Say It Again

“Fix it!” Draco demanded harshly.

Madame Pomfrey pursed her lips. “Draco, you’re going to have to wait for the swelling to go down. There is nothing I can do to counteract that particular hex. As for your other injuries, those are readily healable.”

“I don’t care about the others! I could heal those myself. But I thought you were a healer and as such you would be able to counter act this curse! Clearly not, you’re just as useless as all the other gargoyles they call professors at this school.” He leapt down from the cot and stormed toward the door.

“Well I never!” Madame Pomfrey cried indignantly. “You’re head of house will hear about this!”

Draco made sure to slam the door shut behind him. He left Zabini in the Hospital Wing enduring a night with Skelegrow in the cot beside Pansy’s. Blaise’s left leg had been shattered in two places by Neville’s curse. It hadn’t been an all out defeat by the Gryffindors. Draco and Blaise had got off a string of good hits, each landing their opponents with various heavily bleeding cuts, but it was the Slytherins who had sustained the most damage.

He knew Blaise was going to harp him about not having backed out of the duel. Seamus and Neville would have been far worse off if the Carrows had unleashed their sadistic fury on them. Fuming, Draco walked briskly down to the dungeons and from there to his Common Room.

The next morning Draco’s eye looked slightly less swollen but just as bruised. He grimaced at his particularly gruesome reflection. “Bloody hell,” he cursed turning sharply away from the mirror.

He kept his head down at breakfast, not wanting to attract anymore unwanted attention. He had already dealt with making up excuses to the seventh year Slytherins, he really wasn’t in the mood to deal with anyone else asking questions. Then came Pansy whirling in to the Great Hall free of boils. She took one look at Draco and let out a shriek.

“Draco! You look awful, oh my god!” She dropped down beside him, her eyes wide with disgust. “How am I possibly supposed to be seen with you looking – looking like-“

“Shove off, Pansy,” Draco growled. He pushed back from the table swinging his book bag over one shoulder, and took off at a clipped pace.

As he twisted around the staircases up to the third floor, he fumed. Finnigan would pay. There was no other way to correct the situation. Being bested by a Gryffindor, by Ellie’s ex-boyfriend no less, was simply not to be borne. His blood boiled with agitation.

The clatter of light footsteps raced up behind Draco. He twisted around, wand in hand, ready to curse who ever had the nerve to follow him. “Cru-!” Draco began as a head and shoulders bobbed into view.

“Je ne pense pas!” A small hand slapped over Draco’s mouth, while the tip of a wand stabbed into his side.

“Get your filthy hands off me!” Draco shoved Ellie off him, his heart beating erratically in his chest.

She rolled her blue eyes at him. “J’ai le plaisir.” Ellie wiped her hand off on her skirt clearly ridding herself of the feel of him.

“What are you doing here?” Draco’s one eye glared at her suspiciously.

“I simply wanted to see if the rumors were true. And they are. Nice look.” She smirked at him.

Humiliation flamed Draco’s cheek. If there was anyone he didn’t want to see him at his weakest, it was Ellie. The girl who had wrecked his life now stood there drinking in his defeat. Without a second of conscious thought, Draco grabbed Ellie by the shoulders and shoved her up against the stone wall.

“Don’t you dare laugh at me!”

“Would that hurt your feelings, Draco? Your disgusting Pure Blood Death Eater feelings? I don’t believe you have any. I don’t believe you have anything, Draco. You’re a worthless, sniveling bastard and I was never luckier than the day you ran out of my life!”

And for the first time in months, Draco felt something other than anger and bitterness. In that instant, something broke free in him. Draco dropped his hands to her waist securing her between the wall and his body. Hungrily, he crushed his mouth against Ellie’s.

Dropping her wand, Ellie clawed at his arms, trying to push and pry him off, but Draco wouldn’t be moved. For months he had thought of nothing but Ellie and the way she tasted. Now he had her and he had no intention of letting go. Finally Ellie caved to the kiss, her lips melting into his and her hands winding up his back, clinging to him.

The kiss went unbroken until the sound of laughter bounced up the curved stairwell. Ellie yanked herself away from Draco looking aghast, her expression etched with self-disgust.
Flushed with the success of conquering Ellie, a lazy grin lifted Draco’s lips. “Don’t worry, you disgust me too.”

Ellie dropped to her knees, scooping up her wand and shoving it into her bag. Without looking at Draco, she moved to breeze past him. Draco’s pale hand shot out clenching around her wrist. “Where are you going, Ellie? Afraid to be seen with me? But,” he licked his bottom lip, “I rather thought you liked kissing me.”

“There isn’t a single thing about you that I like,” she hissed angrily.

“Ah, ah,” Draco taunted, “don’t lie.”

Ellie looked up at him defiantly. “I may have loved you once, and when you kissed me just now I slipped back into the past, but it was a onetime error in judgment, I promise you. You are so far beneath my recognition, Draco, I can’t even be bothered to hate you.”

She flipped her long blonde hair over her shoulder and stepped into the classroom. Draco was left standing foolishly on the landing, his cocky smile quickly slipping.