The warm, smoky air of the library surrounds me, making my eyes feel heavy and tired. I yawn, twirling my fingers around the strands of hair that had fallen out of my bun. I look up: from my seat I had the perfect view of the sun setting over the lake. The sky was awash with brilliant red and orange clouds accompanied by the dazzling reflection of the sun on the water. I pinch my quill between two fingers and bounce it, bored out of my mind. It was only the second day back at school and the teachers hadn't been hesitant to pile considerable amounts of homework onto our shoulders already. I've been sat here for the last half an hour trying to focus on something and get anything done but my mind just wasn't sitting straight. I came to the library to escape the crowds and headache inducing noise of the Gryffindor Common Room, but it wasn't exactly working very well. The library was pretty crammed with students who, like myself, had obviously got a large workload on their hands and were trying to fit in studying sessions for exams whenever they could.
I look down towards the sheets of Transfiguration homework Professor McGonagall had set us this morning and rustle through them, looking for something that would be easy enough for me to focus on. I tap my fingers on the table and huff, blowing the hair out of my face. I fall back into my chair and stretch out my legs, throwing my head back to look at the ceiling.
My eyes lock with somebody else's. Icy grey ones. Crowned in a head of unmistakable blond hair. I sit up, abruptly, bashing my knee on the table leg as I did so. I cover my mouth to muffle my howl of pain, and I put my head on the desk in front of me to hide my embarrassment of being found in such an awkward position.
"Are you alright?" Draco says chuckling slightly, placing his hand on my shoulder and pulling up a chair to my desk. I lift my head up to meet his eyes once more before sitting up straight and pushing aside the piles of homework in front of me, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in my knee.
"Fine," I say, stifling a laugh. I lean back in my chair and let out a sigh.
"Homework getting to you already?" He says, gesturing towards the piles of screwed up parchment and homework sheets scattered over the desk.
"It's only the second day back!" I grumble, picking up one of the balls of scrunched parchment and dropping it in front of my face, helplessly, "They could at least give us a break!"
"I know what you mean," Draco says, resting his elbow on the desk and propping his face in his hand. "I've been stuck for the last hour doing Transfiguration, by itself." I groan, loudly, flinging my head forward and hitting it onto the desk, gently. I feel Draco's hand touch the back of my neck and run his fingers through the back of my hair.
"Half an hour," I state, brushing his hand away and sitting back up, "Half an hour I've been here and so far all I've done is written the date and made this origami bloody swan." I reach over and grab the folded parchment, which presented a rather shoddy, what I attempted to be a swan, and hold it out to him.
"Well I have to say," He says, grabbing the swan out of my hand, "It's pretty impressive origami swan, darling." My stomach does a tiny flip of excitement at the word 'darling'. Recently, he had gotten into the habit of calling me that whenever he possibly could. However, whenever he said it, I couldn't help but feel a little twinge of exhilaration deep down.
"Why thank you," I say in a dramatic voice, pretending to give a bow. "What are you doing in the library anyways?"
"Well," He says with a smirk, placing his hand on top of mine and tracing his thumb over my knuckles, "I thought you might be in here and I wanted to come and see my favourite girl now, is that a problem?"
"No, not at all," I say, with a laugh, "Just wasn't expecting to see you here, that's all."
"Well I didn't get many opportunities to talk to you, yesterday, so I thought I'd come and visit you." She says, sweetly.
"Well I appreciate it," I say, honestly, picking up my quill and ink pot and pushing them to the other side of the desk, "I need somebody to distract me from all of this work. I've been ripping my hair out over here- quite literally." I motion to my hair and the strands that had fallen out of the bun it was held in and were hanging around loosely at my shoulders.
"Maybe you should take a break," He laughs, pushing the loose strands out of my face and behind my ears, "You look exhausted already. Did you even sleep last night?"
"Not much," I say, putting my head in my hands ana massaging my temples, letting out a huge sigh. "I couldn't get off for ages."
That wasn't exactly a lie, but it wasn't the complete truth, either. Last night I was petrified to go to sleep in the first place. Ever since seeing Mr Weasley get attacked by that snake, every night it was like a full on quest for me to be able to gather the courage to just fall asleep. I would just lie there for hours on end, turning in my bed, using my wand light to read through the textbooks in my trunk. When I finally managed to drift off to sleep, I visited that corridor again in my dreams. The one with the door at the end of it. Once again, I woke straight up before my fingers could even brush the door handle. When I woke from that dream my body decided to reject any trace of falling asleep I had left in me.
"Well maybe you should get to bed earlier tonight," He says, with a small smile.
"Yeah I'll try to," I say, "If I can finish all this homework in time." I stifle a laugh and pull a sheet of questions and a textbook towards me, wanting to get it done as quickly as possible.
"I didn't see you on the train the other day," Draco says, his forehead creased, looking at me with narrow eyes, "Where were you?"
I think for a second, my mind not completely cooperating properly, "Oh!" I say, when I realise, "We didn't go by the train. We came on the Knight Bus. Worst journey of my life, felt like I was going to throw up within the first thirty seconds."
"Oh, yeah I've never been on that thing, but it seems way too vigorous for me." He says, quietly.
"Yeah I definitely wouldn't recommend it, especially right after you've eaten breakfast." I say, stifling a laugh. I suck on the end of my quill and dip it into my pot of ink. I bring it to the surface of the parchment but I couldn't think of what to write. The ink drips from the end of my quill onto the parchment painfully slowly, soaking into the page as it does so.
"Are you alright?" Draco says, standing up and moving his chair so he was sitting directly beside me. I feel his arm hook around my shoulders and give me a reassuring hug with one arm. "You don't seem like yourself, again." He presses a gentle kiss to the side of my head.
"I'm fine, don't worry about me," I say, giving him a half-smile and attempting to rack my brain and focus on my homework, but my quill was pulled out of my hands.
"Olivia, look at me," Draco says quietly, placing my quill down on the table. I turn my head and my eyes meet his. There's a small crease in between his eyebrows and his eyes are glazed over with worry. He examines my face, as if he was trying to read it like a hook. "You're one of the only things I actually do spend time worrying about. And I don't think you understand how worried I am about you. You keep saying that you're fine but I can tell you aren't, really. You haven't been yourself at all since before Christmas, even in your letters, you've been acting off. I just want to help you." His hands find their way to mine. He cups them between his own and brings them to his mouth, pressing a kiss on them. I hesitate.
"I-" I begin. I look down into my lap. I don't even know where to begin. Everything is all messed up in my head and I can't keep track of what I'm feeling or when it happens. "The truth is, I don't know what I'm feeling."
"How do you mean?" he says, his grip tightening on my hands slightly.
"I've just been feeling way too much in such a small amount of time and I just can't keep up with my feelings. Everything is such a mess. Most of the time I feel so angry I just want to punch something but it could be switched off within a matter of seconds and I could be the happiest I've ever been or I feel the worst I've ever felt in years. I can't keep up with everything. And so much has happened and is happening and there's so much stress on me with these bloody O.W.L exams, and I'm terrified of literally falling to sleep in case I get one of those nightmares again see someone get attacked again. And Umbridge has detentions set for me and I just know she's going to interrogate me, again and- I just can't keep up with everything that's going on anymore." I say, barely taking any time to breathe. I yank my hands out of his grip and bury my face in them, feeling tears brewing behind my eyes, but not wanting him to see my cry, yet again.
I feel a pair of arms wrap around my body. He pulls me close to him and I put my head in the crook of his neck. I manage to blink away my tears, but my eyes still sting. I have to bite bite my lip to contain myself from crying. I sniff, my nostrils filling with the oh so comforting scent of his cologne. His hand finds the back of my neck. He traces my skin with the pads of his fingers, sending an electric like chill straight down my spine. Honestly, the only thing that had been keeping me going recently was the thought of him. Being able to talk to him, hug him, kiss him.
"It'll be ok, Olivia," He whispers, his mouth right next to my ear. I didn't have the energy to protest. I knew that it wasn't going to be ok. Voldemort was getting stronger everyday and my nightmares weren't getting any better. I knew he was only trying to help but I also knew that he couldn't be more wrong. "Listen, I know that everything seems hard at the moment, but it won't last forever, I know that for a fact. And there's something that I can promise you. I can promise you that I'll always be here for you, no matter what happens alright?"
I pull away from the hug and lock eyes with him. I wipe away the few stray tears that had managed to escape my eyes with my sleeve and give him a weak smile and a small nod.
"Umbridge wants me to supervise detentions with her, as well," he says, "so I'll be right there with you during yours and right there after if you need me." he says. He looks around the area where we were sitting for anybody watching, before cupping my face in his hands and placing a soft kiss on my lips. I give him a small smile.
"Thank you," I mutter, under my breath. I examine his face with narrowed eyes and reach up to flatten part of his hair that was sticking up.
"I have a little something for you," He says. I lean back as he fumbles in his robe pocket for a few seconds and pulls out a small, torn piece of parchment. He places it in the palm of my hands and I read it.
The upcoming trip to Hogsmeade village, will take place on Saturday 14th February for third year students and above.
"Valentines Day, that is," He says, leaning towards me and pointing his finger at the date the piece of parchment bore, "What do you say we go together?"
I look up to see his eyes sparkling. "What?" I begin, my mouth breaking out into a grin, "Like as a date?"
"Yeah," Draco says, giving me a small wink whilst smirking at me, "If you want, obviously. I just thought it might be nice, you know."
"Yeah, I'd like that," I say, chuckling, "I'd like that a lot."
"Great!" He says, with a grin, "So that's settled then? I'll meet you in the Entrance Hall on the day then?"
"Yeah that sounds good," I say, my spirits feeling way more uplifted than what they were a moment ago.
"Come here, you." He says, extending his arms and pulling me into his embrace. I laugh into him, as I put my head on his chest and wrap my own arms around him. He kisses the top of my head, lovingly and leans down to my ear, "And remember, I'm always here if you need me, darling."