Ortum Infernum [d.m]

Chapter Five

     There was something shifting in the air.

Rumours were whispered into the quietness of the night. Of a darkness that was lurking in the shadows, waiting to rise.

Odette would wake up in cold sweat on some nights, plagued by nightmares that she couldn't decipher. Seeing images in her mind's eye that chilled her to the bones and made her cry silently in terror.

And other nights she would lay awake in her bed, listening to the girls in her dorm share speculations about things that none of them could comprehend. Talking about the death of a boy as though his death wasn't enough of a tragedy in itself.

It made her restless.

Her brothers told her that she shouldn't listen to the hearsay that was circulating in the school. Half the time, people didn't know what they were talking about. And the other half of the time, they were twisting facts into fiction or deluded by their parents' blindsided apprehension.

Odette would write home, seeking her mother's comfort when she could find none in her brothers. But even her mother provided her comfort in the same manner, merely with a different choice of words.

A soft touch, a hand sliding over her wrist, brought Odette out of her reverie.

Draco was watching her with intense worry, his brows knitted close together. She glanced down and realised with a start that her quill had been steadily dripping ink onto her Herbology notes while she was lost in thought.

She set her quill aside and extracted her wand to scourgify the ink from the parchment. Draco had abandoned his homework in favour of watching her, concern still swimming in those pools of liquid silver.

"Is everything alright?" he asked. Draco lifted a hand to brush the back of his index finger lightly across her cheekbone and frowned. "You haven't been sleeping."

It was almost an accusation, as though he was challenging her to dismiss the dark shadows that rested under her eyes.

Odette took his larger hand in her albeit smaller ones and lowered it to her lap. She laced their fingers together before glancing up at him with a reassuring smile.

"I'm fine, Draco," she said. He looked like he was about to disagree. "I'm just feeling restless lately."

"Tell me what's troubling you."

She resisted the temptation to sigh as she glanced up at him and met his burning gaze. She couldn't use the same excuses that she had on her brothers, it wouldn't work on Draco and she knew it. He was too attuned to her.

They were sharing a desk in a spare classroom, up in the lesser used wing of the castle. Not an ideal workspace compared to the large tables in the Hogwarts library as their scrolls and books crowded the oak wood surface, but Draco had been adamant to be as close to her as possible.

Ever since they started dating, Draco favoured empty classrooms over the library because it offered them more privacy to be affectionate and intimate without the prying eyes and impertinent disturbances of their peers.

He was rather possessive about keeping her all to himself.

It also provided the perfect opportunity for him to finally corner her into talking about what had been bothering her. Odette did mean to open up to him about it sooner, but she was worried about sounding like a lunatic.

"It's just—all this talk circulating about something brewing in the shadows," she started slowly. "I know they're just speculations at this point but some part of me feels it—the shift that's happening. It's like I'm watching a doorknob turn slowly by itself, baiting my breath for something to spring out from the other side of the door."