Author's Note: Chapter should be done now woo!

D:

To the unaffiliated, absence is the opposite of presence.

It isn't. There is just as much presence to absence and with this rule, Slytherins are hereby raised.

Take our balls and banquets and other superfluous nonsense for example, where the who's-who of the Sacred Twenty-Eight get trotted out and anyone interesting (read: rich) enough scrapes an invitation. Mother coaxes me into a suit and the girls look like trinkets, long skirts fluttering as they dance. There's a mixture of people of course, as though wealth inequality and blood discrimination presides, there's nothing you like saying it in terms of cold, hard galleons. Nothing.

But don't be mistaken: it is ours, the Slytherin's, playground. They keep us down and in the dark at Hogwarts, but to see us meandering the white colonnades, trailing down silver staircases or emboldened by the moon in the rose gardens, is a delightful sight to behold indeed.

And what of our entertainment? Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs are too easy; they even take the fun out of fucking them over. Ravenclaws are a bit better it must be said. However it is best when against one another. There are blood ties, business partners and other miscellaneous loyalties to sidestep (or entangle yourself within if you are feeling a bit rogue), yet the pain is only very sharp and very sweet.

It is here where we first trial our parent's lessons and learn some new ones. There are too many to even retrieve off-hand, but absence and its effect I could write a whole ode to.

Annoyed at your supplier's recent delays?

Embarrass them by not showing up. Push a lame excuse onto their hands. Clearly if a main customer cannot attend their soiree, then they must not be up to scratch.

Eager to make a business deal but have a weak bargaining position?

Turn up a little late – they've already had to notice you're not there. Once arrived, proceed to avoid sponsor apart from a polite welcome. Stay late, but always away. Et voila, clearly you are a young, ambitious wizard or witch who has other offers to pursue and hens to pluck.

Fallen out with a lover?

Unfortunately in my now-gone boyish excess, this was the area I practiced the most. Arrive at a reasonable time, but spend an inordinate amount of time putting your cloak away. Word has already flown about that you are here and the butterflies impinging on your lover's stomach will increase to the force of a raging manticore. Alas, you don't appear and they are forced to compulsively check the door as they wait. The state of tension that exists between then and now is actually worse than when they have to see you. The human imagination is quite explicit.

Enter then, browse the crowds. Be loud with the right people, calling jokes to those close to you. Be earnest with the others, completely enthralled, even if the conversation with Aunt Lucinda is on her estate's grindylow problem. Make sure your lover is removed for the less entertaining ones, straining their ears and pretending not to watch how your charm exacts a price on your audience. I do recommend that if you are a good flirt, and only if this is definitely the case, to do so with their friends. A child's game, nevertheless highly effective.

Then suddenly, disappear! Your lover will desist with overt glances and twist their necks in terror now. You perhaps are quite innocently strolling a lone corridor or ensconced alone in the maze, but in their head! In their head you could be doing anything and that's what counts. In their head you have never been more present.

This is what I had been doing with Granger. A tactical retreat. A pissing Gryffindor would call it cowardly if they had the vocabulary. If I was completely honest in this instance…well, I'm never honest, am I?

It had been a contracted effort of avoiding her, apart from when it was impossible in Potions and Arithmancy. The fun of seeing her jolt and go the same horrible colour as the Weaseley's hair, when I popped up on the odd occasion, didn't wear off and I knew I was lurking similarly on the edge of her mind.

Today that was about to change as I strolled along to our tutoring session. I almost felt light as I bit into my Granny Smith. I really was going quite insane.

D:

The creation of the Wizengamot Counter-Public Committee for those Otherworldly or Other-Limbed came to be influential…

I felt something large and ominuous invade the library, black decay tripping over chairs and tables as something wicked swept this way. Countering this, I squinted harder.

…Theodorus Sophocles Meridian of the…

Hmm. In an excess of squintiness, I had overstepped my position on the page. I scanned back a couple of lines.

…the world at large as for…

A piece of parchment wafted down to land on the desk. I blinked at it once, twice, before deciding it had flown in of its own whim and that I was better to ignore it quickly.

…the first time it became accessible…

Click. A quill popped up on the desk next. Concluding that some Third Year had vanished their chum's quill as a practical joke – Seamus's old trick that had never, um, got funny – I ignored it.

…for those directly involved…

The thud of a half-eaten green apple (I wasn't sure of the hygiene regarding this) however could not be avoided. I had intended to flick my eyes up just to observe the situation, but once up, they got, um, slightly stuck.

Malfoy hadn't shown up in awhile and the taunting edge that hung around the rim of his eyes, draped languidly on his eyelashes, I'd almost forgotten about. Well actually that was a fat lie; I had just forgotten what it felt like to have it trained on me as he stared down, smirking of course. A wave of red whooshed down my face and I knew it without even having to look in the mirror. I could feel it igniting all my crevices. Tension seemed to keep us frozen and I felt akin to a bunny looking in the headlights. For a strange moment, I felt like mentioning this, but A) I couldn't open my mouth just yet, B) he wouldn't know what in the sticky-toffee-pudding I meant and C) I was overcome with the memories of his calculated presence behind me in the Potions cupboard, when he'd enjoyed just the fact that I was aware of it.

'Why hello,'

He must sneer in his sleep. Not that he looked like he'd had any of that in the last thirty-three years.

Just as quickly as I remembered The Cupboard Incident, I also remembered how it'd felt the first time he hadn't shown up. The day before I'd been quite literally buzzing. If anyone had questioned why there was a clipper being left unattended mysteriously, I wouldn't have blamed them. I'd almost been paranoid about it, worried that the intense reverberating energy in my stomach, chest, head and, alas, between my thighs, could be heard.

My sleep that night had been lovely. Not. I'd felt every second of the earth's orbit, every inch, every milli-inch. The day itself had been The Day My Brain Had Gone To Die, driving me insane by lurching and slipping into multiple avenues of restricted thought.

Finally, it was time. On giddy legs I had spun down to the library. Five minutes, ten minutes of unsteady reading. I wasn't surprised. People like Malfoy were nuts, absolutely crackers, for timing. I know his ego simply couldn't deal with the idea of him arriving on time for me. Embarrassing given I could not give one jot of fudge about it. After fifteen minutes I started to tap my foot, a polka of sorts. Once twenty had passed, I came face-to-face with a horrible sinking feeling located in my stomach.

'I see you still are devoid of a life, Granger,' he tried to bait me, but I was too busy remembering the second and third time after that. How I'd just thought – no, let's be honest, hoped – he'd been ill and was going to return. It felt like betrayal from my own body every time I realised and my heart…sank. Telling myself I only persisted in turning up to do Professor Vector a favour transpired to be my new best lie, apart from 'I'm fine, really' to Harry. How he made me squirm, how it'd felt like to be desired and desirable, was addictive it turned out. Ron's actions magnified as I had no distraction now.

But that same concrete-smacking realisation when he didn't turn up made me realise something worse now: I wanted to see him. Just for the break of my drudgery because my life was so pathetic now. And why was it pathetic? Because he had told me to kiss him, told me Ron would come back, told me this, told me that. I bet he'd laughed every single step of the way.

Detection of human emotions had never been that kind to me. Obviously anyone was better than Ron and Harry, but books were much easier. For they at least signposted their secrets with clever little clues. Yet today I observed a prickle of discomfort as I continued to do nothing but blink up at him. Beyond him almost as the evidence complied against him. The sigh of the chair, as he withdrew it to sit, echoed in my eats. A small defeat had occurred.

'Not still having a strop about Weaselbee, are we?'

For once it was perfectly clear he was trying to coax a response, anything, out of me. I just felt cold.

'Tell me why are you so obsessed with Ronalid and mine's relationship, Malfoy,'

A jolt of something flitted across his face, but my luck had run out as I couldn't place it.

'Or lack of,' he filled in for me, before continuing. 'The romance of the century, I'm sure. Pathetic,'

The cold in me burst and on further inspection I realised I had my wand pinching the white skin of his throat.

'And what are you?' I spat. 'What are you then?'

He breathed heavily, but stopped himself from gasping as he'd done a long, long time ago. The malevolency of his stare shifted some of my rage, but didn't disperse it. Instead it moved from my chest until it caressed my temples.

'That you can walk in here, pretend you weren't all over me in detention, that you haven't made it your mission to humiliate me. Offering to help me with Ron?' I edged the wand closer to his chin. 'Ha. Well the joke's on you Malfoy, because you have soiled your precious little Pureblood hands on a dirty Mudblood. You are not even just a revolting cockcroach now or a blood traitor, you're worse,'

'How?' he asked quietly.

I stood, making sure it would hurt. 'You're a hypocrite,'