~.~.~.~.~

Congratulations on your win, I wrote after the first big Quidditch match of the season. Slytherin had trounced Ravenclaw. You were brilliant. You make flying seem effortless.

I hadn't expected a reply tonight, assuming Draco would be busy elsewhere, especially after the look Parkinson had given him in the common room when he'd sauntered in like a hero in Quidditch leathers, but to my delight, letters appeared on the paper a few moments later.

Perhaps someday I'll take you for a real trip into the clouds, sans broom. Would you like that?

I'm afraid to fly, I admitted. Never mastered the art. Like a snake, I prefer to keep my feet on the ground.

Snakes don't have feet.

I giggled. You're impossible.

And you're improbable. What a pair we make.

Improbable?

What did that mean?

One in a million. A girl after my own heart. You're intelligent, beautiful, ambitious, and look hot in Slytherin green. A few moments later, he added, You're a dreamer successfully navigating Maev's Court of Nightmares. Respect.

I thought, perhaps, he was referring to our previous discussion last week regarding my life goals outside of this place, how I'd planned to someday work at the Ministry and re-write its laws to benefit all people, not just elites. I'd explained to him that I was walking a tightrope in terms of being allowed to stay at Hogwarts to finish my education so I could achieve those long-term goals, and had thus denied the instinct to utterly destroy Parkinson and her croaking toadies.

You mean Parkinson's castle of cruelty.

Same diff. Still, you're a shining star in my otherwise bleak existence, Granger. Life is better when you're around. You are my salvation.

My heart did a funny little flip in my chest.

Charmer, I accused.

Can't help it. You're a pretty female, I'm a horny man.

Pig.

We males are horrible creatures, aren't we?

Yes, most of them were.

Some of them, I was beginning to realise, were tolerable, however.

~.~.~.~.~

Perhaps it hadn't been the best idea to accept an invitation to the annual Yule Ball from the boy I'd been tutoring since the beginning of November, but no one else had asked and I hadn't wanted to skip such an event, nor go it alone. It was the final big event of the winter term, and I really just wanted to fit in a bit and not end up as 'the lonely bookworm' that Parkinson had labeled me.

Around the same time as I'd started to actually believe that Malfoy's flirtations might not just be a series of jests, I'd had a startling revelation: I'd been allowing my mother's ghost to drive me right out of enjoying my teenage years. Logically, I realised, it was quite possible to still attain my life's ambitions and enjoy myself while doing so. I didn't have to sacrifice one for the other.

After a conversation on the matter with Draco, where I'd confessed every awkward thing about my relationship with my parents to him, he'd made the comment that if I didn't want to end up just like my mother—a bitter, old woman desperately trying to relive her dull life through her daughter—then I'd better get on the train before it left the station.

I'd determined him right in this instance, and that was how I'd ended up agreeing to come to the ball as Ronald Weasley's date.

Gryffindor's Quidditch Keeper was a nice enough specimen for his gender. He was funny, had pretty hair, was easy-going, and was quite fit. He was also blunt, a quality distinctly lacking in Slytherin house. However, while those were all nice attributes to have, it appeared they were trivial in my mind when measured up against such important traits as attentiveness, intelligence, maturity, and fidelity.

As I stood on the side of the dance floor, watching Ron across the room as he chatted up his housemate, Lavender Brown, it took everything in me to remember not to draw my wand and start casting curses. Finding myself out on the street without my educational degree should I attack fellow students in a fit of rage was probably right out.

Ron said something that made Brown's eyelashes flutter and her generous mouth part with a flirty laugh. Clearly, she was interested in ruggedly handsome looks over stimulating conversation.

I was beginning to regret having so speedily agreed to Ron's request to accompany him tonight so as not to appear a lonely cat lady. "No offense, Crooks," I quickly added in my mind, hoping my familiar hadn't caught my stray thought.

I felt his grumbling in my head, despite the fact he was currently nestled in a comfy chair in Slytherin's common room, stationed in front of a window to watch the lake's fish swimming by. "That ginger git reminds me of one of my hairballs after a particularly rough night out," he said. "Ditch him. Go find your friend, Malfoy. He's worthy of your time, Mistress Mine."

I frowned. Draco hadn't made any overture regarding tonight and us coming together, and I understood why: because Parkinson would expect him to take her. Still, a part of me had been hoping that he'd tell his blackmailer to take a long dive off a short cliff and ask me to accompany him. When he hadn't, I'd felt a little hurt, I could admit.

And whenever I was hurt, I tended to become snide and defensive… "You mean the blond git who'd rather show up to an important public function with a blackmailing harlot on his arm than me, the outcast of Slytherin House? That friend?"

"You're not giving him enough credit," Crooks chided me. "He's trying to protect you."

"I don't need his protection," I growled back. "Besides, he's all wrong for someone like me. He's superficial, intentionally infuriating-"

"-and gorgeous enough to set your heart racing," Crooks reminded me.

"-and much too cunning for my tastes. No, thank you," I primly informed my cat.

I could feel Crooks' amusement. "And here I'd thought you were the type to admire cleverness." I could feel him yawn and stretch as if this conversation had taken up entirely too much time out of his napping period already and needed to be cut short soon. "Just as well. As you said, he services the dog-faced witch, and who wants someone so easily commanded by the likes of her?"

Yes, quite right. Malfoy had that awful woman's germs crawling all over him, and who wanted to catch a virulent case of Parkinson parasites?

I watched, incensed, as Ron passed off to Miss Brown the drink he'd been sent to fetch for me earlier. He'd given my drink to another woman, one making cow-eyes at him and who clearly had zero respect for my status as his date to tonight's event.

Circe's tit, could this night get any worse?

A lovely slow song began to play. Setting their drinks aside, Ron led Lavender out onto the dance floor.

"Apparently so," my familiar snarked.

Humiliated, I resigned the entire night to just another prank, and with a resigned sigh, I cast my eyes to the ceiling and prayed for salvation from my horribly awful, terribly doomed first date. Specifically, I prayed for someone to stop me from casting an Unforgivable at Ronald Weasley and Lavender Brown and Pansy Parkinson, and everyone else who had ever made my life hell since I'd come to this school, thus settling the issue here and now that trifling with me came with dire consequences.

Please anyone, if you're out there listening, save me from myself!

Malfoy was suddenly standing next to me and his hand appeared before me, palm open and waiting. "You would not walk out with me before," he said with an impish smile, "but perhaps you'll dance with me now?"

Ever since Samhain night, I'd been unable to get him out of my head. What we'd nearly done that night had haunted my waking fantasies ever since. The memory of how he'd reacted under my caresses, of the sounds he'd made as I'd aroused him, of the way he'd explored the curves of my face as if he was tracing a masterpiece had turned my mind to mush. It was as if some barrier I'd resolved to maintain all my life against physical intimacy with a male had simply crumbled under the heat of his gaze and his soft, but possessive touch.

I didn't like it, didn't like how thoughts of that night disturbed my studies and shook my concentration, didn't like how out of control those memories sometimes made me feel when I huddled under my covers at night and practised the art of self-exploration. Most especially, I didn't like that I was becoming a ninny over a man, whether his name was Ronald Weasley or Draco Malfoy!

Forcibly, I kept my hands at my side and replied, "I'm sitting this one out," to Draco's offer to dance.

He came around to my side, dressed once more all in black, this time in dress robes. His wings were hidden, of course, but I knew they were there, just behind his back, concealed in the ether. "May I know why I am being rejected again?" he politely asked. He gave me the once-over. "Surely the beautiful Persephone could spare a moment of her time for us lowly mortals."

I snorted, but was flattered nonetheless that he'd compare me to one of my favourite mythological figures. "The Goddess of Spring I am not, although I am impressed you at least understand the differences in ancient world fashions." I pulled the skirt of my dress out to the side and looked at it. "The next person who refers to me as a 'Roman reject' gets a firm boot to the head. How anyone could mistake a Greek design for a Roman one... Heathens." I glanced over at him, noting how handsome he appeared in his formal wear. "Whereas you, well, you've got the funerary-pale look down pat and…" I pantomimed a set of flapping wings with my hands. "So if we're having a mythological look-alike contest, I'd say you're more like Hades, King of the Underworld."

He grabbed his chest as if I'd shot him with an arrow. "Surely, you meant Hermes, the handsome and sly winged messenger, my Queen."

"The trickster, patron god of thieves? Yes, perhaps you're right. My mistake."

He chuckled.

"Dance with me," he persisted.

Firmly, I shook my head. "Even if I was inclined to accept your oh-so-eloquent offer, I do not recall either Homer or Hesiod writing of the dignified Persephone dancing with either Hades or Hermes, who were both bandits in their own ways."

"Well, if I'm to be accused of improper seizure anyway…"

Before I could slip away, he took my hand and slyly dragged me after him down into the Trophy Room, the anteroom off the back of the Great Hall.

I protested, of course, made a show of not wanting to be manhandled, but the truth was, something deliciously dangerous had ignited within me as his palm had met mine and the thrill of being wanted this much by a boy this sexy was a powerful aphrodisiac that was difficult to continually deny.

We made it to the middle of the room before he took me into his arms.

The music upstairs was only partially muted by the distance, so the romantic song's lyrics echoed down to us as we began to dance in time to its rhythm.

My cheeks were on fire. "What are you doing?" I asked as he spun me around. "Parkinson-"

"Doesn't matter right now."

"She had to have seen."

He smirked. "Do you think me incapable of blinding her to my whereabouts when I don't wish to be disturbed?"

My eyes shot to the spot over his shoulder where his wings were hidden. He must have used a similar glamour to hide our escape from upstairs. As none of the teacher-chaperones had followed us down, it only made sense. "Regardless, you've left her side, and she came as your date," I pointed out. "Not that I'm unhappy to see her humiliated, but isn't that rather disrespectful?"

"Are you trying to paint me the villain in this narrative? I've just saved you from an awkward situation." He leaned his head down so our noses touched. "Do you think Pansy did not see how your date disrespected you up there? Are you so naïve as to believe that she'd let that opportunity pass?" He straightened and frowned down at me, clearly disappointed in my lack of attention to the power plays going on above. "She'd already conned that Creevey fellow into taking pictures of all her enemy's drama tonight. No doubt he'd noticed, too, and was salivating for that perfect moment to snap the picture of you glaring at Weasley while he spun Brown around on the dance floor."

It hit me then what he'd really done.

"You left her equally as humiliated by disappearing on her." The cunning, little snake! "Tell me you timed it just right for when one of her hangers-on was leaving, too?"

His wicked smirk told me that, yes, that was precisely what he'd done. Now everyone would wonder if Draco was stepping out on Pansy with one of her 'friends'.

"Of course, I plan to reappear later, a little disheveled, perhaps…"

"She'll punish you, even though it's not true. Just the suspicion will be enough."

He spun me around again and the room blurred in a dizzying array of gold and silver light. "I'll endure with this one good memory to cling to."

We whirled around and around like fairies in a stone ring under a full moon, Draco weaving a skillful path through the various glass displays and tables laden with a thousand years' worth of individual and House achievement. Yet, I was oblivious to anything but his sparkling grey eyes, so filled with mischief and a darker mystery that called to me…

"You're welcome, you know," he said to me.

"For what?" I asked, knowing I was playing into his hand, but curious as to what he would answer.

"For saving you when asked."

I frowned at that. How had he known I'd been praying for someone to stay my hand?

He twirled me a final time as the song tapered off into something with a faster beat and we came to a standstill at last.

"May I kiss you?"

His question distracted me from the musings, and caused me to stare at his mouth instead…with more than a little anxiety, to be honest.

I'd never been kissed.

Did I want this? Of course, I did. Should I give in, though? What would be the harm? Should he come down to me, or should I go up on tiptoe to him? Where should my hands go? Would he use his tongue? If so, should I use mine back, and how did one go about doing that anyway without ending up slobbering all over one's partner? Would I do any of it right? Oh, god, what if I was terrible at it?

Such mad thoughts flew through my head in those few seconds, and I realised when he spoke again that I'd worked myself into a panic.

"Slow, easy," he whispered to me.

The music upstairs was a million miles away right then, and I could hardly hear it anyway over the pounding of my heart. His arms encircled me completely, pulling me so close I was afraid to breathe.

"Kissing is just another type of dancing."

Despite the warning inside my skull not to get too entangled with a man, especially the likes of Malfoy, I was nodding my head in silent agreement to the idea of letting him kiss me, trusting him to guide me in this, my first experience.

Draco smiled, and it was gentle and genuine, just like his kiss when he pressed it to my trembling lips.

Warm, soothing. That would be how I'd describe the experience later in my diary. One moment I was stiff and awkward, and the next, I was relaxed and melting into the joy of his kiss.

His lips were velvet soft, stroking over mine with sweet enticement meant to make me yield, and I did, surrendering so easily under his enchantment. Playfully, he licked at the seam of my mouth, coaxing me to open further, and when I gave in, I reveled in the flavour of warm fire and honeyed nectar from the Firewhisky he'd obviously been nipping tonight behind the teacher's backs. A hungry whimper escaped my throat as the taste drew me in and sunk me deep under his spell.

Erotic pulses of sensation shot through me when I let my tongue dance over and around his, and I felt it then, the power I had over him despite my inexperience. He was hard against me, desperate to have me from just this much…

His fingers worked my chignon loose, freeing my long hair, and he moaned into my mouth as he played with my soft curls. "You're so sweet, my starlight," he whispered, nipping at my lower lip with gentle teeth. "Do you know how rare a thing you are?"

I pawed at his shoulders, his tender words only inflaming my need. "More," I begged and drew him back down to capture his lips once again.

White-hot pleasure shot through me as he claimed my mouth again and again. My body was on fire, reawakened to the obsessive ache that had tormented me for weeks whenever I thought of him, and suddenly it wasn't just my mouth that demanded a mating. My hips arched of their own accord into his, my back arched, until my hard, sensitive nipples were pressing into his chest. My blood thrummed with a need so demanding I was rocking against him and mewling for satisfaction. Draco's hands shot to my waist to still me but then slid back to the rounded curves of my rear, lifting me to the hard ridge of his arousal, letting me feel how much he needed me, too.

I wasn't sure how long we stood there, mouths marrying, tongues arousing, silently promising each other the world for just a few more minutes, but eventually, Malfoy pulled back with a regretful groan. His erection poked hard against my thigh through the layers of our clothing, and I knew he was fighting for control.

I was doing the same.

Everything my mother had been telling me about being mastered by a man was happening to me against my better judgment. I was falling under the spell of Draco's ownership, into the expressive grey of his eyes and the strength of his arms. I was ready to toss aside my future for him if only he would lay me down on the floor and slide his body into mine. To hell with my plans for a life that was my own…

That realization jolted me as nothing else could.

"I…"

I pulled away.

He held me tighter.

"I'm sorry, I can't," I insisted, pushing against him in an attempt to escape his hold.

Draco seemed torn between anchoring me to him and letting me go. Whatever he saw in my face, however, convinced him to release me. He opened his arms and I scurried back several feet, hands held out in front of me to ward him off, in case he changed his mind.

"I'm sorry," I repeated, shamed to my soul that I'd given in, that I'd led him on, that I'd allowed myself to be seduced by Pansy Parkinson's boyfriend.

"Granger, wait-"

I turned and ran from the room without a backward glance, only remembering at the top of the stairs to cast a Disillusionment Charm over myself before heading back out into the Great Hall. Slipping between people who were oblivious of my presence, I hurried towards the exit. On the way, I noted Parkinson was arguing fiercely with Colin Creevey, probably about losing me in the crowd earlier. At that moment, I couldn't care less what bee had buzzed her bonnet. I moved on and headed down the stairs into the dungeon.

My mother's words haunted me all the way to the Slytherin common room entrance.

"It's all a game, Hermione…"

But it wasn't in regards to matters of the heart. Not to me. Slytherin I may have been sorted, but I wasn't ambitious enough to weaponize my feelings to marry rich and let that be my only achievement. I would never become Parkinson or my mother in that way. I had dreams that took me beyond this moment, into a future that was not at all compatible with being enslaved to an unhappy marriage…like what my parents had.

For that reason, I had to keep Malfoy at arm's length. He was too easy to want more than sex with him, and I couldn't allow myself to fall in love.

TO BE CONTINUED...

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Lines borrowed (some altered) from "A Court of Thorns and Roses" series and altered for this chapter's use:

"Males are horrible creatures, aren't they?"
– Amren, A Court of Mist and Fury

"Life is better when you're around."
– Rhysand to Feyre, A Court of Mist and Fury

"I was a dreamer born into the Court of Nightmares."
– Morrigan, A Court of Mist and Fury

Feyre often refers to Rhysand as 'pig' and 'prick' in the novels whenever he's doing something that deserves the comment.

"I hadn't realized I was a villain in your narrative."
– Rhysand, A Court of Wings and Ruin

"You're welcome, you know."
"For what?"
Rhys paused less than a foot away, sliding his hands into his pockets. The night didn't seem to ripple from him here-and he appeared, despite his perfection, almost normal. "For saving you when asked."
– Rhysand and Feyre, A Court of Mist and Fury