Belong (D.M)

Part twenty

Dreams often have this pattern of somehow turning into nightmares, and some things are too fragile to trust. Most things break, and slip out of your fingers like sand.

She was walking down the empty halls of the castle, keeping to herself. She somewhat blamed herself for Dumbledore's Army being found out about, even though Cho Chang was the one to rat them out.

The spirit amongst the students was lower than it had been in a long time, and she felt no joy about the upcoming Quidditch game. No one seemed to.

"Ellie!"

She didn't have to turn around to know that he had just been the one to call out her name. She didn't want to turn around, she didn't want to see him.

"Ellie! Hey! Don't ignore me!"

But she did. She ignored him as she kept on walking. She was trying so hard to block his voice out, pretend like he didn't exist.

"Ellie" he breathed as he suddenly ran in front of her.

"Don't call me that" she mumbled, trying to push past him.

"Ellie come on" he said, once again appearing in front of her as to stop her from walking away.

"I told you not to call me that!" She screamed, not able to control her anger and sadness with him "you can't call me by my name any longer"

"Please" he said, laying his hands on her arms "please can be talk?"

"No" she muttered, tearing her arms away from his grip "there's nothing you can say to make this better Malfoy"

"Oh so we're back to a last name basis now?" he called out after her as she left.

"Yes because of you!"

She barely made it to the stairs before he appeared again, stopping her. He clearly wasn't going to give up.

"I didn't know you were going to be there, I swear I didn't know Ell... I mean Ember"

"I doesn't matter, you still did it" she said, her bottom lip quivering "you ruined everything"

"Look, I can explain, please give me a chance to explain"

"No, I can't" she said, trying not to cry "I keep on giving you chances, and every time I do so you screw me over, I can't trust you Draco"

"Come on" he spat, looking at her with desperate eyes "meet me at midnight please? I'll explain everything"

"No"

"Please" he pleaded "I will be at the astronomy tower at midnight, if you can find it in your heart to at least hear me out then come"

"We'll see" she mumbled before she pushed past him, heading back to her dorm.

She spent the evening reading, only taking a break to go to dinner in the great hall with Hermione, Katie and Ginny.

At eleven the common room was empty, and she dragged her feet into her dormitory and into her bed, pulling the covers over her.

She had made her mind up, she wasn't going to see Draco, she couldn't. But something inside her kept her from falling asleep as she had planned, something made the thoughts and the doubts inside of her head spin around and around until she got up and got dressed.

She soon found herself tiptoeing through the empty common room dressed in pants and a warm sweater. She did not know why, but she crawled out of the passage behind the painting of the fat lady.

Minutes later she was stood at the bottom of the staircase leading up to the astronomy tower, contemplating if she should climb them or just simply go back to bed. She figured she had made it this far, and something was pulling her up towards the top of the tower. So she sneaked up the staircase as quietly as the could, careful to peer up onto the floor of the tower first to see if Umbridge was standing there ready to catch her. She couldn't possibly know now, perhaps he only wanted her to come here so he could set her up? Give her up for punishment for being a part of Dumbledore's Army.