The Ravenclaw Malfoy

Chapter 15 - Hurricane

Tina was standing awkwardly in the doorway to her dormitory, not quite sure what to do with herself now she'd actually got there. She'd been dead set on coming to find Dawn to try and talk to her. It was more or less the only thing she had been thinking about all day. But now she was here and she actually had to speak to her? It was like she simply could not get her mouth to cooperate with her brain.

On the whole she'd been feeling relatively at peace these past few weeks, or at least as at peace as she could get nowadays. That conversation she'd had with Draco in the corridor had taken a larger weight off of her shoulders than she'd care to admit. Nothing had been magically fixed, just like he'd said, but she felt lighter now. It was that that had made her rethink her situation with Dawn. She knew she'd promised her to tell her what was going on at some point, but she'd only really said that to get her off of her back. Dawn only meant well, Tina did know that, but it was a lot more complex than just telling her what's wrong. But given how much better she'd felt after talking to her brother, she'd decided to maybe give Dawn a shot. It wasn't like she had much to lose, after all.

Dawn hadn't yet noticed Tina hovering outside the room, lounging on her bed, deeply engrossed in the book she was reading. Tina tried her best to not feel incredibly guilty over the fact that she was about to disturb the quiet atmosphere that Dawn had created. After much hesitancy that was definitely not needed, Tina murmured, "Can I come in?"

Dawn's head whipped up as soon as Tina spoke, a small smile creeping onto her face as she realised who it was. "Yeah, of course. It's your dormitory too, you know," she looked at her knowingly as she put her book down beside her.

Tina glanced at the book before looking down sheepishly, "I know, I just didn't want to disturb you or anything."

"It's alright, you can come in," she repeated, gesturing to the bed next to her. She swung her legs round to be able to face her properly, "What's up?"

Tina looked up in surprised as she carefully made her way to the bed and sat down, "Hmm? Why would something be up?" Her resolve crumbled, however, when Dawn gave her an incredibly pointed look that clearly said 'don't try me, Malfoy'. Tina sighed, "Fine. I had an idea. You know how you said that I need tell you what's going on? Well I figured out how I can tell you," she explained brightly.

What she had not been expecting was for Dawn to furrow her brows in confusion and simply say, "Okay..."

Tina carried on undeterred, "Legilimens! I'm assuming you know the spell. I don't think it's that hard. But that way you can see for yourself." Her smile faltered when she finally noticed Dawn's mildly horrified expression. "What? Did I do something wrong?" she asked, voice infinitely more timid than it had been only a few seconds ago.

It took Dawn a few moments to process what Tina was suggesting. Eventually she asked slowly, "You want me to look into your mind?"

Tina blinked at her. Why did she look disappointed, she wasn't supposed to be disappointed, this was supposed to be a solution? "Um, yeah, I just thought that that would be the easiest way of telling you, why, did I do something wrong?

Dawn shook her head, "No it's just that that's a huge breech of your privacy." She was looking at Tina as if she'd grown another head and the latter couldn't help but squirm under her gaze.

"No it's fine, I promise!" she protested, desperate for Dawn to just agree and get it over with. "If there's anything I don't want you to see I'll just block it, I know occlumency," she shrugged.

"But still it's," Dawn started, faltering as she tried to work out how to best explain herself. "I'm looking into your mind Tina, don't you see how creepy that is?" she asked, genuinely scared of the answer, and scared of her friend. She'd never seen Tina like this before and it only made her more worried about what was going on with her.