The Mists of Memory

Chapter 9 - Ginny's Revenge...

Draco spent the majority of the night tossing and turning in his bed. Don't get him wrong; he was grateful that he finally had his own bed, but he just couldn't shake the memories of what had happened earlier.

I must learn how to protect myself from Dementors, he thought, shuddering as he flipped over again. I already messed up badly enough this time. If it were to happen again....I don't know what consequences it could have.

Finally, he fell into a sort of in-between state, asleep but not fully, awake but without awareness. Harsh nightmares tormented his sleep, nightmares in which he saw himself kissing Marion, who transformed suddenly into Ginny. And that feeling of dread and fear never left his mind.

Eventually, he decided that it was pointless pretending to sleep and got up to stretch his legs and maybe get tired enough to finally gain unconsciousness. However, he doubted that the mere act of walking would tire him up any more than he already was; his muscles were still sore from the manual labour he had to undertake that afternoon. He ached everywhere...even in muscles he didn't even know the existence of.

He got up anyway, and his gaze went briefly to the clock—half past two in the morning. Damn, time was crawling by slowly! He paced the room nervously and looked at his reflection in the mirror, one of the many things Hermione had fixed the day before. The mark of Ginny's slap had faded away, but there's still a reminder of what happened, he thought, as his gaze caught sight of what lay on the floor next to his bed. He had completely forgotten about it; when he returned to his room, he went straight to bed, only remembering to put his pyjamas on. But the food Ginny brought to him was still there, all splattered on the floor.

He sighed and picked up again the pail and the cloths that Hermione had left there, starting to clean up. The thought that he had to be wandless for yet another day gave a jolt to his insides, And there was another problem: how would he get his wand back? Ollivander could've called the Aurors; he couldn't go there.

He moved the wet cloths across the floor, trying to remove all traces of milk. The white liquid had dried on the wooden beams and was now filling the room with the foulest stench. He'd never thought it would be so difficult to clean dried milk from the floor. He'd never really had to think about it, actually. If he'd thrown some milk on the floor at Malfoy Manor, there would always be a house elf close enough to fix the problem. Besides, in the two years he'd spent alone, he'd never stayed in the same place for long, so he never had to clean it, unlike now.

It took him a lot of hard work, but eventually, he managed to clean the floor of any trace of milk and other stains. It took him so long that, when he glanced at the clock, he noticed that it was a quarter to three.

He still wasn't sleepy. The room was stale and hot—he needed air, so he walked to the window. The shutters were shabby from the tear and wear of time and weather. There were intricate carvings of dragon's heads at the edges of the windows, but they were worn out as well. The whole structure seemed to be ready to fall on his head if he even attempted cracking it open a little, so he didn't dare touch it.

The moon was shining in the dark sky. Granger was right; tomorrow, it would be a full moon. A shiver ran down Draco's spine at the thought that Lupin would turn into a werewolf. The stories that his governess had told him when he was a child echoed in his mind and gave him the creeps. Until he went to Hogwarts, he didn't know about the Wolfsbane potion. Besides, when they were at Hogwarts, it was Professor Snape who'd prepared it, which had filled Draco with confidence, being the Potion Master. But this time, Granger had prepared it, and it was a new formula.

Would it work?

Uncharacteristically for him, Draco found himself thinking that it would. Flashing his eyebrows at the sudden realisation, Draco rubbed his thumb under his chin, wondering when he started trusting Granger. He wasn't exactly certain, but he had.