Whee! Look at all my reviews! My weekend is made…
MetroDweller – Mr. Cool is going to start loosing it….
Shahrezad1 – mmm… cookies… I think it's time to throw a little trouble into this romantic plot, don't you?
Amidala and Sailor Pearl – Thanks for reading! I hope you still keep liking Draco… I don't usually like blondes, but there's just something about bad boys, isn't there? *grin*
Chapter 16
Cara was hurrying down the hallway, a step and a half behind Ginny and Diana, muttering foul things under her breath about stupid Diana and how she never remembered her stupid homework for stupid Charms, when all of a sudden a hand shot out from behind a gargoyle and yanked her off her feet.
Her startled "eep!" was cut off by a firm pair of lips sealing over hers, and quickly turned into a sigh as she sank into what was already a wonderfully familiar feeling. Ye gods, she could get used to this, so easily…
"Cara?" came Diana's confused voice. A moment later, the kiss ended and she found herself looking up into narrow gray eyes. She stared up for a dizzying moment, it just the two of them in that dark corner… And then she smiled, unable to stop it. That seemed to be what he was waiting for, because another short, hard kiss was dropped on her lips, and she was pushed back out into the light.
"Cara?" said Diana, halfway down the hall. "Where were you? We're late!"
Cara licked her lips as she started to hurry again. "I'm coming," she called. She couldn't resist a glance back, and her lips curved again as she spied a fair head moving smoothly and silently the other direction.
Diana was tapping her toe, and they started jogging together. "Um, was that Malfoy?" her friend finally asked.
Cara smiled, still tasting that kiss. "No, it was Draco," she said.
**********
Draco was arm-deep in dusty tomes, ensconced at his far corner table in the library. He was attempting to find the extremely-bloody-obscure information he needed to finish his Defense assignment. He had the feeling that the volume he needed was currently in the possession of also-bloody-annoying Granger. She had this tendency to get to the books before he did.
He grumbled mentally as he bent over another thousand-page volume about vampires in Eastern Europe. At least Granger returned them promptly and with plenty of time to allow him to complete his homework. Still, just once, he'd like to have the satisfaction of beating that girl to the perfect book.
He flipped a page and glared at the table of contents. Out of the blue, two arms slid around his neck, a soft, warm body pressed against his back, and two familiar lips pressed against his cheek. He froze, it taking a beat for him to absorb the still-peculiarly-familiar scent of her, before he realized who it was.
"Hi," Cara said, as she let him go and slid into a chair across from him. "What are you working on?"
Draco just stared across the table at her, somewhat bewildered. Sure, they had some sort of a… relationship, he guessed, but still… it was odd, this seeing her. Her seeking him out.
She pulled out parchment and quill, and glanced up at him with a smile. Something warm twisted inside him. He could get used to that, her smiling at him. It wasn't something he was accustomed to, and he was finding himself greedy for those beaming looks.
"Defense," he finally answered, still watching her.
She wrinkled her nose, a rather oddly attractive thing to do, he thought. "Oh, it's that vampire essay, isn't it?" she asked, settling her ink bottle. "All the sixth years in Gryffindor are muttering foul things about Professor Weasley. Even Hermione, and usually she never says bad things about a teacher." Draco resisted a smirk at the thought of the normally unflappable Granger fretting over this blasted essay.
He watched her shuffle a stack of notes, making a few marks on some of them. She started to write. "What are you working on?" he finally asked. It felt awkward, making conversation. Talking. It wasn't something he was accustomed to.
She gave him a brilliant smile, one of those smiles that he was starting to crave on a regular basis. "Charms," she said. "Professor Flitwick said we could do extra credit, if we wanted, if we researched the origins and common uses of Summoning Charms."
He raised one eyebrow. "You need extra credit in Charms?" He thought he remembered her yelling at him, back when they'd first started working together, that she was top marks in Charms and Defense.
She rolled her eyes. "No, you jerk," she said without heat. "I like Charms."
"Hmm," was all he said. She shot him a mock glare, the corners of her mouth twitching even as she bent back to her homework. He watched her still, eyes taking in the curve of her cheek, the way her hair fell over her shoulder and how her hand moved smoothly across the page.
She glanced up, and saw him watching her, and blushed a bright, rosy red. The corner of his mouth tilted up as he held her eyes with his, and her blush deepened. He could get used to that, too. For some reason, he liked seeing that hot color wash over her cheeks. And it took so little to do, to…
He finally dropped his gaze back down to his paper and started to write again, but that slight curve to his mouth refused to leave, despite his best efforts. He felt her eyes lingering on him, and it warmed something inside, something that usually lay cool and still. Then she bent over her own work again.
He… liked her, he realized. Liked spending time around her, even when he wasn't savoring another of those drugging kisses. How odd.
**********
A week later, Cara was comfortably ensconced at breakfast, rather blah bowl of oatmeal in hand. She poked at it with a frown. "Where's the brown sugar?" she asked Ginny.
Ginny was currently making some kind of sculpture out of her own oatmeal. "I used it for the dirt," she said, and pointed to a blob of what used to be lovely, flavorful brown sugar. "See? That's the fields in the farm. And those raisins are the cows."
Cara scowled at the waste of perfectly good sugar. "What's the blob in the middle, then?"
Ginny tilted her head and frowned. "It's supposed to be the barn, although I think it came out much more like a house."
Her brother, sitting next to her, snorted. "More like a hill," Ron mumbled, managing to spew bacon crumbs everywhere. Cara glared at him, still sore that he'd managed to beat them all to the bacon. No, she was stuck with the blah, boring gloop in her bowl.
Just then the mail arrived, as it did every morning, to the sound of softly beating wings as owls soared overhead. Cara didn't really pay any attention, she wasn't really expecting anything from home, and no one else ever sent her any mail. Consequently, when a plain black envelope dropped into her pumpkin juice, she jumped.
Ginny paused in her adding to her work of art to glance at her curiously. "What's that?" she asked, as Cara fished it out gingerly and attempted to dry the letter.
Cara glanced at the envelope. No return address. "I dunno," she said, definitely curious. It was one of her faults, that darned curiosity. It was how she'd fallen off the kitchen roof when she was four, because she'd been curious where the smoke from the stove was going.
She slit the envelope open with a table knife, and pulled out a single, plain sheet of paper, also black. She unfolded it to find a very short note, in a plain hand, written in stark white lettering.
Cara,
Tell my dear cousin I'll be seeing him soon.
B
"So?" Ginny asked, adding to her 'barn'.
Cara frowned. What was this, a joke? "Hey Ron," she asked Ginny's brother. "You're not trying to prank me for hanging out with Draco, still?" Ron had been more than a little upset to find out his sister's best friend was, well, 'involved' with Draco Malfoy. It had taken Hermione, Harry, Ginny, and a lot of threats about his ears from Cara herself to calm him down.
Ron shook his head, mercifully not speaking through his mouthful of oatmeal. Ginny held out her hand. "Lemme see," she asked, and Cara handed her the letter. Ginny frowned as she read it. "Who's the cousin?" she asked.
"I dunno," Cara said. Maybe someone else in school was playing a prank. Ron leaned over to read the letter, and Harry, sitting a few seats down, craned his neck to see. Cara held out her hand and Ron handed the letter back. "Maybe Draco'll have an idea," she said, glancing over to the Slytherin table.
As she folded the letter and put it back in the envelope again, she caught sight of Harry frowning a little, and glanced at him curiously. His eyes caught hers, brilliant green, and for a moment her head began to ache. And then he frowned a bit, and looked back down at his own bowl of gray gloop.
Cara shrugged off the uneasy feeling that had settled in the pit of her stomach as she tucked the letter in her pocket. The head boy and girl were making rounds of the table, and handing the prefects announcements. Ginny leaned over and peered over her brother's arm as he read. "So?" Ginny asked, trying to see.
Ron nudged her away. "Hogsmead visit next weekend," he said, giving her an irritated.
Ginny grinned. "Excellent. I need more sugar quills." Cara grinned as well. Maybe she could talk Draco into going with her and making it a… a date?
On that thought, she abandoned her unappetizing breakfast and instead headed for the stairs. She'd catch Draco later that evening and see what he thought. The letter in her pocket crinkled as she walked, and she reminded herself to show it to him later. After all, he was a pretty smart guy, maybe he'd have an idea about who sent it.
**********
Draco was waiting on Cara in the Potions room that evening, leisurly examining his Nerve-Deadening Potion. Professor Stone had pronounced it excellent, and suggested he try adapting it to use on different animals. It would require deciphering what the proper dosage was for each creature, and the amount of magic in the creature would affect the potion as well. It was an interesting challenge, and one that fell along the same lines as his own private experiment.
He'd tested his vial this afternoon, dropping a few drops on his arm and waiting for a result. The skin had gone numb, and had stayed that way even when he'd stuck a pin in his flesh. Of course, it had worn off far too quickly, leaving him to decided to increase the amount of foxglove in the potion.
He glanced up as the classroom door opened and Cara came sailing in, looking cheerful and bright and a little on the messy side. He resisted the urge to smirk. He wondered if she'd run into a dirt pile, given the streaks on her cheek and in her hair.
"Ooh," she exclaimed, as she tossed her bookbag down "Did you know that there's an enchanted suit of armor guarding the shortcut from the Astronomy Tower now?"
Draco raised an eyebrow. "No," he said.
She grimaced. "I had a little run-in," she said, and wiped at her cheek, completely missing the dust.
Draco couldn't resist. It was too good an opportunity. "Here, you're missing it completely," he said smoothly, and reached out one hand. Using the pad of his thumb, he slowly and deliberately wiped the dust away, letting his fingertips trail after, across the soft, smooth skin. The cheek under his hand warmed as she blushed, just as he'd intended. He smirked again, and shifting his hand around the back of her neck, couldn't resist taking the opportunity for one richly satisfying kiss.
Letting her go a few moments later, he enjoyed the sight of soft, dazed eyes before somewhat reluctantly stepping back. "Tonight you need to finish your regeneration potion," he said, settling back into his seat. "And for Merlin's sake, don't forget the ground mace this time."
She grimaced at him, even while her eyes were still soft. "Shut up," she said. "It's not like I meant to turn purple."
He raised one skeptical eyebrow, enjoying how she stuck her tongue out at him. It made him think of other, more pleasurably things, however, and so he busied himself with his Herbology homework.
He listened almost absently as Cara moved about, humming off key as she normally did. "Oh!" she exclaimed a few minutes later. "I almost forgot, did you hear there's going to be a Hogsmead visit in a week?"
Draco had heard. He'd ignored the information, however, knowing that he had no plans on going. "So?" he asked coolly, not looking up. He didn't want to become distracted again.
"So," she hesitated a moment. "I was, um…" Now he did look up, eyes narrowing. He hadn't heard Cara sound that uncertain in a long time. She looked at him and blushed, before dropping her eyes back to her cauldron. "I was hoping we could go and have, like, a date," she finally mumbled.
Draco stared at her, something warm spreading through his chest. It was the same something that started whenever she smiled at him, or blushed after he kissed her. She wanted to be linked, publicly with him. She honestly didn't care that he was Draco Malfoy, that the majority of the school hated his very guts. He knew she'd taken some teasing, some hassling from her housemates over her rumored involvement with him, but wanting it out so publically?
He rose, not entirely sure what to say, and was about to reach over and touch her, when she shifted and a black envelope fell out of her pocket. Draco glanced down and frowned. It looked familiar…
"Where did you get this?" he asked, reaching down and picking it up. As soon as he touched it, he knew. And that warmth turned to ice.
Cara looked at it, and frowned. "Oh, I was going to ask you if you had any idea what that could be," she said. "I got it at breakfast this morning." She shrugged. "Probably another joke."
Grimly, he pulled the paper out and unfolded it, reading the message silently. Just as silently, he walked over and dropped the paper in the fireplace, watching it burn. Damn Bellatrix. Damn her.
"Draco?" Cara said behind him, sounding puzzled. "What on earth…?"
He jerked around and glared at her. "You won't be going to Hogsmead," he said curtly. "Neither will I."
Her jaw dropped and for a moment she gaped at him. "What?" she asked.
"You heard me," he said coolly, concealing the churning mass of rage and pain and fury at his cousin inside him.
Her brows snapped together. "Look, you can tell me you don't want a date, that's fine. But don't tell me what I can or can't do." Looking rather angry now, she threw down her spoon and grabbed her bookbag. "Geeze, the nerve," she kept going. "Kiss a guy a few times, and he thinks he's the king of the world."
Draco grabbed her arm, intent on making sure she understood. That she did as he told her, that she stayed safely away from Bellatrix and her twisted plans. Cara jerked away however, and he drew himself up, stung. "You're not going," he snapped. "That's final."
She snarled something at him, and whirling, stormed out of the room. Draco drew a breath between his teeth, feeling something tear at her absence and cursing himself. He was weak. His father would have had him bloody on the floor by now, if the old bastard wasn't dead.
"Bloody hell," he growled, and snatching up his own bag, he headed off toward his dormitory.
**********
Sonora stepped out of the dark of her office as the classroom door slammed shut for a second time. She stared after Draco, heartily confused by what had just happened. What was the boy thinking?
She glanced toward the fireplace. Whatever he'd thrown into the fire was burnt away. Was something wrong? She wondered. She'd seen softness in Draco, softness that hadn't been there before Cara. It didn't seem right for him to autocratically order the girl who'd done that as he had just now.
Frowning still, she turned back to her office. Severus was in a meeting with Dumbledore. She'd ask him if he'd noticed anything wrong with Draco, she decided. Because her instincts were telling her it was something, and she had no intention of loosing a boy she'd fought so hard to win away from the Dark.