Quick Note: I'm really loving all of the support and feedback on this story! Thank you so so much to everyone following, favoriting, and reviewing! It really makes my day and makes me so excited to keep sharing! So just kind of a layout of how this story is heading, for the first half-ish it's really going to focus on relationship building and hardships before the gang heads into the Second War, so if it seems really relationship heavy in the beginning, that's just because we need some solid friendships and relationships before it all hits the fan in the last two years of school! It's going to diverge from canon a fair amount a little further down the road, but not take away from the story and themes of the actual series! I just want to be upfront about what's going to be going down without giving tooooo much away ;)
Also, I do not condone or support underage drinking, but that's about to happen...
Let me know what you think!
It was a fairly small group, Eleanor soon realized. About 25 people, most of whom were Slytherin, although there were a few stray Ravenclaws about. Eleanor knew everyone, but couldn't call most of them friends. She was immediately uncomfortable.
"I shouldn't be here." She whispered to Draco as they wove through the small crowd to find Blaise.
"Shove it, you grew up with these people." Draco shrugged off.
"Yeah, but that was a long time ago. I'm the enemy now, remember?" Eleanor pointed out, desperately wishing she hadn't blown off Hermione and the Weasleys for these people, and growing more bitter by the second that Draco didn't get along with her Gryffindor friends.
Draco simply laughed at her comment. "Well, traitor, you're safe behind enemy lines. You're with me. I want you here, so you will be here."
Eleanor smirked at him. "I have a hard time believing you are that influential." She rolled her eyes.
"Oh Ellie," Draco mused with humor in his voice, "How quickly you forget."
Eleanor was about to shoot something back when her and Draco reached Blaise. He seemed happy to see Eleanor, a surprise for her.
"Eleanor! It's been a while. How are you doing?" He asked. He was always kind to Eleanor, even when Draco's other friends were not. She hoped that with all the time Draco had been spending with Blaise, some kindness and tolerance would rub off on him.
"I'm doing alright." Eleanor nodded, and she wasn't lying. "Thank you for inviting me."
"Of course! Figured you were about to go mad being stuck with this prick all summer." Blaise joked good naturedly. Eleanor joined in the laughter at Draco's expense.
"Absolutely bonkers, actually." Eleanor chuckled some more. Draco was happy to see her smile but was feeling more and more humiliated watching his two best friends bond over their annoyances with him. Eleanor noticed the defensive anger building behind Draco's eyes and laid a gentle hand on his forearm, which comforted him more than he cared to admit. "I joke, obviously. Draco has been keeping me company this summer, and I am grateful for it." She spared a genuine smile in his direction.
"Oh, keeping you company." Theodore Nott burst into the conversation with a suggestive wiggle of his brows. Eleanor's ears got hot at the tips, but other than that remained calm. "Say, Malfoy, is she a lioness in every sense? I've been dying to know."
Draco's eyes seemed to turn black and anger flashed through him, his fist was curled and he lunged towards Theo in a fit of rage. Unbeknownst to Eleanor, Draco had been hearing comments like this about her all summer. It was why he always wanted to come home to her, he listened to people be disrespectful to her, and he couldn't defend her without making it seem like he was defending Potter and his buddies as well. He always felt guilty for not sticking up for her, and he found solace in being able to hug her to try to make up for it. Those comments had seldom crossed a sexual line, and Draco thought his friends had enough tact to not say anything in front of her.
Eleanor reached her arm out quickly and pulled Draco back. They hadn't even been there five minutes, she didn't want to see the start of a fight. "Blaise, I brought drinks, any place I can put them?" She asked quickly, still holding Draco firmly by the arm.
"Kitchen." Blaise said shortly, glaring at Nott.
"Draco, could you show me where that is?" Eleanor urged, pulling him away from Blaise and Theo.
Draco was seething as the two walked through the house to get to the kitchen. Eleanor quickly realized her drinks were not needed, as the entire table was full of bottles of alcohol for the night. She started to slowly unwrap the liquor from the towel as Draco leaned against the wall.
"I should have hit him." He muttered lowly.
"No, you shouldn't have." Eleanor retorted.
"Eleanor, did you hear-" Draco started to yell in disbelief. Eleanor spun around quickly and shot him a look that stopped him mid sentence..
"Of course I heard, Draco." Eleanor said sharply. "Obviously I don't love it when I hear things like that, but I have had much worse things happen to me than having a drunk Theodore Nott make a halfway sexual pass at me. You are daft for wanting to hit him, one of your best friends, for something he said when he was drunk at a party." Draco blinked at her for a moment, unsure of what to say. "Grow up, Draco."
"Why are you so angry, Eleanor?" Draco accused in an upset voice. "I was trying to defend your honor."
"My honor?" Eleanor repeated, astounded by how incredibly dumb Draco was being and set off now that he was consistently using her full name, his tell that he was angry with her. "Draco, I don't care what these people think about me or about what I do. These are your friends, I'm just here to have a good time. If you punched Theodore Nott in the face over some dumb thing he said to a girl that doesn't even matter, your life would have gotten rather difficult and the fun of the evening would have been over. Be the bigger person for one goddamn time in your life, Draco. And for fucks sake, stop arguing with me over everything."
"A girl who doesn't matter?" Draco repeated, suddenly very quiet. His blue eyes bore into Eleanor, who now felt more than a little uncomfortable and confused by Draco's change in tone. She shifted on her feet, and turned away from Draco to begin making a drink for herself. Draco pushed off the wall and walked over to Eleanor and grabbed her busy hands in his, forcing her to look at him. "You think you don't mean anything to me?"
Eleanor gulped for a moment. She knew she didn't mean as much to Draco as he did to her. Sometimes she questioned this knowledge when the two of them were alone, but the problem was, they were seldom alone in normal life. At school, it was like they barely knew each other. They were distant, and it wasn't Eleanor's choice to be that way. She felt that she obviously couldn't mean that much to him if he shut her out from September to June. "I don't want to get into this right now, Draco." Eleanor warned cautiously, wedging her hand out of his grasp.
"I do." Draco persisted. Eleanor searched his eyes, at a loss of what to say. She knew this wasn't the time or place to bring up four years worth of frustrations about their friendship added with confusions that this summer brought about. She had been doing a relatively good job at ignoring their obvious growing attraction for each other, but when Draco was making her face it, she wanted nothing more than to shut down. She didn't want to face it, and she wasn't going to. Draco opened his mouth to start saying something when Blaise walked through the kitchen doors.
"Sorry about that. Nott's been drinking all day, he's being a total prick. I hope you both are okay." He said kindly. Eleanor took a step back from Draco and smiled widely at Blaise.
"I'm fine. Draco is a bit overprotective as of late. Truly, no hard feelings, just trying to get a drink." Draco was shocked at how unbothered she sounded. "What are you drinking, Draco?"
Draco was annoyed now. She was acting so casual right as they were about to talk about something so serious. She was good at doing that. She didn't face her problems, or solve them, she just avoided them until they became impossible to ignore. "Not really in the mood, thanks." Draco said shortly. Eleanor's eyes narrowed at him.
"Fine. If you're not drinking, I will have to get drunk enough for the both of us." Eleanor shrugged. Draco knew his mistake then. He knew Eleanor would be good on her word. She took three large shots in succession as Draco watched in annoyance and Blaise in admiration.
"Gryffindors may be insufferable, but they apparently taught you how to party." Blaise commented, impressed.
"Being friends with the Weasley twins has those perks." Eleanor chuckled.
"Don't tell me the Weasleys throw the best parties." Blaise laughed. "The Weasleys?"
Eleanor nodded. "Molly would have an absolute fit. They have an induction during fourth year for all of us. Bit ridiculous really. The tournament this year didn't help, lots of parties. Fred and George took it upon themselves to get us absolutely shitfaced as a "welcome to almost adulthood" ceremony." Eleanor smiled fondly at the memory.
"Even Granger?" Blaise inquired.
"Even sweet 'Mione." Eleanor confirmed. "How do you think she doesn't snap like a rubber band?"
"Merlin, what I would give to see you lot drunk." Blaise shook his head. Draco watched the whole interchange with great dismay.
"Maybe you all shouldn't be such judge-y, pricks all the time and we'd hang out with you." Eleanor suggested. "Just a thought."
Draco smiled to himself, hoping Eleanor would say something just tactless enough to get Blaise annoyed with her and for him to use it as a reason to take her home. But he should have known that he was not the only one to see Eleanor's charm. Blaise laughed with her as she took a bottle of a fruity drink off the table. Draco paled, those were her favorites. She could drink those all night. He hated that he apparently wasn't the only one who knew that, that the Weasley twins and fucking Potter knew that too. He hated that he had no idea how wild the Gryffindor common room could get. He figured she would have always come to him when he was drunk. Did she even think about him? She was the first thing on his mind when he was a few drinks in. Even when he wasn't a few drinks in.
Draco held a growl of frustration in his throat. He hated being weak, he hated how she made him different. She made his heart soft, she made him into some kind of loser with no backbone. He would have done anything for her. He felt like he was losing his mind, losing his edge. It was so easy to ignore her when they lived in opposite sides of Hogwarts castle but ever since she called for him that fateful night of her parents' death she has been intertwined constantly in his life. Always there. Always warping him, and she doesn't even realize. It's why he left to Blaise's so often. He needed an hour or two to become who he really was again, to regain his strength. To not see her for a goddamn minute.
But he missed her when he was gone. He wanted to be around her. She filled him with something, and he would never admit it. He was so confused and amazed and overwhelmed by her.
"You brought a suit, right El?" Blaise asked. Draco felt a fire go through him. He almost lunged forward to punch Blaise right there, but just clenched his fists instead. No one else had ever called her that. Or maybe they did, and he just didn't know. That was a terrible thought, he tried to push out the voice of Potter or any one of the Weasleys calling her 'El'. Finally, Draco cracked and reached behind Eleanor and grabbed a bottle off of the table and poured a tall glass and began to drink from it as though it were water. Eleanor's eyes were narrowed as him once he returned the bottle.
"In the mood now?" She questioned.
"Apparently. Just felt the need to drink." Draco shrugged. "Do you have your suit, El?" Draco repeated Blaise's words with malice dripping from his voice as he held eye contact with Eleanor, who simply glared at Draco for acting this way.
"Yup." Eleanor popped the 'p', nodding once with a sickly sweet smile.
"Uh, alright, well the two of you are free to join us at the pool whenever you're ready." Blaise nodded, hating the tension in the room and making his way to the exit.
"Why are you acting like this?" Eleanor hissed at Draco once they were alone again.
"Like what?" Draco demanded.
"I don't know, Draco. You are confusing me." Eleanor shook her head, her thoughts were beginning to swirl a bit.
"How? What is confusing?" Draco asked, continuing to drink from his glass.
"You act like you care so deeply about me, and I love that. I am so grateful for you and how you act around me, even though you are a real bastard sometimes-"
"So what's the problem?" Draco questioned. "You act as though my being your friend is some grand inconvenience to you, like I don't mean it when I say that I care about you. Is that so hard for you to believe? Do you think so little of me-"
"You don't mean it, Draco." Eleanor shouted out. "You don't mean it at all, because when we get on the Hogwarts Express in three weeks, I'm not going to hear from you. You will study in the library with me if we hide behind bookshelves and you will acknowledge me in Hogsmeade if I'm not with my friends, you won't sneer at me as much as you do Ron, or Harry, or Hermione. Am I supposed to believe that is you showing that you care about me? Going from spending everyday together, being inseparable, to being nothing?"
"What do you want me to do, Eleanor? Reverse years of hatred for your friends? We run in different circles, we are in different houses, we have different lives."
"And yet here I am!" Eleanor yelled, waving her hands about, spilling her pink drink on her white shirt. She cursed for a moment then turned back to Draco. "I'm here in Blaise Zabini's mansion, surrounded by your housemates, your school chums because for me, spending time with you is more important than house pride, or whatever fucking high horse you sit on." Eleanor's eyes began to fill with tears. "You became my best friend again this summer, Draco. I know I haven't been much fun, or really even that pleasant to be around most of the time, but despite all my losses, I felt that I finally got you back. But I'm frustrated because I know that once we go back to school, it's over." Draco looked at her, dumbfounded. He didn't realize that she was under the impression the pair hadn't been best friends before this summer. He always thought of her as his number one and favorite person. He realized that he didn't make that as obvious as he should have.
"El-" He started quietly.
"Then this summer, while getting on the right track back to friendship, you start acting flirty and like you want to be with me, and Draco, I want to be with you, I do, but I can't deal with all of the uncertainty of whether or not you will be there for me at Hogwarts. Will you want to be seen around me? Would you want to be dating a Gryffindor? A friend of Harry Potter's? Does all of this end once we get on the train? Does your fondness rely solely on proximity? I feel like I am going to be made an absolute fool of for having these feelings." Eleanor just let the words spill out of her mouth, her alcohol and three months of repressed feelings catching up to her.
"I didn't realize that you felt like I was abandoning you." Draco admitted. "I thought it was mutual."
Eleanor shook her head. "I miss you, so much, Draco. I would love for us all to get along and be neutral acquaintances if you all cannot manage friendship."
"That's a lovely thought, El, but sometimes you can't just make everyone be friends simply because you want them to." Draco responded.
"I'm trying." Eleanor pleaded with him. "I'm open and friendly with your friends."
"You're different. No one can dislike you, you are an unarguably wonderful person to be around. The same can't be said for your friends." Draco tried to joke, but Eleanor wasn't in the mood.
Eleanor nodded sadly, realizing Draco wasn't going to change his mind. No matter what he said, he was still going to be a different person at school, she was still going to be left in the dust. She turned to leave, to join Blaise and the rest at the pool. She took a big gulp from her drink and was able to drain it, so she grabbed another. She was feeling a bit light on her feet at that point, her head was a little spinny, and she was exhausted from her talk with Draco that all she wanted to do was joke and swim around.
"Wait, aren't we going to talk about the other stuff?" Draco asked. "You want to be with me."
Eleanor smiled sadly at him a little. "I do. But there is no point in talking about it, because in a few weeks everything will be different, everything will go back to the way it was. This summer meant a lot to me, and whether or not it meant the same to you is beyond me, but it won't mean enough for you to care this deeply about me come September first. There's nothing more I can do, Draco, except enjoy these last few weeks."
Draco took a step forward. He heard her, he knew where she was coming from, he would do better, he would have to, because she wanted him the way he had been secretly wanting her for months, if not his entire life. He took her face in his hands and leaned down, their mouth inches apart. He had to do it, his entire being felt like he was floating away, and she was keeping him rooted to this one spot.
"Don't." Eleanor said, pulling her head away. "Don't do this because you think it's what I want." She wanted him to kiss her; she wanted it very badly. She had wanted him to since the first time he tried at the beginning of the summer, but she wouldn't be able to cope with tasting him, then having him leave her behind.
"I want to." Draco insisted.
"You want to now. It will change." Eleanor's blue eyes were wide and looking at him with sadness and acceptance that it wasn't going to end up the way she hoped.
"It won't." Draco wanted to tell her that his feelings for her hadn't changed for as long as he could remember, he didn't know why he kept that bit of information to himself. "If there is one thing I know, it's that I'm going to want to kiss as much as I do now next month, and the month after that, and on and on." Draco tried to assure, he didn't know what he needed to say.
"You're going to make a fool out of me." Eleanor decided with finality and listened to what her heart felt rather than what her head told her. She closed the gap between the two of them and softly kissed Draco.
