Into the Snake Den
Chapter 14: Into the Snake Den
Draco drew his shoulders back, straightening his posture to that of his pureblooded forefathers and sauntered out to the common room. He found Crabbe slouched on the sofa with Astoria fawning over him with shining doe-like eyes, their books strewn on the coffee table in front of them. A few second and third year students were studying in the corner, keenly avoiding eye contact with Vince—and now Draco as well.
“Vince,” he addressed his stout peer with practiced indifference.
Crabbe straightened at his voice, “Draco!”
Astoria watched him carefully as he sat down regally in the large black leather armchair. “Come to tell me off? Well you can forget it, my sister has already tried,” she huffed in annoyance.
Draco chuckled darkly, “No, Tori, you’re a big girl. I came to catch up with my friend. You’ve been stealing him away, you know.”
She blushed, shifting her feet out from under her so she sat properly again, and he arched a brow at the strange power he felt pulsing in his chest.
“So,” Draco pushed, “what have you been up to, Crabbe? Aside from attempting to deflower a young maiden.” His lips twisted into an oily sort of smile, and he winked at Astoria who had gasped in shock.
“He has done no such thing!” She stood, affronted. “Vincent, I must bid you goodnight!” Astoria stomped off in the direction of the girls’ dormitory, her auburn hair bouncing with each step of righteous indignation.
“Marcus says the prim and proper ones taste the best,” Crabbe grinned deviously as he watched his fiancée storm off.
“Been talking with Flint a lot, then?” Draco feigned disinterest, examining his cuticles.
“Yeah,” Crabbe said gruffly, “he’s brilliant! You really should write him, Drake, he asks about you, ya know?”
“He asks about me?” Draco attempted to hide his shock. “Why?”
“Ah, just makin’ sure you’re keepin’ up on Quidditch and all that. He says he’ll keep an eye out for you at the next…meeting…at your place over the hols.” Crabbe whispered, looking around to make sure the younger students weren’t paying too much attention to them.
“Oh, yeah, I’ll see him at the next…meeting, I suppose,” Draco hesitantly committed, and Vince’s eyes lit up.
“You’ve changed your tune about the mudblood then?” Crabbe watched him closely.
It took every fiber of his being to not haul off and sock the boy straight in the mouth. It also proved incredibly difficult to not cringe at the slur as it rolled so easily off Crabbe’s tongue as if he were commenting on the weather.
“Oh, Vincent, sweet sweet Vincent. It was all an act, couldn’t you see? The rest of them aren’t dedicated like we are, and the tide hasn’t yet turned in our favor. I’ve just been…holding my cards close to my chest.” The devious smirk that stretched over both their faces had Draco’s insides crawling with thousands of tiny insects—biting and pinching and stinging their way through every ounce of flesh.
Vince leaned over and clasped his shoulder, “I knew it! I knew you’d never actually gone soft!”
His exclamation drew the eyes of some of the other students still dawdling in the common room, and Draco arched a warning brow at his ‘friend’. Crabbe nodded obediently, and Draco knew he’d won the other boy over. It was almost too easy, but as long as his tongue hadn’t been wagging too much in his letters to Flint, Draco just might pull this off.
The two boys finally retired to their dormitory for the night, and silently joined their roommates in sleep.
…
The following days found them continuously kept busy in the classes. In Herbology, they were supposed to be simply repotting Bouncing Bulbs, however, one of the Bouncing Bulbs wriggled free from Theo’s grip and smacked him hard in the face before turning its ire on Draco. Pansy and a few Ravenclaws laughed rather rudely, and both boys had rather heated cheeks until Greg and Vince repeated the feat of stupidity.
Care of Magical Creatures meant seeing the Gryffindors, which was the first time Draco would come face-to-face with Potter since he was announced as a Tournament champion. Predictably, Draco made sure he arrived at Hagrid’s cabin with his signature familiar sneer firmly in place. He would need to antagonize the Gryffindors a bit more if he was going to dig his way deeper into Crabbe and Flint’s little fanclub.
“Ah, look, boys, it’s the champion,” he said to Crabbe and Greg the moment he got within earshot of Harry. “Got your autograph books? Better get a signature now, because I doubt he’s going to be around much longer…Half the Triwizard champions have died…how long d’you reckon you’re going to last, Potter? Ten minutes into the first task’s my bet.”
Crabbe guffawed sycophantically, and Greg laughed nervously, but Malfoy had to stop there when Hagrid emerged from the back of his cabin balancing a teetering tower of crates, each containing a very large Blast-Ended Skrewt. To the class’s abject horror, the half-giant then explained that the reason the beasts had been killing one another was an excess of pent-up energy, and that the solution would be for each student to fix a leash on one of the skrewts and take it for a short walk.
“Take this thing for a walk?” Draco repeated in disgust, staring into one of the boxes. “And where exactly are we supposed to fix the leash? Around the sting, the blasting end, or the sucker?”
“Roun’ the middle,” said Hagrid, demonstrating. “Er — yeh might want ter put on yer dragon-hide gloves, jus’ as an extra precaution, like. Harry — you come here an’ help me with this big one…”
The class scattered around the grounds with great difficulty. The skrewts were nearly over three feet long, and extremely strong. No longer shell-less and colorless, they had developed a kind of thick, grayish, shiny armor. They looked like a cross between giant scorpions and elongated crabs — but still without recognizable heads or eyes. They had become very hard to control.
Every now and then, with an alarming bang, one of the skrewts’ ends would explode, causing it to shoot forward several yards, and more than one person was being dragged along on their stomach, trying desperately to get back on their feet. Pansy yelped as she was flung to the grass before she released her hold on the leash and stomped back up to the castle, leaving Theo and Blaise to wrangle an extra skrewt. Eventually, Hagrid came around to help, and the three hauled the monsters back to where they’d come from.
Some of the classes were rather ordinary when they didn’t have to share them with Potter, but Draco had to take care to spend extra time next to Crabbe, and avoid speaking with Theo and Blaise too much. Blaise knew what he was up to, but Theo certainly didn’t, and being the more emotionally aware of the three, Theo was bound to feel left out sooner rather than later.
Charms class was spent practicing their Summoning Charms. Draco, however, spent it on a different sort of Charms project. While Granger was Accio-ing everything in sight, Draco did his summoning practice with a bit more subtlety. Everyone watched as she made board dusters, wastepaper baskets, and lunascopes fly across the room to land in her waiting hands. Draco, on the other hand, collected several pockets worth of those stupid S.P.E.W buttons she had hidden in her bag, taking them out one-by-one to adjust the design and wording on them. Only Crabbe noticed, as he watched the modifications with glee. It was good to know he could at least be successful in winning over someone .
Double Potions was always a relaxing experience–getting to practice potions, which Draco thoroughly enjoyed, and listening to Snape attack and berate the Gryffindors for two whole periods. It was glorious. Snape seemed particularly determined to punish Harry as much as possible for daring to become school champion. He could see Granger sitting next to Potter intoning “ignore them, ignore them, ignore them” . It was lovely to enjoy a few short hours each week in which the golden Prince of Gryffindor was treated like anyone else, and just how miserable it made him to find out he truly wasn’t so special.
At least this year, so far, the rest of the school had decided he wasn’t so special either. Just a lucky, opportunistic bastard.
When he arrived in the dungeons after lunch, Draco distributed his newly charmed badges to the Slytherins waiting around for class to start. Eager to join in the torment without fear of punishment, they all took one, pinning it proudly to the front of their robes. Potter’s face turned pink when he saw that they all bore the same message, in luminous red letters that burnt brightly in the dimly lit underground passage:
SUPPORT CEDRIC DIGGORY–
THE REAL HOGWARTS CHAMPION!
“Like them, Potter?” said Draco loudly as Harry approached. “And this isn’t all they do — look!”
He pressed his badge into his chest, and the message upon it vanished, to be replaced by another one, which glowed green: POTTER STINKS
The Slytherins howled with laughter. Each of them pressed their badges too, until the message POTTER STINKS was shining brightly all around Harry. He felt the heat rise in his face and neck.
“Oh very funny,” Granger said sarcastically to Pansy and Tracey, who were laughing harder than anyone, “really witty.”
Interesting. Weasley wasn’t saying a word. Usually he would be the first to have his head explode…
“Want one, Granger?” said Malfoy, holding out a badge to Granger. “I’ve got loads. But don’t touch my hand, now. I’ve just washed it, you see; don’t want a Mudblood sliming it up.”
The look on her face was complete and utter hurt.
She had insisted he wasn’t someone she could associate with, well, she had always been someone he was forbidden to befriend, but he’d done it anyway. Sure their relationship of sorts had been hidden by both parties, but at least Draco’s friends knew. She hadn’t told a soul. Then she turned around and metaphorically slapped him in the face, right when he was trying to be a better person for her !
Potter reached for his wand and people all around them scrambled out of the way, backing down the corridor. Draco instinctively moved his hand to the hilt of his own.
“Harry!” Granger warned.
“Go on, then, Potter,” he said quietly, drawing out his own wand. “Moody’s not here to look after you now — do it, if you’ve got the guts —”
For a split second, grey and green clashed–both holding an enormous chip on their shoulders, but for very different reasons… Then, in tandem, they both shouted:
“Furnunculus! ” Potter yelled.
“ Densaugeo! ” screamed Draco.
Jets of light shot from both wands, hit each other in midair, and ricocheted off at angles — Potter’s hit Greg in the face, and Draco’s hit Granger. Greg bellowed and put his hands to his nose, where great ugly boils were springing up — Granger, whimpering in panic, was clutching her mouth.
“Hermione!”
The Weasel had finally come forward to see what was wrong with her, and they all watched as he dragged Granger’s hand away from her face. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Her front teeth — already larger than average — were now growing at an alarming rate; she was looking more and more like a beaver as her teeth elongated, past her bottom lip, toward her chin — panic-stricken, she felt them and let out a terrified cry.
“And what is all this noise about?” said a soft, deadly voice.
Snape had arrived. The Slytherins clamored to give their explanations; Snape pointed a long yellow finger at Draco and said, “Explain.”
“Potter attacked me, sir —”
“We attacked each other at the same time!” the boy in question shouted.
“— and he hit Goyle — look —”
Snape examined Greg, whose face now resembled something that would have been at home in a book on poisonous fungi.
“Hospital wing, Goyle,” Snape said calmly.
“Malfoy got Hermione!” Ron said. “Look!”
He forced Granger to show Snape her teeth — she was doing her best to hide them with her hands, though this was difficult as they had now grown down past her collar. Pansy, Tracey, Daphne, and Millie were doubled up with silent giggles, pointing at her from behind Snape’s back.
Snape looked coldly at the afflicted girl and said, “I see no difference.”
She let out a whimper, and her eyes filled with tears as she turned on her heel and ran all the way up the corridor and out of sight.
Draco’s chest seized. He hadn’t meant to hit her at all! It was meant for Potter, or maybe even an unsuspecting Weasley, if he were being honest, but never her! She’ll never forgive him for this…
Both Scarhead and Weaselbee started shouting at Snape at the same time, lucky that their voices echoed so much in the stone corridor that it was impossible for the Potions Professor to hear exactly what they were calling him, but he got the gist anyway.
“Let’s see,” he said, in his silkiest voice. “Fifty points from Gryffindor and a detention each for Potter and Weasley. Now get inside, or it’ll be a week’s worth of detentions.”
The two gits stormed into the classroom, but Weasley re-joined his place beside Finnegan and Thomas, while Potter sat all alone at his table. On the other side of the dungeon, just to rub it in a bit more, Draco turned his back on Snape and pressed his badge, smirking. POTTER STINKS flashed once more across the room.
“Antidotes!” said Snape, looking around at them all, his cold black eyes glittering unpleasantly. “You should all have prepared your recipes now. I want you to brew them carefully, and then, we will be selecting someone on whom to test one…”
Snape’s eyes landed on Potter, and Draco grinned widely, knowing what was coming. Snape was going to poison the tosser.
And then a knock on the dungeon door interrupted his antagonistic mood.
It was that annoying, mousy Gryffindor that had followed them all around with a camera for weeks. The boy, beaming at Harry, walked up to Snape’s desk at the front of the room.
“Yes?” said Snape curtly.
“Please, sir, I’m supposed to take Harry Potter upstairs.” Snape stared down his hooked nose at him, whose smile faded from his eager face.
“Potter has another hour of Potions to complete,” said Snape coldly. “He will come upstairs when this class is finished.”
The boy went pink.
“Sir — sir, Mr. Bagman wants him,” he said nervously. “All the champions have got to go, I think they want to take photographs. . . .”
“Very well, very well,” Snape snapped. “Potter, leave your things here, I want you back down here later to test your antidote.”
“Please, sir — he’s got to take his things with him,” squeaked the boy. “All the champions —”
“Very well !” said Snape. “Potter — take your bag and get out of my sight!”
Potter swung his bag over his shoulder, got up, and headed for the door. As he walked through the Slytherin desks, POTTER STINKS flashed at him from every direction, and Draco smirked outwardly at the solidarity. Inside, his heart had fractured a bit more. There was no way to repair what he’d done to Granger, and they both knew it in that moment.
…
“Draco! Draco!” Marietta’s grating voice echoed through the corridor, and he cautiously looked up to see what the incessant witch wanted now, accosting him on his way to dinner.
“Marietta,” he greeted in monotone, noting an older woman next to her adorned in magenta robes and jeweled spectacles.
Ignoring his tone, she bounced excitedly, her curls springing around her face in perfect coils that resembled longer, relaxed versions of the woman next to her. “Draco, this is my Aunt Marietta! Remember, the one I told you about? How I’m named after her? She’s just the absolute best!”
Draco automatically stretched out his arm, offering the heavy-jawed woman his hand as was proper. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance,” he said with a tight smile. He really didn’t want to be meeting the girl’s family, she was certifiable as it were, and how could he be sure they weren’t just as bonkers.
The woman released her thick fingers from her crocodile-skin handbag, taking his proffered hand, and digging her two-inch, crimson talons into his skin as she returned his smile with a smarmy one of her own. “So what are your intentions with my dear, Marietta?”
“My–my intentions?” Draco choked out, the woman still clasping his hand harshly with a surprisingly strong grip. He barely registered that he had counted no less than three gold teeth, and gulped nervously.
Marietta wrapped an arm around his waist, tugging him free of her the witch’s grip. “Auntie! Don’t embarrass me! We haven’t discussed that yet,” she pouted slightly as her eyes watched Draco in their periphery.
“Oh, Mari, you know I’m just looking out for you, dear!” The golden smile was back, and Draco felt unease churn in his gut at the vile woman’s endearment. She was surely just as crazy as her niece, just from the looks of her!
Marietta blushed a little under her aunt’s words. “Draco and I are still so new, and we haven’t gotten to spend much time together since the term started. Oh! Draco, I was meaning to tell you–my Aunt Marietta is going to be reporting on the Triwizard Tournament, so she’ll be on the grounds a lot this year. Isn’t that wonderful! I’ve been missing her so,” the girl prattled on, and Draco internally groaned.
Great. There would be two of them. All year long. Wonderful.
“Reporting?” Draco inquired, catching the word a moment later. His father had made sure they knew all the major press personnel in case any damage control were needed due to his less than sparkling reputation, but he’d never hear about any reporters named Marietta…
“Rita Skeeter, The Daily Prophet ,” the woman smirked proudly. “And you are Draco Malfoy, only son and heir of Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy.”
“Y-yes,” he croaked. He could practically feel the blackmail in her voice.
“Lovely,” she grinned unctuously. “Marietta, what a marvelous match you two make…”
Marietta squealed in delight at her aunt’s apparent acceptance of her delusional dating life. Draco wasn’t sure he’d be able to worm his way out of this one…might as well inform his father right now that he would have to draw up a contract to marry the twit…and then one day, she’d snap…and off him in the middle of the night with an eerie smile on her face that stretched ear to ear…his pure blood dripping from the end of a butcher knife…
That got dark. He most certainly would not be allowing himself to be shackled to Marietta Edgecombe for the rest of his life–hell, not even for the rest of the year! He had to find a way out of this and fast.
“It was a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Skeeter, however, I should be joining my classmates for dinner.” Draco attempted to make his departure, but the long scarlet nails clutched at his sleeve again.
“I’m certain we’ll meet again…soon,” Rita smirked, an awful twinkle dancing in her eyes.
Swallowing hard, Draco turned sharply, pulling his robes from her hands, and walked into the Great Hall without a glance backward.
…
Dinner was a sordid affair. He had been ushered to sit with Crabbe and Astoria who still looked awfully put out by his words from their previous encounter. The conversation at the table was rather stilted as Blaise, Theo, and Greg weren’t entirely sure how to talk to him anymore now that Vince was an ever-present fixture. Even Pansy and Daphne were shooting him nasty glares from further down the table, assuming him to be complacent in Astoria’s grooming with the aspiring future Death Eater.
Which he sort of was for the time being.
Pushing his food around his plate, Draco monitored the Gryffindor table, his grey eyes flickering to the spot she would usually claim every couple of minutes. Finally, realizing she wasn’t coming to dinner, Draco watched Potter quickly eat alone at the end of the long table.
When the food scraps had long disappeared, and their glass of pumpkin juice and cider were drained, the Slytherins slipped back down to the dungeons, Draco trailing behind. Crabbe and Astoria were quite cozy, and the others were suitably distracted by their full and protruding stomachs. He took advantage of their momentary lack of awareness to veer off at the top of the stairs.
A trip to the hospital wing seemed to be in order…though he doubted she’d want to see the likes of him any time soon.
Peeking through the still-open oak doors, Draco scanned the beds for her mop of messy brown curls. Instead, he spotted Greg, still covered in pustules, but they seemed to be receding somewhat. He was dozing in one of the front beds near the door, and Draco did his best not to wake him.
Once spotted, he found that Granger wasn’t in a bed at all. Instead, she was seated near the far back of the infirmary in a chair facing Madam Pomfrey who was holding her wand out delicately.
“Now, Miss Granger, it should only be another few tries to get them back to their normal size. I know it’s frustrating to do this in such small increments, but, as I’m sure you’re aware—with your parents being Muggle teeth healers—the discomfort from moving and changing teeth can be quite painful if done too quickly and too drastically.”
Draco saw her nod her head ever so slightly. Surely, she was crying now as her hands came up to rub at her cheeks.
“There, there, dear,” Madam Pomfrey comforted her with a swift pat on the shoulder. “We’ll do it again in about two hours. Why don’t you take a sip of that red vial over there—a mild pain relief potion. I don’t want you to take too much, mind you, or you won’t be able to feel your lips!”
The matronly woman bustled back through her office door, closing it firmly behind her. Hermione took the cue, and rose from her seat to reach for the pain relief potion.
“Granger,” Draco quietly stepped into the infirmary, not wanting to draw Madam Pomfrey’s attention. “Are you—?”
Granger’s hands flew to her face, covering her mouth and chin as she turned away from him in a flurry. “Malfoy! What do you want? To mock me? To gloat?” she spat venomously.
“It was an accident! I was aiming for Potter!” Draco groaned defensively. “I would never—“
“Just stop it. Everyone has always made fun of my teeth, so of course you’d just make them a bit more pronounced, right?” she growled. “Like Snape said, no difference!”
Her voice had gone up an octave, and Draco wondered how exactly Madam Pomfrey hadn’t come out in a flurry demanding to know why he was harassing her patient.
“Granger, I really am sorry! It was an accident, I swear!” Draco pleaded, longing for her to just see reason for a moment. He had been about to duel Potter, not her!
Granger, still with her back facing him, crossed her arms over her chest. “I think you should go.”
“Fine.” Draco turned away, taking only three steps before stopping again. “I always liked your teeth…just so you know.”
He could’ve sworn he felt her questioning eyes on his back as he continued his exit, but he didn’t dare turn around. She’d been embarrassed enough as it was, and him seeing her in such a vulnerable state would only make things worse. At least this way, she could console herself with the fact that her “enemy” hadn’t been able to get a glimpse of her overgrown incisors, and hadn’t said a word against her.
At least that’s what he told himself.
He shouldn’t have come to see her. He knew she wouldn’t have wanted him to be there, but ever the selfish prick, Draco just had to make sure she was okay and that Madam Pomfrey would be able to reverse his stupid hex. He kicked at the stone floor begrudgingly as his feet carried him away and back to the dungeons.
Luckily, Crabbe was still wrapped up with Astoria somewhere, and he was able to sneak into the boys’ dormitory without trouble.
“Visiting your lady love?” Blaise smirked from his bed, a book propped open on his lap.
Draco rolled his eyes, not deigning to even respond.
“Oh! You went to see Granger?” Theo said cheerily, joining as he toweled off his hair still wet from the shower.
“She’ll be fine, if you must know,” he answered in a clipped tone. Blaise and Theo grinned widely.
“There’s our boy!” Theo put him in a chokehold, scrubbing at Draco’s hair with his free fist.
Blaise flipped his book shut. “Theo’s been worried about the new…company you’ve been keeping.”
Draco sighed. “It’s just until I can figure out what Crabbe and Flint are planning.”
Theo squeezed him tighter before letting him go. “I wish you’d have at least told me! Daph’ll be so happy—“
“Theo—“
“—when she finds out we’re gonna get Astoria—“
“Theo!”
“—out of that ridiculous contract!”
“THEO!”
The lanky brunette finally stopped speaking, looking utterly baffled by the interruption. “ What ?”
“You can’t tell her,” Draco said curtly, shaking his head. “Nobody else can know. You two are already two too many.”
“But I have to tell Daphne,” Theo’s face lacked any comprehension. “She’s been so worried and downright angry! She deserves to know we’re actually doing something to help!” he pleaded.
“You can’t,” Blaise said softly, his eyes focused only on Draco’s.
“But—“
“If you tell Daphne, she’ll tell Pansy, and she’ll tell Tracey or Millie or whoever . Vince has to actually believe that I’m on his side. He has to completely and utterly trust me. If he so much as suspects anything less than total subservience to the Dark Lord and whatever Flint has planned,” Draco paused, watching them both cringe at the reminder of a greater impending threat. “Flint won’t hesitate to throw me into the fire. He’ll get me killed, and probably my parents too, not to mention the girls.”
“We have to be careful,” Blaise said evenly.
Theo nodded solemnly. “Just tell us how we can help.”