𝐚 𝐝𝐫𝐨𝐩 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐜𝐞𝐚𝐧 {a Draco Malfoy story}

chapter forty-four

Draco

     After nearly a month of not hearing from or seeing Rose, I finally got the news. 

     I had attempted to write her on several different occasions. Every single time that I did, I got a letter back saying she was feeling sick and that I shouldn't visit. So, when my father barged into my room and told me that Rose wasn't on the Hogwarts Express, I knew something was wrong.

     So, I did the only thing I though was right.

     I barged into Hogwarts.

+++

     I bursted into the common room, knocking over a first year and then opening the door to Blaise's and I's old dorm. I whipped out my wand. "Where is she," I threateningly asked.

     Blaise backed up. "Who?"

     "You know who I'm talking about. Rosalind isn't at Hogwarts." If he had anything to do with Rose not being at Hogwarts....

     "She isn't... what? Why would I know where she is?"

     "She's been staying with you for the past month, Zabini, are you daft?" I asked, lowering my wand slightly. Blaise shook his head.

     "No, she left the day after she came. Pansy told us she went to the manor. I don't know anything else, mate, I'm sorry."

    Pansy. She probably knows something.

     I put my wand back into my pocket and hurried back down into the common room. Pansy was sitting on a sofa with a novel in her hand and her glasses on the bridge of her nose. "She never came to my house," I told her.

     "Then I don't know where she could be."

     Only then did I begin panicking. I put all my weight against a wall and put my hand over my chest, regulating my breathing. She wasn't at Hogwarts and she definitely wasn't at Blaise or I's house.

     For all I know, she was currently lying in the middle of a forest, dead. "She's alive, you know."

     I quickly turned to watch Pansy. "How was she writing to me?"

     "That may have been me."

     I cringed as I realized how many... rather special letters Pansy had read by now. "Parkinson, do you know where she is?"

     She shut her book and got up, walking past me and to the girl's dormitory. "My best bet is Potter."

     "How in the bloody hell do you know?"

     "You forget that I'm her best friend, Draco. She wrote to me with Weasley's owl. Never mentioned location, but I reckon I'm right."

     I looked towards the ground as a dark, grey sky overtook the sun. "I can't do anything about it, can I?"

     Pansy rubbed my shoulder. "I'm sure she's okay. She had everything planned out."

     How could she not tell me? I intertwined my hands together and placed them on my head and I paced around the common room. Was something wrong? I thought Rose knew that if she ever needed anything, I would've been there for her. Helped her. I left the common room without saying bye and walked towards the gate.

     Professor Snape - well, Headmaster - was walking out of his office. I hid before he could see me, and accidentally bumped into Lovegood on the way back. "Sorry about that, Lovegood."

     "Me?" she asked uncertainly, pointing at herself.

     "Yes?"

     "Oh. Thank you, Draco," she said in a dreamy voice. She skipped down the corridors and left. I apparated out as soon as I got to Hogsmead and went back to the manor. As soon as I got there, my father dragged me by the collar into the dining room. It was dark - darker than it had ever been, lit only by firelight.