When I return to my dorm after my midnight session with Dumbledore, I lie awake for hours, my mind buzzing with the things I'd just witnessed in our headteacher's mind.
I was fully disturbed that he'd shown me Voldemort as a child. This is the dude he eventually wants me to off, and I've got to see him as he was in his 'innocence': a poor disturbed orphan child who clearly needed a psychological evaluation and a supportive network around him. Doesn't Dumbledore realise that it's all I'm going to fucking see now?
I am still awake when the sun rises, and I feel a ball of panic behind my navel realising I had had exactly zero hours sleep. Luckily, however, it is a Sunday and technically I could roll over and spend the day catching up on some z's. Except I can't because not only do we have Quidditch training but I've got a Transfiguration essay to complete and Slughorn has ordered the Slug Club to his office for a Sunday afternoon roast and a 'special announcement'. Ugh.
So, grudgingly, and with very heavy limbs, I climb out of bed, my head spinning with wooziness. When I go the bathroom and look in the mirror, I scream.
"A pimple! A fucking pimple!" Indeed, there is a great big white spot sat at the end of my nose.
In my panic, I squeeze it, and not only does it splat satisfyingly against the mirror, but so does a shit load of blood.
"I look like fucking Rudolph!" I cry in horror to my reflection. My god, is it too late to send an owl to Dumbledore and ask him to declare it a dress up as your favourite reindeer day? I mean, he does owe me a favour or six.
"Diggory!" Zacharias bellow when I eventually join the Hufflepuff team down at the Quidditch pitch. "Why the fuck do you have a scarf wrapped around your face?"
"Bad cold," I mumble, my voice muffled. "I don't want to spread it."
He looks like he's about to tell me to stop being dramatic and take the sodding scarf off when he hesitates.
"Go back to bed then. You're no use to us if you're ill."
Thank fuck for that bet.
I go to turn but he has one more thing to add. "And Cecilia, I've got some vapour rub I can smother into your chest later."
The entire team sniggers and I resist the temptation to stick my middle finger up at him.
But even worse than that, the second I step into the Entrance Hall, I see Draco emerging from the dungeons.
To my surprise, he heads straight towards me, a frown creasing at his brow as he nears. "Cecilia," he murmurs with a touch of amusement to his voice. "I'm sorry, but I've got to ask, what's with the scarf?"
"Cold," I mutter stiffly, my eyes shifting around uneasily at the people passing us by.
His gaze follows mine and he quickly takes a step back, clearing his throat.
"Can we talk?" He asks, anxiously rubbing the back of his neck. "If you're not busy, I mean?"
He looks incredibly ill, I realise, as though he's not slept or eaten in a long time.
And I want to talk, I really do, but like hell am I going to let him see my pimple.
"I can't," I say, my voice muffled behind my scarf as I shake my head. "I've got homework and sleep to catch up on."
His face falls slightly which he quickly recovers. "Come to the Room with me then, and we can sleep and work on our homework there. Please, I need- I need a break so much."
A break from what? I want to ask.
"I've got Slug Club later," I say, although I'm definitely calling in sick for that.
Again, his face crumples, and I find I want to just throw my arms around him and give him a hug. In fact, I've never wanted to hug anyone this badly before.
Suddenly, I feel like crying. As I stand there in front of Draco Malfoy, feeling exhausted and drained, like all the weight of the world is heavily upon my shoulders and my parents are missing and I don't know what to do.
"Cecilia," he says, his voice laced with concern as he reaches out for me again, his fingers brushing lightly against the back of my hand. "Are you alright?"
"No! I've got a fucking pimple!" I sob, tears running furiously down my face and soaking into my scarf.
I don't miss the lift of his eyebrows. "You're crying over a pimple?"
I shake my head, sobbing harder. "I miss my parents and I'm tired of being the Chosen One. I just want everything to go back to the way they were before the Triwizard Tournament. Although not Chen. I hate Chen."
"Come back to the Room with me," Draco murmurs, his voice oh so inviting. "Please. Let me cheer you up. I can handle pimples. I might even know a spell to zap it if it bothers you that much."
"There's a spell?" I ask, stunned. How the fuck did I, Cecilia Diggory, not know this?
Feeling exhausted and actually really liking the idea of just being with Draco, I nod.
His face immediately softens and in that moment he looks a million times better. "Go get your books, or whatever you need, and I'll meet you up there in ten minutes."
I feel my lips pull into a smile, I'm suddenly so fucking grateful to him, and race at once to the Hufflepuff quarters where I grab my bag and stuff my Transfiguration books inside.
"What are you smiling about?" Susan asks, watching me from where she is still lazing on her own bed. I turn to look at her and she recoils back against her pillows. "Good god! What have you done to your nose?"
"Is that a pimple?" Hannah gasps, pulling her bed drapes open to get a look.
Good grief, it is worse than I feared. How can I possibly let Draco see it? He'll never want to have sex with me again.
"It's stress induced," I snap irritably, looking through my nightstand for a plaster. "These things can't be helped."
"What've you got to be stressed about?" Hannah says wide eyed. "You're the Chosen One, aren't you?"
Pfft, like that's a good thing? Ignoring her, I slap on a plaster at the end of my glowing nose. As I check myself out in the mirror I realise it looks as though I've undergone a nose job, but it still beats looking like a server in a greasy spoon.
Draco is already on the seventh floor when I arrive, leaning against the door. He smirks as I approach, and I know he is finding my pimple drama amusing.
"You're still beautiful, just so you know." He says quietly as he begins to pace the floor to ask for the room.
The butterflies in my stomach are astronomical. I suddenly can't wait to get inside simply to touch him.
Luckily for me, as soon as we do, he pulls me to him, holding me tight against his body.
"Fuck, I've missed you," he murmurs, peppering kisses over my face. "I've missed you so much."
I can feel his heart race against mine as his arms tighten around me. He is holding me so tight I'm worried he's going to squeeze the life out of me.
"What did you want to talk about?" I ask, already breathless.
"Not here," he says, letting go of me to take my hand and lead me through the room of junk.
He takes me back to the bedroom. Our room. And suddenly I feel a sense of anxiety, wondering what he's expecting of us.
He pulls me on for a kiss, but I can't enjoy it, I can't concentrate.
"Draco, please. Just tell me what it is you want to talk about."
He looks pained for a minute, but he quickly leads me over to the bed and sits me down. "It's about yesterday... when you saw me."
"When Katie Bell got cursed you mean?"
He nods, resting his forehead against mine. "I was in the ladies toilet when you went in there. It was me, Cecilia, I was the one who gave Katie that necklace."
I look at him, aghast, my jaw dropping open. "Please to god tell me you didn't hear me peeing?!"
He looks bewildered for a second, his brow creasing into a frown. "Cecilia, didn't you hear what I just said? I gave Katie that necklace with the intention for her to pass it onto Dumbledore. I've got to kill him. If I don't, then I have no idea what will happen."
I still. Because of course I heard him. I just don't know how to process this information.
"Why are you telling me this?" I whisper.
And there it is: the desolation flitting across his face and making him looked drowned. "Because I have no one else."
And then, without warning, he rips the plaster clean off my nose and presses the tip of his wand against my face, whispering an incantation I do not recognise.
I feel a tingling sensation which causes me to wriggle my nose and makes me want to sneeze.
But before I can, he dips his head and gently kisses the place where the pimple had been.
"Good as new," he murmurs softly, the tickle of his breath against my lips making me literally melt into a fucking puddle.
And then, right there, he lifts me off my feet and fucks me hard between his silk, Slytherin sheets.
*****