Guy poked his lumpy wand deep into Audette's thin ribs as they traipsed across the expanse of the wet-cast brick courtyard on the western axis of the castle, "There he is, on with you now,"

The porteau they were transversing overlooked the glittery lake and mountains beyond, spectacular and breathtaking even if one was deeply familiar with the epic viewpoints at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

It was a baroque autumnal morning, each conglomerate brick of the architectural megalopolis glinting in the sunlight with grey splendor. Ivy crawled without policing up the exterior of the establishment, fluttering in the gusty September air. All throughout the area magical students were bumbling around in red, yellow, green and blue robes, muttering pleasantly to one another and transitioning to classes.

Audette clutched at her heavy school books in antagonism, staring at her task ahead, "Well that's not intimidating at all.

Sat square in the center of the atrium along the coping of an ancient stone fountain was the boy in question; Draco Malfoy, next to Blaise Zabini and Vincent Crabbe, chattering to one another under their breaths.

Draco had an especially extravagant leather satchel hanging from his shoulder as he twirled his smooth wand between his fingers, eyeing down passersby with a threatening jeer like a jump scare Halloween decoration. It was no wonder that the crowd was tentatively taking a wide arc to avoid his deadly energy.

Audette stopped on the spot and readjusted her soft blond locks which were woven into two long braids terminating in green bows, ensuring that it composed itself exactly how she'd ordered it to hours before.

Guy drove his wand into her side again, this time unnecessarily harshly, "Get your quill out Audette, because you'll be writing all of my work for months. Seriously if you don't go over there and say something to him today it's pretty much in the bag."

"I will not be writing a single word, and when you have to attend all of my classes as myself you had better make me look gorgeous and keep your stinky mouth shut. Stop stabbing me with that hideous twig," Audette snapped back at him, clawing clumsily after his wand before he held it high above where she could not reach.

It had been nearly two weeks of the term's commencement and Guy was losing his patience with Audette, who had not made any moves whatsoever to appease their bet and uphold her side of the bargain.

As it turned out she was much more shy when sober around Draco, who as it turned out was much more cocky and vicious when he was sober. He tended to shoot her daring, icy eyes that paralyzed any action from her end and made her cheeks flame.

Still reeling from a distracting heartbreak, she was pitifully useless around the boy in those first few days, and then had gone on to resort to avoidance. The other girls had given her rare tolerance but now time was up to get a move on.

"He's not in any of my courses, and he's always practicing for Quidditch. It's not exactly as if I see him that often," Audette slumped her head against Guy's skinny arm.

Guy held out his hand, "Well you bloody well see him now don't you?"

Even there in the hazy sunshine when Draco noticed her gawking she felt a tingle run down her spine. He made a face and leaned in to whisper something to Blaise who was chewing on a pear at an elderly pace.

Blaise laughed coquettishly, raising his dark eyes to evaluate Audette with stylistic criticism.

"Ohhh sweet Merlin they're gabbing about you. Trod on. Go get your boyfriend," Guy guffawed, pulling his face down with both hands on his cheeks theatrically.

His hair was dramatically azure and curly that Friday, almost as if he'd plucked a live Octopus out of the ocean and plunked it onto his skull.

"You just watch me whip him," she shoved her books into his arms without warning, then marched across the courtyard with her heart thudding like a jack hammer below her ribs.

Draco stood and crossed his arms in his black and green robes as he detected her barreling towards him, chuckling when she stopped directly at his feet as if having just run face first into a glass door. He'd popped his huge hood over his platinum hair, cool and calm, and waiting.

She pointed her finger in his face with a quivering laugh, causing his caustically bright eyes to criss-cross over the bridge of his pointy nose.

There was no way to take any of it seriously, and the spark in his gaze hinted that he was equally entertained already, "Just for the record Malfoy, this does not count as crawling back."

He snorted, "I couldn't agree more Bellarose - this would qualify as charging back at full speed. Predictable by all accounts."

Blaise and Vincent snickered behind Malfoy.

Audette forced herself to smile stiffly, tossing one of her braids over her shoulder with incredible determination to bond with Draco in any way that was not going to result in a reckless fling.

She knew how to flirt; it was just a matter of relaxing, chewing on her lip and blinking twice as much as usual. If he thought he stood a chance at bedding her at all, then all she had to do was keep him teetering there in that zone of desperate hope...somehow, for four entire months.

What the fudge had she agreed to?

Talk about his passions, say anything, say something Audette you star-struck moron.

This was not relaxing - this was heaving in air for way too long. Audette tended to giggle when she was anxious, and she dared not imagine the contortion occurring on her face, "So I hear you have a Quidditch match today, Malfoy," she managed to blurt.

Nervous beyond belief, Audette reached her hand across and ran it up his chest above the silvery Slytherin crest on his pristine robes. She swallowed and brought her eyes slowly up to his, half expecting him to give her a great big shove of rejection.

Thankfully he didn't bite.

Draco hiked his eyebrows at the gesture with a very sarcastic smirk on his pretty face, "Congratulations; you're not deaf. Didn't take you for a tarty fan. In fact, I'm certain I've never seen your face in the stadium."

More waves of husky laughter rippled from the two onlooking Slytherin boys, but Audette held her composure, twisting her fingers in Draco's warm clothes.

She shrugged, barely containing a cackle of her own that was bubbling up in her throat, "Hmm, that's because it's usually boring. Are you still the Slytherin Seeker this year?"

Draco nodded smugly, "You bet I am. And are you still single and in raging denial, or have you accepted my very generous offer? You can prove it to me by coming today. Maybe I'll even give you a boring shout out."

They stared at each other boldly, and Audette's left eye began to twitch uncontrollably from the ridiculousness. She had no desire to attend the game whatsoever and hadn't expected him to personally invite her, let alone give her a public declaration of any design.

"Something in your eye there? Tied those braids too tight? You're acting like a freak," Draco appraised her with a dull snort.

She sucked in air through her teeth, willing herself not to giggle monstrously, "Actually I have plans with Cosmos, maybe we can meet up afterwards? I suppose I have changed my mind, about...us."

An eager twinkle had developed in his baby blue eyes - an eager twinkle that she'd gladly smack away if she was not so motivated to procure it.

"Woah, woah, woah, Bellarose, don't even joke like that, it's downright cruel," Draco sighed wantonly, giving her a slanted, mistrustful expression. "A girl like you, a dripping romantic - I know you're not that cheap. You'll bail on me."

"I will not, I simply refuse to sit nine storeys into the air and freeze solely to inflate your ego," Audette shook her head, taking back her hand from his robes.

Draco rolled his eyes, "Get a proper jacket then. I won't disappoint you if you come. Give me a real chance. No one likes a tease."

For a fleeting moment Audette considered the probability that Pansy Parkinson or Daphne Greengrass had gone flocking to Malfoy and informed him of the conditions of her bet. Not only was his behavior as equally unusual as her own, but he was over complicating her offer.

Audette forgot all about what she was supposed to be doing in that instant as he sneered patiently at her, coughing to clear her throat, "Uhhh, no, it's too cold. I'll see you afterwards, that's your chance and don't make me regret it."

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Draco faked a pout, "Aw, it's too cold? Keep your hair on you lunatic it's fucking September. I'm merely providing you with some proper decorum so you don't lose your mind later."

"Since when do you provide that?" now she really was suspicious, squinting at him and scrunching her nose. Draco was well known to carelessly decimate a girl's integrity, not preserve it. This had to be a trap.

She slowly turned her face back to Guy who had his fist balled up against his mouth a few meters back, puffing away with giggles at the look of consternation in her features.

Apparently this was going to be much easier than anticipated, or more likely it was just Malfoy acting narcissistic and manipulative.

Guy reached into his bag and produced a black feather quill, waving it through the air with a devilish gleam in his grin. He mouthed the word boyfriend.

Before she could even rotate back Draco shocked her by slipping his arm below her knees and sweeping her up off the ground, "I guess we're doing this the hard way."

Audette gasped and clawed for support, craning her neck in a painful contortion to process exactly where she was being taken.

Oh no, not the fountain.

How could she have been so naive?

In front of two dozen other students Draco Malfoy was about to dunk her in the slimy, central fountain that had not been drained in a century.

As he stepped up onto the lip of the architectural element she scrambled to wrap her arms as tightly as possible around his neck so that he wouldn't be able to drop her helplessly, "Malfoy! Put me down at once! This is not called for!"

Draco swayed ever so gently on the stone surface, the brick below his shoe scraping back and forth in it's loose mortar with the promise of disaster.

Students all around gasped and whispered, stopping what they were doing to watch the piercing assault in horror. Everyone that had been seated around the circular fountain scampered away from the spray radius.

Audette's Slytherin robes trailed into the mucky water as she fought to hang onto Draco's long hair, "I'll tell Snape if you get me wet. Cosmos - do something you blithering idiot!"

Cosmos unfortunately found the affair to be wonderfully cheeky. His jaw was hung down low and his hand pressed to his chest, "Do what? Take you away from the hunky boy? I don't think so, baby."

Draco smiled sweetly and blew his smoky breath into her face, "Come to my game."

With her nose bumping into his and her body quaking in fear that he would drop her she panted against his lips, "Fuck you. I said I'd see you later!" She frantically searched his striking eyes for any sign of humanity but it did not seem to be present, only freezing ice.

Draco made a satirical exclamation, letting her slip in a jolt nearly a foot in descension before bringing her back up, "Oh no! Audette watch out! The toads will get you!"

She screamed so loudly at the sudden adjustment to her elevation that the echo of her cries warbled all around the enclosed courtyard. People were cringing, but not even the Gryffindors tried to intervene. Harry Potter stood glued to the spot, his perfectly round glasses sparkling in the sun as he sympathetically pressed his lips into a thin line. Next to him Ronald Weasley was scratching his hair obliviously like a dog with fleas.

Unfortunately Draco was heading the dueling club and getting into a tiff with him ended only one way every time, and now he thought he was untouchable.

He howled when she visibly panicked, sporting impressive physical strength as his fingers dug into her body everywhere to reinstate her position in his arms.

Everything smelled fantastically expensive and musky as she scratched at the knockout Slytherin boy for her freedom.

It was hopeless. With her fingers deep in his white hair she breathed heavily in his ear, "Don't you dare drop me."

Draco hushed to her in a masculine, buttery voice, "Come to my game and sit in the front row, or I will drop you. And don't think I won't hunt you down later if you're missing. What's it going to be?"

"Fine, fine, I'll come just let me go you utter savage," Audette braced herself to be tossed regardless.

Draco kissed her cheek in a lightning strike peck, "Starts at six. Don't be late."

When her boots were back on level ground and he'd allowed her to slip away Audette practically took off running, leaping from the fountain ledge with her head shamefully dizzy and giddy.

Guy called out to Draco as he scuttled after his friend like the klutz that he was, "Wouldn't miss it for the world, Malfoy!"

"We are going to go, right?" Guy's face was lit up like a circus as they pushed through the lunchtime crowd, and Audette experienced an urge to poke out one of his eyeballs which were an adorable shade of bubblegum pink that day.

She stopped just inside the steel and wood double doors to the castle, spinning to bark at Guy, "Did you see what he just did? I'm so...how dare...I'm just..." Audette shook her fingers in front of herself to demonstrate with a visual the level of frustration occurring in her tiny body. She held up the skirt of her soiled robes, pointing to the trail of water she'd trickled down the hallway pavers.

"Flushed?" Guy pointed out instantly, evidently very pleased with what he'd witnessed, envious even. "I'm about flat-lined Audette, did he kiss you? I bet he tastes like every sin in the book. This year is turning out to be incredible so far. Oh no-"

Audette wasn't given a second to throw a fit - not even totally confident about her stance on the matter anyways - when Guy clapped his hand over his mouth. The way his eyebrows pointed together might indicate that a gigantic Acromantula was about to rip her head off from behind.

Audette turned reluctantly, her voice sulking with negative expectations, "Malfoy..."

He might've had a golden aura all around his body, Theodore Nott. He stood angelically illuminated in the rays of sun filtering in through stained glass windows framing the corridor. He had snuck up behind her so gracefully that Audette popped on the spot like a popcorn kernel.

Guy stupidly dropped all of his books including the compendium of Audette's texts that he was still awkwardly fumbling with. "Oh great heavens, you rotten peach! Come to pester the poor girl even more? Haven't you done enough?" Suddenly the pink in his eyes began to blacken into a dark red that by each degree grew scarier and scarier.

Theo's face twinged precariously, his eyes on the contrary such a shade of dark blue they reflected the sort of sorrow that the ocean presents on a stormy day.

Audette couldn't breathe, he was looking straight at her, his lips parting as he searched for words. Across his back he had his guitar strapped, probably just returning from a somber escape to the meadow next to the woods.

No longer invisible to the one boy she adored, Audette patted her fingers blindly onto Guy's face without looking, shushing him up in the process, "Ssshh."

Nott dragged his gaze all over her features, and she could see him analyzing her front pocket for a depression where Think-Think might be hanging on like a baby kangaroo to a mother's pouch. Thank god the teddy had not been with her that day or else he might've taken a lethal spill into the water during the fountain kerfuffle.

Nott spoke in a terse tone, his hands jammed into his trousers, "Don't...misread this. I only wanted to make sure you were alright. Malfoy, he can be...he can be masterfully insensitive."

His voice.

His strong Italian accent from spending all of his summers for eighteen years on the Tyrrhenian Sea; it was enchanting and scintillating, and melodic.

She fell into his chest out of pure instinct, tears prickling at her eyes as the cashmere fabric of his grey sweater drowned her senses, vividly reminding her of the good old days when he'd been devoted to her, "I miss you, I miss you so much."

Theodore expertly ignored her inappropriate affections.

"Cosmos, you should have known better then to encourage Malfoy like that. And you call yourself a friend to Audette. I've never liked you, you tacky little rat," Theo spat, scolding Guy sharply as Audette tenderly wrapped her arms around his waist.

Theo pet her hair with severed compassion which broke her heart all over again like she was a nameless object in a China shop. Love me back, please love me back, she whimpered in the safety of her mind, tugging on him like he was her last chance to get off a sinking ship. Might as well have been, and yet Theo was making his best effort to maintain a solid five inches of space between their bodies.

"I dare say," Audette heard Guy producing a gagging noise of indisputable illness, "You've split her universe into pieces. Don't you come at me, Nott. You're just jealous that Malfoy is replacing you. You took the chance that she would not move on when you left her to implode - no one to blame but your own barmy arse."

Audette pulled back when she felt Theodore harden into a block of ice. He was now fuming, his nostrils flaring just above the crown of her head, "I'm not jealous. Just because I wished to be single does not make me corrupt."

He shot his maudlin eyes downwards then, standing apart from her in a towering show of power, "Audette, I see Malfoy is harassing you. I only just caught the tail end of that vile display. Say the word and I'll break his face. I won't stand idly by and disregard your well being."

Theodore was a delicate and quixotic Slytherin boy, but murderous when required to be all the same. She didn't dare imagine what he'd do if she genuinely complained about her treatment.

She thought for a moment; this was the first time that he'd spoken to her in months. Her fingers were on his sleeves, his attention undivided pending her feedback, and his rich survey positively narcotic. A flood the volume of the Nile River pressurized behind her green eyes as she gazed into his face with gripe, taking into account that his consideration was only there because he felt threatened by another man.

She'd taken a bet, and it was worth pursuing a little longer if it would successfully serve to plague Theodore as it was so diligently doing that afternoon.

His comments from minutes earlier crushed her like a steamroller, "I'm not jealous. Just because I wished to be single does not make me corrupt..."

She might as well have been stabbed by a guilded sword straight through her chest.

Audette flashed her eyes offwards with her heart snapping like a branch under a boot once again, forcing dishonest words out of her mouth that she knew would better support her ultimate goals, "I don't want you to break his face. Guy is right, I'm going to the game for Malfoy. And you'd best off consider why."

She stepped back from Theodore who visibly grew perplexed. To her deep satisfaction a flash of insecurity was all she saw there in his sordid eyes, "You detest Malfoy, and the same to Quidditch. I don't believe my ears. Audette surely you recall the nature of his relationships with women, and you are not one of those indecent females."

"That's right, I haven't forgotten," she pawed away a tear that had embarrassingly begun to run down her cheek. "You said it yourself that I was fair game. Who's business is it of yours if I pursue new things?"

Theo's face crumpled, "I apologize that I said that, but I expected you'd reject all of those monsters. So you're scheming to sleep with Malfoy now? Is this out of spite? He will destroy you, and envy will not reinstate our status if that is your hopes. I beseech you to avoid irreversibly damaging your self concept before it is too late."

Guy slunk his arm around Audette's shoulders, "Go snog a Dugbog, Nott. Audette can date whoever she wants to now, and she doesn't need you slut shaming her in the background."

"Don't do this..." Theodore implored in a frail, protective voice, watching them collect their books from the shivering Hogwarts slabbing. "Stay away from him, Audette, little rose you don't know how cancerous he is."

Ignoring him, they turned around and headed off to the dungeons both in incredulity.

Guy had started to relax once again, shaking his dark blue head of curls back and forth in evolving excitement for the coming hours, "That felt fecking brilliant. It's already working out either way."

Audette walked like a toy soldier, plunking down each step to the freezing tundra of the dungeons in a devastating daze. In one hand she had a new boy toy; terrifying and nasty, and in the other she had an old flame; concerned and emancipated from her in every way.