Between Serpents and Lions ; Draco Malfoy

◆𝓟𝓻𝓸𝓵𝓸𝓰𝓾𝓮◆

»»---->

People often assumed hatred was simple.

Sarina knew better.

Hatred was not simple.

Hatred was watching Draco Malfoy walk through the halls of Hogwarts with arrogance dripping from his shoulders like expensive cologne and feeling her entire body tense instinctively before he even spoke.

Hatred was hearing his voice from across a crowded room and immediately preparing herself for an argument.

Hatred was memorizing the sound of his footsteps without meaning to.
Knowing exactly what expression he wore before looking up.
Recognizing the difference between his genuine smirk and the crueler fake one he used around his friends.

That was the problem with hatred.

If you did it long enough, it started resembling obsession.

And Sarina would rather throw herself off the Astronomy Tower than admit Draco Malfoy occupied this much space in her mind.

Unfortunately, he seemed to suffer from the exact same problem.

Their rivalry had become infamous at Hogwarts years ago.

Professors separated them instinctively during classes.
Students slowed down in corridors whenever they passed each other because somehow it always turned into verbal warfare.
Even Peeves once called them "the angry blonde snake and his terrifying Gryffindor wife" before getting hexed by both of them simultaneously.

They hated each other.

At least, that was what everyone believed.

Including themselves.

Because hatred was easier to understand than whatever existed between them.

It was easier to call Draco cruel than acknowledge the moments Sarina caught something exhausted hidden beneath his arrogance.

Easier for Draco to dismiss her as insufferable than admit he had started searching for her automatically in every room he entered.

They were rivals.

Opposites.

A Gryffindor and a Slytherin balanced on opposite sides of a war neither fully understood yet.

And maybe, in another universe, that would have been all they ever were.

But this was Hogwarts.

And Hogwarts had always been dangerous for people who felt too much.

Especially when they mistook hatred for something far more devastating.

Years later, Sarina would think back to the beginning and realize the cruelest part of all this was not that she fell for Draco Malfoy.

It was that she never noticed exactly when she stopped wanting to destroy him.