Draco, darling

36.

The days passed and the apprehension raised in everyone as the Yull ball approached. Students from the years above had easily slipped in a constant dance of invitations and it wasn't rare to witness a couple jumping in each other's arms, one with flowers at hand. Diggory has long asked Jane to be his date and the Slytherin had of course accepted, making many girls jalouse in the process. Blaise for his part, had not discussed it with Potter. Probably because he knew being his date would come with a lot of media coverage and he didn't want to get outed to his extended family.

"And I'm not sure where we are yet," he said to Meli between classes. "As a... couple? I don't know."

Meli pushed him lightly in the shoulder. "Give it time, I think he's a little busy right now considering, well, everything."

Blaise sighted but nodded. He knew she was right. Meli dragged her eyes around them, searching for the rest of their group, and found them a few steps behind them. They were too far and the students in the hallways were too loud to hear their conversation but Meli easily read between the lines of their facials expressions.

Draco was blushing abundantly and looked like he was trying to justify himself. Jane, her, was smiling broadly, enjoying the effect her obvious teasing was having on him. Draco met Meli's eyes half sentence and morphed back into his usual laid back and arrogant self before flashing her a smile. Jane rolled her eyes at the change and walked faster, bringing Draco with her.

Admittedly, Meli could've cared about their 'secret' conversation. But she really didn't. If it was important or even interesting one of them would eventually tell her. For now, it didn't bother her the slightest.

A week had passed after that afternoon and Meli was walking alone back from the library. The educational part of their school year had fallen in the background of the tournament and the girl was having some trouble catching up on manuscripts she didn't even recall receiving. Jane was shit at school, Blaise couldn't concentrate and Draco had been acting weird around her recently. So Meli had found herself alone with her work at lunchtime.

Halfway through a corridor, she heard the voice of someone she had been avoiding calling her name. Meli estimated she could play deaf long enough to hide in a classroom and accelerated her pace. But Louis was persistent and caught up with her.

"Wow, you're a fast walker, aren't you?" he asked, flexing that beautiful smile.

Meli put on her best friendly face and kept walking. "So I've been told."

There, no opening for a conversation.

Louis laughed. "I had been looking for you everywhere!"

"Probably just too fast for you," Meli internally winced. Merlin that interaction was painful.

"I wanted to know if you wanted to go to the ball with me?" Louis asked with no preamble.

Meli stopped dead in her tracks, slowly looked at her left to the handsome boy standing there and thought about it. Really thought about it.

Somewhere between their second date and that exact moment, Meli had lost interest in Louis. The guy she first thought charming turned out to be less and less entertaining and it seemed he had nothing to say past the first date. There was also the incident at The Three Broomsticks, the thing with his mom that made Meli quite uncomfortable and finally, Draco.

The two Slytherins had been in that weird place were they bantered and joked in a way that tiptoed on the line of flirting. It was fun, it was simple.

It was nothing like Louis.

When she envisioned Louis, all Meli could see was a fruit who's skin tasted delicious while the inside tasted nothing. The first bite was great but what came after was boring and took too much effort for what it was.

Yeah, that was it. Louis was a very very pretty fruit with a depressingly uninteresting inside.

But Meli wasn't a bitch. Well, yeah, she was kind of mean. A majority of the time. But she still had decency. And decency demanded she let him go gently. After all, he hadn't done anything wrong except for being everything but what Meli wanted.

"I have to say no, Louis," Meli explained. "Blaise and I decided to go together as friends."

"Oh, that's fine," Louis winked at her. "I want a dance, though."

And with that, he turned a corner and left Meli to walk back in the Slytherin's common room, still confused as to how easily he let go. She had memories of 'drama queen' Louis who got mad over muffins but shrugged it off.

Jane wasn't in their dorms and so it was left silent and peaceful for Meli as she entered. A letter was on bed, folded carelessly with her name written in a hurry on the front. Meli recognized her sister's writing which made her frown. She couldn't remember the last letter Elae had sent and wondered if the young woman had even received the one Meli had sent back. The paper was rough beneath Meli's fingers as she opened the letter, revealing a messy handwriting and spots of ink.

Meli,
How are you, slut? I hope all is good at Hogwarts and with the old ones. Please tell them I'm all good and I'll be coming back to England soon. Yes, you read right! I'll be coming soon from Canada where I was until recently to visit you guys. We'll discuss the details in person but I'll maybe come with a friend. If so, we'll take your room since the bed is bigger. You could take my room or go sleep to a friend's house, I don't know. Anyway, I'll write to you again. Not to mom and dad thought, you can just pass the information along.
Can't wait to see you,

Elae

The letter was typical Elae, thought Meli as she crumbled it up in a ball and set it on fire with a flick of her wand. She should regret it, knowing her parents would have many questions and showing them the letter would've been simple, but she wasn't thinking rationally, filled with anger.

It had always been like that. Elae treated Meli like a friend instead of a sister, never caring how her actions impacted the younger girl and surprised when Meli got angry. It was like she didn't realize how everything she did, down to the language she used around the house, affected Meli. Elae forced Meli to grow up too young, to be the mature one for their parents. She assumed, she was careless, she was self centred and fuck, Meli was crying.

The tears rolled down her cheeks like racing down a window. Fat, ugly tears that made her eyes red and left stains on her dress. Meli folded on herself and dragged the covers over her legs. One look at the clock on the wall told her she had little less than an hour before Jane came back. It left her enough time to let go, let the rage drown her. Let her walls down to the emptiness of her dorm before building them back up.

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um heyyy??? i'm so so so sorry it took me so fkg long to post another chapter guys i feel so bad. i know you guys probably don't remember what happened in the last few chapters but thanks for reading anyway.
hope you enjoyed,

Laeti