A/N: Repost after realising that I am an utter and complete idiot. Yes, I'm an English Lit student who just got her Shakespeare wrong. How can I ever live this down? I've studied both plays in detail! *hits self over head* That's what I get for not having a beta reader and editing at three in the morning. So, so sorry for the ridiculously late update (I'll be surprised if anyone still cares anymore). But, well, I've been spectacularly busy and had my first ever case of real writer's block. Knew what needed to be said but couldn't get it out. Also didn't help that this chapter is pretty pivotal to the story- even if it may not seem it, especially as it's so short compared to the others. Sorry again and just think that more reviews might help any future cases of writer's block. Hint hint. Hehe.
Draco's father had always believed that the best way to understand your enemy was to study their culture, their way of living so that their every move could be anticipated. Which was why Draco had spent numerous hours of his childhood reading Muggle novels and plays, listening to their music and then having his father scowl every time he happened to mention something he liked. "You're supposed to learn, Draco, not like."
Pansy watched him warily from her chair, her expression reminiscent of a frightened animal. Draco dropped his hands heavily into his lap, his fingers threading together. "MacBeth," he waved a hand, "well, that was Romeo and Juliet, but the 'spot' thing? Pure MacBeth."
Pansy made a choked sound in her throat as Draco continued, his voice level as though he were explaining how he worked out a particularly difficult arithmancy problem. "So I got to thinking how the perfectly aristocratic Pansy Parkinson, daughter of Francis Parkinson, hater of all things Muggle, could possible know any Muggle playwrights." He fixed her with a piercing gaze. "Your mother."
Pansy dragged a hand through her hair, "You really are too smart sometimes, Draco."
He shrugged blithely. "Cinnamon biscuits. What good Wizarding family uses a Muggle recipe rather than a spell?" He laughed wryly. "God, she must have worked hard to keep it a secret from your father."
Pansy leaned forward and rested her clasped hands on her knees. Her eyes stayed fixed on the floor as she spoke tiredly. "He didn't know," she barked out a laugh, "I didn't know. Someone must have told him," her eyebrows rose as she said lightly; "and then he killed her. It's surprising how little blood the Death Curse causes."
"Pansy…" He reached out a hand towards her as the wall moved open and Millicent and Teddy strode into the room. The gave the pair curious looks as Pansy rose pleading eyes to Draco and he nodded once, slowly. She breathed a sigh of relief and left the room to walk towards the girl's dorm.
Draco looked over at the pair hovering near the doorway. Millicent didn't seemed overly concerned but Teddy was watching Draco with a calculating look in his eyes that Draco wasn't pleased to see. "Something wrong?" Draco asked curtly.
Teddy shrugged. "You tell me."
Draco raised one elegant eyebrow as he rose from his seat and swept past him. "Not that I can see."
*
It was with a great sense of trepidation that Draco slit the envelope open at the Slytherin table. He was well aware of the suspicious glances of not just the Gryfinndor table but more than a few pairs of eyes at the staff table. His father was barely speaking to him and so by proxy that meant his mother wasn't either. And the teachers knew this. Draco stole a glance at Snape, noticing his eagle eyes shifting from his plate off eggs and bacon to Draco's hands. He merely raised an elegant eyebrow and scowled when Draco pointedly looked up at him.
The page of parchment was blank. Draco stared at it curiously for a moment, then he scrumptiously pricked the end of his finger with his knife and watched the blood trickle onto the page. Blaise watched the reaction on Draco's face carefully, not being able to see the paper because of a inconveniently situated jar of marmalade, whilst Pansy peered over his shoulder still carefully buttering her toast.
The message was simple and clear in bold print.
1a.m. Tonight. Common Room.
*
His father's head was already sitting in the flames when Draco finally managed to drag himself out of his warm bed and wander into the common room. He hadn't been able to sleep at all, the rhythmic snores of Goyle that were normally so familiar keeping him awake. But he had been warm and comfortable and the last thing he wanted to do was go and see his father.
"You're late," Lucius' disdainful tones echoed through the room. Draco shrugged, the hour too late for his normal politeness, as he dropped in front of the fire to his knees.
"Barely." He suppressed a yawn and watched his father's scowl overtake his face. "What is that you want?"
Lucius arched an eyebrow, his body moving up the fire until his upper half was lit by flames. "I received some interesting orders from the Dark Lord, this morning." Draco didn't respond, not giving his father the satisfaction of appearing interested. "It seems the Parkinson girl knows something she shouldn't."
Draco froze, his entire posture shifting to alertness. "What do you mean?" He asked, striving to keep his voice neutral.
Lucius watched him, a calculating glint in his eye. "It appears her mother was a filthy Mudblood," Draco perfected the appropriate expression of shock. Lucius shrugged, "so Parkinson dealt with that problem. But now, well, it seems Pansy found out about it."
"So?" Draco croaked out, his throat suddenly terribly dry.
"Well, there is far more likelihood of it leaking out with a moronic teenager knowing the truth and we can't have it leaking out, Draco."
Draco felt as though his world had shrunk down to just him and his father. "What does that have to do with me?"
Lucius smiled. "The Dark Lord finally has a use for you. You're friends with the girl," the smile disappeared and he stared at him angrily for a moment, "Kill her." And then he was gone.
Draco fell back on his heels, his heart pounding madly in his chest. And then he heard the quiet whimper from the corner of the room. He turned his head slowly, seeing the girl there, clutching her dressing gown around her, silent tears running down her cheeks. "Pansy." Draco breathed.
She stared at him for a split second and then she was running, Draco leaping up off the floor to follow her. "Pansy!" he yelled as she slammed the bathroom door against him. "Pansy!" Hammering on the door, he tried again, "Pansy open the door!"
"What the?" Millicent wandered up behind Draco, her sleep filled eyes opening wide when she saw Draco's frantic expression, her eyes then filling with tears as she saw the blood trickling down his knuckles from where he'd pounded on the door.
"Millicent!" Draco yelled, turning to her, "Give me your wand!"
She frantically patted down the pockets of her lilac dressing gown for a moment before shaking her head, distraught, crying; "I don't have it!"
"Damn it!" Draco swore, violently shoving his shoulder up against the door.
"What the hell is going on?" Draco span to see Blaise and the other boys, flanked by a few seventh years who were all staring at him with the same, wide-eyed mystified expression. Draco darted forward when he saw Blaise grasping his wand, yanking it away from him to the sound of "Hey!"
"Alohomara!" The heavy door swung open and Draco's world narrowed down to the small room behind it. He barely registered the sobbing that emitted from behind him, he didn't notice when the seventh years pushed past him yelling about teachers and Madam Pomfrey, he didn't realise when Blaise grabbed him and slowly lowered him to the floor to stop him falling. All that Draco could think was there's so much blood for one human being.
*
"Draco," Blaise was repeating the name like a mantra and still Draco couldn't seem to move, even as Blaise's words got more desperate, "Draco." He was aware that Blaise wasn't looking at him, "Draco," his eyes were fixed on the crumpled body, blue sightless eyes looking so completely different without the spark of humour that normally occupied them, the glint of silver in her hand speckled with red.
"I didn't know," Draco registered the voice as Teddy's, his friend leaning against the wall opposite him, his arms wrapped around his body, "I didn't know. I thought I was doing good telling my Mother. I didn't know."
Something clicked in Draco's brain and the world apart from Pansy's lifeless body regained it's colour and shape. "What?" He hissed, Blaise's arms dropping from his body.
Teddy turned wide, fearful eyes on him, though he hardly seemed to notice Draco was there. "I just told my Mother Pansy knew about her mother," he started to tremble, "I didn't know."
Without one coherent thought in his head Draco was suddenly in front of the trembling boy, his hands wrapped around Teddy's fragile throat. Pure animal instinct made him tighten his grip. He was vaguely aware of Millicent's sobs growing louder and Crabbe and Goyle leaping for him, only for, with one word, Blaise to stop them. Draco pressed harder, his fingers seeming to lose themselves in the satisfying softness of the flesh. Teddy's gasps were becoming frailer, his body starting to slide down the wall, his punches against Draco becoming weaker when an arm threw Draco back against the other wall.
His eyes stayed fixed on Teddy even as the voice spoke. "What is the meaning of this?" Snape, Draco realised, finally able to tear his eyes away from Teddy. The Potions Master was stood looking angry, that expression giving way to shock as he looked past the rabble of students and saw Pansy. "Oh God," he murmured.
Madam Pomfrey's cry of distress as she rushed forward made Draco want to hit her. She hadn't even known her. She'd hated her. Because she was a Slytherin.
Draco looked at Snape who came forward slowly to rest a hand on Draco's shoulder in a fatherly fashion. Draco looked at it curiously for a moment and then shrugged it off rushing from the room, Blaise's footsteps very close behind.
*
Draco finally collapsed by the edge of the lake, the giant squid tossing and turning in the moonlight, splashing the water in the otherwise silent night. He dragged in great mouthfuls of crisp air, realising that he wasn't wearing anything other than his pyjamas.
Hurried footsteps announced Blaise's presence before he dropped to the ground beside him, himself gasping for breath. Draco noticed the trails of tears down Blaise's cheeks and his laboured breathing hitched. But Blaise never cries.
"What happened?" Blaise asked slowly, wonderingly.
Draco stared at him, something inside him hardening. "Pansy killed herself."
Blaise flinched at the harsh delivery. "Why?" He sounded like a small child, the reality of the evening not seeming to have struck him yet.
The cold wind off the lake dried Draco's cheeks and he stood, seeming to be perfectly in control. "Ask Teddy." Blaise stared up at him, his old fierceness seeming to return for a second.
"I'm asking you, Draco."
His blonde hair ethereal in the moonlight Draco looked down at Blaise. "I can't answer you," he turned away, his voice carrying on through the practically silent night. "I'm not on your side anymore."
When he reached the steps of the castle Snape was there waiting for him, two cloaks clutched in his hands. Draco took one final look at the small figure still curled up by the side of the lake and he turned back to Snape, his expression hard. "Take me to Dumbledore."