Letters

If she had to pinpoint an exact date as to when the letters had started arriving, Seule Saigner would say fifth year. Definitely fifth year. That summer, she had rocketed up, her chest had rocketed out, and she rocketed her way right into Draco Malfoy's very willing arms. Yes, Seule thought, the letters most definitely started in fifth year.
These letters weren't the ordinary kind though. They weren't the kind of letter that went "Harry- meet me and Hermione at Hagrid's hut today after Herbology in Greenhouse 2." Seule happened to find that particular letter, written by a Mister Ronald Weasley to be the most hilarious. While any normal onlooker might not find the hilarity in this short note, Seule did.
Mister Weasley was her most frequent admirer. Almost every morning, his weeny little owl would come zooming to her place setting, along with the zillions of other owls. Ron's usual letters always contained much of the following:
"... your eyes are like green orbs that never cease to amaze me... though we are worlds, families, and two house tables apart, we shall one day be united.... I love you from afar, my darling Seule... ".
Why the short impersonal letter about meeting at Hagrid's hut was so funny to Seule was because Ron had messed up. He had accidentally switched his letters, and sent her the wrong one. Harry, unfortunately, had received Ron's mushy love letter intended for Seule's eyes only. Needless to say, when Harry received the accidental note, his eyebrows nearly shot into his hair, and his glasses slipped off his nose and fell into his goblet of juice. Seule, realizing the mix-up had snorted into her own glass of pumpkin juice and started laughing until tears leaked out of her eyes. She then watched as Harry waved the frilly pink note in Ron's reddening face, who was cowering on the bench, looking as if he wanted to sink into the floor, and Harry continued to yell, demanding an explanation. Yes, Seule thought smiling, that particular episode was quite funny. But now- onto more interesting topics... namely, Draco Malfoy.
If one were to ask Seule when the competition between herself and a Mister Draco Malfoy had started, Seule would answer, "Just last year." And she would undoubtedly blush. Oh yes, her cheeks would flush that lovely shade of pink, the one that cropped up whenever she thought of him. Draco, Draco, her darling Draco, the finest specimen of boy that would ever live, in her opinion. However, that opinion of him, much to her dislike, was also shared with about ¾ of the other girls residing at Hogwarts. And that is why the competition had started.

One day at breakfast in late October of her 5th year, Seule had acquired 6 of these letters which she now referred to as "fan owls". Draco had assumed his usual seat next to her, and had started in on his bacon. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught her blushing furiously at an explicit picture that had accompanied one of the letters, and he quickly snatched both out of her hands.
"Draco, no!!" she shouted, but it was too late. His eyes widened as he quickly read the letter's content.
"Who wrote you this little X- Rated piece?" he asked in an amused and mocking tone to his voice. Seule wasn't sure, but she almost detected a slight hint of... jealousy? No, it couldn't be possible. Not with Draco...
"Roger Davies... that Ravenclaw, the one's who's in 7th year, I think..." she admitted to him, refusing to look up from her task of buttering her toast, concentrating on it much more than was needed.
"Don't tell me that these sappy little love notes are a common thing, Seule...!" Draco said, almost warningly.
"Well... I have been getting more and more lately... I've gotten them every morning since September, Dray!" she stated, but then she changed her tone seeing the seething look on Draco's face, "Never a lot! - the most I've gotten is 10...!"
Draco lightened, and looked delighted at this news, "Ha! Well, I've beaten you! - I once got 13!" he crowed.
Seule's mouth fell agape. "You mean you get them too?!" she asked.
"Well of course," he said in his most snobbish voice. "I have since second year! Of course, most of those were from Pansy... now, I get letters from all the houses!" he said, with a highly satisfied smirk.
"All of them, huh?" Seule asked, narrowing her eyes slightly, "Even Gryffindor?" she challenged.
"Well, no, not Gryffindor... as if I'd actually want letters from those muggles... but all the others" he replied, but his smirk faded slightly at her testing tone.
"Oh really?" she said. Leaning her face in close to his and dropping her voice to a snide whisper, "Well I have."
His face paled, and Seule smiled evilly. He recovered quickly from this news-shock.
"Oh yeah? Well I bet I get more love notes than you do tomorrow!"
"Oh, you're on... you'd better be prepared to lose, Mr. Malfoy. You're going down." She agreed to his challenge, and he scoffed at her arrogance while they shook hands as a confirmation. Seule noticed that their shake lasted a little longer than it needed to...
That was how the competition started. Eight months later, at the end of June of their 5th year, they finally kissed, for real this time, and the rest was history. Hogwarts' infamous pair was born.

On a balmy November morning of their 6th year, Draco Malfoy and Seule Saigner walked to breakfast. As usual, everyone turned to stare at them as they made their way to the Slytherin table. His arm was protectively around her waist, which was clad today in an expensive-looking charcoal pleated wool skirt, which he had unquestionably bought her. It was a joke at Hogwarts that Seule was Draco's doll- he was always outfitting her in various clothes. Most of them revealing, many of them provocative, and all of them expensive. Her hand rested on his shoulder, and her face was upturned to admire his chiseled, God-like profile. Both of them sported rather red swollen lips.
Gee, wonder why... perhaps a bit of early morning snogging?
They made their way to Slytherin's table, assuming their usual place at the front, which was un-officially reserved for them and them only. No else ever dared to even try and take those seats.
They awaited the morning owl-post. At first, nothing. And then, a veritable storm of owls surrounded them. Seule screamed and frantically grabbed Arielle's Daily Prophet, who handed it to her unblinkingly. Seule held it above herself as she was bombarded by mail. Letters poured in over her head, pelting the newspaper, completely covering her breakfast plate and the surrounding area. When the owls had finally finished their immense delivery, Seule handed the newspaper back to Arielle, who was calmly eating her toast and reading a note from her brother Avery, who was in Ravenclaw. Arielle's eyes were still glued to the note as she held out her hand automatically to receive the paper back. She was already used to this routine, seeing as it happened every day.
"Thanks," Seule started to say, but didn't even manage to get the full first syllable out because Arielle cut her off with her automatic robotic reply of "You're welcome." She still hadn't bothered to look up from her letter. Seule smiled, and then began to methodically count her letters, but was soon startled by Draco's excited shout.
"I'VE GOT 32!!" he cried gleefully, "And twelve, that's right, twelve are from Gryffindors!!"
"That's nice..." Seule said, still counting the mail.
"32...!" Draco sighed happily, "That's a new record!...They all must've seen our little snogging show in the hallway yesterday..." he thought aloud.
"'Fraid so," Seule said, finally looking up from her gigantic stack of letters, "Because I've got 54."
Draco choked noisily on his coffee, and had to be whacked on the back simultaneously by Lela and Goyle, who knocked the wind out of him.
"54?!!?" he wheezed, his perfect mouth gaping at the enormous number.
"Yeah," Seule stated, and started sifting through her pile of mail. "I've got my daily one from Weasley of course, I've got one from Ari's brother, one from Crabbe... which I think is supposed to be written in English, but looks more like a cross of Finnish, Japanese, and Goblin... I've got one from Longbottom... haha... I've got one from MacMillan and one from..."
"PROFESSOR FLITWICK?!" Malfoy's voice boomed over the Great Hall as he looked at the addressee over Seule's shoulder. He turned his glowering face to the Head table at the front of the Hall to Professor Flitwick, who toppled frightfully out of his chair and returned from the ground blushing a scarlet shade of red.
"This is ridiculous! I don't believe this!" Draco started, talking to himself, but then advanced furiously on Seule. "How could you have gotten 54 letters?!" he hissed at her. "It's all your fault!! It's because... erm, because..." he said, stumbling around for a reason, "Aha! Because they all saw your bra! O-ho! And you were wearing that lacy black one that BARELY covers you!!"
"Well, my dear," Seule started calmly, serving herself some eggs, but then her voice slowly rose to a crescendo, "That would make it your fault, because you are the one who bought me that bra in the first place, and you are the one who decided to un-button my shirt. And furthermore, you are the one who came up with that clever little idea to skip Divination so we could snog in the hall under your invisibility cloak, and you are the one who forgot to cast the shield charm around us, allowing Longbottom to conveniently trip over the cloak and pull it down revealing me in my "barely-there" bra, as you put it, so it technically, Draco darling, it is YOUR FAULT for this fiasco, so don't go blaming me for receiving 54 –"she raged icily, but was cut off by Draco with a firm resounding kiss, who used the only way he knew to shut her up.
Ahhh, young love...