From a birds eye view above - or perhaps more aptly from a broomstick in the given context - a twirling yellow umbrella within the Slytherin stands of the Quidditch stadium must have looked like a perfectly obtuse obscenity.
The object in question was continuously gaining irrational, rotational momentum by the minute, just about round-housing victims within it's wavering radius and certainly spraying them at a minimum.
The answer to the violence; impatience.
Audette Bellarose would rather do positively anything other then sit there and witness a game in which the entire regime and scoring system made no sensibility to her whatsoever. But there existed two perfectly suitable reasons to attend that Tuesday afternoon; a boy, and a bet.
Which one was of greater importance had begun to blend into a dangerously grey area in her mind.
Having grown up in a rather societal and traditional family she sat prim and poise on the very edge of the rotting wooden bench, holding the curvilinear handle of the relic umbrella within her pretty white wrist gloves.
That spooky day she had darned a matching petticoat of the same burnt golden hue as the umbrella to add bright autumnal cheer to the seasonal somber that had overrun the countryside with rain. Below that it was a rather lovely baby blue dress that ended in a lacy collar. Knitted into her styled blond hair were little diamond daisy flowers.
Completely out of place as if she'd come straight from tea time at the Queen's personal gardens, she continued to ignore the audacious evaluations around her from the other Slytherins who could not possibly understand, who would never truly understand proper fashion. Clearly.
Not that she wasn't passing similar, unnecessary judgement upon their drabby excuses for attire within her own mind, but at least she had the decency to keep it to herself.
"Zabini, neuf," one of three Beauxbatons girls pointed out into the misty air, where it was damn near impossible to identify a single player in the messy showers. Three of the dancing French dames had appeared like an invasive species in the Slytherin section, giggling and checking out boys.
Audette had to blink rapidly when she heard, "Malfoy, sept. Mais oui, il est beau."
Oh my god, she was jealous. Really jealous.
All of the kissing and the cuddling had gone straight to her brain like a lobotomy through the eyeball. She'd might as well go piss off a Hippogriff then and there because either way it was going to be a miserable ending and a brutal kick to the face.
She placed a glove to her heart like the silly girl that she was, attempting to eavesdrop with hardly any avail.
The vanity of her reaction had apparently not gone unnoticed.
"Ssshh, c'est sa petite amie, non?" one of them nodded her head towards Audette who swiftly rotated the umbrella to block out their curious attention in horror, her eyes wide.
Draco had already spotted her upon arrival. Well, naturally it was impossible not to spot a person dressed like a caramelized banana against the dreary day.
Since then each time he stopped mid-air he would glanced over, as if to see that she was actually there and it wasn't an imagination of his.
You're very cute, he had said.
It was the sort of short and concise wording that played in perfect syllabus across a girl's mind when she was starting to long for a boy, clinging to everything in sight with greedy hope.
And oh boy, had it played in her mind all night while she'd laid in bed, just like the world's shortest and sweetest song. Her better senses and even T-T had proceeded to point out that the boy was a master of coquettish rhetoric, but she was drunk on Draco Malfoy and it couldn't be helped any longer.
She would be lying to herself if she were to suggest that those three words were not the reason she was sitting there like a deranged duchess, straightening her spine to catch glimpses of Malfoy's white hair.
"I thought I might find you here, fangirling pathetically," Theodore fell next to her in a startling show of audience participation. He'd pulled a long silver cloak far over his head, the end of it dripping before his eyes which were partially hidden below.
Audette held her composure, allowing herself to continue trailing after Draco who was far ahead of the Hufflepuff seeker and on track to ceremoniously win yet another game, "I would hardly call it fangirling."
He turned his devastatingly blistering eyes to her, leaning forward to try and catch her attention, "Why are you exempt from the rest of these sycophants? Because of your freaky little understanding with that monster? I saw you kissing him in the Great Hall."
"I would be surprised if you didn't with the way that you stare like a pervert," Audette sliced back breezily, refusing to meet his gaze.
Theo snorted out air in derision, "You look veritably discomforted out here. It's deplorable, missing an opportunity to visit the village for this-"
"-What do you want, Theodore? You're also missing the village for this, might I remind you. My agenda is my own to keep without you chastising me," Audette glared at him finally.
Even so, her heart shriveled in response to the interaction. A tiny bonfire imprudently erected itself somewhere in her visceral cavity, scalding at crucial organs and producing nervous anticipation.
He clasped his hands over the knees of his dark grey suit, sighing with the unexpected arrival of softness behind his gaze, "I'm willing to participate in a discussion with you. One more chance, for your sake in all of this. I see you are choosing to involve yourself romantically despite my admonitory recommendations."
Audette swallowed a lump the size of India which had formed in her throat. She raised the umbrella and slid closer to him to shield him from the rain as well with dry eyes, "Oh lucky me, you are willing to participate in a discussion you yourself have initiated. Then let us consort, Theodore. Let us start off with Monaco. What did you do there in the summer?"
Theodore blinked rapidly, a candid frown monopolizing his features as Audette's green eyes bore accusatorially into the side of his handsome face. Her lower lip began to tremble with slight dread in the wake of his hesitation.
Below the surface of her skin the bonfire had gotten out of hand and evolved into a forest fire. Even the brigade wouldn't be able to douse the inferno of discomfort between them.
He spoke through clenched teeth, "I cannot say, I have agreed to contracts that are painstakingly adamantine."
Excuses.
"You slept with someone else, didn't you?" Audette stabbed at him, inhaling a tiny gasp of fear as the broken words slipped past her lips.
Theodore shut his eyes.
Audette began to take deep, searing chestfuls of air, her umbrella finally as still as a stone in her petrified glove. Tiny droplets ran in quirky rivers down his fancy clothing on the outer limits where he was still exposed to the elements with nothing but a cloak.
Everything smelled like moss and toads and damp woodland debris as the clouds rolled above mercilessly, shadowy and encumbered.
He shook his head as he pulled the silvery fabric from his long hair, running his ringed pointer finger and thumb over his cheek bones to pinch the bridge of his nose.
With his eyes shut harshly he spoke into his palm, "Little rose, you have my word that eventually I shall explain everything. Is there no chance you can wait until then? I should have protected you better. I sensed Malfoy's true intentions from the beginning but I had hoped all these years I was imagining it. Now I've made the worst mistake of my life which possibly cannot be undone in the wake of your uncharacteristic impatience."
"Wait?" she asked in a frail, insulted voice. She couldn't believe what she was hearing, jolting in shock from the mention of his nickname for her. The umbrella splattered a puddle of water onto the flooring at his dress shoes.
She managed to gulp through a threat of forming tears, "Wait...as in wait for you to get it out of your system to run about single with anyone you lust after? If you want me, bare at the forefront of your petty thoughts that I am not a backup plan, and don't you dare yell at me in the manner you did the last we spoke. Perhaps it is not too late yet, but that depends on what you do next."
Theodore raised his endlessly dizzying blue eyes to hers. They blended in seamlessly with the watery weather, only increasing just how captivating his imploring gaze was.
He took one of her gloves in his glove, "I apologize for having been so harsh the last we spoke. I'm in extreme disarray. It's just...it is important that I take time apart from you for now, but it does not have to be forever. Don't spoil that with Malfoy - he's rancid and will never treat you as you deserve."
Audette proudly found her self respect, pulling away her fingers bravely, "It's you who does not respect me; coming around to haunt me like a ghost, leading me in circles like a snake to it's own tail. Let me go if you cannot commit because I refuse to tear myself apart anymore over your loss."
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Cracks that had begun to heal properly along her heart started to relapse and ooze again. Theodore was nothing but a source of torment, and Audette was finally growing the wiser of it.
Theo dropped his eyebrows, beginning to breathe heavier while searching the body language of her detaching demeanor, "Malfoy should not be able to replace me this quickly. You are putting me through agony when I require this space. Why is it so insurmountable for you to be single for a stretch? Is your confidence that bankrupt?"
Audette stood sharply then, taking back the umbrella fully atop her own head, "It is not insurmountable, and my confidence is perfectly foundational. I do not owe you anything. How dare you question my choices when I never did yours. I spent four miserable months alone, and I do enjoy courting Malfoy as it is. So to be barbaric; piss off."
Nott stood as well, his chocolate hair beginning to sag under the weight of the thundershower, "Please Audette, not with him. There are aspects in his interests towards you that I had not accounted for previously. I can't bare it. I fear that the outcome of your time with him will be irreversible."
She pressed around him, "Well take a page from your own textbook then, and expect that as your ex I don't owe you a lick of relief from any feelings of jealousy you may be experiencing. If you want your freedom, enjoy the solitude."
With a quaking heart and serious exasperation that she was still allowing herself to fall into the talons of Theodore Nott, Audette made to exit the stand only to catch her abnormally large umbrella on the narrow door frame leading to the rickety staircase. It frustratingly caught in a loud clang, then proceeded to turn inside out.
She stuck her tongue out at the hysteria that followed the clumsy escape and left the mucky stadium in the background, slipping and sliding as usual back to the common room as if she were trying to climb the hill in roller skates.
If she wasn't so helpless on a broomstick she would consider flying over the rocky and sludgy terrain, but unfortunately Audette was more likely to snap her spine then make it fifteen feet off the ground gracefully.
Poles, who would fly on poles, Audette grouchily thought. Why not bewitch a much more reasonable object meant to be ridden, such as a bicycle with a sturdy seat and handlebars?
Reaching the safety of the castle she paused just within to catch her breath and press her hot forehead against the cool bricks just inside. Megalithic corridors within the castle hummed in sonorous eeriness; empty and desolate as nearly the entire student and staff population had departed for early Halloween festivities down at the village of Hogsmeade, save for the few sports fans congregating at the pitch.
The golden candlelight was warm, the air muggy and cool, and the vibe ominous.
She marched in soggy boots back down into the dungeons, determined now to abandon her original docket to line up a private evening with Draco who would be gone for another hour at least, reoriented then to change articles of soiled clothing and gallivant to the night life unraveling at Hogsmeade.
The forest would be menacing alone after dark, the branches excessively gnarled and optically illusive, but that was something she was willing to bare if it meant getting right sloshed with Guy at the Loopy Lizard and expelling the run in with Theo from her mind.
Expecting the common room to be totally abandoned, she walked confidently past the sliding stone wall with waves of stylized hair bouncing off of her damp jacket.
The one and only person she had been craving to see all day happened to be there, and the happenstance caught Audette so off guard that she panicked and acted freakish, pelting towards the female archway as if he weren't present.
Draco sat by the flickering green fireplace in a leather couch, sporting a narrowed gaze and a crystal decanter of whiskey in his massive brown glove. Still clad in filthy Slytherin Quidditch robes, he obviously had resigned to harsh loneliness in the wake of being evidently rejected early from the game.
She bit her lip as she passed by him, staring at the handsome and forlorn boy until she knew that he'd caught sight of her and then sharply looked ahead.
His crystalline eyes burned into the back of her hair once she'd reached the base of the girl's private quarters staircase, hearing him brusquely call out in his dark British accent, "Audette - what the fuck are you doing here? Stalking me?"
Shit, she did look batty.
She stopped with her gloved hand on the bricks by her side, anxiously smiling down at the mossy precast stone flooring before spinning elegantly on the toes of her sodden boots to eye him down.
Her hair swirled like a dream around her shoulders and she grinned coyly at him, catching her breath before responding, "Is it really your business where I go? Do I need your permission to be in my own common room?"
He held up his gloves in question, and she struggled not to snicker at how messy his spiked up platinum hair presented from the windy and freezing conditions in the pitch.
He shook his head sarcastically, "Okay? I know you have a slip for Hogsmeade, you invited me personally. I also know you were at my game arguing with Nott. What's got you running; Nott failing to live up to his dramatic loverboy reputation?"
Audette quickly realized that Draco was in two differing hostile states. Merging together they produced a viscous lightning storm of powerful antagonism: horrendously drunk, and super angry. He must have left almost as quickly as she had and arrived thirty minutes ahead of her just to guzzle liquor like it was water.
He was evidently not pleased that he had been booted from his game, and it didn't help matters that she'd showed up to his Quidditch match only to spend the latter half of her attendance bickering with her ex before his eyes.
Like a bull in a China shop he was prepared to wreck anything in his path, and she had just wandered into his path made entirely of glass.
"I thought you and I had a good thing going, am I delusional?" he held her gaze boldly as he swung from the bottle like a drunkard, and she couldn't help but get lost in the bright mixture of icy blue tones there. No wonder he had absolutely no trouble coaxing girls into bed with him; it was noxious and alluring.
She caved, sauntering honestly towards him with interactive green eyes, "I was at the game, quite right and for you I might add. That was...before that twit showed up and began badgering me. Why were you kicked out?"
He laughed curtly as she dusted off a cushion, then sat next to him on an adjacent couch and crossed her knees elegantly.
He boldly dragged his gaze up and down her body, then shrugged with shrewd silvery eyes, flaring them aggressively, "Violence, sweetheart. Let's just say the Hufflepuff seeker will need crutches for a week."
She raised her manicured eyebrows and looked away, but her heart was starting to nervously pound. He was gorgeous, dangerous and arrogant, and the sexual tension was suffocating her.
He shocked her by rapidly moving next to her on the larger couch, wrapping his sweaty Quidditch robes around Audette's shoulders and shoving the alcohol at her.
Her world was suddenly spinning with the scent of pine and damp sports gear. She looked into his face mere inches from hers, carefully accepting the bottle in her white glove and swigging heartily, "I hate Nott, he's a downright narcissist you know. I can't take much more polarization from him."
He smirked beautifully, his smoky breath invading her nose, "You just figured this out, did you? Don't bother with hating him - hate is just passion turned inside out. Drop him like a rock."
It was wistful advice, and he was right.
"Yes, sadly I am coming to some rather unsightly conclusions as of late," she remained slick and calm, brassily drinking a second hefty chug from the fiery liquid which blossomed in her stomach like hot acid.
He watched her wince, and soon he was ripping his right glove off with his teeth and running his bare hand up her expensive designer tights on her thigh, "Since we are home alone, why don't we take advantage of it?"
She felt his pointy nose grazing her cheek, alongside the musky stench of the cigarettes he'd been brazenly dragging in the common room. If Snape had caught him doing such a thing inside of the Slytherin commons he would've surely been decapitated, but that was a perfect expression of just how cocky Draco Malfoy was.
She let him get close enough to press his fluffy lips on her cheek multiple times, then turned her face into his and leapt into his lap.
Her clothing, her poor clothing was going to be wrecked by his filthy gear but she couldn't resist.
He raised his eyebrows in pointed hilarity up at her, "Oooh, someone's feisty. Hopefully this isn't all about sweet revenge." He threw his other glove off and ran his hands under her jacket and skirt, squeezing her backside below her clothes. The intense gleam in his eyes was carnal, chewing on his lip and panting up at her.
"It's about you and me," she leaned down to kiss him teasingly, expecting to take it just far enough to make a fuss, but it was nearly impossible to pull away from the hormonal exchange that started to heat up fast.
She forgot that she was supposed to be a prudent girlfriend type as she ran her fingers through his long locks of white hair and shoved her tongue into his mouth.
He moved her back and forth over his beige trousers with practiced expertise, and she found herself moaning and grinding on him ferociously with a growing desire in between her legs. If she wasn't careful she was going to cave and screw up everything, but it had been so long.
It had to be shut down, fast. Before a repeat of the last time occurred, or even worse.
Audette panicked, breaking away after a few minutes and without warning she slapped him clean across the face, causing his head to spin frightfully aside. It probably would've made more sense to slap herself but there was no taking it back.
She brought her hands up over her mouth to stifle the hysterical snort that she wanted to belt out at the taken aback look on his face.
He rubbed at his cheek in utter shock with his mouth wide open, "What kind of crackpot erratic shit is this? Is this a test?"
The scald in his eyes had her leaning back slightly in his lap, fearing that he would return the gesture, recalling that a mere hour ago he'd knocked a female competitor clean off of her broom with a rogue punch to the face.
Her drunken craziness was only just beginning. She pointed a finger in his face, watching in amusement as his eyes crossed, "If you want my body you have to earn it first, Malfoy. I demand to be treated like a lady."
He scoffed, "Right...Perhaps lead with that next time, instead of teasing me with snogging first. Fuck that was a hard hit, you psycho bitch Bellarose."
"Take me to dinner right now and maybe you'll get some real fun later. Better than snogging," she cooed through giggles, loosing her shit completely. She reached back for the bottle of whiskey that had been left at a slant on the couch and took another icy shot.
He ran his long fingers over his shut eyes, letting his head drop back against the couch backing with a heavy sigh, "Jesus fuck, Audette, you massive tease."
She fake pouted, twisting her fingers in his lime green robes at his neckline, "What's the matter? You said it yourself, we have a good thing going. It's perfectly pedestrian and about time."
She stared down at his sharp jawline grinding in contemplation, realizing that issuing an ultimatum to an untamed dragon was a far stretch.
"I don't want you to rush into this, you're still clinging to Nott," he growled under his breath, his eyes now caught on the green carpet in faraway consideration.
"Who's Nott? I don't know any Nott," Audette kept pulling on Draco's clothing hopefully. The musky steam rising from his robes was intoxicating, even moreso than the concentrated alcoholic brew in her tummy.
"You're not going to let this go, are you?" he glared at her with freezing blue eyes.
Audette pressed her lips together and shook her head adorably, "Nope."
The intent was to start introducing the concept that she would not accept anything less than a proper standard of dating from him before he got any more sexual advantages.
Tease, then demand, tease, then demand. That was a good plan; drive him absolutely wild by building up his anticipation that if he complied to a relationship then he would get lucky. And he might just.
She started to slip off of him when he floored her by reaching up and grabbing her waist to steady her on him. He gave her a snide, unimpressed grin, "Fine. Wait here while I change. You better not be lying to me. I don't want to hear his name from you again."
She got off of him pleasantly surprised, turning her back to him to snort quietly out of her nose with a shivering grin of disbelief. She heard him bolt up the boy's stairs whispering angry curse words under his breath.
Draco Malfoy was about to go on his first date ever, and it was all her doing. The satisfaction was unprecedented.