Greta sat in the corner of the common room, her fingers tracing the edge of the parchment as if it were a physical thing that might cut her. The room was quiet, the fire dying down into a heap of glowing orange coals, but the tension between them was loud. Draconia watched her friend, noticing how the light from the single candle caught the sharp line of Greta's jaw. It was a strange thing to realize that the truth could be a weapon, even when it was written in the neat, disciplined script of a Malfoy.
"You wrote this?" Greta asked, her voice barely a whisper.
"I did," Draconia replied, leaning back against the velvet upholstery of the armchair.
Greta looked up, her eyes searching Draconia's face for a sign of a joke or a trick, but found only the flat, unreadable surface of her friend's expression. The essay was a dangerous thing, a collection of truths masquerading as academic observation, and Greta was the first person to see the cracks in the marble.
"It sounds like you're talking about a ghost, not a girl," Greta said, her thumb pressing hard into the paper.
"It is a formal essay, is it not?" Draconia asked, her tone light, though her heart felt heavy in her chest.
"It is a confession," Greta countered, setting the parchment down on the low table between them. "It is a confession disguised as a history of your lineage."
Draconia watched the way Greta's hands trembled slightly. She had spent years perfecting the art of the mask, crafting a version of herself that was polished and impenetrable, yet here was the reality, stripped bare and laid out in ink. The words were honest to a fault, describing the coldness of a house where a Malfoy is offered things but is rarely given warmth. She had wanted to be seen, but she had not expected the sight of her to be so uncomfortable for someone else to witness.
"Is it too much?" Draconia asked, her voice softening as she watched the way Greta's brow furrowed.
"It is too much," Greta said, her gaze returning to the page. "It is too much of the truth for one person to carry."
"I thought it was a good essay," Draconia said, trying to reclaim some of her composure.
"A good essay stays on the surface, Draconia. This goes deep into the marrow." Greta looked up again, and there was no comfort in her eyes, only a sort of terrified recognition. "You are telling everyone how you actually felt, under all that gold and silk."
"I didn't mean for it to be a diary," Draconia admitted, the confession slipping out before she could check it.
"But it is a diary," Greta said, and she sounded almost tired of the subject. "It is the most honest thing anyone has ever written in this castle, and that is why it is terrifying."
Draconia felt a sudden urge to reach out and touch Greta’s hand, to tell her that the vulnerability was a temporary state, but she stayed still. She knew Greta well enough to know that Greta did not offer platitudes or soft words when the truth was being told. Greta was a person of hard edges and sharp observations, and she did not know how to soften the blow of a person's soul.
"Do you think the professor will like it?" Draconia asked, her voice a little too high.
"The professor will see the history, but the reader will see you," Greta said, her voice flat. "There is a difference between a scholar and a person, and you are being a person."
"Is that a bad thing?" Draconia asked, her eyes fixed on the flickering candle.
"It is a lonely thing," Greta replied, her gaze dropping back to the ink-stained words. "To be that honest is to be entirely alone in your own skin."
The silence that followed was not comfortable, nor was it the kind of silence that felt pregnant with meaning. It was the silence of a realization that could not be unmade. Draconia watched as Greta turned the parchment over, as if the back of the page might offer a more palatable version of the truth. The words were there, etched into the fibres of the paper, a record of a childhood spent navigating the expectations of a name that felt more like a cage than a crown.
"You should have kept it more formal," Greta said, her voice gaining a bit of strength. "You should have stayed with the politics and the bloodlines, and left the feeling out of it."
"I couldn't help it," Draconia said, feeling a sudden, sharp pang of regret. "The words just came out that way."
"Because you weren't trying to write a history, you were trying to survive the writing," Greta said, her eyes meeting Draconia's once more.
Draconia felt a chill that had nothing to do with the draft from the corridor. She had been caught, not by a professor or a peer, but by the sheer gravity of her own honesty. She had written the truth of her life, and in doing so, she had given Greta a map to a place Draconia wasn't sure she was ready to visit. The essay was a beautiful, terrible thing, a testament to a girl who was trying to find a voice in a world of whispered commands.
"Do you want me to tell you it's good?" Draconia asked, her fingers twisting the fabric of her robes.
"I don't want to lie to you," Greta said, and she sounded almost unkind in her sincerity. "It is a brilliant piece of writing, but it is a brutal thing to read."
"It is just a draft," Draconia said, though she knew it was far more than that.
"It is a heartbeat on a page," Greta corrected, her voice dropping an octave. "And hearts are messy."
Draconia watched her friend close the parchment, the sound of the paper hitting the table echoing in the quiet room. The essay was a heavy thing now, a weight that seemed to sit in the center of the room between them. She thought of the drawer where the third version was locked away, the version that was truly hers, and she wondered if Greta was right. Perhaps the truth was a burden that people were not meant to carry without a shield.
"It is too much," Greta said again, her eyes fixed on the flickering wick of the candle.
"Is it?" Draconia asked, her voice barely audible.
"It is," Greta said, her expression hardening into something final. "Burn that."