Daphne gave Prudence an exaggerated goofy smile when she found her friend moping in the hall, "Can I please get a smile?" Daph asked with an overly pouted lip.
Pru felt terrible though, the angry look in Draco's eyes when she told him he was a Purist made her heart feel cracked.
The happy, but concerned blonde looped her arm in Pru's and drug her along, "Oh just tell me whats happened now."
Daphne got a chuckle out of Pru's conversation with Harry, but the one with Draco she took a more serious.
"I can't believe you told him! And he said he wouldn't say it anymore! That's so crazy Pru! He must really like you..."
"Like me? Doubt it...he's been nice and everything, but I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm idiot... I just can't think straight around him!"
Daphne snickered, "I get it, he's cute." But she understood more than Pru could even fathom that what Draco said to the clueless girl was epic.
Pru shook her head in defeated agreement. Her head was just buzzing with images and thoughts about boys and curses and rumors and mean girls... The whole situation was so foreign to her. Being in close quarters with hundreds of students shouldn't even be legal, teenagers are a right mess!
"Daaaph...!" Pru whined,"I do like him...I don't remember ever having a real crush..." Her voice dropped to a whisper, the sentence a small revelation to herself.
The idea was absolutely delightful to Daphne. She squealed, happy that Pru finally came to her senses. The two of them could actually be a great couple, Pru seemed to make Draco a better man and she hasn't even tried yet.
"Stop smiling at me like that! This is not funny!" Pru scolded her friend. She may be having a small panic attack!
Daphne could only roll her eyes and pull her friend closer as they had just entered the busiest main hall, "So what's the problem? You like him...he likes you..."
Pru bit her lip. The problem was that he was a sweet, sexy, confident, caring...Purist. He's the boy who taught her a word that earned her a curse...
It seemed Daphne was reading her friend's thoughts, " Ok, so I know the whole Purist slash 'M' word debacle causes you a little moral strife-"
"A little?!"
"But!" Daphne was quick to interject...
Pru looked at her optimistic friend sternly, about to shut down anything she had to say...
"But he's already basically said he'd change for you...so...I think that's worth some mulling over." Daphne ended with a smile and wiggling eyebrows.
Pru could only huff, offended by herself for not being able to think up a sensible retort. Daphne actually had a good point, but Pru tried to ignore it due to her own stubbornness, "Well...!"
Daphne's smile only grew wider as she nodded her head yes, "Well nothing!"
"Fine, " Pru caved, "I'll think about it..."
Yes, Pru had to admit it, he said he wouldn't say the word anymore, like he was making her a vow. So maybe she should give him a chance.
"So how do you know he likes me?" Pru finally asked her blonde counterpart.
"I know Draco, and it's so obvious."
Pru just couldn't be sure, they were just so hot and cold... Merlin, she never had to wonder or feel insecure about if a guy liked her or not...
As they, or more specifically, she entered the room, everyone knew it. She had a tendency to light up an entire room Draco noticed. He also realized he suddenly forgot everything that had happened during their hallway conversation and that he only wanted to be near her again.
Pansy felt nauseous when she watched the two enter the room and both guys she were speaking to lose their train of thought immediately. The hatred was practically consuming...
"Hey guys!" Daphne said to them loudly in a very happy and very fake voice.
Blaise turned to them with a gentle smirk about his lips, "Ladies. And how are we tonight?"
Daphne felt momentarily lost in his sparkling eyes, but she soon shrugged it off and rolled her own, "Don't act like you care..."
"I do care, don't be so mean Daph, " he pouted slightly put out.
Daphne had to chew her lip in order to force herself not to get lost in his eyes again.
Draco did his best to ignore Daphne and Blaise's sexually tensioned banter and look at the beautiful girl keeping quiet. She looked lost and torn...what could he possibly say to her to change what she thought about him?
Come to think about it...what did he think about himself? Since the moment he met her he has been questioning everything he has ever been taught, everything he thought he stood for, and all the bitter rage that fueled his opinions.
He wasn't sure if he really was a Purist...that's just what he was always told he was. It's what his parents are, his grandparents...every Malfoy family member he had can ever remember meeting...all Purist. But was he? He didn't give a bloody fuck what kind of blood people had, because in order to do so he had to care about people at all...
He had the deep urge to explain all this to her because the distant, confused way she looked at him was making him feel like he had a boulder on his chest.
Pansy gave Draco's pensive expression a hard glare before getting up to leave, but not before shoving into Pru's shoulder harshly on her way out.
"Real mature!" Pru hollered after the broody girl. She felt the usual numbness and stupidity that usually overtook her when she first saw Draco melt away. So she smiled and yanked Daph's arm toward the couch where Pansy had just left, "And don't be so mean Daph, it's just a question." A sickly sweet smile graced her lips as she looked into Daphne's loathing eyes. It was a small satisfaction to throw Daphne into a situation she would much rather storm away from for just a little bit of payback for how smug she acted in the hall just one minute ago.
The two boys sat across from the two girls in the Slytherin common room.
Daphne and Blaise stared at one another with wicked smirks and cocked eyebrows, daring the other to goad them.
Pru smiled small at Draco as a way to try and apologize, she didn't want it to be awkward between them anymore.
And Draco, he tried to hide the large puff of breath he just exhaled in relief. It was such an incredible feeling to know that she didn't entirely think of him as scum of the earth. He looked back at her serenely trying not to make his smirk too prominent.
The anxious feeling returned to Pru's gut, but in a very good way. His slate eyes were smoldering at her and it was causing her stomach to do back flips...
"And how was your day?" Daphne spit at Blaise snidely.
Blaise had to smile, her feisty attitude was one of the things he loved best about her. He never foresaw that the time he spent during holiday trying to forget her would be rendered useless once he saw her alluring face again. He was an idiot for sleeping with Pansy during a drunken stupor at their end of year party and he knew it. There wasn't a chance in hell an intelligent girl like Daphne would take him back after such an atrocious stunt like that... So he did his best to forget her after they broke it off so harshly...
None the less, his voice came out like warm honey, "Quite intriguing actually..."
Daphne pursed her lips at his openly coy flirtation, he could not be charming to her, he was a pig. She took his bait despite her screaming heart telling her not to, "And why's that?" she asked while looking into the air, doing her best to seem bored.
Prudence tried not to smile at her friend's hard facade. She was very aware now that Daphne suppressed deep feelings for the attractive Italian man. She wanted to give the stubborn witch the same tough love she just gave her, but refrained. Words weren't easy to come by when Draco was looking at her like he was. She bit her lip involuntarily and wondered if he was making that seductive look on purpose or if it was just natural...
Draco was pleasantly delighted to have her caramel eyes looking at him once again like the day they met. The wall she built looked as if it had crumbled and she was back to gazing at him doe-eyed. He felt the uncontrollable surge of blood as he watched her gnaw her lip off handily.
She couldn't stop her tongue from tentatively wetting her lips, just the look in his eye was making her mouth dry...
"You have got to be fucking kidding me Blaise!" Daph's roar snapped Draco and Pru from their dreamy haze they fell into with one another.
Pru noticed that Blaise was no longer his cool, composed self, he looked enraged.
"You always think I'm lying! You've never trusted a word I've fucking said!"
Daphne jumped to her feet, her normally snowy skin now turning red with anger, "How ridiculous of me to think that a bloke who always lied to me could possibly be trusted!"
"I didn't always lie to you!" Now Blaise stood as well, nose to nose with Daphne. "It was one time! One fucking mistake!"
"One mistake too many!"
The two stormed in different directions leaving the room eerily quiet and Pru's eyes wide with astonishment. When she looked back at Draco though he wasn't even phased. She got the feeling he had witnessed arguments like that before.
"This is common?" She asked, still not comfortable with the quick acceleration into a screaming match she just watched.
"It is," He told her evenly. He found her large worried eyes and protruded bottom lip adorable, but she seemed to calm down when she noticed how relaxed he still was. The distance between them was too far and he wished she were closer. It looked as if she was thinking along the same lines because she stood up and walked the short space keeping them apart and sat down facing him. She looked sweet, she looked innocent...the opposite of what the thoughts raging in his head were.
"Draco?" She asked shyly.
He bit his lip, doing his best to hide his smile, "Yes?"
"I'd like to...start over, if that's alright with you..."
Draco sat up a little straighter, "You know, you keep acting as if you've done something wrong, and you haven't. I'm the one-"
"No need, you didn't do anything wrong either." She couldn't look at him directly anymore, she was too flustered, maybe this was too close...
He was painfully aware of her bent knee touching the side of his thigh...
"Except..." Pru licked her lips hesitantly, "There is something I want to tell you...before Daphne or Hermione open their big mouths..."
She was friends with Granger. He had to accept that... His heart seized up wondering what else she had to tell him...
Pru raspberried her lips and rolled her eyes, "It's not a big deal, but I just know sooner or later it will come out and if you and I are going to be...friends...or anything..." she added on bashfully, "I just need you to know..."
Draco was now full blown worried, "...Alright...?" He watched her closely, wrestling with the words that just wouldn't come out.
"OK...alright...ok, you know that word I can't say..."
He nodded stiffly, now figuratively on the edge of his seat with torrid anticipation.
"Well..." She sighed heavily, "I learned it from you. When we were just children. I didn't remember until I met you again...that's why I was so mad at you..." She felt as if the explanation had exhausted her.
It was hard for Draco to wrap his mind around her words.
"I don't blame you! That's why I apologized, I knew I was being stupid," she was trying to explain to him urgently because she didn't like the hard exterior his face had taken. "Draco?...say something..."
What was there to say!? He taught her a word that gained her a curse! It was entirely all his fault!
He felt her hand caress his arm gently, pulling him from his self hating absorption. "Draco?" He heard her ask softly.
"Tell me," he finally said stiffly, unable to look into her eyes, "How exactly did you get cursed?"
So Pru cautiously recalled the story of the mean boy and the stern teacher, only to end yet again by looking at his stony silent face.
Never had Draco felt like he was beneath another. In fact he had always felt like he stood high on a pedal stool above all his peers...but now, with each word the two passed between one another, he felt more and more like he was a mudblood. How does she do that to him? How does he hold her so highly without even barely knowing her?
"Please don't be mad at me..." She was saying anxiously.
Draco snapped his eyes to hers, "How could I be mad at you? Prudence you should hate me! Honestly, why do you even bother-"
"Because I like you!"
It slipped, but sometimes her brain just controlled her mouth without her permission. Watching him beat himself up over something that she just wanted to forget was killing her.
The room was quiet as he stared at her in shock. She had never felt so out there, so vulnerable, just waiting for him to say something...
It was bittersweet Draco deduced. She couldn't like him, he wasn't good enough for her to like him...
"Why?" Was all he could say in return, his mouth turned down is a disgusted frown.
She was bewildered, what kind of reply was that? "I...I just do. At first I didn't understand it myself because I also thought I shouldn't, but then I couldn't stop thinking about you, and every time I see you I get these butterflies..." She was babbling and she was so embarrassed. She closed her eyes and looked down shaking her head, "I just do, ok?"
When she finally opened her eyes and looked over at him he still had that distant look in his eye with his jaw set firm. Why did he always look mad at the oddest times?
Oh no!
He didn't like her back!
How humiliating!
Draco could see her face fall as she stood abruptly. He had to say something before she walked away from him mad. She had already taken a few thudded steps when he called out, "Prudence wait...please, just hold on."
He grabbed her hand to bring her back to sit beside him as she looked at him carefully. How does he explain to her that he liked her too, that in his gut he likes her so much that his world is turning upside down just by her presence? How does he explain...that it just couldn't happen?
Her eyes were ignited, they were a darker brown with tinges of golden yellow...and she looked gorgeous.
Pru stared at him, waiting.
"...Maybe...you should hate me, maybe it's just not a good idea for you to like me..."
"Why?" she retorted with just as much disgust as he did not a moment ago.
He wanted to smirk at her wit, "I'm just not good enough for a girl like you..."
She hardened her eyes, "I think I can decide that for myself thank you."
The two of them looked down to where their hands were still gently clasped in one another's. Draco didn't think there was much more he could say to a stubborn reply like that. He licked his lips, a glimmer of hope for them shining dim in his heart.
"I guess you got me there," he told her as he continued to look at her tiny soft hands still in his own. He couldn't deny that the smallest of gestures, like holding hands, had never felt so exciting as it did with her.
"I do." She said confidently. "Now," she smiled, "I should go talk to Daph, she probably needs me. I'll see you in the morning?"
Draco nodded as he felt all the warmth he felt leave with her as she stood up to leave, "Of course."
"Good night Draco," she said gently as she made her way up the stairs to her dorm.
"Night Prudence."
Then he was alone.
His body was tingling with the aftermath of the way she made him feel. She likes him! She said it. He probably looked like a bloody fool with the large grin he had plastered to his face.
Then he sighed...but he meant it when he said that she really shouldn't...
Pru climbed into Daph's bed where she could see the sulking blonde buried in pillows.
"Hey," she said to her friend softly, reaching out to rub her back.
"Hey," Daph's voice muffled through the layers of feathers.
"So...you really like Blaise huh?"
Daphne shot up straight to stare into her friend's face with wounded shock, but then her features softened as she took in Pru's soft look of insight. Of course Prudence would be able to see through the feelings she tried so hard to forget ever existed..."I do, and it sucks."
There was no way Pru could tell her friend the good news about her second conversation with Draco today, not with her in such a depressed mood. So Prudence snuggled into Daphne's side, allowing her to lay her head on Pru's shoulder.
Daphne took in a deep breath and sighed dramatically, "Tell me some good news Prudence Amoria, did Draco confess his undying love to you yet?"
Pru felt her smile reach her eyes, her and Daphne were going to be good friends.
"Well...not really..."
"What do you mean not really?!" Daphne bounced up to look at Pru excitedly, "Tell me everything!"