Draco-
Valentine's Day was only two days away. I was sitting in the library- a rare phenomenon- worrying about carrying out my little plan. My Mark was burning less just recently; I had written to my mother the previous week informing her of my Valentine's plans, which I presumed had reached the ears of my father- and, therefore, the ears of the Dark Lord. In fact, as I thought about it, I realised my Mark hadn't burnt since the day after I had sent my letter, which was approximately the day it had arrived at the Manor.
Someone threw themselves down into the vacant seat beside me, causing me to jump. Blaise grinned at me; he was looking distinctly ruffled. His shirt was undone a couple of buttons, and his tie was dangling loosely. I raised an eyebrow at his appearance, and he grinned all the more.
"Daphne just cornered me," he said, looking very much like we had in our third year, when we'd been learning how to do Cheering Charms.
"You poor thing," I said disdainfully, not envying him one bit- whilst her sister was incredibly good looking, Daphne was… well, a dimmed down version of Astoria.
Blaise's grin flickered, and I noted a faint glimmer of anger in his eye as he stared at me.
"Actually, I think it was very much poor her- she won't be walking straight for a week, if you catch what I mean," he said, a satisfied smirk now playing across his features.
"No, I don't," I said, choosing to wind him up.
"As least I'm getting some action," he scoffed.
"Shut up," I said, although it didn't bother me; I knew once I had Ginny, I'd be getting plenty of the action that Blaise was talking about.
"Still holding out for Ginny, Draco? The little Blood Traitor? Yes, what a good choice- at least mine was a Pureblood."
"Ginny is a Pureblood- albeit a strange one," I replied, going back to the open book in front of me.
"She's scum, Draco. You've got Pureblood Slytherin girls practically queuing up for you, take your bloody pick!"
"You know how important it is that I get Ginny!" I snapped. "We've been over this before, Blaise, and I have no desire to continue to relive the conversation!"
"But Draco, Astoria! She's practically gagging for you! She'd do anything you bloody asked- a snap of those feminine little fingers of yours and she'd be on slap the Dark Lord!"
"Don't be so ridiculous, Blaise, no woman would do that for any man, no matter how desirable he may be."
"You're not that desirable," he smirked, "I'm just saying that Astoria seems to think you are- look, I know how important the Weaslette is for the Dark Lord's plan, but other than the two of us and Weaslette, who else knows?"
"No one outside of His inner most circle, but what are you getting at?" I asked, raising my eyebrow at him again.
"Stop doing that, you look idiotic," he said, raising his eyebrow in mocking.
"Shut up, just tell me what you're going on about," I snapped, trying to keep my eyebrows level.
"Well, do what you want with Weaslette- but keep it secret! Only the Dark Lord and those in his inner most circle know now- why not keep it that way? Then you can still be with someone respectable for the public eye!"
"Who cares about the public eye?"
"You should! You don't honestly believe she'll choose you over Potter when he eventually shows his face again, do you? She'll go running back to him, no matter what tricks you have over her, and you know it- and then who respectable will want to touch you? Everyone in the entire Pureblood community will know what you've done- who you've done. They won't want anything to do with you- I'm considering cutting all ties myself," he said, finishing jokingly.
"Cut as many ties with me as you like Blaise, but I still don't quite see why I should keep any relationship I have with Ginny a secret," I replied.
"Astoria," he said simply, watching me carefully.
"We're onto that subject again? For God's sake, Blaise, don't let your new girlfriend hear how obsessed you are with her little sister- I don't think it would be at all good for your relationship."
"No, you idiot. Astoria! You fancy her, don't bother denying it, Malfoy," he said, smirking again.
"I fancy her? What are we, 12 year old Hufflepuff girls? Really," I scoffed.
"Skirting over the initial subject, Draco- you're just proving me right, you know."
"Proving you right about what? If you're going to behave in such a childish manner, you can fuck off; I don't have time for this, I have a date to plan."
"Draco, for God's sake yourself! When Weaslette goes back to Potter, what are you going to do?" he asked, leaning towards me now to show he was being serious.
I sat still in my chair, hands clenched so that the knuckles were white. I knew she would go back to him, before the Dark Lord eventually killed him. He couldn't stay in hiding forever, and when he came back out into the open, once Ginny was of age, then who was to stop her going with him back into seclusion again, if he managed once again to escape His clutches?
"I don't know," I answered quietly.
"Then listen to me, Draco. Listen and pay attention to what I am telling you to do. Date her if you must, but keep it quiet. Don't let anyone know; meet in secret, don't talk about her to anyone. And then, for show, you can date Astoria. Then, when Ginny goes back to Potter, you have someone to fall back on. If you don't breathe a word to Astoria about Ginny, it'll be fine. Trust me."
"But what about Ginny, what'll she say when she sees me going around with Astoria? She already doesn't like her," I said, rubbing my forehead- I was beginning to get a headache.
"After whatever you plan to charm her with, she'll do anything you tell her to, whether she likes it or not. Isn't that the reason why you're even bothering to charm her in the first place? So you can control her and save your own skin in the process?"
"True," I said, nodding my agreement.
"Of course it's true," smirked Blaise, leaning back into his chair and looking extremely pleased with himself. "How's that for an afternoon? I've pleased two people in the space of an hour- pleased them completely differently, of course," he hastened to add when I glanced at him mockingly.
"Of course," I agreed, getting to my feet.
"Where're you off to now?" he asked, looking up at me from his still relaxed position.
"I need to talk to Astoria."
Astoria was in the common room when I found her, surrounded as usual by a group of her giggling friends, all of whom, when they saw me approaching, turned pink and giggled even more. One of them nudged Astoria sharply in the ribs, raising her eyebrows and grinning like a maniac. It was quite a terrifying thing, giggling teenage girls, even Slytherin ones.
"Astoria," I said, nodding at her in greeting, suddenly very aware of the way I was talking and standing.
Astoria, of course, let out a little giggle, and turned, if possible, even more pink than her silly friends. On her though, it looked quite nice; I decided that, if I had the chance, I had to make her blush more often. It became her.
"Can I speak to you for a moment?" I asked, motioning away from her friends and to a secluded corner as far away from them as I could see.
"Sure," she said, looking at me from beneath her long lashes and smiling demurely. "See you in a bit, girls."
They watched us walk away, and once we were at a safe distance they suddenly huddled together into a little circle from which muffled giggling could be heard.
"They, er- they laugh a lot, your friends," I said, trying not to look disapproving.
"Yes, don't they?" she said, gazing up at me in the usual adoring manner I had come to expect from her.
"Right… Well," I said, wondering where I was going to begin now that I had her on her own.
"Well," she said, smiling at me.
"So, er-"
"Draco," she cut across me, "Before you say anything else- you know I like you, don't you?"
"Er- yes?" I said, not sure as to where the conversation was suddenly going.
"Good. Well, I've seen you around a lot with that Weasley girl, and-"
"No! No, that's nothing! You know, now her brother's gone, I, er, I had to keep up with the, er, Weasley Torment, you know? It was a, er, game that Crabbe, Goyle and I invented when we were in our first year here, there were a lot more of them then, and now there's only her, so, er, that's why I'm around her a lot- you know, scoring points against Crabbe and Goyle, like a competition," I said, inventing some excuse wildly.
"I haven't seen Crabbe or Goyle around her," she said, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes, well, I'm winning," I said, trying to look smug about winning this ridiculous imaginary game.
"Oh," she said, not looking altogether convinced.
"Astoria," I said, taking hold of her by the shoulders and looking into her eyes.
Astoria froze, gazing back into my eyes with such a look of adoration on her face that I nearly burst out laughing at the complete idiocy of it. But I had to steal myself; there was only one thing that came to mind that I knew for sure would shut her up about the whole Ginny problem, and it was something that, although I wanted very much to do it, I wanted to do even more with someone else. I took a deep breath, noting that she had already closed her eyes and was leaning towards me, her lips puckered slightly. I closed my eyes, and leant forward the rest of the way, placing my lips on her wonderfully full ones.
Ginny-
So much of the past few days had been a confusing blur to me. People didn't seem to notice it, but I was barely myself at the minute- I was elsewhere, and I didn't know where this "else" was. It terrified me beyond belief, so much so that Neville had commented.
"Ginny," he'd said to me one evening by the fire in the common room. "You look… well, is something wrong?"
I'd told him I was fine, not wanting to reveal how confused and scared I was- I was Ginny Weasley, not some scared little first year who didn't know how to handle herself, and Ginny Weasley was not one to show fear to her peers.
My nights were filled with strange, confused dreams, which I didn't think were my own- I was wandering through a large, dark manor house, and then I was running through it, away from a high, cold laugh that was echoing from every wall within it; I was watching myself as I walked through the Hogwarts corridors, and I felt confused to see myself, and a knot in my stomach formed as I watched myself move away; endless snakes coiled in and out of my mind, twisting themselves around me and cutting off my breathing… these dreams terrified me, but I didn't know where they came from. I had never been inside such a house as the manor, I could see no reason why I would watch myself walking around and feel confused and nervous, I had never come face to face with a snake and didn't see why I should fear one if I did.
All of these signs pointed to something very obvious- my mind was not the only one in there. Another mind was pressing against my own, confusing its thoughts with mine, causing these strange dreams. I didn't know for certain who these thoughts could belong to though, or how they had even come to be in my head in the first place.
I was falling ever further behind in my lessons. I was unable to even partially transfigure my stupid hedgehog; whilst a majority of the class were now onto the larger and altogether more difficult porcupines, I was still labouring away at trying to turn my hedgehog into some kind, any kind, of sodding pin cushion, and failing every time. I had once gone so badly wrong that the poor animal had turned started spewing smoke from its ears, and had frozen in place on the desk, whistling like some sort of demented tea pot. My other lessons were going no better, and I was beginning to feel genuine fear that I would end up being sent to the Carrows for my lack of progress. I knew the professors would avoid this as long as possible, but I also knew that there was only so long before the other "professors" noticed something was wrong and stepped in.
I hadn't written to my parents since just after returning from the Christmas holidays. The last letter that reached me was torn across the seal and badly repaired, and poor Pig was in even more of a twitching, fluttering mess than usual, whizzing around the common room for at least an hour before anyone managed to calm him down enough to catch him and bung him off to the Owlery. From this, I was certain that my letters were being read, and I guessed that they thought I must be in contact with Harry.
My mind was becoming fuzzy whenever I thought of Harry, as though something was blocking out my memories of him. When I tried to recall our most recent encounter- Harry's birthday, in my room- I was unable to remember anything but a fuzzy image of two people standing in what appeared to be a very, very bright light. This worried me more than anything- why were my memories of Harry fading? And yet other memories were making themselves more prominent, more known- whenever I struggled to sleep, my mind wandered off into memories of recent conversations and incidents with Draco, which made me suspect that he could very well be behind my mind being so messed up. However, whenever I tried to think too deeply into this, my mind wandered off in a different direction and I couldn't recall what I had previously been thinking… had been previously… about…
What was going on with my brain?
A/N: Not my best chapter, I know, but it's been a while since I last updated so I thought you all deserved a little something to keep you going. The next chapter shall be posted (I PROMISE) on Valentine's Day.
Love, Beccari x