PLAYING A FACADE | D.M fanfic

nineteen.

I admit, the night Draco was attacked, it made us closer, in a good way. But Draco was slipping in and out of reality, the pressure of the task was growing bigger and bigger and he wasn't able to handle such task. No one our age should. Every night, we went to the Room of Requirement, repairing the seemingly hopeless Vanishing Cabinet, we were trying our best to be careful on what we were doing at school, especially Draco, now that the trio were onto him. Nothing school related seem to matter to him now, his grade started dropping, along with his concentration in every quidditch practice we had. He did not even bother to make some snide comments towards anyone as much anymore, his mind was filled with the task and just the task. All I could do was be strong for him and help him in any way I could. It hurt me to see the person I love being all down and anxious. His was clearly sleep deprived more and more everyday, as the days got closer to the end of the sixth year. Time flew so fast this year, with the both of us in a rush to fix the cabinet and coming up with a plan. After our failure on both attempts, we had concluded that we had no other choice but to ultimately kill Dumbledore ourselves, with our wands and the most unforgivable curse, the killing curse. We both, technically myself, have committed one of the three Unforgivable Curses, on Madam Rosmerta and I'm glad that nothing happened to her even after being cast upon. Draco and I just need to know when would be the right time to do so and how we were going to do it without anyone getting their suspicions on us. The trio being onto Draco did not help this either. Everyone else in this school has a choice on which side to choose, with the Dark Lord or with the good people. No one understood how Draco and I were both born without a choice, with a path already forged by our parents, which was to serve the Dark Lord and there was nothing we could do about it.

Instead of fixing the cabinet tonight, Draco and I spent our evening in the library, searching for any other curses and spells we could find and any other methods to kill someone without saying the killing curse or any of the Unforgivable Curses. No one else was in the library, letting our minds wander with the silence the room provided. We were flipping through pages, hiding in the restricted section, where all the books about all the things we needed to know at the moment were.

"Em?" Draco, who was sitting beside me, asked.

I looked up, staring at his pale complexion, "Yeah?"

"I think I'm going to quit quidditch."

I closed the book that I was reading, shocked, "What?"

"Or maybe just step down from captaincy."

"You're not thinking straight, Draco." I said, dismissing his thoughts.

"No, I'm pretty sure I am. I need to focus on the cabinet and the task." I opened my mouth to say my response but he cut me off, "Em, I have a lot on my plate and I know that you know. Quidditch would just add that. Besides, we both know that you're a better captain than I am."

"What? No. I never said that."

Draco smiled weakly, "You don't need to. I know that the number five in Ilvermorny means team captain."

I was surprised, "How did you-"

"Know that? I don't live under a rock, Em." Draco retorted, leading to me rolling my eyes, "Beating all other three houses four years in a row, five actually with last year's winv."

I smiled at him, not knowing what to say before we went back to utter silence, further flipping through pages and page by page, the hopes of finding an alternative was getting dimmer and dimmer as I thought about what Draco just said.

"I'll be captain on one condition," I started.

"Alright," Draco said in immediate defeat as he looked at me, "What's the one condition?"