Love Lies Bleeding 2 of 6

I was fifteen years old when I returned to Hogwarts, and spent the first four months of the term sort of floating around in a daze. Didn’t know what to do with myself, you see. Epiphanies will do that to you. I no longer fit in with my old gang, but had no clue where to go, where to find another place where I would fit in. I was a misfit, but staring in the mirror as I sometimes did for hours at a time (desperately trying to figure out who the hell Susan Bones was, anyway) I could see no difference between the me I was before and the me I was now.

By the time we went home for the Christmas holidays my anger, which had been firmly smashed into the bottom-right corner of the box in my mind, swelled until I could no longer contain it. Determined to look as different as I felt, stealing my aunt’s makeup, I made myself look five years older then went to a Muggle tattoo parlour I’d scoped out as having less-than-strict age policies for their customers.

I got tattoo on the outside of my left calf (faceted ruby heart stabbed through by three swords and dripping a single, perfect drop of blood). I wasn’t sure what symbolism it held for me, and didn’t particularly care. With the Muggle money I had left over, I had my hair (chestnut-brown, nice enough) cut in a rather more modern fashion than most magical people were used to seeing, the better to display my newly pierced ears and eyebrow.

Returned in January, the visibly new me shocked the hell out of my housemates and anyone else who bothered to pay attention (granted, there were few). The first day back at the castle and able to use magic, I shortened all my uniform skirts to mid-thigh. Paired with sheer thigh-high stockings and my unfastened Hogwarts robes open down my front, my tat was exposed to excellent effect when walking round the castle.

Hannah Abbott cried when she saw me. “You look horrible,” she told me tearfully, her eyes big and blue and betrayed, as if I had a responsibility to inform her of all my comings and going. You’d think a ‘best friend’ would have noticed at some point during the previous months that I was troubled, but Hannah is what I like to call a ‘lovely person’, meaning she only wants to see the pretty things in life. Telling her of the box, of its ugly and shameful contents, would only confuse and shock and frighten her.

“You look horrible,” she said, and I wanted to hit her, to blacken those big blue eyes until she couldn’t see past the swelling. Instead, I went to the Quidditch pitch and sat in the back row of the Hufflepuff section of the stands to watch the Slytherin team practice.

It was just getting dark and practice was winding down when Draco Malfoy, Slytherin seeker, noticed me during one of his swooping, graceful passes around the pitch whilst looking for the snitch.

“What are you doing here, Bones?” he asked, landing with a gentle thump. “Spying for Hufflepuff?”

The idea struck me as so ludicrous that I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Not spying, then? Where’s your famous Hufflepuff loyalty?” he taunted.

I looked at him then, saw the glint of the fading sun on his platinum hair that made me want to stroke it until he purred, and pull it until he yelped, and replied, “My housemates can go get addicted to crack cocaine and die of syphilis for all I care. And so can you.”

He blinked, and blinked again. His eyes were charcoal-dark in the early twilight, dark and surprised and curious. “What’s going on with you lately, Bones?” he asked finally, sitting a few rows away from me. “What’s with the hair and piercings and…” he glanced at my legs, where the tattoo was clearly visible as my sensible grey socks had slipped down to my ankles, “everything?”

“Do you care, Malfoy?” I wanted to know.

“Not really, no.”

“Then feck off. Come back and ask again when you do care.” And I grabbed his broom and straddled it, shooting up into the air as he shouted in protest. The wind blew my robes and hair back, blew up my skirt and chilled me, numbed me, but it felt so good to feel nothing that I flew for a good ten minutes while Malfoy stood in the Hufflepuff stands and screamed at me to return his broom.

Finally so cold my hands could hardly grip the broom handle, I landed on the pitch and left it there, running back to the castle before Malfoy could get to me. I laughed the whole way, brushing past students and teachers alike, aware my face was red from cold and that most improper amounts of leg were visible as I ran, and utterly uncaring.

The next day as I left the Transfigurations classroom, a rough hand grabbed my arm and yanked me around. My books, quill, and inkpot all scattered over the floor as I looked up into the furious face of Draco Malfoy.

“What did you think you were doing yesterday, Bones?” he hissed as people started staring and whispering.

“Ah, the Slytherin Prince,” I replied, hissing the words back at him. “Why so upset, Malfoy? I’d have thought you’d enjoy riding something that had been between my legs.”

The small crown gasped, and Malfoy himself looked more than slightly taken aback. I was, after all, a Hufflepuff, for all that I was a pierced, tattooed, slutty-dressing one. His ivory skin looked impossibly smooth and lovely, and I shocked us both by leaning forward and nipping his earlobe, rather harder than necessary.

“Ouch!” he yelled, clapping his hand to his ear. “You bitch!”

Another gasp from the peanut gallery. “Wanker,” I replied calmly.

He responded by grabbing a handful of my hair and hauling me against him, then pressing me against the wall. Almost nose-to-nose, we glared at each other until the box in my mind burst open and ‘lust’ decided to come out and play, and I grabbed fistfuls of his school robes to pull his lips to mine.

He held himself stiffly away from me until I licked his bottom lip. Then he groaned and slanted his mouth over mine, thrusting his tongue in to taste and explore. My hands reached for him, one threading itself into his cornsilk hair, the other worming its way into his robes to rub and caress the firm lines of chest and belly.

His free hand roamed over my breast, squeezing with near-brutality, then travelled to clasp the cheek of my ass before sliding down to my knee, which he pulled to settle my leg around his hip. He pressed himself into the saddle of my thighs and I felt the pulsing heat of his erection against me, so I slid my tongue into his mouth in an imitation of sex.

“Miss Bones!” shrieked a female voice. McGonagall. “Mr. Malfoy!” The witch grabbed the back of his robes and dragged him away from me, our hands reaching blindly for each other as our eyes flew open in surprise. I looked around to find a huge crowd around us, all watching in horror, amusement, or unabashed interest (in the case of the older boys). “What is the meaning of this?”

Malfoy quirked a silvery brow in the unasked question of, ‘what do you think was the meaning of it, you silly bint?’ I just laughed. McGonagall looked furious, but also somewhat stunned. What, after all, do you do with two fifteen year olds who’ve come within a hair’s breadth of shagging in the middle of the corridor, in the middle of a crowd, in the middle of the day? The shamelessness of it seemed to have rendered her clueless.

She settled for marching us to the headmaster’s office and summoning our heads of houses. We were given a stern talking to, warned of the dangers of unsafe sex, assigned a week of detention, and had thirty points removed from each house.

I hardly paid attention to it; my body was still thrumming with unfulfilled randiness and I could hardly wait until I could get my hands on Malfoy again. Finally they ran out of steam and let us go. To my dismay, they were smarter than I gave them credit for and Professor Snape escorted Malfoy back to the Slytherin dormitory (I was gratified to see him glancing longingly back at me as we went our separate ways) and Sprout walked me back, tut-tutting the entire time.

“Honestly, Susan,” she said. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately.”

“Would have been Draco Malfoy if McGonagall hadn’t interrupted,” I said, and then gasped at my own daring. That was more lewd than even I was really comfortable being. Sprout stopped dead, turning slowly to look at me. She seemed to be asking herself if I had, in fact, actually said what she thought I said. Apparently deciding that no, I couldn’t possibly have, she resumed walking after a moment.

“Your grades are significantly lower, your participation and attitude in class most unsatisfactory.” She paused by the door to the Hufflepuff common room, her dirt-smeared hands twisting in her grubby robes. “I shall have to write your guardians about this incident.”

I couldn’t even feign interest or dismay in this news. “If you feel you must,” was all I could manage to say. “Can I go now?”

Sprout sighed. “Yes, I suppose so.”

I said the password (‘liberté, égalité, fraternité’—Sprout was a closet Francophile) and stepped inside. Immediately, I was besieged from all sides.

“Susan!” Hannah squealed. “What the ruddy hell was that all about?”

“Yeah, Susan,” said Justin Finch-Fletchley. “Care to tell us what’s going on with you and Malfoy?” He said the name ‘Malfoy’ with more than a little jealousy, and I realized (belatedly) —didn’t I dimly recall Laura Madley saying he wanted to ask me to the Valentine’s Ball?-- that he fancied me.

“I think it’s fairly obvious, even for you lot of duffers,” I said calmly. “Malfoy and I were having a good snog.”

“Snog!” shrieked Hannah, her plaits vibrating from the force of her anxiety. “You were halfway to shagging when McGonagall pulled you apart!”

“Thought she was going to have to toss a bucket of water on you two,” said Ernie Macmillan with a grin. His narrow face was appraising, rather than condemning, and I smiled jauntily at him. Here was one chap who thought it funny rather than scandalous—good to see that at least one Hufflepuff wasn’t a fussy little prude.

“We’re just trying to understand why you’d do such a thing,” said Owen Cauldwell, his voice sorrowful, as if I’d been placing Crucio on kittens and puppies whilst laughing merrily with Voldemort. I rolled my eyes. Owen was the house’s sensitive-poet-type, and practically anything would send him fluttering off for a lay-down with a cold cloth over his easily offended eyes.

“Oh, for Merlin’s sake, Owen, you pansy,” I snapped. “I’ve seen you look at him.” The boy blushed fiery crimson, and from my left I could see Justin’s face light up with sudden understanding. That’s why he’s always bursting into tears and writing love sonnets, I could almost hear him thinking. “Why do you think I’d almost-shag Malfoy?”

“I know why,” sighed a voice behind me, and I turned to see Eleanor Branstone with a tremulous smile on her face. “He’s lovely.”

“You don’t know lovely until you’ve kissed him,” I told her confidingly, and then the girls of the group—and Owen—had pushed their way to surround me, the displeasure on their faces giving way to curiosity. And, in Eleanor’s case, envy.

“What was it like?” asked Laura timidly. “Was it—nice?”

“Bloody hell,” groaned Kevin Whitby. “Time for a hen’s party.” And with that, all the boys—except Owen—started to shuffle off.

Not quite eager to lose half my audience quite yet, I said in a loud whisper, “Nice? It was better than nice. He almost set my knickers on fire.” The boys’ interest was rekindled instantly.

“Did he really pull your leg around him?” Ernie asked.

“I heard he grabbed your… front,” Kevin wanted to know.

“What did he taste like?” peeped Eleanor. She was turning out to be quite an interesting girl.

“How did his bum feel?” This, of course, from Owen.

“I shan’t kiss and tell,” I told them merrily, sensing it was a perfect time for my departure, and skipped up the stairs to my dorm room. Once upstairs, however, my façade of breezy sluttishness was dropped, and I fell onto the bed, staring up at the canopy and blinking back tears.

Was I doomed to have everything I felt be a bad thing, a wrong thing, a forbidden thing? I’d simply acted on what I’d wanted, when I’d wanted it, and gotten punished. It simply wasn’t proper to act on your emotions, after all. Society has all these rules, and they all seemed designed to tell me how I didn’t measure up to what was acceptable.

I felt trapped, constrained, caged. Was there no freedom to be had? I thought longingly of the gazelles, and scrubbed my hands across my damp face before rolling to smash my face into the pillow and fall asleep.

The next few days were spent exchanging glances across rooms with Draco that could best be termed as ‘smoldering’. The whole school was abuzz with it. A few times he’d managed to squeeze my backside whilst passing in the corridors, and I’d even been able to brush a hand dangerously low across his abdomen, which had made his silver eyes widen almost comically.

By Friday, mealtimes were being spent with us neglecting our food, preferring to stare across the Great Hall at each other. Halfway through dinner, Draco stood, and all eyes snapped to him. Leisurely, he made his way across the hall to me. I tossed my hair back over my shoulder and turned to face him, being sure my skirt had rucked up enough to reveal the slice of skin between its hem and the top of my stocking.

“Bones,” he said, nodding by way of greeting.

“Malfoy,” I replied breathlessly.

“Want to go to Hogsmeade with me tomorrow?” His eyes gleamed with challenge and desire and interest, and even if I hadn’t wanted to go to Hogsmeade I still would have said yes.

He nodded again. “Meet you in the front foyer tomorrow morning, then.”

“See you then,” I agreed, and thought he would turn to go, but instead he pushed his hand into my hair and pulled me up for a kiss. I feared he’d tear a hank of hair out, but then his tongue was in my mouth and he tasted like treacle from dessert and…

“Mr. Malfoy!” shouted Sprout, running up the aisle from the head table. “Unhand my student, immediately!”

Draco released me, our lips clinging moistly to each other until the very last moment. I felt sure I’d melt onto the floor as he smiled at me, a slow smile of promised sin. Sprout was glaring at me, but I wasn’t even paying attention. How can this boy only be fifteen years old? I wondered, touching fingers to my tingling lips as he sauntered back to his own table.

When we met in the foyer Saturday morning, Draco thrust his arm under my cloak with casual familiarity to wrap around my waist, pulling me close to his warmth as we walked to town. As neither of us really needing to make any purchases, we quickly became bored, and it wasn’t long before Draco pulled me into an alley between two shops and suggested we return to the castle to ‘get to know each other better’.

“I like that euphemism,” I told him, laughing as he slid his arms around me, pulling me tight against his chest. “How do you propose we get back in without anyone seeing us? Sprout is starting to get obsessed with keeping me decent.”

“Too late for that,” he murmured approvingly, and nuzzled my ear. “Damnedest things happened last night after dinner. The Weasley twins came to me in the corridor, said they were ardent supporters of ‘true love’.” He said the words as if they tasted very bad. “Fred—or maybe it was George—said that Zonko’s has a secret passage into the castle.”

“What are we waiting for?” I purred. He grinned with delight, and we went to Zonko’s. It was mad with the younger students stocking up on their tricks and treats, and not at all difficult to slip unnoticed into the back room, where he found the described mechanism to reveal the passage.

Gripping my hand, he led me through the dark tunnel, his wand the only light to guide us. When we emerged, we made our stealthy way to the dungeons, having a close miss when Snape stalked by—Draco tugged me into a shadow behind a group of suits of armour, and the Potions master failed to notice us (or, as I later learned, failed to let us know he was aware of our presence).

He whispered the password so I couldn’t hear (“Aw, Malfoy, don’t you trust me?” I drawled) and then we were inside. Dark, dramatic, with lots of green and silver, it could hardly have been more different from Hufflepuff’s sunny, tall-windowed rooms.

His room was empty, and smelled of the usual teenaged-boy aroma of socks. His area was reasonably neat, and his bed was made. Draco turned to me, that smile on his face again, and said, “Well, how do you want to work this?”

“First, you should put a silencing charm around the bed,” I told him. “I don’t know if you’re noisy, but I think I might be a screamer.”

His eyes sparked with admiration as he did that, then waited for me. I stepped forward and placed my hands on his chest. “Let’s just start with a kiss, and take it from there.”

Draco slid his arms around me. “Excellent plan.” He began to kiss me, and I sighed into his mouth as desire burst from the box in my mind. Finally, finally, I was feeling lust, I was expressing lust, and here was this boy—this beautiful, terrible boy—sharing and approving of my lust. It was glorious.

We fumbled with cloak clasps, robes fastenings, shirt buttons. School ties were wrenched off, but not discarded (“Might want to use them later,” Draco suggested) and then his mouth was on my nipples while my fingers rubbed and pinched his.

His erection was very hard against me, and I moved my belly against it until he was gasping, and I heard a tear as he pulled at my skirt. “You’ll have to Reparo that later,” I told him, my hands busy with his belt and trouser zipper. His cock sprang free into my hand, and I moaned into his mouth. “All for me?” I asked him coquettishly.

“All for you,” he promised, and ripped my knickers off.

“I liked those,” I protested as he nudged me toward the bed, never stopping his nibbling and sucking down my throat.

“You won’t need them again for a long time,” he promised, falling with me to the bed. I spread my legs to accommodate his body, thrilling to the feel of his lean hips between my thighs.

“Am I ready enough?” I asked him, and he reached a hand down to my pussy, running a finger through the dark curls there.

“Oh yes,” he moaned. “You’re so ready, so wet. For me.”

“For you,” I agreed, and wrapped my hand around his cock. A bead of moisture had formed at the tip, and I spread it around the velvet-soft head with my thumb, drinking his moan as he bucked against me. “And you’re ready. For me.” I positioned him, rubbing him into my wetness.

“Yesss,” he hissed, and thrust hard.

Stars shot through my head, stars of pain and stars of pleasure and stars of knowledge. His body on mine, in mine—this was what all the poems and songs were written about. I could feel every single inch of him as he moved, every inch in and every inch out, and was perversely reminded of that primitive way to start a fire by rubbing two sticks together—surely his cock inside me was creating enough friction to create a burst of flame.

It didn’t last long. He was, after all, only fifteen, and not nearly experienced enough to be able to hold off. I was disappointed, but confident he’d get his ‘second wind’ soon and we could continue, so I was thoroughly shocked when he slid down my body and lowered his mouth to me.

If his cock in me had been heaven, then his tongue on my clit was hell—an unearthly torment, an ordeal that made me writhe and pant and finally howl like I was being killed, dismembered, flayed alive. I felt the layers of my mind lift and float away, felt years of loneliness and anger and fear melt like the last snow of the season when springtime comes.

“See?” I told him when I could speak again. “Told you I was a screamer.”

“So you did,” he agreed, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand and crawling up to collapse beside me. I pulled the covers around us and we passed out, wrapped in each other’s arms and sweat.

That was the beginning for Malfoy and I. There was nothing of love or tenderness about it, unless we happened to feel the need for such at the moment. We attended the Valentine’s Ball with other people (he, Pansy; me, Ernie MacMillan, with whom I’d made no bones about why I was going) and spent the whole evening dancing with each other. We laughed when Pansy and Ernie bonded over our desertion and were later found by Snape in the rose garden, snogging like there was no tomorrow.

People thought we were the most romantic couple they’d ever seen, that we were a Romeo-and-Juliet-like saga of reckless, doomed love, but we knew better—we were using each other, plain and simple, and we liked it that way. Fifth year came to an end, and Malfoy and I went back to our respective homes and lives. We didn’t bother owling each other over the summer.