Howl

“Go on and get us a seat, will you beautiful?”

I stand at the entrance to The Great Hall and look at him carefully. Draco was smiling softly at me but there was something sharp and wrong in his light eyes. My eyes slip by him, to see Snape watching us like a vulture about to strike for a meal. I want to argue with him and tell him ei. I wanted to demand he be honest with me.

But I don't think I was in a position to do so. Who was I to him? The boy infuriated me with his pet names and his almost kissing me and his spending every night of Christmas in my bed. But we aren't anything but friends.

Instead of arguing with him, stamping my feet and demand that we establish what we were, I turn on my heel and head into the hall.

“Lyall!”

I look up from my eggs and smile to see Harry waving me over. I rise, forgetting that Draco asked me to save him a seat and sit by Harry at the Gryffindor table – oddly, he was alone. I don’t ask where the others are as he wraps an arm around me and pulls me in for a hug. I also don't question the sudden change of heart.

“Hei, rakkaus!" I exclaim as we pull away. “How are you? How was your break?”

Harry tells me about his Christmas. “I stayed with Ron at their house, it was pretty great. It was a pity we never seen you,” I don’t mention that he and his friends had all but ostracized me before break. “but what did you do?”

“Draco and I spent the break at my home. My father and my brother left for Sweden and I needed some company. He agreed. It was lovely, though.”

Harry’s smile becomes forced. I sigh and twirl a strand of my hair around my finger as I continue speaking: “I know you don’t like each other, and I’m not expecting you to be friends but I wish you wouldn’t judge me on whom I chose to befriend—”

“I know,” he awkwardly scratches the back of his neck. “He’s just so horrid, Ly.”

“You’re not any nicer to him than he is to you. I’m sure you understand he says the same thing about you, Harry.”

Harry opens his mouth as though he can tell me something that will change my mind about him but he quickly closes it and I silently thank him. We branch off into other conversations and we forget about all the tensions that were dispelled at the mere mention of Quidditch.

“Are you busy this weekend?” he asks me. I shake my head. I am not. “I was wondering if you wanna come to Hogsmeade with me? We can get lunch… or… or something.”

I suppose there may have been an ulterior motive to his sudden uplift of mood.

“Sure,” I say. It would be a perfect time to make up with them all. “Where will I meet you all?”

“All?” The smile on his face falls and I raise an eyebrow as though it should be obvious. I mean Hermione and Ron, of course. Weren’t the three usually attached at the hip? I wonder briefly if Harry had an idea of the two of us together, like a date. “Oh! Yeah, we’ll just meet you at the entrance on Saturday morning.”

I go back to my table after our talk and smile. My smile only increases when I feel cool hands wind around my waist and my body is turned to look Draco in the eye. “What were you and Potter talking about?”

“He asked me out,” I say softly. “We were just talking.”

I wince as Draco’s long fingers press sharply into my skin before he offers me a small smile and loosens his grip. “What did you say?”

I tilt my head to the side and smile at him. For once, he wasn’t throwing insults at the back of Harry’s head when I mention him. I wonder why. I reach up and push a tuft of his blond hair into place. “I think he meant it as a date, komea, but I turned it into a group thing.”

“Why would you do that?” Draco’s breath catches in his throat as I continue pushing his hair back from his face. I pull my hands away from his face, brushing my fingers over his defined jaw before letting my palms fall to my lap. “I thought everyone wanted to go out with Saint Potter.”

“I think you’re wrong.”

“Then who do you want to go out with?”

I smirk at him because he’s so clueless and I love it. I roll my eyes at him because he’s as equally infuriating as he is beautiful. I shake my head at him and laugh because I think he knows and he just wants me to say it aloud.

“I’ll tell you mine,” I say and lean towards him. “If you tell me yours.”

“She’s in Slytherin.” He gives me a stern look before he smiles. “Of course.”

“Of course,” I laugh. “What else?”

“Well,” he trails off in a thoughtful way. “She’s extremely beautiful and the best part of it is that she’s not even fully aware of the extent of her beauty. But she’s not that superficial, attention seeking beautiful, you know. She’s just so… täydellinen.”

“Why don’t you just tell her?”

“I want to,” Draco sighs and I gather there is more on his mind than girls. “There are a lot of things I want to tell her and I always try to but I need her to be safe so I can’t tell her.”

A large part of me knows who the girl is but the smaller, quieter part of me tells me that I’m wrong because I can’t possibly be any of those things, can I? Then there’s the other thing: What is Draco hiding from me?

I’ve known ever since the first day of school when he looked as though he hadn’t slept in weeks, even though the previous day he looked as fresh as he could. He was up to something and whatever it was, it wasn’t good. Every so often he’d withdraw into himself and it was getting harder and harder to get him to talk about why he’s always tired.

He’s doing something late at night.

“Well,” I sigh and lean forward on my seat to rest my elbows on the table. He may have well as told me he liked me, but he also all but told me he couldn’t – or wouldn’t – do anything about it. “Maybe you should ask her how she feels.”

Draco stares at me curiously for a long moment before shaking his head with a small smile. “What about you?”

“Well, he’s—” my attention is turned towards the main entrance of the Great Hall where a particular chubby cheeked bright eyed Gryffindor had just entered the hall looking rather confused and frightened. “Neville!”

“Longbottom?” Draco sneers and I don’t have time to tell him that he’s misunderstanding before I’m racing towards Neville. I steer him out of the Great Hall and find a deserted nook in the castle before we open our mouths.

“Neville?” I say softly. I brush some of his hair from his eyes as he looks into my eyes in worry.

“Harry’s—There’s something going on with Harry, Lyall.” He says quietly. “He’s just saying all this stuff.”

“Breathe, Neville.” I tell him and squeeze his shoulders gently. “Do you want to tell me, lempi?”

“It’s about you and Draco.” He starts and I remain quiet and still as he proceeds. “He’s dead set on the fact that Draco’s a Death Eater, you know, cause his dad is. But just now he’s came into the common room, he looked angry and I don’t know, humiliated? Now he’s saying that you must be one too.”

My heart is thrumming in my chest by the time he is finished. I stare at a point above Neville’s head and try to control my breathing but my body is thrumming with adrenaline and I want nothing more than to escape the corner Neville and I were crouched in.

Draco came from a family of Death Eaters.

What in the world was I going to do?

“Neville,” I say slowly. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Neville nods as though he’s trying to convince both of us of this. “I’ve just never seen someone so angry in my life.”

“He didn’t hurt you..?”

“No!” Neville shouts, his round eyes widening impossibly. “Of course not… Harry wouldn’t…”

Something tells me he’s not so sure about that anymore.

I left Neville after reassuring him that Harry was just having a tense year and wandered the castle with my own thoughts.

I had always heard there was something about the Malfoy’s but who was I to judge without the proof? Now, coming out the mouth of innocent Neville Longbottom, the prospect that Draco may be following in his father’s footsteps didn’t seem so unlikely.

If Draco was up to something – which seemed likely – then I was conflicted.

One on hand, I cared deeply for Draco but on the other hand, if he was doing something that could endanger more than himself then I couldn’t sit back knowing I could have stopped it.

Then there was the other little thing—

I shook my head as his blond head came into view and I trotted to his side. I kept my head low and my eyes averted. “Draco,” I hiss. I wasn’t sure what I was going to say. “If you’re up to something, try being a little more discreet about it.”

I stop walking and spin on my heel, leaving him looking utterly terrified and lost.

I fight the urge to stop and run and hug him and tell him that it was okay, that I was here. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it. I want to, oh, how I yearn to go back to him but I keep walking and Draco continues to stare at my retreating back.

The moment I know I’m alone I slide down the cold stonewalls of the castle with some gasping breaths. I drop my head into my hands. I couldn’t do it anymore.



“You want me to what?”

“Spy on Draco.”

“Oletko hulluja?”

Harry, Ron and Hermione peer at me from over the forth of their butterbeers as I am visibly seething in my seat. I was angrier with myself than I was at them. I didn’t want to admit it out loud but a large part of me wanted to agree.

“Lyall, we’re not asking you to go out of—”

I stand up and move to the end of the table. As much as I teased the thought, I could not do this to Draco. I had already given him a warning. I wouldn’t betray him like that.

“You’re not asking me anything.” I snap. “Whether he’s up to something or not, I do not know but either way, it’s got nothing to do with you.”

“Lyall, he could be dangerous.”

“Your life is only dangerous because the three of you can’t help shoving your nose places it’s not needed. I have to go.”

I don’t look back and I don’t listen to them while the call my name at my retreating back.

It seemed as though I had done it again, except this time it was I who ostracized everyone else.
I click the door behind me gently and duck behind a nearby building to compose myself. I couldn’t get so attached. It was overwhelming, having friends and having feelings… for boys, no less. Although…

Knowing that Harry was snooping around—

I don’t know. I want to stay out of it but if Draco is up to something – and I know he won’t stop if I begged him – I don’t want Harry getting involved and putting them both in danger. I knew, if it came down to it, that I would side with Draco no matter what was going on with him.

It strikes me that I was perhaps falling in love with him.