MARA WILLIAMS
I'd left him alone for less than ten seconds, whilst I went to the front of the class to retrieve a small leather pouch of heckleshrooms and by the time I returned Blaise had already somehow managed sabotaged our Draft of the Living Dead.
"What the hell are you doing?" I hissed, almost throwing the heckleshrooms off the table as I snatched the knife quickly from his hands before he could make it any worse, if that was even possible.
"Umm..." Blaise blinked up at me innocently. "...Chopping the mandrake roots?"
"Can you even read?" I dragged my palm down my face to block out the image of my murdered mandrake. The boy was useless. "It clearly says crush the roots with the side of a the blade after coating them in gunpowder! Not bloody dice them!"
He shrugged unfazed, none the less staring down proudly at his monstrous creation. "Whoopsies."
"I'm so going to fail potions."
"Nah. Not a hope in hell, not with me as your partner." Blaise patted my shoulder in what I suppose was supposed to be a comforting fashion. I don't think he noticed my inference...
Blaise, you're the reason I'm going to fail, I thought miserably.
"-I mean just look at how beautifully even I cut the roots," He motioned to the brutality on the chopping board as if not understanding why I looked like someone had just pissed in my butter beer. "Snape would practically jizz himself if he saw these."
I struggled to hold down vomit, my lust for lunch instantly smothered beneath images of Snape jizz. "Wow, thanks for that image. At least I'm not hungry anymore."
"You're most welcome."
I wondered it was possible to obliviate myself to make me forget our entire conversation, but even if there was I didn't know it and Blaise certainly wouldn't either. Besides, I doubted that a spell that simple would do little to erase the deeply ingrained images in my mind.
I was debating getting him to use the Imperious curse on me and forcing me to forget that way... But then again I'd already been expelled for using unforgivable curses once, perhaps this wasn't the time to try out a second.
By the time I'd finished debating how best to obliviate myself Blaise had already somehow made our Draft of the Living Dead even worse.
"How the hell have you managed to get binberry juice on your face!" I threw my hands up in frustration, "Blaise, please tell me you weren't eating them..."
"...Was I not supposed to?"
Natural selection, do your thing... If stupid had a face, it would be that of Blaise Zabini, as I watched him try to wipe the mauve stains from his face.
"You absolute fucking moron!"
"-Oh well, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." He giggled nervously, shielding his face as I smacked him with my text book.
"What on earth were you thinking!" I hit him again. "They're poisonous!" Another hit.
"Well, I was thinking," He paused to wipe at his cheek with the back of his sleeve, completely missing the stain. "-That I was hungry, and I don't see what the big issue is anyways? Bears eat berries all the time so why can't I?"
The fact that he seemed genuinely confused baffled me. I hit him again with the textbook. "Because you're not a bloody bear you cretin!"
"...Oh yeah." He said dumbly staring down at his palms that were also stained with binberry juice as if only just realising that he wasn't in fact a giant four legged beast.
"I swear to god, if Snape doesn't kill you I will, and that's if those berries don't get to you first!" I scowled fiercely, as Blaise shot my an apologetic smile.
"Come here you blithering idiot." I snapped, grabbing him by the neck of his robes and practically yanking him off his stool. I'd had enough at watching him try and fail to get the last traces of binberry juice from his cheek. "You've got it all over your face."
"Cheers babe." Blaise winked as I wiped at his cheek with the sleeve of my robe trying to shift the stubborn stain.
"Shut up you bellend." I scowled. He enjoyed winding me up far too much, especially when he got a reaction. "-Or ill jinx you."
Behind us I heard glass shatter and Snape's dull voice drawl, "Careful Draco."
I turned to see Draco Malfoy staring dead set at my hand on Blaise's cheek, before slowly looking down at his bloody fist, the half smashed vile still held tightly in it.
It was as if a dark cloud hung over the Slytherin boy, a crown of darkness sitting upon his fair head as his ungodly grey eyes stared into me, cruel lips barely repressing a snarl.
Crimson tears wept from the wound, carving their way down his wrist like rivers through a forest.
When the first drops fell from his fingertips he released what little remained of the glass, letting it fall to the floor and mingle with his scarlet blood, bright and red and beautiful, in some sick way.
Malfoy shot me one last glare through hellishly cold eyes, before he stormed from the classroom without a word. The whole class was deadly silent for a pregnant pause, before Snape monotonous tone cut through the thick air. "Pansy, go with Malfoy to Madame Pomfrey."
The dark haired girl jumped up as if she were just waiting for the opportunity, scuttling out the class after Malfoy.
• • •
PANSY PARKINSON
I knew exactly where I would find him, in the place he always was; sat before the fire in the Slytherin common room.
I perched gently beside him on the love seat, trying to take his bloody hand in my own to examine it but he snatched it away. "Leave me alone."
To anyone else, Draco's dissonance may have been disconcerting, frightening even. But I knew him better than anyone else, and deep down he was a simple boy, who just wanted one thing above all else.
-To be loved as deeply and unconditionally as he himself loved.
"Draco... Please, I'm only here to help.." When he didn't respond I got up, and returned to my seat a minute later with the small bottle of peroxide and some bandages from the first aid kit under my bed.
Draco Malfoy was always one for fights, I'd spent many a night over the past few years with him before the glow of the fire tending to his battle scars.
He was a strong boy. Stronger than most, stronger than all. I'd never met anyone quite like him before, but perhaps that why I cared so undeniably deeply for him.
I gently took his hand, placing it on my lap as he stared at me blankly through hollow eyes, watching numbly as I pulled fragments of glass from the wound and placed them on the table besides me.
"You should really be more careful," I began, unscrewing the peroxide lid with a wince, "...This may hurt a little."
...But of course he knew that. Countless times I'd used it on bloody knuckles, split lips and grazed cheeks as the one time I'd tried to use magic to heal wounds, I ended up giving Goyle a third ear.
I'd never once seen Draco so much as flinch.
-Some small part of me believed that Draco Malfoy was immune to pain, and I envied him in that respect.
"We're all worried about you, you know." I kept my eyes firmly focused on my task, I could never look him in the eyes at times like this, I always cracked under the piercing pressure of his gaze. I began to wrap the bandage carefully around his injured palm. "You've been acting different recently."
"I really don't care Pansy." He deadpanned, choosing instead to stare off into the emerald flames that raged within the confines of the hearth.
"Don't be like that." I frowned, "I only want what's best for you Draco, you know that... That's all I've ever wanted."
He pulled his hand from my lap, deciding to finish the bandage himself. "Oh yeah, and what's that then?"
I watched the muscles in his forearms switch and veins shift as he wrapped the bandage around his fist before ripping the end between his porcelain teeth and tucking it under. I felt a twinge in the pit of my stomach as I studied him, transfixed.
"...Not her, that's for sure."
There was a strange feeling that coiled in my chest like a lead weight, and I struggled to smother the vile hand of jealousy that surfaced within me to grasp my heart in its vice like grip.
It gave a violent squeeze as the boy sneered, "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Yes you do Draco, and you know it's unhealthy." I was now the one seeking eye contact with him as he looked away, refusing to meet my eye. "...You know she's not good for you."
A muscle in his jaw ticked. "Oh yeah and you are? Is that what you're suggesting?"
A shuddering breathe caught in the hilt of my throat, and within it were all the words I'd always wanted to say but never could, for if he had any idea just how deeply I'd loved him he'd surely shut me out forever.
He told himself that the very idea of love repulsed him more than any other, but we both knew full well that was a lie. Far beneath his walls lay a boy who desired nothing greater than to be wanted.
The letters fumbled on my tongue, tripping one another so that my words came out clumsy and uncoordinated. "No...No not at all, all I want is for you to be happy!"
He turned to face me, slowly dragging his tongue over his bottom lip, grey eyes causing a shiver to run down my spine. "...So you don't want me?"
"Draco, I-.." I couldn't finish. He knew full well what he was doing to me. He knew full well that I'd wanted nothing but him since the moment we'd met.
He was unrelenting. He was cruel. He continued to taunt me, as he raised his unburdened hand to brush a rebellious strand of raven hair behind my ear. "...Are you saying that you don't want me to touch you?"
My skin seared and my heart thundered. I closed my eyes for a brief moment, favouring the sweet sensation of his hand holding my face, cupping my cheek in a way he never had before. "Please..."
He leaned in closer, cocking his head as if curious, sinfully thick eyebrows drawn in close. "...That you don't want me to kiss you?"
He was so close that I felt his warm breathe fan my face. My father once told me never look a beast in the eye... But I couldn't tear my eyes away from the beautiful monstrosity before me.
-He may have been a monster. But he was my monster.
The faintest whisper of his lips brushed mine before the world turned cold and dark without his warmth to guide me from my own all consuming loneliness.
The frigid cold of it crept up inside of me, nesting heavy in my aching bones as Draco looked at me with a shocking hate in his eyes.
I'd never seen such a soulless despise before, especially not directed towards me. My breath hitched with a guttural sob as he spoke.
He said his words slowly and he only said them once, so quietly I almost missed them. He didn't need to shout to break my heart into a thousand pieces, he knew damn well I was hanging off of his every word.
"...I will never want you."
***
QOTD-Is there anything in particular you guys want to see more of? What are your favourite parts so far? How did you find out about this story in the first place?
Obviously I have a plot already written out however it's not set in stone yet and aspects can still/are still being readjusted so if there is anything in particular you guys desperately want I'll try my best to accommodate you :)
-TFOA