Warning: This one's clean, please don't be offended by Draco.
AN: God, that needed a lot of editing, I must have a Bata!
***
He had dreamt of ankles, he was sure of it. Waking up slowly he had had time to register at least part of what he had dreamt before it faded in the sounds of morning routine. Draco had never been a great morning person. He clung to the dream as he attempted to get out of bed. He was sure there had been ankles in it! Ankles, ankles, beckoning ankles, that was it! Something clicked and as if a cord was pulled some of the dream unveiled itself for an instant in his still sleepy mind.
Along with the beckoning ankle had been a disco tech with lots of stairs, ruled by a crocodile or had it been a snake, no he most definitely remembered legs. In the dream Draco had got down on all fours so as to better speak with the creature. It had been something concerning a flawless strategy for wining at Chinese Poker by using only sevens and he had ended up ankle gazing with the oversize lizard.
It was a silly dream but Draco was half tempted to return to the dream when Crabbe flung the curtains aside. He sudden light made his eyes hurt and the dream fade out of his mind.
"I am not letting you miss breakfast again."
To Draco 's bleary morning eye Crabbe looked not a little nervous issuing this order to such a volatile person as himself. Draco felt gratified and so complied with no more then an intelligible grumble. It was nice to be worried over once and a while.
In the shower, he rubbed himself down lathering the soap in his armpits, he enjoyed seeing how much lather one could produce, it was childish but no one had to know. Pouring great glops of shampoo on his hair he did the same, trying to spike it with the foam, it would stay up for a second then flop to one side. He grinned, what was it they said about simple pleasures. Even baddies enjoyed trivial things some times.
"I wonder what Potter would think if he knew. I'll wager my family fortune that he wouldn't believe it, closed minded git." He said, addressing the shampoo bottle.
Finishing up he wrapped himself in the largest towel available, he had a sneaking suspicion that the house elves had laid it out for Goyle, considering his size, but that was not going to stop Draco. Exiting the shower room he shivered, why had no one ever though of casting a heating spell into these godforsaken stones when they were laid, but upon reflection how many lords wanted to consider their prisoners welfare when throwing them into the dungeons. Who in the world had decided that Slytherin, the purest house, should be relegated to this hole!
Entering his room he noticed that no one had laid out clothes. Why couldn't those imbeciles be consistent? He would have told them so if they had been present, but they had left, having departed for breakfast. Scowling he rummaged though his trunk, slipping into comfortable robes. He had homework to do today, well that is what he got for not getting it done yesterday. So much for Sunday. He berated himself as he headed to join his fellows.
***
It was Wednesday, the troubles of the weekend seemed to have all but blown over, save for his sudden and wholly bizarre propensity towards ankle dreams. That morning he had woken up sure that he had been crawling from carriage to carriage on the Hogwarts express so that he could peek at the ankles of all the girls but never finding the right ones. It was getting ridiculous.
He was frightfully hungry and struggled to focus on an intensely boring lecture on the manorial system of Modern Scandinavian Warlocks, ironically modern was more than a hundred years ago, but even this point couldn't prove amusing enough to combat Professor Binns' voice. The Slytherins had history with the Hufflepuffs this period making a normally boring class utterly unbearable. What with the stupidity of their questions and the professor's lackluster approach he hated this class more than any he shared with the Gryffindors and that was saying a lot. At least he could count on the periods he shared with Potter to be exciting.
It seemed the torture would never end, Goyle was already fast asleep, and had been snoring uninterrupted for the last ten minuets, and Crabbe too was on the verge of dozing off. Parkinson who sat to his immediate left was reading some magazine she had bough on her visit home over the weekend and Zabini who sat in front of him was sketching something on the parchment in front of him. Who would have thought that wold aspire o be an artist. Slimy Bastard.
With five minuets left Draco felt as if he were about to go mad. Binns had repeated perhaps for the fourth time that the riots of 1827 had brought about a new and disgustingly liberal constitution, nevertheless, this still seemed to confound the Hufflepuffs, who were now conspiring amongst themselves in order to ascertain the meaning of liberal. Draco decided that this was indeed the time to ignore everything and he found himself once more thinking about the events of the weekend.
He was entirely comfortable, he told himself. No more of this ridiculous over reacting. Nevertheless that damnable ankle still floated in the forefront of his mind, tantalizing. He couldn't explain exactly what he felt about it, only that it would not leave him alone. He once again reviewed the circumstances. He had opened the door and seen the Mudblood's ankle, and he had felt something that he could not name then panicked and ran off. There were too many unknowns here and Draco hated it. The bell rang. Merlin! At last it was over.
The great hall was a floor below, and so they all made their mass exudes in the general direction of the stairs. Pansy had latched on to Draco's arm as was her costume and Draco was trying to think of a way to persuade her to lessen her grip, when though the banister that guarded the stairs he say the object that had tormented him these past few days. For just a moment a dainty foot reached out to touch down on the next step and with it a white clad ankle. The next instant to be covered by damnable red hemmed robes. He stopped short as she descended the last steps arm in arm with Weasley and smiling happily in divine unconcern for her surroundings looking only on him like a Madonna fixated upon a dingle point of prayer she passed on ahead of him into the great hall.
"What is the matter with you today" Pansy demanded sulkily from his side. "Fist you brush me off when I am telling you all about my lovely weekend, now you aren't listening to me at all and I was just about to tell you all about the Quidditch match that Papa took me to on Saturday…" She paused for dramatic effect or so as to give him a chance to contradict her. He did not.
"If you don't what to be around me that's just fine!" releasing him she short Draco a vile look before latching herself onto Zabini, who looked less than thrilled at his new appendage.
"Damn." Draco swore quietly, now she was mad. His father wouldn't be Happy. Hang it all, Pansy was a nice girl as far as girls went but she was far too touchy for her own good. She had no right to be especially around him. At this point Goyle walked into him.
"You bloody Oaf why can't you watch were you are walking" he reached out and cuffed the bigger boy in the shoulder, it probably didn't hurt him much but the great ape had to learn that such behavior was unacceptable. The bigger boy cowered and hung behind him as Draco resumed his former train of thought.
It didn't help in the least that she permanently attached herself to him in some of the most painful ways possible. Never the less she was the only women he could ever imagine sleeping with, and that had been the important thing up until now. He would apologize after class and spend this evening listening to her while he did the potions assignment they had gotten this morning.
Taking his place at the table he glared at the Gryffindors. Bloody idiots managed to mess things up with out even being involved. Pansy was mad and his whole life seemed to have been upset because Weasley couldn't afford to rent a room at Hogsmeade, like any normal person. Mind you he reflected he did have one of the nicest backs around. This was a very privet reflection, but even its intrusion couldn't dieter him from thoughts of Granger's damn ankle.
There was only soup and meat pie for lunch neither of which Draco particularly cared for. Consequently he left early, to complete some forgotten DADA assignment. It was so ludicrously easy that he had fallen asleep in class: Dark-Light balancing and equations.
Dark spells work best in Dark conditions, light spells in light, however with the right persuasion. A persuasion being the motivations of the caster which subconsciously effected the nature of any cast spell making it slightly different from every other casting of the same spell, Light spells react better to adversity persuasions. If examined further we find that a person casting a dark magic spell in the face of adversity would not cast such a strong spell as if it had been a Light spell of the same caliber. Whereas Dark spells are stronger when the user has the upper hand meaning that a Dark user would likely retain the upper hand more easily if the opponent stood him ground.
Draco found himself smiling, did this not completely vindicated cowardice and make courage a foolish pastime. He wondered if the Gryffindors had gotten this same message from their homework.
There was also a spell attraction chart. Light spells were attracted to other light spells. Dark spells were however attracted to light spells not dark spells, and needed light spell combinations in order to retain their dark properties in combination. This was considered a weakness that the teacher suggested they could exploit in combat. Draco had scoffed. The crazy loon they had this year did not see anything but evil in dark magic, yet to exploit this perceived weakness she encouraged her students to combat the dark arts with more of the same. The hypocrisy of women.
Their teacher; the young and oversized Mrs. Krone was in Draco's opinion, an over righteous dictator of moralizing scruples and one of the worst Professors to ever grace the position. She had told the class that she was recently married to some wizard currently working in Malaysia, but had taken the post of DADA teacher for the year in order to earn enough to join him. And, as Draco thought to himself, increase the international population of Krones whether the world at large liked it or not. Draco scowled. Disgusting creature.
***
Classes that afternoon were as ever; a fight with Potter and Co. mostly with Co.. He had been called a sniveling crybaby by Ron after protesting on having to complete an assignment on his own, at which point they had been assigned to work together. Draco had traded insults for the remainder of the period, getting in carroty pauper, oversized weed, and impotent moron. To the last Ron had blushed deeply and threatened to pound him in to the turf the next time he saw Draco at Hogsmeade. Why Ron had been so offend by the last Draco was not sure but it made an interesting point.
Since the weekend he had not been able to concentrate well in all those classes he shared with the Gryffindors and this little tuff had done him good. In both potions and Herbology he had found himself horribly distracted by the sight of the Mudblood Granger. If he had had any doubt of his own sexuality he would have fancied himself attracted to her. He could not take his eyes off her and it was beginning to scare him.
***
Back in the common room at the end of the day Draco found Pansy still engaged with Zabini. It was only to make him jealous, he knew that, but Zabini was a two-faced Double Dealer and although he had no great objections to Pansy spending time with another boy her choice irked him. That was probably why she picked him. Girls, they were so stupid in everything else, so inferior in all things save when it came to manipulating matters of a more emotional nature, Merlin curse them. So Draco resolved to make amends.
"Pansy," he came up to her as she and Zabini lounged, laughing on a couch. "You never told me about that Quidditch game." A hint, but no apology for his behavior to her. She would either take it and come away with out a fight, or she would be contrary and stubborn. He perversely he hoped it would be the latter.
"I thought you had no interest." Pansy said pointedly. Stubborn. "The way you were ignoring me this morning and starring at that Granger girl. It was disgusting!" she snapped glaring at him her hand in Zabini's.
"I was just trying to formulate a plan for getting them in trouble, I would never like Granger and you know it!" He clenched his teeth. A fight, a fight something inside him cried out for one. She noticed, and now she was going to spread it around, like jam, damn jam.
She was looking superior. "Oh were you now, I bet you were just trying to find a way of getting her into bed" Draco noticed Zabini raise his eyebrows. That kid was sick and twisted if he actually believed it.
"Look Pansy, if you think that you can push me around by making accusations about me that are completely unfounded you are stupider than everyone already thinks you are." With that he turned on his heal and headed out. He was furious. Over nothing, he reflected but enraged all the same, was it because it was true or because Parkinson had just embarrassed him in front of most of his house. She would follow him he knew but right now he was going to postpone the inevitable and headed off in the direction of the library. It was after all, it was the last place she would look.
Draco was right, he had waited doing various trivial assignment for a full hour until she made an appearance. Pansy's normally pretty if some what doughy eyes were rimed red and her pug noes was shiny. He could feel almost sorry for her having to run around the school with a face like that. A good and loyal dog, He reflected. She approached and started gushing.
"Oh Draco darling, I am soo sorry. I didn't mean to make you really angry, I was just jealous because you were ignoring me and I thought…" She trailed off, and looked at him pleadingly, trying to look as lovable and piteous as possible. She had not yet perfected the look Draco mused. The tear stains ruined it's intended effect and it wouldn't have worked anyway. He was after all immune.
"Sit down" he said in lieu of a pardon. "You promised to tell me all about the Quidditch game." in a moment the gushing recommenced detailing every play with an avidness that was obscene, Draco tried to maintain an air of interest while he resumed the tasks at hand and all was just as it was before.
Pansy's discourse continued unchecked until the librarian shooed them out and it was time to part and make ready for bed. They separated with a kiss as had become customary and Pansy vanished up the stairs to the girls' dorm blowing him more tokens of her affection as she disappeared. When she was at last out of sight, Draco let out a long breath. Gods, that girl could talk your ear off. He had much to think about and so made speed to retire. Crabbe was asleep by the time he was done and all the others save Zabini were in their beds. This was good since it meant he would not have to have any thing to delay or interrupt him. Lying down he composed himself to thought.
This business with Granger was upsetting him. It was embarrassing to think that he might be attracted to her. Once again he played the scene he had witnessed over in his mind. She drew something inside him towards her, but again he could not think what. She was so pure, so clean and new and innocent, was it that he wanted. After all Dark magic needed Light magic. Could people work the same way. She had looked like the Virgin Mother and he had felt as if he was a devil looking in on those accursed gardens. And was burned by her holiness. Was it that he wanted that power. She had looked beautiful. Yes that was undeniable. Draco shook his head. He must have wanted her. It all came back to one thing, he didn't like her, not just as a person, they were from different camps to be sure, but she was also simply the wrong sex.
Draco had often reflected on the topic of attraction since becoming aware of his own sexual preferences, that it would have been much easier if they were not so. He was the heir to a great family and an old name. As much as he might not enjoy it he would have to make sure that name continued. His father would make certain of that whether he liked it of not, but if truth be told he would fulfill his duty with out prompting. Draco had few loyalties, and was only constant were it suited him, nevertheless everyone must have a rock of Gibraltar on which to base themselves. His was his name, as far as he was concerned, it had lasted time immemorial and he was not one to brook its march ever onward towards the future. So, come what may he would marry and produce an heir. He had no intention of remaining faithful to whom ever it would be, but the name would endure. That was all that mattered.
Draco began to doze, his confused brain let go, thoughts straying to other things and was he was at last asleep.
***
Random Minion's Reviewing Made Easy™
Fill in the blanks:
This fic is ______. You should (continue/give up). The part I like most was ______________. I think you could improve on ____________. Please (notify me when you update/take me off your update list).