"Hmm, watch those travelling paws mister," Audette hummed in teasing scold, swaying gently in Draco's arms.

Their hands were still entwined on one side, yet Draco's free palm on Audette's hip seemed to have grown a rogue mind of it's own, trailing after her bum mercilessly in the skin tight gown.

Finally, after an hour of what felt like terrifying, high speed waltzing, and then a very loud and obnoxious series of bands comprised of all manner of magical beings - ranging from everyday human witches, to Japanese Oni demons, and even a rowdy set of Tengu goblins - finally, after all of this chaos the favorable slow songs had crept up as people calmed down at the tables, drank and dined.

Audette was shocked that Draco had not argued with her request to overlook dinner and instead partake in the more sensual lullabies played by a lovely visiting Veela with a gigantic silver harp.

She had her nose buried right underneath his sharp jawline, eyes shut inhaling the dreaminess of his cologne, and a dopey smile monopolizing her features as he kissed her forehead repeatedly.

Presumably, his willingness to slow dance was due to two factors; Theodore Nott and his unfriendly glare hovering around at their dining table, and the aftermath of the Elation Elixir.

Both of them were now entering into a deliciously blissful ecstasy in their comedown, which felt not only unbelievably romantic and gooey...but also edgy with pheromonal lust.

The latter seeming to be winning the battle in his system.

Draco had been dropping his fingers lower and lower for a good five minutes, and Audette had to keep reminding him of the important witches and wizards in attendance on the sidelines, not to mention the endless cameras flashing over their every move.

His arm was like a delinquent yo-yo; Audette would readjust it with a stiff huff and in seconds it would be creeping to the lull of gravity again.

Being caught with his hand grabbing her entire ass cheek would likely not bode well with Montgomery.

Ignoring her for the hundredth time he playfully pinched her backside, his fingers tangling in her delicate dress dripping with diamonds, swirling the fabric into a tight knot over her left buttock.

He spoke in a buttery voice with his lips on her forehead, growling and gradually retracting his hand to pet her head instead, "You're irresistible, it's pure animal instinct. Even the scent of your perfume drives me wild."

Yes, pure animal instinct that he kept pointlessly feeding into, resulting in an outline of a bulge flaring up against her thigh over and over.

Continuing to sweetly shuffle they said nothing for several minutes, Audette basking in having her long hair scratched and swept downwards by his nails.

During the opening champion's waltz he'd taken full control of the situation, miraculously ensuring that she did not falter once.

When the first keys of an amplified organ began pressing inwards, governed by an intangible force that was not evidently rooted in corporeality, Audette had shot from anxious to panicked.

"Look into my eyes, Audette, nowhere else," Draco had instructed coolly, his left hand taking up her right, right hand sliding down her slender waist to draw her body against his in a rapid whoosh.

The pair in all gold and ivory had been centralized in the Great Hall, which was effectively coated in all manner of obscene Christmas décor.

It was almost as if a semi-automatic decoration canon had been set off by a deranged elf, who'd left the North Pole with serious intention to absolutely annihilate any insinuation of the prior interior façade.

Tall pines from the bordering lands had been hacked down and established at all axis', adorned beyond perceivability with glitz and fandangle.

The ceiling had been enchanted to produce a delightfully dull blue tone, artificial clouds hovering and swirling which mirrored the sensation of dusk in December across a stark wintry plain, dropping icy kisses of snowflakes onto their skin.

Per instruction Audette had concentrated on Draco's allotropic blue orbs, and as they moved, slowly but surely, stress dissipated as if it were but a fleeting bout of madness before the main dance began.

It was actually...sort of lovely.

The way he looked at Audette was incredibly mesmerizing and heart throbbing, his eyelids wavering as he fixated on her.

Right foot, step, step, twirl...

Golden locks streaming like a river through the air, she had came back to him in perfect practice, hands locking in place to continue the waltz.

It was too perfect.

Somehow, although no motion drew his lips apart, his masculine voice rang throughout her mind, blocking out cranial space allotted to worrying about flashing cameras and the compact crowd of sideline spectators.

Audette could not quite explain how he had done it, but every second that she adoringly hasped her vision to his he had taken over full autonomy of her body as if they were one being.

He moved, she moved.

Step, step, backwards, twirl, forwards, prepare for a lift...

She discovered with glee that the lifts were akin to flying, his strong hands on her ribs popping her high into the air.

Audette felt like a balletic marionette doll in the arms of the Slytherin prince, entranced and hypnotized, somehow not crashing into all of the beautiful spinning couples around them.

Until a slightly awkward thing had occurred.

Due to whatever Legilimency channel he'd opened up between their brains to assist Audette's shivering nerves, his runaway thoughts leaked like a broken pipeline into the ocean of her mind.

Their fifth senses had been suddenly overwhelmed by a bombardment of one another's intimidate consciousness, quarreling at odds to amalgamate where two minds aught to be kept separate.

Fuck, her breasts are interstellar.

Unsure if she aught to be offended or flattered, Audette had been shocked for a second when she grew ripe to his unfiltered metaphysical voice trickling into her prefrontal cortex, her eyes widening up at his.

His silvery gaze had continued to bore into hers as he glided her across the floor, and soon her mind became muddled by a reverberating, fractured minefield of Draco Malfoy's personal thought processes;

This dress is ultra fit.

...want to bite her fucking neck...

...eat her alive...

...hope she says yes, maybe she'll let me try bending that mint little fanny over my writing desk.

Excuse me? she thought in agape return.

Her jaw dropped as a tiny puff of amused air escaped her throat, astounded by how much of a pervert his internal monologue was.

Upon seeing her expression he apparently became aware of his slippery mind control, shutting his eyes for a second in cringe before rolling his neck and returning.

Back to concentrating on only dance moves...

Step lightly this way, now back again...

Ensure she doesn't trip, she's got that look of clumsiness in her eyes.

Focus, focus...

Lucky for him the unregistered Legilimency went unnoted as invasive to Audette, who had probably only survived the intricate dance because of his interference with her deficient focus.

There was also something to be said about his corrupted focus, leaving her chewing on her gloves for the night and her imagination running wild.

Guiltily, she wanted to hear more about that writing desk.

After the waltzing fatigued, no immediate relief from the limelight was allotted.

For a good fifteen minutes the champions were rounded up with their dates underneath a white and purple balloon arch, posing for photos to be included in the papers - balloons that horrifyingly seemed to be filled with astral energy instead of classic helium.

On multiple occasions, each couple was startled out of their shoes when the face of a ghostly apparition pressed outwards from within one of the plastic dirigibles.

Naturally Audette had candidly ruined a good six photos in a row with her champion, when the inevitable stretching noise squeaked out from the arch and sent her spiraling into giggling fits in the side of his arm.

"Why I was in such dread of tonight has completely evaded me, and now I hardly wish for it to end," she glanced euphorically up at Draco, wrapping both arms around his narrow waist.

"Likewise," he raised his eyebrows when she popped on the tips of her high heels to peck at his cheeks, which grew warm and pink in similar regard to the tinge of Elation circumferencing his iris'. He closed his eyes with a fragile beam that indicated he quite enjoyed the affection.

Sparks flew, and with each caress he smiled more and more coquettishly before pivoting his face into hers, and suddenly it was all over.

When their lips inevitably met a second time that night they both moaned and nodded into the fluffy embrace, forgetting where they were for a second.

The lascivious press of his pointy nose against hers, coupled with the frosty taste of his tongue and his intermingling breath was like a chemical drug that aught to be highly regulated and kept locked behind glass.

Audette signed out of reality on that dance floor.

He was as toxic as swallowing bubblegum flavored toothpaste - so easy to ingest even when one knows better.

A flash of a snoopy reporter unfortunately dashed the daydream, a reporter who was not a reporter at all, but instead the school paper boy; Colin Creevey.

Somewhat grown up, Creevey was now as lanky as a spider and just about as invasive to people's sense of personal space.

While always of the best intentions, the Gryffindor gnat was infamously known to scuttle up behind in sneak attacks, show face in restricted areas, and even dare death by skirting around the base of the Quidditch pitch to catch upward shots of the whooshing players.

Due to such irksome experiences with the younger boy - who tended to bombard Draco for interviews and pictures outside of games - Draco exploded from zero to one hundred.

"Piss off, Creepy Creevey," he reached one veiny hand across to grab the camera and flung it in a staggering whorl around Colin, who took multiple reeling stomps backwards to steady himself as the camera rotated by his neck on it's strap alone.

When Audette slid down his chest onto flat ground she witnessed Draco's vision zig zag across the room in several different directions.

He then pulled her face back into his jacket sideways, as if to mask his rapid and pensive blinking, "On...that topic...there is something I have to ask you, Audette. Regarding this evening's conclusion."

Of course - she'd forgotten exactly how it was scheduled to terminate, seeing as she was so caught up swimming around in the middle of it.

Her eyes bulging out of her head, Audette listened to his dark voice vibrating through his chest, his fingers tickling her cheek, "This may sound unappealing seeing as my family is not traditionally celebratory of Christmas, however I'd like you to stay with me for the next few days...at my home, in the Malfoy Manor."

It wasn't unappealing in comparison to the familial gloom of the Bellarose Castle, yet he gave her no chance to clarify this.

...Nor was it an option to return without a ring.

His breathing picked up pace, blundering onwards as Audette's twittering eyelashes batted off his throat, "I've cleared your proposed whereabouts with Montgomery, and you have my word that you will be kept unscathed in my private wing. With that being said, if you'd rather remain at Hogwarts, I won't object."

Audette was surprised that the prearrangements for the evening were coming in the form of a question and not an instruction.

It was truly darling that Draco was determined to provide her with the comforting - yet veritably mythical - notion that she had but a crumb of personal autonomy.

She searched his glittery blue and pink gaze, a tiny smile forming on her lips, "By unscathed, do you intend not to eat me alive after all? Or was that simply a fleeting cannibalistic inclination earlier?"

He bit his lower lip flirtatiously, "I can't promise anything of the kind, you're far too appetizing in this dress. If you provoke this dragon tonight you will most certainly find yourself getting poked in return."

"Poked, you say? Don't go giving a girl the wrong idea now," Audette glanced down at his pants then raised her flattened fingers to her lips in a showy reaction, as if she couldn't believe the strong innuendo.

The gleam in both of their enduringly silent, tantric stares suggested a mutual understanding; it wasn't just Audette on the menu; it was both of them.

It was intimate, writhing, sweaty, long overdue sex at his private estate of all places.

Well game on - what were the search results for best way to provoke a dragon?

Audette chewed seductively on her tongue with her eyes cast to his golden bowtie, pulling on it lightly before shooting her gaze back up to his.

"Yes, I believe I shall accept your invitation. But...what if I wish to simply steal all of your baggiest attire and fall into a deep, burdensome slumber? What if I request my own bed, and that you take the carpet like a common dog?" she prodded in a prim voice, as if to remind him that she was some sort of defined lady who would never dare roll around in his sheets, naked and unwed.

"Whatever makes you comfortable, so long as I have your royal companionship," he let out a gust of air and slid his arm slickly around her shoulders, jamming his free hand in his pocket.

They walked off of the thinning dance floor in the direction of their table, intertwined.

Intent on antagonism, Audette dropped her head languidly into his shoulder and rolled her green eyes up to his blue ogle, "So to clarify, even if her highness is hellbent on said prudence and propriety, you would still wish to host her regardless of no physical quench?"

Draco frowned sarcastically, his eyebrows animated in his expression, "Hmm, what have I been doing for the last four months? Thankfully by the grace of nature's design I have my lucky left hand to get me by on the carpet."

"Not to mention that writing desk fantasy about my mint little fanny, hmm?" she playfully jabbed him in his rocky abs.

Draco rolled his brilliant silver eyes, pulling her tighter against him, "Yeah well...you can't go all smarmy over that - your ass is downright sublime and everyone's the wiser to it. I suppose if you're planning on acting hoity toity there is an upside; your bet with Guy Cosmos will live to see it's completion to Christmas day after all."

Audette's puppy dog smile rapidly faded, replaced by a visceral plummet of her heart into her guts.

Oh no.

He knew...

How could he possibly know?

Perhaps one of the spirits inhabiting the photography balloons wouldn't mind rolling over to swallow her whole like a miraculously timed case of The Blob.

Audette had not been caught red-handed in such a humiliating, blatant course of long-term sneaking since she was a very young girl, when she had deviously fed an astronomical amount of Skin-Walker Scones to the Skin-Walkers in the Grassland Habitat.

Four weeks later the damage was just about irreversible, as the caloric scones were intended to be tossed in scarce regard by visiting tourists to lure one out into the open, certainly not to bloat them into oblivion.

Her father had come around to provide a school tour for a cluster of Canadian magicals, only to find that the creatures were all too obese to morph into anything believable aside from blubbery, uncanny humanoid forms.

In similar fashion to that day, the mortification was entirely impossible to handle, her heart stretching like a school science experiment programmed to produce a playball of malleable slime.

"What bet? What do you mean about a bet?" with a tiny, throaty moan she darted her eyes between Draco and Guy who was seated at their dinner table, attempting to employ basic levitation spells to build a wobbly tower of shiny silver utensils.

"We'll play Jenga, only if you drop a knife...better hope it's the butter sort," he cackled maniacally and waved around his flashy, ringed fingers to encourage Noir who looked incredibly consternated by the toothy ensemble.

When Millicent reached across to endeavor extracting one of the precariously floating tools Guy slapped away her reach, "I dare say, you stay out of this round, Bulltoad - you'll make everything reek of onions again."

Upon noticing Draco was finally freed from his slow dancing enslavement, several of the boys stood and pushed away from the linen cloth, knocking over Guy's invested artwork and hollering to Draco to join them for foul cigarettes outside in the courtyard.

The bunch of rapscallions hung around several meters off, keeping themselves entertained by shoving a junior Hufflepuff in a circle and catching his trailing dress robes with their shoes.

Draco nodded his chin at them, pausing to grip Audette by the shoulder with a sly look. His icy eyes were so ferociously concentrated she instantly wished to turn inside out, "Willing to lie to me, eh? That's only cute this one time, seeing as it is relatively harmless."

She gasped at his unblinking, blank stare, playing with her long fingernails, "It was only influential for a very short duration, before...before I fell for you whole heartedly, and-"

Draco shook her shoulder firmly to shut down the blathering angst.

"-It's perfectly fine Audette, don't twist up your knickers...if you're even wearing any," he snorted boyishly, motioning to the impatient group of men calling his name repeatedly, "I'm heading outside with them - are you going to survive without losing an eyeball to Edward Scissorhands over there?"

"Are we not going to clarify this?" Audette continued to dribble in a culpable tone, defending herself regardless of his blasé attitude, "Please. The fact that I was interested in abandoning the bet within a short span of weeks speaks for itself."

"Oh does it?" Draco pressed his lips together, a strong line of sarcastic incredulity forming between his eyebrows.

She raised a bent arm to touch his icy hand on her collarbone, swallowing away fear that she would now appear disingenuous, "Yes, I realized that I cared about you very early on and that I would not allow something so superficial to govern our accord. Why else would I have thrown myself at you?"

"Well, well...This is the first time a girl of your standards has tried to convince me that administering sexual advances is equivalent to an expression of undying love," he tisked playfully.

She bounced on the spot anxiously, glancing between the raving boys down the way and her detaching beaux, "Well... thank goodness for that ridiculous bet, otherwise we might never have..."

Draco impatiently stepped back and tapped her nose from the bottom up, "Come now gorgeous, avoid offending me by insinuating I wouldn't have stood a chance otherwise. Consider it ancient history."

With a star studded wink he was gone down the crowded hall, laughing and bantering with his friends and leaving Audette with a hand to her tummy in confusion.

There was no characteristic resentment or punishment, which she found to be superbly off-putting.

Lightheaded, she sat next to Guy who had moved on to coaxing a slew of Glowstick Fairies out of a table setting jar, cajoling them to attach to his suit so that he might blow up the dance floor like a quote, 'party robot.'

Audette watched in unnatural silence as he cast enticing colours onto the fabric to draw them up, her mind in a spiraling pit of worry.

It's perfectly fine, he'd said...but it didn't feel fine.

"What's chomping on your toadstool, love?" Guy elbowed her in the ribs, smiling drunkenly at her with narrow golden eyes, "We saw you two moon-eyed dandies slow dancing and smooching - hardly cause for a strop, is it?"

Noir nodded at his side.

Audette hiccupped mindlessly, toying with a silver gilded spoon that had been left abandoned in a teacup, "He tastes like every sin in the book, only dipped in chocolate and coated in sprinkles. You cannot imagine the ecstasy I assure you."

Guy and Noir sent each other tickling exchanges, before Guy swiveled back to her, "So what's the stink about? Do you have a single clue about the league of morons who refused dates, hoping you wouldn't show and Malfoy would pick them last second?"

Audette sent them a miserable little smile, "Believe it or not, that tidbit couldn't even qualify amongst my greatest concerns. He's known all along...Draco...about our dating bet Cozzy, yet he doesn't seem to care. I recognize I ought to feel grateful and relieved, but I cannot comprehend how he's not miffed in the slightest. It's not in his nature to be so easily forgiving."

Guy made a strange face for a split second before turning away out of view to abruptly terminate the conversation, "OH, I see..."

Only two Slytherin boys had remained at their table; Blaise Zabini and regrettably, Theodore Nott - accompanied closely by Pansy Parkinson who had partnered with Blaise for the event.

She was preoccupied with rudely aiming her camera in Theodore's bleary face, snickering at his watery eyes and crippling features as Blaise did his absolute best job to get the depressed boy demonstratively sloshed.

Theo raised his illimitable eyes to Audette and Guy's conversation with foggy intrigue, his gaze red from ongoing crying, only for Blaise to notice the direction of his attention and slam a shot glass in front of him, "Oi Nott, now what did we just have a chat about?"

Out of Zabini's forest green suit sleeve a stream of forbidden liquor trickled into the alembic cup.

Guiding it away two wobbly fingers, Theodore insolently slid the miniature glass of white hot liquid across the surface of the table to smash it on the ground below, frowning deeply, "No...no more..."

His wavy brown hair was a dastardly mess that bizarrely augmented his lethal attractiveness.

Curls hung in front of his ocean blue eyes, his black bow tie was long missing, and three top buttons were undone on his dress shirt to reveal slender collarbones on either side. He might've passed for a runaway groom who'd experienced cold feet and jaunted off to escape into a boozy catastrophe.

Blaise lingered reprehensively on Audette as if she had no right to be sitting directly in front of the distressed boy, before pushing a new shot to the lip of the table adjacent Theodore's chest, "Don't be pathetic, mate. Let's find your date - get you some fine Parisian action tonight."

Audette forced herself to stare into her lap and ignore the uncontrollable jab into her heart upon accidentally overhearing.

She obviously did not pull off a satisfactory job masking her reaction, as Theodore growled contemptuously across the way.

"How dare you...you utter something so il-illusory in the company of Bellarose," he shoved the second generous provision of spirit to a similar death on the carved stone floor.

Audette covered her mouth with her mitt, considering leaving for the parky smokers circle rather than throw either of them off any worse.

"He's going to flip flat on his arse, Zabini!" Pansy tittered in hilarity when Theo stood from his chair and barely managed to avoid slipping and falling on the carpet of wet tiles and splintered glass he himself had recently procured, "You've turned our goodie-two-shoes into a walking alehouse!"

To regain his balance Theodore impulsively yanked on the pale mauve linen cloth, effectively dragging all of the food and adornments into a triangular twist at one end, as if to deliver everyone's leftover dinners straight to Blaise.

Guy whined when the jar of Glowstick Fairies was ripped far out of his sticky reach, "What's this rubbish? Nott, you fecking butterfingers, I was having at those fairiessss."

Thankfully his pristine date, Phillipe Noir, reached over and replaced the jar's position in front of him, blinking at Guy in concern, "'e eez your ami es 'e not? Not accustom to moonshine?"

Moonshine? Try any intoxicant.

Theodore Nott was a terrible drinker, very rarely devouring such liquid poisons let alone in high volumes. What Noir could not possibly discern from appearances alone was how and why Nott was so grief-stricken and on a dangerous path of destruction.

Only two people at that table knew about the formidable cabinet project.

"Accustomed to Moonshine?" Guy barked in hysteria, "He's a bloody well statue, I'll have you know. I'd wager my entire vault at Gringotts that this tornado is all on account of Audette showing up like a celestial being."

In a meager effort to stop him from procuring additional mayhem, Blaise reached up to coil his hand in Theodore's obsidian suit.

Theo miraculously managed to remove his wand and form a sentence clear enough to cast a zapping spell for his freedom, then careened his way to the empty seat next to Audette.

Oh please no, please god no.

Her prayers to no one in particular went unanswered.

Audette held out a hand to steady his arm as he fell chaotically into the chair next to her. He then brought up both of his elbows to ram his palms into his eye sockets.

From the way he proceeded to wheeze he was probably nauseated from the journey beyond the benefit of hydration.

After risking petting his back for a few strokes she gradually withdrew her fingers in a jagged and hesitant manner, wishing she could comfort him further but baring the knowledge that it would be a disaster if she did.

Apparently a plastered Theodore had a different idea in mind. Upon turning her attention back to Guy, Audette was brutally collided into when his head of chocolate, swirly hair appeared on her shoulder.

"Now really, you mustn't Theo," she hissed, pushing him upright once more.

He hung his head backwards and crushed his eyelids shut, groaning loudly.

Pansy raised her obnoxious camera to capture more of the suffering, but Blaise lowered it with a heavy tug on the strap and a stern shake of his head.

Theo's cataclysmic hand found Audette's bare thigh underneath the table, loose and warm in his mysterious black mitts. He straightened his head, sending rainy, tipsy eye contact straight into hers, "Little...rose...I should've-I should've...never let you go...I've failed you, haven't I?"

She took a deep breath in. She could do this.

"Theodore, please, there are no hard feelings between us, as proclaimed earlier," Audette peeled off his sweaty grip, glancing anxiously over her shoulder for the return of her murderous boyfriend.

Zabini's brooding voice slithered over the table in a lazy drawl, amber eyes monitorial in the dull lighting, "Nott, Malfoy will remove your entire spinal cord if he catches you harassing Bellarose."

Audette nodded nimbly, her heart trembling as they faced off in such a tight proximity. She dared to raise her hand to pat his face, "Listen to your friend, Teddy. Go back."

Theodore's chin trembled as he ran his fragmentary gaze up and down her slowly, hovering first on her tiara, then over her shocking golden dress, losing a battle with puddles of tears which had been pooling in his lower lashes.

They dripped like crystal beads down his cheeks, running past his vividly pink nose.

He began stuttering in a Moonshine-induced stammer, "When I saw you tonight, my...it was impossible to breathe, I-I-I was certain an arrow had pierced my lungs and prod-produced a pneumothoracic puncture. Even now, your beauty is deafening and b-blinding; I am left purportless."

Audette chewed on her lip and pushed him lightly, "Ohhh. You silly boy - even as a sodding drunk you put my vocabulary to shame. In time, this ache will not be so agonizing, you can take that from me."

He pressed one set of lanky fingers to his temple, tears spilling relentlessly from his shut eyes, "No, no don't remind me of you-your forgotten grief...that I am but a mere catalogued memory to you now."

Aware that she was under the scrutiny of multiple pairs of onlooking eyes, Audette bravely inhaled, whispering discretely, "It's not entirely forgotten, and...while it does not serve my comfort nor recovery, you will never be shelved. That is unimaginable. You will always be an open wound - an Impossible Wound, if there could be any comparison."

"Thank you, Audette, you have already released me from so much inventive dolor by stating as much," he sniffled in place, oblivious to the fact that he'd effectively slaughtered the previous hooligan mood at the table.

Audette carefully slunk away from him to provide space for his drunk and private mourning.

Like a collapsing black hole, he was effectively swallowing everyone's perturbed attention against their will.

While they were not well-known for sympathy, each of the softer-mannered Slytherins seated there watched with glum eyes as the poor soul amongst them fought for sunlight where it seemed only darkness was flourishing in his life.

Seconds of silence ticked.

Eyes met, and shifted apart.

What to do. What to do?

They weren't exactly the most comforting bunch; tenderness being a foreign concept for the most part.

Then the jagged quietude shattered.

"You tell me about-about this fucking dating bet," in a snap shift Theo switched his focus and ripped his blurry vision around Audette, pointing a wobbly finger in between Guy's golden eyeballs which began to then spin through colours like a game wheel at a festival.

"Oh...don't you just wish," Guy pushed through whatever internal panic he was experiencing with sassy objection, "Had you been more of a gentleman to me in the past-"

"-I heard you, I heard...I'm not going anywhere until you tell me the details," Theodore wrapped his arm aggressively around the back of Audette's chair and leaned far over her to get to Guy, heaving his nasty moonshine breathe all around her face.

She grimaced and gripped the base of the seat, feeling trapped and horrified.

"Just explain it to him already before Malfoy returns. I don't bloody well care who knows anymore," she widened her eyes imploringly at Guy, who was increasingly growing paler by the second, his face crestfallen without explanation.

"Well see here, it's a private affair," Guy deviated his guilty rainbow gaze between the two of them, then around the rest of the table who were watching with increasing interest.

He took off his top hat and placed it next to his cleared plate.

All covered in roaming Glowstick Fairies it was just as much a colour explosion as his alternating orbs. He shook a hand through his damp hair, "Well I haven't the foggiest why you'd want to cause yourself more trauma, Nott, you're practically a human waterfall."

Theodore directed his intricate, knobby wand at Guy, which was a very shameful thing to do when as inebriated as he was, seeing as a serious accident might occur.

It was wand baring 101: Never cast whilst under the influence, unless in a life or death situation.

Audette leaned as far back as was possible when Theodore began to grind his jaw inches from her face, his nose shriveling with telling distaste for Guy, "Speak."

Guy glanced over his shoulder at the long table of joyous and oblivious Professors, none of which were going to come to his aide.

Then he slumped forwards into his chair with a frown of defeat, his flashing eyes crisscrossing on the weapon inches from his nose, "Brilliant, just don't melt me down into soup like the Wicked Witch of the West. Pointing that thing at me in your state, aught to be ashamed of yourself, you topsy-turvy bastard."

He let out a gruff exhale, meeting Pansy's invested glare, who seemed to be uttering something silent on her lips in microscopic gestures.

The look on Guy's face was most certainly one of confusion as he tried to unsurreptitiously decipher the message.

After several seconds of mouthing back he jeered at Theodore, "If your nutty arse must know, we thought it might be a hoot to bet Audette she couldn't lock down Playboy Malfoy, then we'd have her waste his time convincing him he'll get lucky when she's not supposed to be bagging him at least until Christmas. It was meant to be sporting."

He crossed his arms with a classic Guy huff, but a trickle of sweat meandered down the side of his face nonetheless.

Theodore promptly halted his grinding, his glassy eyes stunned in place. It was as if he'd just transformed into a gigantic, inanimate model of himself.

Audette could see that his normally lightning speed thought process was struggling substantially to compute what he was hearing.

Why the embarrassing bet was of such immense interest was confounding, and her skin was avidly crawling where his arm was inappropriately strapped around her shoulders.

Suddenly he laughed in a high pitch - his voice releasing in such an unnatural tone it sent waves of terror across Audette's bare skin, his dark eyes glimmering with a psychotic sparkle, "It wasn't your-your idea at all, was it, you vile little ragamuffin?"

"Of course it was," Guy piped resistantly, however his tenacity had wilted. His voice now as frail as frost, and his eyes were such a dizzying sight that there was no sensibility in meeting them head on.

Pansy swung her bob across her face and hid behind her hand, massaging her forehead as if a monstrous headache had just bloomed in her prefrontal cortex.

Theodore leaned back with his mouth open as if he'd just discovered the cure to cancer, his wand flattening onto the table under his stiff fingers.

He challenged every poor soul in the circle with brutal eye contact, finally landing on Blaise with severe intensity, "Doesn't anyone here find-find it a bit...chimerical, that ssuddenly Audette has a bet to behave in accordance with exactly the same laws of celibacy, in the exact same timeframe as the conditions set in Monaco? The parallels are...truly mystifying."

He slapped both hands on the table, sending plates and cups lurching into a poetic rhapsody of airborne clanking.

Many of the startled Glowstick Fairies scuttled back to their jar, reinstating the lid for an added safety measure with a small poof.

Audette's heart began to race, her inebriated mind failing to connect the dots between his choppy accusations and what paltry information she had already attained.

As the inhabitants of the uncomfortable table grimaced and stiffened like schoolchildren in a punishing nunnery, Theo then stood in a furiously slanted posture, holding his hands out in a 'Y' formation, "Anyone? Hmm?"

"Do something, fucking hell Zabini, he's addressing you," Pansy produced a guttural sound in her throat, jabbing her hand at the pulled grenade actively counting down before them.

Zabini reacted by drifting to a willowy stance, but his tone could not be more steely, "You're hysterical, Nott. Recall your contractual obligations to censorship."

He began to weave around discarded chairs with the grace of a gaseous element, his expression rigid as the bark of an elder tree.

"Congra-d-uuulations, Cosmos," Theodore ignored Blaise's advice, shaking his head at Guy in loathing, drunken judgment, who dropped his reeling orbital hues into his lap, "What...tell me Cozzy, what was the price of driving Audette into h-his arms willingly?"

Blaise reached Theodore and mercilessly clamped down on his upper arm, "Alright Nott. This constitutes a cut off."

Theodore hardly paused to inhale, his soggy expression contorting horrifically between Guy and Pansy, "I knew...I knew...there was a missing puzzle piece. You vultures."

"Enough," Blaise marched a weeping and ranting Theodore after him through the crowd, who walked in tow with the dexterity of the stuffed scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz.

Multiple, innocent students were painfully bulldozed as he fought to free himself from the iron grip on his suit with no avail, shooting nonplussed glares backwards at their table as he was forced away.

The exodus could not have come at a better time, seeing as on the opposite side of the torrential channel of migrating students was the rest of the returning Slytherin boys, who had apparently aggregated a profusion of groupie females.

Audette watched with heated inquisitiveness as at least three girls attempted to hold conversation with Draco, who had removed his jacket down to his stunning golden suspenders and lavender waist coat.

He was a dream with his glowing first place champion medal and quaff platinum locks running in perfect arcs across his forehead. He seemed to be handling the situation with the sort of expectations she had of him, holding an arm out to force one over-eager girl at least a meter outside of hugging radius.

For once Audette decided to trust Draco, seeing as she had bigger fish to fry; most notably one that couldn't seem to stop spiraling through the colour wheel.

"Explain yourself," she grabbed onto Guy's shoulder with intent to obnoxiously shake his brain in his skull.

His expression grew lachrymose, "I...it's nothing insidious. Honestly, you know I've never been fond of Nott, and I'm convinced Malfoy loves you more than I love my Prada panties. You know, the ones with the itty biddy hearts-"

"-less panties, more paraphrasing," Audette burned her concentrated green gaze into Cosmos' orbital madness.

Guy nodded several times as he fought to balance veracity and politics, evidently landing on loyalty as the most prominent priority.

His features softened, eyes burning out to their natural aureate tone, "Malfoy spoke with Parkinson and I when we returned in September. After you left the common room that first night he told us of how much he's always fancied you."

"I already knew," Pansy commented dryly, "He's a real creep if you haven't figured that out yet, Bellarose."

"Why didn't you mention any of this to me straight away? Why would you agree to sick some imposturous bet on me instead?" Audette frowned at her friends.

Guy shrugged, "He told us that if he approached you head on you'd blow him to smithereens. So anyways, I go, how do I know this isn't some wicked veneer, and you're not just trying to sleep with my sweet Audette? And he goes - Of course I am, she's mad lush, but it's not just that. Go ahead and bet her to date me, and throw in incentive not to shag for the whole first semester. Dirty skank swore not to lay a finger on you. Honestly I was hoping he would for your sake, you're a damn dried up dust bowl."

Audette didn't blink once as Guy paused to shake off a lingering Glowstick Fairy from his sleeve, "You unbelievable phonies! Why can't anyone in my life be upfront with me?"

Guy raised an eyebrow as Audette scrunched her nose into a carpet of a zillion wrinkles, "Well it's that sparkle in your eye right there, innit it? Look like a bloody Bond villain when you're cheesed. Can you blame the poor bloke for feeling all out of alternative options?"

Pansy rotated her black nails around in coy carelessness, "He's got a point. Remember that time you sacked Malfoy in the balls for trimming your training broomstick so you wouldn't snap your neck? Remember when you brutally slapped him for trying to fix your unraveling hair tye?"

"We were in potions, he nearly caused me to dunk my head in a Babbling Beverage!" Audette dismissed the defensive comments, to which Pansy popped her dark eyebrows and swung at the Moonshine Blaise had left behind.

"Listen," Guy held up flat palms, as if Audette were preparing to arrest him for pooping in the sandbox of a public park, "You were heartbroken and harrowing, and it don't help a crumpet that he's so ruddy handsome. He told us - Oh Merlin's stars, I'm a dead man."

He cut himself off in a whimpering frizz. His eyes, including Noir's, drifted skywards behind Audette's back in dilated consideration.

Suddenly Audette's shoulders were weighted down on either side by the aggressive grasp of Draco Malfoy himself, who leaned down to kiss her cheek, "How is my foxy princess doing?"

Suspicious, that's how she was doing.

Nasty Slytherin boys accompanied by mysterious female admirers flooded the dining area in perplexity of what had occurred to their otherwise orderly space of congregation. They yanked back chairs, complaining of the linen displacement and the mess where the shot glasses had been obliterated by Theodore.

Draco's fingers slid appreciatively down Audette's bare sternum then back up to pull her hair away from her face, his glacial perspective analyzing the wreckage, "What the fuck happened to the table while we were gone?"

Guy and Audette sat silent and unwilling to explain, and the only three others who might provide an answer, Pansy, Noir and Millicent, followed suit and mutely averted their perspectives.

"Bellarose is scorching hot tonight, Malfoy. That's a first," Cassius Warrington commented in his disgusting, grouchy tone, seated now where Blaise had once been.

His beady eyes were not alone in tearing apart Audette without any discipline, multiple older boys travelling their vision from her waist to her face like a fleet of bears on the prowl.

Draco stiffened, his fingertips hardening around the collarbone of Audette's skeleton, "She's always been fit as flames Warrington; only a blind blockhead would fail to notice."

"Yeah Warrington, you blockhead," Adrian Pucey pointed his finger across the expanse of clutter, rustling a stunning Russian female under his arm that he had somehow convinced into accompanying him.

Cassius bristled on the spot, "I've noticed, not that those plump little jugs were on display for verification until now."

A huge ruffle of amused agreement rippled throughout the masculine attendees, who apparently bore no social responsibility nor care to filter their dirty thoughts.

"I was born with ears, you good-for-nothing beasts," Audette reached her limit with the brass commentary, crossing her arms defensively over her chest. As the table's inhabitants laughed raucously in the background she craned her neck up to Draco, "I'm ready to go, Draco, before I lose my mind on these barbarians."

"Shall I send them to the infirmary?" he stepped back and held out his hand with a cocky grin, assisting her to climb out of her chair.

Audette pulled on her pearly petticoat in a tizzy, ignoring the ridiculous hooting, "No, please just take me home to the Malfoy Manor."

"Take you home, you say?" Draco whistled and peered at her expression for a moment as if he couldn't believe the words she had just uttered, "As always, your wish is my command."

When they had collected all of their possessions Audette sent Guy a gaze filled with dripping penetration, "And I shall be fully auditing you on New Years. This discussion isn't over."

Guy nodded remorsefully, "Merry Christmas Detty."

She sensed from the guilty glint in his eyes that Guy had never meant to do any wrong by her, and that perhaps he'd been sucked into the same vortex of deception, bets and unbreakable vows.

Led by a firm handhold of her circumspect betrothed, Audette found herself taking steps through the crowded Great Hall in surreal atheism that she was about to stay overnight at the most exclusive and notorious estate in all of England.

It was well known that the Malfoy's had descended from aristocratic royalty, and the property that they continued to inhabit was characterized by centuries of governance and archival history.

It suddenly became very clear to her that she aught to adjust her perspective on the Malfoy Manor, as it was expected to be her future home.

The bigger question was; was it still a home, or rather an active viper pit?

"There's something I have to do before we go. Any idea where Nott's gone off to?" Draco's voice pierced her thoughts as they popped out into the main hallway beyond the double doors. They were suddenly awash in a sea of clustering people - most shouting, some brazenly snogging in the architectural egresses.

Audette shook her head, "Well you see, he was in an unfortunate state of inebriation. Presumably Zabini took him to bed."

"Rats," Draco scratched at his pointy chin, twisting his head around as if he would somehow get lucky enough to spot the toppling dipso in the festering crowd.

"Please leave him be," Audette whined in a barely audible hush, wincing as Draco dragged her around the reception area, "He's absolutely shattered and in no condition to speak with you right now."

Draco halted and glared at Audette, tugging her close to him like a toddler who'd been begging for candy at the local petrol station.

His polar eyes had taken on the glint of a man in mild panic, "That is expressly why I must speak to him - his longevity depends on it. And only because you've graciously chosen to forgive my misgivings will I forgive the reprehensible fact that you clearly have some personal conception of his current footing."

Audette swallowed and directed her pretty painted nail at the entrance to the dungeons, drawing Draco's attention to where Theodore had evidently tried to kick at a sparkly blue cypress in a pot and gotten his shoe stuck amongst the foliage, "Well...it is sort of impossible not to. His current footing is quite mucky and not going anywhere anytime soon."

"Good. Alright," Draco nodded seriously at Audette, pointing at her dainty high heels, "You stay in this precise square of paving Audette, not a toe out of line and no funny business. I will be back to take you home in a minute."

Left standing alone in a pulsating monsoon of partying Yule Ball attendees, Audette squeezed her chunky dowry sack repeatedly in her coat pocket, as if it were a relieving stress ball and not worth more than all of the combined annual salaries of the professors.

Draco was quickly cut off by Blaise when he approached, and they soon began arguing in low tones next to where Theodore was drunkenly losing the battle for his loafer with the bushy potted plant.

She could visually decode random words here and there, Blaise shaking his head no way and piss off, Draco placing his hands on his hips and snarling step aside...

To her surprise, Audette watched Draco impatiently reach into his jacket lining to produce two of the notebooks she had found in his side table weeks ago, filled with bizarre magical runes and ancient translations. He shoved them into Blaise's arms, turning around to pace angrily.

Blaise dropped his guard and received the notebooks in good manner, likely realizing that Draco meant no ill will upon Theodore Nott any worse than he'd already done.

With a soggy heart Audette came to the conclusion that Draco was giving away his priceless research on the vanishing cabinet puzzle, which would undoubtedly save the Nott family just in time.

Halfway back to Audette he was interrupted by a great big smash of pottery.

Theodore had just destructively ripped his shoe free from it's gardenesque ensnarement, shouting at Draco's retreating form through torrential tears.

Dangerously intoxicated, he was left with minimal physical strength, barely hanging onto an upright position by pressing his palms down into his knees, "This changes nothing! You h-hear me Malfoy? Nothing! If y-y...If you touch her tonight..."

Draco spun and held up his spindly middle finger, "It is over Nott. Go fix your wardrobe and don't be such a fucking castaway."

Not even pausing in a gentlemanly fashion Draco kept barreling onwards when he met up with where Audette had been instructed to wait, wrapping his arm around her neck roughly.

As they wove towards the carriages and out through the opened front doors of the castle, Audette was struck with spine-tingling dread when she heard Theodore's pitched voice desperately yelling over the burbling horde, "It's not over! Tick tock, Malfoy, you d-demon from hell, tick tock!"