41 | ﴾ Seventh Year ﴿

                                    

                                          
Within the majestic shrine Draco's memories had flooded back. His brain was a warzone from the amount of Obliviation he'd subjected himself to, and had been subjected to by others, for years and years. He was still a very young and developing man, and the monk's graceful Legilimency had brought back all of the cerebral degradation he'd been through. 
                          
The surge in neuro activity had prompted him to pass out entirely. While in his unconscious state, his mind discreetly began to sort the recovered memories into their respective positions. He had fallen into a dream state, watching with disturbance and trauma at what he'd lost. In particular, an entire year of memories he could never have anticipated were highlighted in the reawakening.
                          
During his unexpectedly irritating seventh year at Hogwarts, Draco had pressed on with trying to repair the vanishing cabinet. Despite his above average magio-mechanical prerogatives, the tall piece of angular furniture had proven quite impossible and resistant to his efforts to reinstate it's connection to it's sister cabinet in Borgin and Burkes. 
                          
He was burnt out and chronically felt ill. His friends hadn't seen much of him, and even when he was in the public eye he kept falling asleep in social settings and classrooms. 
                          
On the highest peak of the castle, he typically averted the hordes of students by sitting on the Astronomy Tower and contemplating suicide. At his wits end, something miraculous happened.
                          
His inner monologue was interrupted by the soft pattering of oncoming footsteps up the metal spiral staircase. He turned his face with a cigarette still clung between his lips as a tiny girl with long sandy blond hair appeared at the top in a mauve dress with a silky lace bow tied into her hair. He'd half expected the intruder to be professor Snape, as the man tended to stalk Draco around, watching his every move as he attempted to complete fixing the vanishing cabinet for the dark lord's access into the castle. 
                          
He narrowed his eyes at her, "What do you want? Get lost." He recognized her vaguely from their common room but had never spoken to the girl. She was quiet and reserved for whatever reason, and had only just appeared that year making her quite the outsider amongst the seasoned friend groups. Several weeks of the semester had now crawled by and no one really knew her, just that she was exceptionally pretty and strange. 
                          
Draco hadn't even considered the possibility that she would pay him any attention because he had maintained a reputation for being cruel to girls. He was also just too busy with his Death Eater tasks to think about women. Over the summer his parents had arranged a cringeworthy marriage for him to Astoria Greengrass, whom he found revolting and was doing everything that he could to avoid.
                          
She clasped her hands before her nervously, twisting her fingers together and biting her lip. Draco froze with his eyebrow raised and the cigarette depositing swirls of stinky carcinogenic smoke. She timidly approached him with a flirty smile and leaned on the railing with a blank expression. 
                          
Her silence was beginning to unnerve him, "What? I said beat it."
                          
She stopped beside him and put both of her hands on the railing, peering far over at an angle that made Draco certain that she was about to slip. She gave him another sweet smile with her hair blowing gently around her face, "I... wanted... tu converse...wit' tu."
                          
She spoke slowly and awkwardly, using her hands to guide him through what she intended to say. He laughed cruelly, "Oh I see, you can't speak English. How pathetic." He looked away over the courtyard below again, still drawing on the dart. He was now distracted by the girl and decided to hang about a bit longer to see what kind of entertainment he could make of her. 
                          
She kept ringing her hands around the railing, bouncing on the spot and shyly stealing glances at him. "Ton nom est... Draco Malfoy?" she inquired. He stood still as a statue, calm and collective, watching her with hooded, sly eyes.