The Devil's Monopoly

The Devil's Monopoly

Chapter Two

Draco's gaze was fixed determinedly on the book in front of him, not once wandering his hand as it gripped onto the side of the desk, knuckles still red from the punch he threw at Harry Potter's face the previous night.

It felt good. At the time. Now Draco just felt rather hollow and unfulfilled. He always told himself that if he would ever resort to physical violence with the Gryffindor, he would finish it off once and for all by killing him with his bare hands.

No such luck.

Draco felt like he was the wrong piece of a jigsaw forced in at a funny angle as he sat near to the front of the Defence class, his usual place next to the Slytherins occupied by their bags. It's not like he wanted to sit there, anyway. No, he told himself. It's not like they would talk to him.

Ignoring the taunting whispers behind him, Draco forced his eyes up to those of his Professor who continued the lecture, wishing that the minutes that went by weren't so painfully slow.

**

Professor Remus Lupin had been back teaching at Hogwarts for a whole week now. It certainly felt good to be back, not for the fact that he loved teaching these kids, but because he felt he owed the school this. He owed Dumbledore.

The old Headmaster had pleaded with Remus to return to his teaching post during the war, promising the thirty-six year old that the school would stand again, that every single child would be back, ready to learn, without a care if their teacher was wolf or man, woman or Centaur. Dumbledore was right.

Walking back and forth at the front of the classroom as he read, Remus felt that warm sense of sureness again, to talk... to be listened to. Hell, even to be challenged. But it seemed his number one challenger had fallen from his throne.

Draco Malfoy, once a sure-eyed, cocky thirteen year old had now grown into a quiet, subdued and often teased eighteen year old, sitting in the second row of chairs at the very corner, his grey eyes focused on the lesson instead of dancing around and planning his next insult or prank. Remus knew that the boy was on their side now, he was working with Severus during the war, but it wasn't as if any of his friends were involved either way... and now they were ignoring him like they did Harry and his friends.

And Draco Malfoy was certainly not one of Harry's friends.

"... and if you turn to page thirty-six, you'll find a few paragraphs on the history of complex uses of Latin in Defence charms and spells. After you've finished reading, I want a summary no longer than a paragraph, please." Remus settled down behind his desk and placed his book down, reaching for his tea. After a few short sips, his eyes slowly wandered over the brim of the cup, scanning the class ahead. He usually didn't mind a little quiet chatter, but something in the pit of his stomach told him more was coming from the whispers and at the back of the classroom.

He threw a pointed look over to the Slytherins, whose desks seemed closer together than usual. Pansy Parkinson, a short, round-faced girl, was smiling sneakily at Vincent Crabbe, and they appeared to have something at their feet. Remus could not make out what it was, and dismissed it for a note or something, rolling his eyes and returning to read the book on his desk.

It was when he heard a sharp crack of magic fill the air followed by a loud giggle that he rose to his feet. "Alright, that's enough, Miss Parkinson," he said dangerously, lowering his eyes at the dark haired girl. Pansy shared a glance with Vincent before sinking back in her seat, kicking something towards the front of the classroom that Remus missed.

"Sorry sir," she mumbled, a smile tugging at her mouth.

"Get on with your work, then," he said tiredly, rubbing his forehead and sitting back down.

Some ten minutes later, the bell rang, and students began hurling bags on and picking up their books.

"Paragraph by tomorrow!" Remus called out uselessly as the majority of the class spilled out from the room. It wasn't until he saw Draco Malfoy walking slowly out of the door that he realised what Pansy and Vincent were up to.

On the back of Malfoy's bag, the word 'QUEER' was magicked onto the black fabric in glittering, pink letters.

**

As much as he would hate to admit it, Severus always felt a sick sense of pleasure running a thick black line through a student's work, before adding it to the pile that lay closest to the rubbish bin. It seemed it was one of those evenings, as the pile appeared to get larger and larger by the second. Just as he was about to comment on Hannah Abbott's use of smiley faces and disgusting doodles in the corner of her pages, a sharp bang sounded as the door flew open, followed by a very distraught looking Draco Malfoy who all at once sat himself in the chair in front of his desk, his forehead making a dull 'thunk' as it landed on the dark wood.

"Draco," Severus greeted, scoring another thick line through the latest paper. "What can I do for you?"

A muffled whimper resounded from Draco's mouth as he suspended his book-bag in the air, forehead still attached to the desk.

"I didn't even notice until I got to the dungeon entrance," Draco mumbled thickly, his arms resting limply on the desk in front of him.

Severus' gaze switched from the graffiti to Draco's head, the blond strands of hair spilling from where his forehead now rested in the crook of his elbow. His hand hovered in the air for a second, as if deciding where to settle, before it hesitantly touched Draco's head, threading through the thick strands before finally coming to rest on the boy's forearm. Draco heaved a ragged breath and accepted the touch, bringing the chair closer with a light screech that resounded in the silent office.

Unpleasant memories from a past he would rather forget flooded Severus' mind, of a time when he was tormented and teased, a scrawny sixteen year old boy cornered and jeered at and left to suffer in silence to this very day, for fear that if he drag up his pain it will be too much to handle. He sighed and kept silent, knowing that no words would comfort Draco. Severus knew that the boy had thick skin, but had witnessed that even the most frozen eyes could melt under the harsh art of teenage politics.

**

Zacharias Smith saw, along with everyone else in the hall that afternoon, the word etched onto the back of Draco Malfoy's bag. He had laughed, with everyone else. He had jeered, with everyone else.

He didn't even know the Malfoy boy. Hadn't spoken three words to him. He just knew that the Slytherin was Harry Potter's arch rival, and that he was apparently 'a fucking queer', if the exchanges of muffled conversation inside the Hufflepuff Quidditch changing rooms were enough to go by. Boys like Malfoy should have made his skin crawl, they were everything that stood against what a man should be. But something inside of Zacharias darkened when he saw the Slytherin that afternoon, when he saw what the other people were laughing at.

Pushing his blond fringe out of his eyes, the sixth-year Hufflepuff gathered his books together from his dormitory and made his way to the library, hoping that this evening's study session would run a lot more smoothly than last week's, where he had failed to get any work done, instead wrapped up in the vivid poetry that was Michael Corner's voice, something about the other boy's eyes - the way they lit up when he was talking about something he loved, it made that tight knot inside Zacharias' stomach uncurl, then curl up again, then jump around until it was in his throat and he forgot how to breathe...

As he sat down next to the other boy at the back of the library, close enough to the Restricted Section that they could actually make out some of the titles, Zacharias spread out his books and greeted Michael with a small smile and, as manly as he could muster, 'Hullo'.

During the next half hour, Zacharias listened to the other boy talk about Ancient Runes, about Astronomy and why the school is sorely missing out because they weren't getting taught art or music. All of their books lay abandoned on the desk, their chairs angled to face each other. And during that half an hour, Zacharias felt that dark pang of emotion fill his stomach again as Michael reached out and touched his knee. He thought about Draco Malfoy and the word 'queer' stamped across his bag, the way he laughed with everyone else, and realised he felt very, very guilty.

**

Harry hated Divination.

This was something he told himself every year since third, and yet, every year when it came out to filling subject choice forms, he added Divination on at the end.

He hated Trelawney, he hated the way she assumed things about him and thought it was quite alright to broadcast her predictions about him to the entire class.

I'm going to die? Well, no shit, Trelawney. We all fucking die in the end, don't we?

And this was why Harry found himself sitting on the broken seat of a toilet in the abandoned Gents' room on the fourth floor, half smoked cigarette dangling from his lips, legs outstretched so that each black baseball trainer could rest pressed up flatly against the cubicle door. It was half past three, and he was supposed to be sitting at the front row of the ugly smoke filled Divination classroom listening to Trelawney prattle on about the future and what-not.

Fuck that, Harry thought disdainfully. He'd much rather sit here and wallow in his own unhappiness than listen to that old bat witter on about his eventual death.

Just as Harry was becoming fascinated with the thick lock of hair that if he stretched long enough, he could pop it into his mouth, the door of the room rattled before swinging open, followed by hushed conversation.

"... it'll all blow over, they'll get bored and move onto someone else-"

"They never get bored! Since when did Slytherins get bored of humiliating their prime target?"

Harry frowned and gently lifted his feet from the door, curling them underneath him on the toilet seat so he could slowly rise and peek above the top of the cubicle, pulling his cigarette from his mouth with his thumb and forefinger.

Draco Malfoy lay against the wall between a broken mirror and rusted sink, the top of his back touching the wall while the rest of his body jutted out slightly. Blaise Zabini stood close to the other boy, so close in fact that his leg was in-between the blond's, not touching, but leaning so incredibly close...

"They've even laid off Potter," Draco muttered, his eyes closing in what looked like pain. Harry swallowed, crouching down as low as he could so that the other boys would not see him. His lip still stung from Draco's slap the previous night, and had now scabbed over, splitting slightly whenever he would grimace or smile.

Blaise leaned closer, his hand coming up to rest on Draco's neck. The tightness in Harry's stomach that had been fear, fear of being caught, immediately changed dramatically to something else entirely, it was almost as if he felt ill.

"Don't let them get to you," Blaise said softly, so soft that Harry could barely make it out. Draco sucked in a deep breath, the lower part of his back thudding against the wall as his forehead came to rest of the dark haired Slytherin's shoulder. "You're way stronger than any of them are. Look what you did during the war. They didn't have the guts to do anything, just sat in their dorms consumed by their own fucking fear."

Harry's eyebrows raised, and he felt a breath catch in his throat as Draco's head rose again, so slowly that the two boy's noses brushed together, their eyes boring into each other like fire. Blinking furiously, Harry sank back down onto the toilet seat, curling his arms around his knees. A couple of minutes later, the restroom door creaked and slammed shut, the quiet chat between the Slytherins disappearing into nothing.

After a few seconds, Harry jumped silently off of the toilet lid and opened the door to his cubicle. In the broken mirror that was pinned precariously to the wall ahead, he saw a ghost of himself stare back at him, lip crusted with dry blood, eyes hollow and cold.

**

Hermione giggled loudly as Ron continued to jab nimble fingers at her back as she tried her very best to keep steady walking along the corridor towards the main staircase, books piled in her arms.

"Ronald!" she screeched as he circled round her, grabbing her waist and almost causing her to topple over. "Behave yourself!" she said through gasps, bright smile on her face. With a grin, Ron scooped the books out of her grasp and held them under his right arm, his free arm swinging around her waist and pulling her in close.

"Can't be carrying all those books yourself, 'Mione," he said, looking down at her with a warm, blue gaze. She was just about to roll her eyes when the pair almost collided with Draco Malfoy and Blaise Zabini at the end of the corridor.

"Hey! Watch where you're going, Malfoy!" Ron blurted, the hand on Hermione's waist tightening unconsciously. Hermione watched as Blaise and Draco exchanged tired glances before the blond finally swung round to face Ron.

"The phrase is 'excuse me', Weasel. Did your mother forget to teach you common manners?" Draco spat half-heartedly. Hermione was ready to tell Ron to leave it when a distant wail followed by a loud crack filled the air, and suddenly everyone was rushing towards the top of the stairs, screaming and crying.

Blaise, Draco, Hermione and Ron all turned round in a sharp circle, their view from their place in the corridor blocked by screaming girls and wide-eyed boys. It was when Hermione walked numbly to the edge of the corridor terrace that she knew what they were all staring at. Gasping and placing a hand over her mouth, Hermione turned into Ron's embrace and tried to forget the sight of the crumpled body lying dead in the main entrance hall.

**

Falling, he was falling so hard and so fast that it seemed sluggish and unreal. His book-bag was twisted painfully around his wrist as he fell, the dull crack informing him that it was definitely broken, but as he thudded with a sickening crunch onto the gleaming white marble he knew that it didn't matter anymore. His head was broken, and what was the use in worrying about a broken wrist when you're head is as cracked and bloody as Humpty Dumpty's?

The last thing Zacharias Smith remembered seeing before he stopped breathing was the sharp sparkle in Michael Corner's eyes as the boy stood over him at the foot of the moving stairs.

**

"Did you actually see it?"

Ginny was chewing on an apple between her sentences, one leg curled underneath her on the big leather sofa in the centre of the Gryffindor common room. The light from the fire at the other end of the room illuminated her hair in such a way it almost looked like blood.

Hermione looked down at her lap, her hand entwined with Ron's beginning to get uncomfortably clammy. "Not really," she said in hushed tones, Ron's fingers squeezing reassuringly. "I mean... we heard it..."

"But we didn't actually see him fall," Ron finished gently, pulling his girlfriend in close. Hermione looked up at Ginny's expression - mouth slack with a large piece of soggy apple lying beneath her tongue. The redhead girl's face was flushed and worn looking, as if she had spent too much time thinking about yesterday's accident.

"Malfoy and Zabini were there," Ron muttered.

Hermione's gaze flickered to Harry briefly before settling back on her boyfriend, a strange tightness grasping inside her chest for fear of what was to come... she didn't know whether she was more afraid of Harry's predicted anger, or the fact that he probably wouldn't care.

"With you?" Harry's quiet voice came from the opposite end of the sofa Ginny was sitting on.

"Yeah, the pair of them almost ran into us before it happened. Looked really guilty if you ask me, I bet they had something to do with it-"

"Ron," Hermione said sharply, pulling out of the redhead's embrace. Her brow settled into a deep frown, the corners of her eyes felt horribly sticky. Ron shrank back into the seat, a deep flush spreading across his cheeks.

"I was just saying," he muttered, folding his arms.

"Yes, well, don't just say, Ron. This is serious! Of course Blaise and Draco had nothing to do with Zacharias'... death." She almost whispered the last word, felt it catching in her throat. "Nobody did, it was an accident!"

After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, she settled back on the couch next to Ron, felt his arms hesitantly moving to wrap back around her in his embrace. She let him.

**

The tea inside the small porcelain mug had gone cold ages ago, yet Remus kept his hands wrapped round it, staring into the dull brown liquid as if it served some sort of warmth, some sort of comfort.

It's cold, Moony. Just let it go.

Remus listened to Dumbledore talk with a feeling akin to anxiety swirling in the pit of his stomach. He hadn't felt this way since the start of the war.

"... we will, of course, be making a formal announcement about the death of Zacharias Smith before tomorrow evening's meal."

"A 'formal announcement'?" Remus heard himself hiss into the cup, arousing some gasps of surprise from the teacher's sitting beside him. He pried his eyes away from the cold tea and allowed himself to meet the Headmaster's calm gaze.

"A 'formal announcement'?" he asked again, tight grimace of revolt spreading across his lips. "Albus, you are making this sound like some sort of Quidditch statement, the boy died!"

"Oh, for goodness sake, Lupin, stop making such a charade out of this!" Snape snapped from across the table, his top lip curling into a sneer.

Dumbledore sighed and closed his eyes briefly. "Gentlemen, please," he said evenly, spreading his fingers out on the tabletop. Remus sighed and looked heavenward before sinking back into his chair.

"I assure you, Remus, that each and every student will know and empathize with the seriousness of yesterday's events. After that, there is nothing else I can do."

**

Harry felt numb as he sat in the Great Hall, staring into his empty dinner plate as Dumbledore's words filled the room, not really sinking in - just bouncing back off him before coming back to fill the empty void in the back of his head.

Zacharias Smith was dead.

He remembered the day back in fifth year when he met the Hufflepuff, hated the way the boy spoke to him, his accusing tone, the way his nose stuck up in the air, that stupid blond hair that he just wanted to reach out and grab as he punched him for doubting his tactics, his beliefs...

And now the boy was dead.

Is this what you wanted, Harry? You hated him. He was a manipulative little snob who did nothing but judge you from day one.

But I didn't want him dead.

Harry caught his breath as his gaze snapped up, watching as the food on the trays began to appear and the hall gradually filled with hushed chatter. Dumbledore's speech was over.

"His parent's must be devastated," Ginny whispered from Harry's opposite right, her left hand picking at a piece of bread while her right clung tight to the edge of the table. Harry watched as his friends all glanced at her, acknowledging her words but remaining silent, before their eyes snapped guiltily back to their food. Harry held her gaze.

"We lost people in the war, Ginny," Harry said evenly, licking once at his lip and tasting rotten blood. He felt a ripple of silence wash over his friends as Ginny's face flushed, her bottom lip wobbling dangerously.

"You dick," Ron ground out, before slamming his fork down on the table, a few stray peas tumbling across the bench and onto the floor.

Harry shook his head and rose from his seat, ignoring the pointed stares from the crowds of students as he stormed out of the Hall.

**

Michael Corner sat alone at the back of the library, staring vacantly at his pile of books on the desk. His hands felt prickly, like a thousand pins were attacking his skin. Every time he swallowed it felt like he was gulping down razorblades.

He didn't go to the Great Hall that evening for supper. He couldn't. To hear his Headmaster slip in what happened to Zach before the meal felt wrong... Zach was worth so much more than that. He couldn't face his friends afterwards, either. See them carry on with life as if nothing had happened. It felt disrespectful. It felt... dirty.

As dirty, and as immorally unclean as his feelings were towards the other boy.

Michael gasped out loud as he saw the books in front of him swaying, and it took a few seconds to realise that it was him, rocking back and forth on his chair, panting, crying, scratching at his filthy hands that had pushed Zacharias down the stairwell the previous evening.

**

The soft whistle as the wind blew through the trees filled the silence, that and the sound of Draco chewing slowly on his own bottom lip. The cold earth underneath him felt damp, seeping through the seat of his trousers. His knees were bent in front of him, elbows resting carelessly across them as he picked at the grass, shredding it from the earth before flinging it back down.

He was supposed to be on Prefect duty - prowling the second floor corridor with Pansy Parkinson. But Draco didn't know if he could face the girl who had once been his friend, not after what she had done to him yesterday.

It was something that he shouldn't have got so upset about. Because it was a stunt he would have pulled two years ago on an unsuspecting victim. Someone weak. Someone from Gryffindor, no doubt. Harry fucking Potter.

"My, how the mighty have fallen, Malfoy."

Draco twisted round, the wind whipping his hair into his face as he squinted at the dark figure leaning against a tree.

"Shove off, Potter," he muttered weakly, turning back to look out at the water's edge. The gritty earth beneath him was starting to get rather uncomfortable, now that he knew he wasn't alone.

Harry didn't reply right away. Instead, Draco heard him walk closer, mud oozing into his trainer soles as he sank down next to the Slytherin, crossing his legs underneath him.

"That wasn't an invitation for you to come and sit next to me, Potter," Draco snapped, the wind carrying his sentence into the distance.

Again, Harry remained silent, instead patting the front pockets of his muggle jacket for something. Draco rolled his eyes and looked away, vaguely noting how dark it was beginning to get.

"I saw what they wrote on your bag," Harry said, five minutes later. His breath was short and clipped. Draco turned back to squint at him. The other boy was smoking again.

"Come to brag?" Draco asked. The end of Harry's cigarette sparked as the boy took a long drag, smoke pluming from his nostrils.

"No," Harry replied shortly. The scab on the Gryffindor's lip looked black, shining slightly in the moonlight. Draco unconsciously flexed his hand.

"Do you want one?" Suddenly, a small cardboard box was shoved under Draco's nose, the white end of a cigarette poking out from it's neighbours.

"I don't smoke," Draco said curtly. Harry shrugged and put the carton back into his pocket, removing his own cigarette from his lips with his thumb and forefinger.

"Sometimes I come out here to think," Harry said quietly, so quiet that Draco thought for a second he had imagined it. "It's too busy in there... too... hard. It's so full of life and lies and gossip that it almost seems empty."

Draco frowned. Why was Harry telling him this? Why were they even sitting here, having this one-way conversation? He felt a chill creep up his spine when he was suddenly reminded of the war. The way they would shout ferociously to each other about tactics, yet hours later in the din of chaos they could share hushed and hurried conversation, sometimes agreeing on things so strongly that it scared Draco back into shouting at the other boy.

"You know, sometimes I think to myself that I wish it wasn't over." Draco blinked. Harry was still talking. "The war, I mean. It was the only time where everyone actually made sense. Made themselves useful. Now they've just gone back to being happy again, not even once giving a second thought to how people like us feel..." Draco heard Harry swallow, his green gaze piercing into his own. "Do you ever wish that you just be like one of them?" Harry frowned, his gaze snapping to the ground. "Be on the outside of it all?"

"They aren't on the outside of it all, Potter," Draco said. His voice felt scratchy and tasted like bitter poison.

"Yes, yes they are," Harry insisted, his knuckles going white as he dug his left hand into the soil. "They don't even know what responsibility is."

"Oh, and I suppose Saint Potter does, right?" Draco spat, feeling his anger boil at the selfishness of this boy. "Born with a curse. Spare me the hero talk, Potty, we've heard it all."

"You have responsibility," Harry said quietly. Draco heard a hint of sorrow in his voice. "You were there, on the front lines. You know how it went. None of these people do!" Harry waved his hand in the general direction of the castle, ash from his cigarette falling to the ground. "And they think it's bloody alright to walk around like nothing happened!"

"Well maybe they want to move on with their lives!" Draco heard himself shout back. He pulled himself up from the ground. "We don't all wallow in the past, Potter. Do you realise how unhealthy that is? The kids in there are trying to move on because it's over!"

Harry, too, was standing, his face contorted in pain. He threw his cigarette to the ground and stamped it into the sand with the heel of his trainer.

"It's over, Potter - you need to get over it!"

Even as the dark haired boy walked away with no retort, Draco doubted that his words would have any effect. The Boy Who Lived was broken.

**

Beneath the earth, something was growing. Underneath the messy shoeprints of boys sparks of energy cracked and danced together like fire. It flowed into the grass, into the trees. It was swallowed by blackbirds as they fed it to their young, it blew in the breeze that battered gently against classroom windows and through the cracks of stone. It flew up through ceilings and down stairwells, laced behind walls and sparked through dark corridors.

If walls could talk...

**

The next couple of days were rather quiet and unexcitable. People had gotten over Smith's death fairly quickly, in Blaise's opinion. No one had really talked about it in Slytherin, though there were a few muttered exchanges in the common room.

"I heard he was pushed."

"Stupid Hufflepuff. In my opinion, they all need to be pushed down those bloody stairs!"

"Too right! Stupid git probably fell..."

Rolling his eyes, Blaise made his way into the senior boy's shower room, happy to find it was unoccupied. Opening his locker, he pulled off his clothes and placed them haphazardly inside the rectangular closet, yanking out his towel from the top shelf and quickly wrapping it around his exposed waist before slamming the door shut.

Catching a glimpse of himself in the mirrors next to the sinks, Blaise noted the slight circles under his eyes and frowned, shaking his head before selecting a shower cubicle.

Blaise had a Quidditch player's body, Draco would always tell him. Which made no sense to Blaise because he had never played for the house team, and really showed no interest what so ever in doing so... playing piano and studying art his preferred forte.

Blaise wasn't as tall as the blond, but what he missed out in height, he made up for in build. He wasn't one of these brawny muscular types... but his arms and back had always been well shaped, his olive skin and dark, drowsy looking eyes the focus point of his beauty.

Tipping his head underneath the stream of water that buzzed out of the shower, Blaise pulled the towel off and slung it over the door of the cubicle, feeling his dark hair stick wetly to the base of his throat and jaw.

After a few long minutes of just standing under the steady pulse of water, Blaise let his mind wander off to the earlier events of the week. Namely, thoughts of Draco.

There was no doubt in his mind that he was concerned about his friend. He could see right through Draco, the way the teases from the other students got to him... even if Draco wouldn't admit it himself.

Sighing, Blaise turned to twist the shower knob, shivering as a dull rusty screech filled the air followed by the drip-dripping noises as the remaining droplets of water fell to the floor. Grabbing his towel from the door, Blaise paused, hand suspended in the air as a deadened thud resounded from the other side of the room.

"Hello?" Blaise asked, voice echoing sharply off the tiled walls. Frowning, he wrapped his towel around his waist and reached up to click open the cubicle door. The only sound in the room was the ringing echo of his own breathing and the small drip-drip sounds from the shower head. Blaise jumped as another dull thump filled the room.

"Hello?" he asked again, his voice more strained. Walking hesitantly out of the shower area, Blaise managed to get a full view of the entire room.

Empty.

Blinking the water from his eyes, Blaise clutched onto the towel at his hip and twirled round, nearly jumping out of his skin as he came face to face with his own reflection. Rolling his eyes, the Slytherin muttered in annoyance and headed toward the sinks, grabbing his toothbrush from one of the holders next to the mirrors.

Pushing his wet fringe from his face, Blaise turned on one of the taps while he squeezed some toothpaste onto his toothbrush, swearing as it came out too fast and smeared across his finger. Reaching for a face cloth, he haphazardly placed his toothbrush on the sink edge and used the cloth to wipe away the toothpaste.

Throwing the cloth on a hook, Blaise reached for his toothbrush and stuck it under the faucet, before leaping back and dropping the entire thing on the floor.

It was flowing out of the tap like glue. Thick, red... steaming glue.

Blood.

Panting, Blaise tore his eyes away from the faucet and screamed as a dark figure stood behind him in the mirror, causing him to push away from the sink and land hard on his backside on the wet floor.

"What's all that racket?" The voice came from outside, before the door was pushed open.

Theodore Nott stood tall in the doorway, gripping onto the door handle. "What the hell are you doing on the floor?"

Blaise swallowed and gestured the sink, eyes dancing about like mad. Theodore raised an eyebrow and looked over to where the blood had been flowing, before looking back at Blaise as if he were mad.

"What?" Theodore asked in annoyance.

Blaise frowned, whipping his gaze back to the sink. The blood was gone.