Chapter Seven

Everything you did

"We are all of us, growing volcanoes that approach the hour of their eruption, but how near or distant that is, nobody knows" Friedrich Nietzsche

The next couple of days that passed in a blur were nonetheless filled with tension as I waited to see what he might do and what version of hell he intended to unleash on me. I mean what else could he do? My reputation, such as it was, was in tatters and the morsels were steadily being picked over by the vultures who had helped Malfoy tear it apart.

Don't get me wrong, Malfoy never left me alone not once. Any chance he got of feeding the rumours, short of physically molesting me in the hallway, he took. Wink at me when he knew people were watching us in the hope of seeing something, walk me to class, sit near me in the library even one painstaking encounter involving a paper note fluttering over from the Slytherin table while I was trying to eat breakfast in the Great Hall.

Worst of all? People began to romanticise the rumours by turning it into some pathetic Romeo and Juliet love story, or the wizarding world equivalent of Lucien and Morgana. The only difference is Lucien lived and spent the rest of his days killing everyone who had tried to tear the two of them apart before committing suicide in order to be reunited with her. A much bloodier version than the Shakespeare classic believe me but none the less soppy.

While I didn't believe the fantastical romance part, I couldn't help but feel that the change in feeling concerning the rumours, from disgust to fascination, had been engineered by Malfoy and that in doing so he was gearing up to something much worse. Something infinitely more gossip worthy than what had happened thus far.

I had spent one tiring Sunday morning explaining to Harry that the rumours weren't true, going so far as to include the private conversations Malfoy and I had shared but obviously ommitting the rather more embarrassing feelings that had been created in their wake. I begged him to just leave it alone, to let Malfoy get whatever it was he was trying to achieve out of his system and reassuring him that it would all blow over soon enough drawing on his own experience with the rumour mill to prove my point. I told him I couldn't be bothered trying to deny it to a school full of mindless drones who would see my denying it as clear proof that there had to be some truth in it. Besides, the wouldn't believe me anyway it would only spoil their fun.

The complete truth was, it was giving me a distraction and hurting Ron at the same time and that had been the whole point to begin with. Malfoy had let the Slytherins in on it, I assumed...well that or they thought it was true because not one of them approached me and even Pansy kept her distance.

What stunned me the most, as I'm sure I've mentioned but when people never cease to be insipid it amazes me, was how quickly the school just accepted what was happening and there was an end to it. Nobody, so far as I heard, tried to see it from my side or to even mention that there might just be more to this than was meeting the eye. It seemed that either they couldn't see two sides to this story or they didn't want to see it and I wasn't sure which one was worse.

It all came to a head one Tuesday afternoon when I received an urgent message informing me that he had to see me right away and to meet me down by the lake and one question that I was surprised to see at the end, would I come? It didn't occur to me that it may be a bad idea to go but at that moment, as far as I could see, I'd nothing to lose.

His handwriting was a mere scrawl on the page as I read it under the lamplight in the library, it was unseasonally dark for the time of year, it wasn't even October yet and I could just about discern it. His personality pored off the page as if he was someone so utterly unconcerned about what people thought of him that even his handwriting was unimportant, just an extra add-on that didn't really matter in the grand scheme of Malfoy.

The note shook slightly in my hand as it began to tremble while reading his blunt words, the Slytherin first year boy who had delivered it stood nervously in front of me. I glanced up at him, raising my eyebrows in question.

"I'm told to wait for an answer", he said loudly causing several head to swivel in our direction.

"What?" I hissed. Surely Malfoy could not be serious?

"Is it a yes or a no?" The boy raised his voice again this time ensuring that everybody in the library was now staring even those who had to lean out of the aisles to see us.

The boy looked more and more uncomfortable with every passing second and the whispering began in earnest when the crowd discerned the clear fury etched upon my face.

"Yes", I hissed but it was useless. Everyone could hear me now that they were listening so intently.

"Tell him not to do this to me ever again", I added as an afterthough waving the boy away.

He scuttled away quickly and I took a quick glance around the room, "What the fuck are you all staring at?"

I enjoyed the effect those words had, everybody scarpered or turned and the scratch of quills began furiously.

I folded up the note and decided urgent or not, he could wait. But how was I not supposed to concentrate? The whispering had not ceased as they all waited for me to leave, knowing that I would go soon.

Malfoy had known of course, known that this was how they would react. Making the boy speak loudly to draw attention had been a stroke of genius even I could admit to. A Slythering first year delivering a note to which the only answer could be yes or no? Well then it had to be from only one person.

I wondered briefly if this was it, the climax of the rumour game thatI had so foolishly started and now desperately needed to end. It was bringing me too close to Malfoy and he was blinding me. It was like flying too close to the sun, like that God...what was his name...

"Icarus", I whispered.

Except Malfoy was more like the moon, cold, stunning, blinding and suffocating all at once and he was making me shiver uncontrollably everytime he entered my head.

Which was now all the time.

This distraction was too much...He was too much.

I decided then that I would go to the lake now and wait for him. If he thought he knew me, he would expect me to take my own sweet time going down but I was determined not to be the one caught off guard this time. It would give me an advantage and Lord did I need one.

My hands trembled as I packed my bag under the watchful and knowing gaze of my fellow students. I could almost see them smirk, knowing I would leave.

I shoved the note carelessly into Hogwarts: A History and tried to ignore the eager whispering rising with each movement I made.

This would be the end of it, the rumour had served its purpose as the only thing people would remember me for. Not my breakdown or Ron and I's failed relationship but the Gryffindor goody-two-shoes and the Slytherin bastard's doomed romance.

I snorted with derision, if I'd been Dumbledore I'd have been sorely disappointed at the lack of common sense in the school body, the supposed future of tomorrow. Not a future I found myself wanting to be a part of. I walked out of the library with my head held high, I would end this with Malfoy one way or another, it would all be over in a few hours and theyt could go back to their sorry lives and I would go back to...

Well, something better than this.

With the added bonus of not having to see Malfoy ever again.

My step faltered slightly and my heart began pumping rather too quickly but I didn't notice.

All I wanted wsa to never interact with Malfoy ever again, it was all I dreamed of.

It had to be what I wanted.

No, it definitely was.

Wasn't it?