A/N: Thank you so much to reviewers! I love you all. Early February. Draco gets yelled at, and discovers what is wrong with his backside. Lmao. Yay! I fixed my disclaimer. WOOP.
Disclaimer: I am not lucky enough to be as smart enough as to invent these characters myself. They are not mine. Too bad. –pout-
The Stone Speaks
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Of Butts and Of Pumpkin Juice
DRACO
Twisting. Turning. Hot. Cold. Fresh air. Stuffy. Get out… get out…Needed… Writhing in his bedsheets like they were something evil. Draco could barely breathe – his eyes were rolled up inside his head, half-trying to block out what was going on in his brain, half-wanting to see..
"Imperius!'' roared a voice in Draco's head, and then suddenly every single one of his thoughts disappeared, replaced by blissful ignorance. Let go of the fight. Look back at me. Draco obediently stared into his brain, and saw Lord Voldemort's gleaming red eyes.
"Master," said Draco simply, and then the ignorance left. Fear constricted his heart as he realized that the Dark Lord was in his head, and he hastened to hide memories of him and Ginny. "What is it that you wish?"
"What do you think?" snarled Lord Voldemort, and he slammed his palms down onto a desk; the vision of it made Draco's head swim. "I want the Stone of Montol, Malfoy, and I want it now… you have had five months to get it! I trusted you, Malfoy, and when you said that you were weakening her, I trusted you! But no-one, no-one, Malfoy, takes this long to weaken!"
"Except you, my Lord," said Bellatrix Lestrange's voice hurriedly, always the first to kiss up to the Dark Lord.
Lord Voldemort glared at her, and then returned an icy stare to Draco. "Well, Malfoy? What have you to say for yourself?" he demanded. "Or do you merely bask in your own shame?"
It was hard to speak, but Draco forced the words out. "My… my Lord. She… she is strong. Don't you remember …that girl you possessed… a few years back? They are the … the same person! She is stronger than you would think, my Lord … but she is weak, I promise you, weak!" he gasped out. "Please. More… more time."
The Dark Lord glowered. "I honestly don't know why I put up with you," he said, and raised his wand…
"No!" cried Professor Snape, rising from his seat. "Malfoy is a disrespectful, arrogant toad, my Lord, but do not harm him. He may prove useful." Draco and Snape both knew that the part-time Death Eater, part-time Potions master, was lying – Draco had to be kept safe for his mother's Unbreakable Vow, or Snape would die.
"Go on," said Lord Voldemort coldy, inspecting Snape through hard, soulless eyes.
Snape's lip curled. "The girl is close to Potter," he explained, "and if, while Malfoy is weakening the girl, he could perhaps," he smirked, "weasel," a special emphasis, "some information about Potter out of her."
Lord Voldemort regarded Severus Snape for a moment, before smirking cruelly. "Excellent idea, Snape," he said silkily. "I like the way you think." He looked back into Draco's head. "Very well then. I expect fortnightly updates on what is going on with the girl and what Potter is doing. Should you miss these meetings, I shall be very…" Lord Voldemort's eyes narrowed, "displeased," (Draco gulped), "do I make myself perfectly clear?"
Draco nodded, and then he was hurled back onto his bed, his brain whirling around inside his skull, and his eyes feeling as though they had been pushed far back inside his head and then allowed to pop forwards again. "Eurgh," he moaned, grabbing feverishly at his forehead. "Please get him another method of talking…" Draco slumped forwards and mumbled into his pillow, "What went wrong with good old Floo Powder?"
As it happened, a lot had gone wrong with 'good old Floo Powder'. Draco walked down to breakfast the next morning, only to be welcomed by a half-empty Great Hall. The ones who remained were either being reprimanded for being loud, or were talking mournfully amongst themselves.
"Where is everyone?" Draco wondered aloud, and sank into the nearest space. Luckily he was spare the daily awkward shuffling between people as they all glared at him, due to the fact that the Slytherin table was nearly empty. He grabbed some bacon and a bagel – there was no competition for it. The whole thing was very surreal. Draco looked over his shoulder and saw Sanchia with a few friends at the Hufflepuff table. "Sanchia," he called.
Sanchia smiled, whispered excitedly to her friends, and then rose, sweeping towards the Slytherin table. "Hello," she whispered huskily, with a flirtatious grin, "I haven't seen you in a while."
"What's happening? Where is everyone?" Draco asked, patting the seat beside him for her to sit down, getting some more bacon and eggs.
Sanchia cast a grin towards her friends, and then sat down beside him, taking a strawberry from the fruit platter. "A Death Eater Flooed into Aberforth Dumbledore's house while a Ministry inspection was going on this morning," she said simply; Draco paled. She continued, not seeing his stricken expression, "so naturally, everyone's gone to see. There are – allegedly, of course – Ministry officials unconscious left, right and centre… and one of them was killed. Everyone wants a good look before they're carted away. Umbridge is there, so a few people are planning to write 'bitch' on her face."
Draco snorted, an appreciative smile on his thin lips, and he was going to say more to Sanchia when he noticed a very strange look on her face. She was looking at him intently, her chin resting in her hands… almost gazing dreamily at him. It was quite unnerving to have a girl two years younger stare at him like that, and, for want of something to do so that he wouldn't have to talk to her, Draco reached across for the jug of pumpkin juice and poured some.
She was still staring.
Draco sipped at his pumpkin juice, savouring the fact that, without eighty percent of the Hogwarts students, no-one had spiked it or cursed it. Good old pumpkin juice, always could be relied on through thick and thin.
…
Why was she still staring?!
"Do you want some?" demanded Draco finally, getting annoyed at the never-ending blink, blink, blink, blink, sigh, blink, blink. He was being harsh, but it was irritating him greatly.
Sanchia looked taken-aback. Then she smiled, baring neat, even white teeth, tossing back some of her wavy hair, and, making sure to flutter her eyelashes, said, "Yes, please." Draco smiled at this; she was so different to Ginny. Ginny would just barge into him and snatch the jug of juice. He chuckled to himself, and poured her some into a nearby goblet.
"You're such a gentleman, Draco," Sanchia purred, observing him with twinkling grey eyes over the top of her goblet. She looked up at him through her thick eyelashes. "These days, gentlemen are really hard to find."
"No doubt you'll manage, though," Draco said dryly. He was revelling in his luck at how much breakfast he could get, and was helping himself to a large portion of warm pancakes.
"Oh, trust me, I have," Sanchia said, smiling seductively at him. She, without warning, threw her head sideways to look back at the Hufflepuff table, brown waves flying out at Draco so that he sat back promptly to avoid being hit by them. She then slowly looked back, pulling at one semi-formed chestnut curl wistfully. "I gotta go," she pouted, her eyelashes batting repeatedly for every syllable. "Talk to you later, 'kay?"
"Er," said Draco.
"Coolness," she replied, stood, and then, curling her hand and fluttering her fingers at him in a cute hand-wave, "see ya." Sanchia winked at him, before launching off towards her table, her skirt (far shorter than anyone else's, Draco noticed) swinging. She dropped down delicately beside her friends and began to whisper to them delightedly.
Unaware that he even wanted to know what they were saying, Draco leaned closer to eavesdrop.
"Ohmigod, Sanchia, what did you do?"
"Calm down, Louise. I just… played it cool." Yeah right.
"How can you 'play it cool' with him? He's so hot!" Draco's eyes shot up into his hair. Sorry, come again?
"I love his hair." Draco involuntarily put a hand to his head, feeling his white-blonde tresses.
"Shut it, girls. I just think he's really nice -"
"And hot!"
"-Karen! Please! Restrain yourself!" Sanchia's voice came louder, before dropping again. "I just think that he's really nice. Remember, at the Yule Ball, he helped me up? I feel so embarrassed that I thought he was only sixteen!"
Draco grumbled. Yeah, so am I. He rolled his eyes.
"You did what? He is no way sixteen. I would have probably thought he was eighteen or something."
"No, stupid, because then he wouldn't be at the school."
"Oh yeah…"
"So you only like him because he's nice."
"Yeah."
"…"
"Okay, and he's sort of cute."
"SORT OF?" one of the other girls screeched; a blonde girl who Draco did not know to have ever seen before at Hogwarts.
"Okay, okay! He's hot!"
Feeling extremely uncomfortable, Draco snatched up his schoolbag and stood. The instant his rear left the bench, the Hufflepuff girls' chatter hushed. He made his way to the Great Hall door quickly, but he still could not escape one last lingering comment that would haunt him for the rest of the day:
"Will you look at that butt?"
Draco sprinted up to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom and slammed himself in. "Myrtle!" he cried, dropping his bag on the tiles. She didn't come out in one second… two… two and a half… he ran to the mirror, hitched up his robes, and inspected the back of his trousers. "What the hell?"
Myrtle floated out. "You seem rather distressed," she commented. "What's wro- Draco. What the hell are you doing?" she asked flatly; he was now peering at his backside in the mirror, a worried look on his face.
Draco reddened. "Some girls in the Great Hall," he said nervously, glancing behind him incase they had followed him and were listening behind the door – or something equally ridiculous, "said something about my arse."
Myrtle stared at him.
Draco stopped and tried to contemplate what he would do if Ginny or Myrtle came running up to him, complaining, "some boys in the Great Hall said something about my arse". He would probably laugh. And then laugh some more. Staring at him was actually being very considerate of Myrtle. Draco turned red.
"Sorry, tell me again what the hell you were doing?" Myrtle asked, her eyes narrowing suspiciously behind her thick glasses. "Was it actually something important, or were you just gazing at your own bottom because you felt like it?"
Draco held out his hands in a weren't-you-listening kind of way. "Some girls," he said, very slowly, "said something about my arse. I would like to know what is wrong with it."
Myrtle bit back a snigger. Putting on a very serious expression, she offered, "Turn around, then, and I'll give you my judgement on it." She folded her arms, and looked at him expectantly, eyebrows slightly raised.
Draco's face gained a lot of colour, and, feeling extremely stupid, turned around. It felt very strange knowing that a ghost was checking out his bum. "Well?" he croaked, discomfited.
Myrtle sighed. "Put your robes back on, Draco," she said, "we need to have a serious talk."
Bewildered, Draco slid his robes over his shoulders and swivelled to face the fifteen-year-old ghost. "What?"
"Now, I'm not sure if anyone has ever explained this to you before," Myrtle said, struggling to keep a straight face, "but, when boys and girls get to a certain age, they begin to get attracted to each other and -"
"Myrtle!" Draco cried, mouth open. "I'm not a total retard!"
"You had me fooled," said a deadpan female voice, and a redhead stepped from, as always, the shadows.
"Ginny – you are not helping," Draco snapped, scowling at her. He fixed his stormy gaze next on the ghost beside him. "Myrtle – I'm not stupid. Get to the point. Fast."
Myrtle rolled her eyes at Ginny, as if to say oh isn't he so melodramatic? She then continued, "My point is, Draco, that those girls weren't looking at your," she coughed delicately, "behind," she raised an eyebrow, "because they found anything wrong with it – on the contrary, they found a lot right with it."
Now Draco stared at MyrtleThe game had switched players. "What?" he exclaimed, nonplussed.
Ginny sorted it out quickly. "A girl was checking out Draco's arse?" she said incredulously. Something unreadable crossed her face, but Draco dismissed it, and turned on Myrtle.
"Myrtle, you're joking, right?" he spluttered. "Who would – but – why –" he gasped. "Sanchia was hitting on me!"
Ginny frowned. "Sanchia? I thought she was that sweet Spanish girl in her fifth-year. She's really smart; she's doing her Charms NEWTS this year, two years early, and then spending her last two years on a crash course for Disguise and Concealment so
that she can be an Metamorphagus," she said.
Myrtle blinked behind her thick spectacles. "How do you know?" she asked interestedly.
"Myrtle! Ginny! I don't care! The point is, why was she checking me out?" Draco interrupted. "She doesn't fancy me or anything."
Myrtle and Ginny exchanged incomprehensible looks.
Draco stepped back suspiciously. "You've given each other the Girl Look," he said, "what do you know that I don't? What girl thing that I don't know about is going on here?"
Myrtle and Ginny whispered for a moment, reminding Draco, and making him uncomfortable, of Sanchia and her friends. Then, they turned, and Myrtle said, "Sanchia fancies you." It was flat, frank and to-the-point.
And it made Draco gag on his own spit.
"Ohmigod, are you some kind of social retard?" asked Myrtle, mouth slightly open in a mixture of disgust and anxiety. "I really worry what would have happened if she told you."
Draco knew that Myrtle couldn't pound him on the back to help him regain his breath, but Ginny could, and she was just standing there, regarding him with large, oddly accusatory, hazel eyes. "Don't mind me – while I… die…" Draco choked out, grabbing the sink before his knees buckled.
"You'll live," said Ginny dully. Then, with the most angry, tempestuous look in her eyes that Draco had ever seen, she said, "I have to go," and swept from the bathroom.
Draco collapsed against the sink and whacked his head on the tap. "Ow!" he cried, kneeling and holding his temple tenderly. "Ow. That was stupid. Very, very stupid." Staggering to his feet and coughing a little to clear his windpipe, Draco said with a chuckle, "That went well. Where did Ginny go?"
Myrtle was staring at him with a you are totally hopeless expression evident in her eyes. "You have no idea, do you?" she asked heavily. When Draco only blinked at her, baffled, she sighed, and returned to her toilet cubicle.
"Why is everyone either acting like I'm stupid or incredibly handsome today?" Draco said wearily. "I don't want either – I just want everyone to treat me normally."
"Well, until you wise up," came Myrtle's voice, echoing from inside her cubicle, "that's not very likely to happen."
"What's that supposed to mean?" said Draco, more confused than ever; but Myrtle did not respond, and the flummoxed young Slytherin was forced back out into the world of extremely mystifying force of nature known as women.
A/N: Haha. I love this chapter. It's soo funneh… well I think so. XD Please review! (if you do I'll give you cookies –brandishes plate of cookies-)