Green Eyed Monster | Draco Malfoy

57. Dumbledore's Errand

Part Three: Audrey Potter and the Halfblood Prince

Chapter 57 - Dumbledore's Errand

"There's another one," Harry sighed as he finally looked up from the mail Hedwig had delivered. I didn't ask him what there was another of, he was sure to read it aloud to me as he always did - particularly when it had been a long wait for the Daily Prophet as it had been this evening. Still, even with the wait I couldn't find it in myself to read it. My thoughts were morbid enough, I didn't need to help them along by counting just how many pages had to be added in need of supporting all the new obituaries and missing person ads compared to the ones from yesterday. I found that reading of death did not help further my imaginings of death. Or maybe the problem was that it did - and a little too vividly, at that.

That still didn't give me a good enough reason to actually dare to look, as I did. I moved my head from my brother's bed only to see that there was a large, bold heading on the newspaper that read 'HARRY POTTER, THE CHOSEN ONE?'

"You, 'the Chosen One'," I scoffed, letting my head fall back against his lumpy pillow. "Who chooses a pain in the arse?"

"Thanks," he mumbled dryly, shuffling through the rest of the post and examining the writing. "Do you want your letters tonight?"

"No," I said tiredly, turning away from him to try and avoid another lecture. I busied myself by analyzing the doodles I had started drawing on the wall with one of Dudley's stolen permanent markers. They were obscure and poorly drawn. I was no artist, but it helped to pass the time and do away with the other thoughts trying to drill into my mind.

"Audrey, you can't keep ignoring your mail," Harry sighed, throwing the letters onto the desk by the window. Apparently he had the power to lecture me even when I had turned away - maybe he was the Chosen One. "What if they're from Theodore?"

"They're not," and they weren't. I had gotten two letters from Daphne, true, as she had kept tabs on Theo and decided to keep me informed. She only kept me informed out of ease, however, considering that's who he was staying with: the Greengrass family. I never replied out of guilt and out of annoyance or admittance, she had stopped writing.

"Are they from Malfoy?" he asked, his voice lowering a bit as he asked.

I wish they were...not that I would tell my brother that. At first they were from Malfoy - at first all of them were from Malfoy. In the beginning he had mailed me every other day. First, he tried to get me to talk. Then, he attempted sending gifts. Finally, he began insulting me to annoy me into responding to him. It hadn't worked and he had given up, just as Daphne had.

What was worse was that my nightmares - the ones that plagued me every night - had immediately started to include the git in them. He was always angry, or hurt and I had no idea how to help him. Every morning I woke up guilty, confused and annoyed. Or, I would be after I was finished being petrified from the other things that lurked in the night, things that hid behind my apparently weak subconscious mind.

I thought about writing him, Malfoy, more than I should have. I had even considered returning his gifts so that he would be annoyed enough to start writing again...but I didn't have the nerve. His father had just been locked up; his mother undoubtedly loathed me, and I didn't really have any reason to be so concerned. Maybe something had happened to his eagle-owl, Heracles - I may never know. Still, I couldn't help feeling as if something big had happened...and I worried about how directly that worry correlated to his sudden lack of writing.

"Have you packed your trunk?" Harry asked a little more quietly, knocking me out of my thoughts. It was a stupid question considering my trunk was on display to him. It looked nearly the exact same as it had from when we had come home. That was mostly thanks to the fact I hadn't taken much out of it besides a few sets of clothes and my toiletries. Harry wilted just at the sight of it. "Audrey, you have me worried. Hermione keeps telling me that this could be a sign of depression or something and that I have to watch you...do I have to watch you?"