All Our Broken Pieces

Chapter 23

My stomach grumbled as I sped up my walk towards the great hall, corridors busy with first and second years so appearing from classrooms. Many of the younger years had started to get taller, taller than me even, now I wasn't ridiculously small but smaller than the average 14 year old boy.

Over the top of the crowd I spotted a head of icy white hair, slipping around the people, grateful for an outlet as my anxiety grew being in the middle of so many people.

"Malfoy!" I called, hoping he would slow his walk, enabling me to catch up to him. He turned down a small, quiet corridor, making him go out of sight. I followed his stride down the turn to find the corridor completely empty.

"Oh." I whispered to nobody, preparing myself to go back into the chaos.

I had free periods after lunch, the rest of my day I was able to do anything I wanted, nothing really came to mind though. Only Theo, Draco and myself had gained the OWL grades to be allowed lesson exclusion, within our group anyway.

"I have a bottle of firewhiskey stashed in my room still, if you'd like to relax a bit." The brunette boy stated quietly, not wanting the teachers to hear as most students had to go back to class the hall had emptied.

"Theo it's Tuesday."

"Okay, what's the problem with that Goldy?" a mischievous twinkle appeared in his hazle eyes.

"Nothing nothing," I mumbled, "I'll grab the cigarettes if you find Malfoy."

He nodded and we set off to get what we had discussed.

The common room was dark, quiet. The fire burned out letting an early spring chill in, creatures of the black lake drifted past the large windows causing loneliness to swell in the pit at the bottom of my stomach. On the large coffee table there sat a small pack of muggle playing cards, I placed them in my robe pocket, before making my way up the spiral staircase, my feet padding along the cold, marble flooring. Theo's room was at the end of the top hallway and whoever said heat rises, lied.

Goosebumps appeared on my arms and back of my neck, I pulled my jade and black robe closer to the core of my body, a puff of air visible in the cold hall when I breathed out.

The silver doorhandles stood out in the dimly lit dungeon dorms, I reached out, my pale hand gripping the cold metal and turned it clockwise until I heard a click. The large oak door slowly opened, exposing me to Theo's room.

I stepped inside, leaving it ajar, assuming I wouldn't be in there for long.

"Now, what would Professor Snape surmise of you being in the boys dormitory all alone Miss Goldhunt?" a cold voice exclaimed from behind me.

"What would he regard of you being out of lessons at this time Mr Riddle."

I carried on walking around the room, having already found three packs of cigarettes of his bedside table, only the whiskey was to be found now.

His room was dark, unlike mine and Pansy's, there were no decorations, no trophies or signs of it being a teenage boys living space. There was a bed, a chest of drawers, two doors, one leading to a bathroom and the other into a closet, and a desk. On the wall above the desk there was a small slytherin flag and pinned around it was polaroid pictures of our whole group.

All the way from first year up until now, the earlier ones being just himself and Draco, but eventually more people joining. Starting with Pansy, then Crabbe and Goyle, then Blaise, myself and Enzo and finally, with very few, Mattheo.

But he was there.

I studied the wall space he had taken up, a sodden feeling growing in my chest, looking back on us, we were so innocent, so full of life. Unnawhere of the gloom to come which would soon become what our lives resolved around. Being in Slytherin was a privilege back then, resented by any other house purely because of our heritage pulled us together, we could take on the world and more at the ripe age of 11. Our harsh childhoods forgotten in this warm, sanctuary that was Hogwarts. Students in other houses had many differences, but here in Slytherin we were all the same. Broken and bruised, forced to grow up too fast, matured in ways we shouldn't have, we grew thick skin and wore it with pride. How could we not?