With the clock tower chiming throughout the vertical stairway artery, Audette and Guy made their way back to the western staircase.

Although it was a race to return to the safety of the dormitory without getting caught, they were forced to pause often to avoid Audette fainting from the panic attack overcoming her nervous system, her body shaking violently.

For the lengthy journey Guy had facilitated her pace with his arm below hers, frequently insisting that it couldn't possibly be true that they were knee deep in a social circle of Death Eaters, "Snape, well yeah he's been accused and acquitted before. So has Mr. Malfoy, accused and acquitted. Proves nothing. Blimey, it's the type of modern accusation on par with medieval witch burnings; you don't like a bloke, you accuse him of being a Death Eater. And Nott is too rainy and reticent. Even Malfoy is a sodding sap underneath. No one's even seen the dark lord in over a decade. I just don't believe it, this is something else."

Silent and pensive for once in her life, Audette couldn't bare to reflect out loud what was occupying her thoughts.

As if magnetized, hundreds of bizarre happenstances and memories across her entire eighteen years on the planet were snapping together, and the puzzle was a gigantic green skull with a snake pouring from it's mouth.

After returning back to the dorms Audette left Cosmos to go and retch in the female lavatory, before putting herself to bed in her day dress and knee length socks, too shocked and horrified to undress properly.

She simply laid there; a bystander to a mental battle of sheer disbelief and denial attempting to wishfully override concrete facts and logic.

T-T clawed at her face and crawled all over her chest, telepathically reading her rapid thoughts and desperate to input, but her jaw had been sown shut by an invisible demon.

Even the screeching of fighting Grindylows in the ominous lake outside of her porthole could not tear her away from a state of concentrated shock.

Eventually she passed out after staring through the darkness at where her forest-green canopy aught to be, the colors of the velvet obscured by shadows.

When she awoke it was quick as a snap.

Her eyes popped open to a volatile heart rate.

Green lantern light was flooding in through one section of her curtains which had been drawn open.

Draco had clearly been swayed by the events of the evening, showing up regardless of his earlier prideful claims.

He had sat on the side of her bed with his knees bouncing and his head balanced in his hands, just about vanishing from sight in his black suit. She could faintly see that he was pulling at his platinum bangs repeatedly, oozing waves of stress outwards from his form.

Audette watched from her pillow with puffy eyes the boy she had come to love so deeply. His presence, while quiet and detached, was producing an unfathomable ache in her heart already, perhaps a droplet of unsettling fear as well...

Once in Italy, Theodore had stopped Audette before she plucked a shockingly beautiful flower, warning her that some of the most awestriking entities on the planet were in fact the most poisonous, designed with eye-catching features to draw in dazzled victims.

Little did he know, he would soon become a perfect exemplification.

It was as though an evil that had been clinging to Draco all along was miraculously visible, presenting like a red aura around his body and causing an impending feeling of doom in her chest.

As his sleek silhouette moved in graceful shifts she saw him in a new light; fierce, intelligent, powerful, dangerous...really dangerous.

Dangerous enough to sense being watched without needing to even use his eyes.

He suddenly stiffened and caught his exasperated breath, rotating his narrow gaze to her restrained observation in the darkness.

Noticing she was awake he glanced away back down at his hands in his lap, and in a dull voice he whispered, "I came to apologize."

Apologize, only because you realize you may lose me to a time turner? She couldn't help thinking bitterly. If Theodore Nott hadn't revealed that he was building a unique time turner that night, would Draco even have come?

She arrived at the conclusion that no he would not - that instead their nonsensical power tripping would've gone on for a while yet before someone caved. Now it was all so childish.

Apologizing for the tattoo mistake was so infinitesimal compared to everything else she had learned of which not only required an apology, but a thorough explanation, that Audette couldn't bring herself to speak yet again.

She sat up in her bed against the meager wooden headboard, cradling her Consciaur and frowning at him with wide green eyes.

He watched her sideways before shifting closer to face her, running his fingers down her arm, "I apologize for a lack of forethought in the cellar. I will pay her to remove it if I must."

Speechless, she was absolutely speechless, taking in each feature on his pointy pretty face. Poisonous.

Was it too late? She had already plucked the deadly flower, the toxin was already in her system, coursing through her heart and veins with no antidote in sight.

"Well say something," he hardened impatiently, scanning her like a laser with increasing intensity. He trailed his fingers up her arm and swirled them under her chin, boring his striking eyes into hers, "Is my humility not what you desired tonight? Why do I sense a strong energy shift from you?"

Audette nodded solemnly, opening her jaw to stretch out tension from clenching while placing her Consciaur back into his plushy.

She took deep, dreadful breaths, and although it was unadvisable she could not help herself at the genuine melancholy in his eyes. She slid her arms around his neck and pulled him in for a loose hug which he instantly altered into a very tight one.

She felt his hands running up her back, his face nuzzling deep into her messy locks, and they swayed there for a minute or so. He could not see it, but over his shoulder Audette's face was twitching with fright as she pet his long white hair, her eyes large and faraway.

In love with a monster.

"What is wrong? Why aren't you speaking to me? Audette I need to know, I'm...on edge as it is," Draco hushed hot breath into her ear, his sweaty hands gripping fistfuls of her hair. Against her chest his heart was raging in his rib cage as though he'd just ran a marathon.

He tried to pull back but she tightened her python grip so she would not have to face him, plastering her cheek against his. Her eyes fell towards his silky hair as she formulated a breathless sentence, "Do you...have anything...you need to tell me about your life at home, Draco?"

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His voice came out clipped, growing still in her hold, "What exactly do you think you know about my life at home?"

"Nothing," Audette whispered forlornly as a tear rolled down her cheek.

At this he managed to pry her off, holding her face in both hands sternly. For a moment she was certain he was about to enforce Legilimency on her as he keenly observed her cold expression, glaring directly into her eyes for answers to what she might know.

In that regard there was no need to say aloud what she was privy to - an unspoken, horrifying understanding channeled between them in the shadows.

She cast her focus down and to the side, where his sleeve was in her vision, daring to say the one line which would remove any lingering traces of confusion between them, "Show me your left arm, Draco."

His fingers were moist and shaky as he detached from her skull and slid back away from her, panting down at her comforter. He sat still there as a statue for what felt like eons, waves of understanding and hesitation rippling across his features.

Rigid lines formed and deepened between his eyebrows when he finally unbuttoned his suit and peeled back each layer of his clothing, showing off a clean expanse with nothing but the base of his ritzy watch and the strong tendons dancing in his forearm like guitar strings.

Blank, pearly skin, muscles, and nothing more.

But magic was a funny thing.

Magic could camouflage things from plain sight; Nargles, doorways in a castle, people with buckets on their feet...

Dark Marks.

He raised his eyes to hers gradually, but his chin was trembling and his reaction was all she needed to see. The guilty anguish in his gaze translated a direct message, You know, but I won't show you.

Audette snagged her wand and cast Revelio in a heartbeat before he could slink away. But again, nothing save for a blank canvas.

"What are you looking for?" he spoke through a tight throat, swallowing constantly.

Blinking became a forgotten necessity as she refused to break contact for even that fraction of a second, "Honesty."

"There is nothing that I can tell you tonight which will satisfy you," Draco stared right back, exacting incredible self control.

Audette turned her attention away and allowed a thick curtain of blond waves to tumble down her chest and divide their connection. He shifted back up against her and wrapped his arm around the base of her spine, his face only inches away as he waited for her to make the next move.

There was no move to make; he was as barricaded behind whatever commitments he'd made to maintain total secrecy as before, but the tiny little spurts of air jetting from his nose suggested he was anxious.

As she chipped nail polish from her fingers onto the blanket, disheartened and lost in the pain of what she might have to do, she felt his fingers guide up her spine and wrap around her hair to tuck it back.

After a moment he pushed his forehead against hers, raising his eyebrows gently to stare at an angle into her eyes, "Have you been spying on me, Audette?"

Oh yes, and you have been wicked and dishonest, she thought internally, and now the sadness was beginning to evolve into betrayal and resentment.

It would not take a high intelligence quota to determine why her energy had shifted so enthusiastically in the hours between the ornament fiasco and then, especially seeing as he knew she'd been missing for an extended period.

From his plushy nest nearby, Think-Think was paws-up on the ridge of the enclosure, squeaking in his bear voice repeatedly, "We should consult those in a familiar setting with the power to provide answers that the boy cannot."

"I'm leaving," Audette took the advice and abruptly blurted out without warning or heed for Draco's question, shutting her eyes away.

For once, she would call upon her father's influence to get exactly what she wanted at Hogwarts; an out.

"Don't be rash," he wrapped both arms around her as if he could act like a human cage to trap her there. His hot breath spewed all over her face as he spoke, "Whatever you have heard or seen, someday-"

"-No, not someday. Now," Audette griped, turning her nose into his aggressively, "I will pen my remaining exams tomorrow, all of them, then I am returning to Castle Bellarose. I shall confront my father seeing as you are sanctioned by some outside force."

"Confront Montgomery about what?" Draco's cerulean eyes bulged, seeming to put two and two together that Audette had identified her father as well. In all fairness, confronting Montgomery was a suicide mission.

"Don't act ignorant, you know precisely what. Now I am going to bed, if there is even a hope of any shut eye," she dismissively stated, flopping into her flat pillow with a deadpan glare and crossed arms.

In his crib T-T sat back with satisfaction for his participation, also crossing his stubby arms in an approving humph.

Draco's day had been just as tumultuous, and he seemed to be paralyzed from exhaustion. Perhaps he was replaying all of the awful things he'd said to Theodore Nott, imaging her listening and discovering that his dark side delved a lot deeper below the surface of the water than he'd let on.

He fiddled with her bedding before wincing at her, "When are you planning to return? I will be reprimanded if I fail to escort you to and from each castle. I hardly have time as it is."

"Well I wish to burden my formal intended no further, I shall call upon a governess to attend the trip," Audette snarkily waved a hand into the air.

Draco bounced his shoulders and glanced away in the direction where Millicent Bulstrode was talking a load of nonsense in her sleep, "Very well. Even so, you are to provide me with information. I'm contractually obligated to dance at this ball's opening with a partner, and I wouldn't dream of seeking a replacement unless you intend to abandon your agreement."

The ball was rapidly approaching in two weeks, but she had no idea where her head would be at by then. It was contingent upon what she discovered at home, and a period of time to clear her perspective, "If I decide to abandon you then I shall write in advance of the date, however I have complete confidence there will be a lineup as long as the country once your availability is advertised."

"If it is advertised," Draco corrected her with an ugly frown that felt threatening even though he was in no position to bargain.

"Well goodnight then. May the bed bugs not only bite you, but eat you whole, bones and all, and any mystery tattoos I have yet to discover as well," Audette sarcastically remarked in a pippy little voice, smiling at him like an insidious circus clown.

He just stared at her, the frown retaining it's shape on his fluffy lips, and Audette kicked him hard in the thigh below the covers, "Shoo, off with you, lying, evil bastard."

He finally stood, but instead of swiftly exiting he ripped off his jacket.

Audette sat up in discord when the heavy fabric hit the hardwood and he went on to his tie, "Did I ask you to perform a strip tease?"

"Sure, if that is your wish, but I am sleeping with my girlfriend. As you poignantly advised, the longer you are left to quote 'fester' the angrier you shall get," he said. His belt fell, and as he unbuttoned his pants she watched with her mouth wide open in appall.

Once in his boxers he scratched out his long hair into a shaggy mess and pulled half of his shirt buttons down, confident enough not to care if any of the other girls were drooling over his lack of decency.

Of the vivid impression that he was sleeping with her due to the looming time turner terror, she rotated on her side to face away from the handsome devil when he slid under the comforter and laid on his back.

The curtains shut, and the darkness was overwhelming.

It was the sort of violating black behind those curtains that she would never get used to, shifting her open eyes in every direction only to be met my by a monochromatic void. It was impossible to close them knowing he was right behind her, his knuckles pressing into her backside, his breathing masculine and loud.

His cologne was everywhere, and Audette was convinced it was soaking straight into her brain and making her crazy.

Bad boys...bad boys would be the death of her.

He tickled her bum with the back of his nails so delicately it might've been an imaginary itch.

"I love you. Please bare that in mind while you are in retreat," he whispered softly in his gorgeous dark lilt that sent bundles of electricity up her spine. She heard him shift his other hand over his face and release pent up air through tight lips, "I'm haunted. I'm haunted that we will recede into friendship due to factors beyond my control."

The part of her that was hopelessly head over heels had expected him to instantly cuddle, but he was playing his cards well by leaving her be, only increasing her irrational desire to turn over and seek physical affection.

When the tension continued to balloon she instead raised her leg and kicked him hard a second time, mortified that she was falling for his words quite easily.

"Well you're in luck if this fails; try strangers. Get out of my bed," Audette snapped, kicking him a third time.

"Oh shove off already, Malfoy!" Daphne growled in her corner bunk, followed by the sound of a pillow being flattened over her hair. She screamed something else indeterminate into her pillow that was directed at Millicent, who was blathering on about spaghetti trees in the next berth.

When he refused to adhere to the demand Audette rolled over and balled up her small fist, pounding it multiple times into the center of his unbuttoned dress shirt. Regrettably he was fit and took the blows well, in fact not bothering to defend himself at all.

Audette breathed over him for a few seconds without remorse, lifting her fist for one more hearty bang, before he daringly brought his arms over her shoulders and pulled her down by a vice grip. He formed himself into a human straight jacket and coddled her in place until she was too weak to fight him off.

Fuming she caved to his weight and buried her face in his neck, but her pulse was pounding like a jack hammer in her throat. For the next hour as she tried to sleep in his company she couldn't shake the concept that she was sleeping in the coils of a possible Death Eater.