CURSED [D.M]

-(32) you will do no good for her

DRACO sits across Zilliah in the Great Hall as they both dig into their mac and cheese in silence.

She had came back to him.

She had returned. She had held him. She had apologized for ever staying away. And it should make him feel happy. But he can't help but notice the oddness of it all. That oddness that seems to have persisted right from the first moment he laid his eyes on her.

He doesn't understand it. He doesn't even understand what this 'it' is that he has to understand. And it really should worry him more. Normally, it would. But somehow, it doesn't affect his thoughts all that much.

Even more odd, isn't it?

But when she's there, it's like she has always been there. As if she had been a part of his life- a vital part- for many milleniums. Across skies and seas. Across space and time. As if whatever they were, Zilliah and him- they were born from the very same star- their fate written down on their hearts- and souls made too attached to ever stay separated for too long.

Her presence during his panic attack hadn't caused the mess to cease. But he did feel as if he had more control over it with her there, speaking to him in that slow and calming voice, her breaths controlled for his sake, her fingers entangled in his air, and her arm coiled tight around him.

They had remained like that for a long while. They had remained so until Draco finally felt like he could stand up. And when he did, he went into the bathroom and washed his face quickly before returning to her. She had done the same and as she came back, she wrapped her hand around his wrist and led him to the hall without so much as a word.

As they neared the entrance, a group of Hufflepuffs who had just finished their dinner were walking out. The name of Katie Bell being uttered among them had caught Draco in a hold again and Zilliah had noticed this but as soon as he heard what followed, he had relaxed and she had let it slide.

Katie Bell wasn't dead. She was harmed. Possessed, they said. But she wasn't dead.

Draco hadn't killed her.

Even though she is in a critical condition at St.Mungo's, the fact that she isn't dead- it relieves him, partly. And he wants nothing more than to run back to his room and cry his heart out once again.

But he is too tired tonight.

She is alive. That is as much as of a relief he could possibly find. So he settles onto mulling this piece of information over and over in his head as he eats, listening to the slow breaths Zilliah took.

There wasn't anyone else remaining in that large hall save two Gryffindors who were playing chess on the extreme end of their table.

They too had left after a while.

But the silence remained over Zilliah and Draco.

It's not that they didn't want to speak. But they couldn't figure out how to. Not after a whole length of ice brick that seemed to stretch out between them for quite sometime, bursted into a million pieces just some hours ago.

He lifts his gaze up from his plate to glance at her chewing ever so slowly with her eyes upon her fork like she too was focused somewhere else- on some other thought, on some other world.

But just that scent of her hovering around the air, it is enough. It is just enough for him.

"Draco", he snaps his head to the side as he hears his name being called. "I need to speak to you."

Snape, his eyes set on Zilliah who hasn't even noticed his presence, walks upto them. "What is it?", Draco asks, settling his cutlery down onto the plate and tilting his body to the side.