Dumbledore, Please Explain Your Twisted Logic!

Disclaimer: Not mine. Let me also disclaim the Edna St. Vincent sonnet that I've borrowed once again.

A/N: Extra warning on this chapter. The sexual content is pretty graphic and quite dang aberrant to boot.

Chapter Eight

What Lips My Lips Have Kissed

WAIT!" Trelawney shrieked out these words the very moment after Draco finished rocking over her naked body. The blond Slytherin went rigid from the startling cry, and, once he realized where it had come from, he still didn't relax.

"Yes, Professor?" he said stiffly.

"I..." Trelawney's words fluttered, unsure, from her lips as she reached up to stroke Draco's chest with her trembling hand. The difference between their two bodies was staggering. He was young and virile, muscled in cords and rippling knots and shining in a sheen of youth (or was it a sheen of sweat? Either way, it sent her heart into double-speed). Then there was her: old, wrinkled, and sagging in every place imaginable. Her grip was weak against his heaving waist, and her vision was blurred since her glasses had been knocked askew in all the scuffle. She had no idea why he had chosen her as his secret lover, but she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she didn't want to lose the special, all-too-brief moments they shared together.

"Listen, I gotta go--" Draco began to pull out of her.

"No, not yet!" Trelawney said quickly, pulling him back in. They mashed uncomfortably against each other, his hard stomach meeting her flabby breasts, both glad that they had a cushioned armchair beneath them.

"I'm real busy, Professor," Draco whined, squirming. "I have... like homework and stuff."

"It's Sunday afternoon," Trelawney begged, "can't you at least hold off until the evening, my dear? Stay just a little... for me."

Draco wrested his hips out of her clawing grip and stood up unsteadily. "Look, Professor, I have stuff I need to get done," he huffed as he crossed over to one of the rickety tables to pluck his discarded silk boxers off of a teacup. "Can't I stay behind some other time?"

"If not now, then when?" Trelawney cried frantically, spreading her limbs wide in order to give Draco a better view of her deteriorating body. Her hair, frizzy to begin with, was in brambles around her pockmarked shoulders and sagging mammaries, and, thanks to the abundance of perfumed candles, sweat wept down her legs and arms in beaded drops. She was a mess, she knew, but she had never felt hotter in her entire life, and she wanted Draco again, today, with his Herculean arms prying her legs apart past the point of Muggle possibility and into Magically odd angles, giving him better access to all her sweetest locations. "Please, Draco darling, stay with me! And keep your clothes off... just a little longer?"

Draco paused with his boxers around his knees. He heaved a sighed and straightened up, giving Trelawney a full-frontal view that made her thighs twitch maddeningly. "Look, I... I just can't do this... I gotta..."

"Please!" Trelawney begged. "Please, or I'll... I'll... I'll tell everyone what's going on!"

Draco finished pulling up his boxers. The full monty disappeared behind black silk, and Trelawney mourned inside. "Nice threat, Professor," he sneered, his lip curling. "Go ahead and tell everyone. It's you that's going to be charged with statutory rape and fired."

"I can't be charged with rape!" Trelawney squawked. "You're of age--I can make love with you as much as I please!"

Draco plopped onto the armchair next to her. "Ah, but you'll still get fired, certainly you could predict at least that. Student-teacher relationships were against school policies, last I heard of."

"Then I won't tell!" Trelawney moaned miserably, kicking at one of her discarded necklaces where it lay on the ground. "Just... just, please, stay with me..."

Draco sunk deeper into the cushion, looking rather depressed. "Okay, then," he relented with a grumble. "I'll stay for five minutes. How's that? Then I really have to go."

Trelawney melted inside. It was happening at last; Draco was actually spending more time with her! Maybe their next meeting would last ten minutes after the orgasm, then thirty the time after that, then a couple hours... maybe they might end up spending entire nights together! The thought of her frail body encompassed in Draco's protective arms, their legs intertwined against her magenta bedsheets, sent her clitoris into overdrive, and for a second all she could do was gasp softly to herself as she neared the brink again.

"Touch me, Draco," she whispered. "Please, touch me again."

Draco rolled his eyes (which she didn't see), but he stood up dutifully and touched his finger to her forehead.

"Not there, dear boy, down here!" Trelawney cried in sensual agony. She squirmed tremendously, and she brushed the entire length of her leg against the armchair. The movement was enough to set her off, and before Draco could relocate his finger to the desired location she was heaving her weight about in eight different ways. She let out a couple of "DEATH! DEATH! DEATH!" shrieks, and he flopped back into his chair, a bit disgusted with the proceedings.

"So what the hell are we gonna talk about?" he asked her once she had finally stopped her heavings. "We're down to three-and-a-half minutes."

"I... I..." Trelawney had so much she wanted to tell Draco, so much life to share with him, but there was no way she could fit it all into three-and-a-half minutes. "I... Draco, why me?"

Draco went rigid again. "How do you mean?" he said, sinking so far into the chair that Trelawney could no longer see his face.

"I mean... Well, I'm... a teacher. I'm not... beautiful or attractive, not like the other girls running around the castle. Why did you choose me over them?"

She didn't see his expression as he stayed silent. She couldn't even begin to guess what he was thinking. However, after a long time she heard him mumble, "I, uh... I chose you because, er... you're all I ever need?"

"Oh, truly?" Trelawney gushed. "Oh, Draco! My love, my life!" And she heaved her old body up from the armchair and ran to jump into his lap. However, she tripped over the table halfway there and sent a crystal ball flying across the room, where it broke a teapot but managed to land on the floor unscathed. She shrieked in shock when she fell into Draco's lap, then shrieked again when she saw an image flash from the crystal ball.

"The pool!" she cried, as if possessed. "The pool, the pool!"

"Sorry?" Draco said, startled. He had shrunk away from the commotion and even now wasn't bothering to help her up.

"The pool of water!" she repeated, this time in hushed tones that lost none of their madness. "The pool of water with rows upon rows of candles surrounding it, sending their purple smoke to choke the air with nauseous gas! And in the pool sits a shadow of a person, deserted, destitute, alone, always whispering--always!--'No more...' "

"Er, what?" Draco tucked his legs behind his butt and leaned into the armchair as far as he could without tipping it over.

"No more..." Trelawney whispered. "In me... no more... ah, what lips!" And she lunged upward and threw herself over Draco's body, effectively sending the chair toppling over backwards.

"Hey, what the hell are you doing, woman?" Draco cried, irked, as Trelawney clawed his boxers down his thighs.

"No more... no more..." Trelawney panted. "In the crystal ball, that's what."

"Sorry?"

"That's what I was talking about--the pool, the person, the candles. Saw it, in the ball." For emphasis, she reached for his exposed testicles, but he slapped her hand away.

"Stop, we already had sex," he bitched as he pulled up his boxers again.

"At least let me look!" she begged plaintively. "Let me see your glorious manhood once more before you go!"

"Why the hell do you want to see it?" Draco whined. "It's all flaccid now, why would you want to see a thing like that? I thought you old people were supposed to be, like, grossed out by... uh, by..."

"We're not!" Trelawney promised him. "I want to drink in your masculinity with my eyes. Please, my other lovers let me do it!"

"Others lovers!" Draco yelped, scooting rapidly away from her. "Just how many students have you boinked before?"

"No, not students!" Trelawney explained hastily. "No, no, no, they were all adults. There was Barnabus Bartleby and Artesimus Fudge and Alb--" she stopped short and clamped a hand over her mouth.

"Who?" Draco said curiously. "Sorry, didn't catch the last name?"

"Ah, what does it matter?" Trelawney wailed dramatically, hoping her hysterics would cover the awkward slip. "You're the first man in ten years to even touch me! Please, don't take that from me--promise you'll always return to me, please."

Draco slipped out from her desperate grasp and stood up quickly. "Yes, yes, of course," he said, "but our five minutes are officially up--I gotta go now."

"Promise me you'll return!" Trelawney wailed, stretching her arm out towards the dressing Slytherin.

"I already did!" Draco cried, a bit creeped out. He hadn't even started buttoning his shirt before he clambered down the stepladder and out of view.

Trelawney sunk to the floor, sobbing. She was naked, her leathery skin drenched with the sweat that gathered between her wrinkles. And she was alone again, as alone as she always was after Draco left her.

"Ohhhh, sweet Merlin!" she wailed aloud. "Sweet, sweet Merlin, why must I live like this? Love, why must you taunt me with your sweet, sweet wiles, before you summon your soul mate, Death, and cut away every tie I hold dear? Ah, Love, are you even real? Is it only Death that fills my life, my soul, my Inner Eye?"

Those candles were getting to her again. Death, arm-in-arm with Edna St. Vincent Millay and a tactless Laugh Track, materialized amidst the mess of tables and tealeaves and answered her thus:

DEATH:

Ah, Sybil, Love is Life. Life is Death. We are separate, and yet we are the same--if you have one of us, the others must be somewhere close by, if only you would look.

SYBIL: [despondently]

Tell me, Death, why must you always be the one over my shoulder, dressed in black and caped and hooded? Why do you hide your face from me when you show it to those that I love most dearly? Am I not worthy for the journey on which you take them?--Am I as of yet unprepared for the road to the Beyond?

LAUGH TRACK:

Ahahahaha! Heehee.

DEATH: [frowns at SYBIL and holds up his/her scythe. The curved weapon is sharp and lethal; SYBIL feels that, were it to strike her, she would leave this world instantly, yet she also feels that--were this to happen--she would feel no pain, none at all!]

SYBIL:

Well, won't you speak to me, my dear?

[DEATH runs the scythe gently along SYBIL'S cheek, as if testing its sharpness against her skin. However, the weapon draws no blood. EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY detaches herself from DEATH'S arm and patters softly over to SYBIL'S side.]

EDNA: [laying a hand on SYBIL'S shoulder]

And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain

For unremembered lads that not again...

SYBIL: [overlapping]

Edna, dear, what's it like when you die?

EDNA:

...Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.

LAUGH TRACK: [with a slight build before the outburst]

Hahaha. Hahahaha! Hahahahahahahahaha!! Harrrumph.

SYBIL:

Is it scary, Edna? Millay, my dearest, you look so sad--are you in hell? Do you live in that fiery furnace of inferno, your melting face stretched wide with mortal agony, your soul dying again and again in a blaze that can never be quenched or satisfied? Is that what awaits me? It is what awaits us all?

LAUGH TRACK:

Heeheeheeheeheeheeeeeeeee.

EDNA: [grievously]

It's like this, Sybil--

DEATH: [urgently]

Edna, don't tell her--!

EDNA: [sighing]

I know, Death--if you've told me once, you've told me a thousand times! Sybil, don't listen to him/her.

SYBIL:

Who's him/her?

EDNA:

Well, Death isn't fully female or fully male, is it? That wouldn't make any sense. It's a bit of both and a bit of neither.

SYBIL: [immensely confused]

So is Death a transvestite or an asexual?

LAUGH TRACK: [explosively]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[SYBIL, DEATH, and EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY all pause dumbly as the LAUGH TRACK carries on uproariously. After it dies away, they unfreeze and begin speaking again.]

EDNA: [voice laden with sarcasm]

Both.

LAUGH TRACK:

HAHAHAHAHAHA! HOHOHOHOHOHOHO! HOOHOO! Heeheehee. Hee. Ha.

EDNA: [disgruntled at the interruption]

Going back to your question, I can't answer it. Death is a mystery to those who have not yet died, and it must remain so. I'm sorry, but that is how it must be.

SYBIL: [despairingly]

I am unworthy to live this life! Please, Edna, please, Death, when you return from whence you came, take me with you!

DEATH:

No, Sybil, now is not your time. You must remain on this Earth a while longer.

SYBIL: [now in hysterics]

No, Death, please! Wherever you go, let me follow! You say Life and Death and Love are all the same. As such, this life of mine is intimately connected with Death, as intimately as Death is connected with love. Hence, I love you!

LAUGH TRACK: [portending]

Heehee.

[DEATH doesn't answer her. He/she floats towards the trapdoor.]

SYBIL:

Nooooo! I WANT TO DIE!!

LAUGH TRACK: [uncontrollable, hysterical, applauding all the meantime]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA! HOOHOOHOOHOOHOO!! Ah, Aha-HAAAAAA-hahahahahahaha! Hahaha! Haha. Heehee. Heeeeeeeeeee...

EDNA: [follows DEATH, but turns around to tell SYBIL]

Goodbye for now. Maybe next time you'll come with us, or maybe not. Maybe you'll never come with us. In the meantime, you really need a bath.

LAUGH TRACK: [follows the other two down the ladder, still giggling]

Hahaha. Haha. Hee. Whoo!

So Sybil took a bath. She sneaked over to the Prefect's Bathroom and availed herself of its facilities, which she knew she shouldn't be doing. But that huge bathtub with its many perfumes was just too alluring after her little fits, and Moaning Myrtle was always willing to give her the password. She also took along her most heavily scented candles and set them up and lit them around the water's edge in a glowing ring. The vapors produced from these candles, coupled with the heady fumes that rose from the perfumed bath soap, made Trelawney sufficiently light-headed to escape from her troubles for at least a little while.

After half-an-hour of relaxation, though, the bath began to grow decidedly uncomfortable. Try as she might, Professor Trelawney couldn't get rid of the memories of all the past lovers who had taken baths with her, back when she wasn't so wrinkled and hideous. Ah, if only those days were these days! If only she could turn back time itself and enter her youth, before the blight of death stole every bit of happiness that came her way!

Also, she couldn't rid herself of the feeling that she was being watched. Every time her breasts rose above the water (which wasn't all that often, as they were tremendously saggy), they prickled uncomfortably, as if they felt the gaze of someone's hot, eager eyes--someone inches away from her, but not quite in sight. It was quite a defiling experience, though it didn't hold a candle next to the debauchery of the past hour.

**********

"That sorry old shit-face!" Draco swore to himself as he swooped towards his common room. Why the hell did Trelawney have to fawn over him so much? It was ten times as bad as all his other paramours combined, and hence ten times more pathetic... no, it was even more pathetic than that, because Trelawney was supposed to be an elderly adult, not a simpering teenager.

Human beings are utterly lame, Draco sighed to himself. If I didn't want to fuck them all, I'd have killed them long ago. Or maybe I can do both: fuck them to death, one by one, until I've polished off as many as I possibly can. Certainly there's enough people in the world for that?

And then she had to go ask that question!--"Why did you choose me?" And he had to reply: "Because you're all I ever need." Perfect. Absofuckinglutely perfect.

What in Merlin's buggering name was he supposed to say?! "You see, Trelawney, I chose you because I'm an honest-to-goodness nymphomaniac, and apart from having a fetish on little boys and overeager females, I also have a thing for old people, and you fit the bill quite nicely." Yeah, whoever said honesty is the best policy should be crucified. For once, he agreed with Dumbledore, who said (repeatedly, with increasing fervor each time) that the truth was "a beautiful and terrible thing." Except most of the time it was terrible, not beautiful.

Speaking of terrible truths, one popped up just two hallways away from the Slytherin common room. It was that Longbottom kid, his beady eyes shining in his sweaty face. "Oh!" the boy gasped in something that sounded like fake surprise. "Uh, Dra--er, I mean, Malfoy... Fancy meeting you here."

Neville (I mean Longbottom! Draco corrected himself hastily) looked like he wanted to look surprised at randomly meeting his costar in the hallway, but he looked more like he was faking the look than actually looking the look.

"No, Longbottom, it's not much to my fancy," Draco replied haughtily. This meeting couldn't just be a chance meeting, because it was the sixth time in the past four days that he had run into the pudgy Gryffindor right next to the common room. Draco personally thought that Longbottom had some secret agenda in mind, but he couldn't quite figure out what it was. All he knew was that the plan was definitely the malicious type, because Gryffindors and Slytherins only treated each other with ill will, and doubtless Longbottom was carrying out a prank or sabotage with the help of his friends. Maybe Potter and Weasley put him up to it.

"Oh..." Longbottom backed away nervously, stumbling a little as his clumsy feet caught the edge of his robe. "Oh, uh... I had a question about the play, and I--"

"Excuse me if I don't stop to chat, but I actually have important things to do," Draco said, cutting the conversation off at the neck. Then, creeped out for the second time in the past thirty minutes, Draco took the next two hallways to his common room at a canter. Mercifully, the Longbottom drip didn't follow, and the Slytherin entered his common room undisturbed.

"Draco, darling! Where have you been?" Fuck undisturbed. It was as if one of the Ten Commandments was "Thou shalt bother Draco past his wit's end as much as thou possibly canst, especially if no other man currently doth." This time the transgressor was Pansy, who wrapped her slim arms around Draco's unresponsive waist. Her soft black hair she buried into Draco's chest as she flicked her tongue gently against the cusp of his neck. The heat of the slimy pink organ against his skin would have been rather sensual had he not been rebuilding his sexual impetus following an orgasm. As it was, it was merely annoying and uncomfortable. He also felt someone's tongue sneaking up the cuff of his pants--probably Brittany, Draco thought in disgust, damn cat.

He pushed both the witch and the cat away from him, and they both protested vigorously: Pansy said, "But I haven't seen you all day!" and Brittany said, "MEOW!" but he ducked away from both of them and fell into a black leather armchair by the fire.

"Look, Pansy, I've been busy... give me half-an-hour, and then we'll have sex, as I assume you most desperately desire."

"Busy?" Pansy said suspiciously. "Draco, what've you been doing? You're all sweaty."

"Uh, exercising," Draco grunted. "Now stop bugging me, or else I won't ever feel like sex!"

"No, don't say that, Draco," Pansy said quickly. "I'll leave you alone, I'll leave you alone. And after a half-hour, when we have sex, I'll let you do anything you want! How's that?"

"Uh, okay," Draco sighed, rolling his eyes. Pansy was so old hat--the only reason he still went out with her was because having an official girlfriend made cheating all the more exciting. Of course, keeping this girlfriend of his meant they had to have sex on occasion, which was a bit inconvenient because he was getting sick of staring into her face as he pumped up-and-down on top of her. To make the experience a bit more bearable, he used her as his practice doll, always trying out and perfecting new sexual experiments on her first before he performed them spectacularly upon his many sex partners. Pansy was more than willing to do whatever he desired--probably because she thinks it'll make me love her more, Draco thought with a snort. As if!

So which position should he try out this time? Missionary was a bore, and all the others--69, t-bone, rodeo, helicopter--you name it, he had worn it ragged. He was running out of new positions to try, and it didn't make him happy.

There was only one thing for it. "GOOOOOOYLE!" Draco shouted at the top of his lungs. Ten seconds later, Gregory Goyle puffed out of the boys' dormitories and over to Draco's side.

"Yes, Malfoy," he said meekly, "what do you want?"

"What did I tell you, Goyle!" Draco snapped, jabbing a finger at Goyle's hand. The thickset boy looked down at the hand in question, which was holding a massive book, and he gasped.

"Oh, sorry, Draco," he said quickly, laying the book precariously on the tiny coffee table next to Draco. "No more reading books in public."

"No more reading books period!" Draco snapped. "You are my flunky, Goyle, you got that? Flunkies must never appear smarter than the person to whom they toady, and you are way too damn smart!"

Goyle tried his best to look abashed. "Sorry, Draco, but I can't help it. I try to act dumb, but I just sort of seem to... slip up."

"Huh, and you make some fucking huge slip-ups, too," Draco said bitterly.

"C'mon, they're not too huge!" Goyle argued. "Besides you and Crabbe, only Pansy really knows how smart I am!"

"But even she shouldn't know!" Malfoy cried, throwing his hands up. "You may've fooled all the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws into thinking you're the world's thickest galoot, but there's been whispers among the Slytherins--idle whispers maybe, but still whispers!--that you're perhaps not as dumb as you appear."

Goyle tugged nervously at his sleeve and tried not to sound too sulky when he answered, "But what does it matter, so long as I don't appear smarter than you? Can't I get a couple O's once in a while? Can't I talk about the latest book I read, just a little bit? Don't you do the same on occasion?"

"Not the way you do," Draco huffed. "You shouldn't be getting E's, even--I know I said you could, but you take that to mean you're allowed to earn an E on every damn paper we write! Can't you pretend to fuck things up once in a while and get a T?"

"No," Goyle said, bewildered. "I don't know how to get a T without leaving the whole paper blank. It's like I... like I can't stop myself from doing things right. Anyway, what's the matter with all that?"

"The matter is that you're not supposed to have any brains at all!" Draco hissed. "I chose you as a trophy friend over Nott and Zabini because you're the kind of sycophant I'd hang around only because you can beat up anyone who tries to annoy me! All I want you to do is flex your muscles and looked menacing."

"And suggest new sex positions," Goyle added. Draco glared furiously at him, and the smart young Slytherin pouted. "What, that's why you called me in the first place, isn't it? You've just come back from fucking half-a-dozen girls, and now Pansy wants to be the seventh. And you're sick of having sex with her, so you want to use her as--"

"Stop analyzing the fucking thing," Draco interrupted viciously, "and give me a fucking position!"

Goyle took the armchair on the other side of the coffee table and picked up the book. "No reading--!" Draco lashed out, but Goyle cut him short.

"I'm just finding a useful passage here," he said. "Ah, here it is. Read these three pages." He indicated the pages to Draco, who languidly took the book from Goyle and hefted it into his lap.

For a minute or so the silence in the common room was comfortable, and Draco read the sex scene (for that was what filled those three pages) with relative relish. After that minute, however, the scene took a decided turn towards the repulsive, presenting Draco with such an idea that he could barely begin to fathom the fact that someone would actually want to do it. The repulsiveness continued and continued, until Draco could only clutch the edge of his seat as he reeled inwardly against the onslaught of mental images that left nothing to his imagination.

"Why the hell do you read this stuff?" Draco cried when he finally finished. "That's the sickest things I've ever read in my entire life! You're sick, too, Goyle, reading that. Just sick!"

"No, no, no, it's not sick at all," Goyle said quickly. "I mean, the scene is sick, but I'm not sick for reading it, because the book was nominated for the Nebula Award in 1973 and won the National Book Award in 1974, and it was also considered for the Pulitzer Prize in the same year, except that--"

"Shut up," Draco interrupted callously. "Just shut up and give me one good reason why I should try this with Pansy."

Goyle wrung his hands around each other and said cautiously, "Well, it's an extremely kinky fetish, and I was wondering if, you know, it was really more than just an imagined fetish that authors liked to write about. And I thought, if there was anyone willing to do it, it'd be Draco! You, that is. So try it for me, please, and tell me how it goes. If the stories are right, then it's supposed to be a real turn-on."

"Stories?" Draco cried. "There's more than one of them? What the hell to you read?"

"All the acclaimed authors," Goyle said defensively. "These kinds of books don't count as porn, really they don't."

"I beg to differ," Draco said, his voice laden with sarcasm. He stood up and headed for the girls' dormitories to fetch Pansy.

"So you're going to do it?" Goyle asked, his face shining with hope.

Draco didn't know why he agreed to this kind of thing, but he did. "Can't do any harm, I suppose," he sighed. To tell the truth, he was a slave to his curiosity, and he had to know if something so gross could really be so sexually exciting. After all, when he was twelve he found even the idea of tasting semen to be absolutely vile, but nowadays he was more than happy to engage in the occasional snowball. Perhaps the same line of reasoning worked here.

So it was that, ten minutes later, he had Pansy holed up behind the curtains of his four-poster bed. They were both naked, and Draco was doing the preliminary strokes to prepare himself for the next half-hour of raunchiness. He waved his wand in order to dim the lights down past the usual state he normally preferred during sex. To tell the truth, he didn't want to see it as it happened, not this time, at least.

"So..." Pansy said suggestively, swaying her hips back and forth to accentuate the inflections in her voice. "What do you want to do?"

"You said we could do anything, right?" Draco said. It was best to make sure he bound her in her promise.

Pansy licked her lips suggestively and placed her hand gently on Draco's thigh. "Anything, Draco darling, anything at all."

"Okay, then," Draco said, more than a little nervous. "I'd like you to... uh, take a shit in my mouth." Only he said it double-speed, so it sounded more like: "takeashitinmymouth."

"Sorry, love, I didn't hear that," Pansy purred in his ear.

Draco tried again, this time placing his lips against Pansy's moist neck as he murmured, "Take. A shit. In my mouth."

Pansy drew away from him and shook her head, as if trying to dislodge something from her unruly ear. "You're joking, right?" she said, attempting a weak laugh.

"No," Draco replied, his face deadpan. Only he actually wished he was: This was going to be so gross. And curiosity was one hell of a bitch.

A/N: Time for a funny story. You know how Draco calls Goyle's book porn? Well, that's what my brother does with me. After reading Lady Chatterley's Lover, he kept on referring to it as the "porn novel" that I read. Then my grandmother comes visiting for Christmas, and I tell her about reading Lady Chatterley's Lover, and she says: "Oh, yes! I've read that book quite a few times." This I gleefully related to my brother, who could no longer call the book porn since our grandmother professed to reading it more than once.

As for that thick book Goyle's reading? I've given you clues as to which novel it is; now I want to see how many of you know its title. It's going to appear again in this fanfic, which is when it'll be properly disclaimed. :D

My beta finally caught up with me. Chapter 9 is not complete yet, and the end-of-year crunch is simply crushing me, but I promise I'll have the next part out before school lets out in June. And I promise I'll write a lot more, come summer.