Draco's point of view:
...Something was getting on the train. I could tell that they were tall and cloaked but no more. I could feel the glass colder by the second. All of the students were looking outside the window.
"Luna, what happened? We can't be there yet, right?" said a girl with brown hair and ice-blue eyes.
I remembered her. It was the Astronomy Tower girl. She was the Ravenclaw one, the mudblood one.
"No... but it must-" answered her friend but stopped in the middle of her sentence. She was looking something behind the girl. I looked behind the girl to see a tall hooded figure I hadn't notice before.
I knew what those creatures were. My father had told me all about them and their uses in the Ministry. They are called Dementors and they are sometimes used as a punishment to the traitors who are found guilty. That's because Dementors have the ability to suck someone's happiest memories and leaving you with nothing but the worst. Sometimes this might be even fatal in, which case it is called the Dementor's kiss.
I could feel the symptoms myself. It started with a cold body then moved on to a cold heart.
It seemed that the girl wasn't aware of what was behind her but she still felt some presence. Some instinct inside of me was calling for me to grab her and pull her away from the Dementor's view. It's not that I would do it, of course, but I did think about it for a second.
The girl turned slowly to face the Dementor. No sound came out of her, only we watched her levitating a few inches off the ground towards the Dementor with a motionless face. I hadn't ever seen a Dementor sucking someone's memories before but I was sure about what he was doing. The girl could hardly do anything at all, except try to scream. However, no sound of cry would come out of her half-opened mouth.
The symptoms of the presence of the Dementor were still there. In the darkness of it all, I can still remember a sound coming from the back of my head. It sounded like a stick hitting on flesh. Then a slap and a body falling on the bookcase.
Then there was a discreet sound of lips sipping liquor from a glass and shouts behind the door. The worst memories.
The lighting everywhere was dimmer now. I didn't know if it was my eyes playing tricks, but I felt everything turning black.
With the echo of the sip and the slap still in my head, I raised my eyes and I looked at the girl's face. It was light and bright. Like she was wearing a golden and silver crown. It is a feeling that I still hadn't explained to myself. I didn't even know her and yet I could feel her energy getting all over me. Our feelings were the same.
After a few seconds, the Dementor left the girl, she was ready to fall. I knew I didn't have to let her fall.
I automatically got up to prevent her from falling down. There were many questions bombing my brain but there was one that stuck out from the crowd: What would my father say if he learned that I had so much as touched a mudblood? But I had no choice now. And, I swear to God, I never regretted what I did, ever in my life. I pulled the girl away from the Dementor and lifted her up before I sat back to my seat. I placed her head to my lap. The girl had fainted.
I touched her cheek, her skin was so cold that I was afraid she was dead and the thought shot another wave of fear through my body.
The Dementor got out of the carriage and in a minute, the train started to move again.
"Let her go..." I raised my eyes to see her friend, that blond girl, talking to me. She was called Luna, I think. She looked very worried, of course, but at the same time, I noticed something bitter in her look. It was like Luna was afraid that I would hurt the girl that I was holding. Like I shouldn't be the one holding her now. "She needs air," she said quickly. I was still shocked. I couldn't speak. Two Ravenclaw boys came, took her off my hands and moved her seat. I was speechless. I couldn't move.
Pansy came to interrupt this beautiful moment.
"Draco! Dracy, are you okay?" she said and embarrassed me but I just sat there without moving. I was just so angry with her and her behaviour that I couldn't quite react. I was lost into my thoughts and I didn't want her to ruin this. "Dracy... I forgive you, you know... This whole Dementor thing helped me put this whole thing into perspective." Pansy sat next to me. "Dracy... Draco! I'm talking to you... What's up with you? You're very pale," she kept on talking. "Dracy... why are you not talking to me?" she said but I couldn't care less about Pansy. I was staring at nothing. At some point, she got bored enough and left me alone.
I only woke up from my daydreaming when I heard this girl waking up. I got up to see what would happen.
"Anne... Anne! Anne, can you hear me?" said Luna.
Anne... It was a simple name. One you don't find in a wizard's home. However, it held a very subtle beauty to it. It dripped easily from your tongue. I felt embarrassed that this simple name hadn't stuck to me through my countless encounters with that girl.
"...Now you all go back to your seats," said Lupin. I felt dizzy. I sat back. I looked at her and froze when she looked back.
All those I had treated her so bad and this girl probably hated me. As she should and as did I, I was sure.
I stopped myself there. I shook my head and went back to looking out the window. I promised myself I would focus on the darkness outside but through the reflection of the window, I could see her face, sitting uneasily a few seats away. I shook my head again.
Whatever I had felt, I told to myself, was all an illusion created by fear in the face of the Dementor. It wasn't a true feeling, was it? I felt tense thinking back to the moment when I'd recognised that light in her yet I didn't seem to be able to do anything else either.
Forget about it, Draco. This changes nothing.
I caught myself trying to sing silently in my mind in order to forget anything else. Then I moved to remembering poems and tried to create my own. And from the depths of my soul, a verse I'd read hastily before I shoved the muggle book under my mattress, hopped up and cried out;
Did my heart love till now? Forswear it sight!
For I never saw true beauty till this night.
* * *
(Back to Anne):
"How did you feel?"
"I felt weak."
Harry looked at me with an understanding gaze. He swallowed dryly and looked away at once.
"Did you... by any chance... hear anything?" he said uncomfortably.
"I did," I said in amazement. "You did too?" I said at once, studying his face.
"I am sure it was my mother," he said after a long pause. "No one else heard it, of course. What did you hear?"
"It was a woman's sob for me."
I knew Harry was wondering if it was my mother as well. The truth is, that I hadn't heard my mother's voice in two years exactly. It's not a voice that I could easily forget. I could still hear her song in my ears. But strangely, I didn't remember her ever crying in front of me. It might have been her, but something strongly told me that it was not.
As if life wanted me to trip and fall easily and heavily, it sent me Draco at that very fragile moment.
"Oh, there is Potter again!" he shouted. We heard him calling from the far back of the corridor. "Let me guess. Hitting on the mudblood with your tragic story about how you passed out? What happened? You ran out of fame and made 'pity' your go-to?"
I swear I could hear a hint of jealousy in his voice.
"How classic..." Harry turned around quickly to confront him but I pulled his sleeve otherwise, not even turning around, in fear that if I saw Draco, I would probably remember last night's events.
"No time for this. We have to get to DADA," I said loudly, hoping that I would get Harry's attention.
"There's always time for a good old-fashioned Malfoy fight," he said quickly and ignored me. "That's it, Malfoy!" yelled Harry and pulled out his wand.
"Want to warm up for this year, Potter?" said Draco with a wand already raised to Harry's face.
"Harry, please... No reason getting detention on your first day back," I said and put an arm across his torso, using any strength I had on this Monday morning to make him turn away from Draco. My eyes briefly caught Draco's gaze. This glance was usually accompanied by some nasty comment, yet this time, it would be followed by a momentary lowering of his wand.
Harry protested only for a moment, but I could sense than he wasn't in the mood for all this either. After all, he always picked up fights. He eventually dropped the case and only gave Draco a deadly glare.
"Oh, look how brave he is now!" Draco scoffed.
We walked away quickly and headed straight to our classroom. It was not a particularly eventful lesson but it was still the most interesting one we had had with a DADA teacher. Professor Lupin had turned out to be unpredictably fun and exciting while teaching. Of course, that was something the Malfoy gang could not help but silently disapprove with whispered comments.
Unexpectedly, throughout the lesson, I could feel two piercing, grey eyes stuck at the back of my head. I casually ignored them but noticed none the less.
After the lesson was over, the grey eyes were still watching me. I was usually the last one to get out of the classroom because I always needed a minute or two to finish my notes or collect my pile of books. It seemed that Draco and his gang were also late to get out of the classroom. Whether it was a coincidence or Draco lingered behind on purpose, was not of any importance. Part of me suspected that he was only lingering behind to have a chance to be as alone with me as possible while still not breaking his obnoxious character but I tried to wave those thoughts out of my mind. Luna had managed to put a romantic idea in my mind when she noted out that he was looking at me after the incident with the Dementor but with this person, it would do me no good to believe in something romantic.
The situation reeked of something nasty. I clenched my books to my chest, suspecting that Draco or one of his friends might want to knock them off my hands. I hurried up to reach the last students that were getting out of the door but the only thing I managed to do was to reach the doorstep right at the same time as Draco. Our shoulders were pressed against each other violently for a split second. I cursed myself for my awkwardness. If I had lingered in the classroom for another moment, I could have avoided this encounter.
"Watch where you're going, mudblood!: he said loudly. "Now I have to wash these robes!" he yelled, dusted his shoulder with his hand and hurried to catch up to his friends.
"That didn't seem to bother you when you caught me in the train last night," I whispered under my breath.
That came out naturally, almost unfiltered. To this day, I don't know if I wanted him to hear me or not. In any case, he did. He stepped back into the empty classroom and glared.
"What was that?" he said warningly.
"Nothing," I said, my voice leaking sarcasm.
"Next time you bring that up, you're going to regret it," he said, but this time his voice wasn't true to his words. The sound was softer, milder.
"Oooo, I'm so scared," I rolled my eyes and saw every single sign of arrogance leave his face and turn into annoyance.
Draco had gotten used to people being scared of him. Although I always spoke my mind, I was a little scared of him as well. But somehow, this time I felt that he wouldn't harm me or push it further. In a sense, I had been as close to the sun as I could get last night, when he drew me away from the Dementor. Now, I wasn't so afraid of a little sunburn.
I jumped out of the classroom and realized my heart was beating like crazy, my palms were sweaty and I strangely had to catch my breath. I leaned against the wall. I knew that Draco would get out of the class very soon as well so I didn't have much time. Right before I recollected myself and was ready to go, however, I heard a loud bang from the other side of the wall. Draco must have kicked or punched the wall.
"Shit, I'm screwed," I heard being whispered in an unforgiving tone.
* * *
I hope you liked this little peek inside Draco's mind. In my mind, the first thing that he would do is deny any feeling and then of course overcompensate by bullying Anne. Don't forget that Draco is a complex character and one that hops between good and bad, feelings and duty, moral and immoral more than any other character in the series.
(Writer: Yes, the last one is from Romeo and Juliet. Judge me.)
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