A/N: I'll give you a cookie if you review. No, not really.
Disclaimer: ditto last chapter…and the chapter before that…and the chapter before that…
This was ridiculous.
Azera stood behind her softly smoking cauldron ten minutes into double Potions making eyes at Draco across the room. She had mixed it up without looking at the directions even once. Amused, she glanced at the students surrounding her. Potter was still stuck on Step 2 and the boy next to her, Seamus, was on the verge of borrowing some of hers for the grading. Electric raindrops spewed over the rims of his cauldron, bubbling madly in some kind of liquid rave.
She kept her eyes trained on the professor of this class, Severus Snape. Azera knew that with one flick of her wand she could push Snape's sleeve up his arm to his elbow and reveal the ghost of the Dark Mark to the entire class. It had occurred to her that she could do away with Snape while she was here- kill two birds with one stone- but the Dark Lord had not told her to do so, and assassins always obeyed orders.
Draco was still looking at her across the room. Azera rubbed her lips together and then smirked at him from over her cauldron. Snape was standing over Seamus's cauldron with a look of utter disgust on his face. She knew that when he came to her cauldron he would find absolutely nothing wrong. The professor peered down his greasy broken nose at the potion that slopped thickly against the sides of the standard pewter cauldron that Azera had bought on her escapade into Diagon Alley. The twin thin lips remained shut, he made a note on his notepad, and then he moved on to the Slytherin side of the room. Seamus was waging a war with his own cauldron, rereading the directions, and looking wistfully at Azera, hinting that she might tell him what he had done wrong. Azera decided to favor him. "You forgot Step 3," Azera said, pointing at the blackboard with her index finger. Seamus slapped himself on the head with the heel of his palm and emptied his cauldron into a basin.
"How'd you get your so quickly?" Seamus asked, beginning over.
"I follow directions."
"Jeez," he said quietly, shaking his head as he poured half a cup of ground unicorn spine into his cauldron and squinted once more at the directions that were scraped in neat chalk onto the board. He stirred it thrice clockwise and twice counter-clockwise and than waited thirty seconds before adding three fibers of hippogriff hair.
Azera's mind wandered as she waited out the rest of the class gazing at the bottled potion that sat in front of her. Wisps of smoke curled gracefully around the cork of the flask that sat in front of her. A bubble rose to the surface and popped. Smoke rose out of the depression that it rendered in the mixture, which had the consistency of a thick pudding. Her eyes swiveled over to Draco, who was tactfully ignoring a chubby Slytherin girl that was batting her eyelashes at him.
More prey for Azera. Sweet.
She sauntered over to where Draco stood, her eyes never leaving the pathetic girl's face. She curled her fingers of Draco's muscular shoulder and tapped the fingernail of her index finger against the side of his neck. "Is she bothering you?" Azera said in her favorite nasty-to-pathetic-people-but-playful-with-Draco tone of voice. The corner of his mouth rose in his trademark steamy grin as he turned towards her. The tips of their noses brushed together, and Draco tried to lean in for a kiss, but Azera decided to play hard to get instead. She pulled back slightly, gazing up at Draco through her long, dark eyelashes the whole time. "Maybe later," she said, stressing the maybe, and then turned back to the girl who was annoying her even though she hadn't spoken a word to Azera since she had arrived at Hogwarts.
"You have no idea," Draco muttered, his gaze slipping from Azera to the other girl. "Her name is Pansy," he said, disgust ripping off his white teeth.
"Pansy," Azera repeated. "Want me to take care of her?" she whispered flirtatiously into Draco's ear.
"How are you going to manage that?" Draco answered as Professor Snape glanced their way. He wasn't worried, though- he was Snape's favorite, and he got away with anything and everything where the Slytherin Head was concerned.
"Well," Azera said, abandoning her hard to get game, "first your going to kiss me, then your going to put your hand around my waist, and then you are going to invite me to the Astronomy tower after hours," she finished boldly, ending with a little wink. For Draco's answer, a look was enough, paired with the evil half smile that he had been throwing Azera's way for the past week. He looked out of the corner of his eyes in Pansy's direction, and then he leaned down slowly. The tips of their noses grazed first, and Azera leaned her head into the motions of his- she was tired of leading for a little while. Their lips touched for a moment- long enough for Draco to touch the edge of his tongue to her bottom lip- and then he slid both arms around her waist as he gently pulled away. It was the softest, cleanest kiss that Azera had ever experienced in her entire life, but somehow that made it the dirtiest.
She felt him smile again as their lips parted, but his hold on her grew even stronger as he drew their bodies closer together. Azera giggled at the thought of how they looked, standing like that in the middle of the dungeon classroom, but then she remembered about Pansy and snuck a look her way. The foolish girl's mouth was hanging open at the fireworks going off in front of her, and Azera laughed again.
"Come to the Astronomy tower after dinner," Draco said, projecting his words in Pansy's direction as he traced Azera's jaw with the pads of his fingertips. Then he winked. Azera tilted her head towards him as if considering his proposal.
"Maybe," she said devilishly. Draco raised his eyebrows.
"Maybe?" he said. "Do you need some more persuasion?"
"Anytime," Azera answered, slipping gracefully out of his arms and floating back across the room. Her decision to live it up while she was here was definitely the right choice.
It was plain dumb luck that none of the Gryffindors had seen Azera kissing the hottest Slytherin on the planet in the corner of the Potions classroom. Although extremely understandable, she had to concentrate on becoming close to Harry and not to his worst nemesis. So, Azera decided to become closer to Hermione first, adopting her 'study first!' tactics and helping her study. In this way, she could tighten her forming knots with the comfortable threesome all at the same time. Azera also decided that the easiest place to get rid of Harry was to do it in Hogsmeade. She could lure him away from the crowd and take him behind the Shrieking Shack, and dispose of him there. The local legend could provide some kind of flimsy excuse so Azera wouldn't have to bother herself with planning some intricate scheme. She sent an owl to Marcus, the aide, at the Dark Lord's stronghold. She sealed it with a kiss and sent it with a midnight black owl into the night.
At midnight, Azera snuck out with her Invisibility Cloak and walked up to the Astronomy Tower. She eased the wooden door open and climbed the spiral staircase to the top, where circles of telescopes were pointed at the night sky. The last class had ended a half an hour ago, and the collected odors of the students still hung in the air.
Draco was framed against the navy sky, his wet hair gleaming in the starlight. Azera smiled and bit her lip as she snuck up on Draco and planted her lips on his, still invisible. He reached forward and pulled off the cloak as she wrapped her arms around his neck.
"How does it feel to kiss someone that's not there?" she whispered, pulling away for a moment.
Draco leaned in for more before resting his cheek on her open lips. "You're there, all right," he answered, "I just can't see you." He pulled the cloak around the two of them and they stayed that way while the moon made its way across the sky.
Draco was first to wake to the sun's delicate rays the next morning. His head was still resting in the lap of Azera's robes, and her fingers were still intertwined in his hair. She was right- it did look better when it wasn't slicked back with a ton of gel. Her head had fallen forward onto her chest and Draco reached up and tilted her face towards him. He kissed the sleeping figure slowly, and as she awoke she responded, quickening the pace of the kiss as the top of the sun became visible over the tops of the trees in the forest.
"It's almost time for breakfast," he whispered, smoothing her hair out of her eyes.
"You're so nice in the morning when you're tired," she said, already more awake than he was. Her eyes were clear and dancing with their usual fire where his were clouded with grogginess.
"You're the only person who's ever seen me like this," he said, putting his head back into her lap. Azera absentmindedly stroked his hair as she pondered the 'morning Draco.' He wasn't as evil as usual when he was too tired to hate people. Azera shrugged to herself and figured that she liked him both ways. They were both alike, Draco and Azera- they were both many-faceted persons. It was just that Azera chose her personality at will; whenever she wanted to she could become a new person. She was a feather in the wind, and the wind was going out of control.
Azera crash-landed back on her planet when she remembered her mission and how the girls would suspect if they didn't find her in her bed when they woke up in a few minutes. She eased Draco's head out of her lap and once more lowered her lips to his in a goodbye kiss. He propped himself up with his arm and raked her hair with his free hand.
"I gotta go," she said, rising to her feet. "Maybe I can steal a few minutes of sleep in my actual bed before the other girls wake up."
Draco grinned the same old smirk and Azera felt a bit relieved. He hadn't gone all soft in a night on her, then.
"Yeah," he agreed, "Pansy will worry…"
"I think we took care of that yesterday," she answered as they walked down the last flight of spiral stairs. Draco laughed and bid her goodbye, and then they went their separate ways. Throwing on her Invisibility Cloak again, Azera climbed in the portrait hole and through the thankfully empty common room. The other girls that she was rooming with were still basically asleep, but Hermione was stirring so Azera slid into her bed as quietly as possible.
She dreamt for a few minutes of Draco and blood, and then she woke to begin the day all over again as if nothing was wrong.