We sat across from each other, candelabara emitting wavering, but vibrant light. I suddenly felt light headed and surreal, everything suspended in syrup,and only the Professor's eyes remained a steady focal point. We sat staring at something slightly past each other's heads for minutes, not knowing how to broach one another; personally, I felt that conversing with the Professor would be as pleasant as trying to down botuber pus. He must have felt similarly, for he had a distinctly displeased frown.

Are we to sit as strangers?, he asked, voice almost hissing in impatience. I smiled patiently, as taught, and extended my hands upon the table. I cocked my head at him, knowing better than to practice pretty, aristocratic manners on him.

Professor. It has been so long, I said, my voice and comment rehearsed. I could not help but feel today's earlier explosion was still taut beneath his skin, and if I dared poke to hard, he would come flying at me.

He gave a pressed laugh, bloodless lips forming an oddly protrusive line. I believe it has been....oh...nearly eighteen years since graduation, has it not?, he asked, leering at me. I flushed; evidently, my age was not so hidden as I had hoped.

Correct. Odd how you would remember things so precisely, I said in earnest interest. I looked down at my plate, my rich, creamy food overspilling its boundaries, mixing into one homogenous mess. I wrinkled my nose with distaste, foregoing my always impeccable manners and pushing my setting away from me.

I remember each and every class that I have taught and that has graduated, he said, his soothingly dark voice sounding bored over the candlelight. I smiled at him absently, wondering if he had remembered any of my past indiscretions.

Strange. Do you remember Draco's?, I asked, forgetting myself. It is never ladylike to become forward, but I knew the Professor would not care. His eyes jerked up, as if I had smarted him in a past wound; I suspected I rather had, considering his extensive hatred of Draco's classmate, Harry Potter.

I apologize.That was prying of me, I said quickly, not wanting this rather interesting banter to be spoilt by my overhasty tongue. He propped his ricey coloured hand upon the table, and rested his chin in it. For a moment, he closed his eyes, and I could see the delicate, fluttery veins that pulsed beneath them. I wanted to feel his face, his sinuous looking skin, so aged, yet so supple.

Yes, it was. I had noticed most children of your age seemed to have the same habit, he said wearily. I knew this was not argumentative, only observational, yet Icould not help but feel a prickle of offense. The fork slipped from my fingers, staining the material of my dress with its resin. I gave an angry hiss, and dabbed delicately with the napkin. As I looked up to him again, his eyes were open, and glinting with some somber amusment.

I don't remember Draco being in Hogwarts with me, I said suddenly, all pretensions of being closed with this Professor vanishing. I suddenly wanted to pour my pain to him, sing it in a raw, untrained, wholly emotional scream. He fiddled with the utensil, giving a musing look, lips slightly curled up, though not in smile.

He was...inconspicuous when he needed to be, he said thoughtfully, those his body language suddenly sharpened, as if Lucius' ears were somehow embedded into the table. I sympathised; I too had experienced the fatherly (though I suppose their rather incestuous relationship would not have qualified it as so) wrath that Lucius imposed upon his wives and servants.

Draco was a minor terror in my life that I had outgrown. I remember the streak of fear that would course through my belly every time I saw his inescapable (I knew for a fact he Apparated illegally) patch of white blond hair. More handsome than his father, and certainly more intelligent, he was far more treacherous an enemy to broach than Lucius. His cold steel eyes made Lucius' only a mild, summer's day blue in comparison, and his skin was even more shivery.

His animosity had only intensified over the months that his father and I had been married. He stalked around the house, making sure that every sembelance of a tender moment was promptly crushed, and that every kind word that was whispered of me was put down.

Draco had tried to bed and woo me, purely for sport, I assume; though it had been said he had been unusually persistent. I was mortified and disgusted at the thought, and made every conceivable measure to be sure that he was well away from my location.

, he had once whispered, gathering my hair up in his sickly fingers, dipping his head to my neck, cool, serpentine tongue flicking out experimentally. I felt the chilly tip of his nose upon my nape, and jolted forward. He laughed mechanically, no amusment to behold within him. His dexterous fingers gently traveled up the back of my dress, along the zippers and laces, trying to be sensual, but feeling as though he were dragging a sharp dagger slowly across my skin.

I tried to block his explorations from a vantage point where I could not see him, but he caught my wrist, twisting it firmly, bordering on painful, but not quite. He laughed, a deep gurgle in his throat, and brough it to his lips, sharpened teeth closing down slowly on swollen flesh. I said nothing, only biting the insides of my lips into ragged strips as I saw my blood, bright, freshly magenta, drip slowly in the tense silence.

I could have sworn he became vampiric then, the way his cobalt eyes gleamed so distracted at the sight of my more volatile humor*. His lips twitched reflexively, and I saw what he thirsted for. I pulled back with a shriek, toppling things over atop my vanity, knowing that my life was not endangered, but feeling as though my soul were. He pulled me back, towards him, towards his cheat and lifeless heart and though I struggled, I could not help but sense the power that steeped from him. I am disgusted at my own motivations.

He drove his mouth into mine, his hand lifting the dress casually, brushing my thighs with hard, uncaring fingers. He had found what he had been looking for, and his other hand searched breathlessly for my breasts, twisting me into a painful, doubled over figurine.

And yet I was periliously excited by this, his fingers delving with more precision than Lucius', and his movements far more ruthless. He broke apart, not quite letting go, fingers still woven through my hair.

There. Now we shall have our secrets., he breathed harshly, and I felt his hardness prod me through my bodice. I nodded, wanting to scream, but wanting him to kiss me again, in that dismembering way.

That was the last I had seen of Draco, for I had already forseen his complacence at achieving what he desired. He had left the house the next morning, elegant , white gloved fingers touching briefly at the carriage window, then his white hair appearing, flickering like a lone candle.
A/N: Ooooooer. This is getting perverse. Thanks to my readers, and I promise I'll be uploading really soon. *Humor is not used like , it's used in the sense of the four humors of the body (blood, bile,choler, black choler). I was reading it and I got confuzzed, so I didn't want anyone else to. More Draco-isms in future chappies.