someday, somehow → d.malfoy [discontinued]

016

the great hall was overflowing.

draco had never seen it so—teeming with an amount of people that its four long tables could not seat comfortably. the beauxbatons students, many of them twirling their heads upon their elongated necks with distaste as they absorbed the great hall's appearance, had infiltrated the ravenclaw table. it was an aesthetic sight; two shades of blue interspersed within each other like the rippling bed of a clear body of water—among it the blunt black of hogwarts robes. among them, he sighted a swishing tail of silver-blonde hair swaying enchantingly as a thin girl glided across the floor. her beauty was otherworldly, draco thought, almost like she was not fully human. the air around her seemed to glitter in awe, highlighting the impossible straight bridge of her nose, and the plump curve of her rosy lips, and her pale, high ckeekbones. the blue silk of her uniform draped across her shoulders as unicorn blood would—as if it dribbled across her collarbones in thick silver droplets.

"who is—" draco started, only to realised the person he'd wanted to ask was not anywhere in close proximity to him. he craned his head, searching, hawk-like, for the two familiar heads of dark hair that, nowadays, seemed to always be around one another—one belonging to pansy, and the other to artemis. he felt his eyes narrow as the difficulty of such a task dawned in him: all he saw was a distracting blur of heads and robes along the table as students twittered excitedly to one another. he was sure, he thought to himself, that the two of them had been close by a mere few minutes ago. "where are pansy and artemis?" he said, the words leaving a sour expression on his face. 

"they left," blaise said, blinking his deep eyes in a way that made draco feel uncomfortably inferior. why, he wanted to ask, already feeling the sharp word ready to birth itself into the conversation, sharp as a needle-thin blade. it seemed, however, that he needn't voice himself—blaise answered. "artemis is sitting with her french friends, and pansy's gone to gossip with greengrass."

"hmmph," he hummed. "i see."

many of those clad in black robes were still muttering excitedly to their friends about the famous bulgarian seeker, viktor krum—theodore, crabbe, goyle and draco were no exception to this. they watched, carefully, the nature of the durmstrang students, who had not migrated very much from the entrance of the room, and were looking from table to table, apparently unsure of where they would place themselves. slowly, they trickled in a steady stream towards the slytherin table; where they were welcomed in a most slytherin-manner and given space to sit along the benches and even atop the table's smooth surface.

"oi," draco hissed lowly to crabbe and goyle. "make space." they did not question or hesitation upon his command—shuffling and scooting along the wooden bench obediently until a gape of polished oak had been made to the approaching students. smugness washed over draco, sloshed into his gut like a satiating meal, as viktor krum spied the crabbe-and-goyle-absent space and slotted himself (as well as three other boys) onto the bench. draco's eyes flickered over to the gryffindor table—where the world's golden boy, harry potter, and his friend, weaselby, had already trained their aghast expressions in his direction. "draco malfoy," he said whilst extending a pale, slim-fingered hand to krum; feeling a sneer tugging the corners of his mouth towards his ears. "a pleasure to meet you."

"and you," krum replied, clasping draco's hand in an unsurprisingly firm shake, before turning his head towards pansy and artemis. his voice was thick with accent, and low. krum made introductions to theodore and blaise; before falling into a conversation filled with the rapid, rolling tones of (what draco assumed to be) bulgarian, with the few friends he'd sat with. though they had only shared an amount of words draco could count on his fingers, their interaction had extracted exactly the reaction that the blond had been seeking. weasley had flushed a vibrant red that rivaled gryffindor's scarlet, and was muttering in his rage to a pissed-looking granger. draco snorted.

.

"so," cyrille asked artemis, "how much worse is it here?"

the question made the latter blink twice—the questioner herself staring hungrily for a response. any reply that might have formed in artemis' mind dissolved on the way to her tongue; and she sat there for a while, simply opening and closing her mouth like a quietly suffocating fish. but she knew cyrille was simply that way: headstrong and blunt, regardless of any possible consequence. artemis thought it went well with her own contrast of a character. yet, sometimes, the short-haired girl's remarks and biting questions (such as the one she had just thrown in artemis' direction) could seem somewhat heartless, mocking.

"it's not that bad," she spat out, finally. even then, the words felt like acidy bile on her tongue and in her throat. this time, it was cyrille's turn to blink—evidently, this was not the thrilling response she had been seeking from artemis.

the swarthy girl's silver-lined eyelids flashed in artemis' vision—a sight that a drew several hogwarts and durmstrang students' gazes in passing. by now, the majority of beauxbatons' student cohort had become accustomed to cyrille's extravagance—she commanded one's gaze with her constant ebb of confidence, only further enhanced by the hypnotic curves of her body and her striking facial features. cyrille could have stood in a crowd of many, absent of her shimmering make-up and clanging accessories; and yet, she would have still managed to stand out like the mood among tiny, dotted stars in the dark.

"oh," she said, her full lips pressing together momentarily before settling on a thick pout. "well, that's boring... maybe i will just tell the beauxbatons kids that the students here have to wear clothes that look like big, black bed sheets."

"ooh—those really are horrible, though!" artemis gasped, bouncing in her seat and reaching out her hand to clasp cyrille's shoulder.