Please Be There If I Remember

Chapter Twenty: Mornings

Blaise shrugged, "That's not my problem to figure out." He smirked, flitting his gaze up to Draco's ruffled hair, "It's yours."

Draco groaned, rolling his eyes to the top of his head and back again, giving his friend the finger. Blaise just laughed at him and walked away, most likely to go to the great hall for breakfast.

Sighing again, he grudgingly got out of his bed, tossing the covers aside and glancing around his dorm. Theo was sitting in his bed, looking as if he had seen the whole exchange. His lips were pursed and he had this knowing gleam in his eyes that showed that he almost knew that Draco was lying about why he was so tired. Oddly enough, the boy didn't say anything, he just simply nodded at Draco with a calculating raise of his eyebrow and turned over in his covers to get a bit more rest, since he didn't have Draco's dire need to make sure his hair was perfect in the morning.

He progressed slowly to the bathroom as if he was walking through mud, his feet dragging across the floor in his wake of tiredness. His eyelids drooped and he felt one of his knees crack audibly in the quiet room, making him wince at the sound. Draco yawned loudly, thinking that if the silence was going to be broken by anything, at least he could counteract it with something in his control, and stretched his arms and interlocked hands lazily above his head and behind his back.

Entering the bathroom after the momentary stretch, he drowsily walked in and took out his hair gel, peering in the mirror for the first time that morning.

"Merlin save me," he whispered at his reflection.

It was bad enough already that his hair was already as bright of a red as the Vermillious charm, but now the slight bags under his eyes were popping off of his pale skin like a lumos in the pitch black of night. He appeared half-dead with his darkened eyes on vampire-like skin and grimaced at the messy nature of his hair that seemed to be sticking up in every possible direction.

With an annoyed huff out of his nose, Draco got to work casting glamour charms to quickly hide the insomniac-looking darkness underneath his eyes. Once he was done with that, mostly satisfied at the improvement, he moved on to his hair, taking out the gel with his hands—although not before inspecting the bottle from all angles to make sure it truly was his and that there were no notes saying otherwise. With that done, he began spreading it evenly throughout his head, evening the unruly mess out as nicely as he could based on what he was given.

Maybe I can just wear a hat, he thought grouchily, not for the first time that morning. Although, unlike those other times, he was truly considering it now.

Draco finished pulling the product through his hair, letting it hang off the sides of his head, parted in the middle leaving a very obvious line due to the colour difference between his hair and face. Scowling darkly at his head for at least the twentieth time that day, he strode out of the bathroom and changed into his school robes.

He and Theo walked together to the Great Hall for breakfast, Pansy joining them after meeting each other in the common room. She had jumped out of the couch she was sitting in, walking briskly over to the two of them.

She then glanced at Draco then stopped short, doing a double-take.

"That's a new look for you, Draco," she said, staring at the top of his head with a barely contained grin, questions seeming to gather on her face.

"Wish I could say it's the new biggest fashion trend, but sadly it is not."

"Clearly," Pansy snickered.

Then, linking her hands between the two so she was in the middle, she half-walked, half-dragged Draco and Theo up to the Great Hall.

"You seem a bit tired, though. Did you not have a good sleep last night?" Pansy asked, trying to start up a conversation with Draco as if she had totally forgotten about the spat they were having, his hair colour changing her demeanour more than any apology ever could.