Jewel Of The Nile

Chapter Fifteen

They were sitting in the kitchen, at one of the high round diner-style tables that the house-elves reserved for eaters-between-meals. Gabrielle, the inveterate Anglophile, had requested "rosbif – rare, s’il-vous-plâit –", and was now daintily devouring a sandwich nearly the size of her head. Draco, who wasn’t, he found, very hungry after all, sipped his pumpkin juice and morosely stole a pickle spear from her plate, more to annoy her than out of any real desire for it.

Gabrielle smacked his hand with her fork.

"Get your own."

"I don’t want my own," he retorted. "I want some of yours."

She made an irritated sound in her throat. "If you were always this rude to Hermione, it’s small wonder she left you."

Draco scowled. "I was never rude to her," he said. "At least not while we were together. And she didn’t leave me; I left her."

"Stupid."

He set down his pumpkin juice halfway to his mouth. "I beg your pardon?"

Gabrielle licked mustard off her thumb, a gesture made all the more sensual by its complete lack of calculation. "You heard me. You’re an idiot to have ended it, when you’re so obviously still in love with her."

Draco sputtered. "Still in –"

Gabrielle continued, as if he hadn’t spoken.

"And saying you had a date with me – you can thank me any time for playing along with that little farce, by the way – only makes us both look foolish." She took another bite of her sandwich. "I have no intention of dating anyone," she said with a moué of disdain. "The Delacours are known for their daring and their good business sense; my great-grandfather was a French sea-captain-turned-brigand, and my grandmother the most famous Parisian courtesan of her time. Before I even look at a man, I’m going to be famous too."

"Famous for what?" Draco inquired. Gabrielle tossed her curls back over her shoulder.

"For my financial wizardry, of course," she said. "I fully intend to be rich beyond reason; I’ll snap my fingers and empires will topple." Her voice went dreamy. "I’ll have blue-chip status on the New York Stock Exchange. My picture on the cover of Forbes. I’ll be on Gringotts’ board of directors; they’ll send me cases of Clicquot at Christmastime, and fly me to Florence in a charter jet for risotto aux truffes, to beg me for my vote."

"Apparating’s quicker," Draco suggested. Gabrielle wrinkled her nose.

"But then I wouldn’t get the hot towel. Or the complimentary cocktail."

Draco snorted appreciatively. As usual, ten minutes spent in Gabrielle’s charmingly mercenary, refreshingly forthright company was enough to restore his good spirits – even if she had just called him an idiot.

"And what," he inquired, "are you going to do then, Mademoiselle Reine-de-la-Monde? Won’t you get lonely, sitting all by yourself in First Class?"

She picked up her remaining pickle spear and wagged it at him. "No. And if I do, then I’ll find myself a man."

"Oh, you will, will you?" This ought to be good; Draco propped his cheek on his hand and prepared himself to be amused. "Well, then, tell me about this paragon of yours; what are your criteria?"

"Hm." She cocked her head consideringly. "Well, he has to be smart. But not as smart as I am."

Draco muffled a chuckle. "Tall?" he prompted. "Handsome?"

"Maybe." She thought for a minute. "Funny, definitely. Nice, but not too nice – I like to argue. And …" She trailed off.

"Yes?"

"Perceptive," she said, after a moment of hesitation. Draco frowned; that wasn’t what he’d expected her to say.

"Perceptive?"

"You know. Someone who doesn’t just look, but who really sees."

"Give me an example."

Gabrielle studied him across the table. She had a look on her sitcom-starlet face that he couldn’t quite decipher.

"Watch," she said finally – and before his eyes, changed … her lips fuller, her skin more luminous, her cheekbones higher, her eyes so dark and electric a blue that they took his breath. She wasn’t twelve years old anymore, this girl, and she wasn’t twenty either; ageless, rather, and timeless.

Beseeching. Beckoning. Seductive.

"Kiss me," she whispered, and Draco felt his whole body jerk in reaction to that brief, breathy siren-call. It was all he could do to cling to his stool, not to dash the plates aside and climb over the table toward her.

Beautiful, that’s what she was – the most purely, wantonly beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Had he ever felt like this before? He couldn’t remember.

And then the glamour – if it was indeed a glamour – faded, and she was just Gabrielle again, a pretty, precocious baby with big dreams clutched hard in both hands and a look in her eyes that was far too old.

"See?" she said, picking at the remains of her sandwich with uncharacteristic diffidence. "That’s what I mean by perceptive. That’s my grandmother’s ghost you just saw – Fleur loves her, but I hate her, and she’s part of me anyway; I’ve got no say in it." She looked up at him, small jaw clenched in Defiance of the Inevitable. "When someone can look through her, and see me," she said, "then he gets a second chance. Until then, I’m not interested."

Oh, you poor kid, Draco thought, and got a sudden glimpse of himself at that age – preening, strutting, putting on Evil Aspirations like his father’s discarded overcoat.

It seemed that he wasn’t the only one to get kicked in the teeth by Manifest Destiny. Overcome with empathy, he put his hand over hers.

"Listen, Gabrielle," he said. "You know you’re pretty without the veela stuff, right?"

She squinted at him suspiciously. "You don’t have to say that. I know quite well that I’ll never be my sister."

"I’m not being nice," Draco said; "I’m telling you the truth. And it’s this: you don’t need your grandmother to get you what you want. You’re going to do just fine on your own."

For a second, the blue eyes shimmered. Oh, God, don’t cry, Draco thought, panicked – whatever you do, don’t cry.

And then she laughed, and leaned back in her chair, and snapped the pickle she’d been holding in half with her small, even teeth.

"Alors," she said, saluting him with the other half of it. "See? You can be charming on occasion, after all. That was positively gentil."

Clearly, that moment of vulnerability wasn’t to be repeated in this conversation. Fine, Draco thought, and grinned at her. I’ve been there; I’ll play along with that.

For now.

"Well, don’t let it get around," he said, and drained the rest of his juice with a flourish. "I’ve a reputation to maintain, you know."

**

Severus was roused from his paper-grading by the pounding of fists against his door. Odd – the only people likely to disturb him at this hour would either Floo him, or – in Sal’s case – simply float through the wall.

One of the Slytherin prefects, maybe – or perhaps Filch … but why the desperate battering, then? Half-concerned despite himself, Severus laid his quill aside and went to answer the door, braced for bad news.

What he got instead was Hermione Granger, hot-eyed and trembling and giving off such strong emanations of mingled lust and rage that he could have captured them in a bottle and sold them under the label Fountain of Youth … if only to prove, once and for all, that adolescence was more burden than utopia.

He could have staggered and genuflected under the weight of those magnificent hormones. Instead, he waved her toward a chair, and only raised one mildly ironic eyebrow when she chose to pace instead.

"Can I help you, Miss Granger?"

"Maybe," she said, and pinned him with a long stare. "I came looking for a fight. Are you up for it?"

Well, at least she’s honest. Oddly enough, though, her admission defused any desire Severus might have momentarily entertained for a duel of words.

If he was going to fight with Hermione Granger, he was damn well going to get good and sweaty doing it.

"I’m not interested in your self-indulgent teenage whinging," he said coldly. "If you want to speak to me, Miss Granger, you’ll keep a civil tongue in your head, and remember that I’m a Hogwarts professor." There – ah, yes, that was the right button to push; his icy tone had her bristling anew with fresh indignation.

Way to pour gasoline on an open flame, Severus, he thought, and watched her begin to stalk him with an anticipatory bristle in his groin that felt almost … well, inevitable.

"I’m tired of being civil," she gritted out, and edged him back another step. "Tired of being nice. Tired of doing what I’m told."

That made him laugh. "Doing what you’re told? What alternate reality are you living? You subversive little vixen, you’ve done nothing you haven’t wanted to do for the last seven years – and probably the eleven before that." He snorted. "Go ahead and dish out that martyrdom tripe to everybody else you know, but don’t expect me to swallow any of it."

It was as if he hadn’t spoken.

"Go here, Hermione," she mimicked in a vicious falsetto. "Do this, Hermione. Run home, pack a bag, hide behind the Headmaster, stay out of harm’s way." She took an angry, shallow breath, huffed it out again. "Disrupt your whole life, and follow along like some dumb little sheep, and then be grateful – grateful that no one thinks you’re grown-up enough, or powerful enough, or smart enough, to fight your own battles."

Wow.

He wouldn’t be eighteen again, Severus thought fervently, for all the tea in China. Even so, he couldn’t help rolling his eyes. "Oh, really …"

"And you!" she went on, turning on him with a fresh glint of danger in her eyes. "You’re worse than anyone else – don’t you roll your eyes at me! What have you been doing for the last year and a half, but denying both of us what we so desperately want?"

Oh, boy. We were bound to get around to this sooner or later, weren’t we?

"And what does it come down to?" she demanded. "What’s the sticking point for you, my reluctant lover, my oh-so-noble, oh-so-honourable gentleman of a professor?" She stabbed an accusing finger in his chest. "That I’m too young, and too stupid, to know what it is that I want."

He had to say it, he just had to; seeing her in this glittering, febrile state of High Tantrum was far too rare and intriguing a diversion not to prolong. "Aren’t you, then?"

Heh. That ought to get a rise out of her.

"No, I bloody well am not!" She shoved with both hands, cobra-quick, and sent him staggering back a full step. "I am eighteen years old, damn it! Nineteen, if you count that bugger-all Time-Turner. Last I checked, that made me old enough to fuck whomever I damn well please."

Another shove; she’d backed him all the way through his sitting room now, into the bedroom. Two more good shoves and they’d both be on the bed.

Tasty thought, that.

"And in case you hadn’t noticed – Severus Snape –" Hermione was breathing hard – "I am not your student any longer!!!"

She was vibrating with outrage, damp and sticky with it. Her cloak had come unfastened and fallen unnoticed to the floor in the doorway, leaving her clad only in faded, snug-fitting dungarees and an oversized white linen button-down shirt. Severus could see the dewy skin covering her collar bones through the fine fabric, could ascertain the slope and heft of her high girlish breasts.

Her nipples were rock-hard. She smelled angry and aroused, like rain-drenched gardenias and sex. He could feel her trembling across the bare inch of space that separated their two bodies.

Beautiful.

Irresistible.

Perfect.

Even before he opened his mouth to speak, he knew he was lost. If touching her was a mistake, it was one he had to make.

What he would have said, he’d never know – she never gave him the chance to get started.

"Are you listening to me?" She muscled in closer, intending to push him again – oh, no, you don’t, Severus thought, and sidestepped her neatly, so that her forward impetus sent her tumbling face-first onto the bed.

That’s more like it.

Before she could regroup, before she could react – before she could even regain the breath that had been knocked out of her – he pounced. And pinned her to the duvet.

**