Draco glanced at Pansy with as polite a smile as he could muster. She was his friend, but she had become clingy and more interested in dating him than just being his friend ever since they'd come back from Christmas. Draco wasn't really interested in dating right now. "Yeah, Pansy?"
"A Hogsmeade weekend is coming up, and I was wondering…" She trailed off meaningfully, fluttering her eyelashes at him.
"Yeah?"
"Would you go with me? On a date?"
Draco shook his head. "Sorry, Pansy, it's a little distracting thinking about dating in the middle of studying for OWLS and knowing there's a Dark Lord after my brother," he said. She turned a little pale. "But I'd be happy to go with you as friends."
Pansy gulped and nodded. "All right. If you just want to be friends…that's fine. We can go as friends." She tried to give him a smile again, but there was a bit of a sickly tinge to it. "Will you excuse me? I should go to the Owlery before Potions starts."
Draco watched as she left, wondering if she was upset because she had been reminded of the Dark Lord's existence, or just in general. A scoff from the side made him look over at Daphne Greengrass.
"You're a fool," Daphne hissed, and stood up to leave the table, practically flouncing away.
Draco blinked at her back, then turned to Theo and Blaise. "What was that about?" If something had happened with Daphne or Pansy in particular, then his friends would tell him.
Blaise and Theo sighed and looked at each other, obviously deciding who should tell him. Draco waited, his hands flat on the table. They had a little bit of time before they had to leave for Potions. He might have had to put his family first for a time, but he did want to know if something had happened to one of his friends.
Blaise finally made a motion at Theo. Theo sighed again, rolled his eyes, and turned to Draco. "Pansy's father has enormous gambling debts," he said quietly. "I gather that he was trying to pay them with Galleons he had borrowed from someone else, but that didn't work. So then he borrowed Galleons from the Dark Lord."
Draco hissed. "And you think Pansy is—"
"She could be in danger. She could genuinely want you to go to the Hogsmeade weekend with her, but also be spying on you for her family. She could also be under orders to get close to her." Theo shook his head. "I don't think anyone knows except for Pansy herself. And her father's capricious and inconsistent and changes his mind like the wind changes direction. I don't think anyone knows for sure what he'll demand of Pansy next, or what's being demanded of her right now."
Draco gnawed his lip and looked after Pansy. Was she writing to her father right now? Should he go after her and tell her that he would go with her to the Hogsmeade weekend after all, if it would keep her safe?
Or would going after her and changing his mind so obviously reveal that he knew what was going on with her?
I wish I knew what the right thing to do was.
Mal?
There was a long moment of silence when Harry thought that he wouldn't get an answer, or, worse, that he might have imagined Mal speaking to him in the first place. But then Mal's voice came back swiftly. Thank you for returning, Henry. Were you able to get in touch with the necromancer you mentioned?
I wrote to him, but he hasn't written back to me yet.
Ah, yes. The speed of post owls. I often found myself frustrated by that gap in communication when I was alive.
Harry smiled a little. Yeah. Muggles have some good ideas, and the way they can talk to each other quickly is one of them.
There was a long pause, and Henry wondered whether Mal had become exhausted by speaking to him. Then Mal said, I wouldn't have expected a Malfoy to be familiar with Muggle communication.
Harry grimaced. It's complicated. I was stolen when I was a baby and partially raised by Muggles. But I'm back with my family now, and it's really only knowledge that I have from my time with them, not anything more.
So you are a pureblood?
Yeah. My mother's from the Black family. My father is Lucius Malfoy. Harry paused, but Mal didn't say anything else, so he continued. Do you know them? I don't really know when you were murdered—
It's not something I like to recall. Mal's cool voice cut Harry off, and then he continued before Harry could apologize for a question that had been pretty insensitive of him. But I did learn something since the last time you were here. My spirit is bound to a physical object. If you could retrieve it and take it out of here, then I believe I would move with it as well. It would be easier to communicate with the necromancer you mentioned.
Yeah, it would be! What is the object? How can I get to it?
....
Do you want to read ahead by more than 60 exciting premium chapters?
Then join my p*atreon right now.
Link: p*atreon.com/Sonic_Spectre (Remove the *)
Free members can unlock upto 2 chapters.