A/N: Here's another chapter. Enjoy:))
Chapter 133: Only a few days
We didn't really have much to do during the last month of school; with all the confusion and disorder caused by Dumbledore's death, it was decided that we'd only do only one class of each subject every week, so the teachers would have a free enough schedule to attend meeting after meeting with the school board to make executive decisions about the next year at Hogwarts.
Draco decided that it was time for me to properly meet his friends, and actually spend some time with them (even though with Blaise at least that wasn't a problem),given that he knew mine (although not all of them really liked him). I wasn't really keen on the idea, being sure that the Slytherins would be even less welcoming than Harry and Ron had been, but since we were now officially in a relationship, it had to be done at some point.
Merlin, I never would've thought that I'd get into something like this. Usually, my biggest problems included some curses, nearing death and sometimes Voldemort. But here I was, next to the Black Lake, waiting for Draco to arrive with Parkinson, Astoria, Blaise and Theo.
"Potter." Unsurprisingly, the suspicious voice belonged to Blaise's girlfriend, who seemed to have adopted a protective stance in front of her friends.
"I don't bite Parkinson. And even if I would, do you really think I'd hurt my boyfriend or my friend?" I asked her, making room for Draco to sit next to me, and looking amused at Blaise. She didn't answer to that, and Astoria didn't seem to want to contribute to our conversation either. Theo on the other hand...
"Hi Selene..." we hadn't talked in a long time and I had long ago realized that I had made too big of a fuss for something small: the way he was expected to act as a Slytherin, as well as his own permanent internal struggles; so, before he had the chance to say anything else, I got up and hugged him as tightly as I could, feeling him jump a little, startled by the slight electric shock that went through us when we touched.
"I really missed you, dummy."
"I missed you too."
"Wait, how do you know each other?" To my surprise, the Greengrass girl was the one to ask that question.
"We have been best friends since we were little. The two of us and, and Eve." I felt my heart drop and my throat swell up at the sound of her name rolling off of Theo's tongue. We hadn't really talked about her death. At all. The only time I said anything about it was in Minnie's office, with Cedric there, after the Third Task.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and put on a pretty forced smile.
"We haven't talked in quite some time, but I guess we're fine now."
After everyone sat down, I decided it was time for them to find out the truth about Kara as well.
"Since we started telling the truth, there is something else you have to know as well. Remember the party at the Malfoy manor for Draco's thirteenth birthday?"
"Yes." Pansy and Astoria replied.
"Well, the short version is, Draco doesn't have a cousin named Kara. It was just me."
"But how did you ch-"
"I used to be a Metamorphmagus."
"Used to?"
"Yes. It appears that it is possible to lose those powers. That's how I hid my scars and Draco's from view. Now we use glamours. Tiring, but worth it. We don't want the whole school to know about us."
"I have a question though."
"Yes?"
"If his scars show up on your skin as well, does that mean that you also have the-" she gestured towards my left arm.
"Unfortunately yes. And there really isn't a way to get rid of it so I guess we're both stuck with the Mark for the rest of of our lives. Oh well, c'est la vie."
All in all, the meeting went well, Pansy and I actually made it to first name basis, and they didn't hate me. We ended up telling them about more or less every time we had lied to them about us and they were surprised at how oblivious they had been in so many cases.
The last few weeks flew by and soon enough, I was saying goodbye to most of my friends. Harry was going back to the Dursleys, Hermione, Ron, Pansy, Astoria, Theo and Blaise to their respective homes and Draco was staying with me at Hogwarts. We were all going to meet at the Burrow a month before the start of the school year for Bill's wedding to Fleur Delacour (well that was unexpected, but apparently they had been together since the summer after the Triwizard Tournament and Mrs Weasley eventually calmed down after lashing out at her son for keeping something so big from her).
"What now?" Draco asked after everyone had left, his right hand joining the left one on my waist, turning me to face him. It was...nice to have this. We had always known that we were eventually going to end up together. Some soulmates were just not good for each other (e.g. Hermione and Ron), but not us.
"Now we take advantage of having the library just for us and we find a damn way to get this thing out of me and my brother. The soul fragments aren't so big, so maybe there's a way to do it without killing ourselves."
"We will find a way. But let's just take a few days for ourselves before we dive into all those books." I got up on my tiptoes, holding his neck for balance and kissed him.
"Okay. Just a few days. Then we work."
"Then we work. Shall we?" he extended his hand towards the grounds and got out of the castle after me.
We couldn't let this upcoming war define us. There was going to come a time when we were going to fight all day long. But that time wasn't now, and we had to take advantage of peace and quiet now while we still had it.