Chapter 5: Now Time Doth Waste Me

Third Year

"And did you see the look on Longbottom's face when Snape walked through the wardrobe?" Pansy cackled. "I thought he was going to shit himself right on the spot! Merlin, how humiliating."

Draco didn't look up from the potions book in his lap as he sat on one of the leather couches in the dark, cold Slytherin common room. He could barely focus on the words in front of him as his friends burst into hysterics on the carpet below him, recalling the events from earlier today in their DADA class.

Stupid bloody Boggarts, Draco thought to himself. Stupid Boggarts, and their stupid shape- shifting, and their stupid abilities and their stupid existence. The entirety of the Boggart lesson was totally and completely pointless, that he was sure of.

"I dunno," Theo said as he kicked his feet up on the card table. "Weasley's was pretty pathetic too. I mean, a spider, really? You're telling me that a kid with red hair so terrifying it could make a grown man cry, who's friends with a Mudblood and an idiot with a death-wish, is afraid of a damned insect? And I thought they called Slytherins cowards."

Draco snorted, and to his friends, it probably sounded like a sound of agreement. But internally, he found himself frowning at the cruel words of the three of them as he attempted to lose himself in the wonderful world of potions. It wasn't that he cared about what they were saying or who they were talking about, not at all. It was the fact that they didn't understand, they didn't know what it felt like for any of those in class who got confronted by the one thing they wished to never see. Bunch of hypocritical tossers, the lot of them. Calling people cowards when they hadn't even gone up to test their own bravery.

Blaise, Theo, and Pansy… they didn't see their Boggart. They chose to sit out of the activity, pointing fingers and chuckling at the terrified faces of their peers as they watched student, one after another, come face-to-face their biggest fear.

They didn't feel the horror that settled into your bones, the chill forming under your skin as you were confronted with something so paralyzing it made your heart beat against your chest as if it was trying to claw its way out. They didn't have their vision blur out of focus as they tried to keep their grip on reality, they didn't feel their lungs constrict and the breath leave their body.

But Draco did. He was the only Slytherin to volunteer himself, and it was possibly his biggest regret to date.

Blaise let out a bark of a laugh as he tapped his foot against the floor, his arms folded across his chest as he tilted his head back on the couch. Pansy's mouth lifted into a smirk, and she assessed her perfectly filed nails as the corners of her mouth tilted into something vicious. "And don't even get me started on Diggory's," Pansy said with a laugh. "All that crying and shaking she was doing. Like a damned kicked baby crup, she was! Every single day, I thank Salazar Slytherin himself that I'm not a Hufflepuff. I couldn't imagine having the gall to sob like a child in front of so many people."

Draco fixed her with a nasty glare, his face wrinkling devilishly as he bore his cold grey eyes into her green ones. "Oh shut up, Pansy. You're only laughing because you know if you saw your Boggart, it would have been an image of that busted face of yours without those beauty potions you take every morning."

Pansy's smile fell off her face in seconds, a quick expression of hurt passing over her features before she quickly schooled them. "Such an arsehole," she mumbled as she scrambled up from the carpet, running her hands over her robes as she tried to primp herself to distract from her reddened cheeks. "That's just the kind of thing a real gentleman would say to a lady, Draco Malfoy. If I didn't know you so well, I'd almost think you were defending those bloodtraitors."

Blaise stared at Draco with an indecipherable look in his eye, his brows furrowed in an uncharacteristic display of emotion. "I dunno what crawled up your arse, Draco, but I'd try and pull it out if I were you. You're intolerable on a good day, and right now you're acting like a right prat."

Draco felt his eyes narrow, and he carefully closed his book and placed it next to him as he kicked his feet from the headrest to the floor below him. "Really, Zabini? Because I didn't see you volunteering yourself to see your Boggart either, when I think about it. Afraid you'd see your real father, are you? He's probably Dumbledore himself, since your Mum's gotten with every other man in Britain, after all."

"Yeah, including your dad, you self-absorbed prick," Blaise snapped lowly. "For future reference, I like Acid Pops from Honeydukes. I'll be expecting that as an apology gift when you decide to stop acting like a dick. Since I won't be speaking to you before then."

"Well you can keep waiting for those bloody Acid Pops then, won't you? Now bugger off," Draco replied with an eye-roll. Blaise snarled at him as he rose to his feet, standing next to Pansy as they both stalked off. "Fuck you, Malfoy," Blaise bit out before he turned around and left.

Theo and Draco sat in silence, the dark-haired boy staring at his blonde friend with a knowing look. Draco tried to avert his gaze, but in frustration, bared his teeth at him threateningly. "You want to have a go, too, Nott? Because I have all day."

"Not particularly, no. I'm a bit fragile right now since, y'know it's my time of the month," Theo responded sarcastically. "Which I have to assume is also your excuse for acting so perfectly obnoxious. It's the only explanation that makes any sense. I'm sure Madam Pomfrey has a menstrual potion you can- "

"You're terrible unfunny, Nott."

"I happen to think I'm hilarious."

Another tense silence commenced between them, and Theo's eyes bore holes into Draco's skin like flames burning into parchment. "You're rubbish at it, you know," he said knowingly.

"At what?"

"The lying, of course."

Draco's eyes flickered up to meet his, his lips curling slightly as his grey eyes became stony. "What are you prattling on about, Theodore? Just say what it is you want to say, stop speaking in bloody circles." He hated when Theo did this, when he acted like he knew Draco better than he even knew himself.

It was a strange behavior that assumed the impossible- how could someone truly know you, if you weren't even sure who you were in the first place?

Theo pushed himself onto the couch in order to meet Draco's stare with a level gaze, his long fingers tapping on the armrest unconsciously in a way that made the blonde boy's eye twitch. "I'm not much in the mood for pissing you off," Theo said lightly. "Doesn't do me any good in the long run."

"Funny then, how you're managing to do it anyway."

"Hm," Theo replied, looking at Draco as if he was peeling him apart, layer by layer. "You know, sometimes I catch the way you stare off at dinner, did you know that?"

"Good for you, Theo. It's reassuring that you have so little else to do but follow my every move."

Theo smirked. "I really don't. you're right," he retorted. "Not when your antics are so much more interesting."

"Maybe I'm just trying to distract myself from the fact I'm surrounded by a bunch of bloody idiots all the time, has that occurred to you?"

"And you're distracting yourself by looking at what, exactly? Or who, rather?"

A tense silence washed over the room, and Theo's smirk widened as Draco felt his neck vein pulse. "Nott," Draco said dangerously. "Maybe I'll send a letter to your Pureblood father, telling him his son fancies blokes... I wonder what he'd say to that."

Theo's smirk flickered, and the mischievous look in his eyes was replaced by something critical, almost disappointed, if Draco was being honest with himself. "Sometimes, Draco, I think there actually might be a real person underneath all that… all that "Malfoy." That you're not as shitty as you behave. And then you talk like this, whenever you're scared or intimidated or nervous. When you try to act like you're some big, bad villain just like Lucius raised you to be… well, it's actually quite fitting, when I think about it. It's the scariest thing of all, I think."

"What's fitting, exactly?"

"That your Boggart's nothing more than your own reflection."

And with that, Theo left the room, and Draco was left all alone.

Present Day

"It's not a problem, Professor Sprout. If…if Draco's even half the student you've described him to be, I… I look forward to working with him. I don't know him very well, but who knows? This… could be a good thing."

Draco loomed outside the classroom in the newly emptied hall, his back pressed against the stone as he turned his head towards the door. His mouth contorted into a frown as he heard Diggory's words, his teeth clenching together at the saccharine sound of her voice.

He didn't want her bloody pity. Professor Sprout may have pulled the girl aside to discuss their…partnership… but she clearly left out a few details. Like how he absolutely despised the pudgy older woman and her dirty fingernails and her terrible clothing. She neglected to tell Clara that Draco thought Herbology was work for commoners; tasks assigned to the lower classes since someone of his breeding would rather be caught dead than shoving their hands into pots full of dirt. Professor Sprout acted like Clara was doing some greater act of service, like she was holier-than-thou for merely being assigned to one of the professor's least-liked students.

And the nerve of that girl, to act as though she was looking forward to with their pairing even though it was obvious she was nervous… if there was anything she should be feeling, it was gratitude that this was as close as she'd ever get to an heir of one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, and that she was partnered with one of the most academically successful students in Slytherin history.

Instead, she spoke to Professor Sprout as if she was trying to convince her instructor and herself that this was all a good idea. As if he were a charity case Clara had taken on, a person she felt compelled to treat as her equal even though it was obvious to him that she felt like she was of a higher caste than he. She could smile those wide grins of hers and bat her eyes because in reality, working together wouldn't so much as leave a smudge on her picture-perfect reputation. As for Draco, he'd be watched by his peers every moment they worked together for any sign of a wrong move.

Because if he treated her like a normal person, well…he'd be ruined among Slytherins, a laughing- stock for talking to a Hufflepuff with any grain of respect. If he treated her like pure and utter shite, he'd undoubtedly make a series of new enemies from three different houses. Draco had no problem making enemies. In fact, he relished in his ability to make people feel small.

But he was still a strategist.

He wanted people to fear him, not hate him. Fear was how he maintained his power, how he kept people in line and ruled over his subordinates. However, if enough people hated him, then then they'd hate him together, and he wouldn't be very powerful, now would he?

The bloody nerve of that stupid woman. The bloody nerve of that stupid girl.

Draco refused to be anything less than the best student, which meant he couldn't exactly sacrifice his Herbology grade to prove a point. If he refused to work with her, if he forced her to take over all the work, there was no telling what she'd do. He didn't interact with Hufflepuffs for a reason- their emotional, sensitive nature wasn't dependable. He couldn't account for something terrible happening, and if he was bested by some nasty little badger over something as silly as his grade in a gardening class, Lucius would probably cut him right out of the family cloth for that infraction alone.

And he obviously couldn't take over all the work on his own. As talented he was at his coursework, Herbology was not his strong suit.

Storming down the silent hallway, his expensive black shoes pushed against the stone with a vengeance as his fists clenched by his side. Draco hated feeling this way, feeling like he was thrown into the deep end of a pool without even knowing how to swim. He considered himself an expert at games, and he didn't even have a set of instructions to play this one.

What was infinitely worse, if he was honest with himself, was that he had no idea what to do. He didn't have a single idea as to how to approach his current circumstance, he didn't know how to get what he wanted from his professor or from Diggory.

He wasn't even sure what, exactly, he wanted in the first place.

The only thing worse than being incompetent, or being unkind, or being evil, a voice that sounded paralyzingly a lot like his godfather's floated through his head, is being indecisive.

Theo could barely suppress that wicked grin of his, and Draco had never wanted to smack that look off his face quite as much as he did right now.

"Shut the fuck up, Nott," Draco snapped lowly, his fork stabbing at a piece of prime rib as if it was Professor Sprout herself. "I don't need to hear your blimey little side comments, shut your mouth and eat your fucking potatoes."

"Yeah," Zabini laughed in faux-agreement, his eyebrows furrowing together sarcastically. "Eat your fucking potatoes, Theo."

"I don't see what the big deal is," Pansy piped up in a bored manner. "It's a bunch of bloody Hufflepuffs. Who gives a shite? I've no problem letting some tosser do all the work for me."

Theo pointed a knowing finger at Draco, the corner of his lips curled in a smile. "You know, the fact that I have to be partnered with that absolutely terribly boring little blonde is a fair price to pay for me to watch you fumble around Diggory like a child with his first broom."

"Do I have to cast a fucking silencing charm on your foul mouth for you to shut up?" Draco growled, his hands slamming down on either side of his plate. "Merlin, you say Potter has a death wish, but the only person I see who wants his arse tossed into the afterlife is you."

"Are you offering to toss my arse, Malfoy? How positively salacious of you."

Draco felt his jaw clench and his eyes narrow, but something caught the corner of his vision as he turned his head.

Two tables away sat Clara Diggory, sitting next to some of those other Hufflepuff twats that were in Herbology class earlier today. She was chuckling along with that Abbott girl, her long brown locks brushing against her robes as she gleamed at one of the boys across from her. Her face, as always, was devoid of any sign of unhappiness or discontent.

Draco distantly wondered what that was like. To feel so freely, to be so filled with unbridled joy that eating her eating a rubbish dinner in the Great Hall with her friends looked nothing short of a party from the perspective of any onlookers who watched the girl and her yellow-clad housemates.

How the fuck was he supposed to work with her? To talk to her, to be next to her, no less?

As if Merlin himself was working overtime to make sure Draco's life was particularly difficult, a pair of warm, bright grey eyes met his own pale ones.

Clara looked at him, her forehead wrinkling slightly in confusion as she lifted her hand and gave him an unsure wave. A tentative smile painted itself across her features, her eyes squinting at him as if he was an apparition she wasn't quite sure was really looking back at her.

Draco merely looked at her, his face blank. He didn't wave back.

Slowly tucking her hand back onto her lap under her table, Clara's smile waned.

"You know," Theo said obviously, trying to catch the blonde's attention. Draco blinked as he refocused, his hand reaching for his glass of pumpkin juice next to his plate. Blaise and Pansy were distracted by some angry, vengeful tale Millicent was telling them a few seats away, and Draco suddenly felt like was trapped into a corner by the dark-haired boy. "My father used to say, if you stare into the abyss long enough, the abyss stares back at you."

"What in the bloody hell does that mean?"

"She's looking back at you. Diggory, from the other table."

He looked over at the Hufflepuffs again, and there Clara was, frowning at him as if he was an arithmancy problem she couldn't figure out. Draco's teeth gritted together.

"So?"

"I just figured you'd want to know, that's all. Since all you've done is look at her for the past three years, even if you won't admit it…even if you didn't know you were doing it."

Letting out a dramatically long sigh, Draco's hands flying to his temples in aggravation. "Every time you speak… every time you open that bloody big mouth of yours, I start to think about how much better my life'd be if you'd been born a Squib."

"It's because you know I'm telling you the truth," Theo said with a tilt of his head. "If it makes you feel any better…I think you could do much, much worse. I mean, the Diggorys… they're not that bad, really. Bloodtraitors, the lot of them, so I know Mummy and Daddy Malfoy wouldn't be too pleased… but you could do worse."

Draco stayed silent, his fingers tapping against the table as he racked his brain for a witty reply. For once, he was at a loss for words, his tongue tied and his cheeks currently flooded with heat from anger and definitely not embarrassment. Theo was a good enough friend to ignore the pink tint that rose to his friend's face, but he maintained a steady gaze at the silvery blonde as he picked at the remaining scraps of his dinner. "All I'm saying is," Theo said quietly. "If you think you're being subtle, you're not. And if I can notice it, there must be someone else that sees it, too."

"You've no idea what you're talking about as per usual, Theodore. Now, are you about finished with that disgusting mess you've made on your plate? Because I'd like to leave."

Theo sighed, but he nodded.

Both boys rose from their seats at the Slytherin table, Draco's eyes staring straight ahead of him at nothing in particular, which was a welcome distraction from the two grey eyes following after him. "Good," Draco continued, his voice short and tight. "We'll leave Millicent to entertain Zabini and Parkinson with her stupid little stories, and maybe I'll even manage to escape from Pansy's constant badgering on our way to the dorms if we quicken our pace."

Straightening out his robes and dropping a napkin halfheartedly on his plate, Draco spun on his heel and practically flew out of the big, wooden doors of the Great Hall, Theo hot on his tail as his shoes clicked against the floor.

He was in desperate need of a good night's rest, especially since a creeping feeling wormed its way up into his lungs as he left the dining hall as swiftly as possible. He didn't feel… upset, exactly, but suddenly Draco felt like he was being closed in upon, like the people around him were patiently waiting for him to fall on his arse so they could laugh at him. He wondered if this feeling was just slightly close to the experience of that rabbit his father killed all those years ago in the garden; if this is what it must have endured. This whole Herbology partnership situation, Theo's strange little comments… he felt the same, reluctant acceptance of that rabbit, the slow, reluctant understanding that he was stuck in a situation he couldn't get out of, and the voyeurs around him took sick pleasure in his entrapment.

Fortunately for him, if there was one thing that mollified these feelings, it was the fact that he was still a Slytherin. Draco was a snake, not a rabbit. And most importantly, he was not weak.

He was confident that he could be slippery enough to get out of this unyielding vice because if there was one passion Draco had, one talent he prided himself in, it was his ability to force the things around him to bend to his will.

He'd find a way out of this. His father once told him that if you put a snake in a prison cell, it would slither out right between the bars. It may seem like an awful situation for now, but it was only because he hadn't really tried to escape it yet.

But even the inner turnings of the gears in his mind couldn't drown out the sound of a third pair of shoes clicking against the floor, a pair of feet moving at a faster speed than his and Theo's.

"Draco!" a quiet, higher-pitched voice exclaimed as he tried to hurry his pace. A girl's voice, a voice that made goosebumps rise under his skin despite himself. "Draco, wait a moment!"

He tried to continue on, but Theo grabbed his arm and abruptly stopped both of them in their place. Baring his teeth at his friend, Theo merely smirked and tightened his grip. Reluctantly, he slowly turned around and saw Clara Diggory herself, walking briskly up to him with a bounce in her step as she grinned at him as if she was reuniting with an old friend.

"Draco," Clara said, a little breathy from her attempt to catch up to both boys. She looked at him, finding her mind suddenly blank as she tried to find the words she wanted to say, and her mouth opened and closed several times as she blinked up at him. Standing awkwardly, her fingers wrestled together in front of her as she looked at the blonde, whose face was screwed up in agitation as he faced her. "Oh, and um, hi, Theodore."

Theo gave her a brief wave, and Draco felt his body flood with irritation.

"Did you need something, Diggory?"

"I just wanted… I just wanted to say hello," Clara said unsurely, her cheeks turning bright pink at the stupidity of her reasoning. Draco watched her impossibly- large eyes blink at him, and an awkward silence filled the air.

He felt a migraine closing in on the sides of his head, and his fingers found their way to rub the tension from his temples.

"You chased after me to say… hello."

"…yes?"

With a loud sigh, Draco narrowed his eyes at her and turned away. "Merlin, bloody Hufflepuffs," he muttered as he started to walk off again, poignantly ignoring Theo's look of amusement as his gaze flickered from his friend to the girl standing closely behind him.

Clara's eyes widened, and she caught up to him once again. "Wait, wait! I'm… I'm sorry, I didn't mean to just say hello," she blushed.

"You should know that this is an incredible waste of my time-"

"I just- "

"I don't know what you're playing at- "

"You're my partner!"

Draco rose an eyebrow at the girl, whose face continued to grow rosier and rosier by the minute and pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance. "Yes, I'm aware of our current predicament."

"It…It's a predicament to you? Because… i-it's not to me. Really, it's not."

What the bloody hell did that mean? Draco thought to himself. Of course it was a predicament- they couldn't be more different, he hated Herbology with every fiber of his being, he knew he'd fuck this up and he didn't need Clara fucking Diggory feeling bad for him, he didn't want to be anywhere around the silly girl with her dumb big eyes and her even dumber smile.

"And I just… I just want you to know… even though it doesn't look like we have much in common, a-and you don't like the class… I… I-I'm looking forward to working with you, Draco. That's all. That's all I wanted to say," Clara blurted out, her lip worrying between her teeth as she looked at him with a hopeful expression. Some of the tension left his shoulders at her words, suspicion replacing his irritation as she seemed to answer his internalized concerns without even so much as uttering a sound. Was he really that transparent, that she could tell how he felt about their partnership even though he hadn't even said anything?

Taking a step closer to her, Draco leveled Clara with a cold stare as his mouth mustered itself up into a frown. "As I said before, this is an incredible waste of my time," he growled out. "We both know that we would prefer to work with someone else. I don't need you to kiss my arse and act like we're both not being forced against our wills to do this."

Clara assessed him with an appraising look, her eyes slightly narrowing as her head tilted slightly. A brief beat of silence broke out between them, and her hands rested on her hips as her mouth pursed. "You're the smartest Slytherin fourth-year," she said seriously. "No offense, Theo."

"Oh, don't worry, none taken."

"And I'm… I'm a decent enough student in my house, and I'm quite alright at Herbology, if there's any truth to what Professor Sprout has told me."

Draco snorted. Modesty is incredibly déclassé, he thought snidely. She knows that I know she's one of the best students in our year, yet she has the nerve to mock me right to my face. This is getting downright strange.

A slight smile broke out on Clara's face, and she beamed at him. "So with that being said," she said a little more confidently. "I think this could actually be a worthwhile collaboration. I… I think you and I could do a fine job together this term. I'll pull my weight, and I'll make sure we do everything that needs to be done."

"Well, that's comforting," Draco said with a bored tone, sighing as he looked around to make sure no one saw them talking. Instead, he was met with the manic grin of one hysterical Theo Nott, whose eyes flickered between them like a cat watching two mice. His jaw ticked at the sight of the dark-haired boy, and his fists clenched at his sides.

"Listen," the blonde continued, his voice tenser than before. "We're stuck together, and there's obviously nothing we can do about that, but don't confuse this for anything more than for what it is. Don't speak to me unless its Herbology related, don't look at me, and do your best to keep out of my way and I'll keep out of yours."

Clara flinched, but not as if the words themselves pained her, but more like he was speaking at too high a volume. The waver in her smile disappeared within seconds and much to his dismay, she gave him another one of those knowing, assessing smiles, and nodded. "Sure," she said in a tone he couldn't decipher. "Since that's obviously what you really want, of course. Well, I'll leave you to it, then. See you in class, both of you."

"It was nice talking to you, Clara, I'm sure we'll be seeing much more of you, Draco and I," Theo replied, oozing that Slytherin charm out from every pore as he watched her leave. Clara grinned and nodded back at him. "I think so too."

As soon as she walked far enough away, Draco turned to his friend. "Don't," he bit out warningly. "I don't want to hear it."

"Oh, Draco."

"Shut. Up."

"Draco Malfoy," Theo said cunningly. "I'm afraid you've been caught."

That next evening, Draco would just so happen to find his way out to the lawns outside of the Entrance Hall, sitting high up in a tree with a green apple as he kept a careful eye on his new Herbology partner. He wasn't stalking her of course, no, not at all. He was merely being vigilant about the Hufflepuff girl who seemed disappointingly unafraid of him- she was obviously up to something, and he hoped he would catch her in some nefarious act that would prove that she was just as strange as he thought her to be.

He'd report it back to Theo, who had been sending him too many wicked grins for comfort and tell him of his findings. Maybe then he could finally convince his friend he wasn't… he wasn't fond of Clara, but that his inner suspicions about her behavior were valid and he'd finally be hailed as a hero if he caught her in the act. For dismantling the schemes of one of Harry's acquaintances, no less.

Draco took a large bite out of his apple, one of his legs lazily perched up on a branch as he continued to watch them high above the ground. He had always enjoyed climbing trees, and as a young boy, he had spent quite a bit of time testing his own abilities to see how far he could go. He thought that perhaps if he kept climbing and climbing, he would reach the clouds and he'd finally be too far away from the life that awaited him down below, too far to get back down and go home. A part of him also rather enjoyed the invisibility of it all- he could sit and watch with a careful eye at all of the little ant-like people back on the ground and for a few minutes, he wouldn't be Draco Malfoy. He'd just be a bird, a floating apparition, where no one could see him looking down on all of them.

Instead of being met with Clara Diggory and some malicious plot of hers, he was met with the girlish giggling of her and the blonde Hufflepuff she was always with as they sat on a blanket and threw grapes into each other's mouths. It was childish at best, and Draco found his eyes rolling more than once as he kept a focused gaze at the pair. He couldn't help but notice that the natural athleticism Cedric had inherited somehow completely evaded his younger sister, if her aim was anything to go by. Clara's friend was all but a few feet away from her, yet she launched grapes at the poor girl in every direction but into her mouth.

Finally, after what felt like ages, Clara landed one right between the teeth of the blonde girl, and both of their eyes blew open wide as they gasped. "You did it!" the girl told her excitedly, chewing away on the fruit as she clapped her hands. "Of course I did, Hannah," Clara said in mock confidence. "How could I miss that huge target, after all?"

Hannah let out a bark of a laugh, taking a long-discarded grape from beside her and launching it at her friend. "Hey!" she exclaimed. "If my mouth is so huge, how did you manage to miss a million times in a row?"

"Sorry, I was completely blinded by your absolutely dazzling pearly whites, I couldn't see where I was throwing."

"Or maybe you're just a shite thrower!"

Both girls giggled incessantly at their jokes, and Draco found himself waiting for one of them to land the inevitable jab that would push things too far and force them into a heated argument, in the same direction "kidding around" among his own group of friends always seemed to go. But somehow, Clara and Hannah merely playfully slapped at each other as the bowl of grapes fell over onto the grass, going unnoticed by the pair.

It was obvious in that moment that Hufflepuff friendships were clearly very different from Slytherin friendships. Very different, indeed.

Draco finished his apple, and with a lazy wave of his wand, turned the core into a leaf and watched as it floated down below as to not attract any unwanted attention. The sun was setting earlier these days as the cool, autumnal weather invited itself to Hogwarts, and the foliage was already starting to turn into a myriad of colors as the warm weeks of summer had long since disappeared.

"Ced is putting his name in for the tournament in a couple of days," Clara said mournfully, her hands roaming over her long, black robes as she stared down at the blanket. "I'm still half-convinced to try and stop him."

That caught Draco's attention almost immediately, and once again, his focus narrowed in on the girls sitting on the grass below. Stop him? Draco thought to himself. That stupid bloody tournament is supposed to be even more of an achievement than any Quidditch match at Hogwarts. Why wouldn't she want him to put his name in?

Hannah let out a sigh and patted her friend's hand comfortingly. "You need to stop worrying about it," she told her. "There's still quite a bit of time before anything's decided… and besides, you know he'd do an amazing job if he was chosen."

"I know he would, and I'm not worried that he'd do poorly. It wouldn't matter if he won or lost, I don't care about any of that."

"Then what is it?"

Clara's palms pressed into her eyes, but she shook her head and looked up at the blonde with a smile. "Nothing," she said, her voice doing little to conceal her concern. "You're right, there's other things we should worry about, this should be the last thing on my mind."

"Clara…"

"No, you're right. It's his decision, and… and if he's chosen, he'll do wonderfully. Like you said."

Their conversation drifted, roaming from one insignificant topic to the next, until both girls decided to head into the Great Hall for dinner. Clara wrapped up the blanket under her arm, her face still pinched in worry as she forced a smile onto her face while Hannah skipped off in front of her, complaining about some assignment in Potions class that Draco couldn't find himself caring enough about to listen to.

His thoughts concentrated on Clara's frown, the way that the heaviness she wore contradicted the lightness in her words as she talked about Cedric and the tournament. Not unsupportive of her brother, not quite. But reluctant nonetheless, wary in a way Draco couldn't quite understand.

Later that evening, as he sat next to Theo and Blaise at the Slytherin table, Draco found himself unable to keep his gaze off of the sickly, pale pallor on Clara's face as she sat beside her brother.

And for just a brief second, their eyes met. This time, in place of the smile she wore the other night, her expression was an indecipherable one.

A/N: Chapter 5 is up! Please leave a review!