Audette's pastel pink fingernail was pointing square at an individual who'd just strolled into Befana carrying such revulsion in his expression he might've entered a stinky pig sty by accident.
The individual in question was quite polished; so stark and smoldering in fact, that it took him all of five seconds to heed the small girl pointing in his direction from the back corner.
His resemblance to Draco was dumbfounding; a pointy nose, polar blue eyes and pearly skin. With long white hair past his shoulders that flowed in perfectly straight strands, he might've been described as charming on the eyes had it not been for the corrosive twist on his face and the sword-like cane in his glove sporting the head of a silver viper.
Beside him an equally paralyzing woman with her hair coiled into a tight blond bun had her matching blue eyes glued to Draco and Audette. Both were dressed in black dragonshide that was likely worth more than Audette's entire house.
"Oh shit, don't look," Draco rapidly turned around to her, trying to use his flat hand to block out the side of his face. As if his bright white hair didn't stand out like fluorescent toothpaste in the shadows. As if the woman hadn't just been staring straight at them kissing slovenly.
Audette habitually covered her mouth to mask her insolent snickering when she saw the adult Draco's eyes switch to investigative slits, "The clone man is coming."
"Shhh," Draco laughed uncontrollably and utterly out of character, almost in the same way that Audette inappropriately did with a jittery, anxious pitch. He grabbed her hand under the table and nearly mangled her bones under the weight of his athletic grip, "Act inconspicuous. I'm serious."
His face had gone bright red from the MDMA that was arguably peaking at the most inconvenient moment.
Ergo Audette was forced to independently face the approaching man and woman who appeared visibly quizzical, her eyes frenzied and her mouth wiggling with giggles, "There really is no hope Draco, I'm afraid I'm too high."
"Likewise. We're fucked," Draco breathed out heavily. Even though the stimulants were encouraging joy and excitement, he was unmistakably growing rigid with pronounced terror as he gazed at her. Wisps of platinum hair stuck to his forehead as he perspired relentlessly.
"Should we get under the table?" she questioned him in an unnecessary whisper when the well-dressed people had made it halfway through the sombre dining room, stopping once to greet an important looking wizard with a spindly purple hat and monstrous rectangular spectacles.
Only Audette would consider such a klutzy reaction as a viable solution. Draco shook his head, "What? No. Unless there is an ill-designed trap door located at our feet, all that would achieve is further humiliation."
Draco glanced over his shoulder and caved to his manners finally, sitting back in undeniable distress. Evidently he knew them, because he whispered to her right before they arrived, "Say as little as possible."
The mysterious strangers arrived, eyeing them down in a storm of extravagant fragrances and ritzy wardrobes.
"Draco, what a pleasant surprise this is...catching you...well I daresay, I'm a tad lost for words," the man remarked in a singsong voice that sent chills down Audette's spine, evaluating the shitshow that was the table and both sweaty teenagers. His eyes lingered on even the smallest of details with such nuclear judgement that Audette felt like they were about to be arrested.
"Father, mother," Draco picked at his nails before him, looking positively clammy. It was clear that he was battling to suppress the amphetamines coursing through his veins, grinding his jaw and failing to mask the tiny etchings of a wavering smile.
A thousand little goosebumps erected on end across Audette's body: his parents. The infamous Lucius Malfoy.
Draco's mother finally peeled her acidic eyes off of Audette long enough to gently drop them on her son with a nasty glaze. Contrarily, Audette couldn't stop gaping at the woman's beauty and sheer regal prowess.
The Malfoys were moving with sophisticated and delicate grace, but there was an unspoken malignancy somewhere behind their perfect forms.
"Are you planning to introduce us? Who might this be?" she asked Draco confrontationally, unhinging a leather glove from her clasped hands to wave horizontally at Audette.
Now reaching the climax of her spine-tingling high Audette blurted out the most demented thing she possibly could, specifically disregarding Draco's instructions to say as little as possible.
She held out her hand to the stunning woman, "Audette, Draco's girlfriend."
Draco shut his eyes as his mother stiffly accepted the physical offer, then turned his face privately to Audette to open them again. The gripe there could be summarized in one word; why?
"Oh is that so?" Mr. Malfoy's voice pitched in disbelief, his gaze shooting to his wife, "Girlfriend, what terminology on Merlin's green Earth-"
Audette leaned towards Draco while his parents deliberated. "Well should I have said: Audette, Draco's understanding? They witnessed us kissing," she harshly whispered back.
"Bloody hell," he seethed in dread, shutting his eyes once more to hide in the darkness behind his eyelids as though if he did not look they would all disappear. He began to forcibly tug the soiled tablecloth into a knot in front of him, dragging objects into a small twist.
The Malfoys continued to murmur between each other in deductive investigation, their body language screaming misunderstanding and perplexity. Finally Mrs. Malfoy turned back to Draco with her scorching blue eyes dangerously wide, raising a hand to her collarbone, "Draco, are we to discern that you are formally courting this young woman? How are we only just now hearing of this design intent?"
With a loud puff of air Draco lifted his head in an exasperated jerk to his mother, "Yes, it is true. I would have informed you sooner, but this was an extremely recent update."
Audette was absolutely astonished at what had just come from his mouth, her body rinsing in cool waves of nervous anticipation.
Militantly, Lucius lifted the cane and ran it underneath Audette's chin as if she were a dog chewing disobediently on the carpet. His thin smile was unfriendly, "Let us get a better look at your choice then, Draco. Come girl, chin up."
"An owl would have sufficed for minimal communication; one would think this a significant enough reason," his mother hissed through clenched teeth, appearing to be very suspicious, her gaze drooping disapprovingly between her son's bizarre conduct and the strange female at his side. She was veritably distraught, "You are well aware of our anxieties surrounding your sequestered inclinations. We have been exceptionally patient."
Draco's handsomely dark voice lilted calmly around the table, "Well I'm happy to deliver. You may now douse said anxieties and retract your claws from my back."
Audette was suspended in the air at a sharp angle with the cold metal of the cane driving her sweaty face to the ornamental ceiling, trying to catch sideways glimpses of Draco's physical reactions.
"Your physiognomy seems familiar, although I cannot quite place it. What is your last name?" Mr. Malfoy's eyes had transformed into deadly laser beams, noticeably growing more irate with every hushed snicker his plastered son let out in the backdrop.
Audette decided she'd had quite enough of the cane, swatting it away, "Bellarose."
Draco flinched next to her as if he couldn't believe she'd dared to remove the object so bravely.
"Ah yes, there it is. The pompous attitude, that would be the Irish in you. Montgomery and Eloise's girl," Mr. Malfoy leered down at her, "In that case I find myself aghast that we have not been called upon sooner by your father for consult; he is after all, a highly traditional man of the old ways. Has he any idea that you're familiarizing yourself with my son? Still locked himself up in that delapidating castle with a menagerie of wildlife?"
"No, and yes," Audette answered shrewdly, realizing now that her parents were about to receive a shock when Mr. Malfoy cornered them at work the following day.
Her father was exceptionally traditional, and had played a vital role in Audette's reserved approach to dating. He was going to be furious that she hadn't mentioned Draco Malfoy sooner, especially given the scandalous impression of Draco he'd been provided by Theodore Nott over the past four years.
Lucius seemed to have transformed into a stone sculpture of himself, as if someone had hit a pause button on only his reality.
He inhaled once, sharply, never tearing away from his hostile appraisement of Audette. A segment of the puzzle seemed to click in place, "Curious. Were you not involved with Osbert Nott's heir for quite some time?"
Draco cut through, answering in place of Audette, "That relationship terminated in the spring and is completely irrelevant."
Bouncing his shoulders Lucius once again glanced at his wife, "Well Osbert hasn't mentioned anything on this matter, I suppose it is laced with fleeting disgrace on the boy's part. There was innuendo amongst the legacies this midsummer of his tendered enrollment in Excetra. I was of the impression a wedding was in the adjacent future; I suppose there are more urgent line items for the Nott's."
He flared his metallic eyes at the ceiling with a rancid smirk, contemplating some awful notion, "As if it would save them from disfavor at this closing stage. Although, one cannot referee them for the desperate survival effort."
Even Audette was startled by the insinuation, as she herself had not heard any chiming bells whilst dating Theodore. What the devil was Excetra? And what had happened to the Nott's that would result in them being socially disfavored?
Surprisingly, Mrs. Malfoy's face had softened in contrast. A sliver of a wicked smile trickled on her lovely features as she placed a hand on her son's shoulder, "Of course Lucius, darling; miss Bellarose. A pitiful loss for the Nott's if they have made such choices. Draco was right to act. You recall her name is not foreign, this is surely a positive amendment."
"Fuck," Draco dropped his face into his hands with a heavy groan, still chuckling like a skittish insane patient at St. Mungo's.
His mother addressed Audette directly who was barely keeping it together herself, "Draco speaks of you fondly, and often. I must say this has been a long overdue introduction, although in a less than proper manner. No chaperone might be ill-received by your father."
"I do no so such thing, don't act senile mother," Draco immediately rasped in objection somewhere behind his palms.
A ripple of feminine amusement overtook his mother's pretty face, her tone now as delicate as a doily, "Why it was just this August you described to us the incredible dignity of miss Bellarose, was it not? You had mentioned her distinguished attire and unique social standing."
"Okay well," Draco slapped both hands on the table, a delirious laugh escaping his teeth that Audette had never heard before. He started to gather both of their coats, and Audette's big green eyes followed the action in consternation when he shoved hers into her lap, "This has been delightfully nightmarish, but we really must be taking our leave."
They all shook in their skin as Mr. Malfoy slammed his cane into the precast stone flooring, flinching a cool smile at the garnished attention from disturbed dining guests in the vicinity. The look on his face had shifted into something murderous as he spat his next words, "Draco, a word in private. This instant."
Audette felt Draco contumaciously lace their slippery hands together below the table. With his chest heaving and a quivering smile on his face he turned to her, his eyebrows pointing together into wobbly triangles on his flushed face.
He whispered one word, barely audibly, "Run."
In an inebriated panic and with zero warning he leapt from the booth straight between his parents, and Audette nearly face planted when she was dragged from the edge of the seat with her right arm being frightfully dislocated.
Draco shoved people brutally hard to clear a path to the exit. One especially doomed waiter had a sterling tray knocked clean out of his hands, spilling questionably frothy green drinks with floating eyeballs onto an elderly couple.
Mr. Malfoy reacted with critical precision. The second Audette passed by he spun in a flurry of exotic garments, releasing a guttural growl and raising his wand, "How dare-"
To her complete shock he chanced casting shots of prismatic spells at his own son, causing items to explode from tabletops and nearby victims to be stunned in place. When a centerpiece of spiders flew into the air and released a rainstorm of huge insects all pandemonium erupted, just as Draco and Audette stumbled out the front doors.
They left behind the sounds of smashing glass, screeching furniture and shouting people.
"I hope you can fucking run," Draco pushed her forward multiple times through the alleyway, both of them starting to hysterically cackle as adrenaline thundered through their veins.
The village had begun to quiet and settle under the heavy blanket of eventide. Ergo the explosion at Befana literally froze every onlooker as if a bomb had been set off in an airport.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"Go! Go! Come on Bellarose, lift your fucking feet!" Draco refused to let Audette fall behind him as they barreled drunkenly back in the direction of the wooded path, capable naturally of running much faster then her. Multiple times he nearly sent her careening off balance with hard shoves to her spinal column.
Audette looked back through streams of giggly tears to see that Lucius had popped out of the chalet like a rejected slice of toast from a toaster, his wand pointed directly at their backs. He didn't bother to artlessly run, instead marched forward at a steady and rapid pace like a prowling jaguar. Balls of harrowing, noisy spells landed and blew dirt and leaves to smithereens around their ankles.
"He's quite galled, perhaps we should go back," Audette wheezed as they rounded a corner.
The main arched, wrought-iron gate came into view, and further beyond black shadows veiling the pathway to Hogwarts blended into nothingness.
Draco did not moderate his pace as they shot through the urban loop, panting heavily at her side, "You don't say? He seems positively jubilant to me."
With a gnawing stitch in her side and the disappearance of Lucius in the distant village Audette ignored the sarcastic jab and began to hang her head back with small grunts, dragging her feet. Long waves of blond hair crept down her back as she moaned from the unwarranted exercise, "Oh, ah, Malfoy I can't...Just leave me behind to perish."
It was not that she was out of shape, and it was not as though Draco didn't smoke like a chimney, but they had been drinking and dropping drugs candidly for hours.
Draco puffed out air like a flabbergasted horse, finally curbing his enthusiasm enough to jog backwards protectively while Audette heaved in scalding air. He scratched his frazzled hair, his eyes brightening with infinite thrill, "Did you see the look on his face? He's going to annihilate me at Christmas."
He paused, placing himself directly in front of her, and an exhausted Audette ran flat into his jacket. She instinctively wrapped her arms around his waist and chewed her bottom lip up at him before they embraced in icy kisses. Their noses were cold and pink in the frigid night.
"Will you piggy back me?" Audette asked childishly, half expecting a blunt dismissal.
Draco sniffed to clear his running nose, his breath presenting as a white cloud as he spoke down at her. He pushed her backwards with two fingers stabbing into her left shoulder, laughing lightly, "After what you just pulled? You've been a very bad girl, Audette. You're lucky I don't toss you off the cliff. My father will see to it that our so-called 'relationship' is confirmed before your father has even had a chance to sip his morning coffee."
He turned to march slowly with his hair swerving in a beautiful arc across his forehead, "Do you really live in a dilapidated castle?"
"It's weathered a few centuries in Ireland, and your father is telling porkies it's not dilapidated," Audette waltzed around him with a slanted grin, and Draco tripped rapidly after her causing her to start running again giddily.
She giggled while she pelted halfheartedly, holding her gloves defensively low at her knees to thwart his pawing efforts, "And who's the one who's been yapping on about me to their parents whilst we weren't even speaking amicably?"
"Don't go getting your knickers twisted, you don't know a thing," Draco bit his lip and reached for her ankle but she dodged the attack excitedly.
Pushing him back with a sloppy guffaw Audette waved her hands theatrically in the air as he chased her, "My distinguished attire and my unique social standing? Seems controversial if one regards our historical reciprocities. You're utterly enamored with me, admit it."
They had reached a hilly stretch in one of the most popular routes that overlooked the morbid Shrieking Shack, which by then had a fully collapsed central roof. Now under the moonlight it was not much more than a toothy tumor on the rocky countryside, a relic of a forgotten era. Disappointingly there was no shrieking to be heard.
"Positively obsessed," Draco panted in a jesting tone. He caught the corner of her long yellow jacket and the chase was over. Audette fell backwards into the leaves and mud with a sharp yelp, groaning from the resulting winding.
The stars in the sky above swirled around nauseatingly as if the planet had been flicked into a seriously crazy spin. Draco's face appeared all over the place dividing into the illusion of six Dracos. He cackled down at Audette as her eyes steadied, "Aw, did someone take a spill into the leaves? You have terrible athletic coordination Bellarose."
She coughed and grinned drunkenly, shooting her miniature mitt straight up at a ninety-degree angle, "Find your manners and help me up. Feel like repeating that last thing?"
Draco held out his glove and she took it, "You have terrible athletic coordination? No wonder you failed Flying lessons. You nearly put Longbottom to shame, and he hung himself from a gargoyle on the first day."
It was true. The second week of Flying lessons Audette had been shamefully booted from the course in the name of preserving her own safety and the safety of the other students.
The day had been chilly and overcast; the sort of threatening September weather that promised to start spitting icy rain at any second. In terrified anticipation she had spent nearly thirty minutes weaving unnecessarily complex braids into her golden hair before ending it in a tall ponytail. She showed up for their first day of actually leaving the ground trembling and overdressed, appearing more like a posh socialite preparing to go horseback riding.
When her turn had come to lift off and follow the course of floating pumpkins in the air that formed a figure of eight only two stories off the ground, Audette felt she was about to pass out from all of the expectant snickering provided by the other eleven year olds. This included Draco with his horribly slicked back platinum locks and judgy blue eyes. He'd been the strongest flyer aside from Harry Potter, and had taken great enjoyment in watching others struggle throughout the exercises.
Instead of losing consciousness, which would have been much more ideal, she had expertly careened out of control on a horizontal axis and plowed down half of the other students, knocking them off their hovering brooms.
At the end of the line she had victimized poor Ronald Weasley when the end of her knobbly training broomstick had jabbed him so violently in the stomach that he'd turned around and projectile vomited onto Seamus Finnigan.
This incident, preceded by numerous assaults the previous three classes where Audette had flung her broom several times into other students faces, caused Hooch to send Audette straight into detention for the reckless stunts.
She was not invited back. Infact her parents had received the most humiliating owl informing them that their child would never fly and should not be permitted to practice.
It was now hung in their parlour within a gilded gold frame, signed by Albus Dumbledore himself.
Audette brushed off her coat, taking her sweet time picking away tiny shreds of broken leaves, sensing under the moonlight that Draco's eyes were dancing across her features, "Well it's no secret that I have two left feet, but what about you mentioning positively obsessed - have my ears played tricks on me?"
She coyly raised her eyes to him yet he just shrugged theatrically, holding up his hands and popping his eyebrows, "Perhaps you have two left ears as well. Still want that piggyback?"
"Yes," Audette clapped her hands, her heart sweltering with erratic joy from the drugs and booze.
All the way back up the hill she couldn't resist planting endless kisses on his cheek, to which Draco avoidantly accepted with a loopy grin. After the seventh kiss he croaked out in a strained voice as Audette's arms routinely squeezed around his neck, "Easy there tiger, you choke me one more time and I'll drop you in a bog."
They rounded a bend, and the castle came into view like a dream in the darkness. Golden light flooded out of thousands of pointed apertures, reflecting off of the ancient bricks and producing a glowing effect in the clouds above. Towers spired towards the moon in romantic Gothic architecture, ending in sharp points to create an iconic skyline.
Audette dared another kiss, this time holding it in place for a few seconds before whispering in his ear, "I can choke my boyfriend if I feel like it."
She saw his lips part as his jaw dropped open slightly, and the mood instantaneously sobered between them.
Draco's face grew serious and Audette's heart took off like a jack hammer to a pavement surface, watching as he blinked rapidly and praying he wouldn't violently eject her.
Instead he bounced her higher up onto his back, his nails digging into the underside of her thighs with the supportive motion. The intimacy of his fingers being so close to her backside produced anxious sensations in her nervous system that left her buzzing in his hold.
His voice darkened this time that he spoke, "Now let's get one thing straight Audette, I said that to my mother...," he let slip a breathy laugh as if lost for words, "I said that to my mother out of respect for your reputation, and because you left me no choice with your inability to control yourself. My parents are going to go directly to yours regardless of our explanation for lack of a chaperone - it's better that they have the impression we are courting properly."
"Oh now you've gone and broken my glassy little heart. Here I was thinking we are courting properly," Audette nuzzled her nose into his neck playfully and Draco puffed out air, suddenly stiff as a granite statue under her body. She was hardly bothering to hang on properly save for the choking action, dizzy and silly from the dinner.
"If we go too fast then it will all fall to bits, and I won't have you wasting my time with a flash breakup when you inevitably experience a meltdown," he sternly responded, beginning to climb stone stairs embedded into the landscape, "For now it's an understanding; you have my word I'll be exclusive to you and that's enough. Our parents can hold their breaths for more information until Christmas. Maybe I'll even get lucky and Lucius will drop dead."
"I'm glad to know you perceive me as mercurial," she tutted in baulk.
Draco snorted, "You are, don't even fool yourself. One minute you're a sanctimonious princess, the next you're a devastating vixen, then back again."
Audette pressed herself hard against his back, brushing his hair aside with her nose. "Well, there is more than one way for you to get lucky, Mr. Malfoy," she oozed into his long white hair with flirty conviction. The soft tenderness of her lips grazed his ear as she hummed mellow encouragement to him, "Boyfriends get special privileges that understandings could only dream of."
Draco stopped in the middle of the covered wooden bridge that spanned across the gorge of the Black Lake River and swayed on the spot, chewing on his bottom lip. His eyes had grown glittery and thoughtful, flaring as his imagination went somewhere nasty in the depth of his mind, "Ooooh? Go on."
He turned to look at her with pep in his silvery gaze, his eyebrows quivering interactively. She nodded eagerly, "Sleepovers, without granny dresses. Without any dresses for that matter..."
"You're a dirty stinking drunk, I won't fall for it," Draco scoffed lightly through a crooked smile, tugging her up again and continuing to tramp across the creaky, jilted viaduct that was somehow still standing even after clearly not meeting code for several decades. He grunted often in his gait, showcasing that despite being slender his physical strength was impressive, having lugged Audette for over fifteen minutes against the grade of the mountain.
Audette closed her eyes, sporting a grin of inebriated pleasure and allowing her head to loll against his, "And you're my boyfriend, I won't accept otherwise." The smell of his clean clothing and his sweaty musk was sending her into blissful meditation.
"Alright, alright, go on then - convince me. What other privileges accompany this burdensome title?" Draco mischievously prodded, pinching at the sensitive insides of her legs.
Audette busted out into girly giggles that were surely irksome directly in his ear, "You may hold up the end of my crinoline dresses while I walk," she pressed her cheek against his, knowing full well that it was not a privilege but a tax instead.
"Done," Draco commented nonchalantly.
"You may buy me pretty presents without cause-" she tittered fancifully.
"-oh is that how easy it is, because I'll buy you the Sun if it will pacify your desires," Draco sliced through her rhetoric.
Audette inhaled deeply and raised a pointy finger off his shoulder where she'd clamped on for dear life, "And you may accompany me between absolutely every class like a perfect gentleman, ensuring my safe arrival and intact dignity."
By this point they were both diverting to asinine chuckling in the hallways as Draco barrelled towards the dungeons, "Oh great heavens, don't spoil me Audette. And your girlfriend privileges, shall I brave listing those off or should we just find out tonight?"
"Don't be shy, state your demands," Audette lifted an arm to swat at a candelabra on the wall, and Draco nearly toppled backwards entirely, fighting against the momentum of her movement.
"Let's see..." his smirked devilishly when he'd rediscovered his balance, his pointy nose pulling hard on one side with a wicked glint in his eye, "You'll attend every one of my games without complaint of the weather. I expect my girlfriend to sit in the very front row relentlessly."
"I suppose warming charms are not out of the question," Audette bit at his ear eagerly, sucking backwards to drive him wild.
"Ugh, please," Draco moaned faintly in sexual heat, then composed himself enough to continue walking, "And you will ensure that your status with me is public, and unwavering."
"Perfect," Audette sighed lovingly.
"And you will never speak to Theodore Nott again."
The final sentence released from his throat with a deeply warning growl.
Audette felt a chill run down her spine when she noticed the side of his face take on an angry, heartless sneer. Draco's requests had been a lot more concrete and serious, perhaps missing the point of Audette's intent to joke around.
She was silent, and Draco didn't push the conversation.
Until.
At the entrance to the Slytherin common room where the gravelly stone wall slid across without track to reveal their private quarters he let her slide down his back onto her boots once more.
His head shaking Draco turned to her, letting out a heavy gust of air, "If we are going to do this, let that closing point be crystal clear, Audette."
She twisted her fingers together behind her back, her heart swimming in a warm pool of disbelief, "I beg your pardon? What are we doing?"
Draco scratched at his neck, looking mildly ill and sweaty all of a sudden, "This...boyfriend-girlfriend business. Do not make me regret it. I want complete and total devotion from you - I do not make romantic commitments lightly."
Correction; he did not make romantic commitments, period.
She was breathless, stunned by the vulnerability in his eyes and the notable rise and fall of his chest as he took heavy breaths through his nose.
The night had turned out to be such a wonderful surprise that Audette braced herself for a sudden startling awake in her bed from what was surely a fleecy dream. For a fleeting second she was gone, in a daydream that should have already happened years prior.
Draco broke the quietude like an unattended to explosive, causing her to jump and return to her sensibility, "Well say something, for Merlin's sake."
She batted her eyelashes up at the handsome boy with diamonds for eyes, "Are you calling me your girlfriend, Draco? Truly?"
The lump in his throat dramatically bobbed as he swallowed with a flat face, now shooting his attention to the moldy ceiling, "That is correct. But...I've waited five years for this moment, and I have high expectations for success on my investment. Promise me this; Nott is dead to you."
Audette lunged at him like a panther to a gazelle, wrapping her arms around his neck and smearing his face with messy kisses. Adhering to very little regard for the seriousness of the agreement she inhaled his piney scent like a drunken pirate, "I promise, oh Draco I do promise."
Suddenly his demeanour softened and he met her elation, picking her up by her waist to spin her around. Draco's rare smile buried in her neck, and she revelled in the moment of his breathy happiness. Audette's spine bent under his pull, her little mitts plastered on either side of his face as he gently put her down again in a drippingly leaden kiss, when a guttural snarl interrupted the magical moment.
In the darkness of the cavernous dungeon Snape's black wand shot between their petrified faces, the tip lit in mimickary of a pinpoint flashlight. He'd spawned out of virtually nowhere with very little patience and complete contempt.
They consciously dispersed only to flatten against the cold wet bricks of the Slytherin wall. The professor's coal black eyes snapped between the two teenagers who hadn't realized until that very second that they'd arrived back to the castle far past curfew and somehow managed to get inside without being spotted by a grumbling Filch or any other pissy authority figure.
Snape stepped towards Draco with his wand so close to one of his grey eyes it might've been the Professor's intention to poke it out. In the radiance of the illuminated wand Draco's pupils appeared maddeningly large, the whites of his eyes overcome with pronounced redness from the evening's inebriety.
There was no getting around it; they were high as kites.
Snape's eyes narrowed, his ghastly long robes trailing behind him on the filthy stone flooring as he leaned into Draco with a menacing glower, "Mr. Malfoy, were you not the most talented player on Slytherin's quidditch team, and was I not in close acquaintance with your father, this would warrant immediate suspension and disciplinary consequences."
An ambient resonance of wind whorling throughout the subterranean corridors was the only sound to be heard as both Audette and Draco evolved into fossilized versions of themselves, trapped against the entry wall and too blitzed to function under the impending doom that was their House Head.
"Does...your...father know about your revised personal life? About this obvious...distraction," Snape lamented in slow drawl, his sharp gaze stabbing momentarily at Audette before returning to Draco.
Draco seemed to finally find his voice, raising his pointy chin in defiance, "Why don't you ask himself, if you're such a close acquaintance?"
"The nerve," Snape hissed, a long strand of obsidian hair falling forward across his left eye in evident outrage of the pushback.
Audette couldn't tell if she'd possibly just peed herself, and would give just about anything to transfigure into an ant and disappear into one of the deep cracks below her boots.
"To bed, the both of you, to your own beds," Snape's beady eyes darted to the wall behind them which shot across in swift motion, making sure to watch them both go their separate ways up their own staircases.