Under the Willow Tree | Draco Malfoy

chapter 27: like hypothermia

Lorelei Jones | 4th Year

It was a Saturday afternoon a few weeks later, and Lorelei was sitting at a table beside Luna while they both wrote their Charms essays. The two girls were both quiet as they worked, for Luna didn't say much regularly, and Lorelei was beyond exhausted after struggling to keep up with all of her assignments that week. Luna was handling everything with grace, and Lorelei really wanted to learn Luna's tricks to stay calm.

So, the two girls sat side by side at the table in the library, with their sun and moon earrings and matching necklaces that Luna made to keep the nargles away. Luna was seated in a crossed-legged position on her chair with her feet tucked underneath her while Lorelei was hunched over her parchment with her right hand propping up her head.

The only sound in the library was the slight crinkling of parchment and the crisp sound of textbook pages being turned. The students who were in the library to study all seemed incredibly stressed, and their quietness was a reflection of that.

In that quiet space, Luna suddenly spoke and slightly startled Lorelei.

"Draco Malfoy is staring at you."

Luna hadn't looked up from her Charms books as she said this, making Lorelei's eyebrows come together. Her gaze drifted over to the table where a group of Slytherins had gathered. Lorelei tried to not react when she met Draco's pale grey eyes. He was staring at her with a smug little smile on his lips, and something strange happened inside Lorelei's stomach.

She wondered if this was what the people in the Hallmark movies meant when they said they got butterflies.

Lorelei glanced back down at her parchment with her blonde hair now shielding half of her face, but the other half was still visible and very clearly red. She wasn't sure why Draco could so easily make her flustered, but she hoped that would end soon. She just wasn't very cool, she thought. She needed more confidence.

"He's still staring at you. He's been staring at you for the past twenty minutes without looking away much," Luna said as she casually turned a page in her textbook.

"Twenty minutes?" Lorelei hissed to her best friend with her cheeks heating up even further. Why on earth was Draco Malfoy staring at her for so long?

Lorelei stole a glance up again, and Draco was still staring at her as Luna had already warned her. Her cheeks warmed, but she blinked at Draco and lowered her eyebrows in question. She was unaware of how she pushed her lips out into the slightest of pouts, but Draco noticed. His eyes drifted down to her lips before meeting her eyes once again with an even wider smirk.

After a moment, Lorelei realized that Draco wasn't going to give her any indication of why he was looking at her. She looked down at her books again and put a hand on her cheek to cover the color that she was just sure was shading her skin. Lorelei tried her best to ignore Draco's stare, but now that she knew he was looking, it was hard to keep her own eyes averted.

The entire situation was so curious to Lorelei. She truthfully didn't know what to do with herself. The only other boy who had given her even a remotely similar amount of attention was Enzo, but the two boys felt so different to Lorelei. With time, Enzo's lingering stares and charming words made Lorelei's skin crawl, but Draco's attention was different. When she knew he was looking at her, she felt like she was glowing.

Lorelei couldn't contain her little smiles as she stared down at her parchment that afternoon, and these grins were not missed by Luna or by Draco.

So, when Lorelei got up later to grab another book for her essay, Draco decided to follow after her on an impulse. She settled into the narrow aisle between two tall bookshelves and began to scan the spines for the correct title. She let her fingers drift across the books while her lips moved silently to read the names of the books, but she still hadn't found what she needed.

Just as Lorelei latched her fingers onto the needed book, a particular boy with silvery blond hair sidled up beside her and leaned against the bookshelf.

"Hi, princess," he said with half of his mouth tipped up and his eyes trained on her.

Lorelei blushed and tugged the frayed book to her chest. She murmured, "Oh... Hi."

"What have you got there?" Draco asked and took a step closer to inspect the faded title on the spine of the book.

"Oh, it's just a book for a Charms essay," Lorelei said but still turned the book around for Draco to look at it.

He carefully took it from her, their fingers brushing briefly in the process, and Lorelei temporarily forgot how to breathe. His hands were just as cold and soft as they were when they caught her mid-collision last year. It was odd to her how something could feel so cold yet so comforting at the same time.

Like hypothermia, Lorelei thought with an amused smile.

"Something funny?" Draco wondered with the corners of his lips twitching upwards as he handed the book back to her.

Lorelei immediately shook her head, not envisioning that Draco would be too pleased to hear that she was just comparing him to a deadly bodily state. However, Draco could tell she was hiding something, so he didn't like this answer.

Draco stepped closer to her, and Lorelei took steps back until she was leaning against the bookshelves behind her and staring up into his pale grey eyes curiously.

He placed a hand on the shelf behind her head, and Lorelei knew that it should have made her afraid that notorious bully Draco Malfoy was cornering her, but it didn't. She liked that he had gotten so close. Part of her even thought she wanted him closer.

"You're lying to me, princess," he murmured with his head dipped down and closer to hers. She swore his lips brushed against her ear when he breathed, "Why?"

"Because I don't think you'll find the joke funny." Plus, I'm worried you might try to hex me if I tell you I compared you to hypothermia.

Lorelei didn't say the second half of this thought, but it showed in her expression. Lorelei was never good at concealing her thoughts and emotions. Often her face just did whatever it pleased, and she had to deal with the consequences.

This time, the consequences were Draco pulling away with a cold expression on his previously smirking features. He didn't say anything else to Lorelei. He didn't even look at her as he abandoned her in the space between the two shelves with her cheeks still flushed bright pink.

Lorelei's heart sank at his retreating form. She hadn't meant to hurt his feelings.

Now, she was left with the lingering cold feeling from his touch and wishing to know what would have happened if he had stayed around a little longer. Maybe it would have been nothing, but maybe it would have been everything.

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