Ron had to go back to the infirmary for a check-up, and Harry took Draco to come visit him.
“How are you doing, boy?” Ron asked, tickling him behind the ears.
To think he’d see the day when he wouldn’t mind this.
“Oh, you know,” Draco said. “This one here needs looking after, he’s always breaking his glasses and forgetting to brush his hair, and he hasn’t got a TV. On the whole we’re doing all right, but it’ll be a relief when you get back to look after him.”
“I’m taking great care of him,” Harry promised.
“If you care, caffeinate,” Draco muttered with a certain amount of bitterness.
“And… listen,” Harry added awkwardly. “I was thinking… about Cho.”
“And I came to the conclusion, who needs her? Let me ravish you on the bed, my gorgeous red-haired raunch puppet.”
It was just too much fun to see their little faces when they thought they were actually thinking these things.
Yes, he knew it, he was evil.
“I was mad,” Harry confessed. “But Cho isn’t required to like me, and I’d like her to be happy. I’d like you to be happy. And when I saw you lying there on the ground, it just… made it all clear. If that’s what makes you happy, Ron, then go for it. I—I wouldn’t ever want to stand in your way. We’re best friends, aren’t we? That’s not going to change.”
“Yeah, yeah, cue the manly, Quidditch-victory-hug of straight guys.”
Draco wondered if Gryffindors really had their own evil thoughts, or if this cynical inner Slytherin thing was really freaking them out.
“Harry…” Ron was blushing, apparently because having a discussion about a girl with his best friend of six years was too embarrassing.
From the purity of the Gryffindors, the idiocy of the Hufflepuffs and the general know-it-all attitude of the Ravenclaws, good Lord deliver us.
Famous Slytherin prayer.
“Harry, I’d never want to hurt you…”
Harry touched Ron’s shoulder. “I know that, Ron. That’s exactly why. That’s exactly why.”
Cho entered, carrying flowers.
She went red as her poinsettias when she saw Harry. Harry, however, gave her a smile.
Bugger it, Draco thought. The propaganda was true. The bastard really is brave, noble and good. What are the odds?
“We were just done,” Harry said gently. “It’s nice to see you, Cho… though I’m sure it’s even better for Ron.”
He managed to almost sound roguish. Cho looked immensely relieved… and a little shy.
Ron looked eager.
“We’ll just go…” Harry continued, picking up Draco and backing off.
“Put me down, you twat! You haven’t seen him with girls, he needs me!”
Harry had chosen this time to stop listening. Damn Gryffindors.
Draco saw Cho bending over Ron as they went out.
“Oh, never mind. Chang has him right where she wants him—helpless in a bed. It’s a good thing you didn’t hook up with her, Potter… she seems a demanding creature. Ron’ll be fine… big hands, you know…”
Harry shook his head to clear out the disturbing thoughts as he strode down the corridor.
Draco was somewhat touched to see tears welling up in his eyes.
Not to say that if he hadn’t been somewhat rodented, Harry would not have received the Mother of All Mockfests.
“No,” Draco proceeded smoothly. “What I have in mind for you is something undemanding, you know, something young, adoring and… redheaded.”
Honestly, how had the Gryffindors managed their love lives without him?
Oh wait, these were Gryffindors, they didn’t have…
And there were Ginny and Hermione now, both looking very pretty if Draco did say it himself. They were giggling together in an innocent way which Draco didn’t really see much of down in the dungeons.
It was okay—for a change.
“Hey there, girls,” Harry said. “If you’re off to visit Ron, give him five minutes.”
“Potter, that’s insulting!” Draco exclaimed. “Give him at least ten.”
“Cho’s in there,” Harry explained.
Hermione instantly looked concerned. She was too nice for her own good, if you asked Draco.
“Oh, Harry, how are you?”
“Fine, actually. Surprisingly okay. Meaningful look at Ginny.”
“Fine, actually. Surprisingly okay,” Harry repeated after Draco, giving Ginny a menaningful look.
Then he tried to look at his own mouth in astonishment.
“Oh, I’m good, baby!” Draco said gleefully.
“Oh, I’m…”
Mercifully, Harry stopped himself.
Ginny was looking incredulous and delighted. Hermione looked as if she wondered whether she should sidle away.
Harry unwittingly got a complete revenge when in a flustered attempt to be playful and defuse the situation, he dropped Draco down Hermione’s robes.
“AGGH!!!!”
“AGGH!!!! Potter, you bastard, I’m going to kill you!”
Oh, Draco was blind. He couldn’t find his way out. Hang on, was this a sleeve… no, it was more like a strap… dammit, what was this slope he had fallen down…? Whoa, whoa, what was this?
Oh.
OH.
“Or maybe I owe you one.”
Oh, hang on, no, he was a Malfoy and this kind of cheap copping a feel was…
Yes, very much in character, but…
Hermione had no idea, and taking advantage of unknowing females was…
All right, a very common Slytherin practise, but…
Oh, obviously these bloody Gryffindors were infectious or something.
“Potter? I’m in her left cup. Come get me.”
Draco realised the consequences of this when Harry tried to obey, and Hermione gave an outraged shriek.
Draco couldn’t help sniggering.
“Harry!” exclaimed Ginny and Hermione in chorus.
“I, ah, uh…”
Draco didn’t at all like this idiotic tone in Harry’s voice. If he was getting over Cho by turning towards Hermione…
Well, it was just wrong, that was all. He was far too… short for her. It was ridiculous.
Draco didn’t make the rules.
“Hands right off, Potter. Weasley, a hand in the war effort here…”
Draco was finally extricated. Hermione and Harry were both scarlet.
“I have to go, uh, fetch a book…” Hermione said hastily, and decamped.
“Should we wait for her?” wondered Harry.
“No, no. She likes books. Can’t get enough of them. You’d probably ruin a special moment,” Draco told him hastily.
He was getting this Ginny and Harry thing settled.
Draco Malfoy, village matchmaker.
Oh well, you had to do something to while away the weary hours between getting put down girls’ tops.
“Now that incident of the Boy Who Had Busy Hands is over,” Draco proceeded.
“Now that incident of the Boy Who Had Busy Hands is over,” Ginny repeated, and smiled cheekily.
Draco was somewhat surprised.
He was also somewhat impressed. You never knew with redheads, did you.
“I actually have to get a cloak from my room,” Ginny finished.
“Oh, I’ll walk you,” Harry offered instantly.
He hadn’t offered to walk Hermione. Veeery iiiinteresting.
Draco’s Veela-inherited Barometer o’Sexual Attraction was going off like anything.
And possibly, if left to themselves, Harry and Ginny would have got around to business after several more years of friendship, stammering, a never-spoken-of-afterwards mistletoe event, falling over each others’ feet, having an incredibly awkward proposal and the obligatory white wedding.
Draco simply intended to speed things up a bit.
Slytherin style.
“So, are you crushed about Cho?”
“Thank you, you scintillatingly outspoken snippet of cuteness,” Draco said gratefully. “You’re making my job soooo much easier. One might think you were unGryffindorlike enough to have hormones.”
Harry Potter, the Boy Who Everyone Frankly Wondered About, wrinkled his nose in a bashful manner and looked at the ground.
“You know… I meant it when I said I was okay,” he said tentatively.
“Oh, that’s it?” Draco screeched. “That’s all you’re giving me to work with? You gutless ra—weas—bloody forget it!”
Ginny’s mind seemed to be working along the same lines from her expression.
Draco thought furiously.
“All right, here’s an idea. Maybe it was just an infatuation. Say it! Say it!”
“Maybe…” Harry waited for an excruciating moment.
Oooh, he was so The Boy Who May Actually Have Been Born Asexual.
“Maybe it was just an infatuation,” Harry concluded.
Yes! Yes! Harry Potter, you’re beautiful!
Heavens, he had to get away from these Gryffindors, or he could not be held responsible for any fan clubs he might join.
No. Draco swore that it if ever came down to that, he would take the path of noble suicide.
“Try this,” he suggested. “I was looking for love… but I’m starting to think that I was looking in the wrong place.”
Draco knew it was unbearably corny, but chicks liked this crap.
Besides, Harry Heroic Potter could hardly bend Ginny backwards in his arms and say through the corner of his mouth, “What I want I take—on the floor if necessary, you shaggable little piece.”
Draco sniffed. Only he got away with that kind of thing.
“I was looking for love, but I’m starting to think that I was looking in the wrong place.”
A dawning light was breaking over Harry’s face as he said this, as if he was…
Starting to believe it.
Honestly, there was no call for sincerity! Draco was trying to seduce someone at second hand, there was no need to add further complications!
How like Harry, to begin buying into this.
Ginny looked like she was buying it too. Well, that was a comfort.
“Oh, Harry,” she said.
“Yes, Ginny?” said the Boy Who Might Be Straight After All, leaning in.
Oh, thank you, thought Draco. Finally.
“We’re at the girls’ dormitory,” replied Ginny, ducking inside.
Evil, evil redhead!
Draco was most seriously impressed. He was starting to wonder if this girl was too good for Harry.
Of course, the other option was Hermione.
“In there, man!” Draco commanded. “Finish this! Are you a man or a m—okay, we’ll stay off the small furry animals subject. Get your arse in there, or may Finnigan get her after all.”
Harry looked conflicted. Clearly, barging into the girls’ rooms was Not Gryffindor Behaviour.
Draco quite liked the Slytherin girls’ dorms. The Ravenclaws weren’t bad either.
“She might be taking her clothes off,” he suggested.
Harry took two smart steps backwards.
Maybe Draco had been a bit too quick, assuming the boy was into women after all.
Honestly, if the Sorting Hat had been misbegotten enough to put Draco into Gryffindor he would have screamed and pelted out of the place.
Not scoring for six years… This chivalry had to stop.
There was a crash and a bang from inside.
Thank Salazar, Draco thought fervently as Harry dashed inside.
Ginny Weasley stood, looking somewhat abashed, beside her dresser. Half the contents were on the floor.
Obviously, Ron did not hold a monopoly on the Weasley clumsiness. Falling over tree roots and dumping inoffensive dresser contents everywhere…
No time to muse on the Weasleys’ unfortunate genes! Seductionarama!
“I, I thought you might be in trouble,” Harry stammered.
Ginny softened visibly. “And you came in to rescue me.”
“If you were in any trouble…” Harry said, his voice trailing off into decided weakness as Ginny drew closer… “I’d—I’d come to rescue you…”
“Really?” Ginny whispered.
“Come on,” Draco said. “Do I have to wave a flag here? The girl is gagging for it! Kiss her! Give me a K, give me an I…”
Later, Draco always suspected it was Ginny who made the first move.
Not that Harry didn’t seem to be enjoying himself.
“Give me a ‘now we’re getting somewhere!’ Good children!” Draco said approvingly. “Excellent. Couldn’t have done it—no, I tell a lie, could have done it a whole lot better myself, but the girl seems happy enough.”
Harry drew back slightly.
“What I was looking for…” he whispered, “may have been a lot closer than I’d thought…”
I didn’t help at all with that particular nauseating sentence, Draco thought. He did it all himself.
He may be a natural.
Thankfully, Ginny shut him up quick.
After a few moments Draco became a little uneasy.
“Well… well, I think that will be splendid for the time being, don’t you?”
Neither Harry nor Ginny paid him any attention.
“You have classes you know!” Draco yelled. “Education is vital! Knowledge is power!”
Nobody was moving, and Harry’s glasses seemed to be steaming up quick.
“Oh, get a room.” Draco quieted. “Hang on, this is her room. Oh, God.”
At that precise moment, Hermione burst in.
“Did I hear a—Oh! Ohmigosh! I’m so sorry!”
Draco wondered why on earth anyone had ever made a fuss about her hair. It was great hair! Gorgeous hair! It made her look like a brunette sunburst as she entered a room!
All right, that was probably the hysterical relief talking there.
The practically simultaneous hook-up of Ron and Cho Chang, and Harry and Ginny, was the cue for something more alarming and more sickening than Draco had ever dreamed.
The Gryffindors’ Pre-Christmas Fest o’Lurve.
Six years of pent-up hormones, smiling shyly at your crush, being decent and bashful, had obviously taken their toll. It was time for an explosion.
But it was a uniquely Gryffindor explosion. Draco could have handled impassioned snogging.
When people held doors open for their crushes, when they began making Christmas cards that put Ginny’s Famous Valentine to shame, when Harry with a furious blush presented Ginny with flowers… ugh, it was just too horrible!
Lavender and Seamus came out of the closet and then quickly went back in.
Quite literally.
Disturbing noises followed.
Ron and Cho, Ginny and Harry, held hands and smiled dreamily, as events snowballed around them. Dean Thomas appeared to be dating either or both of the Patil twins, and seemed a bit confused about the whole affair.
There was even a rumour about Colin Creevey and Blaise Zabini, which Draco thought was just sick.
Neville kept looking over at Hermione. This was the dizzy limit.
Draco didn’t know if he could take much more.
Thankfully, Hermione did not seem affected by the raging hormonal tide. She looked at people with a faintly amused and contemptuous air, and read quietly in the Gryffindor common room with Draco on her lap, as around her couples giggled and whispered and snogged.
Draco thought this was a very mature attitude.
“So, uh, Hermione,” Neville said, “you like the stars, don’t you?”
“No she doesn’t. Bugger off.”
“They’re all right,” Hermione replied instead. “Why?”
Draco liked his version better.
“I was thinking… we could, uh, maybe go look at them from the Astronomy Tower?”
Across the room, attention was suddenly turned on them.
“The Astronomy Tower!” Draco howled in outrage. “You…! That den of sin, that nest of nookie, that fortress of Blaise Zabini! She is not that kind of girl!”
Hermione smiled.
Far too kindly.
And didn’t kick Longbottom.
In Draco’s opinion, a wildly ill-judged move.
“I’m kind of tired, Neville,” she answered. “I’m going up to bed. Maybe another time.”
“Like when hell freezes over, and all the little demonettes go ice-skating hand in hand, twirling little figures of eight in cosmic freaking harmony!”
“May I take Fluffy with me, Ron?” Hermione continued.
Ron looked up from his arduous task of composing another letter to Cho.
“Hm? Oh yes, sure, fine.”
“You don’t pay me enough attention since that Chang girl came along,” Draco told him severely. “If you’re not careful, I shall leave you and set up house with Hermione. Then you’ll be sorry. And you have Potions homework to complete, you know.”
Nevertheless, he was quite happy when Hermione took him upstairs. Hermione had a radio and a TV.
She turned on the radio and climbed into bed, Draco settling on the pillow. Her hair, whatever else might be said about it, did smell nice, and was extremely soft.
Hermione, who did not seem at all sleepy, began to pet Draco. Her face was pensive.
“It’s not that I’m jealous,” she said. “I’m happy for them all. I really am.”
The radio kept playing.
“I put on my PJs and I hop into bed…”
“I’d just… like to be happy too,” Hermione murmured. “I know what they all say. Hermione Granger, more into books than boys.”
“Books can be fun too,” Draco put in enthusiastically. “There’s this certain sections of the Restricted Section, and well… actually I forget. It was a dream. And it wasn’t my dream, it was Blaise Zabini’s. And let’s get off this subject, shall we?”
“And I love books, but—I’m a human being. Viktor was sweet—”
“If you like a man who walks like a DUCK! He was more bird than man.”
“But I wasn’t all that interested. And Ron, well, I love Ron, I do, but he gets so insecure and he can be so jealous, and he hated it that I still owled Viktor. I couldn’t put up with that.”
“Nobody could,” soothed Draco. “Wait, what? You still owl the duck man? Are you insane, woman?”
“I’m half alive, but I feel mostly dead…”
“And I like Neville, but honestly… I know I’m not pretty, but… Isn’t there anyone at all? I’d just like—to have somebody.”
”… turn out the light, I shouldn’t think any more tonight…”
Draco looked at Hermione as she laid her cheek against the pillow. Saw her sweet, heart-shaped, sad and rather lonely face, the warm light of her closing brown eyes. Even a little miserable, she was a good person and looked it, intelligent, a bit too innocent.
She had argued over Arithmancy, started that house elf society when nobody else cared, narrowed her eyes and actually hit him over some stupid animal, cried because of Edmund bloody Baddock and she had soft hands.
And… there was just something…
Oh, godly God.
“I know you love me, and soon I know you will see…”
“You have me,” Draco said in a low voice. “If—if you’d like.”
Hermione smiled slightly in the dim light.
“I guess it’s just you and me, huh, Fluffy?”
She dozed off, her breathing regular and oh, somehow comforting, in the darkness of this room.
“It certainly seems that way,” Draco said at last, in shell-shocked tones, staring emptily into the night.
“You were meant for me, and I was meant for you…”
Unluckily, the Gryffindor Gag-Me-With-A-Spoon Snogfest had further-reaching and more terrible consequences than everyone staying over Christmas to be with their honeys and go with them to the Yule Ball, which had been held every year since the Triwizard Tournament because Dumbledore lived to torment his students.
That was Draco’s take on the situation, anyway.
Ron started to think that Draco looked lonely. So he fixed him up with Hannah Abbot’s rat!
A Hufflepuff rat. Oh, the humanity!
A nasty, brown, common, rodenty rat.
Who badly wanted a piece of Fluffy’s action.
Draco could not blame her, but at the same time it was just not on.
Malfoys were fastidious creatures. If the rat wanted one, she was going to have to wait for her Prince Ethelfride.
Yeccccccch.
Draco would not soon forget scooting madly across the floor, the other rat in hot pursuit, screaming “Help me, Weasley, you stupid idiot!” as he tried to leap onto Longbottom’s bed in a desperate bid for freedom.
Ron’s interference was the only thing that stopped Draco from saying “Goodbye, cruel world!” and throwing himself from the Gryffindor Tower.
One spark of light had come from the whole sorry business, of course. Longbottom had been charmed by Hannah and was even now in the process of writing her a love note.
A Longbottom and a Hufflepuff.
Somebody, please, think of the children!
Draco stretched luxuriantly in Hermione’s lap, reflecting that this was not his problem. She was sitting by the fire, a cup of coffee within easy reach which she had surrendered to him. Occasionally Harry reached over and tickled him behind the ears.
Ron sat, buried in his Potions homework, which he was actually getting through rather fast because Draco kept peering over his shoulder and whispering the answers to him.
“I’m getting it! I’m really getting it!” he said jubilantly at intervals.
You had to feel a bit sorry for the boy.
Draco felt more sorry for himself when he discovered he was running low on coffee, but a quick word from him to the extremely suggestible Longbottom fixed that.
“Ahahahaha. You are all my unwitting slaves,” he cackled as he sipped from his fresh cup.
Harry smiled slightly, for no reason, as he toasted bread over the fire. Hermione smiled as she read.
It was all so warm, and—and revolting of course, but really so… cosy.
The Slytherin common room wasn’t like this.
Draco yawned. Ron jumped up.
“Fluffy’s exhausted and so am I. We’re off to bed.”
“Can’t wait to get me alone, Weasley,” Draco said grumpily.
“Awww, Ron, I want him,” Hermione protested.
“You always have him!” Harry said. “I’m the one who looked after him while Ron was ill. He likes me too you know.”
“Come on, three-way bitch fight,” Draco urged brightly. “It’ll make me feel so special.”
“Excuse me? This is my rat,” Ron said, and left the room bearing Draco in triumph, to calls of “Sharing is caring!”
Draco yawned again. They weren’t… bad kids, any of them.
In fact, he—rather liked them all.
Even this great redhaired lunk, who was cuddling him quite insistently as he tucked him up in bed.
Draco didn’t even bother struggling. He was still warm from the fire, and kind of drowsy… it didn’t even disturb him when the other boys came in and got into bed.
He felt—peaceful. Peaceful as a child, caressed by a parent.
Not that his parents had been the affectionate type. They weren’t touchy-feely. And Draco had never minded, but…
This wasn’t… dreadful.
He was almost… happy.
“You know, Fluffy,” Ron murmured sleepily, “things have been so wonderful since I found you. It’s like—you’re lucky. My lucky, magic rat… It’s—great.”
“You’re making me blush,” Draco said drily. “Well. Under the fur.”
“Night night,” Ron whispered, and kissed the top of his head.
Draco was about to remark on how that wasn’t hygienic, and Hermione wouldn’t approve, and he personally didn’t swing that way, but…
Then he felt a sudden, intense pain radiate from the base of his spine to the ends of his fur, tingling madly and horribly as it raced through his body. He doubled up in agony, for just a spasm, a moment, and he clenched his fists and…
Clenched his fists?
Since when did he have…
He saw Ron’s eyes gleam with horror in the darkness. They looked an awful lot smaller than they had of late.
Oh, no. Oh, bugger.
At the same time, both boys realised the same terrible truth.
Draco Malfoy was naked in Ron Weasley’s bed.
Both boys screamed.
Every light in the dormitory went on.