The common room was quiet for once, the usual chatter of Slytherins replaced by the low, rhythmic crackle of the green-tinted flames in the hearth. Draconia sat in a velvet armchair, her legs tucked beneath her, watching the way the light caught the edge of her silver-rimmed tea cup. Greta was sitting on the rug near the fire, her back to the room, staring at nothing in particular. They had been sitting in this shared silence for nearly twenty minutes, a comfort that was rarely afforded to anyone else in their circle. Draconia felt the tension in her shoulders beginning to dissipate, the sharp, jagged edges of her afternoon frustration smoothing out into a dull, manageable ache.
"You are staring," Greta said without turning around. Her voice was flat, stripped of any teasing intent.
Draconia did not blink, nor did she pretend to look away. She took a slow sip of her tea, letting the warmth settle in her throat before she spoke. "I am observing. There is a difference."
"You are observing a wall, Draconia. It is a very plain wall." Greta finally turned, sitting cross-legged so she could face her friend. Her expression was unreadable, her eyes dark and steady. "You have been staring at things all day. The wall, the Great Hall, the way the light hits the lake. You are distracted."
"I am not distracted," Draconia insisted, though the lie felt heavy on her tongue. "I am simply preoccupied with a particularly annoying lack of progress in my charms work."
Greta tilted her head, a single strand of hair falling across her cheek. "It isn't charms. It isn't even the work. You are playing the game again, aren't you?"
Draconia stiffened, her fingers tightening around the porcelain. She hated when Greta was able to see through the polished veneer of her composure. Most people saw the performance; they saw the way she turned her wand between her fingers or the way she tilted her chin to catch the light. It was a weapon, a way to command the attention of the room, and she used it with the precision of a duelist. But Greta saw the intention behind the movement, the desperate, clawed need to be seen by one specific person.
"I do not know what game you are talking about," Draconia said, her voice a perfect mask of bored indifference. "If you are implying that my recent... eccentricities... are a tactic, you are mistaken."
"You think if you make him look, you have won," Greta said. It was not a question. "You think that if you control the way he watches you, you control him. But he is not a puppet, Dr of the game."
"He is a person who reacts to stimulus," Draconia countered, her voice rising just a fraction. "If a stimulus is striking enough, the reaction is inevitable. It is not a game if it is a law of nature."
Greta stood up, brushing the invisible dust from her robes. She did not offer a comforting smile or a soft word to soothe Draconia's obvious agitation. There was no warmth in her approach, only a brutal, clinical honesty that Draconia had always both loved and loathed. Greta did not do comfort; she did reality.
"You are performing a monologue to an audience of one," Greta said, walking toward the armchair. She stopped just beside Draconia, looking down at her with an expression that was entirely too perceptive. "The problem is that he is not a very good actor. He sees the strings. He sees the way you hold your wand to make sure he notices the curve of your wrist. He sees the way you pause in the corridor just to ensure he has to walk around you."
Draconia felt a flicker of heat in her cheeks, a rare moment of vulnerability that she tried to suppress with a sharp, haughty laugh. "He is watching. That is what matters. If he is watching, the performance is successful."
"A performance is a one-way street," Greta said, her voice dropping to a lower, more serious register. "You are working so hard to be seen that you are forgetting to actually see him. You are so busy being the spectacle that you are not actually being a person. You are a statue in a gallery, Draconia. You are beautiful and perfectly positioned, but you are static."
"I am not static," Draconia snapped, standing up to reclaim her height. She felt the need to dominate the space, to prove that she was still the one in control of the room. "I am the one who sets the tempo. He follows the tempo. He always has."
"He follows the beat you set, but he isn't dancing to your tune," Greta said. She stepped closer, her eyes searching Draconia's face for any sign of the cracks in the armor. "You are making yourself a spectacle because you are afraid of being a person. It is easier to be a goddess if you can just pretend the worship is enough."
Draconia reached out, her hand hovering near Greta's arm before she pulled it back, unwilling to admit she wanted to be held. The silence that followed was not the comfortable one they had shared a moment ago. It was a sharp, jagged thing, filled with the things Draconia refused to say aloud. She thought of the way he looked at her when he thought she wasn't looking, and the way her heart stuttered when he finally did.
"You are being incredibly tiresome," Draconia said, her voice trembling slightly despite her best efforts. "I did not come here for a lecture on my psychological inadequacies."
"You didn't come here for a conversation either, but you stayed," Greta said. She didn't move to leave, but she didn't move to comfort. She simply stood there, a mirror held up to Draconia's frantic, glittering soul. "You are trying to win a prize that doesn't want to be won. You want to be the most interesting thing in his vision, but you are losing the substance of the man in the process."
"I am not losing anything," Draconia insisted, though the lie felt thinner than it had a moment ago. "I am merely refining the method. He will notice. He has to."
Greta sighed, a sound of genuine exhaustion. She looked at the fire, the green flames casting long, dancing shadows across the stone floor. She turned back to Draconia, her expression turning somber, almost mournful. There was no pity in her eyes, only the cold, hard clarity of a friend who had seen the end of the story before the middle had even truly begun.
"The problem with a performance is that eventually, the curtain has to fall," Greta said, her voice a mere whisper. "And when it does, you have to be more than just a well-rehearsed script. If you keep playing the part of the untouchable, the unattainable, you will find that he eventually stops looking altogether. Because you can't love a statue, Draconia. You can only admire it."
Draconia felt the breath leave her lungs as if she had been struck. The words were a physical weight, pressing against her chest, making it hard to maintain the upright, regal posture she had spent years perfecting. She wanted to argue, to throw a sharp insult about Greta's lack of imagination, but the words died in her throat.
Greta took a step back, her hands curling into the fabric of her sleeves. She looked at Draconia with a finality that felt like a sentence.
"You're going to lose him."