The weeks rolled by and I couldn't help but notice Draco was looking more tired and more strained than ever.

"Draco, this is killing you," I said tearfully when he broke down sobbing in my arms after I discovered him angrily kicking the cabinet in one Saturday morning.

"I just can't fix it," he wept, "and I've tried everything."

"Do you ever even sleep when I'm not here?" I asked, horrified at the dark shadows under his sunken bloodshot eyes.

He shook his head, as his thin frame shuddered beneath me.

I made him instantly lie down on the mattress and spent the whole weekend trying to nurse him back to health by bringing him hot food from downstairs and making sure he caught up on plenty of rest.

I threw a huge cover over the cabinet, hoping that keeping it out sight for a couple of days would help keep it out of his tortured mind.

I hated that thing; it seemed to give off a more sinister vibe each time I looked at it. To me it was the thing that was slowly destroying the boy I loved and I was sorely tempted to set it on fire and watch it burn to ashes.

And then came the day that Ron nearly died.

"Don't forget its Ron's birthday today," Hermione said brightly when we woke up on the first day of March.

I blinked at her wondering why she was so keen. She had seemed very off with him since he had been snogging Lavender Brown.

"I thought we could wait for him in the common room and go down for a special birthday breakfast," she continued excitedly, gathering up a card and an extravagantly wrapped present. "After all, it is his seventeenth!"

I hadn't actually gotten him a present but then I suddenly had the bright idea of grabbing Trevor; he would provide the perfect birthday treat.

"You're bringing Trevor?" Hermione asked looking slightly perplexed.

"It's Ron's present from me," I explained. "My clever Trevor can croak 'Happy Birthday To You' in six different tunes."

Admittedly none of the six tunes were the correct one, but it's still clever all the same.

"Oh, that's... charming." Hermione said with a small withered smile.

However, Trevor never got to show off his amazing singing skills because Ron came bursting down into the common room pushing us aside to look for Romilda Vane.

"I NEED TO TELL HER THAT I LOVE HER!" He bellowed in my face, desperately shaking the front of my robes after I suggested tentatively that Trevor could sing him a song.

"Um, I don't think he knows that one." I said timidly, a little freaked out by how intense he was being.

"It's all right, everyone," Harry announced, plodding casually down the stairs with his arm in the air, "I'll handle this."

He walked up to Ron, laying a heavy hand on his shoulder. "Come on Ron, mate, let's introduce you to Romilda Vane. I believe she's waiting to give you a birthday surprise in Slughorn's office."

And with that, Ron bounded off excitedly after him, not unlike an over energetic rabbit.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT ABOUT?!" Lavender wailed loudly from the top of the stairs as she held a great big floating pink heart shaped balloon above head, emblazoned with the words 'Won-Won 4 Lav-Lav'.

"Well," Hermione said, smaking her lips together to try and hide her amusement. "I'm starving. I think I'll go and see what's for breakfast."

The next thing we know, Ron is in the hospital wing having been poisoned.

"He would have died if it wasn't for me." Harry said gravely as we all stood over his unconscious body.

"Actually, Harry, I think you mean he would have died if it wasn't for the Half-Blood Prince!" Hermione snapped as she lifted her head up from Ron's chest where she had been weeping like a bereaved widow.

"Huh?" I asked, my ears pricking up. "Who's the Half-Blood Prince?"

"Actually, Hermione," Harry retorted huffily, "it was me who was physically there to shove the bezoar in his gob! And anyway, I thought you hated the Half-Blood Prince?!"

"I just don't trust him!" Hermione bit, narrowing her eyes accusingly at Harry.

"But you're more than happy for me to take his advice when it comes to saving Lover Boy!" Harry spluttered, gesturing angrily down at Ron's body.

"He's your best friend!"

"That's besides the point, Hermione!" Harry bellowed.

This bickering went back and forth - both of them ignoring me and acting as if I didn't exist.

So, in the end, reassured that Ron was going to be okay, I crept out and made my way up to the Room of Requirement, trying not to think about how or why Ron had gotten poisoned from a bottle of mead within the castle.

But Draco's face when I told him confirmed my worst fear.

"No, Draco," I gasped, my voice choking in horror as his face somehow managed to turn even paler, "please, no."

"I- I was desperate," he sobbed, shaking his head sorrowfully as his face crumpled. "I can't fix this damned cabinet and I- I was desperate."

I closed the space between us, throwing my arms around him, comforting him just like the day I comforted him when I found out he was a Death Eater.

"How do you not hate me?" he wept, burying his face in my neck and clinging to me as his tired and exhausted body shook against me.

I would and could never hate him for any of this.

However, my hatred for Voldemort was growing ever stronger, and my fear of him was slowly turning into a churning, burning anger; not only had he taken away my parents sanity, now I was watching him slowly do the same to Draco.

I wanted to make him pay for this.

Voldemort had no idea, but it turned out Harry Potter wasn't the only Gryffindor he should be afraid of.

*****