While Marilyn had very much hoped that Hermione's promise of thinking of something meant that she'd ponder the matter for all of two minutes, before finally coming up with a solution that would free her of any worry by the time dinner rolled around, she knew she couldn't really complain when that didn't happen. Given that the girl was under no obligation to help her at all, she knew she wasn't in much of a position to complain. So she did what she could to put it out of her mind, and when she was left with little choice other than to think of it, she cloaked herself in positive thoughts. Positive thoughts that tasted a bit too much of denial, admittedly, even for her own tastes, but they helped all the same. A little.
Their little chat in Muggle Studies had left him in a foul mood. That much was just a fact. And Draco Malfoy was prickly even when in a good mood, so a bad one stood to be disastrous - another fact. Perhaps it really was that simple. He'd been in a fettle, and didn't particularly want Pansy flirting with and fawning over him during lunch because of that. That much was even somewhat reasonable, especially for him, for she hardly even liked people so much as asking her for the time when she was in a mood, nevermind fussing over her.
Thanks to that, when rehearsals ended for the evening, Marilyn lagged behind. If she didn't tire herself out good and proper, she'd only spend the whole night awake and panicking - and she was already dreading tomorrow enough, she didn't need to add sleep deprivation to the shitshow she was currently starring in. But dancing helped. Dancing always helped. Especially when the burning and the ache of her muscles occupied her mind so much that the noise faded into nothing.
Setting the borrowed broomstick onto the floor, she stretched her feet a few times, pointing and flexing them as she glared at the broom, and then she finally stepped atop it. It was almost easy at first. With her toes pointed outwards, it was more balance than anything - and balance was old hat for any ballerina. Keeping the broom steady wasn't quite so simple. The more it bobbed about as it began to slowly lift her a couple of feet from the ground, the more likely she was to fall, and she had to keep her attention firmly divided between controlling herself and the broom beneath her feet. Arms stretched out at either side of her to help keep herself steady, she slowly began to move up to the balls of her feet, jaw clenched as her calves tensed and the broom wobbled beneath her feet. She did that a few times, going down and up until she felt sure of the movement. The next part, though, would be the true test.
Inhaling deeply, she tested the stability of the broom beneath her and then carefully rolled her weight through her feet and rose to the very rips of her toes. The broom wobbled a little, dipping at one side, but she corrected it carefully, and then she held firm - en pointe, atop the broom, hovering off of the ground. Marilyn breathed a laugh of delight. But then, somewhere behind her, the sound of a chair scraping against the stone flooring. Marilyn jumped, and it all went to shit. The soles of her pink satin shoes slipped against the handle of the broom, and then she was falling with little time to do anything other than brace her arm up over her head to lessen the impact. Instead of crashing down onto the hard floor, though, she tumbled into something much softer instead. Pillows?
Cursing, she rolled from her side onto her back and was met with the sight of Draco Malfoy sitting in one of the chairs shoved to the far side of the room, fiddling with his wand. Marilyn scowled.
"No need to thank me," he said.
"If you hadn't distracted me, you wouldn't have had to help," she pointed out, and then faltered "…But thank you. I suppose."
He smirked "Not so difficult, was it?"
The pillows vanished into thin air as she rose to her feet.
"What do you want, Draco?"
"Still in a mood with me over this morning, then?"
"You were the one who stormed off."
"To give you time to cool off. So, are you? Cooled off?"
Giving a long suffering sigh, Marilyn spread her arms wide and shrugged.
"To be in a huff with you, I'd need to think about you. I don't care enough to do either of those two things," she said flatly.
The shit-eating smile he gave in response to that said that he didn't believe her. Which…was fair enough, considering it wasn't entirely honest. But if he wasn't such a shit, she wouldn't think about him. It wasn't by choice, it was…it was the same way a blister demanded one's attention with every step taken.
"An impressive little trick, that," he nodded towards where the broom lay discarded on the floor.
How did he manage to make even compliments sound insulting and condescending? It was a talent, truly. But she didn't rise to it.
"It's not impressive enough. Not yet."
"Does your professor expect you to manage the solo on the broom? Not many do even at proper performances."
Well, she hadn't expected him to know that.
"Clarabella Vane does it on the tip of the broom itself," she pointed out, hands on her hips "This is easy in comparison."
"I never knew Beauxbatons were such perfectionists, expecting you to do that - even if it is with the aim of showing off to the other schools."
"If I wanted to do it the easy way on the floor I'd get no arguments from our teacher," she sighed "But I talk a big game - which means I have to play a big game."
It was something she brought upon herself, so she couldn't really gripe too much about it.
"The cost of greatness," Draco snorted "Having to then actually be great."
"No," Marilyn disagreed, moving to the table where her flask of water waited "The cost of greatness is that greatness ceases to be, well, great."
Raising one pale eyebrow at her, he tilted his head as though asking her to elaborate.
"Say you're a student who only ever gets Os," she said.
"As I am," he said.
She rolled her eyes "So you'll understand this example well, then. Once you establish that pattern, anything less than an O becomes a failure. Other students get to celebrate Es and even As, but the second you get one of those, it's no longer 'good enough' but catastrophic. Victories aren't victories anymore - you don't get to celebrate them, they're just what's expected. You're either exceptional, or you're disappointing. There's not exactly any room for error there - nor to relax, or to…to breathe."
She'd begun to rant before she was even fully aware of it, and by the time she did become aware of it she was too deep in to just suddenly stop speaking. And so, as she bashfully ended her little speech, she glanced towards him as she took a drink of her water - mostly expecting to find him rolling his eyes at her or preparing some snide little comment. Instead though, shockingly, he appeared entirely lost for words. For a moment, just one brief moment, she felt like she was looking at the Draco Malfoy that dwelled beneath the bullshit and the bravado - however much he enjoyed both of them. That much she even somewhat understood. She sang the same song half the time, even if it was in a different key. But it did grow exhausting at times, and he did look exhausted.
For a moment, just the slightest moment, she even felt bad for him. Even when at school in France, she heard tell of the Malfoys and the kind of folk they were. Draco Malfoy was probably used to people envying him - shit, he went about thinking that the world envied him. Marilyn felt no such envy.
Whether her curiosity or even her sympathy showed on her face, she didn't know - but whatever it was that he saw in her expression had his own locking up. For a moment he faltered in search of words - clever, nasty words no doubt. And then finally he shrugged and pointed out, albeit with a surprising lack of bite.
"Some might say that in your case, you bring your own problems down upon yourself. If you didn't boast of your skill, you wouldn't need to live up to it."
"The skill preceded the boasting, I'm afraid," she offered a tired smirk "And whether I pretend to be humble or not, they'll still expect greatness and then, as I said, it would still cease to be greatness."
There was more to it than that, of course. She could point out that the boasting was more for her own benefit than that of others. It wasn't with any great desire to prove herself to them - whether they saw her ability or not wouldn't diminish or enhance it either way - but to remind herself. The more she sang of her ability, the less she could convince herself that her success was down to some sort of fluke or luck. If the others hated her for it, so be it, but she had too far to go to waste time or energy on self doubt, and if radical and obnoxious self-belief worked in beating it back, then obnoxious self-belief it was.
But she couldn't go sharing all of her secrets - not to Draco Malfoy, anyway. And she'd already blabbed more than enough. Turning towards the broom, she considered trying again but quickly decided against it. Her legs were burning like hell, quads involuntarily twitching every now and then. If she pushed herself much further, they'd start to seize up and refuse to cooperate - and muscle failure wasn't something she wanted to go to under the cool gaze of the boy who showed no sign of moving from his place in the front row. Instead, she picked up the broom and propped it out of the way against the wall before turning back to him.
"You've seen Clarabella Vane dance, then? In The Veela and the Vampire?"
"You haven't?" He frowned - and for once it didn't seem like a jibe "She was here only this past summer, performing in London."
"Ah. No - I was in Norway."
"Is that where you summer?"
Marilyn snorted "Depends on the year."
And on which of the parents of her friends, Muggle or otherwise, took pity on her and invited her along for their summer holidays. Another thing he did not need to know.
"We had the opportunity to meet her afterwards - platinum tickets, you see," he sniffed.
Approaching hesitantly, she lowered herself into the chair beside the one he sat on - a process that was slow and shaky, given the state of her legs. His eyes swept over her form as she did so, clad in only a leotard, tights, and a thin sheer scrap of a skirt. But it was quick, and it felt a far sight less invasive than the looks some of his peers gave her when she was in her full set of Beauxbatons robes.
"What was she like?" She asked.
"Exhausted, and not particularly fluent in English."
"Or maybe pretending not to be because of said exhaustion," she snorted "I do the same all the time back home - pretend I only speak French if I can't be arsed with strangers."
He chuckled at that "I just ignore them."
Yeah, she bet he did.
"Beautiful, though," he added "Then again, ballerinas tend to be."
"Ugh."
He smirked at that "I said tend to be - I didn't say you fit the bill."
"I do," she shrugged.
That particular statement - for once - wasn't down to her mantra of obnoxious self-belief. No, she suspected his statement was skewed to have her batting her eyelashes, flushing, doubting herself and asking whether he thought she fit the bill or not. Putting her in a position to seek his approval. Marilyn had no intention of doing that. Unfortunately, he appeared to like that - giving a wicked, amused smile that had her at risk of blushing all the same. Damn him.
"Well, who knows? My mother is always badgering me to bring a plus one to these events. Perhaps next time you can join us."
He watched her carefully, likely anticipating a certain kind of reaction - eyes wide, spluttering, maybe a curtsey. Instead, Marilyn made a face.
"I doubt that."
"Why? Because you're half-blood? They'd be fine with us so long as we were all under the understanding that we could only ever be friends. Snape's a half-blood, and he and my father are old friends."
For a brief moment she once again considered unveiling the truth of her blood status. It was less risky here than it would've been back in the woods. She could say it here and now, sit back as he denounced her at the scum of the earth, and it would all be done with. So she was left wondering why she didn't when she instead cracked a joke.
"I'm happy that your mother can rest easy at night knowing they can only ever be friends."
Draco's nose wrinkled "You really are impossible at times, you know that, Baxter? Most of the time, really."
"Thanks."
"Unless your problem is with the fact that it only ever could be friendship?" He probed.
"More like wondering if we even are friends to begin with," she said drily.
"Aren't we?" He raised his eyebrows.
"That…remains to be seen," she said finally.
His former annoyance was rising up now - it was clear that he wasn't used to dealing with people who didn't fall over themselves to get his approval. But if that displeased him, surely he would stop seeking her out. Maybe he was just curious to know what it would take to make her start falling over herself. Who knew? The mind of a Malfoy wasn't something she particularly wanted to unpuzzle.
Rising to her feet, she walked stiffly to where her robes and bag were piled in a heap and began to quickly and methodically dress.
"You know hard to get turns into hard to want past a certain point, Baxter?"
Now that was territory she absolutely didn't want to stray into - and it had her deciding she'd just walk back to the carriage in her pointe shoes and scourgify the damage away after the fact. Anything to get her out of the territory this conversation was straying into as quickly as possible.
"Maybe I have no wish to be wanted, Malfoy," she pointed out, making for the door and pretending she couldn't feel his eyes on her every step of the way "Goodnight."
