𝐸𝑉𝐸𝑅𝐺𝑅𝐸𝐸𝑁 𝑀𝐼𝑆𝑇 || 𝐷.𝑀.

twenty five

Juniper and Blair's relationship had been strained ever since she befriended Hermione Granger. She wasn't sure if it was stemming from jealousy or hatred for Gryffindors, but all Juniper knew is that she actually liked Hermione and her friends. Even Draco was coming around to them, except for Harry, but Hermione and Draco were on good terms. Blair though, goodness she barely spoke to Juniper at this point, especially when she saw Juniper hanging out with Hermione, Ron, and Harry.
Even though Draco was alright with his girlfriends newfound friendships, he had began to distance himself from her as the end of term neared. The constant questions from Juniper didn't help him, but how could he tell her that he was tasked with murdering their headmaster? He was trapped and as badly as it hurt him to hurt Juniper, he knew it was keeping her safe from the Dark Lord. Draco felt absolutely terrible for hurting her, Juniper barely looked at him during the day and at night she would go to his room or he would go to hers and would attempt to have conversation.
Most of their conversations ended one of two ways: screaming at each other or sex. They both preferred the second end to their conversations, the sex was always angry and nothing more for the time being, but neither complained about it and usually it made them leave each other on a more positive note.
However, Juniper was growing tired of the constant fighting between herself and Draco. She finally decided to seek help and usually she'd go to Blair, but seeing as neither were talking, she turned to Hermione Granger to help her. She went to an empty corridor near Gryffindor tower, writing to Hermione to meet her there and sure enough she did show up.
"Thank you for coming." Juniper sighed as she sat on a bench near a wall. Hermione sat across from her, her face mixed with concern.
"What's going on? Are you alright?" Hermione asked. Juniper sighed again and shook her head.
"Something's wrong with Draco." Juniper looked down at her hands. "I knew...I knew before we even began dating each other that there would be complications, secrets, and more so just him hiding his feelings from me because he doesn't know how to express them." Juniper began to rant a bit. "I just didn't expect that it would carry on this long."
"How long has it been?" Hermione asked her, pulling her legs up onto the chair so she was hugging them.
"Three weeks. Three bloody weeks of barely speaking, then screaming because we're mad, and then screaming because he's fucking the hell out of me." Juniper admitted. "I don't know what to do and I swear you're the smartest person I've ever met besides Draco so I just need your help."
"Honestly, I think you need to force him to talk." Hermione told her slowly. "I know you said you've tried, but you're a Slytherin, you're ambitious so if you really, really want the conversation to succeed, you have to push him." Hermione continued.
"I'm so worried it'll end badly. What if we break up?" Juniper asked, part of her freaking out. Hermione shook her head quickly.
"Oh, that'll never happen." Hermione said. "He loves you too much and he probably knows that no other girl would be willing to put up with him." Her words made Juniper laugh.
"You make a good point. I don't know, I just have a terrible feeling." Juniper sighed.
"Go find him and make him talk to you." Hermione told her. Juniper nodded her head, muttering that Hermione was right.
"God, why is this castle so big? It'll take forever to find him." Juniper groaned as she stood up. "Thank you for talking with me, I'll see you later. You'll find out soon if this went terrible." She told her before walking off further into the castle.
Where on Earth could Draco be tonight? If only she knew he was in the Room of Requirement letting Death Eaters into the school.
Why wasn't he in his dormitory? If only she knew that by the time she got to the Slytherin common room, Draco was heading to the Astronomy Tower.
Why wasn't he in the Room of Requirement? If only she knew he had been there already, but was now holding his wand to Professor Dumbledore.
She thought of one last place to look and that was now the Astronomy Tower, so there she headed, praying he was there and willing to talk. Unfortunately, as she walked up the stairs she saw Harry Potter holding his wand up above him, ready to cast any defensive spell he needed.
"Harry? What's going on?" She whispered to him.
"What are you doing here? You need to leave, now!" Harry hissed. Juniper looked up and saw something that made her heart drop. Draco was there, holding his wand out at their headmaster.
"Oh, no. No, no, no." Juniper shook her head, now putting the puzzle pieces together.
"Don't you understand? I have to do this! I have to kill you, or he's going to kill me." Draco cried out at Dumbledore.
"Harry, put your wand down." Juniper demanded as she pulled her own wand out, holding it to Harry.
"Both of you put your wands down, now." They heard Snape hiss at them. He began to head up the stairs and Juniper tried to follow him. "Stay where you are. Do not move." He said slowly. Juniper didn't dare to argue when she saw Death Eaters up on the tower now. She could feel death consuming the tower now, trying to control herself so she wouldn't begin crying loudly. The rest of the events were a complete blur, she felt as if she was watching it all from the outside. Seeing Dumbledore fall from the tower was painful, knowing that Snape, her own Head of House and favorite professor, had killed him was painful. Harry immediately ran after the Death Eaters but Juniper ran after one person: Draco Malfoy.
"In here, now!" Juniper ran quickly toward Draco as the Death Eaters rounded the corner in front of him. She pulled him into the door that was now appearing on the wall, not giving him a choice to run from her.
"You need to get to the dormitory." Draco told her quickly, but all she felt was her hand reach up and slap him hard. "Okay, OW!" Draco yelled at her.
"What the bloody hell is wrong with you!" Juniper screamed at him, knowing no one could hear them in the Room of Requirement. "Draco Lucius Malfoy, you are a professional fucking idiot!" She couldn't contain her anger but also her sadness, she felt the tears running down her cheeks as she put her face in her hands.
"Juniper, I had no choice!" Draco yelled back. "Do you think I wanted to do this? Do you think I wanted to murder our headmaster?" Draco was crying as well, both of them turning into a mess. "You have to listen to me, you have to listen." He was speaking frantically as if his mind was going a million miles an hour.
"I am listening!" She yelled. Draco walked quickly over to her, grabbing her face in his hands, he was panting rapidly.
"Juniper, darling, I had no choice. He was going to kill me, he was going to kill me!" Draco wasn't yelling anymore, but was trying to convince her.
"Who was going to kill you? Who?" She asked him, her vision was blurred from her tears. Draco drew a deep breath in and said the name he never wanted to speak out loud.
"Voldemort." He breathed out. "My father kept saying that I had to do this task, that our family depended on it. If I didn't do it he would kill me or my mum. Junebug, you know me, I would never do this if I had a choice." Draco pleaded with her to believe him, his cheeks were flushed of color and stained with tears. Juniper reached her hands up to his cheeks, brushing them with her thumbs before Draco leaned his forehead onto hers. "You have to believe me." He begged.
    "I know...I know." She said quietly now. "Shh." She shushed him, trying to get him to stop crying before she continued interrogating him. "This is why you've barley spoken a word to me." Juniper remarked. Draco stood up straight again, his face stone cold.
    "I didn't want you to know. It was for your safety." Draco tried to defend himself.
    "No, that's trollshit, Draco!" She yelled once again. "I have been worried out of my goddamn mind for three weeks. Do you know how hard it was to go from speaking to you every single day to only seeing you when we had sex with each other? Do you know how difficult it was to only feel close to you at night and to leave you feeling like I was a girl sneaking off from your room? You've left me in the dark for weeks, Draco." Juniper's voice turned soft again, breaking a little each time she spoke. Draco was still crying as was she, he grabbed her hand and pulled her into him, hugging her tightly.
    "I didn't know what else to do." He said quietly.
    "You should've talked to me, you blithering idiot." Juniper said as she leaned her head into his chest, wrapping her arms around his waist.
    "I wanted to, I swear I did. I thought that somehow You-Know-Who would find out about you and use you against me. That maybe he would hurt you or kill you." Draco breathed out. "I only did it to keep you safe." He told her. She nodded her head into him, still completely pissed at him but choosing to move past it.
    "I know." She said quietly. "Draco, you're not safe here." She said looking up at him.
    "I know." He sighed.
    "What are you going to do?" Juniper asked. Draco shook his head and sighed.
    "I don't know, Junebug. I was told to go to the manor, but I don't want to go there." He said as he looked around. His eyes grew a bit wide and nodded his head. "The cottage." Is all he said.
    "What about it?" She asked him, watching his eyes dart around the room.
    "What if we just...left? What if we went and just found that white Tudor cottage?" Draco asked her.
    "Tonight?" Juniper asked, slightly shocked. Draco nodded his head rapidly.
    "Yes, Juniper, we aren't safe. The cold war we've been in isn't cold anymore. It started the second Dumbledore died so we aren't safe. There's no where to go, Hogwarts isn't safe, our homes aren't safe, so why not just run?" Draco made all good points and Juniper felt quite terrible for the thought of leaving her friends and family behind, but Draco was right, no where was safe.
    "Okay, yeah, you're right. Not even the muggle world is safe half the time, so yes, let's go." She nodded her head in agreement. Draco looked slightly shocked that she was so quick to agree, but they both knew that neither were leaving each other and that their world was under attack now.
    "We have to move quickly before the Death Eaters come looking for me." Draco told her as she grabbed his hand, pulling him toward the door to leave the Room of Requirement. Juniper stopped and turned around though, looking at the room. "What are you doing?" Draco asked.
    "Taking one last look. We may never see this room again, Draco. This room is the reason we'll be safe. It deserves one last look." Juniper said as a tear rolled on her cheek. The Room of Requirement was glistening in the soft lighting with all the trinkets and artifacts. The tall pile of chairs were stacked higher than ever and the broken record that sat on the table was still skipping a beat. The vanishing cabinet that once laid under a sheet was now open and there was jewelry piled on the table near it. Draco looked around the room as well, taking it all in. The room he came to when he needed to escape, the room he made his plans in with Juniper, where he knew instantly that he loved her.
    "I fell in love with you here, Junebug." Draco whispered to her softly, giving her hand a squeeze. "The night we talked about that little white Tudor cottage after the ball. You in that dress and your hair was messy from dancing, your eyes were tired but so full of light and happiness. The way you spoke about a nonexistent house in the mountains of England made me realize instantly that I was so completely and ridiculously in love with you." Draco told her. Juniper leaned up on the tips of her shoes so she could press her lips to his, feeling as if she hadn't done that in forever and it felt so nice to do it again.
    "One day we will come back here. I promise you, we will come back here when this war is finished and we've won. Yes, we can be doomed to have the sun swallow this Earth, but we will be back. We will be back to show this room that we are stronger than any war that's tried to come between us." Juniper promised him great things that they both knew may not be true, but she prayed it would be.
    "Even if the sun did swallow this entire Earth and we were compound to only dust, I would still be in love with you." Draco gave her a chuckle as he leaned his head against hers. "We have to go." He whispered. Juniper only nodded and they set off for the Slytherin common room for the last time.