Apple of My Eye || Drarry

Chapter Nine: The Library

Over the next few weeks, the six of them became quite good friends. Hermione and Iris had bonded quite quickly, sharing book recommendations, studying techniques, and other things that Harry found quite boring.

However, they decided it was best to keep their friendship a secret; they all hated to imagine the rumors that would circulate, evil Death Eater's son with the Golden Boy, etc. Because of this, they could only meet up in the evenings or in places they knew to be deserted.

Draco and Harry tried to keep up the bickering facade in classes and in the corridors. They invented a little game of creating insults that meant other things, trying to get the other to break character and laugh.

Harry even got Draco to smirk and look at the ground once, and he would not let him hear the end of it.

༄༄༄༄༄༄༄༄༄༄༄༄༄༄༄༄

𝕀𝕣𝕚𝕤 ℙ𝕆𝕍

Iris was quite antsy, her relationship with Pansy didn't need to be as secret as Draco and Harry's, but Pansy didn't want word spreading because her family was quite old fashioned and homophobic. Even if they could be accepting for once, Iris was half-blood, and Pansy was certain that her parents would never get over that. She was anxious to see her.

She had a book in her lap, but was looking forward unfocused, playing with and cleaning her nails with her others, fiddling and tapping.

Her friend Penny was sitting next to her on the couch, and she looked up from her own book at Iris in annoyance. "Stop making that sound! I'm trying to read! It's the climax of the book!" Then she scanned Iris's expression, and the irritation faded from her face. "What's wrong?"

"Oh I don't know..." Iris said reluctantly. But Penny's face was full of genuine concern, and while being more popular than Iris, she was known for being excellent at keeping secrets. "Well I've been seeing this person..."

"Ooh! Tell me all about them!" Penny said, her eyes lighting up as she snatched her bookmark from the coffee table and put it in her book, setting it down on the table to give Iris her full attention.

"Well they—she—" She clarified. Penny's eyebrows raised slightly at this, pleasantly surprised. "...is amazing. She is so hilarious and has such a sassy attitude and takes time to really get to know people, not to mention that she is goddamn 𝑔𝑜𝑟𝑔𝑒𝑜𝑢𝑠—"

"OH MY GOSH IRIS! What a catch!" Penny interrupted excitedly. "Then what's the problem? And may I ask who?"

"Erm... Pansy Parkinson."

"Oh! She's nice? I always got the kind of bully vibe from her..."

"Yeah she's quite nice actually, once you get to know her, I think she's just insecure, and was protecting Draco...

"And the problem is that she doesn't want word to get out that she's into girls. My dads will be fine with it, and they probably already know to be honest, but her parents have it set in their minds that she is going to marry a pureblood Slytherin man from a respectable family. I bet they have it in their homophobic little brains that she will marry Draco, but he's gay too, so like—where is their gaydar?" She clapped her hand over her mouth at this last statement. "Oops! I wasn't supposed to tell you that..."

Penny just laughed. "It's okay I think we all already knew. Kind of a shame though... he's quite a looker... and I'm really sorry, it must be hard to not be able to see her very much."

"Exactly." Iris said gloomily.

"Why don't you invite them to study with you? The library is probably going to be empty, there aren't any tests coming up."