Chapter Text
Malfoy,
I’m writing to you because
Draco,
How are things going...
Malfoy,
Well, this is awkward
Dear Malfoy,
I was wondering how
Hey,
Please don’t throw this away before reading it. I understand why you might want to and why you might be suspicious of why I am writing you at all, but just hear me out. Please.
I know things haven’t been easy for you the past two weeks. I know some people are bullying you and treating you like shit, particularly younger students, are making things difficult. I hope you know that I am not a part of that. Although some of those idiots are claiming to do it in my name. I hate my name, and for people to use it like that after everything makes me sick. I have tried to put a stop to it, but I also respect that you can take care of yourself.
I think it’s really brave, you being here. We may have hated each other once, but frankly, I’m tired. I don’t have the energy to hate you anymore. Especially not after what you and your mother did for me. But mostly because I just want it all to be done.
I think most of us eighth years are finding ourselves in this strange place between student and adult. We have seen and experienced more hatred and pain and death before we officially came of age than some people ever do in a lifetime; and yet, here we are in this bizarre time-warp.
We eat breakfast every morning in a room that once hosted us as excited children waiting to be sorted, was decorated for our first yule ball and later used as triage for the wounded and a battleground for the end of a war. We walk these halls to get to class, the same ones that we once walked laughing and pranking our friends, fighting petty duels in, and later saw exploded by curses as we tried to rush to save the people we loved, screams echoing around us. Now we live in this castle, haunted by both the dark and the lovely memories, unsure of who we are. We are so out of place as we pretend to be students.
We remember the innocence we began with but see the scars everywhere. So we go to class, receive homework, have a curfew and raise our hands to ask questions to the teacher like we are still children. Most of us haven’t been children for a long time.
The thing is this, I’m tired. I don’t want to keep fighting anymore. I look around our common room and I see haunted eyes and lost silence.
When I look around at the students who are instigating fights with you and others, on the grounds of “moral superiority” and “they’re scum”, I see students who are perpetuating prejudice and the pattern is resetting. When does it end?
I think eighth-year wants to be at peace. But now, all trapped in one common room for the first time, unsure of what to say, or how to connect, we sit at a stalemate. The air in that room is oppressive as we all wait in quiet fear of being the one to tip things off and make it all start again.
I’ve been talking it over with ‘Mione, she seems to think (and she’s usually right) that we need to find some way to connect with each other. Something to bring us together both for our own sense of peace and healing, and as a way to show those wayward younger students who want to continue a war they couldn’t possibly understand that it is over. If we can be unified and move towards the sort of future we want, we can lead them by example.
She’s much cleverer that I am… I was trying to figure out when it’s acceptable to punch a 14-year-old.
Look, I don’t know you. Maybe I never did, maybe you are the arrogant, spoiled prat I always imagined; maybe your life is more complicated than I could see. I honestly don’t know.
I do know that I don’t want to, nor can I be the only person leading this revolution. I don’t think the Slytherins would ever trust or follow me. I think even the students that simply stood back and fled think I judge them for not running headlong into a war. I don’t judge them. I envy them. Some of us, people like you and I, weren’t given a choice.
I had a crazy idea that I think might just be my worst one yet (I once thought it was a good idea to ride a dragon out of the bowels of Gringotts, so be very afraid.) But I don’t want to create inter-house unity and cooperation through banners and speeches. This isn’t one of those bloody bullshit ministry fundraisers they’re trying to push on us. When I was 13, I was trying to conjure a Patronus, and I was asked to think of my happiest memory. One of my most powerful was the first time I rode a broom (ironically, you were the reason I defied Hooch in the first place, so I guess you were sort of a part of that). The time I’ve spent flying has been some of the purest joy in my life. Then it occurred to me, so was my time playing catch up quidditch, or seekers matches with friends, or maybe even the times I beat you...
I want to form a Quidditch league. And before you think I’m nuts because Quidditch is competitive in nature, it would be made up solely of eighth-year students. There aren't enough of us from any single house, we’d have to form two inter-house teams.
Looking around, you are one of the only remaining players from any previous house team. Also, I think as a Slytherin (in fact, the de-facto “Prince of Slytherin”), you might lend more respectability to the genuine cooperation of the group. It’s also good that you are someone of adequate skill, I suppose.
I want to approach McGonagall and poll the class, see if anyone else is interested. Fair warning, it’s a ragtag bunch. With only 20 remaining students from all four houses, we’d have to recruit people like Hermione (who can’t fly to save her life). I expect this might be a frustrating endeavour at times. But it might be fun. I mean what have you got to lose?
Scared Malfoy?
Assuming you didn’t burn this letter upon opening it, write me back and let me know how you feel.
Harry