Chapter Seven:

Life went on as normal, only mildly modified. Draco woke me up every morning and shoved me into the bathroom to shower while he investigated the depths of my closet to decide which uniform he would have me wear that day, not that they all didn't look alike anyway. It was nice to be able to dress myself, but I longed to be able to decided when I wanted to go to bed, and what I wanted to wear. I forced myself to eat everything on my plate, though I did notice that Draco tended to put more on my plate.

On morning in late October, after Draco had put a particularly large portion of food on my plate, I said and said, "I swear, Draco. It is like you don't want me to put myself to bed or anything."

Draco laughed at me. "Now why would you go and say that? I am eager to live my own life to, peach blossom."

"Hey, I'm not preventing you from doing anything. On, the contrary; it you why hinder me from having a life."

"I would take a second to think about anything else you say, Pansy," Draco said in a deadly calm, warning tone.

I sighed, trying to figure out how to best get back in his favor. "It is not like I mind, Draco. It is nice to spend some time with ones betrothed. It will probably prevent some problems in the future. I was just saying that I'm not stopping you from doing anything that you want to do."

"You're reaching, Pans," Draco said, though he smiled anyway. "Eat your dinner. I want to go write a letter to my parents."

"See, there you go again. I'm not preventing you from leaving right now. I know how to find my way back to the common room. I'm not stupid you know."

"I would advice, my dear, that you cease to chatter before you land yourself in even more trouble then you already find yourself." Draco's voice showed that he was angry at me, though for what, I could not imagine.

"I'm sorry, Draco," I whispered, though for what, I don't have the foggiest idea.

"Eat you fucking dinner, right now, or you will not eat at all, and then that will land you in an entirely different dilemma, wouldn't it, Pans?" In stead of replying, I just picked up my fork and started to eat my supper. "Excellent choice, my dear."

We finished our supper in silence, and I managed to eat everything that Draco had put on my plate. I figured that I would already be in trouble for something, and that I shouldn't dig myself a deeper grave then absolutely necessary. As soon as I placed my fork down, Draco stood up. "Shall we be on our way, then?" Draco said before walking away, not even looking back to see if I was following.

I rushed to catch up with him. "Draco, please wait. I'm sorry, okay. I didn't mean to be disrespectful to you, or anything else like that."

"But you were, nevertheless. One of the few things I require of you is respect, Pansy, and I expect to get it."

"One of the few things?" I asked in disbelief. "Are you serious? Please, Draco, you've never lied to me before, don't start now."

"We will wait to discuss this until we are in private."

"Fine."

"What did I say about one word responses?"

"Fine, DRACO!"

"You will regret this, Pansy. Make no mistake of it, you will regret your disrespect."

I just remained silent. I knew that I had crossed the invisible barrier in our relationship. Respect was something that Draco demanded. I could get away with some little things, but when it came to me being disrespectful, Draco just wouldn't stand for it.

The rest of the walk back to our living room seemed to take forever. We passed several people who looked like they wanted to start up a conversation with either Draco or me, but one piercing glare from Draco stopped their attempts. As soon as we arrived in the living room, Draco turned and glared at me. "Sit down, Pansy."

I momentarily thought about rebelling and refusing to do as Draco directed me too, but one look at the murderous look on Draco's face stopped that thought. I sat down as directly, and calmly folded my hands on my lap, just as my mother had taught me. "Yes, Draco?" I said in a sickly sweet voice.

"Cut out the bullshit, Pansy."

"What can you possibly mean, Draco?"

Instead of replying, Draco slapped me across the face. "Got that out of your system?"

"Yes, Draco," I mumbled.

"Good. Now I want to know what came over you tonight?"

"I don't know. It just sort of happened."

"That is no excuse."

"But it is the truth."

"I see. We'll talk about this more tomorrow."

"What?" I asked, completely flabbergasted. "I mean, umm, why don't you want to talk about it now?"

"Right now, it is taking every ounce of self-control to not beat some respect into you."

"Maybe it would just be better if you did."

"No. I am not going to turn into your father."

I went to bed early that night, and laid awake, regretting my rash actions to Draco. In the end, Draco only grounded me for a week and lectured me again on the importance of respect.

I figured that I had gotten off pretty easily so I didn't push Draco, and I tried not to bother him that much for the rest of the semester. Before I knew it, exams had come and gone, and it was time to go on break. I didn't really want to go back to see my parents, but my mother wrote me and gave me no choice in the matter.

I boarded the train with Draco, wishing for the break to swiftly end so that I could be back to the place that is away from my family. I didn't want to deal with my father's anger about the fact that I had put on about ten pounds, or the fact that Draco wrote him and told him that he had better not hit me. The only time that my parent had written me this semester was to tell me that they expected to see

I sat across from Draco on the train, nervously biting my lip as we neared the train station.

"Stop it," Draco said without looking up from his book.

"What?" I asked, startled. "What did I do?"

Draco and sighed and put his book down on his lap. "Stop biting you lip. It a particularly nasty habit."

"Oh. Sorry. I didn't even realize that I was biting my lip"

"Break is going to be fine, honey. It will be over before you know it."

"I hope that you're right."

"I am. And I will write you every day. I believe that we're getting together on Christmas, so cheer up."

"Okay. Well, we're here now. See you at Christmas, Draco."

"See you then, peach blossom. Write me if anything wrong happens."

With that, Draco and I step off of the train and pointed out our compartment to the house elves, who immediately collected our stuff.

"Pansy," my mother said, emotionlessly, "how nice to see you. You're father is waiting for us at home. He has something he wishes to speak to you about."

I turned to catch one last glance at Draco, but he had already left with his parents.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The next chapter will be about Christmas break. I hope to update much sooner then this last one. Please review. It keeps me going.