Someone to save me | Harry Potter

Chapter Forty-Four

"What does this thing even look like?" I asked, stepping over one of the various random items laying around the room of requirement. The last time I was in here was when we were practicing for Dumbledore's Army, now the thing was like a hoarders paradise. There were empty picture frames laying around on the ground, bits and bobs lying on scuffed wooden tables, and enough books to make Hermione swoon. And trying to find this damn cabinet was like looking for a needle in a hay stack. 

"It's black, with a sort of jutted out triangular door." Draco answered as he continued leading me through the endless maze of junk. 

It's been a couple of weeks since the whole incident with Harry and since Dumbledore alerted me he knew of his untimely death at the hands of Draco and myself, and things still weren't getting any better. Majority of Gryffindor still ignored me or coward at the sight of me walking through the door. Ginny talks to me on occasion, mostly about quidditch since I let her take over my spot on the team. And Hermione has started to warm up to me as well, and we've worked on our homework a few times together in the dorm. 

But other than that, everyone else in the tower has been weary that I'm a potential death eater.( I mean I am, but they don't need to know that) Most of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw feel about the same, and I've spent so much time down in the dungeons with the Slytherins, they've started treating me like one of their own. Damian and Draco have been my saving grace since everything that happened with Harry, I had to practically tackle Damian to the ground to keep him from beating him into the ground after he found out. Draco suggested I just let him, but Draco would do anything to cause harm to Harry. I figured the hatred between the two would have died down after a couple of years, the complete opposite happened. 

So now here we were, searching through the randomness of the room of requirement for this damn cabinet we were meant to fix. Charms wasn't my expertise of magic, so I had no clue where we were supposed to start. I guess finding it first was a good starting point. "Found it!" Draco called over, I could see him a ways ahead pulling a white sheet off a tall structure. 

"Do you know what you're doing?" I asked him. Draco pulled out his wand and shrugged his shoulders. 

"Mother suggested a few spells that I try, and Aunt Bellatrix slipped me a few as well." 

"Knowing her she'll have us blowing the cabinet up before we even get a chance to fix it." I said. Although failing at fixing this thing might just be a blessing, the less death eaters running around Hogwarts the better. 

~

Draco and I spent what felt like forever trying spell after spell on this thing, with no such luck. Draco was getting more and more agitated as time went on and at one point I thought he was going to send the cabinet flying through the window. 

"There has to be another way." Draco mumbled to himself as he slid down the front of a table to the floor. 

"Come on Draco, let's head down to dinner. We've done enough for tonight." I said, trying to pull him to his feet which caused him to just shrug me off.  "Draco you haven't eaten all day."

"Neither have you." He whispered, looking past me to the dark cabinet standing behind me. He was right, I haven't been eating a whole lot recently either, I've lost about ten pounds and my robes were practically falling off of me. I hated that this stress was physically visible for everyone to see, making it harder to hide from everyone that something was wrong. 

"There just has to be something else." Draco once again mumbled quietly to himself, while bagging his head against the table. "Draco stop it!" I growled, once again attempting to get him off the floor, Draco still wasn't having it.

"NO!" He blew up, leaping to his feet. "I won't stop Ali, I have to do this!" 

"Maybe it's a good thing if we can't do this. Than Dumbledore won't have to die." I said, trying to reason with him even though I knew it was a lost cause. Dumbledore was cursed by something and was dying anyway, and I had a feeling Voldemort would find a way to get the death eaters inside anyway regardless of what we did. 

"Yeah, but I'll die. My mother too more than likely. You'll be fine, you're too valuable. Is that what you want huh? You want to see me and my family killed?" Draco's voice was raising with every word, and my eyes watered at the thought of losing him. 

"No Draco, No I do not want you to be killed. You should know better than to think that."

"Well that's what will happen if we don't do this! He will kill me." At this point Draco was whimpering, eyes filled with tears at the mere thought of death. I didn't fear dying, I never have. I couldn't say the same for Draco though.

"I don't want to die Ali, I don't want to die." He crumpled to the floor in a heap of blonde hair and long limbs and was soon sobbing at the feet of the cabinet, our mission that was now real and standing in front of us. Before it was all in our heads, all hypothetical of what was needed of us. But now it was right here, and neither of us were exactly sure what we were doing. 

I bent down and wrapped my arms around my hysterical best friend, the young man who was so much more sensitive that anyone knew. I kissed the top of his head as he clutched onto my arms for support. I hummed a soft tune to him, a muggle one that he had grown accustomed to when he had fits like this. I wasn't lying when I said our summer was a rough one, Draco had terrible nightmares and it took me weeks to figure out how to calm him down. 

It took ten minutes before Draco had calmed down enough to speak.

"I took the dark mark for my family, my father would call me a coward if he knew I acted this way." Draco sniffled. I kissed the top of his head again.

"I did the same thing Draco, I did all of this to protect everyone I love and that includes you. You aren't a coward for not wanting to die, its a logical fear." 

Draco pulled himself from me before standing and staring at the cabinet once more. "There has to be something else, something else we can do if this doesn't work." He said before turning around to face me, I stood and pulled the cabinet door open with a sigh. Dumbledore was fine with dying, he knew his end was near, but that didn't mean two young kids should be the ones to do it. 

"I'll think of something, I promise you I'll think of something." I told him. 

After we left the room of requirement I spent the next six hours in the Slytherin common room brainstorming ideas of what we could do if the cabinet failed, none of them were pretty, none of them were easy, but I couldn't let us fail...I couldn't let the reason that our families and friends die become our fault, neither of us could live with that.