𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋 𝐖𝐇𝐎 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐏𝐏𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐑

the one with the cruiciatus

“Next time I tell Him
to leave, I won't be
doing it in words.”

•

CHRISTMAS BREAK WAS over as soon as I started. I barely interacted with anyone at all, except Sirius and Remus occasionally, mostly to enlighten them with my planning and the journal that I'll be leaving with Hermione, or conversations concerning Remus's health.

"You just have a furry little problem," I said one day, casually, causing both of them to flinch and stare at me. "I keep telling you guy," I groaned. "I know everything."

"You're much more like James than you are like Meredith," Sirius said to me one day, making me go into a sad trance all day.

The photo album had triggered so many emotions in me, that I had felt like I'd explode. There were pictures of my parents, fabulously dressed at the Black's household, Bellatrix, them and Narcissa, staying up after hours, playing Wizard's Chess or discussing trivia, occasionally letting Regulus join. There were pictures of my parents at the Yule Ball, my mother dressed in a similar black dress as mine, but going to the ball with Professor Snape instead of my dad. Lucius had written down below the picture- Meredith wished to get back at James for calling Severus a dimwitted oaf. So she went with him and Alakay went with Marcella Avery. We had the time of our lives- and the next picture was Snape and my mother dancing rigorously to some music played by a band that looked like The Weird Sisters but younger. A moving photograph taken by Narcissa of Regulus and my mother in the knightbus that read: Reg couldn't apparate if his life depended on it. We were supposed to apparate from right outside Hogwarts till three broomsticks and we ended up in Wales. I watched the picture, my mother casually leaned against the seat as Regulus black laid his head on her knees, covering his face with his hands.

There was a picture of my mother in the courtyard with Bellatrix, Narcissa and Regulus Black, and again Lucius had written beneath it- Meredith always wanted that her child married into the black family, for the Blacks were the best looking lot in the school. I laughed, tears slipping from my eyes one night, and I went to Sirius.

"I have to marry you," I said, laughing through the tears in my eyes. He was smoking on the porch and he started coughing. "My mother used to say that I should marry a Black because of the genes. You're the only Black I can marry!"

He passed me the smoke, against best intentions, and laughed with me, holding me in a sidehug. "You can marry diluted Blacks. I'm too old for you!"

"Like who?" I asked.

"Not that I approve of it, but," Sirius sighed. "If Dumbledore trusts Draco, I do too. Hey! Don't finish it." He grabbed the smoke out of my hands. "Don't tell anyone I let you smoke."

I laughed nodding. That night, I showed Remus and Sirius the photo album, or my parents, young and free of all things that can go wrong. There were pictures if Snape laughing and Bellatrix play-duelling my father and Lucius trying to woo Narcissa in a sneaky picture, and Regulus sheepishly following everyone around. The fact that these adults went to the same school as me and had fun like we do, only to turn into the Darkest Wizards ever, terrified me.

-

"Draco!" I had gone to him first thing after reaching Hogwarts again. Not to my Common Room. Nowhere else. Straight to him. "Look at these pictures-What happened to you!"

Draco looked so pale, with shadows under his eyes, and a terrified, flinchy expression, I stopped dead on my tracks when I saw him. He sat on his bed with his arms around himself, as if hugging himself. He looked at me with bloodshot eyes and a frown etched upon his face. "Draco,"I whispered, sitting down next to him. He flinched slightly. Anger boiled inside me the same way it had when Harry had brought up my mother. "What did he do to you?"