Hey everyone! Well, here it is, chapter ten! And it's the longest chapter yet! Let me know what you think – this is my first ever kind of romantic scene. I've only ever kissed one person, haha, so I probably did a terrible job on the gory details... but whatever, review and tell me how I did!

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Chapter Ten – Desire:

Draco stormed across the Entrance Hall, his teeth grinding together, his pale hands fisted at his sides, red-tinged and shaking. He clenched his fists more and more tightly, feeling his fingers grow hot, his palms sweaty, until his recently uncut fingernails dug so ferociously into his skin that they drew blood. He cursed, not even bothering to keep his voice down – he knew that the use of foul language was prohibited in the Hogwarts corridors, but nothing at all, no punishment whatsoever that a teacher inflicted upon him could possibly make his head sting and his heart ache more than they already did. He licked at the half-moon-shaped cuts he had made in his hands to stem the thin, half-hearted stream of blood that was now flowing past his knuckles and angrily pushed his fingers through his silver-blonde hair; it felt coarse and straw-like beneath his touch. As he stomped down the stairs to the dungeons, he suddenly became very aware of himself – his robes felt restricting and uncomfortable against his skin, the neck of his white Oxford shirt overly-tight and suffocating. Loosening his green-and-silver striped tie and pulling so hard on his collar that the top two buttons came free from their cotton constraints with a small popping sound, he released a deep, heavy breath and closed his eyes. He saw stars in the darkness, a flash of flame-red hair, heard Ginny Weasley's furious accusations ringing in his ears, watched a slowed-down replay of Hermione's guilt-stricken, tear-streaked face contort in panic and fear...

When he reached the Slytherin common room, he threw himself down onto a leather sofa and threw his head back, looking and feeling very much like a man with no idea who he was or what to do anymore. The entire Slytherin residential quarters appeared to be empty – the absence of his friends' lively chatter, other students sitting around doing homework and music blaring from the dormitories told him that breakfast was almost over and that his first timetabled lesson would soon commence. History of Magic with Professor Binns was always a painful drag but, with the added presence of Hermione Granger, his frustrating, lying ex-girlfriend who he had no desire to speak to or even have to see anytime soon, alongside the rest of her fellow Gryffindor fifth-years, it was sure to be an even more excruciating experience than usual. He stood up and began to make his way to his dormitory, but the thought of Hermione and the blatant lie she seemed to have fed her Gryffindor friends made his hands start to shake and his face grow hot once more. He paused by the dark stone wall, exhaled sharply and aimed a hard punch at the bricks. His knuckles throbbed and he felt the half-moon-shaped wounds reopening in response to the impact, but he threw another punch at the wall, then another, then another. Several blows later, his biceps screaming in protest, he withdrew his hand, wiping several bloody gashes on his robes. A quick glance at the coiled serpent-shaped clock told him that his first lesson of the day began in seven minutes and, as irate as he felt, as much as he would have liked to continue pounding the hard wall to distract from his emotional scars for a little while longer, the thought of receiving a detention on his first day back was something he could not be bothered to deal with and, although he hated to admit it, he didn't want to give Hermione the satisfaction of knowing that she was the reason he was absent. He groaned out loud before leaving the common room.

When he reached Professor Binns' classroom, the Slytherin and Gryffindor students had already filed in and had taken their seats. Everybody in the room glanced up at him. Professor Binns, an impossibly ancient-looking man and the only ghost teacher at Hogwarts, raised his eyebrows and stared disapprovingly at Draco over the top of his horn-rimmed glasses.

"Thank you for joining us, Mr Malfoy," said the ghost disparagingly, floating around his desk and picking up a stack of papers. "Take a seat, please."

Draco absently grunted a half-hearted apology in Professor Binns' direction and looked around the classroom for an empty seat. His eyes momentarily connected with a chocolate brown pair and, as he glared into them then instantly, coldly, looked away, he could have sworn he saw them fill with tears. For the first time since ending their relationship, Draco felt no guilt in regards to seeing Hermione looking so pained. On his left, toward the back of the room, Theodore waved at him idly, a slightly suspicious expression on his face. He headed toward him and slung his bag down from his shoulder onto the floor beneath the desk.

"What's wrong with your hands, mate?" asked Theodore in a whisper as Professor Binns began his lecture on how magical education in Europe had changed over the last century. The rest of the students in the class had fervently started to make notes, but Draco felt unable to summon any enthusiasm.

"Nothing I can't deal with," said Draco flatly, trying to make it as clear as possible that he did not want to discuss the matter further.

The first half of the double period passed at a ridiculously slow rate. Draco found himself staring up at the clock more and more frequently, feeling sure that someone had bewitched its hands to move at a fraction of their usual speed. His eyes kept wandering to the back of Hermione's head, watching as she shook out her hair, glanced up at Professor Binns and feverishly pored over her notes. Every so often she would surreptitiously lean sideways and look behind her, occasionally catching his eye – whenever this happened, Draco would suddenly become very interested in his shoes or the pattern on the parquet floor, trying not to make it obvious that he couldn't take his eyes off of her.

Somebody nearby, a girl, it seemed, with a gentle, melodic voice, cleared their throat pointedly. He turned his head sharply in the direction the sound came from to see Astoria smirking at him from the row behind, two desks from his right. She sat diagonally behind Parvati Patil from Gryffindor, and she held a crumpled piece of parchment in her hand – every now and then, Astoria would tear off a piece of parchment, scrunch it up into a ball and toss it gently toward Parvati, and every time, it magically stuck to the back of her robes. Astoria and her friend Dawn Stimpton snickered as Parvati continued to go about her business, unaware of the gravity-defying parchment mountain that was growing ever-larger on her back. Draco raised his eyebrows, unimpressed by their childish game, and turned to face the front again.

A few seconds later, a piece of parchment, folded into the shape of an elegant swan, landed on top of his closed notes folder. He stared at it for a moment before turning back to Astoria, who had her wand out and was making green sparks shoot from its tip into the air like miniature fireworks. She winked at him. He faced forward and unfolded the piece of parchment.

'Stop being so twitchy,' he read. 'You're making me nervous.' The note was written in Astoria's eloquent, curly script and was signed with a heart so tiny that Draco actually brushed the surface of the page with his hand, making sure it wasn't just a speck of dust.

He felt his heartbeat increase in tempo as he read the words, before bending down to remove a quill from his school bag and writing a reply on his own piece of parchment.

'I recommend you concentrate on your work then, rather than focusing your attention on me,' he wrote. He pulled his wand out from inside his robes and waved it once, remembering a neat charm his mother had taught him that forced any parchment to fold itself neatly into the form of a dove. He held it in the palm of his hand, blew lightly on its tail feathers and watched as it beat its little wings and flew to rest on Astoria's desk. He smiled slightly to himself, impressed by the perfect execution with which he had carried out the spell. Astoria obviously noticed his smug expression and gave him a theatrical, sarcastic round of applause before unfolding his note. Her reply followed quickly, again in the form of a swan.

'For somebody who's 'concentrating on their work', you don't seem to have taken many notes.'

He laughed once silently, shaking his head, before tossing her note above him and burning it to ash in the air. He heard her musical laugh sound from behind him, out loud.

"Miss Greengrass," said Professor Binns, removing his glasses. "Would you care to share the source of your evident amusement with the rest of the class?"

Astoria stood up – a formality that the old-fashioned Professor Binns demanded when his students spoke to him – and faced him.

"No, Professor, it's nothing. Sorry, Professor." Binns nodded, gesturing that she should take her seat once more. She smiled, amused, before picking up another piece of parchment from her desk and beginning to scrawl upon it once more. When it landed on Draco's desk, he found himself unfolding it quickly, with a little too much enthusiasm clear on his face.

'I'm taking a walk,' he read, his fingertips tracing over the words. 'Care to join me?'

Before he had the opportunity to face her, he caught a glimpse of Astoria's raised hand out of the corner of his eye.

"What now, Miss Greengrass?" asked Binns exasperatedly, watching Astoria rise from her seat.

"Can I go to the bathroom please, Professor?" she asked carefully, smiling serenely at the ghost.

After receiving a grunt of approval from Professor Binns, Astoria picked up her things, evidently not planning on returning before the end of the lesson, and sauntered out of the room. Draco watched her back as she strolled down the corridor outside and ducked behind a corner. Before she disappeared entirely, however, she poked her head back around, peering into the classroom again, and smiled at him, not one of her usual ironic smirks, but a proper smile, a smile he had never truly seen before, a smile that stole the breath he was about to take, a smile that, although fleeting, promised secrets and surprises and demanded he follow her. Don't do it, he told himself resentfully. You know what you'll be getting yourself into. His mind having lost the internal debate with his heart, he watched as Binns floated toward the cupboard beside his desk, presumably to retrieve some more parchment or textbooks, and, the moment his white, translucent back was turned, he rose hurriedly from his seat, grabbed his bag and stealthily left the room. A couple of heads turned in his direction as he moved, the only ones of any real interest to him being his best friend Theodore Nott, who shot a confused glance in his direction, and Hermione Granger, shaking her head in realisation as she watched him vanish through the classroom door. No one would say anything. No one would notify Binns of his swift departure from the lesson. They wouldn't dare, he assured himself. They know who I am. They know what I'm capable of.

These thoughts surprised him. He couldn't remember the last time he had made harsh, violent mental judgements and threats such as these. Not within the last year or so, it couldn't have been... he rolled his eyes as he remembered what everybody had told him almost non-stop for the last eighteen months about the mysterious Muggle-born girl who had taken Draco Malfoy's heart and flipped it upside-down, turned it inside-out, toyed with him, manipulated his emotions until they were unrecognisable. Although he had been told it was a welcome change, right then, he felt as though something that had been caged for a long time was starting to break free, starting to realise its full potential and everything it could do. Something snapped. It was Astoria that was making him feel this way. This desire to be rebellious again, to do something on the spur of the moment without wondering if he would regret it... he knew it could be attributed to her sudden presence in his life.

He wandered along the deserted second-floor corridor, looking out for a sign of her, a whirl of dark brunette hair, a flash of pale green eyes, a glimpse of that smile she had given him moments earlier. Out of pure curiosity, he stuck his around the girls' bathroom door, wondering if she had genuinely decided to make a stop here. After discovering the bathroom was empty, he proceeded along the corridor past two adjacent broom cupboards, considering whether or not she had simply lured him out of his lesson to get him into trouble. He sighed, craning his neck around a corner to peer along the rest of the corridor. Suddenly, he gasped – he felt a hand tighten around his wrist and another clap down over his mouth, silencing his moans of protest.

"Please don't scream," said a musical voice quietly in his ear. "People will think I'm out here with a girl and I wouldn't want to start talk," she told him sarcastically, pulling her hand back from his mouth, the other still clasped around his wrist.

"Fancy seeing you here," he said indifferently, a smile threatening the corners of his mouth. Astoria's grasp loosened and her hand slipped down, catching his. The electricity that flowed between them was almost tangible.

"Mr Malfoy!" boomed a voice several hundred meters away. It was the unmistakable drone of Professor Binns. "How dare you leave my lesson! How dare-"

But before he could catch the end of the angry ghost's sentence, Astoria had kicked open the door of the nearest of the two broom cupboards and pulled him inside after her, shutting the door behind them as gently as she could so as not to alert Binns of their presence. Draco leaned backwards against the wood of the door, his heart pounding.

"Bloody hell," she whispered, pressing her body against his and resting her head on the door, listening for any noise outside. Draco smelt her aroma – he inhaled, breathing in the scent of the shampoo that wafted from her dark locks. She moved her head back from the door but didn't move her body so much as an inch. Staring up at him, she pushed her hand through his silver-blonde hair, then trailed it down the side of his lean body. Something clicked, the mechanical sound of a key turning in a lock. Astoria lifted the old brass key she had just locked them in with in front of her face, waving it under his nose slowly.

"It appears that we're locked in," she said, smiling, lifting her face to his so that their noses touched, their lips maddeningly close.

Instinctively he leant forward slightly, allowing their lips to brush. She held his hand and guided it to her waist, where it hovered hesitantly.

"Astoria, I don't know if I..." he began, his voice almost inaudible. "What if... I... Hermione..."

"Then tell me to stop," she purred, before she crushed her lips to his. He moaned softly against her mouth, feeling her tongue flick along the line of his lower lip, very much taking charge of the kiss. She moved her hands demandingly to both of his sides, pushing against the wooden door, trapping him in her embrace. He was her prisoner, and he was enjoying it. His fingers tangled in her hair.

"Say my name again, Draco Malfoy," she whispered against his mouth, her lips tasting of sweet longing and sin. "Say it," she repeated, biting slightly on Draco's lower lip – he tasted the metallic, rust-and-salt tang of blood as the delicate skin broke. It was an electrifying pain, one he wanted to savour for as long as he could.

"Astoria..." he murmured, stepping away from the wall but never breaking the kiss, and standing where she had stood previously, forcing them to switch positions. His hand moved to her wrist and lifted it high above her head, pinning her arm against the door. He felt her smile against his lips.

Astoria made him feel strange, different from how he had ever felt before. Only directly, nothing long-term – his heart didn't ache when they were separated as it had when he was with Hermione, he didn't crave her presence and attention every hour of the day. His feelings for Astoria were very different; they were not as deep, not as whole, but they were present nonetheless. In Hermione's chocolate brown eyes, he saw happiness, completeness, a future. In Astoria's pale green, however, he saw something else, something new – he saw adrenaline, lust, a carnal, animalistic desire to do something people would disapprove of him for, something reckless, something wrong... he wanted to run with her through the night without a cautious look back. This wasn't about love. It was about raw need. There was no love and he knew there never would be. Hermione was the girl he had fallen for, the girl he had shared so many beautiful memories with and – he gasped, shocked at himself for finally formulating the thoughts into a complete, unspeakable sentence – the girl he knew he could never stop loving for as long as he would live.

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Keep pressing that review button! How was the broom cupboard scene? What did you think of Draco's anger toward Hermione? How about this turn Draco and Astoria's relationship has taken? PLEASE LET ME KNOW! Tell me if you love it or if you absolutely cannot stand it! xxx