Tainted Love

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IRIS

"Surprised you actually came in," she said, casually enough that she thought he might not pick up on the fact that she had been thinking about saying it since the day before. Whether or not it was a good thing, Iris was getting better at disguising her emotions, her true intent.

It was the first real thing she had said to Draco in a while. She had been wondering whether he would bother coming in this morning, Thursday, when he had left so unceremoniously on Wednesday. But she had saved up the comment just in case.

It was the type of passing thing that might bait him into conversation with her. Iris would even prefer a stilted argument to the absolute silence he had been giving her since Monday. It was almost enough to make her wonder whether she had done something wrong at the Siren on Friday.

But she knew, realistically she knew that that wasn't true. That had been the best she had ever had it, so good that she felt like her body might be breaking in half. There was no way it wasn't the same for him.

Her words were enough to make Draco look up at her. She let a shadow pass across her brow as she took him in. He shot her a look of pure contempt, absolutely venomous. She blinked and when she opened her eyes again he was still looking at her.

He looked like he hadn't slept at all the night before. His eyes were ringed with red, his hair messier than usual - and not in the purposeful way he did sometimes.

He flipped her off in response, which did nothing to stall the want that had been pooling in her body since she had left on Friday night. His fingers were slender but his hands were broad and had a sort of lean strength to them. His rings made them look even more stately.

"Careful I won't tell Granger," Iris said, raising the stakes of their one-sided conversation. Hopefully enough that he would grant her an actual response.

"No danger of that," he muttered as he walked across the room, shedding his coat and casting the odd little charm he knew that disappeared clothes into some strange dimension. He had done it on Iris's tops enough times for her to recognize it.

"No?" She asked, injecting as much derision as she could into her tone. She really was baiting him now. Hermione already knew about him leaving early, and Iris had done the opposite of threatening his job - she had defended him.

"You wouldn't want me fired," he said, turning to look at her.

Her heart was racing a little bit. He was talking to her again, even if it was just throwaway comments. Did this mean things were back to normal?

"You overestimate the effect you have on me," Iris said. In truth he probably underestimated it.

He didn't say anything but didn't turn away either. She wasn't going to be the one to break eye contact with him. His eyes had a little bit of red in them, as if the blood vessels behind his pupils were strained.

She thought there might be a little less venom in them, too. Hating her was a reflex for him - perhaps it took him a second to remember that he didn't exactly hate her at all. That's how it had been for Iris a couple of weeks ago.

Now, though, her reflex was to feel his skin on hers. Hating him was no longer on her mind, unless she thought the hatred between them could get her what she wanted. She wondered why he hadn't slept much last night.

"I don't," he said after a while. Good, then. He wanted to have an effect on her.

"You do," she returned easily.

His eyes narrowed. Taking it as a challenge, no doubt.

"Did you finish the Felix experiment?" He asked. She noticed that he was making no move to gather his own ingredients or ready his own cauldron and flirted with the possibility that he wanted to work alongside her today. It was a stupid thought, and if he was to do that it would only be to prove his own ends.