And Then He Realized

The only sound in the small room was the quiet flipping of pages, a pause between each page as if the occupant was unsure of what he was looking for, quickly scanning each page before flipping on to the next one. There was a sigh, the sound of a book slamming shut, and a muffled thud as it hit the carpet beneath the bed, joining three or four of its equally useless fellows. The bed squeaked a moment later, and nearly silent footfalls began. Someone was pacing.

"This is ridiculous!" hissed the one pacing, kicking at one of the books on the ground, then wincing and falling backwards onto the bed and rubbing at the injured toe. "Eight books! Eight books on protection, and not one that has the thing that I want?" Running a hand through his messy hair, Draco collapsed backwards onto his pillow. "My personal library must not be big enough," he groaned, closing his eyes and allowing his exhausted, tension-filled face to relax slightly. Shoulder length hair fanned out around his head and Draco began finger-combing it, grimacing each time his fingers encountered a tangle - there were far too many of them. He was obviously too worried to spend adequate time on his hair. That showed, more than anything else possibly could, how preoccupied the blond was.

Crouching on the ground and carefully scooping the fragile, abused books into his arms (all the while cursing himself for throwing such delicate objects), Draco carefully placed all of the books on his immaculate desk. Opening them all to the first page and placing a small, clear-colored half-globe of class on the inside cover; he lightly tapped each of the globes and muttered under his breath, "Solo castare richiamo alle." The books began to slowly flip their own pages. Draco grabbed a few more globes from a drawer that slid directly out of the wall and slipped them into the pockets of his silver tinged blue robes. As he headed out the door, Draco glanced at his reflection and shuddered. He had to find something, so he could finally sleep again!

Contrary to popular belief, Draco Malfoy didn't hate Harry Potter. Hatred was definitely too much emotion for Draco to feel towards Potter. The fact that the Golden Boy probably hated him was not lost on Draco, but he couldn't bring himself to care. The Gryffindor seemed to be able to call up immeasurable amounts of emotion at the drop of a hat, and one of those appeared to be fury towards the blond Slytherin. On the other hand, Draco hadn't been able to muster much emotion recently, and he certainly wasn't going to waste in on Potter. In truth, Draco felt sorry for the Boy Who Lived. He had so much to live up to, so many people counting on him to do something that Draco personally believed to be nearly impossible. The consequences if he failed would be absolutely horrific, which no doubt plagued the boy day and night.

Draco could see how Potter was beginning to bend under all the pressure. It wasn't anything really noticeable, but Draco was both naturally observant and had also been trained by the best. That, and his current assignment was to observe Harry Potter and report back on any disquieting changes that may have occurred. The changes had all been incredibly subtle, true, but Draco noticed them anyway.

Potter was spending less and less time talking to Weasley and Granger and more time wandering around the castle by himself. It wasn't a great amount of time, because then the less important members of the Gryffindor Trio would notice. Draco was actually rather surprised that they hadn't notice already, but he supposed they were too wrapped up in each other - quite literally, as a now permanently scarred Draco had discovered when he walked past the bleachers in the Quidditch pitch a few days ago.

In class, Potter was even more subdued than normal. That wasn't saying much in Potions, of course, but in the Defense Against the Dark Arts that Slytherin and Gryffindor shared, once again taught by Professor Lupin, Potter generally kept quiet. He continued to excel in the practical lessons and written homework, of course, but he no longer seemed to feel the need to contribute to class discussions. According to the small transparent ball that Draco had charmed to follow Potter around and act like a Muggle video camera, Potter acted the same in all the rest of his classes as well. While Draco was surprised that nothing seemed to perk the boy up, he was even more worried that Potter - or his friends, for that matter - hadn't noticed the globe following him around all day.

Whatever. It wasn't his problem, or at least it wouldn't be for much longer.

When Malfoy pushed open the large doors to the library with an extremely unnecessary flourish, everyone inside turned to stare at him. Six pairs of eyes narrowed in unison, with him as their target. It hurt, a little, to know that they hated him even when all he was doing was going around opening doors. It really wasn't like there were Dementors, or even Death Eaters, on the other side. Giving the table full of Gryffindors a cordial nod - and a wide berth - which only seemed to anger them more, the blond strode confidently into the Restricted Section, ignoring the sputtering from Granger.

"What do you think you're doing, Malfoy?" she asked, spitting his name out like a curse. "Students aren't allowed in the Restricted Section!"

His mouth twisted into a wry grin, which he quickly forced into a rather bland smile. "No doubt, Granger, that is why it has been named the Restricted Section." There was a book of protective spells, potions, and charms beside his left ear, and Draco wanted so to just snatch it and run away. But the girl wasn't stupid - she'd figure out which book it was, and no one was supposed to know what he was doing. He had been counting on them ignoring him, but apparently walking through a library was so dastardly, you clever fiend Malfoy you, that she felt she had to thwart his twisted attempts to research. "If you'll excuse me," he continued after a moment of angry silence, "I have some research to do."

Turning on his heel and beginning to walk away, Malfoy stopped and rolled his eyes at the sound of a chair falling behind him, but didn't have time to turn around before the Weasel grabbed a hold of his shoulder and wrenched him around violently. Hissing lightly, Draco brought a hand up to his shoulder, although he wasn't sure just how helpful touching the pain would be. It didn't help much so he continued ignoring the quickly angering redhead and instead focused on not making a sound. His hand came away red when he removed it from his shoulder, and as soon as Weasley noticed he turned a rather interesting yellow-green color that didn't go well with his hair at all. The rest of the Gryffindors had leapt from their chairs when Ron went silent, and Granger was starting at him from behind her horrified boyfriend.

Directing his still bland smile to the boy standing in front of him, Draco's eyes narrowed slightly. "That took Madame Pomfrey three days to get closed properly, Weasel. I would appreciate it if, in the future, you wouldn't go around opening month old, incredibly painful wounds."

"Oh, come off it, Malfoy," sneered Seamus, and Draco was surprised to note that no one else seemed particularly eager to do anything about it. "I doubt you've even got a wound, let alone a painful one. You don't look nearly uncomfortable enough to be bleeding, especially not that much." He turned to Dean and Neville, saying in a loud (but naturally confidential) whisper, "I bet parts of his clothes are just spelled to be red to the touch, to freak people out." Everyone could hear him, of course, so Seamus took no time in walking the extra few feet to Malfoy and dragging his robe and undershirt down past his shoulder. "See?" he crowed triumphantly. "He's fine, and he's just being a sneaky, slimy little git who wants attention and thinks that bleeding is fun--" Seamus trailed off at the horrified look on everyone's faces, brow furrowing "What..?" Then he actually turned around and glanced at Malfoy's shoulder.

Blood was dripping down his arm, chest and back from a gash that extended along the entire length Draco's right shoulder, starting just below his neck and ending about an inch from where his arm began. The skin around it was even paler than the rest of him and looked almost grey, but the area around that was angry and pink and puffy. Dark, Muggle stitches (now broken of course, thanks to the Weasel) framed the outside skin like angry eyelashes that had been viciously attacked with too much mascara, and it was unclear which side most of them belonged on. All in all, it was a rather nasty cut - you could see the bone and everything - and it hurt like hell. Ron stumbled backwards, staring at his hand in horror, and Draco almost laughed. He didn't know why the Weasel thought it was his fault; it wasn't as if he was the one who stabbed him, after all.

"As you can all no doubt see," Draco drawled, trying to draw away from the group but stopped by Seamus' hand, still frozen on his robe, "despite Finnegan's cunning idea for a prank, I am, in fact, injured. If you would please release me, Finnegan, I would enjoy finding my book and returning, once again, to somewhere less flooded with Gryffindors. Preferably with a mediwizard."

Seamus stayed attached to his robes, shocked, but Potter snapped -finally - into action. Grabbing a hold of his Irish friends arm, he yanked sideways, sending Malfoy's injured shoulder into a bookcase. With an indrawn breath and a quickly stifled scream of pure agony, Draco righted himself and dragged his robe back onto his swollen, bloody shoulder. With the Gryffindors still staring at him in horror, it really was ridiculously easy to push past them all, grab the protection book he had been eyeing earlier, then hurry out of the library.

Really, the wound wasn't hurting as much anymore, since he had been taking a painkilling potion. Had it been made with a Muggle weapon, or one that hadn't been cursed, Draco would have been able to heal himself with no difficulty. Before Pomfrey had stitched him up, with an actual needle and everything, he hadn't know that there was a way to do something like that without magic. Now that he knew, however, there was no way he was going back to the infirmary. It was much too sterile to enjoy for long.

By the time Draco returned to his room, the eight books that he had spelled earlier had finished their flipping. They were all sitting neatly on his desk, the half-globes sitting innocuously atop them. Draco grabbed the globes and inspected them carefully. The titles of the books they had been sitting on top of were displayed, in Draco's graceful cursive, in green letters across the front. Muttering a quick duplication spell for each of the globes, Draco tucked half of the globes into a large velvet green bag underneath his bed, and then quickly replaced the outfit in there with a more appropriate outfit.

The day before, Draco had found (after a dew days of searching his massive closet) what he considered to be the warmest cloak he owned. It was lavender, a color that he secretly adored what he looked like in but didn't particularly want to wear around Hogwarts, with some kind of incredibly soft beige fur that warmed and protected every entrance to it - the wrists, hood, collar, and even the flap down the front where it was secured had fur. Draco's mother, concerned for her fragile son, had implemented Muggle technology in getting Draco's coat the warmest it could possibly be. His cloak saved up his body heat and stored it somehow between his skin and the thermal fabric that comprised its inside. The outside was, naturally, silk, because Draco wouldn't wear anything that wasn't beautiful. It was the warmest cloak that he had ever owned, and he loved it. In order to fit it inside the bag, he had had to shrink it, but that was fine, since now it was accompanied by an all black wardrobe of several layers of flannel pants and a clingy shirt. They were all spelled to be rain-repellant and heated, with restoration spells sewn right into the pattern. When the clothing was on, every single part of Draco, save for his face, was watertight. His gloves fit perfectly and it almost seemed as if he wasn't wearing any, since he was still perfectly capable of performing any task with dexterity. His boots were Muggle as well, bought at a ridiculously expensive outdoors shop. On the off chance that he did get water in them, they dried in less than an hour.

He was happy with his cold weather gear. People would find it suspicious, he knew, to have a bag already packed under his bed, with unspoilable food and everything that he needed ready to go in case he had to run. No on else in the school had that, he suspected.

Shoving the bag back under his bed, Draco stood once again and stumbled over to the chair in front of his vanity. Dragging the robe over his head with the uninjured arm, Draco grimaced as he stared at the gash on his shoulder. It was going to scar, and scars were unsightly. Draco sighed and dropped his gaze to the table. He could stitch himself up, he supposed, but he really didn't want to.

There was no help for it. He would have to go back to the infirmary and have Pomfrey stitch it up again. Ew.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione were slowly making their way back to the Gryffindor Common Room. Dean, Seamus, and Neville had opted to stay at the library, claiming that they were doing Transfigurations research. Right. Harry wasn't sure what Neville was doing, but he was positive that Seamus and Dean weren't doing anything even vaguely related to school work. If they wanted to keep pretending, so be it. It didn't really take a genius to see that only one of their beds was slept in every night.

But Harry was really more worried about the incident with Malfoy than with his roommates' torrid affairs. The Slytherin was probably the least likely person to have that happen to him in the entire school. As Harry had been dismayed to find out early in their sixth year, Draco had actually become good at physically defending himself. He was quick, too, when he was in danger. Slippery like a snake. That was it.

Many people disliked Draco Malfoy, but none of them were good enough to get into Hogwarts - on high alert - and stab a student, and then get out without alarms going off everywhere. They'd been on high alert for almost a month now, and they'd gone on it only because...

Harry slowed to a stop.

The last visitor inside the castle, the one that must have set off the warning bells, had been Lucius Malfoy! The new system of warning bells were keyed towards every student, and each student had their very own bell. It was a practice that had been started in the middle of Harry's sixth year. At the Head Table in the Great Hall, there was a huge rack of little silver bells, each with a students' name engraved on it. The tiny bells were incredibly loud, and could somehow be heard all throughout the castle. When a student was in severe danger, their bell would fall from the rack and start a shrill, high-pitched ringing, and the higher the pitch was showed how much danger the student was in. If the cause of the danger was another student, their bell would drop off the rack until it was identified by a teacher, at which time it would turn just a shade darker before floating back up to the rack.

The last time Lucius Malfoy had come to visit his son, one of the bells had begun shrieking, the highest shriek anyone had heard yet, and had started rolling around frantically on the table, waiting to be noticed. None of the students had been able to figure out whose it was, since Dumbledore just looked at the name inscribed on it in horror before tossing it to Snape and practically running from the room, almost tripping over his own beard in his haste. Snape had jumped up a moment later, hurtled the ball back up towards the rack, then sprinted from the room as quickly as his bulky robes would allow. It had been a rather amusing sight, until everyone remembered that it meant that a student was in danger. Very serious danger, if Dumbledore's reaction was anything to go by.

By now, Ron and Hermione had stopped as well, and were staring at him. Harry thought it a bit odd that Hermione had yet to figure out where the wound must have come from. Maybe she just didn't care. He knew that Ron definitely didn't. The redhead couldn't be happier that Draco was in severe pain. Harry knew that he felt bad - not horrible, but bad - for being to one to reopen the wound, but as soon as he forgot that he was the one who did, he would probably start teasing Malfoy about it. Harry wasn't sure how, really, but Ron would manage. He could be resourceful, when he really wanted to.

But how had no one else figured out when the stabbing - or whatever it was - had occurred? His two friends were obviously too interested in talking to each other about what sneaky, underhanded, despicable deed Malfoy could be plotting. They knew that the blond had grabbed a book on protection, a very strong book on protection. It was curious, that Malfoy would have wanted to protect anything anyway.

"I wouldn't worry about it, Harry," reassured Ron, clapping him on the shoulder. "The git probably just realized he'd have to fight you eventually, and figured he'd need some help."

Harry smiled and acted reassured by Ron's explanation, but deep down he knew that something else was playing out.