Chapter Three
She was driving Draco crazy. Each of her kisses drew something within him that was forbidden and unwanted. All year, he had prayed for some relief but he had never thought he'd seek it in such a form.
Neither of them spoke; they merely shared kisses that left Draco only wanting more; he had never felt anything like it before.
Suddenly that scared him and fear was something he was well acquainted with at present.
He drew back, his eyes narrowed against the darkness, taking in the silhouette of his mysterious friend. He wanted to know who she was but something told him that he did not want to know.
That he preferred not knowing.
He reflected back to the couple of times he had seen her enter this closet, the dim light from the corridor outside shadowing her face completely. Just minutes ago he had seen a flash of her face before the door swung shut but the few features he had seen had given him nothing of her identity.
He came to wonder if she knew who he was or whether she even cared.
"Why do we do this?"
Her voice filled the space in a straggled whisper and he frowned deeper, wishing she would use her true voice, wishing he would have something more to know her by.
"My life is hell," Draco muttered bitterly, trying hard to disguise his own voice.
He felt her shuffle against him wearily and he chose to think nothing of it.
He kissed her again with fervor, enjoying her embrace and the comfort it brought. She responded in kind, whimpering slightly as his hands tightened on her hips and he guided her backwards to lean against a wall.
She broke away abruptly, pushing at his shoulders and demanding him to move a step away from her.
"What is this?"
She still spoke in her straggled whisper and Draco clenched his fists in irritation. She was not supposed to voice these questions; she was supposed to oblige to his needs. She was not supposed to question his intentions at all.
But even Draco knew that this scenario was not one she had asked for. He had brought it upon her the moment he had heard her passing and had blindly dragged her into his space, believing her to be Parkinson but not recoiling when he realized she was not.
"I don't know who you are –" she muttered bitterly.
"You don't want to know me," Draco hissed darkly, glad that even he didn't recognize the tone as his own voice.
"Then what is this?"
She used her true voice this time and Draco's frown deepened. It licked at his sides excitedly, his brain suddenly possessing a dull buzz that sent something coursing through his veins.
Something in that voice he recognized, though he could not at that moment detect what.
Draco remained silent, staring curiously at the silhouette the girl before him.
He leaned lazily back against the wall, never letting his eyes leave her heavily shadowed form. He listened as she gave a small mutter, most likely to herself before she turned abruptly and picked something up from the ground.
Draco strained his eyes as she opened the door a foot before heading through it. The light outside, although very dim, reached his eyes and momentarily blinded him. By the time sight returned, she was minutes gone, leaving only the lingering scent of the floral perfume he had come accustomed to smelling on her.
He cursed himself for not immediately following her.
Draco was skipping class.
He took a long sip from the gold furnace he'd brought with him as he stared alertly at the broken cabinet, his wand raised at it as he prepared himself to perform the spell he had been practicing since the night before.
It was a charm he had found in an ancient book of his fathers which he had found unused in the manor's library over the Christmas break. It was a wizard maintenance book of sorts, something that was unlikely to have been used for many generations by those in his family. It had only been on returning to the common room after his confrontation in the closet next to Rogus the Wrecker that he had remembered it and taken it out to read.
He was now cursing himself for not having read it sooner.
Silently, he flicked his wand and from its tip a cord of purple light flew and slowly wrapped itself around the damaged cabinet.
Draco watched as the cabinet slowly started to repair, the drawers clicking into place as they straightened and reattached. The dents all quickly disappeared.
The cabinet remained within the bindings for nearly an hour, Draco imagining that the spell was repairing the inside of the cabinet also.
It was not until the cabinet glowed a bright purple that he knew the initial repairs were complete.
It was now time for him to try and establish the link between this cabinet and its pair, something he had researched thoroughly before now but was yet to identify a suitable way of doing so.
He saw several long and sleepless nights ahead him.
He was shocked at first, seeing Severus Snape sitting in one of the armchairs as he entered the common room at three o'clock the next morning.
"Still not getting anywhere?" the older man drawled, standing from the chair with his greasy curtains of hair sending his menacing face into shadow.
Draco scowled and continued walking, wanting to ignore the man who had been breathing down his neck all year.
"I thought you would have been more careful after I warned you about Potter's concerns…"
A week previous, Professor Snape had approached Draco after Defense Against the Dark arts to say that Potter had, at some point, approached Dumbledore regarding his suspicions about Draco and the incidents with Katie Bell and Ronald Weasley.
"Potter should just learn to stay out of it!" Draco snarled. "Besides, no one else is any the wiser, are they?"
"As much as I agree with you and your opinion of Potter," Snape drawled. "Your mother is insisting that I help –"
"And as I've said several times already I am fine to do it on my own!" Draco snarled, his temper, so close to the edge these days, starting to bubble over. "I'm getting closer. In a few weeks…"
"The Dark Lord is growing impatient, Draco…"
"I'll have it done in a few weeks!" Draco snapped, making to get away.
Snape grabbed his arm suddenly.
"What is it that you're planning, boy?"
Draco looked up at the professor with a glaring sneer. "You'll see."
He wrenched his arm from Snape's grip and hurried away, angry.
He didn't need Snape's help. He was close. In a few weeks, he would be victorious, Dumbledore would be dead and the Dark Lord would reward him tremendously.
Draco took a moment to picture himself at the top of the fifth tower, standing over the dead body of Albus Dumbledore, while his Dark Mark excitedly licked his arm and Potter cried hysterically in the background.
He shuddered slightly, suddenly feeling cold as he stared blankly at the dark canopy of his four poster bed.
The concept of killing an old and powerful man was yet to sit right with him. He hoped that in the weeks to come, he'd come to accept that this was his fate if he wanted to continue living happily with family and friends.
And he desperately hoped that his prediction of 'a few weeks' was indeed correct.