The Slytherin Princess | Draco Malfoy x Reader

Chapter 38: A New Journey

You and Draco set out on your fifty-mile trek to Dumbledore's tomb.

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Your birthday went by all too quickly. Before you knew it, you were nineteen, you had your very own brand-new broom, and the Apothecary Potions book from Draco. You had had suspicions that he'd purchased that very book from the bookstore he'd taken you to just a couple days before, and when you unwrapped it, you had confirmed your own suspicions.

But now, it was just around three in the morning, you were absolutely exhausted, and yet you were about to apparate with Draco to the point just outside of the fifty-mile radius of magical protection surrounding Dumbledore's tomb. You had left a note for your mother on the kitchen counter, hoping that she didn't read too much into your claim of an emergency you had to immediately leave with Draco to attend to.

You shivered in the night chill as you used the Reducio charm to shrink your things enough to fit in a small backpack you were going to take with you on the fifty-mile trek. You only hoped there would be a pond or lake along the way to clean yourself in during what you knew would easily be a three- or four-day trip.

Draco looked back at you, his normally stoic grey eyes betraying a hint of anxiety as he held out his hand for you to take. You looked back up at him, silently asking him what the matter was. He didn't respond to you, however; instead, he looked up into the black canopy expanding above the two of you. The stars littered the sky like someone had scattered diamond dust across it. He took a deep breath, looking back at you as he pulled his wand out.

"Are you ready?" he asked, his voice shaking.

"Ready if you are," you responded, hoping your voice had stayed just a little bit stronger. Weakness was the Achilles' heel for a servant of the Dark Lord, Draco had once told you. You couldn't afford to look weak, even if you were.

With a flick of his wand and a sickening crack, you winced through the squeezing and found yourself in the middle of a forest you didn't recognize.

"This is it," Draco said with a sigh, opening up his own backpack to pull out the tent he'd shrunk to fit inside. "We can sleep here for a few more hours and set back out in the morning."

You continued to shiver as he did so, finding nothing of importance to say as you helped him set up the tent. You pulled out the cots from your bag, using your wand to return them to their original size, and Draco then pulled the blanket's you'd brought from your bag, settling them over the cots inside of the tent.

You eagerly crawled in the tent, watching Draco as he cast as many protection spells around the two of you as he could before following you inside. You wrapped up in your blanket quickly, lying down on your cot and settling down to close your eyes.

"You think we'll be able to get the wand, y/n?" Draco asked then, his voice cutting through the silence of the night.

You sat up slightly, hoping he could see your confused expression through the utter darkness that enveloped you. "Of course I do," you replied. "Why wouldn't I? Why would Voldemort send us on a quest he didn't think we could complete?"

"I don't know," Draco sighed. "To have an excuse to kill us? It wouldn't surprise me. That's what happened to more than one person who served him before his fall from greatness—he would make them do things he knew they would fail in or refuse to do because of some moral conflict—and he would kill them for it."

You shuddered at the thought that Draco's revelation gave you. "We're barely adults, Draco. I feel like the Dark Lord trusts us. We killed Dumbledore, for Christ's sake."

Draco sighed, and you could tell he didn't fully believe you even as he spoke again. "I guess that makes sense. I'm just worried we won't be able to get to it."