Who Are You? (Draco Malfoy)

Chapter 4: The Fine Line

I run through the halls, hoping I could get to the Ravenclaw common room but I was stopped whenever I ran into Harry. Both of us fell flat on our butts from the impact and I winced at the pain. Whenever I realized who I had knocked down I scrambled to my feet, holding out a hand to him. "I'm so so sorry, Harry! I didn't mean to run into you." I say in a rushed voice and he gives me a small smile, taking my hand and letting me help him to his feet. Ron and Hermoine stood on either side of him, looking a bit shocked at my sudden entrance.

"It's fine, really. Don't worry about it." Harry says and I nod to him, letting out a sigh before trying to walk away. "Elena, are you okay?" Hermoine asks and I freeze, giving her a strange look. "Why wouldn't I be?" I ask and she frowns at me. "Your eyes look a bit red. Have you been crying?" she questions and I wipe the bottom of my eyes, cursing myself mentally as I felt the liquid on my cheeks. I didn't even realize I had been crying. "I'm fine. I promise." I lie and give her a smile, but she doesn't buy my lie at all.

"Elena what happened?" she asks and I shake my head. "Nothing, I'm fine!" I say a bit desperately and now all three of them are staring at me, looking very concerned. "You don't look fine." Ron says and I can see the confusion in his eyes. He was with me ten minutes ago and I was fine then, but now I'm sure I was a mess. "Just...I just fell down and scraped my knee. Nothing too bad. I just need to bandage it and I'll be fine." I lie, and as I talk I see Draco pass me, giving me a curious stare and I know he heard what I had said.

"I'm sorry again for the trouble I've caused you. I'll...I'll be going now." I say and give them a sharp nod before walking away from them, not even bothering to stay and listen to anything else they could tell me. I wiped my eyes again to make sure I wasn't crying anymore before making my way to the staircase that would lead me to my common room. I glanced around me as I walked up the stairs and I had to do a double take down towards the bottom. Draco was down there, staring up at me with a look that mixed between a glare and confusion.

I look away from him and run the rest of the way up the stairs, saying the password and reaching the inside of the common room safely. There were only a few people inside, luckily, so I got by them quickly and went up to my room. I sat down on my bed, letting out a sigh of relief. I don't know why I didn't just tell Harry and them about my skirmish with Malfoy...I just didn't want to bring it up. It was a pointless fight that meant nothing to me. He's just...trouble. That's what Malfoy is. He's trouble with legs.

Running a hand through my hair out of frustration, I opened up my Transfiguration book, beginning to read the next two chapters. If I could just escape from Malfoy by coming up here during all my free periods, I could manage to get by this year without much more trouble from him. He can't get in here, so its my perfect hiding place.

My mind finally began to relax as I read about nonverbal spells and how to use them. They were very interesting to me, so I ended up reading the entire section for nonverbal spells. It took up about two hours of my time, but it was well worth it. Most of my classes were early in the week, so it left me with very little Thursdays and Fridays. I finally finished the last page of the section and I closed my book, thinking over all the information I read before jotting down some notes about it that I thought would be extremely useful.

Once I finished I smiled down at my work, proud of what I accomplished despite what happened previously today. I put away my parchment and my book, tucking them into my bag, before I slid it underneath my bed. I didn't have another class today, so I decided that I was going to go to the Owl Tower to visit Myra. Thinking about it more, I grabbed a spare piece of parchment and my quill and wrote a note to my Aunt Darcy. I wrote how school was going, and that I was having only a little trouble so far. But I didn't mention my arguments with Malfoy. She didn't need to worry about something as trivial as this.