23 Aftermath.

Finally 50k words and 500k views... And I have already posted 6 chapter in 3 days so... I am back to one chapter a day. I won't do extra chapters now since I am kinda busy with other projects.

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"Are you okay?" Snape asked coldly.

"I am fine." Draco said, "I just used too much magic."

"I still have to punish you for your recklessness, so I will deduct 10 points from you each." Snape said not even turning back, "But you still manage to defeat a full-grown Troll alone, so 15 points will be awarded to each of you."

Theodore and Draco smirked.

"What were you really doing there?" Snape asked

"I dropped pumpkin juice on Granger and Chang, so we went to the bathroom to assist them." Theodore replied. "And after we saw the Troll, we wanted to fight it."

Theodore knew how others would react when they hear that Draco was fighting it, partly for a Muggle-born wizard, so he had to save his ass, but he didn't forget to give Draco a 'you owe me' look.

"Why would you want to fight it?" Snape snorted, "Don't tell me you really want its whiskers?"

"I wanted to test my strength, you know of the expectations father holds for me." Draco said, "I wanted to check whether I can live up to it or not."

"You sure did live." Snape said sarcastically, "You can go now, but I can't handle Dumbledore... you would have to come up with a better excuse than, 'I wanted to fight it.'"

After that Draco and Theodore went back to their room and fell asleep quickly since they were very tired.

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Next morning, In the Slytherin common room,

Draco was sitting on the sofa getting nagged by 2 girls from both sides.

"Draco, how could you? You could've died." Pansy said with a worried and angry voice.

"Draco did your brains got knocked out by your wand or did you fall off a broom." Daphne said angrily as well. "Do you think fighting a troll is a sensible thing to do?"

"I said I am sorry, didn't I? Gosh!! What do you girls want from me?" Draco was getting slightly irritated due to all the nagging he has been hearing since the morning.

"Draco keep talking and I will send a letter to Aunt Narcissa, she will take care of your antics" Pansy threatened Draco making him shut up at once.

"Hey! Pansy no need to involve mother in this okay!" Draco said looking at Pansy with a pitiful gaze, "I told you, I only fought the Troll because Theodore was being chased by it, and since it wasn't possible to outrun a Troll, we had no choice but to fight."

"Yeah! let him go girls." Theodore said relaxing on the sofa, "We had no choice."

"You could have kept running after you attacked it," Daphne said.

"Yeah, but Potter and the other arrived as well, so if we were to leave, the troll would most likely kill them," Theodore said

"Since when did you start caring about Potter?" Pansy snorted

'Ever since he was a Horcrux!' Draco thought in his mind.

Even though what Theodore said made sense, but in reality, he wasn't trying to save Potter and Weasley. Instead, he just wanted to kill or in the very least harm the troll. The voice in his head had started acting up again but since Draco was wary of it, after what had happened with Weasley, he managed to snap back and control his rage. It still made him act different but at least he wasn't being mindlessly controlled by his emotion.

Daphne and Pansy seeing the silent Draco didn't continue to argue and went over towards him. Both of them sat on each side.

"Draco, I know you must be annoyed by our nagging." Pansy said, "But you know we are only doing it because we were worried for you."

"Yeah! yesterday after class you just disappeared and later on, we found that you were fighting the troll." Daphne said, "We were worried."

Draco looked at both of them, "Sigh! I am sorry. I didn't think how you guys might feel, but you have to understand that I wouldn't fight a Troll, just because I wanted to show off."

Pansy and Daphne nodded.

"Okay, since your little drama is now over." Theodore said, "How did you know that we fought the troll?"

"Oh! Everyone knows about it." Daphne said, "Yesterday when we were leaving the hall after Professor Quirrell came yelling in about the Troll. We had just gotten outside the hall when suddenly the Troll fell in through the ceiling."

"Yeah! It was very scary, we all felt that the troll was going to fall onto us." Pansy said, "But Professor Flitwick used a spell making the troll stuck on the ceiling and we heard your voices."

"So everyone knew after hearing my voice?" Theodore asked,

"Not you, you idiot." Pansy said, "Draco!, after hearing Draco's voice and seeing the troll struggle the other Slytherin students started cheering for Draco and since you were missing from the hall they assumed that you were with him too."

Theodore's face started darkening, but Draco wasn't laughing at him.

"What's wrong Draco?" Daphne asked,

"Nothing, I just realized that I was careless. I didn't care about my surrounding much when I fought, if Professor Flitwick wasn't there, I could have put all of you in danger as well." Draco said sighing,

"It's fine, Draco." Pansy said trying to cheer Draco up, "We are safe, aren't we?"

"Yeah! and we got to see you defeat that Troll as it stopped struggling." Daphne said, "It was awesome. Everyone was complimenting you."

"Yeah! Even Dumbledore did." Daphne said,

"Dumbledore?" Draco asked.

"Yes, he said that you were clever." Daphne said.

Draco didn't believe that Dumbledore would compliment him, so he looked at Pansy to confirm,

"Well it wasn't necessarily a compliment when the ceiling broke through and we heard your voice, Dumbledore mumbled 'clever', He said it silently but the ones who were near him, heard it."

Draco nodded, that he could believe. He looked at Daphne who was sitting beside him, Daphne was like a crazy fangirl most of the time, since she would exaggerate every compliment about him and would attack anyone that says something bad. It wasn't a bad trait but it could get weird sometimes.

Stuff like this always creates a wall between friendship, but Draco didn't say anything to her. This was something she needs to get over with, herself. Draco believed that with friendship along the way she would remove the wall herself after they get closer with each other.

"So How did you end up with Chang?" Draco asked looking at Theodore,

The girls were surprised, "Chang, who?"

"Cho Chang the second year from Ravenclaw." Draco replied

"How could Theodore end up with that pretty girl?" Daphne said not believing Draco, "I heard she rejected many guys this year, even good looking ones. I am sure she wouldn't be willing to date him."

"Yeah! How could rabbit face end up with her." Pansy said.

"Che.. I have never said, I am dating her." Theodore said getting annoyed, "Draco was asking how did I end up meeting with Chang, yesterday?"

"She was with you?" Pansy asked to which Draco responded with a nod.

"Hmph!! And the thing I said yesterday to Professor Snape was true, I spilled some pumpkin juice on her, so I assisted her to the bathroom but as soon as she entered she came running back with the Troll chasing her." Theodore said, "After that, we ran but the Troll caught up to us fast, so I used a jinx to make it slip on the floor and we turned corners to meet you guys."

Draco nodded, his guess was pretty similar.

"But the most important question is." Theodore smiled slyly "What were you doing with Ms. Granger, all alone?"

Daphne and Pansy turned back to their interrogating mode again and looked at Draco who was starting to sweat a little.

"Draco, care to explain?" Pansy said,

"Umm... we. I.. I mean I.." Draco was running his brain quickly to think of an excuse.

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After nearly an hour of explaining that he was just giving her a birthday gift. Both the girls finally let him go.

'Sigh! this is really a pain in the ass.' Draco sighed walking out the hall towards the library. Today was Friday, so Hermione and Draco had their little studying session there.

"Oh! Are you having a problem, Mr. Malfoy?" Draco turned to look back at the owner of the voice and it was nonother than Dumbledore. "Ah! It's good to be young!" He said making a reminiscing face.

"Good Afternoon, Headmaster." Draco awkwardly said,

"No need to get nervous, Mr. Malfoy." Dumbledore said, "I won't harm you."

Draco calmed his nerves down, "So are you here to talk about yesterday, Headmaster?"

"You look like you were expecting it." Dumbledore said looking in front, walking peacefully.

Draco had calmed down completely by now and had returned to his calm self, "Well, I was expecting you to call me in your office but I didn't think, you would confront me here."

"So, let's get straight to point, shall we?" Dumbledore said, "How about you tell me what happened yesterday?"

"Nothing much to be exact, I was walking my friend back to her dorm when my other friend came running in with a Troll behind his back, so we had no choice but to attack." Draco said casually, "Even though, I didn't expect it to die so easily."

Dumbledore took a glance at Draco, "Life is a very fragile thing, Mr. Malfoy."

"I know."

"So are you okay? I heard you were weak yesterday after the situation."

"I used too much magic, that's all." Draco said, "So am I getting punished?"

"All you did was fight to protect yourself and your friends, so I can not punish you." Dumbledore said sounding wise, "And it wasn't your fault that the Troll came out of nowhere either, so we can't blame you for it."

"So does that mean, I am not getting punished?"

"Yes, Mr. Malfoy." Dumbledore said. "But next time, I hope you don't act recklessly."

"Will try," Draco said. "Headmaster, can I ask you for a favor?"

"Oh! It will depend on your request, Mr. Malfoy." Dumbledore looked at Draco wondering what he was going to ask of him.

"The Troll's bat" Draco said, "Can I have it?"

"Why would you need that Mr. Malfoy?"

"I wanted to keep it as a souvenir for the first XXXX level beast, I defeated," Draco replied.

Yesterday after the fight, Draco had realized that the bat was made from redwood, which he needed right now.

"Sure, I will have it to sent to you, Mr. Malfoy." Dumbledore didn't ask anything else, "That's it for today, Mr. Malfoy, I will no longer continue to disturb you." He said turning around the corner and disappearing.

Draco sighed seeing Dumbledore gone, He was surprised that he didn't raise a question about the Gryffindor sword, 'Maybe he doesn't know that it has disappeared or he knows something but didn't say it, either way, this old man is too troublesome to deal with.'

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Draco walked into the library to see Hermione, Harry, and Ron doing their homework.

'Oh! looks like destiny bought them together, one way or the other.'

Draco lazily sat opposite of Hermione and yawned, Harry and Ron looked at Draco and started packing up their bag.

"See you later, Hermione." They said and walked away glaring at Draco.

Yesterday, Theodore didn't try to save them and indirectly pointed fingers at them, so these two might be mad at him.

"Oh! looks like someone's got, new friends." Draco said making a pouting face, "Oh! I can't help but get jealous."

"Shut up!" Hermione glanced at Draco. "Are you okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"You looked kinda weird after you kil.. that Troll." She said, "I thought you were sad because of it."

"Sad because I killed a troll who was trying to kill us?" Draco said, "I am not that kind, besides even though it felt weird after I did it, I knew it wasn't guilt or sadness. It was like a feeling of incompleteness."

Hermione looked at Draco trying to understand him, Yesterday after seeing the Troll dead, she felt weird too and was wondering what Draco might be feeling since he was the one who did it, but looking at him he seems to be struggling a little with it too.

"Anyway, Talking about Trolls, how did you become buddies with Potter and Weasley," Draco asked changing the topic.

"They apologized to me later on and well since they did came to warn me about the Troll, I forgave them." Seeing Draco roll his eyes she asked, "What would you have done?"

"I would have forgiven them as well, but that's it... I wouldn't be friends with them," Draco said, "Being friends with people who have been mean to you sounds stupid to me, but hey my thinking is different than most people my age and I am happy that you finally have friends in Gryffindor."

That was Draco's true feeling, even though he didn't like Harry and Ron, with them there at least people can't bully Hermione much.

Hermione had a mixture of emotion listening to Draco but after hearing his last words she didn't say anything, but she felt warm inside.

''Also next time, Weasley says something mean to you, I will throw him in front of the train." Draco said smiling cheekily,

"Okay, he is my friend now.. so forget about the past, okay?" Hermione said smiling a little.

"Fine, if you say so." Draco waved his hands around lazily, "But you have to promise me that our studying session won't be disturbed by them."

Draco felt envy in his heart a little, but it wasn't a normal one either. It was similar to the voices in his head, but this time it was trying to drown him in jealousy. Draco knew something was wrong so like before he tried to control it.

"I promise." Hermione nodded.

Hearing her Draco felt calm and that weird feeling was gone.

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Also, I am going to stop asking you guys for opinions since the last part about me asking animagus and Patronus left me confused, so I will write the story my way.. without being influenced by others.