Candescent

“I should have known you wouldn’t go through with it,” I commented for the hundredth time as Draco and I lounged in the common room. It still put a smile on my face even though many weeks had passed since the incident.

“I thought I told you never to mention that,” he replied lowly. I smiled knowing that I could blackmail him at any time with the fact that he was a coward and had refused to take more than two steps into the forest.

“And I’m not going to listen to you,” I scoffed and muttered whilst getting up, “Coward.”

“Where are you going?”

“To pack,” I responded, picking up my potions – and extension potions – books off the table and beginning to walk to my dormitory.

“You’re going home for the break?”

“Aren’t you?”

“Of course,” he responded as if I had said something offensive. “I’m not sticking around here with Potter and Weasley.”

“Honestly Draco, your prejudices will get you into deep trouble some day.”

“You like them?” he said with a look of horror on his face. “Look I’ve dealt with the mudblood but THEM?”

Shock echoed through my body as he said aloud the most derogatory term I knew. Not even responding to his question, I walked straight up my stairs knowing Draco couldn’t follow me.
Calling someone a mudblood. I’d heard it used amongst the older years but I’d never expected t hear it coming out of the mouth of someone I knew. And about one of my best friends? That was off limits.

I threw my books and clothes into my bag angrily and going down to dinner I purposely sat at the opposite end of the Slytherin table to Malfoy.

“What’s going on with you two?” a voice asked from nearby. Looking across the table I noticed Blaise talking to me. Pansy glanced accusingly at me before getting up and walking down to sit next to Draco. Blaise and I watched her go, a smirk forming on both our faces.

“Do you see that ever happening?” he asked.

“Not bloody likely,” I responded. “Although, they both have drab personalities. I suppose they complement each other in a strange kind of way.”

“Well we’ll have to wait and see. The way you’re speaking I’m guessing you and Draco had a fight then?”

“Not really. He was just being an idiot and horrible friend.”

“Yes, he does that.”

“You were friends?” I inquired.

“Long time ago. Back in tutelage over at Malfoy Manor. His dad and mine were friends and we had lessons together. We were friends, of a sort.”

“What about you Nott?” I asked, noticing him listening in on our conversation. “Have you got a history of failed friendship with Draco?”

“No history,” Theodore Nott replied, shaking his head from side to side. “We’re still friends. Just not at school.”

“Aha.” Blaise and I exchanged glances. So obviously Malfoy either didn’t really like him or thought he was going to be bad for his rep.

“You up for a game of chess?” Blaise asked as we finished eating.

“Not really,” I replied. “But I could do something drastic if I’m in the same room as Malfoy any longer.”

“All right then. We don’t want detentions on your last day of school. Are you looking forward
to holidays?”

“Yes,” I responded as we walked towards the dungeons. “You?”

He shrugged. “Life around here’s better at Christmas than it is at my place. My uncles and aunts all come around and they hate me.”

“Oh...sorry.”

“Don’t be – sympathy doesn’t suit us.”

As we walked back to the common room I figured out that ‘us’ was bigger than just him and me. He meant Slytherins. All of them.

xxxxx

“I’ll see you after the holidays!”

Yells erupted all around me as the Hogwarts Express pulled into King’s Cross. Something bumped my arm and I turned around.

“Have a good holiday,” Hermione said with a smile.

“You too,” I responded. “By the way did you find out anything about you know what?”

“I’ve got Ron and Harry on the job.”

“Awesome,” I said, walking out onto the platform and searching through the people on the platform for my parents. It took me a while, but eventually I found my mother...but she was barely recognisable.

I put on a big smile even though I was confused and hurried towards her as fast as I could with my trunk in tow. Giving her a huge hug, I felt her arms go around me in an automatic response. But it didn’t mean anything.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, stepping back and looking at her drawn face.

“Nothing,” she said, putting on an obviously fake smile. “Let’s get home.”

The car ride home was long and very silent. Which was horrible because it was allowing my assumptions to fester and making whatever this was seem a hundred times worse. My attempts at conversation went nowhere and soon I sank back into my seat expecting sleep to overtake me but there was too much going on in my head.

As we pulled into the driveway of my home, I pulled my trunk out of the car’s boot and walked inside after my mum. Getting rid of my stuff on my bed, I came out and walked into the kitchen, noticing as soon as I did that something was different.

Mum sat at the table with a picture frame in her hands and I sat down slowly next to her.

“Where’s dad?” I asked softly.

“I just saw green from the corner of my eye. I found him...the autopsy came back inconclusive,” she said vaguely. “They don’t know what caused it.”

My hand shaking, I reached out to take the paper from the middle of the table and tears formed in my eyes before I’d even began to read it. A death certificate of one Derek Tyler. My father.

But what made everything a million times worse was the conclusion of cause of death that came from an inconclusive cause of death. The same as my biological parents. My father had been killed by a wizard...a flash of green light...

Avada Kedavra.