Please Be There If I Remember

Chapter Twenty-Four: Confrontations

He grabbed Theo's arm, snatching the book out of his hands and placed it down on the couch he was sitting on before dragging him, Blaise, and Pansy over to a more secluded corner of the room. Casting a muffliato to silence what he was about to say, Draco plopped unceremoniously into one of the couches and waited for his three confused and reluctant friends to do the same.

Blaise leaned against one of the green furniture pieces, his robes pushing against it and hanging off the sides at his crossed arms. Theo sat on the same seat that Draco was on, but he was on the far side so he could see the boy better, allowing eye contact if Draco only turned his head slightly. Pansy, the main culprit for this meeting, sat opposite on a sharp grey armchair, crossing her legs beneath her and leaning forwards with a hand on her chin.

She was the one to speak first. "Why did we just get dragged over here?" Pansy asked with a sceptic raise of her eyebrow.

Blaise was wearing a similar expression while Theo's was empty of any emotion.

"I want to talk to you all about something," Draco answered. "Privately," he added with a note to the silencing charm he had placed.

"What about?" Blaise questioned, always the one to jump straight into things.

Draco took a deep breath to calm himself down and get ready for what he was about to say. "Ok, so you know how I got my memory wiped and everything—"

"Like we could forget," Theo snorted.

Draco sent a half-hearted glare his way and began again. "I don't know what I had been taught before that happened, but I know that now I think that everyone should be treated equally."

The three still didn't show much expression at these words, but Draco could see that they were confused and anticipating where this conversation was going to go.

"And I know that you guys have been taught differently. Hell, I'm pretty sure I was too," he said, chuckling awkwardly. "But I have heard some things from...someone—" Draco was sure that Pansy knew who that 'someone' was, but to his immense relief she stayed silent and let him finish— "that muggle-borns and even half-bloods are no different from purebloods. And I agree with them." The reaction to these words was small and clipped and only a person with abilities in reading people would be able to see it. And Draco, having that strange talent, saw all of it.

Theo shifted almost uncomfortable from where he was sitting, Pansy blinked harshly and she leaned even farther forwards in her chair as if she didn't hear him well enough the first time, and Blaise was still quite indifferent—all except for his finger tapping rapidly in the arm of the couch he was resting against.

Sounds from the rest of the room drifted pleasantly into the silence like a background melody, yet it did little to ease Draco's increasingly quick heartbeat as the drowning quiet pierced his ears as loudly as a deafening blast.

He cleared his throat, if only to fill in the echoing silence, and continued on, not letting them think over what he just said for too long. "It doesn't make any sense for us to hate on these witches and wizards when that is just what they are. Witches and wizards—the same as all of us."

If his previous words didn't have much reaction; these ones did.

Pansy narrowed her eyes threateningly, her fists clenching from where they were lying under her chin and her foot twitching in the air above her crossed legs.

"I don't know how you think spouting all these pretty words are going to change our—my mind, because God knows Theo will listen to anything you say, but whatever you think you can accomplish by saying this, Draco, what you're saying is wrong."