𝗔𝗹𝗹𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 | 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗼 𝗥𝗶𝗱𝗱𝗹𝗲

𝒞𝒽𝒶𝓅𝓉𝑒𝓇 𝒯𝒽𝒾𝓇𝓉𝓎

The Page

Draco's POV:
I was absolutely thrilled to have finally arrived at the black lake, after hearing Blaise and his incessant complaints about being hungry and tired.
"If you don't shut the hell up, I swear to god." I roll my eyes.
"I'm hungry, I keep thinking about mash potatoes.. and gravy.. fuck, the gravy they serve in the canteen is insane oh my god." He licks his lips.
"How about, we focus on finding the book, and curing Vivienne, and not your fucking stomach for once!" I stomp in front of him.
"Or, I could eat mash potatoes, with gravy, WHILE, she's being cured, it'll be like watching  a horror movie." He laughs.
"Are you fucking for real?" I furrow my brows.
"Draco, she's gonna be ok, I know she is, also I'm just bantering, chillax my dude." He smiles.

Blaise scuffs and drags his feet behind me, as we approach the large tree by the water. We carefully moved the rocks, trying to find the right one that was marked with an X. I'm not going to lie, it took around ten minutes of searching, and we couldn't find the rock, but it didn't matter, because there it was... The book. It was underneath some smaller rocks, and it was all wet, covered in mud.

"There it is!" I loudly groan, bending down to pick it up from the damp, cold mud and rocks.
"Fuck, it's all wet, and musty, is it still good?" Blaise asks.
"I hope so, let's find out." I clear my throat, and slowly flick through the wet pages, I then start to panic.

"Where's the page?" I furrow my brows.
"What are you talking about?" He raises an eyebrow, with his hands on his hips.
"The page, where's the fucking blank page?!" I speak loudly, flicking through the book aggressively.
"Oh god, no way!" Blaise opens his arms wide, before dropping them to his sides.
"Blaise.." I widen my eyes, as I get to the end of the book, noticing a small tiny piece of paper that was at the top of the corner.
"It's been ripped out." I close my eyes.
"Are you kidding me?!" He huffs. I shut the book, throwing it on the ground, forcefully.

"Draco, don't!" Blaise groans, picking it back up from the ground.
"Snape needs to hurry up and find his friend, otherwise Vivienne is doomed." I sigh. I take the book back from Blaise, placing it my pocket, and we walk back to Hogwarts.

________________

As soon as we arrived, we walk through the front gate, and we saw Theo, and Enzo, running around frantically.
"What the hell is going on?" I ask.
"Vivienne escaped, she ran away!" Enzo pants, completely out of breath.
"How exactly, did that happen?!" I shout. It was just one problem on top of the other, absolute chaos.
"Draco, did you find the book? Please tell me you found it?!" Theo widens his eyes with worry.
"We did, but there's a problem.. the page.." I close my eyes, and rub my forehead.
"What? Tell me!" He speaks loudly.
"The fucking blank page is gone Theo, it's been ripped out." I look into his eyes intently.
"No.." His breathing quickens, and he screams at the top of his lungs.
"FUUUCK!!"

"Theo calm down, we still have to wait for Snape to come back with Regulus, hopefully then we can still cure her, even if it's without the page." I say.
"You're right.. But what if he doesn't come back with him? Then she's totally screwed." His lip quivers.
"Let's just find Vivienne, that's the priority right now." I put my hand on his shoulder to calm him down. He nods agreeably.

________________

It didn't take us long to locate Vivienne. Inside the great hall, she darted about in a frenzied state, her screams piercing the air as she attempted to lash out at other students. Witnessing her in such distress was gut-wrenching. The curse was intensifying, morphing into a full-fledged crisis, and with the missing blank page, it seemed as though the situation had spiraled beyond hope of resolution.