"𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐣𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐲, 𝐈 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐢𝐭 𝐧𝐨𝐰, 𝐲𝐨𝐮'𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐞"
- 'better man' by Taylor Swift

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DRACO

The verdant blaze of the fireplace along with the muddy green waters of the lake behind the arched windows cast a chummy greenish tint to the common room— one that the faint golden candlelight from the chandelier can’t rival in the name of rising as the dominant tinge.

Barely any warmth reaches me where I’m sitting on the black leather couch, with my back pushed against the pillows and my arm draped over the plushy armrest. The foot I've crossed over a knee shakes without a sense of rhythm, involuntarily signifying my lack of engagement that has begun to flow into the first stages of boredom.

With my attention scattered and my intention to piece it back together nonexistent, I settle for watching as the viridescent tongues of the flames savagely lick every inch of the logs that were thrown in them hours ago, looking nothing but immensely determined to turn the unfortunate pile of charred timber to ash. An inconsistent crackling sound effuses from the incessant battle.

However, the crepitation I'd even go so far as to call calming endures the disruption that Blaise's constant whining brings; the winces that abscond from his lips every time he applies too much pressure on his injured arm torment me with the temptation to rip the pillow cover off a cushion and shove the cloth down his throat to shut him up.

Perhaps I could find it in myself to be a bit more understanding than that, especially when I happen to be familiar with the blasts of stark pain a broken arm can cause. It's just that on this particular Friday night the patience and persistency required for digging up my remnants of sympathy for the idiot have missed me altogether.

After all, his tumble was nothing but the expected outcome of having Parkinson chase him down the stairs for stealing her last lavender bath bomb. Or better, trying to.

While Nott and I were dragging him to the infirmary against his will, knowing that he'd choose running away with a broken radius over having a healing spell cast on him any day, he admitted that he only got to hold the overpriced bundle of scented substance for less than two minutes before he fell. He claims to have miscalculated the weird of a step, skipped it, and found himself lying at the bottom of the staircase a heartbeat later and that alone makes me think of how much I'd pay to be a witness.

“Stop wailing like a fucking baby, Zabini.” Pansy snorts from the armchair, where she’s wrapped up in the thickest blanket known to mankind like a cinnamon roll. Her body is curled up in a ball with her knees held against her chest, making me wonder how I haven’t seen pearls of sweat glistening on her forehead yet.

Though I expect that to happen soon, I know she’s too cold-blooded—both figuratively and not—to ever complain about warmth. Always scolding us about open windows and drafts of cold air, Pansy is the type of person who won’t think about leaving her dorm without wearing at least four layers of clothes in the winter, turning her into a human-sized onion.

It's miraculous how she always manages to look stylish and posh while doing it.

“See this?” Blaise holds up his arm, as high as he can lift it, and points to the cast with the other. “This is all your doing.”

Pansy rolls her eyes and unironically slaps her forehead like someone told her to shove her feet into inexpensive trekking boots instead of her beloved Valentino Garavani’s. “I didn’t even touch you when you fell.”

“No, but you were terrifying and made me choose this” He yet again gestures to his arm with a short nod of his head. “Over facing you.”

“At least I hope you learned your lesson about trying to steal my bath bombs.” She narrows her eyes, the black eyeliner that always compliments her upper lids making the green sparks in them shine through. “Did you really think you’d get away with it?”

Blaise’s mouth parts, defensive words already resting on the tip of his tongue. Before they all come tumbling out like a fucking tsunami, Theo glares at them both from his seat next to me. “Can you two calm down? I didn’t get my balls kicked while taking you to have your arm fixed just to come back to your bickering.”

Blaise hugs his arm to his chest, lowering his head like a disappointed child. “But it hurts.”

“It’s not my fault you chose a cast over a spell that would’ve literally lasted a few seconds.” Theo points out, a fluttering sigh escaping him. He rakes his fingers through his hair and briefly clutches the loose curls at the front, something he does when he summons a solution to an issue. “I can give you some of the gummy bears I have upstairs if you want.”

His proposal, although presenting no signs of malicious intentions, serves as the declaration of the Second Wizarding War.

Not even two minutes after Zabini’s brisk nod, Nott walks back into the common room, holding a bag of gummies for himself and a blueberry-flavored lollipop for Blaise. Instead of reclaiming his seat on the couch, the brunet plants his ass on the floor and so does the other four-year-old of the group, sitting directly across from him like an opponent ready to fight.

I’m pretty sure war drums have already started playing in their minds, encouraging them to throw the first sentence of the dumbest, most immature debate Pansy and I couldn’t be less interested in.

Gummy Bears vs Lollipops.

Apparently, there’s so much to make out of a verbal war between different types of candy, which is basically what my worn-thin patience is witnessing. As if existing armies planning their next attack have sent them both as ambassadors, with Blaise teaming up with blueberry-flavored lollipops and Theo going after him with his mouth filled with gummy bears to the brim, I don’t think they’ll ever agree on a winner.

As soon as Theo finishes saying something I didn’t quite catch, Blaise is quick to pull the lollipop he’s been licking and sucking on, out of his mouth with a pop. “But lollipops taste better and you don’t have to chew on something that feels like a car’s worn-out tire until your jaw is sore” he points out, in a voice that screams ‘How can you be so stupid to ever think otherwise?’.

“You can’t tell me that a lollipop satisfies your hunger like gummy bears do! This is absurd.” This is Theo, fighting tooth and nail to defend his favorite candy as if he’s some spoiled boy arguing in the playground. I once considered him open-minded but apparently, it's never too late for the occurrence of an event to reshape my thoughts.

I finally give in and roll my eyes after having wanted to do it since the debate started.

“No” Pansy joins the conversation. Her voice grabs the attention of both of them and their heads turn in her direction. Her eyes try to connect with theirs though the only thing they can do is flicker back and forth between them. “This” she points her pointer finger accusingly at them “is absurd. Do you two even know how ridiculous this conversation sounds?”

“Outsiders can’t feel the passion of it” Blaise’s eyes narrow in hers as he musters a straight face despite the slight curve hooking the edges of his mouth, “But it’s okay Parkinson, I never believed you’d stand on my side in this one.” His right hand flies across his chest, resting on the left side of his ribcage as though Pansy’s words brought a heavy ache upon his heart. “You can go live in the gummy empire with Nott.” he spits out.

“I never said I was team gummy bears” I hear her say, defensively, getting the same pained look from Theo who was probably rooting to have her support him.

And just like that, Pansy, who I thought would be able to put an end to this nonsense ends up choosing her favorite candy—licorice rolls—looking confident enough in her choice to think she’ll be able to fight against them both. Had I not been so tired from this long week of classes after classes, I would’ve considered trying to beat them all by choosing to go with team apple pie, which no gummies, lollipops, or licorice rolls could ever beat.

Blaise then addresses me, making my eyes jump from the green flames of the fireplace and meet his content gaze. “What about you, Malfoy? Would you like to try to win this world war?”

“I’m not participating in this balderdash.”

“It’s okay, we all know you’re team Hemera.” Theo dismissively moves his hand, as though that’s something I should’ve expected him to say, and pops the last gummy bear in the plastic package into his mouth, balling the wrapper into his fist. “I bet you’d die to have a taste.” He winks, speaking around his mouthful.

I don’t know if it’s his words or the fact that both Blaise’s and Pansy’s eyebrows shoot up the moment they’re thrown at me— or even the mention of Hemera’s name— but whatever it is that goes down my throat every time I swallow, decides to take a troll down the wrong pipe, pulling a few loud coughs out of me. I clutch a fisted hand over my chest, patting my thoracic cage in the hopes of getting rid of the bubbly feeling in my lungs.

“See?” Theo goes on, completely unbothered even if my usually pale skin is now flushed with color. “I told you you’d die for it. I just didn't think you'd go for the literal application of the word.”

At that, Blaise explodes with laughter, and when my gaze falls on him, his head is still thrown back, chest heaving with chuckles that are seemingly too eager to erupt. I pin him with a look— a particularly long one— and attempt to swallow down any curses that might’ve been hanging on the tip of my tongue.

But Nott’s words stick with me, making my mind think back on them. I want nothing more but to shove his smug face into the carpet, maybe even hold it down there for a while. Long enough to make it clear that I hate it when someone jokes about her. When they speak of the way my heart does one flip after the other at the mere sight of her face in the crowd, at the sound of her laugh. As if that’s supposed to be happening to me.

Theodore is one of the few people whose hands I laid my trust in years ago, but a broken nose in exchange for his silence appears like a temptation that strains against my morals.

“Ease the glare, Malfoy.” Says the brunet, as if he can see a film of all the things I’d like to throw at him and watch him breathlessly trying to dodge, behind my eyes. “I hate it when you’re so slow and don’t understand what joking around means. And as much as I hate to break it to you, it was a joke. Relax. I know you’d be team apple pie.”

As though an invisible thread is tied in a hook on the corners of his lips, refusing to let his lopsided grin drop until I find a pair of scissors to cut it off myself, his smile remains put. Teasing. Ridiculous in every fucking way.

I pass a hand through my hair and lean my elbows on my knees, lowering myself to level my face with his and holding his gaze pin-straight. “I’d really like to know who reassured you that your humor’s not cracked.”

“Oh, they’re actually too many to count, so that makes it less of a coincidence and more of a fact” Theo holds his hand out, counting his fingers flashily with his eyes flickering between me and his palm to make sure I am keeping up with the names he lists. “First is Rosie from Ravenclaw— fifth year, extremely whipped–, then it’s Sabrina, also a Ravenclaw, such a sweetheart that she is, and Nora, who I saw two days ago—”

“What about Ceilia?” Pansy cuts him off, readjusting herself on the armchair, her feet now dangling off the armrest. Her toes peak under the fleece blanket and I notice how they're covered in a pair of pink, ridiculously thick socks. “You haven’t mentioned her in a while.”

“That’s because I haven’t seen her in a while.” His smile drops and it doesn't fill me up with satisfaction like I anticipated. Not really. If anything, it puts a small frown on my face.

Theo never really talked about Ceilia. Not in a way that indicated he'd ever be bothered if they were to suddenly stop seeing each other. From the random pieces of information I've managed to pry out of his tightly sealed lips, I know that he met the Hufflepuff last year at what I think was the first party to be thrown in the Hufflepuff common room instead of the Room of Requirement.

I didn't show up and from what I've been told my decision to stay in with Hemera and listen to her ramble about how good Tangled is and how Eugene is the only man with a beard she'd allow to bang her— her words, not mine— didn't quite cost me the time of my life.

The party sucked. Or that was by any Slytherin's standard at least. The only thing worth remembering is that less than two hours after Theodore's eyes clashed upon Bley’s figure he somehow yet unsurprisingly found himself settled in between her thighs.

And that in itself is not remarkably unusual for someone like Nott. He's known for not just his skills in bed, but for the number of girls he's been with— and the thought alone makes my insides cringe. What is worth mentioning though, is the fact that Ceilia is the only person he's seen more than five times. The two have been meeting each other for almost a year and for them to have suddenly stopped isn't something I would've predicted.

I know better than to buy his careless act. It's a good show that he's trying to put on for us, but the skeptical look on his face probably forgot to check out the script.

“Besides, I think the ‘no strings attached’ memo has changed for her, and I don’t know what to do.” His voice re-enters my field of hearing.

“Talk it out with her.” Says Blaise with a shrug “And who knows? Maybe you’ll end up considering something called a relationship.”

“I don’t do relationships.”

Wasn’t I so tired after the endless hours of lectures that had thrown themselves at me earlier today, I would’ve considered keeping up with the conversation. Its originality doesn't surprise me anyway. It's too often that we all try to understand why Theodore has seemingly sworn himself off relationships like his life depends on it.

We always run headfirst into a dead end.

I cast a glance at my watch out of pure curiosity. A quarter to eleven. Even if I don't usually find myself passed out in bed this early, especially on a Friday, my eyelids have decided to start the countdown of closing. Getting closer and closer to sealing with every blink.

Still, I keep denying the unexplained and abnormal urge to head upstairs as if it’ll go away. But even if I were to go to my dorm, change into something comfortable enough to sleep in, and bury myself under my bedspread, I doubt I'd be any more at ease than now.

From the moment I learned that Hemera left for the library in search of help for her potions assignment, guilt has been nibbling at my insides. And I doubt that any sort of bedtime preparations would change that.

The fact that I could’ve offered her all the assistance she needed if I’d just pushed my stupid pride aside lurks beneath my skin like a permanent itch I can’t get rid of. It’s not that I think of her as incapable of doing something for herself, of finding solutions to any inconvenience. Her determination is something no smart man wouldn’t fear, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s late and she’s most definitely tired.

I might not have been told so directly and I know better than to assume that she’d ever openly admit it, but my two eyes work perfectly fine as the only reliable witnesses I need to substantiate my worries. Our lack of shared words and playful remarks has only affected the verbal part of our friendship; the irresistible need for my gaze to be on her, with my eyes picking apart every single one of her features and marveling at their incompatible exquisiteness hasn’t faced a single shift.

Wherever I am, I’m drawn to her, like the entirety of her is some magnetizing essence and I’m nothing but a metal pin, too weak and featherlight to resist the pull. And so, noticing the exhaustion lining the corners of her eyes, lingering in her every movement, in the way she carries herself through the hallways and hunches over her notebook while taking notes, is nothing but the expected result of my fixed inspection.

Even if we’re closer than I’d ever be with anyone else, even if I trust her with my life, there’s no way I’d ever tell her what the sight of her drained face, her heavy eyes, does to me. How it feels like a fist taking hold of my heart and squeezing until the blood vessels burst.

The urge to get out of my way to find her keeps increasing, slowly becoming unbearable, too strong for me to mask by ordering my expression into some semblance of carelessness. There’s no way she’s still studying— the library has already closed and curfew is about to start.

Truth is, I don’t like it when she’s away just as much as I don’t like thinking like that. Hemera has proved that she’s capable of perfectly managing herself countless times, but the thought of literally anything happening to her, from her tripping over her loose shoelaces to receiving detention for being caught wandering the halls late at night, keeps my nerve endings on edge. Occasionally robbing me of the possibility to think of much else too, of something that doesn’t concern her or her absence.

And so, for more than one hundred and thirty minutes, I’ve been sitting on this very spot, waiting for her and glancing at the common room entrance every now and then like I have nothing better to do with myself.

I don’t want to accept the fact that I don’t. That nothing could take my mind off her, nothing could occupy me enough to make me forget and wonder why I’m still awake. I shift my arm on the armrest, propping my elbow on it, and lean my head against the palm of my hand tiredly. There’s no such thing as suppressing the yawn that slips past my lips. There’s no denying how much I’d like to close my eyes and drift off.

But I don’t. I don’t allow myself to. Not before she gets back.

I don’t expect her to talk to me or come and nest in my lap, even if doing just that would flesh out most of my unspoken wishes. I know where we stand and that the ground is shaky at best— but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to see her. From worrying myself into lunacy if I don’t.

My lids slip low.

“Draco, I think you should go to bed,” Pansy says and the fact that she’s addressing me makes me reopen my eyes. Just a little, to look at her. The light frown on her face indicates that she knows why, despite being a half-asleep man with a numb brain, I’m still here. “Hemera should be back in a few minutes”

I shake my head in denial. I don’t want to phrase that I’m not going anywhere until she’s back, so instead, I hear myself say “Do you think she’s hurt? In trouble?” The echo of my own words makes me straighten my posture in alarm. “What if something ha—”

“I think you need to put your mind to rest.” She says reassuringly, shimmers of sympathy whirling in the green of her almond eyes. She might understand my way of thinking, if the rare softness on her face is anything to go by, but I doubt she’d ever hold herself back from talking some sense into my thick, as she often describes it, skull. “We’re at Hogwarts. The worst thing that can happen to her is getting hit on by a goblin-looking man and being too kind to turn him down. An uncomfortable situation, but nothing she couldn’t survive.”

My skin prickles at the mere idea, the hair at my nape rising like spikes and it has nothing to do with the lack of heating in the common room. “What if he threw himself at her? Touch—”

“In that case, she’d already be here asking for help to dispose of the body.” Parkinson cuts me off again, apparently reveling in her new habit. My jaw clamps shut, leaving the rest of my sentence hanging silently in the air. “She might let you help her most of the time, but best believe she’d be fine doing everything on her own. Her accepting your assistance doesn’t make it vital.”

“Pansy’s right.” Blaise speaks up, “Remember how she dwelled with Finnigan in DADA three years ago? The force of her spell nearly broke his spinal cord.”

“Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration.” Pansy cuts in. “But she certainly did supply him with a remarkable number of bruises.” I appreciate their attempts to bring some peace to my mind and muffle the voices of fear and doubt bouncing off the walls of my head.

I’d even go as far as considering thanking them if I couldn’t tell the difference between Hemera taking care of herself and me still wanting to do everything to make sure of that. “She’s fine. It’s probably just her horrible time management acting up.”

“And she won’t be out for long, I’m telling you” Theo adds, probably thinking that I need comforting while all I want is for the common room entrance to slide open and reveal her standing behind it. “I can already smell her approaching. And you know” he scrunches up his nose, the bridge of it wrinkling “the nose never lies.”

Pansy smacks him on the back of his head “You’re such an ignorant dense, I hope you know that.”

Theo only reacts with a chuckle, seeing as she’s probably too lazy to hit him hard enough to shake his brain into making sense.

I internally slap my forehead, only because I find no energy in me to do anything more than that. My breathing eases into a slower pace as their voices fade into a buzz in the back of my mind and I find myself feeling as though I’m in a boat, sailing away from them, from here, so quickly that my senses hardly keep up with my mental detachment, the vanishing of my surroundings.

But then, the bare stretch of wall known as the entrance creaks and roars. A tear parts the bricks up to reveal the person standing on the other side. Ever so slowly, the chasm widens and the sound of stones rubbing against each other fills the room.

Even the floor feels like caving in beneath my weight at the sight of Hemera walking into the room, laughing at something I don’t know as if she hasn’t peeked in to see that she’s not alone like she probably expected. I’m not sure if it’s my hearing playing games on me, or if the fact that I’ve heard her sweet laugh so many times has caused the sound to now be permanently imprinted in my mind, but even through the distance, I think I can hear her chuckles.

Delicate, genuine, heartwarming.

Every other voice, sound, person disappears around me.

And she just looks so unbelievably beautiful when she laughs; her wide smile, her eyes that turn into little half-moons, the tiny dimple on the right side of her mouth—they all look so good on her. It’s as though the way her happiness appears on her face is a charm I never want to break; one that I’m willing to do everything and anything in my power to protect.

The dim light adorns her face, shading it in all the right places. The shadows of her eyelashes fall on her cheekbones, spreading like threads sewn under her skin. Slowly, absentmindedly, her pointer finger traces the shape of her lips that refuse to get rid of her smile.

“Welcome back, Granger vol 2,” Pansy says as a way of greeting.

And that’s when Hemera seems to realize that all three of us have been looking at her since the moment she walked in. Her steps halt and then resume at a languid pace. The closer she gets, the more flushed she looks, and weren’t my eyes giving me a hard time unblurring my vision, I would’ve seen the evident blush on her face earlier.

“Guys, what are you doing here?” Her tone evolves into a whisper as if she’s suddenly afraid to be too loud.

“This is usually where we hang out you know,” Nott says, not bothering to lower his voice. “Look at you, forgetting about us after spending too much time in the library. Scientific studies have shown that too much studying can in fact cause brain damage.”

Hemera’s eyes search the room and land on me a heartbeat later. Her smile which I almost thought of as permanent, the smile I didn’t put there but still wanted to cherish, drops gradually before she looks away. Making me feel invincible, like I’m nothing but a piece of furniture she’d only waste her time looking at.

“Thank you for enlightening me.” She drops her bag next to Pansy’s armchair, the weight of the books in it making a thudding sound erupt from their collision with the carpeted floor. She doesn’t look away from Nott as she says. “Excuse me if I’m mistaken, but I think it’s kind of late.”

The brunet shrugs and grabs the cigarette that’d been resting behind his ear for God knows how long. It’s so common for him to balance his beloved possessions there that I hardly ever pay attention to them. This one, for instance, I hadn’t even noticed.

“We had a rough day,” he speaks around the blunt resting in between his lips as he uses the tip of his wand to light it up. I give him a warning look, hating it when he decides to smoke indoors but it goes completely unnoticed as his undivided attention rests on Hemera. “And we deserve to relax by the fire and catch up.”

Just as I’m about to blow out a relieved sigh that Theo didn’t mention that it was me who refused to go to bed, Blaise speaks up, causing the puff of air to get trapped in my throat.

“Plus, he” the idiot gestures in my direction with his chin, and as I think I’ll curse the life out of him, he puts himself even more on the spot by continuing, “wouldn’t go to bed even if we dragged him there ourselves— he needed to make sure that you got back safe before finally nodding off. And like the immaculate friends we are, we decided to keep him company. Like seriously, look at him.”

Thanks, Zabini. You still have one arm left to be broken.

“Right. How considerate.” I can tell that she’s not convinced by his tells or relatively close to that. Her head moves in a slow nod as if she doesn't believe I'd ever do that. As if I haven't already done it. “And what exactly happened today that’s beyond the ordinary?”

Seeing as the only free seat is the one next to me on the couch, she’s hesitant to claim it even if her legs threaten to double under her weight. I bite down on my tongue to make sure it doesn’t say anything stupid in my pathetic attempt to invite her over. I know better than to trust my ability to speak around her. Especially when there's too much at stake, too much to be bared and uncovered.

“Here.” Blaise blurts out dramatically, his word a hurried mess of syllables that make absolutely no sense. He proceeds to raise his hands to capture her attention. “Look at my arm! I broke it.”

Hemera’s mouth falls agape, genuine worry etching at her features and making her brown brows furrow. “What did you do?”

“He stole my last bath bomb.” This time, it’s Pansy’s voice that gains authority. “And paid for it.”

“You broke his arm?” She nearly gasps, eyes bulging. She knows that Pansy is capable of more than just snapping a few bones in half.

“No.” Parkinson answers simply, pretending to be busy looking at her nails in that prima donna manner that radiates brashness. No wonder why people think of her as haughty. “Karma did.”

Theo clears his throat, ready to explain. “He slipped while running down the stairs and then refused to go to the hospital wing. We deserve a statue of honor each for carrying him there. The day Blaise willingly goes to see Madam Pomfrey is the day hell breaks loose.”

I notice the slight wavering of her chest as she laughs. That alone would be enough to bring me to my knees and I'm suddenly too grateful for the solidity of the couch beneath me. “It reminds me of a certain someone in this very room.” Her eyes swoop in my direction across the common room and as they crash with mine I find myself short of breath, the sound of my last inhale crystallizing in my ears.

Hemera makes her way through the distance and steps over Blaise’s stretched-out legs to get to me. Or maybe to the free spot on the couch next to me. I don’t let her attempt to lighten the atmosphere between us go to waste and give her a small smile.

Although I’d like to know that we’re in the clear, something that doubtlessly requires a conversation, I don’t hate the idea of soaking up some of the displayed normalcy she just laid bare in front of me. Even if it’s counterfeit and has yet to be sealed by verbal confirmation.

“You better not be talking about me.” I breathe, unable to conceal the low chuckle that makes my chest rumble.

She hums, that soothing, sweet sound plummeting straight into my stomach and spreading heat the way ivy spreads on stone walls. “Only the guilty get defensive.” She says and backflip after backflip my heart does as she plants herself next to my seated body.

Our knees don’t touch and neither do our arms, but it’s like her body heat is strong enough to affect me even without direct contact. That’s the thing about Hemera; I can physically feel her presence. It’s like my body reacts in ways that I can only describe as instinctive.

“I think it’s our turn to interrogate you now.” Pansy’s smile is feline, sinister, teasing. There’s nothing innocent about this woman or the way her mind works. If anything, I’m certain her scheming abilities would put Satan himself to shame. “Where have you been?”

“At the library.” The speed at which her reply breaks free makes it sound truthful. Hemera throws one leg over the other and leans back until her shoulders touch the pillows. “Had to catch up on homework.”

“Now, who do you think you’re talking to?” Parkinson’s eyes narrow, accusation swirling in those fierce green irises. I feel Hemera shift in her seat, something in her facade of bravado faltering with uncertainty. I don’t turn to look at her, not wanting to show any signs of amusement but if my ears could move, I’m sure they’d be perked up in attention. “You weren’t there for four hours straight, were you?”

Hemera has never looked away so quickly, has never smiled so shyly. I can see her lips fighting to stay in a straight line, but the corners of her mouth curl upwards nonetheless. As if the memory that I can see replaying in her mind is enough to do this to her in a heartbeat. I can’t help but wonder what it is because not even pouring herself over the newest herbology tome could bring her such delight.

“Someone might say I had nice company” she speaks so innocently, that I feel a punch of guilt for wanting to stop her right there and then. I know who she’s talking about.

Something in my chest tightens— so much that even my breathing turns shallow and shoal. Hollow. Trivial. Painfully content. And as if that isn’t enough of a blow coming from just a sentence, she seems completely unaware of how my blood has run cold in my veins, turning to something frozen. Ice, perhaps.

I only nod to myself, hiding my discomfort, the unnecessary fury coiling in my stomach and burying itself deep in the marrow of my bones.

“He also walked me back here, and— kissed me. Lucas freaking Koch kissed me, like not even a peck but we literally made out with his hands on my waist, and oh my God his hair was so soft and he smelled so g—”

And all of a sudden, I feel like I've been slapped across the face so many times, that if it were for real skin-to-skin impact, my cheek would’ve turned numb and red. Burning to the touch— enough to make me hiss in pain. It’s not the fact that it was a guy who was her first kiss that makes me feel like flipping every single piece of furniture I can reach, but perhaps, the fact that the guy wasn’t me. That a guy who certainly wasn’t me is the cause of her blushing crimson right now.

Dreams and thoughts I used to spend a concerning amount of time crafting in my head come crashing down around me like the ruins of a bombarded castle. And from the smoke rising from their corruption, the unforgiving form of acceptance appears. Blurry at first, not as defined around the edges as it later turns out to be.

I will never be her first kiss.

I try to play it cool, try to swallow the bile rising in my throat but I can’t help, or even stop myself from saying “Please spare us the details.”

I hate how excited she looks, just talking about it. But if there’s something I hate even more, then the way her face drops and disappointment coats her expression at the sound of my voice cutting her off must be it.

My gaze swings in her direction but it’s just a brief glimpse of her that I catch. I can’t bear the realization that I might’ve just ruined it for her. Hemera’s hands find each other and her fingers interlock on her lap.

“Sorry,” she speaks, her tone low and guilty. Defeated, as no excitement reverberates along with her words. “But he asked about you too, Draco. About your leg and if the injury was serious.”

I scoff, “How nice of him.”

Hemera frowns. At my words or the slight, downward curve of my lips that resembles the beginning of a scowl, I don’t know. Irritation glazes over her eyes and her mouth purses, lips thinning. “Do you mind telling me why you can’t, for the love of Merlin, be at ease whenever he’s concerned?”

The defensive nature in her voice is something I'd like to completely wash off.

“Who says I’m anything but at ease?” I prompt, only because I want her to point out her reasons and not just base her assumption of my emotional state on mere prejudice. Just because I usually am like that.

The only thing she does in return is to glance at my hand. I follow the invisible line of her gaze and that’s when I notice one of the things that would’ve given me away without requiring much attention from her. For someone who can understand my thoughts like they’re written all over my forehead, my fist clutching the armrest of the couch hard enough to make my knuckles pale is enough indication.

I pull my hand away and place it on my thigh, running it up and down the length of the hard muscle to get rid of some of the tension clawing at every ounce of who I am. Soon though, my leg begins to bounce, as if refusing to follow my mind’s orders and put up an act of complete composure and self-control.

“Careful there, your own body has started to betray you.”

“Did he deserve it?” My question reverberates before my mind has the chance to catch up and stop it from slipping out. The weight of everyone’s gaze slants on me like multiple concrete blocks landing on my chest and knocking the air out of my lungs, but I summon every ounce of willpower in me and pretend to be unbothered.

Hemera’s gaze happens to be the sharpest and quite frankly, the only one that comes impossibly close to slicing through my facade like a blade cutting through silk. “Deserve what?”

“Your first kiss.” If I could crawl out of my body right now and strangle myself with my bare hands, until nothing but choking sounds could emit from my mouth, I would. Because there’s no reason in the direction my thoughts have started to spiral toward, no reason that she’ll understand.

A predictable frown plasters itself on her face, bringing her brows closer. “You’re making it sound like I should’ve expected him to carry out some sort of grand gesture.”

So much truth lies in her sentence that I almost find it hard to deflect— because that's the thing about me and Koch. I'd run a fucking mile just to earn a fragment of what he only took a step to get.

“And you're translating my words into something you deem extravagant just to make me seem unreasonable.” My fingers reach my face and pinch the bridge of my nose as my head hangs low. The warmth of my exhale fans against my hand. I close my eyes, taking a few seconds to still myself and find a way to get out of the familiar position where nothing but my own words could put me.

The position where I’m yet again antagonizing fucking Koch like he’s the only thing that can get under my skin. Like I could ever be jealous of a half-blood arsehole with a reputation to dump one girl after the other as though they're some sort of bricks and he's trying to build a castle.

A tightness spreads in my chest at the fact that, in this very position where Hemera feels like she has to defend him and I pace along the length of a very thin line, with the risk of having my patience slip out of reach constantly at my heels.

“Yeah, right, why bother with anything when you can just toss the blame in anyone else’s direction but yours.”

Something thick and molten enters my bloodstream and makes my blood reverse its course. The pumping of the crimson stream in my veins intensifies, and I feel it banging at my temples at the same pace as my ferociously beating heart. It’s like the bass beat of a deafening song, or rather the war drums letting the logical part of my brain know that it’s losing the battle of rationality against the poisonous feelings I wish I could kill off.

“You know better than to call me a deflector.” The way her spine visibly turns to steel makes me wish I’d tried to file down some of the rough edges of my tone. I swallow quickly as words keep rushing out of my mouth. “All I’m trying to say is that it was the second time you two saw each other and yet he still managed to get his tongue down your throat. Not quite different from what he does with everyone else in my opinion. Maybe you should consider slowing things do—”

“So you think I’m being easy.” Agonizing realization slips over her features, granting her beautiful face a pained expression I can hardly believe I put there. It makes me want to snatch my sentences back, one by one, and swallow my tongue before it gives them a flippant escape. Again.

I poke at the thick air swirling around us, hoping to find an easy way out. Whether that’s considered cowardly behavior or not, I can’t find it in myself to spare a second thought. If there’s something I know with undeniable certainty, then the fact that I’m tired of us being at each other’s throats is it.

“I just think you’re not being careful enough. Mindlessly rushing into whatever it is that he wants with you doesn’t guarantee you a future with him. Besides, you don’t even know the guy, not well enough to ensure that getting under your skirt isn’t all he wants.” I don’t think that there’s room for more disappointment to find home in her troubled expression, but as she averts her gaze from mine and bites the inside of her cheek, I realize that there’s more flesh in her hopefulness for me to cut through.

I hate everything about this. I hate the way her eyes gloss over, reflecting the emerald flames with fair clarity. The way she attempts to hide the stinging wound running down the center of her chest, where her recently fulfilled wishes had materialized before I went and slaughtered them almost thoughtlessly. Above all, I hate it when the flinty shards of my jealousy tear her dreams apart like that, leaving nothing but the raw skeleton of her desires exposed.

Bare for me to see that I'm not a part of them. That I don't belong there the way I've always wanted to.

Over the past few days, I’ve been continuously failing to control my emotions, even when I wish nothing but to get a solid grip on them. To have the reins of my long-gone self-discipline looped around my palms. And it's growing impossible to bear.

Hemera seems to put more effort into swallowing than necessary as if something’s stuck in her throat and she’s having a hard time breathing around it. “I’m sorry, but I fail to understand why you believe that holding back from doing something I want just to play hard to get is how I should’ve treated the situation.”

“And I don’t understand why you believe that offering anything he wants on a silver platter without making him earn it is any better.”

“Okay, guys I think that’s gotten a bit too far.” Pansy uncurls herself from the armchair but I only notice the movements of her frame out of the corner of my eye. Everything is blurry around me. “How about we all just go upstairs and leave this here?”

But Hemera thoroughly ignores Parkinson’s attempts to put this wildfire of an inconvenience out before we find ourselves all too trapped in the untamed flames. Although spoken in that voice that I thought could bring me nothing but comfort, her sentence breaks something in me. “You know what? If you can’t find it in yourself to be genuinely happy for me, then the least you can do is pretend.”

The crack in my chest is so loud in my ears, that I wonder if the others hear it too.

The urge to scream has never been stronger, more luring.

He's bad news, Mera. Why won’t you just let me look after you?

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this is one of the longest chapters I've ever written (almost 7.5k) so I cannot blame you if you skipped a paragraph or two.

thank you for reading nonetheless<3