Unplanned Liars • Draco Malfoy

78. The battle begins

"I'm still surprised Ollivander has survived all this," said Bill, shaking his head in disbelief as he put down his cup of tea.

"It's thanks to Aurora," Luna said, catching everyone's attention.

"Aurora? What Aurora?" Harry frowned.

"You don't possibly mean Aurora Mullen, right, Luna?" Hermione asked her.

"I mean her. She gave him the Healing Potion. She was actually very nice."

Everyone stared at her for a moment, then Ron shook his head and whispered to Harry and Hermione:

"She must've become even more crazy after sitting in this dungeon."

Time passed. Draco and I safely came back to school. The possibility of a battle was growing larger and larger with every day, it was just a matter of time before it would break out. We discussed what we would do or what might happen billions of times, but now that I think about it, what was the use of it? Nobody actually knew what would happen...

Crabbe and Goyle became very distant towards Draco and Crabbe seemed to be wanting to take charge among the three of them. Draco couldn't care less and he tried avoiding conversations with them, but sometimes he did talk with them just to keep them on his side.

One evening Draco and I were sitting and talking in the corner of the common room, secluded from everyone else, when Crabbe and Goyle walked up to us.

"Well, Draco, I assume you haven't forgotten. We're staying here when it happens," Crabbe said and I couldn't hold back a sigh.

"You'd better not chicken out, then," I grumped to him, crossing my arms.

"Oh, I see you got yourself a guard, Draco," Crabbe snapped and I snorted.

Pathetic. And who was he for six years?

"Or better company than you, for instance," Draco snapped.

"Oh really?" Crabbe laughed sarcastically.

"Want to duel me, Crabbe?" I stood up and drew my wand. If there was going to be a battle, anyway, I was ready to start with Crabbe. Bellatrix and Snape have taught me enough.

"Not yet," he sneered and walked away with Goyle. I was disgusted just by his existence and made a mental note to confront him later, hiding my wand in my pocket.

Soon, everyone went to their dormitories except for me and Draco. We had the entire common room for ourselves and didn't have to talk in hushed tones.

"Did your mother's wand finally change allegiance?" I asked as I knew he had problems with it.

"No, it still doesn't listen to me someti... Did you hear that?" he cut off his sentence suddenly and looked towards the ceiling.

"No? What did you..."

"Shush," he interrupted me, not taking his eyes off of the ceiling. Then I eventually heard some thuds. You couldn't hear a lot from outside of the Slytherin dungeon, but after a moment we could sense some mayhem from above. Something was definitely happening.

And then it happened. Slughorn entered the common room.

"Everyone out! Out of the dormitories!" he shouted and then spotted us.

"Mr Malfoy! Miss Mullen! Why are you not in the..." he looked bewildered.

"You just called us to get out of the dormitories, didn't you, sir?" I said innocently, and we lost no time. We both understood what was happening at once. We ran out of the common room as other Slytherins were getting out of the dormitories, most of them in their sleeping robes.