You're Safe With Me ( Draco Malfoy )

Chapter Forty-Two

"Nev!" Alice exclaimed as the portrait door swung to the side, revealing a rather beaten-up Neville Longbottom. It wasn't as though Alice even had the time to inspect the injuries on Neville's face, though, as she rushed forward to engulf her friend in a hug.

"Neville! You look-" Harry started, noticing the large gash on Neville's forehead (it was quite hard to miss). Bruises littered his cheeks as though he'd been in five fist fights in a row, making Hermione's face contort with worry.

"Like hell, I reckon." Neville replied as Alice stood back from their hug, a jovial tone in his voice despite talking about something that looked to be rather painful. "This is nothing, Seamus is worse."

"Jeez, what has Snape done to the school?" Alice murmured, a frown on her face as she thought about the suffering students. A strong arm was quickly wrapped around her waist as Draco pulled her in to his chest, kissing her cheek. He never felt like he was as good at reassuring her as she was to him, but he always wanted to try his best.

"Nothing good, I presume." He muttered back, anger buried in his words. Though he and Neville had only ever properly spoken once, way back when he saw Draco and Alice kiss, Draco still felt bad for Neville. It was almost a feeling of guilt, he bore the same tattoo as the people who were hurting innocents, but as he looked down to Alice, his guilt ebbed away. He knew that he was on the right side.

"Hey, Ab!" Neville called, causing the group to turn around to see Aberforth, looking slightly less moody at Neville's voice. Alice was silently surprised by the nickname, it didn't truly seem to her like Aberforth had given up as much as he had claimed to. "We've got a couple more coming through, I'll see you soon?" Aberforth nodded with a gruff grunt of approval, before stalking back out of the room. Neville turned to walk down the tunnel behind the portrait, before looking back to the others. "Well, are you coming or not?"

Harry went first, followed by Ron, then Hermione. Alice was just about to follow when Draco took her hand, stopping her in her tracks. When Alice looked to him, it was clear that something was wrong just from the worried look on his face.

"What's wrong?" She asked softly, looking up to him, noticing how his eyebrows were drawn together in stress, the corners of his lips turned down in to a frown.

"Well, other than the obvious, we're about to be led in to Hogwarts and most of the other students there will probably want to hex me on sight." Draco admitted, cutting Alice off when she went to protest. "Don't say they won't I know they will. Before you came back, I was horrible to everyone. Some of the younger students would literally run away from me. I was mean, vindictive and honestly? Downright cruel."

"I'm sure you weren't-" She began, but was cut off for a second time.

"No, I was. You never saw it because you're the person who made me want to- able to change it, but no other students, other than your friends, know that. They still see me as Draco Malfoy, the bully, the Death Eater." He spat, causing Alice to glare.

"Don't call yourself that." She ordered sternly, bring up a hand to place on Draco's cheek, running a thumb along his pale cheekbone. As he usually did, he subconsciously leaned in to her touch. "You are so, so many things, but a death eater will never be one of them. I understand that some of the people we're about to see might have assumptions about you, and I know that's going to be hard, but this is your time to prove them wrong. You can finally show everyone in there who Draco Malfoy really is, and I'll be by your side the whole time."

Although Draco was still nervous as all hell, Alice's words always managed to find a way of calming him down. After placing a small kiss to her lips, he took her hand and followed the others in to the tunnel, walking quickly until they caught up.