Dwelling Thoughts

"Welcome to the old Autwin home," Krista announced tiredly as she dusted soot off her winter coat and jeans as they exited the grand fireplace after traveling to the house by floo.

Draco had to catch himself to avoid stumbling into her, nearly breaking a leg on the log his foot got caught on. "So where are we exactly?" looking around the room Draco could obviously see that they were in the family room of the house. It was nothing compared to the Malfoy manor with its grand and open space. Here, well, he couldn't say it was too small nor too big, but dare he say it was actually a comfortable size with its décor consisting of moss green painted walls and tanned hardwood floors. Furniture in the room was centered around an antique coffee table with expired editions of the Daily Prophet covering its entire surface and seating was accommodated with two single cushion sand coloured chairs opposite each other with a matching sofa between them creating a semi circle effect in front of the fireplace. On one wall, opposite were he stood, Draco could make out the many frames that dotted its surface and from here he could see the smiling faces of family members come and gone from the Autwin clan. He would have to remind himself later to get a closer look at them.

Draco followed behind Krista as she went over to the coffee table to make some organization of the mess that had been left there. "In Ireland, out in the middle of nowhere," she answered. "So obviously it's very secluded."

"It's nice," he commented politely as she led him to the kitchen.

"So, ummm… make yourself at home," Krista gestured to the small antique breakfast table and chairs, "I have to go check on the patients."

"Patients?" Draco repeated before remembering what it was her grandfather had asked her to do for him. He had been wondering what exactly the old man had meant when he said 'check up on the gang'. From what Krista had previously told him about her family he recalled how she had mentioned that her grandfather had lived alone. Her grandmother, Jack's wife, had passed away years ago after her first year at Hogwarts. So when Draco heard the word 'gang' he hoped that the man wasn't referring to say a horde of cats.

It only took a quick explanation to clear things up for him. "Ya, grandpa runs a small clinic for magical creatures and even gets called away on business for clients for, well, larger beasts as you know. Those that are small enough he'll keep here while he takes care of them."

Draco was amazed that a man such as Jack, at his age especially, was still leading what seemed to be a very active lifestyle. He was just as surprised when he found out about the dragon at St. Mungo's, "The man stays busy."

Krista gave a little smile at the comment, "The house and land has been in our family for generations. I always love coming here. I think it was once used to breed flying horses or some other sort of magical creature. Or was it they originally bred gryphons and then century's later dragons, then unicorns, and then the flying horses… Or was it the other way around?" Now it seemed like Krista was babbling to herself as she rearranged the order of creatures again and again. Draco had never heard her go on about such nonsense in such a way. She seemed fine after seeing that her worst fears hadn't come true about her grandfather. Was she worried about something else? Or was she just simply tired from the day's events? Just when he was about to bring her attention back to reality Krista had already come to her senses about what she was doing.

"Ah, I'm sorry. I seem to be rambling and forgetting completely why we are here in the first place. Alright, so you just sit and wait here and I'll be back in a few minutes," she said awkwardly making her way to the back door and to the wet room that connected to the kitchen. She then disappeared out the door. Draco hadn't even sat down at the kitchen table near the window when the door suddenly opened.

Krista briskly walked in again heading for the kitchen cabinets. "Sorry, I completely forgot my manners," head down she began searching the cupboards pulling out small packages and tins as she went, "Draco, do you want anything to drink? There's tea, cocoa, water, coffee—" she froze mid sentence when Draco caught her hand as she was reaching up for a mug on the top shelf.

"Krista, there's no need to worry about that," he said has he pulled her hand down and turned her around to face him. The surprise on her face was evident enough that she hadn't been aware enough to hear him approaching, but as Draco studied her face he tried to detect any hints of distress, anything that might betray to him exactly what the Ravenclaw was feeling at this moment. From what he could see there was nothing that hinted at anything of the sort. Either he was just imagining things or she was that good at concealing her emotions. Still something was bothering Draco as Krista wasn't acting her usual self; that much he knew and he just had this nagging feeling that she wasn't telling him something. It really made him feel uneasy knowing she was keeping something from him.

He stood there holding her hand between them, "Are you sure you're alright?"

"I'm fine," she quickly reassured him breaking eye contact with him, perhaps a little too quickly for his liking.

Draco let go of her hand only to run his frustratingly through his hair, "Okay," it wasn't like he could force it out of her or anything and he couldn't push her into telling him after the day she had been through. If it had been any other day he would have annoyed the hell out of her until she told him what was bugging her. "Look, why don't you go do what it is you need to do and I'll put a kettle on the stove? That way we can both have a hot drink before we go back to Hogwarts."

Krista sighed, "Ya, that sounds good," she agreed, "I'll be back in a bit," she said brushing past him and out the door once more.

It had now been twenty-five minutes since Draco had taken the pot off the stove and had been waiting patiently for Krista to return. Sitting at the round kitchen table he unknowingly began to tap the wooden surface impatiently while sipping his half finished cup of tea. As the time continued to tick by on the clock Draco couldn't help like feeling more and more like an idiot. For the past twenty-five minutes and counting he had been feeling completely useless for never knowing how to exactly to console a girl like Krista in the situation that he found himself in. It was very annoying and frustrating on his part as since they arrived here at the Autwin house Krista was being distracted by whatever it was she was thinking about in that head of hers. And right now his thought of mind was getting on his nerves.

'This is ridiculous', he thought as he looked up at the clock on the wall seeing that it read 9:30pm. It was now past curfew at school. Funny that since it was the holidays they still, for some reason, needed it. Snape was probably going to have his head for this, but usually the professor let the students in his house off somewhat easy since he was the Head of it.

'Surely she should be back by now. I mean how long does it take to check up on a few animals?' Finally reaching the end of what patience he did posses, Draco gathered his coat and exited out the backdoor. It had gotten pretty dark outside, but with the clear night sky and a full moon hanging above, it was easy to take a look around at his surroundings. With the help of the moonlight Draco was able to see just how right Krista had been about the house being in the middle of nowhere. The house had been built on a plain of flat land surrounded fully by a forest that circled the entire clearing a few yards away. Aside from the relatively small barn, that he was able to make out not far from the main house, the light he saw on was the only one in sight.

Figuring that it was a safe enough guess that was where Krista was, Draco made his way through the snow hoping perhaps that she would be done by the time he got there. Reaching the barn door he slid it back to find that the inside of the structure was much bigger on the inside than what the outside appeared to be, magic being highly the reason for it. There was a single hall that stretched to the opposite side of the barn, above lanterns lighted the way while numerous stalls lined each wall. In a corner were a few cages, which he guessed, were for the more not so friendly creatures that Jack was lucky enough to treat. Draco breathed in the dusty sent of the atmosphere has he strolled down the aisle seeing how most of the stalls were empty with nothing more than a layer of hay lining the space. Though he did see a pair of pure black winged horses dozing away, a unicorn that stuck its head out curiously has he walked by and a hippogriff that stared challengingly at him. Draco practically hugged the opposite wall as he passed making certain to stay as far away from the beast as possible. The gold plated sign on the door of the stall read 'Stormwick'. Draco rolled his eyes at the luck of it all after recalling Jack saying the name back at St. Mungo's. Figures that it had to be one of those giant bloody chickens.

It wasn't until he was nearing the end that Draco noticed a stall door that was slightly pried open. Peering in he found none other than the Ravenclaw girl sitting down on the ground with some kind of black scaly creature curled up in her lap. From where he was Draco couldn't tell if her mind had wandered away from reality again or had fallen asleep.

"Hey," he nudged her with his leg causing her to jump almost upright.

"Draco," she breathed relieved to see that it was him that had jostled her out of her thoughts, "you have a bad habit of sneaking up on me."

"Not my fault that you're always spacing out," he said as he stood before Krista looking down at her.

She was looking down at the critter in her lap stroking its glossy scales, "How long have I been out here?" she asked with a yawn.

"Long enough for me to see what was taking you so long."

"Sorry, I guess I wasn't paying attention to the time," she sighed rubbing at her eyes. Draco noticed how she had instantly turned her gaze downward once she saw that it was him that intruded and now that he thought about it her voice did sound a little cracked when she spoke to him. It didn't take a genius to figure out why Krista had taken her time getting back to him. He felt like a complete idiot for not going with his gut feeling earlier.

"You've been crying," he stated plainly.

"No, I haven't," she denied stubbornly immediately rubbing at her eyes again.

"Then why are you rubbing your eyes?"

"I have something in my eye, alright."

"Don't lie to me."

"Why do you care?" she snapped before quickly covering her mouth with her hand to prevent herself from saying anything further. Krista was more surprised at her own outburst than Draco was. It was in this particular area with girls that Draco was not his best. Emotions and understanding really weren't exactly his strong points. Not that he complained about it before, but at this moment he was mentally kicking himself for it.

Krista couldn't believe the way she was behaving, acting out like a child, "I'm sorry," she apologized as Draco sat himself down next to her.

"You've had a long day. You have enough reason to get a little emotional," and she did. Since this morning Krista had only shown a fraction of the emotions that she was feeling. She was feeling overwhelmed, stressed, relieved and a whole bunch of other emotions all rounded up together. Krista herself knew she made it a point to conceal what she was really feeling and stored it away for when she was by herself to deal with it.

For Draco this was just a new thing he was learning about her. The way she bottled up her emotions so that others wouldn't be so worried over her. She dealt with her issues on her own time in her own private way. Either that made her really strong or really stupid in his opinion. "Want to talk about it?" he asked.

Krista sighed thinking about how he wouldn't want her dumping all her problems on him no matter how much she appreciated his offer, "You don't have to do that."

"Krista," Draco pried her in a tone that said you better start talking or else.

"I could have lost him, Draco," it was a hard possibility to think about. Her grandfather was one of the few adults in her life that she could actually depend on. If it wasn't for him in her life then she was sure that she wouldn't be the person that she was today. Her grandfather had quite an influence on her at a young age and it was he who helped raised her more than her own parents had.

"But you didn't."

"But I could have," she breathed out a bit shaky, "You heard him, it was a Norwegian Horntail! You remember what that kind of dragon was like in the Triwizard tournament. It's just… I'm relieved, but seeing him today in that hospital bed… I'm not use to seeing my grandfather that way. I was scared and just thinking about what could have happened with that Horntail is terrifying."

Draco clearly remembered the dragon that sadly did not eat Potter during the Triwizard tournament in their fourth year. "You're right, it could have," he admitted, "but it didn't. Your grandfather is alive, Krista, and he's going to be okay."

"But—"

"But nothing," Draco cut her off, "Krista, you need to put such thoughts out of your head. Your grandfather is going to be able to come home tomorrow and everything will be fine."

"Thanks," she said giving into his sense of logic. There was a moments of silence between them before she spoke up again, "Since when did you become Mr. Sensitive?" she couldn't help but joke.

Draco rolled his eyes at the comment, "Just shut up and cry on my shoulder, would you," he said a bit embarrassed before he wrapped an arm around her shoulders pulling her closer to his side. Draco wasn't sure what caused him to do so, but apparently his body was now starting to move on its own without his mind's consent. To his surprise Krista didn't say anything about it nor did she try to pull away.

Though he couldn't see it Krista was madly blushing at his attempt to comfort her. She accepted it laying her head on his shoulder and just simply embraced this out of character moment from him, secretly smiling as she did.

After a while Draco finally coaxed her to leave the stall abandoning what he had discovered to be a newly hatched dragon that had been resting in her lap. Now seeing that Krista seemed to be on the verge of complete exhaustion from the day's events Draco led her slowly back to the house seating her on the couch before going to reheat the abandoned drinks from earlier. He hadn't even bothered looking at the time before returning only to find a sleeping Ravenclaw curled up on the far end of the sofa. Draco smiled slightly at the sight of it for Krista seemed to be out like a light. Setting the drinks on the coffee table Draco sat down as lightly as he could so as not to wake Krista up. Draco knew she was tired, but he also knew that they needed to get back to Hogwarts. But she looked so peaceful there that Draco decided he would give her a few minutes of rest before waking her up. Just a few minutes.

A/N: Alright, so that was not one but TWO chapters that I posted in the same day so I hope that makes up for not posting anything new for these past few weeks. Work as been exhausting and I usually end up taking a cat nap as soon as i walk through the door at the end of my shift, but today i had the day off so i thought i would some catching up =) Hope you guys enjoyed!