When Aven Selwyn is tasked to work with Draco Malfoy in repairing the vanishing cabinet by the hand of Lord Voldemort, the last thing she expected was for Draco's best friend to become involved. Caring for someone isn't something on Aven's agenda, b...
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(ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴛᴡᴇɴᴛʏ-ɴɪɴᴇ: ᴇʟᴀᴛɪᴏɴ)
Aven stood, dusting her knees. She was just about to turn to Theo when she heard the door crack, alerting her of another unwanted visitor. Slamming the cabinet doors, Aven was quick to throw herself at Theo, backing him against the wall behind the door, obscuring them from view.
She pressed her palm against his lips, feeling his warm, smothered breath ghost against her fingers. His eyes were wide, somewhat red, and Aven's eyes traced his Adam's Apple as it bobbed, him gulping heavily. She rested her forehead against his collarbone, his skin cool to the touch, closing her eyes as she heard a faint, joyful humming from behind her.
Theo's knee was between her legs, his legs extended from where he had been slammed against the wall. The footsteps drew nearer, and Aven's heart stopped.
She opened her eyes, very slowly, wishing this was all part of her imagination. Hoping, praying, that this person would leave.
Aven peered around the side of the open door, catching an eyeful of frizzy hair. Then, a sound so loud it almost shook the room; the cabinet doors rattled on the frame, and Aven could hear the sound of a body being jostled from within. A muted yell, desperate and muffled through the wood. Before she could cast a silencing spell to eliminate the sound, the woman had already turned.
"Stupefy!"
She froze, her body only halfway turned, before slumping to the ground face first. Aven glanced over her shoulder to Theo, pressing her finger to her lips as a way to keep him quiet. He nodded, but gestured to the shaking cabinet in curiosity.
Aven's bones chilled; had they come? Was that Bellatrix in the cabinet, scraping her nails against the freshly replaced wood as she searched for an escape, for a way out of the cabinet and into the castle? Aven was shamed by how slow she was to react. The fear was crippling, so much that when those cabinet doors did bust open, she didn't even move a foot, didn't even lift her wand.
Platinum hair flashed as a body catapulted from within, splaying against the cobblestone ground. A loud curse was spat, and Theo sighed heavily, slumping down the wall after realizing it was only Draco.
But this, Draco traveling through the cabinet, was not what she'd expected. She didn't expect Draco, that bastardly knob, to transport through a newly refurbished and linked vanishing cabinet. If even the tiniest things had gone wrong, he could've been cast out to Merlin knows where. The thought makes her skin crawl, and she was about to tell Malfoy just how stupid his actions where when the boy jumped to his feet, a look of strict fury written across his cold features.
"What the fuck is he doing here?" Draco hissed, his voice mustering to carry the sharpest edge. His words struck her so hard they nearly made her bleed; the venom in his tone was raw. Draco took a step back, tugging angrily at his hair and beginning to pace, when the three heard a 'crunch.'
