NOTE: I do not own any of the ideas or characters expressed in this story (except Cassie Jackson). All of these belong to J.K. Rowling.
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Draco P.O.V. (right before the Forbidden Forest)
Classes have finished for the day, and so I head back down to the Slytherin common room. I’m exhausted and just want to sleep right now; I spent last night in the Room of Requirement because, though I’ll never admit it, I was missing Cassie. But I didn’t end up getting much sleep anyway because the couch was so damn hard.
I mumble the password to the portrait and slip through once it opens, deciding I’ll go straight up to my dormitory and go right to bed. Classes today were especially hard, so I want nothing more than to just sleep it off.
But I don’t get very far—Blaise stops me on my way up the stairs to our dorm, and it’s clear he looks pretty flustered.
“Get out of here, mate,” Blaise says hurriedly, trying to push me back down the stairs. “You’ve got to go somewhere else for a while.”
“What the hell are you on about?” I snap, my exhaustion making my temper flare. “Just get out of my—“
“Listen. Crabbe, Goyle, and Flint are in there right now and they’re all super pissed about something. Trust me, you’re gonna want to stay away for a little a while.”
I shake my head in annoyance, trying but failing to step past Blaise. “So what? I don’t care, I’m exhausted—“
“No, I’m telling you, get out of the common room. You’re gonna say something smart and get into another fight.” I open my mouth angrily to argue that I’d gladly fight them again, but Blaise cuts me off, continuing, “—and you know the Carrows are already pissed off about the last one. Just leave for a bit to let them cool off.”
Then I give up trying to get past Blaise, because I realize it would have been a lie to say I’d be happy to fight them again. I’ve finally just stopped aching from the last one, and he’s right—I’ll just say something to piss them off even more if I go in there. “Fine,” I snap. “I’ll leave. But it’s pretty messed up that I can’t even get into my own dormitory without a fight.”
For the first time, Blaise looks guilty for trying to keep me out. “Well, yeah but I mean—“
“Just forget it,” I sigh, turning to go back down the stairs. “You’re right, thanks mate. See you.”
“Come back in a bit,” he calls after me.
I raise my arm to let him know I’ve heard, wanting nothing more than to just leave the common room. I’m suddenly reminded about how much my reputation has been reduced to nothing over the past two years, and the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach only increases when I notice the hateful looks I get from other Slytherins. I quickly leave through the portrait hole, trying desperately not to look bothered by the withering glares given by more than half the room. With all the stress from the Carrows, the Dark Lord, and keeping Cassie safe made me completely forget how hated I am by my own house.
There’s no where else for me to go, so I reluctantly trudge up to the Room of Requirement. I’ll do my best to fall asleep on the couch there, and when I wake up I’ll head back to the common room before curfew.
I pace in front of the wall and wait tiredly for the door to materialize. I shut the door behind me and immediately head inside, ready to finally lie down and sleep. This stupid couch will probably prevent me from getting any sort of rest, unfortunately.
But I’m so exhausted and depressed that I fall asleep almost as soon as I lie down.
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It’s got to be nearly five in the morning when someone bursts into the Room of Requirement, causing me to jolt back into consciousness—in fact, it’s multiple people. I sit up with a groan, rubbing my aching back and being angry with myself for not waking up sooner to go back to the Slytherin common room.
But I forget all about that when I look up.
Longbottom’s carrying someone through the door, revealing Cassie, Cho, and the Weasley girl behind him. All of them are covered in dirt and absolutely frantic, and whoever Neville’s carrying has a bleeding arm and torn robes. The Weasley girl is sobbing hysterically.
What. The. Hell.
No one’s really seen me yet. Neville says over his shoulder in a shaky voice as he moves farther into the room, “I’ll just put her on the couch, and—“ He turns on his way over and sees me, almost dropping the person he’s holding in shock. I quickly get up from the couch as all four of them turn their heads and stare at me. Neville stammers, “W—what are you doing h—here?”
It takes me a moment to realize he’s scared of me.
Before I can think of what to possibly say or do, Cassie steps past Neville and leads him to the couch, saying calmly, “Relax, Neville, just put Katherine down so we can help her. Draco’s okay.”
He hesitates, but then he just follows Cassie’s lead and puts Katherine gently down on the cushions of the couch. I shuffle out of the way, staring at them all in complete shock and not knowing what to do. I have no idea what’s happened, where the hell they’ve been.
“She’s bleeding pretty bad, we’ve gotta do something—“
“I don’t know how to heal a werewolf bite, Neville—“
“Well I don’t either, there’s no need to snap—“
“Wait, what?” I interrupt, causing both Neville and Cassie to look up at me as though they’d already forgotten I’m here. Cho is trying to get Weasley to calm down by the fireplace, and I don’t think either of them are paying any attention to us anymore. “Did you say a werewolf bite? What the hell were you all doing, where were you?”
“The ForbiddenForest, obviously,” Cassie answers with annoyance, a tone she’s never used when talking to me. “Look, Neville, we’ve got to—“
“You didn’t answer my question!” I snap, desperate to know what’s happened. The entire room is suddenly crowded and confused, everyone panicking while Katherine bleeds out on the couch. Neville’s trying to put pressure on her cuts to stop the blood, Cassie’s clutching Katherine’s limp hand, Ginny’s completely breaking down in the corner—
Cassie flat out ignores me this time, practically shouting over Weasley’s sobs to Neville, “—we’ve got to just close the wound. Draco can do it, he knows the best healing spells—“
“Hold on—“ I start, angry at being ignored and being talked about like I’m not even in the room. “I—“
“Is that really a good idea?” Neville says in a shaky voice, looking over his shoulder at Cassie in fear. “We don’t even know why he’s here in the first place. He’s a Death Eater, we can’t trust him anyway.”
“Watch it, Longbottom—“ I say hotly, but Cassie cuts me off again.
“Neville, of course we can trust him. You’re being ridiculous. He can help her, so let’s not waste any more time arguing about it,” Cassie stands and reluctantly lets go of Katherine’s hand to pull me closer to the couch. “Okay, Draco, go for it.” Cassie looks up at me and gives a tight smile, but I can see right through it and find that she’s crying inside.
Before I can think of what to say—even I don’t know a spell to heal something like this—the Weasley girl suddenly bursts out from behind us. “Stop. We—we can’t really be trusting him, can we? Who knows what he’ll do to her.” Everyone’s in shock that she’s finally pulled herself together enough to form words, so for the first time only one person in the room is talking. Weasley’s eyes are puffy and red, but I shrink under her heated glare as she points at me. “He’s a Death Eater, there’s no way we’re letting him help her. Besides, Katherine wouldn’t want him—“
“You haven’t got a clue what Katherine wants,” Cassie hisses, facing Weasley fully with a famous death glare. “Do I need to remind everyone that you were the one with her when this happened? Do I need to remind them that this is your fault?”
I grab Cassie’s arm then because I can tell she’s shaking with anger, and probably a bit of fear. I still have no idea what’s going on or what they were doing in the ForbiddenForest, but I’ve decided to quit asking. Neville and Cho are completely frozen and are just looking back and forth between Cassie and Weasley in terror.
“Cassie,” I say quietly. “Calm down. Come over and I’ll heal her.”
Weasley forces her mouth into a tight line as Cassie glares at her a moment longer before angrily turning away, allowing me to lead her back over the couch. I glance back to see Weasley dissolving into another fit of tears, doing her best to keep quiet so Cassie won’t hear.
I turn away with a sick feeling in my stomach, looking down at Katherine lying broken on the couch. Her face is pale and there’s a sheen of sweat covering her skin, her chest just barely moving up and down.
“Alright,” I say shakily, getting down on my knees next to the couch. “Is it—is it a bite or just a scratch?”
No one answers for a moment, so I look up to see Neville and Cassie’s expressions. Cassie looks like she’s just holding back tears as she clutches Katherine’s hand, so I turn to Neville for an answer.
“A bite,” he whispers, making me strain to hear him.
My heart drops, because that’s ten times worse than a scratch. I have no idea how werewolf bites work or how to heal them, but Neville and Cassie are looking at me expectantly like they’ve got no other choice, that I’m the only one who can do something to fix this.
I may not know much about werewolves, but I do know that something like this is pretty damn hard to fix.
Cassie reaches over and squeezes my shoulder as I pull out my wand, her fingers shaking. I glance over at her to see that she’s finally crying, the tears she’d been trying so hard to hold back finally slipping down her cheeks. She breathes almost silently, so only I can hear, “Please.”
So I take a deep breath and start.
Right away, Katherine shifts in her sleep. Her face screws up in pain as the blood flows back inside her, and I try to go as fast as I can. The skin around the bite marks slowly begins to knit back together, and then Katherine’s eyes snap open.
She’s suddenly screaming, writhing on the couch and breaking my concentration. Something about the bite must be different, this spell isn’t supposed to bring people out of unconsciousness—
“Hold her down!” I hiss between my teeth, grasping Katherine’s wounded arm and trying to keep it still. Neville and Cassie jump on her and push her back against the couch cushions, but Katherine’s out of her mind with pain. I can barely hear Weasley struggling against Cho behind me, crying over Katherine, “I told you! I told you!”
I do my best to speed the spell up, muttering the words under my breath at a rapid pace and doing everything I can to block the screams out. The bite is almost closed—
“Damn it Malfoy, hurry up!” Neville yells, pushing down Katherine’s shoulders as she tries to lift up off the couch.
“Hold on—that’s it.” I drop my wand and stand unsteadily, completely worn out. The bite mark is still evident on the skin of her arm in the form of white scars. Katherine drops back against the couch with tear tracks running down her cheeks, out cold again. Neville and Cassie step away from Katherine, gently letting go of her and staring down at her fearfully.
“I told you we couldn’t trust him!” Weasley cries, making me turn and remember we aren’t the only ones here. She’s pushing away from Cho and furiously pointing at me, still crying. “I knew it! Look what he did to her, I told you.”
“Shut up,” Cassie snaps before I can defend myself, rounding on her angrily. “He just healed her, what does it look like to you?”
“He was hurting her on purpose—“
Then before I can do anything, Cassie rushes at the Weasley girl and shoves her hard.
I immediately start after Cassie and grab her around the waist from behind, because I can tell she’s going in for another hit. I pull her off of Weasley and do everything I can to hold her back. “Cassie, calm down—“
Cassie’s arms are flailing, trying her best to just get one good hit in. Weasley picks herself up off the floor and starts after Cassie, but Neville steps in and holds her back as well. The two of us are trying to keep them both from running at each other, and Weasley is screeching terrible insults at Cassie that are making my blood boil.
“Get her out of here!” I shout over their yelling, lifting Cassie by the waist and ducking to avoid her elbows. Neville starts for the door, dragging Weasley as best he can. Cho opens the door and hurries out to help him bring her to the Gryffindor common room.
“I’ll give the mushrooms to the Carrows after,” he yells, and they disappear out the door before I have time to think, What mushrooms?
I keep holding on to Cassie once they’re gone, because I know she’ll just run out the door after them. She struggles against me, spitting furiously, “Let me go, Draco, so I can pound her face in—“
“Cassie—“
“She’s had it coming, now let me at her—“
“Cassie,” I shout, holding her tight against me. She stops at the tone of my voice, so I continue more quietly, “This isn’t the time.”
After a moment, she just deflates and collapses against me. I turn her around and pull her into a tight hug, wrapping my arms around her and kissing the top of her head.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers into my jacket. “I’m sorry.”
I tell her that it’s okay, that nothing’s her fault. Cassie pulls away after a moment and we both look over at Katherine, who suddenly looks so peaceful. She looks back up at me with tears in her eyes, then asks softly, “Is she okay?”
“…I—I healed the wound,” I reply carefully, not wanting to say my worries out loud. “She’s okay for now.” Cassie’s gaze drops to the ground, and I can tell she knows what I’m thinking. We don’t know if the werewolf bite is going to affect her the way I think it might.
Well, I think to myself dully. We’ll find out at the next full moon…