CHAPTER 14
The instant the hateful words fell from Daphne’s ultra-glossed lips, Draco opened his mouth to yell the many unkind (to put it nicely) things that were stampeding through his head, but Hermione beat him to it as she gently pushed her chair back and rose to meet the other girl’s haughty stare.
“I am here to check on and take care of Draco, Greengrass,” Hermione said firmly.
The snobby Slytherin threw her blonde head back in derisive laughter. “Draco?! Really, is that what he lets you call him, Granger? After all,” she jeered, thrusting her scornful face into Hermione’s. “Slaves aren’t supposed to take their masters’ name.”
Hermione said nothing, but on the inside, she was battling to keep her cool. All right ‘Mione, don’t lose your self-control and dignity now…you have more self-respect than her, better morals, more intelligence, more goodness in your heart…for God’s sake, don’t slap her now!
She was pulled from her thoughts by the growl emerging from the boy perched precariously at the edge of the bed, his eyes glinting dangerously and his hand clutching his hawthorn wand so tightly, his knuckles looked ready to burst from his skin.
“Greengrass,” snarled Draco in a voice submersed in disgust. “Get. Out.”
Daphne rocked back on her heels like she had been backhanded (something Draco was critically close to doing, by the way), and instantly, her normally taunting expression was replaced by one of faux dismay and pain. “How could you tell me to get out, Drakey? I’m your girlfriend! I’m your gorgeous, perfect girlfriend!” She flung an accusing finger at Hermione. “Are you telling me you’re throwing me out because of her? Haven’t we discussed this already, Drakey? She’s a mudblood, a taint to the pureblood race, a veritable blight on all of wizarding society! Why the hell are you even standing up for her? Merlin, Draco, she’s a flipping bitch with a stick so far up her ass, even those Weasels she hangs out with couldn’t burrow far enough in to reach it!”
A flashing red light raced from the tip of Draco’s wand directly to Daphne’s throat before she was hurled back about ten feet onto the hard marble floor where she landed roughly on her backside. Draco, who now stood directly in front of Hermione, his broad body shielding hers, stowed his wand away and said menacingly, “Leave, Greenass…just leave.”
Daphne struggled to her feet and shrieked, “My name is GREENGRASS!”
Draco shook his head and raised his eyebrows at her. “Not with that fall, it isn’t. I’m sure your arse is one big bruise right now, so pardon me if I call you Greenass for a while, eh darling?”
Daphne let out one more outraged scream before stomping away, her hair disheveled, one shoe heel cracked, and a gigantic rip running up the back of her miniskirt.
The moment she left, Draco and Hermione buried their faces in each other shoulders and began laughing almost hysterically at the sight they had just seen. The image of the humiliated Daphne Greengrass was just too funny! After Hermione’s eyes began watering from all the mirth, she grasped Draco’s shoulder to use as a crutch and steadied herself into an upright position.
“Okay,” she wheezed, still panting from the intense laughter. “Time to get serious, Draco.”
Still slightly chuckling, Draco straightened up and looked at Hermione. Trying to ignore the kick of adrenaline that the sight of her induced, he asked, “All right. What have we got on our wonderfully exciting agenda today?”
“Nothing much,” she said as she rolled her eyes. “There’s just the small, insignificant task of modeling the entire Great Hall because, um, let’s see, the ball is TOMORROW!”
Draco slapped a hand to his forehead. “Oh dear Merlin, I completely forgot about that!”
Hermione sighed in mock exasperation. “I suspected as much. But first,” she murmured as moved closer to him, “You are going to tell me what happened last night.”
“Hermione, really, there’s nothing to tell…”
“Draco.”
“No, really, I mean, there honestly is nothing to say.”
She regarded him with flickering disbelief. “Oh, I see. So are you trying to tell me that you’re in here because you accidentally glued your hand on to your penis while you were jacking off last night? Because that seems to be the only plausible situation I can imagine.”
Draco flushed as he scoffed, “NO, I was not brought in here because of something that happened while I was jacking off, which, incidentally, I wasn’t.”
Hermione smiled in amusement as she made a hand gesture urging him to continue.
“Fine,” Draco grumbled. “But you have to promise not to throw one of those common female hysterics’ fits where you break everything in sight, claw me furiously with your nine-inch long talons, and then vow to skewer my nipples and burn my testicles.”
Hermione stared blankly at him, her jaw dropped.
“Not that I have any personal experience in that matter,” he added hastily, all the while thinking in his head, Break ups are ugly, ugly things when it comes to veelas.
Hermione crossed her arms in impatience and shouted, “Christ, Draco, just SHUT UP and tell me what bloody happened!”
“Okay, okay, jeez,” said Draco as he raised his hands in surrender. “Look, basically, this is what happened. I was in the common room, talking to Blaise, when all of a sudden, the guy jumps on top of me and starts strangling me. Well, he didn’t get to do much damage since Pansy and Theodore Nott showed up at the right time and got him off me. Anyways, we found out in Dumbledore’s office that he’d been Imperiused by another student and had been ordered to murder me; I’m happy to say the mission failed. Now if only the bastard responsible for all this would just once show his face …”
When Draco finished speaking, he saw that Hermione’s face had gone deathly pale and that the light in her eyes had been washed out by something he could only define as horror. He took her trembling hands into his own slightly callused ones and gently squeezed them, trying to quell the shivers that were threatening to spread to other parts of her body. “Hermione,” he murmured with some alarm, his grip tight on her. “What’s wrong? What the hell is the matter?”
She dropped her head and let the brown waves cascade around her face to create curtains, but Draco could hear her whispering something frantically under her breath. Now extremely worried, he tilted her chin upwards and forced her to meet his gaze. “Granger, tell me right now what the fuck is the matter before I call Professor Dumbledore and have you forcibly ingest Veritaserum!”
“It’s him,” she whispered frenziedly, her hands cold in Draco’s vise-like grip. “It was him. Oh god, he did it. I can’t believe he did it.”
“Who, Hermione?” asked Draco urgently. “Who did what? Tell me!”
Hermione shook her head rapidly as if she was trying to keep herself quiet, but when Draco grabbed her by the shoulders and lightly shook her, she abandoned all pretenses and gave way to his questioning.
“It was Alexander, Draco,” she said in a shaky voice. “Alexander was the one who Imperiused Blaise.”
******
Draco had always been proud of his ability to deal with issues well. No matter how terrible the crisis, he had always managed to keep his cool and dealt with the problem in a calm, orderly fashion.
Well, unless you counted the episode with Hoffschwitt. But that was the one exception in his otherwise stellar record.
But now…there was this. The timeline really was ugly: 1) Draco and Hermione were enemies for six years, 2) Draco kissed Hermione (cue the lovey-dovey sigh that is rarely emitted in the general public), 3) Hermione lost her memory, 4) Hermione met that fucking son of a bitch, Armani, 5) Draco and Hermione became friends (cue the nauseatingly sweet “awwww” that seems to be quite popular with the female population, even though it’s supposedly used by males too these days…sigh, what is the world coming to?), 6) Draco and Hermione are assigned the job of organizing the Halloween Ball, 7) Draco got rid of Pansy (I am the champion, my frieeeendsss), 8) Draco turned into giant, heartless Douchebag Almighty and completely killed Hermione’s good impression of him by asking out the human incarnation of a man-eating turd, Daphne Greengrass, 9) Draco dumped Daphne after the goddamned whore insulted Hermione, and 10) Draco discovered that he is wanted dead by the aforementioned fucking son of a bitch, Armani (words censored as they are too potent for public viewing).
And thus, the Great and Majestic Draco Malfoy was standing in the Great Hall blowing up pumpkins enchanted to have Armani’s face on them.
Pumpkins. God. His father would have been so proud…NOT.
“Draco,” Hermione called from the other side of the Hall as she decorated the walls with brilliant splashes of black, gold, purple, and orange. “Could you please stop satisfying your disturbing fetish for explosions and come here?”
Savoring the final deafening KA-BOOMs made by the pumpkins, Draco sighed and walked over to where Hermione was.
“What exactly do you want me to do?” he asked in a monotone while Hermione splattered paint all over the walls with her wand.
Pivoting on the spot, Hermione gazed up at his face silently.
Draco frowned. “What is it?”
Wordlessly, Hermione pocketed her wand, stepped forward, and then wrapped her arms around his waist.
Draco stiffened in surprise before relaxing into her embrace and putting his own arms around her. He could smell a faint fragrance of strawberries in her hair, and the feel of her hands at his lower back caused his heart rate to increase ever so slightly.
“Draco,” she breathed, breaking the sweet silence. “Why won’t you let Professor Snape stay with you?”
Draco furrowed his eyebrows and reluctantly drew back from her comforting arms. “Hermione, I don’t want a teacher shadowing me all day! I need my privacy, my space. Besides, with people doing stuff right under Dumbledore’s nose, how can we expect nothing to happen with just Snape around?”
“Dumbledore’s the most powerful wizard of our time,” Hermione gently reminded him. “I think it shows good faith to trust him in his decisions and utilize his suggestions. Honestly Draco, is it worth your life to not allow an accomplished wizard to guard you?”
Draco thought back to the meeting they’d had earlier with the headmaster up in his office:
FLASHBACK:
Dumbledore’s gaze had been piercing behind those aged spectacles as he had observed Draco and Hermione. As the duo sat uncomfortably in the two less than comfy chairs in front of the headmaster’s mahogany desk, Fawkes made erratic trilling noises on his gilded perch to the side, causing the silence to become even more awkward. Finally, Dumbledore latched his steady stare back on to Draco and began to speak.
“Mr. Malfoy, I have a suggestion.”
“Yes, Professor?” Draco asked tentatively, wondering what sort of mad idea the old loon was about to put forth.
“I think you should allow a teacher, a trusted member of the faculty, to travel with you throughout the day, as a safeguard for your welfare. I believe Professor Snape is willing to take this job.”
Draco didn’t even try to stop the response flying out of his mouth. “No.”
“Draco, please, listen to what Professor Dumbledore is saying,” Hermione implored. “Why shouldn’t you take up his offer and finally be able to walk around peacefully?”
Draco gritted his teeth in defiance as he turned to face her. “Hermione, I don’t want to be constantly watched by some professor…I mean, Merlin knows that I don’t consider myself weak, but I think that if I just stay quietly on my own, Armani will think that he’s taught me a hard lesson I’ll never forget and leave me alone.”
“We do not know for sure that it is Mr. Armani, as Miss Granger says it is,” Dumbledore corrected him. “Although I realize the given scenario certainly does lead to a conclusion pointing at Mr. Armani, I’m afraid nothing can be proven without another incident involving him.”
“Well, then, there’s another reason why I shouldn’t be followed!” exclaimed Draco. “If I am let loose on my own just like before, maybe Armani will target me again and we’ll be able to grab the bastard while he’s at it!” Too late, Draco remembered he was in the presence of the school dean. “Oh, erm, sorry Professor.”
“It’s quite all right, my boy,” Dumbledore said with an amused look. “I can assure you that there are many teachers here who I wouldn’t doubt would curse ten times more than you had they been in such a situation, so I cannot say that I blame you much.”
The moment Dumbledore finished speaking, Hermione clamped her hand down on Draco’s shoulder and spun him around with surprising strength.
“Now you listen to me Draco bloody Malfoy,” she hissed, her fingers locked onto his poor shoulder. He could almost hear it begging for mercy. “I don’t know if you find this funny or something, but your pride and flippancy is getting on the last of my blasted nerves! I don’t care how much you claim to be able to look after yourself, I know for a fact that if Armani ever finds you remotely alone again, he will probably not hesitate to ‘avada kedavra’ you in half a second. So you say yes to Professor Dumbledore this instant before I Imperius you myself and make you say it!”
This angry tirade was met with a tense silence. The corners of Dumbledore’s mouth were fighting to turn up, and Draco was blinking down at Hermione, desperately attempting to somehow get his way and manage to not alienate her in the same instant.
At last, Draco softly put his hands on her shoulders and peered into her face where he saw that her eyes were burning with stubborn resolution. “Hermione,” he said quietly, his voice smooth and persuasive. “Please, don’t tell me I have to do this. I am well-versed in spells and enchantments, and I am only second in ranking to you, the smartest witch of our age. I know all the tactics for protection and fighting. Please Hermione, have faith in me. Nothing will happen to me. I’m not worried at all.”
“But I am!” she exclaimed, her eyelashes now slowly becoming wet with tears threatening to fall. “I’m worried for you, Draco. I don’t want to see you lying in the hospital wing like that again, I don’t want Alexander to be able to hurt you, I don’t want to wake up tomorrow and hear that you’re…”
Her voice trailed off and the unspoken word hung between them, dark and looming.
Not caring whether he had an audience or not, Draco pulled her towards him and held her tightly, his arms creating an iron wall around her and her small hands clutching the front of his robes. “I will be safe, Hermione. Don’t worry. I will be safe.”
END FLASHBACK
Draco realized he had been standing in one place silently for a long time, and when he turned to talk to Hermione, he saw that she had completed nearly all the preparations.
“Draco!” she shouted from the very front of the Great Hall where she was struggling to create an immense stage on her own. “I need your help here!”
Draco hurried over to her and saw that the stage wasn’t fully appearing even though Hermione was performing the spell perfectly. They would have to do it together.
“All right, on my count!” he said with his wand in position. “One – two – three!”
“AETAS ADEPTO!” they both shouted at the same time. Immediately, an ornately designed stage materialized in the place of the teacher’s table and Dumbledore’s stand, and after it was placed properly, Hermione smiled at Draco and said, “Ah, finally this place is ready for tomorrow. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
Draco simply smiled and nodded back before they both checked over every last detail in the decorations and headed back to the Heads’ common room for a night of well-earned sleep.
***
The next morning, Hermione was pleased to see that Professor McGonagall had enchanted the entire Great Hall so that the decorations had all become invisible. That way, the extraordinary glamour she and Draco had created would be unveiled at night, and everyone would truly be able to appreciate it.
As Hermione was sipping her early dose of hot chocolate with Harry and Ginny, Professor McGonagall walked by and said with a rare smile on her face, “Miss Granger, I usually do not drop compliments like this, but I wanted you to know that your and Mr. Malfoy’s decorations were simply sublime. I do believe that our students are in for a magical Halloween night.”
Hermione beamed at the praise. “Thank you, Professor! I will be sure to let Draco know of your approval!”
The elderly teacher gave a curt nod and smile before striding away, her surprisingly fashionable boots click-clacking on the polished floor.
“Congrats, ‘Mione,” Harry said when Hermione returned to her hot chocolate. “Sounds like you and *cough* Draco sealed the deal with McGonagall with this whole Halloween Ball thing. You have everything ready for tonight?”
Before Hermione could say anything, Ginny cut in indignantly, “Of course she does! I was with her when we went shopping for our outfits and dear Merlin…” she broke off grinning widely at her brown-haired friend. “When you see what a bombshell Hermione is in her costume, you are going to spit out your pumpkin juice straight into Luna’s face!”
Hermione raised her eyebrows at Harry who was apparently very intrigued by his inanimate piece of toast. “You’re going with Luna Lovegood? Isn’t she that nice Ravenclaw with the long, light hair?”
“That’s the one,” Ginny confirmed with a sly wink at Harry who was still engrossed in his toast. “Harry here is quite enamored by her story-telling abilities…although I doubt that her stories have actually gotten out of the physical zone and into the verbal.”
“Okay Ginny, can we PLEASE DISCONTINUE THIS CONVERSATION!?” shouted a red-faced Harry as the scarlet-haired devil snickered away. His outburst was met by a sudden silence which forced him to grin weakly at the glowering McGonagall over the heads of staring students and say, “Erm, all is well?”
Once everything had resumed back to normal, Ginny eagerly started chattering again about the ball. “Speaking of dates, ‘Mione, how’s Alexander holding up in that area?”
Hermione unconsciously gulped once before tersely saying, “He’s fine.”
Ginny scoffed and put her hands on her hips. “Pssh, you can’t just leave it at that, Granger! I demand to know exactly what he’s done to you so far! You can’t just expect to keep me happy with a ‘he’s fine’, damn it! And please tell me you guys have kissed at least once.”
Now it was Hermione’s turn to glow red as she choked down the remaining marshmallows in the hot chocolate. Over the rim of her mug, she could see Harry diligently searching for something to distract himself with, and she didn’t blame him. When Ginny Weasley wanted details, she wanted hard-core, explicit details.
“Yes, we have kissed,” Hermione mumbled gracelessly. “But nothing more, I swear.”
Ginny looked to the heavens in exasperation. “You think I’m your mummy or something that I’m asking you to take a celibacy vow, Hermione? What sort of seventh-year gets a boyfriend and just kisses him over a span of weeks? I mean, Merlin knows he’s hot as hell, so why wouldn’t you want to club him over the head, seize him by his tie, rip his clothes off with your teeth, and make hot passionate love to him for hours and hours without end?”
“Incredibly tempting as that might sound, Ginny, Hermione’s not that kind of girl and I appreciate that about her,” said a voice behind the frozen redhead and brunette.
Taking an unnecessarily deep breath, Hermione swiveled around in her seat and came face-to-face with…a crotch? Hastily averting her eyes, she craned her head back and saw a face she had come to loathe and dread.
Ginny noticed the lack of communication between the two and quickly leaped forward, babbling at high speed, “Oh my gosh, hi Alexander, we were just talking about you, and oh Merlin, I was just joking around I swear! I mean, of course Hermione isn’t that kind of girl, I was just trying to get her to see it in a different level, because you must know that a lot of girls fantasize about doing to you what I just mentioned, and yeah, I get the feeling I should be shutting up right now because Hermione is glaring at me and Harry is trying to back away and you’re looking at me like I just told you I want to pleasure myself with a firewhiskey bottle!”
Hermione nearly fell out of her seat. “Ginevra Molly Weasley, will you kindly shut the fuck up?”
Abashed, Ginny sat back down and murmured demurely, “Right. Yeah. Sorry.”
Alexander laughed as he sat on the other side of Hermione, much to her discomfort. “I must say Hermione, you have quite the motley band of friends: two members of the historic Golden Trio, a delightfully charming Gryffindor goddess, and certain Slytherins…”
Hermione could hear the steel in his voice, but she didn’t want to make waves in front of her friends, so she rapidly changed the subject. “Erm, Alexander, have you fixed everything for your costume?”
He grinned down at her in a disconcertingly white flash of teeth. “Yes, of course. I’ve decided to go as Odysseus from the great Greek legends, and so I’ll be dressed up with all the needed accessories, like a sword, helmet, and whatnot.”
“How do you know about Odysseus?” Hermione asked, bemused. She knew that the Muggle Studies course did not include Greek mythology, and also knew that Alexander wasn’t even enrolled in that class.
“My aunt was a great patron of mythology and legends, and her favorite pastime was sitting in her favorite armchair by the blazing fire and reading the age-old tales of Penelope, Odysseus, the Cyclops, and more. Naturally, the stories were eventually told to me, and it became a routine for her to sit down with me in the hearth and regale me with the ancient epics whenever she visited.” He spoke with a hint of nostalgia and something else in his tone that Hermione could not place, but she did not brood over it.
All of a sudden, Harry broke in and asked Alexander, “Hey, Alexander. How did those spells work out for you? You get the hang of them yet?”
The Italian boy got to his feet and smiled as he nodded. “Yeah, man, thanks for that by the way. I think with just a bit more practice I’ll be good to go. It was awfully nice of you to teach me those.”
Harry shrugged. “Don’t mention it.”
“Well, I’ve got to go,” Alexander announced. He swooped down on Hermione and kissed her on the cheek before waving at Ginny and Harry and traipsing away.
After he left, Ginny faced Hermione with her hands clasped together and a mock simpering expression on her face, but Hermione was deep in troubled thought and had all her attention focused on Harry now.
“What did he mean, Harry?” she asked once he had finished gobbling up his scrambled eggs. “What sort of spells was he talking about?”
“Oh it was nothing,” Harry said casually. “He just came up to me yesterday and told me about how he had heard that I’d learned some really amazing spells last year and that he wished to learn them, so I taught him a few.”
Hermione could feel her heart already beating faster in a slight panic, and she strove to keep her voice normal as she questioned, “And what spells did you teach him?”
“Just a few,” Harry said before listing them off. “Let’s see, I taught him ‘muffliato’, ‘levicorpus’, ‘langlock’, and hmm, what else?”
“Was that all?” Hermione said anxiously, even though she had begun breathing steadily again out of relief. “Just those three?”
“No, no, there was one more…” Harry muttered as he tried to remember.
“What was it? ‘Liberacorpus’?”
Harry shook his head. “No, it wasn’t that.”
Hermione bit her lip and stared at her uneaten bagel. I’m just being ridiculous, she thought. Harry just taught him those few spells, so why am I worrying? There’s nothing to be anxious about, this is just another humiliating episode of me being neurotic.
The trio sat there quietly for a while, simply munching on little tidbits lying around on their plates, when Hermione decided she had had enough of breakfast.
“Okay, guys, I’m off to potions! Let’s hope Snape is a bit more amenable than usually today…can’t have him ruin the mood by getting detentions, now can we?”
Her two mates smiled and waved at her before returning to their food. A minute later, just as Hermione was leaving the Great Hall, she heard someone running behind her and turned to see Harry.
“Harry! What’s up?”
Harry stopped in front of her and said solemnly, “I remember what that last spell I taught him was.”
Hermione could feel her eyes widening marginally. “What was it?”
“Sectumsempra’.”
***
Draco’s examination of himself in the bathroom mirror was providing to be very irksome. The mirror, apparently female, was sighing and gasping all the while as he scrutinized every angle of himself, and he finally got it to shut up by threatening to blow it to bits if it didn’t keep its loud admiration to itself. He had to admit though, he was definitely going to be one of the best (if not THE best) dressed guys at the ball that night. He had chosen to dress as Poseidon, Greek god of the sea, and atop his head was a regal crown studded with real jewels that gave his gleaming teeth a run for their money. He had donned an expertly designed toga that managed to look both masculine and majestic at the same time, and the fabric was enchanted to look as if sparkling water were running over it. In his hand was a mighty trident painted a brilliant gold, and his feet were encased in very pricey authentic sandals that he’d bullied a shop owner into selling him.
Hey, whatever it takes to look good, right?
Satisfied with his appearance, Draco spritzed himself with his favorite cologne and stepped out of the bathroom, nearly colliding with someone in the process.
Automatically apologizing as he smoothed down his clothes, he lifted his head up to see the most beautiful creature. She was wearing a gorgeous ensemble consisting of a long, flowing skirt surrounding a much shorter, tighter miniskirt and what looked like a string top. Although he was nearly blinded by the dazzling twinkles blooming all over her outfit, his thirsty eyes finally found her face and drank the beauty there.
He was speechless.
The goddess smiled at him and Draco could feel his insides turning to piddling puddles of glop. When she opened her mouth to speak, he refrained himself from attacking her and ruthlessly kissing her.
“Draco,” she said, her voice now as familiar to his ears as his own. “What’s wrong? Do I look good?”
He wordlessly opened and closed his mouth a few times, simply unable to say anything. Congratulations, he thought furiously in his head. And the first prize for The Most Idiotic Dipshit of the Night goes to…DRACO MALFUCKER!
He cleared his throat and willed himself not to sound like he was going through puberty again. “You’re…beautiful, Hermione. Beautiful.”
The smile that spread across her face at his words could only be described as perfect, because at that moment, that was the only word registering in Draco’s head.
She extended a lightly glittering arm and broke his trance. “Will you do me the honor of escorting me to the ball, milord?”
Firmly grabbing a hold on himself, he gave her what he hoped was his sexiest smirk and tucked her arm under his. “Let’s get this party started.”
***
The opening ceremony had been average in Draco’s opinion, although no one could deny that his and Hermione’s entrance had been by far the most impressive of all. Once Dumbledore had completed the mandatory rules and regulations speech, the Vampires (which, thankfully, were actually on time) readied their first song which turned out to be a slow Muggle one.
Draco grinned at Hermione and led her onto the dance floor for the first dance. The entire student body remained hushed as he placed his hand on her waist and she lightly rested hers on his shoulder.
And then, the music began.
Wise men say
Only fools rush in,
But I can’t help
Falling in love with you…
Shall I stay?
Would it be a sin,
If I can’t help
Falling in love with you…
Never breaking eye contact, Draco and Hermione nimbly glided over the floor, their hearts and feet keeping time to the soft interwined sounds of piano and an ethereal chorus.
Then Hermione moved closer to him and whispered almost inaudibly, “I love this song.”
He said nothing in response, merely kept her locked with his steady gaze, but he knew that his eyes spoke in return for him.
Like a river flows
Surely to the sea,
Darling, so it goes
Some things are meant to be…
Take my hand,
Take my whole life too,
For I can’t help
Falling in love with you…
For I can’t help
Falling in love with you…
Even after the song ended, the two remained frozen, still lost in each other’s eyes. Finally, Draco leaned down and kissed Hermione on the cheek before saying in low tones, “I love it too.”
Ignoring the quiet murmurs and chatters running through the spectators, he walked off with Hermione following him and sat down at a table in a far corner. He barely had a few moments with her though before Armani approached the table and said, “Sweet Merlin, Hermione, you’re looking absolutely gorgeous!”
Hermione blushed (to Draco’s outrage) and mumbled, “Why, thank you, Alexander. You are also quite the dashing warrior tonight, hm?”
Draco didn’t know if he was imagining it or not but it seemed like her voice was sort of strained. But then again, she was conversing with the dickhead who was probably trying to kill him, so maybe she really was tense after all. And as for the blowhard’s costume…well. Armani’s costume caused him to seem more muscular and chivalrous than he really was, but Draco had also read some Greek epics as well, and he knew that Odysseus’ wit and craftiness was no match for the sea god’s wrath.
So suck that, arseface!
Unfortunately, by this time Armani had somehow gotten Hermione to go dancing with him, so Draco was left simmering in a pool of self-pity and vengeance after receiving an apologetic look from Hermione. The absence was filled in a short time by Blaise and Ginny who both actually did not resemble mangled, rabid escapees from the jungles of Africa like Draco had thought they would.
“Hey, Draco, what’s up?” Blaise greeted him as he dumped his fur-covered backside onto a chair.
“Shmeh,” was Draco’s divinely worded response.
Ginny shot him a weird look. “Come on, Malfoy, I know for a fact that the firewhiskey hasn’t been cracked open yet, so why are you looking like you downed all the shots in the Hog’s Head?”
Draco made a noise in the back of his throat he didn’t even know he could make, and Blaise graciously translated it for Ginny. “Er, he’s ticked off at someone, and I think I know who that someone is.”
The she-cat raised her heavily painted eyebrows in curiosity. “Well, I’m certainly intrigued. What’s got you in a tizzy, Draco? Gotten your date stolen?”
Draco glared down relentlessly at the innocent skull-adorned tablecloth, but Blaise smoothly replied, “Ah, whatever. Let it alone, Gin. He’ll be fine. Anyways Draco, I wanted to tell you that you and Hermione have done a fantastic job with the organizing. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re forced to organize some sort of farewell party as well, mate.”
Draco waved a hand dismissively, still intent on devising plans for annihilating Armani. “It was really Hermione who did the work. I just added on a few random ideas.”
“Whoever’s responsible,” Ginny said, throwing her arm out to indicate the whole room. “This is great! Everyone seems to be having a good time.” She looked back at Draco’s surly face. “Well, almost everyone.”
At that moment, Hermione returned slightly out of breath with Armani smirking at her side. “I’m not dancing anymore tonight,” she announced as she dragged over a chair and sat down.
“Dobby?” she called out. Immediately the elf appeared and bowed. “Yes, Miss Granger, what can I do for you?”
“A butterbeer,” she requested with a smile. “And please, make it frothy.”
Dobby swept his small cap off and bowed again. “Not to worry, lovely Miss Granger.” He snapped his fingers, and a glass of frothy, golden butterbeer floated towards Hermione. “Have a good night, all of you,” he said with a final bow before vanishing in a pop.
Ginny tugged on Blaise’s sleeve. “Let’s go to the punch bowl, Blaise, I’m thirsty.”
“Sure,” Blaise agreed as he stood up. He turned to Draco who was subtly watching Hermione out of the corner of his eye. “You want to come?”
“I –” Draco’s words were stopped by Armani who intervened, “No, just a moment.”
Draco watched as Armani pulled out his wand and raised it in the air. Instantly, Ginny, Blaise, and Draco drew theirs out too.
“All right, mate,” Blaise said uneasily. “What’s this all about?”
Armani chuckled sinisterly, his wand still raised and his hand unmoving. “I think you know damn well what this is all about. But first, a few precautions…” He pointed his wand over Blaise’s head at the crowd and muttered, “Frustro finis.”
After a few seconds, Ginny snarled, “What the hell did you just do?”
Hermione, who had sat white-faced until then, said in a halting voice, “It’s an enchantment that creates an illusionary boundary between two parties. They’ll never be able to hear or see what’s really going on here, nor will they be able to intervene should a problem arise.” She extracted her own wand in a single fluid motion and directed it straight at Armani’s heart. “In short, it’s a tricking wall.”
Armani laughed the same chilly, fake laugh again. “My darling Hermione, you have no idea how intelligent you really are. Honestly, did you fall into a bucket of Intelligentsia Potion when you were born?”
“No,” she hissed, so angry she was shaking and causing the beads on her skirt to rattle against one another. “If I were that intelligent, I would have known how to kill you the instant I saw you.”
“So bloody feisty,” Armani grumbled. He took a step towards her, but before he could get too close, Draco quickly stepped in the way and jabbed his wand into the skin of the bastard’s neck.
“Touch her,” Draco breathed with a hatred burning in his throat only he could know. “Touch her and I will kill you.”
“Oooh, goody, isn’t this exciting?” Armani sneered while moving back two steps. “The noble Slytherin snake wants to defend his lady love. How romantic.”
“The only snake here,” retorted Blaise, “Is you, you bastard.”
“Tch, tch,” Armani sighed, his wand now pointing at Blaise. “I forgot about the rest of you annoying blighters. Can’t have you brandishing those things at me, now can we? Accio wands!”
Draco cursed as the sudden spell caught them off-guard and wrenched their wands away from their grasps. Now standing with four wands in his left hand, Armani smirked at all of them in turn and then rapidly shouted “Incarcerous” causing Ginny to shriek and become tightly bound with tough ropes.
Blaise started towards her but found himself unable to move beyond a single step from his position. “You fucking cocksucker,” he swore furiously, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. “Let her fucking go!”
Alexander chortled with delight upon seeing Blaise’s anger, and started tossing his wand up into the air and catching it. “Nope, sorry, Blaise, no can do. Like I said, I can’t have you guys actually be able to hurt me, now can I? Not when I have something as glorious as this in my possession.” He wrenched Hermione’s arm and made her stand next to him, much to her evident disgust.
Draco barely managed to keep himself from lashing out at the scumbag. He watched as Hermione seethed, “Alexander, I swear, for Merlin’s sake, stop this nonsense and let us out of here. This has gone too far.”
“Yes, this has gone too far!” Armani roared as he grabbed her by her elbows. “After everything I told you about those bloody Slytherins, you still consorted with them! How dare you completely go against me? You stupid, stupid girl!”
“You can’t fucking tell me what to do! I am not your servant!” she screamed back. “I hate you! I hate you!”
“That’s it!” Armani shouted lividly. “I’ve had enough of you, you bitch!” And with that, he flung his hand out and struck with Hermione with such force, she fell to the ground with a yelp and clutched her head in painful agony.
Draco lunged forward with an enraged yell, ready to choke the living daylights out of the dickhead smirking in front of him, and found that he had no boundary in front of him. But before he could rip Armani’s throat to shreds, he was thrown back by an unforeseen Stunning spell.
“Draco!” Hermione shrieked from the floor with her hand outstretched in his direction.
Armani delivered a vicious kick to her hand that Draco was sure shattered a bone or two in her fingers. “You STILL care for him, Granger? DAMN YOU!”
“Please,” she sobbed, “Don’t do this to us. He’s done nothing wrong. He isn’t the person you think he is!”
Draco groggily lifted his head, confused and disoriented. What was happening? What was going on?
“People like him never change, Hermione,” Alexander growled after her sobs had subsided. “Cruelty and evilness course through their veins like blood runs through ours. If monsters like him were subject to change, then perhaps the international death tolls would have been drastically less. Perhaps, then, my parents would still be alive. My dear aunt would still be –” His voice caught on the last word, but he skirted over it by roughly clearing his throat and regaining his former icy tone. “I have had enough of his sort of filth defiling the names of respected members of the wizarding society. Perhaps Draco Malfoy has never murdered anyone, but the fact that he has a nexus to the world of the Dark Lord is reason enough to execute him for the greater good.”
With those words, Armani raised his wand again and stared down at Draco who was lying paralyzed. “It must be so liberating,” Armani snarled, “To be able to die early so that you can return even faster to your master’s arms. Enjoy the fiery depths of hell, Malfoy. Your pasty face could use the tan.”
As Alexander opened his mouth once more to utter the curse that would finalize Draco’s fate, Draco saw the greatest moments of his life flash before his eyes: his first broom, entering Hogwarts, winning his first Quidditch match, kissing Hermione, and seeing her one last time before he closed his eyes forever.
Draco saw Armani inhale just before crying, “SECTUMSEMPRA!”
Draco squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the excruciating pain to overtake his senses and cloud all feeling before leading him to the point of no return. He had felt the effect of his curse only once before in his life when Potter had hurled the curse at him in sixth-year. Lying there, bleeding profusely in the stagnant water of the bathroom, staring helplessly up at the cobwebbed ceiling while Potter lay stricken with shock…it had been the single most devastating moment in his life…until now.
But the pain never came.
And Draco only found out why when he opened his eyes and saw the brown curls floating in a rich pool of blood, the slim body sprawled on the ground, and the chocolate eyes with their flickering flecks of light opened and whizzing around erratically.
The cry that ripped out from Draco’s throat never ended even after the lights faded and spiraled away and the entire world went black.
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