Blaire Zabini || Draco Malfoy

9 - Taste The Rainbow

Third year was shit.

The only positive thing I could say about it was that the new Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor was a vast improvement on that twat Lockhart. Just a shame that Harry Potter's existence was going to somehow yet again be the reason of the downfall to his career by the end of the year.

Just as long as Potter refrains from murder this time.

Oh yeah, and Draco got punched. The only thing that upset me about it was that I wasn't the one to have done it.

It was all over that stupid bird. He'd actually gone and got his father to use his influence to get it beheaded on the school grounds. Gross.

And not only was it to take place at Hogwarts, but also amongst the very pumpkins which would eventually end up as juice in our glasses. It didn't seem that sanitary to me.

I kept out of Draco and Pansy's way pretty much the entirety of the school year. It wasn't difficult, seeing as they seemed to be literally glued to one another.

Although, there was this one small thing in February; on the morning of my fourteenth birthday, in fact. The owl post dropped something down before me at breakfast.

It was a small package wrapped in shiny emerald green paper marked simply with the letter B. Inside was a bag of chocolate money; Muggle chocolate money.

I instantly looked up and my heart gave a small sad tug as, from the furthest end of the table, a pair of silver grey eyes met mine.

It was the same gift he had given me for my previous birthday.

I gave my head the merest nod of thanks, and then looked away.

It would take more than a crappy bag of fake coins to win me over.

But I still returned the sentiment for his birthday in June, leaving for him a wrapped bag of Skittles; a reminder that I knew his dirty little secret.

By the time the end of year feast rolled around, it transpired that once again Gryffindor had won everything and not only that, Buckbeak had managed to evade execution.

Draco's face was pulled in a way that suggested his whole world had come to a bitter end. Next to him, Pansy didn't look any better; and she looked even more put out when Draco kept irritable shrugging her off him every two seconds.

As the Gryffindor table once again drowned out everyone else with their noisy celebrations; I managed to catch Draco's eye from down the far end of the table and offered him the tiniest of sympathetic smiles.

When he returned it with a small smile of his own, I couldn't help but feel a gentle warmth spread from inside my very core.

He may have been a dick, but perhaps I hadn't lost him entirely, after all.

*****

About half an hour into the journey home on the Hogwarts Express, my solitary compartment got a visitor.

I felt a flicker of irritation the moment the door started to slide open. I wasn't in a people type mood. I just wanted to close my fucking eyes and imagine I was swimming in a chocolate lake.

"What do you want?" I muttered grouchily to the contrite looking white-blond haired Slytherin, feeling slightly surprised that his bitch wasn't simpering pathetically at his tail.

"Can I- um..." he stammered nervously, scratching the back of his neck, "can I sit with you?"

I narrowed my eyes suspiciously at him. "Why?" I snarled.