If You Only Had a Heart

She thought she understood the two sides. She never thought the house rivalry had any real merit. In a Hufflepuff, she saw a hard-worker rather than a dull peer. In a Ravenclaw, she saw intelligence rather than a know-it-all peer. In a fellow Gryffindor she saw loyalty rather than a busybody. And in a Slytherin, in him, she didn’t see evil; she saw cunning, in a positive light. She thought the Houses didn’t mean much. She didn’t think that just because someone was a Slytherin that they would automatically be cruel and evil. She never saw that in him, not at first. She never thought the Houses would come between them. She was wrong. She was foolish.

Trusting him had been her first mistake. Falling for him was her second. She can't shake the feeling or the sight of him. He is burned into her mind, destined to remain there forever.

Their friendship was a rocky one, right up until the end. Sometimes, he was gentle, others he was harsh. She always found a way to look past what he did. She always forgave him. She was a fool.

"We're finally going to Hogwarts Draco." They were young.

"Yes," he nodded. They sat alone in a compartment toward the end of the train. She could feel the vibrations from the train’s moment beneath her. She was excited. Finally, she would get to go to Hogwarts. The best part was that she would get to see Draco every day.

"Nothing will change, right?" she asked. She already knew the answer. She knew him.

"Of course," he replied, flashing her his political smile, that one that always told her he was lying.

In return, she flashed him a half-hearted smile that she knew didn't reach her eyes. He noticed, as he always did.

"I'm going to be a Slytherin and you'll be a Gryffindor…." He all but snarled the word, "Once we're sorted, we can't…we cannot associate any longer," he said, placing his pale hand, which was surprisingly warm, over hers.

Just because she knew it was coming, it didn't mean that she wasn't hurt by it anyway. She yanked her hand away quickly. "You and your bloody reputation. Its all about appearances with you, isn't it?" She stood up forcefully and pulled her trunk down from the rack. "I swear Draco, if you only had a heart…"

And that was that. She left, slamming the compartment door behind her. In eleven years, she had never once finished that thought and every time she has walked away, he has never come after her.

She ventured upon a compartment with two boys who looked her age inside.

"Mind if I sit here?"

She and the boys, who were Ron Weasley and Harry Potter (yes, the Harry Potter), were in the middle of a conversation about Quidditch when the door to their compartment slid open.

“The rumor on the train is that Harry Potter is coming to Hogwarts.” Rolling her eyes, she recognized the voice before she even moved my glance to the figure standing in the doorway.

Draco took a few steps into the compartment. “Name’s Draco Malfoy. Hogwarts has no discretion on who’s let in. Wouldn’t want to assort with the wrong sort. I can help you sort them out.” He proposed with a condescending smirk as he stuck out his hand for Harry.

But Harry replied with a negative, affirming that he didn’t need his help before turning back to Ron to restart their conversation.

“Malfoy, Draco!” Professor McGonagall shouted out.

Her childhood friend strutted up to the stool and sat down. The hat was barely placed over his head before it shouted out, “SLYTHERIN!”

He was pleased.

A few peers later and she was called up.

“Sparks, Emmeline!”

She sat, shaking, upon the stool. She felt the hat being placed upon her head.

And then it shouted, “GRYFFINDOR!”

She could say that their sorting was the beginning of it all, that it was the beginning of the chasm between them that steadily grew larger throughout their school years. But that wasn’t right. They had both been nurtured in completely different homes and in different ways.

In their first year, her belief in her best friend was the strongest. He made mistakes of course but it was in his nature to taunt and mock. She knew what his father was like. She knew what Draco was like and she managed to reconcile, or rather ignore, the things he did with the boy she knew he was.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione couldn’t understand why she was friends with him. As their Hogwarts years passed, she sometimes doubted their friendship and she doubted him. But she always returned to him and their friendship. Emmeline always returned to the comfort of his presence. That is, until their sixth year when it all fell apart. She believed in their friendship and it was at the apex of their relationship that he let her down.