Tracey’s smile was equally self-conscious.
“Oh, well, that’s… good,” she replied, accepting his name card, her own face as crimson as Harry’s.
“At least someone’s happy around here,” Ron stated, his disappointment obvious.
He flashed Pansy her name card – the last in the stack.
“I have a feeling this isn’t going to be a good night,” he told the woman who was staring at him with irate fury.
“No,” Pansy replied, her tone ice cold, “it definitely will not be.”
X~~~~~~~~~X
Now that the partners were fixed, the two teams resumed their proper seating across from each other, and Malfoy and Harry tossed a Galleon into the air to see which side would draw the first Interrogationsquestion.
The Slytherins won the toss.
As Theo was on the furthest edge of the couch on one side, he reached for a green card to start them off.
Malfoy stopped him by holding up his hand.
“Last chance,” he offered them all.
“Anyone want to chicken out, now’s the time.”
Eyes moved around the room at record pace, gauging who would might decide to forfeit.
A few faces, including her own, Hermione knew, looked fondly towards the room’s exit, but no one moved.
Hell, no one breathed.
After a wait of a minute, Malfoy nodded.
“Ladies, time to cast the Contraceptive and Disease Charm,” he instructed the witches in the room.
“No unintended pregnancies tonight. And don’t forget to recast the C&DC at the beginning of every action round, too, after the questions are answered. It’s not my job to remind you.”
Each of the women picked up their wand from the centre table and did as instructed.
Madam Pomfrey had been particularly vigilant in assuring that all of the girls in school – from fourth year on up – knew this particular charm by heart.
When that was done, and the pink glows had faded out, and everyone’s wands were returned to the table, Theo turned over the first card.
“It’s one of my own!” he informed them, leering.
“Right, so, here we go: If you had to go down on your partner right now in front of the group because of a card, would you secretly like it, feel indifferently or hate it?” He turned to his left to Pansy, as the rules required, and the game commenced. This story is hosted at novelping . com.
She snorted, tapping her foot on the floor twice in a gesture of sheer irritation.
“Stupid question. Hate it, obviously.”
“Feeling’s mutual, beeotch,” Ron snarled, crossing his arms and striking a pose similar to his sister.
Malfoy buzzed him.
“No answering out of turn, Weasley.” He pointed to Parkinson.
“Pans, take a Deeds. No, not the blue deck. The red one.” With an imperious motion with his hand, he commanded the group back on task.
“Daphne, you’re next.”
Greengrass pursed her lips together and let her eyes roam over Theo in contemplation.
“I would most likely enjoy it,” she decreed after only a slight pause.
Theo nearly dropped the green card in his hand.
“S-seriously?” he asked, his jaw practically hitting the floor.
Daphne re-adjusted her glasses on the bridge of her nose and nodded.
“Yes, I enjoy dominating a man,” she admitted, reaching for a Deeds card now that she’d answered the question.
“It arouses me to bring him to the heights of erotic pleasure, only to watch him unravel under my touch.”
Almost every person in the room performed a face-vault at her proclamation.
“Holy gobstones,” Ron breathed out hard.
“Why couldn’t I have gotten you?”
“Next!” Malfoy required.
Blaise stared across the room at his partner and narrowed his eyes.
“Oh, I’d loveto make her squirm under my tongue. Then she’d have to live with the fact that a Slytherin made her come harder than she ever had before.”
Ginny stared hard at him through narrowed eyes, and turned her nose up at him with disdain, refusing to be cowed by Zabini’s venomous glare.
“Dream on,” she grit.
Blaise reached for a red card.
“I hope this reward lets me prove you wrong, little lioness,” he snarled, putting it face-down on his knee.
No one was allowed to read their Deeds or Forfeits until everyone had answered, per the rules.
Ron growled, and Harry had to nudge him to remind the man to tamp down on his natural urges to play the overprotective brother tonight.
Tracey, who was next in line, looked over at Harry, flushed and lowered her eyelashes.
“Um… well, I’d… Do I have to answer?”
Malfoy shrugged.
“If you want. If not, you’ll have to take a Forfeits card, though.”
The witch considered that for a moment, turning bright pink as she mulled over the risks.
Finally, she seemed to come to a decision, her back straightening, her eyes lifting to her partner’s with uncertainty, but a sincere resolve.
“I’d…
I’d…” She seemed to lose her bravado quite suddenly, her voice ending in a soft whisper, “really like it, I think.” From the corner of her eye, Hermione spied Harry turn an interesting shade of red and adjust the collar of his shirt, as if needing to loosen it.
For a second, she wondered if her best male friend had ever had a woman do that to him, as she knew Ginny hadn’t.
And now it was Malfoy’s turn.
Hermione tried – really, honestly tried not to look at him when he answered this one, knowing he was going to scoff and laugh at the ludicrousness of this question in regards to touching her ‘dirty’ self.
The answer was so painfully obvious, in fact, that her ego took the pounding with only a small pang.
She wasn’t vain, per se, but she was a woman who liked to be told she was desirable on occasion.
That Malfoy thought her beneath him… “Like it,” he said, staring her in the eye when she glanced up in surprise again.
“Very, very much,” he finished, his patented naughty smirk sliding up the side of his cheek.
She blinked twice.
“But-”
“Next,” he cut her off, turning to Seamus, who sat directly across from him on the Gryffindor side.
“Your turn.”
Her partner reached for a Deeds card with casual indifference, not looking at her again.