"Here."

Marilyn blinked as Draco slid something across the desk towards her. A badge - one of the ones she'd seen all of his friends wearing, with little animated letters reading "POTTER STINKS" emblazoned across it.

The pulling of Harry's name from the Goblet of Fire had happened the week prior, and talk of it had yet to die down. Marilyn just didn't particularly care. Fleur was nice - she didn't really know her, but she'd never had an interaction with the girl that wasn't positive, and Beauxbatons loyalty demanded that she hoped that she would win, but other than that she wasn't among those at the school who were insanely invested in this whole thing. She looked forward to witnessing the challenges, but it wasn't all she wanted to talk about. That tended to be reserved for dancing.

She snorted "No thanks."

Anybody who wasn't a half-mad conspiracy theorist, nor blinded by their own agenda, could see that whatever had gone on that night, Harry Potter hadn't planned it. To hear the tales, he'd already faced down a hell of a lot in his time here - not least the possibility of having his head cursed from his shoulders by Sirius Black himself just last year. If this was some sort of prank gone awry, he wouldn't have gone half as pale as he did when it all happened.

"Oh, don't tell me you're one of his groupies," Draco scoffed.

"You know, Draco, I'm very concerned about the places your mind goes if you think there's no middle ground between hating somebody and wanting to shag them."

"They tend to be the only reactions that prat elicits. Or is it that Weasley clone you're interested in?"

"My, you have been paying some amount of attention to me," she said.

He spluttered for a moment before huffing "Those two demand attention wherever they go. I imagine because it's difficult for them to get any at home, what with the rate their mother churns out offspring."

"I always thought it would be nice to have siblings."

"That's not a group of siblings, that's a bloody orphanage - with the poverty to match."

"Oh, stop it. They've never done anything to you."

"It's not me personally that should be concerned. It's our kind. The lot of them are scummy little blood traitors."

Marilyn sighed heavily, continuing to scratch out her to-do list for the rest of the week down in her diary.

"Have I offended you? Perhaps it's not Potter you're pining for at all, but Weaselby. I do think it very odd that a sixth year should be sniffing around you at all. It's downright seedy."

"Half of the girls in our year are fawning over Viktor Krum and he's older still."

"But he's Viktor Krum."

"What's the problem here? Concerned for my virtue now, are we?"

"Just wondering if it's him you'll be attending the Yule Ball with after all."

"Doesn't matter to you either way - you'll be going with Pansy Parkinson."

"What makes you think that? I told you she's not my girlfriend," he huffed, leaning back and crossing his arms "You're being exhausting today, you know that, Baxter? I can't help it if she's all over me."

"Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Make it sound like it's all one-sided when it's obviously not. We're fourteen, Draco, we're not babies. If you didn't want her attention, you'd say so. You have no trouble telling everybody else exactly what you think."

"It's none of your business."

"Thank Merlin for that - but you can't have it both ways. You can't have her fawning all over you when it suits you, before pretending that you haven't had a hand in it when that suits you instead. It's not fair on her."

"It's called being polite."

"I'm polite to lots of people without sticking my tongue down their throat under the stairs to the astronomy tower."

He faltered for a moment, apparently not having realised she'd even witnessed that display (to be fair to him, he had been rather distracted), before he remembered his bluster a half a second later.

"I didn't realise the two of you were such good friends - she'll be touched that you're defending her honour so ardently," he sneered.

"We're not," she shrugged "And thank Merlin for that, too."

"So why do you care?"

"I don't."

"It sounds like you do."

"You're making it sound like it keeps me up at night and I spend my days shaking my fist at the sky and cursing her name. I don't need to care, and I don't even need to be friends with her, to point out crap behaviour."

"Well it's not your place to point it out."

"The same way it's not your place to care whether or not I talk to George."

Silence prevailed then, and when she next glanced towards him she found him scowling furiously at the patch of desk before him, apparently no argument at hand to counter that point.

"Okay, let's just sit here quietly, then," she muttered sarcastically before she could resist the urge.

Maybe she shouldn't have poked the bear in such a manner - not once her point had been more than well made. In fact, she knew she shouldn't have a moment later when he spat a few indistinguishable curse words under his breath, gathered his things furiously into his arms, and then stood and made the short journey to the nearest empty desk. He left the badge behind, and Marilyn flicked it away.

Well. At least there'd be no more conversations at the Gryffindor table about her tenuous acquaintanceship with him in the future. And it was that thought that she clung to as she tried to brush off the weird feeling of regret that flitted through her chest in the wake of his response…and the stares that his response had brought about. She hadn't done anything wrong. She hadn't said anything wrong. Maybe the delivery could've used some work, but she stood by all of it. What did he want her to do? Nod along with everything he said when she disagreed with half of it, and knew the rest to be blatant bullshit? Nah. She didn't do that for her closest friends back at Beauxbatons, so she wouldn't do it here for him now for the sake of his great and mighty ego. That one, she surmised, was far too used to yes men.

It was that which she reminded herself of as she continued to silently write, trying to look as unbothered as possible under the gazes of those who turned their heads to see just what all of the commotion was about.

Marilyn's annoyance - the annoyance she made a point of not showing all throughout the rest of the morning - fuelled her training that afternoon…just as, well, pretty much everything else fuelled her training in some way or another. Rehearsals weren't even really scheduled until that evening, but the classroom they always used for dancing was empty and she was just in no mood to sit at the lunch table while Draco glared at her for the entirety of the whole meal. Knowing him, he'd spend the whole time necking on with Pansy at the Slytherin table because he had some sort of absurd notion that it would bother her. Which it wouldn't. Obviously.

Only when lunch was halfway done, and she knew the bulk of the students would have filtered outside to lounge around on the grounds for the rest of their break by now, did she pull on her robes over her leotard and tights and make her way to the hall. It was without hesitation this time that she made a bee-line over to the Gryffindor table, but while George was nowhere to be seen (nor either of his brothers, for that matter) Hermione was there, and Marilyn hesitated at the free space beside her.

"Do you mind if I…?" She trailed off, gesturing to the space.

The girl glanced up, then at the space, and finally sighed before shaking her head and returning to the book in her lap. Slipping onto the bench, she began loading up her plate and doing her utmost not to glance towards the Slytherin table. If her curiosity bested her and Draco caught her looking over, she'd only make herself look like a right tit in the end - at least now she could take comfort in her firm ownership over the moral high ground.

"Excuse me - hello? Er, Beauxbatons?"

Looking up from her plate, she blinked at the boy who sat across the way, watching her like she was some sort of dangerous animal as he fidgeted with the sleeves of his robes.

"Marabel, isn't it?"

"…Marilyn," she corrected slowly.

"Ah. Right. Yeah - sorry. That's, erm, that's very unique, it is."

"Uh…thanks," she said slowly.

"We have potions together - Jonathan. I sit at the front. We have that essay due on Friday. I've already done mine, if you want to copy it."

"…That's fine," she blinked "I've done mine, too. Thanks, though?"

"Oh. Well, um, d'you think you could help me with mine?"

To her right, Hermione sighed in annoyance, but she was still mostly bewildered. Was this some sort of strange prank?

"You…you just said you've already done it," she pointed out.

"Um…I did, didn't I? That's…nevermind then," he said quietly, flushing crimson as his friends all burst into fits of snickers.

Marilyn returned to her food, not quite sure what the joke was and why she didn't understand it to begin with.

"They announced that there's going to be some sort of ball around Christmas - our heads of house are going to talk to us properly about it later," Hermione took pity on her, although she didn't look up as she did "You'll be dealing with that quite a bit. You're the youngest Beauxbatons girl, I suppose they think it makes you the easiest target."

Marilyn huffed a sigh. They'd been putting together their dance routine for it for a couple of weeks - she hadn't expected the news to start going around Hogwarts until much later. Well after the first task, at least.

"Like a particularly slow antelope. Fantastic," she sighed "Although I suppose I am amongst lions…"

That, at least, earned her a begrudging smile. Apparently the fact that she didn't relish the attention sent her up in Hermione's books.

"I don't suppose you'd go with me?" She joked lightly "I think they'd listen to 'I've already got a partner' more than just a 'no'."

"If the goal is to avoid the attention of teenage boys, going with me would be the opposite of helpful," she pointed out.

"Touché. Best not then."

"Hm," she agreed, then hesitated and added airily "In any case, I'm not sure Malfoy would like it."

"Oh, Christ, not you too," she rolled her eyes "The lad can't stand me, I think he's a prick, and we just fell out from anything resembling civility in first period today anyway."

Hermione finally looked up from her book, brown eyes fixed on her as she spoke.

"Did you?" She asked.

"Yes."

"Then why was there a big scene at the start of lunch when he wouldn't let Pansy Parkinson sit with him?"

Marilyn felt her face pale as whatever response she was ready to give all but vanished, replaced by only one word in her mind. Fuck. Whatever Hermione expected to see in response, it obviously wasn't panic - nor the level of panic that Marilyn felt, for any sort of arch pointedness left the girl's face almost immediately.

"He did what? No - no. Are you sure?"

"She wasn't exactly quiet about her displeasure. Surely you…surely you knew?"

"You think I planned this?" Marilyn hissed "I wanted him to do the opposite."

Or at least she suspected he would. If he'd had it in his head to ask her to the ball and he found out the truth of her blood status that way, he'd view it all as some grandly orchestrated prank. A scheme on behalf of the evil mudbloods to make him look like a fool. Christ, she was probably straying into that territory when he found out the truth anyway. She'd probably danced into that territory the moment she'd agreed to go for a secret tipple in the woods with the git.

She needed to get out of here. Appetite very much a thing of the past, she stood up and clambered over the bench without any of her usual dancerly grace. It was difficult to say whether the post-dancing cooldown or the dread furrowing into the pit of her stomach was the culprit for how utterly freezing she suddenly felt.

"Marilyn, wait," Hermione sighed "I didn't mean to-"

Not looking at the Slytherin table was certainly bloody well easy now. She didn't even know if Draco was still there or not, but she didn't want to know. Fucking hell, she had two classes after this. How would she focus on anything else? Luckily neither was with Slytherin house, so at least there was that. But…shit.

She made it just as far as the courtyard outside before Hermione finally caught up with her, her school supplies gathered in her arms from where she'd snatched them up quickly before pursuing.

"I thought you'd have known - I thought it was…I don't know, some sort of plan. A goal or something, I don't know. I didn't mean to…"

To her credit, she did seem to feel genuinely bad. Whatever was showing on Marilyn's face (something she knew she'd have to get under control as soon as possible) had obviously proven to her that she was more of an idiot who'd started wading into the water with no idea of the riptides within than any sort of scheming temptress with a game-plan.

"Why would I have planned this? Even if I did fancy him - which I absolutely do not," scepticism reigned on Hermione's face once again at this "He hates people like us. Despises us. What could I have to gain in convincing him to shun his bloody girlfriend, or not girlfriend, or whatever the hell she is or isn't, for me? Do you realise how furious he's going to be when he finds out now? Do you think I want to get the pants cursed off of me? Do you think I want to anger the nasty former Death Eaters?"

"Girls can do very stupid things when they think absolute prats are attractive," Hermione pointed out falteringly "I thought…oh, I don't know. I thought maybe you had it in your head to change him."

"I'm not an idiot," she said - although she didn't believe it "Fuck."

"He was going to be furious either way," Hermione pointed out.

"Very helpful, thanks," she smoothed a hand over her hair where it was scraped back into a bun "We don't even like each other, Hermione! We spend half of our time annoying one another! There's no way he fancies me. Not enough to do this."

"To be fair, I don't think any deep confession of love is on the way. He's Malfoy, his motives won't be that noble. He wants to be the one who brings the pretty ballerina to the Yule ball. It's all status with him, he wants to show off. That's all it is - all it ever is."

That…that made sense. Oh, thank god. It didn't make her situation any less sticky, but it certainly filled her with less horror than what her mind had first jumped to. Sighing in relief, she felt somewhat embarrassed that she'd even suspected it was something deeper than that, but her horror still stood. She was still on course to make an enemy of near enough everybody in Slytherin house.

"What do I do?" She asked finally.

She wasn't even sure if she was asking Hermione, whatever higher power lurked out there, or herself. But she wouldn't mind if Hermione saw fit to answer - she was smart, and she had much more experience with Draco than Marilyn did. Biting on her lower lip, she sighed and looked about the courtyard as if looking for inspiration.

"We'll…we'll think of something."

The general sentiment of the thing wasn't reassuring. The 'we', though? The 'we' was uplifting.

A/N: Just because I always forget to tell people where to find me elsewhere on my newer stories lolol:

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