𝒯𝒽ℯ 𝒫𝓇ℴ𝓂𝒾𝓈ℯ𝒹 𝒪𝓃ℯ | 𝐝𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐨 𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐟𝐨𝐲 |

#6 Checkmate

"Checkmate."

The ginger grinned at me with a pleased smile, grabbing over the board to get a handful of jellyslugs from my side.

"There is no way, we just started.", I breathed out annoyed, my eyes pierced on the game board to find a mistake proving, that Ron not just had beaten me in five quick plays.

There were days on which I was able to give him a hard time, even startling him in anxiety that he could loose the title of ‚best wizarding chess player of our grade'.

But never had he won that quickly.

"Clearly your mind isn't on the field.", Harry raised his eyebrows on me while chewing on his own sweets.

"That was a really quidditch captain thing to say, Harry.", El snickered.

The girl had watched carefully and amused. We changed again like we did almost the whole evening. To my delight had she not won yet too. Otherwise she would probably rub that under my nose for this whole year. "Besides, I would bet my life on the fact, that her mind was probably by a blonde boy."

"Here we go again.", I breathed out as I placed myself on the table next to the chess board, looking down on the moving figures to distract myself from Harry's piercing eyes.

Draco was a difficult topic these days.

Since the first Potion class and the moment in the corridors after, I rarely saw him in general. He was in class and in evenings I saw him rushing into the boy's tower shortly before curfew with not more then a small smile in my direction, when I was there.

It was nearly a week now and we hadn't had a proper conversation. Which made me really think about what caused his sudden loose of interest to spend time together.

According to Harry it was the best for all of us. He really tried to avoid the bright-blonde topic when I was around, but the boy was like me in that way. Sometimes he couldn't obviate a comment.

He was still convinced that Draco had his ties to the Dark Lord now, maybe replacing his father since he was in Azkaban.

"Don't deny it Tiara.", El whispered while she concentrated on her next play. "Knight to D4. I know you too good to not notice that you're always scanning the crowd for his blonde head."

"Well, I still can be worried when I didn't speak to him for days after all that.", I rolled my eyes.

"You mean after you both smelled that potion and blurred out literally the description of one another, before you're almost kissed in the hallway, but didn't?", El looked up right as Ron diverted his rook to hit the blue-haired knight.

"Damn it, Weasley!", she called out, leaning her head in one hand, thinking about her next move.

"Thanks, El, for the detailed summary. I will never tell you something like this ever again.", I huffed and pushed my bodyweight upright again, loosing the tension in my hand I was leaning on.

"Maybe he's just busy. Not gonna lie, he looks kinda poorly these days.", Hermione chipped in, looking up from the daily prophet she was reading.

"Poorly or not, it's maybe for the best, Tiara.", Harry said before taking a sip out of his mug. His eyes clued on the quidditch book he had laid on the table.

"Harry, I swear to my grandfather Merlin, if you're about to say again that Draco is some kind of puppy to You-Know-Who now, I don't wanna hear it.", I hissed in his direction.

Even though the Great Hall had cleared out completely by now since it was shortly before curfew on a Sunday evening, I didn't dare to speak up like I would love to.