Harry
Finally, Harry can beath again. He’s so pleased to be back at Hogwarts, seeing Ron and Hermione again, listening to their bickers and giggling at whatever is said. For the first time in forever, Harry allows himself to appreciate his youth or whatever is left of it. Umbridge, however, was the least of what he wanted to see. The toad sat next to his professors, and Harry could practically hear her glee at whatever old-school hell she planned for them this semester. He could hear all the commotion in the room, fresh gossip and rumours, new haircuts and whatnot, and he welcomed every last second of it, relishing the childlike feeling while Ron nudged at his side and told him some foolish joke at which he laughed, merely because its Ron who said it, Hermione rolled her eyes at him and told them both off, saying that its none of their business, and its immature to talk of such subjects.
What?
“Can you say it again, I think I missed that last one,” he asked, wondering what exactly got Hermione so riled up.
“Sure, mate,” Ron said as he held his shoulder, “you think the ferret, you know, is the one to take it? I can bet five galleons on that!” He said with a smug.
“Takes it?” He questioned further, even more confused by the conversation.
“You know, up the arse, since he’s bent,” he explained mid-chewing, hands now greasy from the chicken.
“Ron!” Cried Hermione before hitting him with her book, saying that it was appalling to think of that and even more disgusting to see him talk mouthful.
Harry, however, focused on the other part, “he’s gay?”
This time it was their turn to look at him speechless, Hermione breaking the silence while Ron huffed in amusement.
“Harry, not to sound narrow-minded, but Malfoy is too delicate,” she said, “and, plus, he’s rather open about it, too. I’m surprised you haven’t caught onto that with how much staring and stalking you do of him.”
“What! I never do that!” He protested. He doesn’t do that. Does he?
The redhead in front of him looked as if he held a toad in his mouth before choosing to join in.
“Mate, you know I love you, but you most certainly do follow him like a mother hen. It’s concerning. And creepy,” Ron added before he and Hermione switched topics again. Harry decided not to divulge further into this discussion, too, and looked around, noting that the previously said boy was skipping the ceremony, his spot between Parkinson and Zabini shining with his absence, and them giving each other uneasy looks, with Nott coming behind them, looking just as dishevelled as he whispered something to both of them. Harry is sure that Malfoy is to no good.
Before he could think further about that, Dumbledore greeted the students, welcoming them back from the winter break and presenting some new changes that would take place. As he voiced some news, there flew a barely corporal swan through the window, bolting around, and any grace was gone in a flash. Snape quickly got on his feet with recognition in his eyes, rushing to Dumbledore’s side who seemed as stunned as all the others before recollecting his stance. At that moment, Snape was more tense than he had ever seen him before. Now that Harry thinks about it, even when Professor Lupin morphed into his wild form in front of them back in their third year, Snape looked more composed facing a werewolf than this swan.
Everything was so fast. One moment, Harry laughed with Ron and Hermione, and the next, the room descended into madness. The swan, made of bleak tints and strokes, began to shriek with horror, forcing others into stillness and wincing at the volume.
“THE WARDS! TAKE THEM OFF!” This sudden cry drove all the professors to leap forward. Even Umbrige looked concerned, telling everyone to stay in their places - no one to move.
“This is Narcissa, Malfoy, oh Merlin,” the voice projected through the swan Patronus. This time, Harry darted his gaze onto the Slytherin table and saw the students all equally horrified at the mention of the name. Pansy and Blaize were primarily affected, holding each other in support.
Snape was the first to advise Dumbledore to oblige. To take the wards off momentarily, begging him almost. That only further agitated Harry because how does simply seeing a patronus from the Malfoys, of all people, made Snape hold a considerably more human response than when Harry and his friends almost faced death?
Ron nudged at him, saying that this didn’t look good, and Hermione plastered to the scene enamoured by the eccentricities of magic but petrified of what she was witnessing.
“Please! PLEASE! MY SON! MY DRACO!” The screaming continued.
Dumbledore looked around, and with every professor eagerly nodding, he moved his hands, and his wand began illuminating an unfamiliar glow.
“What is he doing,” Harry whispered to Hermione, his voice sharp and down, the situation seemingly more dire by the second. The mention of Draco just made it all more ominous. The hall plunged into whispers and speculations, but no one dared to say a word loudly enough to reach the adults. There were gasps and whines heard from the Slytherin table, and Harry’s blood went cold.
“I think he took the wards down,” she explained with stiffness, her hands covering her quivering lips now, “oh, Harry, this must be bad.”
In the background, you could still hear Narcissa’s pleas before her Patronus faded, leaving everyone present in disarray.
The second Dumbledore’s wand went down, the light projected from the middle of the stage, and there now stood Narcissa on her knees, wailing, begging for them to close the wards now. Dumbledore did it that same instant. Her cries continued with sheer horror, her rasping voice haunting the halls of the school, with no one to console her in the vicinity.
“Oh, God, is that-” Hermione commenced before shutting her mouth with her hands and her eyes full of anguish at the scene.
In Narcissa’s arms, there lay Draco. It was Draco. He lies motionless and bloodied, every inch of him covered in something. Harry saw no skin but blood.
The scene was surreal. Harry had the pleasure of meeting Lucius Malfoy before, and he was amazed by how alike Draco and his father were; the hair, the height, and the sneer he always proudly wore like his personal crown. Harry assumed that Draco took nothing from the mother. He did wonder what Mrs Malfoy would look like. He imagined her tall, lanky, blonde, and with indifference palpable through miles. However, this woman before him was nothing as he imagined - she looked like a proper Malfoy, yes - but she was wild. Her hair resembled that of Sirius, and as rough as her voice had been due to the screaming, it still was soft to his ears. Her eyes were much bluer than Draco’s, whose eyes were grey and silver, but the shape and life in them belonged to Mrs Malfoy. Harry realised that despite being Lucius’ junior in looks, the energetical and magical fields that Draco maintained resembled his mom’s.
“Help him! My Draco! My son, HELP HIM!” That is all Narcissa could cry, like a broken record player, wailing the same things on repeat. She continued to hysterically cry as Snape seized Draco out of her arms and rushed him out. To the infirmary, Harry guessed.
McGonagall now approached the woman, propping her from the floor as she, too, was covered in blood, but her knees were feeble, and she sank back onto the ground, gracefully lying on her knees like a broken marionette.
“No, no, this is Draco’s, this is his, this is all his,” she said before heavily heaving and slowly leaning onto the older woman to seek any reassurance she may. Dumbledore got on his knees now, next to her. He reached to touch her shoulder but got interpreted by a thud - the hall doors flew open as Snape strode in. He, too, now was coated with blood. His clothes were black but wet, and dripping.
Harry never felt so out of place, so disorientated. Not even with Cedric. This was foreign - to see the pain and yet to not experience it. In his opinion, this was worse. Be it his damned hero complex, as Hermione had indicted him of, or the intrepidity of a Gryffindor - he rathered to be the one on the receiving end. Witnessing it was not enough anymore to comprehend the gravity of the situation for Harry. He had to bleed, too.
Any youthful hopes for this semester came to a culmination the moment Narcissa Malfoy apparated into Hogwarts, destroying a part of his heart once more, as he knew that the throbbing of the heart that he felt was not for Malfoy, of course not. It is because he realised that even the vicious and the cruel are not safe anymore. If someone like Malfoy is on the brink of death for whatever futile objective he did not fulfil, Harry surely is doomed.
The tugging at his heart only got worse as Hermione held his hand, and Ron held him by his shoulder, all three of them seeking familiarity in each other.
Dumbledore resumed once the commotion had gradually settled down, “Mrs Malfoy, please..” he didn’t finish as he got interrupted, once again, by the woman herself.
“He said no,” she stated as she sat still on the floor, not an ounce of her had any motion or life in it, “he told him no, he refused.”
“Who?”
“Draco. He said no.” That didn’t answer anything, and only raised more questions, but the professor was patient with her, urging her to continue.
That she did. “Voldemort is back. He’s at the manor.”
That was enough for everyone to jump, enough to compel everyone to shriek. Dumbledore raised his wand to his throat and spelt his voice to ring at the highest pitch, instructing everyone to calm down.
Snape spoke first, addressing the Slytherins only.
“Go. Write to your parents. Demand they close the floos and ward the houses. This. Instant,” and as no one moved, he did not restrain his temper - the first time to Harry’s knowledge - which only alarmed everyone further, “Go!” He snarled, and the entire table fled. Other tables shuddered at his tone.
Harry caught some Slytherins stumbling over their own feet, but what he was searching for were Malfoy’s friends. As much of a git that Malfoy was, he did not deserve to die, to bleed out right there for everyone to witness, and as he scanned Zabini and Parkinson’s faces, in addition to Nott’s, he couldn’t help but think if Hermione and Ron hold the same expressions whenever something happens to Harry himself. Crabbe and Goyle seemed to be the only ones hesitant to leave, and Harry was surprised to see an infuriated Parkinson and Nott almost dragging them out, semi-shouting from the looks, but the room was too loud for Harry to catch any of that. Zabini did not wait - he was the first from their grade to rush out.
He turned his head back to the main ordeal, seeing as now Mrs Malfoy was able to stand but supported and gripped onto Snape, who did not seem to mind. Dumbledore spoke once again, addressing everyone,
“Your respective house prefects will lead you to your dorms, where you shall stay until told otherwise,” he said as he exhorted the rest of the houses to stand up and get ready to head out, “for today, classes are cancelled.”
The last thing he saw before being pushed into the hallway was Umbrige’s face, a colossal defeat, and he was sure that he would not be seeing her again.
In the Gryffindor chambers, he heard people speculate on what had happened, still frightened and unsure how to proceed further.
“Harry!” Seasus called out, rushing up to his side with Dean strolling right behind him, “Listen, I’m sorry for not believing you before, I just went along with everything everyone was saying,” he explained as he reached to his nape with his hand over his head, “but that…,” he gestured to the way of the dining hall, “…that was enough.”
He nodded and thanked the guys, and God bless Ron because he grabbed Harry by his arm and dragged him away, mumbling something to Hermione who still appeared to tremble. Ron pushed him onto the stairs, telling him to sit as other places were occupied, while he leaned on the wall with his side, Hermione standing by them and hugging her books on her chest, not knowing what to do with them.
“What is going to happen now?” he asked.
“You should write to Sirius,” said Hermione.
They dwelled in silence before Hermione asked Ron if he was okay, seeing as he was uncharacteristically quiet.
“Merlin’s beard,” he ruffled his hair as he spoke, “Malfoys retracted, didn’t they? This is why Snape ordered the Slytherins around.” Both Harry and Hermione shared a peek at each other and looked at Ron to continue, not seeing the relevance between those things. Harry thinks that, yes, while the Slytherins might be more related to the dark cause, it does not explain why only they were ordered to warn the others.
Ron did not understand their silence, “why are you looking at me, is there something on my face? It’s the chicken, isn’t it?”
“Ronald, just continue!” Hermione snapped as she pretend-slapped his arm.
“Ugh,” he did not know where to start, “well, Malfoys are huge blood purists, and as much as I hate to say it about them - they know how to keep good relations with other ‘proper’ families. Take Parkinson and Zabini for example. If the Malfoys escaped, and their whereabouts are unknown, the Death Eaters will most likely start interrogation within the circles, and you know, ethics aren’t really their thing,” and for Harry to hear that was odd. The whole pureblood society was, frankly, weird.
“Do you mean they are just… friends?” Harry interjected because this was getting ridiculous.
“Harry, purebloods don’t do friends, and when they do it’s used against them.”
“What Ron is trying to say,” Hermione supposed, “is that if what Mrs Malfoy said is true, and Draco rejected their beliefs and they fled due to the repercussions, seeing how Hogwarts is historically warded, the Death Eaters most likely will assume that they fled to their allies - other Slytherins. And seeing… Draco’s state,” She had to collect herself after that,“…they most likely would not hesitate before using brute violence against others too. They were the only ones ordered to warn their families because they were the only ones at risk.”