The Malfoy Project

𝟏𝟒 - 𝐀 𝐖𝐞𝐞𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐎𝐚𝐤

     Draco finds me in the library. Or maybe it's the other way around. Either way, it's the first time we crossed paths since Saturday night in the Astronomy Tower.

     Sunday had passed uneventfully. I spent the entirety of it with Monty in repentance for my unforgivable mistake of forgetting our date. We had taken a blanket right up to the banks of the Black Lake and lain there until the sun hung low on the neck of the sky like a great topaz pendant.

     Then we went to The Three Broomsticks as we should have done the day before. He bought me a glass of cherry soda with a splash of red currant rum and a tiny umbrella, and himself a pint of butterbeer. We chatted. It was lovely. He walked me back to the common room. Kissed me. Ocean breeze and roasting marshmallows.

     Clockwork.

     Monday morning, Rita had burst into the office of the Hogwarts Digest, demanded for Ms. Ainsley, and again I was hauled away to another room, sat down in the chair, and demanded to recount everything I have on the Malfoys so far.

     I told her everything. At the mention of the tape recorder, her eyes lit up brighter than Christmas. Show me! I showed her the reels, the recorder, the microphone. Wonderful! Simply wonderful, Ella! Palms pressed, carmine lips plucked up in pleasure. She took the reels and the transcriptions, whisked them from my hands and into her bottomless bag that held the acid green quill. As per the contract. I'll be back for more.

     That was yesterday. Today, the library is quite empty save for me and a Fourth Year boy in the far corner, his flaxen head hanging over a book in earnest. He reminds me of Lucius. Or Bas.

     I feel empty-handed and weakened in the absence of the scripts and four film reels. It feels like Rita had taken my very life force and left me weightless and purposeless, like a ship without an anchor.

I had tried to busy myself with other things, and today, I've chosen books.

     Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them lies splayed out in front of me. We had left the old textbook back in Sixth Year, but I never tired of the beautiful sketchings of the Thunderbird, the Runespoor, and my personal favourite, the Occamy. Its pages provided safe refuge, somewhere I could drop the boulders I carried and just... be.

This time, however, my eyes find themselves drawn to the recorder, which sits a little off to the side, more than once.

     I push the book away and pull the machine to me, leaning back in my chair to take its majesty in. Big and cumbersome and spectacular in a most otherworldly fashion. I turn this knob, push that button, plug out the microphone and plug it in again, but there's no sound for it to pick up.

     I'm about to tug the wire once more when the needle springs to life and my slow ears pick up what it hears - a distant plodding against the cold stone floors.

     Draco drifts into view, stalking into the library with his hands in his pockets and a drooping mouth. I observe him from behind my desk.

     He marches along the shelves like a military sergeant inspecting fresh cadets, briskly scanning the alphabetical labels. C, D, E. He stops at the shelf right by me, and it's only then he sees that I'm there, unable to stop his eyebrows from raising in surprise. I wait for him to ask me what I'm doing here as is his birthright that every room should be cleared out the moment he enters.

     He doesn't do that. Instead, he asks, "What are you doing?"

     It takes me a moment to realise it's a genuine question. "Nothing," I say. "Just messing about with it."