Disclaimer: I do not own any Harry Potter characters and the Harry Potter world. They all belong to JK Rowling.

Chapter Four

"A Letter Not For Him"

How far away the stars seem, and how far is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart!

-W. B. Yeats

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Scotland, 1994

The persistent and unrelenting light made its way to Draco Malfoy's eyes as he tried to blink twice, hoping he was still sleeping with a dreadful nightmare of pounding headache and nausea.

Much to his dismay, the stubborn pain just wouldn't go away.

Maybe there was a reason to it.

Maybe he just really needed the pain so he'd finally get up.

But dammit, it's Saturday.

He knew too well it's a Saturday when he had pounding headaches like this. It was just another result of a Slytherin Friday night party.

But maybe this wasn't just an ordinary Saturday.

Maybe it's—

"Oh shit!" He jumped out of the bed when he suddenly realised that today wasn't an ordinary Saturday just like he had thought a while ago.

In fact, it wasn't Saturday at all.

It was Monday, for pity's sake.

Monday!

What the hell were they seriously thinking when they decided to secretly keep some firewhiskies with them from Hogsmeade to sneak into their common room so they could drink their brains out?

"Is it morning already?"

Oh right, they weren't thinking at all.

Draco thrashed around and saw a girl, about his age or older, frowning sluggishly at him and covering her dishevelled self with his ruffled blankets.

"Who are you?" He frowned at the girl with an auburn short frizzy hair, who just stared back at him quite decisively.

"Honestly, Draco. Is this how you thank a girl in the morning?" She rolled her eyes before languidly stretching and blatantly getting out of the bed while gathering her discarded clothing on the floor. "Twas a good night, though. Thanks, anyway. And I'm Rachel, if that even bothers you a bit. See you around."

Draco blinked twice before realising what just happened while staring at the girl who had just unashamedly dressed in front of him and went out of the room as if nothing happened.

He had a temporary daze, trying so hard to remember how the hell he ended up with a random girl on his bed. He shook his head for a while, trying to lessen the groggy and muzzy feeling before heading for the bathroom and deciding to skip his first class. It was definitely a rational decision, rather than ending up being forced to transfigure some abomination and cursing his way through the infirmary.

That thought made him grimace, or maybe it was because of the ugly chalky taste on his dried tongue.

He opened the faucet and washed his mouth gingerly, hating the mixture of his pounding headache and the raw taste of alcohol on his mouth.

He was sure he couldn't afford to stare at one firewhiskey again.

But then again, it was always what he thought during hangovers like this. Partying on a carefree night was another story.

He felt so sick; he nearly convinced himself that not showing himself on his first class was definitely a saintly act. It would spare his classmates from his bad mood.

It wasn't that he was an evil, unruly, dumb git or something.

He was just really moody, and well, a little rebellious at times.

His grades were rather more than fine, actually. His father would kill him if they weren't above average. And Snape had warned him once to keep out of trouble and not to thrash about while jeopardizing their house points if he still wanted to be in the team.

His godfather could be so hard on him like his own father, but his threats were just usually empty anyway, and besides, there was no Quidditch this year.

Draco couldn't really understand the point why they needed to cancel all the Quidditch matches just because they were expecting some guests and this tournament wherein only students who were seventeen years and older could participate. It made him feel even more contemptuous of the fact that he couldn't even participate in the Triwizard tasks and play Quidditch too.

He got rid of the potion's cork with a flick of his thumb before chugging it down, grimacing and hissing a little because of its acidic taste. Before he discarded the bottle, however, his eyes had suddenly lingered into it, looking as if he just remembered a memory…

He shook his head, laughing quite coldly as if it was even useless to do so before he took one long cold shower to help the potion lessen his headache. He knew too well that in reality, stupid childish feelings were just too quixotic and impracticable to waste his time with.

The afternoon was quiet and idyllic as Draco made his way towards the empty Quidditch stadium with broom in hand. He knew that the whole castle was too busy for the upcoming visitors who were set to arrive just a few days from now to notice him there.

He just wanted to fly a bit and maybe clear his head from the persisting thoughts he had been having ever since the school year opened.

"It is my painful duty to inform you that the Inter-House Quidditch Cup will not take place this year," Dumbledore said. "But I have great pleasure in announcing that this year at Hogwarts, we shall have visitors from the Durmstrang Institute and Beauxbatons Academy of Magic…"

Dumbledore's next words had fled away from Draco's consciousness after that. He was left speechless and rooted on his seat as his schoolmates jeered and booed for the cancellation of the Quidditch matches but also clapped excitedly for the said tournament.

He knew that Hermione was studying at Beauxbatons Academy of Magic.

But, really? Was it even worth it to deem on useless hopes and anticipations again?

She probably wouldn't come anyway. And if she did, she wouldn't even remember him.

She had so easily forgotten about him after the summer they had together, after all.

By the time he had gotten home, he had written his first letter to Hermione; even telling her how special she was to him. But to no avail, he had never received any single letter back; no matter how many times he tried.

He felt like a sodding loser for even telling her how he felt and not receiving an answer back. He would have had settled for a rejection rather than an insulting silence.

When he started school, he had even asked his father to grant him authorisation for sending mail-bearing owls across international borders, knowing that she was going to study at Beauxbatons. His father didn't give him one, telling him that he had no time for some insignificant state of affairs. But Draco didn't stop there. He decided to talk to Adrian about it, asking him to give his letters to Hermione instead.

Adrian was at least two years older than he was and his father had already granted him access to send owls outside the country for him to exchange letters with his sister.

Draco decided he wasn't such a bad bloke after all. During Draco's first year, Adrian had even toured him once at some of the places at Hogwarts and had even acquainted him with some of his friends. He was already at his third year so Draco became quite popular with his first year classmates knowing that he was friends with the "older guys".

Draco's rage and resentment, however, had come back the very first time Adrian had received Hermione's owl. Adrian had slipped Draco's letter inside his envelope together with his letter to be sure that Hermione would receive them both, but to no avail, Hermione had only replied to Adrian's letter while Draco never received any.

Draco was too angry that he ended up tearing Hermione's letter to Adrian and almost hurting the owl itself. If it wasn't for Adrian's restraints, he could have had really injured the poor owl.

That day was the end of Draco's short friendship with Adrian.

They were both in Slytherin. During Draco's second year, they'd been working together at the Quidditch team so they couldn't really get rid of each other. But they were just mere acquaintances and teammates, not friends.

Draco wouldn't allow it.

How could you even be friends with someone who always receive the letters you badly want?

Through the years, both had never carried even one single friendly conversation to each other.

There had been formal discussions about some tactics in the game, little nods of greeting or a little wave here and there whenever they'd see each other at the corridor, but that was all.

They had become too indifferent with each other that it was even too awkward to even look.

Draco would even try to avoid him as much as possible along the corridors just to spare them both from a strained greeting.

Adrian had his own set of boring friends, as Draco would call it. He was younger but was proud to note that he had become more popular than Adrian on his own terms. He never had a girlfriend, unlike Adrian who had a couple of serious relationships before, but it was just because Draco felt it was too limiting to do so. When girls took interest on him when he joined the Quidditch team in his second year, he wasn't the type to ignore any of that attention. More so that he was trying to forget about his foolish childhood crush on someone who didn't even care enough to send him a single letter back.

Draco decided she was just a mere passing fancy and that it was useless to think about her, so he decided to venture out the girls who started to fawn on him.

Over the years, he had enjoyed all the attention he could get from any girl he wanted, just because he could; or maybe just because it was something he couldn't get from her…

He was about to mount his broom when he suddenly heard a group of students hovering and crowding over some guy, who was then currently shooing them away and trying to walk as fast as he could towards the corridor.

Draco squinted further to see that it was none other than Adrian Pucey. He appeared to have just received a mail from the Great hall and it was something his classmates were very interested in.

Annoyed, but at the same time quite curious, Draco couldn't help but follow the group secretly.

His heart was suddenly thrumming against his ribcage though he honestly didn't know why.

A few seconds later, Adrian stopped walking. He looked a little annoyed by his friends but tried to keep his cool while he signalled them to calm down.

Draco hid further into the corridor's huge Greek column, still listening intently to what he was about to say even if he didn't understand why the hell he should still care, anyway.

"My sister is coming, okay?" He sighed, and Draco's heart galloped to an impossible speed that it felt like he was suddenly having a heart attack.

"She was chosen to be one of the delegates to accompany some of the students whom the school had chosen to participate in the tasks. She's not of age for the tournament yet, so she can't join, which I am very thankful for. But she's expected to come so she can help whoever the Triwizard goblet chooses to participate in the tasks. They said it can pretty much take a lot of thinking along the tasks and seeing that she's at the top of her class, their headmistress considered her to come," Adrian explained, looking quite irritated that his classmates didn't seem to bother listening to his explanation at all. They just looked plain elated that another pretty girl was coming to Hogwarts.

"Miles said she's really fit. He saw one of her pictures on your room's desk," Terence Higgs grinned at Adrian while playfully nudging him on the shoulder. But clearly, the latter wasn't amused.

"So you're the one who stole one of her pictures," it wasn't a question at all and Adrian looked a little heated now while he stared at his roommate.

"I didn't steal it, man! I just—well, borrowed it. I'm planning to give it back to you by the time I'll be able to take my own pictures with her," Miles Bletchley explained gleefully and had even suggestively wiggled his eyebrows at him.

Draco suddenly had the urge of hexing his balls off.

"Don't even dare to think about it," Adrian glowered. "You can't hit on my sister. None of you can," he added while waving them off as if they were pests as he continued to walk away.

"You can't control her," one of them said, still sprinting to catch up on him.

Draco tried to leap as quietly as possible to transfer from one column to another, making sure that the guys were too busy pissing Adrian off to notice him.

"I know I can't," Adrian turned around to face his classmates once again, and Draco almost tumbled out from one of the columns he was hiding. "But my sister won't entertain any of you, so forget it."

"How can you be so sure about that?" Terrence challengingly asked him.

"She already has a boyfriend."

Draco was left rooted on the spot as the guys continued to walk away, cursing his stupid self for even bothering again.

A/N:

Little info from the minor characters stated in this chap:

Rachel- In the HP series, she's a Slytherin student at Hogwarts during the1990s. In1992, she was a member of the Duelling Club. She was also ranked number three on the Club's top-ten duellists list.

Miles Bletchley-In the HP series, he was Adrian's classmate as he attended Hogwarts from 1989 to 1995, and was also the Keeper on the Slytherin Quidditch team from 1991 to 1995.

Terence Higgs-Also possibly noted as Adrian's classmate. He was theSlytherin Quidditch team Seeker during the 1991–1992 season, but was replaced by Draco in 1992.

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