Salazar's Angel

IX

The next morning, as soon as Dahlia opens her eyes, she knows she's been caught. Pansy, Millicent, and Tracey all stand at the foot of her bed with crossed arms.

"Can I help you?" Dahlia asks, propping herself upright with her arms.

"Where did you get off to last night?" Pansy asks.

"The bathroom?" Dahlia tries, sliding out of bed and heading to her wardrobe.

Millicent shakes her head. "Nice try. I got up to go to the bathroom and that's when I noticed you weren't here...and you weren't there either."

"I did, in fact, get up to go to the bathroom. But then I was too hot to go back to sleep so I took a walk around the dungeons to get some air," Dahlia says, gathering some clothes at random.

"I don't believe it for two seconds." Pansy cocks an eyebrow.

Tracey slaps her on the arm. "Let it go, Pans. Maybe she's telling the truth."

"God, Tracey, sometimes I think you should have been a Hufflepuff." Pansy rolls her eyes. "We're going to get breakfast in the Great Hall if you want to join us. We have today off, since it's Sunday. Classes start tomorrow."

"I should change first. I might see you guys in a little bit," Dahlia says before they all head out.

She changes quickly into a pair of black sweatpants and a long sleeve green crop top. In addition to the clothes in the armoire, there is also a hefty stack of books cradled in the bottom. Dahlia grabs a few at random, and then makes her way out to one of the couches in the common room.

She is flipping through the third textbook of her stack for which she already knows all the material when she feels movement at the end of the couch. From the cold wind that followed them in she has a good guess as to who has just taken a seat with her before she even looks up.

"What do you want Malfoy?" Dahlia asks, snapping her book shut.

"There is no school today. Term hasn't even started. What could you possibly be studying for?" He asks, looking over the discarded books littered around her.

"I want to see what I know and what I don't know before the first day of classes, not that it's any of your business." Dahlia continues to hold his eye contact.

"You know, Dumbledore only has you stashed away here to keep you safe and out of the hands of the other side. It doesn't matter how you do in your classes. Also there's nothing they can teach you here that you don't already know," Draco says, also not willing to break the eye contact.

"Something tells me all the dark magic that was funneled into me last year isn't going to be of much help here." Dahlia cocks an eyebrow. 

"Maybe not here...but where it actually matters," Draco says.

Dahlia rolls her eyes. "I was a 4.0 student at my high school. While that means nothing to you, it does still mean something to me and I'm not ready to let that go...even if you don't have GPA's here. So can you leave me alone now? You already kept me up for half the night."

Draco scoffs, but stands. "Put some clothes on. You're dressed like a sodding floozy," He spits, before turning and walking out of the common room.