School drags for the next few days, not much happens at all. Blaise has apologised for his inexcusable behaviour, and I forgave him. Dean has been off with Ginny, a lot, so I have seen much of him.
I now sit in Potions class, the lesson is just ending.
"Miss Gold?" Slughorn calls as I attempt to leave the room.
"Professor?" I match is tone.
"I just wanted to invite you to my dinner party, I use to have one every year, with a few select students? What do you say?"
"I'd love to, Sir. It sounds wonderful." I say.
"Great, I'll send you an owl."
I nod, "Thank you, professor." I leave the room slowly in case he had anything else to say, he doesn't.
I sit at the Slytherin table for dinner; Blaise is next me and Draco opposite him. I think Draco and Pansy have officially broken up. She looks angry at the other end of the table, and her friends are looking at Draco as though they want to kill him.
"She's happy." I say without thinking.
Draco just looks at me, not amused.
After a weird 2 minutes of silence, Draco finally decides to speak.
"Okay, personal and family. That's what I want to know about you, now." He says.
"Oh, it's happening now? Okay, cool." I think for a moment. "Well, my full name is Jasmine Octavia Gold, Pureblood. I live with my wizard father, Augustus Gold and my witch mother, Nancy Gold. I have one older sister called Anastasia Gold and a pet owl called Nor."
He nods, "What house were they?"
"Ravenclaw, all of them."
He looks puzzled, "Bet your parents were happy with you then."
"They weren't, but they learnt they had to be."
That will always hurt me, the fact my parents practically disowned me when I was put into Slytherin, they didn't let me come home for the entire first year, in fear, 'I would hurt them.' Even when I was finally home and they saw that I hadn't changed, things were still different, there was tension, my mother use to cry. At that age I didn't know it was such a big deal. Third year, I realised the power of the Slytherins and how evil they could be, then it dawned it me. I'll never be my parent's perfect child.
We speed through dinner after that, and I soon find myself wondering back to the common room with Draco.
"Are you okay? With Pansy I mean?" Maybe I shouldn't, "I know, sorry, it's not my place to ask."
"Don't worry, no, Pansy and I just isn't working, clearly. She's very clingy and I've got other things to be dealing with anyway." He drops it, just like that, like it's no big deal. It's clear that he really didn't care about her, ever.
"Other things?" I say.
"Yes, other things, family things."
I nod.
"Getting to know you is the thing now, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is. Do feel like you hate me less yet?"
"Mildly. You're still not great. Although, I do appreciate you sitting with the Slytherins instead of the Gryffindors this evening." He says.
"Anything to make to happy." I joke.
"Really? I'll have to test this theory more then."
I smile and he half smiles. It's actually working; he's getting to know me. I've made him half smile; this is ground breaking stuff.
"I can't do it!" I shout at Professor Flitwick, as he tries to teach me to turn vinegar into wine.
"You're not trying, Miss Gold. You got an Outstanding in your O.W.L's, so I know you are capable of this."
I twirl my wand about, trying to force the right things to happen, they don't. Flitwick has his focus on another student so I decide to just sit and not do it.
"Going well?" Hermione asks, taking a seat next to me.
"It's impossible."
She pushes over her goblet to in front of me, in it there is half a glass of a dark coloured wine.
"How?" I say, astonished.
"Just keep trying; it's not that hard... Anyway, I wanted to ask you about Malfoy, what's happening?"
I question whether to tell her about the room of requirement, but I decide against it, "It's going okay. But he doesn't fully trust me yet."
"I get it if you don't want to do this anymore." She says.
"If I don't want to do it anymore? Hermione, this was my idea, I'm not backing out of it now. He's talking to me like a normal person, and that's big improvement then what our relationship was like before hand."
She nods, "Okay, fine. I was just saying, just in case. I mean... does the thought that he might be a , you know, not scare you? You're having to spend a lot of time with him and if he is what we think he is, he's dangerous."
"No, I'm not scared, not of him. I don't think he's really capable of any of that death eater stuff."
We sit in silence until the class is over. Potions is our next class, so I walk there with Hermione.
"I'm gonna sit with the Slytherins." I say to her.
"Good luck." She replys.
I sit down in the seat Pansy usually sits in as I can see her over on a table with people such as Lavender Brown. Crabbe and Goyle are already on this table as well, they look at me, confused, but they don't say a word. Professor Slughorn takes his place at the front of the class, just as Blaise and Draco walk in.
"Oh, a little late. Not to worry, takes your seats." Slughorn says.
Blaise and Draco walk over to the table, Blaise sits down quickly, but Draco is a little taken aback when he sees me sitting in Pansy's spot. However, he sits down next to me quickly, not to interrupt the lesson further.
"Poison antidotes!" Slughorn shouts, before writing it on the blackboard behind him.
"Why are you sitting here?" Draco whispers.
"Am I not allowed?" I whisper back.
"Common poison antidotes, these simply counteract ordinary poisons." Slughorn writes on the board again.
"It's fine." Draco says.
"By common poisons I mostly mean, creature bites and stings." Back to Slughorn speaking. "This is beginners stuff, but we're starting basic today. Find your recipes on page 100, any question? No? begin."
This really is beginners stuff; I've brewed this antidote many times before.
"Okay, next question time." Draco says while we begin to start the potion process. "What's your aim, after school is over?"
"Well, the plan is to work in the ministry, in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, probably." I look up at him, death eaters would react when the ministry is mentioned, but Draco doesn't.
"So, you want to be a nurse?" He says.
"I guess you could call it that."
I finish brewing my antidote in no time; Slughorn checks it and says that it's perfect. He then moves on to Blaise, they end up having a rather long conversation.
"Guess what?" Blaise says after Slughorn leaves the table. "I've just been invited to Slughorns dinner party."
"Don't get too excited." I say, "He already asked me as well."
"Oh, Draco?" Blaise questions him.
"Piss off." He replies.
Later, Draco and I sit in the common. It's late, so everyone else is in bed. Draco has decided it's time for an extended version of getting to know me.
"Right, tell me about your best friend, who are they and why?" He asks.
"My best friend...okay, Dean Thomas."
"Really?" he doesn't seem too disgusted with my choice. "You don't seem to hang out with him that much, not lately anyway."
"No, because he's dating Ginny Weasley and he's spending a lot of time with her. But he's still my best friend. We've known each other since we were about 4, so I guess that's why."
"Okay then. Going back to your family, you said you had a sister... Anastasia."
"Yes, Ana, she 22. She left Hogwarts at 16 and ran away with her boyfriend. She came back again, home I mean, after about a month. They broke up. She didn't come back to Hogwarts; she didn't really like it to be honest. After she got Outstanding in all but 1 of her subjects in her O.W.L's she decided she didn't really need to go back. Which I can understand now. She's moved away again now though, with a new man, Geoff, they live by the sea. They've sent me letters but I've never visited. She's been gone for 4 years now."
Draco sits there for a moment, taking in all the information about my sister, she is kind of complicated.
"How do your parents fell about that?" He asks.
"They don't care; they don't talk about her, ever. She was actually their 'Miss Perfect' until she left school and ran off. The next two years weren't great. I was in Slytherin, Ana messed up her education, apparently, the parents weren't happy. That's why she left, that's why she hasn't come back."
"How did you feel, when you were put into Slytherin?" He asks, what a weird question.
"Err... at first I didn't feel anything, it's was just a house. I guess when I started to receive letters from my parents asking me what I had done, and why I was in the house, it felt a little bad, I was upset, because my parents weren't happy." These things seem slightly personal to be telling Draco, but he seems to be listening and possibly even caring. "Do you remember it? When I was put into Slytherin?" I ask him a question this time.
"Yes, you were the first person to be called up, I remember it clearly." He says.
"What did you think of me then?" What am I doing right now?
He thinks for a moment, "Honestly? I thought we were going to get on really well, I remember thinking you were pretty, you see, so aged 11, I had this idea in my head that we would end up dating and be the kind of king and queen of the school. Weird, huh?"
I nod, and give a small smile, I can't help but imagine what that would of been like, if it actually turned out that way.
"That's enough for tonight." Draco says, breaking my thought process and standing up.
"Oh, okay, cool."
"I'll see you tomorrow then, night."
"Night." I say.