Puzzle Pieces

Section 7:

The row I anticipated was surprisingly long in coming. Of course, it came as no surprise to me that it didn’t happen right away. Draco would never want to make a scene in front of our roommates. As expected, he maintained an icy silence toward me while we got showered and dressed and all the way through breakfast, as well, walking to Ancient Runes after breakfast in the same *direction* as me, but not *with* me. No, definitely not with me. As soon as we cleared the doorway of the classroom, he turned and spoke to me for the first time all day.

“I suppose you’ll be wanting to sit with your *friend*,” he sneered, nodding in the direction of the Gryffindors in the class before making a beeline for the Ravenclaws (we were the only Slytherins in the class) to get as far away from me as possible. That simple statement was enough to set me off again.

The night’s sleep *had* done me good, and I had woken up in a much better state of mind toward Draco in general and our fight in particular. As aggravating as the little bastard was, I did love him, very much, and if our argument had taken place early in the morning while I was still in a good mood from my dream the previous night, I might have been willing to forget how annoyed with him I had been, and possibly even apologize to him for upsetting him. But after what he said, all my aggravation from the previous night returned with a vengeance. If he was going to *send* me to the Gryffindors, then I’d damn well *go* to the Gryffindors, and if he had a problem with it, he’d have no one to blame but himself. Driven by sheer frustration to breach the lion’s den where Slytherins feared to tread, I approached Granger’s table.

“Is this seat taken?” I asked, forcing myself not to hiss the question through gritted teeth. It wasn’t *her* fault Draco was being a prat, and I didn’t want to take it out on her.

She smiled up at me cheerfully. “Help yourself!” she replied. “Want to take another pass at the flashcards before the professor shows up?”

At that, I managed a smile and nodded my head. She passed over half her pile to me, and we flipped through them in comfortable silence. I felt Draco’s white-hot stare at the back of my head, but ignored it until the professor walked in and class began.

We were free to leave as soon as we were finished with the test. Granger and I finished at about the same time, and it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to gather our books and head out into the hallway together, discussing the different parts of the test as we headed to the Great Hall. The flashcards had been very helpful and I was eager to tell her so, which led to a discussion of other classes where she had found studying with flashcards to be useful. It was an unusual experience to simply chat with a Gryffindor. There was none of the verbal judo or hidden innuendo that you found in Slytherin conversations, and none of the guarded wariness that typified my interactions with Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. It was… surprisingly nice, just talking to Granger with no agenda and no motive, like we were friends.

Naturally, the urge to make our conversation appear as *more* than chatter between friends coincided with the realization that Draco was walking behind us. He didn’t say anything, but I recognized the sound of the cough he had been trying to shake for the past day or two.

Granger didn’t appear to notice my reaction to the cough behind us since she was busy digging through her bag, looking for the Herbology flashcards she wanted to show me. Draco wasn’t the only thing she didn’t notice as she tripped over a loose flagstone on the floor, stumbling slightly. Fortunately, I caught her before she could fall.

“Thanks,” she replied, blushing slightly as she steadied herself on her feet. “Sorry, I guess I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.”

“If you want to fall all over me, I won’t object,” I teased. “I get that a lot, you know.” Her blush darkened at the flirtatious tone in my voice which had been absent up until now, but to her credit, she didn’t let it throw her for long.

“Good to know,” she retorted. “When I chose to throw myself at a man, it *is* a comfort to know that he’ll catch me.” Her hands lay on my upper arms from when I had caught her, and she squeezed them slightly, winking at me before pulling away. Now it was *my* turn to blush. Girls had been known to flirt with me before; hell, girls had been known to do much *more* than simply flirt; but Granger was different. She wasn’t pulling me into a dark corner so she could play with a Slytherin without running the risk of being seen. She wasn’t lacing her words with hidden meaning or trying to press her body against mine so she could coax me into being another notch on her bedpost, after which she’d ignore me completely. Instead, she was simply teasing me, openly and utterly without any real agenda… as if we were friends. Sensuality and seduction, I could handle. Friendly playfulness was new. Quite new. New enough to make me blush, which made her laugh.

“So Slytherins *are* capable of blushing! How *interesting*! Or are you just an anomaly, Mr. Zabini?”

I pretended to pout. “I have to *tell* you that I’m special? You weren’t able to figure that out for yourself?”

The cough behind us turned into a grunt of annoyance, and Draco bumped into me *hard* as he pushed past us on his way to the Great Hall. This time, Granger was the one who caught me.

“T-thanks,” I stammered as I pulled myself out of her arms.

“Just returning the favor,” she replied cheerfully. “Out of curiosity, what do you suppose are chances are of getting the rest of the way to the Great Hall *without* throwing ourselves at each other anymore?”

“Only one way to find out,” I responded, holding out my arm for her to take. She accepted it, sliding her own through it and letting me lead her the rest of the way to the Great Hall, chattering away about something or other. To be honest, I wasn’t paying too much attention, still focused on trying to figure out what was happening between us. Were we becoming friends? It was hard to say. I didn’t really have any of those. There was Draco, of course, but it had been a very long time since we had *just* been friends, if we ever were. If this was friendship, I thought to myself as I escorted her into the hall and all the way to the Gryffindor table, tentatively returning the brilliant smile she gave me as she seated herself, it was nice. Quite nice.

The warm little glow carried me through lunch, but faded abruptly afterwards when Draco made his move as I exited the Great Hall, grabbing my arm and dragging me into an empty classroom practically before I even knew what had happened. By the time I had my wits about me again, the door had been closed, locked, and warded with a silencing spell, and Draco was turning to face me again, anger hardening every line of his face, giving him an uncanny resemblance to his father. That was when I knew I was really in trouble. Draco wasn’t just upset, he was *angry*. Merlin help me.

I’m not sure quite what I expected. Oh, I knew that Draco was furious and that it would escalate into one of our usual blazing rows that occurred with such tiresome regularity. That was par for the course. I also knew that I’d get that same lecture about how it wasn’t safe for me to be around Gryffindors (totally ignoring the fact that *nothing* had happened to hurt me, and that he had literally *pushed* me into Hermione’s arms) and also, no doubt, that I had no business making any decisions on my own regarding with whom I spent my time. Draco’s opening argument, however, caught me more than a little off-guard. When he turned to face me, he hissed out the last thing I *ever* thought I’d hear Draco say.

“You *fancy* her, don’t you?”

“What?” I asked, genuinely confused. For a moment, I wondered if this wasn’t about Hermione after all, and he was accusing me of mooning over some other girl. It was unfathomable that he would accuse me of fancying *Hermione* of all people.

Draco and I had never had what you might call an exclusive relationship. As far as boys went, he was the only one for me and I knew I was the only one for him, but we both enjoyed (quite *thoroughly* enjoyed) the company of women, and weren’t about to deny our tastes for some silly standard of monogamy. Draco loved me, not them, so why should it bother me that he liked to get his rocks off in a girl now and again? Hell, I liked it as well, so I was in no position to judge. The only real commitment that we had to each other was that girls were for fun, but the two of us were forever. I didn’t care if he shagged that tart Greengrass who always seemed to have one eye on the Malfoy fortune and the other on Draco’s admittedly delectable arse, just as he had no problem with me sneaking it a little extracurricular activity during a study session with Turpin (who had promised to reward me quite handsomely for helping her study magicontorqueo approximation).

Draco had the habit of teasing me over my conquests, but he never resented them any more than I begrudged him his playmates. So if Draco was angry over my response to some girl then that meant that he thought there was a girl that I actually *liked* instead of simply desiring. For some reason, he thought there was a girl I really *cared* about, and the idea threw me for a loop. My whole life, Draco was the only one I ever loved. How could he doubt that?

“Have a pensieve handy?” Draco asked in a snide tone of voice. “I could show you the stupidly *besotted* look on your face last night *and* today when you were with her.”

“Draco, last night she showed me how to work a concept I’ve been trying to learn for *ages*! Of course I was grateful!”

“And today?” he pressed. “*Flirting* with her and *groping* at her in plain sight like that! What were you *thinking*?”

“Fuck this,” I grumbled under my breath, pulling out my wand. Draco didn’t pull his, and if I wasn’t so aggravated with him, I might have softened at the further proof that he’d never defend himself against me, never risk hurting me even if it meant that he might get hurt, himself. As it was, however, I focused my anger at the door, lifting the spells that Draco had placed to lock it, and storming over to it.

“I’m not going to spell a scarlet A on my forehead just because you feel like having a tantrum,” I stated, more to the door than to Draco since I didn’t trust my restraint if I turned to look at him. “I love you; *only* you; and you know it, but that doesn’t mean that you have the right to dictate my actions every second of every day. If you can’t deal with the fact that I’m not some sort of exclusive toy that only you are allowed to touch, then that’s your problem, not mine.”

Without giving him a chance to respond, I stormed out the door and into the hallway. I was barely even aware of where I was going as I charged through the hallways. When I came back to myself, I was standing in front of the library, and even through my anger I had to laugh at the trick my subconscious had played on me, leading me back to the scene of the crime. Heading back to the table where I had studied with Hermione the previous night, I tossed my bag on the table and threw myself into a chair.

Draco thought I was in love with Hermione. The thought was so ridiculous, it nearly made me laugh again. Draco knew that my taste for love affairs ran to snarky, seductive, blond-haired Slytherins. Why on earth would he think I’d fall in love with a bossy, aggravatingly brilliant, bushy haired Gryffindor?

Of course, Draco knew that I valued intelligence since he, himself, was nearly as brilliant as Hermione. (After the tutoring sessions with her and seeing the way that she approached magic from different angles to understand it, I started to wonder if Draco wouldn’t be every bit as magically advanced as her if he hadn’t been raised so strictly to only approach magic in specific ways.) Their intelligence was something I had always rather admired about both of them. They shared that sort of easy confidence with magic that I, despite my pureblooded upbringing, always lacked. Watching them, *either* of them, cast spells was poetry in motion, just the way magic was supposed to be. It was no wonder that Draco was the one who came closest to challenging Hermione’s position as top of the class.

They shared something else as well, something that drove Hermione to be the top of the class and drove Draco to risk his neck continuously on the Quidditch pitch. That sort of fierce commitment and determination was an intrinsic part of both of them. Though they each expressed it differently, it boiled down to a sort of inherent code of honor that made them determine to follow through on every commitment they made, paired with a passion that made them loyal and devoted to any cause they chose to follow.

Really, they were more alike than I had ever bothered to realize, in spite of their superficial contrasts. If she hadn’t been a Gryffindor and a muggleborn, and if he hadn’t been a Slytherin and a Malfoy… they might have been friends. Draco’s accusations, unfounded though they were, started to make a bit more sense. The girls I usually liked to play around with had little in common with Draco. I never looked for a girl I could really connect with, just someone who could give me a good time, with no strings attached. Hermione was no man’s good-time girl. Time that I spent with her might have had the potential of actually turning into something other than a one night stand, if I wasn’t so in love with Draco. And while I was annoyed that he would question my commitment to him, I could see why Hermione would be the girl who would make him question.

“Is this seat taken?” a teasing voice questioned from beside me. Startled, I looked up into Hermione’s familiar brown eyes.

“N-no,” I stammered, trying to regain my composure, “it’s not taken. Help yourself.”

“Alright then, I will,” she replied with an easy grin, seating herself and immediately beginning to dig through her bag until she had pulled out parchment, a quill, and a very large book about Potions. With her usual uncanny tact that I was only beginning to grow accustomed to, she worked in silence, leaving me to my thoughts.

Those traitorous thoughts continued to revolve around her. She was quite pretty, I realized with something akin to shock. She hadn’t always been, and I had grown accustomed to dismissing her as plain, but ‘plain’ certainly didn’t describe her anymore. Yes, she was *quite* pretty, and there was no denying it. Draco had noticed, obviously, or he wouldn’t have been so jealous. A random thought passed through my mind wondering who else had noticed. What boys out there spent their days (and their evenings as well, no doubt; the perverts;) pining over the Head Girl?

I hadn’t realized the way that my eyes were lingering on her face until the sound of a strangled cough, muffled as if someone was trying to hide it, caught my ears. Looking up, I spotted Draco in the stacks. I felt my heart wrench at the look on his face. It was a mixture of surprise, hurt, and a sort of bitter resignation that I had seen before, too many times, and never wanted to see again. It happened every time Draco lost or failed to get something he was expecting, something he had *earned* just because Dumbledore liked showering points on Gryffindors for being fat-headed fools, or because the wizarding community assumed automatically that anyone named Malfoy was beneath their contempt, or because Lucius was an arse who didn’t appreciate his son. It was the look that he never showed to anyone but me because he never wanted others to be able to see when he was hurting. I never wanted to be the one to put that look on his face. My anger melted away as I realized that underneath Draco’s ridiculous jealousy and accusations was a very real fear that he would lose me; that I, the one person he had always been able to count on, wouldn’t love him anymore.

Suddenly, I couldn’t bear to be angry with him anymore. Gathering up my stuff, I made my excuses to Hermione and headed for the door. I knew where he was going; he always went to the Quidditch pitch to fly off his hurt. That was where I found him twenty minutes later, after a quick detour to grab a broom.

He was flying like a maniac, of course. He never *could* manage to fly in a straight line unless there was a goal he wanted to reach at the end. He loved flips and turns and hairpin maneuvers that tested his broom to its limits. I was, at best, an adequate flier, with no taste for stomach-turning twists, but I followed him as best I could, trying to catch up with him. He was in the middle of a dangerous back flip when he spotted me, stopping instantly (as soon as he turned himself upright) so that I could reach him.

“What were you thinking trying to copy me?” he scolded as I approached. “You could have gotten hurt, attempting those turns without practicing them first.”

“Getting to you was more important,” I answered, hoping he’d hear the sincerity in my voice. Apparently he did, because his expression softened fractionally.

“I’d have thought you’d prefer to stay cozily ensconced with Granger instead of chasing me out here,” he replied cautiously.

I chose my words with care, not wanting either of us to end up angry again. “If I wanted to study, I would be,” I replied. “But what I really wanted was to be with you. Only you.” The next part was a bit harder. “I know it may have seemed like I was… flirting a bit with her, earlier today.” Draco snorted and opened his mouth to retort, but I cut him off before he got a chance. “It was for *your* benefit, you know. I wanted to pay you back for being so overprotective. It never occurred to me that you would think I was actually interested in her romantically. It never occurred to me to be in love with anyone but you.”

Draco swallowed hard and looked away. “Sometimes I wonder,” he sighed. I fought off a shiver of dread. Wondered what? Wondered why he bothered with me? “I wonder why you put up with me at all.”

I let out a sigh of relief, and couldn’t stop the big, goofy grin that I knew was covering my face. “Well, that’s easy,” I answered. “It’s because I love you.”

I doubt I’ll ever quite get used to Draco’s speed on a broom, especially when he’s going after something he really wants. But as long as the thing that he wants is me, I’ll never complain. His broom was next to mine before I had the chance to do anymore than blink, and only seconds later, his hand was gripping the back of my neck, pulling me into a kiss. I was panting by the time that Draco pulled away, and my balance on the broomstick was wavering.

“We should land,” Draco murmured in my ear as he planted a series of soft kisses along my neck, making it damnably hard for me to concentrate on what he was saying. “I have to put my *stick* away.” I moaned at the sound of his voice and moaned again when he pulled away, but eagerly followed his lead in landing on the pitch, following him like a puppy as he lead the way to the locker room.

“You know,” he purred, his hand snaking over to caress my arse, “it’s been a long time since *we’ve* had a study session together.”

“You’re right,” I agreed, somewhat breathlessly. “Is there anything in – oooh!” I gasped as Draco’s hand slipped underneath my arse and between my legs to run a skillful finger against my balls, “—particular that you’d like to study?”

“Transfiguration might be nice,” Draco replied, his innocent tone belied by the movements of his wickedly knowing hand. “I saw the most delightful little bit of transfiguration done the other day that I was hoping you could teach me. It was a spell to turn a locker room bench into a bed. And look, how convenient! Here’s a locker room!”

I smirked at him before shoving his back against the wall of the locker room door, pinning him against it with the weight of my body. “Convenient, indeed,” I retorted, rocking my hips against his, panting with the effort it took not to devour his mouth.

“Let the lesson begin.”


End Section 7