ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴅʀᴀᴛᴛᴇᴅ ʟɪʟᴀ ʜᴏʟᴍᴇꜱ || ᴅʀᴀᴄᴏ ᴍᴀʟꜰᴏʏ x ᴏᴄ || ʏᴇᴀʀꜱ 1-3

je te laiserrai des mots

Later that night, I sat on my own in the common room, finishing my homework. Hermione had wanted to go to bed early, and Harry and Ron were in detention. It was around nine, and I had too much going on in my mind to even think about falling asleep.

My dreams. The diary. Ginny. Why wasn't there anything written in it? What was Malfoy warning me about? Why did he keep the mythology book over the summer?

I paused. Deciding to see for myself, I took the tome out of my bag and placed it on the table. It had been most of my bag weight for the past few days, as I'd always forgotten to bother with putting it in my dorm. I skimmed through the pages, rereading the chapter on Hades and Persephone. I wondered if he'd done the same.

I flipped back to the table of contents and paused. Malfoy had underlined and circled several chapters. My first thought was "shame on him, it's a library book" but then I grew curious.

There were many that he'd underlined, all monsters: The Minotaur, Cerberus (ironic), the Chimera, the Gorgons, the Lernaean Hydra, Lamia, Scylla, Charybdis, Echidna, and Ladon.

Without even thinking, I found myself copying down the ones that he'd underlined on a spare piece of parchment. Next, I looked at the ones he'd circled: The Minotaur, Cerberus, the Chimera, the Gorgons, the Lernaean Hydra, and Echidna. I wasn't sure what they all had in common with one another, but I circled them on my list anyway. I sat back, and looked at the list and the chapters to make sure I hadn't missed any.

"You alright, Lila?" Dean seemingly materialized by my side. I blinked, startled, though I was happy to see him.

"Yes, I'm fine," I nodded. "Just trying to figure something out."

"Do you think I can help?" He asked. I shook my head.

"I doubt it, but a fresh set of eyes is always welcome," I said. Dean sat beside me and looked down at the chapters and then at my list.

"What exactly am I looking for?" He asked me.

"Correspondence between all of the circled ones," I answered. "They're all creatures from Greek mythology."

"I don't know what many of them are besides the Minotaur and Cerberus," Dean shook his head. "Didn't you meet Cerberus?"

"He was a hellhound, yes, but not Cerberus," I shook my head. This was old news. "He was Hagrid's. His name was Fluffy."

"Ah, I see," Dean nodded, though he was giving me a weird look. I was too engaged to say anything about it.

"Why are we doing this, again?" Dean asked.

"I'm sorry, I forgot to explain," I relayed the conversation between Malfoy and I to him, as well as our connection with the mythology book.

"So whatever he's warning me about, his father's probably behind it," I finished. "Harry and Ron think that he's just trying to get into my head, which is also a reasonable explanation."

"Maybe Malfoy's dad told him what he was planning," Dean suggested. "He's definitely trying to warn you about something, but what it is, I'm not sure."

"Do you think he was sure?" I frowned. "His father certainly didn't tell him everything. Maybe he was just making guesses using the book, hence all the circling."

"He wanted you to find that book," Dean said surely. "Otherwise he'd have written it on some parchment, like you just did."

"What do you think it all means?" I asked. "You think someone would set one of these monsters on the school as an act of revenge? And with our useless Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, we wouldn't be prepared—"