For You. | Draco Malfoy Fanfiction

twenty-three.

cover art: nikitajobson on instagram

"Liquid Courage"

KINLEY ADAMS

The corridor is dark, lit by a few candles hung on the wall. The area seems to float around like a boat the longer I walk, making me tumble each step I take. I manage to go down one flight of the changing stairs.

Two.

Three.

Four flights.

I'm walking down another corridor. I think I'm on the fifth floor. It's quiet, except for my footsteps that slide against the stone — I can't seem to lift my feet far enough off the floor to stop it. If I do I might fall. I don't know how I got so pissed, I think to myself.

I catch sight of an open door. There's steam rolling from the door frame and into the corridor. I'm about to walk in the room when I notice a shadow that's cast onto the wall at the opposite end of the corridor. It gets larger the longer I stare at it and I begin to hear footsteps from what sounds like the next corridor over. Soft, symmetrical steps, I observe. They're coming closer to me — I can tell by the increase in sound with each step. I take a wobbly step back against the corridor wall to hide behind the statue of Boris the Bewildered, though it doesn't do much.

The footsteps stop. So does my breathing. I wait a few minutes for the footsteps to start again until they trail off into nothing and the corridor is quiet again. Thank Merlin.

I sip the goblet that I forget is in my hand and I decide to approach the open door — the steam is basically gone by now. Turn around. Go back to Gryffindor, my brain says, but my feet are not listening. I stand at the entrance to the door and my eyes are met by white marble everywhere. A softly lit, candle-filled chandelier lights a large, rectangular swimming pool that's sunken into the ground. There are bath taps running all different colors of soap and water. I've never seen this before.

I walk into the room, despite the person I should be careful about getting caught with, but I'm too sloshed to care. I touch the water. It's still warm and it smells good — clean. It makes me want to get in myself but I don't.

"What are you doing in here, Adams?" a voice drawls from behind me.

It's Draco. I can tell his voice from anywhere.

I turn to face him, my eyes catching sight of his bare abdomen. He's wet, dripping in soap and water and the only article of clothing covering him is his black boxers that seem to be suctioned to his skin — sopping with water. His hair has fallen to the front of his face, beads of water leaving the tips of each strand. He must've been in here a while. I grin. I don't mean to, but I do.

"Hello," I say, but the word drags and sounds like I've added an extra four 'o's" to the end of it. "I might ask you the same question," I add, my words slur. I can't seem to stop my eyes from trailing down his body. He's practically naked.

"I'm a prefect. You're in the prefect's bathroom."

I laugh. "What makes prefects so special that they get a bathroom like this while the rest of us get ghastly chambers and moaning ghosts?"

He stares at me through his blond eyelashes, expressionless. Maybe if I were sober it'd be easier to decipher him.

His eyes glance to the goblet in my hand. "You sound like you're legless."