Chapter Text
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It was no secret that you had no friends. Most students knew you as the younger sister of the infamous and missing Rhed Nox-Moon, who had gone missing after searching for the rumored Cursed Vaults in Hogwarts. Beyond that, no one cared to approach you or befriend you. They avoided you altogether, but that’s the way you wanted it. You never felt you could trust anyone, not after the rumors spread from the moment your name had been called to be sorted into your House. There were whispers and stares always following you. Rumors that you would join you-know-who with your brother. Even the professors avoided calling on you in class. You kept to yourself, always sitting in the back of the class and you took your studies seriously enough to pass with high grades. You never gave them a reason to call you out or to punish you and thus, even then you remained a ghost in the shadows.
But your luck only could last so long. After a month had passed by quietly, you hoped that this year would be easier than the last. But given your history to attract all sorts of rumors, it came to no surprise when one day after Divination you were crowded against one of the windows along the spiral stairs.
“If it isn’t little, perfect Nox-Moon,” the voice sneered, as a boy taller than you shoved your shoulder back. You pressed into the windowpane, squeezing your textbooks to your chest, eyes cast downward, and silent. You could tell some students, mostly Slytherin, had stopped to watch the incident unfold. Their judgmental eyes bore cold holes into your soul. “I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors by now,” the taller boy said, his voice laced with disdain. “Sirius Black is back and looking to round up all his death eater friends. You will be joining him, won’t you, half-blood?”
You bit your lip to keep quiet, but you could feel the rising shame and anger within, a heat that burned physically along the nape of your neck and across your cheeks. You knew exactly where he was going with this train of thought, but you refused to look up and acknowledge him. You weren’t entirely sure who it was since you didn’t look at his face, but by the color of his robes, you could tell he was a Slytherin.
“You’ll finally get to see your brother after all these years, won’t you?” he continued. The drone in his voice irked you and your anger only grew. Other students from the other Houses just passed by, ignoring the scene. You contemplated jinxing his shoelaces when he did walk away so that he might trip down the stairs on the last few steps. He let out a boisterous laugh, throwing his head back. You could see his whole body shaking. The other students who had stopped and gathered around joined in. Chuckles and snickers echoed in the tower stairwell.
“Little, quiet Nox-Moon won’t even look at me!” he exclaimed. “She knows what I said is true!”
If looks could kill, the glare you gave him, raising your eyes to finally meet his, would have been enough to sentence you to Azkaban for a Dementor’s kiss. Theodore Nott. The Slytherin boy that was in your same year. His dark eyes sparkled when he realized you had finally looked up at him. It gave him an indication that his taunting had hit a nerve. His long dark brown hair was pushed off his face in a hazardous manner. He was rather attractive if not for the disgusting curl of his facial features.
“What’s wrong?” He bent down in a demeaning manner looking you directly in the eyes as you continued to glare at him. “No brother to come and save you right now. Are you going to cry, little Nox-Moon?”
You gritted your teeth. The moment he stood up, you pulled back your fist and socked him in the nose. You felt a satisfying crunch under your knuckles, and you watched as he stumbled back a step and landed on his ass on the stair above him. The students around him gasped in shock and stood there processing what just happened. Satunii Nox-Moon in their heads would never talk back, let alone fight back. They all misunderstood you to be shy; too quiet to stand up for yourself. Little did they know.
“You little bitch!” Nott spit, covering his face as a line of blood trickled out of his nose. He made to scramble to his feet and pull out his wand, but another voice stopped him.
“Lay off Nott,” Draco Malfoy said as he stepped down the stairs from above. “She’s not worth it.” He passed you both on his way down, an expression of annoyance crossing his face as he stepped around Nott.
Nott scoffed.
“But she punched me!” he whined to Malfoy’s back as the blond continued down the stairs a few steps, before stopping. Slowly he turned around to face Nott, who was still sitting with his ass on the steps.
“Didn’t your parents ever tell you not to stick your hand in the rabbit’s den?” Malfoy asked slowly, a hint of amusement in his voice. “Even the most vulnerable, and soft-looking ones will bite you.” Malfoy’s blue-grey eyes slid over briefly to meet yours, and an unreadable expression crossed his face briefly before he schooled his face into a look of nonchalance. He looked back to Theodore. “You really should just leave her alone.” That was all he said before turning back around and leaving down the stairs.
Nott groaned in pain as he tried to stand up. A few other Slytherins reached down to help him.
Before he could say anything else to you, you grabbed your bag and ran off down the steps. Reaching the bottom of the stairwell, you didn’t notice Malfoy had stepped just under the stairs. He silently watched as you hurried off in the direction of the astronomy tower. After that sudden flash of hot anger, you figured you needed a moment to breathe and potentially a reason to pitch yourself off the tower while you were up there. Maybe then it would stop the rumors and hatred towards you. But then again, considering the rumors hadn’t stopped when your brother disappeared, probably not.
Reaching the top of the tower, you stepped off the last step and let go of the breath that you hadn’t noticed you’d been holding. The wind was softly blowing this high up and the sky was clear, but the thoughts storming in your mind were grey and gloomy. Of course, someone like idiotic Nott would try to connect you to all the bad happenings in the world, as if you were responsible for Black escaping in the first place. It’s not like he was even looking for you anyway. After all, Harry Potter was the one whose name was plastered all over the front of the Daily Prophet. All the rumors said that Black was back and trying to kill Potter for the Dark Lord himself. It had absolutely nothing to do with you or your brother.
You made your way over to the railing and slowly sat down, placing your textbooks beside you and your bag in your lap. You hung your legs off the edge and crossed your arms, leaning on the lower railing. Sighing, you rested your chin on your arms. For a moment, you closed your eyes, breathing slowly. You focused on the soft wind on your skin, the warmth of the sun, the sound of the trees rustling far off in the Forbidden Forest. You could practically home in on the sound of the water lapping at the edges of the Black Lake, the scent of firewood and musty beaten dirt paths, and the copper twang of the railing beneath your arms. The storm clouds in your head cleared away slowly and you finally were able to relax.
You opened your eyes and stared off into the distance of the mountains surrounding Hogwarts. From this vantage point, everything seemed so small and insignificant. Your thoughts went back to the stairwell with Nott. Merlin’s beard, you had punched him. Internally you started to panic. What if he told a professor? You had always avoided doing anything that would remotely get you in trouble. You couldn’t guarantee that Nott would keep his mouth shut. Especially considering how he immediately complained to Malfoy, when not moments before he’d been going on, about shit he knew nothing about. Git. You hoped Madam Pomfrey made his healing painful.
“Seems like I’m not the only one with a free period,” a soft voice said behind you, making you jump slightly, pulling you out of your thoughts as you turned around. There in all his blond glory, and green Slytherin robes, stood Malfoy. You furrowed your brow in confusion. Why was he here? Of all places to be. Before you could even contemplate asking, he slowly walked further onto the platform, his hands tucked in his pockets leisurely. His school bag was hanging heavily off one shoulder. “Before you ask, I didn’t follow you on purpose. I just figured this was going to be a quiet place to chill.”
You continued to silently stare at him as he made himself a spot near the large armillary sphere in the center of the space. Once he sat back and crossed one foot over his knee leisurely, he looked back at you, his cool colored eyes boring into yours. It was like he knew you weren’t going to say anything to him, and he was silently daring you to speak. After a moment he broke the gaze and looked away, fiddling with his large family-crested ring.
“Uh, Crabbe and Goyle have remedial lessons this period and that’s why it’s just me. I figured I could find a quiet spot, and this was one place I hadn’t thought about all semester until today.”
If you didn’t think your mind was playing tricks on you in this lighting, you would have sworn the tips of his ears were turning pink as he kept looking away.
“Anyway, I hope you don’t mind me being here. It’s almost—” he continued rambling on until you cut him off.
“I’m not your friend,” you said coldly, turning away from him to look back out over the scenery before you. You could feel his gaze turn back to you as he went silent. He almost hadn’t heard you; for the wind had carried your soft voice over to his ears.
“Ah, so you can talk,” he said, amused. “And I know.”
You shifted your bag off your lap, fiddling with a buckle.
“Then why are you talking to me?” you asked. There was a pause. And you almost thought he didn’t hear you. You turned to look at him again and blinked. There was that unreadable expression crossing his features again.
“You’re so quiet. Thought I’d fill the void.”
You blinked owlishly at him. That was not the response you expected. Draco Malfoy, as you knew him to be, was not known to be amicably chatty, even amongst his closest friends. At least, not in the last year or so. For him to say he wanted to fill the void of silence, made you wonder if there was something more he wasn’t letting on.
“I’m not that quiet,” you said firmly. “And I’m not shy like everyone thinks I am.”
He scoffed.
“I know you have everyone fooled into believing that, but I know you’re not shy.” There was that trademark smirk sliding across his lips. “You can’t deny being quiet though. I’ve only heard you ever speak a handful of times. Sometimes I even forget you have a voice.” He was clearly teasing you. “I’m sure you have your reasons, though,” he ended dismissively, his smirk sliding into an all-out grin, pearly teeth and all.
Oh.
“I don’t like talking because I’m not here to make friends with anyone,” you said, looking away again. You could feel a pout pulling at your bottom lip from the teasing. You found that you couldn’t stare too long into his eyes. There was something about the way that he looked at you, that you found a bit unsettling. It felt like he could see right through you.
“Is that what this is then?” he asked, sounding genuinely surprised. You could almost see in your mind’s eye, his eyes widening comically. “You, trying to act uninterested, because you think I want to be your friend?”
“You don’t want to be my friend,” you simply said, eyes rolling at his audacity to even suggest such a thing. You heard him huff.
“And you don’t want to be my friend?”
“No,” you said curtly, a tone of finality in your voice.
“Alright then,” he said, like that was it.
He didn’t speak up again over the next hour and all you could hear was the wind. You realized his presence wasn’t particularly unwelcomed since he hadn’t been pushy or overly annoying. And you almost didn’t mind sharing your quiet spot with him, of all people. The silence helped you focus on your thoughts. From topics of school assignments to wondering if you would ever find your brother before you-know-who got stronger and took over the world, you pondered on many things.
As the new hour came and the clock tower chimed you both stood up silently, packed your bags, and walked down the stairs together. Not that you wanted to be seen with Malfoy, but what did it matter what anyone else thought?
At the bottom of the tower, you didn’t bother saying any parting words as you broke off in different directions. You did notice that Pansy Parkinson seemed to be waiting for Malfoy, but she didn’t spare you a second glance. She practically latched onto his arm like an octopus, and they walked off together, her chatting his ear off about something or another. You did wonder how she knew to wait for him there, but it might have just been a coincidence, so you brushed it off. Besides, you had an Ancient Runes class to start thinking about. Did you remember to do the homework assigned a week before?
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