𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐠𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐲 | 𝐝.𝐦.

twenty three

The door slams with a sharp ring as Betty barges in.

Her dorm is in pristine condition since the last night she'd slept in here, which was really a mere few days ago.

Since the examination's closing, Betty has spent less time in her own common and dorm room, instead dawdling hopelessly in Draco's dorm, in his arms, sneaking in and out in the depths of the night and the crack of dawn, as long as it was out of the unsuspecting Slytherin's eyes.

Her roommate, still, hasn't returned and Betty doubts she will, since she hasn't heard from the poor girl for a long while. She has written a few letters to the muggleborn girl following the months of her departure, out of politeness, but she never received one back.

Despite this, Betty has no complains regarding the privacy she has been given. Even if it gets lonely often times.

The room's golden-tinted window is tightly shut, preventing the outside rain from entering and soaking her room, her books, and especially, her abandoned board.

She hasn't touched it in days, and dust has collected on the rims of the rough board. She is pleasantly surprised, though, that it hasn't moved a speck since she'd last left it there.

There were always house elves doing a sweep of their common rooms, tidying their dorms, arranging everything neatly, and collecting their laundries. Betty always feared one of those elves would stumble upon the incognisant board by accident and discover her plan. But there is also a chance they might lack confidence in telling on her to the teachers. She counts on that last part greatly.

With both arms, she lifts the heavy board off its residence where its been deserted for the longest time, and brandishes it on her bed, coughing as the dust flies into the air.

Everything remains the same. Maybe a few tears of parchment and newspaper clippings here and there, but most of the modules stayed the same.

Her fingers are still shaking even after her long walk from one common room to her own. She places them between her teeth, gnawing on her fingernails unintentionally as she studies the board, looks for something missing that she could put to her use.

After reading the letter, she knows she has been underestimating Joseph Bennett's doing. Narcissa was someone she could trust - as far as trust goes between a pair of acquaintances - to be telling her the truth.

And if Narcissa claims that her mother is on the brink of insanity, she has to step up her game and figure out a way to get her family out of their imprisonment and into a safe refuge where the death eaters can never find them.

Betty knows much about history and the recent news. She had heard of the lot of traitors who have been tracked down for betraying Voldemort - even after they managed to escape him in the first wizarding world - being condemned to death after Voldemort's return by his own hands.

She knows that if she were to single-handedly rescue her family, without any help from wise adults who could guide her, she was bound to land in the same destiny as those ill-fated wizards.

So her plan has to rely entirely on the greatest wizard of all, the one whom Voldemort still fears, despite the irony of it being her task to kill him.

Her eyes roam the board, reads the newspaper articles, glances through the photographs. But she is unable to think of anything, not when her head is full of remorse and despair and her eyes are blurry with tears.

Irritated, she storms into the bathroom, drowns her tears with the water that runs from the tap, buries her face in her wet hands as she allows herself a rest on the sink.