'Are you okay?' Hermione asked me during Arithmancy one day, but I didn't exactly hear her as I stared at my desk. 'Sally?' She poked me in the arm.
'Oh - yeah, sorry what was that?' I blinked, sitting up straight to look at her.
'Are you okay?' She repeated, her eyes searching. 'You look... Well... Blank.'
I laughed weakly. 'Yeah, I'm pretty tired I guess.'
Quite a lot had happened between the Quidditch trials and now. Practise had been quite intense this year with Edmund's advanced yet effective strategies on playing the game and to be quite honest, I don't know where he got and thought of these with his busy schedule. He was organised like that, I suppose.
I attended three suppers with the "Slug Club", which was basically a group of students who were favourites of Professor Slughorn. All of them were mainly involved either because their relatives are famous or are great friends with Professor, or they just simply interest Slughorn. Some of the people include Ed, Hermione, Blaise, Ginny, Neville and, much to Ed and Draco's dismay, Cormac McLaggen. Harry's supposedly involved too, but he's managed to slip out of all three meetings. Though it's a fair enough reason: he had (or purposely put) Quidditch practise and if he attended the suppers, Ron would be left out.
Also Draco and I had been busy with the Cabinet as we started to look and tried to mend the connection itself. As expected, this was an extremely difficult process and there were hardly any information about how to fix the Cabinet in the books from the school library, which is quite large. There weren't much on the books from the Restricted section either. We also figured that I didn't have the need to stay with Draco for the entire time he worked on the Cabinet, so sometimes I left the Room of Hidden Things earlier that him to catch up on homework. But even with the amount of time we were working on the Cabinet, it didn't seem to be mended at the slightest.
I hardly got any sleep these days because of all those things.
'I heard that Quidditch practise was pretty hard for the Slytherins.'
'Yeah, you know my brother. He hates losing.' I laughed weakly.
'That's true but...' Her eyes flickered to the dark shadows that was starting to appear under my eyes. 'You need sleep Sally, especially this time of schooling.'
I gave her a small smile. 'Thanks Hermione but really, I'm okay.'
***
Later that night, I lay on a large couch in the Room of Requirement (no, not the Room of Hidden Things) in front of a roaring fire, snuggled up against Draco who had his arms around me lazily.
We were doing this quite often these days. After working on the Cabinet for a good three hours or so, we would change the Room's appearance to a cozy one so that we could spend the rest of the night (sometimes after curfew) here. I managed to produce food and beverages with magic too. The room also had another door that lead to a bathroom.
'I can't go tomorrow anymore.' Draco said in a quiet, flat voice.
'I know.' I murmured. He got detention from Professor McGonagall because he didn't complete three assignments in a row, and the day of detention happened to be on the day of the Hogsmeade trip.
'You go with Potter and that.'
I raised my head to look at him with surprise.
'I mean - they're - well - suspecting you too, right? If you stay with them and - well - something happened during the trip, they won't think - well - you did it. Or at least you were involved in it.'
'Draco -'
'No, I'm serious. I know that you're staying up till way past midnight to finish homework and that's my fault. I know that I'm putting so much pressure on you when you should have nothing to do with this, and I don't want you to be under any more stress from - you know - being cut off from them.'
I didn't say anything but looked at him, blinking. Then I slowly leaned down and kissed his soft, cool lips.
'Thank you.' I whispered.
'Don't be.' He said in the same tone and gently pulled me back down, laying me next to him. 'But for now,' he conjured a warm fluffy blanket out of thin air and put it over me. 'you need sleep.'
Without complaining or arguing, I nodded honestly and closed my eyes, pulling us closer together on the couch and feeling the warmth of him and the blanket. The last thing that I felt was his lips pressing against my forehead lovingly.
***
When I opened my eyes again, the room was lit by the warm morning sunlight. It took me a moment to realise that my head was resting on a fluffy pillow and I was still curled up in the blanket.
I sat up and stretched and looked around. Draco was no where to be seen. I looked at the clock that was hung up on one of the walls and it showed quarter to eleven. I slowly slid off the couch and headed to the bathroom. My hair was still in a ponytail which was reasonably messy. I grabbed the comb that appeared in front of me and brushed it after I took out the ponytail. Then, as though it was summoned, my own set of clothes appeared on a chair in the corner of the room.
Before I changed into those though, I decided to take a long, hot shower. I stared at the marble wall in front of me as the warm water flowed down my body and fiddling with the ends of my hair. About half an hour or so, I got out and slipped on the fluffy bathrobe.
As I was brushing my hair and drying it with sweeps of my wand, the door of the bathroom opened. I whirled around to see that it was Draco which made me feel suddenly nervous.
'I brought you muffins.' He nodded behind him as he closed the door.
'Oh.' I smiled nervously as he walked towards me slowly. 'Thank you.'
'It's okay.' He said quietly, almost growling in fact, as he slipped his hands on my waist and started to push me towards the wall.
'Draco -'
I was silenced by his lips pressing against my own a bit roughly as my back eventually touched the wall.
I was continuously interrupted cutting him off because each time he kissed me rougher and rougher.
When his lips traced my jawline and down to my neck was when I pushed him away.
'Draco - I - no.' I shook my head.
To be honest, I had a fear of lips touching my neck; it made me cringe. I know, it sounded odd but after you have a Pureblood vampire trying to take your blood, you'll understand.
His eyes were dark grey, just like a storm's. But that eventually faded away, returning to the usual clear icy colour.
'Sorry.' He almost mumbled. 'I just... Don't worry.'
'Are you okay?' I asked slowly, putting my left hand on his right cheek gently.
He hesitated to answer at first but he eventually said, 'Not really.' Seeing my worried and confused expression, he sighed and continued. 'It's Blaise. He says that... I'd fail. That I wouldn't complete my task because... It's too difficult. Even with you.'
'And what does he know about the Cabinet? Your ability?' I whispered after a short pause, pulling him closer.
'Exactly.' He mumbled, burying his face in my shoulders.
'Don't worry about him, Draco.' I said. 'You'll be fine.'
I didn't get a reply. Instead, if it was possible, he pulled us even more closer together. Only then was when I realised that he was trembling ever so slightly.
***
'There you were!' Willow sighed when she saw me enter the Entrance Hall. 'Lynn's off with Levi.'
'Oh - righty then.' I said, not relatively surprised. But it made things much more easier. 'Um, I was wondering, would you mind if we hanged out with Harry, Ron and Hermione? I haven't spoken to them in a while so...'
'Nah that's totally fine! Let's do it.' Willow beamed.
'Thanks Willow.' I smiled back.
It didn't take long to find the trio who were walking along the snaky road covered in pure white snow, towards Hogsmeade. There were barely anyone around too.
'Harry! Ron! Hermione!'
They all turned around and when they saw it was us two, they gave us a big smile.
'Sally! Willow!'
'Mind if we joined you for today?' I asked.
'Why would we say no? Of course you can!' Harry beamed.
'Thanks so much.' Willow and I smiled back.
'Three Broomsticks?' Ron asked all of us.
'Of course you want to go there.' Hermione teased. 'But that still sounds good for me.'
***
As soon as we entered the pub the five of us were engulfed in the warmth from the roaring fire.
'Butterbeers?' Hermione asked and we all nodded. Then she turned to Madam Rosmerta and said, 'Five Butterbeers please.'
The landlady simply nodded and turned around as the five of us went to find a seat. I thought that was a bit odd, considering how cheery and chattery Madam Rosmerta was. Another thing was the fact I felt an uncomfortable tingle run through my body. This happened when something wasn't right.
As we all sat down, I kept an eye out to Madam Rosmerta. It wasn't all the time but every now and often, she would look blank, as though she was possessed.
Imperius Curse.
Somehow, I thought this. But if that was true, who would've done it, and why?
I shook that out of my mind. Don't mind that now. Enjoy the time with your friends, Sally. I told myself.
Harry, Ron and Willow were talking passionately about the previous Quidditch match that was against Slytherin and Gryffindor.
'Man your team's passes were quick!' Ron said passionately. 'I usually don't praise Slytherin but seriously, those were impressive.'
'Thanks.' Willow said proudly. 'Edmund made us work so hard on that.'
'Can tell.' Harry laughed. 'His advice to me about McLaggen really helps too.'
'Their encounter with him is sometimes so bad that I feel sorry for him.'
'I don't. He's the biggest twat I've ever met.'
'Pretty good competition with Malfoy, hey.' Ron rolled his eyes.
'If it's possible, McLaggen might be worse than him.' Harry said.
'Well that says something, doesn't it?' Hermione said, raising one of her eyebrows.
'It really does.' I laughed weakly.
'It looks like they wouldn't mind as much as we thought, then.' Willow whispered to me.
'We don't know that yet.' I whispered back, raising my eyebrows slightly.
We spent about another hour to two there until we decided to back.
'C'mon, it's too cold to walk around honestly.' Harry sighed, lightly chuckling at Ron after he complained that we weren't going to any of the shops like Honeydukes or Zonkos.
We were walking behind Katie Bell and her friend, I think I heard Katie call her Leanne, along the snowy,snaky road back to Hogwarts. It was quiet with only the sounds of our feet sinking into the shallow snow.
Until...
Katie suddenly flew up into the air, screaming at the top of her lungs. She had her arms wide open and was slowly turning around. When she faced us, I shuddered from the terrible expression she had: it was a cursed one.
She hovered in mid-air with the rest of us staring at her in horror for another moment she collapsed back into the snow, her body limp.
'Out of my way!' We turned around to see Hagrid rushing over to her. He easily scooped her up into his enormous arms and told us, 'Only touch the wrapping, whatever you do.'
***
Back at the castle, we were in Snape's new office (it was still weird to see his office anywhere but the dungeons) with him and McGonagall examining the necklace that was hovering in front of their eyes with magic.
'Such a strong curse...' I heard Snape mutter. 'Miss Bell is extremely lucky to be alive...'
'So you are sure Miss Bell did not have the wrappings when you two entered the Three Broomsticks?'
'Yes, like I said. She came back with it after she went to the bathroom.'
'Dos she say anything about it?'
'She said that she was going to take it to Professor Dumbledore.'
As soon as she mentioned his name, I froze and felt blood rush out from my face.
Draco.