PANSY PARKINSON

It was a strange creature that she owned. I'd never seen one quite like it before, with its small button nose and rich brown fur, even a pale stripe like a bib that ran the length of its underbelly.
I stared at the sleeping stoat, finding my fingers reached out of their own accord to stroke it.
-Was it really as soft as it looked?

It was, and more so. Now I understood why she wanted such a curious thing. It was funny at times too, eating Goyle's snacks and sleeping curled up on Malfoy's place on the couch even when he wasn't there. It was just as weirdly attached to that boy as he was to it.

The door opened and I quickly retracted my hand from the animal, but it was too late, he'd already seen.
"What are you doing?" Malfoy frowned as he saw me sitting besides the stoat in the empty common room.
"-Nothing." I answered a little too quickly.

He didn't say a word, he didn't even look at me as he scooped the sleeping creature off the couch and into his arms, turning to carry it upstairs with him to the boys dorms, taking with him my last opportunity to set things straight between us. "Draco wait..."

Things had been beyond awkward since that night, and his words were still raw to me.
I will never want you.

He froze with his back to me, blonde hair seeming almost white in the flicker of the lamp light. I took a deep breath, I had so much I wanted to say but so little time. It would take an eternity to say all the things I thought about Draco Malfoy, and even then I doubted I'd ever be able to put it into words, let alone speak them aloud. "-I just... I- Im sorry."

He deadpanned darkly, already staring to disappear up the stairs. "Sorry's just a word, Pansy."

"...So that's it?" I called after him, making him halt once more with a heavy sigh. "-Are we just done talking?"

He grunted in response and took another step. "I don't know, are we?"

I couldn't let him walk away, not this time. He ran from his problems, but little did he realise that one day they'd catch him up.

"Don't you turn your back on me Draco!" The shout broke free of me before I could stop it. "You don't get to be pissed off at me, I'm pissed off at you!"

His pale eyes crawled down my body before reaching my face once more, but not in the greedy way that a man looks at a woman, instead he was scrutinising every flaw.
"For what?" He hissed. There were a million and one reasons to hate Draco Malfoy, and only a few to love him, but I did none the less. Unconditionally.

"I know exactly what you're doing!" He looked at me boredly, but I didn't stop. "You do this every damn time, you can't keep ignoring me forever! You can't keep pushing people away like this!"

"I don't know what you're talking about." He snapped, a muscle in his jaw beginning to tick slightly. His annoyance only triggered off something inside of me, something hot and angry and pleading.

"-Don't you lie to me Draco, I know where you disappear off to at night!" Tears blurred my vision but I didn't let them fall, I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing me cry, I wouldn't let him know how deeply just one look from him affected me. I would never bare my soul to him ever again, not after last time. He didn't deserve to know me like that.

-He didn't care. He didn't care about anyone but himself, not truly.

"I was there for you when no one else was!" I clenched my fists, digging my nails into my palm in hope that the pain would distract me from the way his eyes seared my skin. "We were good!.. We were better than good and then you told me to fuck off, and you practically up and vanish!"

And there it was, the hint of humanity in him I'd been begging for. The weakness. It came as a slight break in his voice as he whispered, "What do you want from me?

"Stop with the bullshit, what are you so afraid of?.." I took a step closer, searching his eyes for any semblance of feeling, begging for there to be something there, praying for this not to be a lost cause.
"-That no one could ever love you the way you'd want them to? Or are you afraid that as soon as they see the real you they'll leave anyways?"

I could see it building behind his eyes, the anger, the sadness, the grief, all balled into one wicked feeling. At any given moment it was ready to explode and we'd never be the same again, we'd be broken beyond repair.
"...Is that why you don't let anyone get close to you? -Because if so that's a surefire way to end up alone Draco."

"That's enough." He didn't shout. He didn't need to. His silence was far more terrifying than words could ever be.

A scream rose in my chest only to catch in my throat, a horrid, guttural sound, filled with angst and thrown in fury. But I couldn't let it out, instead I stifled it with a choking sob.
"...Look I'm sorry for everything your father's put you through, really I am but we have all lost people Draco..."
Some more than others and me more than most. I had to fight to keep the tears at bay, the ebbing flow of grief swelling heavy in my chest.

"You have no idea what loss is."

I couldn't hold it back anymore, I let the tears come, I was done holding it all in. It only then occurred to me that all this time, all these years we'd spent together, we were still practically strangers.
We loved one another for what we saw, but it never went beyond that. We didn't truly know one another, we just thought we did.
He didn't know that daddy loved hard liquor and debt a little more than he should. He didn't know that when those men came and daddy left us I saw no other way out than one that was cold and dark and empty. There was a sick kind of solace in forever... He didn't know that he was the only thing to save me from my despair.
-He knew nothing about me.

"...Everyone I have ever cared for has either died or left me." I stood before him now, barren and boundless, staring up at him with eyes that pleaded for him to understand. "-Everyone fucking except for you!" I shoved him hard, "So don't you dare walk away from me too!"

Shock registered on his face but he didn't have time to respond as the words just kept coming and coming, almost as if a dam had broken within me and everything I'd ever wanted to say coming pouring it all at once. I was raw.
"I know you're looking for an out but Mara Williams is not the answer, a relationship like that is never going to end well for either of you. Please, just listen to me!"

Draco was quiet for a long while as if letting the dust of my words settle, letting them seep into his skin and etch themselves permanently in his mind.
May he never be fortunate enough to forget them.

He studied my face, in a way that made me blood run cold, there was no warmth or feeling in his eyes anymore. It was as if he'd shut down completely.

With every moment that passed I felt my resolve crumble along with my courage, and after a moment I whispered, as if scared one wrong word would shatter us irreparably. "Say something... Please."

-But we were already broken beyond repair, and he sealed our fate without preliminaries as he turned his back on me and walked away. I was left staring at the empty space where he had been with an emptiness in my hollow heart.

• • •

MARA WILLIAMS

Two sunrises were all that separated me from the quidditch trials. Malfoy and I had been practicing almost every night and yet still I felt just as unprepared as ever.

He'd been off the past few nights, distant, cold. Something was on his mind, I just didn't know what. I'm not sure what exactly I'd expected, it's not like we were close or anything, but still I had this little niggling feeling at the back of my mind.

Why was he doing this?

None of it made any sense. He hated me, he was supposed to hate me. So why all of a sudden had he taken it upon himself to train me as Gryffindor's latest player?
He was a Slytherin, none of this benefited him in any way, if anything it hindered him.

I couldn't drown out the persistent though, what were his motives?
Were they just as selfish and driven by greed as I feared?

-I had a two theories, each one came to me in the deep of the night when sleep would not come kindly.

Draco Malfoy was the Slytherin seeker, Harry
Potter was the Gryffindor seeker, and his sworn enemy. He wanted me to replace Harry to either weaken the team or for his own personal gain... But then again that theory didn't make much sense to me, if I would weaken the team then I'd never get on in the first place, let alone replace the youngest seeker in a century.

My second theory was that this was all just one giant ploy to humiliate me in front of the entire school. It would explain why all of a sudden he'd taken it upon himself to mentor me. It would explain the recent change in behaviour too, he'd need to be kind if he were to get close to me. I wouldn't put it past him.

But overthinking would prove nothing, actions spoke louder than words and only time would tell...

***
QOTD-What do you think Draco's intentions are?
Don't forget to vote and comment!
-TFOA