Green Eyed Monster | Draco Malfoy

96. The Girl Who Coerces Dragons

Chapter 96 - The Girl Who Coerces Dragons

Oh no. Not again.

Malfoy didn't hesitate before he pulled me in closer to his body. It wasn't anything overly noticeable to anyone - maybe like a lovers' cuddle, or like he was whispering sweet nothings into my ear...but it was too much for me to handle. We were so close now that I could feel his heart beating against my shoulder and his breath was fanning across my neck in a way that made my head spin.

"What the hell are you doing here, Potter?"

"Are you insane?" I asked, putting on the rudest, most prim and proper voice that I could muster. It sounded quite natural in Astoria's register. "Potter is in hiding."

"Potter often likes to come out of hiding," he accused, refusing to look at me. "Please tell me you didn't do this, Audrey. Not after we specifically sent you that letter..."

There was a moment where I felt like keeping up my act. I was doing a fairly good job of it, other than the dancing, and I felt confident in my characterization of one of the biggest bitches I'd ever met. I hadn't wanted Malfoy to know for a reason - I should keep that ball rolling. But when he pulled back to look down at me...I saw it. There, deep in those terrified, steely eyes, I saw the fear and the worry and a spark of something else that made my stomach flip. It sent all of my emotions off and into a tizzy, toppling over each other and scrambling until I was just one big mess of...want.

What point was there to lie?

"I can't say I've missed you, Draco." I lied to him. My voice was low now - no reason to have the airy tone that Astoria had mustered.

Malfoy immediately reacted to my words, squeezing his hands against my waist and my other hand. It was like he held me more tightly in disbelief that I was there. His hands began to lose the feeling of cold indifference as his whole body's temperature reacted to the stress and warmed itself to me. It even warmed me in a way that heated up my cheeks.

"So, Draco...are you going to run away from this problem, too?"

Draco Malfoy did not immediately know how to respond. His head was shaking like it was a tick of his - a common tick I had gotten used to from him, actually - before the look of disbelief melted into something that more closely resembled anger. "How are you this stupid?"

My eyes shot up to my hairline. "Excuse me?"

"How are you stupid enough that you just walked into the headquarters of the Death Eaters?" He hissed, eyes livid and his tone was clipped. Somehow he had mastered whisper-yelling because I could easily hear his anger through his hushed tones. "Do you realize what you just did? You made it so that they don't even have to hunt for you anymore. You basically just handed yourself over-"

"No," I countered, my tone just as angry. "But I'm waiting to see if you will."

He looked like he was going to continue speaking until he registered what I had said to him. His face dropped and angry eyes turned as hard and unforgiving as titanium. "You're joking."

"That's what you do, isn't it? Follow orders." I told him, my words coming out much sweeter than they should have thanks to Astoria's stupid, airy voice. "That's why you broke these friends of yours into Hogwarts, that's why you left with them, that's why you let the only man who could stand a chance against the savage you serve die. You were just following orders..."

Malfoy took a long moment before he decided how to speak. I could see all the thoughts that he was biting back - he was not happy with how I was treating him or my thought processes, but he seemed to know better than to just outright argue with me. When he finally decided on what to say, his voice did not come out as I'd expected.