𝐁𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐧 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐬

Trust Me

Draco

As another week went by, more students were being injured by professors and their teachings that the infirmary was full. Every one of us here had been beaten, thrown across the room, or cursed at least once this year. And since the younger students had to undertake so much in their first years at this school, they relied on us 6th and 7th years to help with injuries and advice on what to do. Out of all of the Slytherin's, Paisley's really helped the younger ones the most. She likes to help so much that it must've rubbed off on me. I've helped a total of two first year Slytherin's this week.

I've also found that there were three types of people here: the ones who stood up to teachers but got hurt in the process, the ones who didn't show up to class and went into hiding who knows where, and the ones who just went along with it and kept their heads down low to avoid negative attention. Paisley was one of the people to want to stand up to them. I try every day to convince her to just stay low-key like the rest of the group because we need to keep her and her identity safe, but she makes it so hard. Sometimes I can't stop her from yelling at one of the Carrow's or shielding a younger student from getting hurt.

I swear there have been so many times these past few years that I felt like she'd be more of a Gryffindor than a Slytherin, and I think that's one of the reasons why I love her so much; her kindness, her boldness, her courage.

And now when we lay in the same old dorm room before we go to hang out with friends, she's here laying on my chest reading. This girl loves reading.

She stops and looks up at me. "Do you want to hear one of my favorite lines in this book?" I nod. And it just so happens this is one of the books I gave her about Astronomy from the manor. "'Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night'," she smiled. "That's from Twilight Hours: A Legacy Of Verse," she said. "That may be my favorite. Or another one from My Sister's Keeper was 'He insisted that stars were people so well loved, they were traced in constellations, to live forever'. Isn't that pretty? It makes my mother's theory of the stars come to life, if you want to call it a theory. The book I'm reading right now I've read already. But the next few times you read the same thing, you start to notice all the small details and you really emerge yourself into the story, you know?"

"And how many times have you read that book?" I teased. She gave me a look. "By the looks of it you'll have it all these books memorized my tomorrow. You already have a few quotes memorized, how hard could it be?"

"Oh stop," she said with a laugh as she bopped my head with her book, but I snatched it right out of her hands.

"We have to get ready to go to Blaise's darling, you can't read forever," I said, tilting my head to the side. She turned around and got up to reach for it but I lifted it higher. Then I carefully grabbed her bookmark, marked her page, and closed her book before setting it down on the bedside table on my side. "It'll be right here for you when we come back."

"But what if I want to stay and read here forever with you?" She asked with puppy eyes.

I just smiled. "I know what your doing and it's not going to work!" I stood up from the bed and grabbed her hands, pulling her up too. She tried to reach for her book but I moved her away. "You know, getting out and having fun with friends could be good for you."

"Yeah, I guess." She rolled her eyes and smiled too. It's like she was annoyed because I was right for once. She knows this is going to be good for her.

✩︎✩︎✩

We walked into Blaise's dorm and there were three mattresses all next to each other on the ground with pillows and blankets covering them. There was a large tray in the middle of the mattresses with snacks and food and as we looked around even more, we noticed the sheets with little lights that were draped around the ceiling. It almost looked like little stars everywhere. "Oh it's beautiful!" Paisley said as I set our stuff down and she plopped down on one of the mattresses.