Chosen || Draco Malfoy

38 - Magic Fingers

I tried my best to be a good house guest, I really did, but I got the feeling my presence wasn't exactly welcome.

Every time I walked into a room, Molly made an excuse to leave. I had the sneaking suspicion she blamed me for Harry's death.

"It's probably not that," Ginny shrugged when I shared my theory with her one afternoon as we practiced Quidditch in the paddock. "Mum's just always been uptight about visitors, just ask Hermione. Only Harry she liked staying with us."

Oh. Well that didn't make me feel any better.

Nevertheless, I was relieved when September the first came around and I could leave the fraught atmosphere of the Burrow.

"Thank fuck," I mutter as I settle myself into a compartment with Luna and Neville.

Two Ravenclaw boys slow down as they pass through the corridor and peer in through the window, nudging one another as they look at me.

It's strange. I've been getting looks like this from the second I stepped onto platform nine and three quarters. I even had Marcus Belby offer to help carry my luggage onto the train, to which I happily agreed to and left him with my two suitcases, school trunk and a squawking Amazon (she'd suffered from travel sickness in the car and was spewing everywhere), before skipping off with Luna and Neville.

"It's because of your new status," Luna says, noticing my bafflement. "You know, being the Chosen One."

"Huh?" I ask, wondering why it would make people act like that. It's not as though they don't already know me. Most of them were slagging me off and calling me a liar just a year ago.

"In other words," Neville grins, wiggling his eyebrows at me, "you're hot again."

"Fuck off, I've always been hot!" I say, just as Luna's face falls.

Neville immediately notices and quickly drapes an arm around her shoulders. "But not as hot as you, my little Loonybin."

A smile breaks across her face and she giggles as he rubs his nose against hers.

Smooth bastard.

"God, it makes you sick, doesn't it?"

I jump out of my fucking skin as Harry appears next to me. I wish he would stop doing that. Oh god, if he goes on about Draco I might just slit my throat.

I can't say anything, so I just glare at his grinning face.

Noticing my displeasure, he pouts. "You used to love me, remember?"

I want to tell him I still do, but now it's more like an annoying sibling kind of love. I feel grown apart from him - I'm older and he will be forever fourteen and dead.

"It's okay, I understand," he sighs heavily, reading my expression correctly. "If things had been different, though, and I hadn't died, maybe we would have been something good?"

Obviously I don't answer, but I give my head the merest of nods and feel my heart tug. I wonder what he would have looked like if he'd reached sixth year with me. Would he be hot? I guess I'll never know.

We are interrupted by Ron and Hermione coming back from prefect duty and Harry has to quickly move across to sit next to the lovebirds as they slide into my side of the table.

"Malfoy skipped prefect duty." Ron mutters angrily as he rips open a Chocolate Frog and aggressively bites off the head. "Bloody git clearly thinks he's too important."

My ears prick up. "He isn't here, you mean?"

I find my heart suddenly beating an uneasy rhythm. The idea that he isn't in school makes me feel strangely empty.