Liar. Harry Potter's sister ~ Book 2

chapter twenty-two

The warm, smoky air of the library surrounds me, making my eyes feel heavy and tired. I yawn, twirling my fingers around the strands of hair that had fallen out of my bun. I look up: from my seat I had the perfect view of the sun setting over the lake. The sky was awash with brilliant red and orange clouds accompanied by the dazzling reflection of the sun on the water. I pinch my quill between two fingers and bounce it, bored out of my mind. It was only the second day back at school and the teachers hadn't been hesitant to pile considerable amounts of homework onto our shoulders already. I've been sat here for the last half an hour trying to focus on something and get anything done but my mind just wasn't sitting straight. I came to the library to escape the crowds and headache inducing noise of the Gryffindor Common Room, but it wasn't exactly working very well. The library was pretty crammed with students who, like myself, had obviously got a large workload on their hands and were trying to fit in studying sessions for exams whenever they could.

I look down towards the sheets of Transfiguration homework Professor McGonagall had set us this morning and rustle through them, looking for something that would be easy enough for me to focus on. I tap my fingers on the table and huff, blowing the hair out of my face. I fall back into my chair and stretch out my legs, throwing my head back to look at the ceiling.

My eyes lock with somebody else's. Icy grey ones. Crowned in a head of unmistakable blond hair. I sit up, abruptly, bashing my knee on the table leg as I did so. I cover my mouth to muffle my howl of pain, and I put my head on the desk in front of me to hide my embarrassment of being found in such an awkward position.

"Are you alright?" Draco says chuckling slightly, placing his hand on my shoulder and pulling up a chair to my desk. I lift my head up to meet his eyes once more before sitting up straight and pushing aside the piles of homework in front of me, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in my knee.

"Fine," I say, stifling a laugh. I lean back in my chair and let out a sigh.

"Homework getting to you already?" He says, gesturing towards the piles of screwed up parchment and homework sheets scattered over the desk.

"It's only the second day back!" I grumble, picking up one of the balls of scrunched parchment and dropping it in front of my face, helplessly, "They could at least give us a break!"

"I know what you mean," Draco says, resting his elbow on the desk and propping his face in his hand. "I've been stuck for the last hour doing Transfiguration, by itself." I groan, loudly, flinging my head forward and hitting it onto the desk, gently. I feel Draco's hand touch the back of my neck and run his fingers through the back of my hair.

"Half an hour," I state, brushing his hand away and sitting back up, "Half an hour I've been here and so far all I've done is written the date and made this origami bloody swan." I reach over and grab the folded parchment, which presented a rather shoddy, what I attempted to be a swan, and hold it out to him.

"Well I have to say," He says, grabbing the swan out of my hand, "It's pretty impressive origami swan, darling." My stomach does a tiny flip of excitement at the word 'darling'. Recently, he had gotten into the habit of calling me that whenever he possibly could. However, whenever he said it, I couldn't help but feel a little twinge of exhilaration deep down.

"Why thank you," I say in a dramatic voice, pretending to give a bow. "What are you doing in the library anyways?"

"Well," He says with a smirk, placing his hand on top of mine and tracing his thumb over my knuckles, "I thought you might be in here and I wanted to come and see my favourite girl now, is that a problem?"

"No, not at all," I say, with a laugh, "Just wasn't expecting to see you here, that's all."

"Well I didn't get many opportunities to talk to you, yesterday, so I thought I'd come and visit you." She says, sweetly.