Work Text:
It is an impossible task, and Draco knows it.
He’s hidden in an alcove, just beyond the greenhouses, clasping his hands together as if he could force them to stop trembling with sheer will. It is a shameful position, and he’d thought himself above it, just a year ago. Less than that, even. He’d thought Father was the most powerful person, that being a Malfoy came with privileges that would protect him from anything, at least until the Dark Mark burned into his skin and he came to understand that this brand was not one of honor.
Kill Albus Dumbledore, the Dark Lord had told him.
It was something that not even Lord Voldemort could accomplish, and Draco knew that He expected him to fail. Everyone did. It was why Malfoy Manor had been filled with mocking jeers everytime he passed by. It was why Father had hidden himself away, even in his own home. It was why Mother had gone to Snape, in anticipation for when Draco was unable to perform as he was told to.
Draco dug his fingers into his sleeve, right where the Mark lay, obscured with cloth, and tried to ground himself with the reminder of what would happen if he was unable to meet the expectations set before him. Death may as well be a mercy, by that point. His family’s reputation has fallen into disrepair, and that was not even his most pressing concern over the past several months. His parents’ lives were on the line. And Draco could not afford the failure that was expected of him, otherwise—
He startles at the sudden sound, on his feet, and tugging his sleeve even further down.
“—er,” says Longbottom. He stares at Draco. Draco stares back. “You look like a mess,” he adds, after a pause.
It snaps Draco back to the present.
“What are you doing here?” he sneers.
Draco puts as much venom into the words as he could muster, but the infuriating Gryffindor is undeterred.
Longbottom’s gaze falls upon Draco’s empty hands, and does not bother drawing his wand himself. “I could ask you the same.”
“Go away.”
Draco is sure his face is still red, and hair in disarray. He tries to cover up his lack of composure with a glare, but Longbottom simply takes a seat to the side, slinging his bookbag off his shoulder. That easy dismissal of his words sparks the kind of fury that Draco basks in. It’s a preferable emotion to the utter terror that has been plaguing him.
“I said leave,” snaps Draco, and hushes his voice immediately after. He doesn’t want to draw attention.
Longbottom just glances back at him evenly, and Draco hates the damnable pity in his eyes.
“You look like a mess,” he says again.
I know that. I know that and I hate that you see it. I don’t want anyone to see me like this.
Longbottom doesn’t leave. Draco storms off.
***
Draco plans to stay away. He’d rather not run into Longbottom again.
His plans have not been succeeding as of late.
He has not been making enough progress on the Vanishing Cabinet, and the mild burning from his Mark—not painful enough to be a Summon, not painful enough to be a punishment, yet—is putting him on edge. It is a reminder: Draco is not safe at Hogwarts. Even still, his parents are in more danger. His latest test fails. He wants to disappear, but there are very few places of privacy in Hogwarts. He cannot find peace in the Room of Requirement.
Draco returns to the alcove less than a week after he swears never to return, and immediately regrets his arrival when he finds Longbottom already there. He’s ready to turn on his heel and leave when—
“You look better,” notes Longbottom.
Better? He’s spiraling. He has until the end of the year, and his progress is stagnating. His deadline is closing in. He can practically see the fate that looms over him, in all its dread and death and doom, and Longbottom thinks he looks better?
“…or maybe not,” he says a moment after. “Maybe you should sit down.”
Longbottom remains outwardly unbothered by his clear displeasure. Draco does not leave. He cannot return to his dormitories when the other Slytherins know. They are not foolish enough to speak of it aloud, but they know, and Snape knows, and he cannot face the Room of Requirement with that horrible implicit show of his weakness in the form of a nonfunctional Vanishing Cabinet.
“Mention this to anyone,” threatens Draco, gritting his teeth as he takes a seat across from him, “and I’ll kill you.”
Longbottom responds with a noncommittal hum.
He seems content to ignore Draco entirely, focused on whatever assignment is before him. Draco sits there for an hour, legs pulled up to his chest, and head tucked in his arms. He leaves with a lighter heart, and a burning humiliation, unsure of what lapse in judgement compelled him to believe that vulnerability was acceptable around Neville Longbottom.
***
Draco swears that he will not return. Not while Longbottom is there.
***
Draco comes back. Longbottom is not there. Draco leaves.
***
Draco comes back. Longbottom is there.
“Stalking me now, are you?”
“It’s not stalking.” Longbottom is nonplussed. “You’re the one who keeps showing up.”
“I was here first,” says Draco.
Longbottom gives him a look from where he’s already seated.
“From before,” he adds.
From that first time Longbottom had walked in on him.
Longbottom shakes his head. “I’ve been coming here since Third Year.”
Draco glares mutinously. “Piss off.”
He glares harder when Longbottom lets out a laugh.
Longbottom’s expression is softer when he stops to wave a hand across from him.
“We can share,” he says, and Draco hates him.
(Still, Draco sits, right where it had been offered to him.)
***
Draco is—he would not call it waiting—at the alcove again.
Longbottom arrives an hour in, stepping up to Draco, and taking a seat on the ground beside him. He does not say a word, simply sits there in a silence only broken by the scratching of a quill on parchment. Longbottom does not acknowledge him, working on his assignments as though Draco is a non-presence. It is the same, every time. He knows Draco will be here. So why—?
“Longbottom,” begins Draco.
“You can call me Neville, you know.”
“Longbottom,” he repeats. “Why are you here?”
“Why do you keep coming back, Draco?”
He does not say: Don’t call me that.
Instead, Draco looks right at him, and stays silent.
***
How far have you fallen, Draco Malfoy?
***
“Doesn’t it bother you?”
Neville looks up curiously. “Does what bother me?”
“Being around me,” says Draco.
“We’re not kids anymore,” Neville replies plainly.
A sound too broken to be considered a laugh rises from his throat. It’s funny, in a way. Draco had never felt so big at eleven-years-old, entering Hogwarts with the weight of the Malfoy name behind him. He has never felt more like a child than now, at sixteen, with the Dark Lord looming over him like a dementor prepared to administer the Kiss.
“I used to be so scared of you, you know? Back in First Year.” Neville pauses with a sigh, and Draco can hear the implicit but not anymore. He looks Draco up and down with a scrutiny that makes him feel exposed. “But there are worse things in this world.”
And Neville stops to look at Draco with an intensity that makes him wonder if Neville also hears the echo of Aunt Bella’s horrid laughter and the high-pitched lilt her voice takes when she means to mock.
“I’m sorry,” says Draco.
His throat closes up before he can say more. There is plenty to apologize for, he supposes, and he isn’t quite sure which would be most appropriate to express. I am sorry for how terribly I treated you. I am sorry that I have only realized as much now. How can you even stand to be civil around me? He cannot make himself meet Neville’s eyes.
Draco waits. Neville drops his gaze back to the parchment before him; the scratching of a quill is the only sound in their silence. He says nothing in return.
***
Draco returns to the alcove. It is his only place of peace.
Neville is already there, offering a wave of acknowledgement as Draco takes a place beside him.
Draco should not be making a habit of this.
***
(It is already a habit. It has been for a while.)
***
Neville breaks the silence this time with: “You don’t have to do this, you know.”
“Do what?” asks Draco.
Neville gives him a significant look. Draco’s denials die on his tongue.
“I’m not as stupid as you think I am.”
I never said you were stupid, Draco does not tell him, because it would be untrue. He has said that before, mocked him with it even. It has been a while since he’s said so. It has been even longer since Draco had truly believed it to be true.
“Yes, I do.” His breath rattles his chest. “I don’t have a choice.”
“There are always choices.”
Draco grits his teeth and a familiar fury rises in his chest.
It is so easy for Neville to say that.
There are always choices.
Not good ones. Not ones Draco is willing to accept.
Not when the wrong choice would see his parents dead.
Draco cannot force out a reply.
“Think about it,” says Neville.
It is an option. It is an offer. It is nothing and everything at once.
Draco manages a stiff nod. And that is that.
***
I am sorry for what is about to happen. I am sorry for what I’ve done. I’m sorry—
***
Draco returns for Seventh Year.
Dumbledore is dead. Snape is Headmaster.
Neville meets his gaze from across the Great Hall with eyes that say:
You didn’t have to do this.
But he did. He had to. He had no choice.
(He keeps telling himself that.)
Draco waits in the alcove, desperate to explain, desperate to be heard by the one person that had been willing to listen during that hellish previous year. He isn’t quite sure when it had begun to matter so much to him that Neville understands.
Still, Draco waits.
Neville knows where to find him.
But as hours pass, and Neville does not appear.