DRACO #3: Both the Predator and the Prey

Disclaimer: I do not own anything belonging to JK Rowling or the world of Harry Potter.

…

I may not be a trained spy, but I can definitely tell when I'm being followed.

It's a Saturday, roughly two weeks after the start of the school year, and the weather is still bright and warm outside. My task has barely progressed – after the initial shock of seeing Messer in the flesh followed by her sorting into Slytherin and then that first morning at breakfast, I haven't known where to start with any of it. The Vanishing Cabinet is marginally better, as I know I need to research and try out all the basic reparation spells first, but assassinating someone? Where does a person even begin to think of where to start with that?

And so I've ignored Messer, hoping against all hope that if she's out of sight then she's out of mind too.

It works for a couple of weeks at least. I don't share many classes with her – actually I only share the one, which is potions – and with my time taken up by research and the heavy load of start-of-term homework I've been given, it's been easy to avoid her in the common room and at meals. Her unproblematic behaviour indicates that she's probably not here to kill me specifically, and the thought soothes my nerves exponentially as I sincerely believe that I'd have no chance of survival were she targeting me.

I'll tell you who is problematic, however: Potter. Problematic Potter. Paranoid Potter. Following me and observing me from all sorts of odd places, his two associates seemingly absent from his newfound endeavour. I've been at the receiving end of his curiosity and suspicion many times in the past, the concept of it not being new to me at all, but this – this is different. This is serious and may have serious complications (read: might start a bloody war) if he sees something he's not meant to. I'd wager that I've alerted him to my… extra-curricular activities, shall we say, by my lack of antagonism. Sure, I've been winding him up as usual in our shared lessons, but since I've been spending so much of my spare time in the damned library (which I secretly do quite enjoy, though if anyone asked me about it, I would undoubtedly complain that it is odious and repugnant and full of swotty bookworms), I haven't really had much time to devote towards pissing him off, even if I do enjoy it more than I ought to.

And so, on my way up to the Room of Requirement on this fine sunny Saturday afternoon, I naturally assume that it's him who's following me at first.

And then quickly realise it isn't.

The gait is all wrong. Too silent to be Potter – oh, he's quiet, alright, but most certainly not ghost-like, whispering around corners in such a way one would think he's a mere shadow. Oh, no.

It's her.

Messer.

I saw her in the Entrance Hall not a moment ago. She was gazing into the hourglasses that count the house points – a nifty piece of magic, really, that allows them to do that – and I just happened to be passing through as she was. Pure coincidence, I'm certain, but now she's following me and I don't know what to make of it. I doubt I'll be able to lose her, and if I do manage it then that would definitely tell her I'm aware of her presence. I have a feeling that by playing dumb and hapless around her I might remain a bit safer, appear as less of a threat. So no, I can't try to lose her and I most definitely can't lose her, which leaves only one more option.

Leading her right to my destination.

It's not as if she'll be able to get in.

The Room of Requirement is on the seventh floor, however, so I have to put up with her silent stalking for a considerable amount of time. I make it there eventually and walk past the wall thinking about my destination as is customary, if not a little quickly so as to get away from Messer as soon as possible. The door appears, and I grab the handle and enter into my newfound sanctuary with a sigh of relief.

And then I'm alone.

My intention for this afternoon was to work through quite a handy Charms book I found the other day. I've been tearing out a few pages at a time in the 'Furniture and Household' section of the tome to work through, before returning to the book in the library once done and magically replacing the sheets back into the binding so my reading habits can't be traced. It's tedious and downright vandalism, I know, but the last thing I want is for anyone to cotton on to what I'm trying to achieve (cough, cough Potter) through what I'm checking out.

The Cabinet itself sits a few aisles in at the end of the row. I head over there and remove the heavy blanket I have covering it, pulling the piece of furniture away from the wall by a few inches.

And then I stare at it dumbly.

I know what I need to do, but my thoughts are still working away at why Messer was following me. Why? The only thing I can think of is that she's at the school to kill me, but that doesn't make an awful lot of sense as she's shown no other indication that I'm her mark. She might just be curious – a reasonable thing to be, of course – but at what? What was it about my behaviour that incited that intrigue within her?

The Cabinet stares back at me unimpressed. My Dark Mark itches against my starched shirtsleeve, every brush of material against skin scolding me in warning. I hate the thing on my arm. Wait, no, hate is definitely too light of a word. I despise it. Detest it. It's a living abomination right there where I can see it, a constant reminder of who I belong to as if I'm some sort of pet, a glorified servant, rather than a human being with human emotions and aspirations. It's a brand. A deathwish and an ugly design to boot. I swear I can see it slither out of the corner of my eye sometimes too.

I never wanted this.

But this is what I got. The hand that life has dealt me. I suppose it's the huge backlog of bad karma catching up to me, and I can't deny that I deserve it for years of horrid and entitled behaviour towards everyone and everything that wasn't up to my father's standards.

And so all I can do is slump my shoulders in defeat and get to work on my task.

…

I've had enough after four hours.

I'm exhausted. Fucking exhausted. I don't think I have an iota of magic left in me I feel so drained, and I can only imagine what I look like. A check of my watch tells me it's dinnertime, but I know I'll only alert Potter and Messer and anyone else with their eye on me even more to the fact that I have something to hide if I attend. And besides, I don't think I can tolerate any conversation at the minute.

I decide to head back to the common room instead. I replace the Cabinet, turn off the music player I have on and slide my record back into its sleeve (a muggle record, bought the summer before last during an inquisitive escapade into the muggle world, and subsequently hidden here amongst the vast array of random items when I was informed the Dark Lord would be coming to stay at the Manor for the foreseeable future), and make to exit the room, opening the door and stepping back out into the seventh floor corridor.

And then halt.

I glance around. It's empty, but I don't feel alone. One of the shadows down an adjacent corridor looks off, misshapen, and the thought that Messer is there flashes across my mind.

But, surely, she's not?

She'd have had to either stick around for four long hours in wait or have left and then come back and, by chance, I hadn't left the Room of Requirement yet. Either way, the odds seem unlikely, especially considering I don't know for sure if it was Messer tailing me on my way up here, and so all I can do is exhale and start the journey to the dungeons, pace quick and hackles raised at the eery feeling that's settled within me.

I don't meet anyone on my way down there. The Great Hall is alive with chatter when I pass, but I don't even break stride as I do. A headache is forming behind my eyes, and I long to simply fall into bed and shut the world out until the morning, to put all of my worries on hold for at least a few hours.

The common room entrance arrives quickly, and I give the password and enter. The room itself is deserted, nothing save mahogany and upholstery and the fire in the grate staring back at me. It's unusual to be in here without at least a handful of eyes staring at me and talking about me – I find I can't normally enjoy the room, can't appreciate it properly, which I think is why, instead of heading to the boys dormitory and climbing into bed and pulling the wall of emerald curtains tightly around my four-poster like I've been thinking of doing all the way down here, I make my way to a nearby armchair, settling back into it and allowing the cushions to hold the weight of my weary body.

It's peaceful.

Until it's not.

The common room entrance shifts to open not long after I sit, and I frown. Dinner shouldn't be over yet – I doubt they've even served dessert by now.

And then Messer steps over the threshold.

She must have been there then, in that shadow. Must have been following me today. I can't see any other explanation for her presence here now.

Unless it's an awfully timed coincidence.

She moves across the room, swift and graceful as I'm now starting to learn is her way, but doesn't seem to have noticed me yet. I should leave her be, should remain silent and let her head to her dormitory and then make my way to my own to stew in solitude. Nothing good can come of speaking to her now, one-to-one, truly alone with each other for the first time ever.

But, even if I've never aligned with my family's beliefs, I've always had an antagonistic streak. Always been a wind-up merchant to the core.

So, before I know it, I'm drawling, "I'd be careful if I were you, wondering the castle alone."

The words aren't loudly spoken. They don't need to be, for they carry across the empty room rather well. I don't know quite how I'm expecting her to react (and, if I'm being completely honest, I don't know quite where the words themselves come from either, leaping out of my mouth before I can register that I've more or less implicitly told her I know she was following me earlier, and hence I'm suspicious of her), and I have to stop myself from leaning forward in my seat in anticipation.

If she's affected, she doesn't show it. Turning on her heel, she tucks her hands into her pockets and makes eye-contact with me. Unflinching. Almost bored.

She raises a brow. "And what dangers, exactly, lie within these walls?" she asks with a knowing glint.

My words, so quick and sharp on my tongue a moment ago, seem to evade me. I can't think of a reply. Not when she's stood right there, aloof and challenging and not once moving her firewhiskey orbs away from me. All I can think to do is smile at her. Not a genuine smile, though there is a small, insignificant, tiny part of me that does want to, but a predatory one. A darkly amused one. A completely and utterly fucking false one as I'm already starting to feel regret at catching her attention, at once feeling less like the predator I did when she entered the room and more like her prey.

Any minute now I'm sure she'll spin her web and I'll be a goner.

For added effect, I run my gaze down her form. Her shoulders are relaxed under her regulatory school v-neck, shirt and tie, the emerald colour matching perfectly with her skin tone – a reminder that she's an assassin, a killer, and a Slytherin, making something unnamed twist in my gut. Her black slacks hang perfectly from her slim waist, no wrinkle or crease despite that she may or may not have just been sat on the castle floor for four hours, and her feet don't shift atop the rug she's standing on, remaining as steady and unaffected as the rest of her.

Her poker face is impeccable. And, admittedly, gorgeous.

She starts to walk towards me. My heart hammers in my chest, so loud I'm surprised she doesn't hear it, as perceptive as she seems. Her steps are slow, tantalizing in that I have no idea what she's going to do next, and she bloody well knows it.

"Well?" Arachne prompts, shattering all thought that I might actually find her attractive. Likeable.

She's the enemy, for Salazar's sake.

"Is there a reason as to why you're missing dinner this evening?" I ask.

Arachne doesn't answer, smiling at me in a return gesture of my own not a moment ago, and that unnamed thing twists again. "I was roaming the castle, as one tends to do of a free afternoon, and got myself lost."

"Lost," I say. Slow and disbelieving. Shrewd.

"That's what I said."

And then she's moving again, this time to sit on the couch opposite me. She relaxes into the leather as if she's done it a thousand times – as if she belongs in this very room that, up until a couple of weeks ago, she'd never even laid eyes on – and runs her gaze up my form slowly. Another return gesture to one I gave her earlier.

I hate it.

It makes me feel vulnerable and naked. The expression in her eyes is so penetrating, as though she doesn't need me to tell her anything at all, that all of my secrets are laid bare in the open without me uttering a single word. It's uncomfortable. And the urge to shift in my seat is so strong that I have to check myself more than once not to squirm under her scrutiny. Her scrutiny which, now that I look closer, also holds something else – something strong and unreadable, almost-

"With all due respect, Messer, you and the word 'lost' just don't simply go together," I say, effectively cutting off my thoughts before they end up in places they should most definitely not be.

"Don't act like you know me, Malfoy," she shoots back without hesitation.

I raise a brow. "But what if I do?"

"Well, I would sat that whatever you think you know? Forget it."

She flashes her eyes in warning and, if it's possible my heart hammers even more loudly. Every self-preserving instinct in me screams to get away from this girl at the warning in her expression, all ease and sense of mild amusement from a moment ago gone.

But I've never known when to stop. Never not taken things farther than they ought to go.

And right now is no exception.

"And I would say that's impossible."

"Is that so?"

I smirk, not missing the way her eyes linger on my mouth before quickly zooming away to stare at something behind my head, which makes me smirk even wider purely from some baser instinct within me. Her eyes don't waver, jaw ticking slightly, but I find that she doesn't seem so scary anymore. So intimidating and unknowable and alien.

She's still human, after all.

I'm thinking over what to say next, what combination of words I could spin that would bring a pretty flush to her cheeks or make her look at me again the way she just did, guilty yet hungry, when the common room entrance opens and shatters the silence, students trickling in loudly.

Immediately, I'm brought back to my senses. What am I doing? What the fuck am I actually doing, baiting her in such a way and seeing how I can push her further, how much her self-control can last?

I can't ignore the notion that I still want to, even as Daphne, Pansy, Theo, and Blaise sit down around us.

"Why weren't you at dinner?" Daphne asks Arachne.

Credit to the latter, she doesn't flounder at all despite the charged atmosphere still hovering between her and myself as she responds, "I got lost." She glances at me pointedly and adds, "On the upper floors."

I narrow my eyes a touch, but she ignores it.

"You idiot," Daphne replies, and then says something else to her which I don't catch because I've zoned out.

Because the stares have started again.

I'm reminded precisely of why I didn't want to head into the Great Hall earlier, as several pairs of eyes don't even try to hide the fact that they're fixed on my bleach blond head. I know I'm hardly inconspicuous, but they could at least try to be somewhat furtive about it, and I uncomfortably force myself to remain in the armchair a little while longer for my friends' sake (since I've barely spent time with them, apart from maybe Blaise, since the term has started and I do feel both bad about it and like I'm sorely missing out on their company), before I can't take it anymore and push myself to my feet.

"I'm going to the dorm," I mutter to Blaise, who sends me a concerned look as he nods.

"Alright, mate. I'll come up in a bit."

"Sure."

I don't look at Arachne once as I leave the common room. For I fear of what'll happen to me if I do.

…