Chapter Three: The Past and the Future

Not DH-compliant.

Chapter Three: The Past and the Future

"The Headmistress has approved the Hogsmeade weekend," Ginny said, moving aside to let a few third-years pass them in the hall.

"Yeah, I know. Snape announced it to us this morning, along with a lot of warnings and caveats," Draco replied. "I guess they're making the announcement to the school at dinner tonight."

"Are you going?"

"I'm not sure. I need to talk to Professor Snape first. I guess they're having a lot of Aurors and Hit Wizards on hand, and half the staff, too, and we're all supposed to pair up with someone and not be alone, just in case that vigilante's around." Draco shrugged, apparently unconcerned about the extremist who was targeting people whom he believed had escaped justice after the war, even though his father had been one of the targets. "I think it would be okay. But I don't know."

"So . . . if you go, do you want to go together? Since we're supposed to stay in pairs, anyway," Ginny said.

"We could go together with a group, I suppose, if you don't mind a few more Slytherins."

"Luna and Niamh will be going, I'm sure," Ginny said. "We could go with them, instead. Or make one big group. If your friends don't mind a Gryffindor tagging along, they shouldn't mind a couple Ravenclaws. But I'd like it if we went together, you and me, whether we hang out with anyone else or not."

The two stepped out into the morning sunshine and joined the trickle of other seventh-year students who were making their way to Herbology class.

"If you think so," Draco said with a nod. When Ginny smiled brightly, he was glad that he had agreed. Her smile always seemed to make his heart swell. "Yes, if Professor Snape says it's okay for me to go, safe and all that, we can go together."

"I don't think that the vigilante would show up during a Hogsmeade weekend, anyway," Ginny said. "He doesn't attack people in public or in groups. He's a coward."

Draco gave a crooked grin. "Can eliminate any former Gryffindors, then."

Ginny smiled up at him. "You should join the Aurors, Draco."

Draco snorted.

"Actually, you should, seriously."

Draco smirked and shook his head.

"You'll have the NEWTS, I'm sure."

"There might be other disqualifications, though," Draco said.

"Whatever you do, you'll be good at it, I know."

"I got an owl from Mr MacAirt this morning...Cormac Quinlivan, not Alroy. I'll show it to you after class. He wants to talk to me again."

"Oh, Draco! That's great!" Ginny grabbed his arm and squeezed it to her. "What did he say?"

"I'll let you read it for yourself," Draco whispered. Professor Sprout was already directing students to plant beds. "There's no time now."

"You, Weasley and Mal– Newman, you take that bed there. We're doing simple single variable microclimate charms this morning," Professor Sprout announced to the class. "I've put a sign in each bed saying which charm you are to cast on that particular area. Each of you casts on just half of the bed. When you and your partner have decided that you've each cast the charm to your satisfaction, I'll check them for accuracy and strength, and then you will move on to another area. I want each pair to perform at least three different charms before the end of the hour, so chop-chop! Don't dawdle!"

Working with Ginny was fun and went smoothly, and the two each managed to cast four charms to Professor Sprout's satisfaction, and she let them leave class early. They wandered down to the edge of the lake and sat on the lawn. Draco pulled out the letter and handed it to Ginny.

After scanning it, Ginny said, "This sounds like he might want to hire you, but he doesn't say for what. Did you apply for a specific job?"

Draco shook his head. "I just wanted to feel him out about opportunities. At this point, with the manor gone and everything else, if I wanted to go into business...and be able to go anywhere with a future, not just work for some little shop...it was basically down to him or the Zabinis." Draco shook his head. "I don't want to be one of Zabini's charity cases."

"That's not very nice, Draco," Ginny said. "A lot of those Slytherins didn't have anywhere to go and no one to take them after the war. He gave a lot of kids a home."

"Yeah, and they and their families will be indebted to the Zabinis for who-knows-how-long." Ginny didn't understand the way these old Slytherin families worked. Draco shook his head again. "I'd be seen as another one of his wayward waifs brought under his benevolent umbrella. No, MacAirt is farsighted, really forward-thinking...that's what got him targeted by the, um, by Riddle all those years ago...and he recognises merit and rewards it. He never went to Hogwarts, so he doesn't seem to have the same strong feelings about the Houses...even though he taught here, too, ages ago, one of the Defence teachers. I think he'd be fair and that I could really go somewhere working for him. I don't want to be stuck in some really boring job for the next hundred years." He shuddered.

"I read an article in the Daily Prophet that said there'd be more opportunities in the next ten or twenty years than there've been in a couple generations because, um, well, the writer thought that all the people who are in prison or who were killed over the last few years opened up room for new generations. He said that this could mean more innovation and not so much conservatism. It was kind of upsetting when I first read it, but he could be right."

Draco smirked. "Probably written by a Ravenclaw. Yeah, he might be right. But I still think that people like me won't have it easy."

Ginny was quiet for a while. "You're so different, Draco. I keep half-expecting . . ."

When Ginny didn't finish her sentence, Draco finished it for her. "For me to turn into a nasty, two-faced, pureblooded prat with an undue sense of entitlement?"

Ginny smiled slightly and shrugged.

"I don't blame you. That's what I was. Or worse." Draco plucked a long stem of grass and put it between his teeth. "Yeah, worse."

"You were pretty bad," Ginny said softly.

"Like I told you before, that last year, when I was away with Mother in Sweden, I had a lot of time to think. We couldn't do any magic or we might have been found, and other than the complete set of Hogwarts textbooks in my bedroom, the house was supplied only with Muggle books. A LOT of Muggle books. And sometimes new ones would arrive by Muggle post. I think the Headmistress had them sent. That was kind of nice. It didn't feel like we'd just been dumped there and forgotten.

"I didn't have much to do but read. I shopped, since Mother wasn't up to it at first, and I got to like it, but I never really learned to speak Swedish. We kept to ourselves too much for that, and so I learned not much more than I needed to ask for our bread rolls at the bakery and our fish at the fishmonger's. Never went anyplace but the grocer's, the bakery, and the fish market," Draco said with a shrug. "So I read. I think I read every book in that house, even the romances that had been left in my mother's room. I read, and I thought, and . . . well, you know about that. All that other stuff before, being the big Malfoy, being better than everybody . . . that was just . . . I don't know, a veneer or something. I wanted so much, and I didn't think that I could get it any other way. What I wanted most was . . . well, friends. And what did I get? Numbskulls like Crabbe and Goyle. I only succeeded in alienating anyone who could do me any actual good...but that's not all that matters about friends, I know that," Draco added hastily. "It wasn't the happiest existence. I always wanted so much, and never really got anything, nothing but a task that I didn't want and that made me sick to think about. I never felt . . . good. Proud, but only because of my family name, really, and, I don't know . . . better than anybody else, sort of, but not good, if you know what I mean, not happy, and I didn't know what would make me happy, so I just . . . I just kept trying to . . . to fill myself up, taking and being nasty and..."

Ginny put a hand on his arm, stopping him. "It's okay. I know. I think this is the real Draco. I really do."

"Yeah? I'm not sure myself, sometimes." He took his stalk of grass and flicked it toward the lake.

Ginny handed the letter back to Draco. "It's nice that Mr MacAirt will meet with you here."

"I guess everyone knows we're not supposed to be going anywhere on our own whilst that nutter is running around hexing old ladies, gimps, and simpletons."

"Now that was not very nice, Draco."

"Maybe, but it was true." He gave her a crooked grin. "You'll keep me on the right path, Gin. I know you will."

"Yeah, well, it wasn't very nice. But like you say, pretty true."

Draco snickered. "But it would be embarrassing to show up at a meeting somewhere with a babysitter in tow," he said, "so I'm glad that Mr MacAirt said he'd come here. I'll have to ask Professor Snape if there's somewhere we could meet...I don't think that our classroom and its Transfigured cushions would quite do."

Ginny laughed. "Professor Snape might offer his office. Now that he's cleared out all that disgusting stuff, it would do."

"I don't think so. He still seems to guard his privacy carefully. I'm sure he'll find a place for us to meet, though. It's not like the castle is wanting space."

Ginny looked back at the castle. "They say it was full once. Do you believe that? That there were hundreds of students? That there were like, one hundred first-years every year? D'you believe that?"

Draco nodded. "Yeah. One of my ancestors kept a diary from the first day he entered Hogwarts through all seven years. He was one of the first Malfoys to attend Hogwarts, and he says that fifty were sorted into Slytherin with him, with almost forty in each of the other Houses. That'd be almost two hundred in one year. Even if most of them left after fifth year, that's still several times the number of students we have these days. And I don't know about Gryffindor, but there are rooms in the Slytherin dormitories that have been closed off, corridors that were completely blocked, walled over. The dormitories were once much bigger."

"I think that's true in Gryffindor, too, but it's hard to tell, because it's a tower. They say there are hidden rooms in the tower, though . . . there are some pretty silly stories about those rooms, but they also say that when Dumbledore was Deputy and Head of Gryffindor, his room was in one of the hidden chambers in the tower. They say he could look right through his window into the common room and see if anyone was up to anything." Ginny shrugged. "I don't think the teachers have that much fascination with us, to be honest. It'd be annoying, I'd think, to have a constant view on the common room."

Draco laughed. "Boring, too, most of the time, unless you're one of the kids."

"Yeah. Mum told me once that they use the portraits. The portraits tell the teachers if they see anything going on."

"I always thought Slytherin was wise not to have a portrait hanging on the common room door."

"Or he didn't care enough about what the students got up to as long as they weren't caught doing it," Ginny said.

"I don't think school was the same back then. They probably were a lot stricter in some ways and a lot more lenient in others. I don't think they cared about watching the students so much, though."

"Are you going to one of the discussion groups on Wednesday?"

"I don't know . . . last time I went . . . I felt like a freak."

"That's the point...no, no, what I mean is, a lot of people feel like freaks, just for different reasons. Or they don't feel like freaks, but they feel . . . confused or something. It's the same for everybody and different at the same time."

Draco shrugged one shoulder. "I'd rather just talk to you, Gin."

"You don't tell me everything, though, I know that...what about signing up for an individual session with Healer Glyndwr or someone like that? They're free whilst we're still in school, so you wouldn't need to worry about how to pay..."

"Snape's already mentioned that to me. I just can't. I can't."

"Okay. But you should talk to someone. It's made a big difference for me."

"We're not the same. You're you and I'm me. We're not the same at all."

"Whatever . . . I have to get to Divination and it's a long way." Ginny stood and brushed grass from her student robe. "You know, you're more like me than you want to think, Draco."

"Maybe. I don't think it'd help, but I guess I'll think about it."

Ginny reached down and ran her fingers through his hair, pushing his fringe back. "I'll see you tonight?"

"Yeah."

Ginny bent and swiftly kissed his upturned face before she turned and trotted toward the castle. Draco gazed after her.

"A Weasley and a Malfoy," came a voice from behind Draco. "Who would have thought it?"

Draco glanced up at Patterson. "Did you want something, Hubert?"

Patterson grimaced at the use of his given name. "Nah. Just skiving off Divination." He flopped down on the grass next to Draco, stretching out long legs and leaning back on his hands.

"She's not Trelawney...she'll notice you're not there."

"Didn't do the essay for today, and examining the way flower petals fall isn't my idea of fun," Patterson replied.

Draco snorted. "Flower petals?"

"Yeah. So . . . are you and Weasley seeing each other?"

Draco shrugged one shoulder.

"Is that who you've been sneaking off to see every evening?"

"Where's your girlfriend?" Draco asked, shifting the conversation.

Patterson frowned. "Ursula's not my girlfriend."

"Break up with you, did she, Hubert?"

"Okay, okay, Newman. And no, she didn't break up with me. We never were really seeing each other."

"That's not what it looked like."

"She didn't want to get serious. She's got some kind of job lined up and she's ambitious. She thinks being in a relationship would get in the way."

"What sort of job?"

Patterson shook his head. "I don't know exactly...something with Gringotts."

Draco laughed. "No wonder she broke up with you, Pat...you couldn't pay attention long enough to find out what she's going to be doing after leaving Hogwarts."

"She wasn't ever very interested in what I'm doing after Hogwarts."

"Yeah, what are you doing? Working with your father in the broomstick repair shop?" Draco yawned.

"Probably. Just to start out. Since my brother . . . well, he'll be away a few more years. Dad needs my help."

"You're lucky your dad's not 'away,' too," Draco said. "I know where his sympathies lay."

Pat scowled. "Your father didn't just have 'sympathies,' Newman...if he did, you'd have kept his name, I'm sure. You got off scot-free, too. And everyone knows what side you'd have been on if you'd been here last year. You'd be off with Nott and Goyle and the others, I'm sure, not sitting here on the grass at Hogwarts."

"And why aren't you?" Draco asked. "Couldn't pick a side? Didn't know who'd win, so you just didn't choose a side?"

"You weren't there. It was awful . . ." Pat said softly. "We'd just heard that Snape was dead, that the Dark Lord had killed him, and Professor Sinistra was trying to get us all into this . . . this dungeon room. She was going to lock us in, both for our own protection and to keep any wannabe Death Eaters from going over to Vol–, Riddle, that much was clear. I didn't want to be locked in, but when Goyle and Nott . . . I wasn't with them, Draco. Believe me. It's not just luck that I'm not in prison somewhere. Maybe I didn't join Zabini, but it wasn't as if I had any choice there. He already had his little group of supporters, and except for the younger kids, the only other person he brought with him besides his group was Pansy. She turned around pretty quickly to defend Sinistra with Zabini's crew and force the 'unwilling' students into the room, which the Headmistress had supplied with food and beds and stuff. I wasn't fast enough, I guess. I just . . . I didn't want to be locked in, but I never would have joined Goyle and Nott after what they did."

"I don't know why they didn't just Stun her," Draco said quietly. "No one's ever really talked to me about what happened then. I only know what I've read."

"Sinistra was defending herself too well. I guess they decided it would be faster and easier just to kill her. Goyle's the one who cast the curse, but Nott wasn't squeamish, believe me. After that, it was sort of pandemonium. Zabini . . . I may not like him, but he's got talent. He managed to get everyone else into the room that had been set up for us, separate out the younger kids, and then he and his group of supporters kept guard until some Aurors came and placed stronger wards on the door. It wasn't pleasant, being locked up for more than a day with people who'd sided with Goyle and Nott. Crabbe was the worst. Wouldn't shut up, kept casting spells at the door. Finally, Millicent, me, and a few others got sick of him, and we ganged up on him. Stunned him and took away his wand. Told everyone else that they were to keep quiet or we'd do the same to them."

"Would you have gone with Zabini, joined Snape's Slytherins, if he'd asked?"

Patterson shrugged. "I like to think I would have, but I don't know." He shook his head. "I really don't know."

"See, Pat, I was given a choice. My choice was either to go to the Dark Lord's side or to enter the protection of the Order of the Phoenix with my mother. Mother's life was a misery. I knew that she wouldn't go without me, and I knew what kinds of things I'd have to do if I went to the Dark Lord...to Riddle. There wasn't any third option for me. I didn't even know about the battle till the day after it happened. We didn't get any wizarding newspapers. By the time I heard anything, I couldn't have asked to help even if I'd wanted to. We returned to Britain a week later."

"Seeing what he did to your father, I can guess what your choice would have been," Patterson said softly.

"Yeah . . ." Draco whispered.

"So . . . are you and Weasley seeing each other?"

Draco looked over at Patterson. "What did it look like to you?"

Patterson smirked. "Unless she thought that kissing you would turn you into a toad, I'd say it looked pretty cosy."

Draco gave a crooked smile, but didn't say anything.

"She's actually quite something, that girl," Pat said. "Loved watching her on a broom...intense, man, really intense. Don't tell anybody, but I was sorry when she quit the Quidditch team. Of course, makes our chances a bit better. We might actually end up second."

"Second's as good as last," Draco said automatically.

"Yah, whatever. At least we're not a complete disaster, like Hufflepuff. That kid, what's his name . . . little squirt who plays Seeker."

"Pinter."

"That's him. He's good. He must have been bit by a Mackled Malaclaw before he was Sorted, or something, to end up in Hufflepuff. They are fun to watch, though. Didya see their last game, when their Beaters flew into each other, knocked themselves off their brooms!" Patterson gave a whoop of laughter.

"It was a Beater and a Chaser, actually," Draco corrected, but he smirked. "Yeah, it's more like comedy than sport, watching them. But you're right about Pinter."

"He'll never stand a chance of making league Quidditch, though, not playing on that team."

Draco shrugged. "There's other things in life." He had too much to be thinking about with his own future to worry about some Hufflepuff kid's luck.

"Did you ever think about it?" Patterson asked. "Think about playing professionally?"

Draco shook his head slightly. His father used to talk about that, getting him on a team, using his influence to help him. Draco didn't think he was really good enough. He might have been able to get on a team by virtue of his father's pull, but he never would have gone beyond the reserves. He would have been lucky to play once or twice a season.

"It'd be a bit of a bore, I think," Draco said. "I'm thinking of business . . . like you," he added, making a gesture of amends for what he'd said before about his father's broomstick repair business, and for what he'd implied by it.

"I thought you might do an apprenticeship, Potions or something."

Draco shook his head. "I think business would suit me better. More . . . range. And if you get in with the right business, it's like an apprenticeship, anyway."

"You know where you're goin', then?"

"No, but I've ideas. A few things in mind."

"With the Zabinis?"

Draco snorted. "As if," he said, using one of Ginny's favourite phrases.

"Yeah, I know what you mean." Patterson stretched his long legs out in front of him. "Pretty soon, I'm afraid that if you're a Slytherin, you'll be either in Zabini's family or outside it, and if you're outside . . ." Patterson shook his head.

"Then it's up to us, people like us, to make other examples. Not that there's anything wrong with Zabini, and he's doing Slytherin well...I don't think there's been a week when the Prophet hasn't quoted either Blaise or his father about something, always mentioning Slytherin House somewhere in the article...but I think we've had enough of single leaders, and I think once we're out of school, we shouldn't all be thinking about Houses as much, anyway."

"I suppose . . . My mum was in Ravenclaw, you know."

"That'd be an easier House to be in than Slytherin, I think."

Patterson nodded. "So, are you and the Gryffindor girl serious?"

Draco shrugged. "We'll see."

"She was Harry Potter's girl," Pat said.

"Mm." That was an unpleasant thought, one he avoided.

"Is that why you're going out with her?"

Draco turned his head quickly and stared at Patterson. "Say something like that again, and I will forget myself and hex you, Patterson."

"Hey, all right! I was just sayin' . . . It's what a lot of people will think when they see you together, innit...you can't hex them all."

Draco shoved himself to his feet. "I'm going back up to the common room before dinner."

He didn't even look back when Patterson called after him, then caught up with him. The two walked back up to the castle together in silence.

Author's Note: If you think you recognize Pat from somewhere, he showed up in "The Sorting of Suzie Sefton."

If you'd like to refresh your memory, the Hogwarts battle chapter in Death's Dominion is in Chapter Twenty-Nine, They shall rise again. Some other events referred to here, such as the vigilante attacks, occur in A Long Vernal Season.