PRINCESS ➳ harry potter , draco malfoy (OLD VERSION)

86 || Slughorn's Christmas Party

Friendship groups were splintering left, right and centre. Christmas was creeping up on the students of Hogwarts, and soon Katie would be traveling to the Burrow for the holidays, accompanied by Ron and Harry, both of whom she was not speaking to. Katie and Harry weren't exactly not speaking, but they certainly done their best to avoid being left alone together. As for Ron, he wouldn't so much as look at Katie, never mind talk to her. Although, Ron didn't seem to do much talking at all these days — every minute was dedicated to kissing Lavender, who was now his girlfriend, much to Hermione's despair. Ron and Hermione had a row, and Harry was left caught in the middle of it.

As for Draco, Katie had never seen him more alive. He smiled a lot, which was usually a very rare sight, and he often left his hair untouched because Katie adored it. This started as a once a week thing, but now, almost everyday, Draco would stride into the Great Hall for breakfast with no gel in his hair, creating swarms of whispers as girls ducked their heads together to discuss the fact that "Draco Malfoy's hair was messy!"

While Katie and Draco never 'announced their relationship', per say, they didn't take care in hiding it, and people figured it out anyway. Katie found that Draco was incredibly clingy, which was both a shock to her and everyone else who knew him.

On the second last day of classes before those wishing to return home for Christmas would be departing, Katie was sat in the Great Hall when the post owls arrived and was surprised when not one, but two owls landed in front of her and held out their leg. The first ow, which was carrying a letter, Katie recognised to be Christian's barn owl — which he named Barney because he thought it was quite hilarious, and the second was one that she had never seen before and he had a tightly bound scroll hanging from his leg.

Katie took both the letter and the scroll, stroked Barney's ruffled feathers, and the two owls took off. Assuming that Chris' letter was merely news about how Ireland was treating him, Katie decided to read the scroll first. She unraveled it and read it with furrowed eyebrows.

"Who is it from?" Draco asked curiously, lifting himself out of his seat and trying to read the scroll upside down.

"Professor Slughorn," Katie told him in a bewildered tone. "He's invited me to his Christmas party tomorrow night. It says to bring a guest." she added casually as she rolled the parchment up once more.

"Who are you taking, then?" Draco asked, trying but failing to hide the jealous undertone of his voice. He looked down at his porridge and began to poke at it rather aggressively with his spoon. Katie raised an eyebrow.

"Harry," she said, and apparently Draco didn't pick up on her sarcasm, because his eyes snapped up and he scowled at her. She rolled her eyes. "You, obviously, you plonker."

***

"Pansy, I don't see why it's such a big deal." Katie groaned.

It was the next day and Pansy was rifling through Katie's drawers, searching for, as she put it, the perfect dress for Katie to wear to Slughorn's Christmas Party. Katie, who would really have had no problem showing up in the most casual dress she owned, was sprawled out on her bed and staring up at a hole in the ceiling.

"Of course it's a big deal!" Pansy said, throwing a pair of socks out of the drawer, which somehow hit Katie right on the nose. "This is your first official date with Draco! Well, technically that Hogsmeade visit in October was your first official date, but—"

Katie choked on air and sat bolt upright. "That — that was a date?"

Pansy stared at her blankly for a few minutes, apparently stunned into silence by Katie's obliviousness, before sighing and rolling her eyes.