Okay, last night was a good night for me, so two chapters, un! In all honesty, there's not too much that happens in year three, so I don't know how long this one will take. I'll have to re-read through the book to see what else I'll have to add. Not much else to say about this chapter, so enjoy!

Year Three

Chapter Two

Year Three: The Things You Don't Want To Do Always Result In Things You Don't Want To Happen, But Fate Hates You, So There's Really No Escape

It was rather obvious that I wasn't going to be a welcome sight in the Slytherin vicinity for a while, so I kind of gave up on that one straight off. Fortunately for me, the next day was Saturday, so I took off after breakfast to my favorite spot on the grounds: leaning against a tree that was close to the lake. Marika knew when I wanted to be alone, so she was probably following the weasel. It wasn't that far into autumn, so the weather was pretty decent, and I was able to let my mind wander amongst different topics: the fact that I had actually stood up to Draco Malfoy, when I was going to finish my Charms essay, the other small amounts of homework that had to be done, Draco Malfoy…

I automatically twitched. Why was I still thinking about that? It was done, it was over, and I had come out here to get away from the fact that a large faction of my house wanted to kill me. I stared out into the lake, hoping to get a glimpse of the giant squid. Unfortunately, my search didn't last long.

"So this really is where you ran away to," a cold, all-too-familiar voice remarked, setting off my twitch reflexes again. "I thought that Kanda girl was just kidding me."

Of course, it had been Marika. For some reason she had it in her head that Draco and I would make a "sweet" couple. Even though I had told her never to bring up such a vile and disgusting topic again, I knew she still thought it. There were some particularly nasty things in her future.

"Fuck off, Draco," I stated, giving a futile attempt at trying to continue my panning across the lake's surface without having to look at him. From my peripheral vision, I could see that he wasn't walking away, like my response obviously stated that I wanted him to. I decided to throw him a very fierce glare, with accompanying banter. "Don't you have some little Hufflepuff first years to be picking on? I'm pretty sure there're a few students whose souls you haven't crushed yet. On the other hand, maybe you just rip them out, and Pansy eats them alive. Which one is it?"

It seemed Draco had been expecting something similar to that, judging by the bored expression on his face. "Are you done now?" he asked, almost as if he was waiting for me to lose my steam. I wondered exactly what the hell he was aiming at, but didn't ask, seeing as that would pretty much be inviting him into a conversation.

"Now, now, Draco, that doesn't answer my question." If I had to put up with him, I was at least going to make him regret sticking around.

"You stood up to me," Draco stated, not fully looking at me. I rolled my eyes, letting him mentally fill in the "no shit" comment that would be inserted there. I stood up, walked over to the lake's edge, grabbed a stone and chunked it across the water, making it skip. "Matrons, I'm not trying to start a fight here."

I mocked disappointment (okay, not all of it was mocked). "Too bad, Draco, I was looking forward to it. If that's not why you're here, then why the hell are you wasting my time?" I pitched another rock across the lake, this one making it farther before it decided to sink, too.

"You stood up to me."

"You already said that, Draco."

"I admire that."

I will be honest; I was completely and utterly shocked by this revelation. In fact, I was trying to throw another rock when he said this, which obviously was doomed to fail, and almost lost my balance. Much to my chagrin, if Draco hadn't caught me by the arm, I probably would've fallen into the lake.

As soon as was able to stand on my own again, I wrenched my arm from Draco's grasp. I resumed my former glare. "You 'admire' that?" I incredulously asked. "Since when do you admire anything other than yourself or your ego?"

"Have you been listening to this conversation at all?"

"Yeah, and so far, I don't believe a word of it."

"I'm being honest, Ivrena," Draco muttered, his tone actually convincing. However, I was too angry to pay attention to, let alone care about, that. Over the past few years, no one had really taken a shot at my full name except for Marika when she was acting as my mother, and that was only every now and then.

"I thought you said you weren't trying to start a fight here, Draco," I growled, resuming pitching stones to skip across the water. For some reason, it was kind of helping out with the whole anger issue.

"You never did like being called that, did you?" Draco mused. I questioningly raised an eyebrow. "Don't tell me you forgot about when we were kids? It was one time, but I didn't think your memory was that bad."

I smirked. "You know, Draco, I seem to remember something about shoving a particular annoying and bratty kid into a pond one time," I teasingly remarked. "And there is a lake in the vicinity…" Surprisingly, Draco laughed. I was about to laugh myself when I realized I was falling into both a carefully lain trap by Marika and whatever plan the little bigot was up to. And we're back to the twitching muscles…

"Is something wrong?" I pitched the rock that I had been holding in my hand for a little while. What in the world could he want so badly that he was willing to fake concern for me to get it?

"What the hell do you want, Draco?" My tone was extremely exasperated; I just wanted him gone so I go back to sulking-err, sitting under my tree.

For a second it almost seemed as though he was hurt, but that was impossible. I dismissed it as his transition into disappointment that I wasn't falling for it, whatever it happened to be. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

I paused for a few moments, still wondering exactly what he was getting at. Unfortunately, it seemed like he had no intention of telling me that, so I let it go for the time being. Instead, I moved closer to him and smoothed out my voice.

"Draco?"

"Yeah?" I could hear the anticipation in his tone. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

"Get bent and die," I forcibly stated.

I stalked off to go eat my lunch, leaving "Mr. Perfect" behind.