Puzzle Pieces

Section 3:

I expected Draco to be at the pitch, spying on the Gryffindor Quidditch practice as usual, but when I arrived at the common room, he was there at the billiards table standing in profile to me, bent over to align his cue stick, eyes narrowed in concentration. All thoughts of Granger and Gryffindors flew from my head as I just stood there for a few moments, admiring my lover. Gods below, he was gorgeous. I had seen him naked as the day he was born, body stretched out before me, every inch of him glowing with ecstasy. After that, everything else *should* seem commonplace, shouldn’t it? It wasn’t, though. His beauty never ceased to surprise me every time I saw it, in any way he displayed it. There was not a single time in my life when I didn’t think him beautiful, and every time I saw him, his beauty struck me again.

His shoulders shifted in a sudden, swift movement, driving the cue stick forward to knock another ball into a pocket with his usual skill. Draco was an excellent billiards player; a difficult skill to possess, considering how the balls roll continuously on their own momentum in intricate patterns across the table. Skill at billiards depended on a complete understanding of the speed and direction in which every ball moved and a stopwatch sense of timing on when their movements put them into the perfect alignment to strike them into the pockets. Draco, with his seeker’s eye for noticing things and his seeker’s speed for striking at the perfect moment, excelled at the game. I was the only one in Slytherin who came close to being his equal, and that was only because he begged and pleaded and pouted until I worked up my skills so he could have some competition. Draco always thrived on competition.

He didn’t like playing alone, though. The competition was what made it fun for him, not the game itself. He only played alone when he was upset and wanted to smash something, without looking conspicuous. He smiled tightly in satisfaction as he watched the ball slip neatly into place and stood upright. I could see the tension in his shoulders, and wondered if I was the cause. He couldn’t possibly already know about my meeting with Granger, could he? At that moment, he looked up, noticing me for the first time as I stood in the doorway. For a moment, his shoulders slumped slightly in what looked like relief and his smile brightened. Then he seemed to remember something, and went rigidly tense again. Damn. So I *was* the reason he was upset. I had hoped that by the time he found out, we’d have the common room a bit more to ourselves. My most effective methods for calming him down on were not what you’d call ‘audience friendly.’

Since we didn’t have any afternoon classes together, I had hoped to get around to telling him during dinner about McGonagall’s suggestion that I go to Granger for help. I wanted him to know before I actually met with her so he wouldn’t hear about it from someone else, and I also knew that if I told him in a setting with professors present, he’d be less likely to throw a tantrum. (He had been furious when Potter, with no prefect experience, and marks lower than Draco’s, had been named Head Boy instead of him, but he still held out the hope that Potter would break his neck in a Quidditch match or a battle with the Dark Lord, and that the professors would need an alternate Head Boy to fill in for the rest of the term. Draco would do nothing in the view of professors to jeopardize his chances at being that substitute.)

As chance would have it, though, Draco had scheduled a Quidditch practice session during dinner. Now that he had been named captain, he was determined to find a way to motivate his players into decimating Gryffindor in the upcoming match. Gryffindor was training just as hard, however, and had reserved the pitch that evening for the coveted after-dinner hour. Draco retaliated by scheduling practice *during* dinner, having the house elves bring dinner to the pitch and waving it in the team members’ faces without allowing them to eat unless they performed at practice to his satisfaction. Given the size of the players on the team, I felt certain it would turn out to be quite a motivation, indeed.

As a result, he didn’t show up for dinner at all. I thought about running down to the pitch and seeing if I could grab his attention before going after Granger, but catching the girl in the library alone was too good an opportunity to pass up. I knew I didn’t have time to warn Draco first if I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity. Besides, I knew he would want to spy on the Gryffindor team practice, so I figured I’d have time to catch him as soon as he got back. Surely, no one would have a chance to get to him before then. I had come straight from the library to the common room, but it was obvious from the look on his face that some sneaking little tattletale had beaten me in, and spread the story that I had been seen talking to the notorious Head Girl.

Knowing that he’d just get angrier at me the longer he had to stew over it, I decided to face the music and head over to him right away. He pretended to ignore my approach; bending over to take another shot. While I admittedly enjoyed the view, I couldn’t let him ignore me for long.

“Mind if I join the game?” I asked, my voice deliberately mild. If he wanted a fight, he’d have to start it himself.

“Go ahead,” he bit out. “It’s not like you need *my* permission for anything.”

Wisely, I chose not to respond. If I stayed silent long enough, I knew that Draco would get around to venting everything that was bothering him, and it was best not to speak until he was done. He never hexed me, no matter how angry he got; (he had far more control than I did) but he had been known in the past to shoot random hexes at the walls, and there were too many people in between him and walls to risk it. I didn’t want to be the cause of some fourth year ending up with donkey ears. Silently, I picked up a cue stick and waited for him to step back to give me my turn. He did so, grudgingly.

I was just lining up the shot when he spoke again. “No, there’s no reason why you should run things by me at all, is there? After all, if you decide to do something, I can always hear about it after the fact from a group of bloody *fifth years*, can’t I?” Biting my tongue to force myself to wait until he was finished, I made the shot, knocking a ball neatly into a pocket.

I circled around the table for my next shot. Draco followed me. “And I certainly don’t need to know if you’re planning on meeting with one of the fucking ‘Golden Trio,’ do I? Of course, they *hate* all Slytherins with a fiery passion, but that’s no reason for me to be concerned, is it?”

Since this question was obviously rhetorical as well, I concentrated on lining up my shot. A miss.

“Were you even planning on telling me?”

I straightened up and propped the cue stick against the table. Now that he was finally asking questions that required an actual answer, it was time for me to take part in the conversation.

“Yes,” I replied calmly. “I was planning on telling you. I just didn’t get a chance.”

His voice dropped down to below a whisper. “We shagged for three bloody hours this morning. You didn’t see fit to mention it then?”

“I didn’t know I was going to be talking to her, then.” I glanced around the room. As expected, everyone was watching us, while pretending not to. Fortunately, Draco’s last comment had been spoken too low for them to hear. Damn nosy Slytherins. Especially the bratty fifth years who spilled the beans to Draco and started this whole mess in the first place. I noticed a cluster of thee fifth year boys who looked equally smug and interested, and knew I had spotted the tattlers. I tucked the information away for later. I might not be the most malicious of Slytherins, but that doesn’t mean I’d let something like that just slide. However, that was a matter for another day. At the moment, all the really mattered was calming Draco down.

“Take your shot,” I muttered quietly. Draco’s scowl went from hostile to confused.

“What?”

“Take your shot,” I repeated, a bit more forcefully this time. “Everyone’s watching the two of us. I’ll tell you anything you want to know, but I refuse to turn this into the brawl of the century. Now take the shot, damnit, and make it clear these fucking voyeurs that there’s nothing of interest here to see.”

Draco’s eyes widened and I could see him fighting the impulse to turn around and see if everyone really was watching us, like I had said. Fortunately, he managed to restrain himself, picking up his cue stick and lining up a shot. It snapped the ball into the pocket like it was on rails and I couldn’t stop a small smile of appreciation. It took more than anger or frustration to throw off Draco’s game. Everything came so easily to him, no matter how upset he got.

I turned so that my back was to the billiards table, leaning against it casually. “I talked to McGonagall at lunch today,” I stated casually, chuckling a bit at the memory. “Nearly gave the old biddy a heart attack. Something tells me she wasn’t happy to see me.”

Draco chuckled as well, lining up his next shot. “Wish I could have seen it. But what were you talking to her about?”

“The rabbit’s foot flowering plant, remember? Since I can’t find anyone else to help me, I thought I might as well ask her.”

Draco nodded his understanding. “I’d forgotten about that,” he admitted. “What did she say?”

“She said she was booked up on tutoring right now, and couldn’t help me, of course. She wanted to know why I didn’t ask you for help, but I told her that that was out of the question.” Draco didn’t look up, but I saw him grin a bit as he lined up his next shot. “So then she suggested that I ask the Head Girl for help.”

The grin faded abruptly. “And you thought this was a good idea?” he questioned tightly.

“Mostly, I thought it was my only real option. You’re the only one in Slytherin with scores high enough to help me. No Ravenclaw would go out of their way for my sake, and Hufflepuffs couldn’t teach a fish to swim. McGonagall flatly refused to tutor me. The Head Girl and Boy are *required* to help any students needing extra tutoring, and Granger has the highest Transfiguration scores in the school along with a history of tutoring any student who asked her. Would you rather I asked Potter?”

“I could try—”

“*No* Draco. All joking aside, when you try to help me in Transfiguration, we only end up frustrated… or worse. Let’s face it: we’re neither of us very patient. Granger *has* to be patient. Look at the friends she puts up with!” That got me a small smile, but it faded almost as quickly as it appeared.

“I’ll be *fine*. It’s not as if she’s planning on tutoring me in the Gryffindor common room. It will just be the two of us, one on one.”

Draco went rigid again, any signs of softening vanishing abruptly. “The *hell* you will. I’m not leaving you alone with her. I’m coming with you.”

“For crying out loud, it’s a tutoring session, not a bloody duel! I don’t need a second.”

“Did it ever occur to you that it might not be safe?” he hissed. With difficulty, I managed to keep from rolling my eyes. Here was the real crux of the matter.

Over-protective barely began to describe Draco when it came to me. It would have been almost endearing if it wasn’t so frustrating. Yes, Draco was a superb duelist in the process of training himself as a curse breaker which meant that he was *very* adept at self-defense, but I wasn’t exactly hopeless with a wand, either. I didn’t need him following after me like my own, personal knight in shining armor. I wasn’t a warrior, myself, but that didn’t make me a damsel in distress. It was more than a little insulting that Draco didn’t think I was capable of taking care of myself without him around to protect me. Especially since most of the conflicts that happened around me took place because of him.

It was true that I was less capable of fighting my way out of a situation, but situations were less likely to reach the fighting point when Draco wasn’t around. There was no denying that combining Draco with any Gryffindors at all and any member of the sodding Golden Trio in particular was incendiary, at best. With Potter and Weasley, they resorted to hexes or fists in under five minutes. It was worse with Granger. She wasn’t the type to hex students in the hallways and she certainly didn’t resort to fist-fighting, but she was always, *always* smart enough to know how to make just the right cutting remark to leave Draco smarting for days afterwards. Nobody got to him like Granger did; not even Potter, which made him all the more determined to get under her skin, as well.

Putting the two of them in the same room was a recipe for disaster, and the last thing I wanted was to waste my tutoring time playing referee. Our conversation in the library was the first time I had gotten within speaking distance to Granger without Draco there, and it was a pleasant surprise to discover that she was polite, if somewhat wary, when she wasn’t actively provoked. The tutoring session might just work… if I could get Draco to finally see reason!

Or if I could trick him. That would work, too. I had that free period after lunch, but Draco had class. I knew that if I told him that that was when I was planning to meet Granger, that he’d cut class to come with me. But if he didn’t know that we were planning on meeting then, and if I could get him to go to class without raising his suspicions, he’d be none the wiser as to how I spent my free period until it was over. Oh, he’d be furious with me once he found out, but with Draco, it’s always far easier to ask forgiveness than permission.

“Draco, you *can’t* come with me! You have another practice scheduled after dinner tomorrow! The game with Gryffindor is next week; there’s no way you could get out of going to practice.”

Of course, we *both* knew that that wasn’t true. Draco, the clever, lazy bastard, had taken on Graham Pritchard, a skinny, weasel-faced fourth year as sort of an assistant coach. The boy had no Quidditch talent whatsoever, but he excelled at sucking up to Draco, doing all the boring paperwork associated with running the House team, and bossing the team members around. Whenever Draco felt like slacking off at a practice and nipping off to get a sandwich or something, he’d leave Graham in charge, knowing that Graham would take great, sadistic delight in forcing the team to go through their drills. In hopes that he’d be able to tell someone off, Graham never missed a practice. And since he owed his position of glorious authority to Draco’s benevolence, he would never think of suggesting to the team captain that maybe, just maybe, he shouldn’t miss a practice, himself.

But now that I had ‘let it slip’ that the meeting was scheduled for after dinner, I could see the plan forming in Draco’s mind as clearly as if he had stood up on the billiards table and announced it the room at large. It was difficult not to laugh, but I pretended to be taken in by the way he nodded and agreed with me, saying that he’d go to practice, and that I’d just have to be on my own for my meeting with Granger. He was in a much better mood as we finished the game of billiards (which he won, of course) and was even happy and daring enough to give me a quick kiss-and-grope in the stairwell as we headed up to bed. As I went through my bedtime rituals, I imagined how much harder it would be to calm him down tomorrow, once he found out that I’d met with Granger behind his back. Biting back a groan at the thought of it, I lofted a quick prayer to whatever higher power listens to Slytherins that the tutoring session with Granger would prove worth the trouble, before climbing into bed and drifting instantly to sleep.


End Section 3