Lonely Reign

Lonely Reign, Part 8

As soon as Laura and Harry entered the Charms classroom they usually appropriated for their snogging sessions, all expressions of affection and fondling ceased.

"Harry, you are simply the sweetest thing, ever!" Laura exclaimed breathlessly, eyes bright. "I can't tell you how much I appreciate your help. It was so super that you kissed me at the Quidditch match, such a dramatic way to start this whole thing!"

"Not a problem," he replied with a jaunty grin. "It's helping me toward my goal, too." He hopped up to sit on Flitwick's desk. "And you're the mastermind behind the whole thing. I'd have never thought of it before you approached me with the idea to make them jealous with each other." A soft laugh. "A Hufflepuff. Who'd have thought?" He eyed her with admiration. "How're things going with you?"

"Oh, he's been very annoyed, indeed," she told him, sitting on a student desk and crossing her legs demurely. "Almost to the point of teeth-gnashing, but not quite."

"Gotta say, Laura, I'm baffled why you want to hook Malfoy," Harry mentioned. "Surely there are dozens--hundreds--of better blokes out there you could fixate on?"

She gazed innocently at him. "The same could be said of Hermione." He ducked his head, blushing. "We're both in situations where we're desperate to gain the attention of the person we love. At least you know she loves you, even if it's only as a friend." Laura sighed and stared at her dangling feet. "I can't tell whether he hates me or not."

"Isn't he ever nice to you?" Harry asked, green eyes curious behind the spectacles.

"Sometimes," she admitted, glancing up at him. "And sometimes he's horrid. I never know what it'll be at any given moment. Perhaps that's why I like him so much..." Her words trailed off and she gazed into the far corner, thinking. "He keeps me on my toes."

Harry looked skeptical, but said nothing. "Life with him will never be boring," he allowed.

"So," Laura began after a moment of silence. "Why do you love Hermione?"

He was quiet so long, she thought he wasn't going to answer. Finally, "Because she's so loving. And gentle. And generous. And strong. And brave. And smart. And--"

"Ok, I get it!" she interrupted, laughing, then grew serious, her eyes gentle on him as she stood and walked over. "She's lucky to have you love her so much." And she kissed him tenderly on the lips, her arms embracing him in a soft hug. "Harry, you are a lovely boy." He hugged her in return, blinking back sudden tears.

"Right," drawled a voice from the doorway. "Enough of that, then."

Laura and Harry disentangled themselves from each other to see Draco standing there, twirling his wand in his slender fingers. His face was amused and derisive, but his eyes... oh, his eyes. They were glacial, and before he narrowed them at her, Laura could detect the faintest flicker of jealousy and... hurt?

Part of her rejoiced that her plan was working, but another part felt horrible for making him feel bad. He beckoned her to his side with a crooked finger. I just don't know what else to do, she thought miserably as she walked toward him, and hoped he'd understand one day. His hand bit into the soft flesh of her arm as he grasped her and steered her out of the classroom. She looked back at Harry and saw he was once more wearing his smug, just-got-snogged face. Daring a glance up at Draco beside her, she noted how tightly his jaw was clenched and knew he'd seen it too.

"Bye, Harry," she said, forcing her voice into a dreamy, reluctant-to-be-parted tone, and winced as the grip on her arm tightened and Draco began dragging her down the hall.

"See ya, Laura," Harry replied insolently, and sauntered in the opposite direction, toward Gryffindor tower.

She kept looking back with supposed longing until Draco hissed, "If you don't stop doing that, Madley, I'll snap your neck."

"Don't know why it matters to you," she protested sulkily. "Not like I matter to you at all. I'm just Alterna-Pansy, and now that she's back, I'm not even that. I'm nothing to you." They ground to a sudden half, and Laura hazarded a glance up at him.

His hair was gilded by the corridor's dim torchlight, and the flickering flame reflected in his pastel eyes almost hypnotically. "That's right," he agreed, his voice silky and low. "You're nothing to me." She winced at the brutality of his words. "But until I release you, you're mine."

Laura shivered at the ownership blatant on his face, and wondered if there were something wrong with her for enjoying his claim on her. For wanting to be possessed by him. Perversely, she felt compelled to offer at least a token protest. "No," she whispered. "I'm not yours. I'm my own."

His hand moved from her arm, which she rubbed to ease the soreness, to her cheek, brushing her hair back over her shoulder before cupping her smooth skin. "You're mine," Draco repeated, and lowered his mouth to hers. His kiss was meant to be brief, a branding, a mark of ownership to prove that he could do with her what he pleased.

But he hadn't counted on the fact that Laura Madley had wanted him to kiss her for a very long time, and that she would melt against him like warm honey in fevered relief. Nor had he thought she'd wind her arms around his neck, tangle her fingers in his hair, and massage his scalp as she kissed him back.

And he certainly hadn't expected to hear her whimper in pleasure when his lust overrode his wish to make his point, and he sucked her bottom lip before licking her upper one. Oh, she tasted sweet, he thought dazedly, slanting his mouth over hers over and over, his tongue spearing into her, dueling with hers. He hardened insistently against the softness of her belly, and it was only as he realized he was lowering them both to the cold stone floor that he came to his senses.

Bloody hell, he thought, gasping both mentally and physically. He'd very nearly shagged her in the hallway, and judging by the look on her face-- longing, disappointment, hunger--she'd not have minded overmuch. But she's Potter's, a nasty voice in his head reminded him, and he felt his face change from its slackened expression of lust to its more usual sneer.

"So disappointed I interrupted your shag-fest with Potter than you'd lower yourself to use me, then, Madley?" he ground out, pushed her away from him so that she flew against the wall, hitting it with a faint cry of pain.

Eyes huge, she reached out to him, but he flinched away. "No, Draco..." she began, but he bared his teeth at her.

"Do not touch me again," he snarled, eyes colder than anything she'd ever seen before. "I will not be used as a substitute for him."

"You're not!" she cried as he once more grabbed her arm and steered her toward Hufflepuff. "Draco, please..." He felt himself softening toward her even as his chest seemed to seize with an odd pain, as if his heart were being squeezed.

They arrived at Hufflepuff's portrait, and he flung her toward it. "Do not join us tomorrow, or any other day. You are no longer welcome with Slytherin."

Her eyes widened more, somehow, and fat tears began to course down her face. "Please, Draco," she begged. "They're my friends now, don't keep them from me." Her lips were pink and swollen from his voracious kisses, and it took everything within him to keep from tasting her tears, from licking them off her cheeks and trembling chin.

"You've always laughed at me for being the Slytherin prince," he said at last, hands gripping fistfuls of his robes to keep from touching her. "Always mocked something you never understood. But whether you understand it or not doesn't matter. That's just how it is. And here's a royal decree: you're now banished from the kingdom. Don't come back."

"Draco," Laura whispered, and fell to her knees, sobbing into her hands. The portrait opened and Hannah poked her head out, eyes growing comically wide and mouth falling open in shock at the scene before her.

"Susan!" Hannah called, scrambling out and falling to the floor beside her friend. Susan appeared moments later and placed herself between the girls on the floor and Draco.

"What the bloody hell have you done to her?" she demanded, hands on hips, eyes flashing with anger.

Draco felt his emotions detach from the situation as his father had taught him. His mind grew cool and numb, and he almost sighed in relief at the recession of fury and yearning and betrayal. "Nothing she didn't deserve."

Laura moaned, soaking the blonde shepherdess curls with tears, shuddering rhythmically against Hannah's shoulder as she wept. "You sodding bastard," Hannah spat. The insult quite lost something when spoken in a breathy little-girl voice by a tiny figure in shortie pajamas, but the wealth of loathing behind it was impressive, nonetheless. "How can you hurt someone who loves you so much?"

Draco jerked in surprise before he could control himself. "Love?" he muttered, his gaze drawn to Laura, huddled and miserable on the floor against Hannah. His heart thumped once, twice, hard enough to wrench itself from his chest before the numbness returned to him, and it was as if a mask descended over his face. "Love." He said the word as if it tasted very bad indeed. "I'm sure she 'loves' Potter, too. As often as they can find a spare broom closet." His lip curled as he stared down at them. "How many others has she 'loved'? And should I hie myself to Pomfrey for a test, be sure I haven't caught anything from her?"

Susan slapped him then, very hard right in the mouth, and made his hair fly as his head snapped around. He flexed his neck experimentally and darted his tongue out to taste the blood that spilled from his split lip. "Not bad, Bones," he told her. "Good wrist action, nice speed." She fumed and raised her hand for another blow. "But I wouldn't, if I were you. Forewarned is forearmed, and I will hit you back next time." Susan looked like she'd take her chances anyway, but before she decided, a quavery little voice came from the heap on the floor.

"Go away, Draco," Laura said. She sounded exhausted, and so sad. Once more he felt his anger begin to melt away, and was furious at his weakness. "Please, just go."

He forced himself to smirk. "The minion dismisses the prince, hm?"

She pulled away from Hannah and gazed up at him. Her eyes were shockingly empty, their hazel depths dull and dead. "Just go."

Draco's awareness pulled back and it was as if he could see the entire scene from the ceiling. There he was, standing in the middle of the corridor, shoulders square and stiff, hands hidden in the folds of his robes as he stared down. And facing him, the troika, a picture of solidarity. Laura, crumpled and discarded; Hannah, comforting and outraged; Susan, furious and volatile. The stone walls seemed to loom around them, to crowd inward, and he felt... a vague sense of panic, and... other things. Guilt. Regret. Sorrow. Pain.

Love.

His heart twisted within him as he realized how he'd hurt her, debased her, mocked her. How he'd taken her kisses, and thrown them back at her, and despair filled him. "Laura..." he whispered at last, reaching out to her.

"Don't touch her," Susan snapped, slapping his hand back.

Did she think he'd hurt Laura? He'd never... Draco blinked as he realized that he had hurt her, hurt her terribly. He struggled to regain the detachment of before, and felt it close around him like a thick cloak on a winter's day. Turning, he walked away, concentrating on putting one foot on the ground, then the other, as Hannah's and Susan's anxious voices faded in the distance.

"Draco?"

He blinked and looked up, realizing that those feet of his had carried him back to the dungeons, and he'd been standing before the portrait for an unknown period of time. He wondered how long it had been.

"Draco?" repeated the voice, and he blinked again, recognizing Blaise's swarthy, concerned face.

"Blaise," he replied calmly, and stepped inside. His face betrayed no emotion at all, like a slate wiped perfectly, utterly clean.

"Did you find Laura?" Blaise inquired, concern plain in his voice. Draco was dimly aware of others coming to join them, of Millicent and Greg and Vince and even Pansy as she cautiously sidled up, careful to stay on the other side of him, away from Goyle.

"Yes." He didn't elaborate. How could he, when he still felt like he was floating near the ceiling? He tried not to stare at the floor, but couldn't seem to focus his gaze. He settled instead for staring at Crabbe's crooked school tie. It had a mustard spot on it, bright yellow and irregularly shaped. If Draco squinted, he thought it might vaguely resemble a tear-drop. Tears... Laura had cried so many tears, and because of him. This time, not only his heart convulsed, but his stomach as well. The entire contents of his torso seemed to be writhing inside him, struggling to be free of him, to escape an owner who would behave so cruelly.

"Is everything... are you alright?" Pansy asked.

"No," Draco heard himself say clearly. He broke away from Millicent's hand on his arm and walked toward the doorway to the dormitories. "No, not at all." He walked calmly to his room, and knowing they'd follow, into the bathroom, and locked the door with a more obscure charm he knew they wouldn't be able to alohomora open.

Inside, he methodically brushed his teeth- spitting out blood from his busted lip--and combed his hair, then removed his robes, shoes, and tie. Then he lay on his side in the bathtub and pulled his robes over him as a sort of blanket, and pressed his face against the cool porcelain, hoping it would chill his fevered brain. There were tiny cracks in the enamel, and he traced them with his fingertip, followed them like you would a road on a map, but there was no destination for him.

He lay there a long time, ignoring their pleas to come out, their thumpings on the door, and eventually fell asleep.