Quick Note: Sorry for the weird update/delete/update situation! I got ahead of myself and uploaded it without editing it completely because I was just so excited to share this one with you all! I'm interested to hear what you all think of these developments! Thank you so much for reading, following, favoriting, commenting! It means so much, and I hope you all stick around for the long haul!
Sneaking out of the common room was harder than usual on that late October night. Harry had been distracted by writing a letter to Sirius and Eleanor was able to start a debate between Ron and Hermione that left them distracted. This created the perfect opportunity to slip through the portrait hole unnoticed. This wasn't the only added obstacle however, the added eyes of the Inquisitorial Squad made the trek to the Astronomy Tower more perilous than it had been at the beginning of the term.
But seeing Draco made Eleanor's nervous heart slow for a moment before speeding off into an excitement. They didn't see each other as often as summer, and while sneaking away during the night to talk - or not talk - wasn't ideal, it was better than their usual school year interactions, which were usually none at all. Eleanor was always wary in their relationship to not grow too attached or get too excited because Draco never seemed as invested as she did. But she couldn't deny that he kissed her back with a certain excitement that was not compatible with nonchalance.
"Hey," Eleanor whispered into the small space between their lips. Draco didn't respond, not with words anyway, he just kissed her again and pulled her close. "I've missed you." Eleanor giggled as Draco moved his lips to her cheek, her jaw, then her neck. He murmured something in response. It wasn't as though Draco didn't like talking to Eleanor, he usually did, but as the year went along, he always ended up feeling guilty. He knew that he and Eleanor had different goals and different views of success, and usually it didn't impact their relationship, but things were different this year. Eleanor was different, their relationship was different no matter how much they refused labels - or even speaking about it.
Draco was afraid to admit to himself that Eleanor's reservations had been right. Things were different, almost wrong, at school. Sometimes he found himself longing for the long days spent together over the summer. He wondered why they could never be content. He refused to blame himself, though a small part of him feared that he was part of the problem.
No, Draco shook the thought away as he backed Eleanor up to the wall, deepening their kiss. They were good like this. He was content like this. The Astronomy Tower was cold in the dead of a late autumn night. The moon light reflected off of the sprinkle of light snow on the ground and seemed to make the world a little brighter despite the mostly dark and damp days. Eleanor's fingers, ten icicles, found their way into Draco's hair. No, Draco truly didn't have anything to complain about.
Eleanor liked her late night rendezvous with Draco. Though she couldn't convince herself it was enough to keep her fulfilled and all around happy with their relationship, it was better than nothing. She didn't think about how the longer the school year went on, the less they spoke to each other. Their meetings were mostly like this, their mouths occupied in ways other than talking - many other ways. Eleanor blushed furiously at the thought of getting caught up here. They certainly weren't always in the most decent of states however they were more inclined to stay more fully dressed the colder it got. Draco assured her no prefect actually checked the Astronomy Tower on nights it wasn't in use for class, there were too many stairs. He also promised he was hard at work finding a new place for them - a warmer place - he would always press with a twinkle in his eye.
No one knew, of course. Though both party's friends had their suspicions. Eleanor sometimes felt as if she had very little to lose if they were found in a compromising position. She wanted to throw caution to the wind, she wanted to be braver than she felt. And Draco made her feel braver than she would be on her own, but one thought she kept coming back to was the thought of Lucius and Narcissa finding out. This was more mortifying than any other consequence so she wasn't in a big rush to move closer to the prefect's nightly rounds.
Eleanor gathered Draco's robes in her hands in an attempt to pull him closer. Her fingers enclosed around a cold, metal badge that was about the size of her palm. "What's this?" Eleanor asked, pulling away from Draco's warm lips and squinting through the dark to see the object. With the light of the moon glinting off of the badge, she was able to read the two perfect letters "IS".
"What's this?" Eleanor repeated, looking up at Draco in great annoyance.
"Oh, come on, El." Draco rolled his eyes at her. "It isn't a big deal." He moved to return to their kiss but Eleanor moved her head to the side so that his lips came in contact with her cheek. He would have transitioned smoothly and perhaps been able to get her mind off of it had he not been shocked at her flat out refusal. "Are you seriously upset about this?"
"Kind of." Eleanor huffed in a way that let Draco know there was no 'kind of' about how she was currently feeling. He had hoped their emotional disconnect that had been happening slowly wouldn't ever catch up to them. Foolishly he had assumed they would be content to continue snogging until summer arrived again and they could pick up emotionally where they left off in September.
"My father wanted me to do it," Draco explained. "It just looks good to have been involved, you know? Especially with not having Quidditch."
"You could have just joined the Potions club or something." Eleanor looked away and crossed her arms over her chest.
"Not exactly led by a Ministry official." Draco pointed out with a slight chuckle, trying to prove that there wasn't anything to be upset about. He reached his hands out to pull her closer. Eleanor let herself be held by him for a few moments. She was willing to blame it on his ambitions for the future, his want to get ahead, his incessant need to please his father. She could live with that. Draco began kissing her forehead, softly and sweetly. Eleanor closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around his waist. She just wanted to be close to him. She felt so lonely without him around, and while she missed their conversations most of all, the physical closeness provided some much needed comfort and assurance to her. Draco held her, relieved that the interchange hadn't turned into an argument. He was content to hold her for awhile before returning to what he had originally planned. He would be sure to be very good to her tonight to make up for her annoyance with him.
Eleanor was willing to forget but then her cheek pushed up against that blasted badge and she remembered. She remembered Umbridge telling Harry that he was a liar, she remembered the phrase "I must not tell lies" carved into his hand, she remembered her trying to banish Professor Trelawney from the grounds. Eleanor remembered her comments on half-breeds - specifically on Remus. Most of all, she remembered Hermione's words.
"He more than hates us,"
"You're smart, Eleanor. You know what's best for you."
"So, you're just doing Umbridge's bidding?" Eleanor asked slowly, Draco sighed inwardly. He should have known Eleanor better than to think she would just drop it. Perhaps if they had spent more time talking…
"It isn't like that." Draco tried to explain.
"She tortures Harry." Eleanor pointed out, releasing herself from Draco's arms. "She is a complete blood purist, she is stopping capable professors from doing their jobs, she is giving herself entirely too much power and rewarding students who align themselves with her which is creating a completely unfair and unjust environment," Eleanor took a deep breath and so did Draco as they both let out what the other party absolutely didn't want to hear:
"Kind of like Voldemort," Eleanor words met Draco's.
"I don't really care."
Both took in a sharp breath and glared at the other. They started talking over each other then.
"That's not a fair comparison to make, Eleanor."
"Really Draco, you don't care?"
"You-Know-Who has been dead for a long time and you are just buying into Potter's lies."
"That's really disheartening, Draco, considering that I thought my friends would have earned a shred of respect and I most certainly thought I would have considering the things we have done up here."
"And you know how hurtful that comparison can be because of the way my parents were treated after the last war. Do you really think so low of me to think that I am the same as every other Dark Wizard for trying to further my career?"
"Why do you idolize mean hearted people when there are good people out there who would love you if you just stopped being such a prick all the time?"
"I don't even see why you care so much about what I do in my free time considering you have seemed perfectly content this whole time with not speaking. Extremely content if I may say."
"How am I supposed to love you unconditionally when you align yourself with someone who is against everything I believe in, tortures my friends, and uses every opportunity to demonize my father!" Eleanor's words rung out the loudest in the end as she shoved an aggressive finger against the stupid badge that Draco wished he had just taken off.
The two stood silently for a moment. Eleanor's jaw was firmly, angrily, set as she looked up at him daringly. Draco just stood dumbfounded. His anger was released into confusion and possible bliss. The first word he was stuck on was her use of love, but then he quickly transitioned into confusion over her mention of her father.
"I'm sorry," Draco shook his head "father?"
Eleanor realized she had never referred to Remus as her father, not out loud. She felt ashamed that her growing relationship with Remus was discovered through her anger with Draco. Suddenly, she wanted to see him. She wished for the holidays to be closer. There was an ever present part of her that wished for her true mother and father, the ones she lost, but that never went away. She was trying to only want for what she knew she could have, otherwise it was unneeded misery.
"What about him?"
"I've never once heard Umbridge insult your father."
Eleanor sighed and looked away, deciding that she had let too much out now to not tell him the truth. "Every time she talks about how incompetent Remus Lupin was she is insulting my father."
"Remus Lupin was your father?" Draco's eyes widened. He was unwilling to accept this truth. Eleanor wasn't just a Half-Blood, she wasn't even fully human. He wondered if under her beauty she hid werewolf qualities. No, she couldn't, he would've noticed. But still, he looked at her apprehensively.
"Is my father." Eleanor corrected. "I haven't lost everybody yet." She growled.
The two remained silent for a few more seconds. Draco was trying to process everything he just heard, but he couldn't. He simply could not understand this piece of information. He knew that the Cordarris were not her birth parents, he had accepted that truth. But a Lupin? Eleanor Lupin? It didn't seem real, it didn't seem right. He decided to deny what he had just been told and move to another thought.
"You love me?" Draco asked, reaching in the dark for her hands and feeling a shot of sadness run through him when she backed away.
"Weren't you listening?" Eleanor hissed. "I can't love you. Not when you are running around in leagues with someone who hates everything about me and what I hold dear."
"It's always been like this, El. We've always been at opposite sides." Draco reminded, strangely finding himself wanting her to say those words.
"This is different." Eleanor tried to explain.
"It isn't."
"It is." She said firmly.
Draco felt anger flash in him for a moment, or was it sadness? He couldn't quite tell. He felt completely rejected, which was a feeling he was not used to. Especially when it came to Eleanor. "Why are you still here then?" Draco challenged. "If you aren't going to say it because you apparently don't feel it, then why are you waiting around? Are you waiting for me to change my friends, change my family, change my plans for the future so you don't have to feel guilty about the way you feel about me? Because your friends make you think I'm terrible and everything about me is terrible? You certainly don't seem to think so when we are alone. What are you waiting for? What do you want from me?"
Eleanor wanted to cry. She'd cried in front of Draco many times but this time felt different. He felt different. He was angry at her rejection and she was too proud to admit that she was confused. She didn't want to talk things out, not anymore, not after he blew up at her like that. Maybe it wasn't fair, she knew she wasn't being fair. She expected much more change from him than he expected from her, but maybe Hermione was right. He needed to change more than she did. Or did he? He was ambitious that didn't mean he was callous. But he could be callous. Eleanor didn't know what to think. She loved him, she was quite certain, but he couldn't know and she wouldn't admit it. How could he love her back if he hated every part of her life? She alone was nothing, she needed her friends and her newfound family. He would be hating a part of her that she could not let go of.
"Nothing. Not anymore." Eleanor answered swiftly and darted away, convinced that if she denied it long enough, her love for Draco Malfoy would go away.
This was new. Him and Eleanor had argued in the past. It was mutual annoyance and pride. It never lasted long. They were almost always back to snogging the next day. But weeks had now passed. Every note he sent her was met without reply. He would end up waiting in their normal spots for hours with no sign of her. He felt like an idiot. She was making a complete fool out of him.
He was enraged that she couldn't understand that he was just bettering himself. And yes, perhaps him and Umbridge had a mutual dislike for Harry Potter and Dumbledore that made her more tolerable to work for, but that didn't make him evil, that didn't make him like Voldemort as Eleanor had implied.
His thoughts were consumed with her, but not in the way they had been before. He felt betrayed. He wanted to see her and tell her off. He didn't even think about kissing her. Well, sometimes those thoughts snuck in as well, but it wasn't the majority of them. One night had left him severely sour, when he had asked her after class to meet him by the library. She made no indication that she heard him but he knew that she had, and yet she made him sit in the dark alcove by the library utterly alone. He could not possibly comprehend what he had done.
He decided to skip dinner the next night to avoid seeing her smiling and laughing with the people that apparently made her incapable of loving him. It would be too humiliating. So he sat in the common room flipping through a Quidditch magazine without registering any of the information.
"I hope you don't mind getting frown lines young." A laughing voice teased from the stairs to the dormitories.
"What?" Draco snapped, looking up at the girl who was poking fun at him. He knew her, or knew of her. She was a year older and rather unspectacular when it came to academics, though she was a skilled dueler he seemed to recall. He tried to remember her name. It started with a B. Beatrice? Bridget, perhaps? Yes, that sounded right.
Bridget held her hands up in mock surrender as she descended the stairs into the empty common room. "I'm just saying. Wrinkles come early when you're so serious." She screwed her face up into a mock scowl, continuing to tease him. Draco was not in the mood.
"Yeah well, nothing for you to concern yourself with."
"Oh come on, I'm only teasing." Her blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail and her legs were long. She was quite pretty, Draco decided. She found a seat on the chair next to his.
"And why, may I ask, are you being such a tease?" Draco asked with a tight, disingenuous smile.
Bridget shrugged. "You seemed lonely."
"I'm not." Draco asserted, looking back at his magazine.
"Your friends beg to differ." Bridget laughed, gesturing to the empty room around them. She cracked a smile, a beautiful smile. Something about her quip reminded him of Eleanor. It made his heart ache ever so slightly, but he shoved that feeling away.
She is prettier than Eleanor, Draco thought to himself, but felt a near insane amount of guilt when he thought it. He tried to push the guilt away too, but it stuck around a little longer. And she sure isn't rejecting me.
"Do you want to keep being lonely?" Bridget pressed. Draco tried to remember any sort of information about her. He thought he overheard Pansy gossiping about how Bridget's boyfriend had been caught with another girl a few days ago. Ah, that made more sense. She was throwing herself at him out of revenge, but was he any different? Was he any better?
"Are you going to keep bothering me?" Draco wondered aloud.
"Probably." Bridget laughed.
No, Draco decided, he was not any better than Bridget.
"You're rather good at that." Bridget giggled from her bed as Draco hurriedly looked around the dorm for his clothes. Draco doubted very much that her words were true. He felt awkward and uncomfortable the whole time. The small bed and the fact that she really seemed to not care for him at all. It all felt very uninviting. Eleanor always made him feel at home. Of course he had never done with Eleanor what he just did with Bridget, but they had gotten close. Close enough for him to know that he preferred her. "You've obviously done that before." She pressed.
He had not.
"Have you seen my other sock?" Draco brushed off her comment.
"You're in such a hurry." She laughed. "No time to breathe?"
"I'm just a little concerned at the fact that the entirety of our house will return from dinner at any moment." Draco shrugged, sarcastically nonchalant.
"I guess next time we will have to go somewhere a little more private."
Draco froze as he picked up his missing sock from the floor. "Yeah, next time." He agreed. He didn't necessarily want there to be a next time, but he knew there wouldn't be a time with Eleanor in the near future. He knew that with sickening certainty.
With Eleanor, it would have been good, spectacular, loving and intimate. It wouldn't have been over so quickly on a tiny, uncomfortable dorm bed. He wouldn't have had to close his eyes and pretend it was someone else. But he couldn't dwell on that. Someone's arms were better than no arms, even if they weren't Eleanor's.
Draco gave an awkward nod to Bridget before he left her alone in the room. He couldn't think too long about what had just occurred before he started feeling guilty. He tried to regain himself on the couch with his magazine while some of his friends filed back in.
Blaise raised his eyebrows at Draco's inside out shirt, but didn't say anything until he saw Bridget, looking flustered and disheveled walking down the stairs.
"What the hell, Draco?" Blaise put together, looking at his friend in disbelief.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Draco shrugged, refusing to look up.
"What about Eleanor?" Blaise pressed.
A wild feeling of fury and guilt - mostly aimed at himself - blew up in his chest. He pushed up from the chair and glared hard at Blaise. "I don't know what you're talking about." He repeated harshly before retreating to his room, shielding himself from the world.
