Chapter 3.
The fire-in-the-sky-sun was high when I woke in my small-comfort-dungeon-dorm. The bed next to me was empty, the silver and green covers left in a pile in the centre of the bed. I squinted as the light hit me, waiting for the dizziness to subside, and contemplated all that dark-hair-bright-eyed-Isabelle had told me the night before when she had run down the stairs at two o'clock. It seems obvious I thought that they both find her fascinating. I'm not sure how she would like that news though, she likes to keep herself to herself. She's had her flings… but I don't understand what goes on in her cloudy-swirly-cat- mind anymore. Summer had made me distant from warm-blood-damp-smell-human emotions. I was still yet to tell bright-eye-Isabelle about what happened but it seemed unnecessary at this moment. She will ask when she needs to know.
I tugged on some clothes and walked to the common room where my eyes wandered to ferret-face-blonde-Draco sitting on his own in Charlie's-green-black-morning-chair, next to the only window in the green lantern-lit common room.
"I normally sit there in the morning. To think." I said to him blankly. As much as I wish he was not in my chair, I thought, his thoughts are oddly strangled today. It is of interest.
"Well you'll have to find somewhere else wont you" snapped blank-face-angry-eyed-Draco, turning towards me.
"I didn't ask you to move. I merely stated that it's a nice place to think. You should listen sometimes" There was a pause. When I realised that angry-eyed-blank-face-Draco wasn't going to reply, I continued, "So Isabelle looked at you in a way that "oozed lust" did she?"
Draco's head snapped around and he intensified his stare.
"Charlie, right? It would do you good not to eavesdrop on my dorm room. You might hear something you don't want to"
"Oh. It wasn't me" I said as I sauntered out of the dungeon door, extending my mind until I touched Isabelle's thoughts in a classroom a few doors down.
I walked into the room and looked around. I can't see her, but I can sense her tangled-web-confused-thoughts. She must be hidden.
"Iz?" I enquired quietly. When there was no answer, I again stretched my mind and followed the pattern of her thoughts underneath the desk. There was the Izzy-mind-not-body-cat I'd been looking for, curled into a ball asleep. I scooped her up and she relaxed into his arms and positioned myself in the corner of the stone-damp-wall-classroom and waited for her to come out of her trance.
*
Half an hour later, the mind-not-body-cat began to stir and I placed her on the cold-hard-ground so she could stand on her own. She was hunched and weak. I stared at the cat, waiting patiently for mind-and-body-Izzy. As I blinked, she transformed and a dishevelled blank-eye-dark-hair Isabelle sat in front of me. I raised a dark eyebrow in curiosity.
"Draco..." She said in her stutter-confused-strangled-voice. I felt my dark stare intensify as I continued to peer into her tear-filled-green-eyes, until she continued. "his dad… his dad is a death eater… is THE death eater…"
I nodded sharply. I knew what she meant. As she cried, I watched her struggle with her mind-not-body-animagus form, as she tried to stop herself changing.
"Change and I'll carry you back to the dorm and sit with you until you decide what you want to do"
She collapsed into my arms, all at once a black lynx again, while I tried to keep myself in tune with weak-jumbled-human emotions. Both mine and hers. To make sure she was okay.
*
I wonder if she's angry with me, Blaise thought as he scanned the great hall for her at dinner the next day. I was hoping to catch her eyes and re-organise the meeting he consoled himself, but he could not if she was nowhere in sight.
"Hey Zabini" said Pansy, sitting next to him in an attempt to be as near to Draco, who was opposite, as she could be.
"How's the girlfriend?" she mocked, glancing at Draco to see if he was listening. A flicker of irritation crossed her face as he didn't even glance up.
"She's not my girlfriend she was just helping me, and I don't know where she is."
"She hasn't been out of her dorm today" replied Draco, not looking up from a copy of the evening times he was reading "I think that Charlie Sammonds boy is with her."
"Sammonds is dishy you know Draco… Do you not think Millicent?" she addressed Bullstrode while staring straight at Draco. She really was being pathetic.
"He said something to me this morning" replied Draco; merely smirking at Pansy. He thinks he's Gods gift to women with that smirk, Blaise smiled to himself.
"It was about something we were talking about last night Blaise"
"When?" His head snapped up and my looked darkened "what part of the conversation…?" and how did he hear us? There was no one else around.
"The part about Isabelle staring at me with a look full of lust" he winked at Blaise then, fixing him with his mocking, piercing gaze. Pansy huffed next to him and got up to leave. It left Blaise and Draco sitting opposite each other.
"Well that doesn't mean he knows the other part, does it? And besides, we were asleep for hours before you got that owl from your mother."
"It's true" he leant back slightly, emanating relaxation "in all honesty, it doesn't matter. She's been dead this past year, people will probably have forgotten about it. Just a pity the ministry needed to bring it up again; more years in Azkaban for father and all that"
"Yeah, it is" A knot was forming in Blaise's stomach as I thought about the information Draco had divulged the night before. If she knows, I should go and talk to her, he thought, if only I knew where she was. As he scanned the room one last time, Charlie Sammonds sauntered across the great hall and sat a few feet away from him. Malfoy gave him a disconcerted look and grunted his excuses before leaving the table. Blaise's eyes studied the boy next to him; his brown hair had become darker over the summer and his eyes seemed wilder and as the boy glanced up at him, he was sure I saw a glint of red, a flash of…hunger. I can see why he and Isabelle are friends; their personalities suit each other. Where is she? Blaise's idle thoughts wondered as he turned away from Charlie's piercing gaze.
"She's in the common room at the moment. She's been recovering from some news." He said as if answering the question I had just asked in my head.
"What news?" Charlie merely stared blankly; I take it that means he can't tell me? Thought an uncomfortable Blaise
"Yes, I cannot tell you"
What the… Blaise thought, feeling more uncomfortable than he ever had before under the excruciating gaze of this boy.
"Is she okay? Will she want to see me or not?" he continued hurriedly, anxious to be away.
"It will be fine. Just don't do anything stupid. She's… cold… at the moment"
Wondering what on earth he meant, Blaise scrambled up with as much haste as he could muster without looking scared or rude, shoved the last of his toast into his mouth and ran out of the hall.