CH-34

I look at her and feel as though time has stopped. She's biting her lip, brows furrowed as she tries to think of someone who fits into the category that I've given her. I want to reach out and rub away the crease between her brows, tell her that I can take care of everything, and it will all turn out fine.

I force myself to turn away, gritting my teeth. No.

"After Nottingham, I'm sure Voldemort will suspect that you've got a spy in his forces," I say.

"Will you be all right?" I hear her ask from behind me.

My heart leaps at the tiny show of concern. Fuck! She doesn't even care about me, as a person. She'll only care about me as long as I'm a reliable source of information. Fucking hell, Draco, get that into your head!

"I'll be fine," I say, masking my emotions.

"Some of our people might have been captured at Bristol. Do you know—"

"I can't help you with prisoners," I say. I can't risk that.

"But… Blaise still hasn't returned. I think he might be with the others," she says.

I spin around to face her, a smirk on my face. "What, you think I'll risk my neck for the 'friend' who gave me this?"

I tug my shirt open, popping the top few buttons off in the process, in order to reveal the twisted scar that runs across my torso. She hisses and backs up a step, eyes wide with surprise. I switch to an amused expression as I watch her reaction, but I almost want to apologize. That was needlessly rude.

Fuck! Now I'm worried about being rude? Who am I?

"Yours… it looks worse than his," she says.

Jealous anger flares to life inside me as it dawns on me that if she's seen the scar on his back, then she's seen him with his shirt off.

Before I can think of a reply, she's slowly stepping towards me.

"Granger, what are you doing?" I ask, standing my ground as she approaches.

She stops right in front of me and looks up to meet my eyes. I can't tell what she's thinking, and it really bothers me. I haven't had trouble reading her in the past. Then her eyes flick back down to my chest, and I feel indecent. I reach for my wand to fix my shirt, but she reaches her left hand out, stopping mine.

Without releasing my hand, she uses her right hand to lightly touch the top of the scar, which starts just below my left collarbone.

A jolt of heat lances through me, and I inhale sharply, unable to stop myself. She draws her hand back quickly, eyes swinging back up to meet mine again. I shut my eyes, afraid that they'll reveal my emotions to her. She'll always be my weak spot.

Then her fingers begin to trace down the length of the scar.

My left hand jerks up to grip her wrist, stopping her. The tips of her fingers are still barely touching my chest, and I swallow hard. I don't want her to stop, but I can't let her go on like that. My control is in threads already. I hate how easily she's unwound me.

"Malfoy," she says softly.

I take a few breaths before opening my eyes to meet hers, confident now that they will be cold and emotionless as steel.

"Don't touch me," I say in a controlled voice.

I release her hand and take a step back, away from her. I detect a hint of sadness in her eyes and force myself to ignore it, turning away from her and taking a few steps to put some distance between us. I whip out my wand and mutter a spell. The buttons that had scattered on the ground fly back into place, and I button up my shirt.

I can't face her. I'm afraid to look at her face. I don't know what I expect to see there, don't know what I'll find.

She finally breaks the silence between us.

"Malfoy, please. Help me," she says.

She sounds so, so tired, just a hair away from defeated. It killsme to hear the despair in her voice. Fuck. How can I resist her when she's weak? I have no choice when it comes to her. Goodbye, life.

I turn around but keep my eyes on the ground. "What do you want me to do?"

"I don't know. I just… we need information on the Death Eater camps. Where do you keep prisoners?"

I shake my head. "The only person who knows all of the layouts himself is Voldemort. Everyone else only knows one or two. I haven't ever been to the camp in Bristol."

"Then…"

I sigh and begin to rattle off information.

"They're usually underground, with the entrance guarded by a group of eight men. They're not the best fighters—that's why we need so many of them. There are always eight men, at every hour of the day, because they switch on and off duty in pairs of two, with usually twelve men in the rotation. But the location of the prison is different for each camp."

I glance at her face to see that she's watching me intently, and I have to turn away again. I disguise my moment of weakness as a start to pacing, and I walk a few steps away from her before turning to walk toward her again.

"Once underground, they all look pretty much the same. The cells can only be opened by someone bearing the Dark Mark or Voldemort himself."

"It sounds nearly impossible to free anyone, then," she says.

The urge to comfort her nearly overwhelms me, and I dig my fingernails into the flesh of my palms as punishment. No more of this. No more.

"Like I said, I can't really help you," I say calmly.

"If you really can't, there's not much left to do about it, I guess," she says. "I'm just really worried."

"I know."

After a brief pause, she asks, "Malfoy, is there any way that I can use this—" she pulls out her gold charm "—to contact you?"

I frown. "Why—"

"In case of an emergency," she replies.

I consider it for a moment. "Sure," I say. "First, close your fist around it."

She does as I say.

"Close your eyes."

She narrows her eyes at me before shutting them.

"Concentrate very hard on what you want to show up on my charm. You have to make sure it'll fit all right, or I'll have a hard time reading it," I say.

My serpent charm begins to burn my chest, but I feel numb to the pain. I pull the charm out and look at the back. My initials are now engraved on the charm, and I look up at her.

"What did you mean by it?" she asks, moving toward me and holding up her heart charm to show me the initials that I had marked it with after our first meeting.

I shake my head. "Didn't mean anything. Just reminding you that it was there."

"Really?"

"What else could it mean?" I say.

I have her there, and I can tell. She doesn't have any theories on why I would ever put her initials on the charm. Honestly, I don't know why I did it. Impulse, I guess. I would have marked it with my own initials, but I'm sure she would have thrown a fit and forced me to remove them.

"Did you have anything to tell me when you scheduled our meeting?" she asks me.

"Yeah. I was actually going to tell you something more about the traitor. Finnegan… he was murdered."

She doesn't look very surprised. "It was that, or he'd been caught," she says sadly.

I nod, squashing the part of me that wants to tell her the truth, to tell her that I was the one who killed him. Instead, I say, "I think your traitor sold him out to us, because Voldemort knew where to find him ahead of time."

"All right," she says. "At least we know what happened to him. Do you have any idea who killed him?"

I shake my head. "You can go now."

Her eyes linger on me for a moment as though trying to decide whether or not to tell me something. I wait patiently for her to make up her mind.

"Malfoy, we captured Thorfinn Rowle two days ago," she says.

I chuckle. "Serves him right. Bumbling idiot, he was."

"Well, bumbling idiot he may be, but he won't crack under questioning. Is there any way—"

"Legilimency. He's a god-awful Occlumens. Can't defend his mind to save his life," I say.

"We erm… we don't have a good Legilimens," she says.

"Where'd Shacklebolt go?"

"He's out of the country."

"I see. I thought you'd be pretty good. I heard you had a bit of practice with Occlumency."

"Can I…" her voice fades, and she suddenly looks shy.

I frown. "What?"

She seems to be mentally preparing herself. For what? A negative response from me, I suppose.

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