Salazar's Angel

XVI

Dahlia spends the rest of the day holed up in her room, studying her textbooks for any sort of charm that could possibly diminish the appearance of the hickeys to no avail. Thankfully, when her roommates come stumbling in around three in the afternoon, they all plow face first into their beds and fall right asleep without even so much as a glance at her. Just to be safe Dahlia draws the black curtains closed around her four poster before diving back into her books.

When she awakes the next morning, a Sunday, the appearance of her neck has faded just enough that her muggle make up can hide the problem almost entirely. She still decides the wear her hair down for the day, just in case. On a normal Sunday at home she would have woken up, eaten breakfast, put on a dress, and gone to church with her parents. Oh, her parents. She missed them so much.

When Voldemort took her last year, or his Death Eater lackeys to be more exact, they cast some sort of spell on her entire family...obliviate she thinks it was called. It made her parents forget her existence entirely, which in hindsight was probably the best for them. She hadn't seen or heard from them in over a year, but Dumbledore had taken to periodically reassuring her that they were doing alright during her time in between Voldemort's watch and Hogwarts that she had spent at some Ministry of Magic sponsored tenement housing. 

Thinking of her parents first thing in the morning fills her with such melancholy emotions that she resigns to stay in bed all day, which she does, curtains drawn shut. The emotions slowly wear off over the course of the following week at about the same speed as the marks on her neck, leaving her feeling like there is a gray cloud surrounding her that is slowly being blown away. She eats most of her meals with her roommates, usually Pansy specifically. 

Apparently it appears that Pansy was already so far gone when she walked in on Dahlia and Malfoy that by the time she got back to where she came from she had entirely forgotten what she saw. Small mercies. Draco on the other hand had appeared to forget nothing. Dahlia managed to avoid any actual contact with him, despite their sharing most classes. However, any time she did make the mistake of allowing herself a fleeting glance he was always, always giving her some sort of inscrutable look.

He was gone over the entire next weekend, back to the Manor Dahlia assumed. The following Friday morning of the next week, Dahlia was sitting in potions and considering excusing herself from Snape's class due to the borderline unbearable pain in her arm when he finally showed back up.

When he walked into Snape's class early Friday morning, his appearance made Dahlia audibly gasp. It had only been two weeks since she last saw him, but he looked like he was fresh out of spending a few months in jail. He was paler than she remembered, and he had dark purple circles underneath his eyes. His feeble state, however, did not prevent him from glaring at Dahlia.

The second Snape's mouth snaps shut at the end of his lecture, Draco is out the door before Dahlia has a chance to even catch another glimpse of his face. 

"What's with him?" Dahlia asks, nodding her head at the door through which he just flew.

Pansy shrugs, gathering up her books. "Beats the living hell out of me. He's just like this sometimes. Seems to be worse than usual this year though..."

After Dahlia's last class of the day she returns to her room. As she is changing into a pair of black leggings and a dark green zip up, Draco's black button up tumbles out of her armoire. Scooping it off the floor she decides to use it as an opportunity to talk to him. 

She climbs up the short set of stairs to his room and knocks on the door, knowing that at least one of his roommates was sure to be around. And sure enough, when the door swings open, it's Nott standing on the other side.