Beauty and the Beast [Draco Malfoy]

Chapter Twenty-Six

Lizzie's POV:

"Pansy fucking Parkinson," I sneered at the girl in the common room. It was only her and me here at the moment, seeing as everyone else was in bed. I had had troubles sleeping so I had come down to the common room to sit by the fire for a bit and met her there by the sofa.

"What are you doing here, mudblood?" she hissed, standing up from her spot and spinning to face me. I was standing at the end of the girls dormitory hallway and she was across the common room, but with the eerie silence, our voices carried easily.

"My common room too," I spoke, taking a few steps towards her. My feet were silent in their approach.

"You don't belong here. You belong in Hufflepuff just like your spineless brother. Why don't you run along and make some beaded bracelets with them?" she taunted. Ignoring her mention of my brother, I continued walking towards her and spoke once more.

"I know what you did," I growled at her.

"What do you mean?" Her eyes narrowed at me as she watched me slowly approach her.

"You know exactly what I mean," I snarled. "You told the house elves to put the Bloodroot in my sherry tart. You poisoned me. You tried to kill me!" By this point, I was nearly in front of her, rounding the corner of the sofa and coming face to face with the girl.

"And I wish it had worked, you dirty little mudblood. You're no better than the gum under the desks or the mud on your shoes." I clenched my fist and punched Pansy Parkinson so hard she fell backwards onto the ground. The noise was loud in the quiet surrounding us.

"You have no idea how long I have been waiting to do that, you bitch," I spit at her.

"You shouldn't have done that." She brought her hand up to her face and brushed her nose, bringing it back covered in blood.

"Oh, what are you going to do? Hit me?" I jeered. I watched Pansy stand and wipe the blood from her nose once more before she punched me too. Honestly, I should have saw it coming, but her fist made contact with my nose, nonetheless, causing warm, crimson blood to spill from my nose and my eyes to water ferociously. I took a step back and rubbed the blood from my nose before making another nove. My next punch landed solidly in her gut, making her double over, coughing heavily. I lunged my knee into her face harshly with a grunt from me and a cry from her.

She straightened up quickly and attempted to send a punch into my face again, but I knew it was coming this time, so I easily sidestepped it and threw a fist at her exposed side, hearing a crack from her ribs. She gripped her now obviously broken ribs and took a few steps back from me. Already, her right eye was swelling in addition to her bloody nose.

"Come on, Pansy, I was always tougher than you, and smarter, but I won't mention that," I snarled. She reached into the pocket of her emerald robe and pulled out her wand. "Going for the magic kind of fight now?" I drew my own wand and pointed it at her abdomen.

"Stubefy!" she shrieked at me, her broken nose impairing her speech. I slashed my wand up and blocked her spell quite easily, if I admit.

"Obscuro!" I shouted causing a black stretch of material to fire from my wand and wind its way around her eyes, blocking her sight. She immediately began to claw at the blindfold desperately while I darted forward and landed a punch on her right cheek.

With a yelp, she finally succeeded in removing the material and shot another spell at me. My wand shot from my grasp and flew several feet to my right, landing in front of one of the enormous windows. I shot towards the small piece of wood as she launched herself over the sofa. I stuck my leg out and tripped her; she fell face first onto the hardwood floor, causing me to cringe. My feet slapped the remained of the way towards my wand and I picked it up, spinning around and casting a spell Harry taught us at the D.A.

"Levicorpus!" Pansy was hoisted into the air by her left ankle and dangled there, thrashing around violently.

"Lizzie?" A voice called from behind me. I turned around and flinched from what I saw. The fight between Pansy and me had obviously woken several people up, as they were crowded around the dormitory hallways. Draco shoved his way through the crowd and walked up to me, seeing Pansy floating behind my back. "What is going on?"

"Payback, bitch," I spit at the girl.

"Put her down, Liz," Draco commanded sternly. Despite my urge to leave her hanging there until her face was redder than a tomato, I muttered the countercurse and she came crashing to the ground with a thud. She shot to her feet and straightened her clothes and hair as best as she could, which wasn't too well. Taking a look at her in the light coming from the sconce beside us, she looked terrible. Her right eye was swollen completely shut and was turning purple, along with a large spot on her cheek and the skin around her nose, which was bleeding more profusely than ever and was sticking out at an odd angle. Compared to her, I looked like a princess. "What happened?"

"I was giving her a piece of my mind for poisoning me," I spoke this just a bit too loud so everyone in the room would be enlightened on why I disappeared for a month and who was responsible.

"That doesn't mean you turn her into a punching bag!" He gestured wildly at Pansy's face.

"She almost killed me, Draco!" I argued with him, wiping at my face because the blood from my nose was beginning to drip from my nose.

"I know, but look at what you did!" he shot back.

"I - could- have- died!" I said in a dangerously calm voice that told Draco not to argue with me any further.

"Damnit, Elizabeth," he replied angrily, grabbing my hand roughly and dragging me through the crowd and down the boys dormitory hallway. He slammed the door to his room shut behind us, causing me to jump. "Are you okay?" he asked me as he touched a finger to the bridge of my nose.

"I'm fine," I snapped at him, pulling my head back from his touch.

"I'm sorry about everything out there, Liz," he sighed after he sat down on his four-poster.

"Well I'm not," I muttered, still angry about Pansy.

"Let me look at your nose," he said.

"I said I'm fine!" I retorted, crossing my arms in front of my chest.

"Obviously you're not," he spoke softly, making me feel bad for snapping at him. "Your nose is bleeding a lot, Liz. I just want to make sure it's okay." I huffed and sat facing him on his bed cross-legged. "Thank you, love."

He placed his left hand on the side of my face, holding it gently in place while his right stroked my nose softly, being sure not to hurt me. I closed my eyes and let his cool touch help abate my anger. My shoulders relaxed and I found myself leaning into his touch.

"The good news is that it's not broken, but the bad news is that I don't know any spells to stop bleeding, so you'll just have to wait until it stops. I'm taking you to see Madam Pomfrey in the morning," he stated, standing and retrieving an old shirt from his dresser. He carefully held it to my nose to staunch the bleeding.

"I'm sorry for snapping at you," I murmured.

"It's alright. I know you were angry; I was too," he replied quietly. I lifted my eyes to look at him.

"You were? You didn't show it."

"I have become extraordinarily good at hiding my emotions over my lifetime," he chuckled.

"Can you make me a promise?" I asked him after a few seconds of silence. I grasped his spare hand in mine and locked my eyes on his.

"Of course."

"Promise me that you will never hide your emotions from me. Promise me you will always tell me how you feel," I spoke lowly and almost desperately.

"I'll try my best," he smiled.

"No. I don't want you to try, I want you to do it. I know hard it can be to cover emotions and let them pile up for ages until they burst from your body and I don't want that to happen to you. Promise me," I reiterated.

"I promise."