The Slytherin Prophecy | Cedric Diggory | Draco Malfoy | Harry Potter

Chapter 101

The healers at St. Mungos were able to stabilize Draco rather quickly, as his curse was casted with light intent. Phoenix had managed to tell Dumbledore about what had happened, but none could read the response received as a reaction from the wizard. Dumbledore had simply sent Phoenix away without a reaction, which might have given a clue as to what would happen with Draco once he came back to Hogwarts. The entire school had found out what had happened, and a rumor was spread that Draco had intentionally hurt himself. It angered Phoenix that people had found out so fast, due to Everett blabbing about it to the other Slytherin students he was friends with. The Gemini group was in shock to find out the news about their friend. Coral had felt like it was all her fault, as she sulked around her common room by herself regretting what she'd done. If she'd listening to him, maybe Draco would have never even been in that situation. If she had just gone to that party with him from the start, the entire thing could have been avoided completely. She felt horrible, and the fact Ash was not there to comfort her made it worse.

Ash had been fulfilling his head boy duties when he heard about the rumors. He was helping some third years in the dueling halls, when he heard two third year Slytherin girls whispering about how Draco had hurt himself and was in St. Mungos. It made him shudder at the fact he was partially responsible for all of it. He began to wonder if jumping into their relationship so quickly was a bad idea. It seemed like more people were getting hurt from it then good. Caught spacing off, he was hit by a stray knock back jinx casted by a third year hufflepuff. The wind was knocked out of him before he got up with a painful limp.

"Take it easy, Figglehorn." Ash chuckled, hobbling back over to the dueling table. "When you cast knock backs, make sure your wand is pointed at your target, not just anywhere you want. You're going to take someone's eye out."

"Sorry, sir!" The third year apologized with worry.

He shook his head with disappointment before ending the session. Excusing himself, he made his way back to the head common room to change for dinner. Anxiety flowed through his body with the thought's that might have been haunting Coral's mind from everything with Draco. He pulled the door open to find her staring into the fireplace without an expression.

"So you've heard, I'm assuming." Ash flinched, scared of her reaction.

"Who hasn't." Coral sighed, throwing her face into her hands. "I feel like it's all my fault. I'm going to be sick."

"It's not, please stop telling yourself that. It's not anyone's fault. It's not yours, it's not Draco's. The only person who's at fault is the girl who caused this all."

"I just want everything to go back to the way it was before the party. Everything was finally normal for once. It want everything back before it got all messed up."

Ash was slightly offended at that statement. "There wasn't an us before that party." He argued. "So do you actually mean everything? It's okay if you still have feelings for Draco, but if you do I need to know."

She exhaled with frustration at the fact she didn't know. Why did everything have to be so hard after it became so easy?
"I don't know." She admitted, not realizing tears were steaming down her face. "I like you, but I have so much history with Draco that disregarding three years of my life is almost impossible."

That was Ash's biggest fear in it all. It was too good to be true, but that was his fault. It was his fault for jumping into feelings for Coral so quickly and not thinking logically about how impossible it is to get over someone so quickly.
"I think before we continue this, and before I allow myself to develop anymore feelings for you, I think you need to sort this all out." He stated nervously, backing up towards the door. "I'm falling for you, and I'm going to get hurt if we keep playing games like this, while we both know it's too quick for you to be ready for a new relationship."

Coral's face fell into horror at what she heard.
"What are you talking about?" She questioned in panic. "You think I'm treating us like a game? I slept with you!"

"I never said that." Ash argued with sadness. "I'm saying, that I want you to be one hundred percent sure that you no longer want Draco, before you allow me to fall for you to the point of where I'll be completely destroyed if you don't feel the same. I don't want you to break me."

"I've already made it clear I want you." She frowned, inching towards him. "The damage done to Draco and I relationship is beyond repair. We have both put each other through so much pain, at this point it's basically impossible to fix it."

"But do you have feelings for him still?"

Coral was mortified at the fact that Ash was basically making up excuses. She didn't deserve any of this. "Of course I do! We only broke up a few days ago! That doesn't change that I have feelings for you."

Ash sighed, rubbing his aching temples. "I'm just scared. It's obvious Draco is still in love with you. You guys haven't had closure yet. I think you need to do that."

Closure. Coral hated that word. Mostly, she didn't feel comfortable having closure with Draco when it was her fault in the first place he was hurt so badly. She already found it hard to even look at him after what happened. Ash was no mistake though.
"You were no mistake in the choices I made. While you were in St.Mungos I spent three weeks thinking about you. My friends may say I'm a bad person for liking you while I was with Draco, but there were times where Draco made me feel worthless. The verbal degradation I went through when I was with him made me feel terrible. There has clearly been closure between Draco and I, he's treated me like we were enemies the day we stepped foot onto the express to come back here. Every time he hurt me, you were there to make me feel better. That's when I realized I wanted you, and it made me wonder why we weren't close until this year."

"Are you sure it's not because you think of me as a savior?"

"Ash!" She scolded, shaking her head. "Why do you think of yourself in such a low way?

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