Limerence; Draco Malfoy

Chapter Forty-Eight: Bleak desires

Two months later... 23rd December

I lay in the bathtub of Hermione Granger's dormitory, wearing my winter ball dress and watching the ceiling spin above my head.

The sound of girlish chatter floated around the room, alongside the crackling music drifting from a wireless radio on the sink.

I lifted my heavy head up to see that Hermione and Ginny were holding hands, spinning around in circles. The skirts of their dresses swirled majestically about them, and I reckoned if anyone were to have walked in on us right now, they would have assumed we were all completely mad.

But we weren't. Not really.

We were only high.

Hermione had invited us to her dormitory to get dressed for the ball. It had been an event that had sparked excitment in me ever since it'd been announced. Hermione was going with Ron, her boyfriend. Ginny with Harry. I was going with Fred -- strictly as friends, of course.

He'd asked me since everyone else had someone to go with, and because "I'd rather sit in the corner and get drunk with you than be forced to dance with some random girl."

I felt the same way. Dancing was in no way my thing. Although I did like dresses. And just the thought of going to such an event filled me with a childish kind of excitement. The entire concept was the stuff of fairy-tales; although right now, me, Hermione and Ginny were not acting very much like dignified princesses.

I'd made a quick, very much needed trip to the prefects bathroom half an hour ago. Nothing big. Nothing too awful.

But it had been getting so boring, waiting for the two of them to finish their makeup. Ginny had brought some firewhiskey but that didn't cut it for me. I was getting restless for some real excitement.

I'd been feeling that way for the past two months, ever since Draco had left.

Or at least, he'd been an absent figure in my life. He hadn't actually left Hogwarts. All that had happened was that he'd been put in isolation after beating Crabbe up, which meant he'd been made to do all his lessons in a seperate classroom - away from everybody else.

Rumour had it he was also forced into writing lines everynight, cleaning up the classrooms and teaching the first years how to fly.

That last one was a laugh. Draco -- teaching someone. I expected he'd do something like accidently on purpose push one of the poor children off their broomsticks. He was too. . . intimidating, for me to picture him doing such a normal, helpful thing. Yet I suppose, despite his status and connections, even the richest boy in the school couldn't escape Dumbledore's punishments.

Hence why I hadn't had contact with him. Not in the evenings in the common room either, or at breakfast, because even then he was kept isolated. And I felt waves of guilt lapping up at my conscious every day, every night, from knowing that he'd gotten himself in such a harsh position - isolated and shunned by all teachers and students - all for the sake of defending me.

I wasn't sure how long he was going to be forced into this regime, but I secretly hoped it would be over soon. Although I was ashamed to admit it, I did miss him. Alot more than I should've. At the same time however, I dreaded the day he would make his return. The day he'd walk into class and sit behind me again.

It would be too much. Merlin, I might even faint on the spot.

Mostly because I felt like I knew too much: his Death Eater secret still loomed over my thoughts day and night like an ominous shadow.

It was a shadow which had only grown darker as the weeks dragged on, filling me with so much guilt and despair it made sleeping even more impossible than usual.