I Learned Your Pulse

Draco looked around him and immediately wished he hadn't.

All the eyes on him were glaring, curiously fascinated or disgusting; he wasn't sure which expression hurt more. Disgusted - even he was, so he could understand that. The glares he'd been expecting, but the curiosity was putrid. How could anyone be curious about his left arm, where more of the eyes were trained? How could anyone be fascinated by magic so dark it permanently branded something that moved on your arm? How many Dark wizards needed their own Mark? Grindelwald, Draco excepted, but Voldemort was truly one of a kind. 'Lord' Voldemort, preaching about pure-bloods and how much better they were than anybody else, being a half-blood himself. Not like Potter, who was counted as a half-blood because his mum had had Muggles for parents; an honest-to-God half-blood, whose mother had run away with the Muggle boy. He'd killed his father, taken his bones unwillingly to bring himself back into a humanoid form of existence; whenever you hear about the Super Villians in any of the storybooks read to the younger children, they always had some sort of tortured past that made them turn bad, ad you could always empathize if not sympathize. Voldemort's mum had died at childbirth, yes, but she'd loved him - his father had left, yes, but he never should have gone to begin with. That part of his past was slightly bad, but nobody could account for what he later became, and forced others to mimic. Aunt Bellatrix, his father, his mother, Uncle Rodolphus... him...

And now the world saw him as either a sign of what should have been or what shouldn't have. His left arm was forever the part people would gasp at, point at, stare at. He was the odd one out on this stage where all the prefects stood, and he looked utterly vile next to Hermione, who beamed at everyone as though nothing was the matter, althouh Draco knew that she was crying inside. Hermione was never very tough. Brave, yes, passionate, yes, but not tough. She could withstand a lot, but that was because of passion for living, not simple toughnes; she could take anyone down, but that was due to her brains and bravery, not her toughness. She was always soft, cried a lot. Although, thought Draco bitterly, given recent events, crying seemed almost mandatory. He'd cried enough lately, he'd done it plenty at home. Probably lost about ten pounds with all the crying he'd done since the Battle of Hogwarts.

The other schools were the worst when it came to his arm, but Hogwarts was just as bad. He wondered why he'd been named Head Boy. He was a terrible person, nobody ever thought to tell him differently or deny it when it came up. He was the odd one out up here. He'd be better placed in the dungeons. The D.A. members had become all chummy with the other Slytherin prefects. They laughed and talked and smiled at one another as if there was no barrier between them... as if there never had been.

Forgiveness was never one of Draco's strong points. He knew for a fact that it was one of Hermione's. Yet another reason he should be hiding in a closet, away from everyone. But their eyes continued to burn a hole through his left arm, causing him to hide it behind his torso.

Hermione saw the movement and frowned.

Nobody expected her next move.

She grabbed his left wrist and held it above their heads, almost as if declaring the winner of something. Everyone fell silent. Draco was tired of silence. The word in his head was brought into being too often; loud and noisy was when he was forgotten, so it was when he was happy. But this year had brought nothing but silence and quiet, when most people would break it with whispers and glances at his thin sleeve, which they could usually see the ink through. But they saw it clear as day now, no sleeve to hide it, as it had slipped down to his elbow. The snake came out of the skull, but was frozen. It hadn't moved since that night. People hissed, but mostly they waited for her speech. Everyone knew it was coming, she had that air about her one did when about to address a large crowd.

"You all see this tattoo."

It wasn't a question.

"When you see this tattoo, you see the Dark Mark."