WITHDRAWAL. draco malfoy

xvi. impromptu discussion

« IMPROMPTU DISCUSSION »

Lillian had started to sneak out of the Gryffindor's tower during the night when she was in third year to work on potions and she was doing it right now, after making sure no one would catch her in the common room. It became an habit ever since she had stole some ingredients during a potions' class and that Snape hadn't noticed the girl's little trick.

And it was the only way she had found to work on harder potions and to get ahead of everyone else in this class, still managing to make it look like she was not secretly working on potions she wasn't supposed to know about until years later. Even her friends didn't know that it was how she could be so good at it.

Lillian was now focused as she casted a Muffliato spell to the room, her potions' book opened to a potion she had heard Fred and George talk about when she was younger, the Volubilis potion. The effects were mostly for amusing purposes —in fact, it would only alter the drinker's voice, but all the steps needed in the concoction were extremely long and precise.

Lillian was already halfway through the Volubilis potion when the door was pushed open by no other than Draco Malfoy. However, the Gryffindor girl was so focused on her cauldron that she barely heard anything, her desire to complete at least one of the potions from her new book making her completely oblivious to what was happening around her.

Draco, on the other hand, didn't know he would find Lillian working at such a late hour of the night. He had decided to come here because he couldn't stand the constant bickering from his so called friends in the common room, and now that he was watching the Gryffindor girl working on her own, at night, it all became clear.

She had her own secrets, secrets she couldn't or didn't want to tell her friends, Draco wondered if maybe Lillian had her own dreams, not just those she had to fulfil with her friends, or for them. And the worst was that, at this moment, Draco wanted to leave the room, stay in the shadows and forget about this moment. But his legs didn't want to move, as if his subconscious had taken full control, forcing him to face what he really wanted to do.

The sound of an heavy object falling on the floor pulled Draco out of his thoughts and he realised that Lillian had finally seen him near the door.

"W—What are you doing here?" Lillian asked, breathing heavily as her eyes flicked from the mess she had made on the floor to the boy watching her intently.

"I think I should ask you the same question."

"Seriously, are you that stupid? Don't you see what I've been doing there?!" Lillian answered, a finger pointed to the boiling cauldron.

Lillian expected Draco to insult her, check out her potion and laugh at how bad it currently was —not that she had had the time to finish it since Draco had scared her, but didn't think he would walk until he was just beside her in order to clean the floor after she had dropped the bottle of hellebore's syrup.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked, cautious this could send Draco in a bad mood.

"What?"

"Why do you always help me?"

Draco stayed silent, his grey eyes scanning the girl in front of him in a way he had never done before. Lillian shifted uncomfortably, suddenly realising that she was being watched as if Draco was trying to get inside her brain. Then, all of a sudden, Draco turned around, walking quickly to the front door, but Lillian was not ready to let him go just yet.

She ran until she was in front of him, and pushed him back inside, Draco automatically grabbing her wrists with his hands to avoid falling.

"Answer me!"