Draco watched with dull and lifeless eyes as a perfectly bulbous droplet of condensation dribbled down the side of his flawless crystal glass, all the way to the agar wood table surface without a single disruption to it's rotund pear shape.

Partial to dark liquors and naturally possessing a pedigree of the highest caliber, he tended to notice the smallest details that set aside truly refined assets from cheap substitutes.

For example, take the reaction of condensation on the exterior of smooth crystal glass in comparison to a silicon dioxide glass, which tended to scatter the droplets in horrible, flat and unsatisfying zigzags.

Due to this shrewd ability to scrutinize the value of everything he came across, he was consistently labelled a snob of epic proportions.

Quite correct; he was a snob, an unapologetic one at that.

Something was either perfect, or it had damn well stay fifty yards from him and out of sight.

His deadpan transfixion with the condensation was reflective of a deceased will to care about anything that hot June evening in 1998...even the pledges he was supposed to be explaining rules to for another upcoming summer in Monaco.

Sat on the rooftop above the crumbling building they were inhabiting for the next three months, nine brand new Excetra boys and ten alumni were shouting in rowdy chaos in the face of the orange setting sun.

Tossing exploding bottles down at unsuspecting muggle pedestrians on the meandering cobbled streets, they recklessly awaited for their appointed overseer to do anything but swirl ice cubes in circles like a handsome zombie, his blue eyes reflectively scorching with the flames of the disappearing tangerine glow over the Ligurian Sea.

Lighthearted and abstracted, for them, involvement with Lord Voldemort was only just commencing, and without any direct exposure yet to the monstrosity that they now irreversibly served.

However for Draco it had been years of imposing vulgarity, gore and abuse. He'd been personally targeted at a young age, the ugly distortion to his life unraveling at the beginning of his sixth school year when he'd been introduced to a certain furniture incubus hidden within Borgin and Burkes.

After *intentionally* failing a second year in a row to repair the vanishing cabinet located in the room of requirement, Lord Voldemort grew exceptionally livid with the Malfoy's; his threats elevating from killing off the majority of their house elves, property livestock and close acquaintances in morbid manners, to land over their very own heads like a hovering nuclear bomb.

The circumstances had quickly begun to sour by late January of 1997, as his parents were having wands directed at their faces and black nails dug into their skin. Their beautiful stately Manor stunk of the rotting bodies accumulating in the cellars, and all eyes turned to Draco in accusation for taking so long.

The truth of the matter was, Draco stubbornly couldn't bare his involvement in the destruction of the contemporary wizarding world, and he had been purposefully sabotaging his own mission.

And no matter how much his father cussed down his neck, or beat him bruised and blue with that toothed cane of his, preventing the Death Eaters from entering his school for two consecutive years had been worth the misery.

It was a strange tug of war scenario and the rope was about to snap from the tension, seeing as the dark lord had no other options aside from Draco's unique intelligence to repair the cabinet. Even Severus Snape, who was much too busy with larger problems of his own, in the odd hours he bothered to review Draco's technomancy notes was bewildered.

Draco had been leaving out important pages to procure said bewilderment, naturally.

Right away he had solved the puzzle as if it were a game of circle square triangle, in three short months at that, then went on to stash the godforsaken journals in his bedside table, losing sleep over the horror of the calamitous information hidden right next to his head.

Some nights he could swear the journals whispered in demonic voices from within the shut drawer, preventing him from escaping his guilt and indecisiveness, and producing unspeakable nightmares.

Peeves, the slimy, pestering, primitive specter - who added no other value to Hogwarts other than creating headaches for students, teachers and staff alike - had dropped the rare teleportational cabinet so magnificently in the past that it was a miracle the doors had remained on their hinges.

This was the sole time Draco was grateful for the green-skinned ghoul's antics. 

He'd even tried to convince the ghost to do it a second time, "for fun", but of course it was always "opposite day" when anyone actually requested Peeves destroy something.

Draco had watched with a murky sneer as the ghost turned on his flickering coattails and stuck his absurdly spindly nose into the air, morphing straight through the bricked walls of the Room of Requirement, singing theatrically, "Boy albino, sad and solo, thinks a Peeves a game-a-show-ho. Finds himself an angry rhino. Nigh better yet, now don't you fret, bang it with your big a-toe-ho!"

If confronted about or consorted with regarding his stance on the dark lord, Draco was manipulatively coy at convincing others that he indeed followed Voldemort passionately, and that he was fighting for the return of the evil wizard.

When deep in the shadows, one must say what one must say, in order to remain imperceptible to those beasts with prowling night vision.

The catalyst that had sent his mental health clean over the edge erupted in his sixth year, on the last day he would evasively spend avoiding his horrible duties like a child to their dinner vegetables, and it had happened when Audette Bellarose lost her patience with him for the final time at a New Years party.

He'd been so close to success it was bloody aggravating.

Theodore Nott had passed out early being the lightweight that he was, leaving his precious girlfriend unguarded and drunk, and with her defenses seemingly retracted.

The glint in her lush green eyes had spoken volumes, practically drooling up at Draco's shirtless chest, her cheeks flushed red and bashful, speaking in adorable gibberish because she was obviously flustered by his proximity. If only her mutual desires hadn't panicked her so frightfully, if only she had caved, just once, to the magnetic energy they shared.

The most grueling aspect of the ensuing dress-tearing mishap was that her contempt originated from a misunderstanding.

This wasn't exactly news; her carrying around a tainted and inaccurate comprehension of him. Coupled with her explosive temperament it was only a matter of time before all hope collapsed like a black hole swallowing itself.

Draco Malfoy, the school rake.

Draco Malfoy, always trying to humiliate her.

Draco Malfoy, the bully who flirted with her to cause emotional harm and gain attention from the other boys.

Lies, lies, lies.

Little did she know it went more like this;

Draco Malfoy, the boy who was in love with her in every way, ranging from her incessant giggling and snorting, hot-headed rants, slipper stomping and wild spirit.

Draco Malfoy, who couldn't peel his eyes off her raging body and pretty hair decorations, viewing her as both adorable and unbelievably sexy.

Draco Malfoy, who felt protective of her. The boy who smirked in classes and secretly exacted wandless magic below the table tops to drop ingredients into her potions, effectively correcting the swamp disasters she normally produced. The boy who was the sole reason she'd even passed...

Draco Malfoy - the obsessive, delusional stalker of the century...

Inferior to New Years Eve the last straw had been plucked, and she proceeded to masterfully treat him as if he blatantly did not exist. 

Waking up the next morning, hungover and cheerless and with a half naked girl in his bed who meant absolutely nothing to him, he sensed the final doomed thread in the spiderweb of their friendship snap and blow away in the wind.

From there on out should he even dare glance in the direction of the immaculate girl, her tiny button nose would contort violently and then a wall of blond waves would slide into place to cut any visual of him out.

The passage was set in stone, Stay away from me. Never again.

While minute and fleeting, each time these microscopic incidents of rejection happened at meal times or in the dormitory it left him with nothing but a devastated gaping hole in his chest, which unfortunately bore no medical treatment other than strong alcohol and flirting with lesser females for a boost to his injured ego.

In a last ditch attempt to salvage any relationship with her possible, he'd risked his dignity admitting outright that he was in love with her, only for her to once again turn a blind viridian eye to his letter.

Despite his popularity, charming appearance, scholarly achievements and athletic spearheading at Hogwarts, he would apparently never be good enough for her. Ergo, it was time to conclude the self deprecating and rootless pining.

So he let her go, over time...practicing daily Occlumency to black out neurological patterns that would spiral into any forbidden designations of his mind identifying with Audette Fia Bellarose.

He compartmentalized her wherever possible, just as she'd heartlessly erased him.

After he'd resigned and accepted this dynamic as an irreversible reality, Draco suitably redirected his newly undivided attention to mitigating the endangerment of his family.

Late at night he would ponder and scheme up persuasive ways to circumvent the dark lord's attention from the already solved cabinet to a different, more complex project that would buy more time.

Then it had clicked; the Triwizard Tournament scheduled for 1998.

It was a year and a half away, and that route was not foreign having been harnessed before by the Death Eaters to resurrect Lord Voldemort.

However Voldemort's focus had now broadened, not only to wipe out pretentious Potter, but also several other notable obstacles including the impregnable guardian of the castle and Head Master, Albus Dumbledore, who boasted possession of the one and only Elder Wand.

Another milestone presented in the necessary retention of multiple, vulnerable horcruxes hidden within the school walls. The dark lord flagrantly refused to expose their locations. 

He, and he alone, was to be the collector of such critical artefacts, meaning a total invasion.

Draco soon came to the conclusion that they not only sought a portal in, but also required an army with unparalleled firepower to overrun the grounds. And this might argue that the vanishing cabinet by itself was conceivably a worthless endeavor.

There existed several important, highly accomplished witches and wizards associated with Excetra worldwide, that if implanted amongst the tournament council would not seem in the slightest out of place. 

And once in place, they would be able to influence design decisions.

With this is in mind Draco gathered his resources, prepared a proposal, and barely survived the most nightmarish moment of his life when he pitched these ideas to Lord Voldemort himself at a crowded Death Eater meeting.

Success.

By spring of 1997 his family was back in good standing with the guild and Draco had started to sleep normally again, putting back on lost athletic muscle and even reappearing in his social circles; the only problem was, his apparent ease was not well received.

Once he returned from school a lethal debate unfolded for days on end as to how they would keep him in a state of despair and irascibility until his participation in the tournament over a year later.

Multiple Excetra wizards who had raised their wands with weak ideas were brutally murdered by the third day as Voldemort lashed out like a toddler having a tantrum in the toy pen - only it wasn't a Barbie's head being torn off, it was a live person's...

The decaying atmosphere in the Malfoy Manor and makeshift military base stunk with evident distaste that Draco had manipulatively set himself up for summer vacations off, and further delayed the cabinet rehabilitation by a gross amount of time.

Lord Voldemort - cunning and intelligent,  yet overzealous and manic to a fault - knew he'd somehow been conned while at the same time presented with a better strategy than he himself had devised, and somehow the favor of humiliation had to be repaid to the young man clearly smarter than him.

"We cannot have you growing weak, and irrelevant over the ssseasonal months," the dangerous dark wizard spat venomously in the freezing dining hall that he often held congress in, his glowing crimson red eyes flaring at Draco in caution. 

Forty or so attending Death Eaters in the room kept their heads sagaciously bowed to the priceless, stained Redwood monolithic table, which had now been carved up with Bellatrix' throwing knives, swords used to behead muggles and traitors, and bore holes where nervous members had scratched dinner knives in circles to physically release anxiety.

Tatty black robes slithered around on the stone flooring at Voldemort's heels, rank with dried blood from his casualties and torn at the base from his elongated toenails catching constantly.

One could not imagine sharing a bed with him, lest they plan on dying of blood loss from a severed femoral artery.

He cracked his neck in a revolting, ear splitting snap like a reanimated corpse, glowering at young Draco who was beginning to cower and sweat despite the subzero conditions within the Malfoy Manor, "Perhapsss your value has expired early. There are...othersss of oursss...in the schooool who will be of age for thissss tournament, are there not?"

"My lord..." Lucius Malfoy began to dribble in a beggary pitched tone, like a young boy who'd coloured all over the walls in crayon and been caught red-handed. Draco watched as his typically refined father swallowed through his surficial fear, "No other student could compete with Draco's reputational performance in any athletic regard, surely..." 

He stepped closer to Draco protectively, who had distanced himself by the tall black curtains - as if the thin tendrils of light managing to infiltrate the Gothic wasteland within would scald Voldemort if he came too close.

"My lord...he is an excellent dueler, and we have thoroughly educated him in the ways of the dark arts," Narcissa abruptly threw her own neck on the line in a tense voice when Voldemort's disgusting telepathic snake uncoiled from the grand firepit that it preferred to lay in - a sure sign that a limit was being breached, "If his lack of calendar insults you, reinstate Monaco. Allow Draco to train in place of Alderson's late passing seeing as he's completed the course himself, so that we may continue to grow our younger ranks in multiple streams."

While a sixteen year old boy could not hope to replace the prior Guild Master in Monaco, he was the only Death Eater available for months on end in the summers, and the best in his class at spell casting and weaponry, capable of wielding swords, javelins and bows on top of it all.

As a result Draco was rapidly promoted to training the yearly slew of imbeciles pledging Excetra over the summer, all of whom were ultimately aiming for Death Eater status, each unbreakably sworn into total secrecy against speaking out on the terms and purposes of the guild.

Some were simply handed to him from all over the place without much explanation other than a dangerous glare and instructions to prepare them. Others were snagged right out of Hogwarts - boys he himself scouted in the school, mainly from agreeable pureblood families.

If he was truly left with no choice but to reside in the godforsaken boiling hellhole that was Monaco - a miniature sovereign state with absolutely no magical regulation over the use and practice of dark magic - better to drag his friends down with him.

For centuries, due to the political freedom in the quaint seaside region, the guild had been established in the lawless community within an ancient, pink and beige stone building.

Slanting dramatically it sought to put shame to Piza, towering over the salty crashing waves and stretching wharf which had once been infested with gold-toothed pirates and advertising pub whores.

It was so heavily protected by archaic magical wards that should curious muggles even inspect the building for more than a minute they would begin to feel extremely drunk and confused, sauntering away as if having just consumed a litre of potent wine.

Poor Madame Monet, who lived directly adjacent to the tower, had gained an unsightly reputation within the community for being a drunkard lunatic, when in fact there was hardly a moment in the day where she felt clear headed, and not by any fault of her own.

So...by that June evening in 1998, standing at the precipice of his second noxious round of offensive dark arts and Death Eater training, Draco had become barbarous and demoralized, losing sight of what mattered to him anymore in his empty and hollow life.

Almost all traces of his past resilient self had been locked up, the key expertly flung into the very ultramarine sea he could not tear his comatose eyes from.

The sun in Monaco dipped under the ocean to be replaced by the starchy moon, and the rooftop glowed with responsive magical lanterns. Yet still, he remained paralyzed in savage disregard of the time, unwilling to accept another three long months of backbreaking babysitting and futile discipline.

Including himself, the boys of varying ages had become too drunk and the night had indelibly lost it's structure anyways. They would start in the morning when Draco had finished mourning the reason that they were there, shutting his puffy eyelids to signal they would be best off not to pester him with feckless conversation.

In a semi circle of ritzy couches they were positioned towards the coast where hundreds of yachts and sailboats clustered and bobbed in the rotting moorings below, cat calling beautiful girls just to laugh at their stunned reactions when they caught too long a glimpse of the cursed villa.

Palm trees swayed in the hot breeze, shielding one flank of the rooftop with feathery greenery and dropping the occasional runaway coconut onto the tiling. A crumbing stone fireplace, timbrel vaulted in an archaic arch, was roaring with dry logs and spitting out sparks at their feet.

If it wasn't for the hideous occupants of the villa and their diabolical agenda, the building would be quite a darling niche.

"Dames in this region of the world, always up for a night out, don't matter what day of the week," Cassius Warrington popped his poorly maintained unibrow at some of the boys who's first summer it was there, as if he were supplying incredible encouragement.

"You've got it backwards Warrington - no day of the week works for any bird with that caterpillar wiggling in their face," Graham Montague snorted.

"...can't speak Italian, but I do know what suca means, oohhoho."

"Oh yeah, how about sfigato?"

Draco attacked more of his rum far too enthusiastically, considering leaving for his private suite as all of the guffawing was giving him a vengeful headache.

A loud ticking of his designer watch held at his throbbing temple had driven him even farther into a trance of emptiness and solitude, before Blaise's cool voice caused his right ear to pull back, "Malfoy, late arrival for your assessment."

Through blurry vision he checked his illuminated watch, then snarled up at his sophisticated friend who's arms were crossed elegantly, "I was told the list was already finalized."

"Guess not," Blaise raised his eyebrows in two comely brown rainbows, and Draco squinted suspiciously at where his lip was twitching at the corner to suppress a grin from blooming.

"It's fucking half past nine, Zabini. You'd better not be yanking deranged pedestrians up here again as a joke, because it wastes my time and pisses me off!" Draco roared out of the blue, absolutely in zero mood for any bullshit.

Smirking sideways at Montague across the outdoor amenity, Blaise returned his stagnant gaze to Draco, "You'll like this one."

"Mmmhmm," Draco cracked his head to the side, his eyes wide and furious, sweeping back the rest of his watered down rum before slamming the glass hard on the coffee table in front of him, "So what's the name?"

"Guess. Nott," Blaise spoke with special emphasis this time and lifted his amused gaze over the couch behind Draco, to where the sixth floor staircase provided flush access to the exposed roof terrace.

Draco's prickly expression gradually distilled in tandem with the infectious silence unfurling amongst the members. In a striking motion he swiveled his neck to leer over the couch, all of the other teenage boy's heads mimicking their leader like a pack of lions to a spotted gazelle.

Sure enough, the very last person Draco had ever expected to see there at the Excetra guild was leaning cross armed against the porcelain tiled wall retaining a vertical rock face which loomed overhead, his thick eyebrows drooping across his smoldering navy eyes.

"Well, well, well, look what the fucking Niffler dragged in - it's a shiny new toy," Draco cooed with his mouth ajar, a taunting grin spreading on his face.

When Theodore merely raised his jaw and glared at Draco from a sharp angle, Draco gestured with a silky wave of his hand at one of the seats across from him by the raised fireplace.

A rather acidic staring contest ensued between them as Theodore strode slowly around the couch - Draco sporting a cruel smirk, Theo maintaining his classic stony features. Some of the older boys hooted and whistled at the toxic male tension, producing an ominous background ennui.

When Theodore dropped stiffly into the large leather chair, his tight blue suit hardly wavering out of place with the motion, Draco leaned forward and clapped his hands sarcastically slow between his bony knees. A ridiculous round of discordant applause trickled from each of the spectating males save for Blaise, who simply jammed his hands in his pockets in neutral speculation.

Blaise had always done this on the subject of Theodore, who's company had never been viewed as problematic to him.

No stranger to the aggressive nature of Slytherin male culture Theodore didn't so much as flinch, his eyes shifting to and fro in his skull with frigid judgment of the immature banter cornering him in on all sides.

Draco sat back and lit a cigarette out of habit, his heart ramming in his chest with anxious excitement for the opportunity which had just landed squarely in his lap on a silver platter.

Those who claimed that revenge was not sweet clearly had never tasted anything sweet at all, for it was as sugary in satisfaction as melting down one thousand lollies and guzzling back the resulting sludge.

Theodore Nott was now at Draco Malfoy's unforgiving mercy, and it was about to be a white hot summer after all.

Hours of booz and abasement dispersed to be replaced with adrenaline rising to the surface of his skin, holding his rolled up dress sleeves outwards in gesture. 

He sent a blank, slanted stare into Theodore's abysmal orbs, "Finally decided to join the club, eh Nott? Or did you wander just a little too far from home up the coastline?"

Theo tapped his lanky fingers in controlled distaste on the armrest of his chair, then reached into his suit, producing a sealed scroll, "I've been summoned."

"Oh really?" Draco popped an eyebrow in surprise, hardly catching the scroll which was whipped at him in lightning speed.

As soon as his fingers touched the grey parchment it reacted to an approved reviewer, floating in the air before his face. The paper wrung itself out flat, ink floating an inch off of the page in luminous green writing.

Draco had seen dozens like it in the past few years; binding contracts which once signed cursed the new member in similar fashion as an unbreakable vow.

Official Excetra Contract For Théodore Beniamino Nott, read the main title, an animated black snake and skull wavering in the top right corner.

Several lines and terms and conditions for his enrollment were all standard, until Draco's attention fell onto a standout stipulation that had him fumbling for his cigarette when it slid from his awestruck mouth, burning a hole into his ritzy dress pants;

Théodore shall take full responsibility for repair of the vanishing cabinet located within Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and will complete this task by no later than the end of day, Thursday, December thirty-first, 1998. Completion is defined by establishing a working, teleportational connection between said cabinet in question to it's twin located in Borgin and Burkes, Knockturn Alley.

Draco Lucius Malfoy will provide all necessary information and forward precedential work.

Failure to complete this allotted task shall not result in expulsion from Excetra, but will result in genocide of the remaining Nott family members - ruled to be traitorous to the guild and our leader in darkness, Lord Voldemort. Expungement of the crime of disloyal abandonment is therefore contingent upon this term being met in full.

Not desiring to read anymore lest it actually stir up feelings of pity for the boy, Draco let out a terse breath and waved his wand, commanding the parchment to reroll and soar back to it's enslaved owner, "Rough go for you, Einstein. Hanging for the crimes of daddy dearest. Welcome aboard."

They met gazes once again in dry awkwardness as Draco dragged on his dart, channeling concentrated jet streams of carcinogens across the small area.

"That's all the commentary that your feeble, fermented brain can manage? My family has been threatened with extinction!" Theodore's expression shot from freezing to solid ice, lifting up his shoe to kick at the coffee table with the obvious intent to rail Draco in the legs.

Draco caught the lip of the table with his palm just in time, snorting at the attempt to bust his knee caps, "Oh no, gee golly Théodore, I can't possibly imagine what that must be like."

The crass, sarcastic response likely came across as unbelievably ruthless to Theo, who had no idea Draco had been fighting for years under the same gloomy threat.

Theodore shot to a full stance and towered heatedly over the row of snickering boys on either side of Draco, smacking the half-finished cigarette clean out of his hand across the lounge space, "How erroneous I was to assume that we may share any lingering friendship, that the only positive in being ordered here was that my case would be handled and dictated by an old mate."

Draco raised his arms and crossed his palms behind his platinum hair, falling into the couch with a heavy sigh, "Apologies if I ever gave you the impression that I wished to mate with you. Unless you've got some monumental secret hidden in your pants, I can't help but get the sense it would be a...fruitless...endeavor."

A flicker of genuine hurt presented on Theodore's features when a zoo of mean howling and teasing broke lose, and Draco did nothing but stare at him with blank, hooded eyes.

He brought up a hand to cover his mouth and turned away towards the sea, his shoulders bouncing in obvious yet foolishly tardy realization that Draco's interest in companionship had long ago liquidated. He gripped the stone parapet wall and hung his long waves of chocolate hair down, heaving in hushed breaths of denial and panic.

Draco knew full well that his cancerous persecution that evening was especially highlighted by many contributing factors, but one in particular was a consistent nag buzzing in his ear.

Being ambushed by Theodore Nott's unexpected presence was rapidly unraveling his hard work to block out a certain association, one in which he'd planned on spending three months not suffering to suppress.

For years Draco had avoided Theo and vice versa, out of respect for an unspoken understanding that it was the only way to maintain minimal peace.

Now they would be forced to interact every damn day for months, and with Theodore's accented voice and imploring eyes being directed straight at him for the first time in a long time, all Draco could bitterly see was her boyfriend.

He was her boyfriend; each square inch of his lightly tanned skin, the depth to his beryl eyes and every follicle of his chestnut hair meant something important to her.

Draco's initial coping instinct to being thrusted into an unavoidable summer house with a walking and talking reminder of the boy she loved - instead of him - was to maim with severe insensitivity.

Don't think about her, don't think about her...

Like a roiling, whistling kettle bouncing on a flaming stovetop, his amygdala was about to blow the lid off all of the meticulously buried emotional file folders initialed A.B. The air space in his cognitive control room had better brace for a memory tornado, scheduled for touchdown not ten minutes after her boyfriend's untimely arrival.

Draco cleared his throat and yanked on his collar to loosen his tie, then made to grab his rum and swig from the bottle profanely, his left knee dancing up and down in quivering hyperactivity.

He'd far surpassed the sophisticated need for a crystal glass.

Over by the balustrade Theodore found his strength somewhere deep in the bowls of his worsening depression.

Ramming the evil, binding contract into his mauve jacket liner he faced Draco again, but an unmistakable sting continued to prevail in his cavernous gaze, "Very well Malfoy, let's get this over with in concise justification."

Marcus Flint popped out of the shadows after having just defiled an unfortunate potted cedar with his concentrated piss, clapping a hand brutally hard onto Theodore's frail shoulder.

He shook the boy nearly clean off of his feet, slimy black teeth baring in the lantern light, "Check it out boys, we've got a born and bred Italiano in the villa. Say Nott, how willing are you to translate for us to the local dishes?"

"He's too much of a fucking prude," Adrian Pucey ran his eyes up and down Theodore's clean-pressed clothing and innocent, sickened expression.

Shoving Marcus off of him Theodore squirmed to straighten his suit in disgust, as if a giant flobberworm had just exploded all over his jacket.

He stood there panting through his nose defensively as they all laughed at him, probably coming to the ripe conclusion that he was a lone, graceful wolf tossed into a hostile baboon compound, "Regardless of it's proximity, we are not in Italy. Do none of you idiots fathom that we are bordered on all three sides by France? And were I to translate a single notion from one of your putrid throats, such earnest communiqué would only worsen your results. You are all vile pigs."

A new game of aggressive snorting and oinking took hold.

Draco just about held up his hand to silence the ballooning chaos before Greggory Goyle, stoned and red-eyed next to him, let slip a loud burp. He pointed an empty wine bottle at Theo which he'd been sucking on for ten minutes as if it were miraculously going to regenerate it's contents, "Wonder what precious Bellarose will think of your extended holiday plans. Freakishly jealous, int she?"

Without meaning to, midway through a huge gulp Draco inhaled his rum.

There it was, her name, out loud and in the open.

Even the subsequent scorch in his lungs as he hacked obnoxiously stood no chance of reversing the detonation of reversing occlumency blasting through his brain. 

As his ears wrung and his eyes watered, images of her opulent smile and the sounds of her fairy giggles attacked his mental sanctuary relentlessly. The taste of her neck on the deck at his fifteenth birthday, a sweet smell of flowers as she passed by in the hall, watching her play with the air at her desk in DADA ,where a little pink bear sat that only she could see.    

While Draco had tried to pass off his obvious interest in Audette as nothing but a raunchy playboy desire to inappropriately sleep with her, many of the boys were not fooled, especially those closest to him.

With this in mind he sat up and swept his silky white hair out of his eyes, forcing himself to swallow through the remaining itchy urges to cough.

To further prove he couldn't care less he unthinkably swigged more rum and in a show of severe strength held it down, but his stomach was twisting as if whirlpool jets had been installed along the inner lining.

He raised his watery eyes to Theodore who was shaking his head, his vision now analyzing the porcelain tile patterning below his shoe, "Bellarose and I...are no longer associated. I refuse to drag her into this world with me. I will not bring her a millimeter closer to this satanism than necessary, nor will I deny her whatever remaining days she has to live in oblivious distrait."

At lightning speed Blaise's knowing eyes ran smack dab into Draco's, who blinked away at the messy table filled with containers, cigars, and all manner of illegal substances. Lost among the minefield of debris there, he could no longer contain his soaring heart rate and exhilaration.

The girl of his dreams was single.

Oh fuck, Audette was actually single for the taking. It couldn't be real.

Underneath his sweaty black dress shirt his rib cage jerked hysterically, working at maximum capacity to accommodate labored breathing and a dizzy, reeling mind. Wave after wave of nervous chills spread through his nerves in spirited electrical delight, producing a cool sensation of buoyancy that stood his blond arm hair straight on end and left his hands trembling.

Drunk on the magnetism that she would forever hold over him, he fell deep into a pit of idiotic hope, his eyes swirling blindly on the spot.

More than ever he couldn't wait to close out the summer, wondering how he was supposed to compute such anticipation for three months with any hint of patience.

A thought struck him that quickly popped the inflating dream, what if she was snatched up just a quickly as she'd become available?

Complex girls like Audette, with strange personalities, shocking beauty and huge hearts, never stayed single.

Girls like Audette made the cut for Draco's sky high pedigree, meaning she made the cut for literally everyone's pedigree.

She would be locked up in the Bellarose Castle during her time away from Hogwarts, this he was certain of, however imprisonment would serve no barrier to deflect hounding men.

Debutante balls would be thrown at both hers and various other residences within the court, in which Montgomery would no doubt introduce her to all manner of eager lords and suitors drooling over her multifaceted values.

It would be a dog fight for the only bone in the ring.

"You at least bag her first?" Goyle drawled listlessly, his pudgy head nearly disappearing into the slit in the couch he was pressing back into, his eyes beginning to separate in different directions like a lazy toad.

Draco darted his gaze from Goyle to Theo, blue eyes bulging in unremitting absorption for the answer.

Theodore pressed his eyebrows together in a judgmental frown in witness of the disturbing abuse of drugs on the couch before glancing back at his shoes. Even a Dodo bird would be able discern from his unheard of, withheld defense of her honor that it was true.

"Ohhh you did. Woowee!" Adrian whooped and stuck out his tongue obnoxiously, bouncing in his rickety beach chair which was creaking in such a warning way that surely any second he would be toes up to the sky when it finally gave to, "Tell us - just how many hours did it take you get her undressed, Nott?"

"No, no, how many days!" someone else cackled.

Boyish laughter, banging of objects, more commentary fading into the atmosphere...

Fuck.

A nasty streak of jealousy zapped up the center of Draco's heart like a lightning bolt to a tree, producing a black fissure of renewed resentment.

His fist clenched together on his leg into a tight ball of white knuckles and stretched skin, burning holes into the side of Theo's pretty face with his laser blue orbs. 

The mere thought of them being intimate had poked and prodded at him for years, and a complete lack of hints or confirmation only enflamed the degree of torture all the while.

He'd spent far too much time evaluating how they sat together, the touchiness of their hugs, enviously watching her press up on her tiny ballet slippers to kiss his cheeks in small dollish pecks which left scintillating sparkles on Theo's skin.

Starving for any whisper of the same experience, Draco went as far as paying Pansy Parkinson generously to snap photographs of her, of which he would longingly stare at for hours in his comforter at night - amongst other, unmentionable acts - wondering what set Theodore ahead of him in sexual desire.

Draco made up his mind then and there on that rooftop that it was time to find out if his desire was reciprocated, given the largest obstacle had idiotically removed itself from the equation.

"Don't speak to me about her again, is that clear?" Theodore snapped at the lot of their sniveling grins, his face flinching as he struggled to contain his emotions below the surface of his skin. He drove his fingers through thick waves of dark brown hair and squinted out over the water's calming surface avoidantly.

"Nott," Draco spoke with dark authority after having been atypically absent from the communal conversation for several minutes.

He rose from the couch with his head hung back slyly, stepping out from the seating area while rolling up his disheveled sleeves, "Seeing as you're an interminable know-it-all, you'll have read the entire contract top to bottom. Everyone here pays a price in order to campaign for a dark mark, a price set by the Guild Master."

"And let me guess, that would be you," Theodore stormed at Draco and shoved him roughly, "Do your worst, Malfoy. There's nothing left for me to lose."

Oh...but there was plenty.

Theodore pointed his fingernail at Draco's bright silver eye, as if in preparation to scratch his cornea beyond reconstruction, "Mark my words: I will complete this unforgivable course, and I will mend that fucking cabinet because my family depends on it. Nothing will stand in my way."

"Brilliant," Draco tisked superficially under his tongue, frowning sarcastically down at his wand held tip to tip in both of his hands. The boys on the rooftop went on to amusedly shout out abstractions of what price Nott aught to pay for his admission.

"The only problem with a homeless beggar is no amount of starvation will matter to them. Impossible to further torture someone already living in hell," Draco held the magical weapon skywards in a vertical line, pretending to tilt his head and scan his eyes down the unblemished obsidian wood, all the while Theodore's rude puffing breath blowing his platinum locks back, "You understand where I am going with this - my job here is to set a sacrifice of legendary magnitude, to ensure you are fully invested with the guild."

Trapped in an obvious corner and evidently speechless, Theodore Nott met Draco's eyes in attentive consternation.

Employing a psychological trick he'd picked up from Lucius ages ago, Draco smiled when there was no justification for happiness.

It was thus a cruel, hollow smile, dripping with juxtaposition and discomfort - the type that a psychopath shows to it's victim's right before skinning them, "Ah, I know - lets make sure you stay good and focused. Fixing that cabinet will invoice a substantial amount of time and energy. We wouldn't want you deviating from your delegations due to romantic qualms."

"Malfoy..." Theodore warned in a reedy hiss as Draco stepped away to pace back and forth down the narrow passageway allotted by crammed in furniture, all of the boys watching in chemical curiosity.

He stopped spinning his wand between his fingers and held his arms behind his back swiftly, "Here's my assessment of your greatest weakness. You may think yourself capable of relinquishing Bellarose now, and - I think we can all agree how valiant and noble that makes you, can't we?" Draco sarcastically snorted over his shoulder at the devils speculating, greeted by jeers and slow nods.

The killer grin on his face flattened conspicuously when he turned his attention back to Theodore, "Alas, inevitably, the moment you set eyes on her again in the fall you'll crumble like a dried up fig leaf, and go on to ruin not only her life as you've outlined, but your family's."

"She has absolutely nothing to do with my life anymore, the relationship is forevermore terminated," Theodore frowned helplessly, pleadingly even that his sacrifice would revolve around anything but his priceless Audette.

For a second Draco reconsidered his course of action at the unblinking anguish in his old friend's eyes, before an image of Theodore ravishing the only girl he'd ever loved hardened his heart again, "Precisely. Go on then, leave her out of your life Nott, just as you've already aspired to do. Plain as rain."

"The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain," Montgomery chirped in the background, mimicking an elderly woman's voice as he recited the nursery rhyme mockingly. 

Unconvinced that there was no deception at play, Theodore panted and stuffed his hand into his pocket to reach for his wand but Draco beat him to it.

In one razor sharp motion he twisted sideways and disarmed Theo, the boy's wand clocking off of the parapet to roll away underneath a prefabricated metal planter.

"What are you playing at, Malfoy?" Theodore manically searched Draco's expression for clues which he would sadly never discover.

Draco drifted close to Theodore so that they were chest to chest, whispering faintly in his ear with his eyes cast to Theo's white linen pocket square, "You comprehend that I have a reputation to uphold here, I cannot pick favorites. It's important that the rest of these dogs see you as equal to them."

Dark blue and light blue collided sideways as Theo bristled wearily and glared crookedly at Draco.

"Think of it this way..." Draco spoke in a soothing voice that was intended to thwart suspicion, their eyes inches apart as he whispered manipulatively in a milky hush, "This choice of sacrifice is my way of showing you...pity...given our personal history. I'm not asking you to abdicate any additional resources."

He leaned back at an angle and allowed Theodore's eyes to cloud in thought, evidently overwhelmed by his narrow options. 

Draco held out a firm hand, propping up his eyebrows up encouragingly, patiently.

Theodore fell for the ruse and reluctantly intertwined their forearms and fingers, his droopy cobalt gaze shifting between Draco's uncanny, beguiling smirk and outstretched hand. 

He needed a friend more than ever, and even the wisest of wizards make mistakes when desperation and emotions overrun logic. 

Closing his eyes for a second in triumph, Draco formulated the precise sentencing which would go on to change their lives forever, "Theodore Nott, do you swear not only to sustain your relationship separation from Audette Bellarose until the complete repair of the vanishing cabinet, but also to uphold a convincing narrative that you wish for your freedom from her, while allowing others to openly seek her hand, until such a time that the cabinet is in working order?"

Theodore's mouth opened slightly, his forehead crinkling as he considered the three unexpected pillars of the unbreakable vow, "It's not entirely clear to me the necessity of my convincing her I am appalled by her affection, nor why I should fail to defend her from appetent parties with programs of nefarious nature."

He grimaced around the rooftop at the rakish Slytherin boys, many of them conversing in graphic manners about Audette and her forbidden purity being back on the market.

"I'm simply accounting for all of the elements at play, Nott," Draco didn't falter in his charming assurance, breathing through the contradictory desire to dig his nails painfully into Theodore's arm, "Bellarose is predictable. She won't back down that easily - do you really think it wise to have her trailing after you at all hours of the day, filled with agonizing hope and confusion?  Convince her to spend those months in solitude. I'm quite certain it would be more peaceful for you both, seeing as she can take care of herself with stubborn pride and will no doubt reject any other offers." 

"She cannot take care of herself; she is impressionable and has been sheltered for too long. In her scorn for my abdication she may seek consolation, and find herself abused by multiple...multiple men...She will never recover," Theodore's chest heaved in clear horror of the notion he would have no choice but to silently watch her be torn to emotional shreds proceeding meaningless flings, his eyes glazing with hot water.

"Fine," Draco snarled curtly, thinking quickly on the spot to disentangle the snag. 

It was critical he uphold Theodore's momentary persuasion of their friendship. Better to keep one's enemies close, where they could be monitored and managed like a puppet by invisible wires.

Agreeing to more rules was fine as long as Draco could later use that structure to better control his enemy, "I'll throw in a counter condition to calm your nerves, so that you may rest assured there is a limit to the possible damage which may occur." 

"Doubt it will happen, but should someone manage to sleep with her but once, you'll be relieved of this unbreakable vow instantly, all three stipulations," he raised his face to gauge Theodore's reaction from a bent angle.

No one would sleep with her on Draco's Patek Philipp watch, because he planned to gatekeep the fuck out of Audette Bellarose the instant they all returned to school, in whatever threatening manner was required.

He could certainly work around not blowing his chance right away for one night of sheer bliss, in fact having to restrain himself would likely garner more respect and trust from her - albeit it would come with physical throes of unparalleled pith. 

For years he'd passionately pleasured himself to the imagination of her naked body, wondering with suspenseful lust exactly what she looked like underneath all of those thick Edwardian layers.

Theodore nodded slowly, a soft pout on his lips which indicated he was in forlorn concordance with the reasonable terms set before him, which in hindsight, aught to have been a waving red flag, "Then I do condone to it, all of it. I swear." 

The wolf had caught it's paw in a bear trap, and now, there was no going back.

From the tip of Draco's raven wand which was pressed menacingly hard into Theo's forearm, classic golden wires with elegant matching beads glissaded in serpentine twists around their conjoined arms, then faded to nothing.

Poof.

A faint click in both of their hearts - indescribable by biological terminology yet undeniably there - confirmed that the unbreakable vow had been instated with most deadly consequences if broken.

"Let's drink then, congratulations, you're in," Draco snidely bit his lip, turning from Theodore to mask his victorious satisfaction. 

"Malfoy," Theodore prodded in a weak tone, and Draco turned to see that the traumatized boy was darting his gaze between the other distracted members and the Guild Master with intent to obscure the conversation further, "Thank you, Malfoy, for your kindness and consideration. I realize you had no incentive to help me here, after, you know..."

Guilt. 

However minor, the long forgotten sensation flashed across Draco's system like a punishing bolt from a cow fence to the idiot who'd grabbed on.

He pressed his lips together and shrugged.

It was a hot second before he could respond, ruffling his long platinum hair with his fingers, eyes cast at the crumbling foundations of the carved stone balustrade, "Don't mention it. We'll tell the others you sacrificed something else, we'll tell them this business with Bellarose is...a stupid bet for entertainment." 

We'll tell the others that so I can make this into an accepted social experiment and slide it under the radar.

"I appreciate that, grazie," Theodore smiled sadly, relief cascading down his face. 

"Prego," Draco blew out a chest full of tense air and abruptly ended the brutally false exchange, unable to stand looking the obviously grateful boy in the eye any longer. The whole ordeal was verifiably conflicting and regrettable. 

Even if he did succeed in stealing Audette's heart and hand, Draco would forever be burdened with the unforgivable betrayal he had just committed, and it would be a planetary burden as weighty as the globe itself.

In a perfect world it would've been any other boy than Theodore Nott, his once best friend and favorite adventure buddy, that he'd have to throw under the bus to get at Audette. On the other hand, he had to remind himself that Theodore had been carrying the exact same burden around for five years already and with no mention of an apology.

Late that night in his tiny private suite Draco laid awake, eyes lingering on the splintering cement slab ceiling above. 

He hated that ceiling; each crack and flake mapped out in his mind from hundreds of nights of troubled insomnia at that villa.

In the damp humidity of the room which held no glass in the window aperture, the ill-applied paint often peeled off in exfoliating slivers to carpet his bare chest in plumbic debris that most certainly defied dwelling safety codes. 

It was hot and sticky in Monaco twenty-four seven, regrettably without air conditioning to mitigate the agitation of sweating in already thin sheets. In contrast, Draco was quite accustomed to icy living conditions between the Malfoy Manor and the subterranean Slytherin dormitories.

However it must be said that his physical discomfort, typically expressed in the form of sweeping the back of his lanky hand across his forehead over and over in a boundless loop of futile effort, was not the reason for his insomnia that first night.

His mind could not stop luring itself across the planet, where on a separate continent, Audette Bellarose was sound asleep in her princess tower, no doubt heartbroken and soggy with tears. 

He imagined her long pale nightgown running like a river down her silky legs to her little slippers, her eyelashes batting as dreams provided a much-needed escape from her haunted mind. 

A type of vivid escape he was no stranger to.

Knowing her, she would be fraught with fleeting worries regarding where Theodore had disappeared to and with whom, and why, why she had been left without explanation.

It was these qualities of all encompassing love and dedication that she embodied which he craved she target at himself, and once he had it, he would never surrender her valuable affectation. 

Audette's style of attachment was confoundingly parasitic and devotional, and while some found this to be intense and freaky, Draco yearned for a girl of such privatized, chasmic care to bring unwavering warmth and support to his hellish life.

The same train of thought kept repeating like a choo choo on a loop track at the local fair; she was single. She was single. She was single.

And there was nothing Theodore Nott could say or do to stop him coveting her.

He had but one shot at catching her gorgeous green eye, in no more than four months at that, and it would need to be a truly meaningful result. 

His scheming brain refused repose from it's awakened state for the first time in years, firing madly like a steam punk engine come to life with cranking levers and rotating cogs, vapors surely hissing from his nose and ears. 

The initial approach had best be believably gradual and flirtatious, even resistant to commitment, and slightly hectoring - of course, so she was not alerted by immediate alterations to his behavior. 

And then through meticulous psychological manipulation, and by using those around her, he would convince her stubbornly independent mind that coming to him was an idea entirely of her own. 

Bets perhaps would become the currency at his disposal that year. A secondary bet could be thrown into the ring, a bet that would arrive in her hands by none other than her most trusted ally; Guy Jaziel Cosmos.