"What pressure?" the Jessica asked him in response, clearly staying strong during the pain they were enduring and leaning against the rails for support, "Draco what pressure would cause you to do this?"
The Jessica on the ground watched on from the steps, judging when would be a good time to reveal herself and step in.
"My father, the Dark Lord," Draco answered forcefully, his wand arm shaking as he shuffled forward towards her, "for generations my family has been respected and this was the first chance I could prove myself worthy of the name. When I brought you home at Christmas it was the first time my father ever said he was proud of me - I'm not going to let his words go to shame. I can't let you leave Jess."
There was a tremor in his tone that was so different to the way Draco had revealed himself to her only a couple of days before. When he had told Jessica what he had done in the Room Of Requirement he was confident, cocky even, there was no remorse at all. Now it appeared that he wasn't so self-assured, desperate even, and that was probably because his mission was going to be in tatters as soon as she slipped away from reach.
"But I was proud of you," insisted the Jessica as she bravely stepped forward, wincing as her hurt leg touched the ground for a second, "I thought we had formed a real relationship and you were starting to open up. I thought you wanted to go against the grain, become a Healer, was any of that true?"
Draco looked to weaken for a moment he saw her hurt, his arm bending down before quickly snapping back up again with the shame of having an emotional reflex. "No, I told you," he shouted, "everything I said was to make you trust me."
"Draco, please, you're not a great actor," the girl said as she tried to encourage him to back down. Jessica was surprised she had said it to his face so boldly when Draco had to power to injure her even more. "Even if the words were fake I know you couldn't have pretended the whole time. If you're going to talk about Christmas, what about the time we spent reading in your garden? It meant something to me, and I know it did you too."
Jessica watched as the memory of their time studying in the Manor Maze seemed to finally bring Draco to break down and lose character, surrendering to the pain that his eyes were reflecting. In the distance, she could still hear the fireworks Fred and George were letting off in the Great Hall seven floors down, but weirdly enough - Jessica hoped that they were having too much fun to move on with the next stage of their plan. She was intrigued as to where this was going to go, and their presence would've ruined the work the other Jessica was doing.
"I can't," Draco admitted, his whole body starting to tremble and seize up. It wasn't unheard of for boys to find it difficult expressing their feelings, hell, it had taken Fred a long time to be honest about his, but there was something so fretful about his body language that showed this was his own version of torture and pain.
"Can't what?" the Jessica asked him. She looked just as confused and concerned for him as the real one did.
"I can't say it," he stated as he gripped his wand tighter, "I just can't."
"Why can't you?"
"Because-" he stuttered, his jaw clenching tightly as he tried not to let the tears fall out of his eyes, "if I admit it then it's true. I can never go home to my family again without feeling disgusting. The words would betray everything my ancestors held dear. I'd be a traitor, I'd be exiled. The Dark Lord would kill me and disgrace my whole family. I can't do that to them."
Jessica watched the copy herself express pity for Draco, limping towards him as she took the risky gamble that he wasn't going to attack. From the staircase, even she could admit that unfortunately, his words made her feel a certain way towards him. It was the last weakness still within her, as she had known deep down that Draco was a product of the family in which he was raised. That still didn't excuse his actions, but it gave a decent reason for them to be understood.
"You'd rather face a life of misery than question the morality of the morals you were raised?" the girl asked him. Draco stared her down as she had made him think, and he looked to the side as a lump in his throat formed to choke him up. The two Jessica's locked eyes for the first time over his shoulder and the one down below nodded to prod the other one on. With this approval, the Jessica on the Astronomy Tower lifted a hand up to Dracos cheek to caress his cold skin, his wand now sticking into her right breast. This made him wince before falling into her touch like a little boy who needed a hug.
"You once said you wanted to be just like the guy in your letters," she told him softly, "you can be him, I know you can. "
Draco's front appeared to wash away, his wand arm falling limp at his side as his expression was erased of all harshness and frustration. Jessica had never seen him look this weak but, perhaps, he had never looked more human.
"But would you ever forgive me?" he asked the fake Jessica in front of him with doleful eyes. He reached for her thigh with his wand hand and brushed a trickle of blood away with his thumb.
The other Jessica didn't shudder at his touch, and leaned in with bright caring eyes, a smile cracking out from the corner of her mouth. "Of course I would."
Draco leaned down and kissed her, and though Jessica had just watched this whole conversation happen with someone impersonating her, this was the part that freaked her out. If there was one thing a girl should never see, it was how she looked when kissing someone. Especially considering the current circumstances with it not being her actual boyfriend. Jessica went to look away but caught a glimpse of Draco's wand hand just in time, which was raising strongly towards pointing forwards at the other girl.
"Watch out!" Jessica shouted to warn the other her, climbing up the stairs quickly with her wand out to reveal herself.
The girl opened her eyes and stopped kissing Draco to grab his wand arm in mid-air. It looked like she was quite happy to have an excuse to stop kissing him but still acted surprised at Jessica's presence. Draco instantly looked behind him to see the real her standing there, all chances of her being able to slip out without him knowing being diminished.
"Fuck," he muttered.
"What's wrong?" said Jessica as she strutted onto the platform with the knowledge that Draco was safely stuck in the girl's arms, "I thought you loved playing tricks."
Draco's eyes ticked over as he put the puzzle pieces together, he wasn't dumb, so it didn't take him long to figure it out. Jessica assumed he would be mad, but it was a blow to her ego when he actually smiled in proudness. "God Monroe I knew sending Granger and Weasley down the passage with your earrings was someone else's idea due to its stupidity," he said smugly, "but to make a clone of yourself and train them to say all those lines in order to fool me...this is undoubtedly your work. You really are a Slytherin."
"Well I had some pretty good inspiration," Jessica said and she crossed her arms, standing behind her clone, "go on you've earned it, he's yours now Angelina."
Draco looked back at the girl he now knew was Angelina underneath the mask and she smirked at him devilishly, relishing in her moment of revenge.
"You ever polyjuice yourself to trick a girl into kissing you again and I guarantee you'll have me to answer to," she said and she delivered a hard uppercut to his jaw, knocking him to the ground like a brick. When trying to convince him to let Angelina be a part of their plan, Jessica had told Fred that she had to be one to wait up in the Astronomy Tower in case Draco got there first. She explained it was because Angelina was the one most like her and could play her off perfectly, but it was also because the irony of the situation could play out in a perfect circle of events. What she hadn't accounted for however was how Draco was going to act in response. Because of this, Angelina delivering this final blow wasn't as satisfying as she had expected it to be.
"You make quite the actress," said Jessica fondly as she high-fived Angelina and they stared at Draco's unconscious body together, "you remembered everything I told you about me and him."
"Well after you and Fred told me what had happened I made sure I committed to the cause," Angelina laughed as she took off the Slytherin tie Hermione had stolen from laundry that morning to dab her leg, "but honestly when he got a bit emotional it was easy to improvise. Did you see how sad he got?"
She had seen it, she had seen it first hand. It was against nature, seeing Draco so vulnerable, like a fish out of water. "Yeah..." Jessica said as she replayed the image in her head and curled up her upper lip in disgust, "I wouldn't believe it...he's incapable of being honest."
The polyjuice potion began to wear off and Angelina started growing slightly in height, slowly turning back into herself as the Slytherin uniform she was wearing became too small. When she was completely back to her normal self she smiled and came to sudden a thought, grabbing Jessica's arm and turning her towards the window. "Fred and George must be waiting for you! We need to get you-"
"Petrificus Totalus!"
Angelina froze up and fell to the floor backwards as stiff as a board. Jessica turned around horrified to see that Theo and Pansy had just run up the Astronomy Tower with their wands out ready to attack. It was unclear who had jinxed Angelina, but Jessica's bet was on Pansy given the scratches on her face from being thrown up the stairs.
"For fuck sake!" Jessica shouted out of frustration, "how many lives do you people have!"
"We're not here to hurt you," said Pansy and she held up her hands in surrender, "we just want you to listen to us. We can't let you leave without saying our piece."
Jessica put her right foot behind her and instinctively started backing up towards the edge of the Astronomy Tower, her wand raising to point at both of them. Fred said this was where she needed to end up, but there had been no sign so far of her ticket out of here. Maybe if she leaned out Fred would see her and rescue her instead but she had to do it subtly. "No, I listened to you for a year and it was a waste, you were selling me out to Voldemermort the entire time!"
"I know," said Theo and he bent down to put his wand down on the floor, "both of our families have been supporters of the Dark Lord for years...we've been raised to think like them. We thought we were doing the right thing."
"We thought you were a mudblood like Granger," Pansy spluttered out, "but you're not!"
Theo cocked his head at Pansy and gave her a look to say that she hadn't just won them any favours.
"Sorry, I meant muggle-born," Pansy apologised, "force of habit."
"What do you mean I'm not the same as Hermione?" Jessica argued as she pressed against the metal railings, "we're both born to muggle parents Pansy and quite frankly the reason you all hate her is because she's better at magic than you will ever be. You rich kids are all the same, you think everything should just be handed to you!"
Pansy, though visually offended, tried to correct herself. "No that's not what I meant, you're not a-"
"Look," Theo interrupted, placing a hand to Pansy's mouth to stop her from rambling, "I know you don't believe us and you're not going to believe anything else we try to say to convince you otherwise. I'll be honest, we can't completely change our beliefs overnight but, we're trying. We know we're on the wrong side of history and we want to make it right."
Jessica couldn't help but laugh at this ridiculous statement. And she thought what Draco had said to Angelina was a sad attempt at manipulation. "Trying?" she scoffed, "you've tortured every single student in this school and laughed about it afterwards, you physically hurt innocent kids...even first years! All because you were too scared to stand up to Draco, Umbridge or your parents and perhaps say 'hey, this is wrong!". How is that trying? It's pathetic!"
"It's hard okay!" Pansy shouted angrily as she snatched Theo's hand away from her mouth, "you don't know how deep our families go!"
"Well, I wouldn't know would I Pansy?" Jessica shouted sarcastically, "thanks to people like you I don't have a family anymore!"
With the two girls getting heated Theo stepped forward, pushing Pansy back to protect her. "Jess the time we spent together away from Draco was never a lie, that was the real us!" he stated, not breaking eye contact with Jessica as his hand rested in the middle of his chest, "I was there for you throughout the whole Fred thing, I let you cry on my shoulder for hours because you didn't want anyone else to see and then kept your secret when you got back together because I wanted you to be happy, you know me - I wouldn't do that if I didn't care."
"And me," Pansy piped up, "I told you about Theo and I have never told anyone that before. I never trust girls. That must account for something!"
It was so hard and confusing. Her natural gut feeling always wanted her to trust people and believe that they could be better than her worst thoughts of them, but her brain had now taken over the driving seat, and it knew to never be fooled again. "You might have just been being vulnerable though so I would believe you," Jessica argued as she flickered her wand between the two of them, "you could've told me all that private stuff knowing I would be dead soon!"
Draco grumbled from the floor as he began to gain consciousness but Pansy's reflexes got the best of her and she kicked him in the head so that he fell back to sleep again. That did gain her one point in Jessica's eyes, as the Pansy she had known before would never have done that in fear of getting punished by Draco later, but still, it was in her best interests for him to not hear what they were saying. Theo and Pansy had proved themselves to show loyalty to whoever had the power in a room. From below the sound of the fireworks stopped and a minute later Jessica could see Fred and George fly out of the Great Hall from her great height. She was starting to worry that they hadn't realised the plan hadn't gone as smoothly as they had expected.
Theo reached inside his robe pocket and Jessica retaliated by directing her wand at his hand, but he held up a palm of peace and pulled out the blue notebook he had gifted her for her birthday. She hadn't had a chance to go back to the Slytherin common room to claim any of her things and though she wouldn't want to admit it to Theo's face now, that notebook was one of the few things she was sad about leaving behind. It had a lot of memories contained inside it, both good and bad.
"If you want us to go then we'll go," he said as he outstretched his hand to extend the book to her, "but please, I want you to take this. I think you'll find the proof of us being on your side lies in those pages and I need you to promise me that you'll read through it - every page."
A sudden scraping noise from the tiles of the roof sent shudders around the room and before long a large dark blue dragon with yellow webbed wings flew down alongside the railing Jessica was leaning against. Jessica jumped back at the sudden emergence of the beautiful creature, as did Theo and Pansy, until the rider came into view - a strong-jawed red-headed man in a white shirt with suspenders.
"You wouldn't happen to be Jessica Clarke now would you?" the man asked Jessica charmingly as he brushed his long wavy hair out of his wild blue eyes, "what's up with the chick on the floor?"
He was looking at Angelina, who had just been lying on the floor hopelessly until now. Jessica just smiled at him through the craziness of the situation, and he took that as confirmation, moving up closer to the dragons head to make room for her. She couldn't believe she had let Fred talk her into this.
"Jess!" Theo shouted as Jessica went to reach for the man's hand.
Jessica looked over her shoulder. She didn't trust that he wasn't going to hit her when her back was turned. He threw her the notebook as Pansy watched on and with the fear of being hit in the face, Jessica caught it within her arms.
"We know you're protected by a few Aurors so, have them check it over," Theo told her sadly, "you'll see there's no tracking charms or anything of the sort. It's the same as when I brought it."
He then signalled Pansy to go and Pansy looked longingly at Jessica, her mouth parting open and closing again when she realised that for once she didn't want to say something mean in order to win the argument. Instead, she just swallowed her pride and stepped back, walking towards the staircase without any fight. Theo lifted Draco off of the floor by putting one of Draco's arms over his shoulder and, with one last glance at the friend he had lost, turned his back and staggered to the other end of the room to follow Pansy down the stairs.
"Just one last thing," he said as he moved Draco out of the way so he could see Jessica over his head. Jessica's heart betrayed her mind as it fluttered with the hope that he was going to come over for a hug, but of course, she was stupid to think so, and also wrong to want so. "We may have lied to you Jess," he continued, "but we certainly weren't the first. I would look closer to home for that one."
With that he and Pansy walked out of her life, taking Draco with them and leaving Jessica dumbfounded at what that last cryptic statement meant. They had willingly let her go whilst knowing the dire consequences it was going to have on them and their families later. Why would they do that if they had spent a year trying so hard to complete this mission?
Jessica's hand brushed over the cover of the notebook, stroking the spine and the pages with her fingers. One thing she noticed that was strange was the thickness, as all the pages were filled in. The last time she had checked she had only used half of it.
She couldn't believe they had just walked away...
"I'm sorry to rush lady but according to my brothers we're on a bit of a tight schedule here," said the Dragon rider, prompting Jessica to snap out of the many questions that were flying about in her head.
Jessica tucked the book into her robes and turned around to walk to the man on the dragon, grabbing his gloved hand which he had lent out to her. He pulled her up onto the saddle that was positioned on the dragons back and instructed her to grab ahold of his waist, which she did so tightly when the Dragon flapped its wings and began to fly away from the castle.
"Charlie Weasley by the way," he said as they flew through the air.
"Jessica Clarke," Jessica answered as she tried not to look down at the height below them. Looking back to the Astronomy Tower, she saw two figures that looked like Neville and Luna appear to look after Angelina.
"Heard all about you from Fred of course," he grinned confidently as he patted the dragon on the head, "that's why I've brought Betty here along with me to do the job. He said to bring a stubborn female so you'd feel more at home."
Jessica rolled her eyes. Even when doing something heroic by providing his girlfriend with an escape plan, Fred still had to put a little inside joke in there as a jibe.
She loved that big idiot.
"He'd be correct," Jessica told Charlie proudly.
They flew off towards the Black Lake and when Jessica got brave enough she was able to look down, seeing the beauty of the Hogwarts grounds in all its glory. The place that had felt so small inside had never looked bigger. Charlie tugged on the reigns and the dragon flew upwards, causing Jessica to scream from half terror and half excitement. They continued flying until they got past the first mountain, where they were met by two shooting stars, which actually happened to be Fred and George just getting rid of their spare stock of fireworks.
"You guys certainly know how to make an exit," said Charlie as Fred released one final firework that sparked a big gold letter 'W' in the sky.
"Learned it from you," said George, admiring the dragon flying next to him.
Fred flew on the other side, asking Jessica if she was alright as she must have looked a bit worn out from everything she had just witnessed. She nodded as she had been rendered speechless and gazed dreamily at Fred who she had never seen so carefree and exhilarated. For a couple of seconds, she allowed herself to enjoy being free, feeling weightless as she flew above any world that expected her to be a certain way, or owe anyone anything.
"Where are we heading," Charlie asked, "still London for Grimmauld Place?"
George agreed, but Fred shook his head, causing Jessica to frown as she thought that was the plan. "You two go ahead, me and Jess just need to take a detour first."
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And there's part 2 as promised!
I'm trying to get this fic finished asap but I do have another one in the works which I already have chapters prepped for, so if you'd like to check that out it's called 'Running With Lions' - the first two chapters are up with the third coming out this week :)
Please vote and comment if you enjoyed - K x