Written for Slytherin homework, from the Hogwarts Online Homework.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from Harry Potter.
Two Smiles
It isn't long before she admits that she's obsessed with the slight, blond-haired boy. She hates how people whisper and point at him whenever he passes, and how the silver sparkle in his rain-coloured eyes is now just a muted glint of grey. He wears an emotionless, guarded expression all the time, and hides out in the library during free periods. He doesn't play Quidditch anymore, he walks with his head down, hands shoved in pockets, and he hasn't spoken a single word, let alone voiced an insult, to her since the start of the year.
It seems that the leopard has changed its spots.
She watches as Dennis Creevey, a little boy no longer, corners him at the entrance to the Great Hall. He is pushed up against the wall, punches and blows rained on his body, but he makes no attempt to defend himself. As Dennis is dragged away, still shouting angrily with grief and desperation, he crumples to the floor in a heap. None of the watching bystanders do anything to help him. She wants to, she aches to run over to him and pull him up, to kiss the broken, defeated look off his face, but Luna Lovegood is staring at her, wide, blue eyes knowing and watchful.
Instead, she forces herself to walk away, not looking back.
She spends evenings in the library because he does, she goes out of her way to bump into him in the corridors, and her dreams are filled with the face of the blond boy with the eyes that have seen too much. She longs to see him smile, even just for a moment. She's infatuated, intoxicated, completely captivated by Draco Malfoy, and there's no way out.
It's the day of their graduation, and she's walking onto the stage to receive her certificate from the Headmistress. Looking out to the seated audience, she spots her parents, standing with Ron and Harry. Ignoring Ron's eager wave, she cranes her neck but she can't find the blonde hair of the Malfoys. She's not surprised exactly that they didn't come to their son's graduation ceremony, but she is when she sees Astoria Greengrass throw her arms around his neck as he steps down from the stage.
He smiles, a microscopic, tiny smile, but it's still a smile and there's a flicker of silver in his grey eyes. She feels as if she's been punched in the stomach, and stands there, frozen on the stage, as he walks off, Astoria's arm still around him.
The after-party in the hall is wild, wizard rock thumping through the walls and making all the champagne glasses shake on the tables. Ron finds her there. He's kissing her, whispering her name in her ear, and for the first time it feels wrong. The spark has gone, and her lips are rigid underneath his.
She drinks more than she should, but even the alcohol doesn't let her forget that she's in love with someone belongs to another.
He's sleeping in the library, hiding out from their inebriated classmates who are still celebrating in the hall five hours into the night. She's drunk and stumbles in, still laughing raucously. He lifts his head up from his arms, his expression guarded even when disoriented with fatigue. Her laughter dies, and suddenly she's caught up in the particular way his silver-blond hair is ruffled, and the muted glint in his rain-grey eyes. Balancing precariously on her five-inch heels, she openly stares at him until an amused, mocking half-smile reaches his lips.
Even drunk, her heart lifts at the sight of his smile.
'That's better,' she says softly. 'You should smile more often.'
The smile drops off his face almost faster than the eye could see, and is replaced by a careful wariness in his eyes.
'I didn't know you cared, Granger,' he says. She sighs, dropping gracelessly beside him on the couch.
'Oh, but I do,' she says, unembarrassed, encouraged by the Firewhiskey still surging through her veins. 'You're so different now; you've changed so much. You don't smirk, you don't insult me, and you're so quiet it's unbelievable.'
'One would think that after being on the losing side of a war I would have changed,' Draco says, a hint of his old arrogance in his voice. She leans towards him, and he notices her thick copper curls brushing his shoulder, her thigh pressing against his underneath the thin silk of her dress, and the way her wide brown eyes sparkled with life.
'Why are you even talking to me?'
'I don't know. I'm drunk. You're good-looking, you look lonely. I'm lonely, I'm bored, I'm getting sick of my boyfriend, I want to get laid. There are lots of possible reasons. But the truth is…' she says slowly. 'I think, I think I'm in love with you.'
'Granger…' he says awkwardly, standing up.
She looks up at him, expression full of hope.
'You're drunk, you should get to sleep,' he says quietly, avoiding her gaze.
She wakes up in the morning, lying in her red-and-gold silk bed with a roaring hangover. Groaning, she rolls over and buries her head in the blankets, trying and failing to block the unwelcome cascade of last night's memories pouring into her head. A glint of silver in grey eyes, slight, strong arms carrying her upstairs, two smiles, one for her, the other for another.
'... war veteran Draco Malfoy weds his girlfriend of one year, Astoria Greengrass. The guests included Mr Malfoy's parents, Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, the late Mrs Malfoy's sister, Daphne Greengrass, and strangely, well-known war heroine Hermione Weasley, née Granger…'
- Daily Prophet, 8th September, issue 396