The Girl Who Lived ☆ D. MALFOY

Chapter 59

A/N- hey guys! i said this already in my announcements, but i have a wrist injury lol. so this chapter is not the best and it likely has many spelling/grammar errors, but i wanted to try updating more often. enjoy!

Word Count: 1540

Over the rest of the month of August, things around Grimmauld Place had changed drastically. Everyone was quieter, especially myself, and we had seemingly gotten the hang of living in hiding. I spent most of the time confined to the drawing-room in my sleeping bag, reading the same book over and over again. While my mannerisms were almost unrecognizable, and I spent more time thinking over my dreams than focused on reality, nothing had faced a more drastic change than Kreacher the house-elf.

I had, once again, been seated in the corner of the drawing-room with my eyes staring unfocusing onto a random page of The Merchant of Venice when Kreacher came shuffling into the room wearing a fluffy white towel, Regulus's locket bouncing on his chest, and no longer covered in a layer of grime.

"Miss Y/n," he said from a few feet in front of me, bent at the waist in a low bow, "Master Harry requests your presence. Dinner will be ready in a moment."

I still don't understand why he bowed to me. He never bowed to Ron or Hermione, and he wasn't bound to me like he was Harry, so why?

"Thank you, Kreacher," I said with a small smile rather than voicing my confusion. "I'll be down in a moment."

He bowed again, taking his leave as I stood slowly to place my book back in my bag that I had yet to unpack just in case we had to leave at a moments notice. Though the Black family house was cosier than ever, the feeling of anxiety never left any of us. Along with it, a feeling of dread.

"Y/n, come look at this," said Harry once I entered the kitchen where the other three were seated around the table, not even looking up at me when I arrived. They seemed far more focused on the paper sitting in between the three of them. The headline read:

SEVERUS SNAPE CONFIRMED AS HOGWARTS HEADMASTER

"That's outrageous!" I cried upon reading it. The others nodded solemnly, looking even more angered than I was.

"So, Harry, what else happened today?" Hermione said after thanking Kreacher who had handed her a bowl of soup.

"Nothing," said Harry, pushing a bowl of soup toward me when I didn't go to grab it myself. "Watched the Ministry entrance for seven hours. No sign of her. Saw your dad, though, Ron. He looks fine."

I zoned out as they continued talking about and arguing over the same plan we've been reviewing for weeks and my soup lay untouched in front of me. I stared at the table, once again drowning myself in my thoughts. The voices of my friends became distant static as the same sentence echoed in my head, pushing my already abundant number of worried thoughts to the side and stretching the seams of my mind to their breaking point.

"She is for the Dark Lord!"

Not a day passed that my head didn't ache constantly from the tension in my shoulders and my lack of sleep. No matter how informative my dreams might have been, I was scared to sleep. Scared to learn more whether it was real or not.

"I think we should do it tomorrow," said Harry suddenly, and my head snapped up to stare at him incredulously. Hermione stopped in the middle of whatever she'd been saying, her jaw hanging slack. Ron choked on his soup.

"Tomorrow?" repeated Hermione. "You aren't serious, Harry?"

"I am," he answered. "I don't think we're going to be much better prepared than we are now even if we skulk around the Ministry entrance for another month. The longer we put it of, the farther away that locket could be. There's already a good chance Umbitch has chucked it away; the thing doesn't open."