The Silent Order: Draco Malfoy

Chapter 9

Chapter 9

I'm staring at my father, who is sitting behind his desk in his potions laboratory, hands steepled around his face, eyes closed in exasperation, as the idiot boy standing next to me rambles endlessly about the dragonling in Hagrid's hut.

I physically don't give a shit, I think to myself.

A twitch of a smile on Snape's face.

Get out of my head. I slam my mental walls up. I keep forgetting to do that around him. Snape is too good at slithering into my mind. The more I learn about occlumency, the more I can feel him coming and going. Checking up on me if I'm at the library late. I wonder how long he's been silently chaperoning me.

I shudder at the thought.

You want your privacy? Earn it, he echoes, shattering my shoddy mental defenses.

He never chastises me, or makes any obvious move that he's there. But I know he's there. It's rather annoying. Especially since attempting to enter his mind was like entering a spider's web. As soon as I think I'm getting somewhere, he easily traps me with confusion and throws me out.

I think he likes our telepathic tug of wars, and I think he's proud of me for actually reading the book he gave me. Turns out, becoming a mentalist requires no magical powers, just a strong will and a cunning sense of logic. The mind is innate, unlike magic, which must be channeled through a conduit like a wand before it can manifest.

When can we leave?

Well. The Gryffindor children were breaking curfew. I will catch them when they come back up and we will go to their Head of House. As for your punishment –

"MY punishment?!" I gasp out loud, cutting off Draco mid-rant. "I was just trying to go back to my dorm!"

Snap rose to his feet awkwardly on account of his injured leg. He towers above me.

"You were still out past curfew. You both were. There is danger on these grounds."

"Yeah, studying the book YOU told me to read!"

"Your inability to manage your time is your shortcoming, not mine," he states flippantly.

Draco's head swivels between us, as if watching a sparring match, before realizing he was also in trouble:

"Am I to believe that I will also be getting punished? After I found out that oaf was breeding illegal magical creatures? I practically saved everyone here," says Draco, incredulous.

I roll my eyes. I think I see Snape roll his too.

Snape ignores him, walking to the door, grabbing Ron and Harry by the scruff of their robes as they attempt to sneak back into the castle. Hermione follows behind them, biting her fingernails.

Snape presses his hand against the wall of the castle, summoning the Bloody Baron.

"Ser Baron, please wake Minerva. Tell her I have students of hers who have broken rules and require punishment." The Bloody Baron salutes and wafts back into the wall.

Hermione is staring daggers into the side of my head, but I'm staring straight at my father, who is in turn avoiding me.

Several minutes later the sound of frantic slippered feet could be heard treading toward the potions dungeon. A second later, a decidedly pissed Professor McGonagall filled the doorway. Her eyes swept over the five of us before narrowing in on Ron, Harry, and Hermione.

"You three..." she muttered.

...

Two nights later I return to my dorm late at night only to put on my warmest clothing.