I don't own any of the characters apart from Melanie Malfoy. All of the characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
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"Would you mind giving me and Melanie a moment alone please."
It wasn't a request, it was an order. Mother looked at me nervously before I gave her a nod. Draco was looking between me and father with a terrified look on his face. They both reluctantly moved over to the other wall and out of sight, leaving father looking happier. I gulped quietly; trying not to show him how scared I was to be in this situation.
"Come and stand closer Melanie." Again, it wasn't a request, it was an order. Tentatively, I moved to the door of his cell and looked at the man before me properly for the first time since he had told me I would be attending Hogwarts.
"What are you doing here?" His voice sounded calm and controlled, which made my level of fear rise even higher. I quickly glanced over my shoulder. Maybe I was hoping that my mother or Draco would stop hiding and come to help me, or maybe I was trying to find myself some time. I wasn't too sure myself.
I turned back to look at my 'father' and licked my lips slowly. "I'm here to visit you, mother wanted some company so me and Draco offered to come with her," I told him, my voice barely above a whisper. The scowl on his face told me that he obviously didn't like the statement that I had given him.
"Why aren't you both in school working on you know what?!" he hissed at me. I flinched at his tone and took a small step back, trying to at least get a little bit of distance between us. I know why he did it though; it would be so that no one would overhear us.
"We got called to a Death Eater meeting last night, so mother thought it would be nice for us to stay at home for Christmas Day, to come and visit you and then travel back to the school tomorrow morning." I explained, also keeping my voice low, but for different reasons to his.
"Well I don't think that's the wisest decision." he snarled at me. I just looked up at him, starting to feel slightly annoyed at the manner he was talking to me.
"We knew you wouldn't, but it's not exactly up to you..." I mumbled, making sure my voice was low enough for father not to hear me.
"What was that?"
"Nothing."
"Well, tell your mother that I want you back in school before the end of the night." he told me, sitting back slightly to make it look like he had won this small argument. I glanced over my shoulder again, but my mother and Draco were still hidden in the shadows somewhere.
"Tell her yourself in a minute when she comes back around." I told him bluntly. He opened his mouth to say something about how I had talked to him, but I quickly cut him off. "You don't treat us like your family! You treat us like your servants! I'm your daughter. You're meant to care for me and not let me end in situations like this!" I screamed at him.
"Melanie, I -"
"No, you listen to me. Draco accepted this mission so he could make you proud! He felt like you didn't care about him enough, so he got into this mess for you. I accepted this mission because I wanted to be there for my brother, and because I finally wanted you to take some notice in me and for you to be proud to have me as your daughter!"
I could hear footsteps coming up behind me, but I didn't know who was there. Anger pumped through my body as I finally let all the feelings towards the man in front of me. All year, I had bottled them up and tried to pretend I felt differently.
"Come on Mel," Draco said, gently pulling on my arm to pull me away from the cell. I didn't move, still staring out my father.
"Don't speak to me like that Melanie! You have no right to do that, I have been respectable towards-" he never did get to finish his sentence.
Draco walked up to the cell and bent down in front of my father. He started speaking in a low, fast voice so that only father could hear him. Father's face changed from surprise, to sadness, then to anger. Mother had made her way over to my side held her hand on my shoulder, comforting me.
"I told you it wasn't a good idea to come here," I whispered to her. She nodded and lowered her gaze to the floor.
"I didn't think he would react this badly," she mumbled sadly, her eyes still trained on the floor. I glanced over to her, but she wouldn't meet my gaze. Suddenly, there was an outburst from the two in front of.
"YOU NEVER LISTEN!" Draco yelled at him before turning on his heel and pulling me out of the prison as fast as he could.
**
"And then Draco went absolutely mental at him because father was mouthing off about me apparently." I finished explaining to Cho. She had sat in silence the whole time I had been telling the story.
It was the day before school restarted after the Christmas holidays and Cho had just returned from her parent's house. We were currently sat in the Room of Requirement, while I told her about the latest encounter between me and my father, glossing over the details about the mission and the Death Eater meeting of course.
"What did your father say?" Cho asked after a long silence. I opened my mouth to tell her I didn't know when I was cut off.
"I'd rather Mel didn't find that out to be honest." Draco said quietly. I turned to look at him, a disgruntled look on my face, but he chose to ignore me.
Ever since Christmas Day, I had been trying to get the information out of my twin, but he kept his mouth closed. The only part of the conversation I knew about was the bit where Draco had yelled at him. The rest was a mystery to the world.
"Wouldn't it be better if-"
"No." Draco cut Cho off and looked up at us both for the first time since we had started the conversation.
Draco caught Cho's eye and they shared a small smile. I couldn't help but notice the small blush that crept onto her cheeks after the small moment. I coughed loudly to being their attention back to the matter at hand.
"We need to think of something that will hit him hard. Something that will make him regret how he treated us over the last 17 years." Draco told us both, quickly brushing over what happened. I nodded and after a few seconds, Cho did the same.
"We'll think of something eventually, but while he's in Azkaban, there isn't much we can do," Cho admitted. Draco went to disagree with her, but I stopped him before he did any damage.
"Cho's right Drake. If he's in Azkaban, there is no way we can do anything, he's behind bars. We're gonna have to wait a while before we can do anything."
He sighed in defeat but nodded none the less. I turned to Cho who was looking away from Draco shyly. She caught my eye and started to blush but I just gave her an encouraging smile.
"I'm gonna head back down to my common room. I've been spending a lot of time out of it and people are starting to get suspicious." He said, already walking towards the door. Me and Cho bid our goodbyes to him before he left.
I turned to face my best friend with a knowing look on my face. She tried to avoid looking at me again, but I wasn't about to let her get away with it.
"You like my brother." I stated, a huge grin spreading onto my face. I knew I was right as soon as she turned to me with a horror-stricken look covering her features. The look or horror soon changed to embarrassment and she started blushing. I started laughing while she tried to explain herself.
"Look, it's not what it sounds like. Mel I wouldn't- I mean, I know what's going on at the minute, I'm not going to-"
After a while, she gave up and changed the subject. "I was wondering, why did you have to go back to your house in the first place? I thought you told me that you weren't allowed home because You-Know-Who was using your house as a hide-out."
I nearly choked on my last bit of laughter when I heard that sentence. I may have glossed over the details about the reasoning behind my visit back to Malfoy Manor when telling the story earlier. I looked up into her eyes, feeling bad for having to lie to her again about the biggest situation in my life.
"He is. The pressure of having to look after the house, the Death Eaters and then the constant worry about me and Drake was starting to catch up on my mother. I offered to go and stay with her on Christmas Eve so she would have a familiar face around. Drake wanted to come as well." The lie came out smoothly and I tried to ignore the huge pang of guilt that was running through me.
"Okay," she said, obviously content with my answer. I was keen to avoid any more questions on the subject, so I stood up and started making my way over to the door.
"You coming?" I shouted back across to her. I heard a scrambling noise before she appeared around the corner. She gave a small nod and followed me out the door.
**
"All I'm saying is, we're gonna have to think this one through more carefully after what happened with the necklace," I called out to Draco. He was trying to put the next stage of 'Plan A' into action, while getting increasingly annoyed with me.
"I know what you're trying to say, you've told me about a million times already," he retorted sarcastically.
I stuck my head around the cabinet door to glare at him. "Fine, just go straight into the plan. Follow the same routine as last time, and let it fail again, just don't come running to me when someone else ends up in hospital."
He rolled his eyes at me, but I didn't see any more of his actions as I returned all my attention back to the cabinet I was currently working in. I had recently found some instructions about the next stage on fixing it, but I was having no luck in finding out how to do it. Plus, Draco's whining wasn't really helping the situation.
"How do you know it's going to end up exactly the same as last time?" he asked me smugly. Now it was my turn to roll my eyes.
"If you just plant it somewhere and get someone else to do it, even if they are under the Imperius Curse, it's risky because anyone could get hold of it before the job is done. If you do the job yourself, there is a much smaller risk." I explained, standing on my tip toes to try and find the opening in the top of the cabinet.
"Oh. Wouldn't it be even more risky if I did it though?" he asked me, clearly confused by the scenario I had presented to him.
"Nope!" I said popping the 'p' and leaning my head out the door of the cabinet again. "You can cast a disillusionment charm over yourself and sneak into his office or sneak it to him some way. And if anyone said they saw you, you can use a memory charm."
Draco continued to stare at me like I had two heads for a while, so I pulled myself back into the cabinet and started looking for the opening in the top again. After a 5 minute silence from him, I began to worry slightly and was just about to go and check on him, when I finally heard a reply.
"Well I think I'm gonna use Slughorn in this one anyway. It will be easier for this one. If I have to do another plan like this, I'll do it myself," he stated proudly. I just groaned in frustration as a reply to him.
"I can't find this 'opening' thing that book was talking about Drake," I complained, air quoting the word opening. No matter how much I searched, the top of the cabinet seemed to be in perfect condition, not a scratch on it, never mind a hole.
"Just try again tomorrow." he told me through a yawn. "I'll get the mead ready to give to Slughorn tomorrow night as well and then the next part of the plan can go ahead."
I shrugged in reply, not really listening to what he was telling me. I stifled a yawn and turned to pick up Draco's watch that he had placed on the side when we came in the room.
3:30AM.
"I'm gonna head back up to my tower Drake, I'll see you in the morning," I yawned again as I picked up my school bag and walked towards the cabinet to close the door.
As I was doing this, I heard another door around me close. "Goodnight to you too, Drake." I muttered sarcastically to myself as I turned away from the cabinet.
"What the hell are you on about?" Draco's voice sounded from next to my right shoulder, causing me to jump in fright.
"Well the door just slammed, I thought you'd left to go to your dorm." I tried to rationalise, doing everything I could to calm down my racing heartbeat.
"I thought that was you." was his simple reply.
We both drew our wands and took a stance back-to-back. My ears were perked up awaiting any noise that could carry across the large room we were currently stood in.
"Well, well, well. If it isn't Draco and Melanie Malfoy..."
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Hey guys! I've finally updated! Sorry it took me so long, but I've had exams to prepare for.
I wanna thank everyone who had read this story. 2600 is amazing, and I can't thank everyone enough for reading!
I was gonna try and update last night, the chapter was all ready, but then my mum and dad gave me an early surprise birthday present and took me to see Olly Murs! :D so that's why the update is today. I hope you enjoy it.
So, what do you think was said between Draco and Lucius? What's going to happen between Cho and Draco? Who walked in on the twins in the Room of Requirement? Leave your guesses in the comments guys, I'd love to hear what you think.
Don't forget to vote either! C x