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Pardon My French

By Violet Beck

Arc I :: Quelle Chance!

Chapter Seven :: Enter the Stupid Kitten

 

Evil. Straight-up, un-messed-with evil. That's what I'm supposed to be. I'm a fucking Malfoy, for godsakes! I'm not supposed to just give in to every pretty boy or girl with sparkling emerald green eyes...oh gods, will you just listen to me? They're fucking green. Green. Not sparkling, not emerald, just green.

Verdant...my mind contributed, and I mentally slapped myself. I was on my way to my first class of the day: double History of Magic. Whoopee. The rest of the Slytherins billowed around me, a helpful human shield from the outside world. I didn't want to talk to anyone today. I didn't see Blaise. Pansy was gossiping with Millie. And luckily, Crabbe and Goyle are about as perceptive as a pair of garden slugs.

Luckily. I set my teeth, and breathed out between them to calm my nerves. The ring was still on my hand, innocent-looking as ever. I could take it off...and I'd never have to think about Potter and his pretty green eyes again.

Mental slap. They are not pretty!

Okay, maybe my brain would take a little beating into shape on the matter, but I sure wasn't going to act on any of my weirdo "deepest wishes" or whatever Severus had called them. I could control myself. And I'd have to, because I sure wasn't giving up the ring. It just had too many benefits.

I noticed a puddle of spilled ink on the floor just in time, and swept my cloak away from it just before it got stained. Yeah, way too many benefits. Anyway, I was going to need an extra hand with this whole Nundu fur thing. Unnatural good fortune would do me well. And I was pretty sure it was my deepest desire to stay on the Weasley twins' good side. Hell, it's any logical human being's desire to stay on the Weasleys' good side. Erm, good sides. Whatever. They count as one singular entity now, okay?

The rest of the Slytherins and I trickled into History of Magic. I took my usual seat in the very back, in between Crabbe and Goyle. We had a special addition to our posse today: Pithivier. More precisely, a flask of Pithivier's Tangerfruit Schnapps. I love house elves. Maybe I'll join S.P.L.U.R.T., or whatever Granger's calling that racket these days.

Binns floated through the chalkboard precisely as the bell on the wall rang itself, same as every morning, and I quickly floated away. About two sips of Pithivier's and I was comfortably far off. What most folks call "a little tipsy" I call a perfect time for thinking. You're undoubtedly starting to see why a lot of my plans fail. Well fuck you, too.

Yay, Binns is talking about the Unicorn Act of 1821. I would care if unicorn killers didn't punish themselves. Back to La-La Land I go.

Nundu fur, I thought. That was my biggest problem at the time, so I'd just have to ditch the Potter Issue at the moment. I might end up smooching Potter, but the Weasleys would scald my face off if I didn't fix something right away. Oh wait, kissing Potter might scald my face off, too. This was getting confusing.

Okay, Draco, I decided, a little more firmly, Nundu fur is the first issue, but they are not placed in any order of importance. My mind agreed with this diplomatic motion, so I got on to the actual thinking part of the process.

At this rate, it's amazing how my Parliament of a brain every gets anything done.

I decided that asking Father was a generally bad idea at this point. I hadn't talked to him since my first request for it, so we already had a double indicator that he was busy with something extremely important at the moment: first, he was always prompt when I asked for one school supply or another, and second, he called weekly like clockwork. Mum had made the call last week, and it had been short. Lucius was up to something, no doubt about it.

Who else to go to, then? We didn't really have any other good contacts in the Hogsmeade area. Except, perhaps, for Sirius Black, but Father wouldn't tell me anything about him. I'll bet that lovely psycho killer has secrets like you wouldn't believe....

Wait...Snape! Severus, of course! Well, he'd never just hand them over to me, but it would be easy enough to steal the supplies from him, wouldn't it? I knew the exact cabinet where he kept them. Heh. It was alphabetized. Almost like dear old Sevvie was asking for it.

That would mean another excursion sans the Crabbe and Goyle Invincible Team, though. The big beefy oafs just aren't made for stealth missions, and that's the gospel truth. It made me sort of guilty, leaving them behind; I mean, I kind of like having the guys around. They're the closest thing to friends I have.

So I had to look to Super Spy Numero Dos to aid me...

<<<>>>

I caught up with Pansy during lunch, in the girl's dorm. She was stretched out on her bed.

"Hi!" she said brightly when I strolled in, and promptly sneezed. "Look what I got!" she motioned to her lap, so I walked over and took a look.

It was a kitten, not two months old. It was small, gray, and very adorable.

"Where'd you get that?" I asked, prodding it distastefully with my forefinger. "Thinking of breaking your no-food pledge?"

She wrinkled her nose. "Don't gross me out." A hand went up to wipe her allergy-assaulted eyes. "I'll get boogers on you if you do. He was a 'gift' from that dumb sixth year's Ravenclaw boyfriend. Spiteful bastard."

Rolling my eyes, I sat beside her and scooped the kitten into my lap. It purred and rubbed its face against me. "Aw, now you just make me feel all cold and prickly inside," I snarled quietly at it. The kitten took no notice, so I returned my attentions to Pansy. "What are you going to do with the little bugger? I say you eat him."

"Boogers, Draco," Pansy warned. "Boogers."

I sneered at her. "Your boogers don't scare me."

She wiped her hand across her nose and reached for me. I yelped in disgust and shock, shoving myself away from her, and she laughed. "Yeah, right," she snickered, and grabbed a tissue. "Anyway, I was thinking I could just keep the beast for a bit. You know, to really piss Miss Priss and her boyfriend off by just treating it like a real gift." She sniffled a bit. "That is, if you know any good allergy charms. Because otherwise I'll be dead within the hour."

"No allergy charms," I said, wracking my brain. "But, if it's just temporary..." I slipped out my wand. "Remedium!"

The was a little twinkle of blue as the spell hit her, and in an instant, she was grinning. "My god!" she exclaimed, lifting her hand to her suddenly dry eyes. "What is that?"

"Just a really short acting symptom-relief spell," I told her. "I use it for indigestion; wears off in a couple of hours."

The kitten meowed loudly, and we both had to suppress a distinct desire to pick it up and chuck it across the room.

"So what did you need, anyway?" Pansy asked.

"Eh?"

"You never come up here unless you need something. Spit it."

"Funny you should say that," I said, letting a smile twitch my lips, "because I need an accomplice tonight."

"Does this involve anything perverted?"

Innocent Eyes strike back. "When have I ever done anything perverted, Pansy?"

"I dunno, always?"

"Ha, ha. Seriously, though, nothing perverted. This time."

She gave me a hard look for a second, and then shrugged. "Fine, what is it?"

"I need something from Snape's storage closet. Bad."

"Wow," Pansy said, eyebrows raised. "I always knew you weren't all together in the head, but I didn't know it extended into the realm of being totally retarded."

"What's that?" I said loudly, feigning deafness. "Something about wanting a bad Cat Curse cast on you?"

"What's that?" she countered at the same volume. "Something about wanting to take care Asmodeus for a week in return?"

My voice dropped back to its usual level, and I quirked my eyebrows. "Who the fuck is Asmodeus?" I asked, half-sure already. She pointed at the bundle of gray fur in my lap, and I snorted in disbelief. "What, you're going to waste a great name like 'Asmodeus' on that little peep?"

"Well, there's got to at least be something good about him. So," she perked up visibly. "Do you want him? I mean, just for a week or so. Then you can give him to someone bloodthirsty and let them do what they will. I just wanna get the message across to Prissy & Co."

I scrutinized the Asmodeus formerly known as Stupid Kitten. Maybe I could dye him black or something. Yeah...it wouldn't be so bad if he was black, and if Pansy and I were successful in retrieving the Nundu fur.

I'm such a pushover. Sigh. "Fine, I'll take care of him," I conceded. "But you are going to be so amazingly obedient that it's going to be...um, amazing."

Pansy seemed so happy, she looked like she'd just killed something small and cute. Which she effectively had, by giving a fuzzy little kitten to me, but never mind that. "You're the best, Draco," she crooned.

I wasn't affected by her candied voice. "Yeah, just make sure I'm the best in the common room at midnight tonight. If you're late, you get cat ears. And Snape says Pomfrey's had a hard time getting those off of the other victims."

She smiled winningly. "Nothing to worry about," she assured me. "I'm your girl."

"Shut up," I said, rolling my eyes as I grabbed Asmodeus by the scruff of his neck and dropped him into my coat pocket. He complained for a few seconds, but then settled down for some sort of nap. Honestly, a little kitty taking a nap in a pocket. I felt like I was in a Muggle Disney movie. If it had broken into song right then, I probably would have stuffed it into the Slytherin common room bathroom and never let it out.

Yeah, the bathroom with one wall which is entirely subterranean dirt. Yeah, I'd do that to a cute little kitten. Who do you think I am!?

<<<>>>

The stroke of midnight from the Hogsmeade clock tower found me in the common room, listening to les poseurs chatting conspiratorially about their plans for world domination or, even worse, fawning dedication to m'Lord. Blech. Sometimes I just wanted to curse the whole lot of them. With Lord Voldemort, you're in or you're out or you're a tool. And in the Slytherin common room, there's a whole toolbox sitting by the fire from eleven to one every night.

Pansy was on time. She slunk down the spiral staircase which lead upward to the girls' dormitory only seconds after the clock finished its chiming not so far away. She was wearing black work robes, the same sort as mine.

She nodded to me as she descended, and les poseurs didn't notice her. Work robes are cut to the mid-calf and slitted to about mid-thigh, for easy running. They also have a lovely hood. Now, you'll never guess what other sort of wizard wears work robes quite a bit.

I stood, and well held a quiet conference before we left.

"Have you canvassed the place?" she murmured. "Does he sleep nearby? Stay up late often?"

"He never stays past eleven, and he sleeps in a little room off of his office."

Pansy grimaced, and I noticed she was wearing makeup. Gods, who puts on makeup for a secret mission?

"That's kind of cutting it close," she said, referring to the fact that Snape's office was just off of our classroom.

"I play dangerously," I said.

She gave me her jaded don't-be-all-melodramatic-with-me look, and we left the common room.

Chapter Six | Chapter Eight


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