Pawns | A Draco Malfoy Love Story

Conflicted

The chilly November weather was soon replaced by freezing temperatures and heavy snow falls. Inside was just as pretty; There were Christmas trees lining the corners of every hallway and the fireplaces were always burning bright.

I woke up on December 1st to a draft in the dorm and I shivered as I sat up to dress myself. Ginny was awake and she wrapped her shoulders in a thick scarf. We walked down to the Great Hall together, narrowly avoiding Peeves who was throwing buckets of snow on unsuspecting students.

As we walked together, I could see that Ginny's eyes were a little red. It wouldn't be noticeable to anyone who wasn't looking closely, but I could tell that she was upset. Over the last month, Ginny let me in on all the details of her relationship with Dean. While they were going strong, they had their fights every now and then. But since it usually wasn't anything that they couldn't sort out, their fights were typically short lived and then replaced by a dramatic snog in the common room.

Unlike them, Hermione and Ron had barely spoken one word to each other. Today was no different. As Ginny and I made our way to the Gryfindor table, our normal group was scattered. Ron sat in the usual spot but Hermione was eating at the far end of the table, alone. Sitting in the spot that should have been Hermione's was a bubbly and clingy brunette - Lavender, Ron's girlfriend. 

As soon as we saw Lavender lift a cereal spoon up to Ron's face to feed him like a baby, we turned on our heels and went to sit at the other farthest side of the table, trying to hold in our vomit. We could hear her giggling as he obeyed her instructions, which didn't help our nausea.

It was saddening to have to spend time with Ron and Hermione at different times but I had hope that they'd work things out - Ron would have to figure out eventually that those little breakfast feeding games just wasn't all that.

We sat down and both grabbed a cup of coffee. She flipped through a magazine while I wrote a letter to my dad. I wrote the same stuff as usual but I knew that he appreciated hearing word from me. I told him that I'm looking forward to seeing him on Christmas break. In my last letter to him, I'd enclosed a picture that Colin took of me next to one of the tallest Christmas trees. 

He'd responded back, randomly asking me where my boyfriend was, which was meant to be a joke because I'd never told him about Harry; I knew his tricks, he would pry for information as if he were my BFF only to later tell me that I wasn't allowed to date  - typical dad things. But he basically was my BFF (aside from Ginny) except for the fact that talking about boys was off limits in order to spare us the weirdness - most of the time I pretended I didn't know what a boy was. I  sealed this new letter and got an owl to send it off.

Ginny was still absorbed in her reading. I would have liked to talk to Harry, but the seat beside me was empty. Harry would sit with us on most days, also avoiding the drama between Ron and Hermione, but he started to get a bit busier than normal. I saw him in the evenings which was great but I'd have liked to hang out with him more during the mornings and school hours. All that time apart caused my mind to wander onto thoughts of someone else...

Not that I wanted my mind to be wandering onto Draco, but when I saw him or even his friends in the hallway, my mind was taken immediately to that night when we almost kissed.

Over the last month he looked more tired than usual. Still handsome and still a little arrogant, but less of the latter than usual. He looked drained of his usual energy.  If you looked closely, the reddish purple under his eyes was clearly visible.

I hadn't went to the Room since that night, and it was since then that he looked like his spirt and health had been diminishing. I didn't want to give myself too much responsibility for the matter, but I felt tremendously sad, thinking that he was upset over what could have been between us.