Wolves
Draco watched Goyle aggressively tear into the paper with the tip of his pen, signing them up as a group again this year. Nott was already talking to his own group, who was sitting next to the three of them, smiling at each other like wild things excited to show their true nature. All of them were family friends,
“I hope the tournament’s a bit harder this year,” Goyle said loudly, rousing Draco.
“Why? So you can mess up the relay even worse?” Crabbe shot at him.
Goyle glowered at him. “At least I can stand my own, unlike you.”
“Shut up, both of you,” Draco demanded, sick of their prattling. He wasn’t surprised when they complied without complaint. When it came down to it there was no question that he was the strongest competitor between them. If there was a single reason they’d won these past few years, they all silently agreed it was Draco.
Still, Crabbe looked like he wanted to fight something, and Draco caught the flash of something in his eyes, like kindling for a fire. He wasn’t sure if he should be relieved or not when it was clear he’d decided to focus his attention on sneaking out instead of breaking someone’s nose.
As the others trickled out of the hall, they stood unobtrusively at the corners of the crowd, enveloped by it but able to break free. Crabbe had a hand in his pants pocket and Draco thought he saw a flash of silver from between the fabric.
The crowd moved forward, pushing them closer to the front. Crabbe’s hand returned to its less alarming position beside his leg, and Goyle leaned forward looking slightly ridiculous. They made to move forward, intermingling with those moving to cabins farther from notice, Draco moving confidently forward. However, as he scanned the crowd, Snape caught his eye. The man looked as disapproving as if he were a different student, and shook his head almost unnoticeably, a warning.
Draco took a breath, and moved to look for Crabbe and Goyle, but Goyle had disappeared from sight and Crabbe was already past the doors. He shrugged to himself. The warning had only been given to him, so they were fine, or they weren’t necessarily meant to be spared. Either way, he’d see them in the morning, probably looking worse for the wear, and hopefully not dead.
~
When Draco awoke it was to a combination of his alarm and the undignified voices in his cabin. He sat up to see Nott talking to a boy from a different cabin, Blaise Zabini.
“What is going on?” Draco asked, annoyed and still slightly sleep addled.
“Crabbe and Goyle,” Nott responded simply. He grinned as he watched Draco, pleased, he guessed, to make him wait or struggle with the unhelpful information.
Finally, he decided to give up and ask. He pulled the blanket off himself, swinging his legs over the bed.
“What-”
The question was cut off by the opening of the door.
Snape stood in the doorway, menacing as always, for a moment before walking towards them.
“Zabini,” He said coldly, and Blaise managed to only slightly flinch at the sound. “you are not supposed to be in anyone else’s cabins between 10 am and 8 pm. It is only 7:30. Do you need to be tied to a clock?”
“Sorry, sir. I was only coming to soothe poor Thomas.” He spoke his lies smoothly. “He was worried about his cabin mates and I thought I might have overheard something about it so I wanted to let him know. He gets nervous when he’s left in the dark.”
“And what have you heard?”
“Nothing true, I’m sure. But I thought even hearing the rumors could relax him some.”
Snape frowned but Blaise said nothing more. Draco expected him to make the boy repeat the rumors exactly, but it seemed there were more important things on his mind. “Out.”
Zabini followed the order swiftly.
“Draco,” Snape said. “come with me.”
He looked down at his pajama bottoms and bare chest and faltered for a second, but when Snape said no more, he stood and followed him as he was. Snape led him past the cabin, following the backs of them so as not to be seen, and hurried him to his own cabin.
The cabins the Sponsors had were large, almost the size of those 4 boys were meant to live in together, and more grandiose. As they kept the same cabins each summer, they were also more personally decorated. Draco knew the inside of Snape’s as well as he knew the set up of his own. He was used to check ups much like these, though usually less rushed and not so early in the morning.
Snape closed the door behind them and stared at Draco for several long moments. To others it would have looked simply like disapproval, but Draco knew it to be multiple emotions under the surface, held back for consideration before showing any of them. What he did think he could parse from the man’s long gaze, was worry.
“What did they do?” Draco asked.
“Manners,” Snape replied, though not nearly as harshly as he had spoken to Zabini.
Draco fought the urge to roll his eyes. He was too tired for this. Still, for the good of his future, his family, and his relationship with the man, he tried to swallow down all of his frustrations. They formed a tight knot in his stomach.
“I’m sorry, sir.”
Snape sighed, almost a groan. “Your father is displeased.”
Draco felt his anger rising and struggled again to stay calm. “What else is new?”
“Be respectful.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” He said again, from between his teeth.
Snape was silent.
“‘Displeased’,” Draco said, taking the silence as an invitation. “as in disappointed, or displeased as in...”
“Furious,” Snape supplied him.
The knot in his stomach pulled itself tighter, and throbbed in time with his now frantic heart. To add to the panic, his arm hurt again, though he tried to silently convince himself that that didn’t make sense.
“Because of my ‘assault’.”
“Because of your use of violence,” Snape corrected him. “which was foolhardy, impossibly unnecessary, and beneath your family name.” Draco twisted his arms in front of his chest as Snape repeated key parts of his lecture from yesterday. “He was already considering action from that alone.”
“What’s happened now?” Draco asked, picking up on the phrasing.
“Your cabin mates have done something even more thuggish than your own attack on Longbottom. Last night they snuck out, as I am sure you know, and when they reached the woods surrounding our camp, decided to go hunting.”
“Hunting?”
“It seems they killed a squirrel and a bear cub. Though the hunting of certain creatures is not against the rules here, and they used only a hunting knife-” Draco silently cursed, remembering the flash of silver. He’d just thought it a flask. “it is still boorish and disturbing. They are being spoken with right now, and will most likely only have to be seen by the psychologist, which I am aware will not be a new experience for either of them.”
Draco waited as Snape paused, but the pause did not break, so he pushed his question. “And?”
“And?” Snape drawled.
“Why is father ‘furious’ over the death of a bear cub?”
“It is not the bear cub,” Snape answered, his suddenly rise in volume make Draco jump against his will. “It is that his own son has made it clear that he is not above being a thug, no matter how it reflects on him or his family. Even if you managed to make people forget about your actions you must know it is in the records and will come back to him as soon as it can be held against him as relevant information. And now that those that you’ve decided to let be associated with you, your ‘best friends’, are torturing and killing the day after your assault, it is starting to look like a pattern. It’s starting to say something about your character.”
“They aren’t my best friends,” Draco said, because it was the first thing he could think to respond to. “They’re who I’ve been forced next to. He can’t blame-”
“He does. You can’t pretend you haven’t been seen with them enough. It doesn’t matter.”
“Maybe if you hadn’t stopped me from going with them,” Draco tried now. “I could have stopped them.”
“Or maybe things would have gone a different way.”
Draco wasn’t sure what he was implying, but didn’t want to linger any longer on the thought.
“You’re to change partners.”
“What?” The anger spiked in him, and this time he couldn’t keep it out of his voice.
“Zabini has already been asked to take your place.” His gaze on Draco softened a fraction. “You can’t afford the association.”
Draco swore, fists at his side, and Snape let it slide.
“You still have 2 days to find a more reputable group. You can win with them, instead.”
Draco made himself nod. When Snape seemed to have no more to say, he nodded again, attempting politeness, and found his way out of the cabin
He walked in a daze.
They truly were idiots. He couldn’t say he was surprised by the knife, not in Crabbe having brought one to Hogwarts at least, nor the dead animals. They were bloodthirsty in their way, primal and desperate. What had shaken him was the word “torture”. He didn’t want to think about what exactly had been done.
Though he’d argued against it, they were his friends, and though he didn’t think them saints, or even good people, he didn’t like to think of them as torturers. Though, of course, that’s what many of the people he’d gotten to know over the years turned out to be. Maybe he just didn’t like seeing it happen so slowly, to boys he’d known since they were 11.
He felt like their babysitter more than their friend. He cared about them, in his own way, and he thought they were close, for his own standards, but it was frustration at them for not being able to watch themselves that tasted like copper in his mouth. It wasn’t that he had had faith in them, but he had hoped they’d had just a bit of common sense.
But they weren’t children, and they weren’t men. They were wolves, and though they had followed him when he’d been there to make him, that didn’t change their nature.
His mind returned to Snape’s own answer to his argument, and the implications enfolded in it. He wondered, unable to stop himself, if underneath what had been built up around him and for him, the dignified guise they had dressed him with, he was a wolf too.
He heard a disapproving cluck, and looked up to see a counsellor watching him. He felt his face flush. He’d forgotten that he’d never dressed.
In the end, he’d asked several groups, and though all were happy to have him, after a conference with Snape it turned out that father felt none of them good enough. They were all, as he said, “cronies”. Draco didn’t see how he expected him to find anyone who wasn’t.
So by the time their workshops and classes had ended and dinner had started, Draco was exhausted. He found himself shoving bread into his pocket like a beggar and, ignoring their looks, left his table behind, heading for the door. Sprout made to question him, and he murmured something about a stomach ache. He must have looked bad enough to sell it, and he was asked no further questions as he made his way back to his cabin.
The silence of the place was heavier than he could take, and he sunk onto the bed. Around the cabin was the sound of cricket and frogs, and he tried to concentrate on that, but the staleness of the place and beating of blood in his ears was too much.
Finally, he let himself pull the sleeve of his left arm up. Taking in a deep, shaky breath, his right hand reached out blindly to the dresser, and his fingers found their way to the long, solid body of a clean screw.
The tip met the bend of his elbow in a sharp, clearing moment, and he made himself breathe as he twirled it.
Somewhere in the back of his head he was cursing himself for messing up this early. He’d made a promise. He made several a year. But the rest of him was in a state of relief. Even the knot, now hard and angry, was loosening its hold, even if just slightly.
He tried not to think about Snape’s eyes on his own, worry and anger and a million other things. How his voice had rang out in frustration loud enough to make his heart stutter but not nearly as loud as he was used to. He tried not to think of his father.
He had the urge to drag the screw, but he fought it, fought it with every fiber of his being. People would see. People would know. He could do this. He could do this.
He breathed in again.
How heavenly it would be to run away.
Not from Hogwarts, but from everything else- though, he guessed, you couldn’t exactly pick one and not the other. He let himself linger on the thought for a second.
He’d do it. If he could. He would give up Hogwarts to get away, really get away, if he knew that he could, if he knew he wouldn’t be found, if he had anyway to survive that wasn’t based on his name, his father, their plans.
He moved the thing to another area of fresh skin.
It didn’t help to think of it. He used to let himself, in between bad moments, but then when all the bad rushed back, it just hurt worse. It didn’t help to think of it.
~
The next day Snape had stopped by in between the networking workshop and their weekly debate gathering. Draco had followed behind him, reminding himself of a kicked dog, hoping for comfort but expecting more pain, unable to disobey their master. Though, of course, the one who truly acted as his “master” was much less likely to give him anything but the latter.
Snape watched him as he had done the day before, but his eyes travelled his face, as if looking for evidence.
“You are holding up well?” He stated, not quite a question in his mouth.
“I’m... Yes.”
Snape frowned. “I know you’re very fond of the tournament, but it isn’t worth tears.”
Draco bucked a little at the mocking tone. “I haven’t shed any for it.”
“You were seen leaving dinner early.”
“I was sick.” Draco barked.
They stared at each other for a long, tension filled, moment. Draco finally looked away. All hope in comfort had been erased from him.
“Then I’m glad to hear you’re being mature about this.”
“I’m not a child.”
“No. You are not.”
Draco turned from him, praying his annoyance didn’t burst forward in something less controlled. At the moment a tantrum didn’t feel too far below him.
“I’m sorry for assuming,” Snape said, and Draco knew he was trying in earnest to apologize, though his tone was still cool. “I’ve forgotten that you’ve grown.”
Draco didn’t respond.
“The reason,” Snape continued, as if there had been argument between them. “I called you in to speak to me, was that I needed to know if you had heard about your new arrangement.”
Draco jerked his head up. “No.”
But it had sounded like Snape had.
“It’ll be back at your cabin,” Snape said, answering his question.
Draco turned away.
“Don’t forget your strength,” He said just above a whisper. It sounded like both comfort and a warning of things to come. “Win with them. If any can, it would be you, Draco.”
Draco stepped out, and prepared himself for the worst.
As his hand wrapped around his door of his cabin, he let his mind whirl. He opened the door slowly, measuring his breathing. Why had Snape had to say anything at all?
Inside, his cabin mates were sitting. Across from them was a piece of paper, half folded, on the bed. They were jeering.
Already, afraid he knew what was coming, but determined to act dignified, he strode over to the paper and plucked it off the bed.
The knot in his stomach squeezed.
Fucking shite. Of course.