Thicker Than Water {a Draco Malfoy story}

eight.

- O L I V I A -

"Fantastic," Remus grinned as he stood up and brushed himself off. "Now, try it again, but non-verbally," he instructed.

I looked to Sirius nervously, who stood on the opposite side of the top floor landing with his arms crossed. I really didn't like practicing dueling spells on Remus. Even after a couple of weeks of practice, I felt guilty about hitting him with jinxes and hexes. But no matter what, he didn't complain. Sirius gave me a nod, "You're doing very well. Keep going," he encouraged.

I took a deep breath and turned back to Remus.

"Whenever you're ready," he said, bracing himself for the spell.

With a swift wave of my wand, I yelled Levicorpus! inside my head. Just the same as before, his feet swung out from underneath him and above his head, leaving him dangling in midair. Quite honestly, I was surprised that anything happened at all. Nonverbal magic wasn't taught until the sixth year at Hogwarts, which I wasn't entering until September.

"Yes!" He exclaimed while hanging upside down. "Excellent!"

Sirius flourished his own wand and Lupin fell back to the ground with a thud. "You learn rather quickly," he noted.

Remus nodded his agreement, "Standard dueling spells aren't particularly challenging, though they usually take more than a few repetitions to get them down. I must say, I am impressed with your teachability. You must be very bright to have mastered nonverbal casting as well."

I smiled, not knowing what to say. It wasn't often that I was praised for my intelligence. "What's next?" I asked eagerly.

They both shook their heads. "I think that is enough for one afternoon," Remus sighed, "though I admire your enthusiasm. Tomorrow, we will begin to work on conjuring a Patronus. This will be much more difficult than anything we have practiced thus far. You'll need to be rested. Good work today though."

"Thank you," I said awkwardly. I didn't take compliments well. Together, they both disappeared down the stairs, leaving me alone on the landing. I retreated back to my room, suddenly feeling the exhaustion of our afternoon of hard work. When I opened the door, the massive owl was back, perched on the back of an armchair. He cooed softly at the sight of me. By now, he had grown to recognize my face. I walked over and stroked the top of his head.

There was another letter tied to his leg. Draco and I had been writing back and forth all summer, speaking about nothing in particular, but trying to keep our minds off of the real world situation. As much as I loved having Fred and George around, I didn't like to discuss anything too serious with them. They were always so jubilant and cheerful and I hated to bring them down. I was so grateful that I had someone like Draco to talk to. I hadn't told him where I was, but he knew that I was being kept in hiding. I told him about the lessons that I had been receiving and he seemed a bit envious.

I unfurled the letter and sat down on the chair to read it, absentmindedly petting Hamlet's head. In it, he talked about a book on Alchemy that he had snuck from his father's library. Though I wasn't particularly interested in Alchemy, I liked reading about the small joys that he had found, despite everything else. He also wrote about the nightmare he had been having. It was the same one that he had told me about at the end of term, but it had gotten more frequent and vivid. Reading about it in such detail made my stomach twist into knots. I could see it behind my eyes, the Dark Mark etched into his pale skin. I could see the pained look on his beautiful face. And worst of all, I could hear his agonizing scream echoing in my mind. My heart ached for him.

I put the letter down in my lap as I read his last few lines, taking a deep breath. His last lines hung in my mind. It's going to happen one day, and there is nothing I can do to stop it. My heart clenched, knowing that he was right. I had been trying so hard to escape the influence of the Dark Arts for my entire life, but I had just gone and gotten myself romantically involved with a future Death Eater.