Limerence; Draco Malfoy

Chapter Eighteen: Silenced

"I'll cut straight to the point shall I?" He drawled out, "I believe you have something of mine, and I'd like it back."

His jaw ticked, and I thought to myself how I had never heard someone sound so glaringly pissed off in my entire life.

I really had quite the effect on him.

"Wha- what? You- I- what the hell?"

Fuck, I couldn't even form a coherent sentence anymore. Partly due to bewilderment, partly due to the fact his face was so close to mine. A breath away. It shouldn't have been such a distraction.

Now really was not the time to be focussing on how admirably long his eyelashes were, or the way his skin was somehow still silky smooth like porcelain, even up close... No, those things were pathetically irrelevant, and the result of my drinking too much butterbeer.

"Cut the innocent act." He answered haughtily. "Let's not stand here all night pretending as though you don't know what the hell I'm talking about."

"I don't know what the hell it is your talking about!"

My chin tilted up in defiance, yet all I found in his eyes was a rising fury.

"Hand it over." He warned. "Or, if you're so insistent on making things difficult, we could do this the hard way. Your choice."

The hand he had flattened against the wall slid sharply across, inching dangerously close to my face.

A sudden, hissing sigh shot out through his clenched teeth.

"Just give me my bloody ring back, Lockwood," He spoke quietly, slowly - a ticking bomb ready to detonate.

A ring?!?!?!

All this angst... is over... over...

A piece of fucking JEWELLERY!!!!

"- Do you hear me? You're going to give it back. Give back what your little, thieving Mudblood hands took. Hand over what's mine and that way, nobody has to get hurt. Because we wouldn't want that, would we?"

His tone was chillingly coaxing and smooth - in no way did it match the stark threat he'd just spun out.

I blinked, searching his storm-filled eyes. A laugh suddenly bubbled in my throat.

I let it slip.

"You can't be fucking serious?"

The glare he wore told me otherwise.

"But... why would I steal anything off of you?" I spluttered. "A tacky, flimsy ring of all things?"

I let out one last disbelieving laugh - a laugh that quickly turned strained before faltering and dying out completely, allowing the icy air to grow thick with silence.

A nervous shudder raked down the length of my spine once I saw that his expression hadn't shifted, and that he was gripping the knife even tighter in his hand, and suddenly I was backpeddling my words:

"Wait-I- what I mean is I have no idea what you're talking about, and that I think you've accidentally been mistaken. That you've mistaken me with er- someone else. Because I didn't do it. I swear - I've never stolen anything in my life! Well, apart from one time when I was eight and I slipped that eyeliner into my pocket behind my mother's back at the store - but that literally doesn't mean anything. I'm no thief! And I can see that you're obviously quite upset about it - I mean, of course. That's understandable. I would be upset too - rings are expensive. I didn't mean what I said when I called it tacky. Well - no, okay - I did. I did. But I'm just not a big fan of jewelry, alright? If it makes you feel any better we could, well, we could go to Claire's accessories and pick out a nice, brand-new shiny ring to replace the one you lost-"

I knew I was rambling, trying to turn it into a joke (as if he'd ever crack a smile and all would be forgiven!) but I just. Couldn't. Stop.

"-Lockwood," He interrupted me mid-sentence, silencing me straight away. His glare flicked between both of my eyes again, searching for any trace of a lie. "Will you please kindly shut the fuck up?"

Silence.

"Okay," I whispered. Swallowed. And then I opened my mouth again once I'd regained my composure, essentially beating him to it. "-But I'm honestly telling the truth, I didn't take your ring, you must have lost it. Have you checked the bathroom-"

Suddenly, my jaw was seized and gripped hard by his cold fingers. The air and my words got stuck somewhere in my throat, as his eyes blazed straight through me and into my very much shaken soul, and he hissed:

"-I said stop fucking talking."

As if I could talk anyway now that his fingers were digging painfully into my jaw -- hard enough to leave bruises. He tilted my chin up, edging even closer so that his firm chest was pushing against mine, and so that my hands were trapped in between them. The wild, erratic thump of a heartbeat could be felt between our pressed bodies - whose it belonged to, I couldn't tell.

"-Firstly, I'd like to point out that I didn't in fact lose my ring. And secondly,"

His grip tightened whilst I tried not to whimper. I wouldn't let him see me crumble.

"-You're still lying. Maybe it's because you're dumb, reckless... scared?" His spiteful, cryptic laugh hit me like a blast of ice.

"Fucking hell, you should be scared!" His tone dipped to something taunting.

"Do you know how my family deals with thieving little trolls like you? They do one of two things: the first being they use a curse which seals their mouths shut for eternity. I quite like the idea of using that one on you. But alas, I still don't think it's extreme enough."

My eyes were wide and burning as they flicked down to observe the way his lip curled at the corner. Evidently he was enjoying every second of the torment, and it was the last comfirmation I needed to realise that yes, he truly was a deranged psychopath -- evil. Empty of humanity.

For a painfully tense moment Draco just studied me - carefully scanning my expression with cruel enjoyment before he spoke his next threat:

"-I'd personally go for the latter option - the longer and more painful one. You ever been put under a cruciatus curse, Lockwood? No?" He tsked, sarcasm rolling off him. "Well, not to worry, there's a first time for everything-"

"-Let go of me," I whispered, my voice close to cracking. My eyebrows suddenly shot up as I inhaled a sharp breath through my nose.

I recognized his scent well enough by now - a distractingly enticing combination of expensive cologne, apples, and soap.

But now there was something else lingering - and my suspicions were only confirmed when my gaze shifted to the side and I spotted the half-empty bottle displayed on the mantlepiece.

Firewhiskey.

It was then that I became aware of the slightly sunken, glazed over look in his eyes. The state of his snowy hair was ruffled and sticking up slightly at odd angles.

Without meaning to, my gaze became leveled with his chest in front of me, and I saw how his shirt was crumpled. How the top two buttons were undone, and how his was tie loosely draped around his neck, and it hit me straight away:

Draco Malfoy was drunk.