Chosen || Draco Malfoy

40 - Visits

The curtains whip open to reveal Justin and Zacharias, both of whom look at Draco in confusion.

"Is the ferret bothering you?" Zacharias says, puffing out his puny chest as he places the flowers on the nightstand.

"Yes, yes he is," I say, my eyes glinting wickedly into Draco's. "He just threatened to smother me with a pillow for landing his father in prison."

Draco's mouth falls open, giving me a look of pure incredulity.

"Right," Justin says, carefully putting down the cake on the foot of the bed to roll his sleeves up his skinny arms. "We'll show you what happens when you mess with Hufflepuffs."

"Please," Draco scoffs pompously. "What are you going to do? Hug me to death?"

I narrow my eyes. "Show him, boys."

I lie back and admire my flowers as Justin and Zacharias chase Draco away, keeping my fingers crossed that Madam Pomfrey has a knife for the cake.

******

I get many visitors that day.

When Harry joins me, I ask him how he enjoyed his trip back to London.

"Quiet," he says. "No one else was on the train."

Neville pops in at lunchtime to deliver me some pizza from the Great Hall and sends apologies from Luna.

"She's taking a lunchtime nap. She went on a Karma Sutra course over the summer and wanted to show me everything she'd learnt. Kept us up pretty late."

"There are courses?" I ask in disbelief, wondering how Neville doesn't look done in.

"According to her. Her dad's a sex therapist you see so I suppose he's got contacts."

"Xenophilius Lovegood is a sex therapist? But I thought he ran the Quibbler?"

"It's more of a hobby."

I don't ask which.

Next, Ron and Hermione stop by after classes to 'thoughtfully' give me that day's classwork from the lessons we share.

"It would be simply madness to fall behind at the start of such an important year!" Hermione gushes as she empties all her essays out of her bag and into my lap.

"I told you she'd prefer a Chocolate Frog," Ron remarks, looking at my expression of 'joy'.

Then Susan and Hannah have the audacity to turn up, acting as though they had never accused me of being a liar and a murderer or stole my boyfriend(s). Well... sort of.

"Chen broke up with me!" Susan wails, helping herself to one of my tissues. "He said he didn't believe it was You-Know-Who who killed my aunt over the summer!"

"Shame," I say in my falsest sweet voice. "Isn't it a drag when people don't believe you about these things?"

"There, there," Hannah says, patting Susan's back. "I remember how it felt when Draco broke up with me-"

"YOU WERE NEVER WITH HIM!" I roar as a red mist descends. "IT WAS ONE DATE WHICH HE ONLY ASKED YOU ON TO MAKE ME JEALOUS!"

"We had something special in those forty-five minutes before you came along and stole him away!"

"I didn't steal him." I sniff. "I hate him."

"So you don't want him but you don't want anyone else to have him?" Susan asks, her eyes now dry as she raises a judgemental eyebrow. "Sounds a bit selfish, Cece. What happened to the new thoughtful you?"