Dear Diggory

chapter 10

The weekend went quickly after my weird interaction with Cedric. I still hadn't figured out what to make of him, although I thought he had an aura that sucked you in, feeding your curiosity.

Before I knew it, it was Monday lunchtime and I was making my way to the library for Draco's tutoring session. I was looking forward to it, we hadn't talked properly yet, both too caught up in classes and the activities of our respective houses.

When I arrived, the library was practically empty, just how Draco liked it. The first time he had made a point that we should study in private. He didn't want his friends in Slytherin knowing he cared about his grades, and so we agreed lunchtimes would be best.

The notion had made me laugh at first, the houses could be so different in that sense. In Ravenclaw, studying was practically a competition. But in Slytherin, you were deemed nerdy and uncool for it.

I made my away along the aisles of books until I found him sitting at a table in the back corner. I took in his appearance, admiring the white-blond of his hair and his creamy skin. It was a shame, if he didn't appear so mean I was certain that plenty of the girls would fancy him.

He smiled when he saw me and I placed my bag down, beginning to unpack my notebook and pens.

"Hey, what's up?" he asked.

"Nothing much, did you have a good weekend?"

"Yeah I did actually. Blaise and I were trying some of those spells to conjure retro pinball games. We've been playing the centaur one all weekend." He drummed his pen against the desk absentmindedly.

I nodded, "that's cool, maybe I should come play sometime?"

"Yeah that would be wicked", he smiled at me, showing off his perfectly white teeth.

"Did you manage to find the book you need yet?" I sat down in the chair, uttering a quick cushioning charm under my breath.

He flicked his wand and muttered "accio History of Magic Volume 6" and the book floated from one of the shelves into his hand.

He opened it begrudgingly and we began looking into the first chapter titled History of Wandlore. The class for History of Magic was notoriously boring amongst the students. Professor Binns didn't help and many people fell asleep listening to his droning ghost-voice.

The majority of us chose to stop studying it after 5th year, moving onto our more specialised interests, but Draco came from an extremely traditional pure blood family.

I knew children of those families were expected to know the history back to back and I had always felt bad for them. From what I knew, Draco's father was a harsh dictator and expected perfection in his son's grades.

We were halfway through the lunch hour when I managed to pluck up the courage to ask Draco about summer. The usual dread filled me, my brain expecting the worst but hoping for the best just as I did every-time.

I lowered my voice to make sure no-one would overhear, "how were things over summer Draco? Was it bad?"

I bit my lip anxiously as he sighed, leaning back in his seat and loosening his tie. I knew that gesture all too well by now, he only did it when he was extremely stressed.

"It wasn't good. You know what my father is like. The worst day was when I spilled some of my water on his copy of A Tale of Two Wizards."

He began to roll up his sleeve and I braced myself for what was to come.

He turned his forearm up to the fluorescent lights, exposing his papery skin to me. There, embedded deeply into his skin, was a small black spot with long lines running out of it like rivers. To anyone else it might have looked like a strange tattoo, but I knew better.

I gasped and looked up to meet his unwavering gaze.

"He got a lot better at hex curses since Christmas. This one had me laying on the ground for at least 6 hours, of course he put a soundproof charm on the room so my mother wouldn't hear my screams. I couldn't eat for a few days, everything just came back up." His tone was dull, seemingly exhausted from the mere recollection of the incident.

I didn't know what to say. I knew nothing could really make him feel better, it never had before.

"Draco... I'm so sorry."

"Don't be, it's not your fault. It's mine. It wasn't the first time and you know it won't be the last." He acknowledged glumly, pulling his sleeve back down to cover the ugly imprint.

And sadly, he was right. After a year of studying together, Draco had shared the truth about his abusive father Lucius.

He cried for a long time when he first told me and I had just hugged him. He told me that he had felt relieved to finally share the terrible truth, it was eating him up from the inside out.

Whenever he came back from Christmas he would have fresh bruises on his face. His father taught him charms to hide them and you would only notice if you knew what to look for. The scars on his arms showed the whole horrendous truth though. A mix of hex spells and physical marks littered his skin. Draco told me whether his father used his wand or his fist depended on his mood. A few times he had even returned with broken ribs and listening to his pained breaths had been heartbreaking. I'd made sure to learn a few basic healing charms after that.

We were silent for a long time before he spoke again, "I just wish things could be different you know? I'd give anything for it. I hate him. I hate who he's made me into."

I didn't ask any questions about this. I already knew that he was referring to the way he was mean to other students. It wasn't who he really wanted to be, it was a way to protect himself. He felt that if no one thought he was worth getting close to then they wouldn't discover the pain he really felt.

I took his cold hand under the table and squeezed it gently, wanting to offer him some sort of comfort.

"It doesn't have to be that way Draco. You don't have to be that way."

He looked up at me and I winced as a tear rolled slowly down his cheek. He wiped it away quickly, brushing it off as if it had never happened.

"I wish that were the case. I want this all to be over." His voice was so quiet, almost lost in the murmur of the library, and my heart cracked at the vulnerability in it.

We were silent for a long time as we held hands under the table, but my brain was in overdrive.

Draco needed help to escape Lucius, that much was clear. But what could I do? Nothing came to me and I began to get frustrated with myself. I was a Ravenclaw and that meant I was supposed to be smart, but what was the point of all this knowledge if I couldn't help a friend?

I thought of my father and the work he did around the world. He did that out of the goodness of his heart, even when it was really difficult.

I looked at Draco's sad face and made the decision in my mind, crystal clarity seeping into my veins.

"Draco, I promise you that I will figure out a way to get you out of there by the end of the year. I won't let Lucius do this to you any longer."

He nodded at me slightly, I knew he was afraid to speak incase his voice broke. Perhaps he didn't believe me either, the boy had been betrayed enough by those that seemed to care. After something like that would it ever be easy to trust anyone?

My mind drifted as I thought about my conversation with Cedric in the pub. It occurred to me that I was right, you never truly know someone, people certainly didn't know Draco.

We sat there for the rest of the lunchtime, letting time pass around us.

I didn't let go of his hand the whole time, hoping that he knew he wasn't as alone as he felt.