He wanted
The Slytherin dorm was mostly empty. People were at dinner. For some reason Draco himself wasn't feeling very hungry.
Draco closed the door to his private room, locked it, Charmed it shut, Quieted it, sat down on his bed, and started to cry.
It wasn't fair.
It wasn't fair.
It was the first time Draco had ever really
Somewhere in the dungeons, a boy Draco had actually liked was screaming in pain. Draco had never hurt anyone he'd liked before. Punishing people who deserved it was supposed to be fun, but this just felt sick inside. Father hadn't warned him about that, and Draco wondered if it was a hard lesson everyone had to learn when they grew up, or if Draco was just weak.
Draco wished it were Pansy screaming. That would have felt better.
And the worst part was knowing that it might have been a mistake to hurt Harry Potter.
Who else was there for Draco now? Dumbledore? After what he'd done? Draco would sooner have been burned alive.
Draco would have to go back to Harry Potter because there was nowhere else for him to go. And if Harry Potter said he didn't want him, then Draco would be nothing, just a pathetic little boy who could never be a Death Eater, never join Dumbledore's faction, never learn science.
The trap had been perfectly set, perfectly executed. Father had warned Draco over and over that what you sacrificed to Dark rituals couldn't be regained. But Father hadn't known that the accursed Muggles had invented rituals that didn't need wands, rituals you could be tricked into doing without knowing it, and that was only one of the terrible secrets which scientists knew and which Harry Potter had brought with him.
Draco started crying harder, then.
He didn't want this, he
Draco knew he should go back and free Harry Potter and apologize. It would have been the smart thing to do.
Instead Draco stayed in his bed and sobbed.
He'd already hurt Harry Potter. It might be the only time Draco ever got to hurt him, and he would have to hold to that one memory for the rest of his life.
Let him keep screaming.
Harry dropped the remnants of his hacksaw to the ground. The brass hinges had proved impervious, not even scratched, and Harry was beginning to suspect that even the desperation act of trying to Transfigure acid or explosives would have failed to open this door. On the plus side, the attempt had destroyed the hacksaw.
His watch said it was 7:02pm, with less than fifteen minutes left, and Harry tried to remember if there were any other sharp things in his pouch that needed destroying, and felt another fit of tears welling up. If only, when his Time-Turner opened, he could go back and
And that was when Harry realized he was being
It wasn't the first time he'd been locked in a room.
Professor McGonagall had already told him the correct way to do this.
...she'd also told him not to use the Time-Turner for this sort of thing.
Would Professor McGonagall realize that this occasion really
Harry gathered up all his things, all the evidence, into his pouch. A
When he was done, Harry glanced down at his watch. 7:04pm.
And then Harry waited. Seconds passed, feeling like years.
At 7:07pm, the door opened.
Professor Flitwick's puff-bearded face looked rather concerned. "Are you all right, Harry?" said the squeaky voice of Ravenclaw's Head of House. "I got a note saying you'd been locked in here -"
Chapter 24: Machiavellian Intelligence Hypothesis
J. K. Rowling coils and strikes, unseen; Orca circles, hard and lean.
Draco waited in a small windowed alcove he'd found near the Great Hall, stomach churning.
There would be a price, and it would not be small. Draco had known that as soon as he'd woken up and realized that he didn't dare enter the Great Hall for breakfast because he might see Harry Potter there and Draco didn't know what would happen after that.
