Equinox

thirteen

I'm coughing my lungs out as we throw ourselves out of the cave. My knees give out and force my hands into the dirt on the ground. I thought finding the Chantrea Brothers to break the tie would mean I'd guarantee the likelihood of never seeing Draco again. Now, I am forced to find him. Forced to see him again. I'd rather drag my eyeballs out slowly with my fingernails than to breathe the same air as him. I'd rather pull each individual nail out of the bed of my fingers with my teeth. I'd even rather fight a bloody Basilisk alone with a toothpick than see his smug face.

"What happened in there?" Pansy is the first to speak and her voice is silky with concern. "We heard you screaming."

"You didn't allow her to get hurt, did you?" Theo steps up to Corvus and grabs his arm.

Corvus smacks his grip away and extracts a compass from his pocket. The one the brothers gave us. It's supposed to lead us directly to him. "I'm insulted with the implication, Nott." Corvus drawls with disinterest. "I am the strongest fighter out of all of us. If you believe you are more capable of being a guard, then you can take the next opportunity. I can ensure we accidentally stumble into a coven of vampires to test that theory."

"Please—please stop with the dick-measuring contest, Theo." I gasp as I continue coughing up flehm and saliva pouring out of my mouth. "I wasn't hurt in there."

"Then what happened?" He asks.

Pansy brushes my hair out of my face and holds it back as I make sick. "Gaunt," she calls, "would you grab the water from her sack?"

Once my body is convulsing on an empty stomach, I grab my water from Lilith and down its contents. "We need Draco in order to break the tie."

"Brilliant," Theo groans.

"Wipe the jealousy off your face, Theo." Pansy orders. "That's still your brother, and whether you like it or not, he had Aspen first. If I were you, I'd be happy that we are going to such extreme lengths to sever that tie."

I feel my skin burn to a bright red, Merlin, Pans. If it were a year ago, I'd probably go into a long ramble of embarrassment, but that Aspen died in a cell long ago. So, I bite my tongue and watch as Theo's eyebrows furrow and Adam's apple bob with a gulp. Pansy shut him right up. "I had her first," he mumbles under his breath.

"Theo," I shout, "shut the fuck up!"

Corvus—utterly unbothered by the adolescent hormones—sets the compass in the dirt and opens it. With a simple wave of his hand, a map of a similar design to the one we'd use in the meeting room formed around it. The needle goes berserk as it attempts to find the location it yearns to go. I watch the red needle spin around at rapid speeds until it suddenly slows down and points to the United Kingdom.

"Alright," Corvus snaps the compass shut and the map disappears with it, "grab your things. We have to Portkey again."

"I reckon Aspen will make sick again if we do just this moment," Pansy points out.

"I'll get in on that bet," Theo adds.

I roll my eyes at them as they smile at each other like children. The Slytherin lot truly are siblings, the way they immediately forget their previous argument to crack a joke, as if they weren't ripping into each other a few minutes ago. "I'll be fine," I tell them. "My stomach is empty now, anyways."

"Will the likes of you just grab your bloody things so we can get this mission over with?" The remaining patience in Corvus pouring out of him before us. "I'd prefer to have this done and over with, get the shipment, and have the three of you behind the wards again before nightfall."