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Chapter : 22 A Night to Remember

          It was half past 6, and I had to meet Draco in like half an hour. I was sitting in a corner of the common room, reading a book when Hermione came and timidly sat down on a chair beside me. She was twiddling her hair in her hands nervously. Exasperated, I shut my book with a smack and turned to her,

'Okay Hermione, spit it out. You're angry with me for hiding the fact that I was a death eater from you. And you're thinking how could there be a death eater in Gryffindor. Honestly, even I don't know that. I did not tell you that I was a death eater because I know what you think of them, and I didn't want you to hate me because of that.' After a small pause, she said,

'Ava, I just want to know one thing. How long have you been a death eater?'

'Ever since I was born.' And with that she gave a slight nod and walked away. I couldn't blame her, I knew it would take some time to digest that fact. I got up and decided to make my way to Draco.

          I saw him standing at the end of the corridor with a little girl next to him.

'Hey Ava, I would like you to meet.... Crabbe', he said with a glint in his eyes. WHAT! This little girl was Crabbe! I couldn't believe my eyes and ears. I just looked at him like he was crazy. There was no way a little girl like that could have been Crabbe, but maybe,

'Is it polyjuice potion?'

'Not bad, Greene. Come on then, he will keep a lookout for us,' he said and proceeded to walk up and down the corridor, in deep thought. I didn't interrupt him, because I knew what he was doing. He was trying to get into the Room of Requirement, and in order to do that, you had to think hard of what you wanted the room to become.

          Soon a door appeared in front of us and we both entered. He asked me to follow him, and found his way among the different objects which were lying about, to a large cabinet. Then he turned to me,

'So what do you think? Its almost done, I think, just a few more tweaks and it will be ready. Very soon, death eaters will enter the school through this'. He had a worried look when he said this, so I gripped his hand assuringly.

'It will work, I believe in you'.

'It has to, I don't have much time left. Let me show you how it works', he then took an apple from his pocket and placed it inside the cabinet, closed it, then waited for a few seconds and opened it. The apple had disappeared.

          He closed it again, took a deep breath and opened it, the apple was back, but someone had bitten it on one side. He looked thrilled that it had worked, so thrilled he picked me up in his arms and twirled me around.

'Its fixed! Look, the apple was bitten by Borgin from the other end of the passage. Now all I have to do is send word to the others', then slowly his face fell, I immediately grabbed his hands in mine.

'You've done great Draco. Now how about our date. Don't you think we should go now, so that we can reach there without getting caught?' His face broke into a grin, and we walked out of the room. Malfoy dismissed Crabbe and we carefully made our way to the giant doors which led to the grounds, keeping an eye out for Professor Filch or Mrs. Norris or even Peeves, the school poltergeist.

          We finally made it into the grounds, Draco's arm hanging over my shoulder. We had decided not to take a picnic since we would have to clear it all up later. But, Draco managed to nick a bottle of firewhiskey from the kitchens.

'Draco, for this one night, let's forget about everything. Let's just be together and talk about ourselves. Besides, you deserve a proper break from all the hard work you put in to fix that cabinet', in response, he gave me a smirk, one that I had come to love.