Well, here's the disclaimer again. Woot.
DISCLAIMER: nope. Unowned. HP is not mine.
There, this chapter has been DISCLAIMED.
I woke up late the next morning—the only way I could tell being that I was the only girl in the room. (Did I mention how much I missed windows? Well I missed windows.) I laid there for a while, wondering about last night, debating whether or not it had really happened, when I remembered (again) my book. I practically ran downstairs after that, after pulling on jeans and a t-shirt with a lobster on it first.
I looked by the fire, fearfully into the fire, and around the whole commons, but I didn't find it. Deciding to grill Draco about it later, I walked out in search of the picture that lead to the kitchens. It wasn't until I was almost there that I realized that I was wearing a lobster on my shirt, but at that point I couldn't be bothered to turn around—my stomach was yelling at me, and food was calling.
The house elves all looked up excitedly when I walked in, begging me to give them something to do. So I asked for an ice cream cone, because who wouldn't want ice cream for breakfast? I sat and talked to them for a while, forcing myself to abstain from asking if I could help—not because I was into "house elf rights," but because I liked helping in the kitchen.
As I left I debated what I wanted to do that day, and, coming upon a courtyard, I decided to sit down and think about it while I finished my ice cream. Of course, I just stared at the sky and my surroundings, reveling in the sunshine that was so rare.
I jumped as my ice cream cone was stolen right out of my hand, looking around wildly and realizing that—of course—it was Draco. And his goons: Crabbe and Goyle.
"Have a fondness for ice cream, Grace?" I glared daggers at him, but felt the laughter bubbling up as I stared at his expression of superiority. It was just ice cream for pity's sake.
"Gonna give it back, Draco?" I couldn't hold it in any longer; my laughter burst out of me loudly. Draco's expression changed quickly to dumbfounded, matching almost perfectly that of Crabbe and Goyle's, adding to the hilarity of the situation.
"Laughing matter is it?" He took a step towards me and licked the ice cream cone deliberately.
"Hilarious. Though I do want my ice cream back,"
"Well that's gonna cost you."
"Oooh, I'm so scared," I taunted, rolling my eyes. "It's just ice cream, Draco."
"And yet, you're still here, wanting it back." I nodded slightly, acknowledging his point. He continued, "So I'm going to hold it for ransom. What would you give me for your ice cream?"
"What would you do for a Klondike Bar?" I sang under my breath. "What could you possibly want, Draco? A date with Hermione Granger?" I said aloud, almost wishing I hadn't as he barely controlled his fury.
As soon as he was under control he said, "Something you wouldn't want to give. This ice cream is really good, I don't want to give it up." Crabbe and Goyle nodded vigorously. Like bobbleheads.
"Make her kiss somebody!" Crabbe spoke up, to my great embarrassment. I watched Draco hesitantly.
"Hmm…but who?" he stroked his chin with his free hand.
"Better pick quickly. My ice cream's melting," I commented, trying to get this over with as fast as possible and thanking my lucky stars that most of the students were at Hogsmeade, not witnessing my embarrassment.
Draco looked around thoughtfully, and Pansy picked this moment to walk in. I almost thought he was going to say her when he turned slightly to look at her, but he turned back to me and said, "Me."
I laughed loudly. "Bring it," I said, staring him down. He stared back at me incredulously, and continued staring as I walked up to him hurriedly and pressed my lips to his grabbing my ice cream cone with one hand.
I was going to pull away as soon as possible, but he put his now-free hands around my waist and held me closely, pressing harder and going deeper than I'd expected, kissing me fiercely. It was (sadly enough) the best kiss I'd had in a long time. I pulled away after what seemed like an eternity, and walked away, licking the stray drops off my cone as I went. I glanced back once, just to see their faces. Pansy, Crabbe, and Goyle all wore expressions of surprised horror, and Draco was just staring at me with an unfathomable expression on his face. Right there and then I promised myself never to kiss him again.
The afternoon found me sitting on a window ledge in an over-large sweatshirt, reading letters from my parents. They both wrote about even more troubling events, and contemplated returning to the States as soon as possible. I grabbed my notebook of colorful letter paper and began my replies; dwelling on how school was going and the weather, instead of our imminent departure from the world I had just begun to get used to.
I paused, wondering which friend to write about in each letter (I always wrote about different friends in different letters in order to keep my parents on their toes), and stared out the window at the sky.
I decided on Margo for my mother—Margo's sense of style and over-all girliness would please her to no end—and Charlie for my dad—he'd get a kick out of Charlie's name, seems how she wasn't male. As I finished my letters they showed up, arm-in-arm, coming back from Hogsmeade.
"You should have come, Grace! There is this darling little clothes-store there!" Margo squealed, bubbly as ever. She was in Hufflepuff, and almost never unhappy.
"She was in 7th heaven, and dragged me all over the place," Charlie commented sarcastically, her smile telling us that she enjoyed it. Charlie was in Ravenclaw. We were all in Muggle Studies together, not to mention the incredible amount of time we spent together outside of class.
"Hey, you bought a skirt, so don't give me that shit!"
"I wasn't saying I didn't enjoy it, I just felt like a human puppet, getting pulled all over the place like that."
"Well, while you two were gallivanting around Hogsmeade, I was forced to kiss Draco Malfoy," I admitted, as keeping secrets wasn't in my nature at the time.
"NOWAY—HOWWASIT—UNFAIR!" they screamed/squealed, their voices overlapping each other's.
"He is so hot," Charlie stated matter-of-factly.
"He's mean, though," countered Margo. "But yeah, definitely hot. In a bad boy kind of way."
"He's a deusche most of the time," I stated.
"Most of the time. But what about the .00001% of the time that he spent kissing you?" asked Margo.
"I kissed him, smart one," I retorted.
"That's not important right now. Just tell us how it was already," Charlie complained.
"Fine. It was...pretty incredible, actually."
"I KNEW IT! I just knew it!" Margo actually jumped up and down, causing Charlie and me to laugh so hard that I started falling off the windowsill, Charlie tried to catch me, and we ended up in a heap on the floor, still laughing.
"What? It's true!" She pretended to be annoyed, but Margo couldn't hold back too long—she burst into laughter as well.
Tears were streaming down my face when we finally stopped and made an attempt to get up. Untangling was a bit of a workout, but once we were standing we realized that we were so tired we just had to go back to our dorms for some sleep. Okay, I might have pushed the matter a bit because I didn't want to tell them about kissing Draco, but hey, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.
I went up to the owlery to send my letters, and started down to the dungeons, looking out every single window I passed before I got below ground level.