Chapter Eleven- Honesty.

It ought to be pretty easy to ignore someone, if you really put your mind to it. Take Malfoy for example: we were hardly ever on the same floor of the castle, much less in the same room, so there wasn't much to ignore. Or at least, there shouldn't have been. And when I couldn't avoid him, I could've just, you know, read something, or thought about Quidditch, or even listened to the teacher. Theoretically. I mean, it should've been easy as pie.

And yet, I was still in detention with him on a Friday night.

I don't know how these things happen to me.

Madam Pince stuck her head around the corner of the shelf, and apparently decided we weren't progressing fast enough. "You have half an hour left," she announced. I just nodded, because she'd put a Silencing Spell on us both the moment we walked in, "as a precaution." Bitch. I saw Malfoy nod out of the corner of my eye, and then he "accidentally" bumped into me for about the seventieth time. Git.

Pince had us reshelving books by hand, which probably counted as cruel and unusual punishment in some country. I'd have asked Hermione, but she thought it made sense: "Some of those volumes are very delicate, and they've got a lot of Preservation Charms on them. Just Banishing them back to their place might cause all sorts of problems...and you did knock them over." Except I wouldn't have run into the bloody shelves if Malfoy hadn't been following me around the library in the first place, like some kind of...thing that follows people, and insults their girlfriends. And is also crazy and evil.

And bumps into you on purpose seventy-one times in two hours.

I turned around to glare at him. He smiled at me. Not a creepy fake smile, and not a nasty git smile, but a sort of crazy smile, like a talking purple penguin had just crowned him king of the midget people. There were dark circles under his eyes, as if he didn't look enough like a vampire normally. It seemed like every time I turned around he was smiling like that, and following me around, and just generally trying to drive me mad. Oh, not like he'd been trying before, with the randomly being nice when no one was looking. Now he was just trying to do it any way he possibly could. Hence the following me around, and the remarks about Allison, and the genera nastiness, and hence why I'd tried to set his teeth on fire. I was ignoring him, though, and detention or not I think I was ignoring him pretty well. He just couldn't take the hint.

I dropped into a crouch to stack books on a low shelf. Malfoy bumped into me. Again. I turned around (again) but for the first time in a fortnight, he wasn't smiling. He was jumping on me instead. I threw my arms up, but I was too off-balance to stop him; the next thing I knew I was flat on my back and he was on top of me, straddling my waist. I tried to yell, but of course, we were both Silenced. Besides, Madam Pince was exactly the last person I wanted to walk in on something like this.

(Except there wasn't any "something" because I was supposed to be ignoring him...)

He kissed me, with his tongue in my mouth and our teeth banging together, and it was fireworks, cinnamon and wintergreen together. He looked like a zombie but his body was warm and alive, and rubbed against me in all the right places, so suddenly it didn't matter if I was sore all over from lifting spellbooks, because there were other things to feel that were infintely more important. But there was also something...I can't even explain it now. It was huge, and weird, and it was just suddenly there, like background noise or a funny smell. It was more than his mouth or his hands or his weight or his warmth, but it was all of that stuff, and I couldn't name it or pin it down. The best I could do was lean into it and guess, and so I did.

I felt him moan, in his chest and in his throat, but the spell blocked it out. The only sounds were our clothes and breath and the floorboards creaking; a bit strange, really. He dropped his mouth to my neck and I tilted my head back and god, it felt amazing, his lips and teeth and tongue on that spot just above my pulse...but there was still something more I couldn't quite place...

And then Madam Pince ruined the whole damn thing by shrieking.

Malfoy jumped off me with a glass-eyed stare and I just sat there like an idiot. Pince was looking a bit dazed herself, like somebody'd clubbed her from behind with a broomstick. "You may go," she said, but she was looking over both our heads and to the left, and her face was flushed.

I jumped to my feet and bolted out of the library. I wasn't really thinking; or if I was, it wasn't anything but Ohshitohshitohshitohshitohshit. I wasn't supposed to snog Malfoy; I wasn't even supposed to pay attention to Malfoy; Malfoy, for my purposes, didn't exist. I was dating Allison, she was a good person and just because I didn't like her didn't mean I had the right to go around snogging other people, even ones that didn't exist.

Except I did like her, because Allison was great. She was smart and funny and pretty and everyone I knew liked her. She was just...boring. But that was my own damn fault; we never did much more than kiss, because I was freaked out every time we got closer. If I could just calm down for once it'd be just fine. Anyway, I only freaked out with her because I didn't want to ruin things between us, because things were going good, even if I was bored (though I really wasn't). I didn't freak out with Malfoy because I knew it was all just sex and there wasn't anything to ruin. And plus he doesn't exist, so there's nothing to freak out over.

Damn it.

It'd been two weeks that I'd ignored him. Two weeks of class and Quidditch and Allison and everything except him. Two weeks I'd been happy...and bloody bored. Except I wasn't, because I had classes and Quidditch and Allison, and anyway nobody in their right mind should miss Malfoy's sparkling personality. I certainly didn't miss being insulted and yelled at and tripped and tricked and used...except, in the library yesterday, when he'd been following me around close enough to breathe on the back of my neck, and he looked at me like there were rules and somehow I'd been cheating...

Damn it all the hell, I didn't need to be thinking about this!

I got back to the Fat Lady's portrait and tried to give her the password. That was when I realized the Pince hadn't given back my voice. "No password, no entry" was all the damn painting would say, even when I tried to make see the problem. Well, of course she could say that, she was a bloody portrait; there weren't any non-existant people sneaking around the corridors who wanted to bump into her and possibly make her think. I tried to sort of gesture the password, like sign language, except I don't know how you'd even start to gesture out dickcissel without offending anyone. I ended up just kicking the bottom of the frame.

"That was uncalled for, young man!"

I gestured back my response, and she left the painting entirely. Damn it!

I don't know how long I was waiting out there before Hermione came through the portrait hole and found me. "Ron! Where have you been? You were supposed to be out of detention ages ago, Harry and I were—what are you doing?"

I pushed into the Common Room, grabbed the nearest quill and parchment, and wrote out the counterspell for her. She blinked at it for a moment before she cried "Oh!" and actually cast it. It felt like a load of lint coming loose in my throat, and I coughed for a good minute. Stupid Pince.

Harry offered me his chair, and then he and Hermione both sat down right opposite me, so it felt a bit like I was on trial or something. "Was it that bad?" Harry asked.

Depends on your definition of "bad." "Not really. Just boring as hell."

We stared at each other for a moment.

"Er..."

"What?"

"Allison was looking for you earlier."

Oh, shit. "When was this?"

"While you were in detention," Hermione said, "I think...well, she said she needed to talk to you."

Brilliant. I sank back in my chair. "She's pissed about what Malfoy said yesterday."

"There have been other rumors..."

"Yeah, and Malfoy started them!"

"Ron," Harry said, and it was his don't-fuck-with-me-I'm-the-hero voice. "I don't believe a word Malfoy or anyone else says about you, right? But...you've been acting weird lately."

Like he's really someone to go around setting standards of normal. "What d'you mean, weird?"

"He means restless," Hermione said, although from the look Harry gave her I'm not that's what he meant at all. "I've noticed it too, and so has Ginny."

"Forget Ginny." I glanced around the common room; a bunch of fifth-years were studying together, but I didn't see her with them. "Where is she, anyway?"

"That's not important," Hermione said, "Ron, we're worried about you."

"Well, you can stop worrying, because nothing's wrong!"

"There's no need to get upset..."

"Why not?" I asked, probably louder than necessary. "You're only asking me whether I cheat on my girlfriend with a transsexual banshee!"

"We are not, now keep your voice down!" Harry snapped.

Hermione went all warm and fuzzy on me. "Ron, we didn't meant to imply anything. Those rumors are ridiculous, and we know you'd never do anything like that, even if it were possible, which I don’t think it is anyway. But we are worried about you....is there anything you want to talk about?"

I shut my eyes. Well, let's see, I have some kind of paranoid thinking disorder about my girlfriend, I haven't had sex since January, Draco Malfoy is stalking me and yet I'm still strangely attracted to him. Oh, I forgot to tell you we shagged, didn't I? Among other things. "Nope, not a thing."

Hermione started to say something, but Harry cut her off. He blurted out "In that case, would you have a look at my broom, I think there's something wrong with it," and all but dragged me up the stair to our dormitory. Subtle as a punch in the stomach, that one.

"What's the crisis, mate?" I asked once he'd got the door shut.

He looked at me, with that I-know-when-you-are-bullshitting-and-now-is-not-the-time look. "Do you like Allison?"

"What the hell sort of question is that?"

"Just answer, please."

"Allison's great, Harry. She's the best thing that's happened to me all year."

"But do you like her?"

"I—"

It was weird, like my throat had closed up, or my brain had jammed. I could think it easily enough, and I could say the words by themselves, but stringing them together...

"Be honest, Ron," Harry said.

"I...er..."

Three words. It was easy. What the hell was the matter with me?

Harry sighed like I'd said something. "Look," he said, "I can't speak for anyone else, but I won't hold it against you if you break up with her."

"I don’t want to break up with her!"

"That's obvious," he muttered, and rolled his eyes.

"Then why...you...oh, forget it." I didn't want to talk about this anymore, I didn’t want to think about this anymore. I turned around and put my hand on the doorknob.

"...Ron?"

I spun back around. "What?"

He was staring at the collar of my robes, and frowning. "Is that a hickey?"

I didn't have to ask, or check in a mirror; I knew there would be a bright strawberry mark on the side of my neck where Malfoy had bitten me. It wasn't my fault. But I couldn't tell Harry that, because I hadn't told him about the evil plot, or the other plot, or what had happened in Hogsmeade...but I couldn't lie to him, either, not when he was looking at me with suspicion in his eyes, like he didn't want to trust me.

"I have to go," I said, and ran.

The right thing to do would've been to go find Allison and talk to her. I could've convinced her that the rumors were bullshit, and kissed her, and we could've...what did Hermione always say? Live happily after forever? Something like that. I could've done all that, and been okay, except I'd snogged Malfoy in the library and had a hickey on my neck. So instead I went running straight out of Gryffindor and didn't stop until I got onto the grounds, where I could breath a little.

I. Liked. Allison. There, I'd thought it. Could I say it? "I..." Be honest, Harry'd said...I liked being around Allison. I liked talking to Allison. Allison liked me—but that wasn't the point. I was dating her, so I had to like her, because if I didn't like her there'd be no point in dating her at all. So I did like her. I had to like her. Right?

I sat down by the edge of the lake and chucked a rock in, just to hear the splash. There certainly wasn't any reason not to like Allison. I wouldn't even have been worrying about all this if Harry hadn't brought it up...and he only brought it up because of those stupid rumors. Rumors Malfoy had started. It was bad enough what he was saying about me, of course, but the shit he was saying about her was downright disgusting. Probably not physically possible, either, but I wasn't entirely sure. But he'd spread it all over the school, just to get to me...Allison didn't deserve that. Even if I didn't like her.

Which I did.

Maybe.

"Hello, Weasel."

The trouble with grass is that you can't hear anyone coming until it's too late. Malfoy seemed to just appear out of nowhere; if Hermione wouldn't've had killed me for thinking it, I'd've guessed he'd Apparated. "What d'you want now?" I asked, with my hand on my wand.

He was smiling again, mad as ever. "Care to finish what we started in the library?"

"We didn't start anything."

He crouched down next to me so he was practically breathing in my ear. "Don't try to tell me that you weren't involved in that little tete-a-tete."

"You started it."

"You didn't stop it."

I scrambled to my feet. "Sod, off Malfoy. I don't have time for this."

"Oh, no," he said, and grabbed my sleeve. He pulled too close, so we were practically toe to toe. "No, this time you're not running away, not again."

"Get off me."

"You can't hide from me forever, Weasel."

"I'm not hiding!"

He grinned, or grimaced. "What else are skanky little halfbloods good for?"

I jerked away from him, but I felt a seam split in my robes. I brought my wand up, tip to tip with Malfoy's. "Take. That. Back."

"Does she give good head, at least?"

"Shut up."

"I hope you don't have to reciprocate."

"Shut the fuck up!"

"Can't be much fun in the sack, with tits that small—"

It had to be a Seeker thing, that he could dodge it; I don't even remember what curse I used, but it exploded in steam on the lake. "You shut up about my girlfriend!"

"Oh, is that what you call her?"

"What do you mean?"

Malfoy took a step away, still grinning like a crazy person, but his voice was shaking with...anger? "She doesn't love you, Weasley. She doesn't give a damn about you. She's using you, fooling you—probably just wants to get closer to Potter—"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"The bitch you call a girlfriend!"

"You don't know a damned thing about her!"

"I know enough!"

This was about the point yesterday when we'd knocked over the shelves. But there was nothing to knock over here and no one to stop us; just us, and our wands, and the dark lake. And something had finally occurred to me. "Why the hell does it matter, Malfoy?"

"Because she—you—because—" He shook his wand at me like he was scolding a dog. "You're trying to change the subject!"

"You're avoiding the question."

"The question's ridiculous!"

"What are you playing at?" I advanced on him, until we'd nearly cross wands trying to cast any curses. "Why drag her into it at all? If you're just trying to piss me off—"

He rolled his eyes. "Oh, yes, Weasley, because everything's about you."

"Then what do have against her?"

"She's a scheming little bint!"

"How do you know?"

"She's certainly had you fooled, not that that's difficult..."

It was something fell into place, a long way away. It was ridiculous. It was impossible. It just didn't make sense. But it also made perfect sense...which is about as much sense as anything makes with Malfoy. "Are you jealous?"

He snorted aloud, several times. "Weasley, that's got to rank easily among the stupidest questions on the history of the planet."

"You didn't answer it."

"It's absurd!"

"Then go ahead and say it!"

"Why on Earth should I be jealous of some common, ignorant, over-sexed, trecherous slut, just because you'd rather waste your time following her around like a trained monkey on a lead?"

"I don't follow her anywhere—"

"Oh, yes you do!" He was practically shrieking, and his eyes were bugging out of his head. "You're at her bloody beck and call, always there, always eager. It's sick. You're a fucking pureblood wizard, debasing yourself for that half-Muggle trash, when I could give you...I...I mean...you..."

His face fell, into something like panic. I should've ignored it. I should've blown his head off for being evil or walked away. It's a simple enough choice. But Harry, Harry wanted me to be honest, and for it all to make sense I had to know...

"Malfoy...you don't...fancy me, do you?"

He stared at me for about three seconds and then ran for it.

I dropped back down onto the grass and stared after him, long after he was out of sight. Absolutely raving, he was. Had to be. It shouldn't have made a damn bit of difference anyway. Excepted when he was on top of me, and we moved together, and there was that big strange unnamable something...

Be honest, Harry'd said.

"I...am completely fucked." My life couldn't possibly get any worse than this.

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