Dolor Draconum

Chapter the Thirty-First

The exams were upon them. Literally for Harry, who had his carefully piled notes collapse on top of him and leave him buried for several minutes before he could dig his way out. It hadn't helped that Ron and Hermione were both laughing at him, and worse, he was laughing at himself. He managed to fill the entire boy's dormitory with sheets and rolls of parchment, like a patchwork snowfall.

Hermione had cleared it up and even given the notes a look through, finding areas Harry had missed and subjects he had slept through. To her horror, she even found a small topic - bottles used by merpeople to store potions under water - she had missed herself. It had taken all of her self restraint not to run from the room and hide in her own bed, hyperventilating. Of course, the boys relied on her to be the font of all knowledge and their exam period rock. She couldn't let on that she had made a mistake.

The problem was she just couldn't keep her mind on revision. It didn't help that Ron chose the most awkward moments to make advances. She cared about him, and she didn't want to hurt his feelings, but if he tried to kiss her just on more time while she was revising she'd hit him with the text book. Putting him off politely only resulted in puppydog eyes and pouting lips, and she hated doing that to him. Hated doing it to herself. Every time she spoke harshly to him, or turned away from a kiss, or didn't have time to go out with him to Hogsmeade, a dark doubt hung between them. It would be a long time before Ron could see that her actions came from the mind, not a heart still in love with Draco Malfoy.

Hermione swallowed and bent over her notes. She had arithmancy this afternoon, and this was hardly the time to start thinking about Malfoy. He was as much a distraction as Ron, despite his absence. All she had to do was fall in love with Ron. It sounded so simple in her head. She hadn't been in love with Draco, no matter what Ron thought, so it ought to be easy, yes?

Hermione closed her eyes and let her head drop. She couldn't do this, not now. But if she didn't she'd stay just as distracted. She'd struggle to revise, and fight to concentrate in the exams. Unbidden, her mind took her back to the day she had found Malfoy in the library, crying. She wanted to go and look for him. Three times today she'd made it as far as the door before she managed to squash the impulse. Her mind kept wandering, taking her to Malfoy reading Freud, and pulling faces about snakes. She knew what Freud would say to her now. Well, with less emphasis on her parents, though Ron did remind her a little of her father. Freud would say 'repression'.

Hermione sat up and sighed heavily. She was alone in the prefect's study, it being barely four AM. Quieter than the dormitories, and no fear of disturbing anyone.

"I loved Draco Malfoy."

With that statement, heard only by the paintings, she slammed her books shut and folded up her parchment, stuffing everything into her bag before running out of the room without it.

* * *

Malfoy watching Hermione run down the corridor, hands over her mouth. She ducked into the nearby girl's toilets and before the door swung shut Draco heard retching. Apparently it had been a close thing. He hoped it would be a long thing too.

He walked down the corridor quickly, quietly in his slippers. His heart sank when he entered the study and saw Hermione's bag still there. She'd come back for it.

After a moment's contemplation he pulled a quill and piece of parchment for it and wrote in the most scratchy, blotted, and overall crude hand he could manage:

'closed 4 cleening plees do not disterb"

He pinned it to the door and hung Hermione's bag on the door handle. He hoped it would work. She could be ridiculous inquisitive sometimes.

His heart constricted, but he took a deep breath and swallowed his emotions. He was sick of watching her pretend she had never cared for him. She could bat her eyelids at Weasley all she liked, but he knew she was as badly hurt as he was. He took satisfaction in that when the nights were too cold and lonely to sleep. She could smile for her friends, but when she was alone she was as he had just seen her: miserable, sick and alone.

He could watch her later, if he didn't fall asleep. Maybe all he'd taken of value from Arithmancy was the time he'd spent with her, but that was fine by him.

He knelt by the fire place and tried to remember the address that had come by post the day before. The letter had been, ostensibly, from a family relative, wishing him well at school and offering him a place during the holidays. A relative that didn't exist but lived in a real house. And who's letters burned to a crisp as soon as they were read.

He cast the floo powder into the fire and murmured the address. He swallowed, and pushed his head into the flames.

He could see walls and the floor and even a bit of ceiling, touching the floor. It was some kind of ruined cottage, rotten thatch mildewing on broken tiles. Draco found himself turning his nose up at it all instinctually.

"Ahh, Draco," a familiar voice said, and Draco watched his father come in to view. He tried to keep the shock from his face.

Lucius Malfoy was painfully thin. His hair was waist length now, and so dirty and matted its natural blond was almost completely obscured. He even, and this was what shocked Draco the most, had a beard.

His eyes, though, were as bright and cruel as they had always been, and sent a rush of familial pride through Draco. Even under such circumstances his father had lost none of his self-possession and pride. He didn't need magic to bend other to his will. He was the born leader, born superior, and everything Draco wanted to be. Maybe the son had lost a few of his father's prejudices, but he retained that pride. Ambition made you a Slytherin, and for each Malfoy their greatest ambition was both to be their parent, and to surpass their parent.

"Hello, father," Draco said, keeping his voice soft, but not subservient. "It's been a long time."

His father gave him a look that once would have had Draco cowering in fear. Here and now, however, Draco knew well that all of the power was his own. His father was dependent on him. It was a pleasant feeling.

"We are wanted by both sides," his father said curtly, getting straight to the point. "Naturally I did not betray our leader."

"So why are you being hunted by Death Eaters?" Draco asked.

"That is none of your concern. Needless to say the method of my escape has left our dark lord with questions as to my fealty."

"How did you escape?" Draco asked, still having received no satisfactory answer from any quarter.

"With the aid of a well kept secret." Lucius paused, and Draco could see he was thinking hard. He raised his head to meet Draco's eyes again, and there was something there both like pride and rejection. "You say 'you', not 'we'," Lucius said softly. "I can not decide if this is evidence you are growing some backbone, or whether you are turning your back on your family and heritage like a craven coward, fleeing from my imprisonment and playing sycophant to Dumbledore and the fools who follow him."

"I will never lay down my name of Malfoy," Draco said stiffly. "I still have pride in it, even if all others now use it as a byword for foolish servants of the Dark Lord."

Lucius hissed at that, angry but not made stupid by it. The two men studied each other.

"I will tell you how I escaped Azkaban, if you join me in my escape from Albion," he said.

"Albion?" Draco raised an eyebrow at the old name, but enjoyed the taste of it on his tongue. A self-imposed exile was appealing right now. And then, one day, he could come crashing back to Albion and prove to the world he was not some snivelling ferret-faced bullying coward, or whatever they called him in Gryffindor these days, with all the power his father wielded.

"Is that enough for you?" Lucius asked acidly.

"Albion? Yes, England will be enough for me." Draco grinned wickedly. His father returned the wolfish smile.

"I will come to Hogwarts before the year ends. We will use the Potter boy's gifts against him. You will know when I am there. Until then, prepare for flight, but do not make a move, understand?"

It was an odd message, Draco mused as he pulled his head back from the flames. Yes, Potter had many irritating talents, but he doubted Quidditch skills could convey any kind of coherent message. His father didn't know about the invisibility cloak, and Draco could see no way for his father to use Potter's attention-seeking hero complex without inciting an attack on himself.

He crouched on his heels in front of the fire, rubbing the fine layer of ash from his face with one thumb while he thought. He could hear Hermione outside, muttering to herself, and then taking her satchel and leaving. Draco stood up slowly, wincing at the stiffness in his knees. He wanted to follow her. He kicked and shook his legs, restarting circulation, but remained where he stood. He'd let that ship sail. She had smothered him and in kicking away the blankets he had kicked her away too. Now he was cold, yes, but at least he could breathe.

* * *

The exam was a slow kind of torture. Hermione fought not to fidget, running through the questions for a third time. She had answered them all, thankfully, but her confidence waxed and waned. Her head pounded, and she found herself thankful that the exams were timed by falling sand instead of ticking clocks.

She tapped her pen next to question ten, wondering whether she had interpreted it correctly. She was more concerned about her answer to twelve, but that was what had given her the headache in the first place. It didn't help that she'd found herself writing Draco's name in place of that of the eminent professor who had created the first theory of exponential magic accumulation. Of course, she couldn't remember the eminent professor's name now, which was why she had buried that piece of paper at the bottom of the pile and was attempting to ignore it, in the hope the name might just spring into her head if she didn't dig for it too hard. It wasn't working.

She looked around the room, starting with the timer and then letting her eyes wander. She wasn't cheating. She had no intention of doing so. Besides, there was no one here she would trust to have better answers than herself, except one, who had fallen asleep on his paper within seconds of arriving and hadn't written a single thing.

Malfoy was two columns across and one row in front of her. He had started snoring half an hour ago, which had sent a ripple of nervous laughs through the exam room before McGonagall had silenced the students with a Look. Now he was just drooling a little, but sleeping quietly. He looked, Hermione decided, quite sweet.

She wondered if that was an observation to share with the others. Ginny would appreciate it, but Ron might take it the wrong way. It was funny, Hermione told herself, and a little demeaning to Malfoy. She'd just have to find the right way to phrase it. Sleeping like a baby. A baby rat, all pink and wrinkled and stubbled with white hairs.

Hermione doodled a rodent on the corner of the questions' parchment, reminding herself accidentally that she quite liked rats. She'd always made a point of not disliking things just because everyone else did. She was fine with spiders and snake and mice, and while slugs left her a little squeamish she wasn't going to scream the house down. Irrational fears encouraged by popular television, all hysterical women standing on chairs and the like.

She glanced over at Malfoy again. He shifted in his sleep, sighing audibly.

Hermione swallowed her own sigh and erased the drawing of the rat. She wouldn't share this with the others. She couldn't.