I finished my meal quickly and said goodbye to my brother and his friends, Harry didn't even question me leaving dinner early, he was probably upset with me for not doing as I was told and abandoning my friendship with Malfoy. Thinking of Malfoy, I hadn't see him at dinner – yes I had been checking every green tied pupil that entered the hall – I knew where he would be, stretched out on a sofa in an empty common room with a book, next to a roaring fire.
Thinking of my brother's request and of how I was supposed to teach students who were probably more capable than myself, I made my way down into the cold gloom of the dungeons.
Malfoy was exactly where I'd thought he would be, in fact his position was almost perfectly the same as how I'd imagined it. He didn't acknowledge me as I strode towards the sofa, but he did pull his feet in to give me room to sit down. His sock clad feet were icy cold where they now rest against my thigh but I didn't mind.
"Are you back on good terms with Potter then, Princess?" He asked without looking up from his book. I slipped off my shoes and brought my legs up onto the sofa, tucking my feet between the cushion and the armrest.
"For now I suppose." I agreed, I'd watched Malfoy read to himself more than a few times and could tell that even though he was staring at the words on his page, he was in fact not reading them, his face was emotionless but from what I had seen, when Malfoy read almost every word sent an emotion skidding across his face.
"You needn't have come all this way to formally end our friendship." He replied, flicking his unread page rather loudly to express how little he cared about the subject.
"Oh please will you stop being such an arse?" I said, "You're making it very difficult for me to continue wanting to be your friend." I let it hang in the air for a second before adding, "Even if it is only to annoy my brother." Malfoy closed his book slightly and looked at me, the slightest of smiles turning up the corner of his lips.
"Oh yeah?" He replied, "Well I'd hate to think I'd let down the art of annoying The Boy Who Lived." I chuckled a little at that, it was always the boy who lived, or the twins that lived, no one ever thought of me separately as the girl who lived.
"Did you enjoy sitting with Pansy this afternoon?" I enquired, changing the subject.
"That girl is a leech, she drains me." He said a look of exasperation on his face, I laughed.
"But she's sooo in love with you, Draco." I said doing my worst attempt at mimicking Pansy's voice. Malfoy sat up as if I'd just burnt his feet where they rest against me.
"You just called me Draco." He said like it was the biggest event to happen all year.
"So?" I replied, I could feel my cheeks getting warm which was ridiculous, "It's no big deal, it's just your name."
"Well, you've just never said it before. That's all." Malfoy replied and I suppose he was right, even in my own thoughts I referred to him as Malfoy, never Draco. "It would be like me calling you Juliette,"
"Well why don't you?" I asked,
"Why don't I what?" He replied, we had both made our way to the edge of the sofa, his book now lay fully closed on the coffee table and we stared intently at one another.
"Call me Juliette?" I suggested.
We sat in silence for what felt like hours but was perhaps only a few, long seconds be fired Draco's familiar smirk was back on his lips, "Maybe," He replied, settling himself back into the comfort of the sofa cushions, "Maybe, Princess."
I rolled my eyes at him and passed him back his book from the coffee table. "Read to me?" Flicking the book open to a random page. Draco looked at me curiously but didn't question it as he began reading aloud. I sank down a little in the sofa cushions as I rested my back against his arm and listened to him read. Eventually his arm must have grown uncomfortable as he pulled it out from behind me so I sunk further and rested against his side, his arm now resting gently over my shoulder and we stayed that way for an hour or so, until we heard students coming through the entrance upon which we pulled away from each other quickly, an instant cold ran over me, Draco wasn't a warm person by any means but somehow I didn't ever feel cold when I was next to him and I was freezing when he moved away.
Most of the students didn't bat an eyelid to us as the streamed in, chatting to one another, filling the room with noise. Pansy on the other hand stride in with a scrunched up face, like she could smell something bad. She parked herself in the gap on the sofa left between Draco and I and began gushing about how she'd missed Draco at dinner.
I didn't like Pansy Parkinson but I knew well enough not to get on her bad side, she was a bully and a very good bully at that. She wasn't someone you wanted as an enemy but she certainly wasn't someone I wanted as an ally.
"I'm going to bed," I announced and rose from the sofa to make my way to the girls dormitory, "Goodnight, Draco." I added as I passed him.
"Good night, Juliette." Draco replied, and I stopped walking for a moment and smiled before continuing up to bed.
AN: I have literally no idea what I'm really doing of it I'm doing it very well but thank you for taking the time to read this rambling nonsense that flows out of my head 3 ~RainbowVeins
