SLITHER IN! → S. MALFOY

ACT III, SCENE X: MISS ME

C H A P T E R  T H I R T Y

           ROSE RUSHED INTO THE Great Hall with a wild expression on her face and her wand at the ready, — the Hall, however, was wild enough without the witches intrusion. There seemed to be a crowd accumulating like ants near the Gryffindor table, climbing over one's shoulders, all yellow ties and blue-patterned robes — the Slytherin table stayed put. Shooting the latter a venomous glare, Rose pierced her elbows through the crowd until she finally saw John Blackburn laying on the now cleared table, his hand pressing over his eyes, and his mouth erupting with bloodcurdling groans.

     "John!" Rose muttered, half-rage and half-regret — if only she had shut up and swallowed her unease with Blackburn's watchful eye, Malfoy wouldn't have done what he had — "What did he do to you?"

    John seemed to be deaf to her helpless mutter, — with rising horror, Rose watched a rivulet of blood run down from his covered eyes to his temple and tangle in his knotted dark hair.

She felt a grip on her forearm and was pulled out of the maddening crowd and into the open spaces of the Hall to face Albus.

      "Malfoy." With a grim expression, Albus looked over to the table, which was now not only swarming with students, but with professors alike, their faces contorted with discomposure. "Once you left, he got up from the table, walked over to him—" the rest was choked out through gritted teeth, "—the git pointed his wand and said some fucking spell — a Dark one, let me tell you, — and walked out."

       Rose frowned.

              Albus looked at her then, the same expression on his face  that had been on John's at breakfast, before all this mess. "He did it for you."

     There was a sudden pause in which Rose was too afraid to look Albus in the eye.

          "And you know what the worst fucking part is, Rosie?" Potter continued, oblivious to her inner turmoil, "He won't have anything held against him because of his father." He chuckled humourlessly. "He's got them fucking petrified."

             At that moment, Rose realised that she would not tell Albus anything about what she had carried all the way from the Owlery, now cramped in her fist like a bezoar. Betrayal seemed to seep through her skin and ooze out of her pores so vigorously that she was afraid Albus would scent it.

          And, most importantly, she would not tell Albus anything about the fact that the handwritten letter cramped in her fist like a bezoar had the same elaborately curved 'y's as Draco Malfoy's diary.

              Walking down to whatever her first lesson that day was — the witches feet carried her to the destination more out of habit rather than by conscious command — she pondered over the last time she felt truly connected to the two boys who have sat next to her since first year at the Hogwarts Gryffindor dining table. Was it last month or last week? Last year, perhaps? Her recollections of altruistic trust dissipated more and more after every encounter with Malfoy.

             Malfoy. The villain whose fault has finally been discovered. Malfoy, whom, like herself, Rose blamed gryffindorly for John's bleeding blind eyes, and, like herself, could never truly confront, for he was a force she didn't know how to hold within the palm of her hand without getting bubbling burns.

    The next moment, Rose walked straight into the rushing body of Professor Silkton, who, squeaking, softly collapsed to the floor of the dungeons underneath the weight of several wooden boxes, which, upon his fall, clattered dangerously with what seemed like glass.