Magic? || Years 1-5

Returned: Year 4

"No," Amisty growled, her hands trembling as she struggled not to tear the letter in two. Even though she knew there was no way she could do it.

She tried burning his letter three days after the article being posted. One letter made it into the fire before she broke and tore it out.

Hermione found her in the common room at midnight, surrounded by letters and crying in front of the destroyed one. She silently repaired the letter, collected the rest, and guided her up to the dormitory.

"No," She repeated, throwing the letter to the floor at glaring furiously at her dad. "Get out, Malfoy."

The corner of his mouth twitched downward, and his eyes flashed, but other than that his face remained impassive.

"Amisty, you are going to talk to him," Noel ordered, getting up from his seat and collecting the now cold tea. "And you are going to do it politely. He is a guest in this house and will be treated as such. I'm locking the door until you work this out. Good luck, Draco."

And with that, he left the room, the faint sound of the lock clicking in place echoing in her ears.

"What are you doing here?" She snarled, still blatantly refusing to look at him, head turned to the side as her eyes blazed.

"Trying to talk to you," He replied calmly. "I knew there was no chance of me being able to talk to you if I didn't do something -- "

"If you didn't trick me again?" She broke in, furious.

"Amisty -- "

"You know, if you really cared about me you would know that this was not the time to try and talk to me," She seethed.

"And because I care about you I know that if I didn't do this you would go on ignoring me until you forgot I existed," His voice broke slightly. "And I don't want you to forget me."

"Boo hoo! You're going to be forgotten by someone for the first time in your privileged life! What a tragedy!" She shouted, stomping so hard a few of the photographs on the mantel shook.

"That's not -- " He glared for a millisecond before seeming to regain his composure. "I'm trying to talk here, Amisty."

"How well is that going for you, huh? You should know better than anyone that talking things out never goes well with me. But," She tapped her chin sarcastically, looking up at the ceiling, "of course, you don't really care, do you?"

She knew that she was being unreasonable. That she was being overly antagonistic. But she wanted him to react.

To shout and yell and lash out and get angry.

Something.

Anything.

"I've already told you that I care about you, Amisty," He replied, infuriatingly calm.

"Blah, blah, blah. Go back to your Slytherin friends and go gossip about me some more, why don't you? Go tell them all about poor, pathetic Amisty River and how upset she got over you visiting her! Or, better yet, go run off to the Prophet about me being a Wolf Born and tell the whole wizarding world what a freak I am since you CLEARLY WANT TO DESTROY MY LIFE!" She screamed, fists clenched so hard she was losing circulation to her fingers.

"I would never tell anyone anything you didn't want people to know," He insisted.

"STOP LYING TO ME!"

"I'm not lying!" He took a step forward, voice growing even gentler, softer. "You just won't listen."

"AND I WONDER WHY THAT IS? MAYBE BECAUSE THE ONE PERSON I TRUSTED WITH MY WHOLE LIFE RAN OFF AND DECIDED THAT A PETTY PRANK WAS WORTH BREAKING MY HEART!" She screeched, magic sparking at her fingertips.