"Why do they call it The Black Boggart?" Audette asked the big bearded boy named Sasha.

He had, for almost twenty minutes, been telling her quite enthusiastically all about life in Russia as the strange crew traipsed through the snowy hillside. It was this speech, coupled with metallic clinking from heavy weaponry, which gave away their position for miles around in the otherwise silent terrain.

Behind them Hogwarts had shrunken drastically in size, humming with the glow of a jillion torches. The castle tended to take on a surprisingly cute semblance from a distance, almost as if it were a miniature model embedded into a makeshift felt mountain, perched quaintly below the branches of a Christmas tree.

According to Sasha's impromptu accounts, the architecture in eastern Europe was quite grand and delightfully colorful - aside, of course, from the sprawling regions governed by the peasant-class. The women were truly inspiring, the food was hearty and savory, and the air was biting during the vast majority of the year.

Their school, Durmstrang Institute, had been established at the top of the globe - a desolate ice castle that glittered brilliantly in the sun's rays.

According to legends the superstructure had been melting ever since it's conception in the dark ages, yet miraculously avoided an increased deficit from it's original height.

It was far from a safe habitat; over centuries of continuous liquifying, an obnoxious degree of glacial stalactites had thus formed, quite universally throughout. These acute deposits protracted from the ceilings in the lavatories, framed the hallways mercilessly, and positively dominated in the outdoor atriums.

In eight hundred festering years there had been over a dozen random fatalities, resulting from one particular type of attack alone: a ferocious icicle blade detaching to impale a most unfortunate pedestrian below. And that was not even counting the cornucopia of serious injuries and near misses in correlation.

Sasha had done the math: based on the worrisome volume of active icicles looming on the elemental building, and the frequency for which one fell, there was a thirteen point six percent chance that he might be speared like a fish each time he left his dormitory. Not exactly haimish.

Aside from murderous icicles, at Durmstrang one might also count on asphyxiation to boot them head first into an early grave.

Durmstrang had been constructed so unreasonably high in the Ural mountains that it's elaborate crystal spires cleared well above the cloud line. The atmosphere at such an elevation was beyond dense, therefore lacking in adequate oxygen. So much so, that those highly gifted individuals selected for enrollment were therein required to train their lungs in advance to prevent altitude sickness.

From the headmasters office, said Sasha, one could observe the entire universe.

Upon hearing this bit Audette had glanced reticently up at Draco, who's diamond blue eyes had not once peeled from observing the galaxy overhead. She wondered if this was a prime reason he had chosen such a faraway vantage point for his magical education: an unimpeded behest of the stars.

Aside from murderous icicles, and sudden asphyxiation, there was also the wraithlike preoccupation of the one and only Edgar Allen Poe to drive one mad, if not deaf.

The school had learned the hard way that chaining Poe's depraved soul to their travelling pirate ship was damned near impossible - much as in many of Poe's remorseful writings, whereas the poet himself had failed to ultimately chain his literary victims to their unholy acts.

At first, so it went, the embezzling of his resting bones had been in the name of a vengeful joke - a vengeful joke which had then backfired tremendously.

Despite his casket's fixation within the ship's hull, once it was docked in Durmstrang's famous 'Sky Harbor', the apparition took this as an invitation to extend the limits of his purgatory playground.

The wuthering, blithering, sorrowful ghost tended to materialize in classrooms - and of course, in his favorite hideaway, Karkaroff's private suite - going off on dactylic tangents which could not be doused once initiated.

This often led to the prompt evacuation of communal spaces he decided to sour with baneful monologues, and a definitive disruption to any sense of a structured course syllabus.

Audette found this whole business of Poe's ironic haunt to be radically amusing, unable to suppress laughing each time the subject arose.

"Why do they call it The Black Boggart?" when she had gone on to inquire about the name of their destination, Draco had butted in promptly.

With his arm slung around her neck he dragged Audette several feet away from his rather toady and flirty peers, "Don't fancy asking me any of these questions, do you now, Tiny Doll?"

The sentence had been uttered teasingly, yet there was a slight hint of bitterness lining his deep voice.

She wrinkled her nose as the reek from his third consecutive dart whorled around her head, infecting her otherwise serene intake of the wintry air.

Not having been aware of this foul habit prior, Audette had distanced herself as much as was possible while maintaining the tether of their conjoined hands, and he was about to be on the receiving end of her unimpressed pink nail when they discussed healthy lifestyles later.

For she had absolutely no desire to marry a man who smoked anywhere near as indulgently as her father - she had already spent eighteen years choking on carcinogenic fumes.

"Hmm?" he prodded her again with a playful nudge, now having separated them by a wide berth on the path, "Have I not bequeathed you that jacket at the expense of my own comfort this evening, even after you pressured me to chaperone you to the most inappropriate venue imaginable?"

Audette batted her eyes up at him, tempted to bat the stinky cigarette into the ditch, "And have I not held your hand all this way to express my gratitude? So do inform me kindly, why do they call it The Black Boggart? What is so malapropos about it?"

"Ha, the shorter query is, what isn't?" Draco tisked obliquely, thankfully flicking the dart into the frosty wonderland all of his own accord, "You'll stick out like Jesus Christ himself in that luminous fucking frock."

"It's only a ballet slip, surely..," Audette dismissed the concern weakly.

"Nicer than anyone's Sunday best in there, unlike these two..," he produced a noise of distaste, having to dodge around a disoriented duo of short Irish boys who seemed to have entered into a three-legged race with no other visible contestants.

Guy and Seamus had begun to wobble theatrically ahead, arms looped together, already halfway through a bottle of rum Finnigan had stashed in his sweater to calm nerves prior to the talent show.

By then he had successfully pacified said nerves, and no doubt the better half of his brain cells as well, proclaiming on a loop, "Eh he was a fine lad, tha' pumpkin. A fine lad."

Guy hiccupped, clearly responsible for the majority of the shared stumbling between them. For reasons inconceivable the bottle was held above his floppy toque at a ninety-degree angle, as if he were the tin man in need of a hearty oiling, "He would've been in Slytherin, that fecking saucy bastard. That's a *hiccup* certainty."

The disorganized bunch passed through the main gate commemorating Hogsmeade Village, greeted by resplendent holiday lighting strung along the first few shops.

Even so, with the warm guise of Christmas decor lighting up their features, there lingered still, a spookiness in all of those crooked structures jammed together without logical parceling.

Hogsmeade would forever be an enchanted village, haunted to within inches of every dusty crevice and filled with supernatural oddities of varying origins. The popular tourist attraction had a means of instilling an uncanny and polarizing glimmer of wonder in those who visited.

Stripped down to his black dress shirt and crimson trousers, Draco aught to have been a block of ice after awarding Audette his top jacket, however he was right as rain save for an adorably pink nose.

None of them would have survived the trek with such sparse preparedness if it had not been for the reagent-grade warming potions carried by the red suits as a standardized precaution.

She could sense him carefully studying her side profile as she slowed in the bustling boulevard, caught her breath, and pleadingly led him to the illuminated pane of a French storefront named Petit Pom Pom.

Her fingers pressed together longingly, smushing her nose guiltily to the frost-bitten surface.

He leaned against the display overtop of her, breath fogging up the glass as he keenly watched her leafy eyes darting between the scandalous garments within, "That passionate about gowns, are we?"

"Every girl dreams to frolic about in such glamor," she whispered wantonly, wishing that just for once she might celebrate her figure in the same limelight as her youthful counterparts.

Just to imagine...

She wished that she might darn skimpy, glittery, flimsy skirts in the same streak as those racy Parisian girls which left scant detail to the imagination, turning heads and commanding power...

"These aren't the sort of dresses one frolics about in, sweetheart," he pulled her away so that they didn't lose sight of the pack, tittering in a mocking pitch.

Perhaps he thought she was acting a featherbrained ninny, given they both knew, as members of high society, that she would never be accorded such revealing accoutrement.

Audette reverted the subject out of pure chagrin, "You have yet to answer my only question. After all the huff and puff you gave back there, you've proven yourself uncongenial."

The group took a sharp turn through a particularly dingy alley. This stretch was hardly lit, governed by piles of rubbish, the rear egresses of main establishments, and at the very terminal of the abandoned axis sat the blackest building imaginable.

An eyesore of putrescent energy, it was round as a ring worm, boasting not a single window for perspective inside.

Draco smirked handsomely, pointing a finger laden with silver rings straight at the heart of the slumbering affliction, "There she is, The Black Boggart. A place where guilty drunkards go to punish themselves and face their worst fears. Bit of an oxymoron for a pub."

If one did not know to look for it, the begrudging watering hole shaped like a barrel on it's side might easily be confused for an inconveniently sprung black hole. The exterior facade positively devoured all light with carnivorous fury, inspiring a phantasmagoria of feral endlessness.

Not a mar in sight, nothing whatsoever detracted from that soulless obsidian affront, save for the faint outline of a rectangular door carved dead in the center.

Audette tented her eyebrows, feigning indifference where it was not nearly bona fide, "Yes you've stated that bit already. Pardon me for finding that articulation to be a smidge Croatoan."

His demeanor grew stoic, and notably pensive, blinking rather seriously, "It's riddled with the condemned of the magical world seeking retribution; necromancers, shapeshifters, vampires...Those doe eyes of yours had better not encourage any nefarious encounters - do me a favor, and keep them down."

"Don't forget about werewolves! Werewolves loooove to gobble up itsy angels," Sasha turned around to walk backwards antagonistically, nearly running straight into a pack of mangy men lurking mysteriously against a wall.

As it crept closer with each step, Audette felt as if she were falling down a dizzying, horizontal tunnel. Her slippers were soaked and her toes were numb, yet her heart was hot and racing.

What were her worst fears, precisely?

In the lead strode Anastasia with her rich raven hair swinging from two neat braids strapped tightly up the sides of her head. Yet before her boot could land within five feet of the structure the sole doorway swung inwards all of it's own accord, spilling out a cardinal hue from within.

As if a magnetic field had instated itself, they all experienced a sudden and undeniable tug on their skin.

This corroborated with warning signs hung farther up the alleyway, cautioning patrons not to stroll idly by The Black Boggart unless they intended entry.

Beware the Black Boggart, Denaturant of the Djinn.

{Should the hair rise from your skin, TURN BACK, lest be drawn to a place of deep sin}

Anastasia had been strutting with arrogance prior to the gravitational modification, suddenly pausing in stubborn resistance to the invisible vortex occurring. Her braids sucked straight on end, rigid at a one-hundred and eighty degree angle like the leash of a led horse, and in the end she tripped and slid, until ultimately vanishing inside.

Audette shut her eyes, passing through the vacuum in a blinding flood of her own roiling hair, and yet, with a slam of the autonomous door, she was suddenly surrounded by perfectly average bar ambience.

Her ears pulled back to the familiar booms of weighted glasses landing upon slippery surfaces, of laughter and cursing, of banter and brawling, of the screeching of stools, and the sloshing of spilt goods...

The air reeked of moonshine, armpits, flatulence and moldy attire, united with candle wax, dust and muck.

Prying open one lid she took in the aggressive garnet flame sconces mounted along the interior paneling, emanating a truly hellish photometric.

Throughout the rotund venue were dozens of private seating nodes comprised of chunky furniture riddled with...inhuman bite marks?

There were low tables brandishing missing legs, and demonic, hand-knotted wool rugs stained to the point of further warping their unmentionable depictions.

Comingling smoke in the air escaping from hookahs and the butts of cigars refracted the satanic vermillion lighting, contributing to the overall unsettling ennui.

Less than an hour prior Audette had so proclaimed to have visited plenty of dive bars, and while the opposite could not be more true, practice was nigh paramount to determine that the amount of ancient books piling up everywhere was highly atypical for the given setting.

It was as if the insidious Restricted Section located within the Hogwarts library had somehow mated with a belligerent saloon, and even more curiously, the texts which formed teetering columns in the corners were actually being read by the scallywags wandering about.

At the very heart stood a suitably spheroid, monolithic bar of onyx stone, encircling a vast glass tube which spanned from behind the counter all the way up to the ornate ceiling.

Nothing living was serving up drinks behind that counter; every single bartender happened to be a kinetically empowered poltergeist.

Upon closer inspection, the optics contributing to such supernatural employment stipulations were as glaring as the wall sconces: the glass tube was host to a live, imprisoned boggart, which enjoyed an unhampered overwatch clean to the establishment's greatest extents in any direction.

Keep your eyes down, Draco had wisely warned her.

Yes, this advice now made quite a lot more sense. No matter where one chose to wallow, they might very well end up in a head-on confrontation with that focalized entity, dying to feed off as much terror as could possibly be contrived.

Out of the corner of her perspective Audette caught glimpses of the insidious monstrosity warping into new depictions at the speed of light, revolving in a perpetual scavenge for it's latest target.

Only one disintegrating wizard had made the brave decision to preoccupy a bar stool directly facing the vile genesis.

He looked to be a broken man, gaunt and ill, slouching in patchwork robes. With one hand strapped to a pitcher of bubbling ale, he sat weeping up at the image of an undead, young woman dripping in lake water, corpse rotted to the nines, a glint of betrayal in her faded features as she pounded incessantly on the pane in a closed fist.

Boom. Boom. BOOM.

The reverberations were enough to imbue horripilation.

The tavern, it seemed, was a graveyard in which to dig up one's ill-forgotten skeletons should it become an impassible obstacle whilst sober, a setting to daylight what crimes have been expertly buried deep down by the incapable, sentient mind.

Sinking into Malfoy's hold, Audette observed with pity and disgust those who had come to drink themselves inside out, who's consciences purportedly weighed that of a whale. There was no holiday decor nor cheer, only polluted oxygen and depravity.

Despite the conceivably disconcerting milieu the Russians were absolutely game for the morbid scene, making their way noisily to an untenanted collection of seats.

"Poe would be an excellent candidate for performance gigs in here," Draco haughtily joked to Anastasia, "Maybe that way, we'd rid ourselves of the metrical muppet for good."

Audette bit her tongue for once, although she was not in celebration of his close friendship with a girl who had tried numerous times to push her into piles of snow on the expedition down.

Don't feel like making these jokes to ME, do you? she sarcastically quoted in her head.

As they meandered around freakish people who stunk of rotgut, poor Seamus was boinked hard in the head by an ensorcelled violin playing melancholy tunes all of it's own accord, floating peevishly in the middle of the main aisle.

They sat at a tall table with even taller chairs - a design which forced Audette, who pathetically cleared five feet in stature by a mere two inches, to clamber awkwardly up in the tiny ballet tutu, resenting the beasts rubbernecking for a chance to see straight up the underside.

Pitchers upon pitchers were soon ordered, aggravated by trays of vodka and rum shooters to top it off.

Once they were all settled Audette failed to continue managing her wandering inquisitiveness as per Draco's strict instructions.

Unaware of what the protocol behavior was for the everyday pub sponge she began to insufferably rummage, especially when her chaperone soon ignored her in place of cheering, shouting and conversing with his peers who were not particularly inviting to outsiders.

With no idea how to chime in on topics that were brutish and foreign, she cringed, coming to terms with the fact that she had zero social skills outside of gardens, ballrooms, tea times, galas, and those dreaded gentry debutant affairs, where each sentence ushered was one of out of a carefully crafted script.

Across the way, Guy, her only other friend, was deep in a private conversation with Seamus Finnigan.

Fiddle, FIDDLE! her mind unhelpfully suggested, clutching at any alternative in the hopes of expelling anxiety.

Scattered all over the wooden surface of the table was a zoo of used and abused tankards, strung lopsided and dripping foul liquids through the cracks.

Yet within this slimy minefield were odds and ends belonging to games, such as a pair of strange dice which unpredictably altered face numbers as they rotated in her palm, and a little black box with an inscription carved into the side of it.

Gēhannā.

Hmm...

She was so transfixed on attempting to open this odd trinket, that she entirely missed Draco suddenly observing her with a cold, dry stare, "Audette, did I not tell you to keep your hands in your pockets and your gaze averted? Not one minute in here, and you're already faffing about with this poisonous fucking toy."

Before she knew it the ancient box was lifted far out of her grasp and chucked across the space, landing unsubtly before the crisscrossed eyes of one snoopy Guy.

He quickly snagged it up to shake it aggressively against his ear, more than likely hoping to find candies inside.

Audette had a sore feeling that it was quite the contrary.

"I haven't any pockets to stuff my busy hands into," she grumbled to Malfoy as he undid several of the golden buttons at the top of his under shirt, immediately finding herself glued to the sight of his fair, slender neck and collarbones.

He dismissed her yet again, hanging an elbow off the back on his chair, conversing over her head in unintelligible Russian.

Great.

No fiddling and no talking, just a perfect viewpoint of the pneumatic boggart that also had to be dodged in expert fashion.

"What are you drinking?" she inquired antagonistically with a poke into his ribcage. She was beginning to wonder if he was secretly furious about the events of the evening, and worse yet, not in the mood for having a girlfriend out with the lads at the tavern.

Being physically in his presence was still such a new concept that goosebumps prominently carpeted her skin, and insecurity nipped at her neck.

He rubbed her back with his hand but continued to laugh charmingly at something Anastasia was saying, as if Audette were an unwanted infant begging to be soothed at the adult dinner table.

She boiled over and snagged up a dirty fork, stabbing him right in the thigh.

Just like that, Draco gasped and spilt the contents of his cup down his shirt, and it flew to the flooring in a glorious explosion of fine shards.

"What the fuck, Audette?" the moment his teeth bared she regretted such pompous disregard for herself, frowning in a guilty flat line as he ripped the cutlery out and a spot of dark blood formed in the rouge fabric of his fencing trousers.

Anastasia clucked in amusement, "You will have to train it to behave, Malfoy, like a dog, or a hampster."

He panted down at the relatively mild injury, before sneering at Audette in a genuinely terrifying way, "You promised not to be a thorn tonight Bellarose, yet here you are, upgrading yourself to a fucking fork. Tell me, how am I expected to reprimand your hoity-toity arse for these sorts of uncivilized actions?"

In a split second retaliation he jammed the fork violently into the table only millimeters off from where her hand was planted, evidently intending to frighten.

Booiinng.

He left it there to shiver in metallic protest and she jumped away in a screech, petting her paw as if he'd actually maimed her.

Now he wasn't preoccupied with other people, he was preoccupied with wiping down his trousers in a frustrated huff, long spikes of white hair dotted with melting snowflakes hanging over his pointy nose.

She swallowed, "You're obviously vexed with me - you've been snarky since we left the castle, and now I feel as visible to you as oxygen."

"Fuck me, here we go," he rasped under his breath before shooting back a large shot of vodka. He shut his eyes away with a hard pinch on the bridge of his nose.

Audette waited helplessly for him to return from hiding somewhere behind those long lashes, blinking at a nearby bridge troll with skin the tint of an elderberry. It's tongue was roving far up one flared nostril.

Ding ding ding ding ding ding...

Like a jackrabbit Draco's knee drilled against the underside of the table, producing miniature earthquakes in every chalice.

If she knew anything about the male half of the species this action was never a sign of anything but discomfort and anxiety, suggesting that he was in fact vexed about something yet disinterested in discussing the matter.

Theodore Nott in contrast was light years advanced in maturity - stonewalling, or passive-aggression, were never resorted to in lieu of direct articulation.

However in comparison to the average nineteen year old boy this forged him a total unicorn, and Audette would do best to recall this.

Being nearly a year younger and a completely different person, she couldn't possibly hold Draco to such extraordinary standards, although communication would be a project she expected him to work on when capsized.

In rash regard, Sasha decided that this was the most opportune moment to present her with a mysterious frothing drink, encouraging her to take it, "Come now, Baby Doll-"

Draco snapped back to reality at the speed of light, leaning heavily over her to bark at his friend who had situated himself conveniently on Audette's other side, "Sasha, ENOUGH. That's quite enough Baby Doll bosh for now."

In one swift flick of his fingers the prepared potation met it's match, taking flight clean over the table as if it had just been plucked up by a miniature tornado.

"Relax, my friend, the girl is but looking lonely," Sasha did not seem particularly conciliatory.

"Piss off with this holy steward horseshit," Draco's voice registered as an absolute thunderstorm in his chest. Audette was suddenly trapped with her nose flat against his sternum in the unexpected squabble, "The girl came here with me, and you can rest assured that she's adequately accommodated."

Twisting her fingers in his shirt, she glanced over her shoulder at Sasha's reaction.

His black moustache had bristled in defensive agitation, "Noooobody said anyyyyytink about baby not been take care of. I was...being good friend."

Incapable of reasoning over the topic Draco squinted sarcastically, "Take me for a commoner, do you, Sasha? Good friend, is that it? Shove off, and quit staring at her tits right in front of me like a drooling mutt."

Audette peered between them again, bewildered as to what exactly was being implied.

Her preppy reputation at Hogwarts had long ago eliminated any chance of boys fighting over her, yet this particular type didn't seem to mind one teensy bit.

"Very well, Rasputin," Sasha hocked and spat on the floor grotesquely, and Draco seemed to accept this bizarre show of defeat.

Sccrrrrrrr.

By the command of his grip the lanky chair that housed Audette violently scraped across the stone flooring, causing their knees to knock together in the ensuing collision.

He proceeded to wrap his arm around her waist and hiss spicy breath in her face, just about dragging her completely into his lap, "Alright, I am vexed."

"You're worse than that - you're a cauldron overflown," she felt so petite in his demanding shadow, studying his grinding jaw as he wound a lock of her hair into a ringlet on her shoulder.

Goosebumps...goosebumps galore.

"He fancies you," Draco admitted with a caustic grunt, shooting daggers presumably at the swindler in question.

As their gazes met in the strange red lighting, Audette tittered rather sheepishly, "Now that is an outlandish postulation."

He shook his head, "No it's not, he's hardly alone. Normally, competition is nothing I can't handle. However you've been teasing me for four months with absolutely no mercy. As it is, I'm feeling...increasingly possessive of you...by the minute."

He'd been banking on relief proceeding the talent show, however Audette, who held all of the chips in her palm, had then extended the unrest by several more hours that evening.

It was a wonder that he had agreed to bring her along, costing him further altruism whilst simultaneously feeling annoyed with her.

She was in the middle of debating leaving the bar to get a wiggle on with the arduous task of breaking up with Theodore, when he continued with a sharp yank of her ringlet, "I have never wasted my time chasing after a witch, and what you have put me through is closer to a bloody hidebehind hunt. You see, I require validation, progress for my efforts, or else I will act on this accumulating malcontent."

Audette pet his cheek, absolutely mesmerized by his wintry eyes in the candlelight, "There won't be any need for that. After tonight, it is done. We aught not to overlap this but...oh but it's only a few hours. Go on then, call me your girlfriend. Test it out."

Straight away her heart skipped a beat.

He hadn't really asked her out directly.

"Girlfriend?" he simply stared at her without a blink or a flinch, contemplating her features before an adorable curl showed up in the corner of his mouth, and she let out her breath, "Officially?"

She nodded, affectionately planting her hand on his thigh, but he practically bounced on the spot in evasion of the contact, "Don't! Don't. I can't handle it, I really can't. I'm strung out in that department far worse."

It took her a second to connect the dots before she let slip a faint snort, pinching his thigh simply for the satisfaction of watching him squirm away a second round, "Ohhh I see now, you're inescapably randy. Would you prefer the fork again?"

He sucked in air through his teeth, reaching for another shot with a roll of his eyes, "Not even an axe in my knee could quell this madness. You haven't the foggiest - those ancient undergarments have become a permanent fixture in my mind. What I dream about doing to you, it's completely sacrilegious, Lady Bellarose."

Audette grinned and leaned her head on his shoulder as he took the shot in one professional go, "Oh-ho-ho noo! You poor, poor baby, have you been suffering in celibacy all on account of my silly old pantaloons?"

How she felt about him in that moment, eagerly tracing his sharp jawline, admiring his smooth voice and piney scent, was surreal. There was hardly a cell in her body that wasn't devastatingly curious about what this boy dreamt of doing to her.

When he settled back with a drunken smile and tugged her yet closer, pheromones rapidly took over. Instinctively their noses drifted together, enraptured in their own bubble at the populated table, and soon, Audette recognized the same hormonal itch pulsing through her veins.

He pinched and tugged at her hip, his touch treading ever lower in uneven increments on her skirt, "I'm overwhelmed with anticipation. I can't wait to have those silly old pantaloons all to myself, to celebrate you on my arm and ravage you sore in my bed chambers after hours."

"Tell me more...tell me what you dream of doing to me in your chambers," she whispered ardently against his lips. It was reflexive then, the manner in which her eyelids fluttered nonstop in tandem with her wild heartrate.

Their mingling breath was hot, and her fingers snaked in through his collar to tickle his throat desirously. This was the most intimate contact they'd shared yet, sat so tight-knit together in that shadowy place.

Two boyfriends at a time, TWO...

The scandal was potently diabolical...

Audette Bellarose had turned out to be the greatest vixen of them all, and no one could have possibly seen it coming.

She deviously raised her leg and slid it between his, biting her lip, the delicate silk of her gem-studded tights caressing a very impressive swell in his trousers.

He groaned, shifting restlessly as the weight of her calf pressed down on his hardening member, "If I told you that, I'm afraid it'd be the nail in the coffin for my gentleman's reputation. You'd bolt from this place before I could utter the last word."

"Glib of you to assume any such a reputation ever existed, and if I'm being honest, I was counting on it's invalidation," she dug her nails into the back of his hairline, begging pathetically with her body language, "My blood carbonates in your presence, and I'm finding myself craving for unknown things that might only be viewed as carnal, and profane."

A ravenous sparkle formed in his hooded gaze, his jaw slacking in wonder, "Ha, if I didn't know any better, I'd say the diamond herself is describing a forbidden sense of lust to me."

"She most definitely is," Audette spoke with coy assurance, aware that the drip in her gaze alone conveyed as much. To even mention such natural urges in a feminine regard was so profoundly uncourtly, it was warrant enough to be locked away forever or at best, condemned to spinsterhood.

She could have stayed precisely where she was, frozen forever in time with his hand on her thigh and her heart in her throat, except for the fact that Guy's voice belted out obnoxiously, "Over here, Parkinson! No, don't look at it! The bar, don't ... [https://img.wattpad.com/04d310b3a76c888d05e612649c8f534355092273/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f31777a6b34656d434b51554450773d3d2d313338303737343430302e313761343435616462376531313339303238333534313337343138312e6a7067?s=fit&w=1280&h=1280]

She could have stayed precisely where she was, frozen forever in time with his hand on her thigh and her heart in her throat, except for the fact that Guy's voice belted out obnoxiously, "Over here, Parkinson! No, don't look at it! The bar, don't look at...ah, well, there goes Greengrass. Suppose that one was predictable."

Spine-chilling wails erupted across the confined space as Daphne Greengrass completely lost her head at the sight of the boggart within the tube.

Spinning on her high heel she made to exit the way they'd come in, however the door didn't appear to have installed any functioning handles. Apparently it was the primary executor of when a patron was deemed worthy of departure.

Yet another risqué kiss foiled, Audette twisted to skewer at the pair of Slytherin females who were triggering a roast of hollering from the slovenly veterans occupying the pub.

Daft and vain, Daphne had dropped to her knees in the muddy entry, transfixed on an image of herself mottled in pus-infused boils, fuzzy warts, shedding hair and a pot belly figure.

Pansy on the other hand was not having a second of it, aggressively yanking Daphne's elbow, "Oh for Satan's sake Greengrass. Get up, right now, or I'll leave you here to blubber and rot all night!"

Guy glanced at Seamus, who's eyes seemed to be swirling around in his skull, "Do you know what, I've just discovered my Christmas present for Greengrass. I'm going to doodle that exact abomination onto my Etch-N-Sketch, then hide it in her trunk for the morning come!"

Draco leapt athletically out of his seat, revolving gracefully to plant rigid arms around either side of Audette's dainty frame. To her delight he kissed her again, deep and slow, before sending her a flirty simper, "Does uh, her royal highness fancy a drink then? Seeing as she's such a seasoned barfly, she must have a preference."

Honestly, I've never even sipped on a cold potion. I'm as green as a tree frog, is what Audette aught to have said.

But it was his cavalier, smug grin, and the overwhelming desire to impress this thrilling new boy, that cattle-prodded her fibbing inner monster awake instead, "Oh...I-I have an unfettered palette for the alcohols, I'm not picky in the slightest..."

The alcohols?

He must have expected her to spin webs in such a garrulous manner, because he snorted and cocked his head towards the various tumblers on the table, "Ah. They say a worldly woman is hard to please - I suppose your pedigree far exceeds a warm up shot then?"

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Audette's eye twitched, but this irrational game of chicken was one she had been playing her entire life as a result of being a pathological fabler.

She stubbornly raised a bomb of vodka to prove herself, yet upon catching a whiff of the contents gagged, then coughed to mask the sound, "That has most definitely gone bad. I'll...just have whatever you're having."

Draco pressed his lips firmly together, hiking one eyebrow as he returned the shooter to it's tray, "The alcohols have already expired, darling. Although even were that not the case, you'd surely label what I'm having as entirely putrescent. Would you like to try that again?"

"No," she made a funny face - a hybrid somewhere between pride and dither, "Why don't you go be a good boy and surprise your lady."

He winked, "But alas, I'm not a good boy. And I'm not the type to take risks on investments - I'll at least require a hint, seeing as my knowledge of your tastes remains newfangled yet."

Blast the antagonistic, articulate bastard.

She frantically embarked on a mental investigation, keenly avoiding the cruel amusement glittering in his icy orbs. She had a bad feeling that this brilliant and cunning boy would gladly entertain embarrassing her for as long as she pressed it, just as he'd done so in the clock tower.

Admit to her innocence, the innocence that he so obviously already knew about? Pfft, no, why exaggerate the reality of it?

Take a poor guess based off of the limited list of liquor labels she could summarize? A disaster waiting to happen.

Then it came to her, putting on a theatrical search of her person before throwing up hands light-heartedly, "I sadly haven't brought a pence to pay - I'll have no choice but to sit this round out."

He bent very close to her, appearing quite miffed at the mention of monetary compensation, "I meant what I said - I'm extremely possessive of you. Don't insult me like that ever again."

He disappeared, leaving her to mull awkwardly on the notion that she had offended him by insinuating he wasn't expected to purchase her things.

So he was, deep down, an aristocrat afterall, governed by the elder sensibilities that such chivalrous doting was standard between a wealthy nobleman and his chosen female companion. This did not however, align with anything she had heard about him.

Audette craned her neck to watch that perfectly angelic white hair vanish amongst the crowded elements, accidentally landing her gaze upon a haggard bald man smooching at her in a suggestive manner.

Without the protective warmth of Malfoy her sense of danger dramatically heightened then, growing acutely aware of numerous wormlike eyes fixated on her - some human, some definably not - none of them discouraged whatsoever by the fact that she was the 'untouchable' Emerald Princess.

The volume in the tavern had ballooned to boisterous by the time Pansy and Daphne finally rocked up to the table, as an illegal zombie fighting ring commenced betting rounds in a roped-off area.

Eyes bloodshot and watery Daphne clambered into an elevated chair and sat shaking catatonically, observing a pair of resurrected, exhumed carcasses taking swings at one another. Chunks of grey flesh and decomposition slime flew through the hazy air, jettisoning past the steepled hats of raving, uncouth wizards jingling sacks of betting gold.

Pansy on the contrary remained wholly cool and slick as black ice, flinging off winter accessories, ochre orbs peeling around the many attendants with purpose, "Where is he, then, Malfoy?"

"Bar," one of the Russians looked at her mirthfully over the rim of his tankard.

Pansy threw back a shot and began to fluff up her hair in telling anticipation, before falling upon Audette rudely, "And what on earth are you doing out of your snow globe, Bellarose? Shouldn't you be off, oh I don't know, folding doilies? Practicing etiquette at some charity convivium for the House Elves?"

Audette snapped defensively like a twig, "Sorry to be the bearer of bad news Parkinson, but the boggart position has already been filled. You'll just have to take your attacks elsewhere in the hopes of striking terror. Although I wouldn't count on it, seeing as everything that escapes your teeth is truly riddikulus."

So high on adrenaline had Audette been at the time, that her own wittiness didn't register until the Russian champions all began whistling low.

She straightened her spine, buzzing on the ecstasy of the evening.

"Well, well, well..," Pansy smiled a sinuous, condescending sort of smile, running her eyes up and down Audette's fairy ballerina slip, "I remember my first time drinking too. Has a means of making one feel delusionally invincible, doesn't it?"

"Hmm."

"Hmmm."

They hummed at one another tensely. However the prickly staring contest would have to take a rain check, seeing as the instant Draco returned, Pansy lit up like a perverted firework.

The craziness in her eyes must've come with some degree of a blinding lens, as she completely overlooked him sliding a classy flute of golden champagne in front of Audette, mouthing the word slow with wide, warning eyes.

Misinterpreting the instructions as being related to her perceived virtue on the matter, her proud little fingers wrapped around the fine rose stem and in a naive gulp she hoovered down half of it in a single ramshackle go.

There, that should prove ample sophistication.

She learned, in about two seconds flat, that champagne is nicknamed 'bubbly' for a reason, and is meant to be consumed slowly for a reason, regardless of one's tenure.

Guzzling it turned out to be a terrible approach, as it burned and bulged up in her throat like a fleeing demon during an exorcism, and she was left then with no choice then but to face her tearing eyes offwards and pray that a miracle allowed for the suppression of a violent pocket of welling gas.

"There you are, Malfoy!" Pansy screamed the sentence across the way. Daphne winced as if her proximal exposure to the noise had just inflicted a splitting migraine.

Straight off the bat Draco's right eye began to taper into a slit. He sat back down, voice arid and uninspired, "Ah yes, it is I, Where's Warlock - congratulations on finding me in this rubbish bin, Parkinson."

Pansy leaned forward eagerly over the sticky wooden slab riddled with boozy containers, "Out with it then, as you promised. Who are you taking to the ball next week?"

"Is she havin' a laugh?" Seamus darted his attention around the table's occupants in confoundment, finally landing upon Audette who was the obvious answer based on what he'd witnessed.

Guy piped up mischievously, "Give this a bloomin' minute Finnigan, and Parkinson will be the only one not barking."

Draco made no effort to mask his exhaustion over the relentless inquiries which had been nothing short of a barrage from Pansy for months on end, "Like I said, I'm taking Peeves, seeing as my girlfriend will be...unavailable."

His long fingers tapped in a laborious dance adjacent to a crystal glass of cognac, and below the table the knee jerking had reinstated tenfold.

My girlfriend.

Hearing it come straight from his mouth set off a bongo drum in Audette's chest.

There wasn't a chance at concealing the sly beam which spread across her face, now sipping on the champagne at a reasonable pace.

Secret It Girl, at your services.

A shrill exasperation followed by a blithering of partially formed words radiated from a dumbstruck Pansy, who's ability to enunciate swiftly downgraded to that of a newborn.

Daphne crossed her arms in malaise, "You, Malfoy? A girlfriend? My god, I pity the fool, whoever she is."

"She's not a fool, and I've changed my mind. I'm going to debut her after the ball, on the ship. But I'll tell you what," Draco finished off his pungent drink - a tarry liquid which stunk more like unrefined petrol than something conceivably edible.

With a dramatic sigh he stretched his arm, bringing it down around the back of Audette's chair to rest loosely across her shoulders, "I'll let you have three guesses right now as to who she is Parkinson, and if you guess correctly, then I'll admit it, and you can finally go on with your sorry life."

Guy spat - SPAT - his drink as a hysterical snigger exploded outwards, hosing down Anastasia in cheap mead.

Daphne's expression transitioned rapidly to one of percipient shock, gawking at Audette as if she'd just announced a series of irrational plans for world domination.

Draco's palpable clue however, was not so conspicuous to everyone, as Pansy regained her composure and scoffed with a petty wave of her wand, "Oh very funny Malfoy, there is no girlfriend. How convenient that this mystery witch would be 'unavailable' during the ball. Fine, I'll play your little game, but I am raising the stakes."

He shrugged with a lazy look of aversion that strongly suggested he hadn't actually meant to play anything, and Audette's tummy constricted like a woodchipper full of twigs and muck.

Any self-serving idea which originated from Pansy Parkinson's spidery brain was bound to be one designed in accordance with procuring anarchy, and schadenfreude.

Parkinson employed accio to draw the little black box embossed with the scripture Gēhannā away from Guy's gangly fingers, and arranged it in the center of the table between herself and Draco.

"Predictable," Draco made a sour face at her, "You realize they teach the dark arts at Durmstrang. I'm not going to deteriorate in there, but you will."

So it was confirmed; there was definitely not candies inside.

"You've never been to Gēhannā, Malfoy," Anastasia accused.

Pansy danced inky talons on the roof of the ominous object, "That's right. Don't get ahead of yourself, Malfoy. So here's the rundown; you'll swear unbreakably not to lie when confirming information, and if I guess correctly, I'll choose who to send you in with. If I don't guess correctly in three tries, you may send me in with anyone of your choosing."

As Draco internally brewed on the proposition, Seamus scratched at the carved letters with a dull nail chewed to a stub, "Now hang on a minute, doesn't Gēhannā mean-"

"-HELL," a Durmstrang student supplied with a rather freaky jeer.

Finnigan blanched, retracting his arm safely away from the plain box as if it had just bitten back, "How can yah be sendin each other to fecking hell?"

"Oh keep up, you three," Pansy judged Guy, Audette and Seamus for the obvious ignorance in their wide stares, "Seven minutes in heaven? It's the same premise, only, should you fail to reach heaven after seven minutes, it switches to seven minutes in hell. Never heard of a boggart box? Is Ireland really that sparse?"

Seamus shook his head, flecks of dried pumpkin slime peppering his good holiday sweater.

"Send me in with Malfoy," Guy winked naughtily, poking his wonky wand into the device's hard flank, "I don't need seven bloody minutes to get one of us to heaven - do it three flat, two if you buy me a drink first, Mr. Seeker Extraordinaire."

Sasha laughed, picking up the article to turn it over in his glove, "The boggart, he is born in Gēhannā, that is the legend. There, they took the djinn and deformed him, into something that does not gift wishes of the imagination's brightest skies, but instead, gifts insight into the imagination's darkest tombs. The boggart, you see, he mimics the Devil's work, and he will not let you go unless you fight him face to face..."

A tentative pause, then...

"BOO!" another boy in red sprung a disregarded human skull at a rather transfixed Guy, nearly causing him to topple clean onto the floor in a high pitched shriek.

Draco shot Guy a dull sneer as the boy recovered his position at the table, "Bold Cosmos, however your dreams shall never come true. Parkinson is going to end up in there regardless of any outcome, we already know that much. She's the world's worst military general - tattoos her battle strategies front and center on her big fucking forehead."

He removed a sleek obsidian wand from his jacket, outstretching a hand towards Pansy, "It's your funeral Parkinson, I've been in hell since the day I was born. But if this will get you off of my back, then let's play."

Don't do this, Audette pleaded hopelessly in her head.

If Pansy guessed correctly she would without a doubt send her starry-eyed self into the box with Malfoy, placing him in the position to choose between experiencing seven minutes of torturous hell, or hooking up with her in some clandestine regard.

Very likely he was of the assumption that Pansy's pride would prevent her from ever guessing correctly, but that bet was not guaranteed.

Audette watched through her fingers in dread as he pointed his wand at their conjoined hands, muttering, "I swear that I have a real girlfriend, and, I swear to answer all questions about her identity with honesty, to the limit of three attempts."

The unbreakable vow finalized with a snaking of golden wires around their elbows.

Poof.

Pansy surprised them all when she slunk away sporting an elaborate pout on her lips, prompting the red suits to hoot in boyishly low tones.

Draco sat back, snide and callous, reinstating his arm around Audette, "What? Utterly devastated, are we, that I have a real love interest? Don't start blubbering now before we've even started."

The indignant sadness in Pansy's gaze almost tugged at Audette's heartstrings, realizing for the first time that this was no flimsy schoolgirl crush that her roommate harbored for Draco Malfoy - a distant childhood acquaintance who took her affection completely for granted.

And to add injury to insult he was acting fairly nasty to Pansy about it, bullying her, even. It was in fact devastating to behold, let alone be the one experiencing it.

That twinkle of mourning transformed into a spark of animosity, and without a further thought Pansy wasted her first guess in a furious gnash, "It's that bitch Carousel, isn't it! Always sitting in your lap at parties, I should have known!"

Daphne nodded avidly, "She does have a fancy for Malfoy, doesn't she? Not exactly shy about it either."

Carousel was the leading Parisian champion: a tanned femme fatale with extravagant red hair and killer casting skills.

She went solely by this cryptic mononym, Carousel, as if posing as a comic book character when roaming the castle.

Her reputation profoundly mirrored the pseudonym; she was known to pick up multiple boys at a time, taking them on trivial relationship rides which never amounted to anything save for travelling in a perfect loop. And when she was good and done using them, whenever that might be, she dumped them right back where they had gotten on, dizzy, dazed and empty handed.

Carousel was a floozy and a heartbreaker, and had carelessly home-wrecked countless relationships in the four short months she'd been at Hogwarts that year, utilizing her Veela charms and slithery accent to woo weak men astray.

It was news to Audette that this shockingly attractive girl had a soft spot for Draco. Now thinking on it more, the champion had been flirting with him on the backstage that very evening, and it was clear that they were not precisely strangers...

A frumpy glower bloomed on her face, and Draco seemed to become conscious of the pickle he'd just landed himself in by agreeing to play along, as it was already exposing him and highlighting more rotten philandering he'd been up to.

Well, no amount of consolation was going to take back what Audette had just discovered, so he begrudgingly returned his attention to Pansy, "Strike one, Parkinson. It's not Carousel."

This time, Pansy and Daphne hushed back and forth, debating alternatives under their breaths.

As this went on Draco attempted to mitigate the situation, "Listen, Audette...about Carousel..."

Audette was not interested in further machinations, reaching forward to unthinkably snap up a shot of vodka. She held her breath and drained it, astounded by the fiery scorch dripping like acid all down her throat to form a pool of lava in her belly.

Unlike the bubbly it did not argue with the hazard of gas, but rather via conflagration, and instant misery.

Why anyone would willingly create something so rank for human consumption was far beyond her wits, coming dangerously close to blowing chunks in every direction, "Oh dear god, what on Earth is that formulated from?"

She must have gone as green as the spectral ectoplasm hanging from the rafters, because Sasha chuckled knowingly at her side, "Pot-A-toes, Ireland. Surely you appreciate the beauty of the burning wine."

"That is a flagrant abuse of a good potato," she argued in a seasick wheeze.

"Are you not going to let me explain?" Draco pressed. He was looking at her as if she'd just sprung a third eye.

"Hmmm, let's see," Audette dramatically pushed her luck by ripping back a second shooter, and a third, discarding the tiny glasses like a menace, "She's a well-established strumpet, Carousel. I'm not sure I can stomach your dishonest explanation any more than I can stomach this foul gasoline, hence my resolution to the latter."

One of the Durmstrang's drawled in amused shock when Audette tossed a fourth emptied glass straight across his path, "Huu-zzzah! She is a god, this woman is!"

"Don't encourage it, will you?" Draco winced at his burly friend, swatting at her roving hands to dissuade the consumption of additional drinks, "Stop this lunacy at once. You'll land your amateur arse under the table."

Now seeing doubles of his pretty face, Audette obnoxiously jabbed at where she thought the tip of his nose might be to back him off, further muddying the air between them with a slew of shamrocks popping off her sleeve, "Youuu are only worried Mr. Malfoy, that a good Irish girl can outdrink a slobby Englishman any day."

"Oh really, are you quite certain that you're Irish then, cross-eyes? And who are you calling slobby?" asked one of the pearly-haired twins.

She defiantly tried to swig a fifth shot, only to discover that she was sucking on the vacant husk of a glass she'd already emptied, dropping it in a disappointed clash to the floor.

"That's well enough!" Draco barked hoarsely, slamming a closed fist on the messy table, but she had already decided this was the case independent of his bossy orders.

Satisfied that she had sent herself off to a wasted paradise, she let her forehead meet with the table, hiding underneath her golden hair as a foreign sense of euphoria burbled in her system and buzzed in her brain.

The term "feeling tipsy" began to mean something to her as Draco hissed into her hair uninvited, "Now you've gone and fucked yourself up, princess. Impulsive and rash, what a surprise..."

All she could manage in return was an insincere thumbs up and a spirited, unladylike burp.

From her new hideaway she regrettably overheard Pany's second, more carefully crafted guess creep across the gathering, "Alright Malfoy - is it Anastasia?"

His hand was laid flat on Audette's bare back, caressing her spine softly with those freezing cold fingers of his.

It was clear from the revised tone of his voice that he was getting angrier by the second, "No. Why would it be Federov, Parkinson? I might be a sorry excuse for a noble, but I at least possess the wherewithal to sit next to my partner."

Guy blurted impatiently then, "Jiminy cricket, Parkinson, you are a divine pighead. How much easier can the bloke make it for you?"

Daphne too, chimed in, sounding hesitant, "Parkinson, come on, it has to be...Bellarose."

"Do you hear yourself, Greengrass? She's engaged to that wasp, Theodore Nott, and this is Bellarose we're talking about."

"Well...how can you explain her being here in this dog pound, drinking, with the red suits? All those strange nights she's been crying, dressing up, and I've been hearing rumors..."

"Cosmos is clearly at fault for her being here, and there's not a girl in that castle who isn't rumored to be involved with Malfoy. Are you sure about that arrangement with your sister falling through?"

"This is the first time in years he's even stepped foot back in the UK. Yes, that deal was off eons ago."

Audette felt her body relax as the vodka swiftly performed it's duties, roiling in a toxic waltz with the champagne deep in her stomach. Sitting up rather lopsided, she was suddenly in a terrifically loopy mood which did not account for a lick of the uncomfortable information she was overhearing.

"Ha!" she let slip at the sight of them all staring at her.

Part of her hair had matted into a sticky frizzball that simply refused to detangle no matter how much she scratched her fingers through it, "Oh of course it isn't meeeee, the marionette. He'd eat me up and spit me out, use my strings to floss his teeth, isn't that right?"

Pansy looked considerably suspicious of the alien person who had just reappeared, and did not, for speechlessness, interrupt Audette insanely reaching for yet another shot.

A toss ensued, involving Draco and two other boys battling for the glass. Despite their well-intended efforts to overturn it, she managed to successfully ingest the majority of it's spicy contents before violently chucking the empty shooter across the lounge.

Each of the sporty boys contorted in their chairs to observe it's trajectory like a pack of dogs to a bone, cringing in gamey grunts when the solid object pinged off of a random wizard's skull.

Thankfully, the man turned around and proceeded to wreak havoc on the stubby bridge troll who'd been digesting his own boogers for over an hour, incorrectly suspecting him of the belligerent attack.

Spells were shot, chairs were splintered and fists thrown, spurning an ever-broadening scuffle involving several riled up groups.

"Whoo! Huzzah! Huzzah!" Audette cheered giddily, launching into a storm of mangled giggles which Draco half-heartedly matched as she started up a childish slap fight with him. The madness within the dive bar had turned out to be a surprisingly cathartic experience afterall.

"Awh, bless her!" Guy shouted over the escalating chaos, equally as pink in the cheeks. He clapped a hand to his chest and adoringly veered his eyes at the ceiling where a shower of magic rained down from a stray cast, "The day hath come: Detty is drunk as a skunk!"

Worried murmuring and subtle snickers wove in and out of Audette's eardrums as Malfoy parleyed intimately with his peers. He was barely holding her advances off with one flattened hand held high, "Right. Precisely how much Elation potion was in each of those?"

"She will be alive, she won't die."

"You realize that I only required one half of that redundant sentence, Soko."

"Круто! Круто, Malfoy."

"She is as they say 'happy camper', is no problem here..."

Audette hadn't gone camping, goofy boys.

She'd gone straight to the moon, applauding and bouncing in her chair to the point where Draco felt the need to drag her fully into his lap and pin her arms flat, "Quiet down there, Marilyn Monroe. Christ, the whole bloody place is watching you sing."

Despite having incited a full-blown riot in the background, Audette remained uncontrollably jubilant.

She cracked her face back, rosy and goosey to peck up at his pointy nose, "What do you think? Are the stars in our favor, my good Lord Malfoy? Shall I make for you the fairest of Duchesses?"

He winked down at her teasingly, "Yeah. The fairest of them all. But let's not tell my other duchesses I said that."

Pansy's voice had darkened to an alto rumble for her third and final guess, sulking as they stared drunkenly into each other's eyes directly in front of her, "Malfoy, is Audette Bellarose your girlfriend?"

His steely gaze slid past, arms snaking squarely across Audette's waist beneath the table, "She is. Congratulations, Parkinson, you've discovered the joys of deductive reasoning."

If only it were that elementary: achieving peace in a tiff against Pansy Parkinson.

The mood spun on a sickle as Pansy stood and pointed the business end of her wand in between Audette's chartreuse eyes, "You've cheated, Malfoy! I don't know what sort of dark magic you've employed to break an unbreakable vow, but you've cheated! Audette Bellarose has already been sworn to Theodore Nott, and you...you're making an even greater joke out of her with this undeniable jape!"

Draco snarled, "Dark magic cannot break an unbreakable vow, but rest assured, I shall break every bone in your fucking body if you don't lower that cheap stick."

The wand was not withdrawn, instead held shoddily in place by Pansy's shaky grasp. Hysteria burdened her entire perspective then, encouraging the rare appearance of welling tears. She had come face to face with her worst fear in The Black Boggart that nigh, however in an ironic twist, no boggart had been involved.

"No. No! She can't be, not her!" she shrieked.

The bewitched violin playing in the backdrop almost made the whole affair a humorous theatre.

"I beg your pardon, and why is that?" Audette could not for the life of her stop giggling at the worst possible moment to be doing so, certain that the involuntary reaction was coming off as downright patronizing.

"Because...you're a fucking cotilion prude, a gilded brat!" Pansy's black bob clung to her rainy cheeks, exaggerating the madness in her gaze, "You know she's a virgin, don't you, Malfoy?

you're a fucking cotilion prude, a gilded brat!" Pansy's black bob clung to her rainy cheeks, exaggerating the madness in her gaze, "You know she's a virgin, don't you, Malfoy? [https://img.wattpad.com/421d1d5bfac572952079a4c3a6e5775b37dd9ba2/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f5f3035585f783348786d374f76773d3d2d313338303737343430302e313761316430623637653537353565313137343837333233303539392e6a7067?s=fit&w=1280&h=1280]

"I imagine she is," he responded.

The Slytherin in Pansy had never shined so bright, twisting her wand in a menacing fashion, "Well, it so happens to be her most valuable asset. One that coveted through amortentia would count as a capitol offence."

"What amortentia?" he seethed in pluming contention.

Pansy's demeanor perversely flattened to a stony wither, evidently calculating just how much damage she was prepared to inflict out of spite, "And should I send you both in that box, and you claim her innocence, you'll have to marry her. She's the fucking diamond, Malfoy."

"And what does that make you, a lump of coal?" he recklessly chewed back.

No matter, Pansy was now firmly on a tangent for destruction, "And if you don't claim her innocence, you'll be tortured in hell, and it shall feel like an eternity for those seven minutes."

"If anything feels like an eternity, it's this fucking monologue," he flared his gaze tauntingly, bouncing Audette on top of his endlessly fidgety knee.

She finally stopped tittering as the reality of what was occurring dawned on her, glancing between their fiery stares.

Pansy wiped her cheeks, smiling somehow with the combined mechanics of both heartbreak and wickedness, "Very well. You see...I don't believe you two are dating, and I don't believe you have the guts to violate Lord Bellarose's only heir without ceremony. So...let us hope your deception tonight is worth going to hell and back for, and you'd best pray that Bellarose here, doesn't return in a vegetative state."

Sooner than her threatening ultimatum might be properly processed, Pansy explosively shouted, "Gēhannā!"

A stream of scarlet fog ebbed from the tip of her wand and engulfed Audette's entire world before she could so much as make a sound in Malfoy's lap.

Immediately, she was separated from him and any other material familiarity, finding herself on her feet, arms outstretched, blinded and uncontrollably coughing.

Many times over her perusing fingers aught to have collided with heavy objects in the turbulent smoke; the bar stools, the table, an abandoned mug...the bald, smooching man...anything...

No - it was as if she'd been teleported into an expansive open field, searching through endless, blood red spumescence.

What a time to be actively digesting five drinks laced with Elation potion...

Gēhannā...Gēhannā...Gēhannā...

When the fog finally began to dissipate, along with the ominous echoes of Pansy's hateful inflection, Audette discovered that she'd been eventually deposited onto a plush coral carpet.

Nervously, she inspected the interior facade of the boggart box - their destination punishment for the crime of ruffling a certain someone's oily black feathers.

It was surprisingly austere, a single room with characteristics akin to the tavern itself; lacking in apertures, defined only by a continuous round wall, and an unremarkable slab of a ceiling.

Hell being an infinite concept, it was only fitting then, to design a room in the shape of a perfect circle.

This highly antagonistic architectural layout thus provoked the utmost of discomfort. Given no standard furniture could possibly fit without strife against the curvilinear outskirts, this effectively drove everything and everyone defenselessly into the center.

There was no where to hide, and no where to escape - only the hair-raising sensibility of being watched from all angles.

One element had been artfully provided, plonked there at the heart as if on exhibit; an antique settee, sporting a heavy cherry wood skeleton and velvety scarlet cushioning.

Audette thought this to be a deeply insulting show of agenda, broadcasting the sole purpose of the room and what was expected to occur there.

Embedded into the wall and oriented in line with the chaise stood a mammoth brick fireplace. And upon it's prominent mantle, like a tiny top hat, sat a noisy black cuckoo clock ticking away in urgent reminder of the seven minute countdown at hand.

One dreaded to speculate what sort of foul thing sprung forth from behind the gear face upon a striking hour.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Thanks to the unnecessary conflagration blazing in the hearth below, the hellish room was suitably stifling. And as a delightful by-product provided by the abundance of clipped roses mounding around the perimeter the air smelled sickly sweet, an effect only exaggerated to Audette by her own vodka breath and sugary perfume.

She had materialized behind the elaborate settee, Malfoy by the mouth of the grated inferno.

It was a pleasant bombshell to behold that his fencing uniform had not reintegrated along with the rest of him; he was standing there in nothing but a pair of crimson boxer shorts which greatly advertised his many assets.

"Fucking hell," he whistled ironically, baby blue eyes widening to saucers as they finally took inventory of each other.

On the contrary, she had all but forgotten how to speak.

His flawless chest, the prominent veins forming rivers in his arms, those abs...

Audette was so enraptured, drooling absentmindedly, convinced now that vodka was an aphrodisiac, that it did not occur to her that she too had arrived in an altered wardrobe.

She dug her nails into the backing of the chaise to stabilize herself, and in doing so noted that her modest ballerina slip had been replaced with seriously racy, red lingerie.

Worse yet, her satiny slippers were now three inch, piercing stilettos - a style of daunting footwear entirely exotic to her which pledged for a good old fashioned neck snapping event.

As far as she could tell, the get up was absolutely devoid of any function other than to toy with the male mind: one would be equally as accommodated by a handful of spaghetti noodles tied into slippery knots.

"OH heavens. DON'T-don't look at me!" she cried in a controversial, giggly panic, crossing her arms at all sorts of unhelpful zig zags, but there was simply too much skin showing to cover all the bits and bobs from his hungry gleam.

Falling down behind the sofa she popped her eyes over the top as he curiously stepped closer, checking his watch briefly before those frosty daggers landed back on her, "And...why not? You're utterly devastating in that."

He scratched his chin, and then a light bulb appeared to go off before he turned with his fingers curved over the face of the ugly mantle clock, muttering an incantation under his breath.

The clucking slowed, perhaps to one quarter it's original speed, and when he spun round it was with a mischievous grin, "Don't be shy, come and give us a twirl."

Don't be shy...

Deja-vu, again...except...they were in a different setting, and she was in a different set of lingerie as he pirouetted her...

Impossible...

"I-I...you stay away," she sunk onto the heels with her spine to the backing, darting her eyes at where the preposterous excuse for shoes had all but vanished into a forest of shag carpeting.

Shaking, she bit her pretty pink nails over and over. And OVER.

They were in big trouble now: no matter what they elected to do, it would end badly. Yet Malfoy seemed to have already made up his mind.

Was he seriously considering going through with it, despite Pansy's foreboding spiel outlining the consequences?

Of course he was. On second thought, of course she was.

They'd both ingested an ungodly metric of Elation potion that evening, and it had been four months of tumultuous, carnal frustration barely kept at bay by the tattered obstacle that was once the Book of One Thousand Bleeding Eyes.

For Malfoy, that likely meant pent up testosterone, raging blue balls, and teeth-gritting celibacy in a setting where girls had been tossing themselves at his feet in eager sacrifice.

And he was angry, very angry, that she'd been carelessly twiddling her thumbs, protracting the excruciation at her own social convenience.

"Come on out, love. You'll still be a virgin...for the most part," he spoke in a crafty tone, now quite a bit closer beyond the settee. The guile in his cadence reminded her of a wolf hunting a foolish doe, hiding in the ferns with it's tail sticking out in plain sight.

She pressed a hand to her forehead, leaning her chin on bent knees, willing her spinning mind to combat all of those silly shots, "How can one be mostly a virgin?"

She had a funny feeling that once he got his hands on her, he wouldn't be able to stop anywhere close to the mostly mark.

Tick. Tock. Tick...

As he shuffled nearer, and nearer, the pressure building in correlation, her gaze clouded then with a memory.

At the ripe age of thirteen there she was, standing at her father's side in the hottest habitat the Bellarose Biodome had to offer, slippers kicking into dry white sand.

It was December of 1993, five years prior nearly to the day, and something of curiosity was occurring that afternoon, a welcomed distraction from the typical toe dragging boredom.

Bellarose Castle's chunkiest resident - the infamously aggressive and seriously snotty Mr. Bubbles - had just returned to the Desert Habitat's main enclosure from a...hiatus...of sorts.

He'd been kept in solitary confinement, thus allowing for the newest female Erumpents to acclimatize in peace and reach a certain level of maturation before the lascivious rhino was unleashed upon them for the next 'breeding season' - a concept Audette had yet to piece together in entirety back then.

Behind the bars of his astronomical transportation cage he had gone on to throw a ridiculous strop that afternoon, one befitting of a very drunken and greedy king.

The instant a female had dared to wander to within a fraction of his beady peripherals he'd began bucking and ramming, denting the metal rodding whilst roaring at a deafening volume.

Between his tiny, clownish eyeballs, the explosive horn mounted integral to Mr. Bubbles' fat skull had been bandaged appropriately with magical compresses, designed to contain the escape of any corrosive liquid.

Otherwise, it was safe to say, there wouldn't have been a plant nor a person left in tact within a five meter radius.

Pink tea cup mittens firmly clapped over her ears, Audette had glanced up at Montgomery in confusion, "Why has he returned so indisposed, father? He's gone mad, he has! You've left him all alone for far too long this time!"

Montgomery did not appear slightly troubled by the state of the creature's mental health. Forming two fingers in a curt whistle, he signaled towards a very worrisome employee clinging to the cage's top rungs, "Raise the trap, boy. At the beseech of our young Lady, let the beast rear, then."

Out Mr. Bubbles had blundered in a storm of prismatic slime, leathery grey skin, and unkempt toe nails, mounting his first victim within twenty seconds flat, and Audette had learned with detailed horror precisely why traditional mating required the physical union of both a male and a female.

Through billowing chimney smoke, Montgomery had peered crookedly down at her bulging stare.

Perhaps, that had been his detached and rather puzzling manner in which to explain 'the birds and the bees' to her, "It is critical, Audette, that the rules of herd social organization be followed here. Without governance over the bachelor bull, who bares not the ardor of a predator in the biodome, our facility would reach capacity far too swiftly, then plateau anticlimactically. For he would grow unstimulated amongst his own contrived abundance. Gluttony is the killer of soul by a thousand mouthfuls. Do you understand now, why he must be driven to such intermittent madness?"

When she'd shook her flowery bonnet, Montgomery had spelled it out loud and clear, "Sexual frustration and fury go hand in hand for this pea-brained male, promoting the deepest potency of his power in procreation. As conservationists, we must acknowledge the structure of his mind, and actively propagate a sense of depravity, of friction, of urgency, of achievement, lest he may grow disinterested by the drivel of familiarity and lack of challenge. His success here, is fueled only by the artificial notion of a hunt."

Back in the boggart box, Malfoy reached the edge of the chaise, and upon heeding him round the corner Audette sprung to her strappy high heels in a novice wobble, hands held out defensively.

Blood rushed to her cheeks with the brute force of a waterfall.

She wondered if he was undergoing the same crazed possession which had overtook Mr. Bubbles, for it certainly looked identical, and had this been recalled under any other circumstance, she likely would've laughed at the parallel her brain was drawing.

However this was no laughing matter. The trap had been raised, and she'd landed herself directly in front of a furious, depraved, pea-brained male of her own, fueled by a drawn out hunt she'd indirectly ensured would adjourn in a tremendous sense of achievement for him.

"I aught to bend you over right here, right now," he began to breathe heavily, his pupils dilated into black discs, roaming over her near naked body in lustful pang.

The main artery in his neck throbbed menacingly, and she wondered if any parts of his personality were still awake in there aside from the animal operating at the surface.

"NOW!" she yelped as he lunged at her. The Elation potion was actively betraying her wits, slapping away his contact with all her lingering might, "Now Mr. Mal-FOY! Perhaps we had best discuss the most appropriate course of action. I comprehend your impatience with me, but this is no way to go about securing our dest-i-NY!"

He lunged at her again, catching ahold of her wrist this time with a feral sparkle in his eye. A pop of his eyebrows suggested the very last thing he wished to do was indulge in a spot of chit-chat, "Were you not just begging me...to tell you what I dream of doing to you? Why don't I show you instead?"

She disentangled herself and made to scuttle haphazardly around the chaise once more, but Draco was hot on her clumsy escape with an amused chirp, "Go ahead and run, darling, give me a good view of that fine fanny."

At opposite heels of the sofa they caught their ragged breaths.

Audette playfully parried left and right but he mirrored her in superior athleticism, as though he could pre-emptively read her mind before she dared flex a single sinew. She supposed this could be expected of someone who regularly partook in deceptive team sports.

He shook the sofa violently in place, laughing as she breathlessly fought not to faceplant at the other end, "I can outrun you ten to one sweetheart, might as well not tucker yourself out delaying the inevitable. I've slowed the clock; we've started with twenty-eight minutes, not seven."

Adrenaline only proved to heighten the effects of the Elation, causing all of the colours in the fake world around them to grow vivid, bright and beautiful. She hummed in a dreamy tone, swooning as waves of sensuality and euphoria turned her bones to mush and melted her final reserves.

Her eyelids drooped as all focus narrowed in on the prominence in those boxer shorts, the glisten on his skin, the scent of his piney musk...there wasn't much fortification left in her bloodstream.

When he made it all too easy by bolting along the rear of the settee she fell for the trick straightaway, zipping up the front, but the childish chase lasted only seconds longer as he parkoured over the spine and sucked her up into his arms.

This was heaven alright: warm skin on warm skin, plush kisses, caresses...

She caved instantaneously, pushing up on her tippy-toes to conjoin wrists around his neck, "Oh we shouldn't, not here, in this horrid place."

"Come here, you plaguing minx, enough fussing," he buried his face in her neck, her cleavage, biting everywhere without invitation, groping so violently that bruises were a morning guarantee across her tush.

A hunger bloomed deep inside her core; chemical, and cavernous, heightened by the booz and drugs swimming in her veins which actively drowned out any hammered-in highbrow inhibitions begging her to put a stopper to it.

Tick. Toock. Ticck.

"Give me a sneak peak?" he groaned boyishly, dipping her at a dramatic slant.

"Okay."

As he dove for more tameless kisses she failed to recognize what a 'sneak peak' actually meant, until he'd professionally unhooked the skimpy bra from her back and a chill splashed across her disrobed skin.

In a breakneck flash he discarded the feathery top into the flames and shoved Audette harshly onto the cushions.

She caught her breath in absolute shock as he climbed overtop and ripped her down below him, dividing her high heels around his waist.

The temperature of the room reached sweltering, the flames growing ever fiercer in conjunction with the countdown to hell occurring on the ledge above it.

They were both sweaty and slick as he roughly pinned her arms above her head. Her tiny pink nipples remained pronounced in neurotic fluster despite the humid conditions, watching as he inhaled in coveted wonder at her body, her jutting ribs and prized, verboten flower all on display.

Tick. Tiiiiiiiick. Tiiii

The audiological grind of the mantle clock halted, as too did the function of her useless diaphragm, never having felt so vulnerable nor exposed in her entire sheltered life.

Not a soul alive had beheld her in the nude save for her mother and her maidens, and that had only occurred in early infanthood.

To her sensitive satisfaction he appeared to be...mesmerized...in some speechless way...as one aught to be when defiling the value of an unwed noble woman.

"Are you pleased?" she pried in a buoyant pipsqueak.

"Am I pleased?" he swallowed, gently releasing one of her wrists to run a thumb between her breasts, stopping to twist her panties and adventurously pull them aside, then slowly back up to her jaw, "I'm positive that you're the finest thing to grace this planet, a centerfold beyond my wildest dreams."

She wasn't really aware of possessing such a bedeviling quality until then, but the genuine look of appetence on his face quickly convinced her insecure ego that it deserved to wear much larger shoes from there on - high heels, versus flimsy slippers, should perhaps become the norm afterall.

The room of course, had been watching, and made the fact that it was pleased clear enough, in the creepiest manner possible. An obnoxious screech, and then a gigantic gramophone which had appeared out of nowhere started up playing the song La Vie En Rose at the base of the fireplace.

They returned to eager kissing and moaning, allowing for animalistic instincts to fully take over. He arched her back into a rainbow, pressing her breasts against his hard chest while driving her hips back and open as he ground against her core.

Unlike the stilted exchanges she'd shared with Theodore, defined by ambivalence, guilt, and regal restraint, it was entirely natural how she moved with Draco: not a second thought went into running her hands across his biceps and his back in curious exploration, not a worry preoccupied her mind as to whether she was kissing him properly, and the ease of it all finally led to a mindless act of victory as one paw boldly dove past the hem of his boxers to grip down on what lay beneath.

FINALLY.

The mystery of what exactly boys kept hidden in their trousers was for her to know all for herself.

As she stroked his bare member in awe he broke away from her lips, pressing his forehead to hers in an agonized sigh. His eyelids fluttered closed, his breath jilted, and she felt him impossibly harden to granite in her grasp, "Are...are you pleased?"

"I..." she bit her bottom lip in wonderment, craning her neck to the side, now very much concerned that she was incapable of withstanding such a weapon, "Well...it's certainly...well...I'm a bit stumped as to where I am meant to fit it all?"

She giggled nervously and he released a heavy exhale of amusement, "Should we maybe...test out...just how well we fit?"

The question hung in the hazy air between them; should we just shag and get it over with already?

"Umm..." she trailed off as they stared at each other in sober consideration of the very serious proposition, "Then I don't suppose...I might walk away from this mostly a virgin when all is said and done?"

"You still can, so long as one of us gets the other to heaven before that clock stops. What happens here tonight, between us, it ultimately remains your decision," he assured her.

Audette drew in a sharp breath as he manipulated his way into her panties and plunged two fingers deep inside of her, using his thumb to further please, "It's this easy. Tell me, have you ever been to heaven before? Have you even touched yourself, princess?"

There was absolutely no hope of a pokerface as she convulsed in bliss below him, unsure of how to process such pleasantly invasive and alien sensations, "No. But if your hand feels this luxurious, than I should like to test out the rest of you afterall."

"Just like that? You would relinquish your most prized asset to me?" he grinned in satisfaction as her throaty moans pitched and her head fell far back into the cushioning.

She closed her eyes as the maddening twist in her pelvis intensified, "My most prized asset, my jealous tendencies, all of me is yours, the best and the worst. I'm so in love with you, Draco Lucius Malfoy."

"I love you more, guaranteed," he planted breathy kisses along her neck which sent incredible tickles down her spine.

They were likely both on the verge of 'reaching heaven' at the mercy of each other's stimulation and the overwhelming environmental factors, when Audette's drunken commentary went and drove a pushpin straight through it, "Before we seal our fate tonight there is something small I must ask. Draco I wrote to my mother, prying about your reputation...and-"

He froze, and all foreplay wilted as if her words had just subjected him to a flash freeze, retracting his fingers from her undergarments.

She opened her eyelids to a disconcerting vision of him blinking rapidly, a notably wry expression claiming his features as if the room suddenly stunk of dizzying rot. In one suave roll he was off of her, propping up an elbow to cover his eyes with his palm.

As if on cue the sound of a scratching record terminated the romantic regaling of the gramophone, and then as if to tisk and wag it's needle at her it popped clean out of existence.

The mood had been cryptically slain, and Audette's insecurity returned with a brutal vengeance, scratching tepidly at his stony abs, "Have I said something wrong?"

"No," was all he supplied in a pissy tone that was far from tranquilizing, followed by a growl of dread in his throat. The silence was all consuming.

She was speechless, rubbing at the aching bruises he'd left marinating all over her body like a disease of defamatory evidence.

Left with nothing else to do as her climax reneged into oblivion, she curled up against him on the settee and buried her nose in his chest patiently, "Well...I thought it was odd that I did not recognize your name, from any debutante balls or charity events over the years, so I asked about your attendance, or lack there-of. She mentioned that you had denounced your family, your title...that you are a pariah of the court, and have not returned to the Kingdom in years, until now. Is that true?"

He sat up and shook her off, crossing his arms around his knees. A quick glance at the cuckoo clock indicated they had less than twenty minutes remaining, and whether or not there was a time limit imposed, he would have to first explain.

She witnessed him disappear inside of himself, and the feminine impulse to soothe him burbled to the surface.

Straightening, she clutched at a pillow over her bare body, trailing her nails on his cold shoulder, "I've known this for four days, and it does not change my decision - that is based on my heart. However I should mention I struggle to paint a picture of what sort of life you would intend for me, and where."

Naturally the male impulse to distance himself brushed off whatever her feminine impulses might be. He rose to go busily pace by the fire, sending a dodgy frown at the floor, "It's true, all of it."

"Can you elaborate?" she waited, cradling the pillow against her tummy like a baby, each nerve in her body tingling at full voltage.

He flashed his gaze at her once, stern and testy as if she were being totally unreasonable, "I first departed for Durmstrang when I was eleven, spending intermittent summers at home in England. Come my fourth year however, my mother cautioned me not to come home, indefinitely. She gave no forewarning, only a letter in the post the first week I arrived. That is the last time I heard from her."

She had so many questions, dozens of them compiling at lightning speed.

Where had he lived for four years, alone in the world from fourteen without a family or a home?

Had he done something so vile, so incomprehensible that it had warranted expulsion from upper class society and the entire continent?

Consider me a slave for you, the notion of freedom pales in comparison he'd said on the promenade, and now Audette suspected he'd meant these words quite literally when bargaining for her hand.

If they were to be matched, would that not require he reclaim his position at Malfoy Manor and all responsibilities along with it?

"How woefully apocalyptic. Were you...were you rejected by her?" was all she could muster in awe of such a horrid thing for a young boy to be told.

Gripping onto the mantle, he studied the illogical gambol of flames fighting for escape. The corner of his nose pinched back in a resentful sneer as painful memories glittered there in his cerulean orbs, "Quite the opposite. A former associate of my father's - a powerful wizard we had thought to be vanquished - he returned that year...issuing heavy demands. He practically owns my family. By a sworn contract we are to serve him, and he had plans for me, plans that my mother...apparently could not bare. It's better this way, in exile."

Voldemort.

Guy's disturbing accusations escaped their cage within her brain to rudely ricochet off the interior of her skull; Both of them! Death Eaters!

Death Eaters!

The gloves on Theodore's hands which Audette truly did find hard to believe were the result of a potion's lab gone wrong, and that odd trinket on a chain he kept hidden below his crispy dress shirts which had never been mentioned before that year...

Death Eaters!

Audette scratched mindless patterns into the cushion's tactile material, sure that she was misunderstanding such haunting and arcane statements, "But, so...you risked retracing western Europe, your freedom, your mother's sacrifice of disloyalty to warn you, all to...find eternal glory in this infantile Quadrivial Tournament?"

"No Audette, the tournament was always a diminutive cover for my arriving here," he hummed eerily, jogging his eyes gradually up to hers, "I risked returning to meet my replacement - you."