A Mandatory Alliance Chapter Two

A Mandatory Alliance

By: Provocative Envy

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CHAPTER TWO

To: A Self-Absorbed Prick Named D.M.

I must admit that I was absolutely appalled after reading your letter. When our headmaster had told us about the correspondence with your school, I had been excited by the prospect of forging a friendship with a foreign wizard. But I hadn’t gotten past the first few sentences of your introduction before I realized that I want nothing to do with students from your school if you’re all like that.

All you did was talk about yourself and your opinions on completely pointless things like lemons and how lemonade is the spawn of Satan, or whatever it was you insisted was universal law. And the disrespect with which you regard your father’s work, which he’s obviously very passionate about, astounds me! However, I’m willing to give you one more chance to prove your decency, and so I’ll pretend that first letter never even happened.

Okay. Let’s start over.

I can’t give you my name, since that’s against the rules, and frankly I don’t want you to know my name since I fear you’re a psychotic stalker-freak who may “find it in the goodness of his heart” to slaughter me in my sleep. Anyways, I’m a seventh year witch at an academy in Russia, but was born and raised in the United States. I enjoy playing ping pong and baking muffins, and was quite hurt by your heartless description of croquet and poetry, since I find both to be most commendable pastimes. Indeed, your father seems like a wise man if he harbors a fondness for either pursuit.

I know that my past must utterly fascinate you, being that you’re probably wondering what an American witch is doing in Russia, so I’d love to share some of my history with you. I am the daughter of a Russian immigrant and a muggle chiropractor from southern California. My father, the Russian, is a wizard, and my mother, the chiropractor…well, isn’t. I didn’t know my Russian father existed until I was ten, and it was time to send me off to a wizarding school. My mother, coincidentally, also had no idea she’d been raising a magical being, and when was finally alerted to the knowledge, was more than happy to ship me off to the opposite side of the world. As I’m sure you can tell by my sunny and optimistic disposition, I am not bitter or resentful of this abandonment in the least, since my mother was a back-obsessed control freak who couldn’t accept people for who they really were.

Yes, well, that’s my story. If you have any questions for me, please feel free to ask. Unlike my close-minded bitch of a mother I’m very open and a simply easy-breezy person to get along with. I’d love to know more about you, and look forward to your next letter!

From: A Witch Who Loves to Smile!

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Draco stared down at the pink, vanilla-scented parchment in his hand, his mouth hanging open in absolute astonishment and his eyes glazed over in boredom. Ping pong? Muffin baking? Was she serious? After pondering the question for a few moments, he surmised that she was, indeed, serious: who else would have defended a muggle-murdering sycophant like his father?

Shaking his head in bewilderment, Draco crumpled the letter into a ball, stuffing it in his pocket with some relief. At least he wouldn’t have to stare at dancing smiley faces for the next hour of Potions. It was as he was muttering a spell to quiet the squealing characters charmed onto the letter, that he felt someone poke his back, and he turned around to glare at Hermione Granger.

“What, Granger?” he asked rudely, his eyebrows drawn together in annoyance.

“I’m just wondering why you’ve all but thrown away your pen pal’s letter! Aren’t you the least bit excited? I mean, these are people from different parts of the world! The world! Not just England, or Ireland, or the Continent,” she answered him rather passionately, her wise, brown eyes sparkling with excitement, her smile so broad it was a wonder she could even speak. “But America, or China, or Australia…the possibilities are endless! Think of what we could learn from them,” she continued in an animated whisper.

Draco merely blinked at her assessment of the situation, surprised that she was confiding in him as if they were the closest of friends. Surely she knew he detested her and wished her to die? Glancing at her lively demeanor and honest, open eyes, he decided that it must have slipped her mind. Or her sanity had made a mad dash for Potter’s psyche, since he had shredded his letter before he’d even opened it. Smart man.

“Granger,” Draco asked her reasonably, “why are you talking to me as if we’re all chummy and whatnot?” He thought this was a logical turn for the conversation, since as far as he was aware she hadn’t cursed him yet, or threatened him, or any number of violent, usually well-deserved, actions. But Hermione apparently disagreed, for her expression instantly went from an infectious, thrilled sort of elation to disappointed and deceptively indifferent.

“I suppose I forgot it was you I was talking to,” she responded tightly, her posture very stiff as she sat back in her chair.

“Good luck on your short-term memory loss, then,” Draco returned lazily, flipping his hair with evident vanity as he resumed his original position of cheerful-letter-desecrating.

The majority of the rest of the Potions lesson went on uneventful, but with ten minutes left of class, Draco felt another tap on his shoulder. At that particular moment, he had been deciding on which charm to use to torch the blasted parchment, which didn’t seem to want to shut up, and so his temper was more than a little frayed. Frustrated and angry, he whipped his head around to scour the victim of his wrath with a cleverly-worded insult. He was utterly shocked when he saw that no one was there.

His eyes darted all around the surrounding area, thinking that Granger had probably just accidentally knocked him with her elbow when moving to go bond with Potter. Yet a quick peek at Potter and Weasley’s table showed him that she wasn’t there. Indeed, Potter and Weasley were staring blankly at the chalk board, their faces squashed into their palms as they attempted to keep their heads up. But no Granger.

Narrowing his eyes in irritation, Draco returned his attention back to the letter which wouldn’t bloody well inflame, and resumed his plotting of the murder of “A Witch Who Loves To Smile!”. Perhaps if he enclosed some powdered arsenic in his next “friendly letter”…

At the very same moment he was envisioning the gory massacre of a faceless witch in sunglasses and a “California Is For Lovers” t-shirt, he felt another poke at the base of his back. Snarling slightly as he turned around again, he caught a glimpse of bushy brown hair ducking out the way. Smiling in a self-satisfied manner, Draco pretended to be looking around the table again, all the while very certain that Granger was hiding underneath her desk.

“I caught you, you devilish little-” he cut himself off when he noticed that she wasn’t there.

What the hell? Draco thought to himself feverishly, Am I losing my mind? He quickly faced the front of the room again, panicked that he was starting to get delusional.

Oh God, this is how it must have started with Father, he said to himself desperately, suddenly seeing with a startling clarity how his future would be. He’d start singing in the shower, just like Father, and then he’d become infatuated with the castration of lab rats, just like his father, and before anyone knew it he’d be running around in the dead of night in his nightgown, just like his father…

Taking deep, shuddering breaths to calm himself, he resolved to take one more look underneath the desk behind him, since Granger must have just blended in with the…er…floor.

It was as he was preparing himself both mentally and emotionally to turn back around that he felt one past poke…on his ass. Only, it was more like a squeeze…

“Holy Mother of God!” Draco shouted into the silent classroom, leaping to his feet and grabbing his butt.

Severus Snape, Potions professor and “impartial” supporter of Draco and his studies, stood at the front of the room, stunned.

“Yes, Mr. Malfoy?” Snape asked him slowly, his voice devoid of any cruelty whatsoever.

“Malfoy’s got a stick up his arse!” Ron Weasley yelled suddenly, bringing him and Potter to hysterics on the dungeon floor. Draco stuttered wordlessly, a traumatized look on his face that brought the rest of the class into fits of laughter as well. With a gulp and squeal of humiliation, Draco scurried from the room, his hands still firmly guarding his buttocks.

Meanwhile, a young brunette sat underneath her desk, hidden by an Invisibility Cloak she’d stolen from her best friend, and giggled at the success of her immature, yet oddly fulfilling, prank.

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