..oo00oo..
Draco
When I got to the library Michael was already there, sitting by a large table poring over his notes and a big book that lay in front of him. I took a seat opposite him and he lifted his head to look at me,
"Hey," he said cheerfully, "I thought I'd start off while you get cleaned up." I smiled, he was awfully cheery tonight. He was one of them people who were actually happy just sitting there in the library and study. The rest of us just called them Ravenclaws. "Could you go and find some other books we could use?" he added absently. Normally I hate to take orders from people, but since Michael was paying zero attention to me and since I didn't even open my bag yet, I figured- what the heck.
I got up and started moving along the rows and shelves collecting books whose titles looked promising. I love books and I love libraries, wondering around, amerced with the scent of old parchment and paper.
There are always surprises when books are concerned, some far less expected than others, like what I saw in front of me right now. I cleared my throat loudly and watched amusedly as Blaize jumped back to reveal a flushed and embarrassed Finnigan behind him.
"Am I interrupting something?" I asked, my voice dripping with sarcasm. Blaize narrowed his eyes at me,
"As a matter of fact, yes you are." He said loudly and then added, "Do you mind?" with a gesture between him and Finnigan who looked curiously between us to see where the power will shift. I was hardly in the mood for establishing my dominance right now and I had far more important matters to deal with at the moment.
"Oh, believe me; I have no intention of staying here and watching you pervying over each other." My voice was dry and bored, "If you could just hand me the book entitled "Medical Plants" from behind you I'd be more than happy to move along my merry way." Blaize gave me a scorching glare which I returned with a mock-sweet smile and turned to retrieve the book I asked. He grabbed the tome and nearly injured himself in his hurry- hey; it's not my fault they make them this big. He dropped the book on the head of the stack I was already carrying and our eyes locked as I did my best not to stagger under the weight. Once I was secure in my posture I tore my eyes away from Blaize and nodded at Finnigan,
"Finnigan."
"Malfoy." He returned with a highly amused voice- Gryffindors have absolutely no fucking sense of decorum. I turned to leave but couldn't help throwing a last glance at them. They were both deep in a snog even before I rounded the corner.
I returned to the table Michael was sitting in and dropped the books, I swear his eyes actually sparkled at the sight of the pile! I mentally rolled my eyes.
For the next half an hour we worked our way through what felt like thousands of pages trying to figure out what the hell that treacherous guava was good for. I find it a bit ironic that it fruits are being used to cure blood ailments when the row sap can actually kill you if entering the blood stream.
I tapped my quill impatiently and tried to ignore the fact that Michael was so immersed in his work that I could just leave and he wouldn't notice. Of course, the fact that I just witnessed Blaize and Finnigan snick off the library looking very purposeful was not really doing much to ease my nerves. I was suppose to seduce Michael, hell, I wanted to- his lips looked so sweet and kissable, especially after he bit them to a healthy pink colour during his attempts of concentration. I closed my book with a loud thud that caused Michael to literally jump up,
"Let's go!" I said in a voice that left no room for arguments. Michael blinked at me,
"But we're not done here." Logic, always logic. He looked so sad I nearly pitied him, but I couldn't,
"I don't care. We still have at least two days before we have to hand this stupid paper. Let's go!" Before Michael could protest any further I grabbed his things and unceremoniously shoved them into his bag. I then did the same to my stuff and pulled Michael bodily up. He was still shocked by the fact we are about to leave a work unfinished and didn't protest much as I dragged him out of the library door.
I kept on dragging him along the corridors till we got to an empty classroom. I wasn't sure what I was hoping for but I did know that whatever it was- it wasn't going to happen in the library.
I seated myself on one side of the wide window seal and Michael sat himself on the other side. He pulled his knees to his chest and looked expectedly at me.
"Hmm, I just wanted to talk, you know- get to know each other better." He nodded and I had to suppress the urge to smack him. If this is going to be one of them conversations where I asked questions and he answers me in a yes or a no I'm just going to leave! "Tell me about yourself."
"What do you want to know?" I had to suppress an urge to jump him and snog him right there, because it would have been enviably easier, but probably wouldn't have very satisfactory results.
"Where were you born?"
"Birmingham." Before I could even narrow my eyes at him he gave me a cheeky smile that said "I know where you're going at and I'm not going to make it easy for you", or it could be "I could win you over in the boring conversations' department". Either way it wasn't too promising. But then he continued, "But I never really cared for the suburbs. I actually moved to London a couple of years back." I raised my eyebrows in puzzlement, "I live with my cousin. She's a hairdresser." He said.
"Where are your parents then?" I asked,
"Still in Birmingham." He answered. He looked extremely uncomfortable; he didn't really want to talk about his family. "We… don't get too well. It's best this way." He shrugged, not looking at me. I said nothing for a while, just watched him picking invisible pieces of lint from his trousers and getting redder by the second.
I could never imagine leaving home. Sure, I had my share of tiffs with my parents and like every normal teenager believed they were odd. But unlike normal teenagers, for me going home didn't necessarily meant having to put up with father's megalomania or mother's fussing because the manor was so big there was almost zero chances of meeting someone in the halls by accident. And if I couldn't spend about three hours a day during meals with them than maybe I should move to London and live with my cousin. Too bad the only one I have is a metamorphagus loon. I felt that the family issued should be put aside, and the sooner the better, from some reason I felt like pushing the subject would eventually backfire at me and I really didn't want to talk about father right now. I tried for a subject change,
"So, you're left handed." Lame, lame, LAME! What the hell is wrong with you Malfoy!
"Hmm. Yes."
"How do you manage?" Somebody stuff a boot in my mouth right now!
"Just like you do, only the other way around." Michael said with a small smile and looked up at me. I frowned at him. "Actually, I am so left handed, that the only thing I can do with my right hand is brace myself against the wall when I wank." His eyes grew wide as he realized what he had just said. I could barely hold myself from doing the same. Ok, now we're getting somewhere… "It's not easy to live in a right handed world but we manage to survive. We're a tough lot." He mumbled fast and looked at his hands again, his face flushing an even darker colour than before. I smirked and crawled towards him placing my arms on his bent knees and lifted his chin with one finger. He lifted his head and bit his lip, looking embarrassed but even more than that, he looked amused.
I leaned forward to close the distance between us and my movement sprang Michael to action and so we met mid way. It was true that Michael never kissed a boy before but that didn't mean he never kissed at all. In fact, I have a feeling that little Weasel girl knew exactly what she was doing. Our lips worked over each other and parted, letting us explore each other's mouths' with our tongues. I gently parted his knees so I could crawl forward and have a better access to his mouth and Michael's hands were digging into my forearms in his rush to get me closer to him.
"It's all your fault." He said breathlessly when we broke apart. I moved his right leg around me and tucked them both over my lap before acknowledging him,
"Excuse me?" I said with as much dignity as I could muster right now,
"You've been giving me those lusty, filthy looks ever since we got here and I just couldn't stop my mouth from running on me."
"Oh, but it was so romantic of you…" I said and leaned to kiss his neck, I could feel the tremble under the smooth skin when Michael tilted his head back laughing. I took his lips again for another deep kiss. Who ever said that seventh year wasn't interesting? If I carried on like that, I'm going to have a top five snogging list by the end of the week. Well, a five snogging list at any rate…
"Tell me," Michael was panting slightly as he whispered in my ear, "Tell me something nobody knows about you." He pleaded and although it was mightily hard to think about anything at all while his lips were tracing my pulse point I was trying to figure what secret I could dish out without having it backfire at me later. Oliver was out of the question, of course, it wasn't the right time to bring up former lovers anyway. Anything to do with father was also out.
"Hmm, I like manga." I finally blurred out, wondering where the hell that came from. Michael pulled away from me and tilted my face so I could see his questioning gaze. "It's Japanese comics." I explained. It didn't really help, though. Pure bloods… you have to explain everything to them. "It's a muggle thing, paintings."
"Oh, you mean like moving pictures?"
"Um, no I think that's movies. Wait, I'll show you." I said and accioed my bag to me- I had absolutely no intention to get up from my comfy position. I pulled out a little tattered book from it and presented it to Michael. He took the book and opened it- wrongly. I showed him how the book is supposed to be opened (it took me a while to figure that one out myself but there was no reason to mention it to Michael right now.) while he was flipping through the pictures I was watching his reaction, he seemed impressed with the art- at least I think because he made little "hmm" noises. And then he got to the interesting bits… hey, I didn't write or draw this, I just read it.
"Oh." His eyes went big and wide and blue and I tried to hide my smile, "Oh. Oh. OH!" I never actually thought that a simple note like "oh" could sound so versatile. I peered at the page Michael was looking at and could feel the tint of pink creeping up my own cheeks. Maybe I shouldn't have showed him this comic. Michael closed the book to look at the cover "It's not a girl." He said in a slightly shaky voice and I shook my head.
"No. they just look like that." I tried to take the book away from him but he wouldn't let go,
"Wait, I want to see more." He said and I smiled. I leaned over to kiss him again, it was the only way I could think of getting him to forget the book. It didn't really work because once our lips parted he kept flipping the pages. "Where do you find these things?" He asked almost casually.
"Muggle London. There's a book shop I always go to." I explained and he nodded. "You're turn. Tell me something about yourself." I said. This was getting a little awkward. Michael looked up and smiled at me, he accioed his bag without taking his eyes off me and then pulled a white drawing pad and handed it to me.
I bet it looked rather strange to anyone who might step into the class right now. Michael was sitting on the window seal, his back propped against the wall of the seal and his legs slang over mine while my back was propped against the glass of the window. Each of us holding a book or a pad completely absorbed in it. I looked at Michael's work- it was incredible. It seemed he was drawing a lot during classes, which got me to think he was no ordinary Ravenclaw as he came across on first impression. Heads and faces, quills and fingers each described to the finer details. I turned another page and chuckled. Michael lifted his head from the manga and looked at the drawing I was looking at.
"It was in History of Magic class. You two looked so cute, sleeping on each other's shoulders." He explained.
"Have you got anymore drawings of me?" I asked, "Preferably without Pansy?" I added and locked my eyes with his. He shook his head slowly and I had a feeling he was tracing the lines of my face in his memory.
"I'd love to draw you." He whispered and then leaned and ran his tongue on the shell of my ear, "All of you." He added and my eyes flew open at the suggestiveness of it. Gods be damned. Blaize was right. Once you got him out of his shell he was rapidly turning into a wanton little slut. I liked it. I pushed his shoulders back against the wall and descended hard on his mouth. He brushed the books away, making them fall to the ground with a loud crush and wrapped his hands around my waist, drawing me closer while his leg moved around me to trap me between his thighs again. The kiss continued to gather heat and our hands were roaming wherever they could.
A loud bell was sounding above us caused us to pull apart hurriedly, panting.
"Shit. It's curfew time." I said almost desperately. Michael sighed and pushed me away gently. He rose from the window seal with a little difficulty and tried to shift his robes in front of him discreetly. He made such a cute and delicious picture I had to ball my hands to fists as to not pounce him right there. When he handed me my book back- it was obvious tonight was over.
We gathered our things and then exited the classroom in order to return to our dorms. We didn't speak on the way; there was a sort of comfortable silence that settled between us. When we rounded the corner that led us to the main staircase we met Oliver, of all people. He was on his way up the big stairs just as we were going down. Both he and I stopped on our tracks and for a long moment stared at each other saying nothing. I knew that right now even a first year Hufflepuff could see we've been kissing and from some reason I wasn't at all pleased that Oliver saw us in that state. I was ashamed because I didn't do anything wrong, we weren't a couple or anything and I wasn't cheating on him but I did feel a bit low. It wasn't really fair to Michael that I was still hung up on someone else.
After a moment Oliver broke eye contact and turned his gaze to Michael. On his part Michael tried to smile to a teacher though he felt we were about to get into trouble for something we obviously didn't do. Once I was free from Oliver's scorching eyes I felt like I could move again and I grabbed Michael's arm and moved down the stairs, holding myself from running down. I felt Oliver's gaze on us until we rounded the corner. I suppressed the urge to lean against the wall for support and bid Michael good night; I leaned for a small kiss to let him know I wasn't mad or anything and continued to my dorm before he could ask what's going on.
..oo00oo..
Oliver
It's amazing how my life turned to a mad turmoil in such a short time. If I didn't know it wasn't the case I'd swear I was manic-depressive. Maybe I was, but not mentally, physically. Maybe Draco was making me manic-depressive? Or maybe I'm just losing it.
I got the owl from Dumbledore that he wanted to see me on an urgent matter. Why do I have a feeling this will not turn out good?
On the way to the headmaster's office I ran into Draco, which in itself was a little unsettling since he refused to talk to me since our last raw, but the fact he was with another guy and they both looked like they were thoroughly snogged was actually infuriating. I don't know who it was and I don't care. His tie said he was a Ravenclaw. Trust Draco to keep his standards and not go as low as a Hufflepuff- not that I have any problems with Hufflepuffs, some of them were very… shagable, but I knew Draco had different standards on the matter. This almost made me laugh.
By the time I reached the gargoyle in front of Dumbledore's office I had worked myself into quite a state. I was mad- about Draco, for doing this, about myself- for waiting till it was too late. At Dumbledore, because I knew that whatever he had in store for me isn't going to be the least bit fun and on the world in general for being such a bitch to me.
"Mr. Wood. How lovely to see you. Sit down please." Even Dumbledore's usual cheerfulness was making me mad. "Can I offer you anything? Tea? Lemon Sherbet?"
"You called for me." I said in a quiet voice. Aggravating Dumbledore will only hurt you. Aggravating Dumbledore will only hurt you. Aggravating Dumbledore will only hurt you. I kept repeating in my head.
"Yes, I have. I have a mission for you." I think I liked the tea offer better. "As you may, or may not know there is an annual conference held in Europe regarding regulations of dangerous magical creatures." I didn't, in fact, know that such a thing existed but that never stopped Dumbledore from getting what he wanted. "Anyway, this year we're sending Hagrid." Ok, this is the bit where it gets messy for me- "I would like you to accompany him and help him with his lectures. Well, let's be honest, this is after all Hagrid we're talking about- give his lectures for him." Smack! Right in the face. "Will you be ready to do that?" Do I even have a choice?
"Where is the conference?" I was really just trying to buy some time; there was no way I was going to get out of it. If Dumbledore made me this offer it means he already went through all the details and all that was left for me to do was pack my bags.
"Berlin." He said happily. I couldn't see what was so great about that. Not that I have anything against Berlin- it's actually a very beautiful city, as I recall from the time I went there as a United player for a friendly game. The idea was rather annoying in itself. "You will be leaving this coming Sunday with Hagrid and be back here a week before Halloween."
I rose from my seat. "If that will be all." I said coldly, trying my best to stay calm. Dumbledore gave me one of his shrewd glances above his half moon spectacles and sighed.
"I think this trip will be good for you, Oliver. Help you see things from a different angle. Take it as an opportunity to clear your head a bit." He said almost gravely and I knew that he was only seeking my best and that I was acting like a spoiled brat. I managed half a smile before leaving his office. He was right; I should take this as an opportunity to clear my head. The distance from Draco is bound to help put things in perspective. At least I hope so.
..oo00oo..
Draco
I haven't seen Michael since we finished working on the herbology paper, two days ago. But it wasn't so much his fault as mine. Professor Snape landed a massive job on our heads to be done in two days and thus I was pretty much confined to the library. I'm slowly starting to see what the others are talking about when they say he's a git.
It's Friday, again. It's amazing how in a space of two weeks I went from adoring Fridays to hating them. I still don't get what Oliver wants from me. Now he's ignoring me again, ever since that day he saw me and Michael on the stairs and now he just looks down on top of it all. I looked around the Great Hall and noticed that even Potter and his friends were sending distressed looks at Oliver's direction. Gods, if those dimwits dense Gryffindors noticed something it must be quite serious.
"Before we begin our evening meal I have a little announcement to make," I turned my eyes to the elderly headmaster who rose from his chair to address the school. All the students looked rather uneasy by that. It wasn't a very usually occurrence during the year for Dumbledore to make sudden announcement and they usually meant bad news. "First and Second year students, as of the following week your flying lessons will be postponed until after the Christmas vacation. Mr. Wood has graciously agreed (translation- was forced against his will…) to accompany our Care of Magical Creature teacher Rubeus Hagrid to the annual conference of Dangerous Magical Creatures in Berlin." The first and second years looked quite happy about it, the rest looked cautiously hopeful. I looked at Oliver, he didn't even lift his head at the words of Dumbledore and I suddenly had to fight an irrational urge to go up to the high table and hug him, rest of the school be damned. I missed the rest of the speech and by the time he sat back down there was a mighty buzz around the hall.
What am I suppose to do now? What am I suppose to say? Oliver is going to Berlin. Berlin is a big city, and two and a half weeks is a long time.
I catch Oliver outside the Great Hall after dinner. It's not like I went and sought him or anything I just happened to stand where I knew he's bound to pass by.
"Mr. Malfoy." His manner is polite and crude, maybe because there are people by, maybe because he's still mad with me.
"Mr. Wood." I reply, because it doesn't feel right to call him Oliver in the middle of a corridor. He's Oliver when we're alone in his rooms, when I'm alone with my thoughts. "I understand you're going to Berlin."
"Yes." This conversation isn't going to lead anywhere. Why am I doing this to myself? Why can't I just walk away from here and forget everything for the next couple of weeks. Forget it all before I have to deal with it again. What can I say; sorry Dumbledore is making you be the oaf's assistant? Don't go, I'm sorry I was such a prat and I want you back? No! Defiantly not that! "Is there something you wanted? I need to go and pack." His voice is heavy and laced with boredom and something else I can't identify.
"No. Have a nice trip. Heard Berlin is a great city." We stare at each other again, weighing each other. This is ridiculous, I was meant to punish him- instead I'm punishing myself by constantly thinking about him, looking to see him, wanting to be close to him- to hear those three little words "I'm sorry". But he's got his Gryffindor fucking pride and he would not move an inch, just like I wouldn't and thus we're both locked in an eternal limbo because we're both too pigheaded, too coward, and too stupid to make the first step.
"Yes, it is." He says and turns to leave. And I let him. And now I'm mad. Because of Oliver's stubbornness and my own. The game hasn't been decided yet. We're still playing head-on, and we're still losing. Both of us.
A/N: Narssica Malfoy and Andromeda Tonks are sisters, there for Draco's cousin is Tonks- Nymphadora Tonks.
I've never actually been to Berlin, but I did hear it's a really nice place.