His father didn't approve of me or of our friendship, and accordingly, neither did his mother. Our parents were the same: all were in Slytherin and all hated Muggle-borns, but the simple fact that my parents did not join the Dark Lord separated them. His parents didn't like me and so they attempted to avoid all situations that put us together, fearing that I would be a bad influence. But once we got to Hogwarts, they couldn't stop us.
As first years, we survived together without the cold stare of his father following us. He was my best friend. He trusted me, or at least as much as he could ever trust anyone. We survived our first year as nothing but friends.
That summer, his parents of course tried to keep us apart but we used the fires to communicate. Letters would be intercepted and read by his father. We couldn't count how many times his father almost caught him leaning his head into the fire so he could talk to me.
It was in our second year that I began to notice the change in how I felt around him. I missed him when he wasn't around. I enjoyed talking to him late into the night more than I had ever before. And when he played Quidditch, my heart was thumping out of my chest every time he divided, fearing he would fall. A lot of people, like Potter and his friends, thought Draco was the heir of Slytherin but that was the stupidest thing I'd ever heard. Draco was no more the heir of Slytherin than Dumbledore was.
Third year was interesting. Pansy Parkinson began to make her interest in Draco known, very known. Of course his parents approved of her. The stupid cow. She would take my seat next to Draco, or rather, practically sit upon his lap. And Draco, being male, would lap up the attention.
I can't deny that I was jealous. I had fallen for Draco and I couldn't do a thing about it. And so, as Draco and I became more distance, I turned to another Slytherin to occupy my time, Blaise Zabini. The boy was amusing company, but he did not hold the same attraction that Draco did. I figured that Draco would not deem to notice my new friendship with Blaise, but I was wrong…
"Marielle," Draco called from across the common room where he was resting comfortably in an armchair. I looked up from my book; he beckoned me over, but I scoffed and rolled my eyes.
Smirking, he got up and strolled over, taking a seat on the black couch next to me. "So you've been spending a lot of time with Zabini…"
"Yes." I said, not removing my eyes from my book.
"Why?"
I wasn't reading anymore. I was simply staring at the page, not absorbing the words. "I like him." I replied, nonchalantly.
I noted that Draco's nose twitched in dislike. "I don't think you should speak to him."
"Why?"
"Because he…" Draco sighed softly.
I closed my book and finally met his eyes. "Is there a reason you're wasting my time?" I asked as my heart thumped wildly in my chest.
"Zabini fancies you."
"So?" I shrugged.
Draco let out a sigh of annoyance and pursed his lips. "He fancies you. He wants to…wants to…ask you out." His tone suggested disbelief. Was I truly that repulsive that the idea of someone else asking me out seemed impossible to him?
I scoffed, "Thanks Draco. In case you hadn't noticed, I am a girl. And boys sometimes want to ask out girls that they like. Some boys can take a damn hint."
"I didn't mean it like that." He said defensively.
"Whatever," I said, standing up as I shook my head, "You never mean it 'like that.'" I tried to walk away but he grabbed my wrist and turned me around to face him.
"Why are you hanging out with him?"
"Why does it matter to you?"
"Because you're my best friend."
Rolling my eyes, I replied, "I've been hanging out with him because my 'best friend' has found someone to better occupy his time." I was absolutely seething. Draco had the nerve to question who I hung out with when he was the one who ignored me.
"I didn't-"
"Don't give me that. Your girlfriend is more important to you than your best friend. Just like everything else."
"Marielle, Pansy isn't my girl-"
"Just forget it Draco. Maybe your father's been right all along, we shouldn't be friends."
I didn't talk to Draco much for the rest of the year, not that he seemed to mind. He was busy with Pansy. Draco turned out to be right about Blaise, which I found out on the train ride home that year…
Pansy, Goyle, Crabbe, Blaise, Draco, and I were sharing a compartment. Goyle and Crabbe had gone to hunt down the trolley. Pansy had left her seat on Draco's lap to change out of her school robes, leaving Blaise, Draco and I alone.
I could feel both of their stares on me as I stared out the window, watching the passing scenery.
"Marielle?" I turned to face him.
"Yes?"
"I was wondering if you'd want to go out with me?" He completely disregarded the presence of the pale boy sitting across from us.
"Blaise…I'm not sure that's a good idea…because I'm not going to be around much this summer. Maybe, when the school starts again in September, if you feel the same way, we can give it a try, alright?"
Blaise nodded, although he looked slightly crestfallen.
Needless to say, I didn't miss the slight smirk on Draco's face.
Pansy soon returned and her little flirtations occupied Draco's time.
Once the train pulled into the station, I flew out of there, desperate to be rid of them all for the summer.
"Marielle, wait!" Grudgingly I turned around and I saw him, pushing his way toward me through the crowd at King's Cross.
"What is it, Draco? I don't have time for your-" His pale hands found their way to cup my face. "W-What are you doing?"
His lips found mine and I was gone. With my eyes closed, I was lost in my first kiss with my best friend. My arms went up and wrapped around his neck, trying to pull him closer. I paid no attention to the hundreds of people and classmates milling around us, trying to find their families. One of his hands left my face and traveled down to wrap tightly around my waist.
And then as quickly as it began, it ended as someone bumped into us, shattering the little world we'd created in a matter of moments.
Breathing heavily, I met his grey eyes hesitantly.
"W-why?" I stuttered out.
"I don't want you to date Blaise," he muttered; his gaze never left mine.
"Why?" I pressed. "Why does it matter to you?"
He sighed, and I'm sure if one hand wasn't holding my cheek gingerly and the other wasn't wrapped around my waist, he would've pushed back the hair that was falling into his face in frustration.
"Because I…Marielle I…I car-"
"Draco."
Draco's eyes flashed with worry; we both recognized the voice. Draco's grip tightened on me for only a moment before it disappeared altogether. His eyes screamed at me to understand, but they didn't need to. I already knew.
"Marielle Bloodmoon, give my best to your parents." The man said in a low, subtly disgusted tone.
His father wouldn't make a scene by screaming at his son now. Lucius Malfoy cared too much about his reputation for that. But as Draco walked away with his father, I knew Lucius wouldn't hold back once they were inside the privacy of his own home. I shuddered at the thought.
I worried constantly about Draco. His father was pissed. They didn't want Draco associating with me, let alone kissing me.
"Marielle." I jumped into the air with my heart thumping wildly.
"Draco?" I screamed before jumping off my bed and throwing my arms around him. "I hadn't heard from you and I was…I was…I was worried. Are you alright? Did he-"
"I'm fine." He interrupted before placing his lips on mine.
Draco appeared a lot that summer and once or twice he had to hide in the closet to avoid my father.
"Marielle," he began with a sigh a few nights before the start of school, "…once we get back to Hogwarts…we can't-"
"I know." I replied with a roll of my eyes. "You have to keep your reputation." I snapped.
"Hey!" He said sharply, grabbing my hands in his, "You know Icare-" He stopped. "You know what you mean to me."
"Do I? Because you don't seem to know yourself."
He let go of my hands and pinched the bridge of his nose tightly. "I need you to promise that you won't go out with Blaise."
"Why? Why can't I have fun with someone else when you obviously don't want anything to do with me?"
"Marielle Bloodmoon!" He growled and forced me over onto my back. He straddled my waist and held my wrists down, forcing me to look at him. "My father doesn't approve-"
"And because of that I shouldn't get to be happy?" I snapped as I tried to get him off of me.
"You know you wouldn't be happy with Blaise."
"So? It's the principle of the thing!"
"Marielle," he kissed me, "just…don't date Blaise…for me."
I stared into his grey eyes as he hovered above me. "On one condition." I said finally.
"Yes?"
"Don't date Pansy." I said. He bit his lip, as he often did when he was thinking.
"Fine." He nodded.
Once we were back at Hogwarts, Draco and I had to keep our relationship a secret, just in case anyone decided to tell Draco's father. I thought Draco had kept his promise; I had kept mine. I had trusted him…but I found out, as the Yule Ball approached, I'd been foolish to believe him…
"Have you heard about the Yule Ball?" I asked, sitting down next to him at the table for breakfast.
"Yes," he nodded, avoiding my eyes.
"Do you think you'd…" I couldn't get out what I wanted to say. But he cared about me, so he'd say yes, wouldn't he? I tried again. "Will you go to the-"
"Draco!" We both looked up to see Pansy standing expectantly behind us.
"Can we help you-" I began.
"Marielle, move down." My eyes flew to Draco's, startled. I hoped he would make eye contact with me to explain, but instead he stared determinedly at his plate of food.
"Yeah…yeah sure." I muttered and moved down one empty seat to make room for Pansy. For the rest of lunch, I listened as Pansy gushed about how she had the "perfect dress" for the Yule Ball and how they were going to have "so much fun."
I couldn't believe it. How could I have been such a fool? I should've known. We were Slytherins. Slytherins don't care about anyone. Draco Malfoy didn't care about anyone. Least of all, me.
Things became horribly awkward, tense, and cold between Draco and me after that. He was busy with his Pansy.
Night after night, that I didn't spend talking to Draco in the common room for long hours, was spent instead in my dorm room, listening to Pansy go on and on to Millicent, Tracey, and Daphne about how, over the summer, Draco came over to her house, quite often. Apparently, I wasn't the only one he had been visiting, but I was the only one his parents didn't like. A fact I soon learned when Pansy commented that Narcissa Malfoy simply "fawned" over her.
Finally, the Yule Ball arrived…
I couldn't stand having to watch them dance again and again together. Blaise had asked me to the Yule Ball, but there was no point. I didn't care for Blaise and I certainly couldn't use him to make Draco jealous, seeing as Draco didn't give a damn.
I soon left the winter wonderland that the Hall had become, in need of air.
Not caring that I was wearing a dress, I seated myself down underneath a tree as I listened to the gentle sound of bugs in the nature around me.
"Why are you out here alone?" He asked.
"Why aren't you out here without Pansy?" I replied.
"Marielle, my father sent me a letter just after the news of the Yule Ball was announced. He ordered that I take Pansy-"
"Oh? Did he also 'order' you to go to her house over the summer and 'spend time' with her?" I snapped back.
"How did you-"
"Pansy has a big mouth," I replied, already knowing what he was going to ask. "I'm glad you're happy, Draco. I just wish you weren't such a bastard." I stood up and intended to walk away, but he stopped me, simply with his words. I turned back to face him.
"I don't know what you expected from me, Marielle." He stood facing the darkness, with his hands in the pockets of him robe.
"Like a fool, I expected you to keep your promise," I said coldly as my breath showed up in the cold air.
"Pansy and I aren't dating," he muttered.
I scoffed. "Congratulations on finding a loophole in your promise."
He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "You know how my parents feel."
"Yes! I know how your parents fee! I know how my parents feel! I know how Pansy feels! But I don't know how you feel! And those are the only feelings I care about!"
"Marielle!-"
"I don't know what you want from me, Draco! It's fine. I get it, alright? I'm not good enough for you and your bloody family! So why can't you just let me walk away? Why can't you just let me find someone else? Why can't you just go back to Pansy and leave me alone?"
"I don't know what I want!" He yelled, stepping closer to me. "Every moment of every day, I have my father screaming at me, telling me how to be. And I have my mother screaming at me to listen to my father. I have Pansy telling me that I should be with her. And I can barely hear myself and what I think I should do! I don't know how I feel. I don't know if I care about you more than Pansy or if I care enough about my father to live my life for him. All I know is that if I have to hear Blaise tell me one more time how he will get you to agree to be his girlfriend I'm going to murder him!"
"That doesn't mean anything Draco! I need something! Anything! You are you! You are your own person! You have to know what you want!"
"I want to dance with you!"
"What?-"
"Can't it be enough, just for tonight, that I just…want to?"
"Draco-"
"Marielle. Dance with me."
"I-"
But he gave me no time to refuse as he swept me into his arms and held me close.
"One dance. It's all I ask for."
As the music from the Hall drifted outside, he began to move us, twirling and swaying to the beat of the slow song that played.
"Marielle," he whispered. "Marielle. Marielle." His breath tickled my ear and I shivered as the heat meshed with my cold skin. My head rested against his chest, with his chin resting atop my head. For once our height difference worked out nicely.
Suddenly he pulled back, as we swayed still, and whispered, "I kissed Pansy. And I wished it was you." He kissed my cheek.
"Every dinner I went to with my parents and Pansy, I wished it was you next to me." He kissed my other cheek.
"Every time Pansy took my hand, I wished it was you." He kissed my forehead.
"Every time, my mother spoke adoringly of Pansy, I wished she was talking about you." He kissed my nose.
"Every time my father spoke disparagingly of you, I wished I had the courage to stand to him and tell him he was wrong." He kissed my temple.
"Every time I see you, I wish things could be different." He kissed my other temple.
"Every time I think of you, I wish I had the courage to tell you have much I care about you."
Finally, he kissed me softly on my lips shortly.
"I care about you."
He kissed me again.
"I care about you."
Once again he kissed me as he pulled me closer.
"I care about you, Marielle."
He kissed me once more, just like he had that day at the train station. Except this time, there was no interruption from his father. There were no people milling around us. It was just us. We were alone in the world as the stars twinkled above us.
The moon shone brightly down upon us; the light reflected off the Black Lake and illuminated our faces. We kissed and danced slowly, even after the last song of the Yule Ball ended.
