Late Nights
A/N: Poor, poor Draco. As if things could get worse for him...
*****
Again, staring at the ceiling in the dark. It's midnight, with classes tomorrow and no sign of sleep in sight. Sleep has become a rarity for me. There are two reasons I'm still awake. One is that my unwanted dreams have increased of late, and it takes a lot of concentration to make myself pretend I don't like them.
Also, it seems as though Weasley's sense of honour isn't half as strong as his girlfriend's. A rumor has started spreading from the Gryffindors to the other houses saying that I'm-that I...that I'm gay. Well it is true...I've gotten as far as admitting it to myself. But I'm not ready for the entire school to know. It's bad enough that half of them do already.
I hear whispers every time I walk by a group of people. The Gryffindors laugh right out about it. It hasn't leaked out to the Slytherins yet. Well, they don't really talk to us anymore, do they?
It'll come out eventually.
I give up sleep and throw on some clothes. Might as well go out. I sneak through the corridors as quietly as possible to avoid Filch and that dratted cat of his. The passage I use is close to the Slytherin common room entrance. Filch knows about it, of course, so I take my chances.
A time later I come up behind the rubbish bin behind the Hog's Head. I go in the pub through the storage room entrance to avoid the main room out front, where Hagrid frequents. There's a little back room, visited by mostly the younger chaps. I take a seat at a table in the back of the smoky room.
Francine, a very curvy waitress with a blond ponytail and low cut robes approached me right away. I get excellent service here. "Draco, baby. Long time, no see."
I hand her a couple of Galleons. "Francie? I want to get very drunk tonight." She nods and leaves. I look over the din to the stage on the other side of the room. A young witch is dancing with a purple snake. I think she graduated from Hogwarts a few years ago. Yeah. Gryffindor prefect. The thought makes me smile.
Francine returns a few minutes later with a shot of Fire Whiskey. I knock it back, cough once, and hand her back the glass. "Another."
An hour later I've gone through about every type of hard liquor they serve. "It's just not fair," I find myself saying to Francine, who is sitting next to me. "Of all the bloody people, why is it Harry Potter?"
"It's perfectly understandable."
"No, no it's not. He's all, 'go Dumbledore, I love muggles' and I'm...not."
"Well, sometimes it's you who has to change. Don't expect him to for your sake."
"Give me another drink."
In the morning I find myself back in my own bed, late for breakfast, and the smell of Francine's perfume lingering on my body. I don't know how I got there, or how I avoided being caught. I do know that I'm no better off--save for a hangover--than I was last night.
A/N: Poor, poor Draco. As if things could get worse for him...
*****
Again, staring at the ceiling in the dark. It's midnight, with classes tomorrow and no sign of sleep in sight. Sleep has become a rarity for me. There are two reasons I'm still awake. One is that my unwanted dreams have increased of late, and it takes a lot of concentration to make myself pretend I don't like them.
Also, it seems as though Weasley's sense of honour isn't half as strong as his girlfriend's. A rumor has started spreading from the Gryffindors to the other houses saying that I'm-that I...that I'm gay. Well it is true...I've gotten as far as admitting it to myself. But I'm not ready for the entire school to know. It's bad enough that half of them do already.
I hear whispers every time I walk by a group of people. The Gryffindors laugh right out about it. It hasn't leaked out to the Slytherins yet. Well, they don't really talk to us anymore, do they?
It'll come out eventually.
I give up sleep and throw on some clothes. Might as well go out. I sneak through the corridors as quietly as possible to avoid Filch and that dratted cat of his. The passage I use is close to the Slytherin common room entrance. Filch knows about it, of course, so I take my chances.
A time later I come up behind the rubbish bin behind the Hog's Head. I go in the pub through the storage room entrance to avoid the main room out front, where Hagrid frequents. There's a little back room, visited by mostly the younger chaps. I take a seat at a table in the back of the smoky room.
Francine, a very curvy waitress with a blond ponytail and low cut robes approached me right away. I get excellent service here. "Draco, baby. Long time, no see."
I hand her a couple of Galleons. "Francie? I want to get very drunk tonight." She nods and leaves. I look over the din to the stage on the other side of the room. A young witch is dancing with a purple snake. I think she graduated from Hogwarts a few years ago. Yeah. Gryffindor prefect. The thought makes me smile.
Francine returns a few minutes later with a shot of Fire Whiskey. I knock it back, cough once, and hand her back the glass. "Another."
An hour later I've gone through about every type of hard liquor they serve. "It's just not fair," I find myself saying to Francine, who is sitting next to me. "Of all the bloody people, why is it Harry Potter?"
"It's perfectly understandable."
"No, no it's not. He's all, 'go Dumbledore, I love muggles' and I'm...not."
"Well, sometimes it's you who has to change. Don't expect him to for your sake."
"Give me another drink."
In the morning I find myself back in my own bed, late for breakfast, and the smell of Francine's perfume lingering on my body. I don't know how I got there, or how I avoided being caught. I do know that I'm no better off--save for a hangover--than I was last night.
