The Tapestry of the Red Horse: Chapter 8
- December 2 - 1997 - Seventh Year -
"Mum's been asking about you, wants to know if you've found a nice girl yet," Ginny gave me a pointed look and I sighed.
"Why do I have to be the one Mum checks up on? Doesn't she still have to marry off the twins first?"
"I think she's given up hope on them settling down. The twins and settling don't exactly belong in the same sentence, do they?"
I laughed and then sighed, "Yeah, but neither do me and finding a 'nice girl'. I'm going to just have to tell her, aren't I?"
"Looks like it." We were approaching the doors to the Great Hall for dinner and I could see Malfoy coming from down the opposite hallway. We arrived at the doors at the same moment and I expected his usual sneer, but it was missing and seemed to be replaced by a… smile, a genuine one. I didn't think him capable of one.
He opened to door and nodded to Ginny, "Ginerva." She returned the smile and walked through the door, confusing me even further, and Malfoy followed her in, his eyes trailing on me before he let the door go. I caught it and slipped inside before it could slam in my face.
I caught up with Ginny and grabbed her elbow, hissing into her ear, "What in the bloody fuck was that?"
She gave me a quizzical look before sitting between a few of her friends and Neville, "What was what about?"
"Malfoy." I stated, making Neville budge over so I could sit next to her. I snuck a glance at the Slytherin table to see Malfoy lent over Pansy, whispering in her ear with his eyes glintingly trained on me. Ginny shrugged.
"He's been doing things like that all week. He can be kind of nice if he's not insulting you."
Neville and I both dropped our forks. "Malfoy? Nice? That's a likely story."
She shrugged again, "I don't know. He's been holding doors open and stuff all week. He helped me with some books on the top shelf in the library yesterday and he even told me I looked pretty this morning." My mouth opened a few times without much success in forming words. She gave me an annoyed look, "What? I know it's weird, but maybe he's trying to change or something…"
"Ginny, he's a bloody Deatheater! They don't change. He is evil and he will always be evil. There's no redemption in his cards."
She actually rolled her eyes at me, "He isn't a Deatheater, that's just a rumor. They don't recruit people until they're out of school."
"Roll up his bloody sleeve some time. It's there, believe me."
"How would you know?"
"I've seen it."
"He wouldn't be stupid enough to let you see it, if he had one. Please try to pretend you think I'm at least a little sensible."
"Ginny, I promise you on Mum and Dad's lives, I have seen the bloody Mark on his forearm. It is there." I've bloody felt it, bitten it even.
"Oh really, when then?"
I looked down at my plate, thinking of the night he came back with it and the way he touched me. I resisted the pleasurable shiver that threatened to run down my spine as I threw a glance at him again. He was still watching me with that glint in his eyes, but he'd stopped whispering to Pansy. "I can't tell you that, you'll have to trust me." She only gave me an incredulous sigh and turned to talk to her friends. I watched Malfoy for the rest of dinner, able to justify it as wanting him dead for even thinking of talking to my sister. His eyes were glazed over with amusement every time he glanced back at me, but I only clenched a fist under the table and plotted ways of torturing him. The last time he sneered, then turned to say something to his entourage before leaving the table alone. I made some excuse and followed him. I made no effort to catch up with him until we were well on the way to what I thought would be the dungeons, but then realized was the tapestry. I grabbed his collar in anger and shoved him against the wall a few feet away from it. "What in the bloody fuck do you think you're doing with my sister?" I growled at him.
His eyes glittered with amusement and he reached up to loosen my tie, completely ignoring my hand around his throat. "Why, I haven't the faintest idea what you could be talking about. Why would you think I was doing anything with Ginerva?"
I slapped his hand away, but he kept going, beginning to unbutton my shirt, "She said you've been holding doors and helping her out all week. What are you scheming?"
He made a noise of annoyance when I slapped his hand away again, and shoved me into the wall next to him even harder than I had initially shoved him. "I'm not scheming, I'm being polite. They're called manners, Weasley, although I wouldn't expect you to know that. I doubt your family could afford a few pleases and thank yous, let alone the ability to hold open a door for a lady."
I sneered and tried to shove him away, but his grip was stronger than mine. My struggles only made him step closer to me so that our bodies were pressed against each other and I could feel the lump in his trousers against my thigh. "Let me go, Malfoy."
He grinned wickedly and leaned in to lick my lips, "I think I rather like things the way they are…"
I struggled harder against him, "Stop it, Malfoy. I already told you I won't touch you until you stop with Parkinson."
He growled through clenched teeth, "Fuck Parkinson. Just shut up, I don't want to hear any more of this. Lord, please, would you just shut up?" His voice held this desperate twinge that I'd never heard before. I was about to stutter a surprised reply, but his lips were on mine before I could open my mouth and the whole world melted into him and his body pressed against mine. He was hot and probing and caressing my mouth with his sweet tongue and I could barely hold up a resistance. From the desperate searching his hands were doing in my robes, I could tell that even a hex wouldn't have been able to stop this. He was going to consume me whether I wanted it or not. And I decided as I melted into him that this time, just this once, there would be no fighting. Suddenly my fingers were fumbling with his shirt buttons and I couldn't get his clothing off fast enough. His hands were sliding down into the back of my trousers and squeezing my bum as I groaned into his mouth. He smiled against my lips and began trailing kisses down my neck to suck and nip at my Adam's apple. My head lulled back against the wall and I was lost to the world. I could feel myself mumbling as I fidgeted with his impossible belt buckle, I think I was begging him, but I could have been confessing my undying love for him and I doubt he would have noticed. We were both entranced by each other, uncontrolled, needy, desperate for each other's touch after such a long absence, but then the only thing that could have possibly stopped us sliced through the distant air and shattered our reverie.
A simple word, my name, pushed into the thick air by the only person I never wanted to see me like this. I froze sandwiched between the cold stone and that warm body that was still sucking and biting as though it hadn't heard the voice. He mumbled something about hexing if I made him stop now, but I gently pushed at his chest to get him to stop anyway. He growled and hit my hand away, "What the bloody fuck is the matter, Weasley? I've waited two months for this; we are fucking if I have to put you under Imperio to do it…" His anger trailed off as he noticed what I was looking at and immediately pulled away and turned his back to us to right himself.
"Ron? What's going on?" Harry looked so confused and I could see the hurt slipping into those green eyes as he looked from Draco to me.
I opened my mouth but the words refused to come out. How was I supposed to answer to that betrayed look on his face? It turned out I didn't have to because Draco turned around with an arrogant sniff of his nose and stood between Harry and I in an almost protective stance, "Nothing that concerns you, Potter. Why don't you sod off and go save some muggles or some bullocks?"
Fury flashed in Harry's eyes and before Draco could even react, his wand was out, a curse called, and Draco was on the ground twenty feet away. Without thinking, I went to help him up, but he shoved my hand away and stood by himself, brushing his robes off, "Don't bother. Straighten your clothing out; you look even more a mess than usual." I looked down at myself and groaned in embarrassment, fumbling to get my clothing back together in a hurry. In the meantime, Draco brushed pass me to Harry again, wand out this time. "You're going to pay for that, Potter." He lifted his wand, but before he could utter the curse he was planning, I launched at him, taking the wand and pinning his arms behind his back. He tried violently to pull away, "Let me go, Weasel! You have no right to restrain me!"
"You have no right to crucio Harry, either, and don't pretend you weren't going to," I growled back, but I stroked circles into his palm with my thumb, still holding his wrists, and he seemed to be a bit satiated by it, although he was still huffing in anger. Harry was staring at me with this look of disbelief. I sighed, bucked up, and met his gaze. "You weren't supposed to find out about this. I'm sorry, but I didn't think you'd approve and I didn't want to hurt you."
"How long has this been going on?"
"None of your business," Malfoy spat, earning him a hard prod in the spine.
"It was about a year, but I stopped it a little over two months ago."
"Yeah, and I've been steadily working him back out of his clothes and was just about to get his trousers off, so if you wouldn't mind sodding off, we can get back to fucking." Harry looked a bit horrified, and I prodded him again, harder, and he squirmed away a bit.
"Don't be vulgar."
"Vulgar? Big word there, Weasley, borrow a dictionary from the Mudblood?" That was it, the tension of Harry finding out mixed with sexual frustration was too much for me to tolerate Hermione being insulted. I slammed him against the wall and drew my wand on him.
"You apologize, and you do it right now."
He rolled his eyes, but I could see the weariness, he knew I still had his wand in my pocket. "What do you want me to apologize for? Your stupidity or Potter's?"
"Apologize for insulting Hermione and for trying to pull an Unforgivable on Harry."
"I'd rather go down on a muggle."
"This isn't an option. Do it or I hurt you in a very unpleasant way."
"I think I'd rather like you to hurt me in a very unpleasant way."
"Malfoy."
"Weasley."
I sighed and rubbed at my temple in frustration. "Just bloody apologize already."
"Malfoys don't apologize, and even if we did, I'd have nothing to apologize for. Granger is a Mudblood, whether you appreciate the term or not, and Potter attacked me first. And with no reason, I might add. It wasn't as though I insulted his mother. I was simply trying to shag his best mate, and I've already been doing that for quite a time now. In my family, I have the right to Avada Kedavra him if I so choose. He's just lucky I didn't"
"This isn't your family, this is us. No one has the right to pull an Unforgivable at any time."
He rolled his eyes and moved my wand away, tugging at my waist as he closed the distance between us. "This is becoming tedious. Can we say goodbye to Potter and get back to shagging now?"
I shot a look at Harry, still looking horrified and his wand pointing directly at Malfoy's head, before taking a step back. "No, this is already finished. I shouldn't have let you touch me and I'm not going to let you again. Stay away from my sister." I turned and left the hallway to go back to Gryffindor. Harry caught up a minute later.
"A year?"
I sighed and avoided his eyes, "Yes, a year. I was under this weird delusion that I loved him, don't ask why. It's over now, that was a slip-up, and it was only because he had me pinned."
"You thought you loved Malfoy? Is that even possible?!"
I think I lashed out because I was still frustrated and angry with myself for allowing it to happen. "Yes! It's Fucking Possible! And I Didn't Think I Loved Malfoy! I Did Love Malfoy! And maybe I still do." The last bit was a muttered sigh, and I don't even know if Harry heard it because I was already storming away.