After a whole week, I was progressing absolutely nothing in conjuring a Patronus, still no animal form was visible, or even a shield forms, I was slowly losing hope that I would ever be able to produce one.

Going to the D.A. meetings was getting harder everytime, due to the tight vigilance from the Inquisitorial Squad, and getting excuses to lie to at least three people at the same time from my whereabouts, was getting harder and harder each time, specially when they have to be convincing.

Sometimes I wonder if I just told Draco, that I was secretly practicing with an army created by Harry, his worst enemy, and then I realized myself of how stupid that sounds, and it's better to lie rather than have him facing the truth.

Because the truth hurts.

I wonder what advice would my mother give me in this situation, probably she would tell me one of her old riddles, that usually become quite helpful - when you resolve them of course- or either tell me to do what I think is the right thing to do, not that makes much sense either, but I always managed to understand.

Despite all the stress from escaping from the Inquisitorial Squad to conjure a Patronus, I have been trying to do what Draco and Matthew told me to in different ways, take life less serious.

Sometimes in the weekend, me and Charlotte go to Hogsmead, a village near the Hogwarts Express, and went to the Three Bromsticks, and we drank some butterbeers, she tried to make me laugh, or smile at least, but nothing worked.

{☆~☆}

"Make it a powerful memory, the happiest you can remember, allow it to fill you up." Harry said effortly, even thought we already knew how this worked, he made sure to remind us. "A full-bodied Patronus is the most difficult to produce, but shield forms can also be equally useful against, a variety of opponents." Harry said firmly while walking between the students.

I raised my wand upon in the air again, and this time, tried to think about other memory of my mother, and an idea hit me.

One time, I saw my mother, conjuring a Patronus, it was the most astonishing thing my nine years old eyed have ever witnessed, I got so hypnotized by the sight of it, a beautiful blackbird, when I first saw it, I thought odd for my mother to have that type of Patronus, but then she told me that Blackbirds, are known as mysterious and intuitive, therefore it was more than obvious why was this her Patronum.

It was most certain that my Patronus would be a Blackbird as well, therefore,I closed my eues, and focused my mind in that day, where we were layed in the grass, and she took out her wand upon in the air, and conjured that dazzling bird, where my eyes shined just by the sight if it, and I ranned after him throught the grass, trying to catch it.

"Expecto Patronum!" I shouted, and opened my eyes to see a silvery-white light, appearing at my wand, slowly becoming a bird, quite small, almost transparent, but then, vanished when I lost my focus due to a small, but loud earthquake.

Well, at least it seemed a eartquake, but, only inside the room, the lights were flashing, and everything was shaking, but, then we realized were the shaking was coming from, when we saw one of the mirror made walls start to crack.

Something or someone was trying to explode with the wall.

We, slowly, approach the wall, staring at it, fearing of what could came in, with our wand at the ready, while more, smalls explosions occurred from outside the room.

Suddenly, the mirror shattered in pieces, and fell into the ground, showing now only a stone wall that was underneath it, with a small hole on it.

Slowly, Nigel stepped to peek in the hole that was now on the wall, but Harry moved him away, and peeked himself, and what we saw, was no good due to the way he ranned quickly away from the hole, bringing Nigel with him, and suddenly, a big explosion occurred, and all the stone wall fell down.

We all gasped at the sudden action, and some fell in the ground while running away from the explosion.

After all tbe dust from the explosion had settled down, we could see who was standing from the other side of the wall.

Umbridge, and the Inquisitorial Squad.

Suddenly Draco appeared besides them, dragging Cho Chang with him, his wand pointed at her, he lurked in the room, and smirked, at least until his gaze stopped at me.

His lips parted away, and I could see the disappointment, the feeling of who just got betrayed, I felt the worst person in this world when saw his reaction, his eyes pleading for this to not be truth, and I just sent him a apologetic look, but no matter how hard I hoped for him not to be mad, I could see his cold mask building up all over again in his face, the same mask I didn't land my eyes in, since months, and I was not glad to see it again.

I had lied to the devil, and now the hell had fall on me, and burned me to ashes as a punishment.

"Get them!" Umbridge shouted, and the Inquisitorial Squad, except Draco who was grabbing Cho Chang by her robes, and started dragging us towards Umbridge's office.

Some random student grabbed me, and when we passed throught Draco, he stared at me, but his eyes didn't showed disappointment, they showed pure rage and coldness, while mine only showed regret.

They put us in Umbridge's office, and when the Ministry of Magic arrived, they took Harry and Cho, right straight to Dumbledore's office, while we stayed locked in Umbridge's office, under the constant surveillance of the Inquisitorial Squad, but, Draco wasn't there, and perhaps it was better this way, I could not look him in the eye, after I lied shamelessly to his face.

After what seemed like an hour, Umbridge stepped in her office, and Draco was besides her.

"Miss Blackwell." She called firmly, and I turned my gaze at her, fearing of what she wanted from me, perhaps my punishment would be way more severe than the other, or, or- "You may go..." Her firm voice imediatly cut off my thoughts, and I furrowed my eyebrowns in confusion. "The rest of you, will suffer the hard consequences of your illicit actions, and such detention will be supervised by me, tomorrow, in the Great Hall." She said firmly, and made a devilish giggle to all of us.

I left her office before anyone else, as soon as I saw Draco leaving, I tried to run after him, but his legs were to long, which made him way more faster than me.

I realized that, perhaps, this wasn't the best opportunity to talk to him, to explain things to him, I would have to wait until night, where he would be watching the stars, which means he would be calmer than he was now, now he needed to be alone with his thoughts.

{☆~☆}

The news seemed to be traveling fast, all the school already knew what happened, and even more than me, when I heard about Dumbledore running away when the minister tried to take him to Azkaban, I got almost speechless for hearing such thing, never have I heard about Dumbledore running away before.

As soon as I reached my dorm, Charlotte was there, and for the way her arms were crossed in front of her chest, I could tell she was everything but happy with this situation.

I closed the door, and turned to face her, waiting for some sermon from her part.

"Come on, scream at me." I said carelessly, already hating this odd silence between us.

"Why would I scream at you?" Charlotte said softly, furrowing her eyebrowns, but she wasn't the only one confused.

"Hmm, perhaps because I lied all this time and broke thousands of rules." I said like it was the most obvious thing, which kinda was.

"That's the exact reason why I'm not going to scream at you, asides from the part of lying of course." She said softly, and my eyes wide opened, replaying what she said in my head, but still not getting the point of it.

"What do you mean?" I asked frustrated by not quite understanding.

She let out a deep sigh, and uncrossed her arms, sitting up straight in the edge of her bed.

"What I mean is, that I'm glad that you were doing something to distract your mind, and despite the fact of me wanting to break rules as well, and use spells hiding from Umbridge, I understand why haven't you told me." She said and gave me a smile, and I felt a relief wash over me for her not to be mad.

"Thank you, Charlotte...for not be mad." I said softly.

"But...I think from your face, there's someone that is not happy about this." Charlotte said firmly, and my gaze dropped to the floor, reminding me from how hard would be gaining Draco's trust again after I played with it like thin glass thinking it wouldn't never break.

"You should've seen him...he looked so betrayed..." I said and sat on my bed. "How am I going to amend things now?" I said desperately.

"Well, give him some time to think, and while that, you could speak with Matthew." Charlotte said softly.

"Oh for Merlin, I completely forgot about him, ugh." I let out a frustrated groan, and let my body fall on the mattress carelessly.

"It's getting late, maybe talk with him tomorrow after your detention." Charlotte said.

"I'm not going to have a detention." I said firmly.

"What? What do you mean? Why?" Charlotte furrowed her eyebrowns.

"I don't know, the only thing Umbridge said was that I was free to go, and the other would be punished." I said, not really caring about that anymore, my mind was more concentrated in Draco that has ever been before.

"She what? Is she drunk or something? I think the pink from her office shocked her mind a bit." Charlotte said firmly.

"Perhaps it's just because of my mother." I said.

"I highly doubt it...but that seems to be the only reason so..." Charlotte said softly.

"I'm going to speak with Matthew." I said firmly, hoping to clear that problem, leaving only Draco left, and probably the hardest to fix.

"What, now?!" Charlotte asked as I stood up from my bed.

"Yes, now Charlotte." I said firmly, and storm out of my room.

I couldn't almost avoid the eyes glued at me as I descended the stairs to the common room, it's not everyday that you see a Slytherin, working together with a Gryfindor, specially that Gryfindor being Harry Potter himself.

I felt like this would last for a few days, weeks maybe, some called me a traitor as I walked, others just sticked to glare at me.

I just sticked to ignored them as much as I could, and hoped with all my veins for Matthew be sat in the couch at this precise moment.

Seems that for one time, luck was at my side, and he was there, even though I wanted to keep my luck with me until I speak with Draco, there, us when I'm going to need a lot of luck, if not even a miracle itself.

I sat besides him, he looked at me, but didn't even showed anger or disappointment, he was more like neutral.

"Hmm, hey." I said awkwardly.

"Hey." He said coldly.

"So, you've heard off-" He cut me off.

"I'll just get straight to the point, and avoid a awkward conversation between us..." He said firmly. "I'm not exactly mad at you, but I'm not proud either." He said firmly, and I nodded. "But, I can't lie and say that I didn't told you to take life less serious, so part of the fault is mine...But, one thing is me, who gets detention almost every week, and other thing is you...and you are not from the type to get a detention, but you did it anyways, and that says a lot." He aaid softly.

"So you're not mad at me?" I asked, already with a bit of relief.

"I'm not finished." He said firmly, and I nodded for him to continue. "But you lied to me, you know you can trust me anything, but still..." He said angrily, and I dropped my face to the floor. "I don't keep any secrets away from you, and I thought you didn't either." He said firmly.

"Matthew you have to understand, I couldn't tell you, Harry trusted me-" He cut me off.

"And I trusted you..." He shouted, getting the attention of a dozen of eyes to us. "And I thought you trusted me..." He said in a disappointed tone, which broke me.

"I'm sorry, Matthew...but you're being extremely selfish right now." I said calmly.

"How am I being selfish?!" He shouted angrily.

"There's no need to scream-" He kept speaking, letting my voice almost unheard.

"Tell me, how am I being selfish?!" He shouted again.

"Because you aren't the one who lost a mother!" I yelled, capturing now, all the attention of every single pair of eyes in the common room, and I saw his anger boil down. "You aren't the one who don't knows how to deal with this situation, you aren't the one who is in utter stress everyday for lying to your friends and deal with that all by yourself!" I shouted and saw his face grow red from how selfish he was really being. "I don't know if you noticed, but I'm not the same anymore, I don't know how to be the girl I once was, and besides, don't you forget, that before Christmas, we didn't even speak to each other..." I said calming down my tone. "So tell me, Matthew, who's the selfish here?"

He didn't looked at me, he kept his head down, shamed by his behavior, his anger once filling his eyes were replaced by pure regret, and he was in a search for words that maybe seemed fair.

"I'm sorry, Lara I-" He was speechless, he didn't had any excuse, and he knew that. "I'm sorry, I didn't know half of that, I forgot that...that...I forgot of how stressful it might had been to you, and I'm selfish for doing so...I'm sorry." He said softly, and turned his gaze to me.

How the tables have turned, I was the one who came to apologize, and now look how so much can change in a matter of seconds, only because of words.

It's true what they say, words do hurt more than actions.

"I need to rest." I didn't said anything else, and didn't realized of my tears until I stood up and came back to myself, felling the wetness in my cheeks.

"Please, Lara, forgive me." Matthew begged from behind me, but I didn't even flinched, and kept walking to my dorm.

However, I stopped my tracks halfway, thinking about Draco, I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep if at least I didn't talked with him, and as if I lost control of my own bodie, my feet started walking the other direction, taking me out the common room, in direction to the Astronomy Tower.

This was wrong, so wrong, I should've listened to Charlotte, I could pass by tomorrow, it was not late to turn around and return.

I was walking right to hell, hoping not to be burn, but also knowing I would be burned.

If the darkness ever took over me, this wasn't that time, this time, I had all the light by my side, I had to have, if I wanted to open the dark box Draco had locked himself into, and burried deep down, I had to bring myself back, I had to...

I climbed the stairs up, feeling my heart pump faster at each step I gave, and when I reached the top, I knew it was too late to turn back now.

"Draco..."