Shades of Grey
19. Beginning of the End
She avoided him. It was an immature decision, but it was becoming increasingly hard to face him when her resolution lingered in the back of her mind. He wanted so much to make it work, and she could see the struggle growing behind his eyes each time she saw him working on the seventh floor. The bags under his eyes had started to shrink in the past couple of weeks, and she thought that maybe things were finally getting better. After just a couple of days of keeping her distance from the blonde wizard, however, she saw clearly that it was not the case. She noticed that he did worse when she wasn't around. Most times, he never came back to the dungeons for some sleep and began missing classes more frequently. Rose had been doing a good job of motivating and convincing him to keep a steady schedule of sleeping and eating, but without her around to nag him to leave the Hidden Room, he kept himself holed up in there for endless hours.
She watched as he collapsed onto the couch of the common room. It was three o'clock in the morning; Rose had stayed to wait for him. Just as she was about to fall asleep in the armchair in the corner, she heard the stone wall slide open and Draco come stumbling in. He hadn't noticed her lounging in the shadowy common room, the fire having burned out. He fell flat on his stomach, face hitting the seat with a muffled groan. Slowly and silently, Rose stood from her place and went to stand over him, leaning on the back of the couch.
"Draco," she mumbled quietly.
He jumped to his feet, startled. Rose nearly gasped aloud at his appearance. It was worse than she'd seen him in a while, and the sight made her stomach turn. She inhaled a calming breath, taking the time to notice that it was all superficial. The red streak across his cheek was a fairly shallow cut that could easily be healed by a simple spell. His hair was splattered not with blood, but with dark reddish-brown paint. The tear in his shirt hadn't bruised him, but left a scorch mark on his skin that could surely just be washed away. The bags under his eyes weren't as prominent as they first appeared—most of it was dirt and dust that had collected there. Though, she couldn't help but notice the darkness of his irises. The steely gray was clouded over with a stormy murkiness that made Rose's heart clench.
"What are you doing here?" he snapped, pulling Rose from her thoughts.
"I'm waiting for you," she replied somewhat bitterly, vexed that he was being short with her.
"Why?" His tone smoothed.
She sighed, not really sure where to begin answering. The words were sitting on the edge of her tongue, but she couldn't bear to utter them, not now. Not with him in this state. Now that she thought about it, she didn't really know what her plan was. Did she expect to corner him as he came back from the Room of Requirement in the middle of the night and inform him that she was going to cut off their contract? Just like that? No, it wouldn't be that simple. After everything the two of them had been through, it would be much harder to end it than she would have liked.
Rose bit the inside of her cheek, trying to figure out a way to continue. If she couldn't tell him about her plan now, then what else was she supposed to say? It was three in the morning. She had to have stayed up for some reason, right? Maybe she should just come out and say it. What's the worst than could happen? Well, maybe she didn't want to think about the worst. She opened her mouth to answer, but the words refused to tumble out. She didn't want to say it. She didn't want to be the one to say that they can't be together anymore. She didn't want to ruin everything.
"Rose, are you still alive in there?" he waved a hand in front of her face, and Rose realized she had fallen silent with her thoughts for too long.
"I just—I had to talk to you, but it can wait."
His brow creased in confusion and intrigue, and Rose cursed herself for her choice of words. Draco reclaimed his seat on the sofa and patted the space next to him for Rose to sit down. Taking a deep breath, she complied, seating herself as far from him as the small space would allow. There was a tension in the air that Rose had a curious thought only she could feel. The weight of her decision was weighing heavily on her, constricting her throat and making her head spin.
Just spit it out, she scolded herself. The longer you keep it from him, the worse it's going to be.
"Alright, out with it," he ordered, crossing his arms and staring at her defiantly.
Rose inhaled deeply, holding the breath in her lungs, hoping it would help the words come out of her mouth. "I'm taking the offer," she mumbled in a rushed tone.
Her gut froze into an icy pool of regret as she uttered the sentence, and she hoped that it was too low for him to understand. Merlin help her, let him not have heard it. She would have given anything to take those words back now, but it was too late. Draco was on his feet, outrage splashed across his face. Rose closed her eyes.
Please let this be a dream.
"What do you mean you're taking the offer?" he spat, his voice quavering.
She steeled herself to continue; it was too late to backtrack anyway. "I've given it a lot of thought, Draco, and…and I think that it would be best if we cancelled the contract."
Draco shook his head, his hands going to his hair in frustration. He turned on the spot and paced back and forth a few steps. Rose's heart hammered against her chest so hard, she was afraid it was visible through her uniform. She picked at her nails for something to do as he walked in circles in front of the couch, muttering to himself. Finally, after what felt like the longest minute, he turned to her.
"How long have you known?"
Rose raised her eyebrow, not really understanding the question. His eyes blazed with fury and she just wished that he would calm down and let her explain, but that would probably not do any good. Really, what would she be able to accomplish? He wouldn't see reason. And there was no reason why he should. His fate was already sealed, and it would take a lot more than a simple explanation to make him see that she still had a choice that she needed to take before it was too late. He never had a choice.
"Wh-what?" she stuttered.
"How long?" he roared. "When did you decide this? How long have you been waiting to tell me? Leading me on?"
She was on her feet now. "No, no! That's not how it is, and you know it. I wasn't leading you on!"
"No?" he questioned, stepping away from her. "Then what would you call it? Lying to me?"
"Draco," she said softly, reaching her hand out to him, but he recoiled from it. "Draco, you know why I have to do this. You have to understand! It was always coming, you knew that. You're overreacting."
"I'm overreacting? Rose, where does this leave me?"
His voice cracked at the end of the sentence and took Rose's heart with it. She saw in his eyes the hurt and broken trust that she'd caused. This had turned into a little more than just a friendship or a fling or a contract. It had turned into a relationship, and she was too blind to see that. She was too blind to realize that she was more than just a comforting companion to him now. But she refused to believe that her decision was selfish; refused to call it that.
"I don't know," she whispered honestly. "But it leaves you without me. I'm sorry, but I can't in good conscience let this option go. I can't risk my life for you anymore. I just—I have to. I'm sorry."
"You're not sorry," he scoffed, turning his back. "Go, take the offer. Just leave me the bloody hell alone from now on."
"Draco—," she started, taking a step toward him, but thinking better of it and holding her ground. "Don't do this."
"I'm not doing anything," he spat at her over his shoulder. "You made this decision. You made it on your own without me. I'm not doing anything. I'm just doing as you wish."
She opened her mouth to respond, to protest, but he left then. He strode into the passageway of the boys' dorm without even looking back at her, and Rose crumpled to the ground, knowing that he was right. She should have spoken to him about it first; had a logical argument and weighed the pros and cons like adults. Instead, she made the decision to break his heart on her own. How was she to fix this now? What could she do?
Angry at herself, Rose spun on her heel and stalked from the common room. It was the middle of the night and she'd have detention for a week if she was caught, but she didn't even bother taking caution as she stomped through the empty hallways. She practically sprinted up the stairs to the deserted seventh floor corridor. Her blood pounding in her ears, she walked in front of the blank wall to the Room of Requirement three times before a door appeared and she threw it open, running inside. The familiar mountains of forgotten things loomed over her in menacing shadows as she weaved her way through the obstacles the room provided.
Pausing at the cabinet, she drew in a deep breath and pulled down the tarp that covered it, coughing as the motion raised dirt up from the floor. Something about the way the black structure loomed over her made her gut grow cold. But she had to do something. She had to change the way things were. The only thing she didn't know—and didn't take the time to think about between her split-second decision to come here and the time it took her to get all the way upstairs—was what exactly her plan was. To help Draco with the cabinet and make it easier for him to finally fix it, thereby leaving him to complete the Dark Lord's task as instructed...or to jeopardize his attempts and give the other side an advantage in winning?
Rose nearly shuddered at the thought of siding with Potter and his band of misfit do-gooders, but there was something much more important on the line than her pride right now. Though, admittedly, her pride wasn't something very easy to let go. She let out long, low breath and retrieved her wand from her pocket. Opening the door to the cabinet, she stepped inside. Once in there, she realized she had no idea where to even start or what to do. Honestly, how do you repair a broken magical cabinet?
Lost for an idea, she stepped back out and looked around, finding a stack of books on the floor. Parchments stuck out from the pages and Rose quickly crossed to them, picking the top one up in her hand. Draco's notes were scribbled in the margins and drawn on the papers. She sat down, crossing her legs, and began reading the text.
Most of it was boring; filled with facts and incantations that didn't make much sense to her. She noticed that Draco was pretty good at math, by the impressive calculations on the parchments. She tried to make sense of them, but it wasn't her strong suit and it mostly just looked like a jumble of number and symbols. The spells also looked like gibberish. Rose wasn't the best student, but she could usually recall all or most of the spells they'd learned in school, and not a single one of these had ever been mentioned in a single class. She gaped at the complexity of the wand movements and magic involved, revelling at Draco's ability to not only comprehend them, but perform them.
Through the night, her eyes threatened to glue shut, but she ignored the lethargy, confident that she would be able to spot something Draco had missed that would help him. The effort was completely fruitless, though, as she had a hard time understanding what Draco understood, let alone anything more. Before she knew it, the sun had come up and the morning arrived. She checked her watch and noticed that it was nearly 7am. Yawning and stretching, she put the books and parchments that she had scattered all over the floor at her feet back to their place and trudged tiredly from the Room of Requirement. Her search had failed to produce any results, but she certainly got a mindful of just how difficult Draco's task really was. And that was excluding the assassination of Albus Dumbledore.
She felt a wave of guilt overcome her at the thought. Had she really been so selfish and insensitive? Had she turned a blind eye to what was really going, and only thought about herself? As much as she wanted to refuse to believe that, a voice in the back of her head told she'd been a bitch. Pure a simple; she'd been a bitch.
No, she scolded herself. She made a choice—a difficult choice—to save her life. How can she be blamed for looking out for herself? More important than anything else was her life, right? What could be more important than that? Or, rather, who?
No one.
She shook her head, trying to clear it of all the thoughts jumbling up inside her head, but it was futile. The thoughts kept rising to the surface no matter how much she tried to push them down. She refused to be stricken by guilt. This was all Draco's fault to begin with. If he hadn't taken the damn job, neither of them would have this problem.
Even as she thought that, she knew it wasn't fair. There were circumstances. Circumstances that would have forced even Rose to take the Mark. His family…
"Rose!"
She spun around to see a short head of dark red hair running towards her. Rose forced her face into a smile as Astoria Greengrass approached her, doubling over slightly and looking flushed from running.
"Merlin, Rose. I've been calling you for like five minutes! Are you sleeping or something?"
Rose shook her head with a chuckle. "Sorry, Astoria. What do you need?"
She scratched the back of her head. "You wouldn't happen to have your notes or, ahem, essays from last year, would you? Specifically from Charms?"
"Lucky for you," Rose laughed, "Charms happens to be my best class, and I'm sure it's at the bottom of my trunk somewhere. Let's have some breakfast and then we'll stop by the common room and I'll look for it. Anything in particular?"
"The Aguamenti spell?"
Rose nods. "That one's not that hard."
They entered the Great Hall together and made their way to the Slytherin table. Rose immediately noticed that Draco was not present as she sat down, with Astoria next to her. Sighing and piling a stack of pancakes on to her plate, she turned back to Astoria, who had decided to turn the topic from Charms.
"So you and Draco Malfoy, huh?"
Rose almost blushed, and simultaneously felt a lead weight of guilt drop into her stomach. "Yeah, I guess so."
"You guess so? Rose, seriously, if I were you I'd be a little more excited about that."
Rose raised an eyebrow at the younger witch. "Oh really?"
She nodded, chewing on a waffle. "Oh yeah," she answered with a half-full mouth. "I mean, he's gorgeous, innit? And there's just something about him..."
Rose's eyes narrowed involuntarily. It was an instinctual reaction, but it made her falter. She relaxed her face and managed a small smile to Astoria, whose eyes seemed to flash with an emotion that Rose couldn't immediately place; she was a little preoccupied with her reaction to Astoria's comment about Draco. Did she have the right to be jealous when she was so willing to throw away her relationship with him?
Not that she was throwing it away. It was for a very good reason. But at the same time, it made her feel like there was a stronger emotion at play here. She took a long swig of orange juice to try and clear her thoughts. She was being silly. It didn't matter. It was over. Astoria could have him if she wanted him.
"Rose? Are you still with me?"
"Oh, right, yeah, something about him."
"Are you sure you're feeling alright?"
"Fine, fine," she replied off-handedly.
Rose ate the rest of her breakfast in silence, and when she returned to the common room to give Astoria her notes on the Aguamenti spell and any other notes and essays she still had, she did it with a stiff demeanour, feeling an unfair coldness toward the redhead. She slumped on to one of the couches in the common room, knowing that she'd be late for Potions, but not really wanting to go. She lay her head down on the arm of the leather sofa and felt herself drift off to sleep, desperate to get some shut eye after her all-nighter in the Hidden Room.
"Rose, wake up!"
Someone was shaking her awake violently. She groaned and swatted at them, groaning and turning over. They shook her again. She felt the palm of her hand collide with a face, and the person let out a hiss of pain.
"For fuck's sake, Martell. Wake up."
"Leave me alone. It's Saturday," she groaned.
"No," the voice insisted. "It's nearly noon on Thursday."
Then Rose was uncomfortably aware of her surroundings. She'd fallen asleep in the common room, and missed all of her morning classes. That wouldn't bode well with the professors. Maybe she could convince them she was sick.
"Ugh, sorry, Blaise," Rose groaned, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. "Must've dozed off...for a couple of hours."
He chuckled and took a seat next to Rose, who moved over to make room for him. He put his arm casually over the back of the couch and crossed his legs.
"Not sleeping, Martell?"
"Have a lot on mind," she replied slowly.
"This anything to do with Malfoy? He seemed pretty out of it today, too."
"Well first, Malfoy always looks out of it. And second,—not that it's any of your business— but we...er, broke up."
Blaise froze for a full second before his eyes widened. "Wait, seriously?"
Rose nodded reluctantly. The words felt strange on her tongue. It wasn't even the phrase itself, but the simple fact that she had thought her and Draco would be forever. Their fates were sealed, and now they were quite simply broken. The concept was heart-wrenching and she didn't want to think about it. Cursing Blaise for interfering and making her say it, she picked at her fingernails, avoiding his gaze.
"That's too bad," he said sincerely. But as soon as he did, the sympathy was gone from his eyes and he leaned forward, suddenly very much invading Rose's personal space. "So does that mean you're free?"
Rose wrinkled her nose. "Ugh, go away, Blaise."
"Oh come on. Martell, you can't stay single forever."
"A day would be nice, Zabini," she retorted, placing her hands on his chest and trying to push him away, but she stopped.
A thought occurred to her. Blaise was right; she couldn't be single forever. Her time was quickly running out, and she would have to pick someone sooner or later, and she should have known that that someone would have to be Blaise. Who else was there besides him? It was definitely too soon to move on from Draco, but the fact of the matter was, she didn't really have the time to mourn her relationship. The decision came quickly, and she regretted it later, but at that moment, the logical side of her brain won.
"On second thought," she muttered, and without finishing her sentence, grabbed Blaise by the neck and brought his lips down to her own.
He felt different than Draco. He moved with a sort of rigidity that wasn't present in her kisses with Draco, who was much more fluid in his movements. Though she hated to compare the two men, the desire to do so came almost instantly. At this point, Draco would have wrapped his fingers around her neck, holding her face in place as his tongue swirled around hers, but Blaise had instead gripped Rose's shoulders, pulling her closer. The kiss wasn't unpleasant in the least, but she had gotten so used to Draco's kisses, that the difference was unwelcome. Still, she pushed her thoughts out of her mind and wrapped her hands around Blaise's neck, deepening their kiss. This went on for a few minutes before she finally pulled back.
"Not a word from you, Zabini," she warned, her face flushed from the heated exchange.
"How about two?" he breathed. "Bloody hell."
Rose smirked, and stood up, stretching her back. "Much obliged, Blaise. Now if you don't mind, I'm going to go grab some lunch and head off to whatever classes I have left. I'll see you around."
She gave him a knowing look before exiting the common room swiftly.
. . .
Draco clenched his fists and ground his teeth as he watched the scene lay out before him. Blaise waking Rose from what was a very fitful nap; Blaise sitting next to her, his arm around the back of the couch behind her head; Blaise leaning into her; Blaise kissing her, touching her. Draco's blood boiled. He could hardly keep his emotions in check. How could she have done it? But then, Draco of course knew the answer. That was just the kind of person she was: an evil bitch, to put it simply. He looked down and noticed that he had ripped up the parchment he had been holding his hand. Of all the times he could have chosen to emerge from his dormitory, it had to be at that very moment. Of course it had to be, because if it wasn't, he would have been a lucky man, and that was one thing he was not. If only he's slept in five minutes longer, he could have been spared the sight of what had just occurred.
He took a deep breath and walked out from the shadows of the passageway to the boys' dormitory and into the common room. He walked right past Blaise's lounging form on the couch on which he'd just shared his kiss with Rose. Trying very hard not to turn around and punch him in the face, Draco proceeded outside and took a very long walk to clear his head, which just left him with more seething thoughts of what he'd seen.