XXXI. Worth Fighting For

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{Draco}

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{Draco}

     "WHERE WERE you?"
Blaise walked across the Slytherin common room with a wide grin on his face, righting himself on the lounge sofa across from me. "Wasn't too hungry," I shrugged while concealing a letter I had just received into my pocket. "Well," Blaise clicked his tongue, "I had to spend all evening listening to Pansy and those other gits' incessant complaining about what happened at Umbridge's office today. You were there; what's your unbiased view on how things went down?"

"The pesky Gryffindors outsmarted us and got away," I frowned and took another large swing of firewhiskey. The liquid burned but I forced it down anyways, assuming I'd grow accustomed to it after a while.

"Whoa, mate- slow down, how'd you nab that?"

"Off a seventh year," I said, forcing a smile for a second before letting it drop.

"What's got your wand in a knot?" he asked with raised eyebrows. A dark chuckle escaped my throat and I sighed.

"I don't... feel up to discussing it."

Blaise paused. "That's fair." He stood up and patted my back on his way to our dorm. "You know I'm here for you, mate. Anytime."

I glanced up at his face and nodded, "Yeah, Zabini. I know."

Once he was out of sight, I brought the letter back out and read its contents for the third time. Then a fourth and a fifth, rereading until the firewhiskey bottle was halfway finished. At the bottom of the page, it was signed -in a scribbled sort of font that barely left space between words- by 'Auntie Bella'.

A familiar pressure filled my chest and I let out a frustrated noise, throwing the paper right into the fireplace.

I sank down to the cold, marble floor and watched numbly as the paper's corners curled up and burnt into nothing but ashes.

The letter consisted of Bellatrix boasting about how the Dark Lord was luring Harry Potter into a trap at that very moment. How the half-blood would be dead before sunrise, along with anyone else who dared try and assist him. It was delivered to me the minute I arrived in the common room, sealed by a wax Malfoy family crest. The one made from presses in my father's home study.

I felt sick.

Rumors about where the Gryffindors -and Lovegood- snuck off to spread throughout the school like wildfire. Most Slytherins speculated it had something to do with the Dark Lord's supposed return, considering many had Death Eater associations. Pansy found me almost an hour later and offered her own theories, as if I cared what she thought.

It wasn't until nearly five in the morning, when Inquisitorial Squad members were contacted by a frantic Professor Umbridge, that we received word of Potter and his friends' arrival back at Hogwarts. We were to report in her office immediately to vouch for her time as headmistress, seeing as the Ministry wished to have her suspended.

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