Monsoon Wings

Juno looked deep into his eyes. The blue-gray reminded her of the snow, stretched endlessly on land, pure in its bliss, smooth in its elegance. She remembered that night in the Astronomy tower. That night, she had finally realized something uninvited had invaded her heart. This thing was small, beautiful, dignified, and she slowly opened the gates of her heart to it, letting it grow inside of her, becoming friends with it, molding with it.

The land of snow moved closer to her.

No—Draco had brought his face closer.

She was aware of her heart thumping hard. Her fingers had gone icy cold; her brain was numb. She wanted to forget everything. She just wanted to close her eyes and let him take charge.

Which she did.

She could feel his breath close.

When Olivia’s words struck her like a lightning.

‘I mean, you won’t date Draco, won’t you? You won’t, like, kiss him, right? We’re best friends, right?’

Juno pushed him away.

Draco was shoved aside, and he laid beside her, staring at the ceiling, wondering what he was up to. She sat up, tidied her hair, and noticed the pain in her ankle. She must have hurt herself during the fall. She winced, rubbing it. Draco sat up as well, asked her what was wrong.

‘My ankle is sprained,’ she mumbled. Whenever she bent her ankle it hurt like hell, as if her veins had shrunk, she felt something tugging inside her flesh.

‘Don’t worry, it’ll be better. I use to get this sort of problem during Quidditch. I have a special procedure to heal it in five minutes,’ he said confidently, massaging her ankle.

*

Ron had always hated Snape. If only it was not because of Ron had caused a tantrum during Potions, he would never ever step foot into his smelly oily office.

His disaster started in last Potions lesson.

Okay, so it was like this: Ron had accidentally set queer brown-colored fire to his cauldron, which spread around the classroom, eating away any material it could reach, till it finally caught Snape’s hair and burnt it. That was basically it. The damages were already repaired with a single flick of Snape’s wand, but the teacher insisted Ron to come to his office during Saturday. Which he had done. The teacher lectured him, banged his fists on his working table, and threatened to send a letter to Ron’s parents if the same mayhem happened again.

So there was Ron, fuming, free at last from Snape’s clutches. He was thinking of playing a mini Quidditch with his friends when he heard noises.

Ron glanced around. This part of the dungeons was always deserted.

Then he realized the odd noises were coming from dungeon room number four. Not really noises—like people talking. Or moaning?

Ron walked silently and pressed his ears against the heavy door, trying not to breath.

A familiar voice of a girl.

‘Aw, aw, slower, can’t you? I’m not made of iron!’

‘Okay, fine.’ That was a boy. Familiar voice, too.

Ron swallowed. He recognized the voice as Juno’s and Draco Malfoy’s. Ron tilted his head closer to the door, not wanting to miss a single thing. He heard Juno moaning, and he almost choked his own saliva.

‘Yes, yes, right there! Yes! Oh yes! Aw, not there! Yes, yes! Aw! Aw!’

Ron wanted to pound on the door.

‘Harder and faster, won’t you?’ Juno.

‘I’m already tired, do you know? This is really not fair. You should do the same thing to me after this.’ Draco.

Ron gritted his teeth.

‘Does this feel nice? I’m good at this, right?’ that was Draco. From the tone, Ron could notice the smirk.

Juno moaned again.

Ron clenched his fists.

‘Please don’t stop.’ Juno.

‘I have said I’ll handle this in five minutes.’ Draco.

‘Oh.’ Juno.

‘All right, I’m tired. Let’s switch positions.’ Draco.

Ron had heard enough. He ran away, thumping in the corridor, and vanished in the turning.

Inside, Draco and Juno had heard the thumping. Juno stopped massaging Draco’s fatigued arm and glanced towards the door, then shrugged and returned to the massaging session. Juno tried to move her ankle, and she was glad to find it painless. Her veins had returned back to normal. She grinned and looked at Draco.

But she was afraid the bond would exist again, so she immediately glanced away.

*

Near the Fat Lady, Ron met Hermione. This was very, very lucky. Hermione was shocked to see the expression on Ron’s face—pale, flustered, and flabbergasted.

‘What happened? Met the Bloody Baron?’ Hermione sneered.

‘There’s something I need to tell you. But don’t tell anyone. Harry’s okay. I mean, just the three of us. Okay?’ he spoke in short sentences, pulling Hermione back into the common room after saying the password. They sat down in the end corner, bustling together, whispering.

‘I think I just witnessed something very dreadful,’ Ron whispered, hands flailing in gesture. ‘Juno is having sex with Draco Malfoy.’

Ron expected Hermione to scream till the roof fall off. Instead, she grinned, an expression of joking in her face. ‘You’re kidding.’

‘I heard their voices!’ Ron said shrilly, pounding the table with his fist.

‘What did you hear? Specifically,’ Hermione had started to take the matter seriously, her grin fading, to be replaced with a frown.

‘Well,’ Ron changed his seating position, cleared his throat, looked around furtively, lowered his voice, and began. ‘I was from Snape’s office, ya know? Yeah. And when I passed dungeon number four, I heard strange noises. You guess. I heard Juno kept moaning and saying things like “Yes, yes, right there” and Malfoy was going “I’m good at this, right?” and then Juno “harder, please, and faster, don’t stop” and Malfoy was smirking and saying “I’m already tired, you should do this to me” and Juno moaned and moaned and moaned and Draco “does this feel nice?” and “come on, switch positions” and oh, It’s terrible!’

Hermione’s hand had gone to cover her mouth. ‘You mean you heard them? But did you see them? Are you positive about this?’ she blurted all at once.

‘I’m bloody positive!’ Ron banged the table and shouted, like a lawyer debating a case. A first year glanced and shyly walked away, afraid.

Hermione bit her lip.