CHAPTER THIRTY:
sweet dreams — børns
( 𝐌𝐀𝐋𝐅𝐎𝐘, 𝟏𝟔 )
Sometimes, when it was dark outside, when the snow had slowed to a trickle of stars, and the common room is quiet save for the crackling of an ember of fire, Draco missed Quidditch.
He missed soaring through the air on his brand-new broomstick, wind whipping through his silver hair and stinging his pale cheeks a rosy pink, hailstorms and lightning not bothering him in the slightest, sharp eyes darting about in search of the golden ball that brought him and his team victory. To be the hero of Slytherin, to be the one that they would all clap on his back and congratulate. Well, it wasn't exactly Quidditch that he missed, no, Quidditch never meant that much to him.
He supposed that it was the freedom that flying brought that he missed—the ability to take off into the vast blue sky above and simply be. He supposed that it was the thrill of life that Quidditch brought that he missed, the joy of spending his treasured school days thinking of nothing but homework and Quidditch and finding some fresh new way to torment Potter and his friends that he missed and desperately longed for these days.
These days, that old life of his felt so far away, so impossibly out of his reach. Between his slipping schoolwork ( a notion that would once have been unfathomable to the blonde as well as his puzzled professors ), his increasingly dark eyes due to his inability to fall soundly asleep anymore, and his important, if not life-threatening, secret task, Draco ceased to feel like himself. It was as if fifth year Draco who had joked around his friends, had bullied third years, and had fallen in love with a girl was merely a whisper of the past. A ghost. He missed that Draco.
He would sometimes tuck his hands into his coat pockets, wrap a thick scarf around his neck, and head down to the pitch as the sun fell behind the hills. It allowed him to watch the Slytherin practice undisturbed, protected by the darkness of the night. He was happy that Blaise had joined the team, had encouraged it really ( "C'mon, Zabini! You've always known that you wanted to play!" ), but that didn't mean it did not sting in the slightest as he watched the boy zip around in the stillness of the night. He would return to the common room, his heart heavy, every time.
"Are you listening to me?" He was pulled back into reality by Pansy, whom sat opposite him, arms folded crossly across her chest, a frown etched onto her face. Pansy had changed as well, no more schoolgirl giggling and dark rigid bangs. Her demeanour had hardened over the summer, returning to Hogwarts more soldier than student. He supposed that her parents were pressuring her about joining the 'right' side of the war as well. They never spoke of it, but that knowledge always lingered in the background.
"No." Draco admitted after a beat, shutting the textbook that had laid in front of him for the past ten minutes. He hadn't flipped the page, too preoccupied with his own thoughts and worries. His classes felt so insignificant compared to what was happening around them these days. He poked at his rather sad piece of toast before taking a tentative bite. He had lost most of his appetite these days, too tired from spending his days holed up in the Room of Requirement, tearing his hair out at his constant failures.
"Well," Pansy sighed, obviously frustrated at Draco but not willing to fully express it yet, "I asked if you were looking forward to the Slytherin-Gryffindor game happening later on and if you were planning to watch. I would totally understand if you would rather...do literally anything more interesting than that—" Draco zoned out slightly as the girl continued to chatter on, making elaborate excuses as to why she could not possibly be at the Quidditch pitch later on for he knew that she hated Quidditch. Always had. Now, without Draco playing, it seemed like she had lost interest completely.
Then, his interest is caught by a burst of laughter from somewhere further down the table. He already knew who it was ( how could he not? ), but still, he turned his head slightly to catch a glimpse of her.
Her.
She was always smiling nowadays, the corners of her lips quirked upwards and her eyes crinkling into crescents, her soft laughter carrying down the hallways like a siren song. She had started the semester off fearful and angry, but it had seemingly morphed into a relaxed state of serenity and happiness again over time with the support of her friends. And honestly? Draco was happy for her, something he rarely felt. Because she deserved so much better than life had given her.
Despite what he had said to her that afternoon in the Three Broomsticks, fuelled by his frustration from failing time and time again, fuelled by fear of his imminent failure, he still cared for her. Despite her decision to distance herself from him in fear that she would be stained by the dark side, he still cared for her. Because even if he wasn't in love with her, he still loved her dearly. Because there was no star in the sky that shone any brighter than Meredith Darling.
He felt his mouth twitch into a sad smile as he watched her laugh, tossing her head back as she always did. Daphne must've said something funny because the three were giggling away together—Blaise chuckled lightly instead—as if they were in their own little world, protected from the outside world. She gave Blaise a hearty slap on the shoulder before he took off, strutting his brand new Slytherin Quidditch uniform down the length of the hall.
"Of course you're not listening again." Pansy sighed for the final time as she tucked away her belongings into her bag. The hall was beginning to grow rowdy with the students' spirits high and excitement coursing through their veins in anticipation for the first Quidditch match of the year. A group of enthused Slytherins had hoisted their new seeker—his replacement—onto their shoulders and carried him out of the hall, chanting and booing at the Gryffindors opposite them.
Maybe a year ago, Draco would have been among the group hooting and cheering exuberantly for the Slytherin team—his team—but he had lost his place amongst them. Had lost himself amongst them. He chuckled humourlessly to himself: he wasn't quite the same Draco anymore, was he?
None of them were.
"That was a bloody foul and you know it!"
Despite Pansy's whining and multitudes of excuses, when it was time, the four ( Crabbe and Goyle had finally woken up from their giant-like slumber around half-past nine ) had wrapped themselves in thick layers of coats and scarves ( "Dumbledore is completely off his rocker for starting the Quidditch season in the bloody middle of winter." ) and had waddled down to the Quidditch Pitch, lost among the sea of students pouring out of the castle to find themselves a good seat on the freezing benches.
Draco was far less interested in the game itself ( perhaps Potter wasn't as abysmal a captain as Draco had thought he would have been ) and became more focused on the crowd as time passed and the snow began to fall harder, slinging sheets of ice downward and stinging his cheeks pink.
He spotted Meredith and Daphne as soon as he had found a seat. Well, he wasn't looking for them per say, but it was rather hard to miss the two girls. They were hoisting a massive banner that had the words, 'Zabini #1!' printed in neat cursive. Blaise was lucky to have friends like that. Sometimes, his mind would drift off to imagine a world where he had just been a little nicer to people. It was a sad fact that the only reason he had realised that now was that he was finally on the receiving end of the bullying, the harsh words, the taunts.
You're a miserable fool aren't you, Draco?
Slytherin had lost that day; and poorly, too. Draco blamed it on Harry Potter and the sheer luck that the bloody boy-who-lived seemed to be blessed with, of course.
However, his day hadn't come crumbling down around him until the dejected walk back up to the castle. Well, the dejected walk of a group dressed in green surrounded by the cheers and laughter of just about everyone else who had enjoyed the bracing cold and basked in the glory of the Gryffindor win.
It was Pansy Parkinson, of all people, that had ruined his day. She seemed to do that a lot these days.
( 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐍,𝟏𝟔 )
Now, it seemed like a completely natural thing to want to loathe Meredith Darling for all she had done. Well, at least all Pansy thought she had done because Draco Malfoy was extremely tight-lipped as usual and refused to tell her why the two had fallen out even though Pansy thought herself to be important enough to be kept in on the loop. He hadn't even told Blaise, but the stoic boy could have cared less ( "If he does not deem us worthy of his honesty, I honestly do not care, Parkinson." ). But Pansy was determined; she wasn't about to give up on the truth just yet.
They had always had an...odd relationship. They were one of each other's closest friends ( Pansy hadn't many friends despite her refusal to admit it ), and yet there was always this frigid distance between them. They would talk and jest and be...friends of a sort, but Draco was still very much shrouded is mystery to her.
She supposed that he was shrouded in mystery to just about everyone but she had thought that he would at least reveal a little more about himself to her. Not Pansy, no ( she knew that she would never close the gap between them no matter how hard she tried ), but Meredith. Because although Pansy disliked the perky witty black haired girl, she was one of the few that had allowed Draco to open up a little; to show a new fragment of his true self. Because although Pansy disliked the know-it-all annoyingly good person she was, she wanted Draco to be happy, and she somehow seemed to bring him that.
Pansy supposed that was the reason she had decided to tell him. Tell him the thing that caused his face to crumble. Caused his heart to sink to ground. Because he needed her.
"You never asked why I was late to breakfast." Pansy pointed out as she shook her boot to remove some of the snow that had piled upon it. She sniffed delicately as she tightened her sweater around herself; Merlin, it was like they had descended into some new ice age, she thought to herself miserably as she trudged on.
Draco squinted at her as if trying to decipher what game she was playing today, "Do I need to know?"
She gave him a pointed look and he sighed, conceding, and added in that haughty drawl of his, "Fine, Parkinson. Why were you late to breakfast this morning?"
"I was helping Meredith." He paused for an almost imperceptible, frozen to the spot, attempting to mask his piqued interest and concern. His voice was a little drier as he answered, "With what?"
"She woke up this morning," Pansy took a breath to dramatise her story further, "Screaming and crying. Merlin, you should have heard her. Screaming, and screaming. Never seen anyone wake up from a nightmare like that before." Draco completely stopped then; it even seemed like his heart had stopped.
She shuddered a little at the memory of Meredith's face contorted in a phantom pain, face stained red and tears uncontrollably running down her face. She was always so well put together, so polished and refined; it was so disconcerting seeing her break like that, to crumble into a puddle of tears and a storm of screams that made no sense. She kept going on and on about saving Potter and leaving her behind before beginning a fresh new song of screams again.
"What did you do?" Pansy was quite certain that she had never heard his voice so soft and desperate in all the time they had known one another. It was as if he were whispering a prayer, begging her to say the thing that would bring him comfort.
Pansy had been the only other girl in the dorm that morning, the rest having left for breakfast earlier, so naturally, she had to be the one to do something. Anything to stop the horrible screaming that would have surely woken up the whole castle if she had let it continue.
"I tried to calm her down." She confessed, "But even though the screaming stopped, she wouldn't stop crying. Merlin, I hate it when people cry around me."
"What did you do?" His tone is far more aggressive now, no longer a silent prayer, but a forceful demand. It was a side of Draco that they rarely glimpsed.
"I held her hand, told her that she was alright. She wouldn't stop crying and telling me..." Pansy recalled for a moment, "What was it? 'Don't give it to them...Let them torture me, just don't give in. You can't...' And a lot of other completely incomprehensible—"
"Goddammit Parkinson!"
She nearly jumped in surprise as the pale boy kicked the snow angrily, his voice raised to a shout, scaring a group of younger students nearby. She had never seen him so genuinely furious before; it was always this cool collected anger that masked his true feelings ( product of a pureblood upbringing ), but never a genuine burst of fury.
She supposed that it was time he let his anger burst. It had been building up for months now, bubbling up to the surface but never spilling out. This repressing anger, escaping him in small cracks, small instances. He had been angry at professors and students, even angry if his sandwich wasn't quite right. She supposed that the fitting thing to send him over the edge was the suffering of Meredith Darling.
Because Pansy Parkinson knew ( had known and accepted it for a long while now ) that Draco Malfoy was a selfish, cruel, arrogant bastard who almost cared for no one. Who barrelled his way through life as if he ( and maybe his family ) were the only ones that mattered, crushing everything else in his way.
But for Meredith Darling? The boy would tear down the castles, would knock down mountains, would face all the demons and monsters in the world, would walk through the fires of hell, would hold up the damn sky on his own two bare shoulders if it meant saving her.
Because he loved her, and Merlin, love makes you do stupid things.
ok confession i literally just finished writing this chapter in the past hour because i've been completely stuck on this chapter forever. i hope y'all think it's up to it's usual standard😔 but!! we've reached the exact half-way point of the book so if you're still hanging around for the ride, thank you!! i love you guys❤️