Gone Awry

When school finished and Ash had said farewell to Tracy and Blaise. She quickly ran to the Room of Requirements where she found Draco already waiting - sitting on the couch with the book in his hands. As soon as Ash closed the door behind her she couldn't help but grin in excitement.

"You ready?" she asked and wrapped her arms around Draco's neck, bringing her face next to his.

He gave her a sideways glance, "yeah."

"Alright then let get going. What do we need?"

"We wont be needing any herbs or such, just a circle which we will have to draw on the floor and sit inside." Draco told her while reading in the book.

"Alright so we will need a big patch of unoccupied floor and a pen to draw on the floor." Ash stated and was surprised when the room launched into action - increasing in size to make a large patch of floor appear, with a pen plopping up in the middle of the floor. "OK. So what do I have to draw?" Ash looked at Draco while picking up the pen from the floor.

"Here look," he said and showed her the picture of a complex variety of circles with writing, and pentagons, stars, triangles, etc. Ash was overwhelmed by the circle she would have to draw in a minute.

"Wow... why can't it be one of those nice little circles where you just need to draw a big circle with a star in the middle?!" she sobbed, but then started to copy the drawing from the book onto the floor. It took Ash over two hours to complete the drawing exactly and Draco was only halfway done with his when she sighed contently. "Do you need any help?" she asked glancing at him.

"Can't you have to draw it yourself." he answered while continuing to copy the projection he had conjured up to help him get the drawing right.

Ash nodded and for a few minutes they sat in silence. "Hey Draco..."

"Hm?"

"Can I ask you some questions while your working?"

"Sure"

"D-Do you like me?"

For a second Draco looked up and looked at her. Then he turned back to his drawing before answering, "yes."

"What about me?"

"A number of things."

"That's not a very helpful answer."

Draco sighed. "I like... that you don't ever pretend to be someone who your not, I like how you always make me laugh and that I don't have to act in front of you. I like how you accept everyone the way they are. I like how can be extremely manipulative and flirtatious without even noticing and just the way your hair flows down your back and your eyes sparkle when you smile."

Ash was quiet when he finished and red like her cousins hair. Ash knew Draco was waiting for her to say something, she saw his swift glances towards her, while continuing his drawing.

What should she say? That she also likes him? She defiantly did... but was she ready for a relationship? Was she allowed to move on?

"I- I- I like you too," she said after a while, jumping over her fears and confessing her feelings. She saw Draco smile while he continued with his work.

For the rest of the time they didn't utter a single word, until Draco announced that he was finished and they discussed what the next step was.

"We have to chant the spell while sitting in the middle of the circle and whatever may happen we are not allowed to leave the circle."

"It doesn't sound very hard, does it?"

"No not really, but I guess that it'll be harder then we could imagine."

And how right they where...

The pain they where going through was tremendous - it felt like the Cruciatus Curse only 10 times worse. Every single cell in their body was mutating and changing, their bones broke and changed shape and sizes, every muscle stretched and ripped, new muscle formed and were replaced, their faces, their libs and every other part of their body felt as if it were torn of and stitched on again - wrongly.

Even bigger then the pain was the temptation of crawling out of the circle they were trapped in and fleeing this torture or just giving in and falling into unconsciousness. It would be so easy. But they stayed at it. Not moving a single body part from the place they where sitting at just screaming out in pain every now and then and interlocking their eyes in the hope of gaining the strength to carry on the strength to stay awake and live through the pain.

After what seemed to be days of torture the pain finally subsided and the circle they had thoroughly drawn onto the floor got sucked into them. As soon as that happened the two of them fell into a deep sleep...