Slaughter

AN: Hey guys! SO here\'s the business... I\'ve got no excuse at all for why it was so long since I updated except to say that it was my 20th birthday so I flew over to Morocco/Spain for a month for a little holiday. I\'m back now though, and hopefully you haven\'t all abandoned me because I\'m such a shitty updater. Also... someone reviewed me saying that I was recommended somewhere on LJ, if anyone knows where could they let me know please?

























Someone had attacked him; that was his first thought. Someone had come at him in the middle of the night and attacked him with something heavy, that was the only thing that could possibly account for the cracking, pounding, relentless thumping pain in his head. Draco groaned as it washed over him in a nauseating wave, rolling over in his bed and tenderly curling himself into a foetal shaped ball like a baby. Opening his eyes slightly, a sliver of light shattered through the darkness and burned his retinas, causing him to yelp and shove a pillow over his head. A few seconds later he tried again, easing out from under the pillow and slowly exposing himself to the light like a bear after a long hibernation. An empty bottle stared at him from the other side of his bed, resting on the mattress like a lover. Ahhh, that explained it. Pawing at the offending bottle with one hand he tried to focus his eyes so that they would read the golden script that shined at him in the morning (afternoon?) light, mocking him. Firewhiskey. Yes that’d do it, he thought, pushing the bottle away even as a familiar churning in his stomach began again. Again? Searching through his mind for what exactly had happened last night, Draco found he could remember class, his confrontation with a first year in the hallway after class, storming angrily to Blaise’s room and downing shots; in fact he could remember everything right up until about twenty minutes after that first shot. But that churning feeling was definitely familiar somehow, Merlin he hoped he hadn’t thrown up at the party, that would have ruined his reputation beyond salvation.



Ah yes, the Slytherin party. It was mostly a blank to be honest. ‘A bottle of firewhiskey will do that to you’, he reminded himself as, in very slow, extremely careful motions, Draco eased himself out of his prone position and gingerly pulled himself vertical so that he sat on the edge of his bed. It was a mistake. As soon as he sat up, the aching in his head seemed to redouble its efforts and come back on him tenfold, an audible, pulsating beat dancing through his head. His usually pale face turned a faint shade of green, and his stomach made loud protesting grumble informing him that if he didn’t get back into bed and die quietly right this second, it was going to rebel. Fumbling for his wand, he found it wasn’t in its usual place by his bedside, and so, groaning with the effort of it all he stood and began to vacantly kick around the floor with his bare toes, hoping to come into contact with something at least resembling his wand.



As he shuffled around his room, he attempted to put back together the fragments of last night. He looked down at his body, okay he was still wearing his underwear. So there probably hadn’t been a girl involved. His clothes were strewn around the floor as usual (Draco had never learned the finer points of keeping a clean bedroom with the number of house elves that attended to his whims at home), starting with his pants that were in a heap by the door, and ending with his shoes, still tied, by his bed. Well that must’ve been interesting last night, he thought, as he continued to shuffle around. Finally finding his wand, which had somehow gotten tucked behind his bookcase (where he’d flung it... for some reason last night?), Draco held it to his head and cast a charm to clear his headache. It worked to some extent, but Draco could hear his mother’s voice in his head nagging him and reminding him that ‘if you choose to drink like your father then you’ll have to learn to pay the price like he does.’



With his head newly cleared, Draco yawned slightly, pacing over to his closet in search of new clothes to put on. Though his head might not be killing him anymore, he still felt (for lack of a better word) a little too delicate to face a shower. And Scourgify’s were so common. A morning spent without a shower wasn’t going to kill him anyway, he reasoned as he dressed himself in the soft cashmere sweater and some black jeans he’d chosen from his expansive closet, he hadn’t gotten exactly dirty since yesterday.



Wait.



Dirty.



That rang a bell. But why?



Oh Merlin.



As the events of last night hurtled into his brain, Draco found himself sinking to the floor, crouching with his head sinking to his waiting hands. His clothes dropped to the floor, but he didn’t notice, as he uttered a few choice words that his mother would certainly not have approved of. Not that she would’ve approved of anything else that he’d done in the last few hours.



What the fuck had he done? And why with her of all people. Oh god, he’s snogged the mudblood. His father was going to kill him. He’d have to leave the school, leave the country. None of his relatives would take him in, not after they learned why he’d had to flee. Maybe he could move to the country somewhere, no one would know what he’d done there. He could just keep to himself, be that weird hermit that people never saw but always talked about. No, that was stupid. He was being stupid; this was his school, his place. He had a right to be here. If anyone should leave it should be her. She had no right to be here in the first place, his ancestors had been wizards for centuries, he could trace his ancestry back to Charlemagne, what could she do? Nothing; two muggle parents and some pathetic linage of peasants and cave dwellers most likely. Taking one long breath, Draco raised his head, pushed himself off from the ground. He was a Malfoy, and Malfoy’s didn’t run. Unless it looked like there was no way that they could win of course. He knew as well as anyone the old adage of ‘if you fight then run away, live to fight another day’.



He’d go for a fly, clear his head, and put this whole situation behind him. If he remembered correctly it was all the mudbloods fault anyway, she’d been taunting him, teasing him, and he’d shut her up the only way he could. And from now on, he’d stop looking at her. That was important. He’d had this silly little obsession, and now it was over. He wouldn’t allow himself to have anything to do with her anymore. Feeling confident in his plan, Malfoy slipped his feet into a pair of shoes he could fly in, took his broom in hand and headed out to the fields to clear his mind. Walking through the common room, he was immediately hit with a foul smell. It reminded him of his final actions that night, vomiting all over the Mudbloods favourite chair. Oh she’d love that. Deciding to leave it as a present to her, his trademark smirk slid once more over his face. Sure he could have cleaned it up, but where was the fun in that?



It was good to be bad.



---------------------------------------------------



“...So I told him that if he wanted to dice his turnip stalks instead of slicing them that was his own business, but when the potion blew up in his face; he was cleaning it up by himself.”



“Oh yeah, I hate when that happens.”



Michael frowned, looking down at Hermione as they walked through the square. She’d been distracted all morning, looking off in the distance with a vague expression and answering everything he said with the sort of non-committal response that would make a less confident boy think that she wasn’t interested. He’d tried to ignore it thinking that she was just playing it cool; but it was getting to the point where it was pretty obvious that something was on her mind.



“So then I picked up a sledgehammer and smashed him over the head with it, you wouldn’t believe it, there was blood and brains everywhere, all over the walls. But I stashed the body in the lake and blamed it on a first year.”



“Yeah, me too.”



“Hermione, I sense that you’re a bit distracted.”

“What? Oh Sorry it’s just... a silly thing with my roommate. You know how it is.”



“Yeah I do know how it is, but come on... a man less secure in his masculinity than myself would maybe be beginning to think that you weren’t interested.”



“Interested in what?”



“In him.”



“In who?”



“In a man less secure than myself.”



Michael dragged a hand through his hair, loosening the strands so that they fell around his hair and guided Hermione over to a low stone wall where he directed her to sit. She sat, still obviously distracted though she was trying to play it cool now that she realised he was onto her.



“Is there something that you want to talk about?”



“No its just... Malfoy, you know? It’s pretty close quarters in our rooms and he’s just...”



“Being Malfoy?”



“Exactly.”



Michael took her hand in his own, squeezing it once and winking flirtatiously at her.



“I wouldn’t worry about him... he just wants to be loved really. Probably has deep-rooted homosexual tendencies, his father probably doesn’t hug him enough. Or maybe his father hugs him too much. Or it could be the mother. It’s always the mother, ever noticed that? Or maybe all that bleach that he uses to keep his hair so pearly white has been seeping into his brain.”



Hermione laughed at this despite all her stress and squeezed his hand back. It was so easy to be with Michael, he was so funny and he’d put up with her shitty mood all morning without protest. It wasn’t his fault that Malfoy had gone insane last night, and it was unfair that she was punishing him for it. It suddenly occurred to her that he was holding her hand, and that she was holding his back. How had that not registered earlier? She looked down at their intertwined fingers and wondered why she wasn’t more excited about it. He was cute, funny, unfailingly nice and he was clearly interested in her. But she didn’t really feel anything, no spark of electricity. Maybe it was because she’d just met him, but the chemistry just didn’t seem like it was there.



“Michael?”



“Yeah?”



“Would it be okay if I tried something out?”



“Yeah... you’re not going to hit me are you?”



“No, I just... okay just, hold still okay?”



Hermione unlaced her hand from his and placed it on the side of his face, turning it so that it faced her. Shuffling her body a little so that she was better facing him she took a deep breath and leaned forward where she placed a gentle kiss on his lips. As he’s promised Michael stayed completely still, making no move as her lips pressed against his, waiting until she’d moved back before he even ventured to speak.



“Was that it?”



“I just wanted to see what that would feel like.”



“And?”



“It was nice.”



“Seriously? Nice? Well sure if you’re going to give it a half-hearted effort like that it’s just going to be ‘nice.’ If you’re looking for a little more than that though, you’ve got to give it your A-game, I mean come on Hermione... I thought you were ‘the brightest witch of our age’”



“What do you mean?”



“Here I’ll show you.”



Taking her head in his hands, Michael gave her another cheeky wink and leaned forward until his face was within touching distance of hers. He obviously had something to prove, a masculinity thing to show that he wasn’t ‘nice.’ She waited for his lips to make contact with hers, ready to get it over with; but he didn’t. Kiss her that is. Or at least not in the same perfunctory way that she’d kissed him. Instead he placed a gentle peck on one cheek, and then the other, before slowly teasing the corner of her lips with his own. Slowly, tentatively from there he began to kiss across her lips, each time moving slightly closer to his ultimate goal, a proper kiss smack dab in the centre of her lips. As he was doing this, his fingers were lightly skimming across her neck, sneaking their way up to cup her face in his hands. Gently nudging her lips open with his tongue, he teasingly flicked his tongue against hers, there one second and gone the next. Again he bumped his tongue against hers, encouraging her to reciprocate, his long fingers skimming across the skin of her cheeks as he held her. Against her own better judgement Hermione felt herself beginning to weaken into the kiss. He was right, this was a lot more than nice. Taking encouragement from him, she hesitantly floated her hands up to his shoulders and gripping tightly. She felt a warmth pool between her thighs, familiar from a few previous fumbling’s with boys in darkened hallways of the school, and more commonly; under the covers in her bed at night, hand gripped guiltily between her legs.



But all too soon he pulled away, dropping another kiss on her cheek as he did so.



“So what’s the verdict? Still just ‘nice’?”



Biting down on her lip as she untangled her arms from his body, dropping them back in her lap where she could make sure they’d behave, Hermione felt the blood rush to her face and cover her with a fierce blush. What was this? She didn’t blush. She’d faced dark wizards and bullies with a calm face, and here she was, a human torch, after one kiss.



“No, that was definitely not just nice.”



“Wonderful. Now we’ve gotten that out of the way lets go get you pregnant.”



“Sorry what?”



Her head lifted indignently at his comment, a frown settling on her forehead and her lips pursing as she watched him, waiting for an answer. He kept a straight face for a few seconds, before dissolving into a smile and beginning to laugh, a deep loud sound that reverberated through the square. He stood and offered her hand, pulling her up from the seat as he still laughed.



“Ah, you should’ve seen your face. Come on lets go. If you’re really lucky I’ll buy you a new edition of Hogwarts; a History.”





"I\'d like that. Oh and by the way, no one\'s ever going to believe that a first year could carry a dead body all the way to the lake, you should\'ve hidden it in the forest."