A/N This chapter includes thoughts about self harm and suicide - please skip if you will find this triggering (I mark the beginning and end of the section with ***).
It turned out Slughorn was going to be teaching Potions. Which meant Snape had finally got his wish and he was to be teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts.
'Well, there's one good thing,' Harry said savagely, still angry about Malfoy. And Snape too for taking seventy House points from him for being late and not in his school uniform. He hadn't dared looked at Minnie when he walked in the Great Hall long after the Sorting with his face covered in blood. 'Snape'll be gone by the end of the year.'
'What d you mean?' asked Ron.
'That job's jinxed. No one's lasted more than a year... Quirrell actually died doing it. Personally, I'm going to keep my fingers crossed for another death...'
'Harry!' said Hermione, shocked and reproachful.
When Harry told Ron what had happened on the train, Ron seemed to think Malfoy was just showing off to Pansy.
Hermione said much the same thing at breakfast the following morning, '...it would be like Malfoy to make himself seem more important than he is...' but she didn't seem so certain.
Harry and Ron took great amusement in watching the new first-years stumbling around the corridors as Minnie tried to direct them in the right directions.
'Potter! Potter!' she called to him.
'Uh-oh, this can't be good, she's using my surname,' Harry mumbled to Ron but jumped off the stone bench and went over.
She shook her head and pursed her lips. 'Enjoying ourselves, are we?'
'Well, I have a free period this morning, mum.'
'So, I noticed. I would think you'd want to fill it with potions or is it no longer your ambition to become an Auror?'
'You know it was, but you told me I had to get an "Outstanding" in my O.W.L.'
'And so you did when Professor Snape was teaching the subject. Professor Slughorn, however, is perfectly happy to accept N.E.W.T. students with "Exceeds Expectations". Do you wish to proceed with Potions?'
'Yes. Brilliant, well, I'll head there straight away.'
'Good.'
Harry turned to leave.
'Harry, take Weasley with you. He looks far too happy over there.'
They charged off to Potions together and after a brief fight to grab the last two remaining Advanced Potions books, of which Harry came out worse, they settled into a new year.
Harry hoped, briefly, that things might be considered normal this year, he might even get through the first week without getting a detention. Maybe he might actually enjoy his subjects. Especially when he found the scruffy old potions book he'd ended up with was covered in scrawls and notes which actually aided his potion making. Suddenly he found he was understanding the subject without Snape sneering over his shoulder and throwing condescending comments his way. He was the only one in class to produce a perfect Draught of Living Death. His reward from Slughorn was a small bottle of Felix Felicis, a good luck potion. Harry saw Draco eyeing it enviously.
Defence proved equally as entertaining. Snape started them on non-verbal casting, wanting them to cast both jinxes and defence spells silently.
Although Snape did not know it, Harry had taught at least half the class in his DA group how to perform a Shield Charm the previous year. Ron, who was supposed to be jinxing Harry, was purple in the face, his lips compressed tightly to save himself from the temptation of muttering the incantation.
'Pathetic, Weasley,' said Snape, after a while. 'Here - let me show you...'
He turned his wand on Harry so fast that Harry reacted instinctively; all thoughts of non-verbal spells forgotten he yelled, 'Protego!
His shield charm was so strong, Snape was knocked off-balance and stumbled into a desk. The whole class had looked round and now watched as Snape righted himself, scowling.
'Do you remember me telling you we are practising non-verbal spells, Potter?'
'Yes,' said Harry stiffly.
'Yes sir.'
'There's no need to call me "sir", Professor.'
The words had escaped him before he knew what he was saying. Several people gasped. Behind Snape, Ron, Dean, and Seamus grinned appreciatively.
'Detention, Saturday night, my office,' said Snape. 'I do not take cheek from anyone, Potter... not even the Chosen One.'
So much for not getting a detention in the first week. Still, thought Harry, it was worth it.
Unfortunately for Snape, Dumbledore also wanted to see Harry at eight o'clock on Saturday night. Detention was going to have to wait.
Draco scowled at the back of Potter's back in Transfiguration. His mother had written and informed the Manor had been raided again. He was sure Potter had something to do with it. He was tempted to Hex him non-verbally. Just to try. There were too many witnesses though... and in McGonagall's class. Perhaps not the best of ideas.
His nerves were getting to him. Not that he let it show.
The more he thought about it, the more certain he was that he wouldn't be able to do what the Dark Lord had asked of him. He had contemplated ways in which he might succeed; other, indirect ways. It was a Hogsmeade weekend coming up and he had a plan, albeit a very weak and wishy-washy and undoubtedly disastrous plan, but at least he could try it. He felt his pocket, checking the box was still there. He didn't dare leave it in the dorm room in case someone went poking around.
It was a disastrous plan, in hindsight. But he knew that, didn't he?
He certainly hadn't planned on Katie Bell opening the box and for the necklace to possess her.
He hadn't expected Potter to witness him coming out of the toilets behind Katie Bell and tell the headmaster and Uncle Sev.
He hadn't planned on Potter recognising the necklace as the one that was for sale in Borgin and Burkes and somehow know that Draco had been studying it.
He hadn't planned on Potter, Granger, and Weasley to be on hand when Katie Bell was cursed. He was, he didn't like to admit, relieved that they were there, they probably saved her life. He was also a little relieved that Potter had apparently stopped Weasley from picking up the necklace from where it had fallen in the snow.
Why did Potter have to be everywhere?
It seemed Potter was obsessively suspicious of everything Draco was doing too. Not that Draco could deny he wasn't up to no good but still... it was making things harder for him.
Potter even knew that Draco had paid Harper to play Seeker in the Slytherin versus Gryffindor match of the year.
He found that life was slowly being sucked out of him as the year progressed. He knew he was turning inwards, turning away from his friends, if he could call his Slytherin House mates 'friends'. He wasn't sure he could. Scrap that, he knew he couldn't because he didn't trust a single one of them. He knew he couldn't turn to any of them for help.
There was no joy anymore.
He didn't even find any pleasure in knowing Weasley was making a fool of himself with that Lavender girl. Couldn't keep his filthy blood-traitor paws off her and was sickeningly in love and the Mudblood was walking around with a face like thunder...
Even in his mind the insults were sounding half-hearted.
They were just teenagers doing teenager stuff.
For the first time in his life, he actually felt envious of Weasley. He wanted to be living that life. He didn't want the lot he'd been landed with.
Potter was there when Draco was found loitering outside Slughorn's Christmas party, not that he was actually loitering there as such, it just happened that Draco was on the seventh floor, nearby, when Filch found him.
Draco pulled himself free of Filch's grip angrily. 'Alright, alright, I wasn't invited! I was trying to gatecrash, happy?
Slughorn was a blithering idiot and took it all as a massive compliment but Draco knew that Potter was watching him shrewdly. Potter knew it was all bollocks.
And Draco knew he looked ill. Potter would be able to tell that too. They knew each too well. If their roles were reversed, Draco would know equally well. No, Potter would see the dark shadows under Draco's grey eyes and the distinctly sallow tinge to his skin. So many liked to think Potter was oblivious but Draco knew he wasn't. Not when it came to seeing the obvious in Draco.
Severus dragged Draco away from the party to an empty classroom.
'The necklace was too risky. You can't afford these mistakes, Draco, because if you are expelled...'
'I didn't have anything to do with it, alright?' he lied even though they both knew he did.
'It was both clumsy and foolish. Already you are suspected of having a hand in it.'
'I know!' Draco snapped angrily. His anger was mostly because he knew Severus was right about the necklace being a clumsy and foolish attempt.
He felt Severus try to break through his Occlumency shields.
'Ah, Aunt Bellatrix has been teaching you, I see. What thoughts are you trying to conceal from your master, Draco?'
Damned if he was going to tell Severus that he was hiding his doubts and his fear. His questioning. 'I don't want you butting in.'
'Listen to me,' Severus said, his voice low. 'I am trying to help you. I swore to your mother I would protect you. I made the Unbreakable Vow, Draco...'
'...I don't need your help or your protection! It's my job, he gave it to me and I'm doing it. I've got a plan and it's going to work. It's just taking a bit longer than I thought it would.'
'Tell me and I can help.'
'I know what you're up to! You want to steal my glory!'
'Draco, I know you're upset about your father being in Azkaban but...'
Draco fled from Severus, disappearing as fast as he could to a remote alcove on the fifth floor. He sunk to the floor and sobbed in a way that he hadn't cried since he was a child. He knew he would gladly hand over his task to Severus but he couldn't. The Dark Lord kept reiterating that Lucius wouldn't be freed from Azkaban until Draco succeeded. Each week he failed was another week his father was being kept in that awful place. And then the Dark Lord had suggested that an accident might happen to his mother or perhaps, he'd added as an afterthought with a small satisfied smile, Fenrir might accidently break into her bedroom when he was on one of his full-moon rampages. Without his father there to protect his mum, Draco had to do this, as quickly as possible. Another full moon approached and Draco felt on tenterhooks.
In February, he was surprisingly relieved to find out that Potter had saved the day when Slughorn had opened a bottle of poisoned mead and Weasley had dropped to the floor, foaming at the mouth. Potter was quick thinking enough to shove a bezoar down Weasley's throat as Slughorn simply panicked. The mead had been intended for... well, Draco was glad he hadn't poisoned the wrong person, even if it was Weasley.
They were, he knew, the desperate moves of a desperate person and he was trying to remove himself from the direct act but it seemed that in trying to do so, he might be, if it wasn't for Potter, stacking up a body count. He clenched his hands to try and stop the shaking.
He thought of his mother's words in the summer. Do not wish to kill someone, no matter who, it'll leave a darkness in your heart that you'll never recover from.
Draco knew it was true, he didn't want to kill anyone. He decided you needed a certain darkness in your heart to do it in the first place. But he wasn't sure what choice he had.
He kept trying to convince himself that the Dark Lord had chosen him. That this was his moment of glory. Instead, he felt like he was drowning.
Somehow Potter started turning up on the seventh-floor corridor, a lot. As if he knew Draco was using the Room of Requirements. Draco supposed he should have guessed that Potter would know about the room; after all, he had used it for his so-called Army training the previous year.
He had got Vince and Greg taking Polyjuice for him so they were disguised as first years and keeping a look out. At least that way they could also fed back to their fathers about how hard he was trying.
Potter's deductive skills were all well and good but it was adding to Draco's stress because he couldn't get the bloody cabinet to work and when it did, it only partially worked. He didn't think the Dark Lord would be very impressed if half his Death-Eaters stepped out of the bloody thing looking like decaying corpses, or simply piled up inside it, dead.
Mind you, that was how he was feeling these days.
In May, just before the next full moon, he found himself in the boys' bathroom on the sixth floor. His father had been sitting in that dark damp cell surrounded by Dementors for nearly eleven months and it was his fault because he couldn't do what the Dark Lord wanted.
***
He stood with his back to the door and studied himself in the mirror over the sink. Myrtle wasn't there for once. Sometimes she helped but today he was glad. Being crushed on by a love-up ghost didn't exactly do wonders for one's self-esteem. He looked paler than normal, nearly grey with illness. He was too thin, unable to eat from the anxiety that was gnawing away at him. He felt sick all the time. He wanted to cry but his eyes felt dry, his lips were cracked, his skin brittle. How easy it would be to slice it open and watch his blood flow red against the white porcelain of the sink. He wondered if he would be able to feel any pain. He felt so numb these days.
Perhaps it was a side effect of taking the Mark and having to kowtow to the Dark Lord: the numbness and the loss of humanity.
He had long since started to assess what 'humanity' actually meant to him and found it was sitting at odds with where he was. He used to think life was all about power... with that came excitement and narcissistic pleasure. He realised that his life had been all about his pride and arrogance. And actually, now he thought about it, it merged into cringeworthy smugness and superiority that wasn't at all attractive.
All that had been taken away from him and, in many ways, it was a good thing. He didn't like his past self; he didn't want to go back there. It was too utterly shallow and meaningless. But neither did he want to be who he saw in the mirror staring emotionlessly back at him.
There was no pride in who he was and what he was doing. No excitement or pleasure either. And definitely no power. No that lay in the Dark Lord's hands. Draco's failure meant death; his and his parents. The potential success of what he was doing resulted also in death. Of how many others, he questioned. Too many, he knew. Even one was too many.
He certainly didn't feel powerful in that knowledge; the knowledge that he held other's lives in the palm of his hands. He wasn't a god that had the right to make those choices and nor, he realised, was the Dark Lord.
He questioned whether what he was doing could possibly be declared as right. Once upon a time he would have emphatically said yes. It was for the good of Wizarding kind to hold onto the Pureblood traditions. Now he was beginning to think that humanity was a better tradition.
Humanity: the quality of being humane and benevolent. The qualities of kindness, acceptance, inclusivity, goodwill, compassion, forgiveness, empathy. He realised he hadn't been very good at possessing any of those qualities over the years.
Why was he trying to destroy that?
And weren't they the qualities that anyone would use to describe what Albus Dumbledore stood for?
And if the Dark Lord stood for everything that Dumbledore wasn't, what did that make him? Inhumane, cruel, brutal, heartless... He certainly lacked compassion, Draco saw that first hand, just from the situation that Draco found himself in now. There was no compassion - all because his father made a mistake.
And, finally, he admitted that it was his father who had made the mistake and that it was him and the Dark Lord who were to blame for his current situation. Not Potter or Dumbledore or anyone else he thought to condemn.
He felt so hopeless.
He wondered if he could escape without putting his mother at risk.
He could go to Severus but he would only go to the Dark Lord and tell him Draco was failing.
In the emptiness of the dark nights, he thought repeatedly about ending it all. Perhaps that was the only answer. The threat on his mother's life was empty if Draco no longer existed. There would be no reason to keep his father in Azkaban any longer.
He looked at his reflection in the mirror again.
All he saw was that hopelessness.
No one would miss him, not here.
Only his mother and she would understand.
A brief flash of anger and bitterness at his situation meant he lashed out, smashing the mirror with his fist so shards clattered into the sink before him.
How easy to pick one up?
He clutched either side of the sink, his white-blond head bowed.
The sob welled up from the pit of his stomach, wrenching at his insides, clawing to get out. It came as a rasping sound at first. He gasped as the tears came, unable to breath properly as they streamed down his pale face into the grimy basin. He gulped; his vision blurry as he shuddered. He reached for the largest shard of mirror, he couldn't focus on it properly but he could see enough to know it was pointed and sharp.
His fingers closed around the razor edges. It was already cutting into his flesh as he held it and placed the sharpest point against the skin on his forearm, right over the Dark Mark that marred him. As he pressed the sharpness into the tail of the writhing snake and watched a bubble of blood appear, he hissed with pain.
So, he wasn't numb after all.
He looked up into the shattered mirror again. This time catching shattered fragments of emerald green behind him.
***
Minerva heard about the incident from Severus though it was clear that Moaning Myrtle was making it her business to visit every bathroom in the school and tell everyone what had happened in the boys' bathroom on the sixth floor. And Pansy Parkinson had visited Mr Malfoy in the hospital wing and proceeded to vilify Harry far and wide. Severus was rightly furious as he told the staff that Harry had used a Dark Curse and seriously maimed Draco Malfoy, potentially scarring him for life. It was lucky Severus had been on hand and knew the counter-curse, otherwise the boy would be dead. Potter wouldn't say precisely where he'd found out about the curse but he had lied to him, Severus said he knew that. Severus wouldn't say how he knew Harry was lying. Minerva suspected Legilimency.
'Potter will be serving detentions with me between now and the end of term, every Saturday, at 10am.'
Minerva called Harry to her office.
'Explain,' she said, unable to hide the fury in her voice or on her face.
He shrunk away from her and looked at the floor, shame oozing from every pore. He couldn't make eye contact with her. His eyes were red, he'd clearly been crying and he looked shell-shocked.
'Harry?'
He wouldn't speak.
'Harry...'
'I can't defend what I've done,' he said quietly. 'I wish I hadn't done it. I wish I could turn back the clocks. You know I wouldn't have used a spell like that if I'd known, not even on Malfoy...'
'Why, Harry?'
'It doesn't matter now,' Harry whispered.
'I will be the judge of that,' Minerva said sternly.
'He tried to cast the Cruciatus on me...' Harry said so quietly, she barely heard him.
'Does Severus know this detail?'
'It doesn't matter. It's not important.'
'It is,' she said flatly. 'Mr Malfoy should be expelled for trying to cast an Unforgiveable on a fellow student.'
'Then I should be too,' Harry said vehemently. 'The spell I used is equally as unforgiveable. I could have killed him. I nearly did...'
'But...' she said, uncertain how to argue otherwise.
'I'm worse than he is. He's... I caught him at a really vulnerable time... I think... I think he was going to...'
He clamped his mouth shut and didn't say anymore but his face was pale and his hands were shaking.
'You will attend those detentions.'
'Yes. Absolutely,' he confirmed quietly.
She watched her son retract into himself. Poppy said he'd been caught pacing outside the hospital wing three times, the first time Severus had been there and sent him away. Then she'd sent him away. He'd come back again and asked to see Mr Malfoy, if he'd permit it. He said he didn't mind if Poppy felt she needed to chaperone the visit, he understood that it might be necessary considering what had happened. He even handed her his wand. Poppy thought more was going on that just the previous six years of tense aggravation and competitiveness.
Mr Malfoy had acknowledged the request, carefully sitting up in bed but not looking at Harry as he sat by his bedside. Harry spoke in a low voice, hurriedly, nervously, his eyes never leaving Mr Malfoy's face. Although she couldn't hear the words, Poppy told Minerva afterwards that it was clearly a heartfelt apology. There had been a moment, when Harry had moved to sit on the bed facing Mr Malfoy and had reached out and turned Mr Malfoy's hand over where it lay stiffly on the bed beside him. Mr Malfoy had been oddly compliant, allowing Harry to hold his hand gently.
Poppy had heard Harry say, 'please don't ever try that again, Malfoy. It should never be the last resort...'
'Isn't that the point, Potter,' Mr Malfoy had sneered. 'That it is the last resort.'
'Don't! I can't possibly understand what you're going through but... Malfoy... talk to someone, anyone. Someone must be able to help...'
'No one can help, Potter. I have to do this by myself. I have to do this... I don't have a choice...'
'I believe you,' Harry had said quietly. 'Believe in hope then, Malfoy. Things may turn out differently to how they are at the moment.'
'Hope,' Draco had snorted softly. 'Hope is for fools, Potter.'
'Maybe, but if we give up before we've even begun, then we'll never try and we'll never know if we could have made a difference.'
'Go away and leave me alone. Don't come near me again.'
No more had been said between them. Harry had let go of Mr Malfoy's hand and after he left, Mr Malfoy had looked at his hand for a long time, slowly clenching and opening his fingers before resting his head against the headboard and apparently sleeping.
Minerva worried about both young men. She realised, now, how pale and withdrawn Mr Malfoy was, how ill he looked, how isolated he was from his contemporaries.
It felt as if Harry was travelling the same path. His anger had subsided completely. He looked haunted. He wouldn't talk to anyone about what had happened. He threw himself into his school work, took his detentions without a single complaint, and carried on with his private lessons with Albus. He'd not once divulged what they were doing but she understood that it was better if some information was not shared. At least Ginevra Weasley seemed to have stepped into the breach and was trying to cheer him up. Minerva wasn't particularly surprised that Harry and Ginevra should get together. It was, after all, somewhat predictable from the way they both looked at each other. She was glad, in many ways, Ginevra knew Harry well, she understood all that he'd been through and was going through, what he faced. Harry needed that unwavering support from more than just Ron and Hermione and her.
Still, she couldn't help worrying.
She noticed that Harry had backed away from Draco Malfoy, though they both, occasionally looked to one another in the Great Hall, their stares were blank and there was no emotion. The animosity and fire of old was strangely dead between them.
As June crept to a close, there was a sense of unease. Minerva was glad the exams were over; she felt restless, constantly patrolling the corridors regularly when she knew Albus was absent from the school, often with someone from the Order by her side.
It was on one such patrol, on the 29th June, that she walked the corridors with Tonks. They'd been idly talking about Remus; the poor girl was horribly in love and Remus had finally submitted to let someone get close again. Tonks knew they weren't soulmates, that she would never be able to compete with Sirius but she was happy and, more than anything, she longed to give Remus a son.
Fear suddenly swelled inside Minerva like a venomous bubble, compressing her lungs, driving all thoughts of Remus and children from her mind. She gripped Tonks arm, pulling her to the window.
'Look!' Minerva whispered, horrified.
Above the school, hovering in ghostly greenish smoke was a colossal skull composed of what looked like emerald stars, with a serpent protruding from its mouth like a tongue. It blazed against the black sky.
'Fuck!' said Tonks.
Indeed, thought Minerva.
'Oh fuck!' repeated Tonks. She pointed towards the Astrology Tower and Minerva gasped in horror to see Albus surrounded by a group of cloaked figures pointing their wands at him.
Tonks had already fired off her Patronus, splitting it in all directions, before she sprinted away.
Minerva stood rooted to the floor.
She saw...
She saw Severus raise his wand.
She saw Albus fall...
***