In the instant the door swung open, a dozen thoughts raced through Malfoy's head: how to explain why she was here, how to cover up who she was right now.
But the thing she most wanted to blurt out was why Pansy hadn't warned her.
That was actually unfair to Pansy.
She had tried to stop Kate when Kate headed back to the Common Room.
Unfortunately, her acting was terrible. Kate spotted something off right away, and after being petrified, Pansy could only watch helplessly as Kate strode toward the room.
Malfoy's palms were slick with sweat by now, but apart from under the bed and the bathroom, the room had nowhere for her to hide.
Fine. Under the bed it was.
She scrambled to crouch down and crawl under, but before her hand even touched the bed frame, the door swung fully open.
Blankly, she looked up and met Kate's eyes. Malfoy scrambled to her feet, at a total loss, her heart hammering. "I… I'm not…"
"And you are?" Kate asked, looking just as baffled.
Malfoy stayed silent for a long moment, then hurriedly raised a hand to cover her face. "Wrong room. Don't mind me."
With that, she tried to walk out as if nothing had happened.
She'd barely taken two steps when Kate put out a hand and stopped her. "I put an Anti-Unlocking Charm on my doorway. How did you get in?"
Malfoy's heart sank. So she really couldn't get away with it.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Fluffball bouncing into view. She quickly bent down, scooped it up, and held it in front of her face.
"It's all its fault! I found it in the corridor and wanted to see whose pet it was, and then it dragged me in here!"
Fluffball, shoved into the role of scapegoat, tilted its head in bewilderment.
Kate met its innocent little eyes and more or less figured out what had happened.
How this one had gotten in wasn't really important. What mattered was what she was weighing: should she just call out the other girl's identity?
The first moment she'd seen Malfoy in her room, she had recognized her.
Who could blame her? The Malfoy family's signature pale blond hair was far too conspicuous.
If she exposed her, it would give Kate a hold over Malfoy.
It looked like she could use that to make Malfoy do things for her. But once Voldemort returned and the Malfoy family became Death Eaters again, Malfoy's spear would be aimed at Kate first.
Judging by how cold Malfoy had been toward her lately, Kate had already guessed that the girl's infatuation had likely run its course and she didn't like her anymore.
Someone who no longer liked her, holding an important secret of hers? Kate could see with her eyes closed how she'd be targeted later.
But if she didn't expose her, even if she played blind now, Malfoy was no fool. She might slip through this chaotic moment, but once she went back and thought it over, she'd realize she'd been found out.
Ugh… no matter how she looked at it, there was no way this ended cleanly.
Kate rubbed her temples with a splitting headache. She'd finally gotten her clone safely tucked away, so why was she dealing with this now?
Could she please have a moment of peace?
No, apparently not.
Sighing inwardly, she took Fluffball and set it down, then turned around and closed the door.
She looked at the girl still lowering her head and trying her best to hide her face, then leaned against the wall and said in a low voice, "Malfoy, you can stop covering up. I know it's you."
Malfoy flinched, and her pale little face stiffly lifted, tinged with a faint flush. "What if I said I was just wearing a wig? Would you believe me?"
Kate snorted. "If the girls' dormitory were that easy to get into, every boy in school would own a wig by now."
The words had barely left her mouth when Malfoy's face turned ashen and her head dropped.
She'd been found out. Kate had found out she was a girl.
The sentence looped endlessly in her mind, and an indescribable bitterness wrapped around her.
Would Kate find her disgusting?
She was clearly a girl, yet she insisted on disguising herself as a boy, living in the boys' dormitory, and rolling around with a pack of boys every day?
Not to mention the secret little feelings in her heart. As heirs of two families that weren't exactly friendly, those feelings were hard enough to realize already, and now Kate had found out they were between two girls…
If she knew, she'd surely be called a pervert, wouldn't she?
A sudden wave of panic made her tremble slightly. She didn't dare look at Kate, and she didn't dare speak.
She had no idea how much time passed. To her, at least, it felt like a century.
Kate didn't understand why she kept her head down. She'd already exposed her identity, so there was no need to hide anymore, right?
Or was she thinking of ways to keep Kate from telling anyone?
Bribery, or threats?
After studying her with interest for a while and still seeing no sign of her looking up, Kate scratched her head, took a step forward herself, and crooked a finger to gently tilt up her chin.
"Are you crying?"
When she saw the young lady's eyes shimmering with tears, Kate cried out in surprise.
Malfoy promptly swatted her hand away, spun around, and breathed rapidly.
Ah… she seemed to have offended her again by accident.
Kate regretted blurting that out so rashly. She tried to circle around to check on her, but the young lady had no intention of saving her any face and turned away again.
A sigh.
"Okay, I'm sorry, all right?" Kate apologized helplessly and circled back, then quickly pressed her hands on Malfoy's shoulders before she could turn again, keeping her still.
"A girl's a girl. What's so unpresentable about that?"
She said it gently, her clear, bright eyes fixed on the dazed young lady, and she even pulled out a tissue and softly wiped away the glistening tears spilling from her reddened eyes.
"See? Isn't that pretty?" Picking up the mirror at hand and angling it toward Malfoy's face, she smiled soothingly.
The blond girl in the mirror still had that stunned, wide-eyed look. She blinked, and Kate's gentle gaze set her heart pounding wildly again. She instinctively backed away two steps.
"Why… why are you so calm?"
Even if she didn't jump out of her skin, she should at least have some kind of reaction!
Kate rubbed her nose. How was she supposed to react?
She couldn't exactly tell her she'd known her true gender since first year.
She'd be beaten to death.
"Because I think gender is just an outward form. As long as your heart is at peace, it doesn't matter whether you're a boy or a girl."
She spouted nonsense with a perfectly straight face.
At the very least, if Malfoy had been a boy, she'd never have gotten this close to her.
"Really?" Malfoy furrowed her brows suspiciously.
Kate sighed and poked her forehead. "I'm the one who got lied to, aren't I? Why am I the one comforting you?"
"I didn't—" the young lady blurted, but her little face quickly flushed crimson and her voice dropped. "I didn't mean to lie to you…"
"I'm sorry," she said, head lowered, a strange ache in her chest.
Kate raised an eyebrow. She was apologizing this easily? Was this really the proud, sharp-tongued young lady of the Malfoy family?
With a measure of suspicion, she reached out and tilted Malfoy's chin up again. "Since you're a girl, you surely aren't called Draco, right?"
"I…" Malfoy's lashes trembled, and the corners of her tear-misted eyes flushed a faint scarlet, making her look lush and pitiable all at once.
It really made one want to… bully her thoroughly.
Kate's heart skipped. She instinctively withdrew her hand and looked away.
Setting aside her rather nasty personality, this girl's face was truly breathtakingly beautiful.
Even though she'd known long ago that she was a girl, this was the first time she'd gazed at her feminine looks face to face.
"My name is Delar Malfoy," she said quietly. "Draco is my older brother. When we were just born, he ran a high fever that couldn't be cured, and only I was left."
Kate looked at her in some surprise. She'd assumed this was a feminized little dragon-boy, never imagining she was the little dragon-boy's twin sister.
And the real Draco had died long ago.
Why was this world's plot so strange?
"Even so, why would you pretend to be your brother to attend school?" she asked, puzzled.
England surely didn't have a tradition of favoring sons where only a son could inherit the family estate, did it?
Delar's brow knit slightly, as if hesitating over whether to tell her the answer.
Kate caught her mood precisely and said straight out, "If it's hard for you, you don't have to say."
"It's not that!" Delar hurriedly grabbed her, then realized something and yanked her hand back. "Your hand…"
But Kate felt no discomfort at all. There wasn't even a red mark on the hand that had been held.
Delar was stunned. Her slender, trembling fingers reached out tentatively and touched Kate's hand again, lightly.
Nothing happened.
"Looks like that item that flipped your gender is what actually burns me," Kate said calmly, stating the conclusion she'd known all along. Taking the chance, she clasped Delar's hand firmly and arched an eyebrow at her.
"You've wanted to do this for a long time, haven't you?"
Physical contact with Kate, and…
Her little secret had been touched at its core. Delar's eyes stung unbearably, welling with a glimmer of tears again, and her grip on Kate's hand tightened.
"Hey, why are you about to cry again?" Kate couldn't stand to see a girl in tears, especially a pretty one.
Delar ground her teeth and snapped at her, voice thick with a sob. "You're the one crying! I am not crying!"
Kate fell silent for a moment, then wordlessly pulled out a tissue and handed it over.
"I said I'm not crying!"
"Yes, yes, you're not crying! But… your nose is about to run…" She pointed awkwardly at the other girl's face.
Another round of chaos followed. Watching Delar shove her away, turn her back, and secretly wipe her nose, Kate raked a hand through her hair in distress.
What on earth was this?!
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