yellow - D.M

Chapter thirty one: why the tears?

"What am I now?
What if I'm someone I don't want around?
I'm fallin' again
I'm fallin' again
I'm fallin'"
-song: Falling by Harry Styles
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      OPHELIA ACTUALLY felt like crying.

      Which was odd, because that rarely happens.

      She bit down incredibly hard on her lip as she paced back and forth in an empty corridor. She was supposed to be in her first period of the day, Transfiguration, but her mind was all over the place and she needed to leave the classroom.

      Her pace was increasing by the second.

      Back and forth. Back and Forth. Back and Forth...

      She squeezed her eyes shut and aggressively shook her head, trying to not let the water fall out of her eyes. She stopped walking and leaned forward and placed her hands on her thighs. 'This is pathetic,' she thought to herself as she felt hot tears roll down her cheeks 'I'm overreacting again, I shouldn't be crying,' she choked back a dry sob.

      It had been exactly 5 years since her mother died, and she normally wouldn't be crying over it, except for the fact during breakfast she surprisingly got a letter from her father. Which made her more emotional than she already was since she never heard from him during the school year. And what was in the note made her heart hurt even more.

      Her father had found a picture of Ophelia and her mother and decided to send it to her.

      That wasn't the only reason she was feeling emotional, she was overwhelmed with school -though it was only the third week- and since she somehow got passing grades, meaning she was now in a few N.E.W.T classes, she was completely stressed out, not knowing what was going on in them. 

       And the way Draco was acting towards her wasn't helping either. Though he did "apologize" about lashing out, he still was doing it anyway. He wasn't treating her fairly and was quite honestly making Ophelia insecure about how she was acting towards him and just in general. 

      She felt as if she was the problem, that him getting angry and yelling at her was because she was being clingy, and annoying.

      Clingy and annoying. 

      Those words were what made her so self-conscious of  how she would act, what she would say, how she would feel. She hated it. 

      She hated how it made her feel like she was the bad guy.

      Her breath hitched as she heard footsteps coming from down the hall.

      "Shit, shit, shit," she panicked under her breath as she struggled to think of what to do. She was about to make a run for it, thinking the loud footfalls belonged to a teacher, but she wanted to cry even harder when she saw who turned the corner. She turned the other direction and started to walk away, thinking she could get away.

      "Woodlock?"

      She didn't turn around, she just stopped walking and placed her head in her hands. She felt like she couldn't breath. 'Deep breaths' she thought.

      Breath in and out. In and out. In and out...

      "Ophelia," She could tell he was walking towards her by the way his voice sounded to be closer "You shouldn't be out of class," he said "And why are you on the seventh floor?" he paused right behind her. His lips parted slightly as he saw her shoulders moving up and down "Are you crying?"

      Malfoy had never actually seen Ophelia cry before, he wasn't sure what to do. He placed his hand on her shoulder, making her flinch at the touch.

      "Hey," he murmured and turned her around "What happened?" He pried her hands off of her face. He noticed that her eyes were about four shades lighter blue than normal and foggy tears ran down her flushed cheeks.

     She wouldn't look at him, she didn't want to, so instead she just looked at her shoes. He hesitantly pulled her into a hug. As much as she didn't want to, she hugged him back and instantly cried harder. "I miss her," She choked out as she dug her head into his uniform.

      "Who?"

       "My mum," Her sobs grew as she said the words. "I miss her so much, it hurts." She hugged him tighter. "Why does it hurt so much?" She gasped for air as she struggled to breathe right. She hadn't cried this hard in a while.

      "Shhhhhh," Draco hushed as he held her to his chest "It will be okay,"

      "No it won't." she said "Why did he have to kill her?" She wasn't even processing what she was saying.

      Draco's eyebrows furrowed, he didn't know someone actually had killed her mother. "What who?" the words left his mouth before he could stop them.

      "A fucking Death Eater, Avery or some shit," her voice was muffled from his shirt "I don't know." She did know but she said it anyway.

      Draco went tense. His whole body froze. He didn't know what to do or say. He just stood there, his eyes were wide, his grip loosened from around her. "Oh." his mouth was dry.

      She pulled away from him slightly and sniffled. She wiped her tears with her sleeve "Why are you even out of class anyway?" she hiccupped.

      Draco couldn't look at her. He cleared his throat "No reason." he lied.

      She choked out another sob "I hate when you get like this."

      Draco didn't say anything, he didn't think he could. He stepped away from her and cleared his throat again "Uh," he shook his head "Let me walk you back to your common room, you need to sleep."

      She nodded. He felt bad for wanting to leave her alone in such a state, but he needed some space to think.

-

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      Draco clenched his jaw as he watched her walk into the Hufflepuff common room. He hated himself. She had asked him to stay with her, and he said no. He wanted to, but it felt wrong. He now knew he couldn't tell her his secret. She would just absolutely hate him for it.

      Malfoy had been forced to become a part of Voldemort's Followers over the summer, more commonly known as Death Eaters. It wasn't his choice he didn't want to do it, but the Dark Lord threatened him and his family, so that left the poor boy with no choice.

      He knew Avery, though Draco had never liked the guy that much, he now hated him even more for murdering Ophelia's mum.

      He knew that if Ophelia found out he was a Death Eater she would despise him. She couldn't find out, he won't allow it.

      He hated how he was treating her. He knew it was bad, and that she deserved better. But he couldn't lose her. Not yet at least.

      He was just so stressed with all the shit that the Dark Lord was ordering him to do. The stress caused him to take all his anger out on Ophelia.

      He ran his hand through his head and began to head back up to the seventh floor. More specifically to the Room Of Requirement.