Unplanned Liars • Draco Malfoy

38. Bandaging skills

I was standing in front of the door, waiting a moment before exitting, but then somebody knocked.

I threw myself back onto the bed, pretending to be asleep.

"I know you're not sleeping," Draco said with annoyance, sitting on the bed. I opened my eyes to see him looking at me with a confident expression.

"What do you want?" I asked grumpily.

"I want to ask you something."

I sat up to see him better, careful not to put pressure on my injured wrist.

"That would be?" I could see he wasn't nervous, so it wasn't anything important.

"Do you want to come back to school?"

Well I should've predicted that.

"Yes, if it still exists. Why not? I mean I do need to sit the exams if I want to be an Obliviator."

Two against one, Draco.

He was speechless. I guess he expected me to say what he said.

"You don't want to go back?" I asked, wondering what he'd tell me.

"I don't see the point of doing so."

I sighed. I wasn't going to come back if he wasn't. It's not like it'd be nice without him, being followed by Blaise and bullied by Pansy.

Great. Now I had to persuade the most stubborn person alive.

Draco hadn't closed the door and suddenly we heard a loud argument downstairs. We exchanged surprised looks and went to the corridor, forgetting about our conversation.

He and I sat against the railing, listening hard to what was going on downstairs. I chuckled to myself. It reminded me of when we were kids; we used to eavesdrop on our parents when they sent us upstairs saying, "Go and play, we have something to discuss." Draco loved that. If he had heard something important, he would've felt ten times more important himself, because he could boast about it later. Who knew that years later we'd be doing the same?

The first voice we heard belonged to Bellatrix.

"I don't care, Cissy! The two of them will have children with pure blood, and these will be trained to be Death Eaters from their very first day. The more children they have the better. Their pure blood cannot be wasted."

I winced and looked at Draco. He was as bewildered as me. Then came Narcissa's voice.

"They're seventeen, Bella! Lucius and I were ten years older when..."

"Oh, you and Lucius," Bellatrix snorted, interrupting her sister. "Times are changing. And the earlier they start, the more children they can have. This means more followers for the Dark Lord."

There was a pause, in which both Draco and I were staring blankly at the wall in front of us.

"They must finish school," said Narcissa definitely.

"Won't be much of a difference, they finish it or not. Don't you think they might be doing it right now?"

I felt how my cheeks started to burn and buried my face in my knees.

"Bella!" Narcissa shouted.

"Bella, Bella," Bellatrix mocked her. "You must finally understand Dracon isn't a little boy anymore, Cissy. And fortunately he's chosen himself a proper girlfriend. I trust you'd disinherit him if he dated a Mudblood?"

I shook my head in disbelief. I'll jinx the first person who says Draco's life is easy.

"I can't believe in what you're saying," Narcissa said, probably shaking her head like me. Bellatrix seemed untouched.

"And if they have a son, they will lengthen the Malfoy line, think about that."

This was too much. I couldn't listen to that anymore. I stood up and started to walk away, Draco darting after me. We reached my room and I sat in one of the armchairs, breathing heavily.

"Are you okay?" he asked, sitting opposite me.

"Am I okay with the fact that your aunt treats me as a children-making machine? Yeah, I feel spectacular."

"You know very well she has been planning it since I was born," he muttered.

I tried to calm down a little, unwilling to start some new arguments.

"Alright, nevermind. It's not like she's going to make us do it," I told him. "What time is it, by the way?" I asked casually, wondering how long I've been sleeping.

"Almost seven," he replied.

I nodded and there was another awkward silence, the one we were already used to.

"I'm done," Draco finally said. "Forget about everything. Let's talk normally again."

A huge weight seemed to have been lifted off my shoulders. I was happy to hear it from him.

"Alright," I said to his relief. "I should call Cepheus to change my bandage," I added quickly, looking at my wrist.

"You still don't believe in my bandaging skills, do you?" he smirked, causing me to laugh. Everything will be normal again.

"Not quite."