five hours with draco malfoy;

Part seven

AFTER A LONG TIME, Draco Malfoy felt strangely good.  It had seemed strange to laugh, as if it were something new to him, but the sensation had seemed wonderful.

"Did I make Draco Malfoy laugh?"  Annelisse raised an eyebrow, smiling a little, amused by it.

"And if you tell someone, I'll deny it."  He replied, but this time, he was not using that serious tone, he seemed to have relaxed and Annelisse liked that, so she smiled at him back.

"You should do it more often. You look so much better when you smile."

Once again, she left him speechless.  Annelisse's way of being threw Draco off completely. He had never met anyone like her, though well, he had never gotten to know someone that much either—and that was saying a lot.

He found Annelisse unique, different from other people. He saw her happy, tender, loving and with a big heart. In addition —although he avoided thinking about it too much— he found her really pretty, especially when she made a face of hers.

He watched her while she was not seeing him and admired her beauty. In a way, he was envious of her.  Annelisse was a relaxed, happy and carefree person, always with a smile on her face.

Again, another first time. Draco spoke first, breaking the silence that had formed between them.

"I do like Christmas."  He said, causing Annelisse to turn to him.

"And why did you say no?"

"At my house we don't celebrate Christmas. At least not since years."  He said with a little sadness in his voice.

"How can you not celebrate Christmas?"  She asked, turning to him at the same time that she moved a little closer, curious.

He just shrugged in response.

Annelisse sighed "Draco Malfoy, I'm going to have to show you a lot of things."  She said raising both eyebrows and smiling a little at him.

"Hey, enough of last names. Besides, I don't even know yours."  He looked at her with a frown.

"Haunt."  She replied with a proud smile.

"It doesn't ring a bell at all."

"No wonder, my parents are Muggles. They are not well known in the wizarding world."  She twisted her lips a little.

Normally, Draco would have responded with something derogatory about it, but incredibly, he did not care at all about Annelisse's origin. He did not care if she was pure blood or half-blood, he liked the girl in front of him.  He even looked surprised by what he was about to ask.

"Where they work at?"

"Well, my mother is now a homemaker, she takes care of my brothers, and my father works in a publishing house. He writes a lot of articles." She smiled again. Draco did not say anything but he smiled slightly back at her.

"I'm hungry, aren't you?"  Annelisse said, turning to him and pouting.

"A little, really."

Annelisse frowned thoughtfully for several seconds until she lifted her finger, an idea coming to mind.  Draco looked at her somewhat confused.

Suddenly, she stood up and held out her hand to Draco to help him up.  He doubted for an instant whether to take it or not, but since he felt different from the other days before —good in fact— he decided to take it.

She helped him up, pulling him slightly to his feet. "I think Professor Sinistra's hiding some candy on her desk."  She said and without giving him time to respond, Annelisse headed for the stairs to go down to Astronomy class.

Draco watched her as she backed away from him, not realizing that he was smiling.  He started walking to follow her and descend after her.

When he got downstairs and entered, he found her, crouched on the teacher's desk, rummaging through her things.

"I didn't know about this facet of Hufflepuff's, aren't you ever supposed to do anything wrong?"  He asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh, come on. Every now and then we do tricks too."  Annelisse smirked, turning her face to him for an instant. She looked back at the desk as she continued rummaging through professor Sinistra's things.  In the bottom drawer, she found a hidden compartment and opened it. Seeing what was in there, a victorious smile from ear to ear appeared on her face.

"Bingo."  She said out loud.

To which Draco responded by moving closer. Annelisse had found a pile of sweets, surely requisitioned by the professor. There were chocolate frogs, jelly beans and gummies. She took them in her hands and turned, standing up, to show them to Draco for a moment.

Annelisse walked to the front of the desk and sat on the floor with her back against it, so she could see the whole class in front of her.  Draco, still not quite sure what she was doing to him  and how that girl was capable of making him feel that way, sat down next to her.  Annelisse put the sweets between the two of them.

"Honey, dinner's ready."  She started to say, jokingly "We have chocolate frogs for starter, second rubber snakes and dessert jelly—", she said that last taking a jelly bean and putting it in her mouth, savoring "—Oh, God."  She exclaimed, noticing the disgusting taste of it.  She swallowed the jelly bean as best she could.

Draco started laughing seeing her like this. The peculiarity of Annelisse pleased him.

"Rotten—egg flavored."  She finished saying, still with a scowl on her face from the bad taste of the bean.

"Gross."  He answered making a face.

"That's the fun thing about jelly beans, not knowing which one you're going to get. That's why I like them, they always surprise you."

Draco seemed to agree with her, as he took a jelly bean and brought it to his mouth, savoring it.  Little by little his face changed and he raised both eyebrows, looking at Annelisse.  The jelly bean tasted good.

"And?"

"Lemon."

"See? They always surprise."  She smiled.

Without talking much more, just enjoying that moment in silence, Draco and Annelisse continued to eat sweets as if they were little children.