Ink and Parchment ~ blood and bone

63

The piece of bronze exploded in front of her and Eliza tossed another piece of parchment in the abandoned pile of arithmancy questions. Grabbing the quill from where she’d stuffed it into her bun for safe keeping she dragged another piece of parchment towards her, starting a new set of equations.

She wanted to find a way to bind her new spell enchantments onto a metal before she attempted it on her actual compass, so far she’d had little success. She’d translated the locator spell over to runic language and bound it to the actual compass just fine, it was adding everything else what was causing the problems.

“Eliza?” someone called and Eliza looked up distractedly to see Draco stood by the door “You’ve been working all night, do you want to at least have breakfast with us?”

She shook her head, sifting through her messy desk to find another small piece of bronze. She was struggling to lock the locator spell onto a specific place. The charm was there it just had nowhere to go. She still hadn’t found the right runic combination but after that the other enchantments would slot into place. Severus had helped develop the ‘evolved’ homenum revelio spell and she’d enchanted things akin to the compass before that warned the owner of danger it was-

“Eliza”

She jolted back in surprise when Draco suddenly appeared in front of her, grey eyes earnestly worried as he took a hold of her cold hands.

“Sorry” she murmured distractedly “Lost in thought”

“You never get that lost in thought – even a bowtruckle would have trouble sneaking up on you”

She eyed the scattered materials around her. She had thrown herself into her work the second she got back to Hogwarts, not even bothering to change. Eliza usually struggled to sleep anyway, there hadn’t been any point in trying after her confrontation with Tom. It was easier to work, easier to distract herself.

“It’s been a long night” she said instead of saying anything else and Draco’s gaze seemed to harden, a determined expression settling across his face as he gave a quick nod.

“Right come on” he said in a tone that was so eerily reminiscent of Narcissa’s Eliza didn’t even bother arguing as he pulled her along. It was only when they left her room did Eliza notice it was in fact morning and Merlin her room was getting smoky through all the minor explosions.

“How did you get through my wards?” she asked as Draco lead them towards his own room and he looked at her disapprovingly.

“You didn’t even close your door properly – thank Merlin. Otherwise you’d still be in there exploding things. You’re so lucky Daphne was over at Susan’s; she’d have your head if she could hear that all night”

“It’s cathartic” she protested mildly and Draco shoved her into his room, pushing her onto the bed before closing the door behind him.

“Cathartic” he echoed “You know most people use different methods to cheer themselves up”

“And how do you know I need cheering up” she shot back petulantly.

“I know things” he said vaguely, tossing a spare blanket onto the bed.

“And somethings obviously upset you and you’re going to tell me what” he ordered sternly, Eliza was so drained she couldn’t even be bothered arguing with him about it. Draco strode over to his drawers, rummaging through them and Eliza curiously glanced around the room.

Like she did Draco had various photos of them all pinned up on his wall, family photos to ridiculous group ones to candid’s she swore he stole from little Colin Creevey. The room was also covered in Quidditch memorabilia, posters and ticket stubs plastered all over the walls. The desk was covered in stray arithmancy equations and Eliza stifled a snort when she saw that an old Gilderoy Lockhart textbook was being used as a table-mat. Cup stains littering the wrinkled cover.