Living Death

- chapter twenty

It had been days since you had seen Draco and that sinking dread and upset felt ever heavy in your stomach. You had to see him again. Maybe this time he wouldn't be as downcast, maybe you'd catch him smiling to himself or at least taking care of himself some how. Snape's warning had only reminded you that he would walk the castle by himself when he was sad. Surely you catch another glimpse of him.

You let your hair fall in front of your face a little and before you knew it you were walking down the corridor, praying that Snape was otherwise engaged with his other duties and telling yourself it was too late to turn back and behave for once. You were looking around a little, it was during educational hours but you knew few students would be roaming the castle at this time, if at all, as they'd all be in lessons right now. In your haste you had forgotten to pull up your hood, quickly doing so the moment you realised.

But unknowing to you, a certain boy who lived had already seen you.

Draco was ahead of you and you had seen him leave a classroom alone, Theo and Pansy watching him leave the opposite way to them and letting him go alone. You smiled softly to yourself, hid behind a stone column, you had missed your friends and although it was just a brief encounter, you were thankful you had got to see a glance of them at least. They must've been bunking off to watch the Quidditch trails or something. Draco was heading straight for the Room of Requirement as he always did and you made sure you were far enough back for him not to notice you, or even suspect someone was behind him.

You paused briefly before you turned the final corner, noticing Draco was stood before the Room of Requirement, attempting to access it. Once you were certain he was inside the room and somewhat deeper into it, you headed up to where he had entered and prayed he had let you in again and you heard that click of metal, letting you know you had been successful. In your happiness you didn't hear a quickening pace behind you until it was too late, you turned to the sudden noise and briefly locked eyes with him. Harry. The door shut mere seconds later and you knew he would be locked out now, unable to access the room, leaving you no time to explain. You attempted to leave the room quickly, hoping Harry would still be there so you could stun him with a spell and the others would think he was imagining things if he mentioned you. You made it out but the corridor was empty and you caught a glimpse of some long red hair turning the corner further up, with Harry in tow. Ginny. Neither of them looked back at you but you knew Harry had already seen you.

Fuck.

You slipped back into the Room of Requirement and leant up against the now closed door, eyes widened. You were in deep trouble. You didn't know whether to run back to your room and hide or stay here and utilise your possible last taste of freedom. You knew Snape always threatened to kill you whenever you got into a situation now but even you knew physically he couldn't. If he did, he would die too, you could say that was the perks of him having made the Unbreakable Vow with Narcissa but if he found out about this, maybe the Cruciatus curse would be the next best option for him. You had to make use of this moment, before things got worse, mentally telling yourself you would behave and follow every instruction after this one moment.

The room remained in its storage state and you wondered why Draco had let it appear in this form to him, maybe he found it easier to hide away and be alone when it was like this. You slowly walked through the room, biting your lip firmly. Of course, Harry seeing you was bad but if you ruined it all even more now, and let Draco see you then you would find yourself in an even more serious situation.

You noticed the chair Draco had resided in last time was empty but near to it you saw his tall figure, standing, facing away from you and seemingly looking through some book or album. You squinted to try and make out what it was he was looking at and saw some year group photos. He appeared to be on the second year page, and his fingers ran over the photo slowly as it moved. A sad but fond smile appearing on his face. A smile at least. You smiled softly to yourself, squatting behind a nearby cabinet.