If I Lose Myself

Chapter Fourteen: Draco

Chapter Fourteen: Draco

February 1997

"Concentrate, mate." Blaise implored from behind him.

Draco stood before the Black Lake in the slightly chilly afternoon of February. He had been there often these days, other than the Room of Requirement. Apart from his demanding Hogsmeade meet-ups with his aunt Bellatrix with the Occlumency, he took the liberty of practicing non-verbal spells. He couldn't quite focus practicing it in a large class–with everyone else blithering and looking like they were close to puking their morning breakfast. If the practice required absolute focus and mental discipline, he had to do it somewhere outside the classroom.

At first, he had tried the task on his own – easily making certain objects levitate wordlessly every once in a while, but haven't gotten past the point of actually conjuring hexes or curses. Deciding that he could use with a bit of swallowing his pride, he had asked his friend Blaise for help – remembering very distinctly their small duel in the common room where he had his ass served to him.

"This is boring." He heard Pansy complain as he kept his eyes shut.

Naturally, they had to bring Pansy along to these little practices – otherwise she'd start complaining. It did get a bit annoying if she did; constantly poking at them to ask her to join. It had only been a week since Pansy joined them and she still complained of the trepid boringness of it all.

"Then you shouldn't have come in the first place, you blithering wench." Blaise told her haughtily.

And an argument broke out.

Lately, Blaise had been so easily provoked, if not irritated. The slightest of mishaps angered his friend, which resulted to his sending one jinx after another at people that pissed him off.

Draco couldn't blame him, really. Blaise had started the New Year with the worst possible news anyone could have ever heard. He and Pansy try not to bring it up whenever they were together; pretending that what happened at the Greengrass New Year Gala was merely just a joke, or even a dream. But no matter how hard he and Pansy diverted certain matters as far away from Daphne's engagement announcement back in January as possible, Blaise still found a way to silently sulk to himself.

Draco had never felt more helpless in seeing his friend than he did now.

But he let these thoughts drift off momentarily. He had other things to worry about. Draco opened his eyes this time, and he emptied his mind of anything that would distract him.

"Knock it off, the both of you!" Draco barked at them menacingly, strutting over between them and pushing Blaise to the side. "I've had enough of your pointless banters. This isn't the right time for anything remotely distractive."

Pansy scoffed at this and moved away. "This is absolute rubbish. Just get on with it already so I can meet Daph—er, I mean, you know who and tell her to take over my Prefect duties tonight."

They avoided the name Daphne Greengrass like the plague.

Blaise looked like he wanted to say something, but he decided against it and huffed scathingly before walking over to the elder tree.

"Let's just try this one thing, and we'll be done." Draco said before brandishing his wand. He pointed it directly at Blaise.

His friend nodded listlessly as he too pulled out his own wand. "Alright. Disarm only. If we can get you to do that at least ten times within the half hour, we'll move on to curses and jinxes tomorrow."