You walked away proudly. Mia still by your side, laughing at your instinctive wit and genius.
"Guiseley, you crack me up sometimes," she managed to choke out between fits of laughter.
You curtseyed to your friend and doing your best Elvis impersonation you replied, "Thank you, thank you very much."
You made your way to the carriages that would take you up to the castle and you noticed the addition of four, much larger and beautiful ones this year.
"Whoa, look at those," gawked Mia. "Come on, I'll race you to them!"
She burst off ahead of you, knocking over a group of third year Hufflepuffs who fell over like dominoes over their luggage. You started to laugh but then realised that you were losing and sprinted off behind her. Just as you knocked over your fifth consecutive Gryffindor, by accident of course, you bumped into the back of Mia who had come to an abrupt halt in front of the last in line of the immense, navy blue and silver decorated carriages. She turned to stare at you, an annoyed and disappointed look on her face.
"It says, just for prefects on the side, look."
Sure enough engraved on a small silver plaque nailed to the side of the carriage were the words,
'SLYTHERIN PREFECTS ONLY'. You glanced at the other four up ahead and saw the two prefects from each house clambering into their corresponding carriage.
"Oh come on," you whispered. "Nobody will know and besides, who's really gonna stop us?"
With a mischievous grin, Mia began to clamber in behind you but suddenly froze on the steps.
"What is it Mia? Hurry up, Filch is patrolling."
"I can't get passed here, there's like a shield or force field thingy. What do I do?!"
Just as you were attempting to heave Mia through the shield over the door, Filch came skulking passed,
"My, my my, are we supposed to be doing that ladies?" He croaked at you.
"Oh, Mia, I mean Amelia, was just saying goodbye to me, weren't you Amelia?"
Mia gave a hastened nod to both you and Filch. You saw he was staring at your hands round her arm from where you'd been trying to pull her in. Your mind churned into action and you met Filch's inquiring gaze.
"This is a special handshake we do, for good luck… see"
You winked at Mia who looked slightly confused before you started to wave your hands at her to some sort of imaginary rhythm. She soon caught on and tried to mirror every gesture you made, until Filch who was slightly captivated by your dance routine snorted and shuffled along the line of carriages.
"Guess, I'll see you up at the castle then," Mia said reluctant to give up the silk lined seats you were perched on.
"Yeh, sorry love, I'll meet you up there then."
With that Mia turned away and as you waved her off a voice from behind sneered at you.
"Love ey? Always knew there was more than meets the eye between you two."
"Oh shut it Malfoy, go and sit with your monkey butler friends will you?"
He grimaced and looked up the line of carriages to the one where Crabbe's head was poked out of the window sniffing the air like some sort of pig.
"Do you really think I'd be here if I had a choice? They've put some pointless shield on the carriages this year. They're making the house prefects sit together to go over whatever stupid things we're supposed to discuss."
"Stupid things ey? Well then we're probably supposed to talk about you. So, why don't you start...don't be shy now. "
You smiled warmly at him, confident that this year, you were going to have the upper hand over Malfoy.
Still, I wouldn't mind letting this hand have a touch or two of that chest, you thought, your eyes wandering down to the indent of evidently toned muscles underneath his school shirt. Wait, ewwwww hell no! This is Malfoy, MALFOY! M-A-L-F-O-Y. You know, the egotistical moron who's plagued you like a toad for the past seven years.
"See something you like Monroe?"
Malfoy's arrogant voice pulled you back to reality and you realised that you were still staring at his chest.
"Urm..no...," you stuttered, "I just remember reading that having to use magic to improve ones appearance is illegal, not to mention nauseating."
Malfoy continued to smirk wildly,
(DRACO'S POV)
I knew it! I knew there was something more to her obsession with me. She thinks I'm hot...bout time too, I've been trying to get her attention for at least a year...hold up...what the hell was in that chocolate I stole off that little munchkin of a student...
(BACK TO YOUR POV)
You stared unblinking at Draco, whose smirk refused to slide off his face though it was getting so wide, you thought it might turn around and try and eat his whole head.
Wouldn't be a bad thing, you thought to yourself.
"I can assure you Monroe, that this is all natural baby." Malfoy said, leaning against the carriage door with a swagger that reminded you of Marcus Flint.
You couldn't help it but started to laugh uncontrollably at him, especially when the carriage lurched forward and he lost his balance against the doorframe and almost fell over backwards. He managed to pull himself up into the carriage with you though and sat down rather quickly.
"Do you have any idea what you just said?!" You were still laughing at him but tried to hold it in when you saw the furious expression now covering Malfoy's face. "Is someone a little cross?"
Patronising Malfoy was never a particularly clever thing to do, but it was just so tempting. Malfoy, jumped up and began to lean forwards towards you, rage and embarrassment mixing together to create an unstoppable time bomb, when a loud bang sent you both flying to the floor.
"What the hell's that?" You screamed at Malfoy who was now lying next to you, your legs twisted together from the fall, wondering if Draco had actually exploded.
You could feel the carriage sliding across the slippery ground and the wooden walls seemed to ache as you were thrown about the floor. Draco clambered to his feet and grasped hold off the doorframe just as the carriage came to an abrupt halt.
"Shit," he whispered under his breath, "Whatever you do Guiseley, don't. move."
"Why? What's happening?"
"Sshhhh, now very slowly, crawl towards the right side of the carriage. Don't argue," Draco added as you were about to protest.
He began to edge his way very carefully away from the window. You didn't know what else to do and so you too began to ease your way to the right. You gently got to your feet and stood next to Draco who had plastered himself to the wall.
"What the fuck is going on Draco" You said, breathless with nerves.
"We have to balance the carriage," said Draco, quietly as he was concentrating so hard. "We're hanging off the bank over the lake and if we're too heavy over that side," he gestured with his head to the left hand side of the carriage, "we'll tip over and plummet into the water."
"Tell me what to do," you demanded.
We'll freeze to death in that water, and possibly drown, you thought, anxiously. All you could imagine was the picture of you and Draco rolling around on the muddy bank before being thrown into the icy waters of the black lake. You know if this wasn't a life threatening situation...oh shut up Guiseley, this is Draco for heaven's sake. You hate him...look CONCENTRATE.
Draco took a deep breath and spoke quietly, as if afraid that the movement of his mouth and sound of his voice would jolt the carriage over the edge. "We have to somehow tip ourselves backwards-"
But you couldn't register Draco's advice because out of the corner of your eye, you saw the dark brown mass of your trunk slowly slipping off the luggage rack. You held your breath pleading silently for the enormous wooden box to stay put but even as you watched your worst fears were about to come true.
The trunk had glided across to the very edge of the wire rack, and was now teetering perilously, threatening to come cascading down.
"Draco," you whispered interrupting him, "Look."
You slowly raised your hand and pointed at the trunk now looming over your heads. His voice stopped dead, caught on the air and he too stared wide eyed at your luggage.
Great, if I don't drown or freeze, I'm going to be crushed beneath a falling suitcase. The reality of it just wasn't funny.
You both watched the trunk silently as it creaked backwards and forwards teasing your nerves. You prayed harder than you ever had before that this time you'd get lucky. Suddenly you heard shouts and footsteps echoing towards the upturned carriage and you snapped your head round to see who was coming. All at once, you heard one final overpowering creak and a strong arm threw you across the carriage floor. You had a split second to turn around and see the trunk smash deafeningly behind you until a voice just next to your ear said, "Oh bugger, that's done it."
You took one final glimpse at Draco's cool expression and his arm wrapped around your waist before you felt the carriage groan beneath you and slither perilously towards the deep, dark waters.
You felt the angle of the carriage slant beneath you and you looked up to see the black mass of water approaching with frightening speed towards the two most notorious Slytherins, trapped together and awaiting their watery fate.