Blaire Zabini || Draco Malfoy

31 - Shiny Objects

Draco begged me to stay on at Hogwarts over Christmas with him; and, seeing as I didn't much care to sit around eating dry turkey whilst my mother drank herself into a gin coma, I agreed.

"How come you're not going home, though?" I asked, thinking it must be a pretty big reason for Narcissa to allow her son to be away from home for a second Christmas in a row.

Draco mumbled something about his father and meetings. Clearly 'work' conferences were now becoming a regular thing in Malfoy Manor.

So, with no classes, and pretty much the whole castle to ourselves, Draco and I had a whale of a time. Especially as little drama happened thanks to Harry Potter been elsewhere for the holidays.

On Christmas morning, I woke him up by barging into his room.

"MERRY CHRISTMAS, GOLDILOCKS!" I yelled, jumping onto the foot of his bed.

"What the fuck-?" the Slytherin muttered drowsily, blinking up through the tousled strands of his very messy bed hair.

Despite his sleepy state, an arm shot up when I tossed a present at him, catching it deftly in the long slender fingers of his hand.

"Nice," I smirked. "Now if only you wouldn't let a certain Gryffindor distract you on the pitch, then you'd be by far the school's best Seeker."

He sat up groggily, tiredly shaking his head awake before suspiciously inspecting the wrapped gift in his hand. "What is this?"

"It's the American Bill of Rights," I said, rolling my eyes, "what the fuck do you think it is, Drac? It's a Christmas present, from me to you."

"Come 'ere," he muttered, pulling back the covers and patting the empty space next to him.

I crawled up the bed, relieved he was at least wearing a t-shirt. I, myself, was modestly attired in my Slytherin green pyjamas.

"I don't think Pansy would be too thrilled to see you in bed with another girl," I sniggered as I slithered between the green sheets next to him.

"Yeah, but it's you," he shrugged, "and you don't count."

"Wow, thanks for that, Mr I'm Too Chicken Shit To Dump My Girlfriend."

"She's not my girlfriend! It's just-"

"-just kissing, yeah I know, Drac. But is it even that anymore? Anyway, shut up and open your present."

I snuggled down under the covers, burying my head into the pillow as I kept one eye open, watching him carefully tear open the sparkling green wrapping of the small lumpy package.

Inside was a Walkman, containing a cassette already filled with carefully selected music, ready to be listened to.

He looked down at me, his eyebrow raised enquiringly.

"Soundtracks from our favourite films." I explained propping my head up in my hand. "I put the best ones on there."

"The Labyrinth?" He asked, his eyes lighting up hopefully.

"Of course." I grinned, recalling the amount of times he made me watch David Bowie prancing about in interestingly tight clothing. "I'm hardly going to leave out the legend that is the Goblin King, am I?"

Draco swallowed, holding up the Walkman in his hand with a kind of awestruck look upon his face. "How did you even-?"

"Bernard has Muggle contacts," I shrugged. "It's no big deal."

"Fuck, Blaire," he murmured, slowly exhaling a long drawn out breath. "This- this is..."

His voice trailed off as his eyes met mine, and I felt a strange fluttering in my heart at the tenderness dancing across his features; his expression almost longing.

I couldn't quite explain it, but it was as though the air had stilled between us. My breath seemed to catch in my throat, and I found myself struggling to swallow as my head pulsated against the suddenly damp palm of my hand.

He sank down next to me, and for a crazy, mad moment, I thought he was going to kiss me. And I pictured it so vividly; my heart racing as I imagined how it would feel to have his lips press against mine; to have his hands tangle in my hair, pulling me close, wanting me.

But instead he passed me an ear phone and the moment instantly vanished without me giving it another thought.

Together we spent the next couple of hours listening to music in his bed, skipping breakfast; knowing that lunch was going to be huge.

He'd seemed embarrassed at the present he'd gotten me; a Muggle board-game called Monopoly. But I loved it, fascinated by the little shiny silver game pieces, all in the shape of random objects.

"I like the old boot best," I smiled, twirling it around delicately between my fingers, marvelling in the beautiful mundaneness of it.

Draco, in a surprising move, favoured the Scottie dog.

"I always wanted one when I was little," he shrugged at the baffled look upon my face. "I imagined it would make life less lonely, you know, having a companion to explore the grounds with."

"Well, why didn't you?" I asked, shocked that little lord Malfoy had been denied something he so sorely desired.

"Father doesn't approve of keeping animals other than owls or peacocks." Draco sighed somewhat sadly as he looked down at the shiny Scottie dog in his hand. "He always says dogs are the common man's pet."

"I'm sure there's a certain lady in this little building called Buckingham Palace that might say otherwise." I scoffed, hating Lucius even more.

"Believe me, Muggles don't count in Father's book." Draco snorted bitterly. "Not even the Queen of England."

"What would you have called him?" I asked, nodding down to the tiny silver dog that had Draco almost hypnotised.

"Orion," he said without a second's hesitation, his pale cheeks immediately colouring, "or something like that..." he trailed off, mumbling bashfully.

"Cute," I grinned up at him, nudging my shoulder teasingly against his.

It was quite possibly the best Christmas of my life; days spent with Draco holed up in the dungeons, listening to music and playing uninterrupted games of Monopoly that would last for hours on end.

It made everything suck so much more when the rest of the students returned to the castle in the new year.

Predictably, Pansy beelined for Draco, keeping her promise to never leave his side. And before I knew it, a thin layer of dust had started to appear across the lid of the abandoned Monopoly box.

"The Inquisitorial Squad?!" I spluttered when Draco and Pansy had come sauntering into the common room together one night, both proudly fingering new shiny badges that adorned the front of their robes. "What the fuck is that?"

I soon found out, though. Draco no longer cared about his prefect duties, too busy drowning in the power that Umbridge was granting him.

He was so hungry for it, that he once again put something else before our friendship and I barely saw him during those last few months of the school year whilst he was at Umbridge's beck and call, rounding up students for her to punish.

I tried not to show how much I was bothered; instead immersing myself in my OWL studies and spending my free time relaxing in the prefect bathroom when I could.

And then, one night, everything blew up quite spectacularly.

It was a night that certainly changed the course of our friendship, that was for sure.

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