7

                                    

                                          
For dinner that evening there was no difference. Emma sat in her usual spot beside Sabrina who would sit beside Pansy or some other girls Emma didn't know. This time it was a fourth year named Astoria, Daphne's younger sister, who would not stop staring at Emma no matter how many times she blinked at her. 
                          
"...and so I had to throw my library book at him just so he'd get the hint that I absolutely hate his guts. I got kicked out and I'm banned for a week unless I have a permission slip," Sabrina was explaining about her stalker, a boy in their year named Theodore Nott who had been crushing on her ever since their first year. 
                          
"I know all about him, you know..." she continued, Astoria Greengrass listening with wide eyes. It seemed she hadn't heard this story before. "His mother's dead and his father's a death eater. Poor bloke, but it still doesn't give him the right to creep up on me whenever I'm alone."
                          
"Yeah, that's so true," Astoria said in a dreamy voice. It could have actually been her normal voice, but Emma didn't know. Astoria craned her neck with wide eyes. "Blaise, where's Draco?" 
                          
Blaise who had been sitting on the opposite side of the table a few seats down looked over at her and shrugged. "Coming back from practice, I suppose."
                          
"But he's been out there all day," she huffed, flicking her hair over her shoulder. She was definitely the opposite of her sister. "I didn't know he was practising today."
                          
"Should have read the notice board," Emma mumbled, poking at her food with a fork. 
                          
Astoria didn't appear to have heard Emma as she was still complaining about missing Draco's Quidditch practice. 
                          
"Hair blacker than night," a wispy voice spoke from in front of Emma, and she looked up to see Draco had taken a seat beside Blaise,  his eyes on her as he spoke. "Lips red as roses. Eyes bluer than the stars -"
                          
"Stars aren't even blue," Sabrina snorted before bursting into a fit of laughter. Emma couldn't help but join her, but she, Emma, tried not to as Draco had started to narrow his eyes. "And Emma's hair is brown, Merlin."
                          
She picked a bit of the food in her plate and tossed it in Draco's sweaty hair. "You're a right cheeseball, you know?" she laughed. "Plenty of poetic skills."
                          
He grinned and shook his hand through his hair. 
                          
"Hello, Draco," Astoria said in a voice that was much higher than her own, and that was saying something because her normal voice was already quite high and odd. 
                          
"Hey...?"
                          
"Astoria," she rolled her eyes. "Why do you always forget my name?"
                          
He shrugged and fixed himself a plate of food. "I'm no good at remembering names. Sorry."
                          
"That's all right. I forgive you."



                          
Over the course of the next few weeks, Halloween, as boring as it was, had passed and gone, and the chilly season of November had arrived. The first Quidditch match was nearing and Draco had been teaching the Slytherins a whole bunch of lyrics to chant at the game that'd make Ron Weasley all nervous, and allow the Slytherin Chasers to score much easily. Emma did tell Draco that it was cheating, she'd told him a hundred times, but he insisted it was a great idea and it was not physically considered cheating. He called it 'Weasley is our King.'