The Malfoy Project

𝟔𝟔 - 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐮𝐟𝐟𝐥𝐞𝐩𝐮𝐟𝐟 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐈𝐈

     By our Sixth Year, the Wizarding world was well in the throes of the Second Wizarding War: Amelia Bones had just been murdered, along with several other prominent wizards; a dozen Muggles had been killed when Brockdale Bridge had collapsed — an incident rumoured to have been an act of revenge by Voldemort and the Death Eaters for Fudge's refusal to step down as Minister; and training with Dumbledore's Army was fully underway.

     We had been in the middle of our third Herbology class of the year, grappling with the vines of Venomous Tentacula, when McGonagall's cloaked figure floated from behind the glass walls of the greenhouse and came to stop behind the doors. Hannah was summoned out, and when she returned, she had a strange, inscrutable look on her face that was neither worry nor sadness. She walked up to me, tapped me on the shoulder, and said: "I have to go. Gracie and my mother are dead."

     I had simply stared dumbly at her. "I have to go," she repeated. Thankfully, I found my voice quickly: "I'll come with you." She started removing her gloves and protective wear. "No, stay," she said. "I'll be fine."

     Hannah was never fine again after that. In fact, she did not return to school for the rest of the year. Ernie, Susan, and I wrote to her every two days. At the end of each letter would be a short postscript from a few members of the D.A sending their love: the trio, Luna, Terry Boot, Seamus and Dean, the Patil twins, even Cho Chang, despite their mutual dislike for each other (although Hannah had started disliking her first because of what Cedric had done).

     We only found out what really happened when we received our first reply from her nearly three weeks later. Her father had been working with an undisclosed member of the Order of the Phoenix to smuggle Muggles and Muggle-borns out of the country. Because the Abbott name had been on the pure-blood registry, the Death Eaters had caught wind of it and stormed their house. They interrogated Mrs. Abbott on her husband's whereabouts, and when she refused to give up any information, they killed her — but not before murdering Gracie in her bed first. Aurors told Hannah it was likely they made her mother watch.

     At that, I had begged McGonagall for a week off school. Mercifully, she granted it to me, and I took the next train out to the South of England where Hannah lived. There, her father had answered the door and led me to Hannah's room, where she had been cooping herself up since coming home. Despite her tears, she broke out in the widest smile when she saw me, hugging me and thanking me for coming.

     I slept on the floor next to her bed for the next six nights. She would stick her hand out and I would hold it as I listened to her cry herself to sleep. "You won't leave me, right, Ains?" she had whispered one night.

     "I wouldn't dream of it," I said.

     "Neither would I," she replied.

     And I had smiled to myself in the darkness, excited with these new feelings of care and tenderness I was starting to feel for the ditsy blonde bimbo in the bed above me, and pleased with myself that I had taken a chance with her.

     How little I had thought of it then. How mundane those words had seemed, how dispensable. This little 4AM exchange was soon lost amidst the rage and turns of war. But Hannah held me to them ever since, until it all came to a head during the Battle of Hogwarts.

༻❁༺

     I have read that in medieval warfare, soldiers in the frontlines aren't guaranteed to die. They hadn't charged at each other in an open battlefield only to meet in the middle with a resounding crash, the way they are commonly portrayed in popular culture. In fact, fighting on the frontlines was considered an honour, and sacrificing your life for king and country was hailed as valiance of the highest degree.