CHAPTER 51

                                    

                                          
Harry and I hadn't spoken since he had cursed Draco. Draco was now up and about, even more excited as The broken Vanishing Cabinet was beginning to improve. 
                          
I sat in the Hufflepuff Common Room, not wanting to face anyone in The Great Hall. I flipped through the pages of an old book, not really absorbing anything. After some time, I saw Bella walk down the stairs. She glanced at me but didn't say anything. She had been ignoring me ever since I had delivered that letter to her. I finally decided to find out why.
                          
"Bella?"
                          
"Yea?" she didn't look at me but sat on an armchair furthest away from me, pulling out a book.
                          
"What's wrong? Why have you been ignoring me?" I asked bluntly.
                          
"I haven't been ignoring you" she said.
                          
I got up from my seat and sat next to her, grabbing her book from her hands.
                          
"Bella Rose if you do not tell me what's going on I will rip this book" I wasn't actually going to rip the book. We both knew that.
                          
She sighed deeply.
                          
"You promise not to be mad?"
                          
"Promise"
                          
"Well, my mother had sent me that letter you had delivered to me a couple of months ago. She wanted me to stay away from you. She said a lot of things about your family and I don't know why but I believed her" she said quickly.
                          
"But Bella, you have noticed how our mothers behave around each other haven't you? It's like they can't stand each other"
                          
She nodded.
                          
"It's almost like they've known each other since forever. Maybe they did, after all, we were neighbours in France" I said.
                          
"And your mother did write to mine. She mentioned me in her letter several times" said Bella.
                          
I stared into her striking green eyes. She had cut her brown hair short which looked quite familiar.
                          
I tried to remember where I had seen that haircut except for my own. I suddenly recalled a picture of my father from when he was younger. His hair was brown and reached his shoulders and his eyes were striking green. 
                          
Like mine, like my mother's.
                          
Like Bella's.
                          
Could it be?
                          
No. That's impossible.
                          
I stared at Bella harder, beginning to recognise features of my father on her face. She looked so much like him. But it had to be a coincidence, or I was just going crazy from all the studying I had to do for exams.
                          
"Are you alright Alice?" she looked a little scared. I had been staring at her like an idiot for the past few minutes.
                          
"Y-yea I'm fine, listen I have to go" I said, getting up from my seat. 
                          
I pulled out a piece of parchment from my pocket and a quill from one of the quill stands on a nearby table.
                          
Once, many years ago, Draco had told me a way to extract information from people. I wasn't very proud that I was about to use it now.
                          
'I know the truth about Bella'
                          
I wrote on the parchment which I sent to my mum using an owl.
                          
I didn't actually know anything, but if my mum thought I did, she might tell me. My mother could be gullible sometimes. It was terrible of me to take advantage of her like that but something was wrong and I had to know what.
                          
I checked the clock to see that it was 5:30 PM. Draco had called me to the room of requirement and after the last fiasco, I didn't want to say no so I agreed to join him.
                          
I bade goodbye to Bella and hurried towards the Room of Requirement where Draco was waiting for me.
                          
"Come on" he said, as the door appeared on the wall and we entered inside.
                          
I had never seen the Room of Requirement take this form before. It was full of a million things, old furniture, books, treasure chests and all the other items people had hidden in here over the years. I even noticed a worn out copy of a potions textbook lying on a table.
                          
Draco lead me to The Vanishing Cabinet.
                          
"Watch" he said, pulling out an apple from his pocket.
                          
He opened the cabinet and placed the apple inside it. After a few minutes, he opened it again, removing the apple.
                          
We inspected the apple to see that a bite had been taken from it.
                          
"It's working" Draco whispered.
                          
"You fixed it" I whispered back, not taking my eyes off the bitten apple in Draco's hands. Someone in Borgin and Burkes had taken a bite from the apple. It was their sign of showing that they had received it.
                          
We looked at each other. A huge smile played on Draco's lips. I forced myself to smile back.
                          
This meant that the death eaters could now come to Hogwarts.
                          
And they could kill Dumbledore.
                          
"Day after tomorrow" he said to me.
                          
"What? That's barely forty-eight hours!" I said.
                          
"So? What are we waiting for? The year is going to end, we'll be done with our exams by tomorrow" reasoned Draco.
                          
I couldn't give him a reason to stall the plan. I didn't know what to say. I couldn't even stop him, if Voldemort found out that I had tried to interrupt the mission, he would kill my parents.
                          
"Okay" I nodded my head slowly.
                          
"Good" he said, shutting the cabinet behind him.
                          
We silently walked to The Great Hall, trying to absorb everything that had just happened. Day after tomorrow, Dumbledore could be dead. I said goodbye to Draco who went to the Slytherin table. I saw Hermione motioning me to join her and Ron so I headed towards the Gryffindors.
                          
"Hello Alice, it has been a while since we've talked" she said, hugging me.
                          
"Yea" I said to her absent-mindedly.
                          
Hermione and Ron looked at each other and then at me.
                          
"Look Alice, Harry feels really bad about what he did to Draco. He really didn't know what that spell did" Ron tried to defend his friend.
                          
I believed him, but if Draco had lost his life, I would have never forgiven Harry.
                          
"I know that all of you hate Draco but he's my cousin. I'm not asking you to be friends with him, just, don't go around hexing each other" I sighed.
                          
"I promise it won't happen again, I really am sorry Alice" I turned around to see Harry giving me an apologetic look.
                          
"It's okay Harry" I said.
                          
Harry looked really tired, as if he had just returned from a long journey. The exams must have been taking a toll on him.
                          
"Can you guys believe that next year is going to be our last year in Hogwarts?" said Hermione.
                          
"That's crazy. We've had so much trouble over the past six years, time flew by so fast" said Ron.
                          
"A DADA teacher who was half Voldemort" said Hermione.
                          
"Ginny cursed by a diary, students getting petrified by snakes" said Ron.
                          
"Finding out that Sirius was really innocent and that Ron's family rat was a death eater" said Harry.
                          
They sounded like they were reading items off of a grocery list. I gawked at the three of them.
                          
"How the fuck are all of you still alive?" I said.
                          
They laughed.
                          
"You have no idea" said Ron.
                          
"I guess it can't get any crazier than this can it?" Hermione said, sipping from a goblet of pumpkin juice.