Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter
Inspirational Quotes Competition - Quote 9
Secrets
He would never be able to complete the task he had been given. He knew the Dark Lord did not expect him to succeed in the task either. He had been so very proud when he had been given an assignment by the Dark Lord while he had still been in Hogwarts. He had not realized at that point that his entire mission had been a punishment for his parents and he had been set up to fail but he was determined to succeed and do better than anyone expected him to.
He was a couple of months in already and he had not made a lot of progress on the entire mission. The cabinet was refusing to progress much further than he had gone. Obviously there was something he was missing in the entire process but he had spent many sleepless nights to no avail trying to look for the answer. He had noticed his parents getting more and more worried through their weekly mail. He was sure that his parents had asked Professor Snape to assist him but he did not want the help.
She had walked into the Room of Requirement by pure chance one day when he had been fixing the Vanishing Cabinet. They had stared at each other in shock for a couple of minutes while he waited for her to run off and tell the first person she saw that he was fixing something in the Room of Requirement. That was what he would have expected a Hufflepuff like her to do but Hannah had not done that. She had walked closer to where he sat and allowed the door to close behind her. She asked him if he needed any help.
He had sat in silence, considering her offer for a while before making her swear to keep everything they did within the room a secret. The progress had been significantly quicker after that as she had spotted the problem almost immediately and he had been shocked that he had not thought of that before.
It was not long before they had begun talking if only to displace the silence they were continuously surrounded with. They talked about anything they felt like while they worked as they had arranged their times so that they could work together on the project and she had begun to grow on him to the point where he had begun to look forward to their almost daily meetings despite the consequences of what would happen if anyone else found out about what they were doing. They had made sure that Hannah always came first and left last so that not even Crabbe and Goyle knew of her helping him because he did not know exactly how much he could trust the two boys. No one who was really that dumb would ever be able to pass into sixth year.
The cabinet was almost fixed and he felt a pang of sorrow for the ending of the friendship that they currently had. She had smiled at him as the last spell fell into place and the magic finally settled around them leaving the Vanishing Cabinet looking as good as new.
When Hannah stopped him in the middle of the corridor one day, everyone had stared. He could not admit that he had not been shocked at her actions himself. They had agreed to pick up their friendship again but this time not hiding their friendship from everyone. It had been difficult and he watched as Hannah got teased and taunted by the other Hufflepuff students, not all comments benign, but she continued to hold their friendship above that.
He had never had a friendship like that with anyone. Most of the people only befriended him because he was the Malfoy Heir and would not fight to defend him like she was currently doing almost daily.
He had taken the next step and asked her out on a date during one of the Hogsmead weekends. She had been surprised but had accepted to join him happily and had barely even thought of her answer.
Everything had finally begun to look up for him for the first time in a while.