Lorelei Jones | 4th Year
When Lorelei was four years old, she began to notice little details that had evaded her awareness before.
She started to realize how much her Gran loved it when they made cookies together. She learned that simple rain storms could turn into something louder and brighter called a thunderstorm. She realized butterflies didn't like to be caught but would land on her head if she sat very still in her dad's garden. They especially liked to do this when the sun started to come out and the plants began to flourish.
And, she eventually noticed that her mum and dad weren't very happy after dinner time, but they didn't like her to know.
With time, she started to pick up on a few things on those days. It was always quieter at dinner when her mum and dad weren't happy. They would put her to bed earlier, and their bedtime stories were shorter. Her dad didn't stay up to look at the constellations with her on those nights, and her mum didn't share her stories about beautiful places around the world with the promise that Lorelei would get to come with her one day.
On nights like these, four year old Lorelei did whatever she could to make her parents happy again.
If she heard them disagreeing, she scampered in and offered to play with them. This always made them stop their arguing, so little Lorelei always proudly grinned the entire time they played.
If her mum and dad were quiet at dinner, she just babbled on until they started talking more too.
If they tried to put her to bed earlier, she asked them to cuddle with her.
If they only read her a short story, she asked them to create a new story with her.
She'd do anything she could think of to make them smile, and she always knew things would be okay if her dad took her to the balcony to get lost in the stars and the moon. The nights spent exploring the cosmos never ended sourly for the Jones family, so Lorelei looked upon the night sky with fondness for years to come as a result. It was a sign of peace, of stillness, of the happiness of her parents, and Lorelei never wanted to lose that, but unfortunately, fate had other plans.
When her dad died the next year, Lorelei didn't know how to fix things anymore. Nothing seemed to work after he was gone.
Her mum didn't want to look at the stars.
She didn't want to cuddle.
Her discussions of magical places and mysterious oceans ceased.
Lorelei often ate dinner alone.
Despite her failing efforts to make her mum happy again after the accident, Lorelei kept trying. She never gave up trying to make her mum happy, even after her mum started taking more trips overseas for work to avoid her daughter's big, round eyes and the requests to stare at the stars.
Once Lorelei started at school, her desire to keep everyone around her happy spread to a wider audience. She did whatever she had to do to bring smiles to the sad faces of those around her, and she tried to always act with kindness, no matter the circumstance. Seeing the sparkle return to someone's eyes or hear their delighted laughter at her conflict-diffusing jokes made Lorelei's heart soar more than anything else in her life at the time could.
So, when Lorelei was prancing down the corridors of Hogwarts and noticed Draco arguing with his roommates Crabbe and Goyle, her chest tightened and head spun with the need to fix it. Without being fully conscious of it, her mind began to spin with things she could say or actions she could take to make the three boys stop their fighting.
Most of all, Lorelei hated the way Draco's hands were slightly shivering as his eyebrows were drawn together. His mouth was moving rapidly as he flung his arms around, but his concerns seemed to fall on deaf ears, for Crabbe and Goyle weren't even looking at him. They were staring at the approaching Lorelei with amusement twitching in their otherwise bland expressions.
Draco spun around when he noticed they weren't looking at him, and his breath caught in his throat when his eyes found hers. Lorelei self-consciously tugged on a loose, blonde strand that had fallen from her ponytail and into her face. Draco's intense gaze made her chest pound, and her heart flutter, but she didn't want to get distracted from her mission.
Crabbe and Goyle disappeared without another word. They both headed in the direction Lorelei had just been heading towards, but Draco didn't notice.
"Why were you fighting?" she asked with her pulse racing and fingers fidgeting with the hem of her shirt.
"What do you mean?" Draco breathed as he took a captivated step closer to her, his pale grey eyes scrutinizing as they dripped over her every feature with perfect attention.
Lorelei shuffled her feet and motioned vaguely to the place where Crabbe and Goyle just were. She met his stare again with worry now drowning in her perfect blue eyes.
Draco glanced at the place she had motioned to before recognition and something else gripped his features. He then rushed out, "Oh, that? Nothing you need to worry about, princess, but I did want to come find you... I wanted to talk to you about something."
"Something bad? ...Or something good?" Lorelei asked and stressed her bottom lip between her teeth.
"Nothing bad, angel, I promise. Here, come with me." Draco offered a hand out to Lorelei, and she took it without question, wholeheartedly believing his promise. When he smiled softly, she grinned, feeling accomplished.
Draco didn't seem upset anymore.
She followed along, grinning at any of her fellow students or professors she passed. She didn't smile at Umbridge normally though. Something about the woman just made her feel on edge, as if Lorelei was bracing for the loud clap of thunder from an especially potent bolt of lightning.
Draco tugged Lorelei into an empty classroom without any warning, and she stumbled in after him, slightly tripping over her own clumsy feet, but that didn't bother her. Honestly, nothing could tear her down from the exceptional mood she was in.
As Draco shut and locked the door behind her, Lorelei took in the room they had entered. The room was small, with one large, dark wooden desk at the front of the room, but it was completely clear of any personal belongings. Along each wall were bookshelves made of the same wood that stretched to the high ceilings. Each shelf was crammed full of books, some older with yellowing pages and others that looked more modern and drenched Lorelei in the smell of new books when she approached.
The lights were off in the small room, but the windows behind the desk casted enough grey light into the room that Lorelei could clearly make out Draco's pacing from where she stood by one of the shelves.
"What did you want to talk with me about?" Lorelei let her pointer finger trail over the pristinely clean spines of the books.
"I wanted to talk about you," Draco said with eyes watching her features carefully. He never wanted to make her uncomfortable or afraid again.
"Me?" she questioned and drew her eyebrows together.
"What I think of you. Is that okay?"
Lorelei nodded and licked her lips quickly to counteract how dry her mouth had started to feel.
Draco took a step back and looked away from her. His face pinched, and Lorelei tilted her head to the side. Why did he look like he was in pain?
"Are you okay?"
"I don't know what's wrong with me, but I know that I don't feel the same when I'm around you. I feel odd, different, glowing. Merlin, you're so bright and beautiful and brilliant, I swear I get a sunburn just from being in your presence," he gushed and slightly reddened at his confession.
Lorelei fought a giggle. She had never seen Draco Malfoy blush before.
He continued, running a hand through his disheveled silvery blond hair, "And I just don't understand what's bloody happening to me. You're just this angel, a princess, and it's ruining me."
"Ruining you?" she repeated and took a step across the brown tiled floors to where Draco had wandered in his fit of panic. Her chest was starting to heave with something all too familiar and crushing, but luckily, Draco noticed.
"No, no, that came out wrong."
"I'm ruining you? I'm so sorry. I hadn't meant to, I swear. I was just trying to help, and to be honest with you, I don't exactly know what's going on with me either. Like, I know that it's silly to feel the way I do. Getting butterflies when someone calls you a kind name and wanting-wanting them to-"
"Wanting them to do what?" Draco asked. His stare darkened as he took a few purposeful strides towards Lorelei. She noticed how his pale grey eyes seemed so much darker now with his pupils consuming so much of the surface of his eyes.
Lorelei noticed her heart racing and skin flushing with the realization of what she was about to admit.
"Oh, um, I'm sorry. Just pretend I never said that. I didn't mean to make things awkward — I mean, I don't even know if you consider us to be friends, so to want that is just...so strange of me." Lorelei stared at her trembling fingers in front of her and avoided Draco's gaze.
She gasped when something cold and soft touched under her chin and tipped her head back. His hand was on her chin, guiding her to meet his eyes once again, and her breathing turned more rapid at the realization of how close he was.
"I want to give you the world, Lorelei, so you need to tell me what you want."
Her stomach had the sensation of dropping out on her. She swore she stopped breathing when Draco whispered this purposeful statement. Something about the soft yet firm way he said it made her want to follow his every command without thought.
So, she did.
"I want you to kiss me," she said, and without wasting another second, Draco granted that wish, crashing just lips down on hers and sending chills erupting over her skin.
As his mouth captured hers, Lorelei's lips seemed to tingle or even burn, but it wasn't painful as it sounded like it would be. It was even pleasant but still strange.
Draco felt it too, and he softly grinned into the kiss, knowing what this meant. All of the purebloods were well-versed in the basics of soulmates, having passed what they knew of it to their children before the kids could even form a proper spell, so Draco knew what this meant for him and Lorelei. That little hint of burning, the slight taste of pain, was the truest indicator that you've found your soulmate.
Lorelei felt Draco smile into the kiss, and her heart soared. Hopefully, she was doing this right. She lifted her hands to the chest of the person kissing her, but this time, she didn't try to push away. This time, she pulled him in closer, wanting to close every gap between them and experience every sensation the moment gave her.
For Draco, it was a moment of release, of letting go. His need to control his every reaction to Lorelei thrown out the window in a moment of unparalleled joy.
When he pulled away moments later, Draco grinned. He had wondered what Lorelei's lips would taste like if he ever got to kiss her, but he hadn't expected that all of his expectations would ring true.
As soft as clouds and as sweet as dripping honey, Lorelei's kiss drew him in. When he could find enough sense to pay attention, he could also taste something dark and bitter hidden underneath these sweeter tones. However, most of the time, Draco was so caught up in every other stimulant crashing over his senses that he couldn't distinguish between the taste of her lips or the strawberry scent of her shampoo or the smooth touch of her skin.
When the pair eventually pulled apart, Draco and Lorelei both smiled at one another with panting breaths and hair askew. They knew at once that something monumentally important had just happened, yet neither suspected the oncoming disaster that would accompany their actions.
For with every rise, there is a fall, and their plummet was unavoidable.
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