slither - dm

Deception.

There's a lot of back-and-forth POVs between Laurel and Draco here, just a heads up.

TW - Death, mention of Suicide.

Laurel

June 30th, 1997

A month had passed since the tragic incident in the bathroom. Draco was now out of the hospital and managing to accomplish things on his own with minimal assistance. 

We celebrated his seventeenth birthday in the hospital wing, just him and I. I paid Pitts, the head house elf in the kitchens to allow me to use the appliances to make Draco a birthday cake.

It was a hideous cake. It was small, and lopsided, and covered in green frosting, but he loved it.

The only thing he had wished he could have done differently was licking the frosting off of my body, but I don't think Madam Pomfrey would have approved of that behavior. Especially when she and multiple other students were in and out of the unit.

He managed to trick Astoria and fed her one of her Amortentia infused candies, and though it was a very risky move, thankfully nothing severely harmful happened to her. Unless you call being obsessed with yourself harmful.

He only received a slap-on-the-wrist detention for that from Snape. He had the privilege of grading quizzes. You should have seen the smug look on his face when he told me he gave Hermione a failing grade.

Snape didn't find this as amusing as Draco did, and instructed that he correct his mistake.

Theo was once again dating Daphne much to my dismay. I wanted my brother to be happy, and I honestly cannot say for certain that she is the key to his happiness. She's just a bump in the road. Well, more like a mountain.

Draco revealed to me that he is highly skilled in occlumency and legitimacy, and has spent the last week teaching me to protect my mind just in case Voldemort was to investigate my thoughts and memories to see if I were following through with his request to have Harry fall in love with me.

I wasn't.

I wanted to fake it for Draco's safety, but after days of attempted convincing, he finally succeeded, and I broke up with Harry right away.

Harry apologized profusely to me and even begged for a chance to apologize to Draco as well, but I refused to allow that to happen. His friends even backed me up on that, and I couldn't have been more thankful.

I had no desire to speak to Harry for as long as I lived, but I'd be lying if I wasn't the slightest bit curious as to what possessed him to use a curse that he did not know of.

I heard rumors that he read it somewhere in a book, and I've done minor research, and have found nothing that lead me even close to the curse.

The only thing I came to conclude was that it was created by someone very knowledgeable in the dark arts. The one question that remains is who could be twisted enough to teach this?

I thought about asking Snape if he knew anything about the spell, but seeing as I'm not his favorite, I opted not to. So, I had Draco do it instead, but again, nothing to his avail. Snape claimed that he too had never heard of that incantation, but will see to it that no one else ever learns it.

Flashbacks of that night consistently flicker through my mind throughout the day, and Draco knew this. I mean, he was reading my mind at times. It was one tragedy that I cannot seem to let escape my mind.

It was equally as tragic as when my mother died in front of me, or when Archie was tortured by his father in his own house.

Draco's near-death will forever live with me because I cannot help but feel partly responsible for it.