Light in the Darkness

Chapter 37

After eating, Adelaide made her way to Philip's classroom. Once she had entered the room, the door loudly closed behind her and she was swept into a tight embrace. Much to her surprise Philip was in his own body for the first time this school year. 

He kept her there for a few moments, "Thank God you're ok. Don't ever scare me like that again." 

She smiled up at her brother and cooed, "Aw were you worried about me?" 

He laughed lightly and sat down his face growing back to its cold seriousness, "Don't get used to it, but first rule of business you are done with the task. I don't want you thinking about it, worrying about it, or doing anything involved with it. You should've never gotten into this mess in the first place, I should've protected you from all of this. You will have to go to the graveyard the night of the final, but that's it, nothing else. Perseus and I will handle it from here."

Part of her was tremendously relieved, but then she began to feel her heart race, "What about the Dark Lord...won't he be angry if I don't do my part?" she whispered, trying to shrink herself as much as possible.

"The Dark Lord will never know, besides you helped tremendously with the first task. You show your face the night of the final task and prove to him where your loyalties lie, he won't question a thing. You shouldn't have to put yourself in the hospital wing with stress to prove to everyone that you're on his side. Your work has been nothing less than admirable, mum and dad are extremely proud of you, you know."

to prove to him where your loyalties lie

Those words hit her like a brick wall. She never thought that she would be taking a side, she was just trying to survive. She didn't want to be on the Dark Lord's side, but the Mark on her arm proved otherwise.

She gave her brother a pained smile and forced out, "I'm glad. I wouldn't want to disappoint our parents or the Dark Lord...but I especially don't want to disappoint you."

She could see his eyes express pride and a tiny bit of warmth, but he kept a straight face. "Alright, well I have to take the Polyjuice Potion and get ready for class. I hate being this guy, he's disgusting. The only upside is torturing kids." 

She gave him a glare, rolled her eyes and turned around to leave the room.

---

Adelaide rolled out of bed early that Saturday and decided to make her way into the Slytherin Common Room. She noticed that Draco was sitting off to the side at an empty table with a wizard's chess board. She decided to take the empty seat across from him, "Would you like to play?"

He smirked, "We haven't played Wizards Chess since we were little. You sure you want to be crushed again?"

She scoffed, "What do you mean again? Draco, darling, I believe I have beat you in every game of Wizards Chess we've ever played." 

He giggled at this, "Yeah and it's kind of embarrassing..you'd think for how nice you are you would've let me win at least once." 

"Not a chance, pawn to E4." she smirked.

Draco loved watching her play chess or do anything that required strategy, planning, plotting, or thinking. Her entire demeanor would change and she would be completely focused on the task at hand. She was surprisingly competitive, which was unexpected at how gentle she usually was. She would get this evil smirk and a devilish look in her eye that promised complete annihilation. She also had this intoxicating composure that made her look stately and powerful. The most attractive part to Draco was the way she'd play mind games with her opponent as they made their move. She would tilt her head, bite her lip, raise an eyebrow, shift her posture, or make a 'hm' noise that was guaranteed to make you second guess your entire strategy and mess up. Simply, underestimating her was the worst thing you could do, especially when playing chess.