Quick Note: Hi all! I hope you're enjoying the story, I'm enjoying hearing from all of you and continuing to plug away at finishing it up! You'll be able to tell that the next few chapters are going to start bouncing around quite a bit again just so we can get lots of glimpses of Hogwarts life - the good and the bad!
Let me know what you think!
Eleanor walked the long way to the common room to cool off and get her thoughts in order before facing her friends again. Her and Ron argued the most out of the four of them. It never came from a place of dislike, though sometimes it came across that way. Ron disliked the Malfoys and Eleanor loved them. They were both very proud and very unmoved on their opinions.
Upon her return to the common room, she decided to sit next to Ron and hopefully clear the air. He was sitting alone by the fireplace, neither Hermione nor Harry were in sight.
"Hey," Eleanor greeted softly, "can we talk?" Ron sighed and nodded in response. They both hated this part, admitting that in some sense, they were wrong. Eleanor wasn't very good at that.
"Look, I'm sorry that I went off on you." Ron let out. "I stand by everything I said, but I shouldn't have yelled at you."
Eleanor fought the urge to roll her eyes at him, but she knew that she was in no place to be judgemental given that she was very reluctant to admit any wrong on her end as well. "It's okay," Eleanor stated with a nod, "you have to know that I trust and believe Harry. I believe that You-Know-Who is back and I know that the way Lucius acted in the last war leaves his character up for question, but I have to stand by my parent's belief that he was a good friend; good enough to leave me with them." Eleanor cringed a little at the last part, because it was technically a lie. Her parents didn't leave her in the care of the Malfoys, this was partly due to her relationship with Remus but also because though good people at the base of it, Narcissa and Lucius stood on slightly unsteady moral grounds.
"How long have you and Malfoy been bunking up?" Ron asked suddenly. This question shocked Eleanor but she maintained her cool facade, not letting any emotions go to her face.
"I've been staying with them for most of the summer, you know that." Eleanor answered coolly, playing dumb. Ron rolled his eyes.
"You know what I mean." He huffed out, but not pressing; in her false naivety, he found his answer. He tried not to show his extreme annoyance with her, he figured she wouldn't be clinging to the claim of Lucius' innocence had her and Draco not been with each other all summer. Ron wrinkled his nose at the thought.
"Oh, good, you've made up." Hermione sighed in relief as she appeared from the dormitory steps. "Harry's gone for a walk, he's a bit heated from Umbridge yet." Hermione explained to Eleanor as she sat on the arm of the overstuffed couch that Ron and Eleanor shared. "Any chance either of you would like to do some reading in the Courtyard? The weather is beautiful and it will be gone so soon." Hermione prodded. "We could get ahead on our class work."
"I'll pass." Ron leaned back on the sofa, placing his hands behind his head.
"Have something better to do with your time?" Hermione asked with two raised brows but a chuckle in her voice.
"I do stuff." Ron defended. "I'm meeting up with Fred and George." He said as the twins passed.
"Eh, sorry Ronny," George half apologized with a shrug.
"We've got other plans." Fred continued as the two seventh years continued walking by.
Ron's cheeks turned a bit red. "I meant later." He explained to Hermione and Eleanor who were giggling at him. "I was gonna go get some rest while everyone is out." He provided lamely as he turned toward his dorm and bounded up the stairs. Hermione and Eleanor chuckled to themselves as they gathered their books.
Upon arrival to the courtyard, Eleanor stripped off her robes and was wearing only a white button up and her black skirt. Hermione did the same. Eleanor tried to soak up as many rays as possible in the dying summer sun. She knew this luxury would all but disappear until next Spring and she intended to make the most of what little time she had left.
"Eleanor, can we please talk about what happened this summer?" Hermione asked, not even touching her book before prodding. Eleanor realized then that Hermione never intended to get ahead on homework, she just said that to dissuade Ron from joining. Hermione was nothing if not clever.
"Nothing happened." Eleanor shrugged, though the blush on her cheeks gave away her lie.
"Don't lie." Eleanor looked at the ground in shame at her friend's scolding.
"It doesn't matter." Eleanor half groaned as she began tugging at the end of her skirt. "It wasn't a romance or anything. It was … I don't know, it was nothing." She repeated. "There isn't much to talk about."
"So you have no feelings for him?" Hermione asked, aware of the huge possibility that her friend would continue to lie to her because of the general dislike for Draco Malfoy in the whole of Gryffindor House.
"I don't know what I feel, Hermione." Eleanor shot back. "Things are complicated now that we are at school. They were already complicated at home. And he - we, I mean - aren't very good at expressing our feelings."
"But you're still going to see him?" Hermione pressed.
"Yes, I'll see him, Hermione. We live in the same castle, we-"
"Eleanor, you know what I mean." Hermione snapped, getting annoyed with her friend's wordplay. Eleanor pulled her book out of her bag and remained quiet for a few moments.
"I probably will. I like spending time with him, even if he hates my friends and my friends hate him."
"He more than hates us, he tortures Harry." Hermione pointed out.
"Torture is a bit of a stretch." Eleanor rolled her eyes.
Hurt flashed across Hermione's face. It was disheartening to watch Eleanor know fully well that Draco mistreated her friends, but refusing to acknowledge that her own lack of action led to the continuation of Draco's behavior. It felt almost as though she was defending him. "Eleanor, he calls me a Mudblood." Hermione let out.
Eleanor felt guilt pull at her heart, she couldn't look at Hermione. Hermione was brave and strong and smart, she knew that she was above the gross label that was put on her. However, it still hurt her to hear it used to describe her.
"I've talked to him about it." Eleanor said quietly. "He's trying to be better." Hermione scoffed at her words, she didn't believe it for a second. "He is." Eleanor nodded.
"You're smart, Eleanor," Hermione said quietly. "You know what is best for you." Eleanor had a feeling that her and her best friend had very different ideas of what that actually was. "Okay, anyway, I would really like to hear about these parties you attended this summer."
Eleanor smiled at her friend. Things often felt too serious with the four friends. Understandably so, considering the tragedies and challenges they faced, but it was always refreshing to laugh about normal things. "Hermione, I embarrassed myself in front of Blaise Zabini's inner circle repeatedly this summer."
"This Defense homework is ridiculous," Eleanor muttered angrily as she scratched away on the parchment. Her and Draco had found an abandoned classroom to work on homework together away from prying eyes. They had tried to meet up after hours most nights, but Draco was getting more and more Prefect rounds, and they had to be more creative about their rendezvous. Unfortunately, that also meant focusing on homework rather than each other some days.
"Eh, it's not so bad." Draco shrugged nonchalantly. Eleanor rolled her eyes at him.
"Okay Mr. Essay Writer Extraordinaire." She mocked, shaking her head in annoyance. "Umbridge really commented on the last essay I turned in that it reads at a primary school level, and that my penmanship looked like a baby owl wrote it. Is she really that worried about my fucking penmanship? Aren't there more important things to worry about?"
"She is a bit particular." Draco let out reluctantly, his eyes not leaving his parchment, though he braced himself for whatever smart, annoyed comment Eleanor was surely about to make.
"You are about the biggest kiss ass I have ever met." Eleanor huffed. "She can't hear you, you know."
"I don't know, she seems to like me fine."
"Everyone likes you fine." Eleanor grumbled, throwing her quill done and crossing her arms in annoyance. In reality, Eleanor wasn't just struggling in Umbridge's class, she was struggling all over. She had never floundered in school before, but she had already been given rather poor marks in each class, and every professor had pulled her aside to speak about her falling grades. She was frustrated with herself, it seemed her brain couldn't keep up with the rigor she was used to.
"You know who the only person who I care about liking me is?" Draco put his homework aside to look charmingly at Eleanor, whose brow was creased angrily as she sat across the table from him.
"You're going to say me just because I'm in a bad mood, aren't you?" Eleanor quipped, causing Draco to chuckle as he sat up from his chair and made his way over to her, feeling bolder than he had in weeks now that they were truly alone in an abandoned classroom. He wanted to be able to woo her, to make her feel loved; without the prying eyes of every student of Hogwarts.
"For the record," Draco started while guiding Eleanor to her feet and promptly pinning her against the table. "I would say you even if you weren't in a bad mood."
"That's because you're a kiss ass." Eleanor chuckled, feeling her irritation melt away under Draco's touch. Her light laughter turned into a small gasp once he started kissing her neck. His hands ran over her body and suddenly Eleanor didn't care so much about Umbridge's essay. She didn't care so much about anything at all, except for Draco's hot mouth moving closer and closer to hers.
"I'm very confused, Ellie." Draco murmured softly into her lips. "Am I too prideful, or a kiss ass? You accuse me of both, and I think that being one means I can't be the other." Eleanor rolled her eyes at him and captured his cheeks in her hands to bring his lips back to her mouth and shut up his annoying chatter. The two moved together slowly, deeply. Eleanor's whole body shivered as she pressed up against him. Like a million little sparks every place their bodies were connected. He electrified her.
"I think either way, you talk too much," Eleanor retorted. Draco pulled away from her, his lips slightly swollen and a mischievous light twinkled in his eye.
"There are a few ways you can get me to shut up, you know?" He breathed lowly in her ear. Eleanor's breath hitched slightly as her body went warm, but she wouldn't let him know that. She still had to have the last word in their interchange. She always wanted that.
But she stared at his lips, pink and slightly wet, and thought about something she wanted more.
"Probably something scandalous," Eleanor quivered slightly, "something that will compromise my virtue."
"So overdramatic." Draco rolled his eyes at her and smiled. "Not compromise your virtue, possibly taint it."
"I can live with it being tainted." Eleanor joked, sliding herself onto the table behind her. Her bright blue eyes seemed to darken as she pulled Draco on top of her by the collar of his shirt. They stayed interlocked like that for a while. No words were exchanged, only heaving breaths, random skin to skin contact when their fingers found new flesh to cherish. Both always wanting slightly more than what they currently had.
"El," Draco finally breathed out, "would you want...uhh...would you want me to -" he cleared his throat, unsure of how to ask if she wanted what he wanted to do to her. All smoothness and charm escaped him in that moment, and Eleanor liked it. She leaned in and kissed him again, moving her lips slowly against his. She gave him a nod when she pulled away.
Draco was for a moment excited, then petrified, then both as he kissed down her body further and further.
Eleanor and her mother had always been Quidditch fans. Olga was remembered by former classmates as one of Slytherin's best Chasers until an impossibly bad cold caught in her 6th year during a game that ran late into a winter night left her incapable of playing her final year at Hogwarts. While she was sour her lungs wouldn't allow her to play, she still worked hard to instill a love of the sport in Eleanor. Eleanor was a terrible flyer at first and was too frustrated at Draco's talent to continue with her training. She was never as dedicated to getting good at things as Draco was.
Olga and Eleanor attended many Holyhead Harpies games throughout the years the two spent together. The main reason Olga refused to go to the Quidditch World Cup was because her dislike for Ireland was almost as strong as her dislike for Viktor Krum, who she ranted was "only famous because of his age and good looks, not his abilities," and that "Glynnis Griffiths was only a year older than Krum when she became the best Seeker of the age but she didn't get half the recognition that Krum did," and was "everything wrong with the patriarchal systems of Quidditch". All of which she denied saying when a lovestruck Hermione and fanatic turned arch nemesis Ron Weasley came to visit over winter break that year.
Eleanor smiled at the memories as she sat in the stands of the Quidditch Pitch watching the Slytherin vs Gryffindor game. It was Ron's first game as Keeper. Hermione was watching him closely, nervously. Similar to the way Eleanor was analyzing Draco's sharp drops and sudden turns with her heart in her throat. She wanted him to lose, no doubt about it, but she didn't want him to get hurt.
That was until she heard an unfamiliar song coming from the Slytherin stands. Hermione and her shared a look of utter disgust.
"I'm gonna kill him." Eleanor muttered darkly under her breath as she watched Harry dive for the snitch and get hit with bludger as he fell to the ground.
"You might not have to." Hermione whispered almost in humor. She pointed to Draco and Harry yelling and pointing at one another but both girls were shocked when Harry and the Twins charged at the blonde.
"You've got to be kidding me." Eleanor groaned. "Let's go." She ushered.
Eleanor flew down the steps in a blind rage. She had never been so furious with Draco. That song was abhorrent. Anyone who passed Eleanor on the stairwell would swear they saw steam coming out of her ears and red fires in her eyes. This was especially frightening because so few had been on the receiving end of her unfiltered anger. Often times her sadness or anxiety would manifest as irritation or a mild temper, but true anger was hard to solicit from Eleanor and was absolutely terrifying to witness.
The small crowd had left the Pitch by the time Eleanor made it down, but she wasted no time stalking into the Slytherin locker rooms, which were nearly emptied out by now, save for Crabbe and Nott saying nasty things to Draco about Professor McGonagall.
"This is the Slytherin locker room." Crabbe told her as she stalked down the hallway to the open room.
"Shut up, Crabbe." Eleanor hissed. A look of surprise passed over the faces of all three boys as Eleanor stood firmly with her arms crossed. "I'd like to speak to Draco for a moment if you are done gossiping, thanks." Eleanor smiled with no friendliness.
"Whatever." Crabbe rolled his eyes in dismissal but gathered his things and left with Nott all the same. Eleanor and Draco were alone in the dark space. Draco was drenched in sweat and had taken his jersey and undershirt off, leaving him topless and staring vacantly into his locker.
"What the hell was that?" Eleanor demanded.
"They attacked me." Draco raised his voice, turning to look at her. The vague pain in his eyes and the large bruise forming on his chin almost made Eleanor relent but the words of that horrible song played in her head again and her determined anger didn't decrease.
"I'm about to do the same." Eleanor snapped, her jaw set rigidly. "And I'm not talking about the fight."
A look of realization passed through Draco's eyes. "The song? You're here because of the fucking song?" He asked incredulously.
"Yes, I'm here because of the fucking song, you absolute imbecile." Eleanor took a step forward in an attempt to intimidate, though Draco still towered over her.
"I didn't tell them to sing it."
Eleanor scoffed loudly and ran her hands through her hair in frustration. "No, you only came up with the lyrics and taught it to the entirety of your house right before the first Quidditch match of the season."
"Why are you so sure it was me?" Draco mimicked her by crossing his arms over his chest and raising an argumentative eyebrow.
"The other culprits would be the other members of the Slytherin Quidditch team and all of them were dropped on their heads as infants and probably every day since. They can barely swing the damn bat, let alone make melodies and rhymes meant to humiliate others."
"Why do you even care?" Draco's voice rose in anger. "We aren't together, Eleanor. We agreed we could never be friends with each other's friends, so why pretend otherwise?"
"Why do I care?" Eleanor repeatedly lowly. Draco nodded. "I care because what you did was cruel and unnecessary. It's repulsive to me."
"Yeah?" Draco licked his lips in frustration and tried to ignore the pang of sadness that her words sent through him. "Would you care this much if it had been anyone besides Weasley?"
"Of course I would." Eleanor didn't know what he was insinuating with that ridiculous question.
"Really? You would storm down to my locker room for Susan Bones? Or Looney Lovegood? Or Pansy Parkinson?" Eleanor let out a breath she didn't realize she had been holding, she knew in her heart she wouldn't have. "Didn't think so."
"Why does that matter?" Eleanor pressed. "Why is my anger any less valid because you were awful to one of my friends?"
"You were the one who decided we couldn't be together because of your friends!" Draco burst out. "You said that; you made that choice. Because of our conflict with each other's friends, you being my girlfriend was off the table. I don't care that you aren't my girlfriend, Eleanor, I really don't. But because you aren't my girlfriend, you don't get to be angry with me when I act the same way I did when I wasn't involved with you in any way."
"I don't get to?" Eleanor repeated for clarification. "You're telling me what I do and don't get to do now?" Eleanor had to laugh humorlessly for a moment. "Let's get a thing or two straight here, Mr. Malfoy, I'm the only one who decides what I get to do, and if I decide to get angry with you for being the biggest prick inside this castle, then I get to be mad at you for that. Similarly, if I decided that I get to stop getting you off in the Astronomy Tower because you are the biggest prick in the castle, then I get to decide that too. Just like I got to decide that I didn't want to be the girlfriend of someone who belittles my friends and countless others for sport. And I get to decide if the way you act around me makes up for the way you act literally everywhere else - which, for the record, it currently doesn't. So now you get to decide whether you want to start acting civilized or you can get someone else to sit on their knees on the cold ground for you every other night to get you off while you whimper pathetically and dream up a song about Ronald Weasley."
With that, she left.
Eleanor was not proud of what transpired in the Slytherin locker room. She entirely lost her temper and was unproductive in moving towards a solution as well as holding various inappropriate acts that the two had partaken in above Draco's head. This was something else she wasn't proud of, and was not in any way modern or dignified.
Eleanor did not expect Draco to meet her in the Astronomy Tower later that night, but she hoped he would. She hoped he would want to handle things more maturely — or at least yell at her— enough to show up. Eleanor felt awful that he had gotten kicked off the Quidditch team. His heart and mind was centered in Quidditch and it was one of the only things that motivated him. He would spend hours on the Pitch practicing. Now he had no broom, nothing to occupy his mind.
Though she felt for him, she wasn't any less angry about the song, and now added what he had said about Mrs. Weasley and Mrs. Potter. Yes, she still wanted to yell at him, but she had to make sure he was alright first.
Eleanor wrung her hands together in quiet anticipation, waiting to hear footsteps ascending the stairs. She was about to go back to the common room when she eventually heard them. She held her breath until she saw the moonlight glimmering on a platinum blonde head.
"I didn't think you were going to come." Eleanor expressed to his blank face as she rushed towards him. Her tone was completely changed from earlier. Draco found quiet solace in this.
"I had a few things to say." Draco informed quietly, taking her hands in his.
"Me too," Eleanor rushed.
"El, do I get to speak?" Draco asked. Relief filled Eleanor's heart at the sound of his pet name for her and his quiet joke. She nodded.
"I just wanted to say that I shouldn't have yelled at you earlier." She spit out, still not letting Draco get his words out. "I mean, I'm still angry about what you did, and rightfully so, but I was furious before and I should have controlled my temper so our conversation could have been more productive." Eleanor was nearly out of breath for how fast she spoke, but she felt she needed to say it. "Okay, sorry. Go ahead." She paused for a moment. "Oh, and I really shouldn't have made all of those comments about getting you off, I do that because I want to and not because I feel like I deserve something for it." She added quickly. "Alright, now I'm done."
Draco took a deep breath and tried not to crack a smile at her antics. "You were right earlier, loud and uncharacteristically callous, but you were right. I shouldn't have done that, I know how much it hurts you when I act like that. I'm trying to get better, I am. And I don't want you to think that just because you aren't my girlfriend that I'm just using you to get off in secret around the castle. I really like you, Ellie. I want to be more like you, but I don't know, you know me. I'm not like you and it's hard for me to be kind and gentle." Draco sighed deeply.
"You're always kind and gentle with me." Eleanor lifted his chin so their eyes met.
"You're easy. You're…" perfect, Draco wanted to say but let out a puff of breath and rested his forehead on Eleanor's. "You're good." He supplied lamely. Though he had an extensive vocabulary and deep feelings for Eleanor, all he could give her without fear of scaring her away was 'good'. He felt any sense of charm melt away at the sight of her.
"If you can't manage kind and gentle with everyone, can you try for neutral?" Eleanor conceded. Draco smiled and gave a slight smile before kissing her deeply, hoping his lips would convey his regret without having to speak.
Eleanor wasn't sure if giving him another chance was smart or if she was throwing away her integrity. But when she caught a 4th year singing "Weasley is Our King" the next morning at breakfast and then immediately after heard Draco snap "what a stupid fucking song," she felt at least hopeful.
