✓ WE NEVER SLEEP, draco malfoy

F O R T Y - O N E

"this heart keeps sobbing in its sleep."

— Emily Dickinson

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Rowan met Draco in the Room of Requirement. Theo, Blaise, and Pansy had gone back to the common room, leaving the pair alone. Draco had sent word through the cabinet and all they could do was wait. 

"Do we know who is coming?" Rowan asked, trying to find the courage to put on a brave face to mask her true nerves. She was worried about Florence and she was worried about all her friends somewhere in the castle hiding or protecting each other. 

Draco nodded, one hand in his pocket and the other fiddling with the base of his wand. "Bellatrix, the Carrows, Greyback, Yaxley, Gibbon, and Rowie."

"And they're here...?"

"To see me kill Dumbledore." He shrugged. "To cause chaos."

"To witness the kill," mumbled Rowan and Draco met her eyes with a subtle frown. She could see he was just as nervous and scared as she was, so she took a step forward and slipped her hand into his. "Disarm him, Draco," she whispered, "and I can do the rest, or even Snape."

"I can't allow you to do that," he murmured and looked towards the cabinet. "Besides, he said he'd murder my family if I didn't. He knows you're tied to me, don't you think he'd still kill you even if you took the final shot? It's my kill." He nodded to himself and his grip on her hand tightened and then released at once. "I won't let you step into the darkness like this."

"I'll have to anyway," she whispered with a sigh. She rested her hand on his shoulder as the cabinet rattled. "We'll be okay, Draco, we'll make it out of this."

He nodded but he didn't look like he believed her. The cabinet rattled again, louder and they watched as the little door opened and a hand wrapped around the edge and then a foot slipped out.

Bellatrix stared at the two of them in wonder as she glanced around the room with her dark eyes. "Good work, my dears."

More bodies came out behind her, filling their once sacred space with evil and dread. Draco took hold of Rowan's hand again and she allowed herself to take her part. She jutted her chin up at the Carrow's as they entered with their slimy gazes and she let herself stare down Greyback as if he were just another man walking past her on a crowded road. He was nothing, all of them were, and she made that be known.

"Finally," muttered Rowan, "we can begin."

"Is this the little one who's been helping Draco?" muttered Yaxley, giving Rowan a good once over that made her skin crawl. "She's cute, maybe a little too perky for such a job."

Rowan stuck up her nose at him with a scowl. "You should be careful of how you speak to me," she said to him as Bellatrix circled the pair, her hand going to Rowan's shoulder like claws.  Yaxley stepped forward, brushing a strand of hair from Rowan's face and she snarled, grabbing his wrist in her free hand, imagining herself as Florence. "It'd be a shame for you to return to the lord with just one hand. Perhaps you can replace Wormtail, hmm?"

Yaxley scowled, yanking his hand free from her grip and stepping away. If he had been a better person in this life, Rowan would've thought he was handsome. He had a similar style to Lucius, his hair pulled back into a low ponytail, his blonde a near white but dirty. He could never have the Malfoy blonde, so pure and clean.