TW: mention of eating disorder

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My gaze was fixed on Chloé as she headed to the bar to order us some drinks. I always found myself amused at the way she would slalom through crowds, taking advantage of how petite she was any time she could. She had taken her hair out of the bun she had done before heading to the manor as soon as he wad apparated in the alleyway next to the pub.

The manor... I didn't expect my mother to fall head over heels for her. But I expected some decency at least. The war had hurt us enough, and I thought that she would have at least learned that blood purity was a sham since then. But it seemed that my father's imprisonment had left her too bitter and lonely to reconsider her views.

To say I was disappointed at her reaction was an understatement. She'd only ever met another girlfriend of mine, Pansy, but we were teenagers and she had to have known then it didn't matter. But Chloé was something else. We hadn't put exact words on anything, but I could feel myself falling helplessly more in love with her every day. Sometimes, I would be hesitant on whether the feeling was mutual.

Her unfazed attitude towards every serious situation didn't help. But at times, I would get a glimpse of the vulnerability hidden deep down. I would catch her staring at me for afar, with what looked like admiration in her eyes. I would feel the stroke of her hand on my arm or my back whenever she passed me by. She would spontaneously grab my face and kiss me softly, completely unprovoked. I didn't see her that affectionate towards anyone else, so I'd decided to take it as a sign that her feelings had grown as strong as mine had.

"A firewhiskey for you, a pint for me and a plate of chips for us." I raised an eyebrow at her as she placed the plate in the middle of the table. Not that I had never had chips before, just never in a muggle pub. I tended to avoid cheap muggle food, only eating their dishes when at high end restaurants, and I was sure she had noticed it by now. "Oh come on, trust me, they won't kill you." I rolled my eyes at her and grabbed the bottle of vinegar to my right, only to have my arm stopped dead in its tracks when she fiercely grabbed my wrist.

"What on earth do you think you're doing, Malfoy?" If I hadn't known any better, I could have sworn I could hear a small growl coming from her throat. "... putting vinegar on the chips?" I answered hesitantly. I knew by now she was peculiar about food. It wasn't just a French thing, but she was the pickiest eater I'd ever met in my entire life. And she was passionate about it, too. Chloé shook her head in disbelief at my words. "Not on shared chips you're not. Bloody brits. Putting vinegar on everything. Weirdos."

I groaned at her reply and put the bottle of vinegar back on the table. "Why don't you just find yourself a French boyfriend then?" She scoffed incredulously at my question while eating a chip. "Yeah, sure, cause I could definitely find anyone better than you. Bullshit. I already have no clue how I got that lucky." I choked on my drink as she said those last words. Had she even been at the manor with me, or had I completely hallucinated the whole thing?

"Lucky? Lucky would be not getting insulted by my mother. Lucky would be not getting death stares from wizards wherever we go..." I honestly would have been able to carry on for minutes with my statement, but the look on her face dissuaded me to do so. "Last I checked, all these things don't have anything to do with you. I mean, sure, they related to you in a way. But they're not about who you are." I tilted my head slightly, unsure of what she meant, and she rolled her eyes while taking a sip.

"Like, all those things do not make you, you. If that makes any sense. None of these things impact how nice, caring, funny or clever you are. Like all the little things I love about you, they can't be erased by the way look at you for your past, or how bigoted your mother is -no offense- towards me. I honestly don't care about these things, I don't practically live with them."

It was almost as if she hadn't noticed her use of the word love in her sentence. But I knew she had to. She was always careful with her words, the things she said. Maybe that had something to do with speaking a foreign language, but I had noticed the attention she put to picking out the perfect word for every sentence. The way in which she'd said it so casually just made me think she didn't want me to make a big deal out of it, which I didn't. Not openly at least. Internally, I felt a wave of reassurance washing over me. Because I wasn't the only one feeling this way in this.

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I'm sure she hadn't noticed but I had left most of the chips to Chloé. I had only recently noticed how little she ate on a daily basis. I hadn't paid a lot of attention until a couple of days earlier, when I had caught her shaking while she was putting her shopping away. She'd just brushed it off, stating her blood sugar was low, and that she was used to it. That just sounded off to me.

And I had started noticing other things. How she would barely eat when she was surrounded with people. How her fridge was always unusually empty. How she would just 'forget' to eat lunch or dinner, especially before going out for a few drinks. It just reminded me of what Pansy used to do at Hogwarts, and I knew how bad this could get from having spent too many hours in the hospital wing while Pomfrey was lecturing her, forcing her to drink nourishing potions every few days.

I wasn't exactly sure why Chloé would do that though. It couldn't be about her appearing, because Merlin, she was gorgeous. I had noticed how anxious she could get sometimes, although she would never show it. The signs only became clearer to me as I was getting to know her. How she would get really quiet. How she would chew at the inside of her cheek. How she would avoid talking to anyone for a while. How she would smoke more all of a sudden. Maybe that had something to do with it. I had also been seeing her taking quite a few muggle pills daily, without fully understanding what they were.

So letting her finish the chips only made sense. I knew from Pansy that telling her to eat wouldn't work. That she probably didn't even fully understand why she was doing it. Hell, I hadn't even noticed when I had stopped eating during my fifth year at Hogwarts.

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"If side-along apparition is more annoying than actual apparition, I definitely need to learn how to do it myself" she mumbled as we entered my flat, shortly before 10pm. As we did, I could not escape the unmistakable shriek that accompanied our entrance and the overwhelming smell of peonies as a pair of arms engulfed me in an embrace before I could protest. Well, I guess Pansy was visiting.

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AN: definitely not happy with this filler chapter. I need a few of those but I just want to get to the fun part already haha. ☹