It had happen right after that display in the Astronomy Tower, which was ironic after the fact. Draco had been so furious with Bones when he'd thought that she'd spread rumours about them that it really made no sense for him to kiss her less than two hours later.
They didn't make it to the clearing for their duel that night. Draco hexed Bones the moment the school grounds were out of sight. He'd never seen someone collapse so fast under a Bat-Bogey Hex. Then she screamed and all of the newly made bats froze in mid-flight.
Still on the ground, her wand arm came up. "What are you doing?"
If anyone else had managed to foil a Bat-Bogey Hex and have their wand pointed at him so quickly Draco might have been daunted. As it was her, he smirked, a feeling of unexpected relief washing over him. "How did you do that?" he asked, watching the bats float helplessly in the air.
Bones didn't move. She was on her side in the leaf litter, her wand pointed at Draco's throat and her arm was very steady. She looked bewildered and a little hurt though, so Draco relented.
"I'm Slytherin, Hufflepuff," he told her. "When you offered me a duel did you really think I'd wait until you were ready?"
She looked as though she didn't understand the question. "Yes," she said finally, voice small.
Draco laughed at her.
"You're meant to wait until both people are ready!" Bones protested, lowering her wand finally and sitting up to dust her lap off. Too soon, Draco thought, eyes narrowing as he watched her. She should never have let her guard down so quickly around someone who had just hexed her. "That's the point of a duel…"
"No," he cut in sharply. "The point of a duel is to win. And I just did." He was almost snarling at her and it was only just starting to dawn on him why he'd hexed her like that. It wasn't about winning; she was an inept Hufflepuff who occasionally got too close to comfort when it came to emotional matters. She'd never had a hope of winning a duel against him to begin with; wouldn't have even been able to hold her own ground.
No, he wanted to help her. She was a Bones. When the war came, and the war was coming, her family would be at the forefront as they had been the last time. She needed to learn how to fight. Playing by the rules wasn't going to help her; she had to know how to fight dirty or she didn't have a chance.
Draco tried not to think about what his father might say about him helping the enemy. He sighed and stepped forward to reach a hand out to Bones. "Look," he said gently as she trustingly put her warm fingers into his. "I'll give you some pointers on…" Then he hexed her again.
Or tried to. Before he managed to get the last of the incantation out, she jabbed him in the windpipe with the tip of her wand.
He fell back; pain spiking through his throat and flaring out when he dragged in a breath. Then it was gone and Draco turned his head to stare at Bones. He'd evidently collapsed into the leaf-litter too, as he was on the same level as her. Her wand was pointed at him once more and, when she flicked the tip up, he recognised the healing charm that she was casting. Bracing himself, Draco took another breath. Her healing charms were obviously better than her curses because there was no pain.
"You learn fast," he said, hoping that his voice didn't betray how much it had shaken him.
Her eyes widened and Draco wondered whether she was that surprised to get a compliment from him. Then she looked away, her brow furrowing. "You were gentle," she said slowly. "You're never gentle when you're talking to me so…" She shrugged.
"So you suspected a trap," finished Draco, nodding and mentally filing her critique away for future reference. It amused him that she was downplaying the compliment; very Hufflepuff.
She smiled a little before turning over in the leaf litter and pushing herself to her feet. Looking around himself, Draco creased his nose in distaste and got up as well. He dusted the shoulders and knees of his robes, glancing down his front to see if any leaves still clung to him.
Bones was doing the same but Draco stepped across to help her as she had fared far worse than he from her time on the ground. Evidently her robes were not warded against general debris.
"Here," he said, voice clipped and irritable as he plucked the leaves from her hair. They crumbled in his hands, which made him scowl. "Just…" He caught her shoulders and held her steady. "Stand still."
Looking impatient, she obeyed.
"You could learn a simple cleansing charm," Draco suggested, pointing his wand at her and demonstrating.
She huffed out a breath, sending an errant strand of hair into her eyes. She probably couldn't learn a simple cleansing charm, Draco decided. Or it would take her a decade if she tried.
"Are we still duelling?" she asked, shoving her hair behind her ear.
The tip of Draco's wand was still pointed at her and he smiled. "Learn from your mistakes, Hufflepuff. At least wait until my wand's down before offering me another round." He was too close to her. If she moved forward even an inch, she'd touch him. Draco stepped back, feeling his face flush. He looked away. "Do you want to have a fair duel this time?" he asked sharply.
"No." When Draco looked back at Bones, she was running her plait through her hands one after the other, like she was nervous suddenly. "I like how you duel," she said.
Draco stretched his back and watched her warily, waiting for the punch-line. It didn't come. She actually seemed to be in earnest about this. Something warm unfolded in him but, until Bones grinned at him, eyes lighting up like a lumos, he didn't realise that he was smiling at her. He reined his emotions in hard, brows furrowing and giving Bones a reproving look.
They duelled for a while longer; and Draco cheated, but Bones didn't. He was surprised that she could hold her own once she lost her inhibitions. Zabini was absolutely right to be wary of her; given a few years she'd be able to match Potter or Granger. Even with his knowledge of Dark Arts and all the dirty tricks he knew, he was only just keeping up with her.
Rather than relying on her wand, she used the forest to thwart him. Disappearing into it or transfiguring distractions from it. She was more physical than he expected too. Just when he'd deflected her wand arm and thought he had her pinned, she'd slam her body into him, pushing him back long enough to get her wand aimed at his throat once more. He was on the defensive for the entire duel.
A stone golem came up behind him suddenly, towering over him and he blasted it with a series of frantic Reductor curses. It crumbled and Draco's body relaxed in relief a moment before he realised that Bones had been behind the golem the whole time. She flicked her wand, casting a brutally swift disarming charm that sent his wand flying.
There was a hardness in her face; but it melted away when she smiled, looking delighted. "I win."
Draco wasn't a graceful loser so he scowled. "Says the girl who's had training from The Boy Who Lived," he said sharply. He knew she deserved the credit, no matter who had taught her, but he couldn't give it to her anyway.
"Yeah," she said, looking down at her wand as though she'd surprised herself. Even in the low light he could tell that she was blushing again. "I guess I picked up more than I thought." She shook herself a little as though getting rid of her excess energy and tucked her wand back into her robes. There was a thin sheen of sweat on her skin, making it glow, and she was pink from blushing and from the duel. Her breathing was coming fast, and Draco could feel his heart beating in time with it. "We should make a fire," she said, looking around. His thoughts had started to head in crazy directions so it was probably good that she'd broken the silence.
With the fire crackling, she didn't seem to mind sitting in the loamy leaves of the forest, listening to the sounds around them as though she was interested and she wasn't afraid.
Draco moved around her, searching the forest with his gaze. It wasn't so frightening with her there and he wondered whether that was because he trusted that she'd stay should anything try to harm them.
"I saw the Dark Lord here once," he commented idly. It had been terrifying then, and still was a little but the forest seemed friendlier tonight.
Bones tilted her head, eyes searching. Draco straightened, realising that he had just called Voldemort by the title reserved for Death Eaters. "That must have been frightening," was all she said finally. She didn't seem interested in the story and for some reason that made Draco relax. The entire wizarding community was so worried about Voldemort and the struggle that was sure to follow. It was refreshing to find someone who didn't care. Though a part of Draco knew that he was relieved too, that Bones had no expectations of him supporting Voldemort. She seemed to believe that he didn't have a side. No one had ever thought that about him before. Even his father was certain that he'd join the ranks of Death Eaters, though for some reason the thought made Draco go a little cold inside.
"Your family died fighting You-Know-Who," he said.
Bones shrugged her shoulders. "My dad doesn't talk about it much," she said. "I had an uncle and his wife and some cousins die but I didn't know them."
Draco watched her face in the flicker of the fire. She was studying the flames and they were lighting her green eyes.
He reached out a hand and brushed a lock of hair away from her cheek. It must have come loose when he'd hexed her, because usually her hair was immaculate.
She smiled softly, still not taking her eyes off the fire.
Something uncurled in Draco's stomach. Something he hadn't felt before. His fingers felt clumsy, clammy, just strange in her hair; but he didn't want to take them away. "Here," he said, moving closer so that she was leaning into his side. "You're cold." He made sure that his voice was indifferent and hard with no room in it for kindness.
"I'm okay," she said, turning her head to look at him. Her eyes caught glints off the fire and she looked warm and malleable.
She had never been the kind of girl that he would want to lean forward and kiss; but he did just that, catching her surprised mouth and winding his arm around her. She fitted more comfortably than Pansy ever had; curling into him like someone who was used to touch would, rather than bracing herself as though she had no idea what to expect.
Then his mouth pressed against hers and she pulled away, yelping low and falling backwards into the leaf-litter.
It wasn't until then that Draco realised that an action like that was going to have consequences. He pushed himself away from her too, staring at her and wondering what had possessed him. How he could be so utterly thoughtless. She was going to expect things. She was going to let the whole school know that she expected things. No matter how much she protested that she didn't, this would change things. Draco pushed himself to his feet and turned away from her, walking fast back towards the safety of Hogwarts and determined to keep going even if she called for him to stop.
She didn't call anything and Draco reached the outer wall of the building, panting from the swift pace he'd kept and sweating because he couldn't believe that he had just betrayed himself so completely.
There was nothing about her that made her worth that kind of a risk. It had to be stress or nerves. Or maybe he was trying to screw his life up before the Dark Lord could do it for him. Back pressed against the cold stone of the wall, Draco stared up at the sky, swearing quietly under his breath.
He would make sure that he was never alone with her again. He'd magi-cuff himself to one of his peers if he had to. Evidently he couldn't be trusted on his own.
But…she was going to tell everyone. That was humiliating for sure; but the real reason that Draco's stomach was churning in anxiety was that as soon as the school knew what had happened, his father would. Draco knew his father's nature. He knew that Lucius would be delighted to be able to hand one of the Bones' over to the Dark Lord. In some ways having it be one of the younger Bones' would make it better; a strategic move that would weaken the more powerful members of that clan even as it thinned their ranks.
Draco slammed his palm back into the wall and the raw pain of it snapped him back. It didn't matter. She was always going to die; and there was no reason to worry about that. She couldn't offer him anything that he needed, or even that he wanted. That made her neutral territory, and she could stand or fall without him wasting emotions on it.
He told himself that this was true until he believed it. And yet; he waited until he saw her emerge from the Forbidden Forest unharmed before he went inside.