the girl with all of the choices

o n e h u n d r e d o n e

9414 words

november twenty-second- another one bites the dust

~ Addison ~

I was surprised that it was working.

The plan that Draco and I had come up with was working. 

There was initially some negative feedback once Draco had explained what he had heard, but after Neville affirmed that they were going to tell everyone the same thing, their qualms seemed to dissipate immediately. Every single pureblood seventh-year agreed to Occlumency training, which had started without any trouble. 

My Slytherin had been teaching me the spells as if he had been doing them his whole life. It was brilliant. He was brilliant. I had started to teach them in meetings and everyone seemed to be responding brilliantly. 

Once we explained what was at stake, nobody seemed to hesitate. They didn't care that it was ethically grey magic. They all seemed to understand that lives were on the line. It was more than I ever could have wished for.

The procurement program seemed to have stalled. We hadn't heard of many cases of people being stolen and marked. The last one we had heard of was Millicent Bulstrode back at the beginning of the month, right after we had started our plan. Unfortunately, that probably meant that more people would go down any minute. It was only a matter of time before another one bit the dust.

My friends had all expressed their pride in both my efforts and Draco's willingness to help. I didn't quite understand the second part of it. They knew he was a good person. They knew that he didn't want to be one of them. Why they didn't think he would ever help the DA and by extension the Order, I didn't know.

My friends were steadily becoming his friends. They would come back to the Room with us after meetings every so often. Every day, a new group of people was in the Room with us for lunch. Sometimes they would come up after dinner and we would hang out and just talk, have fun.

If his friends weren't with us, he wouldn't talk much. But my friends would talk to him. Fawn and he had really hit it off. I knew that they were somewhat friendly after everything that had happened with the Carrows, but I didn't expect them to laugh together. They would make jokes about Merlin knew what, and it would usually end with Fawn toppled over trying to catch her breath and Draco trying to suppress his chuckles. 

Ainsley and he would make small talk until he couldn't handle her smiles, but I had still caught them having genuine conversations from time to time. He and Justin would only talk when they had to, sharing brief words that probably didn't include much substance; however, I had seen Justin smile once after Draco made a comment. Ernie and he seemed to get along just fine, chatting every so often about Quidditch, usually. Hannah, just as I had expected, was the sweetest with him, and he was with her, showing his gratitude for the way she had stepped up for me back in fourth year. Matt was the most hesitant at first, most likely because of his protective nature over Hannah, but he had eventually come around too, always making fun of other people in witty ways with my Slytherin.

It made me the happiest girl in the world. 

His friends had also been around a lot. Not so much this past week, but the beginning of the month was filled with Slytherins. They would come over almost every night and drink. Theo was there every day. Blaise was there most of the time. Pansy was sporadic; I knew why, and it made my heart hurt. She had shown up to talk once since the beginning of the month about what happened. But she would come when she could, and that was all that mattered.