Sustaining his hatred for Baxter had always been surprisingly difficult - once his initial wave of fury ebbed, at least. That difficulty had only grown after his run-in with Moody, and then it had blossomed outright into an impossibility after their little chat over the remains of her broom. He'd avoided seeking her out again after that. Maybe because he feared what would follow hatred being an impossibility.

Initially, in the small moments where his resolve to hate her had wavered - mostly after her tears at his little display in the Great Hall - all he had to do in order to rediscover it was sit back and recall the moment he'd found out the truth regarding her blood status. If he could hold onto that anger, he could get through the rest of the school year with his sanity intact. Unfortunately, the former wasn't looking likely anymore, and therefore neither was the latter. When he looked back on it, he found himself getting more and more annoyed at Pansy over anybody - why couldn't Baxter piss him off like Parkinson did? Maybe she would one day. If he was around her as often. Maybe. Hopefully. Probably not.

But it wasn't like he'd ever find out. Glaring at the canopy of his bed - emerald green, but appearing black in the dim light - he ran the memory over in his mind for the umpteenth time, praying that this time might be the one where he rediscovered his anger.

Draco lounged in the Slytherin common room, well aware that dinner was underway in the Great Hall. As it was, he was making do with nibbling at a sandwich he'd stashed from lunch - it didn't matter, Baxter always had bits of fruit at her little practise sessions, and since he'd started showing up she always brought enough for the both of them. He left it unacknowledged, mostly because he didn't wish for her to stop. A ham sandwich and an apple or two wasn't much of a dinner, but if he attended dinner properly then he'd need to leave early to catch her before her ballet mistress turned up. He doubted the strict Frenchwoman would allow him to stick around once she arrived.

"I thought I might find you here."

Draco tensed when Pansy's voice sounded from the entrance to the common room.

"It's usually well after dinner that you sneak out to go see her. Once her lesson is over, I understand - but now you're going beforehand, too? My, it must be love."

"Whatever it is, it's none of your business," he sneered.

It wasn't love - he might've been a teenager, but he wasn't some hormonal idiot who thought one kiss constituted something like love. But it had been a good kiss, one that he very much hoped to repeat, and if it led somewhere…well, then, that would hardly be something to complain about. Not where a girl like Baxter was involved…and failing to deny it would annoy Pansy - into pissing off and leaving him completely alone, if he was lucky.

Then he'd have enough peace and quiet to think about how he'd ask Baxter to the ball - because he was going to ask her. Tonight. Time was running out, it was time he did so, but she revelled in being difficult so he'd have to find some sort of clever way of asking if she was going to do the wise thing and say yes. There had to be a good way of asking her that didn't involve them being stuck sat in Madam Puddifoot's slowly losing the will to live. No doubt the Weasley sod would do it in Zonko's once he finally plucked up the nerve, and Draco was intent to get there first if only so that she had to say no out of some misplaced sense of obligation towards the twit.

"You're right," Pansy sniffed "It's none of my business."

Draco watched her, unimpressed.

"And I'm glad it's not. I don't tend to concern myself with mudbloods and blood traitors."

"Excuse me?" He glared at her.

Balking at his reaction, she lost a little bit of her bluster and then laughed nervously before she sighed. Tucking her dark hair behind her ear, she lowered herself to perch on the edge of the sofa he sat on, turning to look at him with a frown.

"All right," she admitted "I didn't think you knew - I wasn't calling you a blood traitor…I wouldn't- I know you're not. I still don't think you know. You can't have known, can you? I won't pretend to understand the fascination with her, but it can't be so strong for you to overlook such a glaring inadequacy."

"If we're to remain on good terms, you should tell it what exactly it is you're accusing me of - or Marilyn, for that matter."

He adopted the calm, careful tone his father always did in these matters - the one that made people go pale and consider their next words especially carefully. He knew he still had a bit of practising to do before he could manage it quite as well as his father did, but it did the trick anyway.

"Draco," Pansy frowned and then sighed, tilting her head as though in sympathy "The ballet girl is a mudblood."

Draco scoffed "No she's not, she's a half-blood. Don't be so bloody ridiculous."

"She's not, Draco. She lied to you. I found out just today - from one of her classmates. The girl told me herself, quite confidently, that Baxter is a mudblood. Like you did, I thought that she was a half-blood and the Beauxbatons seventh year overheard- er, she became aware of my being misinformed and corrected me."

"Then she's wrong - or she's lying, or you bloody well made the whole thing up!"

"Why would I lie about something that's so easily fact-checked?" She insisted "What exactly has she said about her blood status? I'm willing to bet she phrased it all very carefully indeed."

"She-" Draco started, and then he paused.

She hadn't phrased anything carefully, because she'd never actually said anything on the matter. Every conversation they'd had concerning blood status had involved him speaking and her staying quiet - he'd always just taken that silence as agreement, that if she was a mudblood she'd make her disagreement known just as loudly and obnoxiously as Granger always did, but maybe…

His gaze returned to Pansy. While he wasn't naive enough to think that he could always tell whenever anybody lied, he certainly knew her well enough to know when she was lying. And she had a point, too, for even if she was angry enough or stupid enough to lie about this, it could very easily be verified - and she was confident enough in what she was saying to point that out. Draco's stomach dropped, and he discarded what remained of his sandwich.

Fury had followed. Fury that felt all the hotter for the glee that it had quashed. Fury that would likely still be prevailing right now had she not gone and cried when he'd exacted his revenge. Fury which might have returned with a vengeance had she just gone and damn well laughed when Moody put on his little show in the courtyard. Fury that he'd previously been able to rely on to blot out the fact that he wasn't sure this misunderstanding had been some sinister ploy on her part at all, and it grew increasingly difficult to believe that it was as each day went on. Fury that had been entirely stamped out without hope for a return when he'd spoken to her in the classroom the ballerinas had commandeered and been forced to face properly just how much he missed her.

Damn her - and the ridiculous carriage she'd flown in on. And damn Pansy for telling him. Not only because she shattered his blissful ignorance, but because of how delighted she'd been to do so. Nervous, yes, and wary of whatever reaction he might give, but only insofar as how that reaction might affect her. She'd been happy enough when she'd flounced in here to tell him, and that great joy had only faded when it first seemed to occur to her that he may curse the messenger.

Draco's glaring at inanimate objects intensified, mostly because his tactic to rediscover his short-lived hatred for Baxter had only fuelled his annoyance towards Pansy. She hadn't cared about the effect the news might have beyond the consequences it would reap - and then she expected him to lose sleep over her being banned from the ball thanks to her own stupidity. Instead, here he was, losing sleep over Baxter instead. If only there was something he could do - something that would give him the upper hand, something that would shake off this pathetic sense of guilt.

Scoffing, he rolled out of bed and padded towards his trunk, seizing a scrap of parchment, a quill, and an inkpot from it.

"What are you doing, Malfoy?" Goyle grunted.

"Nothing," he replied, making for the door so that he could write his letter in peace.

It wasn't too late for him to add to his Christmas wish-list - the letter could be in the hands of his mother within twenty-four hours. He'd do this, he'd feel better, and then he'd stop bloody well thinking about her. It would be as simple as that.


Despite it all, when the Christmas holidays began and the Yule Ball was well and truly breathing down their necks, Marilyn was feeling decidedly optimistic. It did help quite a bit that the loudest and dumbest of the blood purists had pissed off home for the holidays without the Yule Ball to keep them here - there'd even been talk of them trying to get their more careful friends to join them in protest, but few if any had taken that bait. This was more or less the Wizarding equivalent to prom, even the children of former Death Eaters weren't going to miss it because their pals didn't know when and where to keep their hate to themselves.

That was probably lesson one in being a blood purist twonk - know the clever time and place to express your horrendous views, lest they make things inconvenient. Lesson two would be how to properly long for the return of the glory days when you could talk about it openly and simply torture anybody who dared to disagree.

On Christmas Day itself, they were permitted to eat breakfast in the Great Hall, but had been warned that they'd need to eat lunch elsewhere while the hall was converted into a winter wonderland for the ball itself. Marilyn was fine with that - she'd choke down odds and ends beforehand for the energy it would give her, but she already knew that her nerves wouldn't allow her to eat a proper meal as the day dragged on. Especially not with this performance.

As was true tradition among Wizarding folk and Muggles alike, rather than pay much attention to the actual breakfast offered by Hogwarts, she and her friends shared a breakfast feast consisting of whatever sweets they'd been sent by loved ones - and she even had something to contribute to that, thanks to the gifts sent by her friends at Beauxbatons. Fleur Delacour had even gotten her a chocolate frog - something she suspected wouldn't have happened if not for her recent humiliation.

"Anything fun from home?" George asked as he tore into his fourth cauldron cake in a row.

"Hm? Oh, no," she shook her head "They don't really do Christmas."

"What? They don't celebrate?"

Not beyond the fact that it meant that for one day a year, their decision to have alcohol for breakfast was actually socially acceptable.

"Eh," she shrugged "It's not that they don't celebrate, they just…don't celebrate."

George's brow furrowed, but she would never find out whether he would accept it and let the matter lie, for they were interrupted when an owl swooped into the hall a little behind the rest that brought in the post - and it was easy to see why, seeing as how it toted a hell of a parcel in its claws.

It drew some nudges and murmuring, but they were saved from having to speculate as to what it was from a distance when the bird let go of it right above Gryffindor table and the parcel came flying down towards their heads. It landed among a selection of breakfast pastries, the brilliant white box becoming splattered with strawberry jam.

They all looked at one another, each waiting for somebody to claim it until Hermione finally sighed impatiently and plucked the card from the length of twine that tied it shut.

"Marilyn Baxter," she announced, reaching across the table to hand her the card.

Evidently she didn't think it as strange as Marilyn did - all she could do was stare dumbly.

"What? No - it can't be," she shook her head "My gifts from my friends back in France came directly to the carriage first thing with everybody else's presents."

"Apparently not," Hermione shrugged.

Marilyn stared at the card - half convinced it would turn out to say something like Marianne Blackwell or something, and that Hermione had somehow miraculously forgotten how to read. But apparently not. Frowning, she undid the twine on the box and lifted the lid, absentmindedly licking the jam that stuck to her fingers thanks to that action. The box was long - damn long. Maybe Madam Garnier had decided on a costume change for her last minute and it contained some sort of new dress for her to dance in. Rather than being met with lengths of tulle or lace, though, the box was filled with straw.

"Alright, is this some sort of prank?" She snorted at Fred and George as she dug a hand into the straw.

"I'm actually pretty offended that you think our pranks would ever be so boringly subtle," Fred shot back, although even he was leaning forward to regard the box with curiosity.

Her hand finally met something in the straw - something smooth and wooden. If she wasn't so committed to her denial and her confusion both, she probably would have worked out what it was after that. As it was, she refused to believe what the box held until she curled her fingers around it and pulled it out. A broom. A dazzlingly sleek, elegant, and therefore likely very expensive, white broom, embellished here and there with silver accents.

"Holy shit…" she breathed, turning it over in her hands - and nearly knocking out Harry for her troubles, unable to believe it.

Having successfully dodged the handle to the face that he almost took, Harry joined the rest in staring at it in disbelief.

"You don't play Quidditch, do you?" He questioned "What in the world are you going to do with a broom like that?"

"I, no…I…" she couldn't believe it - she wouldn't believe it.

"Look - there's another note," Hermione leaned forward and plucked it from the packing straw nestled in the box.

Marilyn wanted to drop the broom and snatch the card from her hand, but that would only be more suspicious - instead she froze and stared, hoping to Merlin for two things in particular. The first was that who she thought had sent it hadn't done so. The second was that if he had, he hadn't been stupid enough to sign his name to it.

When Hermione's brow furrowed, she feared the worst. But then she looked up and tilted her head.

"That's strange. They've put a post script, but they haven't actually written anything."

Lowering the broom back into the box, Marilyn accepted the card from her and peered down on it - two letters, simply P.S. written in the same immaculate script that the first card had featured. Handwriting that had become very familiar to her over the course of her Muggle Studies classes.

"Who do we know with the initials P and S?" Harry ventured.

"Professor Snape?" Ron hazarded with a snort.

Marilyn continued to stare at the card, her last conversation with Draco sodding Malfoy coming to mind.

"So much for that Pure-blooded superiority, eh?" She'd sighed.

P.S. Pure-blooded. Superiority. It had to be it - the second she remembered it, she knew it was. He was the only boy alive who'd do something so nice and include a card so stupidly arsey with it. She laughed - she couldn't help it - and then her eyes lifted of their own volition and met his across the hall, where he held eye contact for a few moments as he sipped from a cup of pumpkin juice. When he broke it, it was so he could allow his gaze to flicker down towards the broom, and then he smirked into his cup.

Marilyn was almost tempted to beat him over the head with it for being so bloody impossible. And she might have done - were she not still completely frozen in astonishment and disbelief.