Chapter 11 of The Bubo
Where Vince finds out the hard way.
Friday, December 18, 1994 (three weeks later)
Half of the group had already gone through the serpent door when Draco realized he’d forgotten the fifth year Runes textbook he was supposed to return to Marcus Belby. It had to be tonight: Belby was among the few students going home for Christmas this year, and Draco had better things to do than try and hunt him down tomorrow morning before the train departed.
“I have to go back to the dorm to pick something up,” he told Pansy and pecked her cheek. “You go on without me. I’ll see you there.”
“Alright.” She pecked him back. Then, as he turned around, she slapped his bum. He laughed and gave her a wink before starting down the stairs. But once safely out of sight, he dropped the mask of cheer.
He hated it when she did that. He hated it when she ruffled his hair, pulled on his tie, and tickled him. Sometimes, when she tickled him, his laughter toed the line of turning to tears of senseless, helpless desperation, and he had to reach deep inside himself for that state of horrid, frigid detachment, the absence of all emotion, he’d learned to summon since the bubo.
Pansy wasn’t bad. She could hold a decent conversation. She was far more intelligent than Vince and Greg, and far more mature than Theo and Blaise. And she meant well. She helped Draco pick what to wear when he couldn’t decide, and she helped him study too. She had kept everyone away from him after he’d been released from the hospital with a vehemence that would’ve impressed even Mother. And she had been patient with him. He had told her he wasn’t comfortable doing anything overtly sexual yet, and she hadn’t pressed him. She was a good friend. An ally. If he ever decided to tell someone about his proclivity, as Professor Snape had put it after the bubo, it wouldn’t be Mother, or Vince and Greg—though they likely knew already. It would be Pansy.
None of which made being her boyfriend any easier.
At least he hadn’t had to worry about finding someone to go to the Yule Ball with him.
He jogged through the deserted common room, up the stairs—holding his robes up: he’d learned that lesson well—and down the tunnel that echoed his clanging footsteps. The faint smell of smoke didn’t entirely register before he opened the door of the dorm.
The air inside was thick with it: a hot, white fog that assaulted the nose and prickled the eyes. He coughed, looking for the source of it, wand in hand and Aguamenti at the tip of his tongue. The furnace appeared as tame as always, and anyway, it never smoked. There didn’t seem to be a fire anywhere… the trunks looked fine, the desks, the beds…
Oh, no.
“Vince?” he yelled and coughed again.
The curtains were drawn tight around Vince’s bed and the smoke was denser in that direction. As Draco approached, he heard whimpering.
“Vince!”
“No, don’t!” Vince yelped when Draco started to tug the curtains open. “Go away! Leave me be!”
It wasn’t an option. Draco fought against the curtains for a few moments—Vince had grabbed them from the inside and kept them closed—then went around the bed to the other side. He swung the curtains wide apart and gaped.
Vince was not entirely naked—thank Merlin for small favors—but he was down to his pants and vest and both garments were so thoroughly soaked that they left nothing to the imagination. The entire bed was soaked—especially the parts that were also charred. The headboard was completely black, what remained of the drapes behind it hung in tatters, and in place of the pillows was a yawning crater.
“It’s alright,” Vince moaned. “I put it out.”
“Vince,” Draco exhaled. “Are you alright?”
“Yes! Now leave me alone!” He coughed, hiccupped, and finally sobbed.
Draco made a delicate wand gesture and whispered, “Ventus.” A wind rose, like a powerful draught, flapping the bed curtains and lifting a few loose pieces of paper as it carried the smoke out to the hallway. “Fluctus calidus,” he said next, and aimed his wand at Vince and the ruined mattress to dry everything out.
“What happened?” He sat on the edge of the bed, keeping well away from Vince’s bare limbs.
“What do you think?” sobbed Vince. “It’s gone, and it didn’t work!”
The bubo. Draco counted back, and yes, Vince would’ve taken his final potion a few days ago. They hadn’t spoken about this since Draco had been released from the hospital. He had never told Vince what he’d learned from Professor Snape. That the “neuromancer” Mrs. Crabbe had hired was a fraud, and the potions, a placebo. Because a placebo could still work. Perhaps it couldn’t cure true illness or remove a… trait; but with ailments of the soul, like Vince’s obsession with fire? Who could say?
“I hate it,” sobbed Vince. “I love it, but I hate it more. I know it doesn’t make sense, but it’s true, I swear. I hate it!”
“No,” Draco muttered. “It does make sense.”
But Vince wasn’t listening. “I don’t know how to fight it, Draco. The more I learn, the more I can do, the less I can stop myself. All this—” he gestured at the mess “—you know how it started? From a little blue flame. This big.” He pinched his thumb and first finger. “And the next thing I knew, the whole sodding bed was on fire!”
“It’s alright, though,” Draco said. “You put it out.”
“It’s not alright! I wasn’t there.” Vince bore a finger into his forehead. “I don’t even remember. It’s like something—someone—else, takes over. You don’t understand!” He covered his face and wept.
Draco’s eyes stung in sympathy. He understood better than he would ever dare admit. His own memories of that day, of staring into Potter’s eyes while kissing Pansy, like some godsdamn lunatic, of the utter absence of sense in hexing Finnigan in plain view, were foggy at best. Like he hadn’t been entirely there. Consumed by spite and envy, he had turned into something—someone—else. Someone who still lurked within. And Draco didn’t know how to fight them.
When Vince calmed down a little, Draco sent him to the bathroom to wash up, then made him dress and took him to dinner. He had to jog back from the serpent door once more, because of course he hadn’t remembered to take Bilby’s cursed textbook.
Though they were late, it looked like they hadn’t missed much. The holidays had officially started, and no one was in a hurry to leave the lavishly decorated Great Hall. Draco sat Vince between himself and Greg and made a special effort to cheer him up with his jokes and theatrics, making the entire Slytherin table laugh and cheer. On his other side, Pansy intermittently linked her arm through his elbow or rested her head on his shoulder, but didn’t go out of her way to flaunt their liaison for everyone to see like she had done in the beginning.
Lifting his eyes to the staff table, Draco caught the unreadable stare of Professor Snape, who lifted his cup with a shallow nod. Draco bowed his head and brought his cup up in kind. He had managed the impossible, and scored an E on every end-of-term exam—Defense and Creature Care included—except Potions, where he’d scored an O. He had ended up second in class. Mother had been so pleased with the news, she’d sent Draco a pair of diamond cuff links that he was going to wear for the Yule Ball.
And across the hall sat Potter, in his usual place, talking with his friends. He no longer fought the habit of looking Draco’s way every few seconds. All Draco had to do was wait… and there! Their eyes met. Allowing the veneer of mirth to fade from his countenance, allowing the membrane inside him that kept away all the unwanted, unwelcome feelings to slide aside, Draco held Potter’s green gaze, no longer so reckless. And if he only imagined that something fractured in Potter’s features in that long moment, revealing a glimpse of his own other self, the one with a penchant for hands-on violence, the one who frotted against Draco in that third-floor corridor, so be it. A memory to soothe the ache.