Cruel and Unusual Punishment

Daphne Greengrass’s little sister was hot. There was no denying it. She had perfectly proportioned facial features, and a perfect handful of breasts and butt. Unlike her sister, she wasn’t a whore; she was a player. She held her va-jay-jay over men’s heads to get what she wanted, and it hadn’t failed her yet.

She’d never paid much attention to Draco, with him banging her sister and all… But in the past two days since he’d started his Hufflepuff poems, it seemed that she couldn’t get enough of him.

Draco knew he shouldn’t encourage her, so he didn’t. However, he also didn’t discourage her. A part of him wanted to want her again, like he used to. It would make his life so much simpler. At least with her he knew why he’d liked her. Astoria was pretty and popular. Everyone wanted her.

Why couldn’t he just define his hunger for Granger like he could with Astoria? Hermione was cute and all, but it definitely wasn’t her looks that drew him to her, it was something else, and whatever that something else was, it was very strong. There was no way he’d make up ridiculous poems to get into Astoria’s knickers, even if they were encrusted with diamonds and he got to keep them as a souvenir.

“So Hogsmead this weekend… were you planning on going with anyone?” Astoria asked him casually as they headed towards the library after lunch let out.

“I’m not sure yet,” he replied. Truth be told, he was planning on going with someone, he just had to get the Hufflepuff poems finished in time so she’d have to go with him.

He had been contemplating asking Hermione even if he didn’t finish, but he didn’t know if he could handle a rejection. She was so hard to figure out. In the forty-two hours since she’d tried to kill him, they had been civil with one another. She wasn’t exactly nice, but it was definitely an improvement on the strangling thing.

Sometimes he thought she even wanted him, but he also knew that she didn’t want to want him, not that he really understood why. He was a charmer and he was sexy, but she was very strong-willed, and did not like to lose, even if the battle was with herself. Getting through to her was not going to be easy. It just made things much simpler if her decisions were made for her via magical coercion.

“Well, I’m free if you need a date,” Astoria chimed in.

“Yeah thanks, I’ll let you know,” Draco responded offhandedly. She didn’t say anything for a moment as she mulled over her next move.

“You know, no one would care if you quit that silly challenge. I mean, you’ll have to stop soon anyhow, or you’ll be forced to sleep with that geeky know-it-all.”

“I’m not doing it to sleep with her,” he replied reflexively.

“Yes you are.”

Oh… right…

When she said it like that, of course it sounded bad. Maybe at first he was just doing it to sleep with her, but now he was doing it for some other reason. No, he didn’t know what that other reason was, he just knew that it wasn’t only about the sex anymore. He wasn’t a completely heartless bastard.

He was also not ready to let the entire school know that yet.

“I just want to win,” he lied to the pretty, popular girl. “I won’t actually finish, but I need to carry on long enough for her to know that I could’ve won… You know… if I wanted to.”

She seemed to like this answer, and she rested her hand on the crook of his arm as they entered the library together.


Neither of them had noticed that Hermione was also on her way to the library, and that she happened to be following the pair within earshot.

She fell back against the wall opposite the library doors and slid to the floor. How could he say those things!?

That one wasn’t hard to answer: He was Draco Malfoy, Hogwarts’ most eligible man-whore, and arsehole extraordinaire.

The more important question was, how she could ever think that there was more to him than that? How could she be so easily convinced that he was actually a genuine person, when all evidence pointed to the contrary?

And most important of all, why did she care so much that he had no intentions of finishing the challenge? Yes, it was mean, and hurtful, and cruel, but he was Mr. Popular, Draco Malfoy, and she knew that he was all of those things. Why did hearing him say that surprise her so much?

So maybe they’d had a little bit of fun together. Maybe she enjoyed their dates a teensy-tiny bit more than she thought she would. Sometimes, when she forgot that she was mad at him for his poems, she actually thought they were sort of clever and funny. It made her think that he was sort of clever and funny.

Yes, his self-confidence bordered on arrogance… He was beyond stubborn, and completely insufferable when he didn’t get his way… But he was also spontaneous, smart, and fun. He lived in the moment, and it was a refreshing break from her little clique of misfits who’d never dare do anything like drink, or play stripping games, or go to a party without adult supervision.

Too bad the Draco she thought she was getting to know was more full of shit than a constipated rhinoceros.

She huffed to herself, pursing her lips and glaring into the library, where she could just picture him pawing that… that thing in between the shelves somewhere…

The thought put a sour taste in her mouth, and she decided to study in the Gryffindor common room instead. There was no chance of running into Draco there, not that he would emerge from the tainted bookshelves anytime soon if that slag had anything to do with it.

She spent so much time setting up her workstation and disemboweling Malfoy in her mind that she had barely opened a book when the bell rang, and she had to rush off to her afternoon classes.

Malfoy was there, of course.

He must have managed to skive off babysitting duty… she thought with a sneer. Astoria was barely 14, what was she trying to do with Malfoy, anyway? Get him to adopt her?

Pshh… whore!


There was a time when Hermione would have hardly noticed a professor stepping out to use the loo, but today, when little Professor Flitwick closed the door behind him, she visibly paled. She turned to face Malfoy, her face twisted in an angry scowl, just daring him to open his mouth. It was the last day of January, after all, he didn’t have that much time left to finish just enough poems to humiliate her.

She hadn’t noticed how hard she was squeezing her quill until it snapped in her hand, and Malfoy, seeing this, chuckled loudly. Her cheeks burned red and she spun around to face the blackboard, crossing her arms and fuming to herself. Draco’s attention shifted to the rest of the class, all of which were staring at him expectantly. Had he missed something?

“You better hurry, mate, Flitwick won’t be gone forever!” Blaise hissed at him.

“Huh?” Draco asked, confused. He was having a lovely little daydream about Hermione, a levitation charm, and a feather… Whatever Blaise had to say had better be good.

“Don’t you have a poem to read while Flitwick is out clogging his miniature toilet?”

Oh right… the poems! He wished he had one, the Hogsmead trip was days away, and Valentine’s Day was practically around the corner! All eyes were on him to perform, but he had nothing. They shouldn’t put so much pressure on him! Just because his poems were bad didn’t mean they wrote themselves!

“Not now,” Draco whispered back, picking up his book and propping it in front of him in a silent attempt to get his friend to drop it.

“Why Draco, does this mean that you’re giving up?” Blaise asked him, loud enough for the whole class to hear. Draco could tell Hermione was hanging on every word of their conversation, though she was the only one who was turned the other way, pretending to ignore him.

“No it doesn’t,” he replied sharply. He didn’t want Granger to get any ideas about him quitting. He would do no such thing, and he was going to win this challenge by any means necessary. Hermione needed to know this.

“Thursday night at nine… Astronomy tower… Someone will need to invite the Hufflepuffs,” he said, smirking his self-satisfied little smirk for everyone to see. No need to panic yet. It wasn’t as if he was setting himself up to fail in front of a large portion of their class or anything.

Six poems in two days… that’s realistic…

Not.