Little Memories

The majority of their dinner was rather uneventful for the two and they found themselves staring idly at their food during dinner. Both of them had taken a few bites of the food, but neither felt very hungry. Charlotte could see her brother and Melody sitting not too far away from her and Draco, talking animatedly as they ate. A slight snarl curled the girl’s feminine features as she looked over at them, a bit jealous that some girl Gregory barely knew had made him ignore his baby sister. Draco noticed the green look that came over her face as she stared at the couple and drew in a deep breath of air.

“He’ll come around, Charlie,” he offered in a soft voice. Charlotte shot him a look that clearly said she didn’t believe him. “And Iver seems a bit…flighty. There’s no telling when she’ll leave him but it’s probably only a matter of time.” The girl merely scrunched up her nose and shook her head slowly as she looked over at Draco.

“It’s not that I don’t want him to have a girlfriend or for her to break up with him…” Charlotte let out a large sigh and shook her head. “She’s as daft as they come and he’s just as daft as she is if he’s picking her over me,” she said in a voice thick with disdain. “I just…want him to ask me how my day went, or gag whenever we kiss, or-or threaten to beat someone up just for looking at me funny, you know? Just the usual Gregory Goyle, doing the usual Gregory Goyle things.” Draco noticed that Charlotte looked rather downhearted after she stopped speaking, so he reached out and took his hand in hers, intertwining their fingers together and offering her a small smile.

“Having my full attention isn’t enough for you anymore, is it?” He asked playfully, causing Charlotte to give him a stony look before cracking the smallest bit of a smile for him.

“I have your full attention all the time, Draco?” She asked in a soft voice, her eyes glittering slightly with mischief. Draco smirked a bit and nodded in response.

“Right now you do,” he said, causing Charlotte’s expression to fall into a dramatic pout. He gave a chuckle and leaned closer to her to murmur lowly in her ear, “And you most certainly had my full attention earlier.” Charlotte scoffed and scowled at Draco then, smacking him on the chest with the back of his hand.

“You pig,” she growled playfully, “oh, of course I had your attention when you were getting-” Draco quickly lifted his hand and covered her mouth to make sure that not another cheerful word got past her lips. He glanced around nervously, making sure no one else saw the vivid blush that had crept across the tops of his cheeks or had heard as much as Charlotte had gotten out. He heard Charlotte’s muffled giggles beside him as he turned back to her, her expression only growing more cheerful as she saw his blush. Draco slowly lowered his hand from her mouth, the tiny, sprite-like giggles she was emitting finally heard.

“I don’t think people would want to hear about what we do in our time alone, Charlotte,” Draco hissed, only causing Charlotte to giggle even more. Her giggling soon faded, as if she sensed what was about to come, and soon thereafter a tan boy sat down beside her, barely leaving any space between the two of them and forcing her to scoot closer to Draco’s side. Both sets of icy blue eyes set on the boy, silently challenging to continue on with his usual antics. As if it weren’t enough that Charlotte had proven herself a volatile person, or that Draco, Crabbe, and Gregory had sparred with both him and Nott and come out the victors.

“Hello Zabini,” Charlotte greeted the boy in a less than cheerful drawl. He merely gave her a slick smile as he glanced between the two of them.

“Goyle, Malfoy,” he replied in an equally slick voice. “Did you have a nice summer vacation together?” Blaise asked with a false sort of interest. “Oh, that’s right. You spent the majority of it separated, didn’t you?” He looked at Charlotte and let a wide, taunting smile curl his lips. “I hear Azkaban is positively radiant during the summertime. You would know, wouldn’t you, Charlie?” Draco bristled a bit at the words that were clearly meant to cut Charlotte down. Charlotte, however, remained visibly calm, but clenched Draco’s hand a bit tighter under the table.

“Is that anyway to talk to someone like me, Zabini?” She asked in a soft, steady voice that betrayed none of the angry she felt for the boy. Blaise merely stared back at her as fearless as ever. “I’m a murderer, Zabini,” she continued, looking him dead in the eye. “I have escaped Azkaban and pledged my allegiance to the Dark Lord.” She leaned closer to him, cutting her eyes at him dangerously. He looked visibly shaken at the mention of Lord Voldemort, as if Charlotte’s not-so-subtle reminders had jumpstarted his memory. “I’d learn to hold your tongue, Zabini, because if you end up annoying the wrong person, they may just have to cut it out.”

Blaise openly blanched, stood from the table, and left them without another word. Draco watched him closely as he left before returning his attention to Charlotte, who was staring down stoically at her plate. Draco gave her hand a gentle squeeze, hoping to pull her mind from her thoughts, but she kept her gaze at the cold food she had pushed around in no sort of pattern on her plate.

“You shouldn’t have scared him like that, Charlotte,” he chided softly, causing her to look up at him with a caustic sort of venom in her eyes. “And you definitely shouldn’t have told him about the Dark Lord,” he added in a low voice. Charlotte drew in a deep breath of air and set her jaw as she stared at him.

“How else am I supposed to get him to keep his mouth shut?” She asked with a quivering voice. “What other way do I have to get him to leave us alone?” Draco merely stared at her, at a loss for words. She stared back, eyes alight with a depth of vivid emotions. Charlotte let out a short sigh and shook her head, looking away from Draco after a few moments of silence between the two of them. “Exactly,” she murmured, “there is no other way…unless I start dating him again.” Draco drew in a sharp breath of air and Charlotte risked a sideways glance at him. He was wide-eyed and a bit frightened looking at Charlotte’s musing.

“You wouldn’t,” Draco said in a faltering voice, staring intently at Charlotte as if the tiniest expression would give him the answers he wanted. She stared at him for a moment before managing a small smile for him.

“I’d rather face an angry dragon than date that slime ball ever again,” she said softly before leaning forward and pressing her lips against his. He smiled against her lips before she pulled away, staring up at him for a moment. “You‘re so much better than him. I regret every second that I spent with him.”

“Just like I regret every second I spent with Pansy. So, we’re about even,” Draco said in a low voice, running his thumbs over the knuckles on the back of Charlotte’s hand.

“Even if we weren’t ‘about even’, we couldn’t change our past no matter how hard we tried,” she said with a wry smirk. “All we can do is grimace at the fact that we ever associated with people that had such ugly souls.” Draco frowned a bit, his mind not wondering to Blaise or Pansy, but to the Dark Lord and the wretched people that constantly surrounded him. Charlotte had been thrust into the life that Draco had gotten a chance to choose. However, the more he thought about it, he hadn’t much of a choice either, yet more of one than Charlotte.

Charlotte, ever cognizant, noticed Draco’s expression change to one that wasn’t the humored look she expected. She gripped his hand tighter, pursing her lips together as she slowly looked over his face. Letting out a sigh through her nose, she stood up from the table and kept their hands locked tightly together.

“Let’s get to the Common Room to work on homework. I don’t have much of an appetite right now,” she said softly and Draco conceded, standing from the table as well. As they walked down the side of the Slytherin table, eyes followed them as they went, but they didn’t care. They were too absorbed in their own thoughts to care about stupid things like how many people were watching them and whispering behind their hands. And as Charlotte passed by Gregory, she slammed her shoulder into his hard as she passed, causing him to glower at her back as she left. Before she and Draco left the Great Hall, she looked over her shoulder to her brother with a cold look before looking ahead as though nothing had happened.

The next couple of days passed without the Goyle siblings giving any more than dark looks and sneers at the other as they saw each other. Charlotte was nearly always at Draco’s side when she got the chance to and even when she wasn’t, she was never alone. Jackson Harper was always at her side when Draco wasn’t there: a bodyguard of sorts that managed to ask more questions than to watch out for Charlotte. Gregory always had Melody at his side, since they had nearly all their classes together. The Goyle siblings passed each other frequently and it was always the same thing.

Charlotte would either scoff and glare at him first or Gregory would grumble under his breath and glower. Draco was getting tired of it all and wished the siblings would just patch things up and start talking again. It was rather tiring having to listen to Charlotte complain about how much a git and arse her brother was and having to listen to Gregory, in the confines of the boy’s dormitories, ramble on about how much of a complete and utter idiot his sister was.

That Saturday morning, Draco and Charlotte ate breakfast as fast as they could and hurried out to the Quidditch Pitch to warm up a bit before tryouts. It was a brisk, early September morning and there was fresh dew dripping off the grass as steam billowed off of the Black Lake. Charlotte had her unruly curls tied back into a messy ponytail as she had her pure white broom resting over her shoulders. They were both dressed in the typical khaki trousers and green and silver trimmed robes as was normal for practice wear. The school grounds were quiet for the moment, but no doubt they were going to have one of the last lovely days of summer and students were going to spend as much of it as they could outdoors.

Draco’s steely blue-grey eyes would occasionally glance up at the Astronomy tower with a troubled look that did not go unnoticed by Charlotte. She let out a heavy sigh as he glanced up at the building one last time before they opened the door to the Slytherin Locker room.

“Just because you were there, doesn’t mean you were guilty of anything,” she said once the door had closed securely behind them. Draco, who was a few paces behind Charlotte, merely brushed past her without saying a word. “ You didn’t kill him, Draco,” she whispered, causing him to stop dead in his tracks and turn to her.

“No, I didn’t,” he said in a voice that clearly said he was suppressing heavy emotions, “but I disarmed him…so that’s as good as killing him.” By now, his eyes were brimming with tears at the remembering of watching a beloved figure and ray of hope in the Wizarding World’s eyes tumble from the tower. Charlotte placed her broomstick aside and stepped over to Draco, taking her hands in his and clutching them in hers tightly.

“You did what you had to, Draco,” she said softly, looking into his eyes earnestly. “And thank Merlin you did because…” Her voice quivered to the point where she had to stop and clear her throat. Draco stared down at her with a furrowed brow, wondering what was troubling her. “Draco…if you hadn’t gone through with the plans, you wouldn’t be here talking to me right now. If you weren’t alive, I wouldn’t have anything to live for.” She drew in a deep breath of air, tears forming in her eyes but never falling. “Remember that whenever you feel worthless…you’re worth everything to me.”