NATALIA [Draco Malfoy Fanfiction]

Sixteen | Under Some Sort of Spell

Draco was taken to St. Mungos for the night. The doctors told my friends that he was going to be okay, yet, I couldn't stop thinking about it; all of it.

The blood seeping through Draco's shirt, the curse, who might the half-blood prince be.

It haunted me throughout my Occulamency lesson with Snape, which was unfortunate, as a wandering mind is the last thing you want when someone's trying to break into it.

"You're distracted," he noted.

"I watched someone's guts practically spill out onto the floor yesterday; forgive me."

"Death is a guarantee in war, Blackwell. If you really want to be prepared, you also have to be prepared to fight through the distractions."

I wondered if Diana went through all of this, if she tried to fight the target on her back, but, in that moment Snape had entered into my mind. Before I could stop myself I feel him find a memory of Diana's photo, and the conversation I had seen in the pensive, only able to push him out after it's too late.

"You know."

There was no point in hiding it, so I nodded. "I do. Yes."

He almost laughed; "and here I thought you were just a muggleborn girl in Slytherin, recognizing the danger in your situation."

"Still—that too."

"Nobody else can know about this, do you understand? If the dark lord were to find out, he wouldn't rest until he found you."

I swallowed hard; "and if a few people did know?"

"Who."

I shouldn't have led with Draco, but I did. "But, I know he's a death eater," I added.

"And you figured that was an even trade?" He scoffed; "who else."

"Blaze Zabini, Blair, Gemma Birch—"

"—did you plan on telling the whole school!"

"They were all in the same room," I fired back; "and Draco's trained in Occulamency, is he not?"

There's something I only note now—the Snape didn't seem overly phased by the fact that Draco was a death eater. I had treated what I saw in my dream as reality, which was that Snape was in on it as well. "He is," Snape admitted; "but, the others aren't."

"I'll be out of school by the time the dark lord were to get to them," I pointed out, "I can figure something else out then."

"So you're relying on Draco Malfoy to keep your secret?"

He shook his head, and I almost asked if he knew something, but refrained.

"If you want to survive, you're going to have to push harder than you're training," Snape stated bluntly then; "I can help you achieve this, but only through a process that some would consider to be gruelling."

"I'm willing to take anything you can give me," I told him; "and I'm willing to endure some unpleasantness in the process."

"Then, lets get started."

He drew his wand, and proceeded to try and push into my mind for the next two hours. By the end of it, I was drenched in sweat, and my head hurt so badly I was almost on the verge of tears. But, I thanked him, and left as if I was completely fine.

When I returned, I saw the others in the common room, talking amongst themselves in low voices.

"Hey," I muttered, forgetting, for a moment, that I looked like I had just been dragged through the depths of the forbidden forest.