This Is War

Masks

Here lies the concept of Heaven and Hell again, Draco thought bitterly to himself.

He'd been having trouble understanding how the muggles and their beliefs of something so powerful could exist to damn them or rejoice them, how someone they couldn't see or couldn't feel could sort them out like fruits that are at their prime or have gone rotten. These muggles put so much faith in some great being, most of them weaving throughout life not to upset Him so when the unavoidable moment came their souls would lift to Heaven instead of the fiery bits of Hell.

Adding more to his confusion, he wondered now how this Ultimate Being living in the sky could offer redemption. After he'd researched the concept of muggle religion (late one night when the library had been deserted and no one to see a curiosity that could be the end for a pureblood), he stumbled upon various texts of this book called the Bible that referred to how this God person could lead the darkness to the light. God gifted redemption to the people of the darkness, people who'd lost their way so long as they chose to do good and repent on their sins. After he'd read that, he wondered how exactly God could make those stray ones get back on track.

With stinging flesh, sore bones, muscles tensed and locked, Draco knew the stupid concept of 'walk a mile in someone's shoes' was more relevant than what he liked it to be; and maybe this was a way this God could cause the stray to follow the right path again.

"Easy, there. Don't fidget so much, the bruising is still tender."

Or it's all really a load of rubbish, he told himself angrily as a pair of soft hands helped him sit up on a lumpy cot.

"You're impossible to settle," Ginny Weasley was looking at her friend's angry brown eyes. "Honestly, Hermione, sit still. You're going to swell up again."

Malfoy kept his frown on his borrowed-expression, wishing for the Weaslette to shove off and not come back as all he wanted was to be alone.

Ginny sighed again. "I know you're itching to go downstairs and join the plans Remus has for the Order, but you can't," she spoke like she really knew what was bothering her friend.

She moved forward, fluffing the warm quilt on Draco's borrowed-lap and he had to subdue the natural instinct to tell her to get her filthy Blood Traitor hands off him—but this really wasn't his body, was it? It's not like he could claim full control of Granger's body and reject all of her touchy friends (as much as he'd like to).

In all his distaste to have people touch him, Draco had to unwillingly admit he was only treated with care and affection. It was a nightmare most of the time, being treated like he was about to break, like he was made of glass, but then he remembered he was possessing Granger. They treated him—her—like the most precious thing because she was their little Warrior Princess.

He had never been handled with so much care, even if they didn't know it was him. When he was younger and got sick due to the change of the weather, or for spending too much time flying on his broom when it rained, the house-elves would usually tend to him. They did it with shaky fingers, giant eyes filled with fear, and they never spoke to him. Once or twice through a haze of fever he thought he saw his mother enter his bedroom, brush the sweaty strands of blonde hair from his forehead, kiss him gently there, but then it was gone; like a dream induced by the fever.

The closest he got to being treated like he was cared for was last year, on the night he'd gotten hit by the curse Potter sent his way and sliced him up, all the blood in his body draining out. Snape had been cautious with him, Madam Pomfrey had healed him gently as she clucked her tongue and stared at him disapprovingly, and then Pansy had been less desperate and ran gentle fingertips over his skin when he was in his hospital bed.