The Lost Witch | Fred Weasley

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

After their first Hogsmeade trip, Hermione explained to me how they had run into Mundungus.

Apparently, he had been selling a lot of Sirius' stuff there. It seemed as if he had picked out valuable stuff from the pile of things we had decided not to keep at Grimmauld Place.

I just hope the stuff Sirius had decided was junk, were the only things he had touched.

On a darker note, Katie Bell, a girl I had seen frequently last year because of her position on the Quidditch Team, had been cursed and as a result been sent to St. Mungo's Hospital.

Harry hadn't shared his theory with me directly, but Hermione admitted that Harry thought Draco was the culprit of this attack. I recoiled when she had told me this in the secret passageway, we had been hiding in.

Apparently, since this summer, Harry had been building on a theory of Draco being a Death Eater. Hermione said he thought seeing as Lucius Malfoy had been arrested, Voldemort and the Death Eaters had recruited Draco to replace his father.

What scared me the most, was that this theory seemed quite plausible to me.

Not because of Draco, but because of how Voldemort and his followers worked. Making him join could even be a punishment to pay for our father's failure at the Ministry this summer.

At this news, I went in search of my brother, ready to interrogate him for some answers. I found him quite easily. He and Blaise were walking along a hallway together but separated when Blaise headed for a class he didn't share with Draco.

I followed Draco along. He seemed deep in thought. The hallway we were in was deserted and I let out a cry to catch his attention. I cringed. The noises foxes make are seriously disturbing. He spun around and spotted me. I stopped as well and tilted my head to the side, keeping eye contact with him.

He narrowed his eyes at me, taking a small step towards me. I stood and gestured my head to the left, telling him to follow me. He did so, with hesitant steps and wide eyes. I stopped in front of the secret passageway which had been our regular meeting place last year.

He eyed me over again, his eyes going wide when he saw where I had led him. He pulled away the tapestry hiding the door and opened it for me to walk through. I stepped inside, him following me.

As the door was shut, I changed. He jumped back with a yelp when he turned around and saw me there instead of the fox. I grinned at him and then ran forward, pulling him into a tight hug. "What the hell are you doing here?!" he hissed, pulling me in so tight it hurt my ribs.

But I didn't protest. I just grinned into his shoulder. "I'm on duty, of course," I joked, pulling away from him. My smile slipped slightly when I saw the state of him. His shirt wasn't perfectly ironed as it usually was. There were creases in it all over. And he had dark bags under his eyes. His hair wasn't as perfectly kept as he usually did it.

"What's up? You don't look too good, Ducky," I told him, brushing the hair out of his eyes and looking him over again.

He stared at me for a minute, his eyes looking haunted and swimming in so many thoughts. I was about to speak again when a sob escaped his lips. He collapsed forwards, sobbing into my shoulder. My heart broke in two.

I wanted to hunt down every person who had made him feel like this and blast them all into oblivion. He continued to sob against me uncontrollably, and I just held onto him tighter, letting him cry into my shoulder.

I hushed him, trying to calm him, humming the bedtime song mother had sung to us when we were younger. He seemed to calm down, his breathing becoming steadier and his sobs turning into silent tears instead.