Always Something - Dramione

Chapter Fourteen

Paul had told Gris the answer to the riddle posed by the eagle knocker on the door to the Ravenclaw tower at the beginning of the school year. She'd never used it herself, but she'd never forgotten it either. Lunchtime was over and afternoon classes had started, leaving the common room empty as she entered and crossed the room to the tower's staircase. She climbed to the upper floors where the sixth and seventh year students slept, and cracking a door open with careful slowness, she peered into what she hoped was Paul's room. Inside were four beds, one of them enclosed by its curtains.

In a tremulous voice, she called his name. "Pollux?"

There was no answer, but in the quiet the curtain's rings moved sideways, scraping along the wooden rod.

"Gris?"

At the sound of her own name, she took two stomping steps into the room. "What are you doing up here in the middle of the day? Are you ill?"

"Gris, you came."

Paul's voice was weak, and when he drew the curtain far enough to reveal his face, his complexion was paler than Griselda had ever seen it, the veins blue and visible in his forehead, his skin slick with sweat. She was at his bedside, dropping her bag on her feet, pressing her hand to his forehead, smoothing his cheeks with the backs of her fingers.

His eyes fluttered closed and he let out his breath. "You did. You came."

"How long have you been like this? You're up here alone, burning with a fever."

"Like an abandoned hinkypunk, lovesick in a Note-fic," he said.

She wasn't moved by his pathetic appearance enough to hold back a scoff. "Hinkypunk - that's what you're not, Pollux Malfoy. Now sit up and take some water."

His fingers found her hand and he pulled himself to a sitting position, hand over hot hand along her arm, clinging to her in a claw-like hug to keep from falling back onto the pillow.

"Right. Stay there while I get some water," she said.

All at once, there was strength in his arms, and he crossed them on her back. "No, don't go."

She braced her hands in the dips below his biceps, as if to push herself away. She hadn't applied any pressure yet but he was already settling his face into the curve of her neck, his breath hot as a supernatural creature's. Her own breath caught at the feel of it against her throat, and the brush of his dry lips. Her heart was racing as she said, "Pux, I can't help you if I you won't even let me get my wand from my bag."

He nestled closer. "Don't let me go. Just stay." He paused to take in a deep breath. The air dragged across Griselda's skin as he breathed it in, and she felt herself pulled into him along with it, confirming what she already knew. She was his. "I'm only better," he said, "when you're right here."

An unhealthy heat was radiating through Paul's clothes. He needed water and a cooling, healing potion from the hospital wing, but a delay of a few more moments wouldn't damage him any further. Gris unlocked her elbows and bent her arms around Paul's torso, returning his embrace, her hands flat against his back, moving over the lean angles, as if marking him as her own. "You're not delirious, are you?" she whispered.

He hummed. "If I am, I hope I never get better."

He barely heard her laugh. Listen to him, she thought. He really was the model for Torrence.

Paul gave another great sigh of relief, enough hot breath against her neck that she would have done anything he asked of her. But all he said was, "Please, Gris. Stay stupid. Stay in love with me."