled on a bathroom floor . . . but having been a dog. Having licked Harry Potter's face. Just . . . no.

"What?" Potter was asking, trying to understand him.

Draco stopped yipping.

Potter sighed and came over to the map. "Malfoy was last seen here," Potter said, walking over to the map. He stared for a while. "Do you know, that's very close to Little Whinging."

Walking over to Potter, Draco pressed himself up against his leg, bracing for Disapparition.

Potter shot a tight smile down at him. "I guess we have to," he said, and Disapparated them to his childhood neighborhood.

Draco was not allowed inside of Arabella Figg's home. The Dog Brain would not allow him to behave, and Potter left him regretfully on the pavement.

It was the cats, see.

They were driving Draco—well, barking.

That was when he might've—well, just might've chased one up a tree.

When Potter was outside again, kitten duly saved, Draco could finally force the Dog Brain to stop, due to its own need to pant and jump up on and—how utterly humiliating--lick—Harry's face.

Potter "ugh"ed and laughed, teasing Draco about the poor kitty no one cared about any more because this was Potter; he was safe after going into the crazy old bat's house.

"I'm gone for one hour," Potter started, still laughing.

Draco loved to hear him laugh.

And hated that that was true.

He dropped to his feet and barked sharply.

Sobering, Potter said, "She didn't see Malfoy, just the Dementor, or whatever it is." Potter shook his head. "Woman has a knack for not-witnessing, I guess. She also . . . heard it." At Draco's pressing, he said, "Suffer the truth."

Draco clamped his mouth shut and didn't bark any more.

But Potter was musing, not noticing Draco's silence, or if so, ignoring it. "Some of the other cases . . . that pure-blood kid who lost his magic, the former Death Eater who thinks he's a not-so-former Death Eater . . . Suffer the truth?" Potter repeated. "I mean—Black, listen."

Potter was getting an idea and Draco hated that. In fact, he'd discovered why Gryffindors only stated the obvious and tautological. Of course he should have known; the solution had been staring him in the face. Obviously, whenever Gryffindors speculated, drew conjectures, deduced, it ended badly. A Gryffindor idea was a bad idea, and that was pretty much tautological.

“Dementors usually suck out your soul, right?” Potter was saying. “But this isn’t a Dementor, so he can’t do that. We know it changes people, is changing pure-bloods. What if, instead of taking your soul out . . . it changes it? It doesn’t take your self away and leave fear; it changes you into something you fear.”