Philophobia

Philophobia

Chapter One

The man they brought out was young, probably not a day over twenty if that. Not a witch or wizard in the room failed to recognize him as he was led in docile submission to stand before them. He was still the infamous blonde who'd made the tabloids' headlines all year long; his name had been splashed across those pages with glee, placed as it was next to the other two names now immediately identified with him. To his credit, the young Malfoy didn't appear much affected by the media hounding. He'd retained the lean build of a Seeker, and, besides looking a bit tired, his grey eyes flashed with the familiar arrogant spirit they'd always had.

As those who'd brought him in took their leave, Draco smiled at his audience. A few witches seated on the benches directly in front of him shot him nervous looks, and others around the room began to whisper amongst themselves, discussing Draco's presence in disparaging tones.

"I dare say I'm surprised they bothered to bring him here."

"Yes, after what he did. I can't imagine what they were thinking."

"Do you think he wants to apologize?"

Suddenly, more than a few people were talking, their voices climbing to drown each other out. Draco didn't seem to hear them. Still smiling, he strolled over to the lone chair in the center of the room. Few people noticed when he shrugged off his robes to reveal the Muggle-wear beneath. He hung the robes off the back of his chair and took a moment to smooth the small wrinkles out of his bottle-green shirt before sitting down. Perched on the edge of the seat, he hooked his feet behind the rungs of the chair like a child.

He smiled because he was no longer a child, and no one else knew it yet.

On a bench raised high above the others, a man stood up and called for order. The shouts of the restless crowd below him faded back into whispers. As the man began to speak again, Draco's eyes wandered through the sea of people seated on benches all around him. He saw faces he recognized, others he didn't, and some he thought he knew but couldn't place name or memory to them. He peered through their ranks, trying to determine the best way to reach them; to tell them what had happened; to save them from his mistakes.

"...Mr. Malfoy?"

Draco's gaze snapped back to the high bench where the man stood. After a moment of silence, he gave the man an almost imperceptible nod and waited for his introduction. The man on the bench heaved a sigh.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he began with an infinite weariness in his voice. "Mr. Malfoy has expressed his wishes to appear this evening and tell you something he thinks you should understand." Confusion replaced the anger of before, and witches and wizards looked upward in disbelief as the man went on. "He is here tonight to give you his story, and requests that you do not criticize his actions until he is through. We acknowledge that this is an unorthodox way of doing things, but Mr. Malfoy refuses to be judged until everyone comprehends the reality of his recent circumstances." When people began to audibly protest, the man held up his hands and asked for silence. "Please. There will be time enough for questions and answers later. For now, Mr. Malfoy has the floor. Let him explain. He wants to tell you everything, after all." The man heaved another sigh and sank into his seat, mopping at his brow with a handkerchief.

The audience settled into mutinous silence, but looked at Draco expectantly. Draco smiled softly and started to speak.

"Thank you for your kind attention," he said quietly, and immediately everyone became truly silent. They leaned forward in tense anticipation, waiting for him to go on. For all their protests, this confession/apology (or whatever it was) promised to be good.

"You've all heard about me, I'm sure," Draco said. "You've read the tabloids and the newspapers and have probably concocted some warped version of events from the stories told there about the others and myself.

"But I'm going to tell you now: what you know isn't true. What I'm about to tell you is the truth." The soft smile came back to hover about his lips. "The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," he said, silent laughter in his voice.

"The truth is that I never even met Harry Potter until I was seventeen and we were both completing our last year of school at Hogwarts. I suppose it's easy enough to encounter someone at Hogwarts--or on the train to Hogwarts, or shopping for going to Hogwarts--but to really meet someone at that school is rare. I know because Harry was one of the only two people that I ever met there.

"You've never really met someone until you've seen them in a vulnerable position. Unless you've become acquainted with the small part of them that is lonely and isolated, it's impossible to ever fully know them.

"I find it a little funny to look back on now. I thought I knew Harry Potter. I always thought I knew him. He was the Boy Who Lived to Make My Life a Living Hell. He existed merely to torture me with his existence because he was everything that I wasn't. He was everything to everybody and I was nothing in a world where no one except my father cared. Harry's omniscient goodness and purity filled the magical community with hope whilst I was stuck playing the role of his hated archenemy. I was hated, yes, but I was a joke, a nothing, and everybody knew it. In a few years when we were all gone from school and settled, everyone was going to forget all about me. They knew I wasn't strong enough to become my father, and they were quick to dismiss me even before I faded from public view.

"But in my seventh year, everything changed."

"Yeah, like your sexual preference?" a man off to the left shouted. Nervous laughter rippled through the crowd, but the man on the high bench frowned and motioned for someone to take the man away. "Please. No interruptions," he said, and waved at Draco to go on.

Draco eyed his audience carefully, before complying.

"I met a girl," he said. "Ginny Weasley ran into me in the hallway one day; knocked me over and didn't apologize. I chewed her out for her clumsiness as she helped me up. I insulted her. I shouted and ranted and raged against her.

"I'd been having a bad day," he explained, half of a smile quirking his mouth. "Potter hadn't been in Potions for me to torture as my early morning stress release.

"When I had finished with my childish tirade, Ginny still stood there, looking at me. I glanced down and noticed she still held my hand in hers.

"She said she'd been looking for me. I thought she was insane. Couldn't she see who I was? Why was she looking for me?

"She asked me to come with her. She wanted to show me something. I scoffed at her. She insisted. So... I followed. Hesitant - confused certainly - but I followed.

"She took me up to the top of the Astronomy Tower. You can imagine how I felt about the location. The two of us, alone, there? I was beginning to think agreeing to go with her might get me into some trouble. A situation that probably wouldn't sound so magnificent once my father got wind of it. Which he would, because he always did.

"But we went up, up, up all those stairs together, and when we got to the roof, she brought me over to a telescope and motioned for me to look through it."

Draco paused to take in his audience's expression. A few people shifted uneasily as he looked at them. He wondered at their reaction but couldn't bring himself to reason it out, so continued his narrative instead.

"I looked into the telescope," he said, "at her bidding, and she leaned in next to me, her chin resting lightly on my shoulder.

" 'Do you see what's happened?'" she said, and her voice was quiet and calm. I wondered at it; wondered how she could maintain such serenity in the face of what she had me looking down at.

" 'I see,' I said, suddenly solemn as befit the moment. It struck me then: this thought that I had never really known Harry as I thought I had. In fact, the dark figure I was watching through the lens seemed utterly foreign to me. He was a bereft soul, lost in time and space, forgotten by all those who called him friend. I watched as he paced back and forth like a caged cat, raising a hand to his eyes now and then to wipe away tears that weren't there. He pushed his fingers through his hair and walked, back and forth, back and forth in front of the boy I could see lying face down in the dirt.

"I came to myself, startled out of my unexpected reverie. 'That's Blaise Zabini!' I cried, identifying the fallen boy and instantly enraged, as a good Slytherin should have been from the beginning. 'What has Potter done now!? I'm informing the Ministry!'

"I pulled away to run off to the Owlrey, but she caught my hands and spun me around. ...Ginny always was the strong one.

" 'You can fix this,' she told me, locking her dark eyes with mine. I stared at her in confusion. Anger ran white-hot through my veins.

" 'Fuck you,' I spat."

Someone sitting in front of him flinched. Draco's gaze darted to her: a matronly woman with a handkerchief clutched tightly in her trembling hand. He narrowed his eyes at her briefly, certain that he should have been able to recognize her, but somehow the name eluded him.

"I knew what was going on. I knew what had happened. That golden boy down there had killed someone, and now he was tarnished because of it. He'd gone against all the goodness and purity everyone else saw in him. He'd gone against his better self, and had done violence with the intent of murder. He'd killed my classmate!

"Now, admittedly, Zabini was no friend of mine. But Slytherins don't work on that philosophy. We are one, and a blow to an individual is a blow to all. Self-preservation will always come first, but after that is pride. Enough pride to send Salazar galloping away from his friends to purge the world of Muggles and Mudbloods without help.

"Keeping this wonderful ethics system in mind, it's no wonder I did what I did. Ginny kept insisting I could fix everything with a few words, and I couldn't deal with that. I cussed her black and blue, and then moved to fight her. She warded off my blows with set eyes, and refused to be deterred from her purpose.

" 'Draco,' she said, and I stiffened at the use of my given name. 'You can end all of this, here and now. You can be remembered forever after as Harry Potter's benefactor - the boy who helped the Boy Who Lived, live. If you don't do this... Well, you know what happens.' She let me go.

"I pulled away with a snarl, about to pull my wand on her and hex her until her eyes crossed, but something stopped me. I bloody well did know what would happen, and I hated it. I would fade into obscurity, to be remembered only in tales around the Gryffindor campfire as a bully and a coward. That vague disgusted feeling I got every time I taunted Potter and his friends surfaced, and I recognized for the first time in my life that the disgust was aimed at me. Myself! Do you have any idea how it feels to realize how badly you don't know who you are? It hurts worse than anything." He closed his eyes for a moment, and amended that thought with a dark chuckle. "Well, almost anything.

"I stooped to look through the telescope again. Harry was standing off to the side, trembling a little, his eyes averted from the dead boy's body. His hands were clenched at his sides, and I could see his wand fallen on the ground near one of Zabini's feet.

" 'What do you think I can do?' I asked her, not yet ready to pull away.

" 'You can bring him back,' she said simply.

"Bring him back! I almost laughed. Bring him back to the school? Or bring him back to himself?

" 'Why the hell should I?' I hissed, dragging my eyes away, refocusing on her placid form, so still, and docile standing next to me. 'What's in it for me?'

" 'Freedom,' she told me, 'from your fate. Do this one thing, and everyone will forgive you.'

"It was tempting, you can't deny that. Merlin knows just how tempting the idea was." Draco looked down at his hands clutched tightly in his lap. Then he looked up again, grey eyes burning. "Too tempting," he said viciously, hating himself and his weaknesses.

"I left Ginny on the tower top, and set off for the Forbidden Forest. I had my wand out just in case, but my mind kept flashing back to Harry's shadowed form, so waiflike and forsaken. Suddenly I was filled with the urgent need to look into his eyes and read the emotion in them. To see if he could be saved, or if he was unredeemable.

"When I entered the small clearing, I was shivering. The sun had dipped below the trees and the heavy shadows of twilight lay cool upon me in the autumn air.

" 'Potter,' I said softly, approaching him as I would a sick animal; wary and slow. He stood exactly where he'd been when I'd left his image behind fifteen minutes ago.

"At the sound of my voice, he turned his head in my direction. 'Malfoy,' he said dully. He sounded as if he were conceding some great battle to me, so world-weary and remorseful. He didn't seem particularly stunned to see me, and I entertained the brief notion that this whole thing had been an elaborate setup to embarrass me.

" 'Zabini,' I said instead, trying to remember the honest light in her face as she'd told me do this one thing, and everyone will forgive you. 'What happened, Harry? What did he do?'

" 'Harry?' He was confused. I blinked rapidly, realizing my choice of words had been strange. Why had I used his first name? Because she'd used mine? And why ask what Zabini had done, and not Harry? Harry was obviously the--

" 'I didn't know him, Draco,' Harry went on, apparently over the matter already.

"When he turned to face me more fully, I almost started back from the look in his green eyes. They were completely vacant, without feeling. For Harry's normally charged-with-emotion eyes to be so... empty... was wrong. I'd never been able to achieve that level of reaction in him, and it wasn't fair that he seemed to have been able to do it to himself.

" 'Who? Zabini?' I experienced a moment of lightheadedness. I'd almost forgotten why I was here.

" 'Was that his name?' Harry gave the dead boy a strange and guiltless glance. 'I'm sorry if he was a friend of yours, Draco.'

"He didn't sound sorry.

" 'He wasn't,' I replied absently, moving closer to get a look at Harry's eyes again. 'I don't have any friends.'

" 'No friends?'

"Ah. Something sparked in those empty eyes.

" 'Right,' I said. 'Harry, what did you do?'

" 'I killed him. I had to.'"

Draco heard several astonished gasps from the audience, and the peculiarly disturbing sound of someone stifling their sobs in the back of the room. He gave them all bewildered looks.

"I thought you knew," he said to them softly by way of apology. "I thought everyone knew.

"Harry told me he'd killed Blaise Zabini because Zabini was a Deatheater. He bent to push up the sleeve of Zabini's sweater and showed me the black skull and snake burned into the pallid flesh.

" 'He tried to send up the Dark Mark,' Harry told me. 'But I broke his wand.' He pointed to the splintered remains of Zabini's wand on the ground. Phoenix feathers glittered in the half-light of the evening sky.

"Abruptly, an idea came to me. I had no doubt that it would cure Harry of his emptiness, and bring him back to himself.

"I bent to pick up his wand. Glancing at Harry quickly showed he had no inkling of what was to come.

" 'Prior Incantato!' I whispered. A ghostly form began to emerge from Harry's shuddering wand. Harry saw it, and stumbled back, eyes wide. Smiling, I realized I could now read a flood of emotion in his eyes: hatred, shame, and terror. He appeared about to pass out as Zabini's smoky image approached him, black mouth opened in a howl of rage.

" 'Deletrius,' I said, severing the spell. Zabini's form hovered for a moment, then dissipated, its silvery motes flying to pieces in a cloud of fairy dust. I stared at Harry.

"He was gasping for breath, one hand splayed on his heaving chest, the other hovering over his mouth as though to stop him from being physically ill. I watched silently as he staggered toward me and grabbed onto my arm, his eyes rolling back in his head.

"Startled, but somehow not too surprised, I caught him under the arms as he pitched against me. His body was warm in the relative cold of the evening.

"I've never been built for strength, let alone cut out to be the kind of noble guy who hauls his enemies around on his back out of the goodness of his heart, but I knew I could do this one thing for Harry. Had to do this one thing for Harry.

"I slung his arm around my shoulders, and half-carried, half-dragged him out of the forest, and over to the Quidditch pitch. I managed to get into the locker room, and laid him down on a bench. Panting a little, I sank down on the floor next to him to regain my breath, still wondering why I was putting myself through all this. I was Draco Malfoy, for fuck's sake. I was Slytherin's poster child, a pureblood wizard of the best breeding and...

"Yes, all that, but I was still a joke; a nothing; something worthless to be sneered at. And this was my chance at redemption: redeem Harry Potter.

"He came around after a bit, eyelids fluttering and mouth opening in the immediate question.

" 'What happened?'

" 'You passed out,' I informed him blandly. I turned to look at him, serious again. 'I had to do that, you know.'

"He was silent, remembering. 'I know,' he said finally. Then, 'Draco? Why is it you?'

"I looked at him, his face eye-level with mine. I could hear him breathing softly in the darkness against my shoulder. His emerald eyes glowed with the fervent need to understand something I didn't yet comprehend.

" 'Ginny sent me,' I said, my words coming out in the merest breath of a whisper. 'She told me I could help.'

" 'You did,' Harry breathed back. 'Thanks.'

"It was then that everyone else showed up. All kinds of people, professors, students, and even Filch's filthy cat, Mrs. Norris. I slipped out, unnoticed."

"I left him, but it wasn't long before he came to find me.

"The next day, Blaise Zabini's death was all over the school and the Daily Prophet. The official word was that Zabini had been under the Imperius Curse when he tried to kill Harry, and that I had come and saved him. Not a word about Dark Marks was spoken and it was given out that Blaise had been murdered by Death Eaters controlling him, not Harry or me.

"Harry came up to me in the Great Hall that morning, and held out his hand to me. I flashed back on the first day of school so many years ago. Slowly, and in complete disbelief, I shook his hand. Harry smiled, then went back to his table. I could see Ginny looking at me over the top of a book across the room.

"After that, things weren't so bad. I was a bit muddled for a while, but all it took was a few days of focusing on my studies and I forgot all about the Gryffindors I was supposed to be tormenting. Professor Snape set me up with some Advanced Potions extra credit classes in my free time, and I threw myself into the subject with passion, ignoring my father's inquiring letters. He wanted to know what had really happened, sure that the papers were lying, but I wasn't about to tell him the truth. He'd hate it worse than the lies.

"Yes, things had changed irrevocably. And perhaps not for the best.

"Harry came down to see me one day in the dungeons.

" 'Hey, Draco,' he said, just as though the two of us talked to each other every day.

"I glanced up from my cauldron to find him standing next to me, his dark hair dusty as if he'd spent some time hiding under a bed somewhere.

" 'What are you doing here?' I asked him with a glare. I had reason to be suspicious. Harry had never liked me either.

" 'Can I talk to you?' he asked, looking away nervously. I noticed that his glasses were dirty too, and black smudges marked his cheeks and forehead. Vaguely, I remembered him screwing up in Potions class earlier that day. Hadn't he even looked at a mirror since then?

"I frowned. Quickly dissolving the potion I'd been working on, I folded my arms and stared at him.

"Seeing my look, he opened his mouth to speak, closed it, then opened it again. 'It's just that... I wanted to talk to you... We've never really talked before, and now...' He stuttered and trailed off, twisting his hands together at his waist.

" 'If you want to talk, talk,' I said, gathering up a pile of my notes, and waiting. Harry stared at me as though I had just spouted a Shakespearean sonnet in Japanese. I rolled my eyes and made as if to leave.

" 'Okay! Okay, I'll... talk...'

"I sat back down, and waited again, an expectant look on my face.

" 'Can we at least go somewhere else?'"

Draco smiled.

"And that's how I found myself walking along the edge of the Forbidden Forest with Harry Potter about a month after I'd saved him from himself."

The smile curled his mouth as he focused on the matronly woman in the front row. She was still clutching her handkerchief, but her eyes were bright as they looked back at him.

"And we began to talk."

Draco shifted in his chair, and closed his eyes. He wouldn't open them again for a long time.