Rivals | D.M

66. Bound

Draco's POV

It had been months of late nights and laborious repeated efforts of incantations on the vanishing cabinet. Many nights had ended up in the arms of Aster, both of us panting and taking our frustration out on each other.

The months had flown by, before we knew it, it was May.  My schoolwork had taken a blundering hit, Quidditch had fallen off the radar. Nothing was as important as fixing this Vanishing Cabinet.

I felt tired all the time, exhaustion seeped into my bones, the only way I ever felt light was with Aster. I truly meant it. If she wasn't around, I would be an empty shell.

I had no idea how she always looked so serene and refreshed. She had just as much school work than me, yet she spent every night labouring over the stupid piece of wood and every night we ended up spent in more ways than one.

Her Occlumency training was bearing well. More than well. She was a natural, more of a natural than me. After only a few weeks she had finessed the finer points to clearing her mind at a moments notice. I was not a natural legilmens, so I wasn't quite sure how she would stand to someone like the Dark Lord but I was certain it was take some effort to rake through her faux layer of thoughts she had easily constructed.

She was natural liar.

I should be afraid but I was utterly impressed.

Her father had sent my father more material on the cabinet. She had stared intently at the parchment that was scribbled with her  father's handwriting for hours. She had been furious that her father was still involved in the task, she had thought that with her help we wouldn't need his guidance. My father however, had a different opinion.

It was nearing the end of February when my father had sent a begrudging letter to me about my lack of progress on the cabinet. It was when I replied that he announced that the Dark Lord had visited Aster's father, demanding him to find a way to fix the cabinet. Ultimately, Aster's father had been tasked with testing the cabinets twin at Borgin and Burkes, an antique shop that housed the other.

I relented on telling Aster this fickle piece of information. I knew It was the wrong thing to do, I should just tell her but a small slither of me was worried she would leave. Leave me to fix the blasted cabinet myself and without Aster, I was one hundred percent sure I would fail.

So, instead, I told her that her father had sent forward more information about the cabinet, while assuring her he was safe at home.

Ignoring that infectious slither of guilt eating away at my insides, I focused on the cabinet and the information provided by her father. It had been three months of back and forth secret correspondence with her father, and we had only progressed at a sedated pace. Each new theory provided by Mr Flint, I had given to Aster with the pretence that he had found a new book that described the information but he had actually found the information by testing on the actual cabinet at Borgin and Burkes.

"You're saying my father sent this to you personally?" Aster asked. Her hair was scooped up in a pony tail but a small curl had fallen in front on her eye. I watched as she pulled it back.

"Well yes, but its only an excerpt from that book he found" I mumbled, forcing up the shield in my mind from the guilt-ridden thoughts surfacing quickly.

"Hmm, it looks like it might work actually..." She said hopefully, setting aside the letter and pacing the cabinet, "It's strange that my father is writing to my boyfriend and he has no idea" she chuckles.

"I'm pretty sure he would hex me with a thousand curses if he knew that his little girl is dating a death eater, a death eater that he has ultimately been black-mailed to help" I grunt.