A/N: I'm sorry for how long it took me to get this finished and posted! I'm also sorry for how long it's been since I updated Live Forever, for those of you who follow that - I am in the process of writing the next part, it's just taking a fair while because it's a challenging one. I've also been pretty wrapped up in the final stages of my Pirates of the Caribbean fanfic (Norrington/OC) – I've honestly never been prouder of a fanfic than I am of that one, so if it sounds like it might be of interest to you, please go check it out!

Anyway, enjoy Draco's mental gymnastics and a whole load of angst.

Draco Malfoy was not enjoying his summer. Worse still, this face was only emphasised to him by how much everybody else seemed to be enjoying theirs - for their lot was on the rise. He had not yet met the Dark Lord, nor seen him in person at all for that matter, an honour which was only reserved for his innermost circle for the time being, but his presence was still felt. Every gathering his mother threw, as well as those that he was obligated to attend thrown by other families of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, had a distinct atmosphere to them. One brimming with excitement and promise. Lots of vague, thinly veiled statements were made over glasses of wine with knowing looks shared, almost every face wore a smirk, and there was even less grumbling over Dumbledore and his affinity for mudbloods. Because they knew such attitudes were on the decline.

It had even spread to his friends, although their words on the matter were rather less artful than those of their parents, often limited to phrases along the lines of "the mudbloods'll get theirs before long, just like we've always said". It was infectious. So why had it not spread to him?

Perhaps the answer lay in the instinctive, bodily response he had when Pansy replied to one such comment with "that ballet girl - Baxter, was it? - she'll be first, all the jumping about for attention she does."

At first he'd been able to pretend that the ire that her words gave rise to, sparking in his chest, was down to her feigned ignorance. She knew full well what Baxter's name was, and she'd spent far too much of the school year hissing and snarling about her to now pretend that she barely knew anything about her at all. It was laughable, and having to deal with it wasn't worth the ten minutes he'd spent flirting with her in the Hogwarts courtyard to get under Baxter's skin.

He'd caught Baxter glancing over as he had, but the results hadn't been half as satisfying as he'd hoped. Not as much as destroying that room was…and even that had left him feeling strangely heavy as he'd stormed out afterwards. Finally, as he'd watched the carriage becoming little more than a fleck in the sky, and then finally nothing, he'd expected that any feeli- any thoughts he'd had of Marilyn Baxter would follow suit. She'd be reduced to little more than a splotch of ink on an otherwise impeccable record. Most importantly, one that nobody else knew of. Other than Granger - he didn't like that at all - but still. If she knew what was good for her, she'd keep her mouth shut on the topic.

And then…then it just didn't work out that way. Because he kept bloody well thinking about her. It was easiest when he remembered the absolute disappointment on her face, because that only made him angry. What right had she to be disappointed in him? That wasn't how this worked. That wasn't her place.

It was less easy when Pansy kept going on and on about how she'd be next, though. It gave credence to the fears Baxter herself had expressed - the ones he'd denounced as ridiculous. Because the more he thought on it, the less ridiculous it sounded. Although honestly, it was difficult when Pansy spoke at all. It was just another thing that made him remember Baxter, who had ultimately gotten one thing right. She was better company than Pansy. Pansy shrieked with laughter at anything he said, regardless of whether or not it was actually funny. Then, when he did say something funny, she'd try to add to it with something that boiled down to a less cleverly worded version of whatever it was he'd said in the first place. And then, when he didn't laugh, she'd pout.

He couldn't even be annoyed at her without being reminded of Baxter, either, because every time he did, he heard her voice in his head. What d'you expect? You can't flirt with her when you're bored and then get angry when she hangs about. You don't get to lead her on when you feel like it and then pretend it's all one-sided when you don't. Merlin, she was exhausting even when she wasn't here. Always taking everything so seriously, always striving for some fictitious moral high ground. It was no wonder she and Granger got on so well.

Draco hated that. He hated the weird feeling in his chest that had sprung up when his needling upon finding her in tears had only upset her further, he hated the fact that she'd ruined things by being so bloody hysterical over one thing that she had no way of proving wasn't an accident, he hated the fact that every conversation he had with any of his visiting peers only made him miss her, and most of all he hated the fact that no matter how many times he tried, he couldn't get rid of this stupid blood bracelet.

He'd held it out over the waste paper bin by the desk in his bedroom, but hadn't been able to unfurl his fingers. Later he reasoned that it was a logical decision rather than an emotional one - if it was found in his rubbish, he'd have some explaining to do. But then he'd tried to get rid of it in the fish pond on the outskirts of their land, and he hadn't been able to let go of it then, either. Nor when he'd flown out on his broom deep into the country, where it wouldn't be found by anything other than a magpie if he dropped it there. Every time, something told him to stop. And he listened to it. He hated that something too, whatever it was.

Mostly because it was the thing that had him rolling out of bed, on his third failed attempt to sleep that night, and yanking open his desk drawer to glare at the bracelet. He could send it back to her…in fact, he should send it back to her. Slipping it into an envelope seemed a much neater, much less dramatic, much less hysterical solution than throwing it into some lake or pond like he was a woman scorned in a ridiculous Victorian novel.

Yes…yes, it made sense. She'd obviously thought she was making some sort of high and mighty point in returning it, so giving it back to her would be his way of getting the last laugh, too. Baxter took herself far too seriously as far as this particular argument was concerned to engage in some sort of ridiculous postal back and forth. It was her birthday soon, too - the fact that he remembered that did nothing for his annoyance - so perhaps that was a sign that he should send it. Yes, he'd send it, she wouldn't reply, the bracelet would be her problem, and he'd never think of her again.

Plucking the bracelet from the drawer, he threw it down onto his desk, and did the same with the envelopes that had been neatly stacked beneath it. Draco picked up the bracelet, pinching it between two fingers as though too much contact might burn him, and dropped it into the envelope. Then, though, as he reached for the emerald green wax stick on the far side of the desk, he paused before his fingers brushed it.

Should he include a note? His first instinct was absolutely bloody not, but given how hysterical and paranoid she'd been the last time they'd spoken, if he sent the bracelet and nothing but, she'd only go out of her mind and think it was cursed or some other sort of nonsense. Draco Malfoy sent me cursed jewellery! was not the sort of rumour he needed going around, not when keeping a clean image was imperative now more so than ever, as his parents kept reminding him without end.

Yet another thing that put him in a foul mood. He wasn't a child - and he wasn't a fool. He didn't need to be reminded of these things in the way that Crabbe, Goyle, and Pansy did.

Setting down a piece of parchment alongside the envelope, he grabbed a quill, dipped it into the inkwell…and then he paused. What was he even supposed to write? He would not be apologising, that much was bloody certain. There wasn't anything to apologise for. Sniffing, he wrote out the first word in careful, flawless script that was probably more elaborate than it needed to be:

Baxter,

What should come after was not quite so obvious. Draco sat there, slouched in his chair, glaring at the blank parchment until his arse started to go numb in his chair and thinking about what to write began to feel much more troublesome than the idea of potentially writing the wrong thing. And anyway, who cared if it was the wrong thing? What would she do? Fall out with him.

Grumbling angry to himself, he put quill to parchment once again and wrote the first few sentences that came to mind. Then he was throwing it into the envelope before the ink had proper time to dry, just so he mightn't have a chance to think better of it all in the first place.

Because he did not miss her. He didn't. He just needed to stop being reminded of her - and that would fix this.

Perhaps George did feel guilty for having to back out of their plans. If he did, maybe that was the reason for the odd tone of his letters. Not just odd, but distinctly un-George like. The first couple of times, Marilyn didn't take it personally. As he'd said, he was having a family emergency, and he'd never really seemed like one to sit down and pour his heart and soul into a letter, anyway, but these felt distinctly and unmistakably short - in tone, if not in language. She could even understand his unwillingness to talk much about what was going on in his life, considering she sure as hell wasn't sharing what was happening in hers, either. She knitted up a bloody storm, she hung around the tourist traps with her creations looking suitably pathetic (and profited from it) on the weekends, and on week days she cleaned the local dance studio and used any and every empty classroom in the place up until it was locked up for the night.

None of it made for exciting writing, and she didn't want to mention it and just have it look like she was some big pity case - guilting him for something he couldn't help. So if he asked, her holidays were boring but happily uneventful. The fact remained, though, that trying to carry out a conversation was soon like pulling teeth, and things had never been that way with George.

As each letter that came in only served to have her doubling down on her fears, until one day she sat down at her desk to pen a response and just…had no will to do it. It felt too awkward, too stilted, too insincere, too weird. Too unlike the entire way they'd been with each other throughout the whole school year, even when he'd revealed he knew she'd been carrying on with Malfoy.

It wasn't even out of the ordinary, was it? She should have expected this. How many kids finished middle school and swore to one another that they'd still definitely be best friends even when they went to different high schools? This hadn't felt like that…but that was probably the point. It never did to anybody who said it at the time. Maybe it would just be best if she bit the bullet and was the first to not respond, that way neither of them would feel obligated anymore. Easier.

The relief she felt when she put down the pen and turned off her desk lamp spoke for itself, even if it was followed by a wave of heavy sadness.

"Oh well," she sighed to herself "No use crying over it."

It might've been easier had Hermione not been much the same, too.

Moving in the dark, padded to her dresser and slowly eased open the top drawer as quietly as she possibly could, using all of her dancerly skill and grace to change into pyjamas without making a sound. Voices, laughter and music drifted in pretty much non-stop from the living room down the hall. It was a double edged sword, really. There were other people around - which meant her mum would play nice, so long as she was in a good mood. The audience mattered above all else on nights like these, and as long as she kept out of sight and out of mind, she'd probably go down the 'doting mother' performance rather than the 'time to pick on my daughter to look powerful in front of my pals' one. Although that also often depended on which friend was visiting. Some would react to such a display with awkward silence, others would find it hysterical. Marilyn pitied their daughters, too.

However the presence of her friends also meant that she was drinking. Well, drinking more than usual. And that could easily turn bad really quickly. Which was how she found herself pretending to be fast asleep in bed by eleven on a Friday night - because her option was that, a screaming match, or taking her chances with the hostels in the city centre during the particularly tourist-y times.

God, she missed her walkman. It was usually a lifesaver on nights like these. A point that was punctuated when she heard the door to the living room click open, the old school pop hits that were playing suddenly sounding clearer.

"Oh come on, you're leaving already? It's still early!"

"I have to, the final bus is in twenty minutes."

"You can have Marilyn's bed! She won't mind!"

"Don't be daft - see, her light's already off, she's sleeping."

"We can get her up! It'll be fine. Marilyn! Are yo-"

The word was muffled at the end, like her pal had clapped a hand over her mouth "Shush! You can't do that to the lass, not after she let you give Leah her walkman like that. Did you pass on that we said thank you, by the way?"

Well, there was that mystery solved. Marilyn didn't know if she should be pleasantly surprised that it had been merely given away and not sold - her mother was always generous with things that weren't hers. Oh well - another thing that there was no use crying over. If she could keep earning money here and there on the side, and keep avoiding paying for hostels or hotels, she'd be able to afford a new one before the holidays were at an end. Maybe she could give it to Taylor to safekeep if she was back before Beauxbatons started up again. Failing that, she'd start lifting carpet and floorboards for a better hiding place.

"Oh- erm, yes! Of course I did. She said it was no problem, she never uses it anyway."

"Aw, well it was still good of her. Anyway, I'll be on the bus and home in no time."

What followed were a few drawn out goodbyes, and the front door opening and closing again - leaving her mother with her one remaining friend. From what she could hear, it sounded like Susan, and that wasn't good. Susan was such a cow that Marilyn found herself pitying her daughters. Like really did attract like.

It was too hot for her to be huddled under the covers like this. This summer was one that was turning out to be punctuated by heatwaves, broken up only by slightly cooler rainy days every now and then. But if her mother came in and found her on top of the covers, she'd probably be able to tell that she was just pretending to be asleep. Yet another one of her mother's weird inconsistencies - she'd be the world's biggest nightmare, but if she came in and found her pretending to be out for the count, she'd leave. Marilyn closed her eyes and wedged her pillow over her head to muffle whatever snide comments were being made in the hallway for her benefit. Likely passive aggressive murmurs about selfishness.

It would be an early start tomorrow. It would have to be - if she wanted to avoid an argument rooted either in the hangover that was sure to cast a dark cloud over the house, or the party she'd just be blamed for ruining. That was fine, though. Less than forty days and she'd be gone again. Plus, in two weeks time she'd turn fifteen, which meant it was only one year before she would turn sixteen. And then she could leave.

A year might've felt like a long time, but she'd be at Beauxbatons for most of that time - and with her friends there, too. No, this was the worst of it for sure. And here she was, still breathing, still relatively fine. There was strength in that, if only she could cling to it. Wasn't there? She hoped that there was.

Then again, she'd been wrong about one thing. Life could get pretty bloody worse. If he rose to power. No doubt Draco was out there now, praying for it to happen. That knowledge did nothing to take the sting out of the fact that some small part of her knew that if she'd been able to tell him of her current circumstances, he'd be able to make her feel better about it. Rolling onto her back, Marilyn glared at the ceiling and the sickly green glow in the dark stars blu-tacked onto it. She was always surprised to find them still there when she returned, but she supposed it added to the image her mother tried to purport. Maybe she wasn't so different from Draco's parents in that strange, abstract way. It was all about the image.

It wasn't like she thought he'd be a shoulder to cry on, or that he'd lend any great words of philosophical wisdom to fix the situation. But he'd say something funny - something callous and dry that would have things feeling maybe only half as serious. Half as draining. And then images of him laughing during Cedric Diggory's memorial sprang to the forefront of her mind, and she felt nauseous, stupid, delusional, and all round bloody hopeless all over again.

Lifting her arm, Marilyn rested her forearm across her eyes and told herself she would not cry. She wanted her walkman back. It was always good for blocking out thoughts.