CHAPTER 24: Calm Before the Storm

Disclaimer: I do not own anything belonging to JK Rowling or the world of Harry Potter.

Draco stops attending meals again.

And I notice it immediately.

Not that I'm looking out for him (well, not that much anyway). And not that I have the right to care anymore. The first time he started skipping meals, he was my target and I had a vested interest in his wellbeing (or lack-thereof). Then, as we became allies and subsequently involved, that interest developed further, giving me every right to be annoyed at him missing out on proper nourishment. But now?

Now I'm nothing to him. While he's everything to me.

There is one good thing that comes of his absence in the Great Hall however – I don't have to look at him and watch on as he ignores my very existence, something that's probably done a lot of good for my mental health but only makes me miss him more. Not that I have the right to do that either. But I still do. I still miss him, miss us,even if I can no longer feel the trace of his lips on mine or remember the way he'd say Your Highness in that teasingly fond way, and I hate myself even more for it.

For letting him hold that much power over me. Still.

In other news, the other aspects of my life are looking up. Daphne and Pansy were completely accepting of me once I'd told them about my past and about Draco and I's allyship, both of them taking my side over Draco's like any good girlfriends would. They even went so far as to bring me back a little care package from Hogsmeade on their visit the day after, consisting of chocolate frogs and acid pops and some romance novel (as a disclaimer, I'm not an avid reader of romance as I'm not an avid reader of anything, really, but the gesture was appreciated and I might give it a shot once we've escaped to Theo's cabin and have more time on our hands).

Speaking of Theo's cabin, preparations are almost complete for our escape, with all of us due to receive our apparition licences and all of us being of age so there's nothing tracking us while we use magic. Not that I need magic, as such, but the others are rather skilled at it which will certainly come in handy.

So, the only thing left is to finish the school year.

Piece of cake, right?

It's currently Monday evening and I'm leaving the library to head back to the common room. I feel somewhat light that Draco won't be there as he's working on the Cabinet, but also heavy as he's working on the Cabinet without me – not an uncommon combination of emotion these days. My bag is full of books that I've checked out to help me study for our end-of-year exams which are ever-impending, the strap digging into my shoulder and rendering me off-kilter. I have to squeeze my way out of the heavy wooden doors and am just about to start the trek to the dungeons when I see a familiar head of unkempt midnight hair further down the hallway.

Potter.

We haven't spoken once since the bathroom incident and I sort of feel bad for my reaction out in the corridor afterwards. I mean, he did use a spell he had no idea of the repercussions of – an action which was ridiculously Gryffindor and idiotically reckless – but I could see he felt genuinely guilty of it after the fact.

Which is why I do what I do next.

He's alone from what I can see, and I half-run down the corridor after him, my heavy bag weighing me down. I slow once I'm near and say, "Potter."

He jumps and turns around, apparently lost in his own thoughts. "Messer." He has bags under his eyes and there's a wariness in his expression as he takes me in, not that I can blame him for it. Not my last parting words to him.

"Look Potter, about what happened to Dr-Malfoy," I correct myself quickly, praying that Potter doesn't notice my blunder. The name causes a stabbing pain in my heart which I try to move on from and ignore. "I just want to apologize for how I behaved afterwards. I was an emotional wreck, which I know is no excuse for what I said, and it was very unlike me."

Potter narrows his eyes at me, effectively ignoring my apology and picking up on the mistake I really didn't want him to. "What happened between you two?"

"You tell me." I smile sheepishly (and, though I loathe to admit it, awkwardly) which turns into a grimace as I say, "One minute we were fine and he's saying he can't live without me and the next he hates me and pretends like I don't exist."

"I'm sorry," Potter replies, wary expression dropping from his face to reveal sincerity. "And I accept your apology, even though you didn't need to as your reaction was understandable."

He hesitates for a second, biting the inside of his lip before adding, "I'm sure Theo has told you about-"

"You and him. Yeah, he has," I nod reassuringly, glad that Potter and I are back on somewhat steady ground, if you could even say that's where we were before he cursed Draco to oblivion in an abandoned girls' bathroom. "You make him very happy, you know."

"Likewise, he makes me ecstatic," Potter takes a shuddering breath, the weight of the world seeming to plant itself on the Chosen One's shoulders in that moment and aging him beyond his years. "Look after him, Messer, through all of this. I wish I could be there, could see him and be with him and protect him, but it's just too dangerous. And while he has self-preserving instincts, he couldn't take down a fly if it comes to a fight."

I laugh weakly in agreement. "He's like a brother to me, Potter. I'd never let anything bad happen to him so long as I'm breathing."

"Good."

"Good."

He pushes his (broken?) glasses up his nose and smiles crookedly. "You're not as bad as I thought you were, Messer. Especially for a Slytherin."

"That's reassuring," I drawl with a raised eyebrow.

"That was the intention. I hope it doesn't come down it, but if I were ever to find myself in a conflict with you by my side I'd trust you to have my back completely," he says, the pure honesty laced in his tone and written across his features striking. Though maybe that's just because I'm not that used to it.

Either way it's not as striking as the honesty in my own as I reply, "And I you."

He nods, and I shift my feet as if to leave, joking, "And, Potter, get some rest. You look like shit and you're supposed to be our saviour or something."

He laughs, hearty and genuine. "You sound like Hermione."

"Not that I want to agree with Granger, but she is rather clever. I'd listen to her if I were you."

"Noted."

We stand there in awkward silence then, the both of us dithering and not knowing what to say to each other before I settle on, "Well, this is getting weird now and I'm going to leave."

I turn around and make my way to top of the nearest staircase, Potter's voice ringing after me, "Me too. See you around, Messer."

"Hopefully not," I reply, and hear him laugh behind me as I begin the lengthy descent down to the common room.

"Have you started reading that novel yet?"

I blink, attention drifting back to the conversation at hand. It's lunchtime, the day after I apologized to Potter, and my mind keeps drifting elsewhere, unable to focus on anything in particular. Daphne is staring at me expectantly from where she's sat across the table and it clicks that she's addressing me.

"Not yet, Daph." I push my food around my plate with my fork. "In all honesty, I don't know if I can stomach a romance right now."

"But it's The Great Gatsby – not really a romance and one of my absolute favourites."

The Great Gatsby? I didn't clock the title of it at the weekend, resting it on my nightstand when received and using it to prop my wand on when I sleep since. The name rings a bell, though not from my recent immersion into the magical world, and I struggle to place it when…

"Isn't that a muggle novel?" I blurt ineloquently.

"Of course, it is," she scoffs, elegant and haughty as ever, "you don't think I read magical fiction do you? It's appallingly written. I must admit, the muggles have really pinned down the art of writing in a way that I don't think us witches and wizards will ever manage."

I stare at her with wide eyes. I've said it before and I'll say it again – I don't know precisely whyor howI still manage to get shocked at these sorts of revelations when I know my friends aren't blood-supremacists in any way shape or form and only outwardly appear to be anti-Muggle. Daphne stares back at me, amused, and I quickly close off my expression, muttering, "I wouldn't know, I'm not a sap like you."

"If you're trying to offend me, you're doing a poor job of it."

"I wasn't trying, as such-"

I stop in my tracks as I see Draco enter the Great Hall, and Daphne swivels her head to look too. In an almost mirror image of the morning before Potter cursed him, one look tells me that something is definitively off. I shouldn't stare – I know I shouldn't stare, have no right to – but I can't stop. Can't stop taking in the worried glint in his eyes and the small furrow in his brow. His slightly askew tie and his sleeves pushed up a couple of centimetres higher on his wrists than he normally keeps them.

To the untrained eye, nothing is wrong with Draco Malfoy.

To me, everything is wrong.

Daphne turns back to me, oblivious to his off appearance and consoling, "Seriously, Arachne, he's not worth your time."

"That's where you and I differ in opinion," I reply without taking my eyes off Draco.

He doesn't look at me, as per usual. Doesn't even look in my general vicinity, instead focussing on Blaise who's sat a bit further down the bench and closer to the door than us. He approaches the latter, who's carefully eating some soup while scanning a textbook, and stands by him. They talk briefly and Draco leaves, Blaise shortly getting up and following him out of the room.

But Blaise forgets his textbook. Leaves it lying abandoned next to his half-empty bowl.

And that's how I know something is seriously off.

Blaise would never forget anything, let alone a book he's in the middle of. He's so deliberate, so precise, that he remembers almost every detail and for him to abandon his chosen reading of the day in pursuit of more information must mean that Draco is telling him something important. Really important.

There's only one thing I can think of that's that important.

Draco's fixed the Cabinet.

"Fuck," I mutter, staring at the doorway where both boys have recently departed and resisting the urge to follow. It's not my place anymore. And it was only a matter of time until he finished the reparation by himself anyway, considering the vast amount of progress we made together even when liaising through letter correspondences and notes rather than in person.

"What is it?" Daphne asks, and I bring my gaze back to her concerned expression.

"He's done it."

"What?"

"Draco has done it."

"Done what?"

I simple look at her in response, using my eyes to convey the message to her without saying the words as it's too dangerous in here (and, just to clarify, I did tell her and Pansy exactly what Draco and I were doing as allies so she knows he's been working on the Vanishing Cabinet whilst trying to assassinate Dumbledore – both of them nodding at the former and gasping at the latter), and after a moment or two I see her put the pieces together, mouth forming a small 'o' when she does.

"He's done it," she whispers.

"Yes."

"What does this mean for us?"

"It means we get ready." I stand up and step back over the bench to leave. "It means our escape may be closer than anticipated."

Up until now I've never truly understood what people mean when they use the expression 'the calm before the storm'. Never understood how exactly you know you're in the apparent calm before the apparent storm and not simply living out any other day of your life, business as usual. Never experienced any calm myself before a particularly rocky event – or never noticed it, at least.

But as I sit in the common room that evening with Daphne, Pansy, Theo, and Blaise, I can't help but think that this is the last time.

As we laugh at some impression Theo makes of one of the Hufflepuff prefects, I can't help but think that this is the last time we'll laugh freely and uninhibited for a long while.

As Pansy and Blaise make some wager over Millicent and Crabbe, I can't help but think that it's the last one.

That this is the calm before the storm.

Knowing (probably) that Draco has fixed the Vanishing Cabinet makes everything seem so frivolous and almost wrong in a sense. Sat like this, like most nights for the past year, suddenly feels whimsical when one thinks of the repercussions of his actions. What does Voldemort wish to transport through the Cabinet? Weapons? Death Eaters? And when – tomorrow? The next day? In a month's time?

My questions are answered mere hours later.

A rustling sound wakes me at what doesn't feel like long after we turn in for the night, and not a habitual rustling I've come to expect over the last year sharing the dorm with the other girls. It's right by my head, where I'm fairly (read: absolutely) positive nobody sleeps and before I've fully woken and registered the noise, I've pulled out the knife from under my pillow and have it pointed straight at the intruder's face.

The intruder being Daphne.

"Hey," she whispers, not looking the least bit scared at having Genevieve only an inch away from her forehead.

I squint in the darkness. "Daphne?"

"Yes, it's me."

I blink a couple of times in an attempt to get rid of the haze in my brain and ask, "What's going on?"

Her voice picks up in urgency. "You need to get dressed."

"What?"

"You need to get dressed. Preferably into your spy clothes."

"Spy clothes?" I squint again, not sure if I heard her correctly.

"Yes, quickly, then come out to the common room." And with that she leaves, rustling away into the night.

I rub my eyes, waking myself fully before getting up and dressed into my so-called 'spy clothes'. A few of my belongings lie about the dorm which I gather as quietly as I can and pack into my 'emergency backpack' – the bag already somewhat packed with essentials for an event such as this – and leave it on top of my bed in an easily-grabbable position should we need to hurry out. And then I arm.

Delilah on my hip.

Genevieve in my boot.

Artemis against my back.

With a short double-check, my girls and I leave the dormitory.

The rest of the group bar Draco are waiting in the common room, all of them fully dressed in dark clothes. Every face I see looks serious, the room silent, and so unlike their usual selves (apart from maybe Blaise) that I falter. They're all gathered around the fireplace – our usual spot – and the juxtaposition of the mood now to the mood from earlier throws me.

If I didn't feel like this was serious when Daphne awoke me, I certainly do now.

Theo, who's leaning against the mantelpiece on his forearm and playing idly with a pocket watch, is the first to speak. "We need your help, Arachne."

"I gathered that much," I reply, standing beside one of the couches and crossing my arms. "It's Draco isn't it?"

The fixed Vanishing Cabinet is the only thing that comes to mind that would elicit a reaction this serious from the rest of the group, and if it is something else I'd be very surprised. On the inside I'm antsy, fidgety, wanting nothing more than to tear the castle apart to find out what the hell is going on, itch rearing its ugly head in full force. But I don't. I school my features, still my body language, and wait patiently for someone to explain, impressing even myself with my self-restraint.

Daphne, perched on the cushion of an armchair that Pansy is sat on the arm of, replies, "Yes. And I know what happened between you two is difficult and complicated but we don't know who else to ask. You're the only one who's got the skillset for it."

Of course, I am. Unless there's another teen assassin-come-spy within these castle walls.

I don't bite back at her words, though. Don't comment on the current nature of Draco and I's relationship or argue that I don't want to go and help him. I merely ask, "Where is he?"

"You're going to do it?"

"Where is he?"

"Seventh floor," Blaise says solemnly, looking up from where he's been staring at his feet to make eye-contact with me for the first time since I entered the room. His expression is open for once, uncertainty pasted across every inch of his face, eyes two pits of worry, and something in my (almost disintegrated) heart tugs. He just wants his best friend to be safe and that – that I can understand. Have understood all along, in a way. I don't think I've ever been truly mad at him for intervening in mine and Draco's relationship – fuck, maybe I should have let him get between us to avoid the crushing heartbreak that came after.

"Thank you," I say, nodding at him and sending him a genuine look. "I'll bring him back. I promise."

He nods back, understanding passing through his gaze too, and I turn and make my way to the common room entrance without another word or glance to anyone.

"Arachne," I hear Pansy call after me, but I don't look back. Not now. Or I might change my mind.

Who am I kidding? There's no fucking way I'll change my mind, not where Draco is concerned. But if I stay then it'll make it harder later on. Harder on me and on the others. Because whatever is sent through that Vanishing Cabinet, the chances of me coming back – one girl against however many people or weapons or creatures, no matter how skilled I am – are slim at best. And it doesn't take much to imagine the sadness in Daphne's eyes, or slump in Theo's shoulders, or the guilt on Blaise's face, or the angry set of Pansy's jaw.

But, of course, those images don't change my mind either.

Because of Draco.

Because it's always been Draco. And I have a sneaking suspicion that it always will be Draco, even if what I feel for him is one-sided.

And I think I'm okay with that.

My momentum picks up as I walk, restless energy manifesting physically, and by the time I'm out in the corridor I'm itching to bolt up to the seventh floor. So, I that's exactly what I do. The hallways are quiet. Eerily so. No paintings shuffling in their frames or strange noises that seem to only make themselves known in the small hours.

Just deathly silence.

The only sound my footsteps treading stealthily against the stone floor and the beating of my heart.

Until I hear it.

A laugh.

No, not a laugh – a cackle. Like none other I've heard before.

I slow and move so I'm creeping along the corridor with my back against the wall, form encompassed by shadow. The cackle gets louder as I reach the end of the hallway and when I reach the corner, I poke my head around to see the source of the noise.

Little did I realise I had been making my way to the Room of Requirement all this time (partly out of habit, perhaps, and partly because the castle looks vastly different in the dark), and stood outside of it is Draco wearing a crisp all-black suit. He cuts a striking figure, combed hair and monochromatic ensemble highlighting his already-sharp profile, and it's a far cry from what I thought he'd look like given he's missed every meal for the last few days and hasn't been seen in the common room once. And he's not alone.

Stood with him is a group of people, all similarly dressed in black. Death Eaters I'd wager if I was the betting sort. There's no doubt about it. The source of the cackling is a woman – and the only one in the group, by the looks of it. She has a head of corkscrew curls springing in every imaginable direction the colour of onyx and there's an unhinged gleam in her eyes that I recognize all too well.

She's positively manic.

The most dangerous kind of enemy.

I can't hear what some of the others are mumbling about, but they soon turn in my direction and I press myself flat behind a pillar and cast a silent disillusionment charm on myself, not taking any risks. They pass where I'm hidden with their dark cloaks sweeping behind them. Draco trails them by a few feet, walking slower than the rest as though he's unsure of what he's doing, of what he's about to do (which I'd also wager involves a certain Dumbledore he's supposedly meant to be assassinating), and that's when I see my window of opportunity. Possibly my only one.

Shoving my feelings into a deep dark vault I can't access, I push myself off the wall and grab him, steering him straight across the width of the corridor and into the classroom opposite.

Into the darkness with me.