Chapter 6 (Ava)

It was three days since we’d started the Hogwarts year, and I already had a pile of homework to do which was getting bigger every lesson.

Professor Snape had asked us to write an essay on the benefits of non-verbal spells, and Draco and I were writing it together, trying not to write exactly the same thing. If we did, Snape would ask who copied who, and I was pretty sure Draco would make me take the blame.

Draco put his quill down and looked at me silently. I glanced up at him,

“What’s the matter?”

He looked around at the fairly empty common room and whispered,

“Have- have you started to think about it? Have you got a plan?”

I looked at him and shook my head,

“No. Not at all. I’ve been a little bit busy with homework.”

I returned to my essay, but Draco pulled the piece of parchment away from me, trying to get my attention. He sighed,

“That’s not true. I can tell you’ve been thinking about it- you’re so quiet when we eat at dinner.”

“Well, it is the kind of thing that would be playing on my mind a bit,” I muttered bitterly, “Taking your brother to his death.”

Draco sat up,

“We do need to plan this. It’s very important.”

I stared at him,

“Oh my God. Don’t you see what’s happening Draco? Don’t you see that I have to take my only living family member to Lord Voldemort? I can’t plan it. I don’t even want to think about it.”

“But it’s important that you plan it. I could complete my mission at any moment. You need to be ready for that.”

I stood up,

“I hope you see how bloody selfish you’re being, Draco. You’re so obsessed with yourself and your own mission that you haven’t even thought about how hard this is going to be for me.”

He opened his mouth to say something but I turned around and stormed off, not interested in what he had to say. I turned to look at him just before I stepped into the dormitory, and when I did I noticed Pansy had already sat down next to him and was stroking his hair.

*                    *                    *

At breakfast the next morning, Draco sat down next to me and sighed,

“I’m sorry. You were right about me being obsessed with my mission. I just wanted to know if you’d started planning it. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

I looked at him,

“Isn’t that usually the way with you? You never mean to upset me, you just do. You’ve been upsetting me since the day I met you and I get sick of it.”

He actually looked sad as he said,

“After you found out that it was me who gave you that nightmare last year about the prophecy, and I’d only befriended you to take you to the Dark Lord, you never once shouted at me.”

I looked down at the table,

“And?”

“My question is- why?”

I pushed my hair out of my face to give me a few extra seconds to think,

“You’re the only person who knows what I’m going through at the moment. I can’t just shout at you and make you hate me when you’re the only person I can talk to about it. You don’t seem to mind trying to make me hate you, though.”

He looked away from me,

“I could never hate you.”

I frowned,

“What? Of course you hate me. I know you hate me, Draco. I’m Harry’s sister. You have every right to hate me.”

He reached out and squeezed my hand underneath the table,

“I just don’t hate you.”

Blaise came and sat down opposite us, and Draco’s hard, icy expression re-appeared as he and his friend joked. He still held onto my hand though. Throughout breakfast, he didn’t let go.

*                    *                    *

Draco had asked me to go with him to the Quidditch pitch to watch the tryouts. The thought of Quidditch reminded me of after the game last year when Draco had criticised my family along with the Weasleys. A wave of hatred washed through me, and I had to turn away from him for a moment.

When we got to the pitch, there were some Ravenclaws there. Draco walked up to them, and started to have a go at them. One of the girls bravely took a step forwards and told him that they had arranged to have Ravenclaw team tryouts that afternoon. Draco muttered something about Snape saying that only Slytherins were allowed on the pitch today. After about five minutes, the Ravenclaws left, defeated.

Draco started to talk to the people trying out for the team, so while he was distracted, I ran off of the pitch and caught up with the Ravenclaws. I cleared my throat,

“Excuse me?”

The brave Ravenclaw girl turned around,

“What do you want? To rub it in our faces that we can’t do tryouts today? We don’t have any other time to do it, and I distinctly remember being told that no one was using the pitch today.”

I shook my head,

“No, I wanted to say sorry. I’m pretty sure that Draco was lying about Professor Snape. He said no such thing to Draco, so I don’t know why he pretended he had.”

She stared at me,

“Thanks, but why didn’t you say that when he was arguing with us? It’s a bit late now, don’t you think? You’re probably too scared to go up against Malfoy, aren’t you?”

I opened my mouth to interject but she carried on,

“You should have just stopped Malfoy when you had the chance.”

With that, she turned around and walked off. Her team mates followed.

I watched them walk away and thought about what she’d said. She was right; I should have told Draco to stop when I had the chance. Why had I just watched him bully them into leaving? I hadn’t achieved anything by just watching in silence.

I didn’t bother going back to the Quidditch pitch; I just walked to the castle. When I got there, I saw Harry, Ron and Hermione talking near the door.

All three of them saw me at the same time and looked up at me. I smiled at them, my gaze lingering on Harry for a moment before I walked off to the library.