After arguing with Pomphrey for her freedom over a chaotic thirty minutes, Audette was finally permitted to leave the infirmary in her scratchy white Hogwarts pajama set and issued recovery slippers.
She was set off encumbered by a slew of prescribed, glowing pink healing potions with instruction to consume them at specific intervals over the next three days, or else face nasty scars on her pretty shoulder from the blade wound, and her arm from the Acromantula fangs.
This was not desirable, as the medication would leave her droopy and dopey in her classes.
The descending journey down precarious moving staircases and dim hallways was not only awkward because Audette was forced to lean on Cosmos the entire way, weak and faint, but also because Filch - the stinky custodian of the castle - was allotted to transport all of the flowers, ferns and bulbs from her bedside down to the Slytherin dormitory.
Before even reaching the dungeonous common room the reek of marijuana burned their noses, as far away as the base of the first floor spiral staircase.
The second that Filch's stupid, clanky maintenance wagon filled with toppling flowers finished creating a maddening ruckus from the final tread he paused in revolt, his barbate, stubbled chin crinkling in a developing jeer, "Now what a skun-K...doin down 'ere?"
Add K to the list.
Yellowed eyes bulging he rotated statuesquely to frown sideways at poor Guy as if he were personally responsible, standing there adorably with flowers in his arms and sneezing in his onesie, "What you rapscallions been up to?"
When Guy did nothing but tut under his breath they bumbled on, Filch grinding his jaw and crinkling his nose from the odorous conditions in the damp stoney corridor. Audette was in equal incensory, not a fan of the drug herself and dreading just how rotton the common room was bound to be.
"Eeeeehhhh, 'bout as far I'm takin' ya. I ain't wanderin' in there agai-Nuh," Filch growled dismissively, spittle flying from his rancid teeth as he stopped the wagon full of black roses before the rocky Slytherin wall.
Fair enough.
The last time he'd bravely wandered into the Slytherin common room he'd been jinxed with a balloon-bobble charm and been left floating in the vaulted ceiling for over nine hours before being discovered by Snape.
Audette shuffled her slippered feet forward with timid power while pointing her hand at the wagon handle in the wake of Filch's scuttling departure, "Seeing as you are planning to sell those like lollies Cozzy it's your problem now."
She was covered in a cool sweat from the dreary amble down, still frail and now eager to climb into bed with her shockingly handsome boyfriend.
Even though it would be borrowing comfort from the next day and effectively delaying her recovery, she'd just as easily consume another bottle of Deville's Dram just to escape the misery of her injuries. Surely, if it did not take one thousand days to procure, the potion would be a universal cause of addiction, possibly preventing death to an unnatural degree.
"Gladly, as long as Malfoy doesn't fight me for them," Guy rubbed his hands together with a menacing grin, exchanging the beautiful obsidian bouquet Audette had arranged for herself to keep separately.
He was hoping to make a fortune off of hopeful boys approaching overly romanticized girls, who would be waiting around in droves for ball invitations. This was of course with a bottle of Fire Whiskey in mind for their next Hogsmeade weekend. It was an item of serious incapacitation that he'd never been able to afford independently outside of winning bets.
Audette shook her head, wincing through the pain in her brittle body, "I doubt very much that Malfoy would bother bickering with you over shorn posies, seeing as he's a billionaire of some mysterious design. I'm not sure why you'd rather put yourself through so much hassle - I will ask him for Fire Whiskey. He'd buy me an entire bar if I requested it."
Upon the utterance of the password the wall grated across into it's slender reveal, and Audette and Guy were bombarded by a thick cloud of white, dank vapours. The common room was essentially a glorified hot box, and the boyish sniggering and shouting within was astronomical.
Audette despised weed unfortunately, as it tended to do either one of two things to her fragile system; one - swell her social insecurity to the point where she grew horrifically shy and silent, or two - make her laugh obnoxiously for hours straight until she was physically uncomfortable and everyone was brutally annoyed with her.
She waved a hand through the stench, appalled by just how thick the accumulation was.
Through the haze she spotted that classic white hair which was shared by no other, surprised that Draco would dare to seat himself so close to the source of the narcotic storm within the room.
Adrian Pucey was actively dumping large quantities of the green leafy plant clippings directly into the never-ending viridian fireplace, which was exploding outwards and billowing inebriating smog.
Several of the older boys were shouting and cheering, throwing glass chalices into the hearth as well and acting encouragingly naughty. It was by sheer luck that Hogwarts was an institution built on magic and not logic, and without smoke detectors present the unholy acts remained unchecked.
Audette stood there squinting at Draco's behaviour, having wedged himself at the centre of a crowd of females, watching as he flirted brazenly with two sixth year Slytherins gushing over whatever story he was telling.
He raised an arm and wrapped it around Astoria Greengrass' shoulders, shaking her interactively in place, that same handsome grin that was supposed to belong solely to Audette being passed around like hot cakes to the girls.
All she could think of in that moment was two words; wandering eyes.
Vincent Crabbe finally noticed Audette crossing her arms, her nose twisting hatefully in the entrance to the room, and nodded his rotund head in her direction.
Draco spun around in the leather couch, a dashing smile etching across his slender face as if he were perfectly innocent before then abruptly jumping up and striding over.
Every pair of eyes trailed after him, the boys whispering brutishly. Several of the younger girls he'd been entertaining rolled their gazes and moaned loudly with displeasure, and Audette caught clippings of complaints such as,
Great, Righteous Rules is back.
It was fun while it lasted, you know how she is.
Even to this day no one can talk to Nott.
"Well, well, look who's wearing pants for the first time in her life," Draco started to snicker as he closed in on Audette's grouchy disapproval and an oblivious Guy with a barrel of garden waste. His blue eyes were noticeably tinged with red venation as he dropped them down her clinical outfit, "Showing off that tight arse to the whole school - I think I'd rather the Edwardian dresses."
Audette tossed the bouquet she was holding straight at his face, Draco just barely managing to raise his toned arms to deflect the mighty explosion of debris that resulted. The room ballooned with boyish laughter at the exhibit of rage.
Audette stomped her foot childishly, ignoring the hooting roiling across the common space from his spying acquaintances, "Don't you tight arse me. Treating me as if I've already expired, running about philandering behind my back. Now it makes perfect sense that you surrounded my bed with black roses like a bloody funeral!"
Draco shrugged off petals from his dark suit and silky hair, a crooked, stoned smirk defining his face as he reached forward both hands and grabbed her waist firmly, "Aw come now darling black is classy. Is that any manner to greet your doting boyfriend?"
Before she could protest he'd lifted her up in his arms, forcing her to wrap her limbs around him.
She glowered with a stubborn frown as he planted his hands on her backside to adjust her in place. Audette had no choice but to grip his long hair for support, "You mock me. Am I your girlfriend Draco? Because walking in just now might insinuate that you are quite single."
He raised his eyebrows at her, "Who me? The last I checked, I was proclaiming my upcoming engagement to you on a live sky tele."
The magical medicines in her tummy started to swirl around like a poorly brewed potion when she witnessed all of the younger girls giggling with devious gleams from the couches, "Then what could possibly be so entertaining to them? Put me down so that I may light someone's hair on fire as an example."
"Woah easy, you pyromaniac. The last thing this school needs is another Finnigan. Has Pomprey been putting hot sauce in your IV drip?" Draco squeezed her bum in the air playfully, craning his pretty face up to her, but something in his glinting smile was foreboding and wicked as if he was pleasantly enjoying her obvious edginess, "What's got your cauldron boiling? Greengrass specifically?"
Audette rolled her eyes, wishing she could tighten her arms around his neck further to imbue actual discomfort, "Each one of those rude harlots seems quite satisfied by your coquettish character in my absence. How am I to know if your flirtatiousness is a singular event and not a consistent happenstance every time I am gone?"
Wandering eyes.
Something between them had definitely shifted during her coma, that much was becoming more obvious by the second. The vibrations between them were electric in a heart-pounding sort of way - the same sort of vibrations that one felt unexpectedly coming across an ex at a house party.
The unease in her system dramatically inflated when he narrowed his eyes at her, and the mood they shared plummeted from off-putting, to blatantly astringent, "Riiiight. Because I've been known to pass around the word 'love' carelessly. The entire school is wholly aware that we are promised. You and I need to have a very real chat about trust and honesty as it is, Audette, so drop the attitude."
Okay, now her heart was ramming. Her blood stream felt like a nightclub; the beat far too rapid and overwhelming, pulsing hot and angrily just below the surface of her skin.
He'd been politely hiding it, but he was mad about her and Theodore's little blip in the infirmary; very, very mad.
And she was growing sorely high from the toxic environment.
His dalliance quickly faded even further to a horrendously hideous scowl when his flashy silver eyes landed on the crystal pink rose in her hair, "While we're on this topic, that's odd - I don't recall gifting you with anything the tone of swine."
Guy piped up without hesitation to save the day in the most disastrously unconvincing way possible, pointing his finger into the vaulted ceiling, "Ah! It was I, Lord Malfoy, who doth betrothed such a rarity!"
Audette shut her eyes in second-hand humility, a thin grimace pressing across her lips. Guy had evidently inhaled enough vapours to start acting like a freak.
When high on weed he was no better than her at controlling his oddities; typically breaking out into a creepy, mid-century English rhetoric that left people cringing.
"Mmmhmm," Lord Malfoy seemed quite suspicious, his blistering eyes developing into nerve-wracking slits, drilling down onto the youthfully dressed boy, "Very thoughtful of you Cosmos. I'm absolutely shocked at the lack of bubblegum glued to the stem - it's almost as if...it's not from you at all. Isn't that right?"
With that he reached up into Audette's hair and stole away the precious specimen, tossing it at poor Guy who stumbled backwards to collect it mid-air.
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Propping Audette athletically in his arms like a toddler needing to be carried, Draco flapped his hand dismissively, "Feel free to toss that one with all the rest. Bye bye, servant bear."
Audette waved goodbye to Guy over Draco's shoulder as she was carried against a cool stone wall, far away from the rest of the crowding Slytherins who were all shouting around the central marijuana bonfire.
Guy waved back, gesturing to his front pouch where he stowed Theodore's rose, although Audette was confident that the clipping would be in shambles later after being babysat by the well-meaning yet sloppy boy.
Draco placed her firmly on the lip of a large wooden table filled with skulls and dark purple pillar candles, running his hands up her thighs to squeeze her legs with a cool, confrontational glare on his face, "How are you feeling?"
He was so jaw-droppingly attractive - especially when irate - that Audette was temporarily speechless, lost in the rescinding, snapping ice within each of his arctic eyes. She swallowed nervously, blocking out the mean, glinting male stares in the background of the living room from her focus.
"All things considered...a bit sore and seasick, but...well, and on the mend," she whispered nervously, gripping her injured forearm subconsciously.
Draco snorted air out of his nose, hardly flinching any other portion of his face other than the corner of his right nostril.
"Then I am mildly satisfied. Our families paid for the best care available at this godforsaken academy. Ridiculous school would not release you to a private medical institution of actual standing," he fluttered his freezing eyes towards the ceiling in a dramatic eye roll, and when they returned to meet hers there was a deadly, hooded depth to them.
Their faces were so close it probably appeared that they were delicately kissing from a distance, but the truth could not be farther. He spoke again in a suave hum, this time with a frown on his lips that could be physically detected from their proximity alone, "Do you know why I'm upset with you Audette?"
The uninvited marijuana tickling her brain had Audette panicking and overthinking, and begging him for an escape. Her spine was tingling and firing from the fleeting snippets of intrusive glances coming from the main area, "Yes, I recognize what this is about now. Can we at least go to your bed and converse in private?"
He tsked under his breath, leaning in intimidatingly closer and pressing his nose into hers. Perfect strands of straight platinum hair just about covered those laser beams for eyes. She felt his hot, spicy breath against her lips, indicating he'd been recklessly drinking as usual, "No... Now, what is this about, Audette? I want brutal honesty from you. Say it."
His hands on her hips shook her lower spine on the shallow table, causing a rippling disruption and their foreheads to ping together.
She blinked drippingly at him, reaching out for his forearms, "Very well, straight to it. But please, not here - it's not ladylike to speak of such things in these settings. Let us talk it ov-"
"-No," Draco repeated curtly, in a warning, dark voice that reminded her of someone scolding a dog about to defecate on a priceless ivory carpet.
He slid back with his hands on the edges of her knees, his long fingers wrapping around to clutch below her knee caps. He turned his face away, his eyebrows flattening bitterly, "If we go to my bed before this has been discussed we will get derailed, I will get derailed, and I'll find myself strangling you in your sleep with absinthal drive. This week has marinated my fury, unfortunately."
"Malfoy! Ditch the witch, she's a chore!" Warrington called over the obnoxious music, leaning far around Draco's back to sneer at Audette.
"One second, fuck off!" Draco shouted back, turning his sharp jaw to the side by perhaps a maximum of fifteen degrees before returning to a destitute Audette.
One second?
She decided then and there that being ditched for a group of dastardly stoners was worse than actually addressing his contempt.
Audette placed her hands delicately on his chest, first running her nails up to his collar to play with it before resorting to tugging his tie in place. She did not dare to peel her itchy eyes away from the Slytherin pin located dead centre on the luxury fabric, "Theodore, and the infirmary. It's about that. I empathize...I expect you've been pondering over my indecency the last nine days without any relief, and his stubborn visitations can't have helped."
He balled up his right fist and slammed it on the table next to her thigh, resulting in one helpless painted human skull bouncing so hard that it's jaw broke and it landed with an eerie jutting mouth.
The dam of his patience had burst.
"It's about everything revolving around both infidelities, not just the acts themselves. What is the issue is the severity of each infraction and the disproportionate penalties. Do you have any idea the connections I had to annihilate?" Draco spat down at her.
His heated breaths blew her hair around on her forehead wildly, not leaving her a second to respond as he spoke at the speed of light.
Audette winced from the proximity of his teeth to her eyes, certain on some idiotic level that he was going to take a bite out of her forehead on purpose, "It's about you lying continuously that you had graduated from your affections for Nott. You promised me before I dedicated myself to you that he was forgotten. It's about five fucking weeks of you torturing me for my one-second, meaningless mistake, whilst you were carrying around the exact same one, with emotional cheating attached!"
She shuddered as he exploded like a pipe bomb and raised an arm to swipe all of the loose objects from the table; bones, goblets, and troll earwax candles soared, accompanied by an unaccounted for voodoo doll of sorts with brittle sticks for limbs.
He returned his hands to shake them furiously only inches from her cheeks, growling in his throat as if contemplating detaching her head from her spine like a cherry from it's stem, "That cave night was broadcast to the whole fucking school, Audette."
The room had gone menacingly silent, whereas each and every snoopy Slytherin was struggling not to snicker cruelly. No one was masking their interest or attempted eavesdropping, although it was her impression the bicker remained mostly vague and inaudible outside of a three meter radius.
As if that would save anything - if what he was saying held any merit. Theodore Nott had gotten the better of Draco Malfoy by publicly poking a pin through the sanctity of their relationship, treating it like an overfilled plastic balloon waiting for the simplest of influences to pop.
Audette shut her eyes to instinctively bury her face in his dress shirt and hug his slender waist. She whispered desperately, turning her face to the side on his warm chest, "My stomach is filled with thorny knots and rotting guilt. You're completely correct to feel as you do. I have truly let myself, and our relationship, down. I felt scorned in the moment, I-I was not thinking clearly. I thought perhaps you'd taken Anastasia to bed-"
"-Look at me, you fucking coward," he barked at her, prying her hands and body backwards.
Guy was now sitting square in his garden on wheels, his socked paw slippers hanging over the edge whilst peeking out between the ferns with tremendous pity. His face was contorting with so much cringe that it only made Audette feel even more humiliated.
She hung her head back with a huge pout, her heart snapping like a twig when she saw the chemical scald in Draco's eyes and the lion-like wrinkles on his pointy nose.
He's dumping me, it's a public execution and he's dumping me for all to witness the beheading, she thought in breathtaking agony, starting to gasp through messy tears.
It was just then she realized that for months she'd brazenly taken his uninterrupted endearment for granted. In fact, it was a pretty solid pattern - she'd taken eight years of his endearment for granted.
She'd been so lucky to have him first - all to herself and with the promise of engagement - only to squander it on an indecisive, non-committing ex-boyfriend who spoke in flattering riddles about his true intentions.
She tried to formulate words but all that came out was more pitiful sobs.
"Stop fucking weeping and face me like an adult, Audette. I refuse to speak with you when you're bawling infantilantly," Draco mercilessly gripped her wrists even tighter, shaking her hands to snap her out of it, "If I were terminating my relationship with you, then you can guarantee I would not have sent fucking flowers to the infirmary."
"Do you seek to terrorize me then? If I might change the past, then I would," Audette took a deep breath in to qualm her fearful panting.
Healing potions and marijuana did not mix well, so it turned out to be. What a splendiferous instant to be doped up in several different, converging altered states of mind.
"You should be terrified, moreso than I was. You lied for weeks. I was upfront," he hissed back, his eyes livid and concentrated on hers, "Being a boyfriend may be new territory for me, but thankfully, due to your unfair employment of penance we know the punishment that fits this crime."
Audette bit her lower lip in morbid dread, "You plan to do what precisely? Not speak with me for five weeks?"
Draco dropped her burning wrists to rub at one of his eyes with a closed fist, letting slip a few stiff laughs through his teeth; the kind of tittering that only people who are careening into madness in disbelief of their circumstances do, "Certainly not, that would be far too easy for you."
Audette's already tiny voice was but a squeak as she tickled her fingers down his chest once more, nervous anticipation promising to make things worse by ensuing a hurling scenario, "Then what? Draco it was a mistake, you have my word."
Just then an antagonistic singsong began to chime from the boys near the hearth, "Aud-ette Bell-arose - she'll make you sweat through fits she throws! Invite her to bed, and all you'll get, is corsets, ribbons and bows! Malfoy's prude in flannelette, warding off the hoes!"
Pucey slapped his leg by the flames, "And her superpower is knocking vixens out with unsuspecting para-sols!"
The roaring calamity was unparalleled. Even the shyest Hufflepuffs who sometimes collected on the sidelines of the Slytherins were giggling.
How long had the boys been practicing that minging bit?
Audette thought back to her ostrich instinct, but sadly the floors were all comprised of thickly carved stone slabs that would not permit the burying of one's head.
Draco shut his eyes and breathed heavily, crossing his arms and failing to defend Audette due to his own crippling enmity, "The way I see it you have two choices. My preferred - we get this over with quickly through a thorough explanation of your transgressions with Nott and any lingering feelings you may have for him, in his company. You can say it to both of our faces how you truly feel, and that way you can pick like a dog who to go home with."
Audette gaped. Her nightmare had apparently followed her from the infirmary down to the dungeons like an obsessive apparition on her back.
No way - not even if the sun had just exploded and she had seven minutes left before the Earth evolved into a freezing hell ball would she be able to choose directly in their audience. It would require that she lie to one of them point blank and claim not to care, when in fact she cared for both boys.
"No? That's what I thought," Draco bared his immaculate teeth at her, his nose pulled tightly in a resentful sneer, "Option two; I'll drop it on the promise you will not see him again but with very little resolution for myself, and as a result you may select your five brutal weeks. What's it going to be Audette?"
Audette forced herself to catch her breath and hold it, hiding away behind her eyelids, but the green flickering flames all around the room continued to echo photometrically there, reminding her of where she was trapped.
"What...what do you mean by five brutal weeks?" she heaved in the largest breaths her lungs would permit, her hand over her tummy where nausea was riling unforgivably.
His masculine voice flooded her ringing ears, "It's simple; I'm not going to stop speaking to you, I'm not going to cheat on you, nor will I threaten to leave you at any point. But for five weeks you can hold your prissy tongue and that jealous freakshow you put on every time a girl flirts with me in a conversation. Give me a break from bending my fucking personality to appease your insecurity."
Oh no.
Audette was suddenly a Sim character in her own body, shocked by herself when she opened her eyes and slapped him hard as hell across the cheek.
If he was going to allow girls to hit on him again it wouldn't be long before a school-wide frenzy broke out and girls flocked in droves to contest with Audette, whom they would assume had lost all control over the hotshot champion.
That was the defensive rationale at the time of the smack, but she quickly fizzled out and brought both her hands to her mouth in dread.
Surely she'd lost him. He was gone, surely.
"Ooooohoohooohoooo," Montague whooped in an excitable bassy tone from the leather couches.
Draco just stood there in his slim suit with his eyes shut and his jaw grinding, silky platinum hair arched across his forehead, his cheek growing pinker and pinker by the second.
Yep. He was planning her death behind those long lashes, and where to bury the murder evidence.
Finally after a gruelling stint he opened his fiery orbs and placed a hand on the table with such precision it could've been confused as animatronic, leaning into her once more.
All she could see was a predator.
No trace of the Draco Malfoy she knew was on the surface of his skin in that moment. Even his typically silver eyes were blackening like a wolf about to pounce from the shadows and shred a fluffy bunny rabbit.
His other hand raised a finger nail at her left eyeball, each word from his lips gritty and biting, "You will rue the ungrateful thought that led you to that violent decision, Audette."
He swung his nail backwards then, swift like a blade through the air to point at the boy's dorm entrance. He shouted at the top of his lungs into her pleading expression, causing multiple spectator's eyes to widen, "Consider this your last chance to right this wrong. Get in my fucking bed, right now, before I take back my sensationally generous offer, and I will deal with you later when I'm done down here. Or go to your own bed, and see how much more livid I am in the morning."
He didn't bother to give her any space to wriggle free from the table which only heightened the heat flooding her cheeks as they pressed flat against one another.
She nodded and took off, past Guy in his flowery wagon who tried to pet her arm on the way, past all of the snickering worms occupying the common room, and towards the winding rock stairs.
She had only just stepped onto the first run when a comment from Astoria Greengrass stopped her in place, "Good riddance. She's so weak and pathetic. Let's have a round of spin the bottle now that Malfoy is free to play."
Audette had had enough. She was high, she was stressed, she was on the verge of puking, and now she was fucking pissed.
She stepped back and raised her arm, wandlessly commanding a hot fire poker by Adrian's ankle to spin and fling at the speed of light just barely past Astoria's face. It landed like a sword straight into a painting of a knight in rusty armour who rasped in outrage when the blade of the poker grazed his armored leg.
It had also grazed Astoria's cheek exactly how Audette had intended it to, leaving a painful scrape where blood was now dripping down her flawless skin.
"What the fuck Audette, what did I just tell you?" Draco's eyebrows had disappeared into his hair, his eyes wide and shocked, clearly having been of the impression that Audette did not possess such insane abilities.
He'd forgotten that she was the daughter of Montgomery Bellarose, one of the most famous Irish wizards in history.
The room was silent as a graveyard.
Audette narrowed her gaze on Astoria who stood with tears in her eyes, her hand over the burning cut on her face, "If you dare challenge me for my boyfriend, next time I won't miss."
She spun with her nose in the air, stomping up the stairs like a murderous little psychopath. There was a very good reason no one dared to speak to Theodore Nott flirtatiously, and if they thought it was going to be any different with Draco Malfoy they were out of their bloody minds.
If she had to make it through five weeks without any further reaction, she'd might as well instill a warning terror beforehand.