It had taken so long to come to a decision. Rowan had spent hours awake at night trying to recover her memories from that night, and no matter what she did, no matter what books she looked at in the library, nothing worked. 72 hours had passed since she had last seen Malfoy, and she’d barely gotten any rest. Every time she closed her eyes, Walter’s wide, blank stare was waiting for her. So she’d tried to occupy herself with research instead, flipping through countless pages and spending her lunch breaks at the library for any way to recover her memories by herself but no such thing came up. Where were certain ways, but those required potions and casting spells that were far too advanced. On the third night, her breaking point came when she’d stared down at the 5th piece of parchment in her lap at the astronomical number that it would take for her to buy a potion that might make this all go away. It was easily 4 times what she made in a month. There was no possible way she could afford it without raising questions amongst her family. And of course, even if she could afford it, then she wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place, and wouldn’t have had to drag Malfoy along with her to get rid of a damn body —

With a muffled noise of frustration, she snatched up the piece of parchment, crumpling it up in her hands and hurling it across the room. It bounced off the wall and fell to the floor, joining the pile of parchment that had already failed her. Tears bit at the corners of her eyes and she swiped an ink-stained hand across her cheeks. And then she ignored the sharp sting of the various cuts on her hands from tossing the previous pieces of parchment on the floor. She was at a loss, and she couldn’t call Zelda or Delight to work through it with her. There was one person she could call on though. It was simplest option, really. But it was also the last thing she wanted to do. Clearly she had no time to argue with herself; the pile of rejected ideas on the floor was enough to tell her that she’d run out of options.

Fine, then.

She got up, resigned and exhausted, and moved through the actions of changing into a darker skirt and blouse. She’d delayed until the last possible second before she reached over to her right pinky and lifted the new signet ring there to reveal a dark band of red. Biting her lip, she pushed with the pad of her left thumb until she felt the band heat up until it almost scalded her. She waited another minute, then did it again. The first one should have awoken him. The second, in case he thought he’d imagined the burning. Then, she made her way downstairs, out the door and onto the street where she turned on the spot.

Once her lungs had stopped protesting the pressure of apparating, Rowan took no time to duck under a the branch of a nearby tree and approach the little abandoned shack that was nestled behind it. The wards had done their job and kept anyone away, but there was still a risk. So Rowan walked around the shack and began reinforcing the wards; searching for something - anything to do while she waited for him.

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