A Short Story Is A Love Affair

“Theo, what the fuck is wrong with you?” Pansy demanded, seeing their friend encamped in his chair, clearly counting under his breath. Theo simply held up a finger, telling them to wait, and continued staring at the door to the common room. 

“He’s finally cracked.” Blaise smirked. Pansy huffed and disappeared into her dorm room. Blaise waited a perfunctory three seconds before following her with as much subtlety as he could be bothered with. That was, of course, very little. 

A few seconds later, Granger bowled into the room, hopping over the edge of the portrait and grinning like a woman possessed. 

“37 seconds!” Theo stood up and grinned back at her. “That’s faster than Greg, and he knows the password.” 

Across the room, Goyle flipped him off, not looking up from the chess board. It wouldn’t have made a difference if he had looked up, he was losing badly. 

“You were timing how long it took to break in?” Draco frowned from his place on the sofa, a thick book resting in his lap that Granger had told him to read. She’d actually just thrown it at him when he’d beaten her at the last monthly quiz night, but he’d decided to take it as a violent recommendation instead of any real expression of her desire to see him bleed. If she’d really wanted that, she would have just socked him in the nose again. 

She flipped her wand in her hand and looked awfully smug. “Dismantled the wards. I could’ve guessed the password, but where’s the fun in that?” She smirked, an expression that he considered to be very Malfoy-esque if he did say so himself, and it was in that moment, as Theo slung his arm over her shoulders and they wittered on about the technicalities of what she’d just pulled off, that Draco realised he was utterly fucked. Bollocks, he was in love with her.