firecracker ???

A month passed. January melted into early February, and though the castle trudged on with its usual rhythm—classes, meals, weather—it carried with it a strange quiet, thick with unspoken things. But Elestara hadn't forgotten.

She hadn't said a word about the night Crabbe and Goyle 'returned' with odd manners and sharper eyes. She hadn't exposed Potter, hadn't cornered him or revealed what she'd noticed. Not because she didn't care. But because she wanted to see what he'd do next.

And he did something curious.

He lingered.

Not obviously. Not like Draco, who stormed into rooms expecting the world to rotate around him. Not like Blaise, whose gaze was always deliberate. Potter lingered like smoke. Like static. He was there too long to be unnoticed but never long enough to be confronted.

He stood too close in the corridor. His eyes found her during breakfast. He passed by the Slytherin table more often than he needed to. And sometimes, when she looked up—he was already watching her.

He didn't look away anymore.

Worse, he smiled. A quiet, maddening smile. One that belonged more to someone who knew her, rather than someone who barely understood the politics of pureblood posturing. He smirked, sometimes. Like they had a shared joke. Like she was part of something.

She wasn't.

But he thought she was.

He thought her silence was indulgence. Permission.

It wasn't.

But it wasn't a rejection either.

She let him think it.

Because it was fascinating, in the way watching a slow-moving spell take shape was fascinating. He wasn't clever—he was stubborn. He hadn't exposed himself, but he knew she'd seen through him. And yet he kept walking into her line of sight like he wanted to be studied.

Sometimes, she wondered if he was doing it deliberately. Other times, she wondered if she wanted him to.

That thought unsettled her. So she folded it away.

And still, he grew bolder. Walked taller. Held her gaze longer.

And every time he did, the people around them noticed.

Pansy whispered theories to Daphne over study scrolls. Theo made droll observations. Blaise watched with the same lazy interest he applied to everything. Draco noticed too—glaring more often, getting more possessive, asking too many questions.

But Elestara never answered them. She wasn't ready to. Because she didn't know what she'd say.

Valentine's Day arrived like an airborne illness.

The corridors were coated in pink and sickly sweetness. Heart-shaped confetti rained down from bewitched ceilings. Lockhart had unleashed his latest horror upon the school in the form of singing dwarves dressed in ill-fitting wings, marching through the halls with crossbows and poetry.

It was unbearable.

A dwarf recited a limerick to Blaise about his 'obsidian glare.' Another tried to serenade Draco and was promptly hexed in self-defense.

"I want to die," Draco groaned as one particularly glittery dwarf aimed a harp at his head.

Blaise was nearly in tears. "This is the best day of my life."

"Kill me," Elestara muttered as another dwarf marched past singing something that inexplicably rhymed with 'blazing star.'

"To be fair," Daphne noted, barely holding back laughter, "that one might actually be for you."

Elestara arched a brow. "I beg your pardon?"

Just then, another dwarf approached. With a bouquet. And a scroll.

"To Elestara Black," he announced, bowing low. "From Montague. And four anonymous senders."

Pansy shrieked with delight.

Daphne choked on a laugh.

Astoria clapped enthusiastically, then buried her face in Elestara's sleeve.

Draco looked ready to commit murder. Blaise, meanwhile, looked like he'd been handed his next month of teasing material.

"Saint Potter's losing his touch," Blaise said, smug.

Elestara took the bouquet with a neutral expression, though her fingers twitched slightly on the ribbon.

"Ridiculous," she said coolly.

"Is it?" Daphne teased. "You've had Potter trailing you like a lovesick apparition for weeks. And now Montague swoops in? You're a hot commodity."

"I am not a commodity."

"Then maybe just hot," Blaise said with a grin.

"Absolutely not," Draco snapped, voice sharp.

"You're sulking," Pansy said lightly. "We're getting used to that."

"I'm not sulking," Draco said through clenched teeth. "I'm protecting my sister's reputation from hormonal Gryffindors and seventh-year Quidditch captains."

Elestara ignored them all.

Because Potter hadn't sent anything.

Not a note. Not a card. Not even a cursed dwarf with a poorly written poem.

But he looked at her.

All day.

He sat at his table in the Great Hall, arms folded, chin tilted, trying not to be obvious and failing miserably. Every time she looked away, she could feel it—his eyes returning. Testing the boundary.

He didn't blink first anymore.

And she—she let him.

She didn't smile. Didn't acknowledge. But she didn't look away either.

Later in the library, the day nearly done, Blaise leaned across the table and murmured, "He's going to combust. You know that, right?"

"Let him," Elestara replied, not looking up from her parchment.

"What's he waiting for?" Pansy asked. "A prophecy?"

"I think he wants a sign," Daphne said.

"A dramatic wind and a lightning strike?" Blaise mused.

"No. Just... a look. A word."

"He wants her to look at him like he matters," Pansy added, then leaned her chin into her palm. "Boys are so predictable."

Elestara dipped her quill again. "He doesn't."

But her voice lacked its usual chill.