"Amato Animo Animato Animagus," McGonagall's sharp eyes levelled on Audette, a deep frown overtaking her feathery, elderly features. Audette had now recited the incantation incorrectly for the third time, and the House Head of Gryffindor was wildly unimpressed.

"Right, that's precisely what I said," she groaned in a bratty tone, nearly asleep in the darkness and slumping unlady like.

They had been there for three hours, and Audette's brain had evolved into a slimy pile of mush.

McGonagall's office was shockingly as shadowy and musty as Snape's that evening, despite being located on the fourth floor. She had shut all of the windows to black out the room and force Audette to concentrate, but her mind was elsewhere, worried about her boyfriend and her ex-boyfriend competing in the first round of the four-course nightmare tournament that very weekend.

Audette tapped the table with her fingers in agitation.

They were positioned directly across from one another in the shadows with nothing but a blue-flamed pillar candle flickering in the center, creating ominous shadow people out of every object it passed light around.

McGonagall tilted her skull, her fashionably pointed green hat jutting high off her head as she evaluated her student, "No. That is not what you said, Miss Bellarose. You said Tomato Animoto Animato Animagus, which could not be any farther from on point, unless you are hoping to transform into a common fruit. Might I remind you of what your father has invested in these private lessons, and the severity of his expectations."

Audette nodded, blowing her hair out of her eyes, "Yes, what would be new. Severe expectations..."

McGonagall appeared to be mildly flustered by Audette's rude attitude, "Well it is not my place to pry, but it is public understanding that your House Head is managing a high degree of romantic qualms in Slytherin, specifically surrounding yourself. And your father also possesses severe expectations for the manner in which you carry yourself in society. If you require any womanly guidance, you may also come to me."

Audette leaned back in her spired wingback chair and crossed her arms in her delicate pink dress. She turned her face away to the side avoidantly, and McGonagall did not push a second time. "Very well. How is the search coming for the chrysalis of a Death's-head Hawk Moth?"

"I've told you, it is impossible to procure," Audette huffed, picking lint off of her pretty clothing.

McGonagall shook her head slowly, "Well I suppose I became an animagus out of extremely dumb luck by that definition. What did we say the most common host plants are?"

"The potato plant, that one I know," Audette murmured in a drab tone.

"Well strangely enough, tomato would have also sufficed for that response," McGonagall chirped, "If you are having so much trouble locating a garden patch, perhaps your new love interest can call upon his influences to assist you in the marketplace."

A growl from a caged animal farther in the depths of the room caused Audette to jump in shock, placing a hand over her chest.

Minerva didn't flinch, sitting there as cool as a cucumber with her lips pressed together in a thin line, her angular glasses reflecting the flame.

Audette made a face, now embarrassed that the private lesson had somehow repeatedly swung in the direction of her love life, "He isn't partial to the nature of these lessons, and I'd rather it remain that way."

"There is no humility in seeking further accomplishments in life, Ms. Bellarose. Do not allow anyone to toy with that comprehension, even someone as presumptuous as Draco Malfoy," the professor began to gather up the flood of Audette's parchments which had chaotically spread out all over the table.

She was mortified though, for very vain reasons that wouldn't change. Only Guy and Theodore knew about her private lessons, and that was already two people too many.

Audette was well aware that if she accomplished her ultimate goal of becoming an animagus then she would eventually face due vulnerability with Draco about it, but just the thought of the look on his face and the taunting comments made her ill.

He was not known for kindness nor understanding, and above anything else he revelled in teasing her.

It would be just her luck that he'd freak out at the idea of her transforming into some other species, and then just like an ostrich Audette would feel compelled to stick her head in the sand and pretend that no one could see her.

Audette left McGonagall's office with the threat to find a Hawk Moth's chrysalis before the end of the month looming over her bouncing blond waves, and she hardly had enough time to make it back to the Slytherin dormitory before the school wide ten o'clock curfew would instate.

When she found Draco in his bed where he'd promised to be, his face was tense, flipping through monstrously large texts that were very quickly slammed shut the minute her shadow appeared over him.

It was a marvel he'd managed to retain any information from the insanity occurring around the quarters. An active leg locker curse battle was unfolding for no reason or rhyme, boys racing up and down the aisle with their ankles tied together and screaming like maniacs.

"You're seventy-six minutes late," Draco checked his watch like a human calculator, his grey eyes raising to hers with cool disapproval.

He looked seriously adorable in his rare comfort clothing, especially with a grouchy pout on his sharp features and a gigantic sweater hood weighing down his white hair.

He arrogantly requested information as if he'd just arrived at a tourist's booth, "Are you prepared yet to inform me of these mystery classes which dig into our private time together?"

"No," Audette shut her eyes at the predictable inquiry as she inhaled his fresh scent, leaning heavily into his arm, "But I would dramatically improve with some extra-curricular potions assistance. I'm a lost cause unfortunately."

She sensed him cracking his jaw against her forehead, chuckling under his breath, "Hmm might be a tad inane, given I have no idea what you're studying for. There are still a lot of secrets between us, and I would like to see progress on this matter."

"And why should I go first?" Audette cooed dreamily, unzipping her flowery dress in the safety of his heavy curtains.

She kicked it off without bothering to sit up properly, causing a frumpy ruckus before flipping over on her stomach to reveal her backside in just her dainty underwear. She chewed on her thumbnail and smiled up at him, arching her back eagerly and kicking her feet.

Draco rolled his eyes to the ceiling, his veiny hand reaching out to squeeze her right buttock multiple times, "Better luck next time, you harlot. I've warned you to stop rushing the relationship, it's not happening this week." He slapped her cheek hard, then went back to reading, appearing snidely entertained.

Audette rotated on her back and let her head drop into his lap below the book, twirling her white wand around in her fingers, "Am I not satisfactory?"

Draco dropped the book hard on her head for a second before returning it in place, his silvery eyes popping over the top, "Yes. You're unsalvageable, an abomination. I wouldn't touch you with a ten foot wand."

She fished around in the pocket of her discarded dress to produce the moving photograph of the cottage night, watching them dance as young adults, "Then why every dame but myself? Even as your girlfriend?"

Draco groaned loudly, hanging his head back into his headboard to hiss through his teeth, "I have told you about my past many times, yet you simply choose to invent your own narrative. I won't repeat it again because I am conversing with a fucking wall."

"So you're sticking to bold-faced lying. You've slept with everyone," Audette frowned confrontationally, hushing curses under her breath as she watched them twirling around, the corners of the picture now curling with doggie ears from her carrying it constantly. "Everyone except me."

Draco dropped the book he was bizarrely captivated with, labelled Russian Beasts; The Dangers of Magical Eastern Europe, his face contorting irritably. Audette had already giggled once upon noticing a nearly forgotten book published by the now mentally deficient Gilderoy Lockhart coined Holiday With Hags hanging about by their toes.

It was entirely out of character for Draco Malfoy to be bothering with anything of the wild sort, and the topics were not even aligned with their current course material with Droopy.

He sighed, making to just hardly pet the top of her head with his fingertips, "I've lied about countless things, but I assure you Audette- wait, what is that you have there?" He snatched the photograph clean out of her fingers to squint at it, and Audette sat up protectively in fear that he would tear it to shreds.

"Where did you get this? Is Parkinson trying to humiliate me to the fullest extent?" Draco raged in an unnecessarily violent tone, his eyes disappearing into hostile slits.

"I happen to find it adoring," Audette argued.

"Well you can forget about pining after this because I will never allow you to render me so helpless again," Draco actively shuddered, blinking away foreign disgust as he twisted to toss the photo into his bedside table.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

T-T stretched in his fluffy bed, revolting at the shaking of the tiny stand he'd been growing accustomed to sleeping on. He was now dreadfully fond of Draco due to the pennies he'd received in bulk a week and a half prior, to the point that Audette felt confident in leaving the little bear with him alone. Not that Draco had any clue of the dispositional evolution.

"You're in a foul mood tonight, you're even worse than Filch's wet hairy mop. Perhaps I'll sleep in my own bed," she commented.

"Excellent evaluation, and if you leave I will only be worse in the morning," he snapped back, feeling around for T-T to ensure that the bear was still in his bedazzled nest. In the process he poked the Consciaur directly in the eye, and it was a miracle his fingernail was not ripped clean off.

Someone tripped and smashed into one of Draco's wooden bed posts as he was covering what he thought to be Think-Think's body with his wool blankey but was actually his reddening face. "Would you fucking grow up, you lot are worse than a pack of Cornish Pixies," Draco glared over his shoulder at the shaking curtains, but the boys in the room couldn't possibly be helped.

"Well, speaking of... secrets," Audette jumped Draco by clambering across his lap as he rotated back around, having left the bear completely smothered, blinded and hissing. She wrapped her wrists around his neck, grinning devilishly.

He scowled up at her, his hair fanning out in silky strands as she yanked off his large sweater hood, "What do you think I am, a carousel horse? I'm trying to prepare for tomorrow, I expected you to sleep here peacefully tonight Audette. Can't you tell that I'm stressed?"

"I will not accept stress as an excuse for rudeness. Why don't I ease your strain," she giggled shyly, slowly dragging her sparkly nails down his neck, then the front of his sweater. She bit her lip when she reached his pants and began unzipping his joggers.

"I just want a taste," she whispered pleadingly, kissing his jaw in a seductive manner.

Draco raised his eyebrows up at her, his face beginning to ripple with spirited intrigue, "Meaning what exactly?" He dropped the book out of his left hand and it fall shut with a heavy thunk onto the comforter, and within moments he had wrapped his arms around her waist.

She leaned forward and bit at his earlobe to suck it towards her, speaking sensually, "Independent pleasure, from me to you. It's wildly overdue."

"As tantalizing as that sounds, I regret to reject you Audette. Please refrain from making me constantly reject you; it's growing pitiful and my resolve is crumbling," Draco whispered back into her hair.

In that moment Audette was on par with a bull in a China shop.

From a relationship with Draco Malfoy she'd expected constant action, no longer worrying herself with the burden of completing Guy's smudgy homework in the next semester. Yet she was frequently met with reserved walls of all sorts, and it was putting her nerves on end.

"Let your resolve crumble, in fact I'll personally take a troll's club to it," she responded teasingly, sitting back and reaching both hands behind her back to unhook her bra.

She was so close. She had his joggers undone, she was in her best lingerie in his lap, and he was obviously turned on.

But of course, his cold fingertips trailed up her spine and grabbed her hands in place, his stunning eyes harsh and serious, "Stop, you don't have to do this. You have nothing to prove. You've never been this type, and if I leave you feeling defiled it would be my greatest regret. I want you to stay long term Audette, you do understand my reasoning?"

Audette was now entirely offended, and a painful lump was swelling up in her throat with her arms tied up behind her back, nearly naked and feeling utterly silly, "Take my word that it is a flattery I am requesting this intimacy. I'm expressing my interest in longevity. You're quite correct I do not hand it out lightly, and I not only intend to stay but I expect to be kept afterwards."

Draco's face pinched, but from the way his nose was pulling back on one side she could sense he was containing some form of explosive nastiness, "Obviously I'm flattered just look at you. Take my word, and be patient. It will happen, and it will be worth the wait."

To her great horror Audette started to feel the prick of stinging tears and quickly shut her eyelids. It was nothing short of unfair and frustrating.

Her arms were beginning to burn from the pull backwards, but not nearly as much as the magma in her wounded heart.

She struggled to free herself but Draco obviously misinterpreted the jailbreak as efforts to continue unlatching her bra. He clamped down even tighter, and she panted helplessly with her breasts heaving in his face.

"Don't start weeping, it will only acerbate me further," Draco growled under his breath, turning his gaze away from her chest with his eyes searching around the bed, anywhere but at her pained expression, "Answer me this; if Theodore Nott were to change his mind and come running back, would you forget all about your commitments to me?"

Audette shook her head avidly, confused as to why that worry had anything to do with her wanting to take the next physical step with him, "No, of course not. In a short span of time you've demonstrated that you are an excellent partner to me."

"Then you aught to wisely comprehend that I fairly waited my turn for you, and my attention is not to be misused as a bandaid for your breakup. You use me as a placeholder and I will show you the true meaning of dire consequences, and it will be far, far worse than being tossed in a soggy fountain," Draco turned back to look up her, his eyebrows flat and his face stony.

Like lightning drawn to the tallest tree, Audette was suddenly struck with genuine fear at the icy darkness in his demeanour.

He was in a stormy mood due to the anxieties of the tournament commencing the following day, but it was downright awful. Audette decided to show sympathy anyways, forgiving the scary interaction, "I would stay, Draco. I am sensationally fond of you, and emotionally invested in ways I cannot retract."

She saw his eyes skidding along her chest, her neck...contemplating something that she could not begin to comprehend with a lethal snarl on his lip.

There was something so alluringly terrifying about him when he was sober, and a tender beauty when he was drunk, that left her chasing the thrill of his complex company either way.

He shut his eyes finally, and she felt his body relax below her thighs. The random fury was over, for then at least.

His fingers sifted through hers and carefully unlatched her bra as he leaned forward surprisingly and began kissing at her cleavage, burying his pointy nose there.

She'd spritzed pretty sparkles all over her skin that morning hoping to successfully lure him in, and he seemed to be enjoying the flowery scent of it after all.

His hands arched over her shoulders and down her arms to pull away the bra, revealing for the first time her upper body without the blockade of clothing.

Audette started to grow lusty between her legs, pulling at his hair while he ran his tongue over her nipples, his eyes glittering at her body and his breath rattling.

"Merlin, you are stunning, I'm sure it's no secret to you. Believe me, it is agonizing having to restrain myself," Draco commented, biting and sucking tepidly at her plush skin.

Please, let this be it, the night he will make love to me, she begged in her mind, bouncing softly in his lap over his rocky member, her heart pounding with hormonal desire.

Naturally she had started to fantasize about how he would take her, so much so that she was phasing out for extended periods in classes and missing whole chunks of notes. She imagined he'd be rough, and use moves on her that even her wildest dreams couldn't develop.

He clawed his way back up her spine and yanked her face to his by her long hair, and she winced slightly at the tug of her roots from her scalp.

The books he'd been reading were now digging into her legs on either side, bending to their combined weight in the middle of his lavish mattress.

He paused the French kissing, moving her hand down to his opened pants, "You have your wish then. Only this pleasure though, nothing more tonight."

"Yes," she cooed eagerly. Her nails tickled his navel with tantalizing leisure before she slipped her hand into his boxers.

Their lips met again as Audette wrapped her hand around his hard cock below the fabric, feeling the hum of his moaning through their kisses.

Finally.

His deep voice cracked with aching lust, his eyes searching hers, "Did you mean to suggest there was some secret to be revealed?"

Audette hummed melodically, "You've been holding out on me. How was I to know what to expect down there?"

Draco raised his eyebrows, his mouth hanging open as she pumped him between her legs. His eyes batted shut repeatedly, "Anticipation adds satisfaction to the eventual event, don't you think? I certainly did not expect you to be this frisky."

This was her chance to show him what he was missing, and she could hardly control her trembling.

She pushed kisses on his jaw, his neck, crawling downwards suggestively. She drove her tongue down his throat where his Adam's apple was bobbing, sensing his exhales increasing in intensity as she dropped farther still.

The moment her tongue ran along his bareness he groaned loudly, watching her with sparkling blue eyes in the shadows as she bobbed and gagged for him.

He moved his fingers down the back of her spine, scratching softly before delicately tangling in her hair. He brushed it aside to clear her face, catching every single breath as he unblinkingly watched her please him.

He was big, bigger than Theodore to her excitement. In fact every detail of his cock was attractive both visually and functionally.

After a few minutes his fingers collected under chin to draw her face up, "Just look at me for a second, so I know this is real." They panted at each other before she went back down, and he dropped his head back with his eyes shut, "Oh fuck Audette, the way you do that. Those little sounds, Merlin..."

She was employing sensual, feathery and slow techniques that had been popular in her last relationship, enough to drive any man insane with fragile tease.

He gave her no typical warning; perhaps he gave himself no warning either. Suddenly his entire body went rigid and his breathing grew so jagged one might assume he were choking on an invisible poison. He gasped in high pitches, his voice coming out boyish and helpless.

Luckily Audette was no stranger to what was occurring and managed to brace herself for the explosion, swallowing and taking it all with grace and control. She sat back on her haunches to wipe at her face, pleased with the outcome as she watched him run the back of his hand over his forehead in utter disbelief.

He fixed his pants and tossed all of the books onto the dusty hardwood beyond the curtains, and she dug her way into the weighted blankets she'd come to adore visiting her dreams underneath.

He turned to tug her flat up against him from behind, kissing her cheek multiple times, "I have to comment, I am glad you are so stupidly stubborn, if at least this one time."

"Then I ardently promise to always be stubborn. You'll come to realize that I am always right like a good boy," Audette grinned against his pillow as he pinched at her supple breasts again.

He laughed sarcastically and nuzzled into her neck, still calming his breathing in a manner that was frightfully ticklish in her ear, "You continue to shock me with your esoteric personality. I might keep you forever, Audette."

She was elated, momentarily, before the reality of the next day hit her with anxiety. Almost as if his stress had just transferred into her.

"How stricken are you about tomorrow, Draco?" she asked quietly, her heart suddenly flooding with a wrenching acid at the reminder that he would be at risk of injury, or worse - utter annihilation - in a matter of hours.

"Hmm," he piped sleepily, "As long as Nott stays out of my way, I harbour no doubts that I will rank in the highest percentile. Mark my words if he impacts my placement with his idiocies it truly will be war, and perhaps then we'll find out the definition of ending someone afterall. I don't pity him; he stole you from me first, he can wallow in his agony for all I care."

With those ominous words he squeezed her in his arms as if he'd just been describing an innocent episode of the Teletubbies instead, blowing minty air across her face as he drifted off carelessly, "Go to sleep now, my antiquated angel."

Audette couldn't sleep, and not because it was nearly subzero in the room.

For hours she clutched at his sheets in the hold of his sweater, playing with the silky fabric and devastatingly distraught.

She knew Theo better than anyone, probably more than Draco himself. And if there was one, undeniable characteristic to be derived from Theodore Nott's personality, it was that he was irrevocably persistent, and always meant exactly what he said.

He would be coming for Draco in the tournament. Malfoy was agile, cunning and athletic, but Nott was inventive, brilliant and cutthroat when provoked.

He would make it his only focus to hunt his enemy; relentless, spiteful, and smarter than the entire school combined, he would be coming for Draco Malfoy with blood red in his eyes.