All I Have Left

Chapter Ninety Three

TW: mentions of suicidal thoughts, mature scenes

As the end of term neared, Malfoy and I panicked.

We had not progressed with our task since the moment we'd first entered Hogwarts for our sixth year, and it's been practically five months.

We'd searched countless books, and while we gathered information on what didn't aid us in mending the Cabinet, we didn't uncover any knowledge on what can help us repair it.

I couldn't help the dread and fear that filled my veins constantly; I couldn't eat because of the worry about what consequences I might face for failing the task.

I was also scared I would encounter Voldemort over winter holidays; Malfoy and I were returning to Malfoy Manor for the upcoming break, in order to search the Malfoy's library for any piece of information that could potentially be valuable to our task. And while this was supposed to be beneficial, I couldn't help the nausea that arose whenever I thought about going back to the Death Eaters in the Manor, Bellatrix, and potentially Voldemort.

The weight of the task was now becoming more than unbearable. I had always detested being in this position, and for the entire term, my friends had pointed out my noticeable paleness, my sickly look, the bags under my eyes, and the way I seemed to move as though my mind weren't there.

Malfoy, at first, had taken the task in stride and confidence. He had been so sure of himself, and honoured that he'd been given such a critical task by Voldemort himself. He'd subtly bragged to our friends, and while he's stopped teasing other students, he still walked through the halls with a smooth arrogance, seeming as if he simply knew he was superior to others.

Now, the task appeared to have burdened him, too.

His face was more pale than usual, with a grey undertone that made him look ill— just like me. He had bags under his eyes, and he seemed a ghost of his former self.

In the school years prior, Malfoy had always made it a point that his opinion mattered. Now, cool indifference was the way he portrayed himself.

And it irritated me beyond reason. While the stress from the task was visible in his face and figure, it certainly wasn't in the way he acted. He'd been pushing for more time in the Room of Requirement— which is where we spent basically all of our time— but when we tried to work on the Cabinet, he teased me to rile me up and cause me to storm out.

He loved to fight with me, apparently, because that's all we do. It had even ended in a duel once, where we'd wrecked the Room of Requirement and had to clean everything up after we'd calmed down.

Well, after I calmed down— because he likes to pretend that nothing bothers him and he couldn't care less about anything going on in the world. He stared at me with this stupid fucking blank expression and an impossibly aggravating shrug, which often resulted in me lunging at him out of fury.

Even on my birthday we had fought. The clock had just marked the first of December, and then we were arguing and fuming and storming out of the Room of Requirement. He didn't get me a gift, and I spent the day with Daphne and Blaise.

My birthday had been emotional and, overall, a mess. Last year, I walked into the common room to a surprise birthday party for me. This year, I couldn't find it in myself to celebrate. It was my first birthday without receiving a gift or letter from my parents, and it was the first birthday in a while where I didn't go thank Harry, Hermione, and Ronald for their gifts.

I had cried a lot that day, and the fight with Malfoy certainly had not helped.

Currently, we were giving one another the silent treatment because of particularly large argument we'd had two days before. Truthfully, I can't remember what started the fight, but it ended with us shouting and launching hexes at one another.