Chapter 12 - La Dame Sans Merci
Perhaps for the fifth time in so many minutes, Draco pulled out the silver pocket watch from his robes. It was nearly midnight and Ginny hadn't shown up yet. In fact, she hadn't shown up for the past three days. He tapped his foot impatiently against the cold hearth, willing himself not to worry. But he couldn't swallow the anxious feeling that had been slowly consuming him. It was not like her to ignore him.
He had hardly seen her between classes and never in the Great Hall. Never was a strong word for three days and generally he was not inclined to use it but now he didn't care. A flash of red hair and he would turn his head. Twice it was Susan Bones. Once her brother. And finally, he saw her, weaving through the crowd in the opposite direction. He almost ran after her but Blaise checked him with a hand on his arm.
Draco sighed. He couldn't keep Hermione waiting any longer. Snape had given them his own book and Hermione had returned Ron's potion book to him with strict warnings not to use it. According to Hermione, Ron had rolled his eyes. 'Of course, I knew that. It is a book from Fred and George. Even I'm not that daft.' He had a feeling Hermione was quite embarrassed by Weasley's comment but suspected she shared it with him as a kind of apology.
Now they were beginning the long process of brewing Felix Felicis. He was sure Hermione was suspicion about his 'loo' runs but was too polite to ask. In case they were actually loo runs.
After rubbing his tired eyes for a moment, the blond Slytherin snapped the watch's cover shut and exited the kitchens, keeping close to the shadows. As he made his way round the East Wing, he heard plodding footsteps followed by scuffling ones.
"I don't think this is a good idea."
Potter. Draco stopped and pressed himself against the wall.
"Wasn't this your idea in the first place?" Ron grumbled.
"Well, yes but -" Harry began.
"Then, let's just do this," Ron said with an exasperated sigh. "I don't want to be reading that poem for Muggle Studies anyway. What was it called again? Something about a vicious, revengeful soul-sucking woman…"
Harry scratched his head. "Uh, I'm not sure if she sucked souls. But it was in French, I think. Le Dam Sand Mercy?"
Draco rolled his eyes. 'La Dame Sans Merci. Leave it up to Potter to botch French and Weasley to equate women and dementors.'
"Well, we'll just find Hermione, ask her about the poem maybe and -"
"She'll see right through that," Harry interrupted. "Especially since you have obviously not read it at all."
"Right. But that's not the point anyway. Did she pierce hearts with a spear?"
"Huh?" It took Harry a few moments to realize that Ron was referring to the poem and not Hermione. "Uh, no." Harry shook his dark head for emphasis.
"Oh, bloody hell, why can't we read anything exciting for once?"
They continued walking in silence until Ron exclaimed, "Oi! Maybe you can tell her you need help with the Horcruxes."
"Well I do need help with them," Harry mumbled in agreement. "I have no bloody clue what to do. So far it's been story-time with Dumbledore."
As Harry and Ron passed him, Draco turned, ready to take another path down to the dungeons without having to cross the Gryffindors. But then, curiosity won over. What in Merlin's beard were Horcruxes anyway? It sounded Latin in origin, but Draco knew of no Latin words that was simply hor. Though, in all likelihood, hor was a distorted or shorted version of the word. There was hora, which meant time or hour but that didn't sound right. There was horrendus, or dreadful, which sounded possible, knowing anything associated with Harry Potter. And then, crux referred to cross. Or perhaps it was crucio. The thought made Draco shudder a little. He pulled his robes closer though he wasn't cold.
He continued following the two who seemed oblivious to everything else but themselves. 'Typical,' Draco thought. It was a wonder that Filch hadn't caught them yet, though granted, the castle was quite extensive. Draco tried to think of other possible meanings for crux but could not come up with anything satisfying. The Slytherin had a feeling it wasn't crustulum, which was a pastry or a cookie, though Draco thought he could stand for a Digestive at the moment. Tonks had introduced the fiber-enriched biscuit to him despite his initial resistance to a) eating a Muggle cookie and b) eating one called a Digestive.
"And can you believe Ginny!" Ron was saying.
"Yeah," Harry mumbled in reply.
"All that sneaking around, snogging with, with a boy!" the redhead cried in an offended air.
"Well," Harry replied, trying his best not to laugh. "At least it's a boy."
Ron spluttered in response.
Draco paused. They knew about him? That certainly would've explained Ginny's recent behavior. But then, why hadn't Weasel and Pothead sought him out and beaten him into a bloody pulp yet? Perhaps that was what they were doing. But no, they said something about Hermione. He took some quick steps to catch up to them again and was able to hear Ron ask Harry, "Couldn't it be you?"
"What?" Harry was the one to stop this time. He pushed his glasses up with a finger.
"Well, couldn't it be you dating Ginny? Instead of Dean Thomas," Ron said. "I don't like the idea of him…well, you know."
"And it would be different with me because…" Harry said, trailing off.
"Of course it would be different with you. Didn't you see the way she was kissing Dean last night? I could've punched his face in."
And with those words, Draco felt like he had been the one punched by Ronald Weasley. He stumbled back against the wall, his breaths coming short and rapid. It seemed as though everything had dropped to the pit of his stomach; the hallway itself tilted and swayed before he hit the ground. He scraped one knee against the rough stone floor and jammed his fingers into the crevices between the uneven rocks, only vaguely aware that his family ring pushed itself painfully into the crux of his thumb and index finger.
If the situation had been any different, he might have laughed or been curious about feeling both numb and pained all in one compressed moment. But the situation wasn't any different. Even his legs couldn't withstand the blow of Ginny's betrayal. "No," he said out loud, shaking his head. He couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe Ginny would do something like that, much less to him. He rolled over until he was lying on his back.
He looked up into an impossibly dark ceiling that seemed to stretch up into infinity and he tried to grasp onto any semblance of reality, of truth. And a thin weave of it did come to him, with a suddenness and clarity that sent him reeling, even though he didn't quite understand it. Somehow, despite his attempts to deny it, he knew, he knew that Ronald Weasley had been speaking the truth, that the redhead had seen Ginny with Dean Thomas, that she had won his heart, a heart he wasn't sure he ever had until she came along and then, let it fall into the depths of his old, shattered soul.
And for the first time in a long time, Draco Malfoy was very, very angry.