Salazar's Angel

XII

Once Draco has hauled her across the threshold back into the castle, he releases her arm by slinging her towards the far wall and slamming the door shut behind them. Why is it that Dahlia always ends up sandwiched in between him and a wall anytime they are together?

"Oh this ought to be good." Dahlia crosses her arms and widens her stance, staring him down.

"Are you fucking crazy?" Draco practically seethes, walking up to Dahlia so they are practically toe to toe.

Dahlia can't help but roll her eyes, which only seems to enrage Draco even more. He is hard to read, though, as his emotions do not play out on him in the way of most people. Dahlia has learned his clues to rage are an icy fire in his eyes, and the tendons straining in his neck. As this is the only strong emotion she has ever seen on him, she is starting to get good at picking it up.

"No, Malfoy, I was trying to have some fun," Dahlia states plainly.

"You could have died," Draco says, as if this isn't an unspoken assumption when one mounts a flying broom.

"And why, exactly, do you care?" Dahlia asks. "You didn't have to save me, you know. Could have just let me completely eat it..."

Draco laughs once, sharp and biting and cold and not at all how a laugh is meant to sound. "If only you knew..."

"If only I knew what? Please, don't start keeping things from me now since you've been so open about your evident disgust with me up to this point!" Now Dahlia is starting to get irritated, which was not at all something she wanted to be around Draco.

"You are in way over your head Dahlia." Draco narrows his eyes.

"Wow, it's almost as if I didn't choose any of this...OH WAIT!" She practically cries out.

Draco's hand shoots out to her neck, forcing her back to the wall and holding her there, not quite cutting off her hair supply. "Cut the crap Dahlia." He does not say her name often, and his hand around her neck is making it difficult to appreciate the way it sounds coming out of his mouth. "You have no idea how important you are to this war."

Dahlia swallows, takes a deep breath in through her nose, and speaks; though, her voice is altered by his hand around her throat. "Malfoy, if you don't remove your hand from my throat you are going to lose it one way or another."

"You don't tell me what to do." He applies a little more pressure.

Dahlia lifts her foot and stomps it down on top of his, causing his hand to drop from her neck. In the second that he is only focused on the pain, Dahlia grabs both of his hands by the wrists and uses them to shove his back to the wall. She pins his wrists to his sides, her nose to his nose.

"Listen to me, Malfoy, and listen good. I have told you a thousand times that I want no part of any of this. But since I have no choice, I am going to make the best of this situation. If I have to be here, I am going to make good grades and I am going to have fun. And neither you, nor Dumbledore watching me like a hawk, nor Voldemort breathing down my neck are going to stop me. Clear? Good." Dahlia pushes off his wrists and storms off. 

As Dahlia wanders around the castle, looking for anything familiar that might give her a clue as to where she was, she begins to think. Draco is the only one who knows her situation, so maybe she shouldn't have been so harsh to him. He could easily ship her right back to Voldemort, or sell her out to the entire school, or any other number of terrible things. What she doesn't quite understand is why he hasn't yet...so far he has saved her ass from death by broom accident and done little more than lightly choke her and give her death glares. She decides that if he wanted to tell Voldemort he knew where she was hiding out, he would have already done so. Though, just in case, it probably wouldn't hurt her to stay on his good side, if he has one. Additionally, it usually did not bother her when people disliked her but for some reason the fact that Draco did with such fervor was starting to bug her. She resolves herself to stop fighting back to him as she finally comes to a stop outside the common room door. 

Upon entering the common room, he is waiting for her on a couch by the fire.

"What in the bloody hell took you so long to get back here?" Draco asks, storming over to meet her the second she moves through the wall.

"I was thinking," Dahlia answers, not admitting that her getting lost was what gave her the opportunity to do the thinking in the first place.

"About?" Draco prods.

Dahlia rests her butt against the couch and levels her gaze at him. "You."

"Me?" He asks, voice not rising above it's usual icy tone.

"Yes, you."

"And?"

"And I have decided that if you were going to sell me out to Voldy to gain yourself some Death Eater points you would have done it the second you found out who I was. But you haven't. So I have decided to simply reconcile with whatever personal grudge you hold against me and move on with my life."

"You really do think it's that simple, don't you?" His eyes narrow.

"Oh Malfoy, let's just make nice and move on, huh?" She rolls her eyes at him and then turns on her heel to head for her bed. 

"Not even in your dreams, you spineless blood traitor!" Malfoy spits in his poisonous low tone at her back as she walks away.

The only response is the sound of her door slamming closed, with perhaps a little more force than necessary.