As December fell on the castle, Lorelai found herself looking forward more and more to the Christmas break. Not only as a chance to have the castle quiet and to herself and her friends, but because it would get Draco Malfoy out of it.

Lorelai hadn’t heard a word from him since Joan had found out about the prank he had pulled on her and Hermione in the Prefect Bath while she was away. She had, however, had to deal with him glaring at her worse than usual. It was so bad that she found herself frequently distracted in the three classes they shared together, Arithmancy, Ancient Runes and Care of Magical Creatures, that she often couldn’t concentrate on her class work.

A nasty bout of the flu began to sweep through the castle, and every morning Lorelai found herself glancing over at the Slytherin table with her fingers crossed, hoping that Draco had caught the worst yet. But of course, every time she looked, he was the healthiest one at the table, and was always glaring right back at her.

Hermione, however, had caught the flu, and then given it to Ron, Joan and Lavender, which Lorelai admitted, had made the dormitory a lot quieter.

Harry and Lorelai were left alone at meals, and during most of the day. They woke early, on the last day of term, to take a batch of goodies up to their friends in the hospital wing. Ron’s nose was as red as his hair, and running constantly. Joan, who shared the bed next to him, was blowing her nose constantly, and Hermione couldn’t stop coughing. Lavender, however, seemed to be sleeping through most of her illness.

Just as the two of them were stepping into the Hospital Wing, however, they came crashing into someone as they hurried out; Draco Malfoy.

“Watch it, Potter.” Draco spat, before he saw he saw Lorelai. He quickly narrowed his eyes at her, but to both Harry and Lorelai’s surprise, had nothing to say. He shoved past her particularly hard, hitting her shoulder.

“He’s such a bastard.” Lorelai said, fashioning it so that it sounded as though she were talking in an undertone to Harry, but loud enough so that Draco was sure to hear her. She heard a loud bang, and a jet of green sparks danced around her feet, making her jump out of the way, and scream slightly in surprise. She turned around just to see Draco tucking his wand back into his robes.

“What was that all about?” Ron asked, wiping his nose on his sleeve as they sat down on Joan’s bed, as she was in the middle.

“Draco, up to his usual nonsense of course.” Lorelai said, rolling her eyes, as she sat on the foot of Joan’s bed, though she was turned to Hermione.

“What was he doing in here, anyway?” Harry asked.

“Crabbe and Goyle are both over there.” Ron said, jutting a soggy thumb towards the back of the very crowded hospital wing. Madame Pomfrey was already hustling about, even though it was still early in the morning. The sky was still strewn with bright hues, though they were barely visible through the thick snow clouds.

Lorelai peeled off her Gryffindor scarf with a slight ‘Ha!’ under her breath, though Hermione caught it and smiled at her.

“You will remember to get my-” Hermione broke off in a fit of coughing, “Arithmancy work, won’t you?” she asked, looking at Lorelai with wide eyes.

“Of course!” Lorelai smiled, then moved over to sit on the foot of her bed, “We wouldn’t want our favorite candidate for Head Girl to fall behind, would we?”

Ron snorted to hide his laughter, but a large, green glob fell out of his nose, and he went to cover it so quickly that he hit himself in the face. Harry raised a disgusted eyebrow, but handed him a tissue none the less.

“I wouldn’t want to fall much more behind.” Hermione said.

“Oh, come on, Hermione! It’s the last day of term!” Joan laughed at her slightly, then very loudly and wetly blew her nose.

“Oh, that reminds me,” Hermione said, not bothering to acknowledge the slight mockery in Joan’s voice, “Will you hand in my work today Lorelai? It’s all in my bag there.” And she pointed to a large, filled black bag next to the night stand.

The other three laughed, but Lorelai agreed, and slid the heavy book bag over near her. Hermione scowled at them slightly before she started coughing again.

“Alright,” Lorelai said, standing and putting her scarf back on, as well as draping Hermione’s heavy bag over her free shoulder (the other held her own). “Come on Harry, we should get down for breakfast.” She said, then pointed a very stern finger at the remaining three. “You guys start feeling better.” She said, but noticed that Madame Pomfrey was preparing an abnormally large batch of Pepper-Up Potions.

She and Harry waved goodbye, and started out to the Great Hall. They noticed that quite a few people were missing, from all the houses, and that Malfoy and Morrigana were sitting together, huddled over their plates, whispering to each other.

“I wonder what they’re plotting.” Harry said, jabbing his fork in their direction.

“Oh, pay no attention to them, they’re not worth our time.” Lorelai said, though Harry got the distinct impression that she was talking more to herself than to him. She was eating her breakfast rather quickly, though Harry noticed that the fifth year Slytherins, which were now reduced to Malfoy, Pansy Parkinson, Millicent Bulstrode and Blaise Zabini, had left early. He thought of asking where they were off too, but reminded himself that he really didn’t care.

Lorelai said a hasty goodbye and started off towards Arithmancy to get there in time. “Professor Vector will be really worried about Hermione, she’s her favorite.” Lorelai chuckled, then waved goodbye from below her two bookbags and was off.

She had just turned the corner on the sixth corridor, and was quickly on her way to the seventh, so that she could collect Hermione’s class work before class started, when her stomach knotted up. She saw Draco, standing with the usual group of Slytherin fifth year girls that normally fawned over him. They were simply loitering in the middle of the hallway, Draco leaning against the wall as he arrogantly flirted with them. Lorelai threw her head down, hoping to avoid him, but knowing that this would be his last opportunity before Christmas to pick on her, and sure enough---

“Black!” he said, and the three girls made way for him to step out into the hallway, blocking Lorelai as she tried to get past. Lorelai sighed heavily, and looked up at him.

“Look, Draco, I don’t have the time or patience to deal with your bullshit today.” She said, and tried to push past him, but he simply pushed back against her with his torso, forcing her to take a step back. Lorelai rolled her eyes and looked at him, waiting for him to start so she could hurry to class.

“So you finally told the little auror about that bathroom… ‘incident’.” He said, his voice drawling, and the three girls hovering behind him, their snake like smiles hanging on every word he said.

“So it took you a month to figure that out?” Lorelai asked, not at all in the mood for his usual belittling. He seemed slightly surprised by her sarcasm, and the three girls were looking at him, waiting to know if they should giggle appropriately.

“You know,” he said, condescendingly, “I thought you would keep that kind of thing to yourself.” The look in his eye was strange to Lorelai, and she wasn’t quite sure what he was intimating.

“What are you talking about?” she said slowly, raising an eyebrow.

“Those sick little fascinations of yours.” He hissed, his eyes narrowing slightly on the word ‘sick’, “I figured you would be over me by now, Black.” He said, and glanced at her long golden hair as his flanks of girls laughed. Lorelai rolled her eyes, figuring out what he was trying to pull.

“Right Draco, that’s why I’ve moved on, and you’re still the one approaching me every chance you get.” Lorelai spat. The girls stopped laughing, and Draco’s face didn’t look nearly as menacingly gleeful as it had. She shoved past him in his moment of surprise, catching him hard on the shoulder like he had done to her earlier that morning, and started down the hall, leaving him dumbfounded behind her.

Lorelai turned around, walking backwards for a moment as she talked to him again, “Deal with it however you need to, Malfoy,” she made sure to say his name as if it were something nasty, as everyone else did, and thus far, she had been the only one not to. It had had the effect she wanted on him, as he looked even more surprised, and if she hadn’t known better, slightly hurt at this, “But I don’t care anymore.” She said bitingly, and turned around, flaunting down the hallway lightly, as if she wasn’t carrying any book bag at all, let alone two.

Harry and Lorelai had both hurried through their lunches quickly. Harry so he could go visit the Hospital Wing again, and Lorelai so she could take some of Hermione’s class work to her teachers. She had just entered the courtyard, when she heard something she had been dreading since she arrived at Hogwarts.

“So is it true then?” Lorelai stopped were she was, smack dab in the middle of the snow covered courtyard, and rolled her eyes, as Pansy Parkinson and her gang approached her. It seemed they had been lying in wait for her. “You snogged him first?”

“What? Who?” Lorelai was only slightly confused.

“Draco.” Pansy said, her mouth held so tight, Lorelai thought it might disappear right into her puggy little face. Even her blonde sausage curls seemed annoyed right then. It was amusing though, that she had suddenly started using his first name.

“Of course it’s not, just more of his wishful thinking.” Lorelai said, noticing out of the corner of her eye that a few students had stopped, and were standing a few feet away, listening with baited breath.

“His wishful thinking?” she asked, putting a hand on her hip, and jutting it out to the side.

“Well, I’m not the one that’s constantly bringing it up.” Lorelai said, raising her eyebrows loftily and surveying them. Pansy was almost pretty, except for the fact that she and Crookshanks seemed to look alike; almost as if someone had hit them in the face, flattening them when they were small children. Millicent was pudgy beyond recognition, and she looked quite a lot like Goyle; round face, squinty dark eyes buried beneath her chubby cheeks, and prickly hair that ran down her forehead to her bushy eyebrows. Blaise on the other hand, was quite pretty, and Lorelai was surprised that she wasn’t the ring leader of their little group of Slytherins. She had large, dark brown eyes, and dark auburn hair that fell straight, past her shoulders. She was short, but built well.

“I suppose that’s best anyway.” The students gathering round were getting larger, “You deserve that red headed, muggle-loving piece of garbage.”

Lorelai dropped her book bag and grabbed her wand in the same minute, raising it so quickly, that Pansy jumped back, and was staring at it, between her eyes and only an inch away from her face.

“First off,” Lorelai growled, “There’s nothing going on between Fred and myself. Secondly, life would be a lot better for you if you watch your mouth when you’re talking about my friends.” Lorelai said, her eyes narrowed, and hoping Pansy would make a sudden movement, so she could disfigure her face somehow. Though somewhere in the back of her mind, Lorelai realized it was quite unfair to take out her aggressions towards Draco on an already ugly girl’s face.

“Was that supposed to be frightening?” a cold voice drawled behind them. The crowd around was nearly full circle now, but perfectly still and silent, as Draco crunched through the thin snow towards them. Lorelai rolled her eyes and dropped her wand, turning ninety degrees to look him full on.

“You would know, wouldn’t you.” She said, narrowing her eyes at him in the same fashion that he usually did to her, though she got to it first this time. He didn’t seem to care about it, and was actually annoyed with her.

“Wouldn’t you like to know? Run off and tell the little auror would we?” he said, stepping slightly closer to her. It was so little that no one would have noticed it but Lorelai, and no one would have minded. He knew that, and that’s why he had done it, though today, Lorelai wasn’t going to let it work. She was too tired and too easily angered today to put up with any of his antics.

“I don’t need to tell her what we all already know, Malfoy.” She said, hoping that he caught every bit of malice behind his name. He seemed to, and just like he had done in trying to take a jab at her by stepping closer, she had gotten a good jab in on him. She thought maybe he had silently appreciated that someone used his first name when addressing him. His pale eyes looked surprised, though his pointed face was mostly showing annoyance.

“And what would that be, exactly?” he asked, his demeanor starting to fail him, he was losing his cool already, this early on in their argument. Lorelai knew she would easily win this one.

“Your viciousness, your seemingly endless knowledge of the Dark Arts…” she began, though he looked to be pleased with these, as if she had been complementing him about his fancy shoes and his slick hair. “How you can never do anything exactly right, and how one day you’ll end up in Azkaban…” his expression had totally changed. She had hit a nerve when she touched upon his own feelings of inadequacy. His eyes were narrowed maliciously, “Or dead at the end of Joan’s wand.”

Even the three Slytherin girls, who were still standing relatively close to the two of them, gasped slightly and fell silent at this one. Draco seemed to need to recuperate from this one, and it took him a moment.

A smirk flashed onto his mouth, “Pity the Americans spend all their time on mind powers and not wit.” The Slytherins and some Ravenclaws in the group chuckled appropriately, and Draco seemed to be back in his element. “You should have stayed in America with your filthy, muggle mother.”

The mention of her Mother had made Lorelai’s face grow instantly red. The slight smirk she was till wearing from the few good jabs she had gotten in on him vanished instantly. The anger she felt the moment she had realized the same mark that had floated over her mother’s murdered corpse was branded on his father’s arm, came flooding back over her again, and she felt her fists clench.

Another evil smirk spread across Draco’s lips, and he leaned slightly forward, a vicious glint of pleasure in his eyes.

“Oh wait… she’s dead.”

Lorelai didn’t know exactly what came over her, but a hot wave of emotion spread through her quickly, her insides knotted up in painful flames. In the same instant, she threw down her wand, dropped Hermione’s bag on the ground, and jumped on Draco, knocking him backwards into the snow.

The circle of students watching gasped, and took a simultaneous step backwards, but they were quickly egging them on. Lorelai had managed a good punch in on his left eye, when he grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her off him.

“Get off me, you crazy bitch!” he shouted, and jumped to his feet. He was still unsteady though, when Lorelai kicked at his legs, catching him in the back of the knees and knocking him to the ground again. They both already had powdery snow clinging to their robes and their hair.

Lorelai managed another few good wails on him with her fists, one of them catching him in the nose, before he back handed her, a lot harder than Lorelai imagined he was capable of. She flew off him, to the side, and landed in the snow, a stinging in her lip told her it had spilt, and she instantly tasted blood.

Instead of jumping back up to his feet again, like Lorelai had assumed he would, he pounced on her now. In another mad flail of fists, he had managed to catch her right above the eyes, and a slight trickle of blood told Lorelai that her eyebrow had split too. She caught him in the jaw with her knuckles, hard enough that she knew her fist would be bruised, and or bleeding too. But it had knocked him over off of her, and she followed.

The circle of students was active now, loudly cheering them on, though the tide had turned on Draco when he had actually hit her back. She stradled him quickly, and had just raised her fists to begin hitting him again, when he quickly seized two handfuls of her long hair, and pulled violently. Lorelai let out a muffled scream as her head snapped back and her scalp began to burn. He used this moment to catch her off guard and knock her to the side, letting them roll around in the snow just a little more, as if they weren’t filthy enough.

He was on top now, pinning her to the ground, almost his entire body pinning her down, his hands on her shoulders. Draco was breathing heavily, though not much physical exertion, except rolling around, had taken place. He was looking down at her, and punched wildly, hitting her square in the jaw. He shifted his leg, pushing himself up off her, readying himself to get another good swipe in. Lorelai reached up with her knee, catching him in the stomach, and he fell over, to her right again, and she followed. She had missed of course, not at all meaning to hit him in the stomach, but for her knee to catch him elsewhere.

She had just rolled over on top of him, the length of their bodies pressed up against each other, both of their faces bloodied, when Lorelai caught his arms, holding them down tightly to the ground with both of her hands.

He was breathing heavily, to catch his breath after she winded him, and she was likewise panting to catch her breath, though she was winded by anger. Her eyes met his cold grey ones, and she suddenly felt the last thing she wanted to feel. He looked excited, smiling vaguely, and blood had run from his nose, down his lips and his chin. His eyebrow looked to be split as well, though not as badly as Lorelai’s, and his left eyes was already bruising.

Lorelai saw him glance down at her mouth, as a drop of her own blood fell from her face, landing just above his upper lip. She felt a tightness in his pants, and was thoroughly surprised as he was pressing up against her.

Lorelai would have gone in to punch him in the face again, his mocking smile angering her beyond reason, had a pair of large hands not grabbed her arms firmly and pulled her off him.

She flailed immediately to get back to him, as he was likewise pulled to his feet by Snape, and he was trying, though not as vigorously as she was, to continue their fight.

“Lupin, kindly keep your overachieving Gryffindor off my student.” Snape said, his voice sounding more upset with Lupin than with Lorelai herself.

“Certainly Severus, as I’m sure she had everything to do with this and was not provoked at all.” He said sarcastically, struggling with Lorelai, as they were the same height, as she tried to break free and get back to Malfoy. She had been staring him down, those immensely grey eyes, and he was staring back equally. Lorelai managed to break free of Lupin’s tight, grasp, and though she took a menacing step forward, Lupin could not grab her again.

“I HATE YOU!” she screamed.

“I HATE YOU TOO!” Malfoy roared back. Lorelai turned, without either of the bags or her wand, and stomped away, parting the sea of students that had gathered. She had to get away from him, as she found herself not wanting to hit him again, but all she wanted to do; was kiss him.

Home

Author(s) /

Ratings /

Fan Art