How Not To Screw A Slytherin

by CBronte

It's a recipe for disaster, a love triangle with edges so sharp someone's sure to bleed to death. SOMEONE is going to get precisely what they deserve; is it rainy-eyed genius Theodore Nott, or perhaps the handsome and rather icy playboy Draco Malfoy? Or COULD it be the girl with the longest side to this scalene triangle; prudent diamond of the court, sweetheart Audette Bellarose?

64. 64 ﴾ A Piquant Tasting Of Petty ﴿

Within the blackened pages of The Book of One Thousand Bleeding Eyes, love had impossibly bloomed.

This rarity of nature had occurred in such a highly unsuspecting, and notably inhospitable environment, that perhaps it should not have come as a surprise when a sickening tryst eventually ensued.

The amorous explosion in question had left the poor ancient compendium in utter shambles, and the pair of star-crossed adulterers responsible for the vandalism in an equal state of abrupt deplore.

What proceeded then was a terrific blackout silence, and by each swing of that nuisance pendulum up in the clock tower the passing hours grew tenser, and tighter.

A dreadfully serious offence had been committed, and now that it had been met with an unsightly termination, all there was to do, was wait...

Wait...and pray that the details of it never resurfaced.

Yet in an odd sort of way, the longer that Audette successfully evaded being caught for cheating in the first place, the greater her anxiety regarding the possibility of it happening, ballooned.

Tenser.

Tighter.

Tenser.

TIGHTER.

Tick, tock, tick, tock...

And so, as a proper little duchess in training does when she's been secretly naughty and hopes not to lose everything, Audette launched into good old-fashioned damage control.

She returned to dressing appropriately clandestine, to calling upon her manners, and even entertained her fiancé's honorable offer to chaperone her absolutely everywhere.

And she did it all sporting a pleasant smile that tended to twitch only in the corners.

It was the sort of smile a mortician paints on a decaying corpse in preparation for an open-casket funeral, hoping that a molding cadaver might appear authentically lovely. However no matter how convincing, best not to lean too close, or one might catch a whiff of the telling rot occurring below that splendid facade.

Of course, little did darling Teddy B. Nott know that Audette's sudden willingness to partake in those preferred novelties of his was all done in the name of defensive strategy.

Like a bumblebee to a flower she clung to his designer suits and crisp school uniforms while diverting her green gaze to the ground, and he eagerly played along like an idiot with a golden blood type inviting a vampire in for a snuggle.

It went on like that between classrooms, in the common areas, and during meal hours, so that she was effectively never alone and in a vulnerable position to be cornered by a certain Russian champion.

As the days dragged on in this dedicated aversion, Malfoy on the other hand, began to display indicators of extreme agitation.

When she dared slip up and raise her eyes on occasion, it was only to run smack dab into a pair of fiery diamonds boring straight into her. They seemed to be comprised of pure crystal, those prominent eyes of his, as he never blinked...merely stared at her in predatory flame.

He frequently motioned to Audette with his slender hands splitting apart, silently encouraging her to return to The Book of One Thousand Bleeding Eyes,to which she would stubbornly shake her head and cross her fingers that Theodore remained unwitting to these microscopic gestures.

It didn't matter one bit if Malfoy had repaired the grimoire, given that her feelings towards him were not repaired at all.

For two people not even officially courting the verbal quarrel had been gruesome, far too personal, and tremendously upsetting, and she remained sour over the plethora of cruel insults he had flung her way in reckless regard.

And based on the blighted expressions he was delivering in her direction, he too felt reasonably sour, which provided sparse motivation to pick back up on what would only be an extension of the unfinished fight.

They had overdosed on limerence, flown far too close to the sun perhaps - or the more likely scenario was that they had truly, and rather dangerously, fallen in love.

Audette pondered about this, relentlessly, sometimes disappearing into her own mind for hours at a time. More hair trinkets were bent on the daily; animated bumblebees, shiny seashells, and dozens of flowers alike, all meeting with disfiguring endings in her antsy mittens when it all became too overwhelming to contain within.

It was indeed, a harrowing catch twenty-two, both of them displaying stark unwillingness to take that first deep step into the sea of vulnerability and sacrifice in order to actualize their relationship beyond The Book of One Thousand Bleeding Eyes.

Malfoy had demanded Audette admit that she was not in love with Theodore Nott, which felt much like admitting to an atrocious felony.

That, and in order to progress with him she would have to first denounce her entire engagement on a whimsical hope that this boy she had hardly interacted with face to face would graciously take Theodore's position.

Based on his social behavior around Hogwarts, this was not exactly promising, and Audette had been stewing over his incapacity to self reflect on this realistic concern of hers.

It was life or death for Audette - this marriage on her nineteenth birthday - and not a drop of design could be spared in order to ensure that Montgomery was pleased with the final pairing of his only unfortunate child.

For that was all she had to offer her disappointed father as a female heir; an appropriate marriage, and a befitting continuation of his precious bloodline.

While she might've been sat squarely on the fence as to how she felt towards Theodore Nott (who was a very safe option), she was undeniably in love with Draco Malfoy (who was on the contrary, a keenly volatile option).

Even Think-Think was stumped.

However volatile an option he might be, her wild feelings for Malfoy had procured enough stupid hope and irrevocable desire to linger about and bicker pointlessly for affections he might very well be incapable of providing in return.

Audette had rightly so, demanded that Malfoy admit to at least harboring feelings for her before she made any moves to disintegrate her already precarious life on his behalf, but apparently he was much to proud to supply that admission just yet.

Perhaps he had never told a girl that he loved her.

Perhaps he had never loved anything, and never would.

Perhaps there was nothing to admit to.

She had thought that this was at least a wise and reasonable pre-requisite to confirm, before he'd gone and ripped her to shreds for her selected wording that manic afternoon.

He was so shrewdly manipulative, that stunning man with freezing eyes, that Audette found her mind to be a jumbled mess proceeding any tiffs with him. For Malfoy chronically maintained total control - he blatantly guaranteed that he held all of the power at all times - and this was downright unfair.

Through that demonic book he had kept her locked in a battle ground within his own territory, effectively planting Audette in a wrestling ring against him with nothing but a cheeky wooden spoon.

His strengths lay in lightning-fast, articulate, verbal communication, whilst hers lay in tender matters of love, physical affectation and spirituality.

She was a piss poor liar, and their relationship had only highlighted that she was also a piss poor debater - especially when emotions were involved, and she was driven into a state of sheer panic and desolation.

Of course he was correct about one thing, and it had really begun to haunt her; she was selfishly bargaining to trade Theodore for an upgrade without meaning to assume any personal losses in the transaction, hoping to transfer the gross responsibility of marrying the so-called diamond of the court to the next best man seamlessly.

However it was all in the name of love, not wickedness, as he had so heartlessly implied, and now she was as sour as a lemon over the nasty label he'd tossed at her.

Wicked little monster...wicked little monster...

As far as Audette was concerned, it was on par with applying for a new and lucrative career position whilst still employed at a previous one - sneaky, but not entirely abominable.

Why, it was very human afterall, whether or not that was a comfortable concept to swallow, to vie for one's utmost beneficial circumstances and overall survival.

Well it didn't matter - none of the absurd shite which had unfurled on that Scroll of Revolution in the shadowy depths of the library - because it was over now.

The Quadrivial Champion had royally offended the Emerald Princess, placing her in a position to compromise her status and future, and worst of all, he had taken a sledgehammer to her heart.

Predictable.

As each hair trinket evolved into a colorful mass of unidentifiable metal at her workspaces, Audette soon arrived at the morbid conclusion that all of these defensive ultimatums they had placed on one another's heads were impractical to please.

No one was willing to go first.

Catch fecking twenty-two.

Despite having regretfully determined that it was not only forbidden, but indubitably impossible for them to properly explore these feelings any further, she could see that in contrast he was incapable of letting her go.

If anyone's strings were snapping, it was Malfoy's.

Rage was not the only emotion collecting on the surface of his hot sterling eyes, which seemed to constantly follow after her every step around the castle.

Also there, found deeply embedded amongst those sparkling linear arrays of pearl and cerulean, lay genuine heartbreak to match hers.

The affair had not been some physical calamity rooted in hollow sexual attraction: it had been esoteric, humorous, and emotionally intimate, a connection derived on a mental and spiritual level. It had been gradual friendship, support, empathy, adoration...

It had been everything.

And then suddenly it wa G.

Soon, nine days had stretched on since their final communication, and whether or not Malfoy had plans to punish Audette for masterfully ignoring him shortly became apparent...yet this affirmation arrived in a form she had not anticipated.

Enough time had then transpired since the initial occurrence in the clock tower, that she would rather take her chances on Theodore brushing off Malfoy's claims as pure balderdash. Afterall...it was his rakish word against her reputable one, as there was no concrete evidence that they had ever interacted...of any sort...

He must have realized as much.

Just when she thought she might bare a chance at forgetting about the unbelievable anchor weighing her heart down, Malfoy sucked her back into the murky depths via pettiness of the most repulsive construction.

If anyone was seeking the next world-renowned, exotic ice cream flavor, they would be best to seek him out for a piquant tasting of Petty that would most certainly strip their tastebuds bare.

Malfoy proved to be ridiculously cunning and conniving, and when she continued to ignore him he proceeded to use every little dark intimacy Audette had trustingly told him about herself, against her.

Armed with knowledge that she was helplessly jealous and possessive in nature, he quickly skyrocketed his public flirtations to a stifling height.

She dabbled in wandering through the greenhouse bays, so he took beautiful girls on frivolous dates there, robbing Audette of one of her favorite places to decompress when she spotted him on more than one occasion with his arm around some floozy's neck, guiding her through the botanical blossoms.

He made a good show of lending his Quadrivial medal to any Hogwarts girl for an entire day, so long as she was willing to snog him for just a few minutes in front of his deplorable acquaintances.

This was a surefire manner in which to infiltrate Audette's classes, her common room, and even her private dormitory with a glowing reminder of his ability to easily replace her, and each time she hatefully petered by yet another female with the blinding disc around her neck, she felt her heart invert all over again.

And it didn't stop there.

Girls flooded with glee when he advertised private broomstick flying lessons for any witch that might be willing to attend a party afterwards at that festering, stygian sore of a pirate ship.

At this point she imploded, and wept in her bed after hours, where no amount of cuddles from a confused Cosmos or a vengeful Consciaur could mend the corrosive ache turning everything to goop below her sternum.

Draco Malfoy had made her foolishly feel empowered, he had made her feel as if she were special to him, and just as rapidly he'd proven that none of that was the case, and that Audette was nothing more than a plaything to him as well.

It may have been attributed to the withdrawal poisoning her perspective, but Audette was now convinced that he'd done an expert job of masking the fact that he'd been just as much a toymaker as the others, dressing Audette up like a "confident" and "independent" girl who could judge for herself who best to trust.

The boy was akin to a megalithic iceberg and she had narrowly scraped by him, now fully aware of what lay deep below the water's surface and praying that she not sink as a result.

It took five more days before her self-esteem hit rock bottom, and suddenly Audette had no more tears to give in agonized collywobbles over what he was doing, and with whom, and where. She had gone as mad as a hatter, as they do say.

Another classic Slytherin trait he might have overlooked: VENGEFUL.

And a classic Audette trait that he didn't even know existed yet: Demented Mania.

AND if his impression that her invisible, conscientious, hostile pink bear remained fortified in nihilism, than he was at even more of a disadvantage.

One morning she rose from her bed like a deranged template of Daphne, eyes quite possibly pitch black based on the grim weariness the other witches presented as she strutted about furiously slamming everything she owned.

Despite awareness of how bananas it made her appear to the others she whispered to Think Think at the dressing table, devising malevolent methods in which to repay the favor of rancor to Europe's Greatest Arsehole.

They all caught their breaths when she cracked a priceless ivory hand mirror, observing as she then left blood all over the wooden surface after rubbing her thumb pensively along one of the sharded bits.

In raging spite of this curse he'd set upon her, pettiness had also sunken it's teeth into the back of her neck.

Wicked little monster...wicked little monster...

Audette was now determined to show off just how much of a wicked little monster she could be, through tormenting Malfoy with obviously bogus displays of affection for Theodore Beniamino Nott.

Any time they were in a public setting where he would no doubt be watching, Audette proceeded to put on an immature display of gushing enthusiastically over Theodore: overwhelming the boy with the deepest of hugs, a total flurry of kisses, and theatrically kittenish giggles.

Even Lavender Brown, who was infamous for such kitschy nonsense, began to grimace at the theatrics.

Best not to forget, that while in a verbal setting Audette wielded a spoon, in a physical dimension she wielded a grizzly katana. Malfoy was right: she was gorgeous and she pretended not to know it, making her all the more capable of manipulating men. Why, in hindsight she was capable of bringing any boy to his knees with just the blow of a kiss.

Big surprise: Malfoy barely made it two measly days in jealous spectation before he disintegrated like a peppercorn seed in a kitchen grinder.

Precisely two weeks before the Yule Ball was slated to unravel, he shocked her by throwing caution completely to the wind.

She had just entered the Great Hall for dinner, and was surprised when Theodore turned around within a group of Slytherin boys clustering in the central aisle and eagerly beckoned her over.

That evening he stood out drastically amongst his sloppy peers, each bouncing around in disheveled dark comfort clothing.

He on the contrary, had dressed in an exceptionally flattering pink suit sporting a titanium-white dress shirt below and a matching rosy bow tie, probably in an effort to match her own rosy gown for the day.

His chocolate mop of loose waves was shiny and thick, his smile straight and sweet, and his skin was flawless save for a handsomely placed mole on his left cheek which Audette oddly found to be quite an attractive feature.

Again, he was perfect in every way, and even though she instantly felt a wave of excitement to see him, it was totally incomparable to the electric blast that she experienced from a mere glance at Draco.

She stole a rapid dart of her emerald eyes around the densely packed hall, assuming that Malfoy was present for dinner and that this was yet another prime opportunity to act a petty bitch. Unfortunately, between the four schools and all of the associated faculty competing for dining space, there was far too many people to spot him.

Regardless.

She threw herself intentionally into the arms of Theodore, sliding down slowly, making sure to plant as many kisses as possible on his cheeks before her slippers reached the stone floor, "I've either got a swelled up head, or you've gone out of your way to play matchy-matchy with me today. What is the occasion, mister?"

In the forefront of her mind she was praying that Draco was somewhere nearby, boiling over in envy within the bright shine of that obnoxious medal hanging around his neck.

Theo sent her a coy smile, kissing the tip of her nose with dainty care, "You've forgotten, Bella. But of course, I do forgive you, my exquisite little rose."

His hands were warm on her hips beneath the bizarre black gloves that he had randomly taken up darning on the daily, and her eyes curiously fell upon an unusual golden chain around his neck that she had failed to inventory before, one small segment just shyly visible below his attire.

It took her a moment of mindlessly listening to the loud banter of the laughing Slytherin boys directly behind him before it struck, and she bit her lower lip, "Oh Teddy bear, it's our official anniversary. I'm a wretched thing for misplacing the date, will you find it in your heart to forgive me?"

"You're nothing less than breathtaking," he reassuringly raised one of her tea mittens and kissed the back of the decorated fabric, his deep blue eyes lingering on hers with softness, "It is four years today, and not nearly enough time - I would take four hundred more were it anatomically possible."

Ohhhh the guilt.

She stared back at this unbelievable man, struggling for words as she was reminded that she was not divine at all, that she was in fact a foul cheater, that Theodore Nott deserved so much better...

He relieved her of the awkwardly twisted tongue taking up shop in her mouth which was expertly preventing but a single word to formulate, producing a small golden box from his waistcoat, "I have something for you in celebration. It is a delicate item, nothing too ornate. The value lays primarily in it's magical properties."

Audette forgot all about inflicting pettiness then, as she was riddled with confusing remorse and anguish, standing statuesquely holding that gift in her undeserving paw.

Dripping with cringe she inspected the small shiny bow on the lid with a gentle tug, when suddenly her eyes absolutely bulged out of their sockets.

As if it could get any worse, Draco's loud, reedy voice was also emanating from somewhere behind Theodore's back. And while she could not yet see him, it was safe to assume that he was but a few dangerous feet away conversing with the rest of the boys.

The jewelry box in her palm blurred as her ears pulled back, and she helplessly focused all auditory feedback elsewhere.

All of them were guffawing over the litany of remaining female options for the ball. Some of the lucky monsters had miraculously landed a date, others...

"So who are you taking to this ball, Malfoy? Still haven't decided?" Crabbe piped up randomly when they had all seemingly calmed down after vociferously mocking some poor Irish champion for apparently having a moustache, and Audette petrified in fearful anticipation.

Her face might've passed for unflinching, yet just below the surface her heart was a pounding disaster. She was just...stuck there, rooted like an old stump whilst staring at the beautiful ring in the opened box, ears deafening, eyes clouding over...

"...t do you think?" Theodore's concerned tone brought her back to reality, where petite snowflakes from the enchanted ceiling were dotting their hair and melting sweetly.

She was being unbelievably rude to him, phasing out entirely from the interaction he had bothered to craft with love and consideration, but it was damned near impossible not to attempt being in two places at once.

Returning with determination not to insult him any further, Audette plucked out the golden band. It was adorned with a pink gem which he had carved into an itsy rose, in reference to the nickname he had invented for her long ago based on her surname, "Oh, it's absolutely grand, Teddy. Thank you. I do adore it so."

It was hardly a sincere evaluation. And she didn't stand a chance at remaining in that reciprocation whatsoever, as the moment the ring was on her right hand Draco spoke up again, and suddenly he had shifted himself directly into her view.

A wave of terror rippled down her spine as those caustic diamonds appeared in the background, judging her every micromovement. He'd of course done this strategically in order to steal barbarous glares at Audette, and at the private exchange occurring.

His hands were jammed into the trousers of his tight obsidian suit, cracking his neck as he shrugged in feigned carelessness, "Slim pickings around here, likely take Federov as a last resort. Unless one of you scumbags can introduce me to a more quality specimen larking about in this dump."

He deliberately lolled his head to the side to mask his gaze falling back onto Audette pensively, desirously, furiously...

Ah...

He was going to take that huge brute who regularly slapped Audette's school books out of her arms, was he?

Blaise seemed to be in the mood for stirring up trouble, unsurprisingly, "What's Parkinson at this week? Eight inquiries? Do you think she'll hit double digits out of desperation?"

Audette was utterly transfixed on Draco's reaction. He shook his sleek locks to the side impatiently, tisking, "Yeahhh Zabini, quite hysterical. I would appreciate it if you would stop encouraging it.I'm attracted to a good hunt, not amateur prey that rolls over on it's back and offers up it's belly."

Through his long straight bangs she saw his eyes creep towards where the hem of her dress was lightly trailing on the ground, and her stomach did a backflip.

Theodore snapped his fingers before her burning eyes, furrowing his thick brows down at her. His features were lined with uneasiness, his Italian-tinted timbre deepening to command heed, "Audette, do you require the infirmary? Is something the matter that I should know about?"

Er...probably, yes...

His glove brushed her face forensically, "You appear faint, and clammy - have you been hitting your head off of your bedposts in the mornings again? Is your heartrate quite steady?"

NO. No it certainly was not.

But yes, she had never stopped accidentally ramming her head off of her bedposts in the mornings - she had only told him that so he would stop going off about the dangers of concussions.

She took a deep breath and shook her hair, blonde bits of bangs matting to her forehead around the fringes, "No, no, it's only this hindrance of a gown, I must have had one too many spoonful's of soup at lunch and now I'm all bloated like a pufferfish."

"Alright. Well, best to judge a lady's portion next time. Those elves hypersalinate those soups," Theo picked up her hand in his, making a face, "As I was saying, at times when you wear this ring, I hope that you will recall my love for you is as vast as the universe; it is infinite by all standards, Audette, and equally as complex. Close your hand for me, and whisper piccola rosa, then check your palm."

Audette did as he had instructed, and when she re-opened her mitten a large, glittery pink rose had blossomed there, it's petals covered in dewy sparkles. It was darling magic to have charmed into the ring, a prudent effort on his part as always.

Boom: Deja-vu.

Hadn't he already given her this rose?

Hadn't she seen those uniquely decorated petals before?

Audette swallowed nervously, doing everything she might to deflect the scald of two blue orbs in her peripheral vision. Her back was getting strangely sweaty, and to top it all off it was causing her skin to feel indescribably itchy in a spot unscratchable.

She played with the rose petals in frightful aversion, and a sugary sweetness plumed into the air between them, "It's...it's notably dreamy...and rapturous, Teddy. You've effectively stupefied me this evening, I'm speechless."

The second portion of Graham Montague's sentence whirled uninvitedly into her eardrums then, sharply sending her eyes into a painful crisscross, "...st be quite a bruising experience, Malfoy, having Federov hoover your doorknob with gnashers like that."

"I'd bet my left kidney on it," Malfoy's snort through the riotous sniggering gave away just how much he found the concept to be appallingly entertaining.

Both his manicured eyebrows just about disappeared below his hairline as a crooked grin overtook, "Perhaps one of you animals uh, would dare to sacrifice your prick in the name of scientific discovery?"

"Don't mind if I use your prick to do it, then?" Greggory Goyle cryptically pushed Malfoy by his shoulder, knocking him a few paces beyond the limits of the gathering, "Bet you've taken the whole boat to bed out there anyways, you dirty dog."

Audette could vomit.

In fact, she could taste the reeking acid already burbling up her throat as she watched Malfoy sheepishly rub at one eye with his palm before breaking down into flustered chuckles, "You have lower standards than a hobgoblin, Goyle. Believe me, you stick your cucumber in that jar, it's most certainly coming out pickled."

Audette wished she knew more about sex - anything at all about it, really.

Sensing her innocent cheeks burning she glanced desperately between all of their hysterical smirks, searching for answers as to whether that meant Draco had actually slept with the big mercenary beast of a woman.

The timing could not be worse for this celebration of her anniversary with Theodore, occurring just next door to this cryptic and nauseating soiree, and what he said next was even more difficult for Audette to process under the immense pressure of the situation.

He was suddenly blinking sheepishly before her, a slightly slanted smile blooming on his face as he spoke rather timidly, "Speaking of flowers...well...I've taken your commentary seriously, regarding your love language being so heavily rooted in physical affection and emotional passion. I do hope that my revised behavior as of late has been satisfying..."

All the while as Theo bashfully ranted, Draco began to shuffle around the social circle, inching ever closer by the second.

She widened her eyes to saucers at him, telepathically begging him to stop, but it did no good.

Audette was then certain that she was undergoing a full blown heart attack, endorsed by each boy unloading far too much on her at once in their own unique manner.

The expression on her twitching face must have been on par with a rabid deer in headlights, because Theodore's voice dropped off for a moment, then, "I don't mean to suggest that out of filthy intentions, please do not misinterpret this as...indecent expectation. I possess the utmost respect for your honor, Audette. Know that ours is entirely your calendar to docket."

"Wh-wh-what?" she stammered at the overt aristocrat in confusion, shifting her blinking eyes from the incoming threat to his hopeful gleam.

She was totally lost as to what he was on about.

Couldn't all of this hiccupping wait for later?

Her entire forehead was now beading with sweat, drenching in accordance with each scrape of Draco's pricey loafers, and her toes were all gnarled up in her feathery slippers.

The anxiety was unprecedented.

She was debating running away and claiming another feminine explosion, whatever the blithers that even meant, prepared to deal with yet another disgusted frown from her robotic loverboy.

Malfoy was now right there, right behind Theodore with a murderous glower on his face, listening intently as if he'd just snuck up on someone plotting to murder his mother. His energy had effectively shifted from playfully bantering with his pals, to the concentration of a creeping hitman.

Totally unaware, Theo squeezed Audette's hand repeatedly, his gaze imploring through a shelf of luxurious dark curls.

They were standing very close together, and although his voice had dropped to a mild hush, she was unconvinced that Malfoy missed picking up on the next nuclear bomb that left his lips, "In laymen's terms...I am ready, Audette...for us to give ourselves to each other...at a time of your choosing. Tonight...is the earliest availability."

Okay, this was not a heart attack: this was a ruddy brain aneurysm. Perhaps she would be smart to stop railing her head off of those wooden bed posts afterall.

Her jaw dropped, and everything froze.

Had Theodore Nott just...insinuated that he was suddenly open to extramarital copulation?

To her profound stupefaction he confirmed it, prompting her with a sultry pop of his eyebrows whilst tickling her chin with his fingers wantonly, "Would it please you to partake in that sort of intimacy?"

When Audette continued to gape like a useless llama he pressed on charitably. His warm breath danced on her lips as he cooed the words to her, in a foreign tone filled with adventure, and desire, "Would that amplify our relationship to where you need it to be?"

She could tell that he was nervous, and still regrettably calculated in his approach, yet there was another boyish element that she had recently discovered elsewhere as his labyrinthine gaze dropped down over her figure: hunger.

She stammered up at him as if he had just announced that the moon was falling to Earth, and they had but minutes left before an instinction level impact, "I-I was of the understanding that such an activity remained incogitable. Are you quite certain it would please you?"

He smirked down at her, sucking in his lower lip, his glove diving far up into the back of her hairline, "It will be crippling, and definitive bliss, to have you, mia ragazza."

Oh my: so he did have a pulse afterall.

Audette slumped weakly in his hold, her mind positively reeling in imagination of what it might be like to finally feel his soft skin against hers. Her already hot cheeks blossomed with a deeper shade of crimson.

She had been dying to get into his pants for years, and the mystery of his body had been utterly staggering.

It was no secret that she had been complaining for a long time that she was ready for the penultimate act. Actually, she had been complaining that she was ready for anything, yet the aristocratic authoritarian had never agreed to escalating beyond timid kissing and gentle petting, and it had monstrously diffused her sense of connectivity to Theodore as a romantic partner.

In all fairness, sex was an important element that could not go overlooked without serious consequences...and the very same treatment had been supplied by Draco Malfoy, as well.

Needless to say, the sexual frustration occurring in her body threatened to turn Audette inside out entirely.

It was at this moment, as Audette's soul abandoned her fritzing shell, that Draco finally chose to intervene. All of the warning signs had presented in advance, whereas his eyes had been darting back and forth between Theodore and Audette in a panicked frenzy as he considered what they were plotting to carry out in private.

He slapped a hand on Theodore's shoulder, grinning impishly down at Audette, but behind the friendly demeanor she could see radioactive hatred, hear the anxious rattle in his breath, "Nautical Nott, who's this cute little tart? Now that's a quality specimen. Care to uh, introduce me?"

At least six boys paused their conversing to snoopily drop eaves, and Blaise Zabini commenced silently snickering in obvious anticipation of the impending doom.

Convinced that the time had come for their sordid affair to surface, Audette squinted around for places to bury her ostrich head in the sand, but the only nearby option was a big bowl of stinky ogre stew that no one dared scoop.

Theodore supportively massaged her shoulder as he raised his rectangular glasses to the unexpected intrusion into such a monumental moment, "Malfoy. I can appreciate your intrigue with my fiancée, but she is just that. Select any other female brandishing a Hogwarts crest and I will happily introduce you, although we both know there is no need for that. You've been quite busy instilling a celebrity impression on these grounds."

Audette grimaced and clenched her teeth painfully tight as Draco inspected her like a laser.

"Ohh-ho-ho, when did Nott develop a sense of humour?" he twisted on the spot to shoot a snarky grin back at the congregating Slytherin males. When his silvery gaze fell back around it was glistening with malice, "That's a rich joke. She's obviously not your fiancée."

"Malfoy, she is," Theo suddenly sounded extremely admonishing, his thick eyebrows flattening into a ridge, "You may take great jest in falsifying ignorance, however your sleuthing character is no stranger to me. You have unquestionably already conducted a thorough investigation into the personal relationships within this castle, including my own."

Draco jutted his chin towards Audette, who was actively trying to recall exactly how to inhale and exhale in order to avoid permanent brain damage occurring, "I have, but a girl of this caliber? With a poindexter like yourself? I don't buy it, forgive my atheism of the concept."

A deep sigh escaped from Theodore's throat, raising a hand to pinch at the bridge of his nose as if he was dealing with the balderdash of a spicy infant, and Audette grew convinced she had now impossibly acquired a sunburn from the heat boiling in her cheeks.

Theo paused for a long moment there, grinding his jaw to calm whatever animalistic instinct was rising to the surface which would surely register outside of his typically graceful conduct.

After removing his glasses and placing them in his pocket square he replied tersely, "That is because you cannot purchase everything, Malfoy, especially something so intangible as cognizance. I refuse to traverse this road with you again: Audette belongs firmly to me. Respectfully, distance yourself."

Traverse what road again?

Audette's tummy was chalk-full of acid, contemplating if there was something going on between them that she was not partial to.

As he danced his wand between his fingers playfully, Draco's expression flattened into something emotionless and sinister, much like the lifeless glare of a ventriloquist dummy, "So let me get this straight: you're so insecure in your so-called engagement, that I can't even platonically introduce myself?"

He was teetering on the promise to expose everything, and Audette's eyes began to swim with dizzying stars at the onset of a wildly unhealthy blood pressure.

"Come on, Malfoy, don't be a prat," Blaise reached up to tug at his elbow but Draco flipped out and ripped his jacket free in one swift motion.

He held up his palms in a flat, dramatic gesture as Theodore also stepped forwards in revolt, "Okay, okay! Easy, four-eyes."

His expression softened then with cupidity, landing back on Audette in a way that explicitly insinuated to her both remorse and plea, "I just want to say...three words to her."

It was impossible then to mask the disbelief which must have monopolized her expression. Her lips parted, she caught her breath, and they simply stared at one another for definably far too long with heaving chests.

The catch twenty-two had just been eradicated: Draco Malfoy had made the first nerve-wracking move, covertly admitting that he was in love with her.

And all it had taken was the mere thought that Audette was on the cusp of giving herself away to Theodore Nott. How classic; a man changing, only in the face of absolute loss.

The problem was, he'd been acting the maggot for weeks, and now she had no way of knowing just how many people he'd recently given himself away to out of immature spite for their feud. It was nauseating and repulsive, to put it blandly, and this intimate attack was also infuriating.

Theo's dark blue eyes narrowed suspiciously, crossing his arms, "Very well. Enough pawky borak, go ahead then."

Malfoy swallowed and blinked, straightening his pristine black suit before holding his hand out to Audette in a very strange display of manners which garnished odd looks from his peers on the sideline, "Draco Malfoy, charmed."

"Hmm," she chewed on her lip, her forehead wrinkling into a seabed of disgruntlement before her teacup mitten unlocked from her arms to jut forward and harshly shake his hand, "Don't you mean: Draco Malfoy, manwhore?"

How bizarre it was, to finally touch him after pining so long for the forbidden contact. Unfortunately, it was now the last thing that she desired.

He said nothing, only rolled his eyes briefly offwards.

She raised her chin in a snooty format, hoping that through her broken gaze he would bother to comprehend the irreversible damage he had done to her impression of him in such a short period of time, "Very well. Audette Bellarose, disgusted."

Each of the onlookers in the background laughed heartily, likely expecting such a reaction from Slytherin's most hoity-toity resident.

Graham barked, "If it's a good hunt you're seeking Malfoy, this Barbie's a total leper. Untouchable. Not in your wildest dreams, boyyo."

Theodore eased instantaneously into a set of champagne-smooth chuckles himself, suggesting that he might have been worried about something else, "Well there you have it, Malfoy, your three words, and your introduction. I would normally apologize for Audette's...unique...sense of humour in these circumstances, but this time I do believe it is fitting."

She literally threw Draco's hand back at him, and to her satisfaction, a deep frown laced with fear etched across his face as she turned away dismissively to address her overprotective fiancé, "Teddy, I have reached the limit for all of this palsy-walsy. You're correct: I do feel faint, and I'd appreciate it if you would chaperone me back to my quarters. I have my final examination in the morning, and one does know how fond I am of my beauty sleep."

As Theo wrapped his arm around her neck and guided her away, Draco called out brazenly. His voice had lost all stamina, hinting at sadness, and defeat, "You must get a lot of it then, Miss Bellarose. Beauty sleep, that is."

She dared to glance over her shoulder, to see that he was standing there with glistening ruination in his frosty eyes, silently begging her not to do anything that night aside from obtaining said beauty sleep.

He carefully mouthed the words I love you, before she looked away with a painfully constricting chest, unsure if that was what she had actually seen.

If she was a wicked little monster, than Draco Malfoy was a selfish, arrogant, manipulative varmint.

It was apparently perfectly fine for him to flutter about rakishly with anyone comprised of two 'x' chromosomes. However, Audette - a virginal prude by all accounts - was finding herself subject to a ferocious guilt-attack merely for considering partaking in intimacies for the first time with her long-term boyfriend.

Well, he would be very relieved to discover that she in fact did go straight to bed that evening, waking refreshed albeit the terrifying near-apocalypse the night prior.

Theodore walked her to that final, dreaded examination, and when the test had concluded, he was no where to be seen for the journey back down to the dungeons.

It was no matter: she was in an atypically bemused mood that afternoon. Given that the examination had gone surprisingly in her favor and for all of the mental focus it had demanded, she had temporarily forgotten all about Draco Malfoy.

Well...not so surprising, seeing as she had used her devilish Consciaur to cheat.

They were currently giggling together over the triumph.

Think-Think - being an immortal creature - possessed an impressive memory, and had spent the entire three hours whispering answers into her eardrums. The plot had worked so successfully that Audette had been forced to purposefully fail at least a few answers lest garnish suspicion from the reviewers, who had overlooked programming the rarest pet of all into the anti-cheating system.

She had just rounded a corner in joyous celebration, only to find herself nearly engulfed by a gaggle of hussies taking up the entire narrow passageway, instantly huffing in frustration.

They were all shouting excitedly at some doomed soul cornered near the Slytherin entrance.

"Oh no, take me instead: I'm quite good fun afterwards...if you catch my drift."

"You have to take someone! You must pick!"

"No, take me! I've got a huge collection of illegal potions, which will get us higher than hippogriffs!"

Audette barely managed to squeeeeeeeeeze her poofy gown around the madness when his voice called to her, serious and tinted with resentment, "Stop right there, Bellarose."

A group-wide sigh emitted from the beggary females, soon sparking bitter mutterings as they inspected her dress which buttoned all the way up to her chin in grandmotherly atrocity. The geriatric look was of course, aggravated, by an unhelpfully prototypical bun she had woven her golden hair into.

Audette felt her face burn at the untimely spotlight, having already rubbed her pale skin raw for 3 hours with ink and exhaustion during the examination.

As expected, the bloody cannibals instantly tore her to tinder, putting on a total show for Malfoy;

"Who is she now?"

"An old crow, if I didn't know any better."

"-can just smell the mothballs from here."

"Are we quite sure she's not a ghoul from the Elizabethan era?"

The stunning nerve of those floozies to comment in such a clueless cynicism, knowing precisely who Audette was at the end of the day.

She made a vicious face at the last one, "For all you know I am an old batty ghoul. For all you know, I can see straight through those dollar-bin robes, right down to those hairy nipples of yours, Astoria Greengrass."

That certainly did the trick to shut them up.

Draco didn't seem to be swayed by the useless banter. Dressed up in some sort of sleek, crimson fencing uniform, he pressed roughly through the condescending harlots, nearly gifting one with a new haircut via the exposed sword strapped across his back.

His expression was notably strained, and she realized he must've been hovering around for a while, waiting for her to return.

"You haven't replied to me Bellarose, and I don't like being made to wait. Have you forgotten the stipulations of our agreement?" he stopped before her as she crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes, spitting out a straggling strand from her messy bun.

There was definitely ink smeared all over her left cheek; she could see it in her peripherals.

"I have not forgotten," she spoke in a tight and quiet voice, displeased with the number of Slytherin trollops eavesdropping, each of which might take great joy in ratting this bizarre correspondence out to Teddy B. Nott.

"Well?" he held his hands out confrontationally.

She kept it simple, stubbornly raising her chin once more, "Well, I believe you would be better off redirecting your hyper-fixation at one of these eager subjects instead. You know everything there is to know about boring old me now, and I am simply baffled that you might desire to maintain this absolute chore."

"It is the antithesis of a chore, and you have withheld the most important factor of all," he snapped at her brusquely.

"Well you shan't be receiving that answer Lord Malfoy, ever...and certainly not here, in the public eye," her heart had begun to beat gradually quicker, inspecting his face in the dull green lighting. She could do it, she could stand up to him.

To make matters all the more difficult he was very pretty up close, not a single flaw to be spotted, and suddenly it occurred to her just why girls tended to bum rush him with mad lust in their eyes.

They had been talking in secret for two months, although never in person, and this was a very tantric and corporeal highlight indeed - to see in real time his words ebb from his own lips, and the way his face changed with each pronounciated vowel...

Think-Think promptly latched onto Audette's ear in an attempt to deviate from her becoming another basic, starry-eyed imbecile, "We should distract the wizard, and steal his sword. He will survive without testicles."

Audette clapped a hand to her mouth to suppress the preposterous sound that escaped her lips just then, and Malfoy's eyebrows pressed together.

He was obviously not in a giggling mood, "Something funny to you? You're being entirely unreasonable, I have given you everything you asked for and still you reject me. This is what you desired, isn't it? Public interaction? Your three precious words? You have won. Congratulations."

Now that the jar of anxious giggles had been opened Audette was doomed, producing an uneasy cacophony into her mitten which only served to clearly make him feel judged, and each snarl that left his fluffy pink lips somehow set her off even more.

His gaze danced defensively from the floor to the ceiling when she supplied no comment aside from unlady-like sniggering, as if what he was about to state next was inconceivable, "I must know what it was, in my last entry, which has distanced you. I was cruel, I see that now, and...I apologize for my lack of compassion. It was not my overall intention to drive you to tears."

She highly doubted that was the case, and the ill expression twisting his face indicated that apologizing was a frightfully foreign experience for him.

Audette glanced sharply to the side, at where a metal suit of armor was playing nosily with the grate of it's helmet, repeatedly exposing black nothingness occupying the interior, "Ah, well it must have been Opposite Day then, happens to the worst of us, doesn't it?"

"What?" he spat, showing off rows of pearly white teeth. He blinked back at the annoying fangirl convoy, his sharp nose crinkling, "If it is validation you seek, than I have given it to you, Audette. Do you want me to announce my affections for yo-"

"Don't!" she raised a lacy mitten to his mouth, hardly in time to muffle the disastrous sentence. It had been done to stop him from providing any more canon fodder to the flock of ninnies practically breaking their necks to watch in the background, although it was probably too late from their aghast expressions.

Her words came out stern and panicked, unable to possibly look him in the eye, "It does not matter. It is perfectly fine, I shall not dwell on it if you won't. So I shall bid you final adieu, Lord Malfoy, and best of luck in the third-"

He grabbed ahold of her hand before Audette could retract it, dragging her by her toes to within inches of his attire, and she along with all of the other rubbernecking females audibly caught their breath.

His eyes were perhaps sharper than that deadly weapon strapped onto the back of his athletic uniform as they bored into hers, "You insufferably mulish, posh little beast...Look what you force me to do. You tell me right now, have you slept with that goggled wanker?"

"Oh my word, are they...an item?" Audette heard someone question to her horror.

"I don't know...but he's certainly preoccupied," another girl remarked in gloom.

Audette was no longer was in a giggling mood herself, whispering breathlessly, "N-no, I-I haven't."

Her fingers began to ache in his bone-crushing snare, and he hissed so that only the pair of them could hear his next words, "Good, and for his sake, it had better stay that way. You will bring my jacket to the northern courtyard tomorrow at dawn, and with it, you will bring your answer to my final question."

When she opened her mouth to object he mutilated her hand even harder, ripping her to within millimeters of his hot breath, "And if you do not, regardless of what that answer may be, you will lose everything. It would be wise not to underestimate my spectrum for barbarity."

He let her go, and with this latest threat in tow she rotated on the spot and marched quickly to the Slytherin common room, begging herself not to fall apart before she had reached the asylum of her curtains. Half of the bones in her hand now felt popped clean out of their sockets.

Each time she assumed he would let her go peacefully, he reminded her with terrific blackmail that it was not her choice, that it was his, and much like that snow leopard his claws had sunken deep into her flesh.

Needless to say, no sleep occurred that eve as she tossed and turned anxiously in her bed.

Of course, she could bring the jacket and fib immediately for her freedom, and perhaps that's what she would do. For it was the very act of spelling the truth out loud - let alone to this diabolical boy with a hidden agenda - that was the root problem.

It was as if once those words left her tongue there would be no turning back, that it would be official; she had fallen out of love with Theodore Nott, and there was absolutely no amount of determination on her part which might recuperate those decimated affectations.

That chilly morning she dressed in a weighty winter petticoat of fine ivory design, then followed an absolutely stunning white gown all strung with pearls around the base and cream roses embedded into the blouse, then lastly her favorite burnt yellow peacoat which never went back on it's promise to keep her warm in the worst of weather.

She beelined around a few early birds on their way for morning worms, stopping in her tracks on the first floor when she spotted something unheard of; Guy Cosmos, awake, before noon hour on a weekend.

He was bickering with one of the Parisian champions just outside of the double doors, and there were hyperbolic tears brimming in his colorful eyes. Guy had not been well since the beginning of October, and the rate of his deterioration was thoroughly alarming.

His voice pitched in melodramatic desperation, causing her to pat a glove to her heart as she observed him tugging at the boy's fine feathery attire, "Phillipeeee, I am not mad. You must remember me, it's not a dream, I know it to be real! How else would I...would I bloody well know that you keep a locket of your mother in your waistcoat? Tell me you recall this world where we danced at the ball-"

The feminine boy stepped back, straightening his tunic with a disgruntled yank, "I do not know you, aaaand, I know not of zis ot'er world where we share a romance. You are rash and intrusive, rainbow boy."

"I'm not...I'm..," Guy sobbed and raised his fingers to his nose as Phillipe Noir brutally left him to mourn on the spot.

His watery gaze fell on Audette incoming, and he outstretched his arms like a baby who'd been abandoned in a flea market for hours, tugging her into a fierce hug, "Oh Detty you radiant thing, do you think me mad?"

She shook her head, and he blundered on before she could properly respond, "I simply can't let it go. I can't eradicate this feeling that we're in the wrong universe. All of my divination senses are on full electrocution, it's downright canceroussss."

"It'll be okay, I feel it too...here and there..." she comforted him with wide eyes over his shoulder.

When they separated, his attention flew to the jacket in her paws, and she was far too late to conceal it below her peacoat, "What is that? What was that? Wh...bu...wh...that was a Durmstrang coat! Are you shagging one of those disastrously hairy..."

"Don't you dare say anything Cozzy, I'll explain it all later," Audette begged him, glancing around as the last bit of redness vanished into a baby bump in her peacoat.

Guy pointed his finger repeatedly at the lump, seeming to be so spun up in wonderment that he was no longer severely agonized, "Draco Malfoy...yessssss...YES! He was your boyfriend in the other world! It's got to be Draco Malfoy, isn't it? That's why you've been dressing to the nines and mangling my makeup for weeks!"

"Stop it, stop it right now. There is no other world. Don't you speak a peep to anyone until I return, especially not Parkinson," Audette growled at him warningly before taking off in a lopsided jog due to the suspended burden in her clothing.

"There is another world!" Guy screamed belligerently at her gimpy exit, "I've seen it in my dreams! I feel it in my fecking blood! We have to go back, Detty, we have to go back!"

Filled with an ominous sensation from Guy's exhortations only worsening by the day, Audette met Malfoy in the northern courtyard as he'd instructed. It overlooked the icy Black Lake, and the pirate ship the Durmstrang students were occupying at the center.

At first he was nowhere to be seen, and she breathed a sigh of hope that perhaps he had slept in and misplaced his obsessive fury in lieu of fatigue.

That was, until a great big whoosh of snowy air blew her hair into a tangled mess when he leapt expertly from the large oak occupying the courtyard all by itself, scarcely missing her by a foot.

Audette screamed like an idiot before indignantly regaining her composure.

She'd never seen him in casual clothing, not once, and the difference between their presentations left her feeling slightly preposterous as she eyed down his pitch black pants, white linen long sleeve and thin black jacket. How he was not freezing in the subzero conditions seemed inhuman.

He ran a hand through his straight locks, smirking down at her bedazzled gown, "Good morning Grumplestiltskin. Well, well, well...what have we here - on our way to meet the Queen, are we? Do you think she'll uh, have you beheaded for outpacing her style?"

Grumplestiltskin? Had he mentioned that oddity before in a similarly chilly setting?

There it was again, that relentlessly bothersome Deja-vu that Guy was unable to evade, which had been oddly picking at Audette in a lesser degree.

She scoffed, although her cheeks had gone hot upon realizing that she'd once again subconsciously dressed up for him like a smitten moron, unbuttoning her peacoat to reveal his jacket all bungled up below, "Why yes I am, so I would appreciate it if we might keep this visitation abbreviated."

"Not a chance. Walk with me, friend," he snagged the garment from her gloves and began to saunter through the courtyard towards the lakeside trails.

She ground her jaw and obliged, albeit with a good few meters in easement, sucking in her lips when she saw him holding the coat to his pointy nose in amusement, "Hmm. Smells like...berries, and sugar. Have you been wearing this?"

The derisive smile he shot back at her implied that no confirmation was needed, as a good forest of extensive blond hairs were glued to it as evidence.

She averted her eyes, pretending to find intrigue in a hideous mossy statue much like a cat pretends to focus elsewhere when it obviously is not.

Yes...ugh yes, she had childishly worn it a few nights in bed when she'd been feeling rather weak in the knees for him, sending herself into splendidly erotic dreams with his scent all around.

As the first rays of sunlight danced along the water's chunky surface riddled with blocks of disjointed glacial plates, a series of obsidian tentacles wove out from the depths below as if reaching for such forbidden warmth.

Audette focused on the gloomy movements of the resident giant squid, surmising that she was in a comparable position, "The answer is no. If you really must know, the answer is no."

"What was that? Speak up, princess, enunciate," he clucked antagonistically, purposefully slowing down so that no matter how she dragged her feet they would inevitably align side by side.

They passed through the atrium and out into the cobbled pathway which took a steep descent right off the bat, and Audette begrudgingly began to grab onto his forearm to steady her measly slippers in the snow, "Don't mock me, you know what I mean. No, I don't believe I am in love with my fiancé, but I have duties as the diamond of the court you know, and if I don't marry an appropriate suitor before the dusty age of twenty than my family shall brunt great sha-shamE!"

Predictably she lost her balance and in the worst possible scenario imaginable she slid on her back, for the entire length of the hill, until she reached the bottom where the walkway levelled out to encircle the castle base via reinforced stone walls.

His laughter echoed across the landscape as he skated down in smooth athletic precision, "If tobogganing away on your arse is your grand plan to keep this abbreviated, surely there is a better exit strategy, Bellarose."

Before he could reach the bottom she stood and stomped away, mittens in a vice grip on her dress train, not bothering to clear the snowy deposits on her bruised rump.

Perhaps if she walked fast enough she might reach the greenhouse tunnel before he could badger her any more, although she had a sneaking suspicion it was impossible.

In a matter of a few strides he was at her side again, continuing to snicker rudely. From the corner of her eye she could see his breath releasing in visible clouds.

He was obviously in a fantastic mood now that she had granted him the verification he ached for, "What do you think that nickname was? I'm beginning to truly lean towards Grumplestiltskin."

"I don't know what it was, and I could care just as little," she hissed nastily, waves of gold bouncing due to her antsy pace which was doing nothing to lose him, "And I am NOT. Grumpy."

This controversial statement only made him laugh even harder, waving his hands mockingly, "Oh of course not, you're as dandy as a dandelion."

It only took her two minutes of walking at full velocity to get winded and slow to a crawl. Her throat was burning from the dry, frigid air, and she was weak from Eloise's carefully crafted starvation regime to ensure Audette would never grow remotely fat.

Or healthy enough to run without fainting...

Ironically, she watched through sparking eyes as Draco pulled out a bunch of candies from his pocket, and the forbidden desire to partake soured her attitude even more, "It's a miracle you don't have Swiss cheese for teeth, the way you gobble those down."

He snorted, offering her the brightly toned collection of wrappers in the palm of his glove, "Oh I have had cavities, more than my fair share. Bit of a sweet tooth if I'm being honest. Mother has spent a fortune on my dental infractions. Go on, it's not poisoned."

What was she doing?

She looked into his dreamy eyes as the vibe began to shift to amicable despite her best defensive efforts, and now it felt quite saddening to think of what she'd just told him before the slip and slide from hell, "I'm afraid sugar is not tolerated in my diet. My governesses always say, a porky maiden dies a maiden."

He histrionically made to inspect her figure from a ridiculous angle, tutting through his teeth, "I see what the fuss is all about - you're an incurable whale. It's no wonder you fell down the hill: your gravitational force alone must be astronomical."

She finally let slip a tiny giggle, accepting one of the candies in quiet agreement, "Oh shut your trap, hand me a strawberry one, then."

As they traipsed on with taffy on their tongues he teased her endlessly, pinching at her backside in a way that made her pop on the spot giddily, "Sure hope no one comes from the opposing direction. What with you being so gigantic, they'll have no choice but to turn around and go back that way."

In no time he had her cackling like a dumb goose, and it was without a doubt the most natural interaction in the world. She concluded that he was quite different in real life compared to the boy she had met in The Book Of One Thousand Bleeding Eyes.

On paper he selected studious rhetoric, brandishing the deep limits of his intellect, but in person he was goofy, and oddly human.

They chewed on the bon bons in silence for a while then, following along the linear promenade.

Audette had not been on that promenade for a long time, seeing as Theodore kept her indoors as often as possible. He claimed it was for her safety, however she was convinced he found holding up her parasols an arduous task, and those parasols prevented her from befreckling which was not an option to overlook.

Well...she was befreckling terrifically that morning with the sun beaming down on her cheeks, and it felt sensational. So sensational, that each time she shut her eyes in appreciation she stumbled slowly into Malfoy's line of movement, causing him to snarl and push her back.

"Can you not walk straight? What is the matter with you?" he sent her an unnecessarily brutal look of outrage just as they passed by a pair of nosy Hogwarts students, who began to fester in active gossip.

"I don't believe my eyes."

"Is that Audette Bellarose, outside...with Draco Malfoy?"

Audette sighed tensely, puffing out worrisome air as Hermione Granger and Ginny Weasley took one thousand conceivable years to pass by, "It'll be everywhere by noon, news of our sighting. And not to mention your fancy little stunt last night."

Draco shrugged, running his tongue along his teeth nonchalantly, "Was it not your idea for us to masquerade as friends outside of the book?"

She fiddled with a bow on the back of her mitten. While it was uncomfortable, and raw, the fact that he consistently challenged her to think independently was enlightening, "Yes, but now that we've arrived at this precipice it's quite daunting. I hope you are prepared for Theodore's signature rath, because I certainly am not."

The cat was cleverly out of the bag, and now their accord was wholly publicized. She would have her work cut out convincing Theodore that it was an acceptable relationship to be had between Draco Malfoy and herself - which it wasn't.

Her heart fell clean out of her butt when, without warning, he took her hand and interlaced their fingers with a light squeeze, squinting down at her in the blinding sunlight, "What signature rath? I'm not afraid of someone who brings a tinfoil hat and a calculator to a fist fight."

She withdrew her mitten to bury it in her peacoat pocket in a frazzle. Behind them, Ginny Weasley's cobalt blue eyes were lasered in on their figures, "You're mad, pulling that act out here in broad daylight! Theodore aside, I'm certain Anastasia wouldn't approve should she notice. We should have met somewhere more...confidential...until we've properly organized ourselves."

He bit his lip, nipping at her sleeve as if to coax her hand back out into his, "Ooof, someone's a green-eyed prissy, isn't she? I'm not taking Federov to the ball - I only said that to put ants in your pants. She'd step all over my feet."

Well as far as Audette was concerned, there was an entire colony, queen and all, constructing sandy tunnels in her pantaloons. She barreled ahead on the promenade with Malfoy keeping up flawlessly.

It was a beautiful winter day indeed. Water trickled through cracks in the adjacent craig, dripping from deposits of pure ice, and an ominous shadow began to stretch over the cobbled pavers from the glassy greenhouse structures looming overhead.

She was caught between the desire to entirely cave now that he'd stepped up to the plate and proven himself mildly worthy, and the alternative need to prolong her defenses.

She shook her head rapidly, swallowing nothing but anxiety. The drag of her fancy dress on the itchy stonework was stupidly obnoxious, "How can you expect me to hold your hand, when Merlin knows where it's been? How many girls did you snog for that despicable medal in return?"

He sighed heavily, but a wide grin appeared as he nodded at his loafers, "Hmm, I've had a few volunteers for the dirty work. I'm not conspiring to contract the Toad Touch from any old hag."

Her eyes twitched suspiciously as they both stopped on the path and he rooted around in his jacket liner to produce a glass vial with a standard cork top. It was filled to the brim with verdant boogers.

Audette took it in her mitten, inspected the gritty sludge within, and then hideously scowled, "You may need a trip to the infirmary, Mr. Malfoy - it is neither cognitively healthy to collect one's snot, nor is it for said snot to be the tone of slime."

A gentle snort and a handsome smile greeted her on the other side of the glass she had suspended just about flat to the convex surface of her eyeball, "Don't they teach potions at this crummy institution? It's Polyjuice, love. So to answer your question: I haven't snogged a single bird. The imposter you witnessed was mainly Greggory Goyle in my skin, amongst others."

"That's foul of you pigs to impose on unsuspecting girls! Is everything you do part of some elaborate scheme?" she digressed in masked relief.

Instead of returning the bottle of criminal contents to him she flung it out into the Black Lake, a good several meters from the base of the stone abutment they were standing on. First it pinged off of a collection of jagged beached boulders in a tinkling symphony, before finally meeting it's end in the frigid depths.

He held a flat palm to his forehead, whistling in curiosity, watching as it plonked with a silly sound into the water, "You've got a violent arm for your size, but a comical lack of aim."

Sure, whatever...she would try to recall that description for her next application to a major baseball league.

"Satisfied?" he raised one eyebrow in a friendly rainbow, reaching for her hand a third time but Audette whacked him away and went on discordantly stomping.

"Oh you really are dense," she growled, her Irish accent growing thicker and thicker by the second.

Then she stopped a second time, so abruptly that he nearly ran into her head on. She stabbed a lacy finger up at the idiotic smirk on his face, where he was failing to hide how amused he was by her pissy temperament, "And all of those broomstick lessons, and-and parties on that contriving catamaran out there. No doubt you've been porking every-"

"Woah, woah, woah, Bellarose, take a breath, you might have a stroke. Come on," he surprised her by gently taking her stabby hand in his, guiding her in a gentlemanly way onwards. This time she allowed him to respectively interlace their gloves, slightly entranced by his sideways smiles and confident grace.

His albino qualities shone in the brightness of the sunlight; skin pale as the bobbing ice, hair white as snow, eyes the tone of a glacial lake, "There hasn't been any parties. Yet. Allow me to explain before that vein in your forehead bursts, fucking Christ."

Out of his sleeve popped a maroon and gold invitation, the size of a deck card. He held it up so that the scripture was visible. It was a double entendre; Hoe Cuss Poe Cuss.

Below this, was a very skimpily clad girl with black hair in a red slip, dancing with a skeleton in a dark top hat.

He flipped it over in his fingers so that Audette could gain some mild understanding of what the theme was based on the absurd definitions laid out there:

Hoe: A good-time sally

Cuss: Curse me crooked

Poe: A person who enjoys reading and writing morbid, dark, tenebrous, profound literature

She scrunched up her nose, "I haven't the foggiest how to connect these concepts to one another."

He explained, albeit vaguely, "It's a Hocus Pocus party we've been planning, I've been planning really, just a little play on the original words. Durmstrang keeps the unearthed casket of Edgar Allen Poe in the hull of the ship, and his ghost tends to wander around reciting ghoulish poems. He badgers Karkaroff for hours each night. It's no wonder the chap is an alcoholic - impossible to get any sleep otherwise. Anyways, the blithering bastard is sure to make an appearance."

Audette grimaced a smile, imagining ramming a pillow to one's head with Edgar woefully experpting away on the other side of the curtains.

"Why would anyone do that? Covet the casket of such a haunting man?" she was taken aback by the utter folly. Now, she was walking with her shoulder flat to his, and he was no longer showing any objection to her wandering into his line of movement.

He released a puff of air, glancing down at her, and she mused that she very much appreciated how tall he was, "There's a lot of tenured morass over the history, but from what I've gathered he insulted Durmstrang by refusing to teach Malefic Literature there. So they ensured that he would spend an eternity on their vessel, unable to rest."

She nodded offwards, still feeling peculiar about the whole thing. Foolish trust for him was seeping back in at a frightening velocity, and her defenses were blowing away in the arctic wind, "Why are you going to all of this trouble to plan a party?"

"For you," he squeezed her hand again, and her system flooded with a cold thrill, "Seeing as I cannot take the only girl I want to take to this festering Yule Ball. I'll give them what they're asking for, just not in the form they expect it in; I'll dance with Peeves. Then the minute that tribulation has concluded I'll set him loose on them, and we're throwing an early after party on that contriving catamaran. We've been busy for weeks handing out invitations to girls who make the cut."

It was so easy to flirt with him, she aught to have been ashamed of herself for the saucy look she returned, "Pity the theme you chose, then. I don't foresee that I myself shall make the cut: I don't particularly identify as a hoe."

"Come as a paper bag princess if that's all you can find, I can guarantee that dollface alone will get you in," his riveting eyes caught on hers like magnets, and when it all became too much she removed her mitten from his hold to run it through her hair and effectively distance herself.

Now what?

He had leapt clean off the cliff for her; admitted to loving her, publicly acknowledged their connection, and even arranged a baneful bash of sorts in her honor.

That left Audette on the tips of her toes, peering over the ledge like a coward, because it was her turn to ricochet down after him...and she wasn't sure if she was brave enough, afterall.

Hadn't her wish been to fly freely?

He judged what was playing on her mind - that being the roiling disharmony of someone smashing down thunderously on a set of piano keys - walking in a princely manner beside Audette's noisy hyperventilation with his hands clasped behind his back, "So you're trapped in an undesirable engagement - what an insufferable princess problem to have. I'm curious, what will it cost to remove that repulsive stone from your fourth finger once and for all?"

She rolled her eyes, focusing out over the water so that her bashful overwhelm might escape his keen stare, "I-I worry that you couldn't afford it, Lord Malfoy. The price of that is well outside of your means."

"Nothing has ever been outside of my means. Everything has a price, and fortune is no object for that which I desire," he cooed stubbornly at the back of her head.

Audette's blood began to pulse wickedly below the surface of her skin as an overwhelming concoction of euphoria and reality crashed down upon her, "It is a price of your freedom - that very prize of yours you so merrily advertise, my father would demand it. I don't believe you understand my circumstances. You see, I-I was a silly girl to agree to cutting my strings, because some of them simply cannot be snapped."

"Consider me a slave for you, then. The notion of freedom pales in comparison," he tried to tangle his fingers in her jacket but she'd become a fidgety little squirrel on the pathway, dodging his efforts to seduce her.

Conveniently, they had come upon a lookout node where the stone wall protruded towards the lake in a small notch, and she wandered to the edge to grip onto the battlement geometrics, breathing heavily.

As she removed a garish fan to wave at her face he stood next to her in statuesque rigidity, reservedly assessing the rising panic attack she was failing to mask. When gentle sniveling commenced he spoke up in a terse voice, "Am I missing something? Why are you suddenly weeping?"

"Why am I..," she laughed anxiously at his callous chime, losing her voice on the spot.

Had someone turned up the global temperature to one-hundred boiling degrees? Shouldn't the snow be melting at lightning speed?

She choked on stray tears, incapable of facing him as her heart swelled up like a water balloon, "It's just that...you play these vile mind games with me...and I can't bare the mixed signals a minute longer. That's the trouble with all of this. I'm overridden with conflicting emotions, and you leave me puzzled as to whether you feel it too. You suggest that I might be your desire, you whisper words of love to me, but you also...you do that for everyone."

She felt his fingers creep around her waist, tugging passively, "I've never loved a girl before you. And I doubt it will ever occur again."

It was happening, and it was happening faster then her frazzled brain could keep up.

Her heart was now roaring maddeningly in her rib cage like the engine of a steam train, and Audette clung to the battlement for worry that she might flip right over and go plunging into the rocky shore below.

"Do you...do you really feel this as well, then? Is what we have truly special to you, or merely a fleeting fancy?" she bravely batted her eyes up to meet his crystalline orbs.

A coy, political smile appeared across his face as he shimmied her flat up against him, raising his touch to swirl his fingers in her hair, "It's not my style to spend months in pursuance of the most beautiful girl I've ever seen, only for it to be a fleeting fancy."

"I'm encumbered with fear, Draco, that you and I have differing definitions of forever," she whispered in a breathless voice. Her tears had rapidly dried to her cheeks in the wintry climate, and now it felt like a handful of minty beestings were dotting her skin.

"Hmm..," he hummed and dipped his head until they were nudging noses, lightly brushing his lips against hers, "I promise to keep your heart in a glass case until the day I die, Audette Bellarose, where no one and nothing may so much as lay a crack in it. Will that do?"

"That...that will do," she gasped through the immensely anxious anticipation, both of them blinking unnaturally often.

There is nothing like a first kiss - something so strongly desired, dreamed of for what has felt like an eternity beforehand, yet so damn well terrifying to pursue. It is the very affirmation of being wanted by another that has been pined after in wonderment.

As they stared into each other's eyes she found herself paralyzed to close the gap, despite him having gone ninety-five percent of the way. Ripples of nerve endings stood upright positively everywhere.

Thankfully he dared to traverse that final five-percent, and she completely melted in his arms.

An explosion of fireworks went off in her head as they kissed tenderly in the morning sunlight. It was an incredible sensation, one that she had never felt with anyone, leading to moans escaping from her throat as she twisted his shirt in one of her ridiculously shaking mittens.

His lips were soft and cool yet his breath was hot and spicy, his nose pointy and his scent incredible. At first it was positively timid, both of their breaths rattling with nervous delight, until she wanted more, and more.

Audette rotatedto twist her arms around his neck, to switch angles eagerly, to pull his ivory locks...

His hands came up to cup her jaw, tickling her neck with a careful tugs.

Oh it was heaven - lust and love abusively put limerence to SHAME.

Then.

The sound of conversation and laughter down the promenade snapped her back to Earth with definitive whiplash.

She was struck with waves of visual reminders that this was no way to go about terminating her engagement; her father's livid red monocle, Theodore's agonized expression as he confronted her on the gossip surrounding her kissing another boy in broad daylight...finding herself locked in her tower as punishment for tarring the Bellarose crest with such undignified actions.

Audette stepped back from him, craning her neck in dread as a few professors swept past the entangled pair with raised brows.

Shockingly, one of them was the headmaster of Hogwarts himself, out for an unusual stroll on the grounds in his classic lavender get up.

Audette heard Dumbledore remark in a delirious tone to Severus Snape, who had just about obliterated the pair with his poisonous black glare, "Ah yes, what is true in one world is often so in the next. Fickle as reality may be, there are some constructs with the endurance of granite."

Oh shite on a stick: Severus Snape was extremely close with her father, and he despised Audette.

She balked at the man's quite punishing observation, "I-I had better go. I'll need to...I have to first speak with my fiancé, to properly..."

Oh Merlin, Merlin, oh Merlin...

More like SATAN given what they had just done.

He held pace with her as she took off towards the greenhouse tunnel once more, maintaining a calm composure at her heels, "My word is iron - I shall buy you from him, whatever his price."

"That won't do, he's not that sort of pureblood, and my father would never accept such a contemptible circumstance," Audette called frantically over her shoulder, ringing her mittens together in overwhelm, "I need time to sort this out, to respectfully delineate from this course before we risk such exposure again. We'll just have to pass off as friends in the meantime."

So many people had born witness to their infidel interactions, she now held very little confidence that any explanation other than the truth might pass if Theodore was informed of anything.

He must have gotten ahold of her long dress train, because Audette felt herself get yanked backwards awkwardly.

Malfoy's eyes were blistering with argument, "No. I told you that friendship was out of the picture, and we are certainly not friends with benefits either. The ball is in weeks, and it is only fitting that we attend together. If not, than at the very least you are coming to the ship, alone. Will you finally grow up and rid yourself of this fucking farce before then?"

She swallowed down swords in her throat, darting her eyes out to the rich evergreen forest packed clean up to the rocky shoreline in all directions, "Perhaps. I cannot say for certain - all will depend ultimately on my father. I shall do my best."

"Each hour only adds to a rage I will very soon be incapable of dousing, Bellarose, bare that in mind," he warned her in a dangerous timbre, "I expect you on that ship, as mine. Do not force me to involve myself."

Audette nodded in comprehension, petting his cheek with her glove, "Find patience for me. If it is truly forever you seek, than best we go about this transition properly. Write to me until then, in The Book of One Thousand Bleeding Eyes."

She left him there, with the promise to take that leap hanging in the icy wind.

Being the wicked little monster she was, she would need time to construct a parachute first, seeing as there really was no sense in leaping if she couldn't be certain that it wouldn't end with her splattering to goo at the bottom.