Rose Thorn ❖ (Draco Malfoy - Harry Potter Series)

6.05

Camille stood in a plain of blinding light; the in-between realm. 

     Katie Bell stepped away from her, backing into a white wall that seemed invisible against the plain of white, but even time and space had its edge.

     "Camille?" Katie gasped a little, "Where—Where are we?"

     "You need not be afraid, Katie Bell." Camille gave an alluring smile to the Gryffindor student. She'd never once spoke to her, only played against her in Quidditch once...in what felt like a different age...different life. "You are dead and now you know who I am."

     "Dead?" Katie shook her head. "How can...Are you dead too?"

     "I have come to collect you," Camille answered, "Though, I will be sending you back to the realm of the living."

     "Are you the Grim Reaper?"

     Camille laughed. "If you must. Tell me, do you remember how you died?"

     "It was Draco." Katie blurted out. "He gave me a necklace, he told me to give it to Dumbledore but I got curious, I wanted to see what it looked like. All I felt next was excruciating pain."

     Camille hummed. "It was cursed, Katie. Your curiosity is what killed you, not Draco Malfoy."

     "You say that because you love him." Katie looked stern...brave even. Camille almost laughed...such a noble Gryffindor. "You'd love him even if he were a monster...but will he love you if he knew you were the Grim Reaper?"

     "But then you forgot." Camille said, and willed her magic to delete the trace of this moment from the girl's mind and that Draco had given her the necklace. 

     It was dormant of course, but only someone who pressed her with the right facts would force the girl to remember. Camille doubted that very much...and before the girl could see Camille, she sent the girl back to the living world.

     Draco had sent the necklace. She had known. 

     She also knew that he had no inkling within him of desire to kill Katie Bell whether by accident or purpose. So, she saved him the immeasurable grief and self-pity he would've been given upon her death...so Death herself had sent Katie Bell back to the realm of the living.

⍟

Camille had been asleep when she was awoken by the Vanishing Cabinet's rattle. 

     Someone had sent something. It had been a while since the apple had come her way, so she stepped toward the cabinet and opened the doors but inside was not an apple. It was a bird...and it didn't make it through alive.

     Camille gave a sad smile. She let the magic leave her fingers, willing the creature back to life. The small bird chirped its first breath and she smiled to herself. With the bird of her shoulder, she ran to the small coffee table and began to write a note. If she were to have no friends in this asylum, to never leave her room ever, then this person may be her only friend. A pen-pal.

Your bird did not make it,

So I brought him back for you.

C.G.

     She rolled the tiny bit of parchment and placed it inside the bird's mouth. She gently placed the creature inside the cabinet. She waved her wand and let the bird return to whoever had sent it. She knew it would not die in its path...she'd fixed her cabinet a couple weeks back already, it was fully functioning but the partner that she was receiving stuff from, Grindelwald told her she must wait for its owner to fix it.

⍟

Draco stared at the bird that returned and read the little note once...twice. He huffed a little, exasperated by this Vanishing Cabinet. It was taking too much of his time and his grades were slipping. Snape hadn't spoken on Camille since he'd told him what he suspected but Harry...

     Ron Weasley stood beside him in the Astronomy Tower, hands in his pocket. Draco looked at him, letting the bird flutter off into the night sky as he tucked the note into his own pocket. "Weasley."

     "I saw Camille," Ron confessed, "Not the clone...the real Camille."

     Draco tightened his jaw, swallowed a gulp...his hands began to sweat. "Was she...is she okay?"

     "You must know, Draco..." Ron began, "That day in the Ministry of Magic, she was not there for us but because she was ordered by someone to retrieve a dark prophecy. I saw the power she wielded, dark magic. I don't judge her for it...I'm just frightened she will lose herself before we can get to her."

     Draco didn't know what to say. "When did you see her last?"

     "Christmas eve." Ron gave him a sad smile. "Bellatrix had appeared, she burnt our home to the ground. Camille turned up in a storm of purple and darkness, she threatened Bellatrix and then..." –Ron swallowed— "Her grandfather is Grindelwald, one of the most powerful dark wizards of all time. He appeared beside her...pulling the strings of her mind, no doubt, manipulating her and I thought she wasn't lost but..."

      "But what?" Draco slowly asked.

      Ron shook his head. "Harry told her that you would despise what she has become and even I saw the light leave her eyes...you are the only thing keeping her hold on the light side...she believes you do not love her, that you see her as a monster...we may have lost her already."

     Draco was seething.

     He stormed past Ron, down the stairs until he found Harry Potter lounging in the alcove of the corridors talking with Hermione Granger and Daphne Greengrass who lay in the girl's lap. Draco gripped Harry's shirt and threw him hard upon the ground, hovering above him as he punched his jaw...then his cheek. He raised his hand again and again, shrugging off Hermione and Daphne who tried to pull him off.

     Ron held a wand to him. "Stop, Malfoy."

     Draco returned to look at Harry. His glasses were broken, his face bloody and beginning to bruise already. "You do not get to tell my girl how I feel about her, do you hear me?"

     Harry did not answer, perhaps he couldn't. Draco stood up and stepped back a step. Harry's blood was still wet on his fist. Draco ran his clean hand through his damp hair, catching his breath. Her was feeling the weight of everything ready to crash down upon him.

     Draco fled to the prefect's bathroom and cried. He cried and cried and spoke every last feeling and secret he held to Moaning Myrtle...

     Draco was so lost and so alone without Camille.

     He cried again.