Chapter Nine

The weather somehow got even colder, and school progressed like I was used to. Slowly but surely, I started making new friends, and I kept spending time with my existing ones. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I saw each other nearly all the time, and I often got meals with Cedric Diggory when my mealtimes didn’t match up with my other first-year friends’. He seemed to have taken me under his wing, which was nice because I needed the help sometimes, especially as Transfiguration got more difficult. 

I spent more time with all but Draco, who after the game had seemed to have gotten a lot colder and more glum. At first, the development saddened me, because I always adored his presence. Given how close we were, I never would’ve expected that something as trivial as a Quidditch game would disrupt our friendship—but it did, and that animosity seemed to be here to stay, which broke my heart a little bit. But later, that sadness turned to anger—in his eyes I only ever saw sadness these days, and I could tell he’d sometimes take it out on Harry. To be honest, I had always disliked his hatred for him. Maybe that made the distance between us feel easier.

I noticed, too, that he spent a lot more time with Pansy, which irked me, especially since he never seemed to like her very much before. And these days, she seemed to be awfully bold with insulting me behind my back, like her newfound closeness with him was something to rub in my face. As if I was the one who had done anything wrong! When I tried to talk to Draco and ask what was wrong, he refused to meet my eyes and gave vague, awkward answers.

“You want to ignore me like that, fine,” I had said angrily. “But don’t expect me to keep being your friend if you don’t treat me like one!”

Then I stormed away. It was a difficult thing to do—I couldn’t help but remember the last time I had been angry at him, which ended in disaster—but Gramps had always told me to never put up with other people’s nonsense, not even for a second, and he’s always right.

His POV

When it came to his relationship with the girl he loved most, Draco had planned for life to just go on as normal. He planned to pretend as though nothing had happened between them—as though he hadn’t just seen Carina blush scarlet red and trip around her words when she spoke to George (or was it Fred? He never really could tell them apart), the same way that he often acted around Carina. And at first, it was fine. He interacted with her with as much warmth as he usually did, though it didn’t feel the same. But then every time he talked to her, he felt his heart break into a million pieces, his mind filling with thoughts about what they could’ve been. And then, he felt himself wanting to talk to her less and less, just from the sheer pain he felt when speaking with her—she had broken his heart, after all. And the worst part was that she had no idea. She believed his coldness was animosity. But it wasn’t! If he told her the truth, surely she would judge him poorly and never speak to him again. If she knew that he loved her like that, and she didn’t return those feelings as he suspected, how embarrassing that’d be!

Draco tried taking his mind off of it by spending time with other people—for instance, Pansy, who always praised him endlessly and made him feel a little better after the ego bruise that was his crush on Carina. He never thought much of her before—she always interrupted Draco when he was trying to talk to Carina—she seemed nice, and she was a pureblood like him, though there was no replacing his former best friend. And spending time with Crabbe and Goyle was like talking to rocks. Slowly, he was starting to realize that he didn’t really have a presence in his life like that girl. And he missed her, not as a romantic interest, but as a friend. As a person to spend time with.

All of these feelings came to a climax when Carina asked to speak with Draco one day about what was going on, and he could reply with no words. Every inch of him told him to tell the truth—but there was one thing stopping him, and that was shame. So he stood there like an idiot as Carina peppered him with “what did I do wrong?” and “are you okay?”. Both of them walked away in miserable spirits.

The only person in the world that he didn’t feel embarrassed to talk about all of this with was his mother. The day after all of this had happened, his heart felt so jumbled and confused that he poured everything out in a messy letter to his mother. He regretted it as soon as he sent it, though. What if his father saw? He’d be scolded for such stupid feelings!

I fancied Carina so much that I thought about her all the time, Mom, he had written. And I still do. And it doesn’t feel the same to talk with her anymore because I’m so embarrassed, and I keep wondering why she doesn’t fancy me back, if there’s something wrong with me that she doesn’t like. I wish I didn’t feel this way, because she’s such a good friend and I really liked spending time with her. I just don’t know what to do.

And within a few days, his mother sent back a letter with her advice—in the cold December storms, Draco’s owl had to be nursed back to health by Hagrid after that flight. His hands shook as he read it.

My dearest Draco,

I always knew you were one to love deeply and feel things to their fullest extent. For that, I am so proud of you, and I feel so grateful that you entrust me with your deepest feelings. I know you have never experienced anything like this before—you are only eleven, my darling, and I know that you will go on to experience many more such things.

I hope you know that Carina does care for you immensely. She does write letters to me sometimes, you know—at my own request, of course—and not a paragraph goes by where she doesn’t mention how much she enjoys you as a person and loves spending time with you. And clearly, she has a deep desire to repair this friendship—she took the effort to speak with you about the coldness.

Now, I would caution you against jumping to conclusions. I know it might be easy to do when you are scared she might not return your feelings—but it seems that you have broken your own heart in this case, my love. You saw a single conversation between her and the Weasley twins and thought that she was in love. And given what you saw, that very well might be the case. But J will say that witches are complicated creatures—they have so many things going on beneath the surface. You never, ever know until you ask. 

And because Carina cares so deeply for you—I am sure she misses you just as much as you miss her—I have no doubts she would withdraw all judgment towards you if you were to confess your true feelings, regardless of whether she returns them. I have faith, in what I have seen in the both of you, that you are both mature enough to eventually get your friendship back to what it was, even if it takes some time. That would be better than lying, or doing nothing at all, don’t you think?

My dear son, it is normal, even noble, to feel these things, and Carina is so lucky to have your love in that way. You are lucky that you have each other. I believe that to lose this friendship would be to lose something invaluable—and that is why I think you should tell her the truth.

Kisses, Mom

Draco knew in his heart of hearts that his mother was right. But to tell Carina the truth would be the ultimate display of weakness. He wondered what his father would think, what his friends would think. What if Carina went and told everyone that Draco Malfoy had a crush on her? He was already embarrassed after Potter’s dastardly win in the Quidditch game.

But he had to have faith, like his mother told him. He had to have faith that Carina, even if she didn’t really like him the same way, would at least care enough about their friendship to let it carry on. It was that or lose her entirely. And he would’ve rather died than let that happen.

Much to my dismay, the colder and more unforgiving it got outside the castle, the more that Professor Quirrell wanted to go outside and practice our elemental spells. Strangely, in our lessons, he didn’t seem to stutter at all, which was highly contrary to the disposition he took on in class with the other fourth-years. His demeanor took on a far more authoritative one, and it had been starting to scare me. One time in the middle of a horrible blizzard, after a short lesson in the DADA classroom, he began packing up to go outside.

“Let us practice in the courtyard,” he said.

Puzzled, I thought he had misspoken. I hadn’t even brought my coat. “But Professor, th-there’s a snowstorm outside.”

He looked at me with a hard, piercing gaze that I could tell held absolutely zero regard for my wellbeing. “You would show your weakness now, little girl?”

He seemed like a different person. I gulped and followed him outside the castle gates. Professor McGonagall gave us a strange look as we approached the exit while the blizzard raged on outside the walls.

The spells he wanted me to master were those that manipulated the cold and snow, which kind of made sense with the blizzard, but my skin felt like it’d freeze over by the end. And even though I did eventually master the spell, the lessons were changed forever, going from a fun way to learn and master powerful new spells to an anxiety-inducing fear session, because every time I uttered a word with the slightly incorrect intonation, or didn’t flick my wand in the correct way, or say my spell with the right intent, he’d hiss at me—which was strange—and snatch my wand away, or tell me I was a shame to my bloodline. And on top of that, he started saying even more things I didn’t understand, like “At this rate you’ll never be ready,” or telling me that I was a disappointment to my creator. My creator? Was he religious or something?

The more training sessions we had, the more brutal they became, and the more I bit my fingernails before going to each one. That, combined with Draco’s recent distance from me, made me quite depressed. Thank goodness I had Harry and Ron and Hermione—there was no way I could have survived without them. Together we commiserated over our lessons, which had been wearing us out for a long time. Though my classes in Herbology felt like an academic respite, my mind started to wander even more during History of Magic (which is saying a lot), and Astronomy was awkward because Draco and I were partners, and we hardly ever spoke.

And as an added thorn on my side—in what little free time I had, I pored over books on how to sprout the seeds that Fred and George had given me, and I could find absolutely nothing. I even asked Professor Sprout, but even she could not identify the seeds based on their shape alone—after all, they looked pretty much identical to every other small, black seed.

“The beginning of this semester was perfect, but now it’s horrible,” I groaned while doing the mountains of Potions homework that Snape had assigned us going into the end of the semester. 

“Tell me about it,” said Ron. “But trust me, you’re way better off without Malfoy.”

Perhaps Ron wasn’t wrong about that—Draco had been quite mean to them earlier that day—but it didn’t feel good to hear in the moment. I spent the rest of the studying session with him in silence.

At least the holidays were coming up.

His POV

Draco was far more of a coward than he was willing to admit. Each day that he ran into Carina by chance was another day that he steeled himself, and failed to tell her the truth. But Christmas break was rapidly approaching, and if they spent another whole month not talking, their relationship would surely be doomed forever, and then his father, who for whatever reason thought it was of utmost importance that Draco and Carina stay friends, would find out and reprimand him… what a horrible mess that would cause! 

The morning that all the Hogwarts students left for their respective Christmas breaks, he saw Carina standing by the train, giving Hermione some chocolates and chatting with her, a beautiful smile on her face. He willed his legs, which were starting to feel like they were made of lead, to step towards her. As if by fate, Hermione went off to get on the train just moments before Carina saw him. He had caught her alone. It was now or never.

When Draco approached, she furrowed her brow and crossed her arms in that same agitated Carina way. She drew in a deep breath. “What is it, Draco?”

“I—I just wanted to say goodbye. I know you’ll be staying, since you… you know, live here. I mean, all of us live here, but you’ve been living here the longest—”

“Yes, I know what you mean.”

That expectant expression. The same one that had gazed at him a few weeks ago, waiting for an answer for why he had become so distant. 

“And… I wanted to say sorry. For being a bad friend.”

Her expression softened a little bit, but she still said nothing.

Draco couldn’t explain what caused it, but something in his heart started to well up and take physical form. Tears. Oh, God! What was he doing? What had he done? On that crowded train platform? He was at his weakest in one of the most crowded places that he could be at that time. His father was going to be so disappointed with him later. But it was too late to turn back.

“The reason why—”—his voice cracked because his throat was starting to swell up—“—the reason why I was so distant was because…”

He could see Carina start to cry, too.

“It’s because I love you…”

Her lavender irises mixed with her tears, causing them to sparkle in the sunlight. They reminded him of a pearl.

“And I thought you d-didn’t love me back—” A small sob escaped his lips, which caused some students to turn and look at him weirdly. He couldn’t even finish his sentence.

But he didn’t have to, because all of a sudden Carina’s arms were wrapped around him in a tight hug. They were crying together on the train platform.

“I’m sorry,” he choked. “This is so embarrassing.”

Carina said nothing. They just embraced on that train platform. To Draco, the silence was more healing than he ever could have imagined.

“I love you, too,” she said finally, pulling away from him. Her eyes were reddened by tears. “But I don’t think it’s in the same way that you love me.”

“I know, it’s okay.”

They embraced again, and Draco felt the world lifted off his shoulders.

“Can I still write you?” Carina asked. The train whistled three times.

“Always.”