The Slytherin Princess | Draco Malfoy x Reader

Chapter 61: Horcrux Central

The battle of Hogwarts commences, starting with you and Harry burning down the room of requirement.

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You tore through the halls of Hogwarts at speeds you didn't realize were possible. Juniper was hot on your heels, and you were only looking for one person as you careened through the castle. The flood of students that came from the Great Hall as you passed its doors was insurmountable, and you ducked your head as you ran against their flow, trying desperately to avoid being seen by any of the Death Eaters. Snape, you supposed, might be safe, but it was likely he had believed you dead, too. You couldn't afford to be turned in. Not now.

You made it to the second floor quicker than you thought you would've, Juniper still right behind you. You circled through the halls even more quickly than you'd run up to the second floor, frantic to find the Room of Requirement and desperate to find Harry.

You finally caught the door materializing out of the wall as you rounded another corner, and you grabbed Juniper's wrist as you lunged for the handles that had begun to protrude out of thin air. You drew a deep breath of preparation as you flung the door open, hurrying inside and pulling Juniper in after you.

The room looked vastly different from how it had appeared to you each time you'd been in it before. It had appeared as a quiet, empty room for you and Draco to hide out in many times before, tangled up in each other as you lost the hours of the night to each other. And you knew it had looked different even from that when Harry had been in here conducting his "secret" meetings with what he'd dubbed Dumbledore's Army.

But the room that stood before you now was like something out of one of Hermione's nightmares: full of what appeared to be pointless trinkets from the ceiling to the floor, each pile of stuff seeming taller and wider than the one before it. The paths through the room were winding and confusing, and you didn't have time for a maze this convoluted.

"HARRY!" you shouted, your voice echoing off of the walls. You found that strange, considering the room was packed with things for your voice to bounce off of or be absorbed in. But you shoved the thought away as quickly as it entered your mind; now was not the time to be thinking about the acoustic dynamics of a magical room.

"HARRY!" Juniper cried out after you, pulling you behind her in the maze of objects the Room of Requirement was keeping within it.

You heard rustling in the piles ahead of you, and you and Juniper hurried towards the source as you kept calling out for the brunette Gryffindor boy.

Finally you heard someone call out your name in response, and you ran towards the noise. You called out for Harry twice more, as the responses got louder, and you finally smacked right into the poor boy, sending his glasses flying to the floor.

Juniper hurried to pick them up and return them to Harry, and he wasted no time in returning them to his face. "Y/N, Juniper," he hurried out, looking behind him. "There's someone else in here with us."

You looked behind him as well, seeing nobody in the shadows that enveloped the maze trails beyond him. "That doesn't matter, we've got your back," you reassured him quickly, and Juniper nodded, drawing her wand in preparation. "Did you find the diadem?"

Harry nodded quickly, pulling out what appeared to be a small tiara, shaped like a raven, but with a striking blue jewel in the center of it. "I saw the Grey Lady," he said, his eyes alight as he looked over the diadem. "She was so hesitant to tell me how to find this. Tom Riddle tricked her last time, and she didn't want to be tricked again."

He sighed as he turned it over in his hands, the jewel glinting in the moonlight coming in from the window closest to you. You spared a glance out of the window, somewhat grateful that you couldn't see any evidence of the battle that was going to commence outside. But you still had to tell Harry before it was too late.