Hogwarts: Era of Darkness

It happened at the end of September. We were in charms class while the rain was pouring outside, and the wind was rattling the windows like the end of the world had come. We were learning the Flipendo, the knockback charm, the same one that the Parkinson girl used on Quincy. Everything was going smoothly, right until Draco performed it so well, he flipped his minion, Crabbe… no, Goyle… no… No matter, one of them was sent spinning in the air, crashing into Professor Umbridge's desk, splintering it into hundreds of pieces and splashing ink on her, sitting behind it. What would be a pretty good scene in Professor Lockhart's class, making everyone laugh, here the mood quickly turned cold and silent.

"Come here." Professor Umbridge stood up, holding that nasty smile on her toad-like face. For a moment, I had the idea that she probably couldn't give birth to children as all of them would turn out as basilisks.

"It was an accident," Draco answered with fake calmness, gripping his wand even stronger while Umbridge picked out her own, picking up Goyle with a wish, throwing him at the end of the room like a rag doll, hitting the wall with him so hard, it made the classroom shake. This move alone frightened all of us, especially Draco.

"This woman is not right in the head…." I whispered, but Quincy just stepped onto my feet to shut me up before she heard it.

"Mr. Malfoy," Umbridge said again, looking at him, her mouth kept in a wide, unnatural smile.

"My father is-" He started, but the Professor interrupted him by simply raising her wand.

"Tks, tsk, tsk! Your Father is not here, and this is my domain, Mr. Malfoy. Bad children need to learn, and the quickest teacher is nothing else but pain. Crucio!"

Draco didn't have any chance to scream as he was writhing on the ground, twitching uncontrollably under the spell's effects. It lasted only a few seconds, but Draco immediately passed out when Professor Umbridge stopped. Did I look the same? Was my face contorted in such agony too? Were my eyes just as frightened and pleading?

"Carry him out. Class dismissed!" She waved her hand, fixing her clothes with magic and repairing her desk, ignoring the rest of us.

"Come. Help me." I nudged Quincy, who reluctantly walked forward with me, picking the unconscious Draco up from the ground.

"What about him?" She asked, looking towards Crabbe… no, Goyle, who was also knocked unconscious when hitting the wall.

"Crabbe, carry him back with us," I said to the other big one who always followed Malfoy around.

"I… I am Goyle." He said in his stupid-sounding voice.

"Same." I shrugged, saying no more as we left the empty classroom and returned to our common room. It wasn't surprising how quickly everyone abandoned the rest when it counted. This is why I believe my Father is right… You can only trust people after going through dangers with them. You then know who stays and have your back… and who are the ones who will leave you at the first chance. In the end, you may only trust yourself… and nobody else.

…
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……

Unlike me, Draco came back to himself much earlier. I had just laid him down on the bed when his eyes snapped open, sitting up with such force our heads knocked together, sending me tumbling backward, landing so hard that my head received a second knock given to me by the hard, cold floor.

"Watch it!" I groaned, sitting up, feeling horrible but even then, looking not as horrified and sick as Draco. He was pale, to begin with, but now he was grayer than any of the castle's ghosts. I only managed to dodge at the last moment as he turned towards the sides, emptying his stomach out through his mouth and nose. "That was close!" I sighed, standing up, looking at him. "I'm not cleaning that up after you." I groaned, but surprisingly, he did not react this time at all.

“That… monster…” He groaned, wiping his mouth, "My father…"

"Will do nothing," I said, watching Goyle waddling in, heaving heavily, carrying Crabbe in with great difficulty. Ignoring them, I pulled a chair over and sat down on it, looking at Draco. Somehow, even considering everything, I felt pity for him. Maybe because now we share the same fate?

"My father is-"

"A minister like mine." I interrupted him. "Do you think anyone would care? Do you think any of the other Death Eaters would care?" I added quickly before he could say something, "They wouldn't, and your father would be able to do one thing; remain silent about it."

"He could complain about it to HIM!"

"Say it again, and if you won't feel a tinge of cringe, check into St Mungo's for a brain check!" I snorted, looking into his silvery eyes. "Do you think HE would care about this? Don't make me laugh! Your Father wouldn't dare raise this issue with him or anyone else for that matter!"

"Hmph! Why, yours would?!" He snorted angrily, making me sigh again.

"Of course not, idiot!"

"You! You dare-!"

"You are being idiotic, so you are one." I rolled my eyes again, feeling my headache from the two knocks intensifying with every spoken word of his. "You can do nothing but swallow it down! Crying like a baby won't help you! Think about it a little, and you will see!" I said firmly, standing back up and glancing at him calmly. "You're welcome." And with that, I was off. Dinner was way off yet, and I had already wasted enough time carrying him back… I should have been studying in the Library, not babysitting a kid!

"You are also a kid." I heard Quincy's voice, who was walking next to me. Blinking my eyes, I realized I was already out of the common room, heading up to the ground floor and to the Library.

"You can read minds?" I asked, bewildered, but she just smiled at me.

"No, but when you go absent-minded, everything is written directly onto your face."

"Tsk… I need to work on that."

"I agree. You look really annoying when you do that."

"..." I had no answer besides rolling my eyes, making her chuckle and nod again.

"Yep. You really are."

"Please stop… my head already hurts as it is…." I pleaded, giving up when we arrived at the Library.

"Okay, okay! Aren't you tired? Going to the Library every day… It is pretty boring." She shrugged, still following me nonetheless.

"Hey, it isn't mandatory. You can go anywhere else if you want."

"No… I mean, I… I just thought we could do something different once in a while!"

"We?" I looked at her questioningly, although I already knew why she said it like that. Besides me, nobody was interacting with her. At least not without picking on her.

"..." She looked hurt and shy at the same time, making me regret asking and trying to tease her in revenge.

"Look, give me an hour. I want to check on something I read last night. After that, we can go out, and I don't know… take a walk?"

"It is raining." She answered, with a soft, quiet voice, still sounding hurt and shy at the same time.

"Ah. True. I forgot. I like storms…." I said, looking out the Library's colored windows, placed way high above us, watching the giant raindrops splatter against it. "Then what did you have in mind?"

"Gobstones?"

"Rejected," I said immediately, arriving at the shelf at the back of the Library and looking through the hundreds of thick codexes until I found what I was here for; Serpents and Related Spells: The Anthology.

"Then… I don't know, but… something else?" She asked, not really angry as it was just one of her first thoughts that came to mind.

"We can go back to exploring the castle if you want."

"Well… um… okay." She agreed after a brief thought, finding it interesting while sitting down next to me as I flipped open the book, starting to flip through it.

"What are you searching for?" She asked, watching me run my finger through the book's index page.

"The Serpent Summoning spell. I want to learn it."

"You want to summon a basilisk?" She asked, her mouth starting to twitch.

"Ahm…" I stopped moving my finger, and I felt my face turning redder and redder. "Well… no, I am not! That is probably impossible, anyway! I just thought… experimenting with it a little!"

"Sure." She shrugged, not bothering me anymore, instead picking out her own books and starting to do her homework, working ahead so she wouldn't miss them, no matter what happened next.

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……

It was a Sunday morning. For once, I managed to wake up without a nightmare and feeling dry. After changing and pulling my curtains over, the room was empty, except for Draco, muddy from head to toe.

"Huh?" I let out a sharp breath, looking at him, completely befuddled.

"Just shut up." He snapped at me, grabbing a towel, trying to clean his face from the mud still dripping from it.

"I didn't say a word," I replied, but my voice was cracking, and I barely managed to hold back a laugh. "Did you catch it?"

"Catch what?" Draco snorted while I managed to not grin.

"The snitch, what else? You are in your quidditch robes; I see your broom standing next to your bed, also in a similar state as you… Was it a hard landing? You are lucky that it is a Nimbus 2000, and you didn't snap it into two! So… it is pretty obvious what you were doing."

"Well…" He tried to play it coolly. "It was a hard exercise. That is it."

"Yeah, I can see that. At least the ground was soft after the constant rainy days we had."

"Stuff it, okay? I simply lost concentration; if it were you, you couldn't even fly straight!"

"Okay, okay! Geez…” I rolled my eyes. "You better get yourself together, Mr. Malfoy!"

"...!" He flinched, not knowing if he should be angry about how I was talking to him.

"Or else you will embarrass yourself, our House, and pretty much everybody with your performance on the year's first match!"

"Hey…" He called after me as my hand was already on the doorknob. "How did you do it?"

"Do what?" I asked, looking back over my shoulder.

"Remain calm… forgetting it. You know…" He asked with a quiet voice, trying to look calm and collected, but his silver eyes betrayed he was stressed out beyond belief.

"Revenge," I answered after a brief consideration.

"Huh?"

"Think about taking revenge. For me, it helps my mind remain focused." I smiled a little before leaving, as there were many things to do, and the day was short.