viii. accusation

                                    

                                          
"For weeks you carry around this book, practically sleep with it..." Hermione starts, walking quickly. "And you have no desire to find out who The Half-Blood Prince is?"
                          
"I didn't say I wasn't curious. And, by the way, I don't sleep with it!"
                          
Ron sneered sarcastically, "Yeah, right. Well, it's true, I like a nice chat before I go to bed. Now you're always reading that bloody book, it's like being with Hermione."
                          
The girl involved was now the one to glare as she started speaking. "Well, I was curious. So I went to—"
                          
"The library." Harry, Ron and Lillian finished in unison. "And?"
                          
"And... Nothing! There's no reference to the Half-Blood Prince anywhere."
                          
"There we go, that settles it then."
                          
Hermione was about to object when the teenagers caught a bit of conversation between Slughorn and Flitwick.
                          
If she ought to be honest, Lillian didn't care a single bit about the Half-Blood Prince or about Slughorn or about anything in general. It might be sad to say, or to think, but she didn't feel much anymore and was slowly starting to realise she had no control over her emotional state. She wanted to sleep peacefully and stay in bed all day, nothing else.
                          
And it was making her panick.
                          
"Does anyone fancy a butterbeer?" Harry asked softly.
                          
Well, maybe a hot beverage would make the teenager feel less... empty.
                          
"No. Not there." Harry muttered as Ron was signaling the two girls to sit at the first available table. "Sit beside me."
                          
"Okay.." Ron sighed, obviously annoyed that he couldn't sit beside Hermione.
                          
At least, Lillian was still able to catch on all the small signs that showed Ron's particular interest in Hermione and vice-versa.
                          
"Something to drink?"
                          
Hermione was the one to answer as Harry seemed to notice something behind Lillian. "Uh.. four butterbeers and some ginger in mine please."
                          
The blonde swiftly turned around to be met by Draco's icy gaze that kept going back and forth between Harry and Lillian before leaving the Three Broomsticks with a knot in his stomach.
                          
In the back of his mind, Draco hoped Lillian would follow him outside, would confront him, would acknowledge him. But after what he had just done, he somehow wished she would not do it, because she was the only person who could read through him enough to discover he was in someway guilty.
                          
He was getting weaker everytime she would walk past him, her scent and even the way her hair would move from the wind was making him feel something deep within. Lillian was the key to turn Draco into a man able to feel when it was not the right time because he could not be human. Not now.
                          
So when Draco reached the entrance of the castle, his mind was still tortured about the Gryffindor and he looked behind him, thinking that, maybe, the sound of his own footsteps in the snow hid the sound of Lillian walking behind him but soon found out he was completely alone and no one seemed ready to come and find him.
                          
     
                          
"You're sure Katie did not have this in her possession when she entered the Three Broomsticks?" McGonagall asked.
                          
"It's like I said. She left to go to the loo, and when she came back she had the package. She said it was important that she deliver it."
                          
"Did she say to whom?"