𝒯𝒽ℯ 𝒫𝓇ℴ𝓂𝒾𝓈ℯ𝒹 𝒪𝓃ℯ | 𝐝𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐨 𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐟𝐨𝐲 |

#12 The List of Missing People

125 days before

I didn't sleep that night.

El had offered me to sleep with in her bed, while Ron camped on the couch in the living room. We talked for what felt like hours about everything. We used to do that sometimes in the past, laying down in a bed and talked until the sun painted the sky in a beautiful art of purple and pink. Just that this time it wasn't filled with laugher, which we tried to keep under control to not wake somebody, but with sobs which didn't even reach a sound.

She told me about the last months, more about Blaise who seemed to grief more to himself in the boy's dorm, than under her eyes. He was the kind of boy trying to hold it together when somebody asked him how he felt. He was the kind of boy got caught on my grave, sitting there in the grass out of which he pulled a few strings, while he told my name, graved into stone, everything which laid a burden on his chest. El told me she saw him one day crying there, not able to say anything, because it was the day before we would've returned to Hogwarts together. Once my best friend stepped nearer and joined him, he had looked up and just said how he could return to a place, which was only so special, because he knew I was there every day, sitting in the common room, reading and smiling at him as soon as he stepped in.

She told me, that she used to stay on the Astronomy Tower after class every week, looking up at the stars and talked to me. She shook her head in disbelief that it probably looked pathetic, but it rather broke my heart than that. She talked to me as if I would be a star in the night sky, she imagined me to be one of the things I so desperately loved. My friend told me, that the thought we would all become stars when we're dying, centered her. Because she couldn't imagine that Maribel and I simply vanished like we didn't exist in the first place. She said, that she imagined me looking down on them to keep an eye on my friends, so that they wouldn't do something stupid. It was simply pure.

And El told me about Draco.

He didn't return to Hogwarts that day, just like he said back in the train on our way for our sixth school year. Nobody saw him since the funeral, the only life sign was the letter he sent her and to which she didn't reply since she couldn't think about the right words to do so. There were a few articles about him in the Daily Prophet, on which he was seen in the Ministry - that day I was there, too. And fresh, rosé-colored azaleas every week appearing on my grave.

So not even she knew if he was okay these days, judged by his chosen words and the fact, that he wrote El even though they never had a good relationship these years, he was probably not.

El fell asleep as the sun started to raise, but I sneaked into the kitchen and made myself a strong coffee to stay awake with my eyes on the streets outside the window. The house was saved with protective charms, undetected for uninvited visitors.

The first few days went by pretty fast. Remus and Tonks assured us, that we should at least wait until after Christmas to go find the others since a big snow storm was coming our way - and they were right. Like it was planned, the grounds and streets were covered in a big layer of snow on Christmas morning. The icy breeze had frozen the edges of the windows, the glass fogged up with the warmth inside. There would've been no way that we could've sleep in the woods with that temperature, so I assured Remus once more saved our life.

It nearly felt like a familiar, normal Christmas. The Lupin's did their best to let us feel welcomed. Tonks charmed a delicious Christmas dinner with the help of El, I started decorating the tree, while Ron and Remus lightened up the fire and stacked the wooden pieces next to the stack for the coming days.

After we ate, we sat around the Christmas tree and simply talked for hours. Tonks and Remus bought her daughter an hourglass which her mother lovely charmed to glow as soon as the time started, where El could see her favorite star constellations on the night sky. It sparkled in different colors like it broke the sunlight, clearly one of the most beautiful things I've ever saw. El herself gave them a glass filled with water. A small creature I couldn't recognize in it, who carelessly swam through the liquid. It's eyes were big and friendly, its colors changing with the temperature in the room.