A/N: So for all of Marilyn's confidence both in general and in terms of her body in the original fic, I'm trying to be very aware of the fact that she is indeed only fourteen in this story, so she wouldn't have found that confidence yet outside of ballet and dance (and it'd honestly feel weird to write a fourteen year old being very overly mature and confident with matters like sex anyway, but maybe that's because I was a cripplingly shy teenager) and the same goes for Draco, really, for all of his bluster. At the very least there'd be a blush or two.


Marilyn couldn't pretend that she didn't breathe a sigh of relief for the next couple of weeks after that whenever she stepped into their meeting spot and found that the room had not transformed into some sort of illicit sex dungeon. Either going further was not on Draco's mind, or it really was the sort of thing that the room could not provide. Or maybe he was just really into sofas. That was a thought that had her snorting, mostly because he didn't seem the type to settle for anything less than king-sized beds and Egyptian cotton sheets for his first time. Would it be his first time? Or had he and Pansy…? It was a thought she wasn't particularly willing to finish.

Oh Merlin, it was going to have to be a conversation, wasn't it? It would drive her mad otherwise. She hated leaving things unsaid or undiscussed, and she hated how complicated things got when they weren't aired, and while she also hated awkward atmospheres, what she loathed most of all was how much she knew this would plague her if she didn't get it out. It took her a whole week to work up the nerve, once she'd made her mind up on the matter, and when she did so she walked in with her newly finished gift (now charmed back to their original emerald green) burning a hole in her pocket as if that might bribe him into not turning this whole thing into a fiasco. Mostly it just added to her nerves, because it wouldn't be completely out of character for him to laugh at her attempt at a gift.

With exams not too far away, he was studying more often than not whenever she found him in their hiding place before her. People liked to whisper that Draco relied on his family name and his father's wrath to get him whatever her liked, but one didn't get grades second only to Hermione's by accident, and although it wasn't something he discussed, Marilyn suspected he had every intention of beating her friend for the number one spot as soon as humanly possible.

"What's the matter with you?" he asked after little more than one glance at her face.

Ah yes, the sort of warm and empathetic instincts one always wished for when it came to difficult discussions.

"I wanted to talk to you about something," she admitted.

"I gather from your tone that I won't enjoy this discussion," he grumbled, finishing off the note he'd been writing and dropping his quill into the inkwell "Fine. What is it?"

The gloves first, she thought. It would only be more awkward giving him them after. With a nod she gestured for him to follow her to the sofa, where she sat down with her legs folded beneath her before finally producing the gift from her pocket. In attempt to dress them up a bit, she'd taken a light pink ribbon that had previously been destined for either her hair or her next pair of pointe shoes and tied it around the gloves in a neat little bow.

"Here," she offered them to him pretty much as soon as he sat beside her.

"What is it?"

"A belated Christmas and Valentine's gift all rolled into one," she supplied.

She almost took that opportunity to bashfully insist that it was nothing much, but she stopped herself short. That would've been almost as pathetic as he'd likely find the gift itself.

"Gloves?" he cocked an eyebrow as he inspected them, unravelling the ribbon with one pull at the tie.

"Wrist warmers. Gloves are harder to get one-size fits all - these just have a thumbhole, no fingers."

He inspected the cable knit design knitted into the backs of them with curiosity, rubbing his thumbs over the stitching.

"This is fine work. I've never seen them in Hogsmeade before."

"Oh, er, I didn't get them from Hogsmeade."

"Where, then? Don't tell me you just happened to bring them from France in the off-chance that something like this might happen."

"I could be the most gifted seer in the world and I still could've never foreseen you," she said - and he smirked and seemed to take it as a compliment, even though she wasn't sure she meant it as one - before she flushed and admitted much more shyly than she'd like "I made them."

"You made them? How?"

"Knitting needles. Wool. Sheer force of willpower."

"You knit?"

"Only for the people I find most infuriating," she rolled her eyes "Do you like them? It's fine if you don't, they're not exactly designer, and I know you're not the sort for handmade gifts, it's more about the sentiment than anything else, you've given me two very nice gifts now and I haven't even tried to give you anything, and this was all I could really think of, so..."

She trailed off and then exhaled sharply through her nose at the amused look he was fixing her with, shaking her head "You could've told me I was rambling."

"You ought to be careful, Baxter. Anybody might think I make you nervous."

"I don't get nervous," she lied shamelessly with a roll of her eyes "I just know it's not typically your sort of thing. They're not made from the finest quality dragon hide-"

"If you could knit with dragon hide, Baxter, even I would be impressed."

"-so I won't get offended and take to my bed to mourn for weeks if you don't wear them."

"I like them. They're of sound quality - good enough that I mistook them to be professionally made. Not like the tat the Weasleys flounce about it just because their mother spawned a brood too large to afford clothes."

He was being a prat of for the sake of it with that particular comment - not least because it was woefully inaccurate. Marilyn had seen Mrs Weasley's handiwork for herself around Christmas when the Weasleys, and Harry, had dutifully rolled out their knitted jumpers sent by their mother, embellished with their initials. Fred and George had, of course, spent the holidays swapping theirs back and forth to mess with people, so that one could never safely assume that the one marked 'F' was George or vice versa. The jumpers had all been thoroughly impressive, and while Marilyn was pleased with her own skill, there was no denying that Mrs Weasley had her beat. Draco was, as usual, being nasty for the sake of it. But then he continued before she could argue.

"You're really worked up about this, aren't you?" he gave a smile that was both oddly charming and infuriating all at once.

"Look," she groaned "The broom was…the broom was immaculate. And I love the bracelet."

"You wear it all the time."

"Yes, and you notice, which takes away any ground you have to be smug about it, babe."

"And you lose any right to act blasé when you call me babe, darling," he shot back.

"Just like you can't use the word blasé and expect me to still be attracted to you, you tosser."

"My apologies, I forgot you despise words with more than two syllables in the unwashed north."

"Blasé only has two syllables - now tell me again how you have the intellectual high grou-"

She was enjoying their casual bullying of one another far too much - primarily because it was territory that didn't have her feeling awkward or unsure of herself. What she enjoyed even more, though, was how he dipped his face in towards hers and kissed her, effectively cutting off her beratement. Ironically, that didn't infuriate her. Every innocuous thing he did that would be perfectly innocent if done by anybody else pissed her off, but when he did something that would annoy her if anybody did it (anybody she was in the habit of kissing, at least), he could somehow get away with it.

"I like them, Baxter. Stop being weird about it. Go back to being your usual arrogant self."

He punctuated the reassurance by ghosting another peck at the corner of her lips.

"Pot meet kettle," she said drily, mostly to detract from how she'd almost leaned further into him when he pulled back "But good. I'm glad."

"Nobody saw you working on them, did they? They may connect the dots. Granger loves getting into the business of others."

Draco remained unaware of the fact that Hermione knew about them - and Marilyn intended to keep things that way. Hearing rant upon rant about her friend was not something she really relished the idea of, and he'd never believe her if she assured him that Hermione wouldn't tell anybody.

"I charmed them to look different. If anybody stops and wonders whether what I'd been knitting was destined for you after the…display in the hall before Christmas, they'll question their own sanity before they question mine."

Although which should be questioned more was highly debatable. Draco made a face as if to agree - and that was fair, considering his friends would likely laugh at themselves if they even considered to suspect that the wrist-warmers he wore were knitted by a filthy little mudblood like herself.

Unfortunately, the decent reception of her gift left only one thing left to discuss. Marilyn winced, but she didn't give herself much time to hesitate. This bit was the worst bit - the awkward reluctance. It was best to just bring it up, and then she could deal with the conversation as it unfolded rather than worrying about how it might unfold.

"So, it's funny that you should talk about being weird, because there's something I want to talk about."

"Something weird?"

"Depending on your viewpoint…and, er, maturity level. I suppose."

"Something bad?"

"I hear not."

"Something pleasant?"

"If you do it right."

He frowned at her. If he had worked out what she was talking about amidst all of her belligerence, he'd have probably been hesitant to call out his suspicion anyway. And that was completely fair, because it was hardly the sort of thing you would throw out there unless you were completely certain that was what the other person was getting at, right? A sure-fire way to create an awkward atmosphere would be to confidently state 'you're talking about sex' only to find out that the other person had been talking about the weather.

"So?" he prodded.

"Sex."

His hands fumbled and the gift slipped from his grasp, flopping down onto the sofa. Apparently he hadn't suspected, then.

"Excuse me?" he gaped at her.

Christ, he was posh even when he was flummoxed.

"Do you want it?" she asked, and then cringed at the question.

Yeah, of all the ways to bring up the topic, this was probably the worst way she could have gone about it. Well, short of ripping off her robes like those tearaway pants strippers wore and gesturing at her crotch enticingly. If there was such a way to do that.

"In general, right at this moment, or ever?" he asked, a flush quickly rising to his cheeks.

If there was any big win, it was that his reaction definitely implied that he wasn't just biding his time and waiting for his chance to pounce. Okay, she hadn't thought that of him. In all of their time together, she'd never felt pressured into anything. She wouldn't continue to spend time with him if she had, and she highly doubted he was about to suddenly start doing so anytime soon. But Hermione's words had given rise to a paranoia that she and Draco were operating under vastly different assumptions, and the blush on his face was reassuring as hell that it turned out they were not.

It was just a bit unfortunate that the reassurance paled in comparison to her own embarrassment - and her wish that she hadn't brought it up at all. But that was easy to do now that she had her answer, for his astonishment was an answer in itself. If he'd considered it an inevitability, he wouldn't have been this caught off guard, and he absolutely wasn't so good an actor as to be able to feign this.

"I just…I got in my head about…about this," she said - and she'd come dangerously close to saying us before managing to stop herself at the last moment "And the fact that it can't go anywhere, and usually things that can't go anywhere in that way only tend to exist to go…to one very specific place in another way. I didn't know if you had expectations in that way, and I started to worry that you might, and that you'd assumed we were on the same page about it, and I…panicked."

"And then you felt the need to induce that panic in me," he snorted, a great deal of bluster rising up to veil his embarrassment "I…I don't have any expectations. I'm happy with things as they are…are…are you?"

"Yeah! I am, that's why I was worried. I'm not ready for things to go further - generally speaking."

"That's fine," he said, and she suspected it was as close to a 'neither am I' that his pride would let him get, but then he hesitated before he continued "...Have you? Gone further? In the past? Ever?"

"No," she admitted frankly "This is the most involved I've ever gotten with anybody in terms of, er, scale. Have you? With Pansy? Or…or anybody?"

She only added the last part so as not to sound like a jealous little twonk, but she wasn't sure she succeeded. Thankfully he was much too embarrassed by this whole topic of conversation to really needle her with it, though.

"No. I haven't."

"Ah. Right, then. So we're all on the same page, then, at least."

"Yes," he snorted, shaking his head "At least there's that."

A few beats of silence followed, and the he groaned and raked a hand through his hair "How are we to go about as normal after that?"

"It's fine! It's only as awkward as we make it, really."

"Well you certainly did your utmost to make it very awkward - I tell you, Baxter, you've no future in diplomacy."

"No, Malfoy, I've got one in dancing. Very different area of expertise, that."

"Just as well - I thought you were propositioning me. That knitwear is a precursor to taking the next step in Muggle-born culture or something."

Marilyn smiled then - not only at the ridiculous nature of the thought, but because he'd said Muggle-born. Not mudblood. Had he even noticed? She doubted it. But it was something. Even if it was solely an act of appeasement - avoiding a slur to avoid an argument he couldn't be bothered with - that was still something, wasn't it? From anybody else it would be the bare bloody minimum, but it was a mark of great effort from somebody as proud and as annoying as Draco. Or was she being entirely pathetic here and grasping at the smallest of straws just to pretend to herself that this all wasn't pointless and stupid? Not really. She didn't think so. Mostly because she was damn aware of how stupid this whole thing was, she was just choosing to act in spite of that.


A/N: I now, tentatively, have this story planned out between now and the end of the final book. It's a lot - the word document with the outline overall is 5,000 words, which is longer than 99% of chapters I post. Only just beginning to really realise what I'm biting off here! I hope you guys enjoy it and are strapped in for a beast of a ridiculous length, because I'm excited!

Also, for those of you who are into Stranger Things, I just started an Eddie Munson/OC fic because I have no self control and taking on Milwordy for the next year means my daily output can actually afford a new project. It's called 20th Century Boy after the T. Rex song, please go check it out if you'd like!

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