Pansy's Volcano | By : Bluemidget57 Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 206366 -:- Recommendations : 6 -:- Currently Reading : 8 |
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story. |
I was curious to read that some reviewers had been initially put off by the title of this story. I had actually delayed posting it for some time because I had no idea at all what to call it, and Untitled seemed so lame, so when this title popped up I was just grateful that something had, and grabbed it. Anyway, here we discover more about Pansy’s plans, and the reason for the name. I hope this will clear a few things up.
Chapter Eight
Draco spent the next week furious with himself for his lapse on Monday night. Any progress he thought they had made in their discussion about cooperation the previous Friday evening seemed to have flown out of the window along with Hermione herself. They had three regular classes together, Potions, Transfiguration and Arithmancy, plus they were both also in Advanced Potions and Arithmancy electives which neither Potty nor the Weasel had achieved high enough grades to take, and certainly neither Greg nor Vince had the intellectual capacity for. Draco had hoped he might be able to corner her in either of these classes, but to no avail. She surrounded herself with 7th year Ravenclaw friends of Luna Lovegood and even Draco quailed at invading their intellectual circle.
This afternoon he had also been privy to an utterly revolting public display of affection between Hermione and the Weasel King, which admittedly he didn’t think had been staged for his benefit, but the fact that it took place in broad daylight in the middle of the main entrance where anyone could see her sucking the face off the annoying red head made him sick to his stomach with something he refused to give a name to.
He retreated to the Slytherin common room unwilling to sit alone in his own study with just the company of his own thoughts and the lingering smell of herbal shampoo, which he now knew was the one Hermione used. Here it was a Saturday night and he was brooding in a armchair, with a dark scowl on his face which was so like his habitual expression of the past six years that all the other Slytherins felt as though balance had been restored in their little corner of the universe.
Only Blaise had the audacity to approach him as he sat there impersonating a black thundercloud. ‘Hey, Draco,’ he said, sliding into the seat opposite the Head Boy. ‘I have some information for you. I don’t suppose you want to do it here, so shall we meet up in the prefect’s room as before?’
‘What?’ Draco asked, reordering his thoughts until he realised what Blaise was talking about, and as he did a satisfied smirk replaced the scowl across his features. At last. Something to think about other than Granger and her carrot-topped boyfriend. Some of the other students fidgeted nervously at the sight of that smile. Seemed like things were getting back to normal. ’Fine, thirty minutes then,’ he said abruptly to Blaise, then took up his books and disappeared through the portrait of Salazar Slytherin, and this time Pansy made no attempt to follow him.
Thirty minutes later found Draco pacing the floor in the prefect’s office when once again Blaise entered quietly and cast his privacy charms behind him. ‘Draco,’ he greeted as he subsided into a comfy chair. ‘You look tense tonight. Is everything okay?’
‘It’s looking better,’ Draco replied. ‘Providing you have something good to tell me. What have you found out?’ There was no point in beating about the bush. He needed to get this issue with Pansy resolved so he could get his life back to normal.
Blaise sighed. There was definitely something up with Draco this term. He had always been an arrogant git and tended to treat the other Slytherins like his personal House Elves; Blaise had seen an improvement in his temper in the 6th year after his father had been incarcerated, but his behaviour this term so far could only be described as erratic. He swung from uncharacteristic jovial good humour to biting sarcasm, yet he constantly seemed distracted as if he couldn’t concentrate fully on anything.
Previously, he would have found this situation with Pansy amusing in a cruel way. In fact it would have been more like him to go to her directly and demand the truth of the rumours, and then deliberately sleep with as many girls as he could, just to annoy her and emphasize that he could not be owned. The fact that he was concerned about Pansy finding out anything concerning his love life led Blaise to suspect that finally there was someone Draco was actually serious about, and that he was going out of his way to protect her. It would certainly go some way to explaining Draco’s strange behaviour recently.
Of course, Blaise would never suggest this to Draco, firstly because he doubted Draco had even realised it himself; but secondly and Blaise thought most compellingly, he rather liked his head where it was - attached to his shoulders, and he had no intentions of giving the Head Boy a reason to hex it were elsewhere. Blaise was a compulsive people watcher, and he was convinced. He didn’t know who yet, but he was sure if he paid sufficient attention in the next few weeks he would stumble upon her.
Not that he had any intention of using his knowledge against Draco. With Malfoy Sr. out of the way, this year’s Head Boy was one of the most powerful people in the wizarding world, and Blaise couldn’t believe how many of his schoolmates were oblivious to the significance of this fact.
Which was why he was keenly interested in the direction Draco was moving this year. To Blaise’s analytical eye, it seemed that he was definitely moving away from his father’s allegiances, and he knew if Draco ever came out and openly declared for one side or the other, the rest of Slytherin would fall in line behind him. Blaise himself had no allegiances to anyone; he valued his comfort and freedom, and his side was whichever one offered him these things at any one time.
This investigation into Pansy Parkinson was one of the most enjoyable that Blaise had ever undertaken. He rarely bothered with girls, or boys either come to that. He was usually too concerned with over-analyzing everyone else’s behaviour to spend time in the normal pursuits of hormonal teenage boys. So this had offered him a glimpse into a new lifestyle.
He had chosen to approach Pansy sideways, by letting her circle of hangers-on introduce the idea of him. He wasn’t particularly vain or concerned with his appearance, but he knew girls found his exotic dark looks quite attractive, and he was sure he would have no trouble getting Pansy’s interest if she thought for but a second that he was interested in her.
He made sure to pay a compliment to Pansy in Millicent Bulstrode’s hearing, and then expressed his admiration for her skill in Charms whilst Mary Beene was listening. After several outrageous examples of flattery, which he knew had reached Pansy’s ears by virtue of the interested glances she was casting his way whenever she thought he wasn’t looking, he made a complete about face.
Having hooked his fish, he moved to stage two, which consisted of wondering out loud if he had been correct previously in his assessment of Pansy’s skills, and he knew immediately when these whispers reached her as she cast resentful glares which, unlike the coy come-hither glances she made no attempt to hide, in his direction.
Pansy was like an open book. She was so easy to manipulate, yet she still thought she was so cunning. If she ever caught someone like Draco, Blaise thought, she would have no clue what to do with him. And Draco would probably strangle her within a week.
Blaise was sitting alone as was his custom, when Pansy approached him. She had obviously rehearsed what she was going to say to him, and Blaise briefly considered flustering her by throwing out a few random comments to distract her from her carefully planned speech, but in the end curiosity won out, and he obliged by letting her complete her practiced monologue which turned out to consist of alternating complaints, false flattery and disbelief. Blaise began to wonder how she had ever reached 7th year, and what on earth Draco had seen in her - even as brief as their liaison had been.
Draco was one of the few people Blaise actually liked and respected. He could see even if no one else could what a careful line Draco had to walk between living up to his old and respected name, and losing his own individuality under the force of so much pressure from his father.
Pansy however, turned out to be just as shallow on the inside as she appeared on the surface. Even rehearsed, her speech to him was disjointed and incoherent, but Blaise managed to gather from it that she had been encouraged by his earlier flattery of her, and that she had also admired him from a distance, but his later doubts about her ability in Charms (a class which luckily they both shared) had hurt her feelings, and she wanted a chance to redeem herself; to show him just how good she really was at charming things.
Blaise knew this was a total fabrication. She had never in six years shown any kind of interest in him until he seemed to be interested in her. He even wondered if she might be thinking of using him to make Draco jealous. If so, it would be the most delicious of all ironies, and he was going to encourage her until she was in too deep to escape from her own foolishness. They spoke on several more occasions in the common room, and she was soon sitting with him during Charms, trying to impress him with her skills.
By the time Draco was sitting in his study with Hermione last Friday evening, mistakenly thinking he had managed to move past 5 years of cruelty, Blaise had reeled Pansy expertly into his trap. Friday, he allowed her a climax with the skill of his fingers, testing the waters so to speak, by asking some leading questions whilst she was in the grip of her pleasure. In the aftermath she was too c0nfused and drained to remember what she had said, and Blaise planned his next move, which had taken place a week later. Just last night, in fact.
He had been distant and cooler towards Pansy for a week, but staying closely within hearing range, until he heard her complaining to Millicent about putting a hex on guys who used you once and dropped you. Blaise had hit the jackpot. Millie giggled and said to Pansy, ‘Soon you’ll have hexes on every Slytherin in the 7th year. What are you doing about Draco’s?’
Pansy had scowled and replied, ‘Nothing. It hasn’t gone off yet, but I’m sure I did it right. I just can’t believe he hasn’t shagged anyone yet this year. It’s not like him to be so restrained.’
From his place of concealment, Blaise was hurriedly plotting his next move. Time to allow Pansy what she needed; a proper sexual encounter conducted with the judicious use of a little truth serum and a mild memory charm. (Blaise as it happened, was very good at Charms) and she would never know she had spilled her guts to him.
And oddly enough, after he had taken advantage of Pansy’s silliness, Blaise found himself feeling a kind of frustrated affection for her. No matter how hard she tried, she would never have the mental capacity or cunning to keep up with Draco (or himself, for that matter). She didn’t have the looks to get by without the other attributes, and he felt a certain sympathy for her and the warped way she was trying to be proactive about her choices, and he thought he might keep her around a bit, until he moved on to the next project.
Which brought him to the prefect’s office tonight, ready to fill Draco in on the nature of what Pansy had devised. He felt he knew her well enough by now to say with confidence that she would not dismantle the charm even though she was involved in a fling with Blaise himself. In this respect she was his equal; she had her eye to the main chance, and there was no denying of the two of them, Draco was certainly the better prospect. Blaise was from an old and respected wizarding family, but financially challenged, and he had two younger siblings also.
Of course, there were few who could rival the Malfoys in that respect. Even though Lucius was serving a life sentence in Azkaban, given what Draco was thought to be worth now it was unlikely that he would see a moments’ peace from the matchmaking mothers, the wizarding paparazzi and young (and even the not-so-young) fortune hunting witches, from the moment he graduated the warded grounds of Hogwarts until he chose a wife and set up his own nursery. Blaise could hardly blame Pansy for trying to stake her claim early. It was a shame she couldn’t see what an utter waste of her efforts it was.
‘Blaise?’ Draco prompted. ‘You wanted this meeting. Do you have anything for me?’ and Blaise shook himself out of his contemplation, grinning at the other man.
‘I’m sorry. I was just considering the acquisition of knowledge for a moment there.’
Draco actually managed to smile back at him. Blaise had been staring off into space for a good five minutes with a peculiar smirk on his face, and Draco appreciated the fact that he had had fun with this task. ‘Do I want to know what you had to do to acquire this particular knowledge?’ he asked jokingly.
‘I am sure a man of your - ah - talents, can come up with the answer to that question on his own,’ Blaise replied modestly. ‘Besides, I never kiss and tell - unless there’s profit in it!’ They exchanged a smile of pure Slytherin supremacy, and Blaise got down to the matter in hand. ‘Well, this is how it stands currently,’ he began. ‘Pansy apparently found out about your dalliance with Miss Giraud towards the end of last year - incidentally, she is now no longer employed at Fidenster’s Apothecary. Apparently the Parkinson name carries some influence with Mr Fidenster, and she has been transferred to a store in Diagon Alley.’
Draco scowled at this information, and was infuriated that he had made no effort to contact Isabel since last June when school broke up for the summer. Admittedly, they had made each other no promises, and theirs had been a casual relationship based on sex; Isabel had been three years older than he and quite capable of taking care of herself, but he was appalled that she had lost her job because of Pansy’s jealousy, and guilty because he hadn’t known. Of course, Isabel could have contacted him had she wanted, and he could only conclude that she did not realise her change in employment was in any way related to her relationship with him, or that she was sufficiently disinterested that she didn’t care to give a forwarding address. It was at the same time insulting and a relief.
Blaise, who was carefully studying Draco’s face, decided that this piece of information had more effectively condemned Pansy in his eyes than any amount of hexes she may have cast. Draco absolutely would not be manipulated by a woman. Blaise wondered briefly what form his retribution on Pansy would take, and resolved to cut her loose before any backlash could rebound on himself.
He continued with his background analysis. ‘Well, it appears she spent the summer reading up on several texts regarding love potions. We can only thank Merlin that she realised she lacks the skill to create and administer one of those! She seems to have turned to Charms as a secondary and less potentially dangerous manner of binding you to her. Pansy is not actually unskilled in Charms, but she never applies herself completely. You know her career of choice is to become the next Mrs Malfoy, and she doesn’t seem to see the need for any alternate qualifications to fall back on, so she doesn’t take academics very seriously. But this has proved that she does have some aptitude if she is sufficiently invested in the result.’ He paused and checked for Draco’s reaction; he looked interested but not surprised.
‘Well, it appears she found an old copy of Happy Handfasting; A guide to stopping your wizard from straying at her grandparents house. You will recall that Benton Parkinson was once a very skilled wizard before his unfortunate - accident?’ Draco nodded to confirm that yes, he did know this.
‘She found a nice little spell for creating an alert when the - ah- subject of it’s focus performs a sexual act with anyone other than the caster. So, it is actually only the sexual act itself, not jerking off which will operate the alarm. It’s actually quite a clever little charm; she was very lucky to find it. Of course, the preparation required some ingredients which I don’t even want to think about how she obtained. The most significant being samples of both yours and her come, which will bind the spell to recognise whenever yours combines in relation to anyone with a different chemical make up to hers. If, as you say, you haven’t slept with her for a considerable while -’ Draco nodded his affirmation with a grimace of disgust on his face, ‘Then she must have some very dirty laundry in her dormitory somewhere!’
‘So what form of a warning does this alarm perform?’ Draco asked. ‘It can’t reveal identities, can it?’
‘No, that would be impossible given the component ingredients. It’s charmed to both of your individual DNA signatures. All it’s going to do is cause a volatile reaction of the actual alarm itself -’
‘DNA?’ Draco asked.
‘Muggle term,’ Blaise dismissed with a wave of his hand. ‘Very interesting stuff; we don’t have a term which encompasses the same concept. Fascinating, some of the stuff these Muggles manage without magic. Strangely, I am finding this Muggle Studies course fascinating -’ He caught Draco’s ironic look. ‘But I’m getting distracted. The form of the vessel to alert the caster can take many shapes; I think you’ll be quite amused to hear that Pansy’s is in the image of a volcano. She has it in pride of place on her dresser in the girls dormitory. All of the other girls know what it is. When - if - it goes off it will blow clouds of purple smoke out of the top. I thought the image was quite phallic myself; I was hard put not to laugh when she explained it. Of course, I later obliviated that conversation from her head. Don’t want her suspecting I might have told someone about it.’
‘I take it that it’s a one-way alarm,’ Draco said dryly, and for a moment Blaise could not work out what he meant by that comment, or why he was smirking. When he did, he broke into genuine laughter.
‘Oh, definitely,’ he agreed through his mirth. ‘Wouldn’t do for her to be caught in the act now, would it?’
‘Apparently not,’ Draco agreed dead pan, and they both broke into gales of laughter. ‘So,’ he continued when he had his breath back, ‘No unpleasant physical manifestations to go along with this hex then? My dick isn’t going to turn green and drop off?’ he questioned quoting the She-Weasel’s delicate hypothesis.
Blaise gave him a strange look. ‘Is that what you were worried about?’ he asked. ‘No, absolutely not. It is really just an alarm. Of course, I wouldn’t guarantee that Pansy won’t go straight for your dick with her wand or even a sharp knife, if you let it go off!’
‘You’ve done splendidly, Blaise,’ Draco said with what Blaise could only call an evil smile. ‘I’m not wrong in thinking you had fun?’
They gave each other looks of Slytherin solidarity and Draco winked at him. He knew he should be discussing payment with Blaise, but all he could think about was that he could go back to his rooms and indulge in every torrid fantasy about the Head Girl that he could imagine, and he could imagine plenty. He conveniently forgot that he had been furious with himself for just such a lapse at the beginning of the evening.
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