Death Eater, Slytherin... Poet?

The Tenth Poem

I honestly didn't know what to say.

"I'm - " I began, but then he cut me off.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," he finished. "You're so dreadfully shocked and wish deeply that something could change." He stared down at the plush carpet, his face still hidden from view.

I paused. "No, actually I wanted to say.. well.. I didn't actually know what to say." I paused. "But if you wanted me to express my deepest condolences.."

Narcissa Malfoy. Blonde haired, once beautiful.. I didn't know much about her. In fact, all I could think of when he mentioned 'my mother' was interest. It was callous, of course, for me not to feel much pity. Even I was surprised when the words failed to bring a reaction out of me.

But it was as if a cousin living across the world had suddenly died. I'd never spoken at all to Malfoy's mother, and I didn't have a very good impression of her. Even after Harry had told me how she'd lied to Voldemort himself to find her son, I couldn't bring myself to feel anything.

So instead of feeling a raging hate, or a cool loathing, I'd chosen a different path: I tried to distance myself from the Malfoys.

When I heard that Lucius Malfoy had been publicly yelled at by a storekeeper in Diagon Alley, I hadn't laughed or closed my eyes in pity. I'd just accepted it - nodded at the girl who'd told me and moved on with my own life. The same happened now: I played with a strand of my hair, looking around the room for something else to say.

He laughed shortly. "Are we Malfoys so beneath you that you wouldn't even care if one of us died?" Malfoy demanded, turning quickly to face me. He muttered something under his breath about 'uncaring mudbloods' and looked at the painting again.

I felt fury slowly building up inside of me at that remark. "You're the one to talk," I snapped back. "I bet you didn't give a d*mn about all the people that died while we were at Hogwarts. Cedric Diggory, Albus Dumbledore.. And besides, even if I did say sorry, you'd just brushed it off. You literally just did when you assumed I said sorry. Is that what you wanted? Did you want me to express how saddened I was and then say you didn't care?"

He wasn't subdued and instead laughed coldly. "So you'll care for your own and leave the rest of us to rot, won't you, Granger?"

"This is getting us nowhere," I spat back. "Why bring me to your home when all you'll do is pick fights with me? Why can't we have a civil conversation for once?"

His stormy gray eyes met mine and I knew why. I found, in his stony face, the same fire that I'd always seen on my own expressions. We were too alike. Too determined. Too confident and sure of our own belief's to listen to any other ones.

I knew, like I had before, that he wouldn't cave in. Once again, I'd have to make the silent truce.

"All right," I said finally, the words coming out slowly, like it cost me real pain. "Why?"

"Why, what?"

"Why is your mother ill?"

"She's not ill.. she just.."

"Sit down, Malfoy," I said softly, my voice suddenly impossibly gentle. I couldn't explain it. In his anguished voice I heard the same emotions that had run through me when I was reunited with my parents and believed their memory lost forever. Somehow, the tiniest bit of sympathy stole through my heart and made room for Malfoy.

He looked at me with more than a little suspicion, but then he finally made his way back to his seat.

I waited. Slowly, as the minutes passed, he told me the entire story. He told me of how at first she'd been overjoyed that they'd gotten out of the war without losing her wife or son. Of how, even as he and his father were sent to Azkaban for two years, she continued to write to them and clung to the old times, hosting extravagant dinners with her friends and inviting well known wizards and witches over. Of how, as the years slowly went by, his mother became listless at what was a never ending cycle of hatred and dislike. Of how she eventually stopped eating and just gave up the will to live.