Reader x Malfoy Pt. 1
Summary: Awakened by nightmare, Malfoy gives up on sleep and takes a 3am walk along the school hallways - during which, he meets a new student that might finally bring him some comfort.
Warnings: None
Hogwarts Castle stands silent and lonely, stoic against the darkened sky. Its weary bones shudder and sigh beneath the gaze of the white moon, whose pale light floods the school’s courtyards, creeping over the hedges, weaving its way into the silent dormitories of sleeping students.
Despite his affinity for absolute darkness, it is this same light that finds its way into the gloomy dungeons of the Slytherine house; the same light that now glances over the pallid, sickly skin of Draco Malfoy – who tremors in his sleep.
Twisting and thrashing, the body of Draco Malfoy contorts itself into a wretched mess of knots and angles. Nightmares engulf him, and he grasps desperately at the empty air, as if hoping for someone to save him. When no such comfort can be found, and the familiar fear continues to swell in his chest, he finally awakes.
It is 2:38 in the morning. His roommates remain asleep, their boorish snores fading into the night.
Malfoy sits upright in bed, squinting at the dull shapes around him. His hair is plastered with sweat, his bedsheets drenched with the same moisture. And, if his sense of smell is anything to go by, something else too. He groans.
Bed-wetting? he can hear his father’s voice, pounding at the back of his head. And you call yourself a Malfoy?
“Humiliating.” Malfoy mutters to himself. “This is humiliating. A disgrace to the family. An embarrassment.”
Pulling the sheets from off the mattress, he winces at the stench. “Also,” he adds, “Not your most attractive feature.”
The boy works quietly and quickly. Light from the moonshine makes his skin whiter than it already is, and carves out the sunken hollows of his bare chest. Stress and fatigue have lay waste to his figure, reducing him to a lanky structure of boney limb. Physical physique, as he’s noted before, is also not his most attractive feature.
“At this point, I’m not sure you have any attractive features left,” murmuring, he hampered the sheets and wiped down his body with a wet rag. Despite the pathetic nature of the statement, it wasn’t entirely false. His father, the death-eaters, the eminent war - all of it had taken its toll on Draco Malfoy, and he was quickly deteriorating into a pitiful husk of what he could have been. A combination of fear, anger, and guilt festered and grew - to the point where he felt as if he were continuously drowning - day in and day out.
While he had been skinny before, he was verging now on skeletal.
Where he had been snarky and conceited, he had become cruel and malicious.
When Malfoy caught glimpse of his reflection in the mirror, he was struck with the feeling of total and utter despair - a hatred for the person he was, and an inability to change it.
His father, he knew, would be disappointed with his coward of a son. And the Hogwart students, on their end, were repulsed by the brutality of his nature. Malfoy was well aware of the rumors spread about him, nasty things, and the names he was called - most of which were deserved.
In the end, Draco felt himself accepted neither at home, nor within the corridors of the school. No matter the place, he was haunted by the same nightmares - and the same wet sheets.
Haven given up any chance at sleep, Malfoy dressed quickly and hurried out, feeling that the confines of his room had become suddenly suffocating.
The time now teeters on 3am, and the school is swallowed up by a pitch blackness. From Draco’s wand, a yellow light glows softly – but rather than provide security, it only succeeds in casting long and horrid shadows across the walls, dancing and flickering with every movement.
Memories of his nightmare overwhelm him, and Draco swears he can feel the icy breath of unseen dementors against his neck. Against his will, he shudders, and begins to move faster.
Every footstep echoes and rings against the walls - the hallways seem to get longer and longer - the lights flicker and tremble and twitch - they’re coming, they’re coming, they’re coming -
Malfoy breaks out into full sprint, feet pounding down the corridor as he runs. Wand held out in front of him, he waves it maniacally, as if it were a sword and the air around him demons. Once or twice, he almost drops it, his vision spinning and distorting as oxygen levels slump.
Finally, at last, he smacks straight into the doors of the library. It’s not where he intended to end up - he meant to go for a short loop and come back - but it’s good enough. He doesn’t waste a second in throwing it open, falling through with a wheeze and a cough.
“Merlin, I’m out of shape,” he pants, gasping breathlessly.
“Wow, you really are.”
Malfoy’s head snaps up, and his eyes narrow with the realization that he’s not alone. Floating (floating?), a girl he’s never seen before – with a thick billow of black hair and a pair of rectangular glasses – wearing long and billowy Ravenclaw robes.
“I mean, the Slytherine dormitory is, what, 500 meters away? You couldn’t have run more than that.” she continues, glancing over him with a flicker of amusement.
Glaring, Malfoy starts to defend himself, “500 meters is” - pant - “a long distance” - pant - “when it’s 3am and” - pant - “Merlin, I need to sit down.”
The girl, with a poorly suppressed smirk on her face, brandishes a wand and gestures it towards the chairs. With ease, a single stool slides its way over to Draco.
With a snort, he moves to sit on it. It slides back away. “A ‘thank you’ would be appreciated.”
The girl wasn’t suppressing her smirk anymore, and her arms were folded across her chest.
Malfoy glares daggers. He could feel the tips of his ears redenning with embarrassment.
“It’s 3am in the bleeding morning.” he snaps, grabbing the stool with his hand and dragging it back. “You’re not even allowed to be here.”
The girl waves her hand in dismissal. “Neither are you. How would Dumbledore like it if he knew the infamous Draco Malfoy was sneaking around the corridors at night?”
Draco felt his entire face blossom red now. “I wasn’t - I wasn’t doing anything, I was just -”
“Uh-huh,” the girl turns away, and back to the bookshelves. “I won’t snitch if you don’t.”
“Uh, yeah. Yeah. Deal.”
Once recomposed, Draco looks back up towards the girl, observing her in greater detail. She had a pixie-ish nose that turned up at the end, and long slender fingers that flicked through the pages with a quiet tenderness. Her eyes were large, and the color of dark, creamy chocolate. They reminded Draco of an incident, several years back, when his father had taken him on an unlikely father/son hunting trip. It wasn’t until the last day that he finally found his prey - a stocky legged, white spotted doe. Her eyes, big and brown, were betraying of an open vulnerability, a certain fragility, that forced Draco to hesitate. And it was in that brief moment of doubt, that the doe got the best of him, and sprinted away. Looking at the Ravenclaw girl in front of him now, he couldn’t help but feel the same confusion, the same wonderment that he did in the forest.
“Who are you anyways?” Draco blurts out.
The girl arches an eyebrow. “My name’s (y/n). I’m a new student this year.”
“Oh.” Malfoy stretches out his hand to shake, then realizes how far the distance is and turns it into an awkward wave instead. “I’m Draco. Draco Malfoy. I guess … you’ve heard about me?” This last sentence comes out with a tinge of apprehension.
(Y/n) snorts. “Of course I’ve heard about you. It’s all anyone talks about here. You and your whole family.”
Malfoy could feel his heart drop to his stomach. Rumors travel fast, I guess.
“Yeah. Anyways.” (Y/n) glances over at him, looks him up and down. “I thought you’d be more…”
He braces himself for what would come next.
“…tall.”
“What?”
“I mean, for the arch-nemesis of Harry Potter, I thought you’d be a bit more impressive looking.”
Draco could feel his face getting hot again, and was about to say some very nasty, Malfoy-like things to her - but stops, when he realizes that she’s keeled over, laughing.
“Are you –” he squints at her “Are you making fun of me?”
It’s an odd sight, seeing someone try to stay afloat while laughing. Her body spins in awkward somersaults as she cackles, her legs flailing at the air, robes flapping wildly about.
“You should have,” she pants, “you should have seen the look on your face. Looked like a cherry tomato!” And falls into a fit of howling once more.
Draco blinks once, and then twice, his anger melting into bewilderment. “Haven’t they warned you to stay out of my way?”
“Or what, you’ll vex me?” (Y/n) snickers. “What, with those arms? I could turn you into a pumpkin before you even pick up the wand.”
Somehow, Draco didn’t doubt her. Abashed, he rubs the back of his neck and sheathes his wand, wary that he’s turning into a tomato again.
“You know, I never thought I’d meet anyone more annoying than Potter. And yet, here you are.”
(Y/n) beamed. Her body was now hanging completely upside down, and her hair had toppled over her face in a mess of knots. “Well, Malfoy, I’ll take it as a compliment.
“Say, do you think you can help me down from here? This levitating spell isn’t really made to work on humans, and I think I’m a bit stuck.”
Without meaning to, Draco chuckles. It’s been a long time, he realizes, since anything’s felt so simple - even if it’s just for a moment. He crosses the room to meet her, and looks upwards. “So, err, what do I need to do?”
“Well, for starters, hold your arms out flat.”
Doing as he’s told, Draco stretches out his arms. “Like this?”
“There’s too much hair in my eyes for me to see, but how wrong could it be? Okay, ready?”
“Ready for what?”
(Y/n) grins, and snaps her fingers. Without a warning, her body plummets downwards, tumbling into Draco’s arms. “Oof!”
Staggering, Malfoy manages to catch her - barely.
“Hey, you’re stronger than you look!” she exclaims, pushing her hair back to meet his gaze.
For a moment, (y/n)’s breath hitches in her throat. From the trio’s descriptions, she had pictured Draco Malfoy to be a dour little creep with freaky, soulless eyes and fangs for teeth.
But here, up close, his face certainly doesn’t match the expectation. His eyes, neither freaky nor soulless, are actually kind of nice - a soft gray that matches the smoke off a kettle, or the dispersing clouds after a storm. Also not so bad, are his sharpened edge cheekbones, the soft pink of his lips, and the muss of blond hair, disheveled and bedraggled from sleep. What’s best, however, is the small smile that now plays across his face.
“Well, Miss (l/n),” he says, setting her on her feet, “I’ll take it as a compliment.”
With a laugh, she re-adjusts her glasses and glance away. “Touché.”
Quickly, she picks up the discarded books from where she dropped them on the floor, and piles them in her arms. “Well, as you said, it is 3am. I ought to be getting back to the dormitories.”
“Oh, and just when we were getting acquainted. Don’t tell me I scared you off already?” Malfoy jokes weakly. The thought of being left alone again is petrifying, and strange and odd as she might be, he’d much prefer her company over that of the darkness.
“Even great witches need their sleep. Besides, I’d hate to annoy you anymore than I already have.” She retorts, stepping around him to leave.
“Annoy?” Malfoy swerves to catch up with her. “You haven’t annoyed me at all. Quite the opposite, really.”
“Well, aren’t you the flatterer.”
“At least let me walk you back to the dorms.”
“A flatterer and chivalrous!” She grins at him from beneath a tousle of thick hair. “Very well. I will allow it. Under the condition that you hold my books the whole way.”
“Your wish is my command, princess.” Malfoy takes the heap of books and shifts it, with a grunt, into his own hands. “Merlin, this is heavy. Can’t you just do a levitation spell?” he huffs.
“I mean, I could. But this is so much more fun, don’t you think?”
Malfoy rolls his eyes as they leave the library. The corridors, still dark and eerie, don’t seem so awful when he has someone by his side. “Why are you up this late, anyways?” he asks. “The library isn’t exactly the most exciting place to sneak off to, you know.”
“Well,” she fiddles with her wand nervously. “I mean, you’re going to think I’m pathetic.”
“Probably, yes.”
She punches his shoulder, making the books wobble. “Shut up.” He chuckles.
“This is only my first week here, and I’m still, well, I guess I’m still a bit homesick. Sleeping is hard. Especially when I barely know any of my roommates, have almost no friends, and the timezone differences are huge!”
“Oh.” Malfoy fumbles for words - this isn’t the sort of stuff he talks about with Goyle and Crab - he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say. The silence between them grows, filling the air awkwardly, until he finally says, “That’s not too pathetic I guess.”
“Yeah. Thanks.” She answers sarcastically. They turn a corner, and Malfoy knows that they’re almost there. “And you? Mr-Famous-Draco-Malfoy, arch rival of Harry potter - what are you doing up? Plotting something sinister, now?”
She says it as a joke - doesn’t mean anything by it - but Malfoy can feel his chest tighten. “Uh, no. Just, uh, just nightmares. That’s all.”
(Y/n) looks over at him, and her expression softens. “Nightmares?” For the first time, she notices the dark circles beneath his eyes, the gauntness of a sunken face. “Say, Malfoy, you don’t look so good.” When Potter had described Draco to her - when the Ravenclaw students shared their horror stories and gossiped and prattled - she had been left with the image of a stone-hearted, emotionless, sinister demon. But again, she found herself surprised at the reality of it - which was, that despite all his talk and all his reputation, Draco Malfoy didn’t look anything more than a scared little boy, haunted by fears she couldn’t even imagine.
“I’m always this pale, if that’s what you mean.” He smiles at her from behind the pile of books. “There’s nothing wrong with me, just the way I look.”
She purses her lips, and touches the back of her hand to his forehead. He flinches in surprise. “Your skin - it’s cold as ice!” Shaking her head, she grabs him by the elbow and steers him towards her dormitory. “It’s too drafty in this school. Come on. I’ll make us some hot chocolates, and you can wrap up by the fire. The Ravenclaw common room is the best when it comes to our blankets.”
“I’m not sure your friends would appreciate me being in there,” Malfoy murmurs - but other than that, he offers no protest. In fact, if she would just turn to look at him, she’d find the stupidest grin plastered all over his face.
