Chapter 18

I don't own any of the characters apart from Melanie Malfoy. All of the characters belong to J.K. Rowling.  

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"They've taken her," Snape said in a solemn tone. I froze to the spot, unable to even breathe through the shock. It was only the beginning of March, I thought we had a lot of time yet. I guess to never know when it comes to the Dark Lord.

I don't know how long I was stood in that spot for. The space around me was silent as soon as those words left his mouth. Draco had obviously had the same reaction as I had, it's a twin thing...

"Draco...?" I heard Snape say. His voice sounded panicky, not his usual cold self. After I heard him repeat it a few times, I started to worry myself. It allowed me to finally move and slowly start my way towards the door again. I didn't know what to expect when I actually opened the door. Would he just be stood in a trance, or had something else happened. It's not often you hear Snape get worked up or panicky over a student after all.

My worry managed to stop me moving once again as I stood behind the door, debating whether to go through it or not. It wasn't until I heard the shuffling of feet on the other side of the door that my brain switched back on. My feet started moving of their own accord, maybe trying to find a hiding spot or to open the door, I wasn't too sure myself.

"Ah, Melanie. Would you, er, please come in here for a moment?" Snape stuttered. He looked like he was hardly paying any attention to what he was saying and was completely focused on something behind him. I stood staring at him in shock for a few seconds longer, trying to process the image in front of me. "NOW!"

His sudden outburst seemed to be the thing to finally snap me out of my trance and I quickly made my way over to the door. Snape moved out of the way and revealed my twin. He was stood, staring at the wall opposite him. He didn't seem to be blinking or moving in any way. Actually, I don't even think he was breathing. Apparently, I called it right.

"Drake? Draco!" I clicked my fingers in front of his face a couple of times, realising he still wasn't moving. So, I did the only thing I could in this moment in time. I slapped him across the face. Hard.

"What the hell was that for?!" he yelled at me. I just smirked, turning to look at Snape. He looked less worried now, almost back to his normal self.

"Why do you think?" I retorted, hoping to snap him out of his mood quite quickly.

"Still, there was no reason to hit me that hard..." he trailed off, looking around the room as if he hadn't been in here the whole time. "Where the hell am I?"

I turned my head to look at him, getting more confused by the second. Draco was looking at me expectantly, waiting for his answer. All I could do was blink stupidly at him, hoping he would explain what was running through his head at this moment in time. Before I could open my mouth to say something to him (I had no clue what that would be, he was seriously worrying me right now), Snape jumped in and helped me, kind of.

"You snuck in here tonight, for whatever reason you had. I caught you and told you they had her and you went into a state of shock," he said in his normal drawl. Seems we're back to normal then. "So, are you going to tell me why the both of you are down here after hours, or are we going to have to sort this out during a detention?"

Yeah, definitely back to normal... I couldn't help but notice that as soon as Snape said about her being taken again that Draco zoned out again. I got a quick glance off Snape again and walked towards my twin again. This time when I pulled my hand back I put even more power into it, you know, just to be on the safe side.

"Stop zoning out! We won't get anything done if you keep doing that!" I shouted at him before he could snap at me again. I turned to Snape waiting for the answers to my unasked questions. I could only think of one person he could have taken, and I was after any confirmation that I was thinking of the wrong person.

"How could they have taken her? I only saw her yesterday morning and they haven't had enough time to get in her-" Draco rambled on, but cut himself off when he saw the weird look I was sending him.

"What are you talking about? He's had plenty of chances to take her. It's all our fault, we should have asked her to go into hiding. It was obvious she wasn't as safe anymo-" I too was cut off this time by Snape glaring at the two of us. Thinking about it, now probably wasn't the time or place to become rambling idiots.

"The two of you need to stop talking and think for a minute. It's neither of your faults that your mother has been taken," I heard Draco let out a sigh of relief and turned quickly to ask him how that news was relieving when Snape cut across me for the second time. "All this means is that you have to work harder on your mission from now in and get it finished as soon as possible!"

We both nodded and carried on looking at our professor, waiting for something more to be said. I don't know if I was expecting advice or him to start questioning why we were stood in the dungeons at this time of night. Nothing else followed though. He just swiftly walked out the room leaving me and Draco stood there looking at a blank wall.

"Who were you talking about earlier?"

"Mum, obviously. Come on, we need to go and check that Slughorn's still asleep."

I followed him through the door into Slughorn's quarters, secretly wondering who Draco had been talking about. It wouldn't have been mum if he'd been scared someone had snuck into the castle. Well, I can't say I'm surprised he didn't tell me. Our family has quite a knack for keeping secrets, I'm walking proof.

"Okay, the 'mead' is over there on his table. I attached a note to it with Dumbledore's name on so that in case that bit of the charm hasn't worked," I scoffed at his choice of words. Slughorn was under a curse not some charm a first year could work. "Anyway, I've made it so that he thinks the 'mead' was a Christmas present that he forgot to give and will hopefully drop it by Dumbledore's office tomorrow."

He was smirking; clearly proud of the work he'd carried out. I had my answer as well, as I could now see why he'd taken so long. I smiled back at Draco to show I understood his thinking and slowly started walking back towards the door.

"Where are you going?" Draco called after me. I stopped and waited for him to catch up, not having the energy to shout to him. When he was by my side, I slowly started making my way up the stairs again, listening out for any noises that would show someone was coming.

"Back to my dorm, I'm absolutely knackered. Everything's in place Drake, we don't have to worry about this for a while now. It'll just play out its course and we won't look like we're involved in it," I yawned. I didn't even have the energy to climb the stairs to the Ravenclaw tower, never mind explain the situation we were in.

"What're we going to do about mum?" he whispered. The tone of his voice gave away how worried he was, even if he was whispering. Or maybe it was just because I knew him so well...

"There's nothing we can do is there. All we can do is hope this 'mead' plan thing works and finish fixing the cabinet," I finished, finally arriving at my common room. I could feel Draco behind me and knew he had something else to say.

"Are you sure-" Draco started to ask, but I cut across him, not in the mood to have an argument with him at this time.

"What else is there to do Drake? We'll do it, I know we will," I reassured him, but it sounded like I was talking more to myself than him. I pulled him into a tight hug and then walked into the common room leaving him stood out in the corridor on his own with his thoughts.

**

One week later and I felt like I was on top of the world. There had been no drama regarding the 'mead' situation and Dumbledore hadn't been seen since last week either. Although we'd heard no news regarding if anything else had happened to our mother, we could only have one hope. No news meant good news, right?

"Wake up! We've got to get to our lessons!" I shouted while jumping on Cho's bed. We'd obviously taken the smart option of doing all our homework last night and ended up staying up until half past 4 trying to finish all our essays.

"Just give me 5 more minutes..." she mumbled, snuggling further into her pillow. I sighed, realising I would have to resort to extreme measures. I yanked the blanket she was cocooned inside so that she was sent flying onto the floor.

"We've already missed breakfast. You've got 5 minutes until first lesson." I heard her get up and start stating that she could get ready in that long and be at the lesson. We both knew she couldn't, but I didn't say anything regarding that.

"Oh yeah, first lesson is potions," I called to her, running down the stairs before she could throw something at me or send a spell flying in my direction. She was pretty moody when she was woken up in a morning.

Less than five minutes later, she came hurtling down the stairs. Luckily we were the only two left in the common room or a few weird looks would be directed towards us. Her hair looked like a birds nest, her robes were hanging off one shoulder and she was still trying to push all her books into her bag.

"So you're ready? Let's go, it's gonna be hard to get there on time as it is," Cho said, climbing out the portrait hole and starting to jog towards the stairs that would lead us to the classroom.

The closer we got to the room; I couldn't help but shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen. Each step I took closer, a weight seemed to be pressing down onto my ribs and I was struggling to breathe. Luckily, Cho was further ahead and we were running so I could blame it on that I suppose.

I was so deep in my thoughts trying to get rid of the bad feeling, that I didn't even realise we'd arrive at the classroom until Cho accidentally slammed the door open. The whole class turned to look at us and Slughorn appeared to be pretty annoyed at us right now.

"Sorry, we're...late," I breathed out, trying to get my breathing back to its regular pattern. Cho nodded and pointed at me, trying to convey the message that she was sorry as well. After a couple of minutes, we were both able to awkwardly make our way over to our seats at the back with everyone's eyes still focused onto us.

"Well, after that interruption. As I was saying, today we will be..." no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't listen to a single word Slughorn was saying to us. My mind kept wandering back to the crushing feeling on my ribs when I was on my way down here.

It was just because we were running. I'm clearly not very fit.

Yeah, that was it. I glanced around the room; realising Draco had actually bothered to turn up to the lesson for once. A nagging feeling at the back of my head was telling me that I needed to tell Draco about the feeling.

Weirdly enough, the voice in the back of my head was Draco's.

Everyone was packing up their cauldrons now, so that gave me a pretty good chance to explain to Draco.

"I'll take the spare ingredients back. Can you pack away my stuff on here?" I asked Cho, gesturing to the equipment on our desk. She looked over it and nodded. I thanked her and quickly walked around the classroom over to my twin.

"I need to talk to you," I whispered to him as he stood up. The other Slytherins on his table kept shooting me weird looks but I just blew them off and walked towards the cupboard in the corner of the room.

"You know we shouldn't really be seen together in classes. People think it's weird," he whispered, checking around us to see if anyone was coming over. "Potter already has his eyes on me. If he sees us together he'll get even more suspicious."

"Well, I'm sorry Drake! From now on, if I think there's something important you should know about, I'll just tell you a week later." I snapped, leaving him stood in the cupboard on your own.

Fuming, I sat back down in my seat, trying not to show everyone how frustrated I actually was. If he had a problem being seen with me in public, then there was obviously a problem. Or maybe it's just habit; I mean he has done it for 16 years already.

"Okay class, you're dismissed!" Slughorn shouted. The sound of chairs scraping across e floor echoed around the room and I almost didn't hear what he called out next. "Miss Lestrange and Mr Thomas, would you please hang back for a minute please."

I saw Draco send a worried glance across to me, but turned my back on him, still feeling annoyed at how he acted towards me. I felt Dean standing next to me, clearly as confused as me to why we were being asked to stay behind.

"Follow me into my office please. I want to be away from any prying ears," Slughorn said, distastefully looking towards Draco who was lurking in the door. I looked at Dean, who sent me a smile before closely following behind our potions master with me in tow.

"I've been looking through your grades Mr Thomas and I think that the tutoring has paid off really well. You're grades are now level with the rest of the class and I don't think you need to carry on with it anymore."

I stood in a sort of trance, staring up at Slughorn stupidly for a few minutes. The only movement I made during that time was a few blinks. I didn't know what Dean was doing at the time, but when Slughorn cleared his throat to get our attention, it became clear he did the same as me.

"I guess a 'congratulations' is in order for the both of you. Now run along to your next lesson, we don't want you being late after the good news you've received," he chuckled. We both nodded and picked up our bags walking towards the door.

As I walked past the small table next to the door, I spotted a familiar looking bottle sat on the side. The bottle of 'mead' Draco had planted last week was still in the office, which obviously meant that Dumbledore was still alive somewhere.

My mind was all over the place now. The elated feeling I'd had all week was quickly evaporating as the news sunk in. Draco said that he'd made sure the spell would work so that Slughorn would give the 'mead' over the day after. Dumbledore was still in Hogwarts the day after we'd planted the 'mead' in the office.

"Hey, Mel!" I turned around so fast I'm surprised I didn't get whiplash. I don't even know why I turned around so fast; it must have been the shock of realising I wasn't actually on my own. I saw Dean walking towards me with a huge smile on his face.

"Hey."

"I wanna thank you for all the work you put in for me. Thanks to you I've now been getting an exceeds expectations in the past few tests."

"No problem. I had fun if I'm honest," I laughed, thinking back to some of the times we shared down in the potions classroom.

"So did I. I'll see you round Mel," he said, before pulling me into a bone crushing hug. I returned it shyly, feeling the butterflies build up in my stomach as I did. He pulled away, too quickly for my liking, and with one last smile, carried on down the corridor to his next class.

**

"You just don't get it do you?!" I yelled at him. It was the middle of the night and me and Draco were stood in the middle of the courtyard. Before you ask, I don't know why we're here either.

"Get what Mel?!" Draco shouted back. I couldn't reply due to the anger coursing its way through my body. A groan of frustration made its way out of my mouth and I stormed back through the castle. I only had one place in mind, and that was as far away from this castle as I could humanly get.

The Room of Requirement was in my sight before I heard the sound of Draco's footsteps behind me. It wouldn't stop me though. The door had appeared and I was already half way to my destination when Draco called out to me.

"You can't do this. You know it's not safe!"

I ignored his statement again. The anger hadn't subsided even slightly and my main aim was still far away from him. I reached out and pulled back the wooden door that I had entered all those months ago with Cho. This was my way to escape.

I slipped into the small space and closed my eyes, focusing my mind onto the dusty shop containing the weird artefacts. "Harmonia Nectere Passus."

"NO!" Draco's shout was muffled by the cabinet door. When I heard his voice, a small amount of guilt crept into my mind, but I quickly pushed it away. I could do what I wanted; it wasn't up to him what I could do.

I felt the floor start to move down and a glimmer of hope presented itself. It was actually working. Sure, we'd done a few test runs and they hadn't given us a lot of hope. The only thing I could think was that it had to be the journey back that was causing all the problems.

With a jolt, I suddenly came to a stop. The floor stopped moving and I could feels the walls of the cabinet closing in on me. The floor started moving up again causing a whimper of fear to escape my mouth.

From the other side of the door, Draco's muffled shouts could be heard and he sounded like he was in quite a big panic.

You and me both Drake, you and me both.

All of a sudden, a thud sounded out. To some, this would have symbolised rescue and they would have jumped up and down in celebration, but I knew better than that.

The skin all over my body was starting to tingle and pain was shooting through my arms and legs. I don't know whether that was because of the panic or the cabinet was doing this to me. When I felt the blood start to flow down my hand, that's when I realised something was seriously wrong.

With one last cry for help, I tried to push myself towards the door, but my attempts were feeble. The world around me suddenly became black.

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Please forgive me?

I did have the chapter finished on Friday, like I promised, but when I tried to upload it, my iPad starting going all dodgy. When it finally came up to let me confirm it, the iPad died :/ Saturday was just hectic so I never had chance to upload then like I promised myself I would.

To make up for the delay in uploading (again...) I added a bit to the chapter, so it's longer than I originally wrote it for. On Friday, the chapter ended at the small moment between Mel and Dean, but like I said, I felt bad. So next chapter prepare to find out more. What do you think was happening between Mel and Draco?

So, as usual, let me know what you think! Votes and comments are always nice so please drop me a few (a few comments would be welcome, I haven't been getting as many as usual) :(

Until next time (which will hopefully be soon)

C x

P.S. please let me know if there are any mistakes in any of the chapter. I've been typing them and uploading from the iPad so it doesn't pick up on as many mistakes as my laptop :)