He just looked at me with a foul expression on his face. It was apparent to me that Draco wasn't going to leave me alone. So I looked at him with such disgust on my face, slammed my journal shut and got up to leave.
"Dracooo," said the foul girl from across the room, "Come back to me and stop talking to that bitch."
"Shut up, Pansy. No one asked you to speak," Draco snapped at her, "Where are you going?" he asked me. I continued on my way ignoring him.
I was back out in the crowd of people and just as uncomfortable as I was before. Classes weren't going to start for a couple days so I had sometime to figure everything out. I found the courtyard and found myself sitting up against a big oak tree. Maybe if I submersed myself in the large gatherings of people, I would go unnoticed. I opened my journal and continued to write and people watched at the same time. There were still people glancing at me curiously, but I payed no mind. I didn't even care as long as they left me alone.
"You're too pretty to be sitting over here by yourself," someone said from behind me. I looked back and saw some tall, red-headed boy talking to me. "Is that so?" I asked with boredom. "I haven't seen you around here before, I would've definitely noticed someone as pretty as you, especially with that accent you have," he continued on, "I'm Fred Weasley, my twin is over there," he pointed to the identical person who was making a show in front of some girls who were giggling at him, "His names George. And if you look over there," he turned and pointed in the opposite direction at another red-headed boy accompanied by a brown-haired girl and a boy with black hair talking amongst themselves, "That's my brother Ron and his friends, Harry and Hermione." That caught my attention. Harry? I had heard my mother talk about a boy named Harry before I left home. He was the son of her old best friend, Lily Potter. I didn't know much about him except that he had survived both of his parents in a brutal double-murder by some famous dark wizard named Voldemort. "And who might you be?" he asked me.
"I'm Sarah," I told him, "I just got here from the U.S. My mother thought, for some unknown reason, that it would be a good idea to rip me from everything I knew and send me here." He looked at me curiously, but didn't seem as if he was going to pry too much into the reasonings, which I liked.
"Wicked," he said. I must've given him a weird look at him saying that as a response because he laughed. I had no idea what he meant by "wicked." "It means, 'cool' here," he said, "Is it alright if I sit with you?"
"Sure," I said. I actually found him likable, which was unusual for me, I normally hated everyone.
"Soooo," he continued on, "How old are you? My brother George and I are 17." They were the same age as me.
"I'm 17, as well," I replied.
"Awesome!" he said looking at me happily, "Did they figure out what House you're in? I'm sure Professor Dumbledore got ahold of you already. All of us are in Gryffindor." I secretly had wanted to be in Gryffindor merely for the petty reason that lions were my favorite animals. But no, I got stuck with a damn Snake as my mascot. Hiss hiss.
"Yeah," I answered, "That moldy old hat put me in Slytherin, whatever that means." He looked at me strangely when I said Slytherin, which made me assume that probably wasn't the most popular house at Hogwarts.
"You don't seem like a Slytherin to me, you're much more outgoing than that lot of twats," he said. I actually laughed for the first time since I left home.
"They aren't exactly the most pleasant group of people I have met," I said, "Some idiot boy was trying to be a thug down in the common room not too long before I came out here, "And there was some awful girl I wanted to punch in the damn face as soon as she opened her stupid fucking mouth and talked. I was just trying to figure out the entire conversation why on Earth such idiots would be alive."
He snorted in amusement, "You must be talking about Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson. They're awful people." I think I could get along with Fred. He was fun.
"Hey Fred," his twin called out to him, "Whatcya up to over there? Harassing some poor girl again?"
"Shut your mouth, George," Fred yelled back at him.
George walked over and took one look at me and his eyes widened, "You're not normally here, are you?"
"What a twat you are, George," Fred said, "Who the fuck says that to someone?" George ignored him and continued, "I'm this asshole's twin brother, George. And, arguably, the smarter of the two of us." Fred punched George in the leg. George backed up and ran his fingers through his hair and laughed. He looked back at me. "You're beautiful, Miss…" he left the sentence open-ended for me to finish.
"Sarah," I said, completing his sentence for him.
"Miss Sarah," he said again, "I hate to be a bummer, but I'm going to steal Fred from you. We have some scheming to do." He looked at Fred expectantly and Fred rolled his eyes and stood up, brushing the earthly debris covering his pants off.
"I'll see you around, yeah?" he asked, looking down at me. I pondered this. Did I really want to make friends? Maybe I was being too hostile and bitter towards being here.
"Yeah, of course," I answered him. "Awesome," he said, "I'll see you around, pretty eyes." I liked that. Pretty eyes. I actually felt a little flattered. He was so nice to me and I was a complete stranger to him. He smiled at me and then was drug by the arm away from me by George. I sighed and looked around at the rest of the people, stared blankly at something for a couple of seconds, and then bowed my head down to my journal, continuing on writing. Not even 30 seconds later:
"Did you think you could run away from me," came out a drawling of a voice. What the actual fuck? Had he followed me out here? I turned around and saw Draco leaning against the tree, obviously having listened to my conversation with Fred.
"What the fuck do you want?" I asked with irritation. I was pissed that he was still hounding me.
"Why are you talking to the poor ass Weasleys?" he badgered me, "They're not people you want to be seen with."
"Actually, I would prefer not to be seen with you," I said angrily. How dare he question me, when he didn't even know me. I could tell right away he had a control issue. What an asshole. He looked offended. Like I gave a fuck.
"What did I even do?" he asked irritatedly, "I only asked who you were and you're the one who was being a bitch and stormed out of the common room dramatically." He was acting like a wounded child. Who WAS this kid?
"Jesus Christ," I said, "I'm Sarah. Are you happy? Will you leave me alone now?" He looked straight at me, and even for me his gaze took me aback a little bit.
"One thing that idiot was right about is that you are beautiful. Probably the best looking girl of the lot here," he said.
"Won't your girlfriend be mad that your indirectly hitting on another female?" I asked him, "Seems like she might try to fight me if she even sees you with me." He laughed.
"Who? Pansy?" he asked, amused, "She's just an obsessed little girl who thinks she can tell me what to do. She's not my girlfriend." Okay. I still didn't give a fuck. I just wanted him to leave. "Obviously you're not from here. Where did you come from?" For some reason, I found this question and how he had worded it to be extremely rude.
"Listen," I started, "If you wanted to know shit about me asking me, 'Who the fuck are you,' and, 'Where did you come from,' are not exactly the best approaches to asking someone to expand about themselves," I said, "BUT, I am from the States. My mother wanted me to come here for some stupid reason she won't tell me." The wind kept blowing my hair in my eyes and it was annoying the crap out of me. Today was just annoying, in general. I looked at Draco, who was now just silently staring at me, and realized that he was actually relatively attractive for such an idiot of a boy. And I could tell there was more to him than he was putting off. Maybe he was just an asshole as a front.
"Well," he started again, blinking and turning his head to look at the people who were laughing and talking loudly around us, "I'm sorry for being such a prat," another word I didn't know it's meaning to, "I guess I'm just interested in who you are. I'm not sure why, but you have a little bit of mystery surrounding you, Sarah. There are a lot of girls here. Beautiful girls, ugly girls, nice ones, mean ones, ones like Pansy, ones like Her-hinny over there," he nodded towards the brown-haired girl sitting with Fred's brother, Ron, and Harry, "But you just kind of kept to yourself," he was looking at me again, "Like you don't want anyone to notice you. And I'm telling you right now, someone as pretty as you is not going to go unnoticed here." He sat down next to me, almost uncomfortably close. What was wrong with this kid? Did he know what boundaries were? He sighed and leaned against the tree. I noticed he was wearing a plain, pale blue v-neck and jeans and had a nice duo-toned wrist watch on. He looked kind of stuck-up, maybe like his family had money, or something. But I had no idea. I was just sitting here making my own assumptions. He folded his arms behind his head and closed his eyes.
"What's your point?" I asked continuing on with my writing. He was a little bit different, now. I found myself actually being curious in respect to him. He had an air of, was it loneliness, surrounding him? Like he was a little bit of a broken person.
Jesus Christ. I had a problem with wanting to fix broken people. And I suddenly found myself wanting to fix him. STOP IT, SARAH! I yelled at myself inside of my head.
He was looking straight at me again, and I was a little startled.
"The point is," he continued, "Is I want you to notice me before you notice the rest of them." How childish of a statement this sounded to me. Unfortunately for me, I was indeed noticing him, just like he wanted.