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WARNING: this chapter may or may not contain hot makeout sessions.
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Ariadne wasn't sure what was happening. One moment, she could smell Draco's minty breath. The next she was tasting it. A small voice in her mind informed her that she was indeed kissing Draco Malfoy. The long fingers that recently cupped her cheek now tangled themselves in her wild hair. Draco deepened the kiss, pulling Ari's body up against his own.
Ariadne inhaled sharply at the sensation of his toned chest beneath her hands. This was far too much to wrap her head around. Any sort of rationale that would normally stop Ariadne in her tracks was lost now. The only thing she knew was kissing Draco.
She instinctively hooked her leg over his hip and ran her nails gently down his bare back. She smirked into the kiss as she felt him shiver.
"Ariadne," his voice was breathless. His eyes were closed as he leaned in once more. This time, his kiss was rough and hot. He hungrily locked lips with the petite blonde, and broke to trail kisses down her jaw until his mouth rested on the hollow of her throat. The scent of lilies and lilac intoxicated the Slytherin boy. He planted a single, warm kiss on her neck and pulled away. When their eyes met, Ariadne's cheeks flooded a bright red.
"You actually let me kiss you, Nocturne." Draco marveled, running a thumb across the lips he recently touched.
"I suppose you could call it that." She retorted. "If you wanted to classify whatever you were doing as kissing." With a sly smile she rolled out of his embrace.
"Wait, what? You know darn well I'm the best snogger you've ever been with!" Draco sneered. Ariadne giggled and replied, "Are you sure? Have you kissed Theodore Nott? Or Potter, perhaps?"
"P-Potter!" Draco half-shouted. "You've snogged Potter! The filthy Golden boy?"
"He was great, Draco. There's a lot more to him than that scar or those green eyes, y'know."
"Do tell." Draco rolled his icy eyes and flipped Ariadne so she was facing him once more. Ariadne pantomimed zipping her lips shut.
"One never kisses and tells." she winked. Draco's brows furrowed and his face contorted into a scowl.
"What makes Potter so much better than this?" he gestured to his half-naked state and Ariadne shrugged. He whispered angrily, "You're being impossible, as usual! I thought that with one kiss—" he broke off and bit his lower lip.
"One kiss would win me over? Draco, you've been torturing me since we were in diapers. One kiss, albeit extremely professional, isn't going to change everything."
"Good, because that wasn't my aim! I just wanted a good snog was all." he snapped. He shifted in the covers noisily and found he couldn't settle into a comfortable position. He finally gave up and faced the three windows.
"Go to sleep, Draco. And calm the snake in your pants, please." With a stifled giggle, Ariadne brushed her lips against Draco's pale cheek.
"Loosen up, Drakie. You'll find everything to be so much more enjoyable." She wriggled until she was pressed against his body once more.
"How can I 'loosen up' while knowing you've snogged Potter! If you've kissed that prat, that means by extension I've kissed him!"
"I've brushed my teeth since then, Draco, I assure you."
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The dawn came and brought yet another snowstorm. Ariadne woke up in a tangle of limbs and silken sheets. She extracted herself with difficulty and rummaged through her trunk for a suitable outfit. Over her head went a striped brown sweater dress. Yanked onto her thin legs were chocolate pinstripe tights.
A large, vertical mirror hung on the backside of the bedroom door. She stared into its surface and saw her sallow reflection stare back at her. Ariadne was unsure whether or not her pallid complexion was from the lighting in the room or her recent sorrows. The latter seemed the more logical explanation. Her hair soon was brushed through and thrown into a high ponytail. On her feet went brown ankle booties.
"Merlin's pants, Nocturne! It's seven in the morning!" Draco groaned. He nearly rolled out of the bed and onto the floor, but caught himself by clutching the covers he was wrapped in. Draco got up and hastily threw on a pair of black sweatpants. His torso remained bare.
"I don't care what time it is, Draco. I'm going to the Estate this morning. I'd like as much time as I'll need there." she said. Draco bit back the insult he was about to spit out and instead offered to accompany her.
"I was going to go with your mother." she daintily sprayed her neck with perfume. "But I suppose you can come along as well." Zeus, the white cat, leapt from the floor and settled on Ariadne's shoulder.
"All right. I'll meet you downstairs in five then?" Ariadne nodded firmly and exited the bedroom. She skipped downstairs to find Narcissa, Lucius, and the other Death Eaters sitting down to breakfast. Narcissa and the Dark Lord were the only people who acknowledged her entrance.
"Please sit, Miss Nocturne." The Dark Lord waved his wand and a chair flew out behind her, knocking out her legs and pulling her uncomfortably close to the table. A House-elf immediately began piling eggs and bacon onto her plate. Ariadne didn't feel like eating much at all, and once she was handed a fork she merely pushed her food around her plate until Narcissa finished.
"Are you ready?" she asked. Draco walked in and stood next to the two blonde women. Without announcing their leave, Narcissa grasped the arms of both children and they spun out of sight.
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The Estate now belonged to Ariadne Nocturne. She stood on the balcony that overlooked the sea and watched the waves crash into the cliffs below her. Frost turned the stone into a slick, slippery hazard this time of year. No one wanted to accidentally fall into the surf and meet a salty and untimely death.
Maneuvering her way around particularly icy patches, she made her way inside. The scent that filled her nose was overwhelming and nostalgic—two feelings, when paired, could lead to a lot of emotion.
Ariadne passed the entrance and into the living room. Countless photographs of her family, ancestral and immediate, were hung on the walls. She walked up to her favorite picture—taken on the bluffs many years ago.
There stood her mother, short and striking, with her arm wrapped around their father. He smiled and cradled Ariadne on the opposite hip. At age four, her long blonde hair was constantly kept in pigtails. Standing at the feet of Violeta and Adrien was Crete, the eldest of the Nocturne children. His blonde hair and blue eyes rivaled even the Malfoy's genetic tendencies, and he smiled and laughed at something beyond the view of the camera.
With shaking hands, Ariadne removed the picture and tucked it beneath her arm.
Narcissa and Draco kept a quiet and respectful distance from her. They stationed themselves in the kitchen, where Narcissa busied herself with cleaning out the pantry while Draco flipped through the many photo albums Violeta kept in a bureau by the back wall. Many were labeled for Crete, and only three of the twenty or so books were created for Ariadne. Draco grabbed them and escaped into a nearby alcove to pour over their contents.
Within twenty minutes or so he had covered Ari's early childhood. Baby pictures depicted a little girl who screamed with laughter, cried comically, and apparently was a messy eater. It was painfully evident the little girl loved her older brother, and her family as well.
There were pictures of Draco mixed in every now and then. In each snapshot that featured Ariadne and Draco, however, Ariadne was scowling. Her small but cherubic face twisted into a grimace that made Draco's stomach turn.
"Has she always hated me?" he whispered to the book. "You sure make it seem that way." The Slytherin's mind ventured back to their kiss the night before. If that was Ariadne's way of expressing hatred, he couldn't wait to see what love was. He snorted at his own joke and opened the most recent scrapbook. It chronicled Ariadne's time at Hogwarts. The first photograph showed him a beaming blonde girl standing in front of the Hogwarts Express with brand new robes. She raised her wand in one hand and a kitten-sized Zeus in the other. A few pages later and there was Ariadne, boarding the Hogwarts Express in the past September. The blonde girl turned around to wave goodbye to the camera. She laughed and rolled her eyes—Draco wondered what was said to her.
He guessed he'd never know. He pulled the picture from its plastic sheath and pocketed it. He'd need a smiling face for the dark times to come.
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Ariadne entered her father's study with a heavy heart. The entire visit had reduced her to tears countless times, and she knew this room would make the largest impact. In here, in her father's safe, was the will that would dictate her new, solitary life. Before tackling this obstacle, however, she walked along the bookshelves, idly glancing at the many volumes her father had collected. Wizarding spell books, books on dark magic, potions recipes. Autobiographies of the greatest witches and wizards who ever lived. She grabbed a thick novel by Miranda Goshawk and pulled it from the shelf. A cloud of thick, brown dust came with it, stuffing Ariadne's sinuses until she sneezed. Only when the musty air cleared did she notice a smaller book hidden behind Goshawk's work.
Interest piqued, she dropped the first volume and exchanged it for the other. This tiny journal was made of Dragon Hide, and had a bright red ribbon sealing it shut. Her father's initials had been engraved on the bottom corner. A small voice in her head identified the piece as a diary.
"Sweet gods! This belonged to Dad!" and into the bag the book went, along with a couple of other writings that she couldn't leave behind. With that small treasure discovered, she turned to face her parents' last testament to the Earth.
Underneath his enormous desk was a small metal square—the safe. She unlocked it with a combination of enchantments and an actual code—her birthday.
The will was a glowing parchment that was rolled tightly. She sat in the office chair and unrolled the Wizarding Document. Once she broke the seal on it, the parchment folded itself into a mouth.
"Is a magical lawyer present?" the will inquired. Ariadne replied that there wasn't and the will re-rolled itself tightly, closing itself from Ariadne's ears. With an irritated sigh she stuffed the scroll into her shoulder bag and walked out of the study. She needed to make one last stop—her bedroom. Ariadne filled the bag with trinkets she wanted with her always now. These included the silk blanket she sorely missed, a golden heart necklace, and an enchanted wooden snake that wrapped its length around Ariadne's index finger.
She walked downstairs and met Narcissa and Draco. They each gave her sympathetic looks. With a brief touch of the older blonde's arm, she was whisked away from her home.
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Ariadne retreated to Draco's room and hid underneath his covers. She lulled into a fitful sleep. Her dreams, or more accurately, nightmares, showed her terrifying images.
Ariadne walked down a dark hallway, lit by nothing more than a few torches with blue flames. She had seen this place before somewhere…
The girl had no idea where she was going, but somehow her feet carried her through an intricate set of turns until she reached an enormous room filled with glowing spheres. It was then she realized she was in the Department of Mysteries. Millions of crystal balls lined the endless shelves. She crossed one row and heard whispering voices. No one was down the hall. Taking a hint, Ariadne tentatively trekked down the stone path until a single, glowing orb caught her slate eyes. Below its stand was a tiny bronze plaque that read, "D. Malfoy and A. Nocturne."
"Well, it belongs to me, doesn't it?" she shrugged. After touching the orb's surface, the glowing glass flared a bright white before speaking in a misty voice.
"Two children will be born, three months apart. The white haired children shall vanquish the owner of the Elder Wand, and assist the shadow that falls across the Wizarding World.
One will stray into the darkness, hopeless, trapped—but can and will be saved by the other. Losses shall be suffered, hearts shall be broken, but above all, the white children must—"
And she was shaken awake. At such a pivotal moment, Ariadne was rudely disturbed by none other than Draco Malfoy. He shook her with his left hand roughly.
"Wake up, Nocturne! For Merlin's sakes you're screaming your head off!" he growled. Ariadne sat up in bed and rubbed her aching temples. Some force wanted her to see that dream. Was is the Dark Lord? Maybe, but one could never be sure.
"I'm sorry. Bad dreams." Her explanation was faulty at best, but at the moment it didn't matter. The Slytherin girl scrambled over to Draco's desk, where she grabbed a roll of fresh parchment and a newly-dipped quill. She jotted down all that she remembered of the prophecy on its scratchy surface.
"What is this rubbish?" Draco asked pointedly. "You're obviously oblivious to the fact that you've got no poetic talent whatsoever." Ariadne simply ignored him and scanned the lines with her eyes over and over. The fact that the white-haired children were Draco and Ariadne was obvious…but the rest could mean anything.
"It's a prophecy, you git!" she snarled indignantly. Draco burst into laughter and said through tears, "Ariadne, you're terrible at Divination! Don't tell me you've chosen a new career path." Ariadne shoved Draco hard and screamed in his face, "This was part of my dream, you blithering arse! I was just about to listen to the most important part, and you woke me up! Do you realize what you've done?" the wet ink from the parchment rubbed off on Draco's pale cheek. Bits and pieces of the prophecy seemed branded there, if only temporarily.
"Listen. I'm trying to be nice because your parents were killed, but now it's not going to be so easy!" he smudged the black liquid on his cheek with a clenched fist. "How come we can't ever get along? Do our personalities clash that often? Why couldn't we just be like we were last night? What is it about me that you hate, Nocturne?" he demanded. His voice was rising with every word, and the proximity between them diminished in equal increments.
"I don't want to discuss this in my current emotional state. Draco, we've never gotten along because you've never ever learned the golden rule. They teach tiny kids that you've got to treat someone the way you'd like to be treated. Law of reciprocation!" she shouted. Snatching the handbag with the things she brought from the Estate, she exited the room with a flourish of robes. Draco kicked the door shut behind her and paced across his bedroom. After a few moments of furious thinking, he yelled after her, "The Law of Reciprocation doesn't exist!"
From an upstairs bedroom he heard her soft, mocking laugh. She was in the library. Draco stomped up the winding staircase and burst through the French doors. Ariadne was sitting cross-legged on a red loveseat that faced the wall of windows overlooking the grounds. Zeus was at her feet fast asleep.
"Yes, Drakie. Can I help you?" she choked back a laugh as his face reddened with anger.
"Why don't you answer my questions?" he allowed a defeated sigh to pass his lips. Ariadne shrugged and didn't look at him. Instead of being lighthearted, Ariadne slipped into a more serious tone.
"I'm not ready to, is all. What happened last night…I enjoyed it, don't get me wrong. I just don't know if now is the right time for this…my parents, and this—" she yanked up her left sleeve and exposed the puffy Dark Mark on her forearm. "—it's just too much for me to take in." Draco tried to hide his extreme disappointment.
"I wasn't expecting that." he admitted.
"What were you expecting? Me to fall at your feet like the other stupid girls you've strung along?" she retorted. Draco moved to sit on the empty side of the loveseat and looked her straight in the face. His expression was hard and unreadable.
"Well, my reputation as a ladies' man has made me quite famous. I'm sure anybody in our year who's in Slytherin would die to be where you are right now." Ariadne's mouth dropped open in outrage.
"You've made it seem like you've offered me a deal I can't refuse." said Ariadne. Draco merely shrugged and gave her his signature smirk.
"I don't do this often, Nocturne. Hardly ever am I the one who goes chasing after women." he inched closer to her spot on the couch.
"You're beginning to disgust me." Ariadne sneered. "You haven't changed one bit. There are flashes of a Draco who I'm sure I'd like. He's kind and gentle, but he drowns in the shadow of your pompous, everyday personality!" her eyes were wild. Draco, realizing when an endeavor has been lost, stood from his seated position and turned toward the door.
"You know, I don't know why I've been wasting so many years of my life pining for you. Who'd want to date an ugly cow like you? Certainly not anyone with any sort of sense. I'm sorry for wasting your time, I'm going to go be a 'pompous git' somewhere else." A strangled gasp forced its way out of Ariadne's throat. The tears came hot and fast to her narrowed eyes.
"And one more thing," Draco pulled open one of the doors and turned to stare her straight into her wet eyes.
"That sweater makes you look awfully fat."
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