The Heiress of Slytherin

The Kids Aren't Alright

Ivy had been incredibly relieved to find out that she only had to be in the hospital wing overnight; apparently, a broken and bruised leg was considerably less serious than potential brain damage. As much as she loved Madam Pomfrey, she did not want another week of staring at the wall until her friends got out of class.

Also, she had dinner plans with Hermione that night, and she didn't want to miss them. When the time drew near for them to meet, Ivy skipped merrily to the Great Hall with Draco walking amusedly by her side. He'd been glued there since the night before, refusing to return to the dorms without her, then carrying her book bag for her all day.

Ivy kept trying to tell him he was being ridiculous, and that he did not have to feel guilty for reacting very normally to a very frightening situation. He hadn't bought it all day, frowning glumly at her leg and muttering under his breath, until Ivy had grabbed him by the shoulders after their last class and forced him to look at her.

"Draco. Stop it. You've done nothing wrong. You're a Slytherin, not a Gryffindor, which means that you have survival skills in place of a death wish. It's a valuable instinct, and you were trying to save me also by pulling me along after you. Now, I won't hear any more of your nonsense. Is that understood?" Draco laughed at her joke and smiled at her, nodding his head slightly.

Ivy was glad he wasn't beating himself up anymore; he could be an absolute tosser when he wanted to be, but she couldn't help being incredibly fond of him. He listened to her about ways to be less annoying, and she listened to him when he talked about his struggles at home. Their hangouts on the Astronomy tower had only grown more and more frequent over the semester, and in a very odd way, Ivy was almost glad that her run-in with the mountain troll had kept her in the hospital wing because it had allowed them to become closer friends than ever.

While he'd accepted that it wasn't his fault that she'd gotten hurt, he still stuck to her side like glue, and Ivy had had to pry her bag away from him once they reached the Great Hall, playfully shoving his shoulder to make him turn around and walk towards the Slytherin table. He held his hands up in surrender and offered Ivy a goofy grin, which she returned in kind before she spun around and walked over to Hermione.

Draco watched her walk away, her long black ponytail swinging behind her, tied up by a dark green ribbon before he turned and walked to sit down amidst his friends, the goofy grin still plastered on his face.

After he'd sat down, he looked over to see if Ivy was still at the Gryffindor table, and his face immediately shifted into a frown when he saw Harry Potter and Ron Weasley dash over to her, the former immediately taking her bag from her, slinging it over his shoulder.

Noticing the stormy expression on his face, his friends turned around to see what he was looking at. Rolling their eyes and grinning at each other, they ate on in silence. Malfoy was the biggest idiot they knew when it came to Ivy, but they had pointed that out enough times to know that saying it wouldn't help. He would just have to learn the hard way.

Ivy was blissfully unaware of her friend's sudden change in mood as she arrived happily at the Gryffindor table. She had just reached Hermione when two rapid sets of footsteps behind her alerted her to Harry and Ron running towards them. She turned and raised her eyebrows at the flushed boys.

"Hullo Ivy! Hermione! We were wondering if we could join you for dinner?" Ron asked brightly, although he was a little out of breath. Ivy nodded smiling but didn't have time to respond before Harry chimed in.

He had caught sight of her bag and frowned deeply. "What are you doing, carrying that around? Your leg was at a right angle only last night?" As he chided her he reached out and grabbed the bag, pulling it onto his shoulder, and frowned at her from behind his glasses.