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Anastasia walked inside the big and cozy train with tears threatening to leave her eyes and the bags under her eyes started to speak for themselves. She held her head up as she made her way through the stretched corridor full of bubbly and excited students. The Gryffindor's looked at her like if she had seen a ghost, and she smiled with sadness, because she already turned into a numb and sad ghost.
"Rosier, take a seat here!" She turned around to face Pansy Parkinson smirking at her direction.
"Hello, Parkinson." The girl mumbled as she hesitantly took a seat next to the girl. "How was your summer?" Anastasia knew her voice quivered for a split of second.
"Nothing different." The tall girl shrugged, looking bored. "I sent Draco a lot of letters, he never answered." Anastasia didn't know what to say at that, so she simply nodded and looked at the window.
Her eyes locked with her parents' from the window and a pain in her heart made her look away with squinted eyes. She well knew she was betraying them at serving the Dark Lord and becoming a Death Eater, but everything was just to protect her family from a terrible end.
"Rosier." Someone sitting across her caught her attention. "Anastasia," She composed herself and looked up to find Blaise Zabini smirking at her.
"Hello, Zabini." She politely spoke but the one and only Draco Malfoy entering the room made her choke with her words.
"You look nice. Summer helped you." The girl didn't know what to say, so she just half-smiled and turned to look back at the window.
"Was something I said?" She heard the boy whispering next to her, Anastasia chose to ignore the conversation and focused on the view in front of her.
Meanwhile, Draco dropped the black journal in the table in front of him. His eyes were lost in the blank pages as he opened it; every minute, he turned his face to admire the quiet girl in the other side of the compartment.
Since he saw her walking out of his manor with broken eyes and cheeks full of tears, Draco firmly thought he may be imagining or his heart had skipped a beat whenever she was brought to the conversation. The summer consisted in him getting mentally and physically ready to complete the task the Dark Lord left him, and every now and then trying to make his parents tell him why Anastasia Rosier was in their manor.
He never got a response, so he was determined to find the truth behind her sudden change of attitude.
In a sudden act of confidence, he stood up and walked towards the table where she was sitting along with his stupid and useless friends making fun of the people passing by. Draco instantly knew she wasn't interested in their conversation because her eyes were lost in the fields they passed.
"Draco! How are you, mate?" Zabini exclaimed, scaring the young girl at his sudden outburst.
Draco's world suddenly stopped when she looked up at him and he noticed the state she was in, probably the same as him. He felt as if her piecing green eyes were wandering inside his soul because suddenly he felt like a light bolt had hit him. He hoped, in a distant universe or in different circumstances, that she had felt it too.
In that moment, he eyed her carefully, completely ignoring Blaise constant questions and jokes that no one found funny. The platinum blonde boy swore he saw a flicker of fear in her eyes the moment they locked with his.
"Rosier, nice to see you again." He stretched out his hand, in hope of her taking it like they always did. But she didn't. To kill the uncomfortable silence between the pair, Draco cleared his throat. "You look good." He pointed, gaining a raised eyebrow from her.
"Thanks but we both know you're just being polite, Malfoy." She quickly mumbled and made her way out of the table. "But indeed, it was nice to see you again." The brunette said before opening the door and walking out of the compartment.
Anastasia felt the lump in her throat increasing at the sight of Harry Potter and his friends, her mind instantly urged her to carry on with the task to befriend the Gryffindor. But her legs seemed to be frozen, and her heart was beating so loudly that she swore some students thought she was losing her mind.
The funny thing was that she certainly lost her mind, and no one was there to help her.
"Anastasia," Was the first thing Harry said when they bumped into each other when she was trying to walk back to the compartment.
"Harry." She choked with her own words as soon as their eyes met. "I'm sorry, about your godfather." It was the only thing her mind could let her say, but Harry just nodded.
"It's okay." And she took that as a cue to keep walking and act like that minimal exchange of words wasn't hurting her heart.
After all, she had the task to befriend and betray the Chosen One, kill his closest family members and act like it wasn't nothing.
"Wait," She stopped in her tracks at the sound of his voice urging her to go back. "We've missed you, hanging with us." He said, causing Anastasia to smile a little.
"I've missed you guys too, especially Hermione. I don't have anyone to share my knowledge with." At this, Harry laughed quietly.
"You can still hang with us; you know that, right?" He asked and she simply nodded.
"I'll see you around." She waved and stepped inside the compartment.
Draco watched her as she carefully took a seat alone, in the back of the compartment. He really wished he could stand up and sit with her like when they were in second year, but he couldn't. He saw her talking with Potter, and he knew she was with the good ones, he knew since the time he caught her in the Room of Requirement. She was good and he was bad, it's was too dangerous.
It wasn't like the old times.
The boy still remembered how the small girl entered the book shop along with her family, he watched from the second floor how she completely ignored Gilderoy Lockhart and practically jumped over all the shelves of books around her. That's the first time Draco started to notice Anastasia Rosier, more than a housemate.
Him scared of asking her to go with the Yule Ball had always been one of the biggest regrets in his life and a very sour memory; with a broken heart, he remembered how sad he was when she accepted to go with a fellow Slytherin that wasn't as good enough for her like he hope he was.
Even if he was happy with the idea of the friendship he had with the girl in the past, Draco wasn't a big fan of taking a trip on memory lane. Mostly because most of the times he doubted to act in fear of what his father would say or think, which he absolutely hated.
He hated the idea of looking after a man who only ordered him to do awful things, and the reason the life was being drained from him.
But right then, looking directly at the girl, he knew that he didn't care what his parents thought about Anastasia Rosier, because she was the missing piece of the impossible puzzle that he was.
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Anastasia anxiously played with the ends of her hair as she looked around the room, she started to feel nervous the moment she noticed Draco and Harry weren't in the Great Hall, which meant they had encountered each other and that probably ended badly.
As weird as it sounded, Anastasia was worried. Not only for Harry but also for Draco, because she well knew something was wrong.
Everyone looked at Harry walking inside the hall with blood dripping from his nose, a few moments later, Draco rapidly walked inside with a frown plastered on his pale face. With her green eyes full of worry, Anastasia looked at both teenagers sitting in their respective house tables. In Draco's case, he took a seat next to the quiet yet observant girl.
He looked like death, emotionless and eyes lost in nothing. Yet, he turned to see Anastasia next to him. His eyes traveled all over her face and studied her features, he took how beautiful she looked with her eyes focused on the empty plate in front of her. She also seemed lost, and he wished he could help her find herself.
In the other side of the room, Hermione seemed taken aback by the events that were happening. But her friends found quite strange how her eyes didn't seem to leave the Slytherin table.
"What are you looking at, Hermione?" Like always, Ron blurted out in order to make her zone out of her thoughts.
"Malfoy likes Anastasia." She simply said, carefully explaining it to her best friends.
"Draco is a git without a heart, he can't have feelings for a girl like her." Ron argued.
"He hasn't stopped looking at her." Ginny pointed, chiming into the conversation. "Look," She signaled then to turn around.
Carefully, the trio turned around to face the Slytherin table, quickly, they noticed that indeed Draco's eyes were glued to Anastasia. It would be a romantic scene if they'd know he wasn't a Death Eater, according to Harry, and a bad guy.
"We can use that as an advantage." Harry mumbled, signaling them to lean on closer to hear his low voice. "If they have a thing going on, Anastasia would know Malfoy's plans and we can trick her to tell us!"
"She isn't stupid either, Harry. She would know we are up to something, and so will Malfoy." Hermione pointed out with raised eyebrows.
"I can't believe Malfoy has feelings for someone." Ron spoke out, causing the whole Hufflepuff table to look at him with surprise. "I wasn't talking to you!" He exclaimed at them.
"Not if we befriend her first." Harry pointed, completely ignoring his best friend fighting with some Hufflepuffs.
"And then?" Hermione asked, curiosity starting to take over her words.
"We wait until something actually happens between them and then we interrogate Anastasia to help us."
"I don't know, Harry. It all seems so tricky." Hermione said. "Don't you think he won't be checking over her? After all, he fancies her."
"It will work." He said, already standing up. "It could be a back-up plan."
"No, Harry!" Hermione whispered, ordering him to stay seated.
"Mate, what are you doing?" Ron tried to make him understand but it was too late, their friend was already walking to the Slytherin table.
In the meantime, Anastasia tried her best to keep up with her housemates' conversation. But it seemed impossible with the pair of grey eyes constantly looking at her and the Golden Trio turning at their table with suspicious eyes every so often.
She silently yelped in pain the moment someone kicked her leg under the table. Her eyes flickered from the wall to Pansy Parkinson, whose eyes radiated anger and jealousy. Anastasia confusedly watched the girl pointing at her housemate sitting next to her. Then, she understood. Pansy was jealous because Draco Malfoy suddenly showed interest in Anastasia.
With the determination of ending whatever the boy was trying to do, the brunette looked at him and their eyes met for the second time in the day.
She wished it was all her imagination, but her heart sank at the connection and the soft smile that was starting to form onto Draco's features. She couldn't blink or even breath properly the moment she felt like the Great Hall was silent and they were the only ones in the room. Anastasia thought it was maybe a dream because she never pictured herself feeling like that when she looked back at the boy.
"Anastasia," The moment seemed lost when she broke contact with his eyes. She looked up only to find Harry Potter staring at her with a shy smile.
"You want me to break your nose again, Potter?" Draco stood up, almost immediately when he realized Harry was there because Anastasia, not because of him.
"Anastasia, do you want to hang out with us tomorrow?" He asked, ignoring the fuming boy in front of him.
If only looks could kill, Draco had saved Voldermort all the work and kill Harry right there in the moment.
"She won't hang out with you, or any of your bloody friends." That caused confusion not only in himself, but also in the table that was staring at them.
"Draco, it's okay." Anastasia shyly mumbled, breaking the war of glances the pair was sharing.
"What do you say?" Harry insisted.
"Alright," The brunette replied, gaining gasps from her housemates and a half-smile from the boy in front of her.
Harry walked away and Anastasia could feel her housemates looking at her with confusion. She composed herself before realizing something; Draco had left the table and angrily walked out of the Great Hall.