The Flower and the Badger

Chapter 11

It was about a week before Anna had the chance to talk to Draco alone. She grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and she dragged him into an empty classroom. 

"What the hell, Potter?" Draco demanded as he pushed her away from him, and he fixed his shirt, his Inquisitorial Squad badge displayed proudly on his chest. Or maybe not so proudly, as it was slightly askew and he made no attempt to fix it. 

"Cut the crap." Anna said, and he raised an eyebrow at how bold she was being. "You're lucky that I'm not giving you detention for this little stunt that you decided to pull, Potter."

"I know that you like Harry." 

Draco's already pale face went even whiter. "I don't know what the hell it is that you're talking about." He hissed.

"Oh, but you do. And for your information, Harry likes you too, he's just too scared of you either rejecting him or laughing in his face." 

"I could never do that to him." Draco mumbled, and Anna grinned. "I'm guessing that one of the reasons that you haven't confessed your love to Harry is because of your father?"

Draco nodded. "If he knew that I was in love with a Potter, much less Harry, he wouldn't hesitate to use the Cruciatus Curse on me. It's the reason why I'm so mean to you and Granger and everyone else. It's not because I want to, but because that I have to, in order to survive."

In that moment, Anna didn't see him as the bully that she had always used to see him as before, instead she saw him as a scared and vulnerable teenage boy who wanted to be with the one that he loved, but also didn't want to suffer the painful wrath of his father. Anna found herself feeling furious at Lucius Malfoy. If he truly loved his son, then he would accept him for who he was, even if it meant his son being in love with someone that he wasn't particularly fond of. "Draco, you just leave everything to me, I'll handle it all."

Draco eyed her suspiciously. "Why are you helping me, Potter?"

"Because as annoying as you've been in the past, for some weird reason my brother loves you, and one of the only things that I want is to see him happy. But make no mistake, you break his heart and I won't hesitate to kill you."

"Noted." Draco knew that she wouldn't hesitate to hex him if he hurt Harry, not that he would. He would die before he did that. He turned to leave but as he did so he gave Anna a small smile. "Potter, thank you."

"Lucius doesn't give you nearly enough credit Draco. I'm sorry that he's not proud of you, the real you." 

Draco shrugged his shoulders. "We can't choose who our parents are." He thought for a minute. "If you could change who your parents were, would you?" 

Anna shook her head. "Who they are, what happened to them, it made me who I am today, and I wouldn't exchange that for all of the gold in the world."

"You're a brave girl, Potter. I wish that I had your courage." 

"You're brave too, Draco. I know that you don't neccesarily see it, but you are." Anna patted him on the back before leaving the classroom. Now that she knew for sure that Draco liked Harry too, she had to figure out a way for them to be together without Lucius finding out. 

That weekend, Anna dragged Harry up to the Astronomy Tower after everyone else had fallen asleep.

"Anna..." Harry yawned. "What are we even doing-" He stopped when he saw Draco standing there, and he froze in his tracks. Anna nudged her brother forwards and he stumbled, nearly falling. Draco caught Harry and the two boys looked at each other for a long moment before Draco gently gripped Harry's chin, pulling him into a kiss. 

Anna grinned as she quietly made her way back down the stairs. It would seem like her work here was done.

A few weeks later, Anna was on her way to Potions when she was stopped by none other than Fred. 

"What do you want, Weasley?" She snapped, causing Fred to wince.

"I wanted to apologize." He muttered. "I know that I've kind of acted like an ass recently." 

Anna raised an eyebrow. "Kind of?" She repeated, and Fred gave her a sheepish smile

 "Maybe more than kind of." He admitted. "I just...I was trying to get over you, and I know that it wasn't really the best way to go about it. " Anna gave a snort. You got that right."

Anna knew that the right thing to do would be to forgive him, but she didn't know if she would be able to, at least, not yet. "This was extremely petty of you, Fred, and I just... I don't know if I'm gonna be able to forgive you right now...or even if I'll everbe able to."

"I understand." Fred said dejectedly, causing Anna to sigh. "Look, just give me some time, okay?" 

Fred nodded, seeming to realize that that was the best that he would be getting at the moment. "Umm...mind if I walk you to class?"

Anna nodded and they walked down the hallway together. While things wouldn't be the same between them,  a lot of the tension that had been built up between them over the weeks had vanished, and they talked easily as they walked, Fred laughing as she told him about how Christopher had run off with her jewelery. They parted ways at the dungeons, and Anna smiled softly. She was glad they had somewhat settled things between them, even though they weren't dating anymore, Anna had missed having the ginger as a friend. Who knew, maybe eventually things would return to normal between them. 

It was springtime now, almost the end of the school year.

"Anna!" Harry hissed in her ear, dragging her out to the courtyard.

"Harry!" Anna protested. "Slow down! Is something the matter?" A lot had happened in the past few weeks, the most recent being Fred and George pulling perhaps what had been the biggest prank in the history of the school before flying off on their brooms, and Anna was sure that even Professor McGonagall had been secretly cheering them on. She tuned back in to Harry, who looked deathly pale.

"It's Sirius." He said. "Voldemort's captured him."

A/N: Hi guys I just wanted to let you know that I won't be updating nearly as much, I just have a lot going on. I will most likely be updating once or twice a week as I also have three other stories that I'm currently working on. Thanks for understanding!