𝐵𝑒𝓆𝓊𝑒𝒶𝓉𝒽𝓂𝑒𝓃𝓉 | 𝒟.𝑀.

28 | ﴾ One Hundred Days ﴿

It was late enough into the evening that the hallways only contained a few whispering students. The first floor had a warm and quiet atmosphere to it, and somewhere in an adjacent hallway the muted melody of a flute danced about. Candles flickered dangerously low on their wicks, dripping wax down onto the stone floors as they came to a slow death.

Draco and I on the other hand were making a poor show of blending into the sleepy castle. We were painstakingly drunk and kept shoving each other playfully on our way to the Astronomy Tower. He had not only given into my jovial and goofy demeanor but actually matched it. I was shocked by how wonderful and fun he could be, and by how much he had changed in that instance from an angry and scared boy to a normal human being. We were ranting about meaningless memories from our childhood's as we walked close together.

My feet were starting to ache, so I stopped to remove my high heels which were evidently unsuitable for the trip up so many levels. I was clinging to his jacket as I yanked at one, "My brother Éduin actually told me dat muggles can fly too because dey 'ave brooms in deir 'ouses."

Draco laughed arrogantly while gently swaying from the weight of my tugging hand, "That's obviously ridiculous."

"I know," I agreed, "But I believed 'im because I was six!" I got the second shoe off and stood up sighing heavily in relief, smiling at him.

He grinned back at me patronizingly, "Sounds about right. I personally love my plastic broom. It's lightweight, it's durable, it doesn't give me splinters..." He counted on his fingers. I giggled at the sarcasm and smacked him with one of my shoes lightly.

He raised his eyebrows at the offence, looking like a lion that had suddenly discovered a sleeping deer. A glint in his eye caught my attention, "Good thing your shoes are off, because you better run."

His face was teasing and I laughed taking a few steps back towards the tower stairs, "You wouldn't dare chase a lady in dis dress."

He shrugged playfully, "I don't see a lady anywhere, do you?" That garnished another smack with my high heel and he smirked, tilting his head to the side, "I'll count to three."

I stepped back again, still laughing hysterically and holding my hand up as if it could do anything to protect me. "Non, don't - "

"One." His voice was calm and his face was smug.
"Two." The tone eerily jumped up several tones with a hint of warning. I turned around to run in my bare feet towards the stairs. The heal of my foot had just left the second stair when he said, "Three." And I heard him take off.

The stairs were designed in a tightly wound circle, the brick cylinder that formed the walls of the vertical passageway produced dizzying echoes of our excited shrieking and clamoring up the wooden steps. The sounds of hands grabbing metal bars and feet pushing off of steps haphazardly dominated along side my high pitched squeals of excited terror. He was never far behind me and I was screaming at the top of my lungs from the thrill of being chased and the goosebumps it left on my neck.

We had reached the last twenty or so stairs when he caught me, grabbing me around my waist from behind and peeling my feet off of the ground. He buried his face in my neck while tickling me, "Got you," he whispered tauntingly and I turned my face to push my lips into his. It was a breathy kiss as we were both so winded, but the feeling of his arms around me was so incredible and organic that it was a while before we finally pulled apart.

I was suddenly overwhelmed by the intense feeling burgeoning in my heart and he must have felt it too. Never before in my life had something felt so polarizing. It was as though I had to take two paths ahead and divide myself in half. My feelings for him were out of control and I was allowing everything that I shouldn't have been.