"Draco?"

I tried to make my voice as tentative and as gentle as possible. I didn't want to alarm him. It felt like I had walked in on something extremely private.

Draco froze, his sobs ceased immediately. He furiously wiped his face with his shirt sleeves before eventually looking at me. I saw the horror in his eyes at being caught like this.

"Carter, I uh- I didn't - I didn't..." he trailed off. He looked down at his feet, sighing.

I approached him and hesitantly perched on the edge of the sofa he was sat on.

"Draco, you can talk to me. Please, just let me help you." I started to move my arm so as to place my hand on his shoulder to comfort him, but I changed my mind at the last second and decided to squeeze both my hands tightly in my lap instead.

"You can't help me Carter, no one can." He said dully, still staring down at the floor.

"But something must have happened to make you get in this state. What is it? Please at least talk to me." I knew I must have started to sound pushy but seeing Draco like this frightened me. But he just shook his head saying nothing. I couldn't understand what could make him be this way.

And then suddenly I heard Harry's voice in my head. "Malfoy gave this necklace to Katie Bell. I'm sure of it." I didn't want to believe it, but Draco was in a state about something so I decided to test the waters.

"Did you go into Hogsmeade this morning?" I asked as casually as I could.

He shook his head, still not taking his eyes off of the floor. "Detention." He muttered.

Oh, well that put him out of the picture a bit. But I decided to go for the jugular.

"Did you hear about Katie Bell?"

I saw it instantly - his shoulders stiffened, his breath froze. It was him.

"Draco?" He finally looked up at me, fear in his eyes.

"Is- is she... OK?" His voice quivered. I thought he was going to start crying again.

"I don't know, I came straight here after it happened." I swallowed, my heart racing. There was no doubt about his involvement.

There was noise outside the common room - Slytherins were coming back from lunch. Draco stood up suddenly, giving me a nervous glance before stalking off to his dormitory.

There was nothing I could do. So I remained on the sofa and waited. Slytherins came and went around me, ignoring me. I didn't care. I just sat waiting and watching. I couldn't just leave it like this. I needed to find out what was going on with Draco. I was not afraid of him. I was afraid for him. And I wanted to help.

Eventually, he emerged from the dormitories. He headed straight for the common room exit, not looking my way at all.

Good. That just made what I was going to do easier.

After a few moments, I got up on my feet and followed.

I was careful to stay far enough behind but not too far in case I would lose the white-blonde hair leading the way. Luckily, he never looked back - I'm sure he would know what I was doing the instant he saw me. Eventually, we were in a corridor on the seventh floor. This was where the Room of Requirement was. We had used it for Dumbledore's Army last year.

Draco came to a halt besides the tapestry of dancing trolls, closed his eyes and began to pace.

I stayed hidden behind a statue as I watched the door appear. As soon as he entered it, I sprinted forward - willing the door not to vanish before I got there.

I made it, and taking a deep breath, I stepped inside.

***

Draco Malfoy was not having a good day.

He was feeling desperate. The Vanishing Cabinet was still just a cabinet - he was getting nowhere with it. And so he had come up with this wild and rash idea of giving Dumbledore a cursed necklace. Except that his plan fell through and now one of his classmates had been cursed and he had no idea if he had killed her or not.

Earlier that day, he had been in detention with McGonagall for not handing in his Transfiguration homework yet again when a fourth year had burst in, frantically telling McGonagall that Katie Bell had been cursed and she was needed right away.

Draco had been dismissed, as McGonagall fled, and he had gone back to the common room. Upon finding it empty, he had broken down out of guilt and self loathing and fear.

And then Rosie had walked in on him. He flushed with anger and humiliation when he remembered the look on her face. Pity. He hated that.

When she had mentioned Katie Bell, the guilt and self loathing had crashed down on him in an instant. He was glad of the interruption from the other Slytherins so that he could escape into his dormitory. He couldn't hold it together in front of her. He didn't trust himself in her presence.

He breathed a sigh of relief at the solitude the Room of Requirement now offered and felt himself calming down somewhat.

Draco wandered over to the where the Vanishing Cabinet stood hidden under a large black cloth and hastily removed it. He supposed he had better get back to work on it since his other desperate plan failed so miserably.

As he opened the cabinet door, he heard a soft noise behind him and he had the sudden, cold, feeling that he was not alone.

Very slowly, he reached for his wand from inside his jacket pocket and then spun around.

He found himself pointing his wand directly at Rosie Carter's bewildered face.

***

I stood watching as Draco uncovered what looked to be a large sort of cabinet. I could not for the life of me work out what he was doing in here and what he wanted with that cabinet.

Before I could let him know of my presence, he had turned around, aiming his wand right at me.

"Carter?! What the hell are you doing here?" He roared furiously, his eyes glinting in anger.

"I- I was worried about you, Draco." I suddenly felt very foolish and also a little afraid. He looked so angry.

Draco sighed and finally lowered his wand. He did not say anything.

"What are you doing in here? What do you need with that?" I asked, nodding towards the cabinet.

"You can't be here. You need to turn around right now and forget you ever saw me in here." His voice was steady, as he looked me straight in the eye, ignoring my questions.

I didn't move. Instead I took a deep breath and said, "You cursed Katie Bell, didn't you?" My voice sounded calmer than I felt.

He blinked. "No, I didn't curse her." But then, to my horror, he added, "She wasn't meant to touch it."

I gasped, clutching the wall with one hand to steady myself. Even though I had already kind of known, his admission still felt like a blow to the stomach.

Draco didn't attempt to come any nearer to me, instead he just stood, taking in my reaction.

"Why?" Was all I could splutter.

"I needed her to deliver it to somebody."

"I don't understand, are you saying that- that you tried to kill someone?" My head was pounding, horrified at what I was hearing.

Draco didn't answer and as I looked at him, I saw tears start to fill his eyes and his bottom lip started to quiver.

"If I don't do this then He's going to kill me." His voice was strangled and I could tell that he was trying desperately to hold back the tears.

"Voldemort." I whispered, suddenly understanding. His father getting captured at the Ministry. It was a punishment.

Draco flinched and then slowly nodded as the tears that had been threatening finally fell down his cheeks. He sank down to the floor in a crouching position, covering his wet face in his hands and wept.

I didn't know how to comfort him, or if he even wanted it. So I too sat down on the floor and waited silently for him to recover.

He eventually lifted his head, sobbing subsided, but he wouldn't meet my eyes.

"The cabinet...?" I asked, breaking the silence, sweeping my hand over to the towering object behind Draco.

"It's a Vanishing Cabinet. It's broken. He wants me to fix it."

"So this is where you have been disappearing to every night." It wasn't a question.

He nodded, still not meeting my eyes.

I sighed, trying to get my thoughts together. I didn't know what to do. I realised the implication of what Draco had told me and it changed everything. I couldn't walk away from this anymore. I looked at Draco's tired, pale, tortured face and my heart clenched at the thought of everything he had been going through. He didn't have a choice. But I did.

"Let me help you, Draco. You don't have to do this on your own anymore. You've got me."

I watched the frown lines disappear from his face as his eyes searched mine questioningly. After a moments hesitation he answered.

"OK."

***