Chapter 22
Chapter 22:
Draco didn’t know why his feet, independent of his brain, decided to follow Granger as she left her classroom to head to the Room of Requirement. It wasn’t hard work to figure out this was her pattern, but a few strategically asked questions to his adoring students confirmed his suspicions all the same. He followed her for a few minutes and as if the feeling wasn’t new to her, she glanced back a few times to see who was following her, he was never more grateful for the rush of students in the hall at this time as it made him blending in easier.
The closer they got to the room’s entrance the harder it was to keep hidden. When they were well and truly alone without breaking her stride he heard her voice ring clear.
“I know it’s you Malfoy, what do you want?”
What did he want? He dropped the Dragon scales off in the early morning hours today. His brain began working overtime for an answer.
“I just wanted to apologize for last night and check if you were hurt.” He blurted out, it sounded right enough. He did inadvertently almost kill her after all.
“I’m fine Malfoy, and you needn’t worry, I won’t report you to the headmaster”
“I didn’t think you would” he found himself moving closer to her in the hallway as she turned around to face him. The look on her face was perplexing. In that moment for the first time in a few years Draco found himself longing to unleash his Legilimency skills, he smothered the thought. He wasn’t that person anymore.
“Well, then, I’m fine, you needn’t worry yourself with my well-being”
“Okay, well, I’m sorry either way, I truly didn’t see you. Next time wear a hazard light or a muggle neon vest” his tone surely sounded sarcastic because she scrunched her face and moved closer to him, within touching distance.
“Do you think you’re funny? You almost killed me with your reckless stunts and rather than slowing down, you suggest I wear a neon vest like a scaffolder? You don’t own the skies Malfoy and you’ll do well to stay away from me. There may be rules about transfiguring students but no such rules exist about professors.”
Draco was indignant at the implications, his face flushed red with the remainder of the last time he was configured in the forbidden forest, with everyone, including HER, laughing at him.
His brain didn’t think fast enough to respond to her, mainly because he caught how she smelled: divine, and he couldn’t only focus on the soft wrinkle by her eyes, the only sign of age.
He muttered and she looked disgusted. Turned around into the already waiting door of the room of requirements.
Leaving him in the hall all alone, humiliated, livid, and more alive than ever. He perfume lingered in the air and Draco was a man torn asunder by conflicting emotions: Desire and rage. How dare she?
He marched out of the hall and walked all the way down to the lake, where he hot harmless hexes at any fish he saw. He looked up at the skies and deeply sighed, it seemed that just making amends to her won’t be enough for her to forgive his sins, the sins that kept adding to his transgression against her.
What he couldn’t figure out was why it mattered so much to gain her forgiveness, her approval. The look of disgust on her face tore at him and drove him mad with a need to make it right. Why should it matter so much? He couldn’t tell, he turned it over and over again as he walked back to the castle in total defeat today.