September 7th, 1991
It happened in a moment. I was shuffling through memories, sorting Draco’s actions, reactions, Malfoy mannerisms. I was trying to find out when he started consciously avoiding me. And then it was past midnight and I blinked. Then it was four in the morning and my muscles were stiff from sleeping upright in an armchair -no matter how soft and lush the velvet cushions were.
It occurred to me, then, that I had not actually pushed Crabbe and Goyle very hard. I hadn’t checked in with Pansy or Daphne after bolting. I only asked Nott and Blaise once and didn’t push. I had made a show of stalking the Hogwarts grounds and being aloof at dinner. But if I was serious, if I wanted to see my brother, I knew how to get to him. But, I wasn’t sure I wanted to find him. I didn’t feel this spat would be simple for the sole reason that until Friday noontime I had not known we were in disagreement. I had always thought we were tied too tightly for me to not know something.
After all, we were born under the twin star Gemini, twins born under twins. Even our owls were near identical save that the genders were swapped. Every day for eleven years and three months -we were together. Only once had we been apart for longer than a day, when Mother took Draco to France while Father took me to the States. It was for three days and the only reason we had been taken separate is because we were in a spat. He had taken the book I was reading, and in retaliation I took his violin. Through a series of escalations he called me callous and I called him a minion. Neither of which were wholly true -which meant they weren’t wholly untrue either, so neither of us were willing to apologize. Thus, after two incredibly tense weeks of moody children, a separation was ordered.
After a full day had passed with us on different continents, I was noticeably distressed. Not in a subtle Malfoy way, either. In an attempt to hold together a neutral expression, I bit my tongue rather roughly and when I went to answer a question from my father an unseemly amount of blood had fallen from my mouth. Apparently, Draco had snapped three brooms and a vase from the Middle Ages around the same time. I knew it had to be at the same time, because, as Father and I were Floo calling them, our calls canceled each other out and Mother immediately called back. Our parents let us each sit in front of the other and cry. Then we asked small details about the cities we were in until we fell asleep by the fire.
All of this to say, I had realized perhaps I didn’t know my brother as well as I thought if I couldn’t even figure out why he ran from me in the dormitory.
And I did not want to know what, exactly, he had hidden from me.
It was at that exact moment the sound of a harsh crack filled the air around me. My mouth was tinged with a metallic taste and I choked out a laugh, pulling my stinging palm away from my cheek.
It doesn’t matter what Draco has hidden from me. He cannot hide from me. Not any longer. Not like this.
I straightened my top and flattened my trousers, with a loop of my wand I whispered a charm for my hair. Then I was striding through the dimly lit common room, planting myself in front of Draco’s dorm.
If I was someone more ostentatious, I would have knocked and just woken the lot of them up. Give them a show. But I am a Malfoy.
“Alohomora.”
The dull sliding of the lock let me know the charm went off without a hitch, and I measured my breathing. The only sound as I slowly, ever so slowly, opened the door was the low hum of deep breathes coming from the five boys.
It wasn’t difficult to pick out my brother, with his dark leather trunk sealed with the coat of arms our family had adopted right after migrating to England nearly a millennium ago. The boys dormitory was much like my own, the rectangular room had vaulted ceilings that only seemed darker the more one focused on them, the beds were staggered —three on one side, two on the other— and each personal area had a lush chair and side table with a mounted bookshelf hovering overhead.
I made myself comfortable, gingerly pulling down one of Draco’s textbooks as I sat. The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1). I had been trying to avoid reading beyond the first quarter, but there was no helping it now. I wasn’t going to sit and wait for Draco to wake up in boredom. That would be odd. And dreadful.
With the absolute minimum amount of power, I used lumos and tucked in.
-
It was two hours and half the spell book later when the first of the boys woke up. I had only powered lumos enough to allow me to read, nothing more. So when whoever had flicked on a light, I glanced up to see a frozen Theodore Nott staring at me. His brown curls were wild from sleep, and he was not wearing a shirt -only flannel pants.
As his mouth started moving, I pulled a single finger up to my lips and ‘shh’d lightly as I glanced at Draco's sleeping form. Instead of shouting in indignation, Nott swiftly covered his chest with his hands and gave me an unimpressed look.
I had a smile as I went back to reading, no longer needing to sustain the lighting charm made it much more comfortable.
As Nott shuffled around, I heard a boy groan from one of the other beds -Blaise based on the disgruntled curses he was directing at the light. After another minute of muffled complaints he bolted upright.
“You! This is not your dormitory!”
I looked over at him, my brows furrowed. At least Blaise had on a shirt. Too bad he looked halfway to murderous.
I raised a single finger to my mouth and frowned.
“Shh.”
“Absolutely not. Nott! Tell her to leave.”
With a loose jumper halfway over his head, Nott took a moment before shooting Blaise an unkind gesture and going back to getting dressed.
It was still early, and it was the first Saturday of the term. So, I told myself I could wait until my brother woke up on his own. That it was fine. I can make it. And as Blaise and Nott shuffled around, eventually heading out with only a few skeptical looks, I was fine. I sat, I read, I only checked the time twice more.
It was at eight that the third boy started waking up.
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He turned once, twice, and I could feel it when he blinked his steel eyes. The moment they focused on me, I thought about whether or not Draco would be able to see bags under my eyes. If I looked disheveled. If he knew I had been driven up the wall.
The answer was the same as always. The charms I used to deceive the world deceived my brother as well. Would today be the day he understood?
“Good morning, Coco.”
He was frozen, either seized by irritation or shock.
“Medea.”
“Care for a chat?” I gently closed the spell book and placed it on the table behind me.
“Oh?” By the way his lip curled, it was irritation, “To what do I owe such a pleasure?”
“Fine.” I lowered my voice, nearly hissing the words, “Be that way. Rot inside your own head.”
Draco snorted, and I felt a part of me shut down, “Like it matters to you. Run back to your new minions.”
I had to focus on my hand, had to stop myself from stretching out the muscles too much. Rather than clenching my fists, I was one to do the opposite. My fingers were fully extended, frozen by the tension in my body. As if ready to reach out and grip my brother. To strangle him, or hit him, or pull his hair. It was the essence of me, I thought. My body, ready to attack, while my mind fought back the impulse.
I wish I had these types of issues when it came to emotions other than rage.
But today, rage would have to do.
“Oh, I wasn’t aware I had stooges following me around now. I wasn’t aware I was you.”
“What? Unable to handle the truth? That Parkinson, and Greengrass, and Zabini -even Nott, they follow you around like puppies.”
“And?” I was fighting to keep the vitriol out of my voice, and failing, but Draco was focusing on nonsense, “I fail to see why Daphne and Pansy should matter to you. Nott isn’t one to even join a group. We’ve known that for ages. And Blaise? We always knew he would be one of mine. Getting territorial, are you?”
“So it’s ‘Daphne’, ‘Pansy’, and ‘Blaise’ is it? You’ve known them less than a week!”
I stood slowly, every movement restrained to keep me from lunging straight for him. I ran my fingers along my skirt to flatten it. In the silence, I met Draco’s gaze once again and took a step towards him -within striking distance. Not that I would strike him. Just. I could.
“Why have you been avoiding me?” I spoke without anger or malice, without hurt or affection, without warmth. I spoke with ice in my veins.
He had to look up at me as I stood taller than his laying form, and I couldn’t help but feel a dark satisfaction that he was disheveled and I was pristine —save for the exhaustion I held at bay. His white blonde hair was messy, sticking up in odd directions, his silk pajamas half bunched and half unbuttoned, he had not even had time to wipe the sleep from his eyes. Meanwhile, I stood with my white button up tucked neatly into my skirt, my boots tied as neatly as a charm could ever align the laces, my hair collected in a ponytail —no stray hairs to be found, even my makeup was maintained by a charm Mother had taught me to apply as if it was breathing. My wand wasn’t in my hand, but it did not need to be. At that moment, he was a parakeet and I was a basilisk.
These may be things that were supplemented with eleven years of Malfoy family teachings, but these are things elsewhere taught me first. A world where I didn’t have magic, but had to fight those who did. A world where I had to rely on grit and will and my own cunning. Maybe I was not a good person back then, maybe I was one of the worst, but here and now I knew. I knew it all over again. That the same viscous love I held for those in elsewhere, that poisoned my family then, had carried over. And I knew it would poison them again once I heard my brother’s answer.
“What does it matter to you? You couldn’t care less about me. You found a dozen others to replace me in a moment's thought. Anyone was better than me, eh?”
“How dare you.” It wasn’t truly a question, because he had already said it. But it was a stop gap. A way to give myself a moment to decide if I really wanted to continue this conversation.
He doesn’t understand. Make him understand.
No. He doesn’t need to understand. He doesn’t need to be told. He needs to be shown. That words are actions and actions have consequences.
“How quaint, Draco, that you forget every conversation we have ever had,” I felt a smile spread, cold and calculating and cruel, “How astounding the depths of your incompetence. How awe inspiring your ability to be so incorrect.”
I wondered, then, if I had ever attacked my brother —truly, with either words or actions or malice. We have fought, casual things regular to any sibling I’ve ever had. And I knew, by the look on Draco’s face I had not. Well. There’s a first for everything.
“Hogwarts is a vacuum, brother. Mother and Father are not here to drag us halfway across the world to make us realize we’d rather be angry together than calm apart. At the Manor we had a half dozen elves and a dozen more servants. We had Mother and Father. But do you know who we have here? You have me. I have you.” I paused briefly, letting my smile drop and hardened my expression, “If you are too much of an imbecile to understand that, then it would be better if we had no one —as you seem to have already decided for yourself.”
Even as his face started going red, I sneered, not allowing him to get a word in.
“If you think I have replaced you, my brother, the Castor to my Pollux, my twin star, then that is a folly all your own. I will not sit here and listen to you hiss and whine about the very thing we agreed to do. You were meant to be feared and respected and followed. I was meant to be admired and loved and listened to.”
I turned and went to leave, hearing Draco attempt to splutter a response. As I reached the door, I gave him a gift.
“The code is ‘Draco Malfoy is a prime Seeker’. Unlock your broom, you fool.”
Maybe, if I hadn’t been so tired, I would have listened to my brother’s response. Maybe, if I hadn’t been so offended by his doubt in me, I would have held my tongue. Maybe, if I didn’t know our families fate —didn’t know Draco’s fate, I would have loved the Malfoys a little less. But ‘maybe’s and ‘if’s are useless. There is simply the future. I made those decisions a decade ago. Some even further back.
The decision that I would destroy the world for my family was something that followed me through every lifetime. Whether that ruthlessness made them hate me or doubt me or love me more, I had decided that was the only way my vicious love would be worthwhile. It was, after all, the only way I knew how to love.
-
I spent the rest of the day running.
I skipped breakfast and ran, taking my finite supply of energy potions with me.
After three hours I took a Draught of Invigoration to keep me up,
Instead of returning to the hall for lunch, I pulled an apple out of my bag. Green. It had been Draco’s favorite first. I chucked it into the lake and kept running.
By the time dinner came around, I had taken three Draughts of Invigoration and two of the custom potions from Snape. I was panting and barely able to move. My muscles were sore from the built up fatigue and I was having trouble finding the strength to lift myself up off the hill.
I ran for twelve hours. Nine to nine.
I wanted to vomit and consume the whole of a feast. I chose neither, packed up my bag, and went to the dungeons and fell asleep.
When Daphne and Pansy got in after dinner, they left me be.