In Her Eyes

Chapter Twenty

"No, before you add the Wolfsbane you have to leave it to brew for eight hours." Alastriona handed Draco's Potion assignment back to him, hiking her books up and holding them close to her chest, "You know, that essay is due today and you have Potions in an hour."

She couldn't help but smile at the distressed sound that came from Draco's throat, "Why didn't you ask me to look over it yesterday when we were doing Professor Lupin's essay?"

Draco shrugged hopelessly, "I forgot that I'd actually done the assignment in the first place, but Theo asked to copy mine this morning which reminded--"

"Theo hasn't done it either?" Alastriona didn't know whether to laugh or cry, "But he wasn't doing anything in the library yesterday!"

Draco smiled at the distraught look in her eyes but out of the corner of his eye he saw Dawn racing towards them and she was visibly panicking.

Her dreads were piled messily on the top of her head, a few stray ones spilling out, her Ravenclaw tie was loose and askew and she had a wild look in her eyes that made Alastriona very nervous.

"I can't do this, I mean if this is how bad O.W.L's are then I don't even want to make it to N.E.W.T levels! I didn't even care about O.W.L's but then Flitwick got me all worked up over it! He started talking about my future and I just don't know what to do now!"
She gripped her head and stared into Alastriona's eyes, "I can't even sleep anymore! Every time I fall asleep I dream of this book coming towards me, snapping its jaws and eating my hair!"

Alastriona passed her books to Draco without looking and lead Dawn into a small nook, she made Dawn sit down against the ledge of a window, "Dawn, you need to breathe." She grabbed her friends hands and smiled gently at her, "You don't need to worry about your O.W.Ls, you're going to do absolutely fine. Even if you don't there isn't a need to worry because, as you've said before, you're so much better hands on and that's the kind of stuff you want to be doing when you leave school."

Alastriona tucked one of Dawn's escaped dreads behind her ear, "You want to work with dragons, Dawn. There isn't much at Hogwarts that will help you prepare for that, you're here to explore other options, learn what you can and have fun. Sure, go to classes, do your exams each year but you don't have to stress about your results because the witches and wizards at the sanctuary in Romania aren't going to care how well you do on your Potions exam because they've already seen you in action with the dragons."

Dawn's breathing returned to normal and her bright green eyes met with Alastriona's, her mouth parted in shock, "How-- how do you know I want to work in--"

"Dawn, please." Alastriona's smile spread a little, "We all know that you want to work in Romania once you're out of school, we've come to accept it."

Dawn laughed breathlessly and wiped a hand over her brow, "You're right. Of course you're right. About all of it. I don't know why I let myself get so panicked!"

Alastriona shrugged, "I suppose you were just watching everyone else in your year panic and thought it looked like fun." Dawn laughed loudly, feeling much more at ease now she'd stopped sweating profusely, "Are you going to be okay?"

"Yeah." She stood up, once again taller than Alastriona. "Thanks for talking sense into me, if I hadn't found you I think I would've completely lost it."

Behind Alastriona Draco made a face, if that wasn't her 'losing it' then he didn't want to be around if she did.

Dawn hugged Alastriona tightly before nodding, "Okay, I'm going to go hang out with a certain dog."

Alastriona laughed as she watched her friend go, she went to grab her books back from Draco but he held onto them, "I'll hold onto them for you, in case anyone else decides to have a breakdown."