Secrets and Lies

Draco wasn't entirely sure what he wanted to say, but he just had to say it. And that motive carried him as fast as his legs could carry him. The crowd around the entrance to the castle sought to delay him, but he pushed his way through the crowd, and his eyes just about caught sight of a flash of the red team robes flashing up the stairs.

He sprinted up after it, not even bothering to knock Dennis Creevey over this time. Quick as he could manage he whipped out the Marauder's Map and set his eyes on where the little dot "Ginny Weasley" was moving. In the corner of his eye he could see Potter was still standing in the middle of the Quidditch Pitch. Draco ignored him, and turned around one of the corners.

If Ginny was going to the Gryffindor Tower she would expect to be the first one there. However the little piece of paper in Draco's hands knew more shortcuts than she did.

Gasping for breath, he burst out right in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady. She smiled down at him.

"Password?" she asked kindly, but Draco didn't answer. He leant forward to breathe easier, and his eyes scanned across the map. For a brief moment he thought he'd made a mistake, but then he saw Ginny's dot moving rapidly towards him.

"Snuffles!" she shouted from down the corridor (most of the Gryffindor house had given up on working out Lupin's ridiculously abstract passwords). The Fat Lady obediently swung forward, and Ginny swerved at the last moment to avoid a collision with Draco.

"How?" she snapped. Then her eyes fell upon the piece of parchment in his hand. "You stole it!" she shouted.

"Okay, so you know half the story. You said once it wasn't important," Draco reminded her.

"Matthew, what are you talking about?" she asked, sounding exasperated. "You're a Slytherin. Or at least you once were." She walked past him, banging shoulders in the process. She came away from it clutching hers. He followed her in.

"Why are you so upset?" he demanded. "I understand why you're upset with Potter, but why me?"

"Because I can't help it!" Ginny shouted back. She paused at the foot of the girls' staircase. "There's just something about you that feels right, and I should have known it was a mistake because I don't even know who you really are." She stood there for a moment, but then returned to the Common Room, stopping a few feet away from Draco.

"I want to know who you really are," she sobbed. Draco stared down at her, and as if on queue his watch went off. He drew out his hip flask and unscrewed the cap. He hesitated.

Calmly as you like Ginny took another few steps forward. She reached up to take the flask from him.

"I want to know who you really are," she repeated, trying to pull it from his grip. "Please."

"Do you expect me to reveal I'm some handsome Quidditch star hiding in Hogwarts?" he drawled. "You don't know what I've done. I have done more terrible things than you could possibly imagine." He stared at her. "I hurt you once, and at the time I was proud of it."

"I want to know who you really are," she said again, and she sounded more certain than she'd ever sounded before. Draco released his grip on the flask, and he waited. Slowly, he started to feel the tingling.

He made to turn away, but Ginny grabbed him to stop him. Her arms swung around his neck and she pulled him closer. Draco gave in, allowing her to kiss him.

He could feel his whole body change. His body shook as pain racked through it, and his nose drew out, his hair grew suddenly, his stomach seemed to plummet, and the great beating lump in his chest stopped for just a moment, then started up stronger than ever.

Then Ginny pulled away. And suddenly she wasn't crying any more. Now the only thing on her face was fear. Draco watched as she stood back and her mouth bobbed open and closed, as if she was trying to find the words. Then she just turned and ran, dropping the flask to the ground and sending the pink liquid inside everywhere. Draco didn't even try to follow her up the staircase.

The portrait hole swung open, and suddenly he wasn't alone anymore.

Someone gasped, someone screamed, and someone had the nerve to take a picture. Draco turned idly to face them. He stared blankly at the advancing Ron Weasley, who had his fists raised.

And then there was darkness.

###

Ron sat in Lupin's office awaiting his judgement whilst taunting the Hinkypunk in the cage behind the desk. The foggy little blighter had gotten one over him before, but now he was determined to get his own back. His mind was not well suited to the idea that this might be a different Hinkypunk than the one that had tricked him in third year.

Eventually Lupin arrived, marched past Ron and collapsed into his chair.

"Enjoying the temporary teacher's job sir?" Ron asked with a cheeky grin.

"Don't you start," Lupin muttered. He raised his voice to address Ron. "Now Ron, I'm very disappointed in you."

"Are you really sir?"

"No. I'm only disappointed that I didn't know about the bugger sooner so I could have done it myself. But officially I'm disappointed, so a letter will be written home and you will receive a detention." He paused. "On the other hand you did apprehend a dangerous criminal, so I suppose I could mention that in the letter and award fifty points to Gryffindor." He sighed. "It's just not the same without Snape... The old bugger was so much fun to torment."

"So what will happen to Malfoy?" Ron asked.

"Oh, the Headmistress wanted to cover it up, so naturally there are a squad of Aurors waiting outside the Hospital Wing. Poppy won't let them into the ward. She says that the boy is still a student and until he's healed he's not going anywhere. Naturally the teachers will support Poppy, so Malfoy will remain here for a time."

Ron pondered this for a moment.

"Now Mr Weasley I believe there is something else you should know about," Lupin said. "In light of Harry's recent performances the entire Quidditch team, bar you and Harry himself, has handed me in their resignations. As such Harry has been stripped of his captaincy until he straightens himself out, so you will be captain for the time being." Then he gave a faint smile. "Needless to say if James were alive he'd been poking me incessantly with a stick until I gave Harry back the captaincy, but in his absence my decision is final." He held out a small badge for Ron.

"So I'm Quidditch Captain?" Ron said in awe. "I don't suppose if the Prefects hand in resignations you'd make me Head Boy as well."

"I'm sorry Ron, but even Goldstein would make a better Head Boy than you. And he lost twenty points for Ravenclaw this morning when he started doing unspeakable things to my Hinkypunk." He shuddered and went silent. Ron took this as his queue to leave, deciding it not best to say what he'd been doing to the poor Hinkypunk.

###

Whenever Draco woke up the only thing he could see was light. He vaguely remembered what had happened before he blacked out. Weasley had hit him... no, before that... Ginny had seen him, and ran...

Suddenly the light, which wasn't really that bad once you got used to it, was replaced by a mass of brown hair leaning over him.

"That had better not be the Mudblood," he muttered. Then someone to his right swore loudly and the figure above him started telling the voice off.

"Ron!" she exclaimed hotly. "He's obviously still disorientated from the savage beating you gave him." Draco rolled over.

"Weasley, is that you?" he asked, although by now his eyes were adjusting and he could quite clearly make out the freckles and red hair. And the badge. "Oh Merlin! They didn't make you Head Boy did they?"

"No, only Quidditch Captain," Weasley said glumly, but he sat upright as Granger glared at him. "Um, I was just about to say that I should not have hit you, but then I remembered you've been flirting with my sister all year even though she was seeing Harry, so I kind of wish I'd punched you harder." Granger snapped at him, but Draco was more concerned with this face.

"What is this monstrosity?" he demanded. Granger had the nerve to giggle.

"It's a mask, to protect your nose and help it heal," she said. Draco ran his fingers along it.

"So what's going to happen to me?" he asked. Granger looked at Weasley, who stared at the door to the Hospital Wing. "Aurors?" he asked. Weasley nodded. "So a life sentence in Azkaban?"

"Maybe," Weasley muttered. "Hermione's been trying to find some loophole to get you off. Don't know why she's bothering really." He shrugged in a manner that suggested they'd already had this argument several times.

"Well, I'm very grateful, Granger," Draco said, and to his surprise he meant it. Granger looked somewhat surprised as well. "If it helps, I never actually cast an Unforgivable."

"It does!" Granger exclaimed, rummaging through her bag. "And it's nice to know you have friends, isn't it?" Draco shuddered.

"Please, don't refer to yourselves as my friends. I'm not ready," Draco muttered. Ron chuckled.

###

"Nobody knows the trouble I've seen... Nobody knows my sorrow..."

Megan made her way towards the source of the off-key singing. The kind you get whenever the person singing didn't really know the lyrics that well when they were sober.

Megan knocked on the door to the office. When the only response she got was a verse of Like a Virgin, a song the singer had probably not heard in a long time judging by the poor attempt at making up the words, she walked in.

And there was the Transfiguration teacher supported against the desk. Bottles and bits of parchment were scattered all over the floor, and the squirrel he'd Transfigured larger teeth onto at the start of the year was half-eaten in the corner.

"Megan!" Professor Walker greeted her. "Girls are here! Did you hear that? Chip?" He rolled over to look at the half-eaten squirrel. "Oh, that's right."

"Professor Walker, what happened?" she asked.

"Please, call me Professor Walker," he said cheerfully, however his mood quickly darkened. "You know they used to make fun of me."

"Who did sir?" she asked, picking her steps carefully across the floor. She could have sworn a pile of parchment to her right just moved.

"The other students," he sobbed. "When I was at... when I was at... here," He pointed to the floor. "They used to say I looked just like Snape."

"Terrible sir," Megan replied, picking up several of the empty bottles off the floor.

"It's not easy looking like you're Snape's illegitimate son. Of course they ignored the fact that Snape would only have been like twelve when I was born, but that's kids for you. Bunch of wankers."

"How nice."

"So I deliberately failed Potions, just to show them I wasn't related. And I threw myself into Transfiguration. I never had a talent for the subject, but I just did anything I could to stop the taunting." He looked up at her. "How old are you?"

"Seventeen, sir."

"Perfect, have a drink!" Walker exclaimed, pulling a bottle of Firewhiskey from somewhere and handing it to her. As if by magic he managed to find another one underneath him.

"What shall we drink to?" she asked, sitting down on the floor.

"How about to old Snape?" he suggested. "To wherever the old bugger may be!" He raised his bottle, and Megan knocked hers against his. Then she took a good long drink. After all those late nights in the dorms she was pleased to say she handled it better than some veterans of the stuff. Like Walker, for example.

For a long time they sat in silence, just drinking away, before Megan spoke at last.

"Know any good drinking games sir?" she asked casually.

"I know many. It's remembering them after you've had two bottles that's the problem."

"Well, I know a good one," Megan said. "We play it in the dorms some times. You have to take a drink then you ask someone a question. They have to tell the truth or take another drink. By the next morning you usually can't remember any embarrassing secrets anyway."

"Perfect!" Walker announced. "I'll go first." He took a drink and fell backwards. He didn't get up for a while. When he finally mustered the strength to raise his head, he asked his question. "Did you cheat in that last Transfiguration test?"

"Yes."

"You got a P."

"Ah well, easy come easy go," she shrugged, before taking her own drink. "So, Professor Walker. Have you ever thought about fooling around with a student?" There was a pregnant pause.

"So I have to take a drink then?"

"Is that a yes?" Megan asked, trying to look scandalised. Walker nodded his head enthusiastically, before realising his mistake.

"No!" he shouted. He took another drink. "So, maybe I should ask you something saucy. I know! Who was your first kiss?" Walker smiled. "Girls talk about that sort of thing still right?"

"You're not a girl sir."

"But if I was people wouldn't think I was Snape's son. Now answer my question." He paused again. "What was my question?"

"No fair! You can't ask two!" Megan giggled. "If you must know, my first kiss was with Ginny." Walker's eyes suddenly bulged.

"What?"

"No, it's my turn sir. Who was your first kiss?"

"It was a girl named Petunia. We met one day at the train station. I thought she would be boarding the train too. Turns out she was a Muggle who hated Wizards. My first love." He clutched his heart dramatically. "Now tell me everything."

"It was nothing," Megan blushed. "We were just drinking one night, and we got round to talking about boys, then I mentioned I'd never kissed a boy before, so she said she'd help me." She stared at him for a moment.

"Twenty points for Gryffindor," Walker muttered.

"For what?"

"For telling me the greatest story ever told... tell it again."

"No, it's my question!" They sat there, drinking for a little bit longer, until a knock came at the door. Then it swung open.

"Ah, it's Harry Potter!" Walker shouted in triumph, finding another bottle of Firewhiskey. "Come in and have a drink, you little rascal."