A/N: Oh how the tragedies of life interrupt the important things. . .lol.

The Seventh Year

Chapter 7

The Candy and the Crisis Not Averted

Erin made one mistake, which was to start looking for her sister in their common room.

Because of course Marisa wouldn't be in the Head's suite when Erin needed her, but Malfoy would be.

She didn't see him when she stormed through the entrance and very nearly tore the doors to her rooms off their hinges. But when she skirted the edges of the dimly lit common room, just making sure that her twin wasn't hiding, she quite suddenly nearly ran into him.

She jerked back, and sighed, "Quicksilver."

"I rather like that one," he smirked, pushing himself off the wall and buffing probably impeccable nails on his shirt. "I was wondering if I was going to see you today, love."

Now she glared. "Listen, Malfoy, you can't run away this time, and if you think you can waltz into my room and plaster your ruddy face all over the damn place, you're wrong. What is mine is mine, and what's yours is yours, I certainly did not paste myself into your room, now did I?"

She stepped closer to him and prodded him in the chest, forcing him back against the wall. "So I would like to know what gave you license to bully into my room in order to graffiti—"

"Actually, I thought I was just doing you a favor."

She cocked an eyebrow, and gave him a look. "Really. Which favor might that be?"

He took a step forward, and she automatically stepped back—into the wall. "This way you don't have to keep looking for me when you want to stare," he rasped.

"Stare? At you?" she said evenly, annoyed that he had turned the tables on her so quickly and trying to steady her breathing as he loomed over her in all of his annoyingly handsome glory.

"Don't think I don't notice, Benz," he growled, and he was too close, too close, too close—the raging fire was burning again in his quicksilver eyes, and she couldn't write it off as fury this time. "But you keep your distance. Afraid to get burned?"

"You couldn't burn me, Malfoy," she murmured, unwittingly transfixed by the unspoken promise of something heady and crackling and almost tangible between them. "Quicksilver is cold."

"You're right," he breathed. "But if you apply just a little heat—" his breath was warm in her face, and his hand was centimeters, breaths, a hair's width away from her cheek, and to her horror, she felt her eyes fluttering closed, her skin yearning for that touch— "I still melt."

She felt frozen as his hand bridged the imperceptible gap, and his fingers were pulling through her hair, the pad of his thumb tracing her cheek bone. She snapped her eyes back open, willing herself not to shrink back against the wall like a coward. "I could just scream at you right now, Malfoy," she hissed, willfully grasping his wrist to throw him off.

"I'd like to hear you scream," he smirked, and she did throw his hand off, not even allowing herself to stoop to his level and retort to so asinine a comment. She honestly didn't know what he was playing at, but at this point she couldn't think clearly around him. At this point, she still wasn't sure if he was serious, and even if he was she wasn't sure she was completely ready to forgive him for—well, being him.

She brushed past him, heart pounding through her chest, and was out the portrait hole before she realized she hadn't actually asked him to take all the pictures down. With a frustrated sigh, she set off again.

The Head Girl finally found her twin lurking in a hallway barely out of sight of the Fat Lady approximately fifteen minutes later. "Excuse me!" she hissed.

"What?" Marisa snapped, a perplexed look on her face. "I'm busy."

"What on earth with?"

"Natalie gave the candy I gave her to Sophie. It's having a weird effect on her."

Erin looked out from their niche hiding place and saw Sophie determinedly trying to shake a confused third year off of her arm. The third year was apologizing profusely, and explaining that he wasn't doing it on purpose.

"What was it supposed to do?" Erin hissed, her mind forgetting the amazing bouncing ferret and already working out the ingredients in the sweet she had seen on Natalie's desk only minutes ago.

"Stick the pages of the stupid romance novels together whenever Natalie tried to read them," Marisa muttered. "I think with Sophie it is just sticking things. . .oh shite."

A first year had caught onto the third year's elbow and was now stuck as well.

"This is like the golden goose thing from that one fairy tale," Erin mused. "They touched it or each other and couldn't get loose."

Marisa looked at her like she had three heads. "I don't remember that fairy tale."

"No, I swear! It all had to do with a golden goose, and things sticking together!" Erin gave up after another look at Marisa's incredulous face and asked hurriedly, "Well, what do we do?"

"We could use a—"

"You know that never—"

"Fine, the antidote to fl—"

"Counteracted by the mint, so maybe an infusion of—"

"Made it immune, we'll have to cast the Var—"

"I doubt that can reverse effects such as these, so—"

"Invictus Maximus," they both said at the same time, grinning at each other.

"Think it will work?" Erin asked as Marisa brandished her wand.

"Let's hope," she muttered before she cast the spell.

There was an explosion that knocked them back behind a suite of armor and made them both shield their eyes. When they emerged, coughing and blinking, there were three golden geese squawking in the corridor.

"Damnit," Erin breathed.

"Run."

A/N: Quicksilver was a spur of the moment thing, so don't hate, and review!