Liberty - A Harry Potter fan fiction

Chapter 6 - Detention

I barely picked at my dinner. Sitting as far from Ginny and Dean as I could, I stared at the far wall the entire meal. I heard the gossip surrounding me but tried my hardest to ignore it. Lavender's words had never bothered me before, why should the words of anyone else? It would soon be forgotten as someone else did something to warrant gossip. 

I didn't even realize that the wall I was looking at was where Malfoy and Pansy were sitting. She sniggered, talking to Crabbe and Goyle while he stared ahead as well. I realized that we'd been back to school for weeks and he had yet to say anything snarky to me. Actually, he hadn't said anything to me at all. I noticed he'd lost a lot of weight over the summer and wondered what had caused it. He was like a shadow of his former self, just simply walking around with a blank look on his face. Pansy's words came back to me as I fiddled with my sliver of pumpkin pie. It didn't take much more to figure out that something was bothering him. He was even paler than normal and his hair was quite long, and not as well groomed as it usually was.    

He got up and left the great hall and I suddenly realized it was time for my detention with Snape. I glanced up at the head table to see that he wasn't there but I couldn't recall if he'd been there earlier or not. Pushing away my nearly full plate, I stood and walked towards his old classroom. Even though he'd taken over the Defense Against the Dark Arts post, he still hosted detentions and had his office down in his old potions class room.

It was common knowledge that the Slytherin common room was in the dungeons, though I didn't know how close to Snape's room it was. I saw Malfoy walking about 30 feet in front of me, surprised he'd made so little progress in the minutes it'd been since he left the dining hall. I took note that it wasn't his usual swagger; it was a slower, more sluggish movement. I turned a corner and no longer saw him. Walking midway down the corridor, I heard voices from the class room and peaked my head through the door way.

I didn't anticipate the voices to belong to Malfoy and Snape. I knocked and entered, not caring if I was being rude or what they were talking about. I just wanted to go back to my room and put this train wreck of a day behind me. Malfoy was saying something about thinking he was going to fail his mission. His sleeve was up and showing Snape something on his forearm. I gasped, catching sight of just what it was. The two turned my way and Malfoy ripped his sleeve down with so much force that I could hear a seam ripping.

"What did you see?" Snape strode towards me, locking the door with a flick of his wand as he did so. "What did you see!"

"N-nothing! Should there be something to see?" I asked, figuring that playing stupid was my best bet.

Malfoy stood back, saying nothing. He ran his fingers through his hair a few times, nervous of what Snape was going to do. The potions master grabbed my arm so forcefully that my whole body shook and repeated his question.

"You know what I saw!" I finally told him after he threatened to use one of the unforgiveable curses on me.

I ripped my arm from his grip and waited for one of them to hex me. The three of us stood in silence. Malfoy still looked worried, I was terriffied and trying not to show it and Snape was struggling with what to do. In the end he simply pivoted around and swept out of the room. Turning at the door, he looked me in the eyes and said something that was sure to give me nightmares for weeks.

"Tell anyone of your... Discovery, and I will summon the Dark Lord to kill you."

Malfoy and I stood there in silence for what seemed forever, both of us afraid to say or do anything. Lost in though, I didn't realize that he was standing right beside me.

"You wont say anything?" He whispered from two feet away. "Please."

I looked into his blue – grey eyes and saw so much reflected in them. Pain, fear, anxiety and strangely something that looked like affection. Certainly not for me.

"I should." I told him, my voice steely. "I think I ought to go tell Dumbledore right now."

Malfoy froze and sheer terror replaced every other emotion he'd just showed. It radiated through his body and into mine. A tiny voice in my head planted a suspicion I later learned to be true. Draco Malfoy and professor Snape were planning to help You Know Who into Hogwarts. And he was scared shitless. I now knew why he was so skinny and wasn't looking after himself.  I took off down the hallway, running fast for the safety of Gryffindor tower until I could figure  out how to get to Dumbledore.

"Brown!" Malfoy yelled after me and I heard him running behind me, catching up.

A streak of orange light whizzed past my head and I shot a curse behind me. I had almost reached the end of the passage when Malfoy tackled me and we both fell to the stone floor. A scuffle ensued until he took my wand away and pointed his straight into my face. I stopped fighting immediately and waited to see what he'd do.

"You heard Snape... He'll kill you. Except he won't. He'll make me do it." 

"Get your hands off of me!" I snarled.

I attempted to dislodge his wand from my throat when his knuckles brushed my neck. Then something weird happened. I felt an attraction. It was mixed with pity and hatred, but it was an attraction none the less. Malfoy paused before lowering his wand and I knew he felt the same thing. He looked at me, pleading silently with his eyes.

"Did they make you take it?" I asked, meaning his parents.

"He was going to kill us all if I didn't," He replied.

He stood and offered me his hand. I took it and he helped me up, shoving my wand at me once I caught my balance.

"I won't say anything," I told him. "But I'll be keeping a close eye on you. If you so much as look like a shifty sack of shit, I'm going to Dumbledore."

He narrowed his eyes at my words, his mood changing instantaneously.

"Like you would have done any different than me! You're a bloody hypocrite! Get out of here Brown! The dungeons aren't safe for a Gryffindor."

I walked away from him as quickly as possible without running, turning every few steps to be sure that his wand was still by his side. He watched until I was out of sight. I held my breath until I reached the comfort of my four poster bed in my own room. It was a room usually reserved for the prefects but Hermione had given me hers when I begged her to. It was better than laying in the girls dormitory while the others, mainly my sister, made fun of me.

Draco had his own prefects room as well though he was practically never there. I felt uneasy knowing that the only thing between us was the room of Hannah Abbot, an overly cheerful classmate and friend to Lavender. She was a terrible coward and how she made prefect I didn't know because she had nowhere near the high marks Hermione and I did.