Dark Love (A Draco Malfoy Love Story)

s e v e n

picture: the vanishing cabinet (which is located in the Room of Requirement)

song of the day: axel thesleff-bad karma

Draco

As I boarded the Hogwarts Express and found an empty compartment with Crabbe and Goyle and sat down, my mind still thought back to my moment of weakness at Elizabeth's house. I should've kept my cool. I just ruined everything.  Elizabeth needed still needed to think of me as a nasty, stuck up, cocky brat like I pretended I was.  And now that I cried in front her, she probably thought I was a coward. Which was not supposed to happen.

I wish I could avoid her, like I tried to do in school...but now we were both assigned the task of fixing the Vanishing Cabinet and I really couldn't avoid her now, could I?

I sighed as I took my usual spot next to the window across from Crabbe.

The train lurched forward and brought us out of King's Cross Station and towards Hogwarts.

I leaned my head back against the seat, closed my eyes, and tried to relax.

That wasn't happening.

                                                                 *

The sun was just setting when we finally arrived at Hogwarts.  I silently walked with Crabbe and Goyle, even though I was a little behind them. We walked past all the first and second years trying to find their way to Hagrid, the stupid oaf who had some strange accent nobody understood and kissed Potter's feet, and towards the front entrance of the school.

We got to the Great Hall and all the houses took their seats at the house table.  After a brief announcement from Dumbledore, food appeared on the long tables and everyone started to eat.  But I just sat there, my head in my hands. I felt queasy, and I knew I wouldn't be able to eat anything.

After a while of no interrupting, someone had to talk to me.

"Draco, you alright there, mate?  You haven't touched any of your dinner."  Goyle asked me.

I looked up at him.

"I'm fine, Goyle. Just a headache."  I answered, then before I continued to ignore everyone, I searched for Elizabeth at the table.  I saw her strawberry blonde head immediately, and I was surprised to see she wasn't eating her dinner either. She was staring glumly down at her plate. 

She has no reason to be nervous. I thought to myself. She's not the one who has to kill the headmaster of Hogwarts.  All she's doing is helping fix the device that is going to get my aunt Bellatrix and some other Death Eaters here to basically watch me kill Dumbledore and attack the school.

                                                                               *

The next morning was the first day that Elizabeth and I were supposed to be working on the Vanishing Cabinet. We would work on it during lunch, after classes ended, and during our dinner break and into the night, whenever we hit success. Which my mother told me wouldn't be for a while, considering the Vanishing Cabinet was a very tricky thing to fix.

If one cabinet is broken, which in this case is the one here at Hogwarts, a transferred object is trapped in a kind of limbo, which we can't have happening to my aunt and the other Death Eaters she was bringing with her to cause chaos. I was just down at Borgin and Burkes two days ago, studying the cabinet they have there, so I could get a sort of feel for what Elizabeth and I would be dealing with at Hogwarts.