Are you there
She tapped the quill on the top of the scroll, the opened book sat to her right. The rest of the world was sleeping, she knew he wouldn't be. He would be working on his task.
Yes Granger I'm here.
What are we doing? She closed her eyes as the scroll sent the message off. A week ago, she hated him, today she was snogging him in the corridor.
Trying to survive. Sometimes war makes people do stupid things.
So is this war?
It will be.
She knew it was coming, they all did. The words erased themselves and were replaced with another sentence.
Why do you keep coming around?
How many times do I have to tell you I don't know.
She sighed, would she always have to have justification, if they survived his war, would she always have to spend her time telling him she loved him. The thought stopped in her mind, she did not love him, no. She simply would not let him destroy himself for a war they did not start. She brought herself back to the tower, back to hanging onto him, preventing him from jumping into the abyss.
The Pax to my Erebus.
I never was one for darkness.
Yet you still come back to it.
She could not deny that. She always came back to him, yet peace she was not. Every nerve in her body was alight.
You ask why I don't run away, but why do you keep coming to me? I'm not the one holding myself down in closed rooms.
She wrote the words down and hated herself for it, for giving into her curiosity and pushing the limit of their current engagement, the pretend it did not happen method they were currently using.
When I need you, you are there.
The wind rustled the curtains around her and she watched as his words disappeared off the paper. It could be anyone then, anyone else could have wondered into the library that day and done the simple thing she did and they would be the ones fighting the guilt that ate at her.
She scoffed and closed the scroll as the wind once again picked up and blew the curtains into her. Quietly she went to the window and pulled it to, cutting off the cold air. Grabbing her things, she walked down the stairs and to the common room, the fire was already to life in the hearth. Harry sat hunched over the table in front of him, the scroll burned in her hand, and she felt her cheeks flush. Talking with the enemy in front of the leader. She shook her head and pulled her robe tighter around her, taking the steps down.
"Can't sleep either" Harry said lifting the paper off the table without turning around. The map in front of him showed her walk next to him and sitting down. Her heart beat in her chest as she examined it closely, hoping to see his name, hoping to see him safely in the dungeon.
"He isn't on it. What you said at breakfast, about him almost not even being here made me open it. He really isn't there." Harry waved his hand over the map before closing it and mutter the words to make the whole thing disappear. "It makes no sense."
She could only nod in agreement. Opening the book and ignoring the parchment that burned in her lap.
"The first war?" Harry said pointing at the book in her hands and she nodded again. "Anything in there on disappearing." He laughed, and the smallest noise escaped her. She felt her skin crawl and the blood drain from her face.
"Not that I've found, but I'll keep looking." She smiled as he rose and bid her goodnight, walking up the stairs and to the boy's dormitory.
Quickly she fumbled through the pages until she was presented with a picture of a looming cabinet. Even on the paper, there was a menacing look about it. The sharp points lead her mind to torture devices and she shivered despite the heat. A method of escape during the war. A way for people to vanish and disappear if the need arose. An escape route of sorts that many had used to avoid the Death Eaters.
She quickly opened the scroll and read the message with in.
Why did you hold onto me?
She took a deep breath as the message erased itself. She couldn't think about that, couldn't think about the kiss in the corridor. About the rage when his arm was wrapped around Parkinson, about how her view on him changed so rapidly it scared her. No, she needed answers.
Why do you have a vanishing cabinet.