Transfiguration Is Not Easy by Buckbeak22
Two days later Draco waited upstairs until he saw Parvati break away from a small group of girls who were giggling about something or other and start to climb the stairs. To his satisfaction, she was the only person walking up the stairs. He had tried to put a repelling charm onto the stairs repelling everyone but her, and it had obviously worked. Even Peeves had recoiled. That was good for a start, because he had spent quite a while more time than he wanted on learning the spell, and then more time trying to evade Filch while he attached the spell to the stairs. And if it worked on Peeves, maybe he could get a solution and bathe in it. He would probably be able to sell it to other students for a vast sum of money.
He saw Parvati grab the banister, an expression of annoyance on her face as the stairs started moving upwards, but she did not start to worry until she saw him. She ran down the stairs, trying to get off before she was carried up to him. As she ran, however, the stairs acted like an escalator, growing new steps for her to run down. For an instant his heart leapt, worrying she may try to jump as she was carried upwards. It was too far, and she would be injured. Luckily she thought better of it, and stood still, folding her arms and tapping her foot in a fury, whereupon the stairs stayed still. Finally the top of the stairway fastened to his floor. Draco waited for her. He knew she would come. The stairs would not let her down, and she had nowhere to go but up. She thought herself brave, being a Gryffindor, and she was impulsive and a bit flighty. She wouldn’t just stay on the stairs. Sure enough, after a moment or two she slung her bag across her shoulder again, and came to meet him, her chin up, eyes sparkling, and wand at the ready. That was too easy. Draco had his hidden in his robes. “Accio wand,” he murmured, and her wand flew into his hand. Parvati flushed, and her steps grew faster. “How dare you take my wand!” she spat, her eyes sparking dangerously. Draco revised his ideas of her “ perhaps she was not like a deer “ perhaps she was more like a wolf. He began to enjoy himself.
“I don’t want to be hexed,” he said in a maddeningly reasonable tone, calculated to infuriate her. She was nearer now, and had no protection. Draco snaked his hand out and caught hers, dragging her to him, and capturing her other wrist. He looked into her furious eyes a moment, and then bent his head and kissed her again, as he had been longing to do since the last time he held her in his arms. Parvati tried to bring her knee up, but this time Draco knew what she was going to do, and blocked her. He tried to deepen the kiss as she struggled against him.
Parvati was frantic. The last thing she wanted to be was kissed in this fashion. If (or when) Draco kissed her, she wanted it to be different. More romantic and not a power struggle, with her bound to lose. Sexy conquerors were all very well to read about, but slightly different in real life. She struggled against him a bit harder, but only found that she was pressed more tightly against him, able to feel every solid muscle and …and….. This would never do “ she was starting to want to drown into the kiss, and forget everything else. She had to do something! She bit down, hard, and Draco sprang away from her, hand to his mouth.
He took his hand away from his mouth, and saw blood. “Magicking Firewort, Parvati!” he exclaimed. He stepped toward her, a look of fury on his face. Parvati stepped back, nervous. His eyes looked dangerous, and for such a pale gray they also looked hot. At least heat in his eyes was better than the icy look she usually got. It looked more human, and was therefore less frightening. All the same, she backed as he advanced. Draco had backed her against the wall, and was almost touching her when she found her courage, dragged it kicking and struggling from where it was whimpering inside her stomach. This was Draco Malfoy. He was a Slytherin and a known bully and coward, and he did not have his wand out. She was a Gryffindor, and she would not be intimidated. She had to look up at him, as she put her hands, palm forward, between them, to ward him off.
”No further Draco. You want to kiss me, you have to earn it.” There. She had said it, and her voice had only shaken a little. He was startled at what she said, and so stopped to consider. She watched his eyelids droop as he weighed the implications of what she was saying. At least he had stopped. She blessed Padma and her star charts.
He was still towering over her. Parvati straightened her spine against the wall, and tried not to notice the nearness of him. It was difficult. If she looked straight ahead, her eyes were almost level with his collarbone. She could see the pulse beating in his throat. She could also feel the heat of him, from a few inches away, and smell the muskiness of his scent.
Draco took in the meaning of what she had said, but did not believe it. At last, he drawled, trying to insult her, “So you are going to kiss me, but there are conditions?” It was amazing she thought she could hand him conditions “ all he had to do was reach out and grab her. He put one hand on the wall to the side of her head, to make the point. She was half trapped.
Parvati considered, dropping her eyes. “Well…” She didn’t like the mocking tone he had used. He was standing too close for her to think. She was made braver by the fact that he had not so far assaulted her again. She reached out and pushed him back a pace. “Do you mind crowding me Draco? It is making it hard to think.” Draco was a little put out at being pushed, but truth to tell, he didn’t actually mind for once. He was finding Parvati amusing. It was a bit like a sparrow trying to push a bear out of the way. He stepped backwards a few steps of his own accord, and looked down at her. He still couldn’t believe the way things were shaping up. He had thought he would be able to kiss her and get her out of his system. Never in a warlock’s wardrobe would he have thought she felt anything for him, or could ever want to be near him, let alone kiss him. Especially after what had happened the other night. However, he was intrigued, so he put his hands out to show he was not going to touch her, and waited.
Parvati looked at him, chewing on her lip. He was looking quite impassive, which unnerved her, and a tiny trickle of blood ran down from his lip, which made her feel guilty (but it was his own fault, she reminded herself.) Oh Merlin! He was waiting for her to come up with something “ to explain what she meant. What exactly did she mean?
Parvati struggled with herself for a minute and then told the truth. She wasn’t very good at deception anyway.
“I would very much like to kiss you Draco “ but under different circumstances,” she said candidly. “I have known you for years. You think I am lower than mud. You have never once said anything friendly to me; you take any chance you have to sneer or poke fun at me and my friends, and I am not going to be reviled and then kiss you passionately any time you feel I should, however handsome or attractive you are, even if I want to.”
Draco nearly fell over. Handsome? Attractive? Parvati wanted to kiss him? And the way she was looking at him under her lashes was almost flirtatious.
Parvati was still talking, “So if you ever want to kiss me, Draco Malfoy, you had better try to be friendly first. I wouldn’t mind kissing somebody who I knew I could share a joke with, or even someone whose first response was not to humiliate me. Furthermore,” (Merlin, she sounded like somebody’s attorney) “if you want me to kiss you, you will not grab me like a you would a flobberworm you were trying to strangle!” She met his eyes, for a long moment, putting all the challenge she could into them, not knowing whether he would back down, or grab her again. She felt almost compelled to add, “I am quite romantic, you know.”
Draco could not keep his expression passive. Open insults, passionate threats, hate or love he could deal with, if uneasily. Simplicity, he found was different. He felt himself responding to Parvati. For the first time too, he felt almost shy. This girl, whom he could break with one hand behind his back, was asking for “ no, make that demanding “ his friendship. He had terrified her, tried to force her to do something she didn’t want, and she was still offering him friendship and perhaps more. Something inside him that had frozen since Lilah had left broke now. His expression faltered, and his eyes dropped. He couldn’t respond. He didn’t know how. He had never actually had a friend. Subordinates, yes, lots of them, but nobody to whom he confided thoughts and nobody he ever really talked to. He had not been allowed friends. Malfoys commanded; they did not socialize. Parvati made him suddenly frightened of his own loneliness. He, Draco Malfoy, could not go through with this.
“I think I had better go now,” he said.
Parvati had expected at least a smile, but not this. He was waving his wand at the stair, which was uncurling before him. She grabbed his arm, horrified. She certainly hadn’t intended to scare him away. She couldn’t stop him any more than she could have stopped a hippogriff, so she trotted along beside him, taking two strides to his one. “Draco Malfoy, what is wrong with you?” she asked in exasperation. He did not respond, and Parvati stopped, out of breath. There was only one thing for it. “Blatulia!” she cried, aiming the wand at his feet. Draco was brought to a halt. There was no way he could move. His feet were stuck to the stairs with something gooey and purple, which came up a little way with his foot and then snapped his foot back down. Parvati ran down the stairs to him. “Draco, I’m sorry. It was the only way I could think of to get you to stop, short of the body bind.”
Draco’s face was a study, as he stared at the purple goop around his shoes. “What is it?” he snarled. Parvati looked even more guilty, almost like a child who has been caught jumping on the bed. “I’m not sure. It is something some of us made up when we came to Hogwarts the first year. We were kidding around outside the Ravenclaw common room, and I said that, and Padma was suddenly stuck in a pile of that stuff. I think it may be some form of chewing gum. Terry was going to try some to see if it was, but Padma wouldn’t let him “ she thought it might do something horrible to him. Flitwick was quite furious with us all. He said we could accidentally have done something far worse, and gave us severe detentions to teach us not to make up words with our wands. It does wear off though,” she added anxiously, looking up at him. Draco, whose first instinct had been to blast her, realized that she had really not intended to humiliate him. She had even apologized. The ridiculousness of the situation suddenly struck him, and he began to laugh. It was the first time he could ever remember really laughing since he was eight “ not sniggering, taunting or, as she had said, reviling. Just simply laughing. He laughed until tears ran out of his eyes. It felt wonderful.
Parvati listened entranced. His voice was a rich deep baritone, and she had never heard it so clearly before. Usually his bored and elegant tone made him sound a little effeminate and prissy. Now his whole face looked different. Far more handsome and far more human. She had certainly never heard him laugh before, unless it was a snigger at somebody else’s misfortune. Perhaps he wasn’t emotionally deficient after all. Perhaps she wasn’t out of her gourd to fancy him.
When he had finished, Draco wiped his streaming eyes, and sat down on the stairs. “So, how long do I have to stay here?” he asked.
“Only ten minutes or so,” Parvati reassured him. “Draco, why did you run away?”
Draco felt his eyes flash. “I did NOT run away! And I do not have to explain my actions.”
Parvati, who had been reassured by his laughter giggled, and sat down on the step next to him. “Yes, you do,” she said simply. “If you don’t, I am going to hex you, every opportunity I get. You will never have a free moment from worrying whether or not I am going to be standing around a corner with my wand and a horrible jinx. I’ll get Ginny to teach me her bat bogey hex.” Draco looked at her, startled, but there was no doubt about it. In spite of her seraphic smile, she meant what she said. Why did he have to go and pick on a Gryffindor? For Merlin’s sake, he should have thought. He knew how difficult Parvati could be before he ever started all this.
He twirled his wand in his hands looking down at it. He was so tired of carrying a burden and never sharing it. He was tired of his own company, and he was tired of being Draco Malfoy the Death Eater who was avoided at all costs. He wanted to hang out with a girl who would giggle and relax around him. He looked away, to where people were milling around below. When he spoke, the words were muttered and Parvati had to lean forwards to catch the words.
“ I don’t know how to be friends. I wouldn’t be any good at it.”
Parvati thought that the saddest thing she had ever heard. She put her hand on his knee. It was slender, with beautifully polished nails. “You could try. Hey, if you made a few mistakes, I might even overlook them.”
Draco daringly covered her hand with his. It was sending unaccustomed warmth through his thigh. “I may hurt you. I probably will.”
Parvati looked at him seriously now, but with a smile. “And I may cry if you do. But we can always pick up the pieces and start again.”
Just the simple fact that she was so close was difficult for him. Her mouth was so close, her hand so warm, her breath stirred his cheek. He was finding it difficult to breathe “ and the girl wanted him to be her friend?
Parvati stood up. The spell she had shot at him was starting to recede, and she thought it best for her to go now, and give him some time to think before he could extricate himself. She was pretty sure his mood would not last, and did not want to stay around to be blasted when he realized he had let his guard down. She bent down, and before he realized what she was going to do, she had kissed him fleetingly on the cheek, taking her wand out of his holster at the same time. “I’ll see you later Draco.” She smiled at him and started down the stairs, her long legs reminding him of a gazelle again. He watched her go, and something remarkably like a grin crossed his face, although it felt very strange. As she reached the bottom of the stairs he called after her, “Parvati?” She stopped and turned around, her face questioning. “Wear your hair down!” he called daringly. She blushed furiously, wrinkled her nose at him, and walked off, in that bouncy way she had that made her pigtail flip from side to side.
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That evening, Draco opened the letter from his mother. One arrived every morning, without fail by owl post, and he had quite a collection, none of which he had yet opened. Peter had not written. He should have known better than to expect him to.
My Draco,
I hope you are reading these letters I send. I think of you all the time, and hope that things are not too difficult there for you at Hogwarts.
I am fine. We have slightly more money now, as I received my first paycheck today! Let me know if you need anything “ just nothing too expensive! Life here is very different still. The Aurors are still here, and rather than have them parked outside in those tents, since we have a rather large house, they occupy the East Wing now. I do hope you don’t mind too much.
I was taken under escort to see your father yesterday. We did not talk much, there is nothing we can say without somebody listening, but he seemed to be fine. He was very angry to hear of the Aurors, naturally, but there is nothing he can do about it. He is still under heavy guard, but there are no Dementors left in Azkaban, so his life is not as difficult as it could have been. He is treated quite well, and even has some creature comforts in his cell. If you wish, you can write to him, although anything you send will be scanned for magic before it is given to him.
How are your Occlumency sessions going? I have been told you have a quite a talent for it.
Please write back sometime.
With all my love
Mother.
Draco sat and stared at the wall for a bit. He had not realized his mother had a job. Or that she was seeing his father still. He had thought she had given up on his father for good. It was food for thought. Maybe, just maybe he would write back soon. When he could think of anything to say, or how to write it. He was pretty sure he was not going to be writing to his father. He was glad Peter thought he had a talent for Occlumency. It was nice to know, right now, that he had a talent for anything. Perhaps at last things would start to get better.
He lay back in bed, and eventually Parvati’s face came into his head. He told himself that a Gryffindor would not entrap him, no matter how pretty she was, but even so, he fell asleep with almost a half smile on his mouth.
That evening Filch had a problem with the stairs. He couldn’t seem to get to it to figure out what the problem was. He suspected Fred and George, but since they were no longer at Hogwarts, he was not sure how they could have jinxed the stairs. Muttering vilely, he went to look for somebody who could help him. If only Professor Umbridge were still here!