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Draco and Theodore
"Big things are coming," Draco Malfoy says with all the solemnity of a boy who just turned fourteen. He knows so. His father told him everything, or at least that's what he hopes his words imply. Truth be told, his father has been annoyingly tight-lipped about everything going on these days, and if not for a few instances here and there where Draco is able to listen in to his father's conversations, he would otherwise know nothing at all.
Beside him, Theodore Nott nods in agreement. Draco knows Theodore's father would have told him things--everyone always says Theodore's got the maturity of an adult, anyway--so he doesn't doubt that at all. "They're getting ready," he says.
Draco leans forward, eager to know more. He hopes Theodore does not notice this. "Has your father told you too?" he asks.
"Enough to know to be ready," is all Theodore would say. The way he casts a sideways glance at Draco, the way the corner of his lips sneer the slightest bit, make Draco feel uncomfortable. It's like he's having a laugh on Draco's expense.
Draco frowns. "He's told you nothing, hasn't he."
Theodore merely shrugs. "Believe what you want."
When the Notts leave--Thaddeus Nott's hand on his son's shoulder, stiff and imposing--Draco doesn't say goodbye.
He's already in his father's study, looking through books for any way to listen in next time his father has a fire-call from one of Them.
Theodore and Blaise
"Thank you, Mrs. Zabini," Theodore says. He wipes his mouth with the napkin, remembers his manners, and does not forget to smile graciously, gratefully, when Isabella Zabini offers him more food.
It is a risk she is willing to take, he knows, taking in the son of an imprisoned man, but he can't help the bile rising from his throat, the anger coursing through his veins every time he remembers how stupid his father had been. How reckless. How thoughtless.
Blaise Zabini is less than sympathetic. He leaves Theodore alone for the most part, though one time he does venture outside his own room or the village cafe (where he's trying, unsuccessfully, to get into one of the waitresses knickers) to bother Theodore while he's reading.
"Do you suppose that's going to help when you're in Azkaban yourself?" Blaise asks. He lacks the subtlety of a snake.
"What do you want?"
"Are you still going to Hogwarts this term?"
"Why shouldn't I?"
"It's rather risky, isn't it? You don't know what those students will do to you. What Potter will."
"Malfoy is Potter's business. I'll be fine, though I will take note to thank you for your concern." Theodore ignores him for the rest of the afternoon, and soon enough, Blaise takes the hint and disappears.
Blaise and Pansy
"Come here," he whispers, leading Pansy into a hidden corner of the Zabini gardens.
"What are you taking me here for?" she asks, breathless and pink-cheeked. She knows damn well, the slag, but Blaise plays along. He knows that's the sort of game she likes.
"I wanted to show you something," he whispers.
Pansy giggles then, and Blaise's hold on her wrist tightens the smallest bit. His mother and Pansy's encouraged their so-called friendship, especially once the Malfoys' name had gone to utter shit, and Blaise is never one to ignore such an opportunity. Pansy is pretty, after all, even though she's still hopelessly infatuated with Draco.
He hopes to change that soon enough.
Pansy is soft, small against his hands. She sighs against his lips and doesn't squirm away when he lets his hands wander.
He has her against a sturdy oak tree (is it always oak trees that first witness lovers, he wonders?), his hands on her hips and his mouth on hers, when he tastes the salt on her tongue.
"Pansy?"
She doesn't look up, doesn't say anything for the longest time.
"Pansy?"
When she speaks her voice breaks. Her fingers cling to his shirt and she sobs, unflattering sounds breaking through her tiny body, against his chest. "What's going to happen to him?" she asks, and he does not have to ask to know who she means.
He holds her until her tears subside, long after the sun sets.
Pansy and Daphne
They talk like there's nothing wrong, like the world just hadn't gone to shite and nobody's life is in danger.
Theirs isn't; they're both pure of blood and even purer of guilt.
Daphne's talk is superficial, of NEWTs and boys and the latest glamors that Witch Weekly talked about in their latest issue.
Pansy laughs along, hums along, gabs along, but her thought is heavy with other things.
"What are you doing after Hogwarts?" she asks suddenly.
Daphne blinks for a while, as though she has never considered the question before. (In all likelihood, she really never has.) "Mum says there aren't very many prospects left in England anymore," she starts. "She says I might have better luck if I summered in France and see if I might meet with any of the pureblooded families there. You?"
"Russia," she says with a rueful smile. She hates the idea herself, personally, but her mother has many great friends there, and already a few good contacts. It is inevitable at this point.
Everything, it seems, is inevitable at this point.
Daphne and Astoria
"You have nothing to worry about, I don't even know why you're fussing the way you are," Daphne tells her sister, but Astoria only rolls her eyes in response.
Of course she'd roll her eyes, but Daphne doesn't care much. She's got a ring on her finger already--Andre, a rich pureblooded French boy, has wooed her and swept her off her feet within a week of holidaying in France, and she's already planning their wedding for the year after. Meanwhile, Astoria has two years left in Hogwarts and even fewer friends to go by. Most of Slytherin have left, or so she hears from Emma Dobbs, who knows these things, so Daphne supposes her younger sister has more than a few concerns.
"It's just going to be different," Astoria says. Not that the last few years have been anywhere close to normal, mind, what with all the madness going on. "Pansy's lucky she doesn't have to return, but I still do.
"Do you think I should have a fall wedding or a winter wedding?" Daphne asks instead, already bored with the topic. "I do love fall but winter could be ever so romantic, don't you think? I'd love a fur coat and a carriage to carry us off into the sunset."
Astoria wrinkles her nose. "You're not listening to me!"
"Oh, Astoria, you've nothing to worry about," Daphne tells her. "You know what I hear? Draco's supposedly coming back."
"What?"
"He never really finished his NEWTs or anything, did he?" Daphne asks. "They're making him return to Hogwarts. You are going to be the least of anyone's worries."
Astoria frowns.
Astoria and Draco
"So what now?"
Draco looks at her. "What do you mean?"
"What are you doing now?"
Draco shrugs. "I don't really know, to be honest."
He has never really returned to the Draco Malfoy she knew growing up. In school he tried to blend in the shadows, going about his classes with a haunted look and avoiding everybody in the hallways when he passed them by. She reaches out to close her hand around his, and he looks up to catch her gaze. "Mum says--" she starts, not sure how to bring this up. He's still proud, she knows. "Mum says you're free to apply to the apothecary. She says one of the Potionsmasters is looking for an apprentice."
"Astoria--"
"Will you at least try?" she asks. "You're one of the best I know at Potions, this isn't a handout or anything--" He gives her a baleful look-- "Oh, come on, you know that's what you're thinking and it isn't!"
"I can find something on my own," he argues.
"But you'll hate everywhere else. The apothecary is a good place to start. The Potionsmaster is really good, too, and he won't care about-- about anything other than ability."
Draco doesn't look all that convinced.
"At the very least, try it for a year?" she suggests.
"And then?"
"And then if you hate it, well, at least I'll be out of Hogwarts, and then maybe--"
Draco looks somewhat.. hopeful?
"Maybe we can take it from there and see?"
"Alright," he says. He turns his palm around to face hers and squeezes. "I'll try."