THREE.
There is a tree.
There is a large tree.
There is a green tree.
There is a green tree
And it's all I see
Draco groans, scribbling the last line out so hard he almost rips the parchment. Tossing his quill on the table, he leans back in his chair. He rubs his eyes and glares at Pansy, who seems to be just fine scribbling down on her own parchment with apparent ease. Blaise is beside her, just as relaxed, though he's drawing aimlessly rather than writing. It's late afternoon, and the common room is empty around them - a rare but welcome sight.
"Pansy, this is absolutely hopeless."
She looks up, first taking in Draco's frustrated expression, then his surprisingly neat scrawling. "Oh, come on, it's not that bad. Look at me, I'm doing it! And Blaise, he -" Pansy's shoulders sag when she sees Blaise's paper void of writing. "For fuck's sake, Blaise, I said to write, not to draw stick figures!"
"Don't they say a picture is worth a thousand words?" he grins at her, which she returns with a scowl. Draco tries to fight a smile at the sight.
"You're both not even trying! Really, it helps. It's - it's therapeutic, you know?" Pansy crosses her arms over her chest.
Draco rolls his eyes. "How can this be therapeutic when I'm even more frustrated now than when I started?"
"Let me see what you've got, come on, hand it over."
Draco reluctantly puts the parchment in her outstretched hand. She only takes a few seconds to read his attempts at poetry. She smiles and puts her hand over her mouth to muffle a snicker. Draco's face blushes a faint red and he snatches the paper from her, putting it face down on the table in front of him.
"Trees? Really? Trees, Draco?" And this time, she does laugh a little before she can stop herself.
"What? Let me see!" Blaise says as he tries to grab the paper. Draco, however, makes sure to keep it out of his reach. By then both of Draco's friends are laughing, and, though he is trying his hardest to look indignant, Draco finds himself laughing a little, too.
Blaise finally takes the paper, and, upon reading it, raises an eyebrow at him. "Well, you're no poet, that's for sure," he teases.
"It's not that bad." He crosses his arms over his chest defensively.
"No, no, he's right," Pansy says, and Draco gestures at her with an upturned palm, as if to say "see". Pansy snickers again, "No, let me finish. You're right because it's absolutely terrible."
Draco groans again and not-so-softly rests his forehead on the table. Why he's friends with these two, he'll never know. He can hear his friends laughing again. "We're joking, we're joking, Draco. Come on, don't be so dramatic." She pats his head once, "Up, come on."
Draco reluctantly straightens.
"Why are you trying to write poetry, anyway? Just write prose, it's much more simple," Blaise suggests.
"Well, I don't know." He shrugs. "I guess I just like poetry. Thought I'd try my hand at it. At least, before I figured out I'm rubbish at it, that is."
"No, don't say that! I'm sure," Pansy continues, leaning forward slightly, "That you just need a new subject matter. What do poets write about?" she looks at the boys.
"Nature is surely out of the question," Blaise says with a smile.
"At least I tried to write something," Draco grumbles. Pansy ignores them both.
"Oh, what about love? All poets write about love," she suggests excitedly.
"For one, I'm not in love. And two, isn't this supposed to make me calm, not have me want to rip my eyes out?"
Pansy huffs, but says nothing, while Blaise just gives him a look that he doesn't necessarily appreciate.
"I'm not writing about love," he says definitively.
"Well, why don't you just write about your feelings then? What are you feeling right now?"
Guilt.
Shame.
Regret.
"Bored," Draco says instead, his heart heavy in his chest, but his smile light on his lips. Pansy narrows her eyes at him but says nothing, which he's grateful for. He doesn't know how she always seems to know when he's lying, but she does, and it's only annoying sometimes. He picks up his quill and studies it, moving it around between his fingers, trying not to look at his friends. Blaise has gone back to drawing, but he can still see Pansy looking at him from the corner of his eye.
"Well, then just try to write about something," she says, her tone a little softer than before, "It might help."
Draco nods and puts the tip of his quill back on the parchment. He taps on the paper twice, trying to think about something, anything to write down. His mind drifts to his mother.
He imagines her standing by a window, looking out at the grounds of the Manor. She's dressed in gray, and there's a frown on her face. But most importantly, she's alone - she's always alone, and he knows that. He swallows down a heaviness in his throat - she didn't deserve any of what happened, and she doesn't deserve what's happening to her now. She never sold her soul. Not like his father, and not like him. But there she is, alone in an empty house full of ghosts while he's laughing with his friends. It feels wrong - it feels unfair. He should be there with her. He should be paying for his mistakes, not her.
It was hard to leave her when he was going back to school, much harder than he would have ever expected. Over the summer, they were all they had, with his father in Azkaban, and he hadn't felt that close to his mother since he was a child.
The corner of his mouth turns up when he remembers the repairs they'd done before he left. They'd finished the first floor, which, arguably, took the brunt of the abuse, and had just started on the second. Voldemort's followers were never gracious house guests, and each room only seemed to get worse. Ripped curtains, broken furniture, shattered mirrors. There were scorch marks on the floor and holes in the walls. It was like every room had housed a miniature tornado.
They'd started the day after their trial, going room by room, fixing what they could, throwing away what they couldn't. He liked the work - it gave him something to do, and it gave him time with his mother, and when they'd finished a task, Draco felt a sense of satisfaction that he hadn't felt in a while. Then, his mother would give him a small smile, and they'd start again.
He'd have stayed with her if he could have, but part of his parole required that he finish school (it also required frequent meetings with McGonagall to gauge his progress, as well as weekly appointments with a Healer).
He hears Pansy curse and cross out something with her quill, and his attention comes back to the present. He looks down at his quill. The ink had bled from the tip onto the paper, leaving a small black spot. He sighs before dipping the quill in ink again.
Through the frost on the glass, I see her shadow
Isolated, waiting for a vainabsentimaginary tomorrow
"Guys, what's a word for 'something that isn't coming'?"
Both their heads turn up.
"Delayed?"
"Futile?"
"No, that's not it." He lets out a deep breath, darkening the line he drew through "imaginary". The tip of his quill strikes the parchment twice again.
Through the frost on the glass, I see her shadow
Isolated, waiting for a vain absent imaginary tomorrow
But I know she doesn't see me
Waiting in vain for a better tomorrow
A caged bird never to be free.
He holds the page up slightly, reading over it again. He runs a hand over his face before crossing the entire poem out, almost violently. She's not caged, she's not a bird, and she's not fucking hopeless. He refuses to see her like that. His hands turn clammy at the thought and he sets his quill down.
The house arrest isn't forever, and he'll see her on the holidays, and then after the year is done, he can go back home and they can work on making something of themselves, they can be better. He can work on being better. He doesn't have to be - he doesn't have to - he -
The world around him becomes muffled, and Pansy and Blaise fade. He's back in his room again. He's crouched on the floor, staring at the closed door in front of him. It's cold - it's always cold. He can feel the wood of his bed digging into his back, and his knees against his chest. A vase breaks - someone screams - someone laughs - and all he can think is that he fucked up. He fucked up so bad and there's nothing he can do about it because they're in too deep, they're in too deep and no one can save them now and -
"Hey, are you alright?" Pansy's voice breaks him out of his building panic. He blinks. He feels her hand on top of his, which - he just noticed - is clinging onto the edge of the table so hard that his knuckles have gone white. Pansy is looking at him like he could break at any moment, and Blaise has his eyebrows knitted in concern. Draco quickly shakes his head, pulling his hand away from Pansy's and putting a smile on his face.
"Yeah, of course. Why wouldn't I be? Just got a little distracted, that's all." He waves them off. Neither of them looks particularly reassured, but he pretends that he doesn't notice. The last thing he needs is anyone feeling sorry for him.
"Pansy, what are you writing, anyway? We can all laugh at my awful poetry, but we don't get to see your train wreck?" he teases, trying to keep his tone level and light. He reaches over the table for her paper, which she quickly pulls back.
"Oh, no you don't - "
The door to the common room then opens and the three of them look back at the sound. They watch as Harry, Ron, and Hermione walk through. Hermione and Ron, who come in first, seem to be in a heated debate over something, while Harry trails in behind them, silently laughing to himself. The three Slytherins fall silent. Lately, even looking like they're happy seemed like an insult when others were in the room. It didn't feel right, being like that in front of anyone. They were supporters or sympathizers in the War, they were on the wrong side, they had a debt to pay - they didn't deserve to be happy. Not in anyone else's eyes, and most of the time, not even in their own. A smile felt like betrayal all over again - like they were disrespecting the dead. So, they look down, and they avoid eye contact because that's the least they can do.
Draco taps his quill on his paper again. The three are settling down on the other side of the room. When Draco looks up, he catches Harry's eye. Harry gives him a small wave and a smile, which Draco returns with a half-smile of his own.
Harry, however, ends up not being the only one to look at Draco. When Ron sees that his friend isn't paying attention, he turns around, eyes landing directly on the Slytherin table. His eyes turn cold, and he gives them all a look of disdain. He glances at Draco, who immediately turns his attention back to his paper.
When he looks up again, Harry and Ron both have their attention back on the conversation at hand. Draco lets out the breath he'd been holding and runs a nervous hand through his hair.
"Well, he didn't have to look at you like that," Pansy says, her voice showing her annoyance.
"Like what?"
"Like you were the one that single-handedly rounded up all of the Death-Eaters in Britain. It's not all your fault," she huffs.
Draco gives her a sad smile. "Pansy, I know what you're trying to do. I know you're on my side, but you and I both know that his anger is justified."
"But - "
"He lost a brother, Pansy. If I were him, the second I saw me back here, I would've hexed myself so badly I would've been in the Hospital Wing for a week. Minimum."
"But it's not like you killed him," she whispers.
He almost feels the Mark burning a hole through his sleeve. His eyes shift back down to the table, not wanting to look at her while he speaks. "I followed the bastard responsible," he says softly, "I might as well have."
He closes his eyes and takes a breath, and then begins to gather his things.
"I have homework to do. I'll see you all later, yeah?" he says quickly, shuffling back to the dorms before either of his friends can get a word in.
Once he's in his and Blaise's room, he sets his things down on his desk before changing out of his uniform. He sits on his bed and puts his head in his hands, rubbing at his eyes. When he closes his eyes, all he can see is Ron's face.
He believes what he told Pansy: he deserves every glare, every curse, every jinx. He was a part of something evil - and he has the brand to prove it. He takes his forearm in his hand, pressing his palm against the Mark under his sleeve.
He thinks about the Weasley twins - he thinks about all the abuse he hurled their way, all the things he said to the entire family - about how they didn't have enough money, enough status, enough pureblood pride. He thinks about the Quidditch game in fifth year and trying to humiliate Ron in front of Harry in first year. His cheeks feel hot when he looks back at how ignorant he was when he was younger - how naive to think that he knew anything - how stupid he was to have believed anything that was fed to him.
Then, he thinks of how, in spite of everything, they were happy. He thinks of how he'd always been jealous of that.
He runs his fingers through his hair. Ron Weasley had every right to hate him. So did the rest of Harry's friends. So did Harry. His gaze drifts to his desk, to the clean sheet of parchment sitting on top of his books.
Write about what you're feeling, Pansy had said.
He gets up and walks over to the desk, sitting down. He then clears away his books and sets the paper down in front of him. After finding his quill and dipping it in ink, he begins to write.
Eyes turned down in shame, I face you
With a heavy heart, I stand
Disgraced, displaced, deprived, I knew
A shadow in my soul and blood on my hands
He looks down at what he's written. It needs a lot of work, but it'll do for now, he thinks. He then sets the parchment in his desk drawer and begins on his homework.