I glared into that set of all-too familiar glacier eyes as I sat down in the place that had been reserved for me. I looked at the seats around it to see that I was surrounded. Crabbe sat next to me and Goyle across, both with their usual looks of blank agitation on their faces.
“You should be proud of yourself, Draco. You’re finally getting some space from your baby sitters. You’re sitting a whole seat apart? That’s a big step. Maybe soon you’ll be big enough to use the toilet all by yourself!” I said contemptuously. I had hoped for my words to have some sort of effect on that big head of his, but he just chuckled as he stared me up and down, taking in my resentment.
“Tut tut. I save you the best seat in the Hall and this is how you thank me? You really do need to learn some manners,” he stated coolly.
“I’m sorry. Were you expecting me to bow at your feet and thank you for an opportunity to dine with the most wonderful person at Hogwarts? I-“ Don’t lose your temper, Hannah. Don’t let him ruin you. Don’t give him the satisfaction. “I think that would be a bit much. Even for you.”
With a perplexed look on his face, Draco opened his mouth to reply, but was immediately distracted by the boy sitting next to Goyle. He was at least a couple years older than we were, and he wore the blood red robes of Durmstrang. He looked quite familiar to me, but I couldn’t remember from where. He had thick black eyebrows, and his face seemed to be set in a permanent scowl.
“He seems you haff a vild von on your hands,” he said as he noticed Draco’s expectant stare.
“Yes, yes. It’s about time we broke her of that. She’s been running around Slytherin unchecked since she was sorted,” Draco replied, laughing like he knew the boy as an old friend.
“Yeah sure! Talk about me like I’m not here! I’m fine with it, really!” I practically yelled. I would not let him present me like he was taking the challenge of taming some animal.
“That tongue of hers is her worst quality. She doesn’t realize how to speak to those above her,” Draco said as he placed a white hand on my shoulder. I turned my head to bite it, to do something to stop him from touching me, when Dumbledore began to speak. He gave a short speech to welcome our guests before mountains of food appeared on the long tables.
I glared at the foreigner as I loaded my plate with food I wasn’t even looking at, making my displeasure clear. I refused to be a good little girl if he would do nothing to stop the treatment I was getting. I think he caught on, because he reached across the table to shake my hand, completely ignoring Draco’s remark.
“I’m Hannah Lindman. It’s very nice to meet you,” I said, pushing Malfoy’s hand off my shoulder. I carried on polite conversation with the Durmstrang boy all throughout dinner (he never told me his name, and the scowl never did leave his face), and watched with delight as the smirk slowly disappeared from Draco’s face.
As I was leaving the Great Hall after the best evening I had had in quite a while, I realized a terribly large number of eyes following me out. I heard their whispers as I passed: “Who is she?” “She was sitting next to Draco!” “Has she always been a Slytherin?” “His hand was on her SHOULDER! MY Draco’s hand!” “Was she really talking to him!?” "And sitting by Draco!!” I recognized the voice of a girl in my dormitory, Pansy Parkinson, above all the others.
Everyone knew she fancied Draco. Obsessed with him was more like it. She talked about him constantly. When he had been “injured” by a hippogriff during Care of Magical Creatures last year, she did everything for him. “Oh Drakie, does it hurt? Do you need anything?’ seemed to be all you heard when she was around. Even after he recovered, she followed him around like a lost puppy most of the time. Since I was forced to sit by Draco in most lessons, it meant sitting near her as well. If I heard her go into a laughing fit over one of his jokes again I would kill myself.
Although that night in the dormitory, she might have done it for me. Her fury was almost comical as she tried to control it. Her face turned beet red, and she was shaking. Now imagine the cheesiest, most obnoxious lecture about 'true love' that you can. Now multiply that by a hundred, and you have about half of what I got from Pansy, I was given a very long speech that consisted mostly of “he’s mine” and “you can’t tear us apart.” She also threw in a lot of “you better watch your back,” with her gang of other Slytherin girls glaring at me menacingly behind her. It seemed like I was making enemies left and right. Just what I needed. More people to notice me.