𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐥𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 | √

⎡80⎦

Snape and I brought Draco to the Hospital Wing right after the wand fight. Madam Pomphrey tended to his wounds and took care of him. I stayed by his side until curfew when I was sent back. But in the middle of the night I snuck out of the dorms to go see him. It was dark and I held my wand out for light. When I got there, Draco was asleep. The chair that I was sitting on from before was still there. I sat down next to him and stroked his hair in my hands like I used to do when he was injured.

He began to move. Slowly, his eyes fluttered open. He smiled at me drowsily, but the smile only lasted a few seconds when Draco remembered everything that happened. I helped him sit up in bed where he put his head in his hands.

"You were there, weren't you? When I went to Borgin and Burkes with my mother, you were there right?" he asked.

I opened my mouth, "I— I, well— "

"You don't have to lie Hazel. I heard you and saw you dive out of sight."

Something inside me changed. I was filled with determination for answers.

"Draco." I demanded. "Are you a Death Eater?"

Tears began to fill in his eyes and he nodded. I bowed my head.

"May I see it?"

He nodded again and rolled up his left sleeve. He put his left arm towards my face so I could see it better. My finger traced his mark, the wriggling of the snake making my insides knot.

Draco yanked his sleeve down her fingers as I looked into his stormy gray eyes.

"You were just staring." His tone was bitter. "At least you know you have your faith in the wrong man."

"I didn't do this to be self-righteous Draco" I said with all the honesty I could muster. "I just had to know. I hoped I was wrong... you've been set to do something, something terrible.. Haven't you?"

Clearly his unspeakable task was ripping him apart from the inside out as his shoulders sunk, water began to cloud his eyes again. I could feel the strings of my heart pulling so tight it hurt to see him this way. The once cocky Slytherin who threw his weight around had no weight to throw. He was scared, or so I hoped that is what it was. I gently pulled him into a hug.

"Draco?" I whispered. "What have they done to you?"

"Y-you don't think this is my fault?" He muffled into my shoulder.

"I think that you had very little choice, well that's what I hope. I hope you have a reason to be this person and that reason is enough to keep you alive... Because I don't believe that he will spare you because you please him. Your life is just a ticking clock to him, ready to expire," my words flowed out of me before I could stop them. My breath heightening as I tried to fight back the tears at seeing him this way.

He pulled away, and his eyes met mine, and in that moment we weren't in the Hospital Wing as two school children. We were adults in the middle of a battlefield anxiously trying to find the clear cut of black and white when truthfully it was all gray, all mixed together with morals coming into question on both sides.

Draco took my hand into his, his cold fingers sending shivers up my arm. Hairs standing on edge as he clutched my hand tighter in his, the gray orbs showing me the fear inside of him.

"Save me... Please save me from him, from them. I don't want to hurt anyone..." His voice cracked as a tear fell down his pale white face, my spare hand reaching up to wipe it as he flinched. "I don't want to hurt anyone else."

My heart plummeted to my feet, the answer to the mysterious attacks on the two Gryffindors was now answered.

"It was you?" I said, my voice showing the heartbreak in my chest. I pulled him into my arms and he held me tighter than he had ever done before, resting his head in the crook of my neck as I let him cry. Little did he know, slowly, he was inching his way back into my heart.