Draco ascended the stairwell to the topmost tower of Hogwarts, skipping every other step. More than anything, he craved solitude. His sixth year was spiraling far from what he had imagined. He would have given anything for his NEWTs to be his biggest concern. For most of his life, he had dreamed of joining the Death Eaters, following in his father's footsteps. But now, being a Death Eater was proving far more complicated than he'd ever anticipated. How am I supposed to make this stupid cabinet work? he thought bitterly. Failure isn't an option. I'm probably going to have to skip homework again tonight to work on it.
He barely registered the movement behind him until a voice interrupted his thoughts.
"Oh, hello, imagine seeing you here, Draco."
He whipped around, startled, to find a blonde witch in Ravenclaw robes standing at the top of the stairs. Draco raised an eyebrow, trying to place her.
"Do I know you?" he asked, his tone dismissive. Had he not been so preoccupied, he might have noticed how striking she was.
"I don't think so," she replied. "I'm a year below you. But I'm a friend of Harry's. He's told me a lot about you."
Draco's frown deepened. "Oh, did he now? I'm sure he had a lot of nice things to say about me," he spat, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Well, any friend of that idiot already has a mark against them in my book, so I'd appreciate it if you left me alone."
The girl only looked mildly hurt, but she didn't back down. "I didn't say I believed everything he told me. I prefer to come to my own conclusions about people. But, as it happens, I usually come up here to think by myself—"
"But as you can see, I got here first," Draco interrupted, his voice sharp. "So, I suggest you find somewhere else to be alone, because I'm not moving."
The Ravenclaw girl didn't say another word. She simply turned and descended the stairs quietly. Draco felt a brief flicker of remorse, but it was quickly drowned by the swirling panic in his mind about the cabinet. He wasn't in the mood for distractions.
The view of the Hogwarts grounds would have been breathtaking—had it not been for the dementors hovering in the distance. They were just far enough away to avoid draining the warmth and hope from everyone, but still close enough to cast an unsettling chill over the landscape. Draco turned away from the window, shaking the coldness out of his limbs, only to feel it intensifying. He pulled his black coat tighter around his body, but it didn't help.
Suddenly, one of the dementors began to glide toward him, its presence suffocating. Draco's breath hitched as an overwhelming despair flooded his chest. I'm going to fail, he thought, panic rising. Voldemort will kill me and my family, and there's nothing I can do about it.
"Expecto Patronum!"
The voice was a distant echo, but to Draco's amazement, a light blue, spectral rabbit leapt toward the dementor, chasing it away. The warmth and hope surged back into him like a sudden rush of air—alive and invigorating. A rabbit, of all things, had chased away the dreadful creature.
He spun around in shock to find the Ravenclaw girl standing at the foot of the stairs, her wand still raised. Before he could form a single word—apologize, thank her, or even ask her name—she gave him a small nod and, without a word, turned and descended back down the stairs.