Thanks to those who always review, I'll start doing review replies at the bottom of every chapter! If you review after a chapter's already been posted and I missed you, I'm sorry, I'll squeeze you in next time or via PM!
FOR THE SEXY AS HELL PICTURE OF WHO I THINK IS A GOOD THEODORE NOTT:
h t t p : / / w w w . f o r m s p r i n g . m e / T h e o d o r e n o t t 1 / p i c t u r e
(remove all spaces)
So please, enjoy! ANDD REVIEWW.
XXX
The moment Pansy slammed the door behind her Ariadne wriggled from Draco's arms and stood up.
"Why did you kiss me?" Draco's voice slipped into an air of suspicion. Ariadne began unraveling the long braid that ran down her before responding.
"Because I wanted to." She said frankly, walking into the bathroom and shutting the door. The Slytherin boy was uncertain of a certain blonde's motives and decided to keep his guard up. It could be a ruse to try and trick him into doing something he'd regret completely. As Ariadne showered, Draco sat at his desk and pulled out the journal he hid inside a secret drawer. He flipped to a clean page and dipped a hawk-feather quill into red ink.
"Reasons not to trust Ariadne." he muttered as he wrote. "One: willingly let me kiss her, see her naked, and sleep beside her." Draco knew Ariadne wasn't the slutty type, so her behavior was driven by the hidden feelings she harbored for Draco or some sort of devious plot to destroy him. Draco was sure of the latter and underlined it a few times. Ariadne wouldn't best him with some silly plan this time.
"Two: she has been assigned to kill Albus Dumbledore with me. She might want revenge on Voldemort and not complete the mission, therefore putting me and my family in jeopardy." To any bystander Draco must have looked like a madman. He was whispering furiously to his green, leather-bound journal, red-inked quill in hand and hair dishelved. Not to mention the excess remnants of Ariadne's cherry lip balm on his mouth.
"Three…" he tapped the tip of the quill on the paper, causing beads of the red ink to bleed in blotchy patches. When he could not come up with a suitable reason, he wrote, "to be determined." Having that figured out made Draco feel a bit better—as if he was one step ahead of his adversary for once. Ariadne exited the bathroom and entered his closet then, intent on changing into her evening clothes. Grabbing his towel and new shampoo, Draco rushed into the bathroom before Ariadne could make some possessive claim about still needing the mirror.
Unlike his new roommate, Draco preferred a lukewarm shower. Water that was too hot always left Draco sweating even after he finished getting ready. Into his hair went the spicy shampoo that made his scalp tingle—the same smell, unbeknownst to the Slytherin—that Ariadne was attracted to. But whether or not it was the shampoo's scent alone was still a mystery. The blond boy stepped into a fresh pair of underwear and toweled off his hair. In the mirror, a pale and worried boy stared at him.
"Is that really me?" he touched the dark circles under his eyes gingerly.
"Yes, Draco! It has to be you!" Ariadne laughed from the bedroom. "It's a mind-blowing phenomenon, I'm sure, but I'll make it easy for you. It's called a mirror, and even Muggles have them! When you look into one, it'll reflect back whatever's in front of it!" she was reduced to giggles but Draco wasn't really listening. He was more concerned about how dead he looked. The stress of Voldemort's task, on top of pleasing his parents and winning Ariadne's heart (while avoiding a sure disaster with one of her schemes) was really getting to him.
He poked his cheek with his wand and the bags disappeared for the time being. The blond then slipped into a form-fitting grey suit, with a white undershirt and a black bow tie. As a final touch, he fastened a gardenia over his heart. A while back, he had overheard Wyvern and Ariadne blabbering away in Defense Against the Dark Arts about the plant.
"Today we will be covering various dark objects and how to detect them…" Moody rasped. On his long desk he had arranged trinkets that belched smoke, looked seemingly harmless, and moaned in pain. It was at that point when Draco zoned out. Moody had moved him away from Ariadne last week, when he accidentally released the Grindylow they were supposed to be sedating from its tank. A glance to Ariadne's ankle told him the bite marks still weren't healing. Blaise was now his desk mate, and he spent the majority of the period staring out of the window and at the snowy grounds.
The two boys were seated one table behind Wyvern and Ariadne, with Draco and Blaise's row in the very back of the classroom. Instead of paying attention to Moody, like he knew he should have, he instead eavesdropped on the conversations between the girls in front of him.
"Gardenias?" Wyvern hissed. Ariadne tapped a spot on her desk and a white flower bloomed there. She picked it up and practically stuffed it in her nose. Ariadne exhaled its sweet perfume and replied, "Yes, Wy, gardenias. If a guy gave me gardenias—"
"But it's not like they have stems, really. They grow on bushes or trees, don't they?"
"Not the point! They're so beautiful." In her open palm, the petals opened and closed as if the flower were breathing.
"You're weird, girl. Most of us would be satisfied with some roses." Wyvern went back to painting her nails black and her blonde friend tucked the flower behind her ear.
"Nocturne!" Moody growled. "Does this look like Herbology to you?" Ariadne blushed deeply and quickly pulled the flower out of her hair, letting it fall to the ground.
Draco finally unlocked the washroom's door and stepped out to find Ariadne charming the last of her long blonde hair. It was wavy, per usual, but the waves were neater. They looked deliberate instead of natural. Her body was sheathed in white spandex-satin, and tall white pumps were on her feet. Makeup on her eyes made them look like glittering stones.
Seconds that seemed like hours dragged on as they stared at each other. The fact that they matched almost perfectly made them both smile sheepishly. Ariadne stood and walked out of the door, a recently-groomed Zeus in her wake.
XXX
Ariadne hurried down the staircase to see if Narcissa needed any last minute help with the party. The entire Manor smelled of cinnamon and fresh pine, two scents Ariadne found comforting. Guests were flooding the entry way and the adjoining coat room, shrugging out of expensive fur and leather used to shield from the frigid terrain outside. A loud, obtrusive voice cut over the casual chatter of the incoming Death Eaters.
"Oi! Ariadne! C'mere!" Ariadne's face fell as she recognized the voice. It was Wyvern's older brother, Pythos.
Wyvern's family was what one could call divided. Her brother Pythos, an ex-Slytherin prodigy, was made a Death Eater the moment he graduated from Hogwarts. Pythos and his father were the only two Slytherin to succumb to the Dark Lord's folly, if only to protect the reputation of their other family members. These children, including Wyvern, were labeled as blood traitors. Pythos inheirited his father's genes, standing tall at about six and a half feet. The man ran a carefree hand through messy brown hair and winked a light brown eye at Ariadne. He swept her off of the floor and into a bear hug.
"This is so unlike you, Pythos." Ariadne gasped as her lungs were compressed. "What happened to the stoic, silent guy I used to know?"
"I had to get your attention somehow. Wyvern couldn't come, so she told me to give you these." He slipped her two wrapped packages and Ariadne handled them carefully. An attentive House-elf offered to take them upstairs for her.
"Where is your father?" Ariadne walked into the ball with her arm hooked around Pythos'. The tall man, who couldn't have been more than twenty years old, merely shrugged. The ballroom was filled with people, and Ariadne and Pythos had a difficult time maneuvering through the throng to the drink table.
"He's been missin' for awhile, but he'll come home. I'm sure of it." Pythos gulped down a pint of ale and slammed the glass back on the table. Ariadne chugged back a beer with equal fervor.
"Ah! Quite the little drinker we've got here!" Pythos joked quietly. Ariadne shrugged with a smile and took another in her small hand.
"No one can tell me what to do anymore. I'm seventeen and orphaned on bloody Christmas Eve." With a half-hearted wave of her hand, she batted away the magical snow she conjured earlier. Pythos pulled out his wand, a thirteen inch deadwood with cobra poison at its core, and slashed it at the ceiling. The gentle snowfall accelerated into a windy blizzard.
"What in the name of Merlin?" Lucius ducked as a flurry of ice swirled dangerously close to his face. Ariadne counter-charmed the curse with a neat swish of her Cypress and unicorn hair wand.
"Don't do that again." she hissed, putting her wand away with one hand and draining the last of her beer with the other. Ariadne walked away from Pythos then and sat at a table with some fellow Slytherins. Jericho was at the party, dressed in fine purple silk that brushed the floor. The two girls chatted idly about Quidditch and Christmas and other trivial nonsense. Pansy Parkinson was at the next table over, seated by a gaggle of her annoying drones.
"You look like a whore, Nocturne." she said nasally. A girl Ariadne thought she had seen before laughed loudly at Pansy's remark. She was short, with shoulder-length golden hair. Her eyes were a dark, foresty green.
"Do you really not know how to compliment someone, Parkinson?" she spat. She was dressed in red, which made her pale skin stand in harsh contrast to the color. Pansy narrowed her beady black eyes.
"Shut your smart mouth, Caroline Walker. Just because your daddy is a Death Eater you think you can boss around a Seventh Year?" Caroline shrugged and raised an eyebrow.
"So what if I'm a Sixth Year? At least I'm not ugly like you."
"Good comeback."
"Suck it." Caroline took an empty seat next to Jericho, one of her closest friends. Ariadne just sat in silence, witnessing the entire affair before chiming in.
"No need to defend me, Caroline, although the thought it appreciated. I just like to let Pansy feel good about herself every once in awhile." On her face was a look of mock sympathy. Ariadne inhaled again to launch another slew of verbal attacks when Theodore Nott tapped her on the shoulder. The breath she was saving for curses now gushed from her lungs as she gawked at him.
Theodore was wearing a sharp black button down with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. A white bow tie sat just below his adam's apple. Equally slimming and form-fitting black slacks covered his long legs. His dark hair was left messy, giving him the sexy, "I just rolled out of bed" appearance. In his large hand was a single gardenia blossom. (AUTHOR'S NOTE: SORRY TO INTERRUPT, BUT GO TO THE LINK I POSTED IN THE BEGINNING OF THIS CHAPTER *SCROLL UP* TO SEE THEODORE AS I SEE HIM. SOOO HOT.)
Caroline nudged Ariadne with an elbow to prompt her brain to start working again.
"This is for you, Ari." He said quietly. Ariadne accepted the gardenia and then his hand as he pulled her up and into a hug.
"How did you know I liked gardenias?" she asked, running her fingers along the fuzzy petals. Theodore smirked and said, "A little winged serpent told me."
Wyvern! Ariadne thought. If he didn't look so damned handsome I'd have to kill her for this…
Theodore led her onto the dance floor just as a waltz began playing. "You know the steps, don't you?" he asked. Ariadne nodded dreamily and felt her body move automatically, mentally grateful for muscle memory. Theodore would lean down every now and then and whisper sweet nothings into her ear. It made her stomach flip, as if a herd of stampeding centaurs were tromping around in it.
"You look beautiful, Ariadne." Theodore smiled and Ariadne thanked him. "I hope you don't find this—erm—impertinent." He stooped to brush a kiss against her cheek.
Just as Draco walked in.
XXX
The blond Slytherin happened to look up at precisely the wrong moment. He watched Theodore Nott, the bleeding wanker who swore he'd never touch Ariadne, brush those lying lips against her cheek.
An envious poison began bubbling in the pit of his gut. That lowlife mangy, good-for-nothing arse!
Theodore dipped Ariadne so deep that her long hair pooled on the floor. Once he pulled her back into the waltz he locked eyes with Draco. Immediately Nott's face scrunched into an expression of sheer guilt—mixed with a bit of terror.
"God damn him, there's a gardenia in her damned hair!" Draco seethed. The music reached its crescendo and then stopped. Ariadne giggled as Theodore kissed her hand and walked away, melting into the crowd. Ariadne turned and saw Draco, who looked as angry as a Hungarian horntail with a hernia. Her eyes glossed over in confusion and she sat back down at her table with sixth year Slytherin Caroline Walker.
"Honestly, the entire Slytherin House and their families are here!" Blaise appeared out of nowhere with a small plate of finger sandwiches. He popped them in his mouth as Draco stood stiffly beside him.
"Oh, you must have noticed Nocturne and Nott." He smirked slightly and offered Draco a sandwich, which he wordlessly declined.
"Everyone thinks they can just get with her, yknow?" Draco reluctantly accepted the bite-sized sandwich Blaise was waving in his face and swallowed it whole.
"Who do those gits think they are, anyway?" Blaise affirmed. Draco shot him a glare and hissed, "You're one of those blokes! You lied to Ariadne that night Snape gave the Amortentia experiment!" Blaise's eyes widened.
"You know about that?" Blaise asked. A monotone voice behind them drawled, "Yes, Mr. Zabini, everybody knows about that. Tampering with my assignments will not prove beneficial to your general well-being." Snape looked down on the sheepish Slytherin with black eyes. Blaise shrunk back involuntarily.
"Sorry, Professor. It won't happen again." Blaise pretended his mother was calling him from across the room and ducked into a large mass of people, escaping further ridicule. Snape clapped a hand on Draco's shoulder and gave him a hard look.
"In due time." Without deciphering the cryptic message, Snape left as well. Draco hadn't been in the ballroom for five minutes without being annoyed, angered, and confused by a number of different people. With a pale hand he rubbed his aching temples.
"I need a drink." he shuffled through the groups of dark witches and wizards, offering hellos and handshakes and hugs to some. The amount of people was just adding to Draco's irritation. Anything that stood between Draco and his sudden need for alcohol became an instant enemy. Finally he reached the table and saw that one more thing was standing in his way. A girl about his age, with white blonde wavy hair and slate grey eyes. Ariadne.
She turned and almost spilled the two beers she had in hand. Instead of the amber ale, Ariadne had chosen two pints of dark Guinness.
"Is one of those for Nott?" Draco sneered. Ariadne looked hurt and spat back, "No, they're both for me!" To add insult to injury, Draco casually picked up a strand of her hair and inspected it. "Looks limp."
"I'll show you what's limp!" she snarled. With a dramatic arc of her arm, Ariadne grabbed Draco's crotch in front of the entire Christmas party. Luckily, the size of the occasion was too large for everyone to stop and the music to cut, but nevertheless a good forty people witnessed the event. To Ariadne's relief, Lucius and Narcissa were not around.
Ariadne released Draco's family jewels and drank the two beers in her hand. She strode out of the ballroom and sat on the bottom step of the grand staircase. Drunken tears, the type that surfaced for no particular reason, spilled over long lashes and down her cheeks. She sat like that, crying and inebriated and alone, until she heard familiar footsteps. Hopes wild, she looked toward the door, where a tall Asian boy was handing his coat to a House-elf. His Father walked past Ariadne and into the party.
Once Toran Taminama closed the door behind him, Ariadne sprinted and nearly tackled the half blind boy.
"Hiro! What a sight for desperately drunken eyes! I mean…sore ones." She snuggled into his skinny chest.
"Uh, do I know you?" Ariadne looked up to see a dark-haired man who was definitely not Hiro. This wizard wasn't Asian at all.
"Hey! You're not Hiro!" she slurred, releasing the other man and stumbling toward the door. She fell into the real Hiro's grasp.
"Miss Nocturne, where have you been these past months?" his voice, smooth and suave as ever, sounded different to Ariadne. Deeper—older? She couldn't put a finger on it. Ariadne started to sob into his chest. He hoisted her up over her shoulder and began to laugh.
"Darling, you'll ruin my shirt if you keep crying on me." He swung her down into his arms and planted a friendly kiss on her forehead. He smelled strongly of mint.
"I've just missed you is all. It's been torture here!" Hiro gently sat down on the bottom step of the marble staircase and pulled Ariadne into his lap.
"Did you get my letter?" he whispered into her hair. Ariadne nodded and felt her heart flutter. "Good." He kissed the top of her head and held her close in the darkness of the entrance hall. His long, nimble fingers combed through her hair soothingly until her tears stopped.
"Why did you come here? How?"Ariadne asked. Hiro explained that his father is a close "business" (cough Death Eater cough) partner to Lucius. He didn't need to explain why his muggle mother didn't attend. By the time Ariadne had dried up and made sure her makeup hadn't run, it was almost midnight. Usually any Malfoy celebration stretched far into the early hours of the morning, and this made midnight the half-way point. Usually everyone was served water and ginger ale, so as to ease the stomach for the second wave of food and alcohol.
Hiro took Ariadne's hand and helped her up, escorting her into the ballroom as Pythos did hours earlier. Guests were now seated at the dining tables, chatting idly over flaky puff pastry and glasses frothing with ginger ale. Hiro looked around for the Dark Lord but couldn't find him.
"He's not here." Ariadne hissed at his shoulder. "He never attends these types of things." And it was true. Voldemort usually slunk away to barricade himself in the library during a party of this size. Who knows whether or not an Order member would be present incognito? Larger crowds meant more people who were likely to talk about locations and conversations and the aspirations of the entire operation.
"A third guy, Nocturne?" Draco said coldly, squeezing from around someone's backside to get a look at the man. When he realized it was Hiro, his face reddened in anger.
"What're you doing here, Taminama?" Draco demanded. Hiro raised a brow and winked his blind eye.
"Your mum invited me. She knew how much Ariadne missed me." The blond was having a difficult time keeping his rage in check. Ariadne pretended not to hear the exchange and was suddenly extremely interested with a thread on her dress.
Caroline, who watched quietly from the next table, stood and grabbed Ariadne's wrist.
"Come, Ariadne! I know my parents would love to formally meet you!" she whisked the other blonde away and dragged her toward the Christmas tree.
XXX
Hours later, once the party had ended and the guests all left, the only people who remained were the main Death Eaters and their families.
Many of the groups were leaving once dawn broke to give the Malfoys a private family Christmas. Voldemort held a meeting in the drawing room exclusively for his seasoned Death Eaters. This allowed Ariadne to trudge off to bed, but not before hugging Hiro goodbye. She squeezed him with all her strength as he placed another kiss in her hair.
"Thank you, Hiro." she mumbled into his chest. He laughed and winked his blue eye at her.
"Don't mention it, Ariadne. If you want to stay at my place for the rest of the break, just send me an owl and I'll come rescue you." Ariadne giggled and retreated up the grand staircase to Draco's bedroom, where she removed her dress and shoes and tugged on pajamas. Hiro's shirt smelled better than it ever had in the past.
Down in the ballroom, which was now dark and deserted, Hiro picked at the remnants of the buffet tables and sat down by the wall of windows, looking out at the falling snow. The large clock hanging on the wall above the hearth told the half-blind boy it was three in the morning.
His peaceful reverie was soon broken by Draco, who entered the ballroom and made his way over to Hiro, slashing his wand at tables so they'd jump out of his way. Draco yanked out the seat across from the Asian wizard and stared at him hard.
"You've done a very stupid thing, Taminama. I saw you kiss her goodbye." He seethed. Hiro took a bite out of a caramel apple, licking the bit that ran onto his chin with a pink tongue. He redirected his gaze from the windows back to the other Slytherin.
"I've done nothing that I wouldn't have done before." Hiro said with finality. Draco's hand twisted around the tablecloth as his fists clenched. "And besides, what should it matter to you? I thought you hated her. I thought you called her fat and ugly. If so, there should be no reason for this conversation." He gnawed off another large chunk of the apple, ignorant of the crushed peanuts that peppered his lap.
"It's not like that." Draco said indignantly. Hiro raised a skeptical brow.
"Listen, Malfoy. Have you ever heard the story of the Greek goddess for which Ariadne was named?" Hiro stood and walked to the windows.
"Ariadne was a beautiful maiden who lived with her father, King Minos. Her name means, 'utterly pure'." He finished the apple before speaking again. "As you don't know, King Minos had a Labyrinth built to house the ferocious Minotaur, and to keep any wayward traveler from entering his kingdom. As a sacrifice to the Minotaur, every year King Minos would send eight men and eight women into the Labyrinth to be swallowed whole. The young hero known as Theseus was chosen as one of the eight men one year." Hiro took a long finger and drew a bull's head on the foggy glass.
"Ariadne saw Theseus and, drawn by his beauty, was said to have fallen in love with him instantly. She supported Theseus by giving him a red ball of twine and a sword, so he may smite his enemy and follow the twine back to the light of day."
"What does this have to do with Ariadne?" Draco asked. Hiro shook his head and continued.
"When Theseus killed the Minotaur, he abandoned Ariadne. He probably called her ugly and fat." His eyes narrowed into a harsh glare. It was said that Ariadne then died of a broken heart." The apple's core sat, browning and bitten, on the table by Draco. He stared at it with a mild look of disgust.
"But then, the Greek god Dionysus, who loved Ariadne from afar, went down into the depths of the Underworld to bring her back as a goddess. Now immortal, she could live in happiness with her new consort as the most beautiful goddess on Mount Olympus. Maybe even more beautiful than Aphrodite herself."
Hiro sat back down with his hands folded on the table.
"So what happened to Theseus, then? Now that Ariadne was in 'better care'?"
"Theseus was thrown off a cliff by his enemy, Lycomedes. He knew of Theseus' dishonesty and tossed him to his death."
XXX
StifledCreativity: thank you so much! I'm glad you stumbled onto my story, and I guess it's easy to start anywhere if I understand the review correctly ^_^ I try very hard to make my characters real and believeable. Hope to hear from you again!
SavageTrickster: yes, they kissed again *muahahahha* but will it last? O_O I always appreciate your reviews and how you're one of the biggest advocates of Ariadne and Draco, don't worry, their time will come…. Or will it ?
XXmizzAlecVolturiXX: thanks for your dedication ! your reviews always make me smile.
StayBeautiful1: your reviews are always positive and constructive, thank you for loving Stuck so much! I hope I made Caroline well, she'll appear more as the story progresses! Tell me if I should change anything!
SOOOO REVIEWWW! :D