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A sharp outcry tore from Draco's lips as his back painfully collided with the stony wall, his shoes scraping against the pavement with a faint screech and thud as his heel met the floor. The metallic tang of blood bloomed on his tongue where his teeth bit his lips—he licked it away.
“Bloody hell, Weasley!” he wheezed, his chest heaving to get air into his lungs after the collision took his breath away. The odor of the many potions in the room wafting through the air, an odd mix of scents that made it the atmosphere feel almost sterile.
Ronald Billius Weasley held Draco's collar in a tight fist, wrinkling his previously ironed collar and tie, Ron's face was shadowed, his shoulders tight with barely contained fury, his back illuminated by the few opened lights. There was a cacophony beyond the closed, wooden door that’s muffled by its thick material—footsteps of a dozen scores of students, their chattering a loud disturbance, the voices of portraits, a teacher’s raised voice, boisterous chortles here and there. All of it is muffled in their ears, too focused on the tension simmering between them.
“Take that back,” Ron growled, his face turning to that predictable Gryffindor crimson—his freckles stands out darker against the flush of his face. His words were punctuated with the further tightening of his fist, knuckles stark white. Draco's own long, pale fingers clutched at the freckled wrist, attempting to dislodge it to no avail, tiny scratches a distinct red against Ron's tanner skin from where Draco's nails digs in.
“And if I don't want to? What are you going to do about it, Weasel?” Draco smirked. Ron’s breathing grew heavy, shallow, there is a bubble of anger no doubt blocking his airways. His nostrils flares, and an unbidden image of a hippogriff enters his mind—he presses his lips together to refrain his laughter. Ron catches it, anyways.
There was an intensity in Ron's blue eyes that got Draco addicted, the golden flecks in his eyes shining brighter even in the dark and his pupil so dilated that he could see his reflection in it. The blood on his lips wells up again, glistening; he can feel it, the slight wetness on his lips, the sting of the cut ever-present. He wants to dart his tongue out, coat his tongue in its vermillion hue. But he doesn’t, he almost wants it to gather and drip down his lips. Ron doesn't take his eyes off of Draco's.
He groaned as Ron slams him onto the wall again, wincing at the discomforting pressure on his developing bruises. He coughs, his eyes fluttering as he tries to focus on Ron again. He swallows with difficulty as he’s asphyxiated by his collar. The small pin of a silver snake—the symbol of Slytherin—pinned on his tie scintillates in the dim lighting as his tie was shifted in Ron's hold, surely leaving the embossed outline of the silver serpent pressed into Ron's palm, a temporary mark of Slytherin on the Gryffindor.
“Apologize,” Ron muttered darkly, his jaw clenched, and the veins on his neck straining against the reddened skin, his temples marked with the same throbbing veins threatening to pop in fury.
He licked his lips, the red smearing on his moist lips, and leaned forward, ignoring the way that Ron's knuckles dig into his Adam's apple uncomfortably, and looked into Ron's eyes with a maddening gleam in his own silver ones. “Why would I apologize to a mudblood?” He spat the slur with as much vitriol as he could muster. He chuckled deeply, mirth swirling in his eyes, he looks mad in the reflection of Ron's eyes—he could see the way that Ron battles his morals.
He could see the battle raging in Ron's eyes: hatred warring with his ingrained Gryffindor morality. His jaw was clenched, his teeth grinding against his chapped and bruised lips, and Draco saw the slight tremor in his grip as he shoved him again. Draco turns his head ever so slightly to the side, his ear now touching the cold stone behind him, Ron’s other hand that cages him and rests beside his head now present in his peripheral. He glances at it shortly, witnesses the twitching of his fingers, he can almost feel its desire to reach down and grab his wand. His eyes squints a little in quiet laughter, turning his head forward again, his gaze flits towards Ron’s wand.
“Don’t call her that.”
“What are you going to do, huh, Weasel-bee? Going to hex me? Curse me?” He shoved his index finger on the other's shoulder repeatedly. He laughs, cruel even to his own ears. “Why are you even trying so hard for that mudblood and her little defender? Do you think they'd risk their necks for you?”
“Shut up!” Another slam on the wall, a sharp intake of his breath. But Draco never took his eyes off of Ron's, barely even dared to blink. His brows were furrowed deeply, sclera gaining redness to it, they were misty with angry red tears. He was shaking with choler, the irascible boy that he was. His lips trembled and there was a significant effort in his breathing, a hilarious attempt at calming himself down. “They’re not like that!”
“Oh? Really? Could have fooled me. Great friend, you three are.”
There was a thrill that travelled along his spine as Ron's anger intensifies, a smirk playing on his lips. His hand moves swiftly, reaching for his wand and aiming it at Draco’s throat, pushing it against his neck, a pressure on the bump of his throat that makes it hard to swallow. Draco doesn’t do anything in retaliation, he keeps his eyes on Ron’s, a challenge clear in his gaze, the burning question dancing around.
It seems Ron's good morals won his internal battle as he threw Draco to the wall for the last time, heaving with ire. Draco made a quiet, deep, inarticulate sound in pain. “What is wrong with you!?” he hollered at the panting blonde.
Draco looked up from beneath his lashes, beneath his soft wavy fringe. Harsh breaths from his lips. His back was aching and he could feel the developing bruises, could imagine violets and the yellows that would litter his pale back. “I'm not the one who decided to be an absolute brute, was I?”
“That’s because you kept calling ‘Mione those slurs!”
“Awww, isn't that so sweet?” his tone saccharine. He laughed with a sardonic smile. “Oh, look, the valiant Gryffindor knight charging to his damsel's rescue?”
It was so hilarious just how much that set the Weasley off, ticked him so much that he was vibrating with how ferocious his emotions were, high-strung as they were. “Yo—You. Merlin! You are such a little twat! Wh—You—Why can’t you just keep your mouth shut!
Draco straightened up, leaning on the wall, the pressure a painful sting against his back, he hisses a bit. He laughed at how Ron stammered and stuttered in his anger. "Stuttering, are we? You can't even form sentences without that Granger beside you to baby you?"
"Just shut up, Malfoy! Why are you such a prat? Following in your cowardly father's footsteps, are you? You fancy going to Azkaban like him?"
The easy smirk on his face slipped off, replaced by a curl of his lip. Then he scoffed. "Please, Weasley, your meager mind can't even begin to comprehend what it's like to be chosen for greatness, to have a purpose beyond your pathetic little world of hand-me-down robes and Weasley jumpers. So why don't you tuck your tail between your legs and shuffle along, will you?"
Ron gritted his teeth and swung his arm, his fist connected painfully with Draco's soft cheeks, the velvety skin bruising at the impact. "Bloody hell! You heathen!" He raised his leg, the sole of his shoe pressing on the white shirt and kicking him away, the dirty mark of his sole stark against the off-white hand-me-down shirt.
“’Chosen for greatness?’ You can’t actually be—you’re actually a death eater, aren’t you!? In Godric’s name, Harry was right, isn’t he?”
“Tsk, don’t be daft. That idiot doesn’t know anything but expelliarmus! Have a crush on me, does he? Always stalking about, following me as if he has even a single subtle bone in his body.” He smiles. “He grew tired of you, then? Grew bored of his plaything that he decided to chase after me? You weren’t fun anymore? Not useful no more?”
Ron swings again. Draco dodges and revels in the hiss that Ron lets out as his knuckles collide with the hard wall. He shakes his hands, as if that’ll alleviate the pain. What a dolt. Something red flashes in the light and Draco notices the blood on Weasley’s knuckles. He chuckles lightly. “Can’t even aim properly, Weasley?” he taunts.
“Godric, do you ever shut up?” He lands a punch, his blood smearing on Draco’s pale cheek, a brush of red on white skin.
Draco raises his hand, wiping the wet sensation on the corner of his lips with his thumb. He looks at it for a second, seeing the crimson stain on the pad of his finger. He looks at Ron, fist raised in preparation of another hit while his other hand holds his wand. He rolls his eyes. “What a savage. Did you forget you’re a wizard, you dolt?” In a flash, he aims his wand at the center of Ron’s chest. “Everte Statum!"
A gasp slips past Ron's lips as he was thrown back, he croaks out a groan, holding his middle as he winces in pain, closing one of his eyes and hissing. He stumbled upright. Aims his wand, tremors shaking his aim as he recovers from the slight pain caused by the spell. "Expelliarmus."
"Depulso," Draco counters easily, deflecting the incoming spell. It hits a random table—a faint scorch mark appearing on the surface—expelling it a few feet away from its original position, skewing another nearby table near a shelf. The wobbling glass bottles and jars clanged against each other, a few more ringing thuds echoing as they teetered precariously before settling. “Seriously, Weasley? Learned that from Potter, did you? How utterly predictable of you.”
Ron rolls his eyes, grumbling under his breath, something along the lines of “being a right pain in the ass” and “shut his ugly little mouth”. Draco lowers at that, his mouth is pretty, thank you very much. The room crackled with purple sparks as Ron releases relashio on him. His palm opens suddenly.
"Accio wand," he mutters quickly before his wand has the chance to fly too far away, it—released into the air—comes back to his awaiting palm. He points his wand at Ron—alerte ascendeare—and slams him into the wall, once, twice, and thrice, before releasing him.
Ron grunts as his body hits the wall, and his wand nearly slips from his grasp before he closes his fingers around the wooden stick, his other hand rubbing the sore spot on his bicep. "Stupefy!"
"Salazar!" Draco curses as he was launched back, hitting a shelf. The books tumble from its stack on the shelf, hitting him squarely on the head. He makes an affronted noise and narrowly dodges the following books raining down on him, a dull thud as it lands on the floor. There was a shattering sound as an hourglass falls after the last book somehow drags it down, the sand now scattered across the floor. He aims at a nearby table, "mobiliarbus"
"Protego," Ron shields himself as Draco throws the table at him, arms straining. "I didn't even know you can use it like that," he whispers. Draco snickers. "Oppugno."
The table moves to hit him. "Protego," Draco casts, following it with, "confringo."
"Bloody—!" Ron exclaims, throwing his arms up to shield himself. The table bursts into an explosion—its raucous explosions muted to the outside world by an earlier casted muffliatio, a rare moment of forethought from Ron. Its remains gradually falls to the ground, dust motes dancing in the disturbed air. Ron coughs and waves his hand to rid of the dust cloud in front of him.
Draco takes advantage of his momentary weakness. "Expelliarmus."
Ron stumbled backwards, his wand falls to the ground. He glares at Draco, who has his wand still pointedly aimed at the ginger. He leers. "Concede already, Weasley?"
The other glowers at him then shakes his head, snatching his wand from the floor. A significant look directed at him, and Draco falters ever so slightly at not being able to decode it. Ron rolls his hurt shoulder, a grimace on his face. “Seriously, what is wrong with you? Does it burn you to be a little nice once in a while? You know it takes 0 galleons to be nice.”
Draco raised a perfectly arched brow. “Oh? And what does it take to be an asshole?” Ron's brows furrowed deeper, a little confused before catching his drift and his frown turns to one of full annoyance, Draco is almost convinced that his face is going to permanently be trapped in a frown, and he chuckled at the mental image of a permanently red, frowning Weasel. He leans sideways on the wall, crossed his arms and titled his head a little to the side, haughty and supercilious. “I can send it to you, maybe you could finally be out of the hovel once and for all.”
“That's not the point,” Ron mutters weakly, his shoulders sagging almost imperceptibly, his hands fidgeting beside him—opening and closing. The fight drains out of him, and he gulps down the feeling of defeat, the realization that this will go nowhere hitting him again, the knowledge that he doesn't have a rebuttal to Draco again eating him up. Draco can see the thought swirling in his eyes: he will never have the upper hand against Draco; the lower class will never have power over the upper.
His smile widens with glee, the only acknowledgement—the only sign that he understands what Ron was thinking—an affirmation of his most negative thoughts. “It's free isn’t it?” he continues, if only to further drive the other into frenzied madness.
“Merlin,” his voice cracks, tone quiet and subdue, “you are such a prat.” Ron glares at him, with as much hatred as before, but its intensity dampened by muted despair—passive in a way that reluctant acceptance look like. His eyes looked weary. Draco swallows, his smile grows smaller. Ron turns around and the door slams shut. Probably off to find the muggle-born, bushy-haired, rabbit-toothed witch and the filthy half-blooded git with his stupid scar and perpetually broken spectacles. The door slams shut, impact reverberating in the space.
He slumps against the wall, utterly spent. His shoulder relaxes, the tension seeping out of his bones, and he leans his head on the wall, closing his eyes as he tried to catch his breath. A lithe finger comes up to touch his bottom lip, it stings. He licks the blood off of his finger, not caring enough to be disgusted. Draco sighs as he looks around—overturned tables, books on the floor, the speckles of sand scattered even further than it was earlier. He clicks his tongue, “scourgify.”