familiar ; draco malfoy

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

It was a cold, gloomy morning at Hogwarts. The castle grounds were barely detectable through the thick fog that settled that morning. On days like those, it was hard to imagine that sunlight had ever caressed your cheek or warmed your skin. Ramona sat by the lake, chin resting on her knees and tired eyes staring blankly at the water.  Even the air tasted thick and crisp, chilling her lungs.

She thought about drowning. She thought about how quiet it was; how easy it would be to just slip under.

The quiet was something she craved. It had been two months since school started and she could not remember having ever felt so lonely. And part of it was her doing, really. The only people she really ever talked to were Luna and Romeo, but the workload from all the classes she was taking was keeping her busy enough to excuse herself out of any situation. Luna noticed that something was eating her friend alive, but there was little she could do to help. Soothing panic attacks and making sure she ate became her primary jobs.

The girls dreamed of living together once it was all over. By the sea. It was a dream Ramona returned to after each panic attack. It would be a small cottage big enough for the two of them, with a large garden and many flowers. They talked about it for hours upon end, looking desperately to escape the crude reality of their current lives. Of the doom that hung above their heads. But even Luna couldn't help when it came to the paranoia that now lived under her friend's skin. 

Blaise and Draco stopped trying to get on Ramona's good side within the first week after the argument. It was apparent she needed space and while Blaise respected the decision while still keeping a close eye on her, Draco was less subtle. He'd sit by her at meals, lounge in the common room until she arrived, walk beside her to class, interrupt her walks through the castle grounds. He even tried to talk to her a couple of times, but they always ended up fighting. Blaise tried to mediate the situation many times; he, however, thought he knew the entirety of what Draco was keeping from Ramona. But Draco had barely scratched the surface. 

"I don't appreciate you keeping secrets from me, Malfoy."

"You have to trust me on this, Ramona."

"I am returning to school this semester, Draco. I can't leave Romeo there by himself."

"I'll be there, Ramona, I'll look after him."

"Oh, don't get me started on you, Blaise. Since when do you trust Malfoy more than me?"

"I will tell you in time, but right now I am just asking you to trust me. Can you do that?"

"You sound like my mother, Draco."

"I promise you, Ramona, I am just trying to keep you safe."

"Do you know her, or something? Shed a few tears and you'll be the spitting image."

"Why are you being so difficult?"

"You can't ask me to trust you if you won't do the same."

"What do you mean?"

"You know very well what I mean, Malfoy."

Arguing got them nowhere. They were each loading up with secrets, building up a wall that kept them from the other, both too proud and too scared and too naïve to knock it down. It was tearing them apart. In the two months they were at school, they only talked a handful of times; each conversation ended in a fight. They were fighting for one another all along, even if they did not realize it; but they couldn't know that they were fighting in vein, for their fates were already lined before them, no matter what they did.