Your Grief is My Grief [DM] sequel to Beauty and the Beast

Chapter Four

Draco's POV:

Liz and I stood together on Platform 9 ¾, hand in hand. It was obvious that Liz was terrified to return to Hogwarts this year. She kept looking over her shoulder as if she expected someone to sneak up behind her.

"What's wrong, love?" I asked her when she turned back around.

"What if my mum's here?" Lizzie whispered to me as she looked around us. The crowd of students and parents surged around us, pulsing like a heartbeat. Everyone was getting sentimental with their goodbyes. I heard a chorus of 'I love you's with every step.

"I doubt she is," I reassured her with a squeeze of her hand. She nodded but continued to study each person we passed.

Liz and I loaded our trunks onto the train and then boarded to attempt to find a compartment. Even though the train wasn't due to leave for another ten minutes and the platform was still full of students saying goodbye, each compartment seemed to be full to the brim with students already. We made our way carefully to the Slytherin compartment, dodging excited first years who darted through the corridor.

I pushed the door open and looked around for a place for Lizzie and I to sit that was isolated from other students. Each table had at least one student sitting at it, so I turned to Liz.

"Where do y-" I began to ask her where she wanted to sit but stopped mid sentence as I was interrupted by a perky Pansy Parkinson.

"Lizzie! Draco! Sit over here!" She waved at us enthusiastically from a table on our right where she was sitting with Theodore Nott.

Lizzie's face went from blank to confused and almost scared. I squeezed her hand once again and hesitantly led the way to Pansy's table. I knew that Pansy and Lizzie had a very bipolar history, but I wasn't about to sit by Blaise Zabini or Marcus Flint.

"Hey, you two! How were your summers?" Pansy asked us with a wide smile as Liz and I sat down.

"Alright," I lied for the both of us, knowing Liz wouldn't want to talk.

"Well, I guess that's better than bad!" Pansy giggled, her hair bouncing with her laughter. I raised my eyebrow at her but decided not to say anything. "How about you, Theo? How was your summer?" Pansy turned to Theo with a flirty twinkle in her eye.

"It was brilliant," he replied excitedly. "My uncle took me to Romania to see the Dragons he works with. One almost bit my arm off!" he added smugly. I rolled my eyes and looked to Lizzie, who was watching her hand pick at a loose thread on her shirt hem.

Pansy and Theo launched into a discussion of Theo's adventure with the dragons. I silently watched Liz's hand work at the thread until she worked it completely off.

"So Lizzie," Pansy began, obviously bored with Theo's lies. I snapped my head up at the black-haired girl, daring her to say something to upset Liz. "Did you h-"

"Why are you being so nice to me?" Lizzie asked suddenly, surprising all of us at the table.

"What do you mean?" Pansy asked, faking innocence. I internally groaned, knowing Liz would leap at this.

"I mean what happened to me being a mudblood?" Liz snapped. She was leaning forward now, eyes narrowed.

"That was before I found out your dad was a wizard," Pansy replied sweetly, as if this was a perfectly fine explanation.

"So that changes everything? Suddenly I'm not a mudblood or just 'Samuels', I'm Lizzie all over again?"

"Look, Liz, I'm really sorry about all of that-" Pansy reasoned.

Lizzie was beginning to let her anger out as she said, "If it hadn't been for-", but she stopped talking when there was a commotion at the door to the compartment.

Blaise Zabini was attempting to shut the door, but something was stopping it. He was continually slamming it shut, but it remained open by about five inches. I rolled my eyes at him, and then the compartment was lurched into complete darkness. Standing up, I couldn't see anything around me, not even my chest when I looked down.

Panicking, I called out to Liz, "Lizzie?"

"Right here," she replied right next to me with a quiet voice. I felt her hand touch my right arm and travel down to my hand where she grasped me tightly. Her touch calmed me but I remained on my toes, worried that something was going to happen.

The darkness began to subside slightly as I was shoved backwards onto Liz.

"Oi!" I shouted, leaping back to my feet. I saw a flash of something- I'm not sure what- move upwards towards the luggage rack above our heads. I watched the rack for any other sign of movement, but when I saw none, I sat back down next to Liz and quickly apologized. "Sorry, love. Something knocked me over."

"No need to apologize," she replied kindly. Our hands remained linked as Pansy and Theo came back into view.

"What do you think that was?" Theo asked, brushing his brown hair out of his face.

"Probably just a first year playing a joke," I spoke, though I had a different opinion.

"Yeah, probably," Pansy huffed.

The rest of the trip to Hogsmeade station was spent mostly silent on me and Lizzie's part, but Pansy and Theo were constantly bickering about something. At one point, Pansy said something offensive about muggles and I felt Lizzie stiffen next to me as if she wanted to say something, so I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her close to me.

As we were pulling into the station and the brakes were squealing loudly, we stood, I turned to Liz, and whispered, "You go ahead without me. There's something I have to do."

"Whatever it is, I'm staying. We're in this together, Draco," she argued quietly, instantly knowing what I was speaking about.

"It's nothing like that, Liz. I'll be up soon, just go ahead." I leaned forward and kissed her cheek.

"Alright. Just hurry up," she spoke as she collected her items.

"I will," I assured her. She frowned and left the compartment.

Making sure the compartment was now empty and the doors were firmly shut, I whirled around pointing my wand to the area of the luggage rack that was occupied.

"Petrificus Totalus!" Harry Potter toppled from the rack and landed on the floor with a resounding thud. "I thought so," I smirked at his form, now lying on the ground beside his invisibility cloak. "This is from my father," I sneered as I stamped hard on his face. With a sickening crunch and a trickle of blood, his nose broke under the heel of my shoe. I lifted his invisibility cloak, which had fluttered down beside him, and threw it over his body. "Reckon they won't find you until the train's back in London. See you around, Potter. Or not."

I turned and left the train compartment with a sense of finality.