Please Be There If I Remember

Chapter Four: Determination

The hallways grew darker as Draco walked along them, his shoes moving swiftly along the floor making a short clack clack as he went. He focused on the even pitter patter of his heart that was growing faster and faster as he drew closer to the Slytherin dormitories. His mind was all over the place, stuck on black hair and narrowed eyes filled with distrust, brown hair turning grey and the smell that only a hospital can have, and the voice drawing the same phrase in his head; Malfoy's don't stutter, Malfoy's don't stutter, Malfoy's don't stutter... and on and on it went until he was standing in front of a stone wall.

How he was going to get it to open so he could get inside was a totally different ordeal that he hoped he had thought of before walking all the way down into the depths of the castle. Wanting nothing but to smash his head against the nearest wall in attempt to make it shut up, Draco stood there seething, clenching and unclenching his fists and grumbling to himself so loudly that the portrait beside told him to, and he quoted, "Shut that noise off before I do it myself."

"I'd like to see you try," Draco growled back, suddenly angry. The portrait looked at him like he was no less than useless dirt on the edge of his posh, thousandth century old shoes.

"Children these days have no respect for their elders," the portrait tutted.

"Says the dead old man whose soul is stuck in a painting."

He gasped loudly, sounding so scandalised for a moment that Draco thought someone had poured water over him and he started to drown in it. He wished the invisible water would just get on with it.

He didn't know why he was so angry all of a sudden. He had, after all, only been 'awake' for no more than a few hours. But something about feeling so helpless, unable to even get into his own bloody dormitory just grated on his nerves in a way he couldn't describe. It made him want to punch something, which, if the stupidly annoying voice in his head is right, Malfoy's probably don't punch random walls for the fun of it either.

With an unhelpful roll of his eyes, he glanced upwards to see the girl from the hospital wing walking down the stairs towards him, and oh if it isn't the last thing he needed right now.

He was not sure why she was here, everyone else supposedly in classes or stuck studying in the library. But alas, she was, and it was finally the last straw. He took a deep, daring breath, and stepped forward towards her, striking up confidence he didn't feel.

"Have you finally gotten over the temper tantrum from the hospital then?"

The girl looked up through her eyelashes and glared at him with ferocity. He barely blinked at it.

"I see you've finally come back to your senses then?" she mocked him back, obviously still hurt by something he had said.

Draco turned his voice down to a low whisper, still unsure over how to handle the situation. "I'm sorry if I said something offensive to you, I didn't mean it."

The girl blinked at him slowly like he had completely lost his mind. "It wasn't what you said, Draco. It was that you promised you would never push me away if I needed you, and there you were, half dead in the hospital wing and the moment you woke up, I hugged you and you pushed me away like you didn't even know who I was."

It's because I don't, he wanted to plead, which was strange because he didn't think of himself as much of a beggar.

"I'm sorry," he said back, and he meant it. For some reason the fire in this girl made him want to push on, and even if he didn't know who she was now, his past self obviously found her important enough to trust, and that was enough to make him step forward and tell her the one thing he swore he wouldn't tell anyone else.