One More Night {A Harry Potter/Artemis Fowl Crossover}

Chapter 26

The Great Hall was slowly starting to fill up for dinner as students noisily poured in from their last classes before Christmas break. Vanessa sat at the Ravenclaw dinner table alone, her anxiety building by the moment as she stared down into a textbook. She hadn't seen Draco all day thanks to class schedules and her missing breakfast; he seemingly skipped lunch as well, so that didn't help either. Vanessa was beyond stressed. She just wanted to see him and get the possible argument over with. Did he know what happened last night at the party? And if he didn't, should she tell him? Or could she just pretend it didn't happen for now while she waited to have the talk with Artemis?

She sighed in frustration, resting her elbows on the table as she leaned her forehead into her hands. This was by far the biggest screw up she had ever made. Vanessa wasn't a promiscuous girl; up until last night she had always been loyal to a fault to anyone she was seeing- even if they weren't as serious as her and Draco were. Why did she decide to go against that now?

It had to be the alcohol, she decided. You wouldn't have slept with Artemis otherwise. He's just your friend.

Or is he?

Vanessa shook the thought from her subconscious. They had been best friends for five years now; that wouldn't up and change now. Would it? Honestly Vanessa wasn't sure anymore. With hearing from both Alex and Luna that Artemis was in love with her, part of her started to wonder if he had only been friends with her because of that. She quickly dismissed that idea. If that was truly the case, she doubted he would've stuck around this long- especially through all the bad times. Artemis had been her one constant since starting at Hogwarts- the only one who had always been there for her and never abandoned her. He was genuinely her friend, and she felt momentarily guilty for thinking otherwise.

But not as guilty as she felt for sleeping with him.

And why did she sleep with him in the first place? Was it the alcohol? Was it because she was pissed off at Draco? Or was it because Artemis said all the right things at exactly the right time, making her feel wanted for the first time in months?

Perhaps it's a bit of all of that, she thought.

At this point, until she spoke to Artemis, she could only speculate. Her brain was still too foggy to properly think about it. Right now, she needed to deal with Draco. Hopefully he knew nothing about what happened and she could play it off for a few weeks at least with the holidays coming up. That was the best case scenario, and while Vanessa hoped that was the case, she didn't think she could get that lucky.

Vanessa sighed, removing her face from her hands just in time to see Draco striding towards her. He looked far from happy, but that wasn't anything new at this point. More often than not, Draco was in a foul mood. Honestly, Vanessa only hoped he was upset about something other than her actions from the previous night. Hell, maybe he was still angry about getting caught gatecrashing.

A few seconds later, he came to a stop in front of her. Vanessa didn't have time to even greet him before he grabbed her by the wrist, pulling her to her feet. "We need to talk. Now," he demanded.

Vanessa yanked her wrist from his tight grasp, ignoring the dull pain now coming from her wrist as she glared up at him. "First of all, that was highly unnecessary," she snapped, unable to hide the irritation in her voice. "Second of all, about what?"

"Don't play stupid with me; you know exactly what we have to talk about," Draco hissed. "What the hell did you do at that party last night?"

Vanessa knew this was a trap. He was trying to get her to admit to whatever he had heard happened. He seemingly knew about something, but Vanessa didn't know what. She decided to stick with her plan of lying through her teeth. Sure, Draco was going to be beyond mad later when the truth finally came out, but for now if she could make him believe that nothing happened between her and Artemis, she was going to take it. After all, it was Draco's fault she was upset and drinking to begin with. If he hadn't been so horrible to her, maybe she wouldn't have sought comfort in booze and Artemis.