Past Life Story Fifteen: Peeping at Granger
Time: Fourth Year, after the Yule Ball
Location: The staircase landing at the corner
Draco suspects he may be suffering some form of aftereffect from the Yule Ball.
"Post-ball syndrome" is nothing new among Slytherins.
Blaise had a hangover that lasted several days. Pansy complained that her feet were ready to fall off. Even Crabbe and Goyle were struggling through breakfast — they'd gorged themselves the night before and couldn't face food.
As for Draco, his aftereffects were rather more unique, and considerably more persistent:
He couldn't control where his attention went. He would find himself — resentfully — watching a certain girl's movements.
For instance, when walking up the stairs past the library floor, he would always slow down to see if the brown-haired girl happened to be nearby.
That day, as usual, he glanced around without meaning to — and found her.
She was carrying a tall stack of books and climbing the stairs at a brisk pace.
And so the aftereffects took hold. His gaze was pulled to her loose, brown hair before he could prevent it.
Why doesn't she wear it up anymore?
He wanted to see it again, pinned and arranged the way it had been at the Yule Ball. And then, he thought with a wicked sort of pleasure, he would personally take it apart.
That would be entertaining.
The girl was entirely unaware of Draco's thoughts. She was focused on keeping her precarious stack of books from toppling over.
They met on the landing at the corner. The moment she recognised him, her eyes filled with wariness and suspicion. He, for his part, assumed an expression of patrician indifference, let his gaze skim across her sharp, bright eyes, pressed his lips together, and continued lazily down the stairs.
They passed each other like strangers.
What else could he do? Draco thought, with an irritation he couldn't quite name. Could he give Hermione Granger a friendly kiss on the cheek?
She had no reason to look back at him. She might, in fact, want to wash her eyes out after the misfortune of having crossed a Malfoy today.
So he slowed down quite peacefully, glanced upward, and planned — just once — to catch a last glimpse before she disappeared entirely. He wanted to verify, purely for his own curiosity, why a Muggle-born could have such long and perfectly straight legs.
In the precise instant he looked up, however, he found that she was slowly climbing the steps while looking down at him.
What was worse — their eyes met.
The tips of Draco's ears grew suddenly hot.
Something lurched through his chest in that instant, like a missed step going downstairs.
She was clearly startled. She clutched her precarious stack of books to her chest and rushed upward, adopting an expression of offended surprise.
Absolutely outrageous.
Why would that inexplicable girl bother to look back at him?
She should have been paying attention to that tottering pile of books. Clearly she had no sense of self-preservation.
Draco was furious — furious at himself for looking, furious at her for noticing, furious at the entire situation for being what it was.
Past Life Story Sixteen: The Vanishing Granger
Time: Fourth Year, Second Task of the Triwizard Tournament
Locations: The Black Lake stands; Potions classroom; hospital wing; Great Hall
Draco had never imagined that one day Granger's absence would trouble him.
Two months had passed since the Yule Ball. He'd thought he was over it.
Yet today, unable to find her, he felt oddly adrift, and — though he was reluctant to admit it — more than a little unsettled.
Draco Malfoy concedes, privately, that the kiss may have something to do with it.
If he is being truly honest with himself: for the past two months, he has been searching for her in crowds without entirely meaning to.
Exactly as he was doing now.
His eyes moved across every likely location: the library benches, the Great Hall tables, and now the stands beside the Black Lake for the Second Task. She was nowhere.
This is truly something. Isn't she Potter's most devoted supporter? For such an important occasion, she isn't even here to cheer for him? Draco felt an irritation he couldn't reasonably justify. He pulled his robes tighter against the northerly wind, trying to distract himself with Crabbe and Goyle's dim laughter and the sounds of them eating — completely useless.
He waited, disgruntled, for a full hour, until he found his binoculars trained on Granger emerging from the lake, dripping and shivering. She had been Krum's chosen hostage — evidently she was the thing he would miss most. Which was absolutely hilarious.
What right did she have? And what right did he have?
What sort of blind fool would treat her like his most precious treasure? Were they all out of their minds?
Draco's expression darkened. Through the binoculars he examined her shivering face, then watched Krum speak to her in a low voice, and felt, all of a sudden, that he didn't want to watch at all.
Whether she'd frozen at the bottom of the Black Lake or been frightened half to death by the Merpeople — none of it was any of his concern.
He wanted to put the binoculars down and leave. His hands, however, were not cooperating. They remained stubbornly fixed, and his eyes remained stubbornly on her.
He decided, therefore, to pretend he was watching Krum.
"She was just his dance partner — that's all it takes to be someone's 'most prized possession'?" Pansy's voice drifted by on the cold wind. "She's such a show-off, isn't she? First Potter, and now Krum —"
"She does seem to make a habit of it," Draco agreed, his voice low, watching her make a dash toward Potter. "She's quite good at drawing people in."
"I bet she brewed some kind of Love Potion," Pansy said with a dismissive laugh. "Given it to Krum, probably."
"Why not?" Draco said viciously — watching her try to drape a towel over Potter, soaking wet and dishevelled — finding her smile inexplicably irritating. "She's clever and ambitious and she only ever attaches herself to famous wizards. Make of that what you will."
"We can't let Krum be taken in," Pansy said, incensed. "And we can't let Potter and his lot walk around so smug."
And so Witch Weekly entered the picture. Pansy Parkinson found her ally — Rita Skeeter — and an exposé was produced: "Harry Potter's Secret Heartbreak."
Draco had complicated feelings when he saw it.
On one hand, there was relief; the frustration she'd managed to plant in him through a few careless words had finally found some kind of outlet. On the other hand, holding the magazine, he hesitated.
He didn't want to be the one to lead the charge this time. He didn't want to publicly mock her.
"You're oddly quiet today. Are you alright?" Pansy looked at him with suspicion, then became suddenly animated, pointing behind him and giggling. "They're here, they're here!"
Draco knew who it was. He didn't turn around. He walked with the Slytherins, his back rigid.
He didn't want her to look at him.
"Something interesting in there for you, Granger!" Pansy called out, tossing the magazine toward the girl.
Draco didn't see her expression. He kept his face forward, fighting the urge to look back, and followed his Housemates into the underground classroom.
"I bet she's furious," Pansy said gleefully, settling beside him. "Absolutely serves her right. Getting involved with Krum again and again — the girls have had enough of it!"
"No, she isn't furious at all." Blaise, who had been paying attention to all the things Pansy and Draco hadn't, called across from the other side. "Your hopes are dashed. She actually laughed when Weasley mentioned the 'Scarlet Woman' thing. And now she's laughing and waving in our general direction."
Draco snorted and turned his attention to his Potions ingredients. He held out for a respectable amount of time, and then — when no one was watching her anymore — turned and looked.
Granger was not laughing, nor waving, nor looking toward the Slytherins any longer.
She was blushing. Head down, pestle working hard against a bowl of scarab beetles, apparently quite untroubled by the absurd name Weasley had used for her, and equally unbothered by the fabricated article.
Beyond the blush, she was remarkably composed. This infuriated Draco unreasonably.
Even when Professor Snape read the entire article aloud in front of the class, pausing to deliver scathing commentary on every sentence, she remained unruffled. Draco flashed his badge at Potter, expecting fury. Potter showed nothing. As though the report might, somehow, be accurate.
That only made things worse.
Professor Snape appeared to share Draco's frustration, though he showed nothing on his face. Draco could tell he was quietly venting his irritation into the ceiling of the Potions classroom.
He even devised a new punishment: scattering the inseparable trio to opposite corners.
Draco didn't register where Potter and Weasley had been placed. He registered one sentence only: "Miss Granger, you will sit over there — next to Miss Parkinson."
"Oh, absolutely not," Pansy muttered under her breath. "She always picks apart everything I do. Draco, swap with me — I'll go sit with Blaise."
"Why must I suffer for this?" He wanted to agree immediately, which alarmed him slightly, but he maintained a look of aloof inconvenience.
"She won't nitpick yours. Besides, I don't want Blaise getting another opportunity to stare at her. He's already had quite enough." Pansy's tone was sharp. "I don't like him looking at other girls."
"Your jealousy is spectacularly unfounded," Draco said, switching seats with Pansy and waiting for the reluctant girl to make her way over. "Blaise has very particular standards. He'd only pursue a pure-blood witch."
Granger arrived. She set her cauldron and potion ingredients on the table with rather more force than was strictly necessary, still flushed.
She didn't look at him. Her pale fingers gripped the pestle and drove it into the bowl of scarab beetles with considerable purpose, as though her current partner happened to be one of them.
"Is it true," he said, after watching those nimble, brisk fingers for a moment, keeping his eyes on his cauldron, forcing the question out through his teeth, "that Krum invited you to Bulgaria?"
"What's that to you?" she said coldly, eyes fixed on the bowl.
She didn't deny it.
Over years of clashing with Granger, Draco had come to know her well enough to understand: she would flatly refute anything that hadn't happened. She didn't deny things that had.
Which meant Krum had, in fact, invited her.
And that meant Rita Skeeter — for all her shamelessness — had probably not been lying.
"You have quite the ambition, Granger," Draco said, his voice sharp. "The moment you decide Potter isn't dependable, you're already making your next move. Very efficient."
Something deep inside him hissed and burned. He suddenly found his earlier hesitation outside the classroom as ridiculous as the disproportionate offence he'd felt when Weasley used that term for her.
"What do you mean by 'not dependable'?" She'd kept a straight face, studied her scarab beetle for a while, and finally couldn't let it go. "What are you implying about Harry?"
Beneath the background noise of Professor Snape systematically destroying Potter's character from the front of the room, Draco exhaled and said, with cold deliberation, "He chose Weasley at the bottom of the lake. Not you."
Yes. There it was. He'd finally found the fault line.
He finally had a reason to look her in the eye — to watch what it did.
He scrutinised her face, which went from pink to white, and felt a dark pleasure rising alongside something he chose not to examine. "You haven't worked it out yet, have you? Compared to Weasley — compared to his best friend — you come second. Probably lower, in fact. And he made that choice without hesitating."
She stared at him as though the thought had genuinely never occurred to her.
Her bright white cheeks dimmed, like dust settling over a star.
"You're talking nonsense," she said, but less steadily than before. "Harry — that isn't — there were other people who could have saved me. It was the best solution."
"Perhaps. But he didn't know that with certainty, did he?" Draco said lightly. "He took his chance and made his choice."
"Krum was already moving before Harry reached the bottom —" she said quickly, as if grabbing for something to hold onto. "Harry would have come for me if Krum hadn't already —"
"Is that right? I heard Potter arrived first." Draco's tone was smooth and quiet. "Ask him whose rope he cut. Whose rescue he didn't hesitate over. In the very deepest part of his heart — is there any place for you, Hermione Granger?"
He didn't look at her face again. The expression on it was something between sadness and pain, and he couldn't quite decide whether he wanted to see it or couldn't stand to.
He picked up a piece of ginger root and pretended to examine it carefully. "Admit it. You're not that important, Granger. He decided in a moment."
"Shut up, Malfoy," she said, fiercely, pressing her lips together. "Our friendship is none of your business."
"I'm stating facts," he said, and began chopping the ginger root.
He didn't say another word to her after that.
He was busy feeling thoroughly wretched. Busy being tormented by a foolish kiss she had completely and entirely forgotten — a kiss that had cost him nothing and everything — and left him hollowed out.
How could she have forgotten? How?
How could she go about laughing freely, and being the school's favourite, and looking at him with that bored contempt, as if he were nothing at all?
Draco didn't know where his anger came from. He didn't know what else he could possibly do with it.
He supposed the verbal attack had been sufficient — enough to give Granger something to chew on. He shot a look of boredom at the armadillo bile in its graduated cylinder, though whether he was bored with the bile or with himself remained unclear.
It wasn't until he saw her hands through the half-open hospital wing door that Draco Malfoy understood something: there are ways to wound that are far sharper and more direct than words.
Her hands. Covered in blisters and raw, cracked skin. He could not find a single trace in them of the clever, precise fingers he'd watched working in Potions.
No wonder she'd been absent for the entire Herbology class.
In that moment, Draco felt only fury — so sudden and overwhelming that it nearly made him smash the bottles in his hands against the stone floor.
"It's undiluted Bubotuber pus —" Madam Pomfrey murmured, applying salve to the girl's fingers. "Oh, those dreadful people —"
"It was those letters — I was so foolish, I didn't even think —" Her voice drifted through the crack in the door, and it stopped him like a Petrificus Totalus.
"More bandages, I'll need —" Madam Pomfrey pulled the door open and found Draco standing outside, motionless. "Oh, Mr. Malfoy. Are you here to drop off a fresh batch of Strengthening Solution for Severus? Just leave it on the table — I'll be right back."
Granger looked up at him. Then she turned her face deliberately to the window, and fixed her gaze there.
"I would have thought you were smarter than this," Draco said. He walked into the ward and set down the bottles on the table with a clatter that was louder than was strictly necessary.
He stared at those hands — felt something close in his throat — and said, with stiff awkwardness, "Any witch with the sense she was born with knows that throwing a Howler directly into the fireplace takes approximately no effort."
"They were regular envelopes!" she snapped, finally turning back to glare at him.
"You should have put all your post straight into the fire!" Draco said sharply — then, realising his mistake, added a sneer to cover it. "Though I don't know why anyone would be writing to you in the first place."
"People do write to me — not just those people!" she said, irritated. "I don't want to miss letters from my family and friends!"
"Then you should have considered that making yourself conspicuous to Krum is singularly unwise," Draco said, fingers curling into fists. "He has thousands of supporters, and those Howlers aren't something a schoolgirl can just weather."
"What's it to you!"
"Go and have a lovely summer in Bulgaria — just watch out that no one drowns you in the Black Lake before you even get there," Draco said, his voice tight, remembering the particularly unpleasant comments he'd heard from the girls in the Slytherin common room.
"I was never going!" she said, face red. "And whether I go or not is absolutely none of your business!"
"Of course it isn't —" His tone changed, became suddenly, strangely quiet.
The anger went out of him like a candle snuffed — and it certainly had nothing to do with what she'd just said.
"None of my business," he said, lazily. He pushed open the door of the hospital wing and sauntered out, wearing, for no discernible reason, a markedly improved expression.
He'd decided to do something about it.
He felt no particular sympathy for the girl; rather, he found the state of her hands an irritant he couldn't ignore. Since the Howlers were coming from every direction and couldn't be individually stopped, he'd have to address the source.
He was convinced that if Viktor Krum kept his distance from her, all of this would disappear. As for what Granger thought about it — that was irrelevant. She'd already said she wasn't going to Bulgaria anyway.
One lunchtime, he made a point of sitting next to Krum, engaging in a conversation he hadn't anticipated having with the Durmstrang Champion since the night of the Yule Ball.
"I received an acceptance letter from Durmstrang," Draco said. "I could have gone there."
Krum looked at him blankly, nodded, and returned his attention to the pickled herring on his plate.
"Consider this a friendly piece of advice: stay away from Granger. If you don't, you're likely to find yourself in considerable difficulty," Draco said, in an entirely neutral tone.
"Hermi-own-ninny?" Krum's expression darkened as he set down his fork. "What do you mean?"
Draco found the way Krum said her name deeply irritating, but took a careful breath and kept his voice civil. "Granger is Potter's friend. I assume you're aware of that."
Krum nodded, watching him with wary scepticism.
Draco opened the copy of Witch Weekly beside him, turned to the page featuring "Harry Potter's Secret Heartbreak," and laid it in front of Krum. "You've been misled. Read this."
Krum was silent. He picked up the magazine and began to read, and a look of slow, surprised realisation spread across his face.
"I suspect that when you two talk," Draco said, keeping his voice carefully conversational — suppressing something he chose not to name — "she brings up Potter rather often. She was more concerned with his safety when you pulled her out of the lake than with anything you had to say to her. Wasn't she."
It was not entirely a question.
"Why do you care about any of this?" Krum said, staring at him with open suspicion. "What do you want?"
"I want nothing. I'm simply noting," Draco said pleasantly, "that you're a celebrated international Quidditch player. Everything you do is watched. Everyone already knows you invited her to Bulgaria. If you didn't share that yourself, how do you suppose the reporter found out?" He patted Krum briefly on the shoulder, concealing every trace of his actual motives behind an amiable smile. "Don't let some star-struck schoolgirl turn your private life into a public spectacle. You'll only end up like Potter."
Krum buried his face in the magazine. His expression was unreadable.
Draco rose, deciding that was sufficient, and walked away with a rather lighter step.
He let his gaze pass, once, over the girl at the next table — struggling to set fire to yet another batch of incoming Howlers — and felt something very much like relief.
As for the other source of harm — Potter — Draco had a separate plan.
"How does Rita Skeeter get into Hogwarts?" he asked Pansy, very casually. "Dumbledore banned her from the grounds."
"She's an Animagus," Pansy said, with the air of someone enjoying a private joke. "She turns into a beetle. Tiny little thing. Want to have a look? She might be in the grounds right now."
Draco followed Pansy outside, and there — sure enough — was a beetle resting on a poppy, the distinctive markings around its antennae a perfect match for the garish spectacles Rita Skeeter wore.
"Here." Pansy deposited the round beetle in his palm and wandered off, very pleased with herself.
"You might consider getting off the social gossip," Draco said quietly to the beetle, while Crabbe and Goyle stationed themselves behind him and kept a casual lookout. "People are bored of it. Why not audit Professor Trelawney's Divination class? She makes the most dramatic predictions about Potter every other session — that might be far more entertaining for your readers."
He knew, of course, that Granger never attended Divination.
With any luck, a steady stream of sensational prophecies would keep Skeeter — and her considerable readership — occupied enough to leave Granger well alone.
Two birds, one beetle.
Past Life Story Seventeen: The Trembling Granger
Time: Fourth Year, Night of the Third Task of the Triwizard Tournament — Harry appears on the field with Cedric's body
Location: The Triwizard Tournament stands
Hermione Granger.
He really ought to stop looking at her.
She was no longer targeted by Skeeter, no longer receiving Howlers by the fistful. She was sitting perfectly fine in the stands. There was no reason whatsoever for him to turn his head in her direction.
Unless it was because she screamed too loudly when Cedric Diggory's body was brought onto the field.
He heard her through several rows of people.
When he turned, her face was white as chalk.
She could show fear. That was new. Her hand had been split open by undiluted Bubotuber pus and she hadn't flinched. She had burned Howlers one by one with a look of absolute calm. But this — this frightened her.
She looked, in that moment, like a candle about to be blown out. A willow leaf on the edge of being torn away.
He watched her for a moment longer than he intended, filing away the expression for future reference.
Then she stood up.
He saw her following Weasley through the crowded rows, trying to work her way toward the exit and the field.
She was always running to Potter, regardless of everything.
Weasley didn't even slow down for her. He ran past, very nearly knocking into Draco, and left the girl — who was not, it should be said, especially gifted at sprinting — scrambling along several paces behind.
So she ran alone, face tight with panic.
She nearly came to grief on a rotten plank of wood.
"Oh —"
Before a single coherent thought had formed, some entirely ungovernable instinct made him reach out and catch her.
And then she was in his arms, and this was a problem. She was smaller than expected and she smelled, infuriatingly, of something that did not help.
He couldn't explain why he'd caught her instead of simply stepping out of the way. He couldn't explain why he was now standing there, holding her, while she clutched at his shirt in a blind panic that had nothing whatsoever to do with him.
His heart did something unhelpful. He stayed quiet.
She looked up at him — eyes wet, face empty with shock and terror, expression cycling through confusion before it landed, with visible effort, on recognition. She said "thank you." Then she registered who she was thanking, and the shock became alarm.
"Watch where you're going, you —" The usual word did not come. He produced a different one. "— reckless girl."
He pressed down whatever was happening in his chest, let go of her, and arranged his expression into something mocking. "Or are you doing this on purpose?"
"Get out of my way, Malfoy!" She was bright red now, furious, already shoving past him and running toward the chaos at the centre of the field.
No one had seen. The field had everyone's attention.
Perhaps Hermione Granger wouldn't even remember this, given the speed at which she'd gone — running straight for the Saviour, the Boy Who Lived, Saint Potter.
Only he remembered. The catch. The smell. The lurch in his chest.
Just like the foolish kiss that only he remembered — a kiss that should never have existed, that Draco Malfoy had spent six months trying to bury, and could not.
Past Life Story Eighteen: The Clever Granger
Time: End of Fourth Year
Location: The Hogwarts Express, returning to London
"I told her I'd let her out when we reached London," she was saying. He stood outside Potter's compartment and caught the quiet laughter in her voice. "I put a Permanent Sticking Charm on the jar so she couldn't transform. I told her she wasn't to write a single word for an entire year — see if she could break the habit of slander."
"Well done, Granger," Draco said, in the tone of a man conceding a point he'd rather not.
He pushed the compartment door open. "So." He stepped inside, letting his gaze move over her with deliberate slowness, a faint, precarious smirk on his lips. "You've captured a journalist, and Potter's back in Dumbledore's good graces. Impressive."
He couldn't quite explain his own motives. He hadn't particularly cared whether Skeeter ended up in anyone's hands.
He had, however, wanted to see whether she was alright. Whether she was still running herself ragged for Potter — Potter, who had left her at the bottom of the Black Lake without a second thought.
He found Potter glaring at him. He found the glare deeply unappealing.
Saint Potter. Always so righteous. What gave him the right to look so smug?
"Try not to dwell on it, is that it?" Draco said lightly. "Pretend nothing happened?"
"Get out," Potter said.
Draco Malfoy did not, as a rule, tolerate rudeness. He certainly did not take orders from rude people. He turned the full weight of his contempt on Potter, and felt all the accumulated resentments of the past four years flood in.
"You were doomed from the start, Potter! I warned you. Choose your companions carefully — I said that. First day at Hogwarts, on the train, I said it." His voice went harder, sharper, as he nodded toward Granger and Weasley — hiding, somewhere beneath the anger, something more fragile. "It's too late now. The Dark Lord is back, and those two will be first when it comes — Muggle-borns and Muggle-loving traitors. Well — not first. Diggory will —"
An explosion of spells erupted from multiple directions at once, as though someone had set off a box of Filibuster Fireworks.
The Leg-Locker Curse caught him across both ankles. He tried to throw himself aside, but it was too late; his legs locked beneath him and he dropped, and decided at once to feign unconsciousness rather than give Potter another opportunity to aim.
In the darkness behind his eyelids, he felt himself being kicked, shunted, and unceremoniously dragged into the corridor outside the compartment.
The door closed.
Like a terrible echo of the previous year, Draco Malfoy was lying helpless on the floor of the Hogwarts Express, humiliated in a brand new way.
He called quietly for Crabbe and Goyle. Nothing. Completely out.
Time stretched. He lay still and planned revenge, none of which was presently possible, and all of which required him to be capable of standing up. The train stopped at Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. Students poured out. Voices washed over him. Someone stepped on him — he let out an involuntary grunt — and still did not open his eyes, lying in rigid, furious silence on the floor of the carriage.
He guessed, eventually, that she had gone. He was almost certain of it.
The noise faded. The train settled into quiet.
Crisp footsteps approached from the far end of the corridor and stopped beside him.
Right. The attendants, cleaning the carriages. That would be useful.
He opened his eyes and said, weakly, "Could you help me —"
It was not an attendant.
It was Granger.
He stopped speaking completely.
She stood over him, looking down with her head tilted and something very knowing in her expression.
Granger — clever as always — had worked it out.
She seemed to read the bafflement in his face, and said coolly, "I knew you were awake. I came back specifically to tell you something. And you groaned when I stepped on you."
Draco stared up at her, indignant and speechless.
She had stepped on him. She had actually stepped on him, and done it knowingly, and was now standing there looking entirely unrepentant.
The audacious, impossible girl leaned down toward the helpless, immobile boy — slowly, deliberately — until her brown hair cascaded forward like a waterfall, covering his face, his lips, his eyes. He breathed her in before he could stop himself.
"I didn't come back to rescue you. I came to settle something. You said Harry abandoned me." Her voice was soft, but every word of it was exact. "I don't agree. Yes — Harry rescued Ron first. He's never denied that, and neither do I. But he didn't leave me. He waited at the bottom of the lake until he was certain Krum could reach me. He never considered giving up. He even helped Krum cut through my ropes." She paused. "He also saved Gabrielle Delacour — a complete stranger. No one who knows what Harry Potter did that day should question his character. You nearly had me fooled, for a moment. I should be embarrassed."
Draco wanted to look at her. He wanted to say something — several things — in his defence. He found that he was, for all practical purposes, a helpless prisoner, caught without any hope of movement or retaliation, by the most oblivious and beautiful hunter he had ever encountered.
Her hair was a cage. Her closeness was a curse.
"Malfoy, I know what you did. You fed those things to Rita Skeeter — I suspected you from the start — and I saw you speaking with her from the castle window. You poisoned Krum's mind against me — he told me what you said afterward. I know everything." She straightened, slowly, her voice gone cold with perfectly calibrated contempt. "You little menace. I hope you enjoy the floor."
Then she stood up, didn't give him a single additional glance, and left without looking back.
Draco Malfoy lay on the carriage floor of the Hogwarts Express, staring upward, his heart hammering in the way it had no business doing, watching her figure disappear from sight.
Merlin.
Why did he feel like he was the one who had lost?