harry potter · draco malfoy · death eater · room of requirement · anxious · vulnerable · pure-blood · dark mark · secret watcher · animagus
The seventh-floor corridor lay deserted, shadows pooling like spilled ink under the flickering torchlight. The only sound was the soft, deliberate echo of footsteps—a boy moving like a ghost through his own life. At precisely eleven o'clock, Draco Malfoy slipped from the Slytherin dormitory, his grey eyes fixed ahead, unaware of the feathered shadow trailing him from the darkness. He stopped before the blank wall opposite Barnabas the Barmy's tapestry, and as if the castle recognized his desperation, the stone rippled and parted. He stepped through, and the wall sealed shut behind him. Inside, the Room of Requirement stretched vast and cluttered, a graveyard of forgotten things. Towers of dusty books and crooked furniture rose like monuments to failure. Draco's gaze found the Vanishing…