The grass felt damp against her ankles as she navigated the perimeter of the grounds. Draconia moved with a careful precision, trying to keep her footsteps light enough to avoid the crunch of frost on dead leaves. The moon sat low in the sky, casting a silvered sheen over the rolling hills of the Hogwarts estate. Everything felt different in the dark; the familiar landscape of the Forbidden Forest and the sprawling lawns took on a jagged, predatory quality. She kept her eyes fixed on the path ahead, though her mind was still reeling from the sound of that running. The gait had been unmistakable, a rhythmic, heavy thud that belonged to a specific person.
A low groan came from the direction of the Willow, a sound that seemed to vibrate through the soles of her boots. The tree was a massive, violent presence in the moonlight, its branches thick and knotted like the limbs of a titan. Draconia watched the way the branches swayed, though there was very little wind to move them. The Willow was not a passive thing; it was an entity that seemed to breathe with its own singular, angry purpose. She felt a sudden urge to turn back toward the warmth of the castle, but her feet continued to move forward. She was not walking away from the sound, she was walking directly into the heart of the commotion.
"You are being a fool," she muttered to herself, though her voice was barely a whisper. The cold air bit at her cheeks, making her skin feel tight and sensitive. She reached out to steady herself against a low-hanging shrub, her fingers brushing against the rough texture of its leaves. The darkness made the world feel smaller, more intimate, and far more dangerous than it had been during the day. She could hear the rustle of movement near the base of the tree, a frantic, scraping sound that suggested something was being displaced.
The silhouette of the tree loomed larger as she approached, its trunk a dark, textured column of wood. Draconia stepped around a cluster of bushes, her breath coming in short, visible puffs. The ground began to slope downward, making her footing uneven as she scrambled toward the center of the clearing. She saw a shape moving near the thickest part of the trunk, a dark shape that did not belong to the wood itself. It was a person, moving with a frantic, desperate energy that seemed at odds with the stillness of the night.
"Harry!" she called out, the name catching in her throat before she could stop it. She realised a second too late that she had spoken aloud, and the sound felt too loud in the quiet of the grounds. The figure froze, and for a moment, the only sound was the distant hoot of an owl. She took another step, her boot slipping slightly on a patch of slick grass. The Willow seemed to react to her presence, a branch lurching in her direction with a sudden, violent snap.
The movement was too fast for her to react with grace. A low-hanging limb swung toward her, and she instinctively ducked, but the momentum was already carrying her sideways. The branch caught her shoulder, a hard, wooden force that knocked her off her centre. She felt the world tilt as she lost her balance entirely. Gravity pulled at her, dragging her toward the uneven earth. Her feet tangled in a thicket of roots, and she felt the sudden, jarring sensation of falling.
The descent was not a long one, but it was a messy one. She hit the ground with a dull thud, the air rushing out of her lungs as she tumbled into the soft, wet mud at the base of the tree. The impact was hard, and a sharp pain flared in her ankle as it twisted under her weight. She landed on her side, her robes soaking up the cold moisture of the earth almost instantly. The world spun for a moment, a dizzying blur of dark greens and silver light, before settling into a dull ache.
"Draconia?" a voice called out, sounding startled and breathless. Harry was standing a few feet away, his silhouette jagged and uneven in the moonlight. He looked dishevelled, his hair a chaotic mess of dark strands, and his chest heaved as he struggled to catch his breath. He stepped toward her, his movements tentative as if he were afraid of startling a startled animal. The light caught the sharp angles of his face, making him look older than he had a few hours ago.
"I am here," she said, trying to keep her voice steady despite the throbbing in her ankle. She reached up to brush a stray lock of hair from her face, but her fingers were shaking. The mud was cold and cloying against her skin, a stark contrast to the heat she felt rising in her cheeks. She felt a sense of profound embarrassment at being caught in such a state, sprawled in the dirt like a fallen bird. The silence that followed her words was heavy, though not in the way the books described it; it was simply the natural silence of the night.
Harry moved closer, his shadow stretching long across the grass toward her. He looked down at her with a look of genuine concern that made her stomach do a strange, uncomfortable flip. He was not a boy who usually looked at her with such softness, especially not while they were supposed to be pretending to dislike one another. The moonlight revealed the dirt on his cheek and the way his eyes searched her face for signs of injury.
"You shouldn't have followed me," he said, his voice dropping an octave. He sounded almost wounded by her presence, or perhaps just frustrated by the circumstances. He knelt down beside her, the fabric of his trousers soaking up the mud as he lowered himself to the ground. He did not seem to care about the ruin of his clothes or the dampness of the air. He was focused entirely on her, his gaze fixed on the way she was clutching her leg.
"I heard you running," she explained, her voice a little firmer now. "I thought you were being attacked, or that you had fallen." She tried to sit up, but a sharp jince of pain in her ankle forced her back down into the mud. She let out a frustrated huff, her eyes stinging with the sudden, irrational urge to cry from the sheer discomfort of it all. The cold was starting to seep through her robes, making her shiver uncontrollably.
Harry reached out, his hand hovering near her knee, but he did not quite touch her. "The tree is temperamental tonight," he muttered, looking up at the swaying branches above them. He looked back at her, and the intensity in his eyes was enough to make her breath hitch. He looked exhausted, his face pale and drawn in the silver light. He seemed to be weighing whether to move closer or to give her space to recover.
"It is an idiot tree," she snapped, the frustration of the fall leaking into her tone. "It lurches for no reason at all." She tried to pull her leg closer to her body, but the movement was clumsy and uncoordinated. The mud was everywhere, sticking to her skin and the edges of her skirts, making her feel heavy and ungraceful. She hated the feeling of being so vulnerable in the open air, exposed to the moonlight and the eyes of the stars.
Harry did not laugh at her remark. Instead, his expression softened into something much more serious, a look of quiet observation that felt far too intimate for the middle of the night. He watched the way she winched, his eyes tracking the slight tremor in her hands. The distance between them felt both incredibly small and imposs enough, a gap that was filled with the unspoken tension of the last few months. He looked as though he wanted to say something, but the words seemed to stick in his throat.
He moved his hand from her knee to her wrist, his touch light and cautious. The warmth of his skin was a shock against the chill of the night. He looked at her with a focused, singular intent, his brow furrowed as he assessed the way she was holding herself. The darkness of the night seemed to press in around them, narrowing the world down to just the two of them and the dirt