BROKEN PIECES & GOLDEN SEAMS

XVI

31. sharp tongues and sharper memories

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Percy hates the name. Anything within her that wants to aid the students of Hogwarts is squashed after she hears the name. Dumbledore's Army, how ridiculous. How true. She loathes that.

"You heard about those Gryfindorks sneaking in and out of the Room of Requirement?"

"Do they really believe they're being subtle?" Draco questions with his sardonic rise of an eyebrow. "They're the noisiest bunch ever."

"Not just the lions," Blaise says lions how one may say slugs that they were about to swallow. "But the whole bunch,"

"Except us,"

"You want to be invited for their little party Parkinson?"

"No Nott, they're preparing for war supposedly and they're not even trying to make allies,"

The conversation strays into a territory they have all skittered around for the past months.

"You believe in the rumour then—?"

"No wait—Parkinson, are you admitting you'll fight with them?" Theo, for a moment, looks truly scary as he wants to be. His posture erect and his eyes gleaming with the dreams of another. "And no Zabini, it's not a rumour anymore."

"The Dark Lord is back," Crabbe and Goyle chorus.

Blaise merely gives a look that could be roughly translated into, 'Really?'

Millicent voices it aloud for him, "And how're you so sure?"

"Oh your relationship with your parents have gotten that worse?" Daphne crosses her arms. "Daddy didn't tell you his Mark was glowing?"

"It was?"

"I thought your dear Mum slept with a new man every week. None of them tell you? Or didn't she give them any time to talk before—"

"That's uncalled for Greengrass,"

"Oh Malfoy, I was waiting for you to grace us with your wise words," Daphne sneers and its an unpleasant thing on her pretty face. "You were too quiet there. You know some say—"

"And some say it'll be lovely to stitch your mouth closed," he interrupts her, a sneer of his own growing on his face, "count your blessings I haven't given it much thought yet."

"You have been quiet Draco," Theo admits, shooting a glare at Daphne. She scoffs.

"A right wittle 'Puff you've become. Where's the loyalty for the noble house you're always gloating about?"

Percy withholds silence, recognising herself to be a stranger in a stranger world of skewed ideals.

"My loyalty demands me of things you'll never understand,"

"And whatever those might be?"

Draco's twist of his lips imposes a cold upon them that they hadn't expected. Whilst there has been the cruelty that he had wielded as a teen that they were familiar of, this haunted man is someone they were yet to be introduced to. "Why do you suppose that I'll tell you that? You wouldn't understand,"

"For—!"

"Your questionable parentage aside," he waves it off as nothing but the damage is done, "with how full of yourself you are, I don't think you'll begin to understand a millennia of history and aspirations, especially of ancestors that we aren't even sure are yours."