Always - Welcome to the Wizarding World

Part 26

I didn't attend lessons for a few weeks, just stayed in my dormitory alone, reading most of the time. Spring came and went like in the blink of an eye, I spoke to no one. When I did start attending my lessons again, the only people I spoke to were the professors, but only if necessary. No one else knew what had happened. Zarah was the only one of my friends that Snape had told, since he knew that she was my closest friend and that it would be better if she understood. At first, she made a few failed attempts to console me, but after realizing that I was inconsolable, she just sat with me in silence, only speaking if she didn't expect an answer. Cedric had also been informed by Professor Dumbledore. He had tried to talk to me a few times, but I had ignored his advances. I didn't want to talk to him at the best of times, but especially not now. 

No one could understand what it was like to lose two parents in the space of four years. Except Harry, of course, but I didn't want to talk to him either. I didn't want to talk to anyone. All my friends tried desperately to engage in some kind of conversation with me. Hermione, Harry, Ron, even Neville tried to have a chat with me about some Herbologists in Nepal growing gravity resistant trees. They were completely bewildered as to why I hadn't spoken a word to any of them in weeks. They had asked Zarah about it, of course, but she hadn't said a word. She would have been in deep trouble with Dumbledore if she had. The only person who hadn't tried to disturb me from my silence was Draco. He hadn't even approached me, I think he could see that what I required was space, either that or he just didn't care enough. 

My silence came in handy sometimes, despite cutting me off from my friends. It allowed me to eavesdrop on people's conversations. I heard that the third task was going to be the hardest of all; it was less than a week away. I knew I ought to talk to Harry about it, but he would ask too many questions of his own, questions that I had no interest in providing an answer to. 

It was a sunny Saturday afternoon and I was sat alone in my dormitory. Zarah had tried to be good company most of the time, but sometimes she knew when she wasn't wanted. She had gone out with Millicent Bullstrode into the beautiful weather, just to get out of the castle for a bit. I was sat at the windowsill, gazing out of the window at the sunlight. The weather had never been so pleasant, the beaming hot sun bounced off the glass-like lake that lay just outside my bedroom window. I was so tempted to go outside, but it was full of other students and any contact that I had with anyone nowadays seemed like minutes too long. No, inside was better for me right now.

There were things in my mother's will that she'd left for me which I had obtained not long after her death. She didn't have much, but everything went to me. My mother had left me odd little things, her old broomstick, a crystal ball left to her by her mother, small trinkets like that. My favorite item was a well-thumbed copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard. I had read that book a countless number of times when I was a child, I remember I had received it from my parents on my third birthday. There was still a little note written inside it in a messy scrawl. It read: "To our darling ray of sunshine. May this book give you countless joys throughout your life. Lots of love forever and ever, Mummy and Daddy". I cried just reading that heartfelt message, so I tried to refrain from doing so. It was hard to stop my eyes from glancing over those words. It was the last piece of writing I had left from them.

I had been reading it for a while and I had nearly finished Babbity Rabbity and the Cackling Stump, when there was an abrupt knock at the door. As you could imagine, I'd had rather a lot of concerned knockers over the past couple of weeks and I would usually ignore it, but this time, I was curious. The knocks I had heard previously had been so much chirpier, as though trying to cheer me up with merely their sound. Not this time. 

"It's open" I called. 

The door was pushed open by a tall person with shining blond hair and wearing casual clothes, somehow still managing to look abnormally handsome. Draco. After all this time, he had finally come to try and comfort me. I thought as much.