HOLY MATRIMONY
Today the noble house of Dumbledore and the notorious house of Malfoy were connected in the most unusual ceremony of our time. In a large gathering of their family and friends, Aberforth Dumbledore and Ethelfride Malfoy were united on this bright and beautiful morning. Not only the circumstances of but the events during the wedding were extremely interesting.
Young Draco Malfoy, the nephew of our bride, the Winner of Witch Weekly’s Best Sneer and a boy whose apparently diverse love life is frequently in our pages, had this to say. “Aren’t things bad enough without you pestering me! You people are vultures, vultures I tell you. Feeding on human misery! A pox upon you!”
He was doubtless overwrought after the incidents related overleaf.
A picture of Ethelfride Malfoy-Dumbledore is to be found on page 3, in a stunning sequin and tulle gown.
“I’m not going,” Draco said defiantly. “Nobody can make me go. I can stay here forever if I have to.”
“Er, on my bed?” Harry asked. “No you can’t.”
“Harry, you are not being sympathetic!” Draco wailed. “How would you like to see your uncle put on a wedding dress and marry a man?”
There was a silence. Draco was just about to hit Harry with a pillow when Ron spoke.
“Don’t,” he said. “This is a special moment for him.”
Harry looked on the point of happy tears. “That’s the nicest mental picture I ever had.”
“Wait until I tell Ginny,” Draco remarked. “She’ll whip you.”
“Do you mind? I don’t want to picture my girlfriend with a whip.”
“Potter, you are so gay.”
There was a thunderous knock on the door.
“Draco!” Hermione yelled. “I know you’re in there, you little rodent! Let me in!”
Draco hid his head under a pillow. “You can’t come in!” he bellowed. “We’re naked!”
There was a pause. “What, all of you?”
“Yes!” Draco howled.
Hermione paused and considered, and decided that there was at least a 65% probability he was lying.
She stormed in. Her boyfriend tried to cover himself with Harry’s blanket, which almost toppled him, Harry and Ron onto the ground.
“I just heard a ridiculous rumour that you were planning not to go to your uncle’s wedding!”
Draco wondered what on this earth had possessed him to start going out with a girl who could climb to this octave level.
He reminded himself of that great thing she did with her tongue and decided to lift his head and give her the full benefit of the Angelically Appealing Malfoy Gaze.
“Draco,” Hermione said in a low, dangerous voice. “Do you know what I will do to you if you perform this selfish and craven act of cowardice?”
Draco shuddered. It was being the child of dentists that did it. She was used to gibbering trauma victims. She was heartless, heartless.
“Hermione, stop!” Harry exclaimed. “You’re scaring him.”
“Harry Potter, if you take up for him just one more time—”
Harry quailed at this onslaught of rage. “No, Hermione. Sorry, Hermione. I didn’t mean it, Hermione.”
“Draco. You don’t want to make me angry.”
“Mmmmf,” Draco said, trying to hide his entire body under Harry’s pillow. He was going out with the world’s only human Howler.
“Don’t make me give you another Talk.”
“Not a Talk, not a Talk,” Ron said fervently. Harry was still gazing at Draco in mute sympathy and distress.
“Are you going to this wedding?”
Draco’s rumpled head popped out from under the pillow. He gave her a wide-eyed, beseeching look.
“I will, Hermione,” he said in a soft, noble voice. “For your sake I will do this great thing. Because you wish it, I will submit myself to unspeakable torment, I will do all you command since I would rather die than give you pain. Perhaps I will die,” he continued, warming to his subject. “But the damned sufferings of hell are all as naught to me—”
“Good,” Hermione said sternly, and stalked out.
“Damn,” Draco said, sagging. “That’s never failed before. Do you think maybe she fancies girls?” He brightened at the thought. “That would be wicked kinky.”
“It was a very touching speech, Draco,” Harry soothed him. “And we’ll all come to the wedding and support you.”
“Thank you,” Draco said, suddenly looking like a little-boy-lost again. “And, Harry, could I—?”
Harry passed him what he desired. “Yes, Draco. You can borrow my hairbrush.”
Ron frowned at the door. “Draco?” he said. “You’re a brave man. Does it never scare you to go out with that?”
Draco paused in brushing his hair and looked thoughtful. “Well, yes. But it has its perks.” He smiled happily. “I’m not like Potter here. I quite enjoy picturing my girlfriend with a whip.”
“Urgh, that’s a bit too kinky—”
“Malfoy Code No. 21,” Draco said absently. “There’s no such thing as too kinky.” He paused. “See further numbers for similar rules on being too thin, too rich, too pretty, too wicked or too covered with the blood of your enemies.”
“Do you ever wonder whether you might be really, really warped?”
Draco stared blankly. “No. Why do you ask?”
There was another loud knock at the door and Draco howled dramatically at the ceiling.
“Don’t come in! I swear, we’re all naked this time!”
There was a thump from outside the door. Harry, the conscientious one, got up and went to see what had caused it.
“Er,” he said ruefully. “Bad news. I think you killed Seamus.”
The unlucky Seamus was miraculously revived when Draco, smiling beatifically, offered to give him the Kiss of Life. Then Draco claimed the trauma of Seamus’ near-death experience meant that he, Draco, required rest and affection.
Everybody absolutely scorned these claims and therefore it was a mystery to Hermione how she ended up sitting beside the fire with Draco’s head in her lap, as Neville fetched coffee and Harry fed him biscuits.
“I told Dumbledore we were all going to the wedding,” she informed Draco as she idly stroked his hair.
Draco’s contented expression froze.
“Oh did you.”
“So you can’t wriggle out of it now.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“And you needn’t bother making up ridiculous excuses.”
“Hermione, your lack of faith wounds me.” Draco looked tragic. “It is not my fault that I get violently sick in flying carriages.”
“Lucky you’ll be taking the train with the rest of us.”
“And that a wicked fairy cursed me at my birth never to attend a wedding, lest I be sent to sleep for a hundred years.”
“We’ll all enjoy the quiet.”
“Or lest my hair fall out and leave you with a hideously unattractive boyfriend.”
“That’s okay,” Hermione said placidly. “I’m not shallow.”
“But I am!” Draco wailed. “I am deeply deeply shallow!”
“I’ll cure you.”
Draco gave a martyred sniff and everybody but Hermione looked very sorry for him. Harry fed him another chocolate biscuit.
“You’ll all be sorry when I die,” Draco muttered rebelliously. “I feel death very near me. I need a cuddle.”
Hermione complied.
“I mean a cuddle with more sex than that.”
Seamus, who had begun to develop a slightly alarming facial tic, looked around wildly to see who the volunteer would be. Since nobody showed any particular desire to ravish Draco on the hearthrug, he relaxed a fraction.
Draco made a face.
“Don’t be sad,” Harry said. “Here.”
Seamus began to fumble for his Prozac.
Draco opened his eyes very wide. “Can there be icing and chocolate?”
Seamus toppled over. Ron hurried over to him to explain the crucial and often overlooked difference between biscuits and insane passion.
“God, you’re hot,” Draco purred. “I mean, there’s no denying that you’re just hopelessly, desperately handsome. I’d turn for you. Anyone would turn for you. You gorgeous gorgeous thing.”
He heard Hermione’s easily recognisable knock on the door, and jumped guiltily.
“Draco! Are you ready to leave yet?”
“I—uh—”
The door opened and Hermione was outlined in the frame, her hands on her hips and her most accusing expression on her face.
“Draco Malfoy, are you talking seductively to the mirror again?”
“Look, I can’t help it! I have a problem!”
“Draco,” she said, coming up to him and regarding him with the extreme annoyance that Draco thought was her form of affection, “you are a problem. Are you ready?”
“I’m almost ready.”
“Okay. What do you have left to pack?”
“Oh, I haven’t started packing yet. But my hair is shiny and perfectly groomed.”
“Draco,” Hermione said in a low, dangerous tone. “This is going to be a very, very busy day. Don’t cross me.”
“You’re right, you’re right,” Draco said. “Busy, busy, busy. So many things to see and people to do. I’ll get the house elves right on the packing.”
Hermione looked at him for a long moment. Draco presumed she was gazing fondly upon his countenance.
She smacked him upside the head.
“Go! Pack!”
Then she left. Draco was too caught up in the picture of whips and leather to notice for an instant.
Once he did, he decided that it was clear he’d have to be a virtuous boyfriend. She respected that he needed three hours to get ready when they went out, he should respect her odd little “respect” and “fair treatment” thing about house elves.
He’d have to get Longbottom to pack for him. Oh, what he went through for this woman.
The door creaked open, and Draco froze and pasted an expression on his face that he hoped indicated he was innocent of any ideas of forcing Longbottoms into servitude.
“That’s a… weird look you have on your face,” Blaise Zabini said, coming inside.
Draco lapsed back into his automatic sneer.
Blaise swanned into the room, swinging her hips. Her breasts were always most impressive around this time of the month.
“Your girlfriend coming with you to this wedding?” she asked.
“Oh, they’re all coming,” Draco answered carelessly.
“You know, Draco, some people are content dating individuals, not whole houses.”
“I have special needs,” Draco informed Blaise. “Please excuse me. I have people to terrorise and make my abject slaves. It’s a lifestyle choice.”
Draco came into the train compartment by landing heavily on his back.
“How could you, Draco!” Hermione stormed.
“I packed!” Draco protested.
“Neville did all the work!”
“And I supervised,” Draco told her severely. “It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it. His idea of folding neatly would make you weep.”
“Oh, I don’t intend to weep,” Hermione said, and reached for her wand.
“Hermione, don’t hurt him!” Harry exclaimed nobly, and launched himself onto the floor, gathering Draco up in the shelter of one arm.
“Eeep,” said Draco in a small voice, peeping out from behind Harry’s arm and looking cute and pathetic.
“Don’t be cross with him,” Ginny cried. “He’s so cute and pathetic.”
“Cute and pathetic?! I’ll give him cute and pathetic right up the—”
“Eeep eeep eep!” Draco said urgently.
“Hermione, maybe you’re just a little distraught,” Ginny continued soothingly. “Let’s go and get him some pumpkin juice. And Harry will tell Draco off.”
She guided Hermione patiently to the door, and Hermione only shook her wand fist at Draco once as they left.
“Draco,” Harry said, “why do you let yourself down this way?”
“‘M sorry,” Draco answered, giving Harry the old wobbling lip and earnest eyes.
Harry was staring steadfastly out of the window. Damn it, he’d been spending too much time with these Gryffindors, they knew all his best tricks.
“Yes, Draco. But are you sorry for doing something that was wrong or are you sorry that you were caught?”
“‘M sorry I was caught,” Draco mumbled.
Harry was incautious enough to look at Draco, and immediately softened. “Draco, how do you reconcile your conscience to doing these things?”
“Self-awareness and psychological understanding,” Draco answered, beaming.
Harry paused. “I’m sorry…?”
“Well, you know how everyone has a conscience,” Draco explained ingenuously. “And you know how everyone also has an inner child.”
“Okay.”
“So what you do is, you imagine a gun and point it at the inner child’s head, and then you say to your conscience, ‘Shut up, bitch, or the kid gets it!’”
Harry looked very upset. Draco winced, anticipating another round of We Are Saying This Because We Love You, Draco, And You Are Deeply Twisted And In Need of Intensive Therapy.
Luckily, Ginny came in at that point and Draco threw his most beseeching look at her.
“Harry!” she exclaimed. “What have you done to him?”
“He meant it for the best,” Draco said in a martyred way.
Ginny flung her arms around him and began to give him an anxious cuddle. She also sneaked in a small grope, because she was a vixen.
“Harry, how could you!” she reproached.
Harry looked vexed.
Ron and Cho appeared halfway through the train journey.
“We got lost looking for the bathroom,” he explained, looking flushed and guilty.
“Oh, I see,” said Harry.
“Oh, I bet,” said Ginny.
“Do up your shirt properly, Cho,” Hermione said helpfully.
“You don’t have to,” Draco put in, even more helpfully.
He didn’t have any actual interest in Cho, but he felt he should uphold Slytherin’s reputation for debauchery. No sense in dragging their name out of the mud.
Cho blushed and looked away. Ron looked at Draco as if he was picturing rat poison.
“All right,” Hermione said, looking up from her note pad. “Now. I’ve got this wedding planned out. When Draco’s uncle shows you boys his dress, you…?”
“Compliment him on it,” Harry and Ron chorused.
“Very good. And when he throws the bouquet, Ginny, you…?”
“Don’t bite anyone else to get to it,” Ginny answered, looking cross.
“And Draco, all the way through this day, you will…?”
“Not break any laws of public decency, violate any concept you have of morals, treat anyone including a house elf like a house elf, get drunk, take drugs, turn into an animal, turn anyone else into anything, get into the papers again, go anywhere without at least one Gryffindor escort except for the bathroom because we’ve all heard the rumours, and especially not even think any disturbing and perverse thoughts about cottage cheese.”
Draco stopped counting on his fingers and gave Hermione his best winning smile.
“So, in effect, you…?”
“Sit very still in a chair and try not to talk much,” Draco said, flouncing while seated.
“Good boy,” Ron said absently, patting him on the head.
“Ron,” Hermione pointed out in a kind voice. “You’re having another ‘rat’ moment.”
Ron snatched his hand back.
“Nobody loves me,” Draco said mordantly.
“Don’t be silly,” Ginny said cheerily. “Everybody loves you. Haven’t you read the Daily Prophet? Seamus has to take his Valium before he touches it.”
“Don’t believe everything you read,” Draco replied. “Anyway, I thought it was Prozac.”
“He’s moved on,” Ginny informed him.
“He whimpers at night and dribbles sometimes,” Ron mused. “And he’s developed that really creepy facial tic.”
“Wow,” Draco remarked, in a pleased sort of way. “I broke his mind.”
“Which is a terrible thing,” Hermione pointed out. “And you are evil.”
He blew her a kiss.
“If he’s evil,” said Cho, “doesn’t that mean Harry has to kind of, well, destroy him? Being the hero and all.”
“Eh,” said Harry.
“He’s just so darn cute,” Ginny explained.
Draco preened.
“Who is it Draco’s having an affair with in the Daily Prophet today?” Hermione wondered innocently aloud. “It’s Trevor the toad, isn’t it?”
Draco slipped down in his seat, relapsing into a pout.
“Nobody loves me,” he repeated, in tones of conviction.
The train drew into the station, or what had been the station before a media circus had decided to pitch the tents and settle down there forever.
The cries were audible from inside the carriage, and as they drew towards the door it became deafening.
Harry looked shy and apprehensive.
Draco bowed and kissed his hand.
“My adoring public!”
“Draco, they are not your fans,” Hermione informed him. “They are seedy gossip mongers out to glean every sordid detail of your supposedly raunchy and perverse sex life.”
“Same thing,” Draco said dismissively.
“Mr Malfoy! Mr Malfoy, are the rumours about—”
“Mr Malfoy, is the story about the toad—”
“Mr Malfoy, a first-hand account of the incident in the Gryffindor boys’—”
“Oh God,” Ron said, paling. “They’re not still talking about that, are they?”
Draco scowled. “That’s where all this trouble started,” he pointed out. “And I’ll remind you that it was your fault, Ronald ‘Hot Lips’ Weasley.”
Ron spluttered.
“When Peter Pettigrew was my rat, it caused less trouble than this!”
“Yes,” Draco said loudly, “but did you kiss Peter Pettigrew?”
Every reporter’s head whipped around to face them. Sudden whispers of “bestiality” and “necrophilia” began to buzz around the station. Ron went, very slowly, scarlet.
“Mr Weasley, would you give us an interview?”
“I hate you, Draco Malfoy,” Ron said.
“Shut up, Ron,” Harry muttered. “At least you didn’t get asked to do a joint photo shoot.”
“I think you should do that,” Ginny put in, with great conviction.
“No!” Harry snapped.
“How much were they offering again?” Draco mused. “I was joking,” he said in answer to Harry’s scandalised look. “Just joking. And I did offer to make ‘Potter’s Straight’ badges.”
“Why do you always go on about badges? Badges are not the solution!”
Draco looked pensive. “I like badges.”
“Have you any other suggestions?” Hermione asked, with badly tried patience.
If the boys were cornered about their exploits one more time, she or some other hapless girl was going to be crushed in the crowd. Or beat herself to death with the stack of slanderous papers.
She eyed Draco with distinct disfavour. He smiled at her, his hair blinding in the sunlight.
“To make them believe my reiterated denials, you mean?”
“Yes,” Hermione said. “Do you have a plan?”
He smiled again, slow and rich. The thing she hated most about Draco was how he could make her stop hating him for no reason.
He moved towards her, and she was suddenly leaning against the threshold of the train door with his hands on either side of her.
“No absolute plan,” he said deliberately, drawing a trail up her neck to her face with one hand and leaning towards her. “But I have a few ideas.”
He kissed her then, in the hot sticky train in front of the buzzing crowds, and she shut her eyes. The space behind her eyes was calm and dark while Draco was kissing her, always, and the deep slide of tongue and lip made her shiver as if she were cold or excited, or perhaps both.
He stepped back, and she blinked against the light.
Draco tossed his shining head, hooking one thumb in his jeans and curling one edge of his swollen mouth. He looked debauched.
“When in doubt, smirk,” he said, and as he stepped out of the train the crowd parted for him.
Hermione was aware that it was normal, when the bad boy kissed you, to want to slap him around the face.
She hadn’t realised that after the happy ending, when you were together, you still felt this urge every time.
Ron made a fumbling move towards Cho, who slapped his hands away.
“Fresh,” she said archly.
“I will not put on a, a show for these vultures,” Harry said darkly.
Ginny looked disappointed. Draco looked over his shoulder.
“Believe me, I’m an act you can’t follow. Are you people coming or not?”
The majestic castle towered over the beautiful green grounds, where even the marquee seemed to grow like a huge striped flower. It was quite possibly the most imposing sight Hermione had ever seen.
“Looks like you could be marrying into money,” Ginny said with frank approval as they laid out their sunbeds.
Once they were done, Ginny glanced around for the photographers and then took out a safety pin and let her green robe fall off.
Underneath, she was wearing a white bikini, which was exceedingly skimpy and which earned her a wolf whistle from Draco as she stretched out on the sunbed.
“I’ll kill you, Malfoy,” Ron said with conviction.
“Ron, don’t be absurd,” Harry interrupted. “She’s my girlfriend. I’ll kill him.”
“No, I’m going to kill him!”
“Listen, Ron—”
Over the shouting, Draco idly examined his fingernails and said to Hermione, “I don’t suppose you have any such risque costume under your robes?”
“Oh yes,” Hermione snapped. “A full set of leather underwear and chains.”
A smile spread across Draco’s face. “Cool,” he said. “Can I call you my Mistress of Pain?”
“Keep on in that vein for one more second, Draco Malfoy, and you really can.”
Draco spun around.
“Boys, boys,” he said in a pained voice. “Can’t we all just get along? The time has arrived for us to come together in a spirit of love—”
“Pick up Seamus, you’re doing this on purpose aren’t you Draco Malfoy,” Hermione said accusingly.
Draco gave her his most angelic smile.
“Who, me? I just want to play ball.”
“We should probably loosen his clothes,” Blaise Zabini said helpfully. “I’ll do that. It’s no trouble.”
Dean Thomas was always making critical mistakes with Draco. First he’d introduced him to the guitar, then jeans and then the concept of soccer.
A whole new game which he could cheat at outrageously. Hermione knew where that would end.
“You do that, Blaise,” Draco told, at present, her. “And get him off the pitch.”
“Draco!” Hermione exclaimed. “Lavender, doesn’t this bother you?”
“Not so much,” said Lavender, who was painting her toenails. “Blaise is a terribly cute guy around the full moon. He and I and Seamus get along very well.”
“And what does Seamus think about that?” Hermione demanded.
“Eh.” Lavender shrugged. “He’s mostly too drugged up to notice.”
“My God,” Hermione said in disgust. “What started this total moral collapse in the Gryffindors?”
“Well, I don’t like to accuse this early in the game,” Ginny remarked, “but I’d have to pick you, in the Great Hall, with Draco Malfoy.”
“Since dating him appears to have revolutionised our house, why were you suggesting marrying him and sharing all his worldly goods as well? It might destroy society as we know it.” Hermione paused. “Plus, I think in his case inbreeding has produced dementia.”
Ginny looked over at the game, where Ron had just landed in an ignominious sprawl in the mud and beside whom Draco was doing a victory dance.
“True,” she observed critically. “But morals, manners and mental health aside, he sure can shake that booty.”
“Vixen,” muttered Cho, who was adjusting her sunhat. “Why is Ron’s team losing so spectacularly badly?” she continued. “And why in God’s name are Harry and Draco on the same side? Doesn’t that give their team an unfair advantage?”
Hermione raised her eyebrows.
“Cho,” she said. “My boyfriend picked the teams. And he is now doing a little victory song and dance. Do you think there is any way he could have stopped himself cheating?”
“Fair point.”
On the pitch, Harry was earnestly telling Draco about the rules of the game and the necessity of fair play. Draco was doing little cheerleader kicks in his jeans, which he was too vain to take off even for a soccer game.
Hermione rolled her eyes. “One day I’m going to find a man with moral fibre.”
“Nah,” Draco said dismissively, coming over and bending towards her. She was only aware of a flash of sweaty blond hair and a football shirt before he had licked once inside her mouth, with care and precision, and then stepped back grinning. “Once you try Slytherin, you never go back.”
“Have you wormed your ignominious way to victory enough for one day?” Hermione asked. “Can we go inside now?”
Draco looked over at the immense building that symbolised his ancient heritage and contained his beloved family.
“Can’t we live rough for a few days?”
“Draco,” Hermione said patiently, “do you want to know what my hair would look like after a few days of living rough?”
He shuddered. “Oh, don’t. I might cry.”
“Let’s go, that’s a good boy,” Hermione said. “And tell me… I mean, your house is huge. I’d have expected it to be called—Malfoy Mansion, or Malfoy Castle, or—”
Draco looked offended.
“I’ll have you know the name Dunroamin has an ancient dignity.”
They went into Dunroamin, the ancestral home of the Malfoys, once Seamus had been restored to consciousness and detached from Blaise.
Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy met them in the hall.
Draco was startled to see his father had split ends. He understood that it was sad to see those magnificent Malfoy looks fading, and your only and exceptionally gorgeous son overshadowing you, but there was no reason to let yourself go.
“Hello Father,” he said politely.
Lucius twitched. Draco noticed that his eyes were somewhat wide and vacant.
“Draco,” he mumbled. “Oh God. My only son.”
“Darling, he’s here,” Narcissa said sharply.
Lucius focused, and twitched more violently. “Are—are there Weasleys with him?” he asked in a low voice. “Or is it another of those dreams?”
Narcissa squinted. “Several of them seem to have rather violently red hair,” she admitted.
Draco was really starting to get a bit suspicious now.
His mother was looking like the cat who’d got the cream and the canary, and reinstated the old Egyptian ways of feline worship. She was also wearing a scarlet dress with what Draco would have called cleavage if he’d felt in any way capable of contemplating his mother’s breasts.
There were teeth marks on Lucius’ cane.
Narcissa leaned forward and gave Draco a quick kiss on the cheek.
“How are you, sweetheart?”
“Oh, fine,” Draco said. “Still charming and good-looking. Not a rodent, no thanks to you.”
“Are you still sulking about that?”
“I told you in fourth year!” Draco snapped. “I don’t want to be turned into a rodent again, I said specifically. Loving parents don’t allow their children to grow whiskers.”
“Hush, darling. I’ll make it up to you.”
“Will you take more care of me in future?”
“Well, no,” said Narcissa. “But I’ll buy you an Invisibility Cloak.”
“All right,” Draco agreed.
Trust and affection were all very nice, he was sure, but there was just something about disgustingly expensive gifts that appealed to him.
“Now introduce me to your friends,” Narcissa invited. “And don’t mind your father. He was just so distressed after reading those nasty newspapers. But I think the Muggle drugs are really helping.”
Draco eyed his father, intrigued.
“Nice robes, father,” he said.
“I can’t bear to look upon your face, Draco. Oh, the proud Malfoy name…” Lucius whispered. “Why, why was the curse of my benighted brother visited upon my innocent son? Why did this happen to me? I’m just a murderer of children and a slave to darkness, I’m not a bad man!”
“I think I’m going to use your Gringotts account to pay for a great big party,” Draco continued experimentally.
Lucius shuddered. “Do as you want. Leave me to my suffering.”
Draco came to a decision. “I’m sorry, mother. You asked who these people were,” he said with his most charming smile. “This is my friend Ginny, this is my girlfriend, and these are my bitches.”
He looped his arms around Harry and Ron’s necks.
“More Prozac,” Lucius said urgently. “Quick.”
“Charmed,” Narcissa smiled. “What’s that under your arm, Draco darling?”
“A soccer ball.”
Lucius looked like he was about to cry. “And what’s that for?” he demanded in fearful tones.
“Use your imagination, Dad.” Draco grinned engagingly. “So, what are your plans for the summer?”
Lucius drew himself up. “I plan to serve my master the Dark Lord, lay low the muggleborn and lay waste to the festering pit of muggle lovers who surround us. Dire will be our vengeance, great and unholy the wrath of the Death Eaters—”
“No, dear,” Narcissa interrupted. “I don’t think we’ll do that.”
“Oh.” Lucius looked crestfallen.
Narcissa smiled sweetly and patted his hand.
“Actually, all that Death Eater business always rather bored me,” she said. “And I have the key to the medicine cabinet, and the Daily Prophet arrives every morning.”
Lucius cowered, searching the ceiling for owls bearing more salacious news of his son.
“I was planning a few select cocktail parties in the summer, and then perhaps a cruise,” Narcissa continued complacently. “I think it’s time you had a new hobby. Like golf.”
“But my Dark Master,” Lucius said vaguely.
“Look at it this way,” Narcissa said. “It’s not like the Dark Lord had good hair.”
Lucius might be ready to desert his principles, but he would never desert his hair care products.
“That’s true, I suppose,” he replied meekly. “Can I have more Prozac now, dear?”
“In a bit,” Narcissa answered, smiling and touching Draco’s hair. “I want you to know you have my full support in your chosen lifestyle, darling.”
“Ah, thanks.”
Narcissa beamed on Harry and Ron.
“Such strapping young men,” she observed. “Really, there is something enticing about that rough stable boy charm, isn’t there? And that scar is just so designer.”
“Urk,” said Ron, fighting to get away. Draco maintained a death grip.
“Eeep,” said Harry, hiding behind Draco as the lesser of two evils.
“Just remember what Mother has always told you,” Narcissa said. “Say it for me, darling boy.”
“It doesn’t matter if you are depraved, as long as you are well dressed,” Draco recited dutifully. “Your love will transcend all my life choices, but not bad fashion choices. And above all—you will permit boys, children, demons, goats, garden gnomes, house elves and wardrobes, but never never Hufflepuffs.”
Mother and son shared a fastidious little shiver.
“That’s my precious boy,” Narcissa said. “I think we’re all going to be very happy. Come, Lucius!”
She sailed out. Lucius shambled after her.
“I think that went splendidly,” Draco announced, looking with satisfaction at the traumatised faces around him.
Draco was greatly in favour of trauma. He was also greatly in favour of servants.
He wanted to be traumatised as little as he wanted to perform menial chores like making beds, scrubbing floors or doing his own homework.
He cringed on the sofa.
“I don’t want to see it,” he said flatly. “I’ll go blind. And my heart will break if I can never behold my beautiful face again.”
“There, there,” Harry said in a voice of no great conviction. “It can’t be that bad.”
“Yes it can,” Ron disagreed. “Lucius and Draco Malfoy are the sane Malfoys, the normal Malfoys. If they are the way they are—imagine what he’s going to be like.”
Harry and Ron shivered.
Draco had been summoned to his Uncle Ethelfride’s apartments to admire his wedding gown. He had clung to Hermione, but Harry “Sir Lancelot” Potter had flatly refused to let the girls go and behold Draco’s uncle, who could be in feminine unmentionables for all they knew.
Draco had flatly refused to go alone.
“I can’t believe we came up here,” said Ron. “You’re such a soft touch, Harry.”
Harry looked distressed. “I couldn’t say no,” he protested. “He just looked so little and helpless.”
“He’s Draco Malfoy,” Ron said. “He’s playing you!”
Harry looked even more distressed. “Draco wouldn’t do that. We’re his friends.”
“Well, I might have done it a little bit,” Draco said apologetically. “Just a smidgen.”
It was just so easy. He only had to give Ron the Cute Rat look, Harry the Helpless Victim look, Ginny the Sexy Bitch look. He couldn’t help it if he made such an impression on their feeble minds.
“We’ve talked about you manipulating us,” Harry reproached him.
“I wasn’t manipulating you,” Draco protested. “I was just using your weaknesses to get you to do exactly what I want.”
“You can’t keep thinking you’re better than us.”
“I don’t! It’s just my intellect is too much for your lowly brains.”
Harry still looked upset, for some reason.
“No jury in the world would convict us,” Ron suggested with dreamy hopefulness.
Draco gave Harry a wide-eyed and appealing stare.
“Leave him alone, Ron, he means well.”
Draco looked like a rather darling little pet.
“Oh, all right,” Ron said grudgingly.
Hee hee. Poor fools.
Draco smirked and stretched on the sofa, smugly content.
And then he fell off the sofa, gave a cry of anguish and buried his face in the cushion.
“Oh, for merciful blindness!”
Ron sat down heavily. Harry had apparently put his face in his hands.
Uncle Ethelfride posed in the doorway, a vision in leather, chains and tiny bells.
“Well, boys? What do you think?”
There were no words.
“Think I’m going to be sick,” Ron said thickly.
Or maybe there were.
“Er, um, sir,” Harry said. “I think you, um, should put your wedding dress on over—”
“This is my wedding dress, cutie pie.”
“Harry,” Draco said passionately. “You kill evil things, right? I think it’s time to perform your sacred duty.”
“No!”
“Harry, it would make the world a better place!”
“I don’t care, I’m not touching it!”
“Fine, but I’m saying I told you so when it destroys the world.”
“Do you not like it?” Ethelfride asked plaintively. “Were the bells too much?”
Draco sneaked another peek, moaned piteously and hid his face again.
“There, there, Draco,” said Harry. “I’m sure we can fix it. Or—maybe there’ll be an earthquake.”
Draco stood up suddenly.
“That’s it!”
“No natural disasters, Draco,” Ron told him. “Hermione was very firm on that subject.”
“We can fix it!” Draco declared. “Fetch the house elves. I need tulle! Can you sew, boys?”
“No,” Harry answered, frowning.
“I don’t sew,” Ron said firmly. “I create sensational marvels of stitching. It’s not just embroidery, it’s art.”
Draco and Harry both stared at him.
“Look, with two girls and seven boys in the house, sewing becomes a very masculine pursuit,” Ron said defensively.
“I’m not judging here,” Draco told him, almost successfully hiding his smirk.
“I don’t put down what you two are into,” Ron continued. “I mean, Draco, you come onto your mirror, and Harry, you like whacking big snakes.”
“Everybody does it,” Ethelfride told Harry soothingly. “It’s perfectly normal.”
“Mirrors and I have a very special bond,” Draco informed them loftily. “None of you could possibly understand. And speaking of mirrors, don’t look into them, Uncle Ethelfride. I don’t want them cracked, they’re antique.”
He began to pace the room.
“Now, let me see. The house elves will come soon with the tulle, and you can start helping them with your sensational stitching, Ronald—”
“—look, I just happen to find it therapeutic, is all—”
“Of course you do, of course you do. And Harry, you can be our model.”
“The only way tulle is going on me is over my dead body.”
“Hush up. Dress, robe, what’s the difference?” Draco asked. “Anyway, the house elves won’t touch Uncle Ethelfride ever since the incident back in ‘98 with the trifle and—”
Harry winced.
“If I will, do you promise never to tell me that story?”
“Of course, Harry,” Draco soothed him.
“What are you going to do?” asked Ron, who was clearly still smarting over the sewing thing.
Draco beamed. “I’m going to supervise.”
“I’m going to wake up at night screaming about those bells,” Ron said, still pale with horror as they emerged from the room.
Draco’s eyebrows rose. “Ron, you are full of surprises today.”
“Shut up, Draco. I still swear you took pictures.”
“Draco would never do that,” Harry said.
“Absolutely not,” Draco agreed primly.
He totally had, and he was going to sell them to the highest bidder—either the Daily Prophet or Millicent Bulstrode.
They walked down the corridors, heading downstairs for the marquee, where the party had already started by the sounds of it.
A girl ran up to Draco and flung herself at his feet.
“You sex god!” she wailed.
“Um,” said Draco.
“I want to lick your ankles,” she continued.
Draco was a little intrigued.
“Is that you, Hannah Abbott?” asked Ron.
“Oh my God, a Hufflepuff,” Draco moaned faintly. “Oh my God, it’s touching me. Harry, save me.”
Harry knelt down.
“I think your, uh, foot touches are making Draco feel uncomfor—mmmffmfffmfff.”
The girl had thrown herself at Harry and appeared to be trying to eat his ear.
“Help!” Harry exclaimed.
Draco backed up smartly. “I’d like to, Harry, I really would. But that way lies madness and headlice.”
“Cho!” Ron exclaimed, seeing his girlfriend come running up the steps. “Cho, I think Hannah’s—”
Cho took two steps towards him and pressed her hands against his chest.
“You magnificently ginger specimen of manhood,” she said. “I must have you. Now.”
Then she leaped.
“Mrmfmrmfmfmrmf,” Ron protested, and then he settled down on the carpet and decided, “Mmm.”
Draco was a bit appalled. It was quite an expensive carpet. Still, maybe a session or so with Chang would cure him of all that disturbing sewing business.
Mrs Weasley might even thank him, he decided cheerfully, once she stopped burning him in effigy and sending him all those death threats.
“Draco!” Harry squawked, flapping ineffectually at Hannah. “Help!”
“Just hit her,” advised Draco, who had only read the Malfoy Definition of Chivalry—to wit, the way unattractive men acted around women they wanted to sleep with, while said women pined for Malfoys.
“I can’t hit a girl! Help!”
Draco threw a vase at her and Hannah toppled to the floor, out cold.
Harry stood up and looked down at her dubiously. “You could’ve just tried a Body Bind.”
Draco shrugged unrepentantly. “I’m a caveman kind of guy.” He paused. “I mean that in the forceful and thus sexy sense, rather than in the basic unwashed and lives in a cave way.”
Ron and Cho were rolling on the floor making incoherent sounds.
“I’m going downstairs,” Draco said with a little shudder.
He had seen enough exposed flesh for one day. Any views of freckles hitherto uncharted by man and the queasiness might overpower him.
They went downstairs. Draco felt his soul being soothed by the enormous marble hall, the cut-glass punch bowl, the general air of people spending obscene amounts on frivolities.
“Muggle children are starving, you know,” Harry remarked darkly.
“Really?” asked Draco. “Tell my dad. It might perk him up.”
At that point a girl dived towards Draco and tackled him around the knees.
Draco grabbed the balustrade.
“I’ve always thought your knees were fiendishly attractive,” purred Mandy Brocklehurst.
Draco gripped her arms firmly.
“You’re the hero, Harry. You deal with it,” he said, shoving her at him.
“I deal with dark lords, Draco, not women,” Harry said, shoving her back.
“You’re reading the wrong kind of fiction.” Draco pushed her back again.
“I’m not doing this.” He thrust her away.
“Hee,” said Draco, who actually quite liked tossing dizzy girls back and forth. He thought it made for solid entertainment. “Hot potato.”
“Draco Malfoy, are you crazy?” demanded Draco Malfoy’s devoted girlfriend, bearing down upon him. “Isn’t it obvious that someone’s slipped a Lust Potion into the punch?”
“No,” Draco said, staring.
“Didn’t it strike you that the girls were behaving oddly?” Hermione raged.
“I don’t know that much about girls,” Harry said hastily.
“No,” Draco answered. “They were just flinging themselves at me in a frenzy of passion. Happens all the time.”
“Draco!”
Hermione couldn’t be upset about a perfectly commonplace occurrence like girls fancying Draco.
She had to know.
Hating to do it, but having no other option, Draco decided to come clean.
Before he could, Ginny came up and said, “I’ve got Pansy and Millicent confined in the pantry. Who did this, anyway?”
“Voldemort,” Harry offered instantly.
Draco rolled his eyes. “Oooh, the Dark Lord decided to make women fancy you? The horror, the horror.” He paused. “Actually, it was me.”
The look of sheer outrage on Hermione’s face told him that she hadn’t known after all.
Bugger it.
“Why did you do this?” she asked.
“It’s all a big misunderstanding,” Draco said. “The house elves mixed things up again. I wanted it put in the punch after dinner, obviously—”
“Oh, you decided to incapacitate half the people here in the house of someone with divided loyalties?” Hermione inquired. “What if Voldemort had shown up?”
“Well, it would have been funny if he’d drunk the punch.” Draco offered a smile and looked hastily back down as Hermione glared.
“Did you think it would be funny if I went out of my senses and pawed at you?” she asked icily.
“Might be fun,” Draco told her brightly, while Ginny and Harry both waved their hands and mouthed “no” at him.
“I don’t think impairing your girlfriend’s judgement so you can get further with her is anything other than despicable, actually.”
“Look, Hermione,” Draco said, starting to feel panicked, “I didn’t want to—”
Hermione’s hair looked crackly with rage.
“Oh?” she queried. “You were planning to get off with some other girl?”
“No!” Draco snapped, looking irritated. “What do you think I am, Hermione?”
Hermione had backed up a few steps. She looked at him with clear, furious eyes.
“I think you’re a selfish, conceited little brat who does just what he wants without thinking about the consequences, and who doesn’t give a damn about anybody else,” she said coolly, and stormed off.
“So?” Draco yelled after her. “So what? What’s the problem here?”
The wedding was held in the Malfoy chapel, a small, peaceful and rather beautiful place that would have been even more perfect if the house elves had remembered to remove the bloodstained altar.
Hermione refused to sit beside Draco. She sat among the girls who had taken the Potion, and who had only been calmed enough for the wedding by Narcissa emptying the contents of her medicine cabinet and giving Prozac to everyone.
Her face was still and stern. Those around her were giggling and dribbling.
Draco sat with Harry and Ginny, looking forlorn and unhappy.
He was appalled to see that this did not seem to be softening Hermione at all.
“Broken up?” he said in a lost voice. “Where did you get ‘broken up’ from?”
Ginny patted his hand. “Oh, Draco. Has nobody ever broken up with you before?”
Draco looked offended. “Don’t ask me ridiculous questions.”
Ginny put an arm around his shoulders.
“Poor darling,” she said. “Don’t worry about it. I don’t know how anyone could break up with you.”
“I’m in the dark about it too,” Draco told her.
“Nice shoulders, by the way,” Ginny remarked. “Do you work out?”
Draco preened, but his heart wasn’t in it. “Do you think that roses and chocolates will make her happy again?” he inquired.
“No,” said the Boy Who Crushed All Hope In His Wake.
“Ah,” Draco concluded. “Something more expensive, then?”
“I don’t think she wants you to buy her anything,” Harry informed him.
“I don’t understand,” Draco said helplessly. “What else is there?”
“You’ll work it out,” Ginny assured him comfortably. “I’ll talk to her.”
Draco cheered up. “Tell her I’ll buy her anything,” he said anxiously. “Anything at all.”
“Ah, I’ll see,” Ginny said tactfully.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Draco said, remembering his manners. “You two probably want to sit beside each other.”
“Nah,” said Harry.
“We’re fine,” Ginny told him, keeping her arm around his shoulders.
“All right,” Draco said doubtfully.
“I wonder where Ron and Cho are?” she mused as the music struck up.
Harry and Draco exchanged horrified and guilty looks.
“Um,” said Harry.
“I have no idea,” Draco lied with great conviction.
Harry looked relieved. And then they all had to be quiet, because Ethelfride Malfoy was sailing up the aisle.
Several members of the audience looked pale and faint. Lucius Malfoy whimpered and began to chew on his cane.
Draco, who knew with absolute certainty that things could have been a whole lot worse, leaned back and felt placidly content that Ethelfride’s hair was at least as impeccable as became a Malfoy.
Aberforth Dumbledore, who looked unsettlingly like his brother except for the red vinyl pants he was wearing with his suit jacket, smiled in a besotted manner.
The clergyman began with the time-honoured words of the Malfoy marriage ceremony.
“We are gathered here today to witness the union of two beautiful souls,” he intoned, “and two fat bank accounts.”
Draco sighed. You could say what you liked, he thought, but old-fashioned romance had its charm.
He glanced over at Hermione, who remained implacable.
She could be so heartless sometimes.
He said as much plaintively to Ginny, as the wedding photographs were being taken on the lawn.
“Don’t worry,” Ginny said positively. “I can talk her round.”
Draco beamed gratefully.
“I’ll help,” Harry offered.
“This takes a woman’s touch,” Ginny disagreed. “When all’s said and done, Harry—I have the feminine gift of empathy and you—well, you just talk to snakes.”
“Don’t let anyone tell you it’s wrong,” said the blushing bride as he swept past. “I named mine.”
Hermione was lying on her bed.
Except it wasn’t her bed. It was a silly ruffled satin affair in a stupidly ostentatious room, in Draco Her Stupid Ex-Boyfriend Malfoy’s house with its stupid name.
Ginny Stupid Weasley poked her red stupid head around the stupid door.
Hermione breathed deeply. This was getting out of hand.
She had nothing against the door, after all.
“Can I come in? Thank you,” said Ginny, coming in. Malfoy was clearly rubbing off on her.
Things like slime rubbed off so easily.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Hermione snapped.
“Oh, okay,” Ginny said, sitting on the bed, taking out a nail file and beginning to file her nails.
Hermione sat up.
“He’s just so irresponsible,” she burst out. “He prances around, and he doesn’t seem to care who he hurts, and he makes people forgive him, he makes me forgive him but he’s never kind and what’s to stop him if he decides to really hurt me?”
“He might stop himself,” Ginny suggested.
“Why should he?”
“He might care about you.”
Hermione looked up at the stupid crenellated ceiling and the absurd little chandelier. She had found one of her favourite flowers on the pillow and she had asked who had left it there, and the elf had told her that Master Malfoy’s instructions on the subject had been most specific.
He’d thought of it. But picking it himself and carrying it to her would never have occurred to him.
“He doesn’t think the way I do,” she said slowly. “I never feel as if I can trust him.”
“He tries,” Ginny offered.
“He tries but it doesn’t work. I don’t even know how his mind works. How—how can I know that he won’t change his mind? This little prank of his with the Lust Potion… he’s never tried anything, you know. What if he’s just—what if he just gets bored?”
“Oh, he might,” Ginny said carelessly.
Hermione sat up with a start.
“What?”
“He might do,” Ginny nodded placidly. “He likes to fool around. He might go back to changing girls more often than he changes his trousers. And you might decide that it’s all getting a bit problematic and go back to your schoolwork, and try to find someone more reliable.”
“I wouldn’t,” protested Hermione. “I just. It was going to be—easy, you understand. I have plans for my life. I had plans for a relationship. It—it works for revision. He never follows the plans.”
“You can’t trust him,” Ginny told her. “Not completely. You can’t just trust him. You have to decide if you’re going to trust him, and you’re not supposed to work it out logically. That’s what relationships are, you know. Deciding to trust someone until you really do. And with him, it’s hard. So don’t do it if it’s not worth the effort. Don’t do it unless you—”
Hermione had hit the flower with a book, stamped on it and then thrown it in the rubbish bin.
“I do,” she whispered. “I think I do.” She paused. “It’s very annoying. It wasn’t in the plan.”
“Sod the plan,” Ginny told her cheerfully. “And if he hasn’t tried anything—well, he’s Draco Malfoy. He always tries something. If he isn’t—well then, you’re different, and so now you know.”
Hermione pulled her legs up to her chest, resting her chin on her knees.
“Things are difficult,” she said. “These are dark times. There’s Voldemort.”
“Blah blah blah Evil Overlord cakes. Think of it another way.” Ginny flashed her vixen smile. “He’s really stupidly attractive.”
Draco was sitting up on the wall of one of the castle turrets, looking pensive and with his profile shining faintly against the twilight. His skin looked white against the deep velvet of the night, and in his softly tousled hair was the light of netted stars.
He devoutly hoped a photographer would come soon and take his picture. It was cold out here, and he was getting a cramp. There was only so much picturesque brooding one could take.
“Hi there, Draco.”
He looked over hopefully, but it was just Harry, glasses and smile crooked to very much the same degree.
“Are you really upset?” asked the Boy Who Loved Coddling Things To An Unhealthy Degree.
“No,” Draco said superbly. “I am very happy. I have a cunning plan.”
Harry looked doubtful, which was totally outrageous.
“I’m going to have my picture taken,” he explained. “I will look charming and wistful and she will see the photograph and her heart will melt, and she will come running to me and shower me with kisses. It is a brilliant and devious scheme.”
“Draco, photography is not the answer.”
Draco bit his lip. “Do you think perhaps a portrait? If I wore a doublet, and stared nobly off into space?”
“On the whole, I think not,” Harry said, choosing his words with care. “Draco. You just have to tell her how you feel.”
Honesty in a relationship. The idea made Draco feel on the verge of a panic attack.
“Do you have a back-up plan?”
“Draco, for God’s sake,” Harry snapped. “I’m a Gryffindor. You’re lucky I have one plan.”
Draco pouted. “I knew I should have decided to date a different house,” he said. “I could have chosen the Hufflepuffs. They would have worshipped me. I would have done no wrong. I would have been the Hufflepuffs’ love god.”
He pronounced the words “love god” with extreme severity, and stared down at the member of the other and ungrateful house with reproach.
Harry frowned. “Yeah, Draco, but you would probably have had to touch them.”
“That’s true.” Draco sighed. “And that’s an appalling thought. Plus, there’s the matter of the colour. The colours are like a bumblebee.”
“I like bumblebees,” Harry said amiably.
Draco gave him a baleful look. “Bumblebees are not sexy.”
“Well spotted,” Harry said.
“Don’t mock me,” Draco said. “Scarlet-clad ingrates, the lot of you. I was seduced into the whole thing with common interests like colour-coded notes.”
“The way I heard it, you committed public indecency in the Gryffindor rooms and Hermione had to go out with you to salvage your maiden honour,” Harry commented.
Draco tossed his head. “Are you here for some useful purpose, Potter? Because if you’re just here to mock my pain, I will throw you into the deepest darkest dungeon of Dunroamin.”
“Right.”
“I’m not joking,” Draco said, and added peevishly, “Fear me.”
“I do, Draco, of course I do,” Harry soothed him. “Hermione’s inside at the party. You need to go in and talk to her. Just be honest.”
Draco paused to consider. “Do my jeans look stylish yet remorseful?”
“Er—sure, why not.” Harry nodded. “They’re your most regretful jeans ever.”
The rooms of Dunroamin were filled with music and light and dancers. Hermione stood at the edges of the dance floor, smoothing down her hair.
Draco came down the stairs.
He reminded her of the first time she had seen him coming down the stairs from the Gryffindor dormitory, but this time he was outlined in golden lamplight rather than the silver icing of the moon. His hair and eyes had little silver and gold sparks intermingled in them, and he looked cool and ridiculously good to her in his white jeans and shirt.
Always white. If there was someone somewhere playing around with symbolism, they were doing a very simplistic job of it.
He’s far too pale, Hermione thought with her last remaining common sense. And his nose is so sharp you could cut things with it. Anaemic little peacock.
He held out his hand to her and she took it, and she felt all those silly little flutters in her stomach and all that trembling delight rising in her throat, because whatever decisions she ever made about him, most of her brain and her entire traitorous body never paid attention to the memos.
He led her out onto the dance floor and he rested his cheek against her hair.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She rubbed her face against his shoulder. He smelled nice, as he always did. She darkly suspected him of ordering exorbitantly priced cologne.
“I over-reacted,” she confessed simply.
“I didn’t want to take advantage of anyone,” Draco continued, sounding faintly sickened at having to say the words. “I was going to tell all of us.”
She liked it, that she and her friends were us to Draco. She realised she trusted him more than she’d ever thought she did.
A thousand times more than she’d ever thought she should, but then there was nothing logical about love.
She knew him, though. “All of us?”
“Well. I considered letting Harry have some,” Draco said. “I think Ginny deserves that.”
“Plus, you could sell the pictures,” Hermione pointed out.
Draco’s voice was defensive. “That never even occurred to me, Hermione. It shocks me that you could think it.”
Her hands were in his hair. He could dance well, she gave him that, even if he was amoral.
“Harry told me he was worried you had pictures of him in tulle, Draco. I won’t even ask, but if you consider selling them remember I have pictures of the time we all came in and found you dancing around to We Are The Champions and doing up your trousers.”
Draco’s voice was awed. “You’re Machiavellian,” he said. “I like that in a woman.”
Hermione laughed softly. She didn’t tell him what else Harry had said, which was We all love him, Hermione. Of course, then he’d gone bright red and said, Er. But not like that, and rather spoiled the poignancy of the moment.
Still. She hid her face in his neck. They all loved him, and she was in love with him, and it was that complicated.
“I’ll burn them,” Draco continued.
“You will not,” she said. “You’ll sell them to Millicent Bulstrode.”
“I’ll burn them if you really want me to,” Draco said. “Just because every word I say is deceitful doesn’t mean that I’m not telling you the truth.”
She laughed.
“I’ll make it up to you,” he said. “I can colour-code the History of Hogwarts if you like.”
“You know how to sweet-talk a woman, Draco.”
Draco idly smoothed back her hair, doing it better than she could.
“Well, I can’t afford to lose my study partner a year before the NEWTS. Do you realise what could happen to my marks? Oooh, I don’t even want to think it.”
She laughed again, annoyed by how easily he could make her laugh and make her love him. Stupid, arrogant, anaemic prat.
“You don’t have to say it,” she said. “I understand.”
“Ah, I’m working myself up to it,” Draco told her cheerfully. “Give me a few years.”
“Oh, yes?”
“Oh, yes.” Draco paused. “Well. And get me drunk.”
Ginny and Harry sat side by side, watching the dancers. Ron and Cho came over to them, discreetly adjusting their clothes.
“Lovely party,” Ron beamed. “When’s the wedding?”
“Already happened,” Ginny said absently. “Oh, Cho, did you know Draco put a Lust Potion in your punch?”
Ron went scarlet with fury.
“I’ll kill him.”
“You won’t kill him,” Harry said. “If we were going to kill him, we would have done it well before now and saved ourselves a lot of trouble.”
Ron breathed deeply in through his nose.
“It’s just like having a child,” he said. “A horrible, adopted, demonspawn child. Cho—if we, you know, hypothetically, in another universe, get married, promise me we won’t have a child like Draco.”
“I promise, Ron.” Cho took his hand and squeezed it. “Let’s face it. I’m Asian and your entire family is redheaded. The chances of having a platinum-blond child are very slim.”
She squeezed his hand again, and then looked faintly puzzled.
“Actually,” she said, “I didn’t have any punch.”
Ginny looked impressed. “Vixen,” she murmured, just as the guests were all called in to dinner together.
Hermione and Draco came and sat beside the other two couples as everyone gathered at the huge table. After a few minutes, Harry and Draco started trying to show Hermione how a Seeker could defeat another using the Wronski Feint.
The Snitch was a pea.
Lucius Malfoy stared over at his son and his brother with a sort of bleak despair. Occasionally he gnawed on his cane. His wife smiled blandly by his side and passed the chicken.
Suddenly, someone tapped Lucius on the shoulder. He jumped violently. He wasn’t medicated enough for any more shocks.
A boy stood behind him, with a twitching left eye and an Irish accent.
“The Prozac isn’t working properly for you anymore, is it?” Seamus Finnigan hissed conspiratorially.
Lucius’ mouth fell open and he nodded dumbly to this kindred spirit.
Seamus tapped his nose. “Leave it to me,” he said. “I can cut you in on some Valium.”
Millicent Bulstrode was waking slowly from her stupour, and occasionally she fixed her eyes on Harry and muttered, “Such pretty… nostrils.”
Harry had slipped down in his chair in fear.
“You know, I had a letter from Colin Creevey from juvie Azkaban the other day,” he said, in an attempt to distract himself. “He seems much better.”
“I still can’t believe the giant squid didn’t eat him,” Draco remarked, looking discontent. “What kind of ungodly monster just plays around with a victim for a bit and then hands him over to the authorities? When I inherit the estate—which ought to be sooner rather than later since Father is clearly incapable—I think I’ll hire that ENORMOUS SPIDER who lives in the Great Forest to be my guard dog.”
“Shut up, Draco,” Ron said.
Draco gave him a winning smile and began to eat the food Ron suddenly had no appetite for.
“And now I invite my darling nephew, Draco, who is so clearly following in my footsteps, to make the toast.”
Draco looked across at Ethelfride’s proud, beglittered and extremely manic face, and promptly choked on Ron’s food.
“Whu…?” he gasped.
Hermione thumped him briskly on the back, and she and Harry took his elbows, hoisted him out of his chair and looked up at him expectantly.
Draco realised he had an audience, smiled a smile so charming it was harmful, and lifted his glass.
“A day like this makes us all very grateful for the people who are near and dear to us,” he said with perfect sincerity, and adding and not clinically insane only in his mind. “So first of all I’d like to thank the lovely and intelligent Gryffindor who’s come into my life, and who—” he changed his smile to roguish and watched Lavender and Parvati sigh. “—who incidentally, gives me the best back-rubs in the school every night—”
“You lying bastard, Malfoy!” Harry yelped. “It was just the one time!”
Draco looked vexed. “I meant, of course, my girlfriend Hermione,” he said sharply.
There were a few incredulous murmurs. Draco took careful note of them, and reminded himself to put Incontinence Potion in their dessert.
“Ah,” he continued, gathering his wits. “And then it remains my, er, my happy duty to wish the very best to the um, happy couple. I know we all hope that these crazy, crazy, crazy kids can make it work and…”
There was scattered clapping.
He paused and gave it up. Lying, when not for personal profit, was beyond him.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” he said. “Of course it’s not going to work! He’ll leave him for a goat in a week! Does everyone but me have maggots in their brains?”
He scowled ferociously at all of them.
“He may be a sexual deviant,” Lucius sniffed proudly, “but he’s still my little boy.”
“You are all insane, and quite possibly perverted. This has been a terrifying day, and I wish never to see red leather again. Damn you all to the uttermost pits of hell.”
Draco Malfoy sat down among the Gryffindors, took his girlfriend’s hand and scowled at the assembly.
“Well? That’s it, I’m done.”
before April 6, 2003