Disclaimer: The Harry Potter world does not belong to me.

AN: This chapter is rated Mature and contains intimations of sex. It has been edited for explicit content. An unedited version has been posted at Hawthorne and Vine at dramione(dot)org(slash)viewstory(dot)php?sid=1546 if you want to read that version instead. Please let me know what you think about this.

The Scent of Parchment: A Harry Potter fanfic

by Indygodusk

Chapter 5: The Goblet of Fuego

Suddenly, the sound of a bugle sounded throughout the ballroom. "Dear guests," rang out the magically amplified voice of Ramsey Buckleshot, their host. "We are only a few minutes from midnight and the start of a new year!" He paused for a round of applause. "Waiters are circulating with trays of rare Perkidian Fuego Punch, imported all the way from Cape Horn just for your pleasure. Please join me in counting down a toast to midnight, and let us celebrate new friends and new beginnings!" Another round of polite applause and a few cheers followed his words.

"That must have cost a pretty penny," Draco mused out loud.

"What?" his companion asked.

"Oh, the Fuego punch," he answered. "I've had it before, but it is notoriously hard to come by outside of the Perkidian conclave at the tip of South America. They guard the bottles zealously against export. I don't see how he could afford to smuggle enough out for the entire party."

Tilting her head, his mystery lady posited, "Perhaps he hired a disaffected Perkidian to come over and make it fresh for the event. They probably don't control the export of individual ingredients as carefully as they do the finished product."

Draco stared at her in amazed appreciation.

"What?" she asked self-consciously, tucking several escaping locks of hair behind her ear.

"I'm just not used to such an intelligent companion," he answered, thinking of the inanity of his last few girlfriends. None of them would have had any useful theories or speculations. Either too little wit or too much used with cruelty had led him to give up on dating for a while. He wasn't used to a woman who was kind, intelligent, and possessing sexy lips to boot.

Shoulders slumping, she sighed. "Yes, intelligence is usually the main thing men say to describe me. Usually as a precursor to boring."

"No," Draco protested, grasping her hand. For a split second she resisted, before giving in to his tug and allowing him to cradle her hand to his chest. Running his fingers down the edge of her writing and wand calluses, he mused that despite her small size, this woman wasn't delicate at all. She would not break under pressure.

"I don't find you boring at all. In fact," he stated, looking into her eyes earnestly, "you seem to be everything a man could want in a woman - smart, witty, and beautiful."

Another fiery blush rushed up her face. "I think you must have gotten into the punch already," she protested.

"Or perhaps you need to hang out with a different kind of man," he replied, staring into her eyes as he placed a soft kiss on her wrist.

Releasing her hand, he stepped back. A few seconds later, a waiter bustled up to them with a tray of drinks. Draco grabbed two and handed his mystery lady a glass.

"To new friends and new beginnings," he toasted as the people around them began to count down the last ten seconds to midnight.

"To new friends and new beginnings," she repeated huskily.

At the stroke of midnight, rainbow-colored Bolivian bats were released to dart throughout the ballroom in lieu of mundane confetti. Their wings created a breeze that swept through the room and ruffled costumes and hair. People screamed, laughed, and cheered.

Smiling into each other's eyes, they drained their glasses. A split second later, both gasped and started coughing. "That must be an acquired taste," she said with a grimace.

Draco wrinkled his nose unhappily. "The Perkidian Fuego I had before didn't taste like that. It was much more fruity and without the pungent aftertaste. They must have messed up the recipe."

Giving their drained glasses to another passing waiter, they returned to the center of the room and continued dancing. Draco realized that their host hadn't made any sort of announcement about an unmasking. A part of him felt grateful. His current anonymity was freeing. He didn't want to strain the connection he felt to the woman in his arms by complicating things with real identities just yet.

As they swept across the parquet floor, Draco appreciated the chance to hold her in his arms, even if he couldn't do the kind of touching he'd really like to. Slowly a strange sort of heat began flushing through Draco's body, curling down his limbs and up his neck. Everything disappeared into insignificance but the woman in his arms, and all things began to seem possible.

"Has it gotten hotter in here?" she asked before unbuttoning the top two buttons of her robes.

"Yes, definitely," Draco replied as he watched the slinky material slide and spread, revealing the shadowy edges of her clavicles and the barest hint of cleavage.

As they continued to orbit the dance floor, Draco became more and more enticed by the occasional glimpse of a freckle on her shoulder the shape and color of a strawberry. Her shifting neckline teased him with partial glimpses. He wanted to lick it and see what it tasted like right there, where her neck curved into her shoulder. In fact, he wanted to lick all of her curves. Their dancing became closer and closer, until they were practically grinding together, ignoring the tempo of the music.

Peripherally Draco noticed flashes of skin writhing in the dark corners of the ballroom, which should shock or alarm him, but for some reason it just didn't seem to matter. Other couples on the dance floor were acting strangely too, some doing Irish step dancing, others hip hop, even a Japanese fan dance. On the edges of the room, he saw adults somersaulting over each other like children, hopscotching pots of plants, and several octogenarians finger-painting on the wall with the pate and raspberry mousse.

Sophie Bradford stood by the buffet table, mask hanging around her neck, stuffing her cheeks with marzipan Snitches until she resembled a chipmunk. Baily Parker giggled next to her and splashed her hands happily in the bowl of pumpkin juice, spraying herself, Sophie, and the octogenarians.

But it all paled in importance to the woman in his arms. Draco couldn't find it in himself to care about anything else. She kept biting her lip as if wanting to say something and yet stopping herself. He found it both incredibly familiar and unbelievably arousing.

Sweating from the heat, they both grabbed another flute of icy Fuego punch from a passing waiter and gulped it down, ignoring the strange aftertaste. Despite the chill of the enchanted goblets, which caused condensation to drip down the sides of the glass, Draco only felt a moment of cool relief. Then he felt hotter than ever.

Discarding their goblets with matching grimaces, they returned to dancing. After a lively tango, his mystery lady undid another two buttons and fanned herself. Sweat lightly dewed her forehead and the shadowed hollow of her throat. Draco swayed forward to lick it off, only stopping because she twisted her body away to avoid another couple.

Suddenly Draco realized that he wasn't worried about his reputation. Even if someone recognized him, he just didn't care. It felt incredibly freeing.

"Do you ever-" she started to say, before stopping and biting her lip.

Unable to help himself, Draco used his thumb to tug her lip free. "Don't do that," he whispered huskily, unable to take his eyes off the glistening curve of her mouth, slightly swollen from her teeth. He wanted to make it swollen from his teeth instead. A gasp gusted against his fingertip, and Draco swallowed sharply.

They slowly stopped dancing and just stared into each other's eyes. When a couple bumped into them though, the jolt woke Draco up. Shaking his head slightly, he restarted their movement.

His mysterious companion exhaled a deep breath that he could feel puffing moistly against the skin of his neck and shifted closer into his hold. She then wound her arms around his neck, molding her curves to his body. Cupping his hands around her waist, Draco let his fingertips drape across the lower curve of her hips and swell of her rear.

Unable to wait a second longer, Draco let his lips drop down to the soft skin of her wrist, which rested so tantalizingly close on his shoulder. Inhaling softly, he kissed a path down her arm to the hollow of her elbow. He expected to find the hint of some overly sweet perfume, like the peony rose that seemed so popular with witches this year. But she once again surprised him by eschewing any artificial scent.

Underneath the alluring tang of her skin he found only the hint of musk and a faint scent of parchment. Nothing fishy at all, he thought with an internal smile. The smell was concentrated at the hollow of her elbow, and Draco found himself licking her inner arm, eager for a better understanding of the essence of this mystery woman.

Feeling her gasping for breath at the tickle of his lips, Draco ran his nose up the cloth covering her bicep. When his nose traced from cloth to smooth skin on her shoulder, he paused at the strawberry colored freckle there. Kissing it softly, he promised himself to come back and give it more attention later. Then he continued up to the base of her ear, inhaling deeply along the way. She smelled divine, and the next time he entered a library he just knew he'd get a hard-on from the memory of her parchment and musk skin.

Dragging his open mouth across her jaw, Draco relished the way her skin tugged at his lips and tempted him to investigate the curve of her cheek and bend of her neck. Even more urgent was the need to capture her plump lower lip between his teeth and lick it back and forth until it resembled wet velvet. Nevertheless, Draco moved slowly, savoring the anticipation of finally kissing his mystery lady.

"Now," she whispered. Turning her head towards him impatiently, she fused her lips with his. Letting out a pleased groan at her initiative, Draco pulled her body more snuggly against his own and deepened their kiss. Lips caressing lips, he felt exhilarated to at long last taste her mouth.

Finally forced to separate to take in some air, Draco felt drunk. Yet he'd only had 2 goblets of punch over several hours time. Wild thoughts raced through his mind. He wanted to rip (rip!) his clothes off, throw his mystery lady down to the ground, and make love to her in the middle of the polished parquet ballroom floor. Only the barest thread of sensibility held him back.

"You taste like cinnamon lip gloss," she whispered, staring at his lips. "And I might have smudged your foundation."

"Is that bad?" he asked huskily. So the cloakroom hadn't been his first foray into makeup tonight. Skin this perfect didn't come naturally, and he needed to look his best at a party. A good appearance was one of the few things in his life he had total control over.

A smile tilted her perfect lips. "No, just something I'm not used to." She flicked her eyes up to his, smirked, and slowly began pushing him backwards off the dance floor. "I'd like to get used to it," she paused, dropped her eyes, and suddenly the confident vixen disappeared, replaced by a shy fawn. "If you'll let me?" she asked hesitantly before biting her lip.

"Let you? Just try to keep me away. Anti-apparition spells won't keep a phoenix out, you know, and I have your taste now," Draco growled. Then he clenched his arms around her waist, pulled her up to her tiptoes, and plastered her against his front. Although not a very tall man, she was smaller still, and his move tipped her off-balance against his chest. She squeaked in surprise.

Stunned eyes searched his face, but Draco was momentarily beyond words. He simply needed. Tightening his hands, he dragged her off the dance floor. The light was dimmer here, and scattered couches, vases, and plants provided several secluded alcoves. At last they bumped into a couch half-concealed behind a massive potted plant.

Unable to go a single step further without tasting her again, Draco tipped them back onto the couch and seized her lips with his own. Immediately she opened her mouth and welcomed his tongue with a happy whimper. Her small hands slid over his shoulders and into his hair, and Draco didn't even care that she might mess up his hairstyle. She was more important. The way she made him feel was more important.

A groan of satisfaction rumbled in his throat. This is what he'd been looking for, this type of kiss and this type of woman: smart, witty, and so sexy she made him forget about everything but the taste of her body.

As their kisses intensified, he slowly pulled her robes up away from her smooth calves. Then he dragged his hand up underneath the hem to caress her skin. Although she was short in stature, the luxuriant length of her legs seemed to go on forever.

A shocked gasp escaped from her mouth to his. She jerked in surprise, and closed her thighs tight around his hand, stopping the movement. Although difficult, he raised his lips from hers.

"Oh, oh," she panted, as if trying to regain her powers of speech.

Draco eased back farther from her mouth.

"I- I don't do this. I've never even-" she gasped in heated puffs against his mouth.

As she spoke, her thighs trembled and her body arched involuntarily into his. Draco wanted nothing more than to sooth her fears and continue touching. He knew what her body needed right now, perhaps better than she did. If only she'd let him show her.

"Shh, I've got you. Let me," he begged, "let me." He wasn't sure exactly how far he planned to go. Draco had never done something like this before with a woman he'd just met, had never even been temped to push past that line of propriety, but tonight he didn't care. He just knew that she had to let him continue trying to get her there, to where her body wanted to go. Stopping completely at this point would kill him, kill them both.

A tense moment stretched out like hot taffy. Then, finally, she whispered a shuddering acquiescence.

Draco internally rejoiced. He wanted to be worthy of her trust. Gently pulling her head back into the cushions of the couch, he sent his lips worshipping down the column of her throat. As she relaxed into his kisses, he vowed to make this the most pleasurable experience of her life.

As his hands roamed across her body, whimpers escaped her throat and her eyelashes fluttered in pleasure behind her mask. He wanted to rip that mask off, to see every tremor of pleasure chasing across the muscles of her face. But she might balk, or come to her senses at exposing herself even further, and Draco couldn't risk that.

If what he suspected about her lack of experience was true, he had a chance to gain power over her. Draco could make this experience so addicting that she would never forget it. If he did this right, every man she glanced at in the future would be compared to this night, to his touch on her body, and found wanting.

Then she'd need Draco just as much as he suspected he already needed her, his mystery lady.

For several minutes, all that existed was her scent and Draco's worship of her giving curves. Too many clothes were in his way, but he didn't have the patience to slow down and untangle them. As she reacted with abandon to his touch, it only drove him wilder. For a second his eyes slipped closed as he concentrated on the blissful sensations bombarding his body.

When he finally reopened them, he found her biting her lip again. Sliding his hand up her satiny neck, he used his thumb to tug her lip away from her teeth. Seeing the moist red cavern he'd revealed, Draco couldn't help parting her lips farther with his thumb, plunging his tongue inside, and ravaging her mouth. Pulling back, he let that plump bottom lip drag between his teeth lightly, stretching it slightly before fully releasing it, letting her feel the difference between his teeth and her own. Eyelashes fluttering, her breath hitched.

Unable to maintain eye contact against the tide of arousal bombarding his senses, Draco let his mouth drop to the curve of her shoulder. Honing in on her strawberry freckle, he let his lips and teeth worry it. A few seconds later, her body tensed and stopped breathing as she began to orgasm.

Rutting against her thigh uncontrollably, Draco felt his own orgasm surging up. He tried to stop himself, wanting to come inside her, but it was too late. He had no self-control. As sensation exploded through his body, Draco bit down on her strawberry freckle just hard enough to leave a mark: claimed by Draco Malfoy.

They spent the next few hazy minutes slowly regaining their breath. Finally Draco mustered the energy to prop himself up on one elbow and meet her drowsy eyes. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but then paused, looked away, and bit her lip again.

A second later her eyes flew back to Draco's. She immediately released her lip and blushed, perhaps in memory of how he'd responded to her lip biting earlier. Amused and charmed, Draco dropped a soft kiss onto her nose, cheek, and swollen lips.

He should be feeling abashed that he came in his pants like a 14-year-old boy. Draco hadn't lost self-control like that in years. But the afterglow and the sight of her heavy eyes had him feeling too good to care about it right now.

A little voice in his head reminded him that he should also be alarmed that he just had sex in public, and with a stranger at that, but again, he couldn't quite seem to care. Besides, she didn't feel like a stranger. He intended to keep this woman in his life. No matter what.

Snuggling into his arms, Draco's mystery lover closed her eyes and dropped almost immediately off to sleep. A petit snore escaped her, but Draco couldn't find it anything but cute. Although the dance music seemed to have stopped, the room still echoed with the muted sounds of partygoers. The noise didn't seem to bother his lady though. Feeling his own eyes blinking heavily, Draco thought he could probably ignore it too.

Kissing her forehead softly, Draco loosened his embrace just enough to allow him to slip his wand from its sheath up his sleeve. Then he cast a quick spell to remove the sticky mess in his pants. He freshened her up too, something she'd appreciate when she woke up.

Looking at the mask still obscuring his lover's face, Draco felt another stab of need to see her true features. Inspection revealed that her mask wasn't tied on- it was spelled. He knew a few things that would probably negate the magic. Draco started to raise his wand to try and dispel her disguise, but….

Sighing, Draco realized that he shouldn't. A few hours ago he might have done it without worrying, but now, in the pre-dawn hour, he felt differently. Besides, he couldn't renew the masking spell after he took it off, since it was something that might wake her up. She'd know, and she might be mad enough that she'd refuse to see him again. Woman could be frustrating like that.

Plus, if she was one of those people still prejudiced against the Malfoy family because of their actions in the last war, it would make his suit that much more difficult. Replacing his wand slowly, he told himself to be patient. This was one woman he refused to let go easily. He hadn't been this interested in someone in ages. At least, not this interested in someone actually attainable. Pulling his lover closer, Draco let his eyes close and drifted off to sleep with the scent of parchment and musk lingering in his dreams.

TO BE CONTINUED

AN: Please let me know what you thought. Was the editing appropriate, or was it still too explicit? Did it flow well? What do you expect to happen the next morning? Thanks for reading!