Dungeon Five Ch. 2
Draco was right about Pansy. She was completely livid when he said that he would have to cancel their usual Friday night hangout.
"And is there a reason for you to ditch me on our date night?" Pansy basically screeched as she went about collecting her clothes around his room. She put on each piece aggressively as if they had done something against her.
"The old fool assigned me the baby weasel for tutoring because of my last … conversation with Four Eyes." Draco stretched beneath his silk bedsheets and put a hand between his head and pillow to see the dark-haired girl better.
"So you're telling me"—she turned to him wearing only the bottom part of her uniform and a vicious glare, her stylish bob in complete disarray—"that you couldn't teach the red harlot any other day of the week?"
"Yes, Pansy." He sighed impatiently. "Our schedules didn't match this week."
"Your—" She huffed in disbelief. "Your schedules don't match! I'm your schedule!"
Draco winced at her screech and sat up in bed. "You're being unreasonable, Pans."
He saw her reaching for the pillow that he had used to prop her hips on minutes before and just barely managed to dodge as it was aimed straight at his head.
"I'm being unreasonable?" Pansy finished putting on her shirt and huffed angrily. "Do you even know what day this Friday is?"
By her expression, he was sure he was supposed to know, but try as he might, he couldn't remember anything important. "No," Draco said with a sigh, and got up to at least put his boxers on. He felt that this conversation was walking towards something that he didn't want to go through without any pants on.
"It's our anniversary, Draco!" She threw her hands in the air.
"Our anniversary is on the second, Pans." He turned to her after putting on his grey silk pyjama pants and was actually surprised to find tears in her eyes. Tears and Pansy weren't something that were supposed to be in the same sentence unless the sentence was: Pansy brought someone to tears.
"You don't count breaks! Our original anniversary has been the twenty-second ever since we were in fourth year, Draco!" She sniffed and something tugged on his chest at the sight of her. "Don't you care about me?"
"Stop blowing this out of proportion, love," Draco tried to reason with her. "You're my best friend. Of course I care about you. And, besides, I'll make it up to you."
He crossed the distance between them and took her face in his hands before pressing his lips to hers. Pansy leaned against him before her long fingers came to rest on his chest to push him slightly away.
"I can't keep doing this to myself," she whispered against his lips, almost as if to herself, and Draco finally had enough.
Ever since the end of fourth year, they had broken up and gotten back together at least seven times. It was always the same thing. Pansy got too overbearing, Draco lost his patience, they fought, broke up, hooked up with other people, and ended up back together a few weeks later. The thing was, they really were best friends and the sex was good. It was hard to remember sometimes that they weren't actually together. Falling into bed again was easy.
She pushed him away completely and turned her back to him.
"What the fuck, Pansy?"
She already had her bag in her hands and her feet almost out the door when she turned around with tear tracks on her tanned cheeks. "We're over, Draco." Her voice was kind of hoarse and the look in her eyes wasn't one he'd ever seen before.
Draco could only watch as the door closed behind her. This didn't feel like all the other times they'd broken up. Those had always happened with lots of screams and things thrown around. And Pansy had never looked as heartbroken as she had just a few minutes before.
With a sigh, he made a beeline for his bathroom. What he needed in that moment was a very hot shower.
.
It was dinner Friday night and Pansy had yet to speak to him. There was no obvious attempts at getting his attention, like usual. No subtle glances and not so subtle touches. Draco wouldn't go as far as to say that he was worried, but things surely weren't going as he thought they would.
He sat in front of Blaise and tried not to frown when he saw her sitting with Daphne a few seats down without even looking at him.
"You two broke up again?" his friend asked, unworried as he twirled some pasta.
Draco hummed but said nothing else. He was about to go back to his dinner when movement from the Gryffindor table caught his attention. The She-Weasel was making her way out of the Great Hall. One look at his watch showed that he was cutting it close on the time, so he went about drinking the rest of his pumpkin juice and got his things ready to go.
"Do you need to be somewhere?" Blaise raised an eyebrow at him.
"As a matter of fact, I do." Draco nodded at the cinnamon-skinned boy and left it at that.
He followed several paces behind the redhead and in no time at all they were in Dungeon Five.
"Are you going to keep on following me like a creep?" Weasley asked when they entered the office, without even looking at him.
Draco scoffed. "I wasn't following you. We were heading in the same direction."
The girl shot him a look when she put her things on the table and sat down on the chair she had used on their first meeting.
"What?" he said. "Would you prefer we left the Great Hall together?" He sat down across from her, and she snorted.
"Not yet." She shrugged. "But if we're going to the same place, it makes sense to walk together, right?"
"Not yet?" He ignored her question.
"Well..." She winced a bit. "Ron doesn't know yet."
"Ah." Draco smirked. "Would the Big Twit be angry?"
"Don't call him that!"
He leaned against the back of the chair and raised an eyebrow at her. "Why didn't you tell him?"
"Ron would make a big deal out of this, and I honestly don't need the extra drama in my life." Weasley opened the book he'd recommended she get.. "This book is really well-written."
"Hmm." Draco nodded, allowing her to change the subject. "If you cross reference using that with the ingredients in the potions you're having problems with, your life will be much easier. When is your next assignment due?"
He watched as she bit the end of her quill and tried not to scowl at how unsanitary it looked.
"Next Thursday." She frowned at the book in front of her as if it was Slughorn himself.
"Right." He briefly looked at her before opening up his own homework ."Start it right now. Only a simple sketch of where you want to take it. I'll help you from there."
And for the next hour, the only sounds were from their quills on the parchment and her occasional nibbling.
"Uh, Malfoy?"
He looked up from his notes, almost startled, and saw that she was bitting her lower lip uncertainly.
"I think I'm done."
"You think?" He challenged with a raised eyebrow and dry tone of voice.
"I am finished." She frowned confrontationally at him before shoving her parchment in his direction.
Draco smoothed it out and started reading. And proceeded to have his mind blown. Who the fuck knew Baby Weasel was hiding some brains behind that garish red head of hers?
He could understand now why she had trouble with Potions. It was a pretty straightforward subject: you follow a recipe and get an expected result, and if you don't, you screw up. But the thing was, there was little space for critical thinking and experimenting and that, apparently, was where the Gryffindor in front of him seemed to be particularly skilled. The essay was on the different possibilities that could come if one or two ingredients were changed in the potions they'd studied so far that year, and it looked like she had sound foundation for how to write it.
"This looks good," he said at last. "Not at all work from someone who is failing Potions."
"Yeah." She huffed in annoyance to try and hide the satisfaction on her face. "The thing is I'm bad at brewing potions."
"There's a recipe." He looked incredulously at her. "It's just like cooking. You follow the instructions and get the results."
"Yeah, well, the last time I tried to cook anything, I managed to scorch the kitchen wall." She crossed her arms over her chest.
Draco looked at her in amusement before handing her essay back and directing her on where to find the information she would need to get at least an Exceeds Expectations. They worked in surprisingly companionable silence for a while before their two hours were up.
"Can we agree on Wednesday afternoon?" He asked casually while putting his things away.
"Yeah." She tightened her ponytail and turned to him. "Is three okay?"
They started walking out of the classroom.
"That's fine."
They didn't pause in the hallway outside, each taking their different paths as Weasley called without looking back, "See you."
.
It was finally Saturday and Draco wanted nothing more than to head to whatever party the students had come up with and get shit-faced drunk. Pansy breaking up with him had taken away the easy sex from his night, but maybe he could woo some other girl when he got there.
Blaise and him went together, as usual, to one of the abandoned towers where there were lots of rooms and lots of space for dancing. They were instantly bombarded with the loud bass of some Weird Sisters song when they crossed the magical sound barrier.
Today, it was mostly the older students, and it seemed that his and Blaise's "fashionably late" style had been borderline "you got here too late and everybody else is drunk or passed out". No matter. He could see a big table in the corner filled with drinks, and that's where he was headed.
Draco quickly downed three shots of some subpar firewhisky before pouring a generous cup and nursing it slowly. He turned around to offer Zabini some, but ended up getting a free show of his friend's abs as a sixth-year Ravenclaw snogged him senselessly and eagerly bunched Blaise's shirt up in his grasp.
Well, that was fast.
Sometimes, Draco envied his friend's bisexuality. In every party, he was always the first one to hook up, but this had been just ridiculous.
He rolled his eyes at the scene and went to mingle. Two glasses later and he saw Lizzie Chambers, a Chaser for the Ravenclaw team, and someone who had graced his sheets once. She immediately smiled at him when their eyes connected and started to make her way towards him.
Or tried to.
It was clear by the way she was walking that she'd had way too much to drink. Draco was halfway there, though, so when she finally caught up to him and leaned against him suggestively, it was pretty easy to slant his mouth over hers and weave his free hand through her hair.
It wasn't exactly a bad kiss. Not really. It was actually pretty nice. Her tongue was warm against his as she pressed her breasts against his chest and her lips were just full enough so he could enjoy nibbling. The thing was, the brunette in his arms was bloody drunk, and he had no desire for a lay that the girl wouldn't even remember in the morning. So he parted their lips, took her to a sofa nearby, and conjured a glass of water for her before leaving.
Suddenly, the music was too loud and the place too small for so many people. He had no idea why, but he needed to get out of there. After grabbing a bottle from the table, he headed for the hallways where the rooms were and tried to find one unlocked.
The third one on his right had the door ajar, so Draco peered inside to assess the situation. What he saw made his jaw drop.
There was Ginny Weasley on top of one of the Gryffindor Beaters, with his hand up her skirt. And she had no shirt on.
For a short while his brain seemed to have short-circuited, but then it was over and he was suddenly just taking everything in. The way her neck arched when whatshisface sucked on it and exposed that one beauty mark he'd seen during their first lesson was fascinating. Her skin was smooth and barely tanned and a few freckles danced on the very top of her shoulders. The purple bra she was wearing hugged the modest curve of her breasts perfectly, and her lips parted with the most sensual of sighs as the boy's dark hands brought her skirt up with them.
It was as if Weasley had been electrocuted, because suddenly she was on her feet, shaking her head and saying something along the lines of, "Sorry, this can't happen," but Draco couldn't be sure. He was already halfway down the hall back to the party, not exactly running, but pretty close to it.
He didn't stop until he reached the Head Boy's quarters, and even then his heart was still racing in his chest.
