Harry Potter was far too visible to Malfoy's eyes. He was either at Quidditch practice, studying, or disappearing somewhere with Hermione Granger. He moved through the castle as though he had two bodies, and slipping off to some secluded corner with Hermione Granger seemed to be a regular fixture of his routine.
On the rare occasions—purely by coincidence, the most accidental of coincidences—when Malfoy happened to be heading in the same direction, she would glance away for a moment and they would simply vanish. Gone in an instant.
Apparition was supposed to be impossible within Hogwarts, so where on earth were they disappearing to? No matter how carefully Malfoy looked, no secret passage revealed itself. She was left standing alone, with nothing but a growing sense of bewilderment.
Malfoy found herself feeling increasingly wretched.
There was no one she could talk to about it. The last thing she wanted was for anyone to think she had been following Harry Potter around. But keeping it bottled up only made it worse—a suffocating, hollow feeling she couldn't quite bring herself to name. It was an emotion entirely foreign to her.
Before long, Malfoy stopped thinking about it altogether. Whatever he was doing, it was clearly something meant to be hidden from other people's eyes. That much was obvious.
And somehow, that single fact was enough to make something inside her burn black and cold—the sheer indignity of caring about a man like that.
Malfoy shut herself off. She sorted through her feelings methodically, folded the ones she couldn't identify into the back of a mental drawer, and slammed it shut. Then she returned to who she had always been.
The imperious, self-possessed young lady of Slytherin.
"Stop swarming around the doorway like insects and get out of the way. Is blocking everyone's path a Hufflepuff tradition, or do you just enjoy shuffling along like grubs?"
She snapped the words at a cluster of Hufflepuff students chattering their way through the Great Hall. They spun around, indignant—then wilted under the combined force of Malfoy's beauty and her withering gaze. Without a word in reply, they hurried inside. Malfoy tossed her hair back and made her way to the Slytherin table.
The Slytherin students raised their fingers in salute.
"Oh, Carina. That was deeply satisfying."
"Tch. Someone has to say something when they herd around like that. It's practically a Slytherin obligation."
The sharp, cutting Malfoy who stood before them felt like a return to first year. Many students found it odd to see this version of her again after so long, but since her mood seemed neither suddenly better nor worse than usual, they relaxed and fell into easy conversation.
There were, of course, those who quietly mourned the disappearance of the slightly more candid—and, if they were honest, rather compelling—version of her that had surfaced at the start of term. But none of them had the nerve to say so aloud.
"She's back to normal! What did I tell you? I said from the very beginning that she and Harry Potter were never anything." Pansy Parkinson crowed openly, strutting about with undisguised satisfaction, and the others tilted their heads with a vague "Is that so?"
Only Barnette Crabbe and Gray Goyle, who knew slightly more of the truth, looked at Malfoy with something closer to pity.
"It's all right, Malfoy. That delinquent was always going to cause trouble eventually."
"Apparently he's been running around with Granger lately, looking for some rat."
"Crabbe. Goyle."
Malfoy shut her book with a sharp snap.
"How long are you planning to sit here talking about those insufferable Gryffindors? Gryffindor doing something pointless stopped being surprising a long time ago."
"Ah—right, yeah!"
"What about this, then? You know what Derrick said—"
Crabbe and Goyle pivoted to cheerier topics. How the Quidditch players had been performing, how thoroughly they'd rattled Hufflepuff into endless extra practice, how Hufflepuff's captain Cedric Diggory at least had a decent face, if nothing else.
It was in the middle of all this that Crabbe suddenly produced a pair of rings and held them up.
"Malfoy. What do you want to do with these?"
They were the rings Carina had bought at Zonko's Joke Shop on her first trip to Hogsmeade. A matched pair—enchanted so that if one person wore one, the other would be kept informed of their partner's current situation.
She felt a fresh wave of irritation at her past self.
Why had she bought them? She'd known perfectly well she was too proud to ever hand one over. She'd end up just keeping them, doing nothing with them—so what had she been expecting when she'd quietly slipped them in among the Butterbeer and Honeydukes sweets?
Malfoy looked at the rings for a moment, then composed herself and turned away with deliberate indifference.
"I bought them out of curiosity, but they come in a pair and I've no use for a pair. Just throw them away."
"...Throw them away? Really?"
"Obviously. There are three of us and only two rings—it doesn't work out."
She answered flatly, as though the thought of any other purpose had never once crossed her mind, and looked away entirely.
Crabbe turned the rings over in her fingers, deliberating.
"So I can do whatever I want with them?"
"Do as you like."
Malfoy said it without hesitation. Crabbe scooped up the rings and trotted out of the room.
Some time later, glancing up idly from her book, Malfoy noticed that one ring had been left behind. It seemed Crabbe had only taken one. What on earth she intended to do with a single ring was beyond imagining.
Malfoy decided she didn't care enough to think about it. She dropped the remaining ring into her personal drawer and pushed it shut.
The Quidditch match drew closer.
Their opponents were Hufflepuff—widely considered the weakest team in the school. They had a genuinely talented Seeker in Cedric Diggory as captain, but the team as a whole lacked the physical edge to be truly competitive.
Slytherin's Quidditch team, still riding high after their decisive victory over Gryffindor, had grown somewhat lax in practice. Even so, the general consensus was that a proper effort would be more than enough to win.
"Captains—shake hands!"
Marcus Flint and Cedric Diggory shook. Then Cedric made a point of walking over to Malfoy and offered her a bright, easy smile.
"Hello, Malfoy. First time we've faced each other directly. Let's have a good match."
"...Sure. Do your best."
Malfoy's reply was curt, but Cedric's smile didn't waver. The Slytherin players' eyes sharpened.
Madam Hooch blew her whistle.
"Begin!"
The players launched into the air. Everyone moved to their positions—except that Cedric Diggory, for some reason, drifted close to Malfoy.
She paid it little mind at first, scanning for the Snitch, but when Cedric continued to shadow her she turned on him with a scowl. He appeared to have made a deliberate decision to mark her.
"Get away from me."
"I'm afraid I can't do that. Given the margin by which you beat Gryffindor—"
Cedric slid smoothly alongside her. Malfoy accelerated, trying to shake him, but in the tight confines of the pitch he matched her with unsettling ease. He kept pace, unhurried, and kept talking.
"—we need to make up some ground."
"You think marking their Seeker is going to win you the match? If you want to win, you'd be better off catching the Snitch before the score gets any worse."
"It's not about marking a Seeker to win. It's about marking you to win. Oh—"
A Bludger came screaming toward Cedric. Slytherin Beater Derrick had spotted Cedric pestering Malfoy and sent one his way. Cedric twisted sharply and dodged it clean.
Even Malfoy, who was sparing with her admiration, had to concede his reflexes. Every time she tried to break free, he was back on her in an instant; even when a feint caught him off-balance, he recovered before she could capitalise.
As Malfoy found herself unwillingly towing Cedric Diggory through the air, Bole and Derrick began launching Bludgers at him in rapid succession.
Cedric dodged them all. His movements had the ease of something long rehearsed.
"Free shot! Attacking a Seeker who is simply hovering is a foul!"
Madam Hooch blew her whistle, and Hufflepuff Chaser Cadwallader scored. The score had crept to 40–10. Astonishingly, Hufflepuff was winning.
Cedric shrugged.
"Everyone wants to shake off the loiterer clinging to their princess. It's broken their concentration nicely."
"You—how dare you use me as—"
"I heard you had a falling-out with Harry Potter."
That again. She'd heard it too many times to be rattled by it. Malfoy lifted her chin.
"That's hardly news. He and I have been at each other's throats since the moment we met."
"I've heard the rumours. I'm curious about what the two of you actually are to each other, but—"
He glanced around the pitch with a slight smile, then sidestepped another Bludger without apparent effort.
Cedric had planned this from the start. Malfoy was the most prominent student in Slytherin—unquestionably the centre of the house. When someone like that was being openly harassed by a Hufflepuff upstart, it was impossible for anyone not to notice. Even in the middle of a match.
Slytherin had never been a house built on unity. They were a collection of individuals who answered to their own pride, and without the compulsion of a stronger force, they did as they pleased. Against Gryffindor they could pull together; against Hufflepuff, they were a rabble. Add Cedric's psychological pressure to the mix, and now they were each playing their own separate game.
"—winning this Quidditch match matters rather more to me right now."
Bole and Derrick had abandoned the Bludgers and were now trying to physically ram Cedric Diggory. With two Beaters out of position, Hufflepuff's Beaters were free to drive into Slytherin's Chasers.
Marcus was bellowing at his Beaters from across the pitch.
"Get back to your positions! Mark their Chasers, not the Seeker!"
In the chaos, a Hufflepuff Chaser scored again. The gap was approaching seventy points.
Malfoy's composure was fraying. Cedric's marking had kept her from even searching for the Snitch, while his very presence was systematically unravelling the entire Slytherin team.
She drove her broom into a sharp acceleration to break free—and at that moment, a Bludger came hurtling directly toward her.
"Watch out!"
Cedric grabbed her and yanked her aside. The Bludger grazed past. Marcus's screaming was audible even from here.
Malfoy looked at Cedric's hand on her arm and said, very quietly:
"Let go."
"You nearly fell."
"I'd sooner fall than have your hands on me. And I wouldn't have fallen from a Bludger like that anyway."
Malfoy wrenched herself free. Cedric drew back and said:
"Awfully sensitive. And yet in the last match, you were the one who caught Potter."
"...That is none of your concern. The grace I choose to extend to someone, and your presumption in laying hands on me without permission, are not remotely comparable."
"But the fact that you reached out first doesn't change. What if Harry Potter feels nothing at all, and you're the only one who's been carrying something? One-sided, all along?"
That crossed a line.
Malfoy's fury ignited. She surged forward and struck him with her broom. Cedric grunted and tumbled through the air.
Perhaps it was true. Perhaps every feeling she'd had was an illusion, and Harry Potter was simply the sort of person who charmed everyone indiscriminately, meaning nothing by any of it.
But Malfoy had never once said aloud what she thought of Harry Potter.
"Don't presume to read my feelings. That was so unforgivably rude that you're no longer worth my time."
She shook him off and moved to search for the Snitch—
"On the contrary. It was entirely worth it."
Cedric flashed a devastating smile and plummeted.
Malfoy's stomach dropped. She'd been so thoroughly caught up in his psychological game that she hadn't noticed the Snitch glinting far below. She wheeled her broom hard and tore after him.
But Cedric Diggory was every bit as good as his reputation.
"270 to 30! Hufflepuff wins!"
It was a humiliating defeat.
Malfoy felt as though she were falling into a very deep hole. The despair was so complete that she thought a Dementor could walk right past her and not even notice.
To have been manipulated by Harry Potter, of all people. Now everyone would see her as something that could be pushed around at will—a weakness to be exploited.
To feel as though even her own emotions were a toy for others to play with. She was furious, and beneath the fury, wretched.
She shook off everyone who tried to console her and retreated alone to a quiet corner of the castle, where she sat on a step with no particular dignity and let the bitterness work its way through her.
Harry Potter's business, and Cedric using it as a weapon against her, and the jeering crowd, and the rage of losing the Snitch, and the grief of the defeat—it all churned together in a shapeless mess.
Carina Malfoy did not cry. She might seethe and rage, but she did not sink into sorrow and weep. A single defeat did not get to own her.
She closed her burning eyes. Steadied the sting at the bridge of her nose. Breathed. After about a minute of pulling herself back together, she opened her eyes.
A handkerchief had been placed on the step beside her.
It hadn't been there a moment ago.
Malfoy looked around. There was no one.
She picked it up, puzzled. It was warm—as though someone had been holding it in their hand until just now.
She'd heard the rumour that somewhere in Hogwarts there was something that appeared when you needed it most. Could it be that?
*I never desperately wanted a handkerchief. I wasn't even crying.*
Still, it seemed wasteful not to use it when it was right there. She pressed it to her face in a dry, perfunctory way—and found, to her annoyance, that two small damp spots bloomed across the fabric. She stared at them, then crumpled the handkerchief tightly in her fist. She couldn't quite bring herself to throw it away, so she shoved it into her pocket instead.
It was an old-fashioned design, but it smelled warm. She supposed, just barely, that it had earned the right to be called hers.
Malfoy stood up sharply. Feeling marginally better, she walked alone down the corridor, her fingers turning the handkerchief over and over in her pocket.
Not long after she had gone, Mrs. Norris came padding along. Filch's cat paused mid-stride and fixed the area near the steps with an unblinking stare.
Mrs. Norris was, as befitted a cat, supremely indifferent. Indifferent enough that the presence of something invisible nearby barely registered as worth her attention.
Even when he growled softly, with barely contained fury:
"Cedric Diggory..."
She remained thoroughly uninterested.
Mrs. Norris turned her head sharply and went on her way.