For a long time he had avoided her when she moved too near. There were times when touch was acceptable; she never waited for those times when she touched him. He'd thought her infatuated and had wanted as much distance from it, and her, as possible. He didn't admit, even to himself, that being touched made him anxious.
It wasn't until she stopped talking to him the first time that he noticed the way she touched everybody. The contact was so blatantly unselfconscious on her part that Draco wondered how he could have ever failed to see it before; how he had ever thought that it was something she did only for him.
But all of that was after the fact. The contact had started the night he had met Bones at the edge of the Forbidden Forest. He was late, lest she get the impression that she warranted respect. Her eyes were still glowing with anticipation when he arrived. Hufflepuffs, he thought, were so incredibly easy to excite.
"Do you know how to get where we're going?" He had long since learnt that when he was scared it was best to drawl. Drawing the words out and injecting them with boredom steadied his voice.
He doubted she would have noticed if he was shaking with the way she was bouncing on her toes like an over-eager puppy. "I think so. I asked questions, subtly."
He smirked then, but feared that the effect was marred by the encroaching darkness. She'd have all the subtlety of a dragon in a potions store; but Potter was incredibly dense so he probably hadn't noticed anything amiss with the questioning.
Then she caught his arm, eyes light and very clear even in the low glow of their wands. "Come on."
It wasn't precisely a breach of etiquette for her to have his arm as they walked, but she should have waited until he had offered it. She certainly shouldn't have taken his left arm either, not when she was pure-blooded. Then her fingers twined with his and Draco pulled back sharply. It only pulled her along with him.
"What?" She automatically turned towards the Forbidden Forest to see what had frightened him.
Draco sighed. He knew that the customs had died in many of the wizarding families. Even Pansy Parkinson claimed ignorance of the most basic rules of good manners. She, however, was well aware that if she ever tried to hold his hand he would hex her. He shook his hand to free it and after a confused moment, Bones let him go.
"I think," she said, voice faltering. Draco wondered whether she'd finally realised what an abysmally stupid idea it was to have secretly met a Slytherin out in the darkness where no one could help her. "That the path we need to go through in the forest will be safe enough." She paused before nodding decisively. "Alright, if you don't need to hold anyone's hand, neither do I." And, with a laughing look back at him before she turned to head for the forest, she called, "I'm just as brave as the next person who's not in Gryffindor."
Draco hadn't considered that she might have been taking his hand as a safety precaution. Looking into the forest, he thought she was right. It was so dark in there that if something startled them enough to disrupt their Lumos charms they'd have trouble finding one another. If he was the one that knew the way it wouldn't have bothered him. Since she knew the way, he lengthened his stride to catch up with her. "Here." She glanced up at him, startled. "Take my arm," said Draco flatly, holding his right elbow out for her. "The hand is not appropriate."
She grinned in raw amusement, but obeyed, hooking his elbow with hers in a manner that was just too familiar. It was still better than having her warm fingers curled into his. She seemed to forget the contact the moment it was established, walking steadily into the forest. She wasn't smiling but Draco could feel the excitement streaming off her like it was tangible and her face glowed in the wand-light.
"How far is it?" he asked, keeping his voice flat to disguise the fear. She'd know if he flinched so he made sure to control his movements.
"Uh." The look that crossed her features was one of uncertainty so Draco gave up on that line of questioning.
He needn't have worried; the clearing that Potter had told Bones about was barely a ten minute walk away.
"I guess this is it," commented Bones, turning in a half-circle to take in the size of the area, gaze lingering on the pool of water across the other side as she shrugged her cloak off. "It's lovely."
Draco was too busy setting up protective wards to bother responding. After a moment, Bones took the opposite side and began to help. They worked in silence until Draco thought that the space was safe, then he straightened and turned to Bones. She was casting glow orbs; making the grove light up.
"Alright," he said, tossing his own cloak onto a nearby boulder. It would only hinder them if they were casting. "What do you want to learn?"
She turned back to him, tapping her wand against her arm pensively. The orb behind her played high-lights into her hair. Draco hated that he noticed it. "What do you have?" she asked, and her voice was different somehow. If her face hadn't been in shadow, Draco thought that he might have been able to decipher it.
He narrowed his eyes at her. "Curses, counter-curses, jinxes, charms, hexes. What do you want?"
She was still in shadow, but he could see the glint of her teeth when she grinned. "Charms," she said. "Would be the usual Hufflepuff response, but it would be very dull for you I'm sure. Teach me curses."
When Draco's brows rose in surprise, she laughed lightly. "The worst ones you know," she said as though this was a game they were playing.
The worst curses Draco knew were not legal. He wondered for a moment how Bones would react to him teaching her those. He shook his head finally. "How about one of the nicer curses? I don't know how your Hufflepuff sensibilities will fare if confronted with the worst ones first."
It made her laugh, as Draco had half been expecting. He thought suddenly that her sensibilities would fare very well if confronted with the worst curses he knew; and then was surprised at himself for thinking something like that about a Hufflepuff who hadn't even shown enough spine to defend herself against him. Though, if he was to be fair, she had never yet thought that she needed to protect herself against him.
Twirling her wand, she stepped back into the light. "If you can take it, I can," she said. Her smile was easy and confident and for a moment Draco hated her for it. She had lost so many family members to the war and she still had no idea how destructive magic could be. Draco wished that he could be as naive.
He smiled in a manner not meant to be pleasant and stepped towards her. Had she been any other witch, he would have been impressed that she did not step back. It was Bones though; she probably wouldn't step back if a werewolf came towards her. Trust, not bravery. She believed in humans. "Alright," he said, and he meant his voice to be hard and cold like steel; instead it came out rough and low, like a purr. It shocked him because, although everything else might slip out of his control, his voice didn't. He tried it again. "The very worst curses I know."
She nodded, eyes unnaturally bright in the orb-light and she didn't seem to notice that he was still purring, which was one thing to be grateful for.
"Fiendfyre," he said, because he wasn't stupid enough to let her know that he knew the Unforgivables.
She nodded at once, not looking shocked. She probably didn't know that particular curse. Then she raised her head, caught Draco's gaze and said, "I trust you know the containment spells. The Forbidden Forest cannot be put in danger." Her voice was colder, making it clear that she knew exactly what Fiendfyre was. Her aunt must have taught her about it.
Draco nodded to her stiffly, not wanting to dwell on the fact that he grudgingly approved of her decision not to back down once she knew the risks. He admired her priorities more. When he had first been taught to wield Fiendfyre, he had worried about his safety more than the safety of anything around him.
"Alright then." She bounced on her toes a little, the excitement evidently back as she waited for him to begin.
He obliged her; teaching her how to build and layer the containment spells to protect the forest. They would be inside the barrier when casting the curse, so it wouldn't save them should anything go wrong.
Not that there was much chance of anything going wrong. The curse needed to be cast properly and it was sheer idiocy to attempt it with only a theoretical understanding of it; but like all spells, it would bend to the will of its wielder so long as they maintained control.
When the containment spells were done, Draco moved on to the Fiendfyre curse.
He fervently did not want to touch her and was grateful that she seemed to be able to manage posture and wand-movement without correction. Articulation and raw power was where she failed; and touching her would do nothing to help her on either of those counts.
Despite the fact that she'd warned him she wasn't good with this kind of magic, Draco ended up taunting her and yelling at her and getting frustrated with her for not being able to get it easily.
She didn't take it badly; smiling wryly and concentrating harder. It annoyed Draco more, if she'd gotten angry or even started crying he'd feel justified in his behaviour. This just made him feel bad.
"I know you said you weren't good at this," he finally snapped, glaring at her. "But you didn't tell me that you were practically a Squib!"
Surprisingly, she laughed, throwing her head back and shaking with the force of it. Even more surprisingly the sound dragged Draco several steps closer to her before he realised what he was doing and stopped abruptly. It wasn't that she had the most beautiful laugh he had ever heard; that honour rested squarely with Fleur Delacour. Bones had the most unself-conscious though. Her laughter was like an invitation; not one with strings attached like Daphne Greengrass' but one that invited everyone to partake in her amusement. "I'll get it," she said, when she stopped laughing and caught her breath. She was confident enough to make Draco believe her; though if he picked up on spells as slowly as she evidently did he thought that he would have just given up and moved to the Muggle world.
"You may get it," he said crisply. "It will hardly help you when you're an octogenarian."
Her amusement still thrummed out around her; still reached out to him like an invitation. "How will it help me now?"
She wasn't bound to the war like he was. Wasn't pushing her magic to its very limits with the knowledge it may save or fail her someday. Draco quashed the jealousy that surged through him at that realisation and lifted his shoulders delicately enough that it could still be polite. "It's late." He didn't think that he'd kept the coldness from his voice, but most of the school thought him cold anyway so he doubted she'd read anything into it.
He was right. She nodded her head, not even looking at him, but across at the pool of water instead. "You go on," she said. "I think it will be safe. I'll head back soon."
"You can't practice with Fiendfyre on your own." He was grateful that he didn't sound as though he cared.
Shaking her head, she smiled to herself. "I'm not stupid."
"You say that," said Draco. "And yet the fact remains that you were sorted into Hufflepuff."
Her smile didn't waver, but her eyes were further away. "Really," she said. When Draco folded his arms and fixed her with a look that said he wasn't going anywhere, she moved towards the far edge of the clearing. "I thought I might go swimming."
For long moments Draco merely stared at her. "In the Forbidden Forest?" he finally spluttered. When she didn't respond aside from shrugging her shoulders slightly, he pressed on. "In the middle of the night? When it's still early spring? Without proper swim-wear?"
She laughed at that. "Live a little, Draco."
"Malfoy," he corrected her. He resented the implication that not wanting to swim in freezing cold water in the middle of a dangerous forest meant that his life was less well-lived. Catching up his cloak from the boulder he'd set it on, he dropped it onto the forest floor before setting himself down on it.
"What are you doing?" For the first time, Bones sounded anxious.
Leaning back on his hands Draco smirked at her, in his element now that she was off-balance. "Not leaving you in the forest."
Instead of looking charmed that he'd stay behind to protect her, she frowned, eyes darkening in puzzlement. It made him wonder whether she'd been planning on skinny-dipping. "You don't need to look after me." She sounded apprehensive and a little embarrassed; as though she was reading far more into his actions than existed.
Draco didn't want to give her the impression that he was staying for her but there was no way on Earth that he was going to admit to staying behind so that he wouldn't have to walk through the forest alone so he smiled unpleasantly instead. "Should I leave you to get killed out here?" he asked scathingly. Before she could make the mistake of thinking he cared, he tilted his head back to sneer at her. "Not that it would be a great loss to me, but I imagine that I would have some explaining to do if it came to light that I was last seen with you."
For a long moment she was silent; and then the line of her shoulders began to shake in the last of the light from the orbs. Draco almost panicked. His mother had always told him not to make girls cry; she had never added 'because it is terrifying and will scar you for life.' That was very lax of her.
Then Bones made a sort of muffled noise and Draco realised that she was shaking with mostly silent laughter. "In that case," she said, pulling her robes over her head and tossing them aside. "By all means, protect me."
She was, without a doubt, the most infuriating girl of his acquaintance.