Day 3 - "So I Name My Pimples. What About It?"

By Day 3, Ches Wyenn was a woman on a mission.

Not just any mission.

An emergency, no-holds-barred, glitter-stained crusade to ruin Draco Malfoy's self-assigned goal of winning her heart.

The badge — Draco's #1 Fan, lopsided and cursed with enchanted sparkle glue — was still attached to her robes. She'd tried to remove it four separate times. Once with soap. Once with a blunt knife. Once with a desperate mending charm that nearly lit her sleeve on fire.

It remained.

Taunting her.

Much like the boy who had smiled through it all.

Smiled when she slid next to him at breakfast like a rom-com extra on a sugar high.

Laughed — actually laughed — when she called him "Drakey-poo" in front of the Transfiguration line.

Even winked when she whispered "you'll always be my shining little cuddle-fish" as they passed Pansy in the corridor.

The nerve. The audacity. The flirtation.

He was not supposed to enjoy it.

He was supposed to flinch. Grimace. Choke on his pride. Maybe explode in a ball of pure secondhand embarrassment.

But no. He had smiled — that dangerous, sideways, I-see-what-you're-doing-and-it's-working smile — and gone on with his day like nothing had happened.

Which meant only one thing.

It was time to get weird.

The kind of weird that made people slowly back away and reconsider their life choices.

She'd spent the night drafting a list. She'd named it:Operation Overshare: Make Him Regret Breathing Near Me.

And today's tactic? Simple.

She was going to become a walking red flag convention.

Fake quirks. Real oddities. Deeply uncomfortable revelations. Anything that screamed run now or forever live with regret.

If he wanted a show, she'd give him a full-on horror feature.

Let him flirt through that.

She tucked a stray curl behind her ear, straightened her badge of doom, and marched toward the Great Hall like a noble knight preparing for battle.

Draco Malfoy had no idea what was coming.

And frankly?

Neither did she.

▕⃝⃤ 9¾

Ches sat across from Draco like she hadn't spent half the night scribbling weird facts in her journal and laughing maniacally about which one would horrify him most.

He looked annoyingly composed, as usual — hair perfectly disheveled in that effortless, I-don't-try-but-still-look-like-a-male-model way. Tie loosened just enough to seem rebellious. The picture of smug morning elegance.

She waited.

Waited until he'd just taken a perfectly timed bite of toast, his mouth full and defenseless.

Then she struck.

"So I think my left foot has stronger magical energy than my right," she said conversationally, as if she were discussing the weather.

Draco paused mid-chew, brows furrowing just slightly. He swallowed — slowly. "You think what?"

Ches reached for her scone, buttering it with deliberate calm. "Yeah. I ran a test last week. Very scientific. Three socks, a levitation charm, and one surprisingly cooperative rat named Kevin."

He blinked. "You... did a magical foot analysis?"

"Don't mock it," she said, taking a dainty bite. "It was peer-reviewed."

"By who?"

"My plants."

Draco stared.

Ches smiled serenely.

And then she went in for the kill.

"Oh!" she added, as if remembering something delightful. "I name my pimples, by the way."

Draco's face did something. A flicker of confusion, then guarded intrigue. She pretended not to notice.

She pointed delicately to the tiniest blemish on her chin — barely visible unless you were practically face-to-face.

"This is Gregory. He's been with me since Monday. Brave little guy."

There was a long pause.

Draco stared at her.

Not in horror. Not in confusion.

Just... stared.

Ches's lips curled into a victorious smirk.

Gotcha.

But instead of recoiling or asking if she needed to be committed, Draco slowly set down his fork, leaned forward, and said with the softest, most infuriating hint of a smirk—

"Do you give them backstories, or is that reserved for your moles?"

Ches choked on her tea.

"Excuse me?!"

His eyes gleamed. "I just think Gregory deserves lore. You know—maybe a tragic love affair, a betrayal, a failed career in wand-polishing. The works."

"You're insane," she muttered, wiping her mouth and trying not to laugh.

He shrugged. "I'm not the one naming my facial blemishes."

"Don't tempt me," she said, narrowing her eyes. "I'll write it."

"Oh, I hope you do," he said smoothly, sipping his pumpkin juice like this was perfectly normal.

And Ches — Ches Wyenn, self-declared queen of chaos, bet-saboteur, certified weirdo — found herself briefly, briefly stunned into silence.

Then she pulled out a quill.

He laughed.

▕⃝⃤ 9¾

Ches kept the bit going long after breakfast had ended.

She trailed beside Draco through the castle courtyard, hands tucked behind her back like a very polite storm cloud. Every few steps, she'd toss out another bizarre fact, watching him like a hawk for any signs of visible discomfort.

There weren't any. Which was deeply irritating.

"I can lick my elbow," she said brightly, breaking the silence.

Draco glanced at her sidelong, amused. "That's physically impossible."

"Not if you dislocate your shoulder."

"Please tell me you haven't tried."

She wiggled her eyebrows.

He made a sound that was either a laugh or a wheeze. She chose to interpret it as both.

"I've also memorized the entire Hogwarts plumbing system," she added, skipping a little to stay at his side. "I got bored one summer. Want to know which corridor has the most emergency water flow access points?"

"I truly don't."

She told him anyway.

"And sometimes I talk to the paintings," she continued, undeterred. "But not the ones that move. The boring ones. The ones with like... fruit bowls and sad hunting dogs. I think they get lonely."

Draco let out a sharp breath through his nose. "You're unbelievable."

"I'm layered," she said.

"You're a hazard."

"I'm a mystery, Malfoy."

He actually nodded at that. "You're something, alright."

The worst part? He didn't sound like he was teasing.

He wasn't smirking, wasn't cocking an eyebrow and rolling his eyes like she expected — like he was supposed to. He was walking next to her like this was a perfectly reasonable way to spend an afternoon: listening to her list fake (and disturbingly real) red flags, and giving them his full attention.

He even asked follow-up questions.

She'd barely finished explaining why Gregory the Pimple was considering leaving his toxic relationship with Cheek Mole #2 when Draco cut in.

"So you're just..." he started, waving a hand vaguely toward her, "like this?"

Ches raised a brow. "Like what?"

He slowed slightly, eyes narrowing in thought. "Unhinged. Strange. Terrifying."

A beat passed.

"Magical."

Ches stopped walking.

Dead halt. Just like that.

He took three more steps before realizing she wasn't beside him anymore. When he turned, his expression was unreadable — the wind catching his hair just enough to make her irrationally annoyed that he still looked so stupidly attractive while saying that.

"You just called me magical," she said slowly.

Draco raised a brow. "I did."

"Like it wasn't an insult."

"It wasn't."

And for a moment — a brief, disarming moment — her brain just... blanked. Like the logic center short-circuited and all it left behind was a quiet, unwanted flutter in her chest.

He was staring at her like he meant it.

And Ches, who had meticulously prepared for chaos, for conflict, for glitter and pet names and pimple lore — had not prepared for this.

She blinked.

This wasn't going according to plan.

▕⃝⃤ 9¾

Talia didn't so much escort Ches into their dorm as she did drag her by the sleeve like a woman rescuing a victim from a slow-motion disaster.

The door slammed shut behind them with a dramatic thud, the enchantments flaring briefly in alarm at the sheer force of the chaos storm entering the room.

Talia spun on her, hands on hips, cheeks flushed with equal parts horror and secondhand embarrassment.

"You hissed at your plants?"

Ches didn't even blink. "It helps them grow. They like the attention."

"You hissed, Ches."

Ches tossed her bag onto her bed with a thump and flopped beside it, utterly unbothered. "It's like magical vibrational nurturing. There are studies. Somewhere."

Talia ignored that entirely. "You let him walk you back from class."

"I tripped over my shoelace halfway there," Ches muttered, shoving a pillow over her face. "It was not a romantic moment. It was a medical emergency."

"You blushed," Talia accused, finger pointing like she was on trial for crimes against feminism.

"I DID NOT—!"

"You did," Talia insisted, pacing dramatically. "I saw it. Right after he called you—what was it—'magical'? And you just stood there. You froze like a sad little duckling who forgot how to swim."

Ches rolled over and buried her face into the mattress with a groan that could've powered a small village.

"He's immune," she moaned into the pillow. "He's completely, annoyingly, beautifully immune. I've thrown my worst at him. Fake pimple lore. Elbow licking. Plant-hissing. The plumbing thing. The plumbing thing, Talia!"

Talia blinked. "Wait—what plumbing thing?"

"I told him I memorized the entire Hogwarts drainage system and he asked if I wanted to test it for leaks together. Test it for leaks, Talia! That was supposed to make me look unhinged, not like someone he wants to take on a pipe-themed date!"

Talia collapsed dramatically onto her own bed. "You're losing the bet."

"I am not," Ches said through gritted teeth.

"You are," Talia said, sitting up. "You told him you write goblin fanfiction."

Ches lifted her head just enough to glare. "And he said—he wanted to read it."

There was a long pause.

Talia stared.

"...Did you make it up?"

Ches went still.

"...No."

Another pause.

Talia's eyes sparkled. "Okay, but now I want to read it."

Ches face-planted again and screamed into her comforter.

▕⃝⃤ 9¾

Draco Malfoy lay on his bed, arms behind his head, staring at the ridiculous glittering badge propped on his nightstand like it belonged in a museum of tragic mistakes.

Draco's #1 Fan.

He hadn't meant to keep it.

Really.

When he'd first noticed it, stuck crookedly to the back of his chair with some kind of enchanted adhesive that glitter-bombed his robes, he'd planned to toss it in the fire. Or leave it on Blaise's bed as a warning. Or hex it into a frog.

But then he'd picked it up.

And now here it was — smug and sparkly and very pink — sitting next to his wand like a cursed love token.

His fingers drifted over the ribbon lazily, tracing the shape of the plastic gemstone in the center. It was lopsided. Cheap. Probably crafted with rage and very little artistic supervision. A few specks of glitter still clung to the corner of his collar from where she'd flung herself into the seat beside him, all wide eyes and weaponized affection.

And then there was the voice. Her voice, cutting through his thoughts.

"Gregory the Pimple has abandonment issues."He exhaled a laugh through his nose, unable to stop the small, stupid smile tugging at his mouth.

He should've been annoyed.

He should've been planning his next move — something charming and devastating, a flirtation to shake her confidence, a line that would make her stammer instead of smirk.

But instead... he was lying in the dark thinking about a blemish named Gregory.

What the hell was she doing to him?

He didn't know what kind of game Ches Wyenn thought she was playing — but Merlin help him, he hoped she never stopped.