A bit of a head's up. This chapter is 99.9% romance. And if you're not fan of a french kisses, well. . . too bad. Just kidding. If you don't like it, you can skip from His tongue to They stayed. You can start reading from They stayed actually. Enjoy ;P

Draco Malfoy walked in the corridors of Hogwarts hoping to run into a certain black haired, green eyed exchanged female student. After getting caught that filthy squib, Filch, he was dragged to Slughorn's party. He had hoped to catch a glimpse of her, but unfortunately for him, she wasn't there. What's worse was that Snape reminded him about his mission. After a lengthy discussion (argument was more liked it), Draco managed to escape his professor. Now he's looking for her.

Ariana Jackson . . . A tingle went down his spine. Just thinking about her made his heart ache with yearning. Each moment that he spent with her did nothing but only intensified the feeling. He knew that he shouldn't be fancying someone while he's trying to please the Dark Lord, but he just couldn't help himself. There was something about her that intrigued him, brought him in. And slowly but surely, he gave in to them. From the moment that he had set eyes on her, he knew that she was trouble. He knew that if he got involved with her, something bad would happen. If it were another time, perhaps the years before this, that she had transferred, he might have acted on those feelings earlier. He wouldn't have care for which house she was put in as long as it wasn't Hufflepuff (Merlin, those people are such goody two shoes) and that she was a pure blood. But no, she had to move this year. And now, he's struggling between his duties as a Death Eater and his feelings for Ariana. If there was a love goddess out there, then she must be having a good time laughing her butt off at his predicament.

He sighed, running his hands through his tidy hair and looked up. Draco's expression turned that of a surprise. Somehow his feet dragged him to the Astronomy Tower. But what surprised him more is that the very person of his thoughts was standing in front of him with her back to him. He walked up to her while he took off his jacket. Once he reached her, he draped it over her shoulders. He noticed that she stiffened slightly.

"You looked cold," commented Draco. She relaxed once again. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be at the party? Not that I have anything against you being here."

Ariana smiled. "I needed some air. It was a bit too crowded for my own liking. Besides, you were right, it was stupid." She turned to face him fully and smile. "And thank you, for the jacket I mean."

Draco felt his face heated up when her lips curved up at him. That was when he got a better look at her. Ariana's face was slightly powered with make up; her lips were stained glossy red and eyelashes longer and thicker than normal. Her purple eye shadow that matched her dress made her eyes more vibrant than before. She wore a one-shoulder that hugged her curves gently. It stopped a good few inches before her knee and had slight ruffles on the hem. Her feet were adorned with silver heels that gave her four inches in height. All in all, she was stunning, more so than usual.

Then a realization came to him. If she affected him this much, he wondered how many guys she affected at the party; he wondered how many guys flirted with her at the party. His hands formed tight fists, his jaw clenched and he nearly saw red. The very thought made his blood boil with anger and jealousy. Oh, how he wished he were there to keep the others away. Ariana was his and his alone.

"Draco?" Ariana's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. She was looking at him with half-concerned, half-confused eyes. "What's wrong?"

Draco cleared his throat. "Nothing." He wondered how long he had been staring at her. He looked away for a moment then looked back at her. "Would you like to dance?"

She tilted her head at him making her more endearing. "There's no music though."

"Do you need music to sing?" He asked, referring to the time that she sang a Greek lullaby to him while they were spending time together one Friday night.

"Singing and dancing are two completely different things," she argued.

Draco rolled his eyes and held his hand out to her. "Dance with me, Ariana."

After a moment of silence, she smiled and placed her hand into his. Draco stepped closer and positioned his other hand on the small of her back while Ariana laid her free hand on his shoulder. Together, they dance in sync as if they had practiced this a million times.

He stared intensely into her sea-green eyes as she does the same. "You look very beautiful tonight, Ariana"

Her eyes brightened at his compliment while her cheeks reddened. "Thank you Draco."

He smiled back at her. "You're welcome, Ariana." He swore she could feel his heart beating wildly in his chest.

As they danced in silence under the moon, Draco kept staring at her stained lips. He wondered if they were as soft as they looked, he wondered if they were . . . no. He shook and berated himself mentally. He shouldn't be thinking these kinds of the things with her. He can't get her involved his life of danger and darkness. He can't. He won't. He cares for her far too much to get her involved in his life. This dance will be the only intimate moment that they will share tonight and tomorrow and the next day and the next day and the next. He would not—

But don't you want to know how her lips feel like against yours? Said a voice in his head. Maybe he imagined it but he could've sworn it sounded like a female's voice. Don't you want to know how soft her lips are? How they taste like? Don't you want to hold Ariana against your body, with you arms locked around her?

No. I can't.

Place your lips against hers.

No.

Feel her lips with yours.

I . . .

Kiss her.

And so he did. He placed his lips over hers. And the moment that he did, he felt shivers went down his back. He stayed like that for a while as Ariana stood there unmoving, eyes wide with surprise. Dread filled his heart. She's not responding, he thought. I guess she doesn't feel the —

His thoughts were cut short as Draco felt her kissed him back while she snaked her hands around his shoulders. Draco relaxed.

He entangled his right hand into her carefully done hair and wrapped his left arm around her waist. He brought her closer to him causing her to stand on her toes on his feet, deepening the kiss. His tongue snaked out and slid across her bottom lip, silently begging for entrance, which she granted.

Once he was in, he ran his tongue on every crevice of her mouth, not leaving a single area untouched before meeting hers. The pink appendage urged hers to dance with his.

They stayed like that for a while before having to move apart to breathe. Ariana and Draco leaned their foreheads, both breathing heavily, both ecstatic from the kiss, both smiling with joy knowing that their feelings were reciprocated.

Mangoes and peaches, thought Draco. That's what her lips taste like. And they are soft, very soft. He closed his eyes contently for a moment, before snapping them open. He released Ariana from his hold before jumping back without warning, making her gasp in surprise as she fell to the ground.

"Draco?" she asked, confusion clearly seen in her eyes. "What's wrong?"

"I can't," said Draco chokingly.

"Can't what?"

"I can't do this. You and I shouldn't be seeing each other like this." He turned around to avoid looking at her. He knew that if he has so much as peeked at her, he would have never been able to say his next words. "We can't see each other anymore. It needs to stop. Whatever we have, I'm breaking it off. I don't like you anyways."

"Draco . . . " The hurt and betrayal in her voice broke his heart into a million pieces. Oh he knew, that if he saw her expression, he would possibly use the Killing Curse on himself.

But his mission was . . . Oh bloody hell. Draco doesn't even care about his mission right now. All he cared about was that if the Dark Lord knew his relationship with Ariana, the Dark Lord would put her in his list of blackmails to him into killing the Headmaster.

He can't risk that. He can't put her life in the line because he fancied her. He won't. Taking a deep breath, his desire to protect her from his murderous leader strengthened his resolve. In the most emotionless, cold voice that he could muster, he said, "I don't want to see you any longer. I don't like you. You mean nothing to me."

And Draco had all but fled the Astronomy Tower after that, wanting nothing more but to go back and apologize, beg for Ariana's forgiveness. But he can't. He entered the Slytherin common room and immediately headed straight to his room, ignoring the greetings of his fellow housemates as he loosen his tie and unbutton the top buttons of his dress shirt. He sat deafetedly on his bed as he buried his face in his hands and cried, cried for his broken heart, cried for his failed relationship but most of all, cried for betraying and hurting his beloved Ariana.

The next few days were torture for him. Everywhere he goes, Draco would see her. He would blink and she would disappear. He avoided her, and she had done the same. And apparently, the friends that she had come with knew that he had hurt her because they were treating him coldly. Whenever they saw him, they glared at him. If looks could kill, he would be six feet under a hundred times over.

And even though he broke up with her, he still goes to the Astronomy Tower in hopes of maybe running into her. On top of that, he couldn't help but sneak glances at her and listen to her voice as she was talking about something or another. Bloody hell, he thought. I am such a masochist.

Which was why he stayed and listened to her conversation with her friends at the Slytherin table.

"We are so going to crush you, Friday night, Clarisse," said her brother Percy.

"Tch! In your dreams, Prissy," retorted Clarisse. "Cabin 5 still holds the laurels for the third time in a row, last I check. Fourth time's the charm." Laurels? Cabin 5?

"Isn't it suppose to be 'third time is the charm?" interjected Annabeth, Percy's girlfriend.

The Slytherin waved her hand in dismissal. "Same difference." The group laughed. But to Draco, he could only hear her laugh above the others.

"So, have you figure out which team you're going to be on, Nico?" she asked.

Nico swallowed a piece of bagel before answering. "Yeah. I'm thinking about being on Clarisse's team this time. I barely get to fight you three in battle and maybe this might be good for me." The quartet raised their eyebrows at him at the same time, causing Nico to shiver. "Don't do that. It's creepy to see you four doing that together." They laughed.

"Suite yourself Nico."

Just as Ariana and her friends were about to leave a voice called out, "Hey, Ariana!" a male voice to be precise.

Draco's hand tightened around the goblet that he was holding. Great, he thought. Another male asking her out on a date. After Draco broke up with her, he found out that she had made quite the impression on the male population that attended Slughorn's part the night before. How and when, you ask? Hagrid gave her a heart-shaped box from someone who asked not to be revealed in his class and one of the Gryffindors in their Potions class left a note and a bouquet of flowers at her workstation when no one else was around. Both happened on the same day after the party. That's how it was for the next few days. She had been getting love letters, bouquet of flowers, jewelry and/or chocolate from her many admirers.

And that made Draco furious. Okay, sure he broke up with her, but that doesn't mean he won't get jealous if she gets attention from other guys, especially if they could match him in wits and looks. He wanted nothing more than to grab her gifts and set them a blaze. But what he wanted to do the most is to hex her admirers into oblivion and possibly into their next life, if you catch his drift. And he was close into doing so with the guy in front of her.

"Yes?"

"I was wondering if you want to go to the Quidditch game tonight and maybe we could go to the Three Broomsticks afterwards."

"Oh," she said. "I'm sorry. I'm not going to the game tonight because I'm going back to New York after classes end this afternoon. I'll be gone for the week. Sorry." She smiled apologetically.

"Oh," the guy whom Draco realized was in Ravenclaw looked disappointed while Draco himself was torn between wanting to rip the guy into pieces for asking her out or be glad that the male got rejected. "Okay. Maybe some other time then. Thank you for your time." He flashed her a toothy smile and left for his table.

Draco saw her shiver a bit before shaking her head. "I don't know about you, but I sometimes wonder how Piper's mom deals with this."

Her friends laughed as they walked away.

During the Quidditch game, Draco stayed at the Astronomy Tower. True to her words, she walked into the Forbidden Forest with majority of her friends with bags packed for travelling. After the game ended for about an hour or two, he saw 13 Pegasi rose from the ground and flying off to a place called New York. As they flew off, Draco stared at her back, yearning for something that would never happen.

Okay. As promise, here's the next chapter. I hope you guys like this Draco-Ariana moment because I had real fun writing this. :D I felt accomplished after writing this moment in such a short time. Tell me if there are any grammar and/or spelling mistakes that any of you caught because nothing irks me more than grammar and/or spelling errors. I welcome reviews and constructive criticisms. No flamers please. I don't own Percy Jackson nor Harry Potter. Stay tuned.