NEMESIS || Draco Malfoy

58

Trees began to green, flowers started blooming, and fruit were a few months from falling off their trees. Birds sang, crickets chirped, and the sun peaked past those grey clouds more often than not.

May was a beautiful month; Hogwarts looked its best at the height of spring.

And while the weather was getting better by the day, the sun practically calling for us to lay in it and enjoy, the ever-piling mountain of assignments, readings, and revision kept us all from doing so.

That and Dumbledore's death, for me. Something I still hadn't planned thoroughly enough — failing twice tended to make you more paranoid when it came to the third time.

At least, with all the school work, it was hardly suspicious to be spending every free minute I had in the library; even took whatever book I was reading that day to breakfast, lunch, and dinner, trying to figure out what was wrong with his hand.

So, the sight of me hunched over the lunch table with a book in one hand and my fork in the other wasn't an unusual sight. Theo seemed used to it by now, didn't even question it anymore as he simply carried our conversation as if I wasn't otherwise occupied— it's how he usually dealt with Pansy's absence.

"—And I was thinking, how on earth do you make a girl like that happy? She's got everything it seems; money, loving parents— that's uncharted territory for me, you know—" As he leaned forward in his seat, hand propped on the wooden table, he continued with a hint of amusement in his voice. "The girl's I'm usually dating always... have some deeper rooted issues, right? You remember—"

At the mention of it, my eyes darted up to him, swallowing the bite of food with a humoured snort. My fork still in my hand, I pointed it at him.

"Oh, trust me, I remember—" I huffed, brows raised in amusement. "Who could ever forget Estelle Cartier."

With the back of my hand against my forehead, I faked a swoon, sighing deeply at the same time before I send him a humoured smile. "You certainly never stopped talking about her— a blessing in disguise when the Beauxbaton students went back to France."

With a laugh, Theo leaned over the table to hit my head lightly, ruffling through my hair afterwards to annoy me further.

"It's not like I go looking for the ones with issues—" He justified. "They usually find me all by themselves." Leaning back in his seat, he sighed loudly. "And just when I get used to dealing with it, she's the complete opposite—" Frustration suddenly laced his words, and his head shook as his gaze fell behind me absentmindedly.

"Who's this about?"

There was a pause in which my eyes flickered back onto the pages, waiting for a reply from the boy.

"Katie Bell—"

The name had my gaze snap onto him as the book in my hand closed with a quiet thud.

"You're with a girl who's supposedly been lying unconscious in St. Mungo's for the past six months?" My tone was laced in confusion, drowning in it almost, while my own words sounded like nothing but riddles to myself.

"No, silly—" He shook his head with an eye roll, nodding behind me as a snicker escaped his lips. "Katie Bell is back."

My entire body jerked around in a forceful motion to follow his gaze, indeed falling on the brunette seventh year— her skin still a little pale and her expression ghastly-like. Though, without a doubt, it was her.

My eyes followed her as she walked down the row of tables with a friend by her side. I wasn't surprised to see Potter with her not a few seconds later.