Traitor: A Draco Malfoy Story

fifty-six

"Azalea, stop," Jenna demanded as I rushed out of McGonagall's office. "What did he mean 'it was Malfoy'?"

"Nothing, Jen, don't worry about it," I muttered, running a hand through my hair. It was careless, giving something like that to a student. Draco may have tried to Imperious her, but he could have killed the wrong person. And knowing him, that's not something he could live with. I saw the anguish in his face when he told me about the Muggle boy.

"Are you fucking joking?" Jenna snapped. Ethan made a noise as if to warn her to calm down, but she ignored it. "You're closer to him than any of the rest of us that were just in there so you've got to know if Malfoy is out here with cursed objects."

"He's not up to anything. Harry's had it out for him since forever, remember?" I tried to keep my voice as level as possible. I knew I was a bad liar, but I hoped the shake in my voice would be perceived as anger at Harry and not worry that Malfoy would get caught.

"She's right, Jennie," Ethan stepped in. "Remember when he was so convinced for a whole year that Snape was trying to kill him and it turned out it was Quirrell the whole time and he was just mad a teacher didn't like him?"

Jenna huffed but said no more. I shot a look of thanks at the boy, but he didn't return any sort of look. In fact, he avoided my eyes altogether. I wondered what made him do that; standing up for me.

"I can't believe McGonagall didn't say anything about you being in Hogsmeade," Ethan said after a while to break the silence on the way back to the dorm. "She obviously knows."

"Everyone knows," I snorted.

Jenna snickered. "I remember the first time Harry couldn't go to Hogsmeade because of a missing parental signature form. Someone told him just to forge it and he looked her dead in the face and said, 'I'm famous because my parents are dead.' The poor girl was mortified."

I smiled, but the expression slipped off my face when I saw Draco sitting by the fire in the common room alone, staring into the flames. Jenna looked at me quizzically, and I gestured for her to go upstairs.

I sat down next to him on the couch. He didn't say anything or even look at me. After a while, I decided to break the silence with a joke. "Well, that didn't go as planned."

A mistake.

He leapt from the couch, snatching my wrist so tight my hand began to fall asleep and dragged me out into the dungeon hallway. He pulled me towards an empty room and almost tossed me into it.

"Ow, what the hell--"

"Did you tell McGonagall it was me?"

My lips parted slightly, trying to digest what he was accusing me of.

"Did you?"

"No, of course not--"

"Well, she knows," he muttered beginning to pace.

"Harry was the one that mentioned it," I explained. "And Snape was very quick to say that he was crazy."

He whirled around to face me. "And did you make sure you backed him up on that?"

"Why would I know that about you? As far as McGonagall is concerned, we're merely classmates. Our fights have been bigger and more public than..." I paused. "...whatever the other night was. She has no reason to think that you'd trust me like that."

He ran his hands through his hair, tugging on it slightly so it jutted out at odd angles. He snatched a jar of some sort of seed off of a shelf and flung it across the room with a grunt. It shattered when it hit the wall, the seeds bouncing in every direction. He sank into a chair with his head in his hands. "I have to find another way."