*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *

The Slytherin Quidditch team elects me captain.  But I have lost my fervor for the game.  I thank them for their confidence in me, but tell them that I will no longer be playing.

Ferdinand Munkstone, a sixth year chaser who is actually quite good, follows me after my exit from the common room.

"Are you crazy, Draco?" he asks, cornering me and shaking me by my shoulders.  I resist the urge to punch him, and he continues.  "With Potter gone, we'll win the Cup for sure!"

I wrench out of his grasp, a sudden fury rising in me.

"It's a cheap victory," I snarl.

And just like that, I lose the last 'friends' I had left in Slytherin House.

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *

Later that month I tell Dumbledore that I will no longer be living in the dormitories at Hogwarts.  He tries to convince me to stay and even says he'll give me my own room, but I don't want to be here anymore.  Slytherin, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw alike – they all despise me.  It's mostly my fault, but just because I've created a bad situation doesn't mean I have to sit there and suffer in it.

He approves my relocation, but also tells me that he will not tolerate any tardiness, lack of preparation, or absence from my classes, and that I must have a small conference with him every two weeks.  I think I can manage that.

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *

There is only one bad thing about me leaving Hogwarts.  At the apartment, I will not have access to a piano.  At Hogwarts I can go to the Room of Requirement any time I want and there will be a piano and music waiting for me.

That is where I go after my conversation with Dumbledore.  I feel the need to play one last time.  The only music that looks appealing to me is Beethoven's Sonata 14.

It floored me a bit when I learned that Beethoven was a muggle.  But by now I have decided that muggles are just like wizards, in terms of intellect and talent; you have your Merlins, and you have your Neville Longbottoms.  That's all there is to it.

I am midway through the sonata when I sense someone else in the room.  But I don't stop playing.  Let them see me.

When I finish, there is no comment from the intruder.  I find this curious and turn around to see who it is.

"Um…I…I sometimes come in here to study…" Hermione Granger stammers, looking flustered.

I shrug and slide off the bench, folding up the music and putting it away.

"I never pictured you as the musical type," she says.

"I'm sure you never pictured me as anything but the snotty pureblood bastard type," I reply.

"Well, you certainly never gave anyone anything else to work with."

I look at her for a moment.  I have always been surprised and a little impressed by her boldness.

"I suppose I didn't.  But now you know better, don't you, Granger?  Perhaps I'll have to obliviate you."

She ignores my sarcasm and cuts right to the heart of the issue.

"What's the matter with you, Draco?"

I look her straight in the eye.

"The real question, Granger, is what isn't the matter with me?"

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *

Moving away was at once a very good idea and a terrible idea.  It is nice to have my own space, but I find that I'm lonely.  It doesn't make much sense; I had no friends at Hogwarts, and yet I wasn't lonely.  I guess just having other people around is enough to make a person feel like they have companionship.  Now, alone in my dingy apartment, I feel marooned.

The year wears on, bringing one of the harshest winters in years.  I don't eat enough and I barely turn the heat on – it seems so frivolous to spend my money like that when I can just put on some heavy clothing.  In spite of layers of jumpers and winter clothes, though, I am still chilled to the bone every time I have to make the walk from the gates up the snow-covered lawn to the large double doors of Hogwarts.

I know that I'm not healthy, but somehow I don't care.  The teachers know this, as well, and several times I'm lectured by Dumbledore and Sinistra, who is the new Head of Slytherin.  But it rolls off my ears; with the passing of summer and autumn and the start of the cruel winter, I feel like the elements are some kind of oversimplified allegory for my life.

Snape visits me once and tells me that I look like pneumonia waiting to happen.  Two weeks later, I wake up one morning and find that it is quite beyond my means to get out of bed.

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *

Severe illness has a curious way of putting one's life into perspective.  As I lay there, alternately shivering with chills and burning with fever, coughing until I have a headache and the muscles in my stomach and back ache, I realize, succinctly, that if no one comes, I'll die.  And why should someone come?  It's the winter holidays.  No one will notice my absence, because I am not supposed to be anywhere.

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *

It is warm and soft, and for a moment I think that I'm back in the bed at Snape's house, and that this has all been a bad dream.  But the scratchy, biting pain in my throat and my clogged nose tell me that it isn't so.

"I…I think he's waking up."  A sweet feminine voice that I have never heard before wafts over me.

"Thank Merlin."  That voice is definitely Snape's.

However, when I open my eyes it is not Snape, but another man leaning over my bed and pressing his wrist to my forehead.  I am confused for a moment, but remember that he is supposed to be dead; if he must be out in the world at large, then he must change his appearance.  So it is Snape, just under a Glamourie spell.  

"What--?" I begin, but before I can say much more, a potion is being poured down my throat.  It is bitter and it makes my eyes water.  I cough, and agony envelopes me as my sore muscles scream.

"Miss Abernathy, a cold compress, if you would?"

There is the sound of footsteps moving away, and when my coughing fit subsides I manage to voice a complete sentence.

"How did you know?" I rasp.

Snape gives me a look.  His face is strange but his eyes are the same smoldering black coals as always.

"Your neighbor," he says, gesturing in the direction that the girl went, "heard you coughing.  She knocked on your door, and when no one answered, she became alarmed.  She knew you were a student at Hogwarts and contacted Dumbledore."

I nod.  Strange that a neighbor I have never met or spoken to would be so concerned for my well-being.

"What day is it?"

"December 23."

I cough.  Sweet Merlin, I've been half-dead in this apartment for nearly eight days.  He seems to know what I'm thinking.

"Well, at least you'll recover just in time for Christmas," he shrugs.

Oh, yes, what a merry time that will be.      

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *

Christmas comes and goes and I really don't feel much like touching the few presents that were left on my windowsill.  Sometime around the twenty-seventh my appetite returns with a vengeance, and the hunger pangs drive me out of the apartment for the first time in almost two weeks.     

The grocer refuses to charge me and tells me that if I don't take better care of myself, he's going to send his house elf to chaperone me.

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *

I'm fumbling for my key when I hear footsteps behind me.  They are slightly uneven and accompanied by muffled sobs.  I turn and see Chantille Abernathy walking down the corridor, clutching her ratty winter coat tight about her body.  The first thing that strikes me is that her legs are bare; it's incredibly cold outside and I wonder what would possess her to go out in such inadequate clothing.  My eyes travel upwards and light upon something even more shocking.  Her hair is in disarray and her face is bruised; blood is frozen in its track from her split lip down her chin.

"Are you all right?" I ask, setting my groceries on the floor.

"I'm fine," she says as she brushes past me, her voice quivering.  I cannot tear my eyes from her.  She is obviously not fine.  She takes out her keys and tries to unlock her door, but her hands are shaking so badly that she can't.

"Who hit you?"

"Just some bastard," she says bitterly, clutching the keys in her hand.  "You get a bad one every now and then."

It dawns on me, then, that she's a streetwalker.  Why else would she be wearing next to nothing on such a cold winter night?  My kind, pretty neighbor is a prostitute.

I unlock my door and prop it open with one of the bags of groceries.

"Come into my apartment.  I'll make you some tea."

She looks at me, mistrust plain in her eyes.  She knows that I know.

"It'll warm you up.  And I'll help you take care of those cuts and bruises."

Her lip quivers and her face fills with shame.

"It's all right.  I can do it myself," she says, attempting to unlock the door again.  But this time she can't even keep hold of the keys; they slip from her hand and land on the floor with a metallic clatter.  She sinks to her knees to get them, but doesn't rise.  I hear her sniffle.  She's crying.

I help her up and lead her into my apartment.  She doesn't protest, but she won't meet my eyes.  There is so much shame and self-loathing inside of her.  Suddenly all my problems seem insignificant.

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *

She's fast asleep in my bed now.  The tea I gave her was of the Snape variety – that is, made specifically to relax the drinker.  It wasn't just her face that was bruised.  Tomorrow I'm calling Madame Pomfrey to come tend to her.  I couldn't do much but wash out her cuts and give her ice for her swollen eye and lip.

Before she fell asleep she urged me to finally open my presents.  She couldn't understand why I didn't want to in the first place.  She said that she hadn't received a single present since her seventeenth birthday, and she's twenty-two now.  Unless, of course, you counted the one gift a year she got from her 'manager'.

There is another ridiculously large bag of sweets from Dumbledore, a box of health and nutritional potions that are no doubt from Pomfrey, and of course something from Snape.  It doesn't surprise me at all that it's an hourglass.  It is simple, like his first one was; the same white sand and dark wooden accents.  There are books, too, and a N.E.W.T. study guide.

I turn the hourglass over and watch the sand sift through.  When it finishes, I look over at Chantille Abernathy, nestled in my bed with her face looking like an angry artist's palette. 

She's given me the answer to my question.  When you have killed, you do not gain the ability to see some magical beast like a thestral.  No, you see an entirely different kind of beast : the beast that is the human condition.