Dark

Chapter 51

Draco
I couldn’t sleep.
The sheets on my bed felt as though they were on fire. My head was pounding, thrumming against the inside of my skull. I had tossed and turned for the past two hours, but still sleep was elusive. The rest of my dorm was silent aside from Crabbe’s snores. As the congested sound rang out again the pounding in my head worsened.
That was it, I couldn’t stay in here any longer.
I swung my legs out of the bed and could feel the cold stone floor against my feet. It was a far improvement to the intense warmth of my four-poster. It only took four steps to reach the door, and then I was free of the room. The suffocating feeling that had been overwhelming me up until then started to fade away.
I pushed the palms of my hands against my eyes as I slowly made my way down the hall toward the common room. The pressure only helped for a moment, but the headache remained. Turning the corner out of the hall I was surprised to find that light was still gently dancing around the room from the fireplace.
Then I saw her.
It couldn’t be anyone else. Her hair was hung loosely down her back, the ends brushing against the floor as she sat in front of the fire. From where I stood I could see that she had her knees pulled up into her chest. Her arms were wrapped around herself, and her chin was balanced ever so slightly against her knees.
I had found Eleanor in the common room late at night many times, but never like this. Just as she had looked on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, she now looked vulnerable. Again, the need to know what was going on with her consumed me.
Though everything about her in this moment said that she wanted to be alone, I couldn’t stop myself. I approached Eleanor, taking a seat against the wall beside the fireplace. I was sure she had registered my presence, but she didn’t make a move. Her eyes were trained on the flames.
I waited a minute, hoping that she would say something. Nothing happened.
“Eleanor,” I said quietly, “what are you doing?”
“Sitting.” She answered.
“You know what I mean.”
“Does it look like I’m doing anything else?”
“It looks like you’re upset.” I retorted.
Eleanor finally shifted her gaze from the fire to me. Though the flames were reflected in her eyes, their natural fire and fierceness seemed to be missing. Where she had once been strong and intimidating, she now appeared unsure. Her strength had been so evident when she confronted Umbridge, but it had only lasted mere minutes.
“Do you think…” She started, but stopped herself, biting at her lower lip for a moment. “Nevermind.”
“No, what is it?” I asked, worry truly beginning to take over again from the curiosity.
“It’s nothing…”
“Have I done something, Eleanor?” I asked, desperate to get to the bottom of whatever it was that had kept her from speaking to me.
“No…you haven’t…” She said.
Eleanor let her legs fall to her sides, sitting with her ankles crossed one over the other. That was the first time I could see the bandage wrapped around her right hand. She was scratching at the edging of the gauze, the slightest trace of a wince forming on her features as she did so. Splotches of blood were visible through the material.
“What happened to your hand?” I asked, nodding toward it when she looked up at me in confusion.
She looked down at her hand, seeming to notice for the first time that she had been messing with it. As she tried to hide it at her side she knocked something over. There was a clinking noise and the slosh of liquid before a large glass bottle rolled out from where it had been hidden.
Fire whisky.
“What are you doing with that?” I asked harshly.
“Well, I was drinking it.” Eleanor said, quickly trying to stuff the bottle back out of sight.
Before it could disappear again, I reached out and whipped it out of her hand. “This is half gone, Eleanor. What are you thinking? What the hell is going on with you?”
I was only a foot away from her now. We were close enough to each other that I could see the way she fought to keep herself from looking away. Never in the time that I’ve known Eleanor has she seemed intimidated by me. So why was she acting this way now.
“You’re father was there…in the graveyard…” She suddenly blurted out. “I know that he was there, Malfoy.”
I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t known if Potter had ever told her that my father was there that night. That he was there, with the Dark Lord. If Eleanor had made it to the graveyard with Potter, he would have been there when she was killed. That had been the Dark Lord’s plan all along, hadn’t it? To use Potter to resurrect himself and then kill them both, to eliminate the entire Potter line. I didn’t care what happened to Potter, but Eleanor…it made me feel sick to think of what would have happened if she had ended up in that graveyard.
“I didn’t…I didn’t know about any of it, Eleanor…” I started to say. I needed her to know that I hadn’t known about those plans, that not even my father had known about them.
“I know.” She said quietly, looking down to the space of floor between us. “I know that, I just…Is that what you want? Do you want to be like him? A Death Eater?”
“No,” I said, hoping that my voice sounded as sure as I felt. “I don’t want to be that. I thought, before…that I wanted to be like him, but I don’t.”
“Then what do you want?” Eleanor asked, her voice so quiet I almost didn’t hear her.
I thought for a moment. What did I want? Where was I ever planning to go, what did I want to do with my life? I’d never truly had to consider it before.
“I just want a normal life…” was my conclusion. A chance at a normal life was more than I could ask for. A chance to make my own choices, removed from my parents control.
“Me too…” Eleanor said, finally looking up at me again.
It was a moment before anything happened, but what did come next surprised me.
Eleanor had reached forward, pulling her hands up to my face, and suddenly her lips were pressed against mine. For a split second I didn’t know what to do, the shock had left me frozen. Then quickly enough my brain seemed to catch up with what was happening and I returned the gestured. My own hands had reached for Eleanor, and it wasn’t just her kissing me. We kissed each other.
As quickly as the moment had come, it ended. Eleanor shot back from me, her eyes wide. She seemed to have only just then realized what she had done. I opened my mouth, trying to say something but nothing came out. By the time Eleanor finally moved again, she was quickly making her way toward the dorms. I wanted to go after her, but I felt frozen in my spot.
What had just happened?

Harry
I never ended up practicing vanishing spells, or writing down any dreams for my divination assignment. I hadn’t finished my drawing of the bowtruckle for Grubbly-Plank, and none of my essays were done. I had to skip breakfast to scribble down some made up dreams for Diviniation. To my surprise, Ron was doing the same.
“How come you didn’t do it last night?” I asked him. He hadn’t been in detention, he should have had plenty of time to get it done the night before.
Ron quickly muttered something about, “doing other stuff,” before returning to his parchment. “That’ll have to do. I’ve said I dreamed I was buying a new pair of shoes, she can’t make anything weird out of that, can she?”
We rushed off toward Divination, racing up the various staircases toward North Tower.
“How was detention with Umbridge, anyway? What did she make you do?”
“Lines,” I said, not wanting to lie but not wanting to reveal the whole truth either. I still wasn’t sure what to make of Umbridge’s punishment. In a way, telling anyone about it seemed like it would be a win to her. I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of knowing that I had been in pain and had complained to anyone.
“That’s not too bad, then, eh?” Ron said.
“I guess not. Apparently Eleanor has detention with me all week, too. She said that Dumbledore kept Umbridge from expelling her.”
“So she’s talking to you again?”
“Not really. At least, I don’t think so…”
The day continued in the same manner the past two had. As bad as things already seemed, the days just continued to get worse. I had been the worst in Transfiguration and had to give up my lunch period to complete the picture of the bowtruckle before Care of Magical Creatures.
As we gathered around the bowtruckles again that afternoon, I couldn’t help but notice the awkward distance between Eleanor and Malfoy. They kept glancing up in each other’s directions, looking as though they wanted to speak to each other but couldn’t. It was a strange difference from just the day before, when Eleanor had been ignoring him outright.
“They’ve been like that all day,” Hermione said. “They were doing the same in Arithmancy this morning.”
“What do you think that’s all about?” Ron asked.
“I have no idea.” Hermione said, a curious hum escaping her lips as she continued to look their way, considering their odd behavior.
Still, my day continued to get worse as Angelina Johnson cornered me at dinner.
“So have you gotten yourself out of detention for Friday?” She asked.
“No, Umbridge wouldn’t budge.”
“Are you serious, Harry?” She said, her voice quickly rising. “I told you how important it was to have the whole team at tryouts! Honestly, I’m not at all impressed by your attitude. I would think that players who want to stay on the team would put training before their other commitments.”
“I’m in detention!” I called out after her as she stomped away down to other end of the Gryffindor table. “D’you think I’d rather be stuck in a room with that toad or playing Quidditch?”
“At least it’s only lines,” Hermione said consoling.
I sank back down into my seat, my appetite completely lost.
Detention that night passed much in the same way it had the night before. Eleanor and I both arrived at Umbridge’s office, and continued to carve words into our hands. I tried to make out what Eleanor was writing, but I couldn’t see it from my seat across the room. As soon as Umbridge had dismissed us, she pulled her sleeve down over her hand again and walked away before I could even try to ask her what it was.
Thursday was yet again the same. Classes were time-consuming and my homework had piled up to a mountain of unattended issues. Potions had brought about another spat between Snape and I and another zero on my work. Defense was spent in silence as we read through chapter two of our textbook. Eleanor never even showed up for the lesson.
She was present for detention that night, however. When Umbridge asked about her whereabouts during class, she had simply said that she had been in the hospital wing for a headache. The excuse was poor, but ultimately there wasn’t anything that Umbridge could do. So we spent the next few hours carving into our hands yet again. And just as the night before, Eleanor rushed off before I could talk to her at the end of it.
By the time I was nearing Gryffindor Tower that night, I truly believed that I had found a teacher I hated more than Snape. She was evil, and twisted, and mad.
I collided with something as I turned a corner, bringing my thoughts to an abrupt halt.
“Ron?” I asked, looking curiously at him as he tried to hide his broomstick behind his back. “What are you doing?”
“Er – nothing. What are you doing?”
“Come on, you can tell me!” I said. “What are you hiding a broomstick for?”
“I’m, well…okay, I’ll tell you, but don’t laugh, all right?” Ron said defensively as his face reddened. When I gave him a quick nod he continued on, “I-I thought I’d try out for Gryffindor Keeper now I’ve got a decent broom. There. Go on. Laugh.”
“I’m not laughing,” I told him. “It’s a brilliant idea! It’d be really cool if you got on the team! I’ve never seen you play Keeper, are you good?”
“I’m not bad,” Ron said, looking relieved. “Charlie, Fred, and George always made me Keep for them when they were training during the holidays.”
“So you’ve been practicing tonight?”
“Every evening since Tuesday…just on my own, though, I’ve been trying to bewitch Quaffles to fly at me, but it hasn’t been easy and I don’t know how much use it’ll be.”
“I wish I was going to be there,” I said, even more disappointed now than I had been before.
“Yeah, so do – Harry, what’s that on the back of your hand?”
I had just scratched my nose with my free hand, putting the cuts into clear view without meaning too. I tried to hide them behind my back but Ron had already grasped onto my hand and was looking at it in horror.
“It’s just a cut – it’s nothing – it’s…”
“I thought you said she was giving you lines?”
“She is…” I said hesitatntly. Ron had been honest with me, so ultimately, I couldn’t keep this from him. I explained the quills she had been making us use, and the way in which they carved out our writing into the back our hands.
“So Eleanor’s had to do this too?” Ron asked, his face going white. “Has she had to write the same thing?”
“No, and I don’t know what Umbridge is making her write. She had told me what to write plain and simple. For Eleanor though,” I said, “she whispered it so I couldn’t hear. Whatever it is, it’s really bothering Eleanor. She won’t let me see it though, and she won’t even give me the chance to ask what it is she’s having to write.”
“That woman is sick! Go to McGonagall, say something!”
“No,” I said quickly. “I’m not giving her the satisifactin of knowing she’s got to me.”
“Got to you? You can’t let her get away with this!” Ron said loudly. “And it’s not just you she’s doing this too. It’s Eleanor as well. You have to tell someone, Harry. If not for yourself, then at least for her.”
“I can’t do that, Ron!” I nearly shouted in frustration. “Eleanor doesn’t seem any more keen on having anyone know about this than I do. I can’t go telling someone about it now.”
“Harry…”
“I can’t, Ron. I just can’t. Our detentions are done after tomorrow, we’ll get through it and be done with it.”
In the end, Ron had agreed to keep this a secret between me and him. It was a difficult time convincing him, but I knew that Umbridge wanted to know that she had bothered Eleanor and I deeply enough to go to another teacher about it. I just couldn’t stand the thought of seeing her gloating smile if I ever did tell someone.