AFTER KATIE'S ACCIDENT, THE GRYFFINDOR Quidditch team had a new replacement, who went by the name Demelza Robbins. She was the reserve, and now she played chaser alongside Ophelia and Ginny.

Harry had no doubt, heard about what happened between Ginny and Ophelia, and he was trying his best to keep the two apart and stop them from tearing each others' throats apart.

At least, during Quidditch, Ophelia and Ginny were able to put their differences aside and work as a team, which came as a relief to Harry, since he had no idea how to stop a catfight.

Draco hadn't been the same since The Katie Incident, as they called it. He felt guilty that another innocent person had been unknowingly roped into his plan and nearly died because of him.

And Ophelia was the person that understood this more than anyone else. She spent hours next to him in the room of requirement, as he drank while he cried into her shoulder, while she comforted him and told him it wasn't his fault.

"I'm so sorry, Draco," she would whisper. "Everything will be alright, I promise you. Someday, we'll be in Hawaii together with Mummy and Daddy and everything will be okay..."

Because she believed this.

And for a while, Draco believed it too.

But he realized this cruel world was too fucked up to let him be happy. And he didn't have the heart to tell him that her dream would never come true.

And then, after days passed, each dragging by ever so slowly, Draco finally spoke those few words that enabled both himself and Ophelia to move on.

"We failed, and the Bell girl got injured in the process..." Draco began, his words slightly slurred due to the fact that he was intoxicated with his second beer that evening. "But honestly... I would have felt worse if we hadn't failed... If we had managed to succeed..." 

"The plan was a longshot anyway," Ophelia replied, stroking her brother's shoulder as he lay slumped over her lap. "If Dumbledore died..." she began, trailing off and shuddering; the remainder of the sentence too gruesome to think about.

"The war would have begun already," Draco finished the thought for her.

She nodded morosely in agreement. "And... we might have been forced to pick sides."

There. She said it. She confessed to the one person she trusted at the moment. This particular notion had been plaguing her mind for a prolonged amount of time; the fact that she wasn't sure she would continue to join the side of her ancestors— the side of the Dark Lord.

It seemed like Draco sobered up entirely just by hearing her words as he sat up. "You— pick sides?" he echoed, spluttering on his beer. He set the beer can aside and intensely stared into her eyes, a silent demand for her to explain.

"Draco, I— I've been thinking, and I..."

"You what, Ophelia?" Draco lashed out at her, a result of his slight drunkenness. His blue eyes, that looked so much like Narcissa's splashed out with anger that caused his pupils to widen and his hues to darken.

"I'm just not sure where I belong, Draco," the blonde whispered, placing her hand on his to calm him down. "I've been thinking... I want to stand on the side that I believe is right..."

"You're not serious, dammit!" Draco jumped down her throat, his voice distressfully loud. "What about me?" he roared, suddenly flying off the handle. "WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK I'M GOING TO DO WITHOUT YOU?"

"Dray," Ophelia began, swallowing thickly as she took a deep breath, trying to maintain her calm. "Please listen. Give me a minute to explain."

"A minute," he scoffed with a sarcastic laugh. "Yeah, go ahead, tell me how you'll betray me to Potter and his fucking gang of redheads.."

Ophelia couldn't control the laugh that burst forth from her lips. "You must be mad if you think I'll leave you for the Weasleys," she murmured.

That seemed to calm him down a little bit; just enough for her to explain herself.

"Draco, the Dark Lord is a murderer. He doesn't care who's blood is spilled, as long as he remains in power..." Ophelia said slowly. "He'll kill purebloods if they don't submit to him."

"I'm listening," Draco's breathing was ragged as he tried to calm down to listen to the new ideas his sister spoke of. Ideas that had never even crossed his mind. Not even once.

"You may think he's against mudbloods and all about keeping the wizarding world pure," the Malfoy heiress explained. "But if you think about it, all he seems to be obsessed with is killing Potter. He doesn't care who he kills in the way. Hell, he put our father in Azkaban."

"What are you getting at?" Draco asked suspiciously, eyes narrowed as he grabbed his beer once more.

"I'm saying... I'm not going to ever forgive him for doing this to us. Daddy did his best to get the prophecy... It's not his fault the Order showed up right then."

"Ophelia, do you know how mad this sounds?" Draco whispered hoarsely, running his hands through his whitish hair. "You do realize you're defying everything we have ever been taught."

"Draco, you know I'm right," the Gryffindor resumed. "In the olden times, mudbloods used to hurt us. Now they're afraid of us. They're not the threat, Draco. You Know Who is," she said determinedly. "Of course, you had no choice but to join, but I do."

"Gods, you're so brave, Oph," Draco muttered against the can as he took another sip. "I wish I was as brave as you..."

"You're braver," Ophelia reassured her brother. "I would have never been able to do what you're doing... I would have never been able to keep a straight face through all of this. You're doing a great job," she guaranteed him.

"Aren't you afraid of what father would say when he finds out you've joined the Weasleys?"

Ophelia did not hesitate to hide her determined smile. "Number one, Daddy will support me. I know this because he's realized what a fraud You Know Who is. Number two, I'm not going to join the Weasleys," she chuckled. "Even though I know I'll look gorgeous with red hair."

Draco snorted. "Yeah, right. I heard one of the Weasley twins asked you out last year..."

Ophelia raised a brow, struggling to hide her blush. "Where did you hear that?" she demanded, slapping Draco across his shoulder.

"I heard them talk about it last year, when they pushed Montague into the vanishing cabinet," Draco admitted. "You rejected him much too politely for my liking..."

A giggle resonated through the otherwise lifeless room of requirement, and Ophelia scowled. "The Weasley twins are actually not bad," she confessed. "Maybe I should have said yes.." she mused playfully, before she pulled out her wand and waved it. 

Her hair changed to a vivid shade of strawberry blonde, and she made a snobbish expression like the one Ginny constantly wore.

"Argh!" Draco groaned. "Get away from me, Weasley!"

Ophelia roared with laughter, nearly toppling off the dusty, worn out couch to the floor.

"No seriously, you'd make a very beautiful Weasley," Draco said, in all seriousness. "There's just one thing missing..."

"What?" Ophelia asked playfully, her wand still drawn, so she could apply any other changes to her appearance.

"You're too skinny to be a Weasley..."

Ophelia's breath hitched. Of all the things, she least expected him to say this.

"Mhmm, well..."

"Don't make a joke out of this, Oph," Draco murmured. "You've lost a lot of weight recently, are you feeling ill?"

"No, I'm perfectly fine," she swallowed thickly and plastered a smile on her lips. "I've just been stressed... Like mummy, I tend to lose weight when I'm stressed..."

"If this.. whole thing is stressing you out, you know you don't have to do this..." Draco murmured awkwardly.

"Dray, I'm fine," she assured him, her voice slightly colder than she'd intended. "Don't worry about it."

After changing her hair color back to blonde, and staying with Draco just long enough to drink her special blend of lavender tea, Ophelia hurried off to the nearest prefects' bathroom.

She felt sick, all of a sudden; at the horrible thought of what Draco would think of her if he found out about the truth; at the thought of how Nott had insulted her figure.

Nott is wrong. I don't look like a stick. I'm fat. I need to wear looser clothing to hide it...

She couldn't control what happened next; throwing up whatever was in her stomach as she leant over the sink.

Cleaning herself up, she looked at herself in the mirror. She was much paler, her blood slightly bluish from the lack of iron.

Her greyish blue eyes were strikingly sharp against her pale face, and her bone structure was sharper and more defined that before.

She stepped on the weighing scale, like she did every night, with bated breath.

A smile formed on her lips when she noticed that she had lost another three pounds.

The mirror reflected her body as so much slimmer, more slender, and delicate. She ran the tape around her waist, measuring it. 

19 inches, she read.

Ginny Weasley could suck it, Ophelia had lost a lot of weight; she wasn't fat anymore.

It didn't matter that Ophelia hadn't eaten anything in weeks; it didn't matter that she was starving, and craved her mother's cooking. Most of all, she craved strawberries.

No, skipping food had made her lose weight; and now she was more beautiful.

A victorious smile crossed her features, and she made preparations for her bath.

The next day was Friday. Fridays were very busy days in Ophelia's schedule. 

She had transfiguration, charms, history of magic, double potions and defense against the dark arts, followed by two hours in the library, where she completed her homework and bestowed her tutoring skills on those who needed help. 

The day ended with Quidditch practice for an hour and a half.

So when Ophelia woke up on Friday morning, with an excruciating headache that pounded through her ears and made her blood feel heavy, she knew from the start that she would have a terrible day.

And she was right.

The day started out fine, and Ophelia made it through transfiguration, charms and history of magic without causing herself any distress, but it wasn't until potions that her day began to go wrong and trigger everything to spiral out of control.

The potions lesson was enjoyable until Professor Slughorn decided to pair them all up for the rest of the term, until the Christmas holidays.

Of course, Ophelia had just enough terrible luck that she was not paired up with one of the quiet Hufflepuffs, but instead with Colin Creevey.

So many weeks had gone past that she'd tried to avoid him, and in this single moment, it all seemed useless.

She didn't say a word to him, having nothing to say with the boy that broke her heart.

"Ophelia, please, I'm sorry," Colin kept whispering in her ear while she added ingredients to their shared potion, which she was doing most of the work.

She was silent.

Until she couldn't take it any more.

"Just shut up, okay? I don't want to hear what you've got to say," she finally snapped, her harsh whisper barely heard over the bubbling sound of the potion coming to a boil.

"Please, give me a chance to explain," Colin softly touched her arm. "I miss you..."

She wrenched her hand out of his grasp, before glaring at him with her grey eyes. "I said I don't want to hear. Go tell Abigail whatever you want to say. She'll listen to you."

"Ophelia, that really hurt," Colin said quietly.

"Good to know you have feelings," the blonde remarked nonchalantly. "You didn't care to consider mine when you broke my heart."

"Don't do that to me," Colin sighed. "I miss my best friend."

"I'm not your best friend anymore," Ophelia snapped, despite the painful tightening in her chest when she said those words.

Without even bothering to finish her potion, she took brisk steps to the door and left the potions room even with Professor Slughorn calling her name behind her.

She made sure to slam the door loud enough that Colin would hear her fury.

Her head was throbbing while she walked to Professor Snape's classroom of Defense Against the Dark Arts, and she threw herself onto the seat, waiting for the classroom to fill up.

This class, the blonde found it so much harder to concentrate, due to the constant hammering ache in her head.

At last the hour where she could retire to the peaceful solace of the library arrived, and Ophelia was nearly through with all her weekend's homework.

Her student arrived, a third year Gryffindor boy, holding a pumpkin pasty in his hand. Her stomach growled quietly, and she tried to ignore how much she wanted to snatch it and shove it down her throat.

While she tutored him on how to change a mouse into a spoon, she juggled her homework at the same time.

By the time Quidditch practice arrived, Ophelia wanted nothing more than to go to her dormitory and lie down. Her headache had gotten a bit better after the quiet silence at the library, and after drinking a glass of water, she changed into her quidditch gear and headed down to the pitch.

She was early. Starting with a few laps around the pitch, she couldn't deny on how great it felt to have the wind through her hair in face of the winter air.

Harry made them do more laps when the rest of the team arrived, and he made her practice throwing and catching the quaffle, along with the other chasers until her arms were sore.

"Alright, let's practice playing a game," Harry announced, once the team was through with their warmups.

When Ophelia mounted her broom and took off, she had failed to realize that her headache was suddenly worse than before as unbearable pain shot through her head.

Ignoring it, she could feel her gaze blur, and dizziness she hadn't anticipated crept over her and threatened to throw her off her broom.

She squinted through her blurred gaze, and she tried to catch one of the three Quaffles that Demelza passed to her.

But her hands clasped over air, and the quaffle hit her in the face instead.

It was a small injury, not one that would cause her to fall off her broom, but the Gryffindor hadn't eaten for nearly a month, and her body lacked its normal strength.

Her head felt heavy, like it was frozen by the cold winter wind that whistled through her hair, and she lost balance, nearly about to fall off her broom.

She looked down at the three handles of her broom, trying to grab at least one of them.

She missed as her body gave up her fight and shut down.

And Ophelia Malfoy fainted, high up in the sky, and she fell to the ground from over the height of fifty feet, one hand weakly clasping the handle of her broom, her fall cushioned by the thick layer of snow.

{ here we are, almost at 400k reads. no words can express how thankful i am for this. please, please follow me to show your support, and as usual, vote and spam me with comments regarding your thoughts, ideas and even suggestions. 
this chapter is dedicated to l0renz0zurz0l0swife  for always supporting me and my books.
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i hope you enjoyed this chapter. it is very sad to write about it, but essential to the plot. i have a feeling many of you will enjoy the next chapter even more. i have a question for you guys.
which is your favorite chapter of this book so far?
mine is chapter 44. the joker and the queen.
p.s; i wish to see at least a hundred responses to this question because i definitely have more than 100 readers... 
anyway, please take care of yourselves. love you, stay healthy, and stay golden.
luv, jasmine. xoxo }

{JAN 07. 2024}