Draco's Hufflepuff | Emerging

Seventy-Seven: Animosity

**

Monday, 12th May, 1997

I was sat in the Hufflepuff common room with a cup of tea, wishing it were something stronger. The days should be getting easier by now, not getting harder.

The pain was no longer a blistering, searing heat, but a dull, persistent ache. I would still get burnt every once in a while, reminding me that I had lost the most important person in my life.

News had naturally spread around the castle about what happened with Draco in Professor Slughorn's party. The thing that really pissed me off about it was the fact people were even more convinced that he was a Death Eater now.

I heard all of their muffled conversations and nasty whispers, even when they thought I couldn't hear, I always did. This made the rumours ramp up as well. Some of them were about me, but most of them were about Draco and his family.

Why else would he be there? Sneaking around like a freak?

I reckon Maddie knew he's a follower of You-Know-Who, that's why she broke up with him.

No, she's so fucked up about him that I think she would still stick by him.

Could you imagine being that crazy? Over a boy, no less. It's really unhealthy, don't you think?

It was obvious it was going to happen, just look at who his parents are.

I was all by myself, which I didn't mind too much, because it meant I didn't have to pretend to have the energy to join in with conversations or to pay attention to what's going on around me. I didn't have it in me any more to be normal or be in the moment.

It was as though I was both invisible and stood-out at the same time. Because of my involvement with Draco, and the subsequent breakdown of our relationship, I was the topic of a lot of discussions around the castle.

I didn't even care now, I think I'd rather them talk about me, because then they were leaving Draco alone and keeping his name out of their mouths. It was the only thing I could do for him at the moment – that and defending him whenever I could.

**

I decided to walk over to Transfiguration a little earlier than necessary, because I needed to get up and do something. Sitting in silence just festering over thoughts of Draco and how worthless I felt were beginning to annoy me.

I knew it was stupid, because I knew it was torture to myself, but I deliberately slowed right down as I got to the Slytherin common room. I needed a fix of him, even just a small glimpse. I would even take him calling me a cunt again. I just needed something.

I wondered how I went for those five and a bit years of not having him... how did I survive? He was integral now to my existence, just as water or air was. I think I needed him even more so, however, because he was a part of my entire being, my genetic make-up, like my body didn't even belong to me anymore.

As I reached the portrait of the elderly wizard, my head was craning from left-to-right, screaming internally for a sighting of him.

My heart stilled in my chest and my blood iced in my veins as I noticed a tall, lean boy in Slytherin robes, he had the same exact shade of blonde hair as Draco, and it was gelled back like his was too.

I took a deep breath to steady myself and try to gather some composure. I was weirdly excited; it was the most I had felt in a while. It was strange how he still had this effect on me, even as I was going through the worst time in my entire life.