Hermione was in turmoil. On the one hand, this year she had already had enough trouble from her friends, but on the other… Could someone capable of vileness be considered a friend? After all, the Hat had had doubts for a reason about whether to send him to Slytherin… But what about the fact that this person had risked his life so many times… Wait… WHOSE life had he risked? Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Defeated-He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, had never once rushed to save her, Hermione, or Ron. He had only cared about himself, about his reputation… Now it was clear why he had needed Flamia: the most beautiful girl in the school had to belong to the hero! And who needs a hero who does not know how to talk to girls, a hero who cannot tell truth from fiction, a hero who is worth nothing on his own!!!.. All right, enough, she had to distract herself with something, or she could end up having a nervous breakdown. Her lessons were already done, patrol duty had not started yet, and it was unlikely anyone would wake up this early on a Saturday… Oh! An idea! She needed to think about how to find out something about Malfoy… After all, the Hero had no time to solve this problem, he needed to keep hold of Flamia… But how could she obtain information without Legilimency? One moment… The little vial of Luck potion! Felix Felicis would help… and Felix believed that first of all she needed to sort things out with Harry!
Harry was walking to the Gryffindor Common Room, hoping to find Ron or Hermione there and tell them that Flamia had accepted his proposal. Flamia had stayed in their room for now, but she was going to join him soon. If only he had known about Miss Know-It-All's intentions… Perhaps then he would have tried to find Ron, who clearly had not shown up in the dormitory that night… But cruel fate did not warn him of its intentions, and so, as soon as Harry opened the passage behind the portrait of the Fat Lady, the only acting Gryffindor prefect flew at him like a fury:
— And how did I not figure it out earlier! Damn hero! How could I ever have been friends with you!!!
— I don't understand! What exactly are you accusing me of?
— As if you don't know! How could you do that to an innocent girl? It's vile!
— If you mean Romilda, then she sent me those damned Cauldron Cakes herself, so she got what she was asking for!
— Ha! Are you mocking me? As if I would worry about some fool!
— Wait, then who is all this fuss about? Ginny has already found herself someone else, she even made friends with Flamia…
— EXACTLY! WITH FLAMIA! Aren't you ashamed of keeping her by force? I should have guessed right away that there was a reason your Potions skills improved, you clearly had practice with complicated potions this summer…
— HOW DARE YOU! You know, FROM YOU I could have expected anything: suspicion that Flamia bewitched me, that Flamia is a Death Eater sent by Voldemort, that Flamia is not like everyone else, but to suspect ME of having bewitched someone!..
— And why are YOU any different? What have YOU done? Taken the Philosopher's Stone from Quirrell? You wouldn't even have made it past the first obstacle without us! Killed the Basilisk? And where is the proof? Maybe you weren't the one who opened the Chamber of Secrets, but you had the power to simply close it! And even then, you risked Ron's life, and he was your best friend! And in third year?! You nearly got us all killed with your thirst for revenge! What would have happened if your godfather had turned out to be a traitor…
— DON'T YOU DARE MENTION SIRIUS!
— Ah, so your conscience is tormenting you too! Of course! You dragged us into that stupid Department of Mysteries, even though you were asked not to go looking for trouble…
— ONE MORE WORD, AND I WON'T BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONSEQUENCES!
— Well yes… Hero!.. I'm simply curious, did you brew the potion yourself, or spend your inherited money?..
Hermione did not manage to finish the end of the phrase, because Harry hurled her with a spell toward the exit:
— You know, you and Malfoy have a lot in common… Go to him, maybe he'll forget that you're a Mudblood when he gets to know you better…
Miss Know-It-All flew out of the room, roughly shoving the portrait away from herself and not even noticing Flamia entering. She managed to dodge, after which she did enter the common room and immediately guessed WHAT had happened…
— Harry… What did she say to you?
— You know, sometimes I don't understand this world… I chose Gryffindor myself, the house of the brave, even though the Hat predicted success for me among the Snakes. But in Malfoy, Draco Malfoy, the son of a Death Eater, there turned out to be less hypocrisy than in the good little girl Hermione Granger! After all, he never addressed others in any way different from usual… For him the world really is divided into pure-bloods, half-bloods, Mudbloods, and Muggles… But Malfoy would never recognize me as his friend, even if the enmity ended, he would never recognize my merits before this world, though I truly would not have been able to walk this path alone… And Hermione, in an instant, turned me from the hero of the magical world into some more worthy likeness of Gilderoy Lockhart! And on top of that, she decided that I had bewitched you… And most importantly, she began her accusatory speech with the words "And how could I ever have been friends with you!"… Yes…
— Don't be upset, Harry… Something like this was bound to happen… Even if the story of our love had seemed plausible to her, she would have found another reason for a confrontation… That is all Hermione, she needs to expose someone in something…
Hermione Granger walked in the direction of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Felix had indicated to her that it was the best place to pour out her accumulated feelings. The ghost of the hysterical girl really was a good conversationalist for lonely inhabitants of the castle. In sorrow and sadness, she understood very well indeed. Only Hermione was not the only one who used her help. In this room one could encounter practically any girl driven to hysterics by her friends; another matter was that at this time there was hardly likely to be anyone there. But someone was there. Even before opening the door, Granger understood that there was a boy in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. And this boy was crying. No, he was not sobbing, he could not behave in a manner unworthy of a man; his suffering was sparse in emotion, but he was suffering. And Felix was saying that he needed to be pitied. The prefect opened the door and saw… Draco Malfoy, pouring out his soul to the ghost. The moment for entering was the most successful one, Draco had just interrupted another phrase from his speech about his tragic fate and looked in the mirror. Fortunately, right now he was not going to display arrogance and mock a Mudblood. He simply asked:
— You? What are you doing here?
— Actually, Malfoy, that question is more relevant in relation to you. This is the girls' bathroom, after all… Though I see you came here not because of natural needs… just like me.
— What, did your Gryffindor friends abandon you? Didn't want to have anything to do with you?.. — Malfoy was so depressed that he did not even use his favorite epithet.
— If only they had been my friends… I only now realized that for them I was a walking study guide for every occasion. But one of them already doesn't give a damn about studying — who needs it when you are the victorious captain of the Quidditch team? — and the second has found himself a beauty unlike any the world has ever seen… Only until yesterday I didn't understand what was happening, and then I understood: what kind of hero is he? He needs constantly to fan the fire of glory around himself, otherwise he will become yesterday's hero… I realized it too late… And yet he would not have managed to do anything without my help!
— Hey, is anyone going to pay attention to me? — the mistress of the room tried to cut in. She would have been better off not trying… The best student of the sixth year sent Myrtle on a journey through the depths of the sewer with a light wave of her wand…
— Malfoy, do you really have no one at all to talk to? Well, all right, Crabbe and Goyle, next to them a mountain troll does not seem as stupid as it really is, but you do have adequate people too… or don't you after all?
— Well, to be honest, I don't know whom I can trust… Which of them will follow in their parents' footsteps of their own free will, and who will turn out to be a victim of circumstances? In our whole house there are barely a dozen people who can avoid the brand… And even with those you cannot really talk, as a rule, they keep away from us… And yet from the outside it seems that all of Slytherin is for He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named! — Draco's face twisted into a bitter smirk. — Only many of us are given the brand by force… like me…
— The brand? Do you mean the Dark Mark?
— You're perceptive… Many Death Eaters consider the Mark a badge of distinction, and the Mark of the Inner Circle is generally cooler than the Order of Merlin, First Class… Only this medal has two sides! The one who accepted His Sign can no longer live peacefully. He can penetrate the souls of his servants, he can punish them with the most sophisticated tortures, without even raising his wand. We are slaves, I am a slave!
— Fear is what holds you?
— If only it were fear for myself… We are people too, and nothing human is alien to us! He threatens me with reprisal against my family, my mother is in his hands… I have no right not to obey!
— But what does he demand of you?
— I'm afraid I cannot say… If you find out, you will want to warn them, and even if you don't want to, your thoughts will betray you… I can say one thing: danger hangs over everyone, but I am not able to stop him…
— I will be beside you…
This conversation was not the only peaceful contact between students of Gryffindor and Slytherin that day. And in this conversation, too, the talk was about the Dark Mark, only it was about the other side of the medal… If the Gryffindor who came to this meeting had known whose fate he was repeating, the Death Eaters would have been left without a new recruit… But he did not know…
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