Clara's plan for the first task of the Triwizard Tournament was quite simple: she'd wait until everyone was occupied with the events at the arena and then settle down in the peacefully deserted Hufflepuff common room, catching up on her many overdue homework assignments before she could be guaranteed to fail.
The twins, however, managed to scupper that plan entirely when they spotted her at breakfast. The further outside they dragged her, the quicker her plan diminished away.
"You're gonna love it," Fred assured her, hauling her along by her arm.
"Best entertainment of the year," George added. He held up a box fastened around his neck, "and we're gonna be making a profit. It's a win-win scenario!"
They proceeded to drag her into the arena stands like a mascot for their new gambling enterprise. While George targeted the lower stands for bets, Fred dragged her along the top.
"Step up folks!" Fred shouted over the commotion of the crowd, most of which weren't interested in their efforts. "Who fancies a flutter in today's bloodbath?"
"Smart money's on Krum to survive!" George called from somewhere below. "Any bets?"
They pushed past a group of Durmstrang students who had yet to decide where to sit for the tournament. Clara found herself gripping Fred's arm back, if only to prevent herself from getting lost in a crowd she hadn't wanted to be in in the first place.
Fred turned and smiled. "Having fun yet, Davies?"
A canon went off, somewhere in the direction of the tent beside the arena. The crowd roared in excitement. Clara waited for the ringing in her ears to stop.
The first dragon was released into the arena. She found herself pressed into a space towards the front of the upper stands, leaning forward against an iron railing between Fred and Ginny Weasley. George had fearlessly climbed up to the top to join them rather than taking the stairs like any civilised member of society.
"Barbaric, isn't it?" Hermione Granger squeezed into view, sliding into the gap between her and Ginny. "This tournament should have remained outlawed. Wouldn't you agree?"
Clara nodded noncommittally. She didn't have any strong opinions about the Triwizard Tournament, at least none as strong as Hermione's.
George rattled his box to get her attention. "Placing any bets, Granger?"
"And you honestly don't think it's morally corrupt to profit off the wellbeing of your fellow classmates?" Hermione remarked, pointedly waiting for some shred of remorse.
The twins exchanged a look and shrugged in unison.
Hermione sighed. Her hand shot out. Clara glanced out of the corner of her eye, bemused and surprised to find that Hermione was smiling straight at her.
"Hermione Granger," she said, beaming.
Reciprocating in her own watered-down way, Clara hesitantly shook her hand. "Clara Davies," she murmured.
"Of course, aren't you the one who spilled water all over Draco Malfoy the other day?" Clara nodded bashfully. "That was rather brilliant. I would've done so myself if you hadn't beaten me to it. Oh look, there's Cedric."
The crowd erupted in applause as Cedric Diggory entered the arena. Cedric's tactic was just to distract his dragon by transfiguring a nearby boulder into a dog. It worked in his favour until the dragon lost interest in the puppy and gained interest in him. Clara found herself looking away and nearly gagging as the dragon breathed out a huff of orange flames. She could feel the blistering heat of it from a considerable distance away.
She didn't want to look at the damage. She looked at the crowd instead, then at her shoes, then at the railing, then back into the crowd.
Her eyes locked onto Malfoy, who stood just a few rows below them. He had an arm over Astoria's shoulders. She leaned into him. They both morbidly laughed at something in the arena.
It was an effort for Clara to successfully tear her gaze away, but the annoyance that was slowly building up was adequate motivation to start paying attention to the tournament instead. She reluctantly watched as Delacour and Krum took on their dragons. Her only motivation to stay was Hermione's running commentary on the history of the tournament and how appalled she was that the Ministry had allowed it again.
While Harry Potter's dragon was being prepared, Clara felt something hit her fingers. She glanced up and saw that Malfoy was standing just below her, grabbing her attention by tapping his wand against her hand.
"Library," he said, leaving little opportunity to argue. Astoria was already halfway towards the stairs "Thursday evening, straight after dinner. You'd better be there, badger."
The last of his sentence was rushed; he was distracted by his girlfriend, who had returned to drag him away, giggling, smiling from ear to ear like she was in the best position anyone could ask for.
Clara wasn't jealous. She had no reason to be. Was she confused? Upset, even? Possibly. But never jealo–
George whistled low, interrupting her train of thought. "Getting a little bit of library action? In the evening, eh?" He nudged Clara's shoulder. "Remind us to give you two some privacy."
Clara went a flush shade of red. Hermione leant over her and whacked George over the head with a book she'd brought along to read.
"It's for a school project," Hermione explained, exasperated. "Clara's been paired up with Malfoy by Snape."
Fred leaned over the hand railing, resting his head against his hand. "It starts with a school project . . ."
"Ends with a romance to last a lifetime," George finished, forming a heart with his hands.
Hermione pinched the bridge of her nose. "Ignore them," she insisted. "They do this a lot. Their immaturity levels are baffling."
"I know," Clara quietly agreed. Hermione silently laughed in solidarity.
Clara waited until her roommates were asleep before she resumed writing. Lilia took the sound of movement and the rustling of pages as her cue to leap onto the bed and curl into her lap — a silent demand for attention. As reassuring and pleasant as Lilia's presence was, she had some unreasonable expectations for how much time should be spent petting her.
With a playful sigh — Clara could never actually get annoyed at her — she stroked her head as she picked up her quill and precariously balanced her ink pot on a stack of Potions books she'd borrowed from the library.
November 24th 1994
Dear diary,
Remind me not to attend any more of these tasks for the Triwizard Tournament again. How a competition like that can even be legal, I have no idea. Not that it matters.
But that wasn't even the strangest part of my day. Hermione Granger of all people came over to me and started a conversation, completely unprompted. For anyone else, that would be normal behaviour, but people avoid conversations with me unless absolutely necessary. I have little to say to people. It's common knowledge.
It was surprising to see how genuinely nice the girl was. She reminds me of Justin in many aspects, her down-to-earth views and her overall tolerance of the long pauses in conversation when I don't reply. I suppose that's probably why Ginny and I don't get along so well — she's always talking.
It gets weirder. Malfoy spoke to me. Again, it sounds dramatic, but after attending with Astoria, who I am growing to dislike just a bit, he came up to me and told me to meet him on Thursday night in the library. That gives me 2 days to mentally prepare myself for several hours of his company.
I guess as long as he doesn't try making conversation, we can make this arrangement work. If not, the results of this thing could be disastrous.
If only I could've been paired up with Hermione.
Clara picked at her slice of chicken pie, trying to gaslight herself into believing she still had an appetite. Her food was starting to go cold though. She'd wasted an hour trying to eat without thinking about Malfoy.
The idea of just her and the boy who despised her the most at a table was something she'd been dreading all day. She could barely concentrate in any of her classes. Herbology ended with a Bouncing Bulb to the face.
Across the Great Hall, the Gryffindors weren't done celebrating Harry's victory, but the Hufflepuffs weren't any better. Cedric was like a celebrity, flashing everyone amicable smiles as he strutted around with his golden egg tucked under his arm. No one knew what clue it contained yet, but for his sake she hoped he'd figure out its meaning sooner rather than later.
Fred slid into the empty seat opposite her. "Wanna hear a joke?" He didn't wait for a reply. "Why can't Harry tell the difference between his potions pot and his best friend?" He paused, letting the tension form. "Because they're both Cauldron! Get it? Like, called-Ron?"
Fred guffawed at his own joke like a character in a muggle cartoon. The way he slapped his own knee was the cherry on the cake.
Clara tried to smile. "Funny."
Dejected, Fred stalked off to his twin. "You're no fun, Davies."
Her father told better jokes than the twins did. That's what she wanted to say. She never would. She wasn't outwardly argumentative, even if she always had a retort inwardly lined up for every occasion that just never saw the light of day.
Clara wondered why she was the way she was sometimes. As she left the Great Hall, she considered her St Mungo's psychiatric healer's advice, from an appointment years ago; there was no shame in being herself. And she didn't feel shame, not for one second. But she sure as hell felt confused.
She entered the library hesitantly, pushing the door open in measured amounts to prevent it creaking. The librarian, Madam Pince, curtly nodded at her from her desk. The woman had grown accustomed to Clara visiting consistently, and the fact that she was not only well-behaved but also silent put her in her good books.
The library was deserted. Most had either left the library for dinner or had returned to their common rooms and dormitories. Clara peered around shelves of books, between empty, unoccupied desks, in search of Malfoy.
She found him in the Alchemy Section of the library a few minutes later. The desk he'd chosen was pressed up against a bookshelf, containing hundreds of rows of books spiralling far above her head. The yellow light emitting from the oil lamp didn't reach the topmost shelves, leaving their deeper surroundings submerged in darkness.
Clara was lucky she wasn't scared of the dark.
Malfoy barely even glanced at her. "Took you long enough," he remarked.
Clara wasn't sure what kind of response his comment warranted. A similar retort would probably get her into deeper trouble with him, so she swiftly decided that silence was her safest option. That or apologising, but after the awful dinner she'd had, she wasn't in the mood for that either.
The moment she untucked the chair beside him and sat down, Malfoy pushed his book across the table to her with a page already open.
"Thought we'd do Amortentia," he said absently, jotting down notes on a piece of parchment. "Most complicated to brew but most straightforward to study, so it'll get us the best marks. It's usually on the NEWT curriculum, so even better."
Clara nodded, tentatively reading through the open page. She didn't have any plans to continue to study Potions at NEWT level, not considering she was barely scraping a pass a year before her OWLs. If she could leave Hogwarts with at least one NEWT, it would be an incredible feat.
Malfoy added something to the bottom of his parchment before offering it to her. "We'll need to provide 4-5 rolls of parchment on each of these ingredients, and then," He rested his head tiredly against his hand, "goodness knows how many rolls of parchment on the potion itself, including the brewing process, effects and any potential side-effects, initial development, notable uses within history, yada-yada-yada."
He motioned in the air lazily with his hand. It was the most offhanded, casual way she'd ever heard him speak.
"Sounds easy," Clara replied dryly.
She inwardly froze. That remark had just slipped off her tongue, in a horribly uncharacteristic way that had her stomach overcome with dread. It was a relief she hadn't eaten anything, because she didn't think her insides could handle it, considering the way they were twisting into knots.
Malfoy scoffed a faint chuckle in agreement, oblivious to her tense expression. "You're telling me. We'd best start on the Ashwinder Eggs. They're on page 28 of this." He tossed the book so that it landed in front of her with a startling bang. "Unless you're unable to count, badger."
November 26th 1994
Dear diary,
I did it. I worked with Malfoy until we were kicked out by Madam Pince. And, shockingly enough, I didn't lose my hold of my emotions either, which is always a bonus.
As mundane as the experience was, it did kind of give me a whole new perspective on him. Yes, he is rude, mean, and bigoted to anyone who isn't a pure-blood supremacist, but he's a lot smarter than anyone gives him credit for. In fact, I'd go as far as to say he could prove a challenge against Hermione.
Aside from the regular comments about my house and my intelligence levels, he overall wasn't terrible to work with. We work okay together, we think on roughly the same wavelength. We didn't discuss anything outside of the work, but I wouldn't have wanted that anyway.
Fred told another joke, almost as bad as the joke George told me this morning. They're trying, they really are, which is only making me feel worse for not laughing. The problem is that they see straight through my fake laughs or smiles, so it's not even like I have any way to spare their feelings.
I think I underestimated the length of the Potions project. It took us a dedicated 2 hour session just to complete the first essay on Ashwinder Eggs, and that's without proof-reading. If we find any grammatical errors, Malfoy will find a way to blame them on me somehow, making some type of strange connection between my house and my literacy levels. I'm convinced.
And we have to continue this all year long.
Sighing to herself, Clara closed her diary and hid it in the very narrow gap between her mattress and the wall. After clearing her bed of other miscellaneous items, she turned over and closed her eyes.
She really needed the rest.
⊱ ────── {.⋅ ✯ ⋅.} ────── ⊰
Author's note: Every characterisation here is based on someone I've genuinely interacted with at school. Except Draco, he's his own kind of fucked up, we love him
[Edited 21/06/2024]