in the end ~ d. malfoy

Chapter Sixty-Eight

October 2016

THEY SAY THAT EXTRAORDINARY CLAIMS REQUIRE EXTRAORDINARY EVIDENCE, but Maya would refer to her circumstances as vaguely plausible at best.

"What're you looking at?" Diana peers over her shoulder, curiously, as Maya's fingertips flicker through the photos on her phone screen from the past month.

"Just some photos." Maya muttered, absentmindedly, "They're not backed up, so I'm cleaning out storage."

"Interesting." Diana muses, "I have no clue what you're talking about."

Maya stifles a laugh, scrolling further, slightly shifting away from Diana as the lump forms in her throat. She's not lying, exactly — her storage is full and iCloud will stop backup if she doesn't buy more soon — but Maya isn't doing any sort of spring cleaning right now. She holds her breath as the photos flit back to September 17th. The night where everything — and nothing — happened.

At first, there's just mundane shots from the day. A red songbird on the tree outside the Transfiguration classroom, Snape's slanted handwriting decorating the DADA chalkboard, one of the peach Danishes that she grabbed for breakfast early that morning. They all paint a picture of a day like any other, a mundane autumn morning filled with classes and chatter. As she scrolls further, Maya sees pictures from when her and Clary got ready for the party, the blue silk of the redhead's top shimmering against her crimson waves as Maya lines her sapphire eyes with black pencil. The duck faces made in some of the selfies make her cringe, but her heart stops as she comes to the last photo of the night — the only evidence that she was at the party.

Maya immediately clicks on the photo and zooms in frantically, trying to make out any shapes against the blurriness. It's shaky, and the dark background doesn't help her vision. However, the neon green lighting allows Maya to make out a curly-haired silhouette with a pumpkin juice bottle in her right hand — identifiable by the plastic pumpkin top — and an amber flask in the other.

Suddenly, a few words come to her memory, "It wasn't very strong, just pumpkin juice with a bit of Firewhiskey."

"Romilda." Maya mutters under her breath, astounded.

"Hmm?" Diana looks up from her book, frowning, "Did you say something?"

"Oh, um — it was nothing." Maya waves a hand at Diana dismissively, squinting as she zooms in further. The girl is undeniably Romilda, but no other angles yield any clarity. Maya herself is absent from the picture, having taken it when she was cooped up on the couch with Draco Malfoy after Theo went to get her drinks.

Drinks. Wait —

Maya suddenly notices another phone in the crowd, recording in the same direction as her. As she zooms in, she vaguely recognizes the boy holding it. Tall, with straight black hair and high cheekbones, Maya swears she's seen him walking around the halls before, and the smile stretched across his face seems familiar, a butterbeer bottle in the other hand as the photo is paused, mid-laugh.

"Diana?" Maya turns to her, showing her the photo, "D'you know who this is?"

"The guy with the phone?" Diana squints, brushing her lilac hair out of her face — a faded result of her once-vibrant purple streaks.

"Yeah." Maya replies, chewing her lip in thought.

"He's Henry. Henry Zhang." Diana sighs, "Bit of a tosser, really, but he's a Hufflepuff in my year."

A lightbulb flickers in Maya's head, "Don't the fifth years have Herbology after lunch?"

"I think?" Diana shrugs, "I don't know, I dropped the subject anyway."