dislike ↠ draco malfoy

thirty-eight

December came quickly. Soon, the air turned cold and snow began to fall on the grounds of Hogwarts. Snape was actually letting us go home for Christmas, so I immediately sent an owl to my dad and told him that I would be on the train home soon.

On the twentieth of December, we took carriages to Hogsmeade Station and got onto the Hogwarts Express to go home.

I lugged my trunk behind me through the snow. I had packed basically everything, as I didn't even know if my dad would want me to go back to Hogwarts. I certainly wanted to, but my dad was very protective of me. Even if he didn't, I was eighteen now. A legal adult.

"Need some help with that?" Draco asked. Him, Blaise, and Pansy were behind me. We were all going back home for the holidays.

"Thanks," I murmured as he picked up my trunk with ease and carried it onto the train.

"Draco!" Pansy called. "I need help too!"

I looked over at her. She was wearing a long sleeved black dress and tights. It definitely wasn't enough clothing for this cold of weather. Her hair was covered in snow and she was shivering.

"Blaise," I said, "help Pansy with her trunk."

"I'm good," he replied and pushed past us and followed Draco into the train.

I rolled my eyes. "Jerk," I muttered under my breath. I turned back toward Pansy. "We can probably carry it together, Pansy." I grabbed one side of her trunk.

"Thank you," she said and together we carried to trunk onto the train.

We pushed through everyone in the corridor and went into our compartment at the back of the train. Draco and Blaise were already sitting in it. I took a seat next to Draco and Pansy slid in next to Blaise.

"The weather's awful," Pansy muttered, wrapping her shawl around her. She was still shivering.

"You should have worn warmer clothes, Pansy," I said.

Pansy frowned at me. "But winter clothes are so ugly."

We shifted in our seats as the train began to move forward. We had a long journey ahead of us.

We conversed in quiet voices for a few minutes. We talked about what we were doing for the holidays, though as there was sort of an evil Dark Wizard trying to take over, we weren't doing anything exciting.

Suddenly, about twenty minutes through the train ride, the train's brakes squealed loudly as it came to a halt. The lights flickered on and off.

"What's going on?" Pansy shrieked, wrapping her arms around her body protectively.

"Death Eaters," Draco muttered. "Just like at the start of the year."

My mind suddenly flashed back to the start of the year, when Death Eaters had come onto the train to look for Harry Potter.

"But what do they want?" I asked in a hushed voice. I looked out the window, which was covered in frost, but I couldn't see anything outside. "They know that Harry's not here."

"I don't know," he replied in a whisper. I could hear the concern in his voice.

There was commotion in the hallway. I heard a male voice, presumably a Death Eater, shout, "Where is the Lovegood girl?"

"Why are they looking for Luna?" I hissed, my eyes wide.

Draco stared at me, but didn't answer.

"No— You can't have her!" exclaimed another voice that I recognized as Neville's.

"Shut it, boy," said the man.

There was more commotion and indistinguishable voices from the corridor. Then, the door to our compartment slid open. The man looked around at all of us. "I'm looking for Evangeline Hastings."

My eyes widened. Why the hell were they looking for me?

"She's not here," Draco immediately said. "She stayed at school for Christmas." I caught my breath. He was going to cover for me.

"What are you talking about?" Pansy asked. She pointed to me. "She's right there."

I glared over at her. Was she really that stupid? "I'm not Evangeline," I said. I looked at her, trying to tell her with my eyes to lie.

"Of course you're Evangeline," she said, not understanding me. "What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

The man reached forward and grabbed me by the collar of my neck. "So this is Evangeline." He looked at Draco. "Why would you lie?"

Draco swallowed. "I— um..." he stuttered.

"Don't tell me you are trying to protect this girl?" the Death Eater said.

"Of course I'm not trying to protect her," he spat, as though he would never do such a thing. I frowned.

The Death Eater narrowed his eyes at him. "Then why did you say she wasn't here?"

"I-"

Before Draco could finish, the door opened and another Death Eater appeared in the doorway. "Hurry up, we need to go back."

"Where are you taking me?" I cried out. My neck was starting to hurt from his tight grip on the collar of my shirt.

The Death Eater grinned maliciously and put his face close to mine. I immediately tried to pull away, but his grip was so tight that I couldn't. He smelled strongly of Firewhiskey. "You'll see soon enough, sweetie."

I grimaced and bit back a gag. I looked back at Draco, and he mouthed, You'll be okay. I stared at him, expecting him to get up and do something about this, but he just stood there, doing nothing. He had a grim expression on his face.

The Death Eater pulled me away. Another Death Eater had Luna tightly in his grip. They dragged both of us off of the train.

The train started to move behind us. I had taken off my jacket on the train, so I shivered from the cold. Snow had begun to fall on the ground. We were in a large plain.

The Death Eater still had a firm grip on me. "We're Apparating."

Within a second, my vision went black and swirly and we disappeared from the snowy plains.