Phoenix

Chapter Four

The Room of Requirement was dark, cold, and smelled of dust. There were piles of junk reaching from the ground to the ceiling and I was scared if somebody coughed everything would come crashing down onto our heads. I made sure to keep as close to Atlas as I could as we weaved our way through piles of stuff.

"This damn thing has to be somewhere," Draco complained from the front of the group. We had no idea what we were looking for. Draco had seen the sister cabinet at Borgin and Burkes when Narcissa took him to Knockturn Alley with her before school had started. He had told us we were looking for a dark box with intricate detailing on the front. That described half of the items in this large room and I could feel myself becoming frustrated as we continued to search.

"Couldn't we just Accio it or something?" Atlas spoke up and I rolled my eyes.

"Atlas, we can't just have a big box come flying at us," I told him, patting his shoulder. He shrugged and we continued deeper into the room. I walked straight into Atlas' back as he came to a halt in front of me. We all watched as Draco pulled a thick, black blanket from a tall, dark cabinet. I sighed as I saw the swirls carved out in the wood on the front. This was the box we were supposed to fix. The hinges on the door cried as Draco opened it. The inside was plain and bare except for a small platform in the middle.

"How in the hell is this going to hold a bunch of Death Eaters?" I finally broke the silence as I stepped in front of the boys to look at the cabinet. It was tall, but it was skinny. It looked wide enough to hold maybe one person at a time.

"They won't stay in there. It will basically act as a door that they will come through to get into the school," Blaise explained. "We just need to fix it so they can come through without getting torn to bits."

"Oh," was all I said as I took a few steps backward away from the cabinet.

We had months to fix this thing, but that didn't seem like a very long time. I was definitely not the brains of this operation. I didn't know where to begin or what to do to even attempt to fix it. If you asked me, the cabinet was in perfectly good shape for being as old as it was. I didn't understand what needed to be fixed. Maybe that is why Draco said he would work with me.

"Can someone please explain why the Dark Lord thought it would be best to trust us four idiots to fix this damn thing? I would think Nott would be perfect for this, his father I'm sure has already taught him all kinds of dark magic," Atlas said and I felt my cheeks heat up at the mention of Theo. Draco rolled his eyes. Draco and Theodore were constantly pinned against one another. Who was the better dueler? Who was the better quidditch player? Who knew more dark magic?

"We don't need that fool to help us," Draco snapped and I swallowed thickly. If only he knew that I had been pressed up against his arch nemesis while he sunk inside of me just hours earlier. He'd probably disown me as a friend and never speak to me again.

"Okay well on that note, I think we should start tomorrow. Now that we know where the cabinet is it should be easy enough for us to get back to it and start working," Atlas announced. I could tell just by the tone of his voice that he wanted nothing more than to get out of this room and far away from the cabinet.

The four of us left the Room of Requirement separately as to not bring attention to ourselves and made our way down to the Slytherin common room. The room was full of students studying, doing homework, or just hanging out with friends so we quickly made our way up the steps to the boy's dormitories. Draco's room sat at the end of the dark hallway, furthest away from the stairs.

"Don't any of you wish we could be like those kids downstairs? Carefree and just having fun?" I sighed, crawling up onto Draco's bed and falling backward onto his plush pillows. "Our entire year is going to be spent trying to fix a cabinet and worrying about not getting ourselves killed."