All Bets Are Off

All Bets Are Off

Chapter four

Things get sticky

Harry tripped over a corner of his cloak and skidded to an inelegant halt outside the Slytherin dungeons, breathing erratically, and wide-eyed with shock. The betting system had come as something of a Surprise. He was seething like an emotional little cauldron, torn between depression, absolute outrage, complete fear, and reluctant admiration for the cunning of his sexy blonde nemesis, who had, incidentally, looked extremely hot lounging about on his leather couch - which was so obviously made for shagging on, by the way.

For a second, Harry debated acting on one of these many and varied emotions, but then found he couldn't really be bothered, and instead checked his reflection in a nearby mirror. With his cheekbones delicately flushed with emotion, his eyes feral, and his hair artfully mussed by his invisibility cloak, it was still extremely satisfactory. Thank God for Universal Truths, Harry thought fervently, and began to stalk toward the Gryffindor common-room.

"Where've you been?" Hermione asked as soon as he entered the room. "We were back ten minutes ago. I thought you'd been locked in or something!"

"I was taking a closer look at the betting system," Harry said, absently playing with his cloak and trying to think up a Really Good Way to announce his anger with them for buying into Malfoy's scheme.

Finally, he decided that a healthy dose of guilt might be just the ticket. "I can't believe you would go against me like that Ron, Hermione," Harry said, camping up the disillusioned moroseness, looking Really Hurt and Upset. "I'm really disappointed, you know?"

Ron and Hermione looked gutted.

"Of all people," Harry went on, "my two BEST friends in the entire world, ganging up against me just when I really need their support..." He trailed off as if overcome, enjoying their expressions of horror and self-loathing.

"Look, Harry, mate..." Ron started, but Harry held up a hand.

"No, Ron, I don't want to hear it. I don't think I can even talk to you right now," Harry said with an evil smirk that he hid by hanging his head in pretended pain. He sniffled dolefully.

Hermione rose from her chair in agitation. "We're sorry Harry!" she pleaded, on the verge of tears, her lower lip wobbling madly.

Harry glared at them both, and then burst out laughing.

They looked first astonished, and then boot-faced in equal measure.

"You're not really mad?" Ron asked incredulously. "Why, you rotten prat! Making us think - "

Harry sobered. "Oh I'm mad all right, but not with you so much. More with that git Malfoy. But don't think for a second that you're off the hook entirely, Ronald Weasley. I'll get you when you least expect it."

Ron looked suitably terrified. Hermione giggled.

"So what did you think of the betting system, Harry?" she asked with interest.

Harry hmm'd. "Interesting," he said musingly, only at the last minute refraining from stroking his chin absently. "Very interesting. Curious even, but if I said that it'd be a rip off. So I'll stick with a suitably non-committal and indifferent 'interesting' whilst making you think I'm Up To Something, if that's okay with you."

"Yep," Hermione said, looking back to her Charms homework.

"No worries," Ron added, and then turned back to staring absently at the fire, which was nearly as interesting.

Harry turned and headed up to his dorm.

Collapsing on his bed, Harry glanced at his bedside clock, and was surprised to find that it was only half-past three in the afternoon. Bollocks, he thought with almost suicidal depression. Still time to get some homework in.

On any other lazy Sunday afternoon, Harry would have spent hours upon hours with his hands full of the Woman of the Week (or Man of the Moment if that was his particular pleasure). He thought wistfully about the Sunday three weeks previous, which he had rather delightfully spent sprawled on his bed, having Little Miss Hogsmeade 1997 removing oh-so-accidentally spilt Honeyduke's Chocolicious Fudge Sauce® from his body -- with her tongue. Dwelling on the image, he suddenly found himself a little flustered and huffed disgustedly.

This really wasn't getting him anywhere. He needed action (and not that kind, either). He needed revenge against Draco Malfoy for his betting system, and against all the bastards who had written their names down. He needed a hangover cure. He needed a Really Cunning Plan.

And most of all, he needed a long, hot, languorous...soak in the tub.

* * * *

Two hours later, Harry wandered out of the prefects' bathroom (which, by the way, he was not legitimately entitled to use), wearing nothing but a rather inadequate blue towel and a satisfied grin, towelling his hair dry vigorously and leaving wet footprints all over the stone floor of the Gryffindor hallway. He had charmed the password out of Seamus a few weeks previously by hinting at very interesting and kinky sexual favours that he had wormed his way out of actually performing, and it had been well worth the effort. The bathroom had heated towels for crying out loud. That was worth some kind of risk - even the risk of being tied down and licked to death by a horny little Irish boy, disturbing as that mental image was.

Opening the portrait door, Harry sauntered into the common-room and allowed himself a brief, requisite pause to absorb all the positive pheromones being sent his way before continuing onward to his dorm. The firelight played enticingly over his near-naked form, and he looked every inch the gilded marble godlike person.

Ginny gasped and passed out in her armchair by the fire. It was fortunate, really, that it was such a soft surface. The tile floor of the Quidditch change-rooms last month had been far less amusing.

As Harry left the room, there were a few covert snickers. Harry frowned and paused. Call him cynical and suspicious, but the events of the past few days had made him a little nervous when sounds of that nature were about. He hung around inconspicuously, waiting to see if anyone would reveal anything, and then shrugged philosophically. Surely no-one else was going to attempt to shag him tonight. Surely. One attempt per day he could cope with. Any more might turn him into a frothing-at-the-mouth, raving, psychotic, gibbering, sex-crazed maniac. It was an unsettling thought.

He continued up to the dorms. As the door closed behind him, the common-room erupted into laughter.

Ron and Hermione exchanged glances. "Should we have told him that there are four near-naked fifth-year Ravenclaw girls waiting for him in his bed?" Ron asked, gnawing at his lower lip.

"Nah," Hermione said with a grin. "It's still our day, don't forget. If they succeed, we could still be in for some cash."

Ron glanced at her with interest. This side of her was new. Really, money-grubbing sadism was actually surprisingly attractive.

* * * *

As soon as Harry entered his room, there was a sharply spoken incantation, and the door behind him closed and locked with an ominous click.

Oh hell, Harry thought. What now?

There was a muffled, girlish giggle. Where had that come from?

Then the music started. It was slow, hot, unutterably sexy - Ginuwine moaning about saddles and vines and riding a pony or something. Whatever it was, the thick, slow, pulsing bass went straight to his spine and his groin, making his whole body pulse in time, his blood heavy and slow in his veins.

As Harry stood, stricken, by the door, his attention was drawn to his bed on the left-most side of the dorm room, where a practically naked female body had emerged from his bed-canopy, clad in a transparent pink wisp of something that did alarming things to his self control.

And then, if that wasn't bad enough, she was followed by one, no two...oh Holy Mother of God THREE of her friends, each in a similar state of studied undress. He was in hell. I must not succumb, he thought fervently, starting up a mantra. I must not succumb to multiple naked women in my bedroom, I must not...

As a group they advanced upon him, stalking and undulating slowly to the beat of the music. As they reached within two feet of him, the first girl, Miss Pink, pulled out her wand and pointed it at him.

"Er, hang on -" Harry started, mantra forgotten, but then found himself levitated and flying toward his bed. Despite the fact that he was airborne, he could only think one thing: 'Where the hell was she keeping that wand before she pulled it on me?' He landed on his bed, safely if inelegantly, and was immediately bound by his wrists and ankles, leaving him tastelessly sprawled and pretty much naked in his little towel, that was now hiding nothing. Ordinarily, this situation might have had a whole lot of kinky merit, he thought. Given the circumstances, however, he was more terrified than anything else. Well, except for agonisingly aroused, of course.

The bass still pulsed around him, making it nearly impossible for him to think clearly.

Then the girls started to dance in earnest. Thinking became an absolute non-event.

They absolutely writhed to the heavy beat, leisurely drawing their hands seductively up and down their own bodies in calculated rhythm, achingly slowly and so sexily that the air practically swam with it. Hips gently undulating, they drew their hands through their hair, down their necks to skim over their breasts, then down their abdomens to skirt their thighs, and back up all over again. Harry watched them in practically catatonic arousal, his eyes suddenly too heavy to be removed from the entrancing spectacle.

Then, oh GOD, they were touching each other, and Harry whimpered, his already aroused body stiffening in a rush. They ran lascivious hands across one another's hot, undulating forms, dirty danced hip-to-hip, thigh-to-thigh, chest-to-chest, whispered in one another's ears, their roaming hands everywhere. Harry watched, mute, his loins hot and hard, aching with agonising arousal. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think. Surely this couldn't get any worse?

Then two of the girls started slowly kissing, bodies still super-glued together and swaying gently with the sexy beat, and Harry found himself moaning, hands clenching convulsively, on the absolute verge of orgasm. Oh, not fair, not fair, he thought in agony. I don't deserve this!

The girls stopped necking and all four gave him identical ravenous grins. Slowly they walked toward where he lay on the bed and he shrank away in terror. Each one removed her not-really-there-anyway garment as she advanced, and suddenly he found himself surrounded by four, very naked Ravenclaw girls, all vying to see who could get her hands on the most sensitive portion of his anatomy first. It was agony.

"Tell us you want this, Harry," Miss Pink cajoled, hands deftly removing his towel. She knew there would be no payoff if Harry didn't give his consent. She and her girls would have to make him beg for it.

Sure, Harry thought. Just tell them you want it, and they'll finish you off. Come on, you know you want to. Just say yes.

"You know you want it. Just say those magic words, Harry," she said as one of her naked friends started laving his belly with her tongue, and yet another massaged his upper thigh enticingly.

"I, uh...oh GOD please stop doing this to me..." he moaned as one of the girls did something interesting with her tongue and his ear.

"Come on, Harry," they chorused in husky voices. "Give in."

Oh how he wanted to. He would have given his entire Chocolate Frog card collection to give in and say 'will you just shag me already!' But then he thought of the arrogant smirk on Malfoy's face when the bastard realised he had been right about Harry all along, and decided that he wasn't going to give the smug prat the satisfaction.

Even as he began to protest, however, one of the girls started to touch him right there with her mouth, and OH GOD it felt good and OH JESUS there was no WAY he was going to be able to say no if she kept doing THAT with her TONGUE and OH ABSOLUTE FUCKING CHRIST IN HIGH HEELS AND A MINISKIRT...OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK and he was just about to...

Come.

With an agonised moan, Harry gave in to it, but kept his mouth tightly closed against the assent that wanted to come spilling out, bearing it in silence. His hands clenched and his body arched, and suddenly it was over, and he closed his eyes in shame.

He had just come without shagging. That hadn't happened in more than two years.

How completely fucking humiliating.

The Ravenclaw girls sat around in stunned, morose silence. This was an unforseen development. They had apparently overestimated his staying power.

And as they sat there in uncomfortable silence, the music still bleating away in a corner, there came a great renting 'wwwiiiiaaaaooooowwww' noise that could only have been either God descending to wreak his wrath upon Harry for blasphemy, or an alarm of some sort. Harry looked around in panic, whilst the Ravenclaw girls simply looked resigned and irritated.

"What the hell?!" Harry shouted over the noise as he struggled to untie himself. What if there was a fire? He might be burned to death! A candidate national tragedy if ever he heard one...

"The alarm," Miss Pink said dully. "Get dressed girls, they'll all be here in a minu-"

On cue, the door burst open and an entire crowd of cheering, grinning, wide-eyed Gryffindors jostled into the room, their laughing and shouting drowning out even the roaring alarm.

Seeing the scene however, with a slumped Harry still tied up and mercifully shielded by the naked Ravenclaw girls, all of whom wore Very Disappointed expressions, they fell silent.

There was relative quiet for a moment as the four girls re-donned their outfits. Miss Pink belatedly untied Harry and covered him with his towel in a rare and deeply appreciated act of benevolence.

"What's going on?" Dean Thomas asked in confusion, as the magical alarm blared once more, and then fell silent.

"Yeah! Why aren't you celebrating? You're richer than God now!" Parvati Patil added for good measure.

"Oh, go back to your common-room you silly gits!" Miss Pink said impatiently. "He didn't say yes! It was NOT consensual, therefore it doesn't count. We didn't win the money!"

There was an audible groan from the crowd in the doorway, who paused reluctantly for a moment, and then turned as one and walked away.

They trooped back into the common-room, gossiping and speculating wildly.

Ginny awakened from her stupor just in time to see four disgruntled Ravenclaws wearing very little clothing stalk out of the portrait hole. "What happened?" she asked in confusion, seeing everyone's faces.

Hermione told her.

"Oh good-o," Ginny said brightly.

Everyone gawked at her.

She grinned unrepentantly. "My money's on for next week!"

* * * *

By the following morning, the story was all over the school. Everyone had, of course, heard the alarm, but the particulars of the situation were still largely unknown, and the Gryffindors believed it was their sworn duty to whisper every juicy, salacious detail with great glee to anyone that would listen - which was everyone from the giggling first year Hufflepuffs to a loitering Professor McGonagall.

"...Did you hear? Harry lost his load last night without them even touching him! I heard he only lasted thirty seconds! Boy, he must be hard up!"

"...No way, I heard it was more like ten seconds, and then afterward he cried like a baby! Can you believe it?! Not so sexy now, is he...?"

With each escalation of the rumours, the betting system just about overloaded with new wagers. Harry Potter was NOT invincible, it seemed, and suddenly every man and his dog wanted to get in on the action. The pool skyrocketed.

And Draco Malfoy just watched it all from his corner with a superior smirk. Oh how the mighty have fallen, he thought blissfully, and with no small amount of complacency.

Everything was working out according to plan. Which was quite easy, really, when the only plan was 'make Harry Potter suffer and die'.

* * * *

Harry, however, remained fortunately unaware of all this nonsense, preferring to stay in his dormitory instead of attending breakfast. Preferring, of course, in the way that the desert might prefer it to rain at some point, or the starving masses of Africa would prefer to eat food every day (i.e. preferring in the sense that not doing so was a physical impossibility). His cheeks flushed with embarrassment at the mere thought of going downstairs and facing the firing squad. Later, he thought. Later I'll be more able to cope. Just not right now.

He groaned and stuffed his fists in his tired eyes, sprawling carelessly across his bed (which had been quickly and courteously taken care of last night by obsequious House Elves who were well used to Harry's bedroom antics and had learned to make special trips for him). Oh bloody buggering hell, he thought. There really is no lower place for me than this place: right here, right now. I have hit absolute rock bottom. I am now officially depressed. I can no longer claim my place as rightful king of Hogwarts. I will be slaughtered for this. Absolutely eviscerated. The gossip mill will have my balls for trophies. I don't think I'm going to be able to cope...

This is all that fucking prick Malfoy's fault, Harry thought savagely, and not for the first time. Oh, I need to make him PAY!

Despite all of this angst, he did feel better after last night, if only because the fog of arousal that had permanently clouded his brain for the past two weeks had dissipated a little bit.

Right, he thought. This is getting me nowhere. It's time to face the music. Plus, I'm fucking starving.

Harry wandered downstairs dressed in his Sexy Navy Blue Polo-neck Jumper and an old, faded pair of jeans. The common room was mercifully empty, and he opened the portrait hole with a relieved grin.

The grin, however, faded slightly as he emerged from the door into a catcalling, cheering crowd of students, all of whom were clapping and laughing and jeering and waiting to hear the real story. Half of Hogwarts seemed pleased that he'd succumbed and proved himself human after all; the other half were grateful that he hadn't yet lost the bet and that there was still a chance for them to earn some money; and yet another half (okay, so Harry hadn't done maths since he was ten, give him a break!) were pissed off with him for not giving in to the Ravenclaws - granted, most of these had had their money down for yesterday. Regardless of which half the students belonged to, all were laughing at him.

Harry was Absolutely Embarrassed. Still, he thought with his usual optimism, better embarrassed than being eaten alive by a raging band of rabid hippogriff-skrewt hybrids.

So he'd just have to grin and bear it, hoping that some more interesting piece of gossip came along in the interim to take everyone's mind off his own recent actions. Hitching a devastating smile on his face, Harry held up his hands for a second's peace. The jostling crowd fell mostly silent.

"Guys, don't you have better things to do?" Harry asked with his patented cheeky grin that sent most people in the front row into a light-headed daze. "Give a guy a break here..."

"But Harr-eee," someone whined, "we want to know what really happened last night. The Ravenclaw girls aren't talking, so all we've got are little tidbits here and there. Come on Harry, spill it!"

Harry deliberated. Hm. On one hand, he could tell the truth and let them laugh. On the other hand he could make something up to make himself look better. And on the other, other hand, he could refuse to say anything and let the rumours speak for themselves, which was a less attractive option.

"Well," he drawled slowly to give himself thinking time, "I don't know..."

They started clamouring.

"Come on, Harry!"

"Spit it out..."

"Yeah, come on, tell us! You know we'll make something up anyway...isn't it better to tell the truth?"

Suddenly someone blonde pushed to the front of the crowd and smirked at Harry. "Yes, Harry. Please, by all means, enlighten us..." Draco Malfoy drawled bitingly, eyebrow raised in challenge. "Wouldn't want anyone getting the wrong idea..." As he himself had been responsible for many of the outrageous rumours now flying round the castle, this was a bit rich, really.

Harry's eyes narrowed as he took in the sexy, black-clad form of his nemesis and fingered his wand reflexively. The rest of the crowd drew back a little - it was a wise move; from the looks of things, hexes could start flying around any minute, and no-one wanted to be in the way of a stray curse aimed between these two enemies. They tended to be quite liberal with the use of extremely painful and potentially death-inducing ones.

"Malfoy," Harry spat. "Want something? Or are you merely here to fill my irritation quota for the day?"

Draco's eyes darkened, taking in Harry's smouldering anger and the rather interesting use of the words 'want something'. Yes, Draco did want something. Something that sounded a lot like Larry, only starting with an 'H'. But damned if he'd let Harry know that little fact.

"I'm here for the same reason as everyone else, Potter," Draco drawled with amusement. "To discover the real story. Is it true that you broke your dick falling off the bed when two fully dressed Hufflepuff boys tried to kiss you? That's what I heard."

Everyone laughed. Harry scowled.

"Or perhaps the other rumour involving a golf club, two dozen eggs, Professor Sprout, Madame Pomfrey and a tube of hand lotion was more accurate?" Draco was enjoying himself now. "Maybe it was the one about the Slytherin first year...which was pretty fucking disgus-"

"Or perhaps," Harry interrupted with gritted teeth, "four Ravenclaw girls tied me to the bed, gave me a joint strip-tease and then sucked me off until I came, all the while trying to make me beg for it, which I didn't do. Which sounds a more likely story to you?"

The crowd goggled with interest.

Draco grinned, thinking of that particular image with much interest. "Oh I don't know, Potter, that story about the first year is really quite interesting once you hear it all..."

"You are a sick fuck, Malfoy," Harry spat, flexing his fingers longingly around his wand.

"I'm not the one who supposedly tied myself to a bedpost with Filch's bondage equipment and was seduced by Mrs Norris, Potter," Draco laughed out loud. "I suppose that theory has merit - the bet isn't technically violated by any sexual interactions with animals..."

Harry was losing his grip on his temper. Everyone waited for fireworks.

Then, with alarming speed, Harry's face glossed over with an urbane and charming smile. The change was astonishing - from glowering beast to grinning politician in a microsecond.

He smirked seductively at Draco. "Mrs Norris and I have a weekly arrangement, Malfoy," he said smoothly, and with a mocking, campy drawl. "She was unaware of the bet, and therefore can not be held accountable. She is insatiable, though. A real dyed-in-the-wool wildcat, so to speak. Just wouldn't take no for an answer..."

There was a stunned silence.

"What?" Harry grinned unrepentantly. "You didn't think I'd managed to get away with sneaking round this place after curfew all this time on my own cunning, did you?"

And the crowd howled with laughter. Even Draco's mouth curved momentarily with a reluctant grin. Had to hand it to the boy, he was a born showman.

"Far be it from me to condemn your interactions with your favourite pussy, Potter." Draco grinned snarkily. "Just don't forget to limit it to the non-human variety. I'll be keeping an eye on you..." He gave Harry a smouldering glare, and then turned and stalked off down the corridor, looking decidedly hot. There was no evil chuckle this time - he was too busy thinking of how sexy Harry had looked in That Outfit.

Harry turned back to the crowd and gave them a grin, making an excuse about visiting the kitchens for a snack before Transfigurations. He left them gawking as he sauntered off, his customary swagger exaggerated to campy proportions, so he looked almost like a runaway llama. Still, it was surprisingly sexy.

* * * *

Harry survived the day by the absolute skin of his teeth. The night was no easier. Nor was the next day, or the next. He was absolutely besieged by rumours and gossip, girls of both sexes angling for a shag, teachers making pithy remarks, and Draco Malfoy, who, true to his word, was shadowing Harry's every move.

It pissed him off immeasurably. Still, as to the last, Harry couldn't seem to muster up the enthusiasm to mind.

Perhaps this had something to do with how completely attractive his new shadow was. Odd, really, how having something adorable to look at will take the edge off any kind of irritation. Sort of the same concept as having gorgeous nurses in vasectomy clinics. Or not.

Harry had become nearly as obsessed with Draco Malfoy as Draco was with Harry. Poetic justice, much? He was utterly riveted by his nemesis, not least because the Slytherin was so absolutely shaggable, with his sleek blonde hair slicked back from a face with impeccable bone structure, cheekbones harder and sharper than a sabre and a big, pouty mouth that just begged you to pash it...erm, getting carried away, sorry. Anyway, it wasn't just Draco's assets that were holding Harry's attention. Harry had become obsessed with wreaking an immeasurable amount of vengeance upon the Slytherin Sex God. Every time Harry felt even a hint of arousal, of discomfort or embarrassment, every time he even caught a whiff of a defaming rumour or a plot to seduce him, he blamed Draco Malfoy and damned him to the depths of the bastard's non-existent soul. He would pay Malfoy back for this bet bollocks if it were the absolute last thing he did.

Judging by the way he felt now, death from unappeased arousal was looking a more and more imminent probability, so it really possibly would be the last thing he did, which was a depressing thought. And he blamed Malfoy for it entirely.

He thought of Draco when he awakened each day, and every hour on the hour until bed time, at which point, well, he thought about Malfoy some more. He didn't know when the line blurred between dwelling on his plans for avenging his current agony by making his nemesis suffer, and simply dwelling on his nemesis full stop. Either way, the broody, frowny, I'm-going-to-go-stab-someone-with-a-meat-cleaver look was quite a good one for him.

He was still thinking about Malfoy on Wednesday afternoon, day twelve of the month Harry was beginning to think of as his own personal hell. Fortunately, however, the betting tally had apparently taken a day off, which was a very timely reprieve; Harry had awakened in the middle of a Malfoy dream the previous night with his left hand precariously close to...erm, violating the strictures of the bet, and any attempts to seduce him this morning might've met with more success than anticipated. Still, he had yet to survive Divination.

Trelawney was reclining in an armchair at the front of the room, a typically idiotic expression on her face. As Harry entered, however, her expression turned calculating. She had laid a decent chunk of money on for today, having read the stars and numbers and decided that twelve was a most auspicious day for seducing young wizard students on a month's enforced celibacy. Harry Potter, she thought wickedly, you'd better watch out. You're about to get a crash course in Sybill Trelawney's language of lurve 1.01.

Harry settled next to a grinning Ron on a fluffy pink pouffe which wriggled around until it encased him properly, then subsided with a little sigh. Trelawney cast a half-supercilious, half-surprised glance around the room, in a manner similar to one suddenly finding a slug in one's lettuce, and then gave a dreamy smile.

"Today, dears, we will be covering the usage of tarot cards," she breathed and then waited, as if for applause. Perhaps to her, this seemed the most interesting pronouncement any person had ever made in the history of humankind.

Harry was of a slightly different opinion, and so he allowed his thoughts to wander as Trelawney went into ecstasies over the basic uses of the cards in fortune-telling. Funny, really, how even though Divination was Slytherin-free, he could conjure Draco Malfoy in his imagination as easily as if it were he who was sitting beside Harry, laughing at Trelawney's inane ramblings, instead of Ron.

Enough of this, my lad, Harry thought to himself. I must clear my mind and allow myself to enter the divine state of true unconsciousness to survive this lesson intact.

Harry promptly fell asleep.

He was woken by a soft, seductive voice whispering in his ear.

"Mr Potter," it said in a breathy, dreamy tone that sent involuntary shivers chasing each other down Harry's spine.

Harry came awake with an adorable snuffle and looked around blearily. The fires and candles in the tower had burned low, lending a seductive glow to the conspicuously student-free room that spilled over the low chairs and tables like honey. Incense was burning more heavily than usual, and the air was perfumed with hot, drugging spices that made it hard to clear his head of sleep-fog.

Harry blinked as he found his lap suddenly full of someone-or-other, Miss Sexy Voice. Without warning a mouth mashed to his with all the finesse of a half-grown mountain troll and Harry felt all the breath go out of him with surprise. A tongue invaded his mouth, followed by a whole lot of saliva, and Harry almost gagged. It was the yuckiest thing he had ever experienced, and that included being pashed by Neville Longbottom in sixth year. He firmly pushed whoever-it-was away from him and she gurgled in frustration.

"Harry," she panted breathily. "You know you want this. Give in to me. It is written in the stars. It is destiny, Harry. You can't fight it..."

With a sickening jolt, Harry recognised the owner of the voice and pushed her away, standing up with a yelp of disgust that a brave soul might've called a shriek.

"Professor Trelawney?! What the hell d'you think you're doing?!" Harry gasped, barely refraining from retching.

She looked at him in surprise. "Kissing you, Harry," she said, with an arch smile that made her look fifty, which she probably was.

"Why?!?!" Harry gurgled, fighting the urge to wipe his tongue with his shirt. Ew-w, who knew where her tongue had been? Last Harry had heard, Trelawney was having it off with Snape! Yuck yuck yuck...

"It was foreseen by the mystical forces of planetary alignment, Harry. Transcribed in the pattern of the heavenly bodies," she said, attempting to kiss him again.

Harry put two and two together. "Bollocks!" he shouted. "I remember now! You had a bet on today, you conniving old bat! How dare you try to use me like that?!"

"It is true, Harry," Trelawney said with no little amount of bitterness in her tone. "I have wronged you. But I won't apologise. I need that money, Harry. You could help a woman out here, and just give up. One little...er, indiscretion, and I'd be a rich woman. I'd have enough to get out of here, Harry. Enough to set up that bordello I'd always wanted. I really need that money. We could work out a deal...you want top marks in your Divination NEWT don't you? I could help you, Harry. We could help each other..." She advanced on him briskly, taking his silence for assent.

Harry looked at her meditatively. "You," he snapped peevishly, "can take your money and your Divination grade and shove it right up Uranus, you old bint. I'd rather die than shag you."

Still she came, a sickening expression on her face. "You know you want me, Harry," she said, and snatched up one of his hands, placing it on a saggy old breast with a prideful expression, as if she expected him to be impressed.

"Yeeeaarrrgh!" Harry exclaimed and snatched his hand back savagely. He turned on his heel and ran, bolting through the trapdoor and down the ladder at a great rate of knots, and unfortunately fell flat on his face. He dragged himself up and ran toward Gryffindor tower, not looking back. The number of times Harry had fallen down the past few days, it was a wonder he was still pretty, really.

Sybill Trelawney wandered over to her desk and sat, sighing into her herbal tea. Oh well, only a hundred Galleons down the drain, she thought. At least I got to snog Harry Potter...

Harry went straight from Divination to the prefect's bathroom, was violently ill, and then proceeded to brush his teeth for five straight hours.

Draco Malfoy was going to have to die a thousand deaths to pay for that one.

* * * *

Draco, blissfully unaware of all the angst and vengeful thoughts being directed his way, sprawled on his leather couch and watched the betting parchment with a speculative eye. Ever since, well, day one, Draco had found himself having a hard time staying on track with his grandiose plans of slowly seducing Harry so that the poor boy broke on day twenty-nine, the day on which Draco had laid a thousand Galleon bet. Every time he saw Harry (which was extremely frequently, given that Draco had made it his personal quest to become Harry's shadow over the past week), he had found himself losing his train of thought, becoming incapable of his usual witty and scathing remarks, incapable of even stringing sentences together, let alone implementing a carefully calculated plan of seduction. His unexpected reaction to Harry was becoming a major hitch in his plans.

The gratuitous groping during Quidditch last weekend had been very diverting, but ultimately unsuccessful, as had the numerous inflammatory remarks he'd casually thrown at Harry over the past few days, not to mention the innuendoes and slightly overzealous 'accidental' touching incidents these situations had precipitated. Harry was not even close to the level of discomfort that Malfoy had intended when he had made this bet. He wanted Harry so permanently aroused that he was hallucinating, so agonised that Professor Snape started looking like an attractive prospect. Draco wanted Harry on the verge of suicide. And he was going to have to use every weapon in his arsenal of seduction to get him there.

"I think it's time to implement phase two..." Draco murmured with a malicious smile. "Operation Make Potter Suffer is about to get underway." Token mwa-ha-ha and cut to sinister black with eerie violin music.

Oh help.

This is about to get rough.