"Psssttt! Psssst! Dettttty, something's the matter with meeeeheehee..."

The reek of Guy Cosmos' candy-infused sleep breath caused Audette to gag, rolling over in her Hogwarts bedding to find that he'd squirrelled his way next to her below the crested comforter.

His sweaty bare toes were all curled up in her night slip like a monkey to a branch, and he was oozing moist exhales into her braids.

She gave him a hard whack across his forehead, although the defensive attack might've landed just about anywhere given the soul-sucking blackness occurring behind her ancient velvety partition, "Get out of my bed you slimy toad - we'll review whatever this is in the morning."

He burped in the shadows, and for a moment Audette froze in horror that he might be seconds away from hurling all over the single pillow they were inconveniently sharing, "It issss the morning. I've just had the most vivid of dreams and it's far too much to handle. And the nerve of Daphne, who is at this very moment crashing in my bunk-"

"As if I would repose in your odorous bunk!" her groggy voice cracked across the eighth floor dormitory, much like an unpleasant roll of thunder preceding a lightning strike, "You have always been in the center of the room."

"I have noo-hhoo-oot. I moved to that corner this year, you parasite," Guy whined theatrically, returning to bury his runny nose in Audette's shoulder.

He began to pat his sticky fingers all over her face as if to confirm her nose hadn't vanished overnight, "I had the most marvelous dream of this gorgeous Parisian boyfriend, and now my tummy is sick because he's all in my head."

Daphne snapped like a twig somewhere out in the angular room. Lightning had struck, "Your bunk remains firmly in the middle, you have no boyfriend of any sort, and once again you've depleted my chances of achieving a droplet of rest!"

This wasn't true; she'd been snoozing soundly since seven the evening prior.

Guy hissed from the uninvited safety of Audette's berth, "Have you ever thought of auditioning for the role of Sleeping Beauty's evil twin? You'd be bloody stupendous."

"Will you stop riling her? You know better than to interrupt one of her comas," Audette mashed her palms against her eyelids, silently praying the mania would end there, but of course not.

It sounded as though each of the five pillows Daphne tended to pack herself in with were strewn in a fit of rage, before the lid of her trunk thwacked aggressively against her bed posts, "You might audition for all Seven Dwarves. All you do is snore, sneeze, complain, and break biohazardous wind in this regretful cave."

"That's four - four dwarves and a flunking arithmancy grade," Guy jabbed in petty play.

Nothing was safe from Daphne once she went into one of her legendary tizzies - especially their sloppy, noisy, shape-shifting gay roommate who was typically responsible for driving her into them.

A metallic scrape pierced the air as she searched for things of his to punish, "And this bubba...bubblaboo... blasted bubble equipment is taking up half of our changing mirror station!"

"Bubbleology is a sacred art form! Saint Nicholas is a Bubbleologist, and he's one of the most famous wizards alive!" Guy sat straight up to stick his nose out the curtain slit, and at this point Audette also sat up in dreary defeat.

"Piss off," Daphne went on and on in classic Greengrass hubris, kicking at inanimate objects including the etch-N-sketch Guy tended to play with until four in the morning. The gizmo released a whooshing confirmation that his latest artwork had been thoroughly erased with the hostile projection.

Pansy tittered distastefully in the opposite corner as Daphne's upset with Guy soared to new heights, along with her pitch, "That's your hero? That lazy lard arse with the house elf sweatshop? He exposes himself to muggles in exchange for biscuits. Biscuits! And there's a sea of socks scattered here like soiled banana peels. I'll say it again: you belong back with the menfolk. I mean it Cosmos, I'll pluck out your tinted eyelashes if you wake me one more time."

Audette slid across her curtains, leaning in a heavy slouch. Guy would be without eyelashes in a matter of days, if that was the case.

She planted her toes on the floor, sucking in deep breaths of smoky wood from the central fireplace, and was astonished to find that she too felt out of sorts upon pulling open her bedside drawer.

How utterly peculiar.

She rummaged amongst the foreign feminine possessions as disassociation skyrocketed.

Had she...no wait...was this her bedside drawer?

Had she not kept some collection of moving photographs...?

Photographs of what?

"Oh my heavens," a nasty headache split across her forehead as she failed to recognize a multitude of supposedly personal items.

She reached her left hand up to rub it out, and to her initial surprise found there on her finger was sat a striking beryl diamond reflecting the dim firelit.

Of course...

It was her engagement ring, gifted to her by Theodore Nott on the most incredible of spring days earlier that year.

The cherry blossoms had been lush and in full bloom on his family's English estate that sunny afternoon, dancing enchantingly in the sweet wind. Then time had slowed to a standstill as he'd knelt on the cobbled stones of the arched pond bridge and decorously asked for her hand.

She'd been hoping and praying for years that Slytherin's darkest genius might pop the question and seal their romantic fate. Naturally, it had been the happiest day of her life.

Yes...the happiest...

White gold stones framing the emerald cut diamond glittered at her eyes in comely grace, prompting her to wonder exactly why this precious memory suddenly felt fraudulent.

Guy frowned at her weariness, proceeding to whomp one of Audette's satiny pillows flat onto his face. She could just hear his muffled bellyaching beneath, "You're equally as discombobulated. Oh, I could just...implode."

They dressed in a strange and tense silence, then made their way down to the Great Hall like a pack of hungover dummies.

Audette had not mentioned it, but she was worried about Guy's detailed concerns. For the entire climb up he went on and on about how the universal energy smelled rottenly askew, and given his incredible sensitivity to matters rooted in divination he could very well be spot on.

Guy was Professor Trelawny's favorite student, ever, she'd so proudly proclaimed, convinced that he might perhaps be a greater seer than herself.

Not that Guy had asked for this ability, viewing it as a living nightmare at times.

It certainly explained his constant whining, as literally anything and everything prickled his oracular empathy, and that morning he was in full tears over such nuisances as his bunk orientation in their dormitory.

Within moments of leaving the Slytherin wall behind, he then accused a torch of being mounted in the wrong spot on a passing pillar, as if the rotted stump could care any less where it was pinned up to degrade for the rest of eternity.

When the popular Gryffindor ghost Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington flew past them bouncing his head jovially in the crook of his arm, Guy practically wailed at him, "How did you ever manage it? To finally remove your head post-mortem?"

The specter had spun in kind banter, "Why I've always been headless young snickety snake, it's one of my finer features! The fastest beheading in all of history, so they say. Some claim my skull came from it's mount before the axe bore down, however those accounts are half a century aged, ergo there's no dispute to be had! The fastest indeed."

Guy had sputtered, "But...but that's a glaring falsity, it took forty-five hacks to split your thick spine and it still was not sufficient! That's why they call you nearly headless!"

"Nearly headless...How unfathomably surly," was all Sir Nicholas could muster in depreciation before gliding away, perfectly headless and definitely insulted.

Pansy raised her eyebrows as soon as they passed through the double doors, "I'm not sure what you are on about Cosmos, but the stink does seem to have globalized."

Quite right: the bizarre ennui was absolutely rife within the castle walls, clinging to each surface like a poisonous vapor that was malodorous not solely to the nostrils of Guy.

The vast majority of magically prone residents were sporting similarly befuddled expressions as they navigated around chomping Hallows Eve pumpkins and spooky fuming green drinks dotted with bobbling eyeballs.

Overhead the enchanted ceiling was releasing colorful oak leaves of tan, rhubarb, amber and clementine tones in a showy waterfall. And of course in witchy festivity, the odd spider here and there hung down from the dark storm clouds by an unnaturally long string to land itself in some unfortunate pedestrian's hat.

Audette overheard one Beauxbatons champion remark to another, scratching at his chin, "I was of de impression dat eet 'ad already snowed...ages ago...but zis is décor for de autumn, non?"

Yes - was it really October? Had it not already been October?

The recently kicked off Quadrivial Tournament ensured that the megalithic gathering space continued to jampack mercilessly on the daily, as such arriving even a few minutes past the commencement of any meal hour generally resulted in a furious struggle to allocate reasonable seating.

While there was only five of them it was proving to be as consistent a hassle as ever, and Audette couldn't help peering absentmindedly around the commotion for Theodore.

Pansy tugged her towards the front of the room, and she turned her nose up immediately upon realizing their destination, "Oh good gracious, surely we're not contending for a spot on the same vine as those barbarians."

The monolithic Slytherin table had been gobbled up by all of the serpentine residents themselves, joined by a smattering of invasive Erenholl faculty members, leaving the only gap available being that of the great divide between the Durmstrang students and everyone else.

That great divide existed for good reason.

Those terrifying northerly witches and wizards in striking red suits partook in liquor at all hours, swore incessantly, stabbed at the fine wood of the monolithic table with gut-piercing knives, and even tended to invite their gigantic carnivorous cat to feast on the runner as a chew toy.

Pansy - who alternatively celebrated the Russian champions for their brutish charms - rolled her eyes at Audette, ripping her down onto the bench by the elbow of her cerulean Victorian gown, "Clutch away at your pearls, Mrs. Grundy. Haven't you any other personality traits aside from the attributes of a cactus?"

Audette scrunched up her nose. Why of course she did; she was strongminded, motherly, independent, creative, humorous, and powerful.

Then the scrunch relaxed itself, and drooped into a full frown. No...no that wasn't accurate at all.

What a silly and erroneous list. Perhaps in another dimension...

A sinking feeling oozed over her then, sending her into a mild stupor as she prodded a golden fork into a pile of eggs over and over.

Try genteel, complaisant, insipidly devoid...deceased...

Yes, perhaps there was nothing more to her than a fine woman of the court afterall; a Fabergé egg - perfectly decorated on the outside, and hollow as log on the inside. She was a fragile collectible of which had recently sold for an ungodly sum, best kept behind a glass cage for others to gawk at.

It was rather rowdy during that troubling breakfast, and that was a mannerly way to put it; several bearded and vulgar boys directly next to Audette apparently knew of no other volume setting aside from 'street riot'.

She had to continuously pile up cloth napkins to barricade against derelict spillage from their tankards, and more than twice poor weepy Guy took a random knock to the nose from the snow leopard's flickering tail.

She raised her head once more in distress to seek out her tardy fiancée, only to run straight into a pair of unbelievably icy orbs which sucked her downtrodden soul straight out of her chest.

A Durmstrang champion had just sat down sporting uncharacteristic poise compared to his peers, and it was not only his piercing bright eyes that stood him apart. He was slender and angelic, his blood red suit was polished and orderly, and his aura was distinguishably brooding.

And he was staring straight at her.

A furnace of heat boiled in her cheeks, and she breathlessly leaned over to whisper in Guy's ear, "That resplendent boy, with the ivory hair and arctic eyes, I do believe I know him."

"That's the Quadrivial champion! And curse me crooked - he is looking at you like Crabbe to a canapé," Guy just about choked on his toast, darting his gaze back and forth, "Now just wait a moment [https://img.wattpad.com/2b31123d69cd60ee20f334107167f30c813e8369/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f72634443334468745031674656773d3d2d313336353333383239332e313739396466323964306637616461643230303335383031313731382e6a7067?s=fit&w=1280&h=1280]

"That's the Quadrivial champion! And curse me crooked - he is looking at you like Crabbe to a canapé," Guy just about choked on his toast, darting his gaze back and forth, "Now just wait a moment...oh cracking crumpets, for a moment there I thought...never mind. You know Detty I do believe I've misplaced my marbles this morning."

As Guy fought to visibly bury whatever this latest disturbance was, Daphne took the opportunity to butt in and tisk at Audette, "You know Draco Malfoy - the best seeker in all of Europe? Do tell us all about your last visit to Russia - was it as cold as you expected?"

Audette could hardly ventilate as she and the handsome boy locked eyes repeatedly only meters apart, "He's English, though, isn't he? I believe I met him when I was a little girl. Yes he visited my home...a very long time ago..."

If it truly was him, then he'd blossomed into quite a magnetizing specimen. Perhaps the sensation was reciprocal, as he began to smile at her in a snide, teasing sort of way, showing off immaculate teeth.

Then he was gone for an aching second, nodding manicured eyebrows at a female champion across from the way before bizarrely emptying an entire bowl of tarty green apples into his satchel.

Guy made a goofy grunt, "Did you see that? Do you reckon he's on a horses diet?"

Daphne twirled her fork between Pansy, Millicent and herself, "Hmmm...well we actually knew him as children, the three of us. Our parents had us homeschooled, and he was quite the pustule before he was shipped off to Durmstrang. Pity, the place seems to have turned him into a block of ice."

She and Pansy exchanged thoughtful glances for a second, before some reflex drove Pansy to react defensively, "Oh what a pity. How I did so enjoy his antics."

Guy gawked at Audette in dumbfoundment, "I'd think you'd have mentioned some radical playdate with Draco Malfoy by now. We've only been watching the bloke parade around here for weeks."

She was enchanted beyond repair as Malfoy's gaze returned, dipping down her attire then back up to her face, speaking in a faraway voice, "I suppose I...I hadn't taken proper inventory of all the champions. It's only...just occurred to me...this memory of him in a tree at my side..."

But it was deeper than that, inexplicably.

She was certain she'd been in a tree with him more than once...but that was impossible.

Why, she was certain she knew already how he smelled...like a spicy pine forest proceeding a hot rainfall, where the tang of each needle, aeration of the soil, and the creeping of moss all contribute to a ripe pungency. That his voice was deep and slippery, like golden butter, and that he was tormented inside, longing for any other world than the one he was trapped within.

She found herself humming in mersmerization, until Daphne's delighted snicker snapped her out of the humiliating daydream, "It's really too bad you've expended all of our napkins on that fortification Bellarose, because you're drooling something cringeworthy!"

A wave of indignation splashed from her hairline to her toes as she realized the whole roster of Russian champions were now speaking together, clearly gesturing to the artlessly ogling girl dressed like a porcelain doll.

Audette abandoned her appetite entirely, guzzling back coffee purely for the purpose of hiding her face behind the biggest mug possible. The diuretic would only serve to race her heart even faster, but that was an issue for later.

Pansy began to shred apart a pumpkin muffin like a velociraptor, "In your dreams, Bellarose. You're far too much of a marionette - he'd eat you up and chew you out. Probably floss his teeth afterwards with those strings dictating your every move."

The evaluation was not slanderous, unfortunately; Audette's sparky vivaciousness for life had been effectively doused over the years, replaced of course by curtseying and manners, by socialite parties and charity events, by ball gowns and bureaucracy...

She wouldn't know the first thing about handling a bad boy who lived by the seat of his broom and who under no circumstances cared for politesse.

Although her father had finally expressed his satisfaction with the fulfillment of her bland role, and although she was engaged to a wonderful man, she was undeniably depressed.

An important factor was absent in her life, and that was herself.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

In fact she had forgotten who she was entirely, dissolving away like a corpse confined within an acid barrel, and that was a very morose and vulnerable place to be indeed.

Theodore didn't seem to mind that Audette was sadly decaying in that world of highfalutin nonsense, or perhaps he had failed to recognize her despondency altogether, constantly remarking that she was the most elegant and comported female he'd ever met. A fine duchess indeed. Why she was the diamond, afterall - the most sought after match in the kingdom.

"Why don't we find out if he remembers you? Ohhh Malfoy!" Pansy leaned forward, grinning impishly at the champion who instantly shifted his frosty attention onto her, "Malfoy deary, do come say hello, won't you? We've got a special toy for you - she even comes with a pullcord for her voice box!"

Blast that fucking bitch.

Audette abandoned the mug, making sure to spill hot liquid all over Pansy's lap before standing to leave, however her angsty movements caught the vicious cat's peripherals.

It slapped a paw decorated with arcuate razors down onto the frilly sleeve of her gown, growling like an idling diesel engine. Large beige eyes warned her that it meant business, whereby the pupil within gradually narrowed to a serious pinpoint.

As Audette stood there shaking in one of the scariest staring contests of her life, the Russian champions merely burst out cackling until their faces had gone as rouge as their uniforms.

They spoke together in bright and amused tones, in the sharp mother tongue of their origin country, repeating the words malen'kiy kukla several times.

All except for Draco Malfoy, who's chin remained balanced over his spindly fingers, curiously eyeing the ring fastened to Audette's left hand which was now held out in an awkwardly stiff display. In the hue of the luminescent medal slung around his neck, his gaze was so smoldering and intense that it made the circumstances increasingly hair raising.

"Dmitriy, otpustit!" the nearest boy finally smacked a thick palm off of the cat's rump, causing it to roar backwards and relinquish Audette's sleeve, but not before tearing off most of the pricey design.

"Detty! Oh no, Detty!" Guy called to her in angst as Audette fled the turbulent hall, sucking at her bleeding pinky which had been slashed through her mitten in the process.

Yes that coffee was an ill-advised compulsion, because now a cool sweat had begun to bead on her skin and she felt dizzy as a demiguise.

Guy was definitely onto something; just overnight, everything had twisted somehow, although she could not put her finger on it.

Bouts of Deja-vu had been coming and going for the last hour, procuring similarly uncanny ideas in her head about who she thought she knew, or what she knew. The weather was all wrong and in correlation the date did not make any sense either...

It was 1999, not 1998...but sadly it wasn't 1999, and it was 1998.

Fighting against silvery sparks swimming in her vision, Audette petered down the main hall where sets of branching architectural pillars conjoined in beautiful arches overhead. Several dozen egresses down, she decided she could no longer handle the compressing cruelty of her latest corset which was not allowing a drop of oxygen past.

Clutching at her ribcage she opened the doorway to a rather daunting set of stone stairs, winding upwards straight to the clock tower a good five stories higher.

It was either brave this faint worthy jaunt, or turn around and risk running into any one of the many characters which had just witnessed that dreadful breakfast scene. Even Guy's company was one she pined to avoid until this fever dream aptly subsided, and she could hear him mulling about in the crowd behind, calling her name.

Below a multitude of Celtic hair pieces her skull swirled with an odd whispering, that in contrast felt as though it were pouring out of her ears rather than in as she leapt up the treads.

It was a slew of detached voices from occasions she did not recognize, yet they arose in crystal clarity before vanishing into the depths of her mind once more.

"It should be of no curiosity to you that I am here, in this...zoological menagerie....."

"Forget I offered you extended protection while you transition from rose to thorn."

"You are that very special...and singular star...missing in my collection."

And then there were jarring images that stopped her in place for a second of sheer confoundment, blurry, and gone in a similar flash.

Stumbling painfully back and forth in a flaming cage constructed out of giant's bones.

Staring into a swirling pink crystal ball, tears running down her cheeks.

A boy, not Theodore, hovering over her in the dark heat of some Gothic inspired four-poster bed, engaging in unspeakable delights...

Gargantuan components of the clock tower network began to screech in audible overwhelm as she drew higher and higher in a total frenzy.

Soon the stairwell was blindingly noisy; reverberating the consistent, rhythmic thunk of cogs the size of cars, grinding gears, and a strumming metal hum produced by the humongous pendulum.

At the top of the sepulchral tower where maintenance catwalks slunk around the outskirts of the impressive machinery, Audette paused against a railing, gripping the wobbly wood to avoid taking a deep dive down the open spinal column.

She peered through tendrils of blond waves, at where the unseen bottom was nothing but a black abyss, presumably terminating somewhere in the cavernous bowls of the ancient acropolis. For all anyone knew there was already a dozen skeletons lost to the world there, never to be happened upon again.

Everything was a dusty, deafening disaster, but it was solitary and the inbound breeze from the lower courtyard was cool, and that was darn good enough.

Perhaps Guy was right that some force had damaged the fabric of space and time. Or perhaps, worse yet, they had both been schizophrenic for years, and the disease had finally come into staggering fruition that morning to gloriously obliterate any resiliency.

What would Theodore think?

He was so perfect, composed and astute.

He would discard her, and she had better keep those wild thoughts all to herself, for a courtly man of his status could not possibly bare children with an invalid, let alone marry one.

"I'm a bleeding lunatic," she griped, dizzily gaping at the plummet before her.

Audette soon arrived at the conclusion that a lack of oxygen was the very last problem she needed compounding her distress.

"Damn these antiquated fly traps - my brain can't bloody well breathe," she shut her eyes harshly, yanking apart the lace of the corset at the base of her spine. The crisscrossed strings obediently gave way, and her lungs filled to the brink in blissful function.

She aught to have stopped there if only to obtain a few minutes of private release, but no - like a maddened hag she fought to remove the full bodice of the gaudy robin's egg fabric before tossing it clean over the wooden barrier.

Gravity coaxed it to gently drown, until the shimmery material had sunk to a formidable grave in the shadows.

She turned around and propped her elbows against the railing, sighing in her archaic pantaloon bloomer set and thigh-high stockings.

Sending her gaze to the merlon of the tower she arched her spine, hung her long hair backwards, and traced the impressive swing of the pendulum upside down in growing hypnotism.

It was as large and powerful as a blade from the Titanic's propellers, keeping track of time despite the possibility that time had seemingly misplaced it's identity as much as Audette had. And just like those critical propellers, that pendulum representing time was responsible for either success or failure should but a single hesitation occur.

It felt as though they were all trapped in the second half of Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, where the Chronosphere had been stolen and Time himself was destabilizing at the fringes.

But who in the wizarding world would have been foolish enough to meddle with Time?

The zealous pendulum continued to rhythmically glide in total confidence that it's work remained authentic. And so her green eyes followed, back and forth, back and forth...buying into it's comforting lie that this was true, that nothing had been altered.

Her breasts rose and fell with each deepening exhale, and just as serenity had begun to settle in she noticed out of her peripherals that a big red blob had appeared nearby [https://img.wattpad.com/e22a48b32df5418e3f30e693d7a7c0aec81b6b6a/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f66435a375f723748717277615a773d3d2d313336353333383239332e313739396465633334346661373264623937313735373735363239382e6a7067?s=fit&w=1280&h=1280]

Her breasts rose and fell with each deepening exhale, and just as serenity had begun to settle in she noticed out of her peripherals that a big red blob had appeared nearby.

He'd followed her, he must have, for surely it was no coincidence that the notable Durmstrang champion from breakfast had ended up wandering helter-skelter to such a tremendously hazardous and skyscraping destination within the castle.

It was quite vivid and biting, the manner in which he was staring at her yet again, this time from the newel of the staircase. He was just leaning there in statuesque regard, as if hoping to pass himself as a hyper-realistic gargoyle.

Audette batted her eyes in rapid outrage, covering her lush cleavage with one hand - as if that would do any good. Her nipples were in all likelihood visible straight through the elementary undergarments, probably pronounced from the chilly conditions.

She quickly tugged all of her hair towards the front, fiddling with her promiscuous presentation in a panic, "What in the Devil do you think you're doing?"

He shrugged, and one corner of his sharp grin drew back in amusement, "What in the Devil are you doing, tiny doll? Was that a sacrifice to the toymaker gods I've just witnessed?"

"Well I..." Audette was speechless, realizing then that there was no sensible explanation for jettisoning a dress worth one wizard's yearly salary down a verminous pit, especially as the impromptu act would now require her to scamper back to the dungeons in revealing undergarments.

She blushed, pointing a nail behind her in casual oddity, and out slipped the insensible explanation like slime through her teeth, "It's...it's a launders hole."

He frowned at her sarcastically, and his eyebrows rose in doubtful animation, "A launders hole?"

Oh god...oh god...why had she gone and started up another one of her runaway lie trains?

Well, if experience had taught her anything, it was that there was no going back on it now: full steam ahead.

She quickly glanced backwards, as if a luminated sign might have appeared in the darkness to save her, reading Launders Hole with a directional arrow, "Yes, like a shoot...well you know...well it's a secret launders hole. I was...sending it to be...laundered, and repaired. That feline of yours lacks any training."

It was a launders hole?

A secret launders hole in the bloody clock tower?

Malfoy pressed curiously off the balustrade, striding with one hand in his pocket to halt beside Audette who was now sucking in her lips in guilty squirm. A million unsightly chins piled up on her neck as she crisscrossed wide eyeballs to the rotting floorboards in developing nausea.

Please go away...please don't look...

All she could do was watch in sideways doom when he inevitably stuck his pointy nose off the edge to peer down the musty shaft, "That's interesting, smells quite the opposite. And who's incredible honor is it, I do wonder, to wait about down there at your constant beck and call for garment rehabilitation?"

This time she let slip a pressurized giggle before dampening the urge professionally, clearing her throat, "It's none of your business who's residing down there. That's the secret of it."

He laughed flatly at her incriminating expression, drilling his fingers on the banister, "Quite the lucky discovery, I imagine, assuming you're the sort to go about dumping waste in random locations. One would expect better of a so-called lady."

She couldn't help surmising that he was playing along in the hopes of humiliating her, but he was about to find out just how stubborn she could be, "You're assuming that no one told me of it first. I am not a mindless polluter, if that is what you are proposing."

It was confirmed; her hunches regarding his scent had been eerily infallible, and it was detrimentally intoxicating to inhale.

"Then I wonder why you feel the need to be so spicy about it. Do take some pride in your crimes," he turned his arresting orbs back onto her and sure enough they shot straight to her cleavage, lingering on the intricate cinching at her waist and the many ruffles of her pettiblouse.

She readjusted her hair and crossed her arms helplessly, perspiring as if she'd just accidentally put on a hat that had turned out to be a portkey straight to the Bahamas, "Would you mind averting your gaze with at least a drop of chivalry?"

"I do mind," he coolly purred, although he did bother to glance back down the tower with an antagonistic hum, "I was debating offering you my jacket seeing as you have relinquished your attire in a frantic strop, however now that I am aware of this secret launders hole I may send it down as well. It could use some enriching."

He removed the fine cardinal piece in swift precision, revealing a pitch black dress shirt with golden buttons, and a plethora of armory belts and buckles slung at diagonal strides.

When he suspended the article over the chasm, Audette was left with no choice but to pipe up anxiously. She strained to grab onto the tail of the coat but his arm was much longer than hers, "No! Don't be...well no! It only works for the finer sex!"

Oh god she was a downright dingbat.

"Oh really?" Malfoy sent her an incredulous sneer as a weird groan unzipped in her throat.

He slid one finger across her neck like a sword to press Audette back to safety from where she was now balancing by her hips off the edge, willing to die grabbing onto that coat rather than admit to the absurd tale, "That's a tad discriminatory. Are you quite sure this secret washing well should continue to evade unbiased regulation? I think I'll report it. Or I'll report you for vandalism, your choice."

Yes the jig was up, she could sense it now. An instinct to run back down the staircase prickled her parasympathetic nervous system, however it was not enough to warrant action.

She felt just like a floating head, watching herself panic from above as reality dawned on her.

While his appearance had been deceptively sculpted over the course of puberty, on the inside he was still the same nasty boy who had dangerously shoved her from a tree branch without hesitation.

She stepped away from him a few paces with her rib cage pumping and he matched her stride, suavely retracting the obvious threat to fling his overcoat in order to highlight her bastardized claims.

He folded the jacket neatly over one arm then inspected her with judgment, the heel of his leather shoe scraping harshly, "So it is you - that gelastic girl from the glass jungle. We meet again."

"How can you be so certain?" she gulped.

He released a puff of air from his nose, "Enough. Now that you're out of that imposturous gown I can see it quite clearly. I've been suspicious of you for weeks. I should commend Castle Bellarose on their mediocre success at molding you into an upper-crust slave - it almost had me fooled."

He pinned her against the closest barrier, which then began to creak and complain under the weight of her efforts to escape yet further backwards where it was not able to give anymore.

Tick........tock.......tick.......tock.......

The pendulum continued it's laborious and sleepy task in the background, appearing and disappearing from her eyesight behind his back, each pulse of it's long stem blowing a cool gust around their matching bright hair.

He paused for a moment in deadpan deliberation, "You were a deplorable liar then as well, sending yourself into a nervous dander with each unbelievable sentence. You grow sweaty and scarlet, and stutter like a rube. I recall you had the pomposity to mention an invisible bear whilst brandishing the exact same physiognomy."

"But I do possess an invisible bear," Audette pouted sourly, then blurted out a truly regrettable admission, "And I only ever act like this around you, you awful, awful boy, and I pray that I don't see you again for another eight peaceful years."

"Prove it, the bear," he hissed in a beguiling and combative tone, and then his eyes darkened into a mean black storm, "Oh but that's right; you can't, and you never shall be able to."

"Yes I can, he's got fuzz all over his bum," she defended in a pipsqueak.

What a silly thing to have said to this menacing predator.

She'd meant to point out that while he was invisible and inaudible to outsiders, Think-Think still remained identifiable via sensory touch, but she was now completely flustered and had forgotten how to communicate.

The final stems of her confidence wilted, wondering if he was planning on inflicting harm as his English resonance grew serpentine, "A chronic sham. Just as you cannot prove this to be a secret launders hole, and just as you cannot prove you are an authentic lady no matter how hard you try. One can endorse calculated deceit, but cagey quackery issued to impress others is downright pathetic."

"I haven't the foggiest what you're-" Audette suddenly gasped and cried inwardly, raising her mitten from it's tense hitch on the railing. The pearly lace had begun to bloom with a deep rosy stain where her pinky was still actively bleeding out.

It was all too much - the confusing morning, this beautiful boy picking on her for no justified reason, and the searing agony of the cut.

Plucking off her engagement ring then the glove in an aching pry she flinched and sucked air in, then disposed of it down the supposed launders hole.

Little warm tears took off down her cheeks as she grimaced at the sight of the deeply split skin and throbbing blood, coming to the conclusion that she would have no choice but to visit the infirmary and waste more of the day.

Her eyes darted upwards when the sound of tinkling glass emanated from an armory strap across his chest. He appeared to be visibly annoyed, however went on to produce a rosy healing potion, snatching up her injured extremity, "I see you haven't outgrown your insufferable princess complex. Don't squirm."

His skin was frigid against hers, almost as if he lacked a pulse altogether, releasing several drops onto her wound.

She observed that his eyelashes were unfairly longer than hers as he concentrated inches away, "And you haven't outgrown your browbeating era; what am I to expect? Have we upgraded from a tree to this tower? After you torment me with this promise of sweetness shall you push me over the balustrade?"

He snickered under his breath, shaking his head in micro quirks, "Do not tempt me to test the properties of this absolving chasm. If you're telling the truth, than you aught to float back up properly disguised as Marie Antoinette. But if you're fibbing...than I'll make sure to wave at your ghost in the halls."

He smiled and Audette dramatically glowered, flinching again when he held out his jacket in taunting generosity, "Take it. Satan forbid anyone else catch a glimpse of this...hmm...striking visual."

Audette ripped her hand out of his, mortified on a cosmic level that he was yet again snooping down her pettiblouse, "I would rather darn the skin of a rotting bundimen."

"Suit yourself," he snorted, then faked a thoughtful raise of his blue eyes to the exposed overhead beams, "Actually, no that would be the reverse, you're choosing not to suit yourself. Hopefully your track and field agility has improved since 1991, however if history has anything to say about it.."

He tapped a finger off her nose mockingly, "You'll be flat on that button long before you're out of the public eye."

It was only when he began sinking one arm into the right sleeve that she conceded, accepting that the jacket might be pertinent to her reputation. Afterall, the dungeons were about as far away from the clock tower as the moon was from the sun, and due to her own impulsive rage she was now in her knickers for all the world to witness.

She dug her nails into the sleeve stubbornly, "Now really, you must know that I am being stubborn on a principle. Offer it to me again, with allotted distinguishment this time."

He grinned and shut his eyes in a mysterious display before reopening them with a very coercive glint sparkling there, "No. The deal has now evolved on account of your hotheaded snark: I'll hand over the jacket, and you'll happily answer my letters henceforth, starting with the one in the left pocket."

Audette's jaw dropped, "I beg your pardon? My snark?"

He nodded, "Yes your snark. It wasn't I who tore that dress off of you - show some gratitude."

Audette's eyes bulged at the indignity of it all, at the crude manner in which she was being spoken to, "Well I shall take this opportunity to inform you, Mr. Malfoy, of my engagement. And even were I not accounted for, after this particular run-in, you would be the very last person I would consider writing anything to save for a pair of disdainfully choice words."

To her surprise he pressed the jacket into her chest, albeit very roughly so that she tripped in her dainty footwear.

His fingers were still tangled up with iron tenacity in the fabric as he leaned in very close, until his minty breath infused all of the oxygen between them, "Write whatever you'd like, but answer it you will, or I shall inform your betrothed all about your sordid strip tease up here."

"You're unimaginable. I am not some toady fawner who's interested in fanatic communique," Audette pressed her lips together. He would be receiving a total of zero letters from her, that much was concrete.

He pressed on until he'd cornered her uncomfortably, his eyes delivering like dry ice which burned so violently it registered neither as a hot nor chilled sear, "Has he even seen your ankles - good old honorable, seafaring, Teddy B. Nott? I'm sure he'd be delighted to hear that your toymakers spared no detail nor desire when they crafted those bewitching bosoms for his wedding night."

Audette shrunk into her thick hair, growing ill as one of his eyebrows tented wickedly, "That's right - he and I are quite well acquainted. Childhood mates. I might even feel inclined to play a little catch up after all of these years."

There was not much time to process the manipulative play at hand, nor the scorching profanity issued on his part. Determined to stand her ground she pulled and pulled on the jacket, as if they were a pair of siblings which had just commenced in a low-intensity tug of war, "You wouldn't dare."

"Very well. Take your chances," he let go and she fell hard against the railing, clutching at the article in mild success, "I look forward to your missives, Lady Bellarose."

And then he was gone, striding like some malevolent knight down the staircase, and Audette was left all alone with the thronging clock tower's ever endless charades.

She stumbled to the edge to shout after him, but it wasn't very convincing seeing as the handsome menace stopped at the first curve to connivingly jeer back up at her, "I so hope that you...that you perish holding your breath waiting!"

Once the echoing of his shoes and sniggering had safely subsided in advance, she then proceeded to stomp (as much as one might endeavor to stomp in flimsy slippers) back down to the Slytherin common room hot as an axe left over a fire for hours, growling so profusely her throat went raw.

Now embarrassingly darning the weighty jacket which smelled of his luxurious scent, she ruffled around in the pockets.

Sure enough there was a babbitt of expensive parchment, but what was written there in cursive was not what she'd expected.

Hogwarts Library

Fourteen stacks deep, right side, row G.

Find the golden grimoire: The Book of One Thousand Bleeding Eyes

Page 666

Ah, so now it was an Easter egg hunt.

Well he could forget it, that fucking sacrilegious monster...

She meant to tear it up. She even tried to at first, however the damn thing was as thick as cheese.

On the contrary, Audette went on to spend much of the next few nights in her bed inspecting the signature strikes of his willowy handwriting, burdened by an itch she could not scratch for it was burrowed deep in her mind.

He'd clearly written out the directions in advance, but how could he have possibly anticipated that she would end up in any position to receive them?

Soon the curiosity was too much: What was to be found in that mysterious grimoire?

"A silly girl...you're a silly, stupid, star-struck bimbo - just as bad as the lot of those simpering ninnies," she cursed herself upon leaving Theodore during a study session in the library, excusing herself to 'collect new books.'

She glanced once over her shoulder to ensure that the intuitive Italian boy was still busy obliviously scratching away in their workspace before ducking into row G, where the lesser evils of the insidious texts occupying the library were stored for public access. Anything darker in nature was kept behind warded wrought iron, shielded in the Restricted Section.

Malfoy had chosen smartly: she spotted the bright golden dust cover of the text in question lickety-split, buried in the shadows and cobwebs, and imbedded amongst a field of gray and black neighbors.

She flipped through the decaying pages hysterically, blocking out images of vile Medieval sorcery, until she found page 666 of the uninspiring total 999.

He'd folded in a scroll of revolution, an item invented during the Global Wizarding War by witches and wizards in order to communicate back and forth utilizing but one single bit of enchanted parchment that cleared it's face of the prior message once read by it's intended addressee.

D.M. I awarded a nickname for you once, what was it?

She stood there, re-reading the sentence fading from left to right. She'd anticipated something else; perhaps a boorish conversation topic rooted in rakish flirtations, or another set of jabs at her unfortunately imprisoning life.

Audette could not recall any nickname Draco Malfoy had awarded her that afternoon in the biodome, and so she dismissively wrote I have absolutely no idea, and put the book back in place.