Silence is Deafening

Chapter 14

The next morning I sat in the common room and waited for Professor Snape to find me. It had been an hour since I had awoken, and I was nervous about what my punishment would be. Remus would kill me if I had been expelled. He's not the type to yell, but he would most definitely scream at me. Tonks would be so disappointed. All of my friends that I had made would probably never speak to me again.

I waited for almost two hours. It was now 8 in the morning, and Slytherin house was beginning to wake up.

Suddenly I saw a shock of blonde hair out of the corner of my eye. Draco was there, dressed in all black. He walked around the common room and headed toward the door. I knew where he was going, but I didn't care. My time at Hogwarts was almost over. I watched him go and realized that I was almost going to miss him. As rude and mean as he was, I was starting to think of him as an acquaintance.

Draco turned around and made eye contact with me. He tilted his head toward the door in a gesture so quickly I thought I had missed it. Was he seriously asking me to go with him? After I had hexed his girlfriend less than 12 hours ago?

But he was looking at me with a passive look. He didn't look angry.

I glanced around the common room to make sure no one was watching me. I got to my feet and followed him into the corridor. Once I had slipped from the door, I looked ahead to see that Draco was already 10 paces in front of me. I almost had to jog to catch up.

"Where are we going?" I asked him, and he snorted.

"Where do you think, Clarke?" He said in a condescending tone.

"Wait...you can't really still want my help?" I asked, as we were now basically running up the stone steps. Draco didn't respond until we had reached the 7th floor. He looked to see that no one was in the halls and walked toward the empty wall that I knew the door would appear on.

He stood in front of the wall, closed his eyes momentarily, and suddenly the door appeared. He grabbed the handle and opened it and then looked at me.

"Come on." he said impatiently, gesturing to the room. I walked through the open door, and he shut it after us. Without hesitating, he walked over to the cabinet.

"You didn't answer me." I said sternly, stopping in my tracks. He didn't look up as he was pulling the cover off of the cabinet.

"Why wouldn't I want your help?" Draco said in a dull voice. I shrugged before I realized he wasn't looking at me.

"I hexed your girlfriend." I said, and I couldn't  hide the bitter edge in my voice. Draco stopped quickly, spinning around so fast and staring at me indignantly.

"Girlfriend? Pansy is not my girlfriend." He said angrily.

"Sorry, on again off again girlfriend." I replied, crossing my arms across my chest and looking at him heatedly.

"We've dated a few times. So what? What does that have anything to do with this?" Draco asked, his voice raising.

"Why am I helping you? Why not ask Pansy?" I demanded. Draco paused for only a short moment to ponder this.

"Pansy is dim. She wouldn't be able to learn." He replied, but I had the feeling he was hiding something.

"She's older than me. She knows more. Why me, Draco?" I asked, and he clenched his jaw.

"I told you already. Why are you pestering me about Pansy, who isn't even my girlfriend. Last I checked, I wasn't snogging her against a wall in the middle of the night." he shot, and my jaw dropped in horror.