- Secrets of the Forbidden Broomcloset -

Authoress Ramble: I got a guinea pig today! She's beautiful and awesome, but very skittish, and very shy. I like the way they 'meep' so much ... kinda like the way I love to hear humans whimper ... hee. =3

Warnings: This story has been rated 'R' for repeated use of language and eventual sexual content (none now). Also, it is slash, though I don't feel that should influence the rating ... read as your morals and inhibitions permit.

Disclaimer: Obviously Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger et cetera, et cetera, all belong to J.K. Rowling, the rich genius authoress of the entire Harry Potter series, and also her publishers, et cetera, et cetera, though all original plot lines independent of her novels and her characters belong to me as they were derived from my own twisted mind, et cetera, et cetera, so please do not sue me as I am but a poor, lonely, slash-loving girl authoress, et cetera, et cetera.

I love the people who review, and I prove it by answering their reviews! Hurrah for these awesome people, who rock! Thanks for your comments.

chimixmi858: Thank you. =D I liked the appraising scene too, that my favorite to write, even over Hermione being slightly molested. -hugs-

willow-nymph: Damn you, the slashy goodness is coming! I need Harry/Draco too ... that's why I read fanfiction like crazy when I'm not writing ... it keeps me warm inside.

ineth Tinethele: I can't pronounce your name, and I can barely spell it ... thanks for loving it, and I do hope I get to keep writing. 3

Kuraii Koneko: I feel you! It's so lame when Draco starts out as IC and then suddenly leaps in Harry's lap, pouting for love. We love our evil, hard-won Draco! And I'm glad you laughed, that's awesome. =3 My ultimate goal as an authoress is to make my readers laugh, cry and be turned on.

Auriliayh: Yours was my favourite review. I do hope you stalk me, that would be awesome. I worship your reviews like you say you worship my writing!

Web Walker: Thanks, I tried to make the way I portrayed Harry as unique. I didn't want him to be something obvious ... you know, IncrediblyDepressed!Harry or RebelliousAngry!Harry or LonelyNeedyVulnerable!Harry. I just wanted mine to be, ahh ... Multi-Faceted!Harry.

Wolfgirl-Lupin: You and I both do s! Thanks for liking it.

Draco23Luver: Mmm, I luve Draco too. I'm glad you like my idea ... I was worried it was kinda lame. =)

Shyla-of-slytherin: Your name is yummy. Yes, I AM evil and fucking awesome. -cuddles you-

vkay
: I'm glad it was funny and interesting! I try. =D

Crysania Fay: You laughed, yay! I'm so glaaad ...

And now the good part: the actual story! Whee!

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Hermione Granger was sitting stiffly in one of the plump Gryffindor common room armchairs, a huge spellbook spread across her lap, her eyes locked forcibly on the open pages. Her cheeks were burning a conspicuous crimson, although she was far from the heat of the fire; Crookshanks was rubbing his chin against her ankle worriedly.

Ron was sitting across from her, peering uncomfortably at her face. After a good quarter hour of staring and twitching, he finally gathered the courage to speak.

"Awe, come on Hermione, it couldn't have been all that terrible .."

The spellbook slammed shut with a resounding smack.

"It was, Ron," she said icily, through firmly clenched teeth. "It was like kissing a corpse, for all that he put into it, and it was Draco Malfoy, the first and to my knowledge only prat ever to deem me a mudblood to my face."

Ron frowned at this, a disgusted look on his face, as though he was disgruntled at having been reminded of the identity of said molester. Then, a moment later, a look of deeper repulsion crossed his face.

"Are you saying you would have preferred a better snog from him?" he asked, looking both nauseated and severely irritated.

"I would have preferred nothing at all," Hermione answered slowly, gritting her teeth.

"You say that, but you're probably thinking inside, oh, how disappointing, he didn't use his tongue," Ron mocked, talking more to himself than the harassed girl near him. "It was probably some sick secret fantasy of yours."

"I cannot believe you're accusing me of enjoying it!" she said loudly, rising immediately to her feet. "You only want to shift your guilt onto my shoulders, as well as express your own hidden insecurities! I bet you're dying to know who I dream of snogging!"

"That has nothing to do with this!" he yelped, his face twisting in anger.

"It is your fault that he kissed me, Ron, and I hope it haunts you until finals!" Hermione spat back, her eyes flashing. "I hope the regret follows you around like a vengeful ghost!"

"And I hope that .. that .. you eventually realize that I didn't mean for this to happen!" he replied loudly, though his voice was too heavy and held back to be angry.

"Please stop it, you guys," Harry interrupted, looking up from his Potions essay. Both Ron and Hermione turned to him, mouths open slightly. The latter immediately stepped toward him in slight desperation.

"You at least sympathize with me, don't you?" Hermione asked, glancing at Ron briefly with furious intent in her eyes. "That I was forcibly kissed by that .. that .."

"Of course I do," Harry answered immediately, and it was true; the only thing that could have outdone Draco's contorted face of disgust during the brief kiss was that of Hermione.

Although, internally, a shadow of doubt churned uncomfortably in his stomach. When he applied the situation to himself, thought of his lips being molested by the conniving blond .. he hardly felt plagued by revulsion, nor felt sorry for himself. Instead, his head became lightheaded, as though conscious thoughts were being erased, replaced with a vague longing for ... what?

He shivered suddenly in his seat. It was only his body wanting the contact .. just his lonely, estranged body.

His sanity, naturally, completely hated the idea.

"... never felt so completely taken advantage of in my entire life, let alone disrespected and used, all to prove his own shallow point! Don't you think I was victimized by their stupid argument?"

"Huh?" Harry said, jerking himself from his thoughts. "Oh .. yeah, of course. They should've never dragged someone else into it."

"Yes, exactly!" Hermione loudly agreed, shooting Ron a dirty look. "Even if it hadn't been me to show up, it could have been some other innocent girl!"

"True," Harry agreed, turning his eyes away just slightly, "Although, that girl might have enjoyed it more than you. He is rather attractive."

"Yes, it's ... what?" Hermione stuttered, her jaw slackening. "What did you just say about Malfoy?"

"You think he's attractive?" Ron gaped, leaning forward in his seat to stare openly, shocked, at his friend.

"Ehrm .. well," Harry mumbled uncomfortably. What the hell was he saying? He hadn't even been thinking that! "Don't the Slytherin girls all fancy him? Pansy follows him around like a lovesick puppy."

Hermione frowned, and Ron still looked a bit blown-over, but they both slowly nodded their heads in agreement.

"That's viable, I guess, a Slytherin girl not being angry about it," Hermione agreed reluctantly. "But that isn't the point here, the point is that in making a bet involving some unknown, unknowing girl, well, that's just twisted to begin with .."

Harry sat back heavily in his seat, only half-listening as his friend raged on, indirectly insulting Ron as much as she could fit in. The free, lost part of his mind wandered, reconstructing the memory of the infamous kiss in his mind- he replayed the disgust, the shudders both of them experienced afterward, the cocky smile playing on Malfoy's flushed lips when he caught Ron's expression of horror ...

He blinked, shaking his head a bit. Why was it that when he thought of it, his thoughts focused not so much on the injustice of Hermione's being mildly molested, but rather on the desperation and disgust of Malfoy, on the fact that him kissing her looked and felt so wrong?

He tuned back into Hermione, deciding to avoid personally thinking about it on his own. It was an unbelievable situation; it was only natural that he didn't know what to think about it. It was just wrong.

So very, very wrong. He shouldn't have kissed her.

He wasn't meant to kiss her.

"Harry?" Hermione asked suddenly, jarring him once again from his thoughts. "Are you even listening to me? What do you think?"

"I think," he whispered, blinking down over dark eyes, "That it should never have happened. It looked so wrong, it just ... makes me angry, that it even happened at all."

"Of course it does, Harry," she reassured. "I was just a pawn in some sick bet spawned from a ridiculous argument that I told him to avoid in the first place!"

"I'm sitting right here, you know!" Ron snapped. "You can talk to me about this, too!"

"And what, have you accuse me again of somehow enjoying being assaulted?"

"No! I can't stand it when you complain to Harry about me when I'm sitting five feet away from you!"

Harry sighed, running a hand through his messy, jet-black hair as his friends continued to bicker, the argument now shifted back to its rightful owners. He didn't want to think about the kiss any longer.

For some reason, it bothered him more than it should have. At least, it bothered him in the wrong sort of way. He wasn't furious at Malfoy for doing that to his friend.

He was angry that they'd kissed at all .. and he didn't want to think about why.

Blinking several times, he turned back to his Potions essay.

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"FUCK YOU, Weasel!" Malfoy screamed, throwing his half-used bottle of Chanel No. 5 at the dormitory wall. It shattered loudly, leaving a damp, and rather fragrant stain.

Blaise, standing two beds away, cringed along with Pansy, who was sitting cross-legged on his mattress. Both watched with pale, worried faces as he tore through his huge mahogany trunk, destroying various contents.

"And these," Malfoy said quietly, picking up a glowing pair of dark green silk boxers. He threw them suddenly up into the air.

"BURN IN FUCKING HELL, Rita Skeeter!" he shouted, pointing his wand at the fluttering patch of green. In an instant, it burst into flame.

"But darling," Pansy protested meekly. "You had those tailored just for you!"

"I don't care, they remind me," Malfoy hissed at her, then went back to his trunk. He pulled out a glittering bottle of Lady Del Fawna's New Triple Strength Hair-Lock Gel-Form Potion and sent it soaring through the air, only to watch it explode in a cascade of black ash.

"But it looks so good spiked," she whined from the bed, looking desperately up at Blaise. He cleared his throat uncertainly.

"Draco, instead of destroying stuff, why don't you focus on punishing the arses that worked with Skeeter?" he asked tentatively. "Or, ahh, let's talk about how miserable Weasley is now, since you kissed the mudblood! He's probably crying his eyes out at this very fucking moment!"

"You think so?" Malfoy asked, mildly interested. "He fancies her that much? I knew it would piss him off, but .. mmm .. you think it fucked with his heart?"

He smiled at this, picturing a distraught Ron sobbing over huge photographs of Hermione, who was touching her lips and gasping over and over.

"Oh, definitely," Blaise said eagerly, pleased to see Malfoy distracted from his trunk. "The first kiss that he wanted, you stole. It'll torture him whether or not they get together in the end."

"Yeah, you really screwed him over, Drake," Pansy commented in a pleased voice from the bed.

Malfoy nodded to himself ... it was satisfying to have put Weasley in severe mental pain.

Thinking of that, however, brought to light by contrast that which had not worked, had not satisfied him. In fact, although it hadn't really been on his mind when he'd decided to kiss Granger, he had been hoping that it would piss off Potter as well. He'd expected him to be furious that he had crossed one of his precious friends.

He hadn't been furious. He had been ... intrigued.

Instead of being pissed off as would usually be expected, he'd been annoyingly calm, blowing off the big picture of him messing with Granger and focusing instead on how he had looked disgusted while doing it. Why had he even been watching him that closely?

And then he'd stared at him. Not hexed him, not punched him, stared at him up and down with no explanation at all, and then he had fucking walked away.

"No," Malfoy growled lowly.

"No what?" Blaise asked, frowning.

"No, that isn't good enough," he answered slowly. "Fucking with the Weasel's head isn't enough. I need to get to Potter as well. This game isn't bloody well over yet."

Blaise and Pansy looked at one another, unsure of what to make of this. It sounded a bit psychotic to them, yes, but a Draco Malfoy with twisted thoughts was far better than a Malfoy that was compulsively destroying expensive grooming items.

"What are you doing to do?" Pansy asked at last, frowning curiously at the dancing smirk on his lips.

"I'm going to piss him off until he snaps," Malfoy purred, "And then attack when his defense is down."

"Oh, a classic," Blaise approved with a grin. Malfoy nodded distractedly.

No victory was a true win until it left Potter completely out of his already fucked-up mind.

"Pansy," he ordered, already contemplating the plan in his mind, "Reparo my Hair-Lock, won't you? I got that shit in Italy."

"Of course, dear," Pansy replied sweetly, her lips curled. Malfoy grinned slyly to himself, ignoring her.

I'll have my way with Potter if it's the last fucking thing I do.

Whee! Another day, another chapter! I kinda liked this one, actually. Not a lot of action at all, but lots of twisted thinking. =3 I can't wait until I can make them actually interact again ... mmm ... well, anyhoo, it's reviewing time again! Click the button if you love your authoress, who already loves you for reading! Au revior for now ...