Chosen || Draco Malfoy

41 - Birthday Queen

To my horror, just one week into my sixth year, I receive a letter from Dumbledore, summoning me to his office at midnight.

"What is with this creep?" I seethe, screwing up the offending item and tossing it across the Hufflepuff table where it lands in Susan's Cheerios. "Does he not know how important beauty sleep is?"

"Well, I'd be honoured to be called into Dumbledore's office at any time." Harry says after having appeared suddenly in the seat next to me.

"Whatever," I mutter moodily, furiously buttering another slice of toast purely to distract me from glancing over at the Slytherin table.

"These extra lessons may be just what you need to defeat Voldemort," Harry sagely advises. "I'm sure Dumbledore wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't important."

Turns out, Dumbledore likes to dabble in a touch of voyeurism. He dragged me into someone else's memory against my will, and I had to stand there and witness some crackpot family of whom, Dumbledore explained afterwards, were Voldemort's ancestors.

"So I lose half my night's beauty sleep only for you to tell me that Voldemort has come from some questionable stock?!" I spluttered at him afterwards. "It's hardly ground breaking news!"

He eventually let me go, doing that annoying thing people do when they want to sound mysterious: "Until we meet again..."

Just give me a fucking day and time, and preferably at a reasonable, non-dodgy hour.

The first few weeks has me snowed under with Quidditch practice and school work. Although, I manage to get Zacharias and Justin to carry the majority of my workload, both of them eager to help in any way they can.

Whenever I can, I take strolls across the grounds with Harry, talking to him about my day, and listening to his theories on how we can defeat Voldemort. One of his favourite subjects, however, I am always quick to shut down.

"I just know Malfoy is in some way working-"

"Harry, stop it," I say at once, not wanting to talk about him.

Nothing had happened between us again since that night in the Room of Requirement. When I had awoken the following morning, he had gone, and I had the feeling he had been gone a long time.

I had crept out, navigating my way through that crazy and confusing junk yard, trying to ignore the stab of disappointment.

When I next saw Draco during one of our shared classes, I'd tried to catch his eye, but he seemed a million miles away, dead to the world almost.

I didn't push it, assuming he was just keeping up the facade that we hated one another. But then it kept happening, and days went by, turning into weeks, and I realised he hadn't tried to seek my attention even once.

But it's not like I cared, because it had just been sex, after all. We'd both agreed. Besides, I had my seventeenth to celebrate.

Being the Chosen One, I am predictably lavished with gifts and attention. At breakfast, the Hufflepuffs have decorated our table with gold balloons and a large banner saying, 'Happy Seventeenth to our Hufflepuff Queen!'.

Harry loudly serenades me even though no one can hear him, and Hermione, Ron, Luna, Neville and Ginny all squeeze onto my table to join me for my birthday breakfast.

I am spoilt: from Hermione, I get a Broomstick self-care kit, Ron gives me a secondhand Potions book ("It's all I could afford."). And Neville and Luna go in for a joint present and give me a gift voucher for a two hour session with Dr. X Lovedoctor ("It's Daddy's professional name.").