Disclaimer: Everything with regards to Harry Potter belongs to JKRowling, I just like to the tweak the characters around for my own sick, sick devices. ha. please do not sue me.

Author's note: This is sort of a companion peice to Vices which is Hermione's point of veiw. I'm not so sure, however if its good. This isthe second fiction of the 'Requirement Series' A series of standalone fics, that all make sense by them selves but can be read as one.

Bothered

Power. Money. Sex.

The three things the simplistic idiots that compose the Hogwarts student body think drive me. My motivations, they say. Offer me any of these things and I'll stand at attention and do whatever it takes to take it. To have it.

I wonder if its fun being so idealistically stupid.

If I was to speak truthfully, I really can't be bothered. I have all of those things in abundance

Power. My family still holds power. Many fools think that we have none, that we have lost everything but they are horribly wrong, there is power in hate, power in mystery. Thus, I have power of my own. Not many realize it and I don't publicize it, there is power in the ignorance of others.

Money. The old blood, old moneyed rich, like myself, have developed a wonderful attitude towards money. We have so much of it, we cannot possibly spend it all, so why squabble for more? It's there, it's always been there and it will always be there, so why bother?

And as for Sex, well, a gentleman never kisses (and fucks a girl into the ground several times every night) and tells.

Three things.

They didn't even give me 'raise the Dark Lord to power' or 'rid the world of mudbloods'. No. Just three things.

Bastards.

As if that's all there is. These three things are the goal. The goal is given and the trap is set, the rat-or more appropriately, the ferret-is driven.

I know that's what they call me.

The ferret.

That they think such a moniker would be an insult simply stands testament to their stupidity.

No one realizes why I turned into a ferret that day in fourth year. Everybody just assumed that it was Mad-eye Moody's spell.

Everybody save one.

Out of the entire student population of Hogwarts, only one realized my brilliance, only one realized that I was not-am not-just a bratty pureblood, spoonfed everything. Only one realized that I was something much more dangerous.

A wizard brilliant enough to unlock the secrets of animagi at the age of fourteen and dangerous enough to know how to use them. Something she, the greatest student at Hogwarts could not do because the teachers had not yet explained it to her.

So, Which one of us is spoonfed now?

I saw the spark of recognition in her eyes, she saw something, I was something she wasn't. Did something she couldn't. I beat her and she hated me for it.

She still does.

I think.

I guess.

I suppose.

I'd puzzle it out but I can't be bothered. It doesn't matter. I really, honestly don't care as long as that bitch gets here sometime soon.

The Room of Requirement looks the same as it always does, a plush space dominated by a massive four poster bed draped in purple velvet. The room is actually quite beautiful if one care enough to consider it.

I don't.

Although, the thought of its beauty popped into my head and its telling me that I am beginning to. which means that I must flush the thought out. Drown it out. Because I can't care. I won't care. I don't care.

It's easier that way.

Along with the bed the room contains a pedestal with a single crystal ash tray, precisely in the middle, as if presenting it to the world. As if it was something. Some great treasure and it is for me.

Flick. Click. Lit.

At one point this pedestal was all this room contained but one night, one otherwise unremarkable night-she walked in and it changed.

Breathe. In. Out.

I always enjoy the first one of the night the most. Time was, I could puff away an entire pack before going to bed, alone.

I have heard of this muggle sickness called cancer. A disease that can only be cured by cutting a patient open and literally ripping the sickness out-but only after poking around a bit to make sure that it has not spread-honestly, how barbaric. How can someone remain 'patient' through something like that?

The thought of the poor unfortunate souls afflicted with cancer makes me pause before I take another puff from my first and last of the night, While I wait for her to joine me.

Things change.

That wizards need not bother with trivial maladies like cancer does not matter.

I like to smoke.

I don't need it. I don't crave it. It doesn't matter.

It's easier not to get attached, not to care.

I know that this makes me seem evil.

I know that half the population of Hogwarts thinks me evil. So be it. If the huddled masses need and excuse to huddle together like doomed squibs in Lord Voldemort's lair, then big bad Malfoy will continue to stomp thought the hallowed halls being an annoying prat and not kissing up to Potter-The Boy Who Just Would Not Die and the other white-hat do-gooders.

The door opens.

Speaking of do-gooders.

"Malfoy."

I feel my lips twist into a smirk automatically. I say nothing.

I don't call her 'mudblood' anymore; neither do I call her by her given name. As soon as she steps over that threshold, I try not to call her anything.

She has stopped calling me 'ferret' because she sees the smile, even if I don't show it. She sees the triumph. She doesn't even spit the bitter word of my name because she doesn't want to give me the power of her hate.

I let the cigarette dangle from my lips and tangle my hands in her hair. She mewls and tips her head back.

Silly girl.

She hands over power so quickly. She can't wait to. She needs to. Its amusing though, to see her try and act as if she doesn't.

Then she surprises me by pulling my crutch out of my mouth and stubbing it out, embracing sin and pulling me down with her.

She's all business, shedding layers one by one and stretching out beneath me. For a second she looks like she's forgotten everything except the soft feel of the velvet sheets against her skin.

I'm wrapped in quite a different velvety heat.

Odd though.

When you don't care, it is easy to observe people, easy to be objective, easy to find their faults and know their mannerisms. It's easy to know when no one knows you. No bothersome sentiment.

I know no one better than I know her.

Her dark fears, her insecurities, her wants, her hates, her needs, her desires.

Tonight is different.

I realize too late that something is different. Her touch is more primal, she's all around me at once. Her head is tipped back in ecstasy. Her eyes are closed but behind those lids I know they're hungry for the carnality that only I can give her. I know its-

Fuck, if it does nothing more than bring me closer.

She smiles a feral smile and suddenly I'm struggling.

For the first time since I can remember, I'm fighting, fighting for control, fighting for her. Fighting to push her away, fighting to pull her closer, and all the while climbing higher and higher towards the peak that I needed.

Helplessness.

I could do nothing more than flip around and ravish her harder.

"Let go!" she whispers to me.

I could not reply. I don't think she minded so much.

"Let go!"

Somehow I knew that she didn't mean for me to physically let go of her. She would not be agreeing so adamantly if she did.

We move in time together.

Out. In. Out.

I grab for her as desperately as I push her away.

"Let go." She sobs. "Come with me, please."

And when she falls she pulls me with her.

Let go.

And I'm gone.

Wholly and completely just gone.

…

And indistinguishable amount of time later, I came to.

My brain had just shut down. I thought 'let go' and blacked out. I suppose I must have said her name.

I had collapsed on top of her, still intimately joined.

Intimately.

I just thought that.

Blind panic.

I had let go. She made me loose myself. I am all that I have and all that I hold dear. I've never blacked out like that. Never gotten lost in the sensation save for the pinprick of pure pleasure at the peak of orgasm. I did not just have one of those. I have no words for what I just had, and if I did it would be much bigger than just those six letters.

My blind panic was manifested in another cigarette and a tremor in my hands as I light it.

Breathe. Calm. Down.

She smiles at me as she comes to. She had blacked out as well, completely lost consciousness.

I had had the same effect on her.

We did it together.

Mutual. Between. Us.

I saw the spark in her eyes as she slides out from under me to dress.

Must. Do. Something.

Push her away.

"I had fun, mudblood." I hear myself saying.

Cringe. Too obvious.

She takes the bait.

The response in instantaneous, the light is suddenly extinguished from her eyes, her eyebrows nit together and her stance closes. Her face twists into a scowl.

Congratulations. Perfectly executed.

I strikes me that I noticed. I noticed the light go out in her eyes; I noticed the subtle change in her posture. I was involved in her darkening moon and-

I am not going to think of feeling and I am not going to think of her.

Can't stop now.

"I trust I'll be seeing you tomorrow."

She hurried to finish dressing, its as if she wants to get as far away fro me as she can as soon as possible. But she can't stay away. She will deny it vehemently but I will be seeing her by this time tomorrow if not sooner. Same time. Same place.

But its never been routine.

Never been defined.

I rather like it that way.

She has finished dressing and is making to exit the room. Before she leaves, however, she turned to me.

"I hate you, Malfoy." She spits.

Power.

"I am not your whore." She insists.

Money.

"Tomorrow, then." She relents.

Sex.

About those three things, I cannot be bothered.

She, however, is a different story.

The door closes behind her.

"Till tomorrow, Granger."