Unmasked

A few days passed without much issue. The weekend was quiet, full of studying and goofing off with Zonko’s products. Saturday night was spent by the fireplace; Harry, Ron, Hermione, Seamus, Dean, Neville, Ginny and Lavender discussed what they did over their holiday breaks. The next day, Hermione spent most of her day in the library, researching a spell for her charms paper. Harry, Ron, and Ginny went flying, bundling up against the cold weather. Draco spent most of his day in his dormitory, curtains drawn and reading. He tried to get ahead in potions and transfiguration, but ended up zoning out, eyes unfocused and staring at the green curtains around his bed. In the evening Draco didn’t show up for dinner, and Pansy said he was sleeping. She brought him back dinner. Harry and the other boys spent Sunday night cackling at each other as they tried jellybeans and candies that made you impersonate animals and objects. The Gryffindors spent their nights perfectly content, whereas Pansy spent the night trying and failing to get Draco to eat. He insisted he wasn’t hungry and rolled over on his bed. Pansy’s face fell as she trudged back to her dorm.

Monday morning came too early for the students liking, especially the Gryffindor boys whom didn’t sleep until 3 am. When Hermione and Ginny started banging on their door at 7am they groaned collectively, Seamus and Ron yelling for the girls to go away. Hermione huffed, but she left with Ginny, calling back to them that they were going for breakfast. As the boys rolled (or thudded, if you’re Ron) out of bed, they yawned and rubbed their puffy eyes. Harry lazily tossed his white shirt and sweater over his head, not bothering to tuck them into his pants. He stuffed his feet into his shoes, then looked around for his robe and wand. Scowling at his trunk and nightstand he cursed. Harry yanked at his trunk latches, tossing around the items inside. Nothing. His nightstand was empty. “For fucks sake,” he grumbled. “Has anyone seen my robe? Or my wand?”

Harry’s vision suddenly went dark as a robe hit him in the face. “Thanks, Seamus. How about my wand?” Harry glanced around at the other boys, who all shrugged.

Dean shook his head. “Check under your bed maybe? Or in your blankets?”

Harry sighed, shaking out his blanket. Still nothing. Dropping to his knees, he then flattened to the floor and skirted under the bed. Sure enough, his wand was laying against the wall under his headboard. He army crawled towards it, grabbed the wand, then smacked his head trying to get up. “Fuck,” he cursed again. He rubbed his head after standing and shaking his head at his wand before dropping it in his robe pocket and dusting himself off.

“C’mon, mate,” Ron said as Harry was brushing his teeth. “We have to go, or we’ll be late. Don’t need any points deducted.”

Harry rolled his eyes, shouldering his bag and heading for the door. “Yeah, yeah. Let’s go.”

*

Harry and Ron rushed in just after Seamus and settled at their table, out of breath. Draco glanced up, brows raised as the slumped down. Confused, he whispered, “What, did you guys just run here?”

Harry glanced over his shoulder at Slughorn who was just starting his lesson. “Basically, yeah. Tell you later.”

“Okay?” Draco digressed.

Slughorn’s lesson dragged, lulling the sleepy Gryffindors into a doze. Draco looked at the three boys with an expression that was a mix of distain and jealously. He tried to pay attention and take notes, but instead doodled on the sides of his pages. Once Slughorn was done talking, Draco leaned across the desks to flick the boys awake. He laughed as they rubbed their foreheads, then stood to get the materials. As he sauntered back with arms full of jars the door swung open, revealing Professors Snape and McGonagall. Draco glanced up at them as they entered.

“What can I do for you, Professors?” Slughorn asked as Draco set most of the jars on the desk.

“Could we please see Mr. Malfoy?” McGonagall asked.

The last jar in Draco’s hand slipped through his fingers and smashed on the floor as his head shot up. “Y-you want to see me?”

Wordlessly, Harry fixed the jar and put the lacewing flies back inside of it, placing it on the table. Snape cleared his throat. “Yes. We need to have a word.”

Draco glanced back at Harry. “Can you start the potion?”

Harry nodded. “Of course. Take your time.”

Draco nodded back, then turned on his heel and followed his professors. As the door shut behind them the two professors turned to look him in the eyes. His gaze flitted between the two of them. “What would you like to talk about Professors?”

McGonagall took a deep breath. “We would like to speak with you about some recent events.”

Draco swallowed, clasping his hands together. “What about them?”

“I’m sure you remember the incident that occurred in my class the other day,” Snape prodded.

“Of course,” he replied. “I was having a bad day is all.”

Snape eyed him. “You do remember what you said to me, don’t you? About your father?”

Draco shrugged. “I’ve said a lot about my father.”

McGonagall put her hand on Snape’s arm, stopping him before he could speak again. “We are concerned that you are being abused at home, Draco.”

Draco looked her in the eyes and almost whispered, “How could you know anything about my life at home?”

She sighed. “A couple of concerned students came to me last week and expressed their worries about you. Is this true?”

Draco sighed. “It’s not as bad as it seems.”

“Why do you say that?”

“It’s only happened a handful of times… nothing too serious. Nothing needs to come of it really, I can handle it.”

“It looked serious,” Snape stated.

“Quidditch plays a hand in that. Just like I told Pansy in class.”

“And you played Quidditch over the break? With this result?”

“Yes.”

Snape eyed him suspiciously as McGonagall stepped in once again. “How are you feeling lately?”

“I’m okay, really. Just a bad day is all.”

“Do you normally have episodes like that?”

Draco cringed. “The odd time, yes. It’s not that abnormal.”

McGonagall nodded. “Alright then. You’re sure everything is okay at home? You’re okay?”

Draco fought back the lump in his throat. His eyes burned. “I’m fine.”

McGonagall gave him a pointed look, as if she knew he was lying. He stared back at her. She pursed her lips. “You’re free to go. Have a good day, Mr. Malfoy.”

He nodded at her, turning and biting his lip. As he pushed the door open he swallowed thickly. Eyes red-rimmed and watering slightly, he sat down across from Harry. Seamus and Ron glanced up momentarily, then resumed making their potion. Harry fixed his eyes on Draco’s, which were currently focused on opening a jar as if he wasn’t about to cry.

Harry leant closer. “Are you okay?”

Draco nodded. “Of course.”

“You sure?” Draco looked up and stared at him. Harry dropped the topic, getting the hint. “The potion is halfway done, if you want to stir it?”

“Sure. Which way?”

“Counter clockwise three times, then clockwise four times.”

Draco nodded again, focused on the potion. He stirred the murky liquid, eyes cast down. Harry kept glancing up at him as he read the rest of the directions. The sternness in his eyes was scary, seeming as though he was trying to stare right through the cauldron and table into the floor below. There was anger there. Anger and something else.

Both boys were startled out of their thoughts by Seamus’s voice. “Draco?”

Draco startled, looking at the boy with wide eyes. Harry watched as the anger disappeared. “Yes?”

“I know you’ve probably heard enough by now, but how’s everything at home?”

Draco sensed the boy’s timidness and softened his gaze. “Same old same old,” he joked half-heartedly.

Seamus tilted his head to look at him from where he was bent over his potion. Ron spoke up for him, “That doesn’t mean it’s okay.”

Draco shrugged. “You get used to it.”

“Still. I can’t even imagine…”

“That’s because you have great parents, Ron,” Harry interjected. “Not all parents are like that.”

Draco looked down. “It doesn’t matter anyways.”

“Why not?” Seamus asked.

Draco looked up, brows raised. “Because I’m a little shit, that’s why. And you all know that.”

Seamus looked shocked. “Maybe your family is… but I shouldn’t have based my assumptions of you based on what I learned about your family.”

He shrugs. “It’s okay. You were right, anyway.”

“Knock it off. You’re not your family.”

“How do you know? You don’t know what I’m really like!”

Seamus smiled. “Is this you?”

“Huh?”

“You know, the kid sitting beside me right now? Not the one I’ve gone to school with for six years, but this guy right here?”

“I still don’t see the difference.”

Harry laughed. “The version we’ve been seeing lately. Smart, introverted…”

Ron pointed at the blond. “No gel in that mess!”

Seamus joined in. “Actually helpful, maybe?”

Harry wiggled his eyebrows. “Dorky?”

Draco rolled his eyes. “Okay fine, maybe this is really me. But it doesn’t matter!” He dropped his gaze back to the cauldron. “I still don’t deserve your sympathy. I’ve been a git.”

“Oh, bugger off,” Seamus laughed. “You’re not that bad. You’re growing on me, actually.”

“Me too, as shocking as that is,” Ron added.

Harry smiled at the blond with a pointed look. Draco gave them a lopsided smile, then dropped his gaze. “C’mon, Harry. We have to finish this potion.”

*

Ron came bustling into the castle that evening after a brisk and blustery quidditch practice. Shivering, he pulled his jacket tighter around him and made for the Great Hall for supper. Although the meal was half over, he couldn’t wait to join his friends and stuff his face with some chicken. Knowing it made Hermione laugh, he planned to stuff the whole leg in his mouth at once in hopes of a similar reaction. She’d been studying hard and been stressed, and wanted to make her laugh. However, as he sat down at the table with Hermione, Pansy, Ginny and Draco, he sensed that no one was in the mood for that. “What’s got everyone so down in the dumps?”

Pansy’s head snapped up. “There’s some truly mean kids in this school, that’s what!”

“Pansy, for the fifth time,” Draco stated, eyes icy. “I used to be that kid! It’s fine!”

“It’s not fine,” Hermione interjected. “How many times have you been hexed today?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“More like you lost track.”

“What about being actually, physically hit?” Pansy spat.

“Why do we need to keep talking about this? It’s not going to stop it!” All eyes were on Draco, his eyes wild and afraid. “It doesn’t matter, and it’s never gunna’ matter, because it’s me!”

“But it’s affecting you…” Ron whispered.

Draco’s face softened. “And I deserve it. So what if it’s driving me crazy and I feel like I’m losing control? This hurt is what I caused people… so I’m getting what I deserve. I was a whiny arsehole and I thought I was better than everyone else because of the way I was brought up and I hate myself for it but I can’t change it now so let them have me! Let them!”

Ron eyed him carefully. “You can’t really think that… you weren’t cruel like that.”

Hermione spoke next. “You were taught to call people like me racist things, and now we know why… But you didn’t really believe them.”

“It doesn’t matter. I still did.”

Pansy touched his shoulder. “You never went around hexing people for fun and trying to beat people up. You had a rivalry, and you and Harry both were nasty. But that doesn’t mean you deserve this.”

“Stop,” Draco begged. “I’m so confused.”

“Confused?” Ginny said.

As Draco opened his mouth to answer a blast hit him from behind. All it did was bruise him, but it still hurt just the same. He was done tying to figure out who was casting them. He didn’t care. He opened his mouth again, and an older Slytherin came by and elbowed him in the head. Draco clenched his teeth. Hermione opened her mouth, but he snapped. “I’m fine. Don’t ask. Don’t even ask.”

She closed her mouth and watched as he shoveled a forkful of potatoes into his mouth. They all watched him as he forced it down his throat. Kids kept shouting at him. One walked past, shouting, “How about another levicorpus? Hey, loser?”

“How about you shut your mouth, scrawny ass,” Pansy shot back. The kid rolled his eyes and left.

“Another levicorpus?” Ginny fumed.

Draco shrugged. “They used carpe retractum, too. And colloshoo… and epoximise… and everte statum… and flipendo…” The group sat there wide-eyed as Draco looked back at them. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t seem fine,” Pansy said softly. “You seem rattled.”

“If I can take what my father throws at me… I can take this.”

It’s not the same,” said Hermione. “You’re used to it from your father. Not from students in the place you’re supposed to be safe… Draco?”

He may have heard her, but showed no sign of it. He was staring at the wooden table, eyes searching the grain as if it had the answer to his problems. As he looked up his eyes widened, because a piece of tape appeared over his mouth. He looked around wildly, startled by the sudden jinx.

Suddenly he was back in Malfoy Manor, pressed up against the wall with tape over his mouth. Lucius hadn’t wanted Narcissa to hear her son’s screams as he cast crucio on him again. It had been a close enough call that time. Although, the tape didn’t seem to be enough—Draco was still thrashing and trying to fight back. Lucius bellowed, “Incarcerous,” and thin roped bound his arms and legs together so that he couldn’t move enough to fight back. There,Lucius hummed to himself. Perfect way to teach him a lesson.

Draco gasped, coming back to his senses. He grappled at him mouth, but the tape was gone. The group was staring at him, and Hermione still hand her wand pointed at his mouth. He flinched. “Don’t point that thing at me!”

She blinked. “I was also reversing the hex, Draco. I wasn’t going to—”

“Sorry. Sorry, it’s just—”

A voice laughed from behind him. “Incarcerous!”

Ron stood from his seat, “Everte statum!” The Ravenclaw boy flew backwards over the next table, and the girl whom was with him fled just as quickly.

At the same time, Draco yelped. “Get it off, get it off, get it off! Hermione please! Get it off!”

Though Hermione was startled and had no idea what was causing this reaction, she lifted her wand. “Finite incantantum!”

The ropes disappeared. Draco jumped up, hand to his mouth. “I’m gunna be sick.” He stepped over the bench, making a beeline for the bathroom. Ron tailed him just as quick, hexing a younger Slytherin taking aim at the blond as he ran. Ron could hear Ginny as he followed, storming up to the Slytherin table and telling them off, then a bang as someone was thrown backwards, and another screeched about bat bogeys. The red-head laughed, but that quickly disappeared as he reached the bathroom.

Draco was slumped on his knees in a stall, throwing up into the toilet. Ron could hear the boy heaving, and made his way towards him. He pushed open the door to the stall and sighed sadly, kneeling behind the Slytherin. Ron rested his hand on the boy’s back, praying that he’d calm down soon. He didn’t know much about comforting people, let alone Draco Malfoy. But Harry had still been cleaning up from quidditch and was likely going to shower, so Ron felt the need to be there instead.

“Was it the hexes?” Ron asked quietly. Draco shook his head, then heaved again. Ron cringed, looking away. “The comments?”

“No,” he choked, burping, then puking again. There was hardly any of today’s food left in his stomach.

Ron rubbed his back awkwardly. How does Harry do this…? He waited for the boy to flush the toilet and wipe his mouth before saying anything else. “Then what was it?”

Draco looked at him from the corner of his eyes, then turned to sit with his bac against the porcelain. “I was just…remembering something. That’s all. Got me worked up, I guess. It’s stupid really…”

“Seems natural to me,” said Ron. They both dropped their gazes and Ron settled on the floor as well, back to the stall door. “Ginny and I hexed those Slytherins that were after you… just so you know.”

Draco nodded to himself. “Thanks.”

Ron smiled slightly. “And also, you should know that Pansy didn’t know you were concealing anything when you were duelling. She had no idea.”

Draco looked up slightly. “I figured she didn’t but I never asked… how’d you know?”

“She came and told us at breakfast the next day. She felt really awful.”

He nodded. “Okay.”

Ron opened his mouth, but hesitated. “How long have you been using the concealment?”

Draco looked Ron in the eyes. “Since we met.”

The ginger’s jaw dropped. “Really? You… you seemed…”

“Happy? Doted on? I know… that was the point.”

“But all along?”

“Yep.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

Draco raised an eyebrow. “You shouldn’t be. And I don’t understand why you’re all being so nice to me.”

“You’re struggling,” said Ron, incredulously. “And you don’t deserve to be hit and beat on. No one deserves that from anyone, especially your parents.”

“But I deserve that abuse! Not the sympathy.”

“Oh, stop being a git!” Ron chuckled. “I like you. Well, the real you. You do deserve the sympathy and to be surrounded by people that try to bring you up, not down.”

“But Ron, I keep telling you. I’ve been a real prick.”

“We’ve all acted like children. But that’s the thing. We werechildren. We’re growing up. We can start over.”

Draco smiled. “I don’t understand our families hatred of each other, I don’t see anything wrong with you. You’re really kind, your sister is a badass and your brothers are hilarious.”

Ron smiled back. “Well, I don’t see anything wrong with you either… But I do see something wrong with your father. There’s no reason to hit your own child.”

“Thank you.”

“You don’t deserve this, as I’m sure Harry’s also been telling you. We will stand up for you. You don’t have to hide anymore, Draco. We are standing with you.”

Draco smiled, dropping his gaze and nodding. “It’s surreal for me to hear that from anyone—especially from you. But I really do appreciate it.”

“Of course.”

Draco brought his gaze up to meet Ron’s. “Thank you for coming to sit with me. I know it was a bit gross at first, but I’m glad we got to talk.”

“Me, too.” Ron put out his hand, and Draco shook it without hesitation. “I’m here whenever you need it. Now, would you like to go get some food to keep down this time?”

Draco chuckled as Ron helped him up. “Let’s go.”