Chapter 7

Draco had made his way back to the Slytherin dorms, and thrown himself unceremoniously upon his four poster bed. Amy had always been far too capable of getting what she wanted out of him. He knew this, yet every time she pushed, every time she went looking for an answer, he told her. He knew she knew which buttons to press, which tone of voice to use, how much emotion to inflict into a sentence, to show through her eyes. He fell for it, every time, hook line and sinker.

Mulling over his thoughts, something Blaise had said to him a short while ago came back to him, 'That girl you think you like and I know you like, you just brought her breakfast after spending a completely innocent night on the common room sofa with her.' Blaise obviously meant Amy, Draco was more than sure of that, but how was he supposed to know if he did like her like that, in a totally non platonic way.

Feeling like he'd gone back two paces he ran his hand through his hair, leaving it capable of rivalling even the mop of black Harry Potter dared to call hair.

Less than a quarter of an hour ago he'd been unable to pretend like he didn't care who Amy liked and who she wanted to date, and he knew why he'd been unable to detach his emotions. The part of him that his father hadn't been able to brainwash by drilling everything pureblood into, the part of his brain he rarely listened to was squeaking at him, yelling the answer at him in a high pitched voice. 'It's because you care'.

He couldn't deny that now, not after he'd told Amy that he did in fact care about her. He sighed, coming to two conclusions. One, he was dangerously close to falling in lo - he wouldn't let him mind take him down that alley, not right now - to falling for his eldest friend. And two, Zabini was frightfully insightful when it came to his relationship with Amy.

Amy had had the unfortunate luck of stumbling upon Theo during her search for Draco who appeared to have vanished. She'd not seen him since he'd left the alcove, and now it was lunch time, he'd missed all of his lessons that morning. She was hoping he'd be at the Slytherin table in his usual spot when Theo cornered her.

Before she'd had time to react to his presence, Theo had thrown his arm around her shoulders, steering her towards the corridor that lead to the kitchens.

"Rookwood! What happened to you after potions? It was like you disapparated". To Amy's ears, his voice was forced and overly cheerful.

"Sorry I got distracted" It wasn't exactly a lie.

"From something more important than me?" He questioned.

"Unfortunately, yes, I bumped into Snape and he wanted a word" ok, so that was a lie, but in giving him a vague answer she hoped he connected 'a word' with something to do with the Death Eaters, after all, he was even more up to his eyeballs in the dark arts and Voldemort than most of the slytherins were put together.

It appeared that he wasn't going to enquire any further, luck seemingly on her side.

"So I was wondering, have you thought anymore about my offer to Hogsmeade? You are barely talking to Malfoy so I doubt that you're still going with him".

Amy could feel the glee rolling off of him. He wasn't even trying to hide the creepy smile on his lips, which proved how pleased he was about that fact.

"No, we aren't going together, we never were" she admitted, not fazed by the scowl she was rewarded with for a second.

"Well that's a shame, but now that means you're not going with anyone, and I'd gladly take you." Amy did not miss the double entendre he threw at her.

"It doesn't bother me to not be going" she shrugged, a movement her mother would have scolded her for, but she wasn't at home at the minute.

"Well it bothers me, so come with me" he offered again.

Shaking her head Amy rejected him again "No thank you, I was planning on staying here anyway, after so many years Hogsmeade wears on you a bit."

Theo sighed, but it came across as very put on.

"You should come, I'll make it fun" He removed his arm from around her shoulders, placing it above her shoulder, resting against the wall, effectively bring them closer together, allowing him more of an opportunity to trap her between the wall and himself.

"No, I do not want to go with you" She placed her hands against his chest, pushing him back firmly.

Theo stumbled back, giving Amy the seconds she needed to remove herself from his grip.

It wasn't long enough, Theo grabbed her wrist, and hauled her back to him, pinning her against the wall.

"Come on Amy" he voice had taken on a dangerous, but at the same time amused, playful tone, like a predator toying with its latest catch. "We'll have a good time, I promise"

The leer on his face was unmistakable, causing an uncomfortable shiver to run down Amy's spine.

"I'm not so sure you could give me the good time I'm looking for" she informed him her voice cool, inflicted with sarcasm.

She was stuck, and with it being lunch time, no one was likely to venture down to the kitchens, not when the delicious food the house elves made was on the table, and it was all you could eat.

Resigned to this fact, Amy frowned. Pinned, she had no access to her wand, so she did the next best thing she could think of. She kneed him in the balls.

Nott instantly doubled over, clutching his pride and joy, instantly releasing her.

"Didn't your mummy ever tell you no means no?" Amy asked a triumphant smile on her face, before she turned and ran, her shoes clicking against the stone floor.

She ran until she reached the entrance hall, wanting to put room between herself and a very unhappy Theodore Nott.

Giving herself a minute to catch her breath, running a hand through her hair, straightening out any lose strands, causing them to fall back into place.

Making her way into the great hall, her eyes immediately sought out a head of platinum blonde hair. A head of platinum blonde that was undoubtedly missing from the sea of slytherins.

With a frown and a sigh, Amy spotted Blaise and Daphne, who were surrounded, much to her dismay, by Crabbe, Goyle, Parkinson, Bulstrode, and to Amy's surprise, Daphne's younger sister Astoria.

Moments after she sat down, Theo dropped into the space a few seats away, giving Amy a withering look, which turned into a smirk in the blink of an eye, before he turned to Astoria, speaking to her low tones which Amy couldn't hear.

Blaise quirked a questioning eyebrow in Amy's direction when he managed to catch her eye. He received a slight shrug of her shoulders in reply.

A part from when he arrived, Theo had paid no attention to Amy, or during the rest of the day. Even so, Amy was weary of him. She still hadn't seen hide or hair of
Draco since that morning.

As it was, Draco had been held up all day in the room of requirement. He hadn't made much progress, and it was quickly becoming infuriated with the blasted cabinet.

As far as he was concerned, it was all Montague's fault that it no longer worked, if he was dumb enough to let the Weasley twins of all people push him into it, rendering him stuck in neither one place nor the other for weeks on end.

He sighed, slamming the cabinet door shut, which in the long run probably wouldn't help, but it couldn't do anymore damage that the Weasley's and Montague had inflicted.

If it wasn't for them, his task would be so much easier, and he could assure, more or less that he wouldn't be murdered at the end of his sixth year, would hopefully make it through the summer and come back to Hogwarts for his 7th year.

The room of requirement wasn't helping him in his plans. It had turned up a couple of books which gave him information on vanishing cabinets, but nothing about how to fix them.

Is visit to the library had come up useless, Snape had taken to trying to offer him help and advice, but Draco had rebuffed him everything, refusing even to hint at what he was trying to do, and anyway, if what he was trying didn't work, he had back up plans set in place.

Running a hand through his already ruffled hair, untamed from its usual gel hold, his mind wasn't focused enough to even be attempting to repair the cabinet.

The tempus charm he cast told him it was well after dinner, he supposed he hadn't noticed because the room supplied him with food when he was hungry, and had given him something to drink when he was thirsty. No doubt the room has formed some sort of connection with the kitchens.

He knew he should return to the Slytherin common room, preferably before curfew, but he was in half a mind as to whether he wanted to see Amy or not, after all his morning admission, which went against everything that his father had ever taught him, had shown her a rather vulnerable side to him, and if she wanted, she could use it against him, which would be a very Slytherin thing to do.

It was an irrational fear, he knew, Amy had never given him reason to distrust her, but if she wanted to hurt him, she now held a playing card.

Realising just how ridiculous he sounded, Draco shook his head, he was being silly. Deciding, and knowing he wouldn't get any further with his little mission, and seeing as he'd been 'missing' since that morning. With that reasoning in his head, he left the room and made his way down to the entrance hall, making a quick detour via the kitchens for supper.

Upon reaching the common room Draco was surprised to find that there seemed to be no trace of Amy or Blaise or Daphne or even the rest of the 6th year Slytherins. The sight of the common room practically devoid of any interesting 6th years disappointed Draco. The babble of the younger years disrupted, what, according to Draco should be a place of refined elegance with groups of cunning Slytherins plotting the downfall of those bloody Gryffindors, or better yet how to take over the world, one wizarding ministry at a time, or maybe just maybe trying to figure to hot to get an illicit black market running in Hogwarts and how to sustain it without the teachers ever catching on.

Well this was what he'd always imagined to be happening in the common room, his naive and impressionable imagination on fuelled on by the fact that his father had once told him that He Who Must Not Be Named and his trusty Death Eaters had steamed from a group on boys in this very common room. Of course once he grew up and saw it for his own eyes, these ideas abruptly left. But once in a while Draco would find himself remembering those memories and even rarer still, wishing that it was the case.

Shooing away a couple of 1st and 2nd years from the comfier leather settee, Draco settled in, dropping his bag lazily on the coffee table in front of him, allowing the warmth of the fire to pass over him, soothing any tension in his body, the light created by the fire and the few candles floating around casting his face into a sort f half shadow, which is how Blaise found him a good twenty minutes later, seemingly staring into nothing.

Taking a pew on the table in front of Draco, Blaise leant forwards ever so slightly, waiting for Draco to realise he was sitting opposite him. A slow smug look that would have been ugly on anybody else's features crept onto his face as he saw it dawn on Draco that someone dare sit so close to him and openly stare at him, before the many, many walls went up, locking Blaise firmly out of his inner secrets.

Draco had an extreme sense of déjà vu to find Blaise in front of him, his eyes betraying him to the boy in front of him as they slid to his side to find a rather empty spot next to him.

"She's still in the library, probably looking up the most horrendous hex she can find and use on Parkinson without getting into too much trouble." Blaise answered the unasked question that wouldn't leave Draco's lips.

"Ah," he started softly "you were in the library" he spoke, almost as if this was some grand discovery.

Blaise shrugged "we would have told you but you did quite a good vanishing act on us, one would have thought you'd disapparated if only for the fact that it's impossible in this castle."

"I had things to do" the blonde informed the olive skinned boy, remaining vague as ever, his voice returning to the silk like quality he had when he spoke.

"Things or people?" Blaise challenged just as the common room door swung open to omit more people, more people being the only interesting 6th years that existed.

"Things" Draco hissed as, upon spotting the unmistakable blonde head, made a direct beeline towards the duo.

"Draky!" came a rather familiar and very much unwanted squeal from Pansy as she descended upon him, "Where have you been hiding all day, I was looking for you"

"Around" he intoned, his eyes falling briefly upon Amy, before his view was obscured by Blaise who had seemingly thrown himself upon the sofa then proceeded to spread out, taking up a good two thirds of the sofa effortlessly wearing an incredibly fake, but nevertheless winning smile that was pointed in Pansy's direction.

If looks could kill then Pansy's glare would be classed as a look that could disintegrate. Although it seemed to have no affect on Blaise as he just kept smiling at her until she sat somewhere else.

Draco flashed his friend a thankful look, managing to not roll his eyes as Daphne perched herself upon his lap, ignoring the green tinted feeling of envy that tried to make its self known.

Everyone seated, Pansy having somehow managed to get her paws on one of the better arm chairs, Millicent and Theo sharing one of the other sofas comfortably, Blaise not so subtly removed his limbs from half of the sofa he'd been taking up, his foot reaching out to brush Amy's ankle in invitation.

Her hesitation was perceivable, her eyes moving from the space created between Blaise and Draco, to Draco's impossibly cold grey eyes which weren't looking all that cold at the moment, before she dropped onto the sofa, curling her feet underneath her, her body taught with tension before she relaxed, leaning into Draco slightly, who without even thinking about until caught Pansy's mutinous glare, wrapped his arm around her shoulders, causing her to relax completely and lean fully into him. He knew, as, unknowingly to him, did Blaise that Amy's mind had sought out the memory of them that morning behind the tapestry, standing closer to each other that had been strictly necessary.