Chapter 2
Amidst the cacophony of battle, two figures stand frozen in their silence.
A battle. Two forces collide with the white hot intensity of indignation. Walls crumble and glass shatters as those who feel right do wrong. The dark and the light eclipse and envelope; both armies filled with those who have failed to grow up, some through choice, some through tragedy.
A battle and two figures. Not strangers, in this life or any other, by circumstance or design. A woman who bowed her head to Fate in understanding, ready to face the challenge that they posed. A man who, in his attempts to outrun Fate, sadly stumbled into their open arms. Two figures, not strangers, though this would be easier had they been. They stand, arms outstretched in a hauntingly familiar way, their weapons reaching as extensions of themselves, or as extensions of each other.
A battle, two figures, their silence. And it is theirs, isn’t it? Hadn't they earned this? Paid for it in spilt blood? Their silence that once shrouded them in a comfortable safe haven. Their silence, pulled taught and strummed by the beating of their hearts, may it hold them there just once more. May the world grant them this kindness, may Fate allow them this chance.
“Draco,” the woman breathes this truth to life, her shaking breath rippling the silence between them.
“Hermione,” the man responds, her name both familiar and foreign on his lips, “How did we get here?”
——
Year Three
Draco had no idea what had gotten into him, at least, that’s what he planned to say if he got caught. If he got caught– which surely, he would not– he felt confident he could spin a tale on the fly, something about their git professor leaving the lock undone and the creature getting out on its own. Maybe Draco could come across as a hero: the helpless third year who was ambushed, but who bravely and swiftly saved the sleeping castle. Maybe he could get some house points out of it. That sort of thing always seemed to work for Potter, anyway.
He slinked through the castle, sticking close to the shadows and nooks of the wall. Thankfully, he was no stranger to being invisible in ancient buildings. This creeping through the brick and stone felt oddly familiar, like summers spent at home in the manor. The portraits all slept soundly in their frames, and he took extra care not to brush against them in a way that could be startling. Yes, this was incredibly familiar to him.
He finally reached his destination as the moon hit its peak in the sky, illuminating the castle corridors. The classroom door had felt foreboding when Draco approached it for the first time three years ago, but looking at it now he had to fight back a scoff. Defense Against the Dark Arts. What a joke.
Draco didn’t relish in this task, but he couldn’t let another day go by without setting the universe in order. It wasn’t fair that everyone else got to defeat the boggart, got to conquer their greatest fear, and Draco didn’t have the opportunity. And why? Because Potter is an expert at ruining the fun? It was a great injustice of the world that a ponce like Neville Longbottom got to humiliate Professor Snape in front of the entire class but Draco didn’t have the same chance.
His hand was forced, here, really.
And would it be Snape that came out of the cabinet? This question had been nagging at the back of Draco’s mind since he stepped out of the classroom that day: what exactly was his greatest fear? There was a moment he thought it might be Snape, but that theory dissolved rather quickly. Draco was intimidated by the man, same as any other child in the castle, but Snape posed no threat to him; and, if Draco was being honest, compared to what he was used to with Lucius, the Professor was actually rather dull.
Lucius was another hypothesis, though Draco couldn’t put a finger on what would be particularly fearsome about the man. For the most part, Draco skirted around the edge of his father’s vision, little more than a blur in his peripheral. Same for his mother. They went about their business and Draco went about his. There was nothing particularly hostile about his home life; in fact, most interaction amongst his family quite resembled a business transaction. In the months when he wasn’t here, in the castle, he found that he was mostly just bored.
He tried not to dwell on what would come out of the cabinet. If he faced a boggart in real life, would he have time beforehand to introspect, predict, and plan out the specifics of the altercation? Not bloody likely. So he figured he would use this opportunity as a simulation of sorts, and after defeating the boggart with no advanced visualization and no professor in tow, he’d feel doubly accomplished.
Draco walked up to the door, wand twirling about in his left hand, and looked for any signs of a protection charm. He’d grown quite skilled at noticing the faint glimmer or shimmering lines that indicated the spell work, having run into innumerable amounts of them around Malfoy Manor over the years. Lucius was quite fond of the more creative charms, and after several unfortunate run-ins with his handiwork, Draco began training himself— through trial and error, mainly— in the art of spell breaking. It was for this reason that Draco was rather disappointed to find the room undefended, guarded only by a simple locking mechanism. Any first year with half a wand could break in! Draco rolled his eyes, realizing with annoyance that few men, Professor Lupin apparently among them, were as paranoid as Lucius Malfoy.
With a grumble and a lazy flick of his wrist, Draco unlocked the door and laid his hand against the wood, pushing as the stubborn hardware ground against itself. The door swung open with a loud creeeeeeak and Draco ducked in, pressing his back against the stone immediately inside the room. He waited, holding his breath, and listened as several portraits snorted lightly in their sleep. Draco began rehearsing his apology speech, certain that he would hear footsteps coming down the corridor any moment. His body deflated and he leaned back against the wall when he finally couldn’t hold his breath any longer. So, no one was coming, but he couldn’t risk closing the door and releasing another echo through the halls. He would just have to do this quietly.
He opened his eyes once he realized how tightly he had squeezed them shut. The room was the same as it had been when he left it earlier in the week. The tables were arranged in neat rows with a pair of chairs tucked underneath, inkwells and quills sitting in the top right corner of each space. The room had several large windows along the tops of the walls and slanted ceilings, allowing the moonlight to brighten the space in lue of candles. At the front of the room was several feet of space for professors to pace as they lectured, and a blackboard on which they could write. Draco’s eyes finished their sweep and landed on his target: a large, intricate cabinet covered in mirrors with an ornate door on its face, a large metal lock hanging from a hinge along the seam. Draco pushed off the wall and began his leisure walk down the center aisle toward the boggart's cage.
There were no protective charms on the cabinet, either, much to Draco’s dismay. Was everyone in the castle truly that stupid, or was Lupin just disastrously trusting? He glanced once more back at the open door at the front of the classroom and made a silent plea that his greatest fear would cooperate. Once the lock was opened, Draco left it hanging in place as he took several steps back, levelling his wand. He waited for his hand to steady and took a deep breath, steeling himself for whatever was to come out of that cabinet.
Several images flashed behind Draco’s eyes in that second while he levitated the lock from its hinge. A giant snake whispered about in the common room, a two-headed clown from a carnival he attended as a child, a man leaving his father’s study and grinning at him with wild eyes. All moments from his life where he felt true fear, but which was the greatest? What would come out of the cabinet?
He ground his teeth and shifted his wrist, dropping the lock to the side of the cabinet. Draco heard it clatter to the ground, but his eyes remained glued to the cabinet door as it slowly swung open.
A black leather boot emerged from the bottom of the cabinet, followed by a long leg clad in black trousers. Robes flowed down and behind the body of the figure as it stepped down onto the classroom floor, eyes immediately locked onto Draco’s. Draco stared at the man before him and for a second believed it had been Lucius that the Boggart found within the recesses of his mind. The man before him bore a resemblance to his father, but where Lucius’ hair was stick-straight and fell to his chest, this man’s white-blond strands had a slight curl and ended just below the nape of his neck. When Draco’s eyes finally landed on the man’s face, he stumbled half a step backwards in surprise. The man was glaring at Draco, his familiar grey eyes nearly closed with the intensity of his gaze, and Draco saw pure hatred within them. The man grinned at Draco’s misstep and raised his left arm, wand extended towards Draco’s chest.
As the man’s arm raised, Draco couldn’t help the gasp that escaped his lips. The robe sleeves along the man’s arms were bunched up at his elbow, exposing his pale skin to the light of the room. As he raised his wand, Draco’s eyes were drawn to a slight movement along his forearm and the dark tattoo that sat there. The tattoo he had seen on his own father’s arm, and so many others’ whom his father had invited into their home. Where their tattoos were faded and dull, the ink in front of him was pure black, bright and alive with dark magic. He felt his wand shaking in his hand as his chest tightened. He caught the figure grinning out of the corner of his eyes. He couldn’t move as the man drew back and prepared to cast what would surely be the last spell that Draco ever witnessed.
“Riddikulus.”
Twin clouds exploded from both ends of the man’s wand, covering both Draco and himself in bright pink and purple… what was it? Shimmering dust? Draco turned his head to shield his eyes with his hand, wiping frantically at his face. Had he said the spell, afterall? Could he have conjured something he wasn’t even familiar with? He was still trying to clear his eyelashes– Gods, whatever this dust was, it stuck everywhere– when he heard a thud followed by the unmistakable sound of the cabinet door closing. Ah, so he hadn’t said the spell. Someone else had. Someone that was surely going to expel him now that he, regrettably, had not saved the entire castle from a rogue monster.
When he was confident he could open his eyes safely, he sighed and turned back to the cabinet, expecting to see a very cross professor looking back at him. That was not, however, what he found standing between him and the Boggart. Instead, he found a girl in a muggle jumper about a head shorter than he was, with curls hanging haphazardly around her shoulders. She stood with her back to him, replacing the lock on the front of the cabinet. He caught her expression in the mirrored surface and narrowed his eyes to match hers.
“Granger?” He sneered, “How did you get here?”