Green Apples; Draco Malfoy [1]

Chapter 16🍏

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴𝘯'𝘵 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘺. Whenever she argued with him, he always had the upper hand. He would always win. But not because he was stronger than her, but because she would always let him win.

Every time Draco Malfoy challenged Alexis, she'd crumble. She'd try to step up, but ultimately, she'd fall, because really and truly, she didn't want to fight.

Standing up to people isn't easy for her, but standing up to Draco was practically impossible. For someone so young, it was incredible how easily he commanded a room.

And how easily he could hurt someone.

Frustrated, Alexis goes to the girl's dorm, gets changed and lies on her bed. She looks out of the window and listens to the cool rippling of the lake. A tear falls down the side of her face, across her nose and onto her other cheek and she sniffles.

She isn't even sad. She's angry. So angry she cries.

She cries herself to sleep, unaware of when the rest of the girls return to the dorm and tuck her into bed. Pansy and Thea pull the duvet over her and the other Slytherin girls move her hair out of her face and turn off her bedside lamp.

If only she knew just how many people cared about her the same way she does them.

As Alexis sleeps in her bed that night, a dream so vivid it could be real plays in her head.

"Harry, this doesn't seem right. Something's off."

Harry, battered and bruised, looks at her. He takes her hand, which is also somehow bruised and covered in dirt, and gulps. "We'll be fine. Just stick with me."

They walk down a long flight of stone stairs, ending in some sort of cave. A mirror stands in the centre of the room in front of them. It glimmers dimly in the faint light, a rippling effect on its surface.

The hair on the back of her neck prickles, and deep within her, she feels it. "Harry, listen to me, something bad is coming, I can feel it. We need to leave, right now—"

A cold, wet feeling creeps down her spine. Goosebumps form all over her skin and her mouth feels dry.

It's here.

She wakes up in her bed, covered in a cold sweat, her hair damp and her body both hot and cold. She pants hysterically as if she had just run a marathon.

What was that?

• • •

"No, no and no. Definitely not. No way—Did I say no already?"

Alexis sits in the courtyard with Hermione, Harry and Ron. Their plan to save Hogwarts and the entire wizarding world is getting past Fluffy and retrieving the Philosopher's stone. Themselves. That night. Without any help.

It's safe to say that Alexis is not on board.

"Are you mad? We'll never make it? Do you not remember the way Snape was limping after Halloween, that you so very well pointed out to me. Not even he could get past Fluffy, so what makes you think we can?"

"You're sounding very anti-Snape now. Seen the truth have you?" says Ron.

"Not now Ron!" she snaps back. "We're not doing this."

"Alexis, don't you see? If we don't do this now, Snape's going to go down there, get the stone and become immortal. Dumbledore won't be able to stop him and who knows what he'll do!" says Hermione. "He'll start with Hogwarts, which means all this studying we've been doing would have been for nothing, and then we'll probably have to work for him, we'll be turned into child slaves, he'll do dark magic on all of us, and our families, and—"