they were just kids [draco malfoy]

Year 5 - 117

Astrid was very well aware she should've been loads more nervous than she was. Finally proving Kruz Raidlly to be You-Know-Who's daughter should've brought dread upon her. Just the thought of Him should've brought dread to her heart, soul, body - everything. But it didn't.

As she and Malfoy stood outside the door of the Ravenclaw girl's dorm, Astrid didn't feel scared at all. She was calm through and through, the only thing worrying her being that they could get caught. 

It felt wrong and, standing there and thinking about it, Astrid couldn't help but let her mind wander to a place where something told her she'd fail again. Just like she had failed at uncovering any and all of the other things she couldn't make sense of.

Malfoy muttered an incantation and the light of his wand went out just the same as the colour of his body drained, instead blending in with the surroundings around him. Was it daytime, the lad would've been visible, he would've looked like an odd glitch in the air, similar to what a chameleon looks like when masking itself, but now at two am in a hallway so dark it was hard to make out features even when fully visible, the lad had become completely invisible. Astrid spoke the incantation too. But the light of her wand didn't go out. When she looked down at her hands, she looked just the same she had three seconds ago.

"The 'o', poppet," Malfoy reminded the girl from somewhere beside her where she couldn't see. She let out a small groan before taking a breath and repeating all the incantation and the swish of the wand, pulling out the 'o' just like they had practised all throughout the weekend. More accurately - just how Malfoy had been teaching Astrid to do all throughout the weekend.

Finally having blended in with the surroundings herself, Astrid moved towards the door. Her heart pulsed in her head as her hand reached for the doorknob, but that too was more so the dread of finding one of the room's inhabitants awake rather than figuring Raidlly was the daughter of pure evil. As quietly as she possibly could, Astrid creaked open the door and peeked her head inside to find the room perfectly dark and quiet except for the soft snoring and breathing of the Ravenclaw girls. 

Watching the oblivious and scarily vulnerable sleepers, Astrid thought of just how easy it was to sneak one's way into other Houses. All it took for Ravenclaws was being smart and charming your tie blue. Even worse, all it took for Slytherins was merely overhearing a password (though Astrid had to point out that at least their entrance was a bit harder to locate since it was just a random wall.

They had gotten into the room and the sleeping girls had no idea the same as they had no idea that Voldemort's daughter was in the room with them. 

She didn't know if he was following her. She couldn't see. But she hoped he was because, tiptoeing her way over to Raidlly's bed, her nerves finally begun hitting in, making her hands shake softly. Maybe she couldn't see him, but hearing him shuffling somewhere right behind her did fill her with a sense of reasurement that whatever happened next, she wouldn't be alone.

Astrid reached out for the skull necklace standing openly on the nightstand. Once she had picked it up the memory of their third-year outing to prank the same girl came back to her mind and she remembered how she had then hidden the piece of jewellery under another girl's pillow. Standing there, holding it with trembling fingers, Astrid seriously considered repeating that again and just leaving. The girl had thought a lot about what the necklace could be once the idea that it could have magical properties had crossed her mind. Many assumptions reaching all from innocent to utterly gory, had run through her mind. Now actually holding the thing felt terribly dangerous. So it would be proof of Raidlly being the daughter, Astrid had convinced herself the necklace would hold the darkest of magic. Now holding it, she was slowly returning to her old motto of run or you're going to die.