Draught of Dreams

PART VI

It was bad.

No wonder Malfoy had been looking at me like that.

It didn't look so much like a choker of bruises, but splashes of red spread like a wine stain. My cheek was swollen, one side significantly puffier than the other. And there was this deer-in-headlights look to my eyes that made me wonder if they had frozen me that way. If Crabbe had stared at that terror with greedy thirst as he choked the life out of me.

Using basic healing spells I'd learned from Pomfrey, I began the mending process.

And you wonder why you're so alone.

What had he meant by that? As if he could fill that void in my life?

What would have happened if they hadn't fetched Malfoy? Would Crabbe really have murdered me in his ire? And how was Malfoy going to explain himself to his minions? There was a time when he would've jumped at the chance to torture me.

Or would he?

Petty hexes and sharp words were his specialty. But physical blows and strangulation? He wasn't the type to get stains on his white shirt. With my dirty blood, as he liked to remind me every day. Though, significantly less recently, and only in front of other people.

This was surely a testament to my miserable existence. I was finding the pros of Draco Malfoy. Maybe I'd hit my head a little too hard in the classroom.

And you wonder why you're so alone.

Or maybe it was because he was the only one to talk to me without asking for a favour.

Let me heal you.

Would I have offered him the same if our roles had been reversed?