In The End

Chapter 4 - The Vanishing Cabinet

Eliza sat with a book about the First Wizarding War open beside her. She had been reading the section about the vanishing cabinet wizards used to escape the Death Eaters over and over. There wasn't much to go on, but it was something.

She stared at the old cabinet in front of her. Perhaps she ought to assess what needed fixing first. Taking a green apple out of the outer pocket of her robes, she opened the cabinet and placed it gently inside.

What was that spell again? She cleared her throat, pointing her wand at the now-closed cabinet.

"Right," she breathed, "Harmonia... Nectere... Pas-"

"That's never going to work if you can't even remember the bloody incantation," Draco drawled from behind her.

Startled, she jumped up, losing her balance and stumbling backwards, only to be held up by Draco, who had been standing a lot closer to her than she had initially thought. After she looked up at him for a millisecond, she abruptly pushed herself off of him, fixing her hair behind her ear awkwardly.

"What's inside?" he asked as though nothing had happened, his eyes trained on the cabinet in front of them.

After she had composed herself, she cleared her throat, "an apple," she stated quickly.

At this, Draco whipped out his wand and pointed it to the cabinet.

"Harmonia Nectere Passus," he chanted.

Immediately a banging sound erupted from within the cabinet. He opened the cabinet to reveal exploded bits of apple everywhere.

"Clean it up. I'll be back when some progress has been made," he stated coldly and started to walk off.

"Excuse me, you are helping! Expelliarmus!" Eliza said angrily as she grabbed his wand which came flying from his hand.

"Give it back!" he demanded angrily, holding out his hand.

"No. Not until you help me clean this up," she said stubbornly as she stuffed the wand into her inside pocket.

Draco let out a sigh and rolled up his sleeves as he walked back to the cabinet. Eliza transfigured some quills and a book into cloths and a bucket of water. Draco picked one up, dipping it into the water and started wiping down the apple-covered inside of the cabinet.

"You know there's a spell for this," Draco muttered.

"I'm aware," Eliza smirked.

Eliza couldn't help but stare at his defined shoulders as they moved back and forth, straining against his tight white shirt.

"What?" he asked irritably, snapping his head towards her and letting his icy grey eyes pierce her own blue-green ones.

"Nothing. It's just that I never thought I'd see the day Draco Malfoy had to roll up his sleeves and do manual labour," she grinned.

"Just stop yapping and help me already," he grumbled, turning back to the mess.

Eliza rolled up her sleeves and picked up the other cloth. When she leaned into the cabinet to wipe down the other side, Draco noticed his wand hanging out precariously from her inside pocket, which had been exposed by her leaning over.

He decided to take his chance by coming from behind her and stuffing his hand down her robe until he had his wand. Unfortunately, Draco's movements hadn't been as graceful as he had planned, which caused him to accidentally graze Eliza's boob in the process.

Immediately he backed away, colour flushing through his pale cheeks, as his hand instinctively went to the back of his neck, his other still tightly clutching his wand.