Healing // d.m.

| 33 |

  DRACO stayed rooted to the carpeted floor. His eyes still fixated on the door that closed behind her when she left.

  He was a complete idiot.

  Theo and Blaise walked in not long after, with Adrian Pucey and Daphne Greengrass behind them. They were all recruited to the Ministry aid. They were desperate and needed all the help they could get.

  Shacklebolt had called them yesterday in the early morning. They told him they were needed for a sudden mission. They were on edge. Everyone was expected to bring forward something. For the first time in forever, Draco was given trust and a sense of hope. He was consumed by it.

  Draco desperately wanted to stay, for Ariendra, but they promised it would be fast. So he made sure her mother was well enough to take care of her, which she happily accepted. He bought all the groceries that she could eat and asked her mother to set up a picnic for when he returns. He wanted it to be special for her.

  They spent the whole day in Rome, tailing his father and several other death eaters. It was their best opportunity to steal more information as their enemies were at their weakest.

  They found out that there were a total of five rubies. Two were in Ariendra's parent's wedding rings. Lucius Malfoy had a tiny piece of ruby, which they assumed was the accidental fifth stone. The Aurors managed to create a diversion, helping Draco and his team snatch the ring along with destroying some of their resources. It was extremely successful.

  They needed to find out where the two other stones were and how to destroy them. They still don't know how to unlock its powers and it's a race between them and the enemy. If his father were to figure it out first, they would lose before the battle even began. They wanted a place to rest and think, so they forced to go to Malfoy Manor, hoping to be able to find more clues from his father's journal.

  Draco didn't estimate for the mission to last as long as he did. He did't want them to come to his home. He planned to come home alone and talk to her before sending her home safely.

  He failed her, just like he always failed everyone around him.

  "What are you doing here?" Blaise asked him, "We just saw Ariendra leave with Flick's wife. So did you talk?"

  Draco didn't have the energy to reply; he just walked up the stairs, with the rest of them behind him.

  "Let me guess." Theo began to speak, "She saw Pansy and jumped to conclusions, did she?"

  Since when was Theo the smart one?

  "It wasn't her fault." Draco defended, "I made her jump to conclusions."

------

  Draco wasn't in the mood to think about the mission. He was standing by the window looking at the front gates, hoping somehow she would come back. What was he thinking, why would she? He should have chased after her. He should have run, have her right there and now.

  "Can you at least help read through all this crap?" Pansy glared at him. They were knees deep into his father's journal. Draco never knew his father liked to document all his thoughts and his travels quite this detailed. It was hidden in every nook and cranny of his office.

  "Yeah come help Draco." Theo whined.

  Pansy shot daggers at him instead, "Don't complain when you're just sitting there drinking yourself to death Theo! You fucking twat."

  It's easy to say that the tension in the room was extremely high. They were exhausted. They needed rest. But none really had the courage to stop working. News broke yesterday that all their father's were now newly recruited death eaters. Lucius was able to trick them with the imperius curse. Pansy's father refused and he was found dead, his body mutilated. She received a package filled with his father's limbs, horrifying her mother.