– Draco's pov –
"Wha– what are you doing here?" I asked, surprised, following Rolf hurriedly inside the castle.
"I wanted to fight for Hogwarts," said Rolf, putting a suitcase in his hand on the floor. As he opened the suitcase, I saw a ladder leading down to a hidden space that was formed by the "extension charm" that Hermione talked about. I stared down, shocked, my breathing still heavy.
"Are you coming down or not?" Rolf shouted and he was already at the bottom of the ladder, staring up at me.
Soon I reached another ground beneath the suitcase, another world full of mystical, magical creatures. The view was truly mesmerising and it totally made sense to me why so many witches and wizards desire the suitcase.
"This way!" But Rolf's shout reminded me of the reason I was in there. He hurried his steps and I followed from behind. We sprinted until we reached a giant tree.
"This... must be... Neshama." I spoke, panting from running. Rolf silently nodded, panting as well.
Neshama was remarkably enchanting. The aura enclosing the tree was so marvellous yet inexpressible.
"Well... what do we do first?" I asked, firmly grasping the soul trap. Rolf hesitated.
"Rolf..?" I asked again.
"I think maybe open the soul trap and show it to the tree..?"
"'I think maybe'?"
"I told you before I don't know everything! We just gotta give it a go."
"Give it a go? I thought you– you should have convinced your mother to tell you!"
"You are in no position to be talking to me like that," Rolf scoffed. "I am secretly helping you and by doing so I am literally running the risk of losing my family's heirloom and this is madness! Some sorcerers must have already noticed the presence of this suitcase and soon enough they will begin hunting down. So whatever we decide to do we must do it right now and make it fast," Rolf blurted out in frustration. "It's better to try and... fail than never to try at all, Malfoy."
"...You're right," I stared down at the soul trap. I carefully stepped towards Neshama and placed the soul trap on the ground, in front of the blue flames burning magically inside the trunk.
Then suddenly, with a loud whooshing sound, Neshama began moving. I watched it nervously and the ground started shaking as if there was an earthquake.
"Draco! Watch out!" Rolf pulled me and just as he did, Neshama's root explosively soared up from the ground right beneath the ground where my feet were a second ago. I gasped and we stumbled backwards.
"Is it working?" I shouted at Rolf.
"I don't know!" and Rolf shouted back with horror in his voice. Then Neshama curled its root and swallowed the soul trap, dragging it down into the ground. The next second, it was gone.
And there was complete silence.
"No, no no... No!" I darted towards the spot where I left the soul trap. "It just ate the trap! It's gone!" it was hard to speak with raspy breathing. Rolf didn't say anything but instead stared at the tree silently, frightened.
Gradually, the glowing lights from Neshama faded as well and soon it became nothing more than an ordinary tree.
"What? No..." Tears began blurring my vision. "What's happening..? I messed it up!" It was that crushing moment when I felt like everything meant nothing. I dropped on the ground on my knees.
I felt hopeless. I shook my head, unable to digest what just happened.
"NOOO!" I bellowed. My body couldn't resist the anger and bent forward, my forehead hitting the brutally cold ground. My hand formed a fist and I punched the ground, trembling uncontrollably. "I messed it up... I'm sorry Y/N..."
Tears burst out, and I could feel the ground dampen. Crowd footsteps approached and stopped.
"...Draco, what happened?" I heard Kyle's voice from behind and I felt my throat closing up.
– Kyle's pov –
When the rest of us followed them into the suitcase and reached a giant tree, Draco was crying with the force of a person vomiting. He screamed like he was being ripped off or murdered, murmuring the same sentence over and over, with hints of blood on his fist that .
"I... messed it up," he struggled with speaking. The tree in front of us stood indifferently. It wasn't hard to notice that something didn't go right.
We stood silently and mourned.
I knelt beside Draco and tried speaking to him. "Draco... we tried. let's–"
"Wait, what's that?" then asked Hermione. I looked over at her and she was pointing at the tree. I shifted my eyes to the tree and a small blue flame was sparking weakly inside the hollowed trunk of the tree.
"Rolf..?" I turned to Rolf and a smile began forming on his face.
"Draco..! Draco!" Rolf shouted. I looked back at the tree and now there were more and more dazzling blue flames beautifully flickering inside. Draco slowly lifted his head up.
"...Wow" I gasped at the alluring sight laid in front of my eyes. The flames led up to the top of the tree and spread through every branch.
Then suddenly, rays of exploding, blinding light beamed out and I looked away, covering my eyes with my forearm.
– Draco's pov –
I looked up and saw Neshama going back to its original magical form. Before I could even give it a thought, I had to look away because of a sudden explosive glare. I could feel the heat touching my skin from where the light was coming.
I cautiously looked back and through my half-opened eyes, I could make out a shilouette of someone, unveiling oneself from thick tree leaves... descending in air.
And soon I heard a voice.
"Hi," It was the voice that I'd been longing to hear, the one responsible for all my sleepless nights, the one that killed me sweet.
It was Y/N.
I was speechless. I just missed her so much and she was... standing right in front of me.
"Am I dreaming?" I whispered to myself and Y/N smiled.
"No." There were tears in her eyes. I slowly rose from the ground and stepped closer to her. My heart was racing. I carefully stretched out my arm, shaking in disbelief.
But I stopped. I couldn't stretch out further to touch her. I was scared that I wouldn't be able to touch her, that I was merely hallucinating. That's when she grabbed my hand and pulled it to her face.
"It's okay, I'm here," she whispered, closing the distance between us.
I gasped. A stream of tears from her eyes met my hand on her cheek. She then flung her arms around my neck and pulled me into a hug.
I froze. I could feel her warmth. I was hugging her and it felt too good to be real. I hugged her tighter, sobbing.
"Thank you, Draco," Y/N whispered. In her embrace, I felt happy for the first time in a very long time.
She pulled herself away slightly and stared into my eyes. Her eyes were crying but her lips were smiling. She looked beautiful.
I put both my hands on her face and kissed her.