From the Stars to the Stars → Draco Malfoy

xliv. Crux

- ✦ -

     Orion's body ached.

     Her body ached yet she couldn't pinpoint where it actually hurts. Whether it was by the laser piercing gaze that had been melting her insides for the past two weeks or whether it was because she hadn't been stretching herself which also meant she hadn't been practising ballet purely because she had been avoiding the room. She wanted to say the latter, but now that she thought it through, maybe none of it was the reason why.

     She wanted to blame the Fates as she usually does, though, she wasn't really sure where the problem was. Maybe they had purposefully attached a string between him and her, that it became hurt for them to actually distance themselves. She loathed it, but scratch that, she didn't want there to be a string attaching them, she was just trying to find a way to blame it to the Fates.

     No, again, she was being delirious, did someone drop some type of potion into her crappy coffee for these past two weeks? Because for whatever reason, she just wanted to talk to him, but then again, he was also the reason why the DA got caught, which also means, indirectly, he was the reason why her nose broke and she had to spend three days in the infirmary with a bloody migraine.

     Yet, on the Saturday morning that she walked into the Great Hall for breakfast, it felt dull. She took heavy steps towards the Ravenclaw table, shaking her head when Neville asked her to sit with the Gryffindor mainly because it was too close to the Slytherin table and she was not in the mood of Cassiopeia looking at her with faux saddened eyes because she'd been asking her to sit with them. Orion was mad, yet she wasn't sure at whom, probably at herself because she was foolish enough to avoid the Ballet Room even though her list hadn't been all checked and that for the first time she was going to come home to face Madam Lavigne's disappointed look.

     Something felt odd as she sat with Cho beside her, looking up, she had just realised for the first time in two weeks the same gray eyes that had been on her every time she stepped foot into the Great Hall was no longer on her, instead, to the brunette sitting next to him. His blazer was thrown over his well-pressed white Oxford, his breakfast was long forgotten as he propped his chin on his knuckle while his other hand was placed under the table.

     There, payback's a bitch. She had been ignoring his gaze, knowing he would've wanted to talk to her. Yet, now, when he didn't bat an eyelash towards her direction, the first thing that came to her mind was that she didn't like it.

     He looked strange–different–yet Orion couldn't seem to point out what part of him looked different, he's wearing his usual attire, the Malfoy emblem pin on the side of his blazer, and his hair was styled as it usually was–elegantly and neatly brushed. He didn't cut his hair, didn't grow any facial hair, yet something looked different, very different. It irked Orion so much that she couldn't place the difference.

     "You should stop staring at him," Cho quietly whispered, nudging her elbow to Orion's yet making sure no one could hear what she was saying.

     She couldn't help but furrow her brows, half offended that Cho caught her looking at the Slytherin git. 'I'm not staring at Malfoy," Orion answered with a huff, hand reaching to the jug of coffee in front of her before she poured some into her mug.

     "I didn't say who," Cho immediately said as she covered her face with her mug, Orion didn't even have to look at her face to know that she was smirking.

     Rolling her eyes, Orion let out a scoff. "Shut up, he's still getting on my nerves," she muttered slowly before she took a sip of the crappy coffee that she had to endure for the last two weeks due to not sitting at their table.