For some, Draco was sure Hogwarts felt like a prison. He was sure that there were some students who wanted nothing more than to leave. To graduate and to never look back. For a long time, Draco hated the school. He hated everything that it stood for and the people that it allowed to roam the halls. The students that his father had taught him were below him since birth. After taking the dark mark and spending the summers and holidays with his aunt, Hogwarts had become a place that Draco could hide out. He doubted that Voldemort would be sitting in the Great Hall across from him at dinner. It was a relief and yet - he still had nightmares. His hands still shook every time he didn’t focus properly and close himself off. It was a cool day, but Draco could still be found by the black lake, a cigarette hanging from his lips. His father would have a heart attack if he saw him.
The blonde leaned back against a tree, his eyes closed and his feet spread out in front of him. When he heard steps at his side, the blonde breathed an annoyed sigh, and opened an eye. “What do you want?” He asked with a sneer.
The depths of the Black Lake were a wonder in their own right, but in the case of 17-year-old Fleur, it was anything but wonderment. There was a time when she would have traded being a Veela in place of being a mermaid, but that was before she had been told that her sister wouldn’t be returned to her ━ ever ━ and Fleur remembered the bruises she sported after she had fought to reenter the murky water in her fight to save Gabrielle’s life. If it hadn’t been for Harry Potter━ She couldn’t even think it, clasping her lips together, eyes the colour of warm honey and cinnamon ( her favourite add-ins for tea ) seemingly in a blank stare as they weren’t fixed on anything in particular. A voice broke through her reverie, and she whirled around, recognizing Draco and ignoring the accelerated thrumming of her heart. He was Lucius Malfoy’s son. How could she not? “’ello, Draco. What are you doing ‘ere?” she asked, answering his question with one of her own. Fleur didn’t know him but had heard his name passed through the lips of other students ━ including Harry, Hermione and Ron. She never understood the appeal of smoking cigarettes, facial features softening when she bridged the distance between them and plucked the cigarette from between his lips. “Eet ees bad for you, Draco. What would your fozzer say?,” she scolded him, stomping it into the ground with the toe of her ankle boot, folding her arms over her chest.
