Savior? ¦¦ Draco Malfoy

Chapter 3

Sophia befriended Daphne; she was actually her best friend at Hogwarts. Blaise also seemed like a nice person, and they got along with each other since he apologized. Pansy still did not grow fond of her. And the two chubby boys, she found out that their names were Gregory Goyle and Vincent Crabbe, only followed Malfoy. The platinum-blonde boy did not really seem interested in building a friendship with Sophia; they sat at the same table at the meals, and they also had many classes together but Malfoy seemed like he had more important things on his mind than making new friends. She actually caught him staring at her from time to time, but she did not think anything about it.

A few weeks had already passed, and Sophia found out many things about her new school. For example, she wondered why there were many friends who are not in the same house but Slytherin was hardly ever included. When she asked Hermione, she found out that Slytherins didn't exactly have the best reputation among other houses. Luckily, Hermione did not care much about that idiotic rivalry – well, not when it came to Sophia at least. Every two days, the Gryffindor and she would meet up in the library and study together. Sometimes Ron and Harry were with them, but they seemed rather suspicious of Sophia and therefore did not trust her. It made her sad the first few times, but she knew that she had to get used to it since she was a Slytherin. "That's just dumb! Just because a hat put me among a different group of people, it doesn't mean that I am a monster!", Sophia expressed her opinion when people treated her differently because of her house for the first time. Then, she proceeded to spend the rest of the afternoon outside, alone. That was also the day she decided to roam through the halls and found out about the astronomy tower. It was forbidden to go up there unless for classes. Since Sophia found that room, she used it as her secret spot and went there whenever she was sad or needed some time alone.

Sophia also found out that there wasn't just a rivalry between Gryffindor and Slytherin, there was also one between a particular group of those – better said Malfoy's friend group and the golden trio's one. "So that's why Malfoy stormed out that angrily when Harry won the liquid luck on the first day of school?", Sophia asked remembering the bizarre situation and Hermione nodded. The Gryffindor did not trust the new girl enough to confess that they actually suspected Malfoy to be a death eater and that they thought he planned something bad which he needed the luck for.

On October 11th, it was a Friday, Sophia sat at lunch like every day. Only this time, everyone was excited for the first Hogsmeade trip of the school year. Sophia was listening to conversations about what they would do there and which shops they were looking most forward to go to. "Drakey, do you want to go to Hogsmeade with me tomorrow?", Pansy asked the boy in front of her, smiled in love, and fluttered her eyelashes. Sophia nearly choked on her pumpkin juice when she heard this nickname and couldn't suppress an amused chuckle which she tried to cover up by faking having to cough. Daphne also smirked, looking right through Sophia's act. "I told you not to call me that, Pansy. And no, I am spending detention with McGonagall because I forgot my homework twice in a row," he answered with an annoyed tone in his voice. This got him a worried look by Pansy. "But Drakey—Draco... You normally are exemplary and you're a prefect! Is everything fine?", she asked him. Sophia actually was surprised about the caring tone in Pansy's voice as she had only experienced her being mean. Well, as it seems, Pansy only nourished a feeling of dislike towards her, not to anyone else. Malfoy only rolled his eyes and told her to let it be. Sophia still did not know if the two of them were a couple as Pansy surely seemed like she adored him, but he seemed like he wasn't interested in anything, really.

Everyone continued chattering and to Sophia's surprise, Blaise asked her to go to Hogsmeade with him. She had thought that she would just ask Daphne or Hermione to show her around but spending time with Blaise sounded nice, too. He was her friend, too, after all. "Sure, I'd love to!", she answered smiling. "Do I need anything to be allowed to go?", she asked as this was her first trip. Daphne explained that they all had to hand in a permission slip in their third year before their first trip which gave them permission to take part every Hogsmeade weekend. Sophia suddenly looked rather uncomfortable and fiddled with her fingers when this was mentioned. "I guess I'll have to take a trip to the Headmaster's office later this day, then", she murmured more to herself than to anyone else. This got herself the attention of Draco Malfoy who hadn't exchanged a word with her since that day he invited her to sit with them. "No, you have to hand it over to your Head of house, Snape. Dumbledore is not responsible for such little, unimportant things," he said rather harshly. Since everyone was talking about this trip, Malfoy seemed tenser than ever. "No, no, that's not the reason why... Uh, you know, he's like my legal guardian right now, so he needs to sign it," she said and scratched her neck. She did not exactly like to talk about any matter revolving around her family situation as she and her family were known as blood traitors among those wealthy pure-blood families – And Slytherin was full of those. Hearing those words made him tense up even more, and he looked straight into her eyes, searching for a sign that showed she was lying or joking. But he did not find even a little one. A look of confusion was on Sophia's face; he behaved weirdly. Well, actually she couldn't know if this was weird coming from him as she hadn't really interacted much with him before and therefore did not know if this was his typical behavior – but that was very unlikely, right? Draco shook his head and broke the eye contact by doing so. "Have fun", he said as he stood up and left the Great Hall, leaving a half-full plate behind. No one had realized that he had lost some weight and that he had bags under his eyes quite frequently, no one had realized it even rudimentary – Except Sophia. She is often too shy to include herself in conversations when Pansy, Crabbe, and Goyle were around, considering they were mean to her. Therefore, she had enough time to listen closely to conversations and observe her surroundings – and Malfoy seemed to get more ill from day-to-day. Sophia was not daft, though. She knew that it wasn't any of her business and that he wouldn't appreciate her asking about his wellbeing as they did not trust nor even know each other. They weren't even on a first-name basis.

"What the hell was this?", Daphne whispered to Sophia which confirmed her assumption: This was no normal behavior, not even for Draco Malfoy. But she couldn't know the reason why he behaved like that, so she just shrugged. This was the first direct interaction she had with Malfoy in over a month, and she really did not expect it to take place like that. And she couldn't forget his eyes, she even thought that she imagined seeing some look of worry or despair in them. Though, was it really just an imagination? Little did she know about the task he had, the task that caused him to be scared of failure, the task leading him to persuade plans that weren't even thought through.

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