Malfake

Malfoy woke up in a sweat. Last visions slipped through the gap in the drawn canopy of his school bed, casting a reproachful glance as a farewell. His forehead burned. Draco touched his white temples, and a few salty drops transferred to the pads of his fingers. Another night of this kind. Another last night he thought he could endure. But they kept coming and coming. He can end it at any moment, then what’s the matter? Who’s in control? The owner… His fingers touched the metal on his wrist. Just take off the damn bracelet before sleep. It’s so simple. Click, and into the box. Easier than taking a wand from a child. Draco rolled onto his right side, letting the air touch the damp sheets. No, these weren’t nightmares. At least, ordinary people wouldn’t call them that. He sat up and peeked through the curtain. The clock in the boys' dormitory showed four in the morning. Forget the idea of sleep. Throwing on yesterday’s clothes hastily, the Slytherin slipped out of the room, eager to make the pictures leap instead of pressing statically on his completely unrested, doomed eyes with their monotonous sameness. In the crackling of the living rooms' fireplace (the only sound in the room) Daphne slept on the couch. Under her outstretched hand on the floor, an empty bottle of firewhisky stood vertically. This fool will screw us all. Draco pulled out his wand and eliminated the evidence of unruly behavior in Slytherin. Damn alcoholic. He turned, preparing to head towards the exit to sneak onto the Wooden Bridge, where the chilly winds would blow out all the nonsense from his head, when he suddenly realized that something or someone was lying right under the table… Draco leaned down, almost squatting, and along a few bright strands, easily recognized Astoria. The Slytherin was sleeping, her hand bent under her body in an unnatural position, meaning only one thing — she was not sober either. And… something there was smelling disgustingly. A mixture of alcohol, cloying deodorant, and… Blaise’s cologne. Well, at least someone still gets a boner around her. Draco smirked sadly, disappearing from the living room into the dungeons to continue his walk to the Clock Tower. The bridge that led to the edge of Hogwarts territories started there. It was impossible to understand whether he was blind or simply indifferent to the signs that something was brewing between the two of them. But in either version, one couldn’t pass by the anger, even if just for a moment: since when is it normal to fuck with someone else’s girl? The corridors were pitch black, but Draco knew the way by heart. In previous years, the heir to the multimillion-dollar fortune either strolled through them in insomnia or patrolled with his squad, so he soaked the maps of the dungeons into his skin, just like the Basilisk did to the Chamber of Secrets. “Ouch, fuck!” Draco suddenly jerked his arm, which was unexpectedly bitten by something, and looked at his wrist, pulling it out of the cuff. A small piece of skin got caught in the fold between the head and the tail of the snake bracelet, pinching. For the first time since he put it on. “Who’s there? I’m armed!” an anxious voice came from around the corner. The Lumos that appeared blinded Draco for a moment, but his soon realized that he would prefer to remain blind until the end rather than see the body that stood before his eyes. Hermione stood opposite, confidently holding her wand forward. She wore a short nightdress above the knee, over which a cloak was thrown clearly hastily. Hastily — because it was inside out. “It’s just you,” Hermione breathed out, lowering the wand slightly. Unclear, though, for what reason she decided that a person who had engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Potter on the Quidditch field a few days ago couldn’t be dangerous in the middle of the night in a corridor far from Gryffindor. “Not just me, but a whole me,” Draco’s sarcasm lived in the mouth like a guard, a safeguard against any unexpected twists of the plot. It popped up precisely on schedule, discouraging the student, the professor, the girl, giving the owner a few seconds to recover. Merlin, if only she got a thought to tie the robe all by herself. Because he couldn’t say that. Neither say nor allow to hide from his hungry eyes those fifty kilograms of smooth lines, gently covered with pistachio-colored silk, broken only by two sharp peaks. “I… suppose we can go about our business?” Hermione, carefully reading the reaction, slipped past him, and she could have continued walking, but Malfoy turned after her. “Here could be dangerous,” Draco said, barely understanding how his tone sounded. Threatening? Caring? Desperate? “I’ve been walking here every night all week, don’t tell me scary stories, Malfoy,” the girl swiftly moved away, lifting the edges of her cloak on the sides. “You don’t understand.” Fuck. Why is he chasing after her? The curls on her back jump closer and closer… “Today Filch is patrolling here. Imagine how much colder it will be waiting in his office until morning. And you’ll freeze in that… of yours…” What on Earth am I babbling? Hermione stopped in front of an inconspicuous door. Draco always thought it was some storage room of Snape’s with flasks and cauldrons, but the door, after a quiet Alohomora from her pink lips, opened, revealing to him from behind Hermione’s back a ten-meter windowless office filled with old furniture. “Malfoy, I’m asking you, leave, I don’t have the energy for arguments, I’ve slept too little.” She finally tied her cloak and approached one of the worn-out desks. In the pale light of her wand, Draco spotted some wilted sprout in a clay pot. Hermione placed the Lumos wand in the adjacent one, freeing her hands for manipulations. “What are you doing here, Granger? Couldn’t you start your little hobby somewhere closer to your warm common room?” Now he was angry. Not only did her hair sweep across his naked body in his dreams during the second autumn month, while his wrists, restraining, intertwined with the metal snake. And everything below — his neck, chest, and abdomen — was touched by a sliding wet tongue, until he woke up in sweat. Not only did she talk to him as if he was no one and would never be someone, but now she also brings her geeky projects into the lair of his house? “Dittany only grows in complete darkness. We don’t have such rooms in our tower.” “Why do you need Dittany?” “To heal the wounds you inflicted on Harry.” Hermione spoke calmly, without turning around, continuing to loosen the soil with a small hoe in a silly pot. She spoke as if he was just a fly. Not even an annoying mosquito — attention is paid to it — but a fly which is just… there. “Do you even know what Harry did to me?” Draco angrily pulled the shirt, and the buttons unbuttoned with a crisp sound. His whole white chest was covered in purple bruises. Hermione gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. These wounds were nothing compared to the feeling Draco had when Lady Aesthetica between the two of them rushed to Potter, who spat blood on the grass. How she took his fucking face in her little hands with nails covered in peach-colored nail polish. Draco wanted to cough up his lungs. What was Astoria doing at that moment? Watching Blaise’s pirouettes, whispering something in Pansy’s ear, who had been high since morning. He hastily buttoned up his shirt, feeling, despite the achieved effect, somehow miserable, like a child who is angry at a bench for hitting his knee. “Happy gardening,” he turned and left, returning to the previously planned route. Fresh air was now needed more than ever, because her gaze on his torso seemed to have caused a couple more large bruises. “Wait!” Hermione shouted after him, “I’ll leave you a some bottles here when I’m done!” He didn’t turn around. Maybe he didn’t even hear. *** Harry dismounted from his broom, rage playing on his face. Draco had just completed a victory lap over the applauding Slytherins, the golden snitch fluttered nervously in his hand. Potter, with wide steps, headed towards the edge to quickly hide in the locker room and let his emotions loose. Hermione and Ron, with sour faces and Gryffindor scarves, were already running towards the center of the field to meet him. “Harry, you did everything you could,” the breathless girl tried to encourage him. Her heart ached. Losing in such an important match was unacceptable, but most of all, she worried about her friend, who, of course, took the blame for the failure solely on himself. “I know,” he snapped, almost passing by, “I did more than I could.” Draco landed nearby, approaching from behind and poking Potter in the side. “Hurts without glory, doesn’t it, Potter?” His feet silently hit the grass. “You were worth only for Quidditch, and that flew from under your nose,” Malfoy waved the snitch right in front of the round glasses of the Chosen One. “Maybe you need to go to the hospital wing, Harry?” Hermione ignored the usual mini-parade of self-satisfaction; she and Ron continued to follow Potter at a trot. In the fury of defeat, he had seriously picked up the pace. “Get off the field, only players can be here,” Harry snatched the towel from her hands. “What?” Hermione was dumbfounded, and everyone stopped unexpectedly. Even Malfoy. “It seems Potter told you to get out of his sight, Hermione,” lips smoothly stretched into a smile, but his eyes darkened, as if somewhere deep in the eyeballs, lightning struck. The knuckles of the hand holding the broom tightened, reaching the color of the snow. “Hermione,” Ron put his hands on the girl’s shoulders, “Harry is right. You need to leave,” he whispered in her ear. “But you’re not a player either, Ron!” she protested. “But I’m a player’s brother,” Weasley raised his hand, pointing to Fred and George, who were still hotly discussing something in the air. “Hermione, please. You’re really useless right now,” Harry took off his mask and threw it on the grass. Well, that’s it. Draco looked at the equipment and unexpectedly fiercely stomped his heavy-booted foot on the frame, causing it to crunch and fall into several pieces and triangular shards. Everyone jumped in surprise. “As I said, you only need her when she’s useful, Potter,” Draco wrinkled his nose in disgust, “Because you are nothing alone. If Granger, although she’s hopeless on a broom, flew with you on the field, Gryffindor would probably have won today. But you’re a zero.” “Shut your mouth, Malfoy!” Harry moved forward, but Ron hastily held his shoulders. Draco looked at the Seeker’s hands, still holding the clean towel. Fucking hell. She brought him a towel. To this scum. “Granger, you better leave the field, it won’t be pretty now,” Draco cracked his fingers, and Hermione took a few steps back. Potter and Ron stared at her questioningly. “Where are you going?” Potter was surprised, “Don’t tell me what to do, you Slytherin wanker!” Harry spat out. “She can make decisions without your patronage, you stinking jerk.” She even came to my imaginary birthday without your permission. On her own. Harry stepped forward, and before Hermione’s eyes, a red-green brawl unfolded. Ordinary, Muggle-type, familiar to her, because the players didn’t have wands on the field. Potter and Malfoy pounded each other for a good five minutes under her screams, until Madam Pomfrey and some spectators from the stands who sensed something was wrong finally approached. “Apologize,” Draco growled half-whispered into Harry’s ear, settling on top of him, bending his head to the grass. “I’d rather die than apologize to you,” the disheveled Potter growled in response. Apologize to her, you idiot. The knee strike knocked Malfoy off Harry’s chest. Ron and Hermione stood frozen as if turned to stone, while he rolled about a meter away from the impact. Rising from the grass, Draco saw, or perhaps it fancifully occurred to him, how Hermione had shrugged off the hand of the redhead that had momentarily rested on her shoulder. But a moment later, when the enraged Madam Hooch was very close, the girl rushed towards Potter, wiping the blood from his face with that same towel. “Oh, Merlin, make way, everyone! Potter, to the hospital wing! Weasley, escort the boy!” Hooch wailed. Malfoy, standing two meters away from the receding crowd, sneered. The boy. Well, lead your sweet favorite boy, and I’ll go to my house on my own, as befits a man. He turned to the girl, who, it seemed, had been forgotten in the commotion. Ah well, of course. She’s useless now. On the swiftly emptying field, the procession was getting smaller. Ron never turned to check if Hermione was following them. “Excellent choice, Granger. Bravo,” Draco theatrically applauded the invisible audience. “And where are your friends, Prince of Slytherin?” Oh, that familiar tone. It hit her right in the heart. Shit. She hit the sore spot again. More precisely, she created it. Created too much all at once. All sorts of spots. But Granger, disappointedly gazing into the distance, hurt beneath his Quidditch robes. “How about you, are you okay?” Draco was still incredibly contrasting, in his emerald green cloak with a crimson trail of blood flowing from his lips. Everyone heard something else today. Not what Hermione’s membranes registered. Mandrake madness, why, for what reason she had to wake up two years ago, on the fifth year, on the twenty-sixth of September, realizing that the blond piece of ice doesn’t leave her head. And the air around her cheeks started to instantly warm up when he entered the class with his entourage, distorting the faces of her friends in disgust. She had been treating it and has been cured, but like a chronic cough, the desire to believe that he meant something else than what the ears heard never leaves. Always something in her favor. And sometimes it took all Hermionie’s strength to recognize in the careless “get out of the way, Granger” the sweetened “I noticed you today, Granger.” It hurt, as it always does when the healing process is underway. It hurt so much that for the first six months with Ron, she still tried not to look at the Slytherin when entering rooms. But then it became irrelevant: Harry’s life was in danger, and Ron held her in his arms when everything was falling apart. And that’s why she loved him. She owed him. Are you okay? The tired over the years, seemingly even dead habit of searching for hidden meanings twitched deep inside her soul. This was the most real, pure, sincere question. A question from Malfoy, who crushed her last attempt to believe him in the eyes of her friends. And there was also a ringing in her head: he didn’t just pick on Harry; he stood up for you. And now this voice, like a worm revived after frost, began to nibble at the glossy apple of her happiness with Weasley. From those dismal times for Hermione Draco stretched out fifteen centimeters from the top of her head. Here on the field, after the fight, he smelled like fire of victory and the cold of loneliness. Another form, new content. She wanted to put his head on her shoulder and say, “You did great, you deserved this victory.” If only Hermione knew that if she’d really do that, he wouldn’t have had enough strength not to hug her. But Hermione couldn’t be enough for everyone. She had Harry, whose chance of reaching eighteen dwindled every year; she had Ron, whose education hung by a thread. She just couldn’t think about Draco now. Sorry, I’m too broken to let you in again. My July scars are still fresh. And the debt. An impossible stupid heavy debt measured in Galleons.