When the door to their little safe haven clicked open, Marilyn felt a weary sort of resignation wash over her.

"I didn't know if you'd be here," Draco said in the way of greeting "I'm earlier than usual. Goyle challenged Crabbe to an eating competition and I couldn't stomach the sight, so I had to excuse myself."

Humming in response, she didn't look up from the paper.

"I suppose I have to thank them, though," he continued, dropping his school bag and slumping down onto the massive sofa at her side "It provided me with an incredibly valid excuse to leave, so at least it won't look suspicious."

"Crabbe and Goyle don't seem the sort to get overly suspicious," Marilyn replied dully.

She was sitting sideways on the sofa, curled into the centre of it with her knees drawn upwards before her, so when he sat down with her he was more behind her than at her side. Usually when one of them joined the other, some sort of gesture would follow - one that was much too casual and incidental to, well, be anything close to actually casual or incidental. Ordinarily, she would lean back into him, or he might toy with a lock of her hair. Something.

"No," he snickered "I suppose you're right. But Blaise would. Nott might. Perhaps Flint. Definitely Pansy - she keeps an annoyingly close eye on my comings and goings."

As predicted, he did toy with a strand of her hair then, but she didn't lean into the touch, nor did she lean against him, or really do anything at all that translated in their own little shorthand that all was well.

"How flattering," she murmured.

He scoffed his minimal amount of amusement at that, and then a brief silence passed between them during which she was very much aware of how he watched her, taking stock of the difference in her behaviour.

"What are you reading?" He asked finally.

"Your masterpiece."

"My what?"

"An alarmingly large and ferocious-looking man, Hagrid has been using his new-found authority to terrify the students in his care with a succession of horrific creatures. While Dumbledore turns a blind eye, Hagrid has maimed several pupils during a series of lessons that many admit to being 'very frightening'," she read aloud "'I was attacked by a hippogriff, and my friend Vincent Crabbe got a bad bite off a flobberworm,' says Draco Malfoy, a fourth year student. 'We all hate Hagrid, but we're just too scared to say anything.'"

She knew Draco far too well to think he might be the slightest bit chagrined by her reading, but even she hadn't quite expected him to start snickering like she'd reminded him of a particularly funny joke. Sighing, she dropped the paper down onto the space on the couch beside her and turned to regard him. The exasperation on her face failed to quell his amusement.

"Flobberworms don't have teeth, Draco," she pointed out.

That transformed his snickers into all out chuckles, grinning as he shook his head "That's what so bloody funny - and that daft cow still put it in! It's hysterical!"

"And when have you ever been too scared to say anything? To anybody? Ever?" She challenged "You went to this woman and you told a pack of lies, knowing she'd print it and it'd impact this Professor Hagrid."

"Oh, come on Baxter," he rolled his eyes "Don't tell me you're one of the idiots who idolises that great lumbering oaf."

"I'm not friends with him like they are, I don't really care for him one way or the other, but this is his job, Draco. His livelihood. His reputation. You can't tell lies about it and spin it into something it's not just because you personally don't like him."

"Apparently I can, Baxter," he said smugly.

Marilyn groaned her annoyance, words utterly failing her "This is a man's life, Draco. You're allowed not to like him-"

"Oh, am I? I must say, that's a relief, thank you."

"-but to- to set off some sort of smear campaign because of that dislike isn't right. The man isn't terrifying - students don't cower away from him in the hallways or, or go pale when they see him approaching. He's harmless. He's a bloody teddy bear."

Over the course of her would-be telling off, Draco's laughter petered out until he was regarding her defence of Hogwarts' groundskeeper with a curled lip and visible disdain.

"A teddy bear, is it?" He challenged, scooting away from her on the sofa and rolling up the right sleeve of his robes.

Marilyn watched, bewildered, as he then unbuttoned the cuff of his shirt and rolled that up next, revealing a pale forearm…and three even paler scars. They were difficult to see, she wouldn't have spotted them without having been looking for something, but given the fantastic abilities of magical healing, the fact that they were there at all spoke for how nasty they must've been when the injury had first been inflicted.

"I got these when that fool set a hippogriff loose in a class of third years," he sneered "A lack of wisdom can be just as dangerous as an excess of malevolence. Especially in one who is supposed to be responsible for our care and safety during his pathetic excuse for a lesson. And then he let the bloody thing escape rather than having it put down - deliberately, probably, so it can go on being a menace to society. That's his favourite sort of beast, you know."

"I heard the stories about that," she said doubtfully "You didn't exactly follow instructions."

That was mostly her diplomatic way of saying 'you did your thing and provoked it, didn't you?'

"Yes, because introducing an animal that comes with a strict list of instructions and guidelines, one which becomes lethal if all of those guidelines aren't followed to the letter, no less, to a group of teenagers couldn't possibly go wrong."

He…he had a point there. Still, he was not done.

"They all cry and clutch their pearls whenever Snape gets a bit strict or makes a comment, but that buffoon sets loose dangerous animals that leave students scarred or burned and it's 'oh, isn't Hagrid eccentric, isn't he funny' just because they like him. Because he vies after their approval like he's some grotesque overgrown first year. If it was a teacher they personally liked less doing the exact same things, Granger would be the first one drawing up petitions to get him sacked. It's a farce."

Marilyn sighed.

"What? You disagree?" he challenged, eyebrows shooting upwards in open challenge.

"With what you did? Yes. Always. It was…it was underhanded, and it was a lie. But with all of the points you've just made?" she hesitated, then offered the matter a few seconds more thought before sighing again "All right. I'd be miffed, too. I still wouldn't have done that, though."

"Then you're a pushover."

"The fact that I'm sitting here with you sort of gave that away, didn't it?"

As soon as she said it she knew, depending on how inclined he was to have a sense of humour in that particular moment, it could very easily spark an argument. In fact, she was aware of that before she'd even said it, but she refused to allow it to stop her. It was true. If he didn't like it, he could suck it. She was taking another chance on Draco, but she was by no means going to appease him like so many others he surrounded himself with. Sometimes he seemed to rather like that…up until he didn't. But she wouldn't be cowed, and she would never be a bloody sycophant.

All of that considered, she was still relieved when he gave a begrudging huff of laughter - mostly because she really couldn't be bothered with a big argument. It was fun to bicker with him, not to argue. Bickering was amusing, arguing was exhausting. To anybody else she might've had to explain that, but not to Draco - he understood it implicitly, right since they'd first started talking, it seemed. The contrast between that and his being such an imperious little git was just the cherry on top of it all. Maybe that was why it was so absurd to her that he seemed jealous of Fred - Fred was the way with her that he was with everybody. So was George, really. Draco was only this way with her, from what she'd seen. That was nice.

"So," she sighed, hoping to ease the atmosphere a bit before any awkwardness could take hold "What are we doing for Valentine's Day?"

The look of horror on Draco's face might've been offensive if it wasn't so utterly hysterical - his eyes widening comically and his jaw slackening. Luckily for him, that was all it took for her to drop the teasing, laughing with a shake of her head.

"You should see your face," she snorted "Do you think I'm that daft?"

"I didn't until you defended Dumbledore's pet idiot," he returned with an eye roll "I thought you were envisioning a trip to that ridiculous tea shop where we could gawp at each other like a couple of prize prats."

"Pansy and Hermione could chaperone."

"They'd certainly do a good job of keeping room for propriety between us."

"A minimum of twenty feet apart at all times."

"We can talk in notes - charm paper aeroplanes filled with smutty words to fly across the room to one another."

Marilyn snorted, shaking her head with a grin she couldn't at all banish from her face "Say smutty again, just like that."

He rolled his eyes at her for what must've been the billionth time overall, but then her amusement was quashed by a hopeless sort of fondness when he leaned in close to her and muttered the requested word lowly in her ear.

Maybe Hermione's concern wasn't completely unfounded after all.


Whether Hermione's feelings could truly be classed as concern or as judgement, she kept it to herself. As far as Marilyn could tell. But while she was tempted to overthink every minor interaction - how the twins greeted her at breakfast, the way Ron asked whether she'd done a piece of homework they both had due, the works - she knew deep down that it was the sort of thing she wouldn't have to question when the axe came down. The greetings then would be 'have you lost your sodding mind?', and homework likely wouldn't even be discussed at all. They weren't the sort to show their scorn in the form of a 'good morning' that sounded a fraction less enthusiastic than usual.

The newest trip to Hogsmeade was quickly upon them, and with it being so close to Valentine's Day, most of the students had pre-existing plans. George had promised to share a butterbeer with Esme in The Three Broomsticks (outright refusing to step food in Madam Puddifoot's) before he'd meet up with Fred to get up to whatever mischief they had planned for that particular day. Hermione had shyly agreed to spend the day with Viktor Krum - an admission that sent Ron into a spell of unusual quietness, punctuated by the occasional grumbling insistence that he was not in a bad mood whenever Harry dared to ask.

Given that she just didn't have the sort of friendship with Harry or Ron that would find her spending solo time with them as she might with George or Hermione, it left Marilyn with the trip to herself. That was just how she liked it.

In the morning, she got up and wrapped up in her cosiest Muggle clothing - a deep purple jumper, a navy blue winter coat, thick fleece-lined jeans and boots that wouldn't have her falling on her backside thanks to the ice that still hadn't quite fully retreated - and then she headed out. It was a pretty huge mercy that enough time had gone by since both the Great Hall Incident and the Yule Ball that her presence had once again lost all novelty to the other students, and so she went largely unbothered as she took her time browsing the shops and just enjoying her own company.

It was nice - a change of pace that offered a bit more peace than the castle usually did, despite the fact that half the castle seemed to be here anyway. Maybe it was the change in setting, or just all the distractions, but it was much easier to be left alone out here. She slipped into Madam Puddifoot's just long enough to treat herself to a hot chocolate to go (and to be mortified at the idea of being seen there by George or Fred, neither of whom would ever let her forget it) and then she hiked up to the quiet little pathway that overlooked the Shrieking Shack and simply basked in the silence and the solitude. It was bliss. Some had bubble baths and candles, she had drizzle and haunted houses.

Time ticked on in the way it tended to do when paid no mind until Marilyn had no idea how long she'd been hanging around - she could've been told that it was one hour or that it was three and she'd have little difficulty believing it either way. Her mind drifted from topic to topic without affording any of them enough thought to make them stick. Until she felt it. When the tapping first started on the back of her hand as she looked out over the scenery, her first instinct was to jump and scramble away, fearing a spider or some other sort of strange creepy crawly native specifically to haunted Scottish houses.

It took a few seconds, mostly because she was busy trying to bat the thing away, to realise that it wasn't living at all - it was paper. A fluttering origami bird that kept trying to worm its way into her hands. Panic turned to laughter, and she turned her palm upward and stared in wonder as it perched in her hand, flapping its wings like it was trying to shake off the tiny little drops of rain it had collected. Grinning, she probably looked like a right idiot when she lifted her other hand to stroke its head like it was a real, living thing but her moment of whimsy was rewarded when it bowed its head in response, and promptly began to unfold itself.

Once the paper was mostly unfurled, she could see that the body of the bird wasn't hollow as she'd originally assumed, but filled with tissue paper. Blinking, Marilyn pulled apart the tissue paper and then stilled at what she found inside, mind falling entirely silent in her surprise. A bracelet - a thin, elegant silver chain that appeared to be the beginning of a charm bracelet if the two charms already on it were any indication. If there was any doubt in her mind as to who had sent it, there was none once she got a better look at the charms. The first a ballet slipper, and the second a little broomstick.

What had once been the wings of the bird fluttered slightly, drawing her attention back to the paper itself, and when she shifted the tissue paper that had housed the bracelet aside she saw two words written there in handwriting that was now very familiar: 'smutty words'.

A Valentine's Day gift after all. Marilyn breathed a laugh. Then she choked on a sob, and struggled with the fact that her heart felt like it was either doing cartwheels around her chest or trying to climb up and out of her throat. How was it that he could be such a prick, while also being the sweetest lad she'd ever met?

And how many more gifts did he have to give her before she would technically be classed as a sugar baby?


A/N: Been living on the Harry Potter Wikia as of late because I just don't have the time to reread the books (which is a tragedy in itself, but one day! I found all of my old childhood copies in the moves which was lovely, and they're in a box right now waiting for their day). I did reshuffle the dates of the article a bit - it's meant to happen in early January, but the change doesn't matter that much.

Part of why I've been so excited to write this story is because I get to write Draco being the very nasty teen that he was in the books, whereas in the other one he was an adult from the beginning of the story so I did get to gloss over it quite a bit and Marilyn never really saw how downright cruel he often is in the books. It only feels right to include his canon nastiness here, now.