Of Constellations → 𝘥. 𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘧𝘰𝘺

xxii. blind leading the blind

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chapter twenty two

blind leading the blind

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It was December, and Draco was getting worse. He'd stopped going to meals altogether, and I no longer saw him at all except for prefect meetings and, occasionally, passing by him in corridors between classes (that is if he didn't skip his lessons). He looked anemic and there were shadows beneath his eyes so dark one might have thought he'd been in a fistfight.

But, within the last month, there was still one place in the castle one might find him if they were patient: the library. I essentially lived there at that point in the year, preparing for my exams before Christmas, so I always noticed him when he walked in and sat down at the same spot by the window.

There would often be a spark of panic in his eyes. And, if not panic, hopelessness. Sometimes, he would just stare off into space sitting totally still for the better part of an hour.

Theo didn't know what was happening. He'd told me that he and Draco were no longer on speaking terms. Not because they were fighting, but because Draco was no longer on speaking terms with anyone. He was fully engrossed in his mission. A mission I had a feeling he no longer wished to complete.

"I think he's changed his mind. He looks like he doesn't want to do it anymore," I said to Theo a few days before the winter holiday as we took a walk through the fields of snow.

"I'm not entirely convinced he ever wanted to do it," said Theo. "He just wants his dad to be back in the Dark Lord's favor. His whole family, really. But he's got the Dark Mark, Mars. There's no going back once you have the Dark Mark."

I sighed, shoving my hands into my coat pockets and stopping to gaze out into the Forbidden Forest. Draco wasn't really even my friend, so I didn't quite know why, but I had a strong compulsion to do something.

"Maybe we can help him," I said.

Theo's head snapped in my direction. "Help him?"

"No, I don't mean with the task. With getting him out of it."

"I don't think so," said Theo. "Whatever assignment the Dark Lord's given to Draco isn't something he can get out of."

I had a feeling that Theo was right, but that didn't mean I wasn't going to try.

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It had been five years since perennial fatigue had taken over my life. At Hogwarts, the Pepperup potions worked okay most of the time, but, still, there were days when it was impossible to stop myself from falling asleep in class. The potion only temporarily pushed the exhaustion back into my bones. It was never a fix, just a delay. The sticky, aching tiredness would eventually seep into my bloodstream again.

It was something I was intimately familiar with—the heaviness, the puffy eyes underlined with sleeplessness, the wilted posture. So, seeing Draco at school after Christmas was like watching myself walking around in someone else's skin.

He moved with a zombie-like shuffle between classes and, when I saw him in the library, he'd almost always end up fast asleep on his books. Half the time, Madam Pince would have to wake him up when the library closed.

Draco was now living what he had constantly derided in me for all of those years.

Perhaps if I was a little more stubborn or a little better at holding grudges, I wouldn't have been so personally affected by seeing him like that. But, I was not stubborn and pretty horrible at holding grudges. For once, I deeply understood how Draco was feeling. And, after experiencing that sort of suffering for so many years, it was impossible to not help him.