Pawns of War

I sat beside Draco at our usual library table. Students no longer gawked at the sight of Draco and myself studying together. It had become routine, and they just accepted it for what it was.

I kept my promise to Harry, but had not seen the need arise for me to tell him that Draco was acting out of character. The only thing that was some worry was when Lucius Malfoy had planned on having Buckbeak executed for attacking Draco earlier in the year.

A Hungarian boy from the Durmstrang Institute walked by our table and flashed a quick smile at me. The Tri-Wizard Tournament was taking place this year, and somehow my cousin had managed to get his name pulled out of the Goblet of Fire. Harry’s string of sticky situation never ceased to amaze me.

I quickly looked away from the Hungarian boy, and then to Draco. He watched the boy pass, shook his head and then continued on his History of Magic homework.

Draco, during this friendship we had created, was becoming increasingly protective of me – though he would deny it to anyone. There were some very strict rules he had distancing us, such as: no letters over the summer, no talking outside of going to or from classes and the library, and no repeating conversations discussed between us to others. But yet, I had begun to notice that he would be slightly anxious if I did not show up to the library at the proper time. On occasion when his friends would try to pick on me, he would tell them to cut it out and proceed to change the topic.

He was changing, slowly, and I liked that.

Draco looked up from his paper that he was writing and looked at me. “You know if you take a picture it would last longer, Clare,” he said with a mischievous smirk.

I smiled and let my eyes fall to the table. A thought popped into my head, and before I could even think it through, it was falling from my lips. “Draco, would you maybe want to go to the Yule Ball together?”

My eyes flashed back up to his face. The shock and confusion were immediately evident as he questioned me, “What?”

I suddenly began to panic, “I mean, just as friends! Nothing more! I just thought that since we’ve been hanging out so much, and have gotten to know each other a lot more over the last year, that it would be nice to go! As friends, of course!”

Draco sat back in his seat. His quill laying on the parchment that he was writing on. He ran his hands through his platinum blonde locks and stared past me. I immediately began to regret the question that I had asked. I had just screwed up everything that we had built over the past year.

Finally, Draco looked at me, and I knew that I was not going to like what was going to come out of his mouth.

“Clare,” he started, “I don’t think that would be very appropriate.”

I sucked in a small breath. My brother Greg had once told me what rejection feels like, but I never imagined it would feel like this.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean that… with you being a… muggle-born and me being of pureblood, it wouldn’t be very appropriate for us to be seen together.”

“My dad’s cousin, like me, was a muggle-born, and she went off to marry a pureblood.”

“Yes, and look where they are now, Clare. Six feet in the ground buried by dirt.”

“Fine,” I spat. I began to gather my things as quickly as I could and shove them into my bags. I angrily got up from my seat, and began making my way towards the entrance of the library. I had barely made it out when I heard my name being called.

It didn’t take long for Draco to catch up to me, and when he did, I was pulled into a secluded corridor with him. I felt so angry and hurt in that moment that I could not keep the tears from streaming down my face. I wiped at them in attempt to make them disappear, but more replaced them.

“Hey,” Draco said softly as he took my chin in his hands and forced me to look at him. “I don’t understand, why are you so upset?”

All I could do was stare. Bloody incredible.

The only words I could manage to get out at the time was to call Draco an ass as I stormed off towards Ravenclaw Tower. Draco’s words stung and left a rancid taste on my tongue. I did my best to forget about it, and almost was ready to forgive him a few days later, until Pansy Parkinson came into Potions class holding hands with Draco.

As she took her seat behind me, I eavesdropped on her conversation with her friends about how Draco had asked her to the Yule Ball the day after I had asked him. I shot a glare over to his general direction after hearing this, and realized that I would need more time away from Draco before I even considered forgiving him for his words and general attitude.

The night of the Yule Ball came, and despite my best efforts to not attend, Padma and Cho were insistent that I be there. I did not tell them about my encounter with Draco, and that I did not want to go because of him. Eventually, I ran out of other excuses and my pride would not let me tell my friends the truth, hence why they won.

I had written home to my family about the ball, and my mom was kind enough to send me one of Grace’s old formal dresses. It was nothing extravagant, but was still pretty. It was a rich blue, tea-length, three-quarter sleeved dress that she had worn to a formal dance with a boy in secondary school. It was a little big on me in certain areas, but would fit the job for the night.

Groups began to form and make their way down to the Great Hall where the ball was being held. Padma had disappeared to be with her sister, and Cho left with one of the first groups to go be with Cedric. Despite being surrounded by my fellow Ravenclaw peers, I felt alone. But I proceeded to the ball anyway.

Once there, I stood towards the back of the crowd and watched the festivities. Durmstrang boys and Beauxbaton girls were littered among the Hogwarts students. As the first waltz ended, more couples invaded the dance floor, and I caught a glimpse of the platinum blonde hair that I had been avoiding for three weeks. A strange feeling that I had never really encountered before took over me as I watched Draco and Pansy dance together.

“It is beautiful music to dance to,” someone spoke beside me.

I looked up and recognized the Durmstrang boy from the library. He was tall and easy on the eyes.

“May I have this dance?” he asked as he extended his hand.

I thought about it for a moment, and then accepted. I was immediately spun into his arms and our waltz began.

I had to admit that the Hungarian was a terrific dancer, but I noticed myself, dance after dance, looking over at Draco and Pansy. That unfamiliar feeling continued to build up inside of me, and after several dances with the Hungarian, I needed to excuse myself.

I left the ball, and simply began to wander the darkened corridors. In little alcoves, some of the older students had forgotten the dance entirely and were cuddling up to one another. I turned my head away at the sight of this and continued forward with no real destination to get to.

After a while, I found a silent corridor with nobody else around. Moonlight came in through the windows and glittered off of the snowy landscape. I sank down one of the walls and pulled my knees to my chest. The feeling from earlier was still residing within me, but I still could not put a name to it. Anger? No. Betrayal? No…

“Jealousy,” someone called out.

My head shot in the direction of the sound and saw Draco walking towards me, unaccompanied.

“Jealousy is a green eyed monster that can over take even the most innocent of people,” he continued.

I stood up from ground and faced him. He made it to where I was and stood directly in front of me. The moonlight cast its beams onto his face and illuminated his grey eyes. I had never felt more conflicting feelings in my whole life.

“That’s why you left, isn’t it?” Draco asked. “Because you were jealous that I took Pansy to the dance and not you?”

“Who said I was jealous?”

He stepped closer to me. I went to move back away from him, but was stopped by the wall immediately behind me. I was trapped. My heartbeat began to quicken, along with my breath. He placed a hand on my hip as he moved even closer, causing our bodies to almost touch. A piece of hair fell in my face and his fingers carefully removed it.

“I can tell you’re jealous because I noticed that you were staring at Pansy and I for the majority of the dance. Even when that Hungarian guy asked you to dance, you completely ignored him, and instead focused on me.”

The tiny amount of space that was left between us was closed. His breath danced across my cheeks. Butterflies began to swirl around in my stomach.

“You like me, don’t you, Clare? That’s why you asked me to the Yule Ball, isn’t it?”

I opened my mouth to speak, but my voice abandoned my body. Draco tilted his head down, and I stared at his lips. I did not know what to do, how to respond.

“Why did it have to be you?”

With that, Draco kissed me. His lips were soft and warm despite his typically cool demeanor. It was sweet and simple. And when he pulled away, I could see that his own cheeks had begun to turn a slight pink.

I put my hand on the back of his neck and kissed him again. He pressed his body into me more and deepened the kiss. His tongue asked permission to enter my mouth, and I parted my lips in response. Our tongues danced together as Draco’s hands began exploring the curves of my maturing body. I pulled away from Draco as we both caught our breath.

A cat’s meowing broke the silence, and we both recognized it as Mrs. Norris. That only meant Filch was not far behind.

A smile broke on Draco’s face as he grabbed my hand and told me to run. I smiled and quickly grabbed my heels with my free hand. We broke into a sprint down the corridor and kept running until we found another safe and secluded spot.

Laughter erupted from both of us. Draco took my face in his hands once more and kissed me. Smiles still stretched across our faces. I had so many questions I needed to ask Draco, but in that moment I did not care or worry about any of that. I just wanted to be in the moment we had created for ourselves, and live in blissful ignorance.