One afternoon during fifth year, before the madness, Draco had been sitting by the Quidditch pitch plotting revenge for some slight and he'd overheard three girls talking about the scorned paramour charm. They said you pressed your hand against it and it'd set you up with someone to get even. They giggled, it was just the thing for a boy to get back at a girl who had been caught kissing another boy in the stacks. Their eyes were gleaming and they were hunched into each other almost whispering.

"You'll get a fantastic lover, someone experienced, " one of the girls said knowledgeably, "He'll do things to you," she paused just at the edge of her imagination, and then "you won't just even the score, you'll be free from the shackles of your - drag of a boyfriend -"

"It almost makes me wish, Roger - "

"You're such a slag."

"What about that Viktor, though, how do I sign up to comfort him?"

Hermione burst out from behind the stands, shouldered past the snickering girls with her ears blazing red.

The laughter died when Draco stepped into the place Hermione had just fled. He said, "so, there is an erotic matchmaking charm for spurned - spurned girls who needs a comfort grind," he smiled menacingly, "where is it?"

He followed the map and pretended it wouldn't bother him in the least if the pavilion he'd never seen was a snow cave. He walked the familiar garden and thought about choices and how he didn't have any longer. He thought about how when she smiled tremulously at Potter and Weasley it fixed everything. He wished -

Without noticing he'd reached a heavy wooden door with an entwined couple carved in exquisite detail. Beside it was another, less expert, carving, something which could be found by the dozen on the oak by the lake. A D and H divided by a jagged line were framed by a heart. Draco tried to face it but it made him cringe and blush so hard he had to cover it with his hand. He didn't know why he had made it and all attempts to remove it had failed.

He stood there and hesitated with his hand covering his shameful outburst, but eventually his promise to be a weapon, to provide comfort and expert fumbling in the dark, drove him on.

It was a lovely room, tall bookcases, large windows - it was only just after supper, but deep winter and dark and the moon was falling through the window over the tables and floor. There were chairs for work, and others for reading by the fireplace. It looked like a study. It was warm, gently lit by the moon and the fire and there was hot tea. He sat down, took a cup and tried not to be too relieved.

The mantle of the fireplace was carved with embracing figures. When he turned his eyes elsewhere, he found the bookshelves crowded with cheerful couples, triples, foursomes - he stopped counting - caught by the carver in moments which seemed implausible. He realised with a start his armrests were carved as well and stuffed his hands in his pockets. He was about to carefully peruse the contents of the shelves when he heard her outside. She hesitated for a long time. A clock ticked. He stood, frozen with his back to the door. When she finally opened the door, the creak of the hinges barely masked his noisy inhale.

The door fell closed behind Hermione. She took in the room, his body twisting out of the chair, moving to meet her.

His face.

"Why is it you?"

Draco hoped, irrationally, that she wouldn't have noticed the initials and the heart, but it didn't matter, did it? His mouth fell open in mock surprise, and said, "Granger? Well, this is unexpected."

She fled - he was sure of it - she didn't leave, she had fled.

And he couldn't catch his breath, he pressed his hands against his chest, fell heavily onto his knees. Dizzy, nauseous and terrified, he occluded, his breaths slowed, and eventually, he was able to slump onto one of the chairs.

Every Tuesday, the gentle tugging reminded Draco of his commitment. He'd covered the artfully decorated table with a scroll and was doing his homework in front of the fire when he heard the door creak behind him. She was tiny, and her hair was big and wild, and her eyes were wild too.

He was trying to get up, and his heart was racing, and he knew she would smell like juniper berries and taste like the apple pie they had had just moments ago. Her lips were wet and her mouth slightly open, and he focused hard on the slightly undone tie above her rapidly rising and falling chest.

"Granger?"

"Draco -" Something squeezed in his stomach. Her voice was hoarse, and then she stepped into him. He couldn't remember when she had come so close. She tilted her head back and slid her hands up his chest. Her pupils were huge, and her lips were red, and the flesh on his neck turned to goosebumps when her fingers reached the exposed skin by his collar.

"Granger?"

Draco was shaking. He imagined tasting the apples on her lips; his body was aching with the need of it, but she was looking at him like he wasn't there, and when she said his name again, it wasn't his name at all. She pressed against him, yanked his head toward her.

The charm, he thought, what was it for?

He grabbed her shoulders, pushed her away, almost got caught by her dark eyes staring at him like he was someone else. She squeezed his arms, ran her fingers along the shapes of his muscles. Even through the layers of robes and cardigan and undershirt, he knew he had always wanted to be touched like that. When he refused to let go, and she couldn't get any closer, she lifted her chest and undulated slowly to show off the curves of her breasts and the outline of her hips.

"Granger!"

He shoved her against the wall, out of reach, and took the moment before she started moving toward him again to slip his wand out of his sleeve. It reflected the light from the fire dully during the short arch and stab, "purgare!"

She stopped with her left hip in an exaggerated sway toward him, her hands pressed against the sides of her breasts. He turned away as her eyes grew wide with mortification. "It won't last long, Granger, maybe 15 minutes. Please wait here while I get an antidote. I will stun you when I get back, I promise."

He left. He wiped the back of his hand across his eyes angrily and ran toward the dungeons.

Holding her petrified body, he ungently upended the vial into her mouth. "Finite incantatem." She flopped onto the floor. At the fireplace, Draco grabbed his bag and filled it with books. He broke the quill and spilt the ink, but he didn't care. He didn't look at her when he left. The door slid closed without a sound behind him.

Humiliated and paranoid every time he heard someone laugh, he stalked the castle, viciously pouncing on every easy target. He'd just sent a first year Ravenclaw crying when Luna floated around the corner.

"What the fuck, Luna? Can you stop doing that!"

"You are standing in a puddle," she said blithely. It hurts, he thought, it hurts. It must have shown on his face because she looked at him kindly. "The fairies are wonderful, don't you think? Their magic is marvellous. My father doesn't want to write about it, though; he says it isn't real." She frowned.

"Why -"

"No one knows anything about faerie magic," she continued distractedly; she was slowly floating toward the balcony. Draco was unaccountably disappointed and angry, but why would she know anything? She was just Loonie Lovegood. She was hovering over the railing when he noticed and yelled and grabbed for her, and they landed hard on the stone floor. He looked up to see two Hufflepuffs with their mouths hanging open.

"For fuck's sake, Luna, get a grip."

"She's afraid of you."

Draco kicked the blue puddle and left the crazy witch in a pile on the floor. He wanted to hunt more first years, but there were other things he had to do, things more important than this charm, but he was going to have to figure out how to undo it before the tugging, and the ache drove him mad.

Followed by decidedly disgruntled Crabbe and Goyle, he strode purposefully up a set of stairs and then another, "mudblood," he chanted spitefully, "mudblood, mudblood." And he made sure his voice carried just far enough as he passed her, because that's what he really thought of her.