--I own Desiree McDaniels. That's it. Everyone else is the product of that wonderful woman J.K. Rowling.--

Harry sat in Potions the next day, dreading the beginning of class. Though Snape had been rather quiet since the term started, he was still unpleasant as ever, and it was not something the Gryffindors looked forward to. But what seemed to be the only bright spot was that Malfoy wasn't sitting amongst the two lumps that were Crabbe and Goyle; Harry hoped it was a sign of a halfway decent morning.
"Mr. Malfoy," Snape said sharply as he entered the classroom, "will not be joining us today." His black eyes flicked over the class, and Harry wondered -- not for the first time -- if Snape was somewhat psychic. Perhaps he was just lucky; either way, he'd make a better Divination teacher than Trelawney.
"Professor! Professor!" Pansy Parkinson was sitting straight up in her seat, her arm raised and waving around wildly in the air. She looked like a rather unpleasant version of Hermione.
"Yes, Miss Parkinson?" Snape asked with a very slight curl of his lip. It seemed that he was very easily set off today; Harry groaned mentally. Chances were he'd lose nearly fifty points before the class was over.
"I was wondering -- um -- " Pansy blushed a faint pink. " -- why he's not in class?" Snape brushed past her with a billow of black robes.
"Worry not, Miss Parkinson," he said drily. "Mr. Malfoy is hardly in a dire condition. He's merely incapacitated for a while." He paused, then added in a cool tone, "I suspect Mr. Malfoy was up a little... late last night." Ron smiled behind his hand.
"Must be the apocalypse," he said under his breath. "Snape's speaking less than flattery about Mal --"
"Weasley," Snape snapped. "Two points from Gryffindor." Ron burned red beneath his freckles and fell silent.

"Harry! Harry! You'll never believe it!" Fred and George thundered across the Quidditch field just as Harry was getting ready for practice. He'd missed Quidditch all summer and was desperately hoping to get back to his broom, so he was more than a little impatient as he looked up.
"What won't I ever believe?" Harry asked, trying to seem polite. The Weasley twins were flushed from running; apparently, they'd come from the entire end of the school. They began one of their famous speeches in which they finished each other's sentences, making it a bit hard for Harry to follow.
"Well, we know how you dislike Malfoy --"
"Hate the bugger, really --"
"-- well, we don't like him much either --"
"-- but that's not the point."
"Anyway, we were just pestering Crabbe and Goyle --"
"-- merely for educational purposes, of course."
"It's sort of like studying apes, really."
"Anyway --"
"Slow down," Harry said suddenly. "I'm losing you, take breaths." Fred and George took a couple of deep, heaving breaths for show, then plowed right ahead at the same speed.
"-- we found out why Malfoy's not in class today --"
"-- and we think you'll really enjoy it --"
"-- it's a humdinger, Harry, a real peach --"
"Just tell me!" he said in exasperation. His feet were all but itching to leave the ground. Fred and George exchanged glances and suddenly grinned widely.
"Apparently, Snape wasn't joking about him being up late last night."
"They found him this morning." Harry had been preparing to push off -- polite was polite, but it was getting ridiculous -- when he saw the gleam in the twins' eyes. He dropped back to the ground again.
"What do you mean 'found him'?" he asked slowly.
"Apparently," Fred said, grinning from ear to ear, "Snape was finishing his nightly rounds after hours when he came back to the dungeons and found Malfoy outside the Slytherin common room."
"Unconscious," George added. They both grinned again, then said in unison,
"With lipstick marks all over his mouth." Harry nearly fell off his broom.
"What?" he asked incredulously. Fred was long gone; he had already broken into hysterics, but George barely managed to answer.
"Lipstick," he gasped, "all over his mouth, some on his neck and chest."
"A lovely shade of red, so I've heard," Fred choked through tears, and collapsed to the Quidditch field in laughter. Harry had started to laugh too -- the image was just too funny.
"Snape found him like that?" he giggled. "Who in their right mind would --"
"It gets better." George composed himself a little, but couldn't suppress a grin. "Not only was he unconscious with lipstick prints all over his face --" Harry snorted with laughter at the renewed thought. "-- but his shirt had been stripped off."
"What?" Harry asked in genuine surprise, barely able to get it out through his giggles.
"You heard me," George said, and started to chuckle again. "Here's the kicker: some of the buttons on his Hogwarts robes had been popped off -- as if -- as if whoever he was with -- just pulled his robes right off him --" He couldn't continue; George snorted with laughter, sending poor Fred -- who had finally regained the privilege of breathing -- into another fit of hysterics. Harry laughed so hard he had tears in his eyes as well, and he took off his glasses to wipe them away.
"Oh... oh, that's the funniest thing I've ever heard..." He snorted again. "And that's why he's staying in today?"
"The shock was too great for his system," George gasped, fighting for air between chuckles. Fred wiped away his own tears of mirth and grinned.
"No, apparently he's exhausted --" All three of them giggled. "-- and looking paler than usual. Seems like he's caught a bug from his little friend."
"Who would it be?" Harry had nearly forgotten about Quidditch in the face of this bit of news. He couldn't wait to tell Ron, unless he'd already heard from his brothers. And what was more, he couldn't wait to see Malfoy again and give him what had been coming to him for a long time.
"Parkinson seems to be the only one who fancies him at all," Fred said casually, finally over his fit of laughter. George, however, started giggling anew at this statement.
"But apparently, she doesn't wear Revlon Red," he said with a grin, and all three of them burst into hysterics once again.

Crabbe knocked softly on the door to the boy's dormitory.
"Can I come in?" he asked dully.
"No," was the stiff reply, muffled by blankets and sheets. Crabbe shifted uncomfortably.
"Well, can I at least come in tonight when I have to sleep?"
"I don't care." There was a pause.
"Are you sure you don't want me to --"
"Yes." Crabbe hesitated.
"All right," he said thickly, and trudged off to the main dormitory. Goyle was waiting for him by the door.
"He let you in?"
"No," Crabbe responded bluntly, slipping through the stone passageway. "Think he'll find out we accidentally told the Weasleys about what happened?"
"Hope not," Goyle said with a shrug of his shoulders, and they both left.

Draco waited for a long time to make sure they were gone. At last, when he thought the coast was clear, he pulled the sheets off of his head and gasped for sweet air. It was awfully stuffy under there.
"Stupid," he said softly, and he wasn't quite sure who he was referring to -- his friends or himself. Draco flushed with embarrassment at the mere thought of what had happened. He scowled and ducked under the sheets again, as if the very room were able to sense his shame. The worst part was that he couldn't even remember the whole thing. All he knew was that now, he stood to be humiliated throughout the entire school -- that was, if Crabbe and Goyle the Amazing Ape-Men hadn't already ruined his social reputation.
"Mr. Malfoy," said a cold voice suddenly. "Please remove your head from under the sheets." Draco snapped upright, yanking the covers off his head.
"Professor," he said, startled, then scowled. "Perhaps you forgot to knock."
"Perhaps," Snape echoed drily. He stopped at the end of Draco's bed and stood there.
"What do you want? I'm trying to get some rest."
"You slept fairly heavily last night," Snape said stiffly. Draco flushed red once again, ducking his head to hide it from his teacher.
"I don't want to discuss this right now, sir," he said quietly.
"You have made a mockery of our house." Snape, it seemed, was going to discuss it whether Draco wanted to or not. "What were you doing out that late, Mr. Malfoy?"
"I thought I heard something," Draco mumbled to his hands.
"Who was it, Mr. Malfoy?" Snape leaned forward, his face an inch from his student's. "Who were you with?"
"Professor!" he cried in surprise. "I'm not --" Draco started to protest, but instead he began coughing and gasping for air. It was suddenly as if a hand had closed around his heart, cutting off his supply of oxygen. Snape jerked away, then gave Draco a hard pound on the back. He let out a very ragged cough and was finally able to breathe again. There was a long moment of silence.
"Who was she?" Snape repeated.
"You can't accuse me of anything, Professor," Draco said softly, trying not to stir the rattle in his chest again.
"There was --" Snape began loudly, then lowered his voice. "There was incriminating evidence on your face, Mr. Malfoy." Draco flushed bright red and looked downwards again.
"I didn't --"
"You have made a mockery of our house," Snape repeated.
"Oh, leave me alone," Draco mumbled, and rolled over on his side. There was a very long pause. Finally, Snape's footsteps clicked sharply on the stone floors.
"Just remember, Mr. Malfoy," he said heatedly. "Keep it in your trousers, and --" He paused, then added with a sneer, "do take care of your buttons from now on."

Draco flushed furiously red, even though the professor had left. It was humiliating, everything that had happened, but there was something worse. Even worse than how they had found him, even worse than being unable to remember any of it. What was the worst was that he did remember one thing -- Desiree -- and that what had happened had been wonderful. What she had done had been wonderful.

And, perhaps the worst of all -- he wanted her to do it again.