Breath Mints / Battle Scars

Chapter 15: XV

November 1st, 1998

Diary,

Oh, you'd better be fucking kidding me.

This'd better be a very bad joke. There's no other way to explain what I've just heard.

Pansy's watching me write. She's ruined my breakfast with her juicy morning gossip, and now she's staring at me like she's expecting me to transform into an imp or something.

But -

Fucking Zacharias?

I've always known Granger's a bloody milksop when it comes to her fellow Gryffindors, but ZACHARIAS?! The fucking least she could've fucking done was say I was fucking McLaggen - or someone at least minimally less revolting than that fucking candy-arse Hufflepuff toss-pump.

I want to rip her fucking hair out.

I want to do more than that.

Before you report me for "coming unhinged," do me a favor and consider what you'd fucking do if your fucking girl was pretending you were a bloody Hufflepuff to save face?

Why doesn't this fucking book let me cross things out anymore?

She's not my girl. That was a grammatical mistake. But you know what I fucking mean.

I feel like my blood's fucking boiling.

I'm thinking of doing something stupid.

Draco

November 1st, 1998

She realizes she's never paid much attention to him before.

But now she catches herself glancing sideways at him every other minute, as though something in his face will give away whether or not he's heard yet. She understands why Parvati thinks it's him.

He's almost tall enough. And blond, but a darker blond.

But his features are infinitely less angular than Malfoy's - he's almost baby-faced - and he's stockier. Less aristocratic.

Zacharias Smith is not her type.

It's an unfortunate train of thought. Has her falling down a rabbit hole of possibilities. The possibility that Malfoy's her type. The possibility that people are starting to pale in comparison to him.

Which is - which is just absurd.

She's a bloody idiot. She knows. And for every second that's passed since the words came out of her mouth, she's regretted them.

Somehow, she's managed to dig herself even deeper into a crater of lies.

Ginny and the other girls had been only too happy for her - they'd joked, teased her.

"What were you so afraid of?"

"He's cute - how's the snogging?"

It certainly hadn't helped that Parvati was drunk. Hermione had asked, of course - to keep this quiet. She'd thought Parvati's inebriation might work in her favor - hoped she'd forget come morning, and somehow the disastrous evidence of her cowardice wouldn't be all over the school.

She'd thought wrong, clearly.

Almost everyone knows.

Just, hopefully not Zacharias Smith.

And hopefully not-

She makes the mistake of letting her eyes wander in the other direction. Past the Hufflepuff table and toward the familiar corner belonging to Slytherin. Malfoy's deeply involved in his journal, scribbling with a certain fury.