Rebecca felt as though she was counting down the seconds until Defence Against the Dark Arts was over. When Snape finally dismissed the class, she was one of the first out of the room. Hermione and Parvati Patil (who also shared Rebecca's dorm) who had been in the last class caught up with her quickly, full of questions as they headed for break. The three of them reached the courtyard and Rebecca sat down absent mindedly.
"Ladies, ladies," She heard one familiar voice call.
"Let the professionals handle this one." She heard another identical voice say. Rebecca looked up to see the Weasley twins. Hermione started to protest when Fred turned around and said,
"We've got it." Quite sternly, which was unlike him.
"Nobody's got it." Rebecca mumbled, but no one noticed. Hermione began talking to Fred quite heatedly when Harry and Ron, who had also witnessed the previous lesson, came and stood around too.
"How did you get Snape to reverse that spell?" Ron cut in.
"I said please." Rebecca replied bluntly.
"What did Malfoy do to upset you?" George asked, cutting straight to the chase. Rebecca wondered how he knew it was Draco who had upset her.
"Nothing, he's just... so two-faced!" She tried to explain without giving anything away. She felt that all the things that had happened between her and Draco were private. That, and she didn't feel like talking all that much. She did sort of promise Draco that she wouldn't say anything. But that was before their argument.
"Care to tell more?" George said funnily, batting his eyelashes. Rebecca looked at all of her friends and tried to explain again,
"Malfoy is just so annoyingly arrogant, rude and thinks he's so superior and all the rest, but while we were stuck together he was completely different. For starters, he let me fall asleep on his shoulder, and then when we fell out of bed-"
"Bed? You slept together?" Ron cut her off.
"They were stuck together, Ronald! They obviously had to sleep, it's acceptable really," Hermione replied for Rebecca, scrunching up her nose towards the end. She had taken everyone by surprise and everyone fell quiet. For someone who hated Draco as much as the rest of them, she was being rather logical.
"Sorry, keep going." Hermione quickly ushered Rebecca and then folded her arms.
"We had to do everything together. I mean everything. It lead to lots of talking, and all our hate set aside, we got along quite well. He was really different." Rebecca explained, thinking that should be enough. Nobody spoke; they all knew that wasn't the end of it, so waited for the rest. Rebecca quickly got the hint and kept talking.
"In the Great Hall this morning he was just normal Malfoy again, because so many people were around, and his friends were saying some really horrible things, so he was too, and then we kept fighting and Snape let us go straight away, it was all so weird! I'm... I'm actually a little scared to know where we stand after everything that's happened these past few days." Rebecca said all so fast. Hermione frowned, unable to understand why Rebecca seemed to be so worried. Rebecca should be glad she was able to finally escape Draco.
"It's alright, it's only Malfoy." Harry said, speaking for the first time. "He's a git, and should be left alone."
This sparked conversation a lot more easily, as Ron joined in and even Parvati as they all started talking about how Draco could be such a bad person. This left Rebecca to think a little more.
She wasn't sure where herself and Draco stood because of all the things they had said to one another. Draco never answered her. But he tried to make peace with her. Rebecca wondered why he would even bother to try and be peaceful with what she thought he perceived her as: a grimy half-blood Gryffindor. A person like that would be just about the last person on earth a Malfoy would want to associate with.
And then he squeezed her hand. She thought he meant he was sorry... but even then, he still didn't say anything. She knew that herself and Draco were on bad terms. She didn't know what to expect the next time they met, probably ignorant silence. Everyone was right; she should be glad she was free and she should drop it. But the thing was, she could still see straight through Draco's facade, especially now that he had opened up to her a little bit over the last few days. Draco was just so damn fascinating, and Rebecca just couldn't drop it. She hadn't been able to drop it for years.
As everybody continued to talk badly of Draco, Rebecca hardly listened as she looked off absent mindedly across the court yard. Suddenly it wasn't quite so absent minded, as Draco was walking past.
She watched him cross the other side of the courtyard silently and all by himself. He was never alone. Whatever Hermione was saying to Fred at that moment seemed even more distanced. Draco slowed his pace before stopping and looking at the ground. Rebecca realised that's where their target had been from the game they played whilst being stuck together. She watched as he kicked a small stone with all his force, which rebounded off the stone wall encasing the courtyard and landed in front of him on the target. Rebecca was too far away to see exactly where it had landed, but she did see him smirk and shake his head. He then left the courtyard quite swiftly. As he did, Rebecca could see his bruised hand, which looked odd on him; such an imperfection to his usual stature, and wondered if it was hurting as much as her own.
Rebecca zoned back in, looking up to all her friends. They all seemed to be having an in depth conversation and Rebecca heard the name Malfoy come up frequently. As they were all clearly absorbed in each other, Rebecca gently slid off the stone bench where she was seated and walked rather quickly over to the target. She stood still and looked over it for a minute, inspecting it. Then she thought she spotted what Draco must have found so amusing.
Rebecca saw the small stone he had kicked had split in two. She could see it had vaguely been in the shape of a lopsided heart, but it was now split quite unevenly. The larger half was rested right on target, in the middle. The other smaller half was right next to the first half, although it was in the next ring, a line separating the two halves.
Rebecca gently shuffled the smaller half across the line with her foot until it met the larger half, so they were fitting together perfectly. She stared at it for a minute, until the twins suddenly appeared behind her only to scare the living day lights out of her. She naturally kicked the cracked stone off to the side of the target, and spun around.
"Do you two follow me everywhere or what?" She asked while crossing her arms playfully, her heart racing as though she'd been caught doing something that she shouldn't have.
"Or what." They replied together. Rebecca let a small smile appear on her face in amusement.
"What are you doing over here all by yourself?" Fred asked.
"Just thinking." She answered quickly.
"We'll believe that. Where did that target come from?" George asked, pointing to the target behind her.
"I don't know." Rebecca shrugged her shoulders.
"Okay. We just wanted to know why it's so good to look at." Fred also shrugged. Rebecca thought he was mocking her. She didn't say anything, and started searching the ground for the cracked stone instead.
"You know, we did see Malfoy over here a minute ago too." Fred said in a matter-of-fact like tone. Rebecca glanced at them and just shrugged again. Then she saw the cracked stone on the ground, gasped and quickly picked it up and shoved both halves deep into her pocket.
"What was that?" George asked, the both of them eyeing her suspiciously.
"I dropped a coin a minute ago." She lied quickly. They narrowed their eyes towards her, and before they questioned her anymore she quickly left them and walked back to everyone by the stone bench who were now sitting down and engaged in a more pleasant conversation. Rebecca didn't know why she had been so secretive about the target, or the cracked stone.
"Hey, Bec, just to let you know we're having quidditch try outs tomorrow afternoon straight after school down on the pitch. Okay?" Harry informed her.
"Yeah, that's great." She replied enthusiastically at the change of conversation. Then she leaned over to Hermione and asked,
"Do you know what we have next?"
"We have Potions and Charms." She said quickly before turning back to her conversation with Ron. Rebecca just wished the day would end a lot faster than what it was.