Les Liaisons Serpentines

Les Liaisons Serpentines

By The Tonio

Chapter Four: Between a Snake and a Hard Place

It was a rare moment of absolute quiet within Freesia and Theo Plotte's penthouse; a breeze came in off Central Park and into Draco's open bedroom window, ruffling his hair as he slouched against the elaborately carved fireplace mantle. Freesia and Theo were still in the Poconos, his mother was in her own rooms--napping, presumably--and Lamia had disappeared from the penthouse just after breakfast, not bothering to inform anyone of her intended whereabouts as she left. Draco should have been pleased and relaxed, having the run of the apartment all to himself, but his anxiety had been mounting throughout the course of the morning and nothing--not croquet in the courtyard, not a strong cup of spiked tea--seemed to be helping. He hated croquet, anyway.

"Oh...so it's you who's been calling on my hearth for the last twenty minutes. Somehow I'm not surprised."

Draco bolted upright, then cursed softly and pulled a chair up to the fireplace, sitting down with an inelegant plop. Marty's face was looking out expectantly from the flames, but before answering Draco took a few seconds to openly glare at the man for abandoning him in his time of greatest need.

"I went to your office after breakfast and the door was locked against me," Draco seethed. "And I signaled your fire at least twenty minutes ago. Where have you been?"

"I'm sorry Draco, but our appointments are on Tuesdays. I have other patients to see, you know." Marty smiled apologetically, which somehow sent Draco's rage into a full-out boil.

"I HAD AN EMERGENCY!" he bellowed. "A REAL ONE THIS TIME!"

Marty clapped his hands over his ears and looked taken aback. "I can see that you're quite worked up," he said, his tone still maddeningly even. "Very well, now that I'm here why not tell me what all this is about, hmm?"

Draco screwed his eyes up tight and balled his hands into fists before bursting out: "It's Lamia! She's ruining my life!"

"What's she done this time?"

It might have been his imagination, but Draco thought he saw Marty roll his eyes. He better have imagined it, otherwise Marty could expect a scolding and severe pay cut from Lucius.

"She..." Draco paused, wondering how to evoke the severity of the situation without making himself look at least partly at fault. "She lured me into a... delicate position on the ferry ride yesterday afternoon, and at least ten of our fellow classmates saw the entire spectacle."

Marty frowned. "What do you mean by delicate position?"

Draco lowered his eyes and felt himself flush despite his efforts to fight it. "She tricked me into kissing her."

"I see." Marty was quiet for a few seconds, appearing to mull this over. "And how does one person trick another person into a kiss?" he finally asked, raising his left eyebrow just slightly.

"If that one person is Lamia, anything is possible," Draco insisted, neatly side-stepping the actual question.

"So your sister isn't really doing anything that she doesn't normally do, is she then," Marty said, phrasing the words as a statement.

"Not particularly. But now she's pulling her usual tricks out in public, and I can't have that," Draco confessed, hoping the biting tone of his voice disguised his actual distress. He wrung his gloved hands together worriedly, relieved that Marty could see nothing but his face.

"Perhaps it would be best to ignore her? We've already discussed the dangers of giving her the attention that she seeks."

Draco bit his lip. If Marty only knew...he'd sort of enjoyed kissing her. She was his version of female perfection, physically speaking, and her emotional and mental faults...well, they reminded him of his own, a fact which only made her more endearing. No one had faults quite so appealing as his, after all. Yet she was so much like him that Draco knew she could never, ever be trusted.

"Ignoring her is easy," Draco said loftily. "I do it all the time. But it will be difficult to ignore the whole school once word of this gets around."

"It might be simpler than you think. If you make it clear that you don't care about rumors, then the rumors are no longer very interesting for others to spread," Marty said soothingly, and for once Draco was grateful for that phony, friendly guise that the doctor so easily slipped into.

"That's true..." Draco said slowly, wondering if it really was. How could he tell Marty what his real fear was: that his wall of resistance against Lamia was crumbling, bit by incestuous bit? He needed vaccination against her, lest he actually be welcoming her presence at Malfoy Manor this summer. He took it as a good sign that the thought of sharing his family home with her still caused him to experience nausea. He kept reminding himself that she wasn't a real Malfoy. She was just a bastard child, useless and unwanted to both himself and his parents. Her seduction had nothing to do with true desire for him because her only real desire was to see him fail and flounder, of this he was certain.

"I need help wooing a girl," Draco announced, feeling a change of subject was in order.

"Oh?" Marty appeared surprised. "Have you developed feelings for someone?"

"Of course not. I have to ruin the Head Girl's reputation and sleep with Ginny Weasley, 6^th year prefect--possibly a latent lesbian, but that remains to be seen. I'm personally holding out hope that she's just a shy, blushing virgin."

"I see," Marty said, looking as if he did not see at all.

"I've practically mounted the Head Girl," Draco said confidently. "But that Ginny will be a bit trickier."

"Because of her alleged same-sex orientation?" Marty suggested, a tiny smirk inching across his features.

"No! Because she's..." Draco sighed, feeling some of his haughtiness drain away as he finished in a whisper, "...she's a good girl."

Marty closed his eyes, as if hoping for a brief reprieve from Draco's presence. "Good how?"

Draco looked frantically around his room, as if hoping that the Plotte ancestors, bustling behind their gilt-edged frames, would somehow help him to keep calm throughout this conversation. "She's polite to people," he admitted. "Even when she doesn't like them, she's civil...even, ugh, kind. She's smart but not a big-mouthed know-it-all, like Granger. She makes people laugh. She's a good Quidditch player, but not good enough to make me look bad, thankfully. She's got the unfortunate Weasley red hair, but I have to admit it's much easier to stomach when it grows atop a female head."

Marty cocked his head to one side. "Sounds as if you're attracted to her."

"Don't be ridiculous, Marty," Draco said, letting out a stiff laugh. "She's a Weasley--an embarrassment to purebloods everywhere. The point is that she's not quite like any other girls I know, and for that reason I find it difficult to proceed with the seduction as planned."

"A good girl, then? Is she ever bad?"

Draco thought hard. "No," he finally said. "Pure as the driven snow."

"Hmm." For once, Marty looked as if he were seriously searching out proper words of advice. "I suggest you watch a few American movies this weekend. If there's one thing that remains true throughout human history, it's this: good girls love bad boys."

"They do?" Draco was genuinely surprised. Then again, he'd only ever dated bad girls. Well, Slytherin girls, anyway, who tended to be unscrupulous if not exactly bad, right down to their sharply filed nails and temporarily-enchanted green eyes.

Marty smiled benignly. "What I'm telling you, in a nutshell, is to be yourself, Draco. That usually works best in all cases."

Before Draco could reply the door to his bedroom squeaked open; he turned in alarm, certain that Lamia would be standing there, armed with her usual smirk. It was only Marta the housekeeper, though, plodding in on her sensible shoes, her face hard and unreadable beneath a cloud of teased hair.

"Master Malfoy," she murmured, her head lowered just slightly. Draco noticed that she did not bow, however, and felt his rage threaten to return; even the most disobedient of house-elves had never failed to bow for him.

"What do you want?" Draco snarled, waving his wand dismissively at the fire. Marty's face immediately disappeared with a faint crackling sound.

"There is a guest," Marta said in her halting English, gesturing towards the door.

"So? Tell my mother." Draco pretended to brush lint from the front of his impeccably pressed button-down shirt.

"The guest is for you? She is wearing the Hogwarts' dress."

"Oh?" Draco rose to his feet, his curiosity finally piqued. It was most likely a friend of Lamia's, he reasoned; he best send her on her way before Lamia returned and stuffed her full of filthy gossip.

But there was a surprise waiting for him when he finally arrived in the grand foyer, with its dripping chandeliers and stiff, plush-velvet Louis XIV furniture. There, standing on tip-toe to cautiously sniff a giant spray of tropical flowers, was Hermione Granger. And she was alone.

***

Draco and Hermione were walking leisurely through Central Park, the Indian Summer sunlight warming their shoulders pleasantly--or Hermione was walking leisurely, anyway. Draco was still wound up and his jittery pace reflected the state of his nerves; he had to keep forcing himself to fall back to her side. Hermione was blissfully ignorant of his condition, smiling and licking a drippy ice-cream cone.

She'd come out on the ferry with Ron to spend the day in Little Diagon, but they had been separated in a crowd of marathon runners while exploring Central Park. And so Hermione had found herself alone in the city with nothing but her wand and a pocketful of sickles (plus ten American dollars, as she never went anywhere without pin money). She had wandered around looking for Ron at first, crumbling up her breakfast bagel and throwing it out for the ducks, then finally caught site of the famous Dakota apartment building peeking out over a break in the thick autumnal foliage.

"I once overhead your cousin saying that you both lived in a penthouse at the top of the Dakota," Hermione had explained. "So I just kept walking towards them until I reached the front doors. I didn't know where else to go." She chirped on brightly, giving Draco a headache. "I saw John Lennon in the lobby. I would have asked for an autograph but I'm not sure how low a profile he's keeping these days."

"Pretty low," Draco said sulkily. He'd been dying for a glimpse of John Lennon and Hermione had seen him by accident. It wasn't fair.

"It's too bad he had to leave his muggle music career behind. Ron really loves--

"Right," Draco said, cutting her off. "Now to find the bloody red nit-wit" He shuffled through a pile of leaves and sending them flying.

"That eager to be rid of me, are you?" Hermione tossed the remains of the cone into a rubbish bin and wiped her hands off on her jumper.

"No, it's just..." Draco swung his eyes from left to right. There were muggles everywhere, pushing baby carriages, careening about on those strange boots called rollerblades, some of them selling hot-dogs behind vending carts, others benched and dressed in filthy tatters, their hands out-stretched for charity. "...I hate New York in the autumn," he finished lamely, stuffing his hands deep into his pockets.

"Why?" Hermione cried, tilting her face skyward. "It's a beautiful day! Being here almost makes me forget how much I miss home."

"You miss home! Imagine how it is for me--I don't even have both of my parents here."

She frowned slightly; he already knew that her own parents were outfitted comfortably in Brooklyn Heights, practicing dentistry until it was once again safe for the parents of a mudblood witch to go back to living in Mother England. "Sorry..." she murmured, though her face looked only barely contrite. Not that he was surprised--his father was a Death Eater and she was no doubt completely aware of this fact.

"Anyway, there it is," Draco pointed. "Belvedere Castle, the entryway to Little Diagon."

Over the crest of the hill a small castle--designed to look more like a fortress--sat regally, an American flag waving from the crest of its highest tower.

"Wow!" Hermione's face lit up. "It's hard to believe that the muggles think this is nothing more than a nature observatory. It was built in 1865 by descendants of the original Salem Witches, you know...I read about it in Salem: A Historical Aftermath."

"Of course I know that. Haven't you ever been here before?"

"No. The move to the states was such a hassle that I ordered all my school things through owl post," she exclaimed, her eyes still wandering over the turreted walls of the castle's exterior. "It doesn't really look like a real castle now that I look at it closely."

Draco snorted. "Wait until you see Little Diagon. The American notion of replication means taking an original and making it snazzier, gaudier, and mixing in just a hint of sleaze."

To his surprise, Hermione laughed at this. "Show me," she urged, pulling at his gloved hand.

He led her around to the rear of the castle and through a thin stand of trees. Back here there was a small, stained-glass window set into the stone exterior, the design of which featured an elaborate letter "B". Draco took out his wand and traced the letter, finally tapping the window three times in the center. There was a wooshing noise that caused Hermione to jump back, and then the window widened dramatically, transforming into a heavy wooden door.

"Come on," Draco said, pushing through it.

Inside was a bustle of noise and confusion. Little Diagon looked almost exactly like the tightly packed streets of London's Diagon Alley, filled with shops that sold spellbooks and owls and Quidditch supplies aplenty. It was only after staring for several minutes that the notable differences began to appear. Almost all the witches and wizards--save the actual shop proprietors--were dressed in common muggle clothing. The crowd was also much larger, and the streets therefore wider to accommodate everyone. In addition to the original shops of Diagon Alley, there were a large number of pubs and eateries, plus souvenir and novelty shops. Even as Draco and Hermione looked on, a red-faced teenager stumbled past with a colorful, tropical drink in hand--a 'wicked cauldron', no doubt--dressed in a I Heart Little Diagon! tee-shirt. Somewhere in the distance a raucous street band was playing the bongos.

"Whoa." Hermione stared, unblinking. "Just...wow."

"See what I mean," Draco said loftily. Noticing her hand was still wrapped around his own, he pulled loose gently, unable to stop himself from smirking when she looked rather hurt by this. "We're here to find your boyfriend," he reminded.

"Right." Her eyes began to scan the crowd. "But what if he's not here?"

"Then my theory that he is an idiot will be confirmed," Draco said, moving forward to part the crowd.

"Oh look!" Hermione breathed, pulling on his shirt-tail. Draco pivoted about, guessing that she might have spotted Weasley. Instead, she was staring wide-eyed at a book shop, her mouth dropped open in rapture. "Pages and Papyrus! It's supposed to be the biggest book shop in the wizarding world!"

"So?" Draco said, attempting to push forward and drag her along at the same time. She was digging her heels in fast.

"Can we please go in? Just for a minute? For all we know Ron could be in there!" she pleaded, trying to wade away in the other direction.

"Doing what? Reading? Not bloody likely," Draco muttered. A glimpse at her eager brown eyes made him relent, though. It occurred to him that he and Hermione could potentially spend the entire afternoon together without the ever-watchful eyes of their classmates upon them. Perhaps he could use this time to his advantage, after all.

The interior of Pages and Papyrus was primarily occupied by badly dressed witches, most of them wearing horrific gauzy peasant blouses and mini-backpacks. There was a strong smell of cedar incense and low, piped in music--tacky, instrumental versions of the Celestina Warbeck's greatest hits. The space itself was pleasant, high-ceiled and lofty.

Hermione made a beeline straight for the Advanced Transfiguration collection, all other thoughts forgotten, while Draco followed in a meandering way, stopping to peer through a glass case at an impressively large compilation of Restricted books. When he finally caught up to Hermione, she was standing several rungs up on a wheeled ladder, studying one of the top most shelves. He couldn't see anything aside from her legs, and when he leaned in close enough could see quite a ways up her skirt--nearly to London and France.

He sighed to himself, somewhat forlornly. Oh, they were nice enough stems, he supposed, sturdy and a bit thick at the knees, but otherwise nice. But he couldn't help wondering what Ginny's legs looked like...they were definitely long, maybe freckled and rosy, like the surface of smooth river stone. And Lamia's...no doubt blindingly ice-white and perfectly curved.

He reached out and brushed his thumb against the back of Hermione's knee, imagining it was Lami. . .Ginny's. He applied more pressure and felt a shudder of surprise pass through her, strong enough to shift the ladder with an audible thump.

"Sooner or later we seem to find ourselves surrounded by books, you and I." he said, his voice low and barbed with meaning.

She made a swallowing noise and slowly descended from the ladder. When she turned to face him he expected her to be angry or annoyed. . .at best, very slightly amused. But her face was pale and struggling with something, caught halfway between desire and disgust.

"Don't do that," she said.

"Do what?"

"Touch me." But her voice hitched in the middle and it almost came out as a request.

He leaned in, directing his words at her ear. "Like that?" he asked, grazing his lips just slightly against her jawline, feeling a warm strand of her hair briefly catch in them.

Then he pulled away abruptly. "Because I have no intentions of touching you like that," he added, his voice tart. "There was a silverfish clinging to your leg. Squashed it for you."

He swished about and began to walk towards the exit, certain that she would follow. Sure enough, once he found himself out in the sun he could see Hermione's slight shadow pull up behind him, miniature to his own.

"The shop wasn't that spectacular," she said, looking embarrassed. "I've seen better."

"Yeah right," he scoffed, poking her in the shoulder. "What you mean is that you've seen better and that it goes by my name."

Her face was pained with exasperation. "There really is no end to your arrogance, is there?"

"Do you really want to find out?"

"No," she said hurriedly.

"Good. Now let me treat you to a snack at one of the cafés. We can sit outside and keep look-out for that hapless boyfriend of yours."

"No need," Hermione said in a pointed way. Draco eyed her quizzically, but her own eyes were elsewhere, glazed over in something verging on anger. Following the path of her gaze, Draco saw at once what she was staring at. Directly across from Pages and Papyrus was a ramshackle replication of Foretescue's Ice Cream Shoppe, run by Florean's cousin Fabio, and sitting outside under a striped umbrella were Ron Weasley and Lamia, both laughing and dipping long spoons into a giant toffee sundae. While Draco watched, open-mouthed, Lamia laughed merrily and used her napkin to daub a bit of ice cream from Weasley's chin.

Draco had to hand it to Hermione. While he himself was struck speechless, she placed her hands on her hips and marched right over to their table. "Fancy seeing you here, Ron," she announced, snatching the spoon right out of his hand. "I see you've worked up quite the appetite while searching the city for me." Ron did nothing but stare up at her dumbly, while Lamia sighed in annoyance, narrowing her eyes in Draco's general direction.

"Leave me be, Draco!" she cried out suddenly, tears welling up as if they'd been turned on by a switch. "What must I do to get you to stop following me?"

Ron managed to ignore Hermione's questioning glare and, like Lamia, turned on Draco, his face twisted in disgust. "Yeah, Malfoy. Lamia told me all about your sick desires. Snogging your own cousin...is that how real purebloods do it?"

"Interested in the ways of real purebloods, Weasel? It's a bit too late for that," Draco said, forcing himself to remain calm as he took long steps to the shady spot where the three were gathered.

"Sick desires?" Hermione asked, lowering the spoon to the table. "What are you on about?"

Ron's eye's narrowed. "Ask him," he said, gestured to Draco. Hermione only looked at him, her eyes questioning.

"Me? I have no idea what he's on about, as usual," Draco said, picking up the spoon and helping himself to a heaping spoonful of the frozen confection. The toffee sauce and chocolate ice cream was so sweet that it burned at his mouth almost painfully.

"Ooh!" Lamia wailed, burying her face in her upturned hands. "It's so humiliating! I just can't bear it!"

Hermione, to her credit, reacted to Lamia's histrionics with suspicion rather than sympathy. "What's humiliating?" she demanded. "And Ron, what made you decide to spend the day blithely slurping on ice cream instead of trying to meet up with me as we planned?"

Ron opened his mouth to fritter out some excuse, but not before Draco spoke up: "You slurped on ice cream as well, Hermione. I bought you a cone in Central Park, if you recall."

Hermione turned her head so fast that her hair whipped Draco in the face. "I'm talking to Ron. Not you."

"Oh, I think I should go. This is just all too much for me," Lamia gasped, clutching at her throat and rising from her seat. Once on her feet she swooned unsteadily and Ron shot forth to pull her upright.

"Easy there," he murmured, swabbing at her forehead with his sticky napkin.

"What is her problem?" Hermione snapped, clearly not appreciating Ron's Gryffindor sense of chivalry.

"Malfoy's after her night and day," Ron explained. "Can't keep his greasy mitts off his own cousin. Everyone's saying that he practically molested her on the ferry yesterday afternoon--I'm surprised you haven't heard already."

Draco rubbed at his throbbing temple. This did not bode well. Lamia claimed to want Hermione ruined, but just the same she apparently couldn't resist making Draco's task all the more embarrassing and difficult.

"Molested? What?" Hermione looked positively incredulous.

"It's all my fault," Lamia sobbed, giving her plaits a distressed tug. "I shouldn't have come home on the ferry with him...I should have known that being near me was just too much temptation."

"There, there." Ron continued to rub her back in attentive little circles.

"Too much temptation? Oh for heaven's sake. . ."

Much to Draco's delight and glee, it seemed that Hermione was fighting the urge to slam Lamia's face down into the gooey depths of the sundae.

"The Malfoy I know," she continued haughtily, "is beyond temptation. Temptation would require that he possess feelings, after all. And we all know that he is well above those." She pummeled him with a fast, final glare before finishing.

Draco felt oddly betrayed, though he knew Hermione more or less spoke the truth. Feelings were messy, unsettling things, as his further entanglement into the sticky web of Lamia was beginning to prove. He was most definitely better off without them.

"Indulge in your fantasies as you like, Lamia," he remarked, giving her a little salute. "I'm afraid I've got better things to do than to... what was it?" He mocked thinking hard. "Ah, yes... follow you around with my greasy mitts." He stood up and tossed down his spoon.

"Please..." a voice came from behind them, halting and weirdly accented. It was Fabio Fortescue, who was a huge, rock-hewn man with bulging biceps. He had an ice cream cone in either hand, and a bewildered look on his handsome face. "Your ruckus is disturbing my costumers. Please be keeping it down, yes?

"It's no trouble," Hermione said crisply, also rising to her feet. "We were just leaving. Right, Ron?"

"With him?" Ron boggled at Draco, then glanced forlornly at his sundae. "But I'm kind of busy."

"Fine!" Hermione shrilled, her voice like a pin. "But my parents are expecting us for brunch in the morning. I'd appreciate it if you'd..." she paused, her voice brimming with tears. "Not be late!" And with that she whirled around and took off stomping in the opposite direction.

Draco followed her at a leisurely pace, in no hurry to catch up with her and see her (ew) crying. He only caught up when she finally halted at the Little Diagon's exit and leaned against a wall, breathing heavily.

"I... hate... your...cousin!" she spat, her fists balled at her sides.

"Join the club, Granger. But we don't have any badges yet, I'm afraid." He leaned against the wall next to her, crossing his ankles easily.

"Do you know," she started, her voice dropping in a conspiratorial way, "that she tried to seduce Viktor Krum when he was here for the World Cup Quidditch Exhibition?"

"Oh, really?" Draco kept his tone to a casual, cool level of disinterest.

"Yes! Viktor explained he was interested in someone else, of course," she said hurriedly. "And she still slipped him a key to her room at the Cristal Palace. And Ron knows about that, and he's still eating ice cream with her!"

He watched her out of the corner of his eye. She looked hassled and upset, her cheeks growing pinker with each word she spoke. "Oh, come off it, Granger," he said, crossing his arms across his chest. "You tugged Krum along by a leash for years just to make Weasley notice you. But when he does something like eat ice cream with Lamia Plotte, all in effort to make you notice him, the indignant wand comes out."

Her mouth fell open and she gaped at him. "I did not! I care about Viktor. He's a very dear friend to--"

"Right." Draco rolled his eyes. "Good grief, Granger. Everyone knows you have nothing in common with that lummox." He held out his arms stiffly and began walking around in a tight little circle, stumbling like Frankenstein's monster. "Her-my-one. Watch-me-fly. I-go-fast. Whee!"

"Stop that," Hermione said icily. But she only glowered, not bothering to critique his impersonation.

"Quit frowning," Draco said, leaning towards her. "You're getting premature worry lines right here." He reached up and fingered the uncreased skin between her eyebrows.

"I asked you to not touch me," she snapped, jerking her head away.

He laughed a little, tipping back on his heels. "All right. I'm going back home for tea. Come along or stay. It's all up to you." He gave her a look over his shoulder. "John might be stopping by." He slipped out the back entrance of Little Diagon Alley then, strongly convinced that she would follow.

***

They took tea in the arboretum. It was filled with narcissi, per Narcissa's orders, and their sweet fragrance filled the air so completely that Hermione kept sneezing into her white linen napkin.

"Can't you take a Claritinus potion?" Draco asked, frowning as he dropped two sugar lumps into his tea.

"I'm not allergic normally," Hermione sniffled. "There's just so many narcissi!"

Marta came in then, bearing a tray laden with bagels, lox, cream cheese, purple crescents of onion, and salty little capers. "Oh no," Draco groaned. "Where does one have to go in Manhattan to find a decent scone?"

Hermione gave Marta a quick look, sniffling awkwardly into her napkin. When she saw what was on the tray, however, she dropped the linen and smiled. "Bagels! I've not tried a New York bagel yet, but they say they're the best."

"Stale rolls masquerading as donuts," Draco said, pushing the tray in her direction. Marta stood by uncertainly, her eyes staring into nowhere. "Go, Marta," Draco said, waving his hand. He missed having food pop up out of nowhere.

"So," Hermione said, spreading a thick load of cream cheese onto her bagel. "Where's John Lennon?" She looked around the arboretum, as if half-expecting to see John sitting among the narcissi, softly strumming his guitar.

Draco coughed and took a quick drink of tea. "Did I say John Lennon? I was referring to John, my trainer. He likes to monitor my diet, you see."

Hermione slowly lowered her knife, glaring at him over the stack of bagels. "You knew I thought you meant John Lennon, and you let me believe it!"

He shrugged.

Her glare quickly shifted into an expression of perplexed confusion. "Why? I'm a mud--muggleborn. Why would you want me here badly enough to lie?"

The question caught him off guard. He blustered and could feel his cheeks go hot--which no doubt meant he was turning an uncharacteristic shade of red. He tried very quickly to dream up a convincing scenario that wouldn't make him look too devious--but then he remembered Marty's advice. Just be yourself, he had said. Well, that couldn't be too hard, could it?

"Because I have something devious planned," he said, reverting back into smooth mode as easily as donning a new pair of gloves.

She stared at him for a moment, then seemed to chuckle to herself, picking up the knife again and daubing at her bagel fussily. "Oh yes, let me see," she mused, spooning up a few capers from the platter. "Devious for anyone else would be your normal, everyday behavior--appalling as it is. So devious for you must be..." she glanced up at him, meaning flickering in her eyes. "Simply liking my company and not wanting to admit it?" She blushed a little as she said these last words, turning her eyes back to the bagel and busily arranging the capers.

"Mmm," Draco murmured vaguely, a smile playing at his lips. That Marty was a fucking genius. He'd have to look into getting him a raise. "Want to play a game?"

"Game?" She looked startled. "What game?"

He rose to his feet, finally peeling off his leather gloves and dropping them carelessly on the table linens. "Wait here," he directed, then strode out of the arboretum. He went into the drawing room and found what he was looking for, then came back to the table with a bottle held in his hands.

"Firewhiskey?" she asked, wrinkling her nose. "No, thank you," she said, taking a prim bite of her bagel.

"Oh, come on," he said, swishing the bottle around. "It's spiced rum, and it'll make your tea sweeter than a sundae."

Perhaps it was the word sundae that changed her mind. "Very well," she said, holding out her tea cup. "But only a little."

He poured in a dollop that was generous enough to make her frown, then spiked his own cup. "There now," he said, taking his seat. "This game is called 'I Never', and I invented it myself."

Hermione snorted. "No you didn't! That's a muggle drinking game. People say 'I never did this,' or 'I never did that,' and if you have done 'this' or 'that', then you have to take a drink." She took another bite of her bagel and chewed thoughtfully. "I don't see why people need games in order to imbibe. If they want to imbibe that badly they should just... carry on."

"It's not about imbibing," Draco said, splaying his elbows on the table and leaning into it, his voice unspooling lightly in her direction. "It's about having an excuse to give up control. Because everyone wants to give it up, sooner or later."

She swallowed, very thickly, it seemed. "All right," she said, lifting her cup and staring at its contents. "You go first."

He smiled and said, very pointedly, "I never kissed my cousin." She's not technically my cousin, after all.

Hermione's face went very red, and her cup slowly journeyed in the direction of her mouth. She took a quick gulp, then grimaced and set down her cup hard.

Draco burst out laughing. "What, you?"

She squirmed in her seat. "Travis is very fit and we were only twelve, understand."

"Just a kiss?" He arched an eyebrow at her.

"Of course! Honestly."

"Right. Of course." He swirled his finger into his tea absently. "That means it's your turn."

"Okay." A devious, almost-scary sort of light came into her eyes, and Draco felt a quick stab of worry. "I've never been transfigured into a ferret," she said, her chin held triumphantly.

In less than an hour they were both thoroughly pissed, and went gamboling into the drawing room while singing "Strawberry Fields Forever" at the top of their lungs. Then they collapsed into a drunken heap on the rug and passed the bottle of rum between them, giggling for no reason at all. Neither of them would remember who passed out first.

Back in the arboretum, Marta was clearing the table when she spotted a pair of crumpled leather gloves on the floor. Gloves, gloves, everywhere, she thought morosely. Another fucking pair of gloves.

***

Draco awoke to the feeling of fingers against his stomach. They spidered up his chest and tweaked his nipples, playfully at first, then hard enough to cause his eyes to fly open. "Wha?" He slurred. There was a heavy, not-entirely-unpleasant weight on his lower torso, and as his eyes adjusted to the dark he realized it was caused by Hermione, who was straddling his hips and scratching her fingers down his bare chest.

"Uh," he said, not entirely clear what was going on. The room was still spinning a bit. "What are you do--"

She put a hand over his mouth and looked down at him, her eyes blazing even in the dim light. "Shut up," she said, in an odd, clipped voice. "I'm tired of taking orders from you." She removed her hand and replaced it with her mouth, clapping her lips against his so hard that their teeth collided, then finally parted, allowing their tongues to twine together hungrily.

Well

, Draco thought, his mind reeling. This is unexpected.