4.1 | Draconian ✓

27 | stupefy

A/N

Just curious to see how many of you are still here with me? I haven't lost you yet, right?

x Noelle

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2 7

s t u p e f y

Renders a victim unconscious.

THE STAY AT Godric's Hollow proved easier than expected. Despite the protection charms around the house, Draco didn't let his guard down, so they took turns to keep watch. Hermione enjoyed accompanying the others on their shifts. Theo made her laugh, Pansy and Blaise had fascinating anecdotes to share, and Luna was the link to her past.

But she loved talking to Draco the most. There were still plenty of things she didn't know about him. Like the fact that his hatred for half-bloods and Muggle-borns had been whipped into him for as long as he could remember.

"I saw a Muggle book once," he admitted, on one of the nights when they had broached the topic of his childhood. "Got through half of it until my father found out. And he locked me in a room and starved me until I got that fact through my head - that reading Muggle books was a crime worse than using any of the Unforgivables."

It seemed that Draco's snobbery had been instilled, rather than a trait he'd been born with. She thought about how cruel his father was, and how kind her own father was.

At least, she thought her father was kind. For the millionth time, she wondered why she remembered nothing about her own parents. They were but a piece of the past, faceless figures that had provided her with a happy childhood and faint but fond memories.

But the thoughts faded when she looked up at noticed the troubled expression on Draco's face. He was gazing into the distance, his eyes carefully blank and illuminated by the silver of the moon. She reached down to slide her fingers along the sleeve of his green jumper - the same one that she had knit for him. She noticed that all the Slytherins seemed to wear their respective ones whenever possible, as though the jumpers were part of a uniform that banded them all together.

After a moment's hesitation, she tugged up his jumper sleeve to expose his Dark Mark. He flinched, but she stopped him before he could pull away. "Were you forced into receiving this too?"

Draco swallowed. His silver eyes flickered to her momentarily, before he glanced away, staring unfocusedly into the distance. "Not exactly," he hedged, and she thought she heard a slight tremble in his voice. "It was - fuck, Granger, you need to understand that, for the longest time, it was all I ever wanted."

"Really?"

"Not the job description, or that I'd have to serve the Dark Lord." There was an edge to his voice; a silent plea for her to understand. he said, his tone edgy as though he was pleading that she at least try to understand. "It was the power, the prestige, the exclusivity. I thought I had continued a legacy. The heir of the Malfoy family turned Death-Eater - just like everyone before me. But when I stood in front of the Dark Lord, holding out my arm to him, I realised that it was the most fucked-up decision I'd ever made. And by then..." His voice broke off, and she quickly laced her fingers through his. "...by then, it was too late."