The Years of Blue [2]

Chapter 4: Quidditch and Letters

My mother meant what she said about doubling the work load for me after I held my party.

While the boys were tasked with bringing Draco everywhere to entertain him, I was forced to sit in the library and study various readings that mother thought important to know before entering my 2nd year of classes.

And while the readings were boring, I had to admit that it at least helped me avoid Malfoy. Smaller meetings with Malfoy meant less times calling him Draco with fake sweetness and more times thinking angry thoughts about the various potions I could poison him with.

My current number of ways I could kill him were at a tolerable number of 64. If my mother had given me better books to read, maybe the number would have been far larger but alas, my mother thinks I need to relearn the history of all European schools during the medieval period, so here I was, reading that.

My mother wasn't a monster though. While she had me stay at the house to study often, there were times when she would invite me to join the party for one of her many plans.

Such plans include the time we showed the Malfoys along the shopping district of Newport, leading them around the small stores and cobbled streets, letting the boys wonder off to the Quidditch fields to see the newest brooms in action while I was stuck with my mother and Mrs. Malfoy looking at ribbon in different shops.

Utterly boring.

Or at least it was until my mother started buying me things for my new school year. Mrs. Malfoy even seemed to enjoy the time she spent with us on our shopping spree, stating how this was one of the few times she wished she had a daughter while my mother made me twirl in a satin blue robe for the two women to see.

My father and Mr. Malfoy only joined for dinners and late lunches. Otherwise they were at the MACUSA offices in New York or locked in my father's study, not allowing even Damion to enter at times. I didn't mind the loss of their company, however. I was already used to not having father in the house now that he traveled to London all the time, and we all knew I was no fan of Mr. Malfoy.

What they discussed I knew little of. And while Draco acted like he had an idea, after a short while of my brothers torturing him with questions, we learned that he was merely bluffing.

I could tell that as the week went on, Theo was getting more and more agitated with Draco. After so many hours of showing that pretentious jerk every little place in Newport, it made sense that my brother would be pulling his hair out. So, after an evening where Theo went as far as to hide with me in my room to avoid Draco, a new plan was made to invite some of our friends to reduce the tension between the boys.

It was two days before the Malfoys were to leave Newport for good and I was feeling more alienated from my home by the hour. So instead of doing some of my reading in my usual spot in the library where Edward has since decided to go to hide from Malfoy, I took my refuge to the rose garden where I thought no one would think to look for me.

How silly of me to think I could be unpredictable. Not two hours after I had made my nest among the prickly flowers when Xander came running through the lanes of flowers looking for me.

He carried two brooms on his shoulder and had his usual charming smile plastered to his face that always put me in a good mood. So, when he stopped in front of me, I was almost glad that he had found me.

"Theo wasn't kidding about you being locked away with work, was he?" He asked, eyeing the many books spewed around me. I shrugged as I closed the giant book in my lap and stood up to face the boy head on.

"How did you find me here? Did you force one of the house elves to tell you or.."

"No!" Xander said with a laugh that made my smile grow.