Draco spent most of the summer lying about the Manor grounds sulking in the flowerbeds, trying to get the news without speaking to Father and reading his Owls.
He bet Potter was having a cooler summer than he was.
Nobody seemed to know very much about this whole Dark Lord business. Cornelius Fudge was saying it hadn’t happened and there was no evidence it had, but he’d said the same about those allegations about him and Celestina Warbeck last year. (‘Happy birthday, Mr. Minister,’ indeed.) Terry and Anthony mostly commanded him not to correct the spelling of his girlfriend’s Owls.
Not that Cho often made mistakes, but she did it now and again. At first it made Draco’s eyes burn, but then the letters became less and less frequent, and Draco started to miss the way she could spell out all the quadratic enchantments he was helping her with perfectly, and then fall down on the word ‘recieve.’
It was easy enough to avoid Father that summer. He was always busy, and Draco didn’t want to think about why he was busy. He spoke to Draco sometimes when he was at home, in the new conciliatory way that made Draco’s stomach clench with hope and disbelief and the unbelievable thought that his father might be afraid.
Draco wanted to go back to Hogwarts. He looked forward to the start of school all summer, but then Father took him to the station and went with him to the platform, which he’d never done before, and Draco wanted to go back and live the whole summer again and differently.
“Goodbye, Draco. Make me proud,” said Father.
Draco hesitated, standing in the train door, about to be carried away. “I could—” he said. “I’ll try,” and then the train was rattling off and he felt like he’d made a promise he had no way to keep.
It made him feel tired and cross. He wanted to see Cho, so he went wandering like a sad little orphan around the train, his chest banging into things. After his arm started hurting, he changed his mind: he wanted to see Crabbe and Goyle. They would carry his chest, and he could go find Cho.
Of course the person he ran into was Potter. This was how Draco’s life always worked. If life gave you lemons you made lemonade, apparently, but when life gave you incredibly annoying boy wonder celebrities putting them through the juicer was frowned upon.
“Why aren’t you in the prefects’ carriage?” he asked, and was deeply chagrined when Potter asked the same question at the same time, and in the same tone.
Ginny, who was with Potter, snickered, and Draco noted that despite her superior appearance and intelligence she was still a horrible treacherous Weasley at heart.
“Ron’s prefect,” she said, glancing at Potter as if afraid that Potter would die from not being chosen for once in his ever so special life.
Mind you, this time at least he had an excuse. “Weasley?” Draco exclaimed in horror. “Given a position of honour in my school? In my school! Did he bribe Professor McGonagall? Did he offer to give her sexual favours? No, wait, this is Weasley we’re talking about here. Did he offer not to give her sexual favours?”
“Go to hell, Malfoy, that’s my brother you’re talking about,” Ginny said, amiably enough but with an edge to her smile that suggested Draco’s body could be lying beside the train tracks for days.
“Good Lord, is it? You have so many, it’s hard to keep track,” Draco returned, and refrained from further insulting clan Weasley. It was too easy, anyway.
“How was your summer?” Ginny asked, relenting.
“Bloody terrible,” Draco said shortly. “How was yours?”
“Eh,” Ginny replied.
“Bloody terrible,” said Potter, as if he had been asked. Draco took another look at him and saw he was looking even more like the surliest gnome in the garden than usual.
He noticed something else after a minute, because he was so used to Potter being at his own eyelevel, but then he recalled he’d been looking forward to lording the Growth Spurt That Finally Came to Daddy over him, and now Potter was taller too. Draco’d known those tales about Potter’s family not feeding him were too good to be true.
Draco didn’t know why Potter had to suck every drop of joy from Draco’s life, but he assumed he did it out of spite.
“Did all those newspapers saying you were insane upset you, you poor little thing?” he asked, making a mock-sympathetic face as he studied Potter over his glasses. “The media can be so harsh.” He paused. “Harsh, but fair. I’m glad they’ve finally caught on: I’ve been saying you were crazy for years.”
Ginny rolled her eyes in Draco’s direction, showing the hereditary Weasley lack of appreciation for genius. “I know you two could go on like this all day, but I’d quite like to sit down.”
“I will not sit with him!” Draco exclaimed.
“Suit yourself, Malfoy,” Potter growled at him. “Afraid I’m going to kill you like they say I killed Cedric?”
Draco stared at Potter’s furious green eyes. “Don’t be stupid,” he said. “I don’t want to sit with you because I don’t like you. Also you are bad company, and you smell like feet.” He paused, letting go of his chest to tilt his glasses and give Potter a proper disdainful look. “Try to resist the urge to over-dramatise yourself,” he drawled, and hoped very much that he sounded like Professor Snape.
“I cannot believe you, of all people, just said that.”
“I cannot believe that under your totalitarian regime, people are not allowed to talk.”
Potter was in a bitch of a mood, Draco noticed. Usually by now he was stalking off in a righteous huff or going for his wand. Much good he’d be fighting Voldemort if all he did was stand about complaining all year.
“I’m walking now,” Ginny said in a loud voice. “Anyone who feels like following me can do so.”
Draco followed her after a moment because he entirely refused to be left alone with Potter, but the moment cost him dearly because it meant he was trailing behind Ginny and that meant he was actually walking alongside Potter. Oh, the indignity. Someone would see him and his reputation would be ruined.
“I thought you’d be a prefect,” Potter said to him, the sullenness in his voice lightened by something like curiosity. Clearly he wanted to mock him about it, clearly he was determined to fill Draco’s life with pain to the very brim.
“Fat chance,” Draco mumbled. “Madam Pince probably cornered Flitwick in the staff room. She hates me with a dark passion: it’s not fair, it’s a vendetta.”
“Of course you never thought you might just not be good enough.”
“Never,” said Draco, who had wondered about that for a week after he got Terry’s fumbling, apologetic letter. “Why don’t you go to hell, Potter?”
“After you,” said Potter, and then looked irritably at Draco. “I wasn’t—I mean, you can go into the compartment first.”
Draco looked at him and then into the compartment where poor, mad Ginny, who had been raised by her family to crave low company, had taken up with Longbottom and Loony Lovegood. The girl needed watching, Draco should not have allowed himself to be temporarily distracted.
“I’m not going in there! That girl’s mad. Mad, I tell you. We were up two nights with Anthony persuading him the Snorkacks weren’t going to get him. He tried to write home and get his mother to take him away.”
Draco had stolen the idiot girl’s newspapers in an attempt to cool her fevered imagination. It had not worked.
“What’s the girl’s name?” asked Potter, eyeing her askance.
“Potter. She’s quite friendly with your best friend’s sister. She’s a school character. People were talking about setting up a school counselor—not before time—just for her last year.”
Potter looked honestly bewildered that the world contained anything beyond his own big fat ego.
Draco gave up and muttered, “Luna Lovegood.”
She looked up at him with horrifyingly empty eyes. “Hello, Draco.”
“Stop reading your paper upside down,” Draco snapped. “You’re in Ravenclaw, I know you can read properly.”
“You’re rather unpleasant,” Luna remarked serenely, and returned to her improper reading. Draco was vexed.
“She seems all right to me,” Potter said, fighting a smile. How nice, that all Potter demanded of a person was that they summarily judge and dismiss Draco.
Draco looked at him coldly and the smile on Potter’s face worked through a series of hesitating lines to become a frown. “Look—”
“I’m not staying here,” Draco bit out. “I’m going to find my friends. Maybe I’ll leave my chest here—” he deliberately addressed himself to Ginny—“but he is not allowed to touch it.”
“Oh no,” Potter sneered. “Oh please, Malfoy, let me touch your chest.”
Ginny started to laugh. Draco’d been wrong about her for years, a Weasley couldn’t change its unsightly orange spots.
Potter went red and started talking to Longbottom about his birthday present, which was apparently a slimy plant. Draco wondered if it had come with a card that said ‘I saw this and thought of you.’
He also wondered what the hell Longbottom was playing at, prodding at the filthy thing, and he ducked behind the compartment door just in time. When he peered back out, everyone was covered in slime and Potter was actually spitting it up, which was the best thing Draco had seen all summer.
The best thing he’d seen until the next minute, when Cho popped her head in and said shyly: “Oh… hello, Harry. Um… bad time?”
Potter looked stunned under the slime. “Oh… hi.”
“Um, well, I just thought I’d say hello,” Cho began, and then Draco stepped out from the shadow of the door.
“Hello,” he said.
She blinked up at him, her velvety dark eyes startled.
“Hello Draco, darling, light of my life,” Draco prompted her. “You’re looking dashing today—how did you manage to become even more filled with masculine allure over the summer?”
She smiled up at him, hesitantly. “Hello, Draco.”
He forgot about fathers and prefects and stupid Potter mocking him, because he was able to go up to her and take her hips in his hands, ease her towards him. Her bones felt more fragile against him this year, she seemed smaller and more delicate, and Draco praised the Great Growth Spurt with exceeding praise.
He bent towards her, looking at her lashes flutter, brushing his nose with hers as he caught her mouth, softly at first and then more deeply, taking the moment when her lips shivered open, gathering her to him with a possessive hand on the nape of her neck. She breathed in a little, sharp and sweet, and he felt the warm thrill of being chosen again.
He let their lips part and looked at her, brushed his fingers along her jaw. “Hi there,” he murmured, smiling. “Missed you.”
She looked around uneasily, at which point he realised he’d made a crashing fool of himself in front of Potter and everybody. He looked around suspiciously, and Ginny and Longbottom were both looking out the window as civilised humans should. Luna was regarding them with bright curiosity, and Potter was staring without blinking, with lips parted and a look of hazy, unfocused yearning.
Draco glared and gathered Cho jealously against his side. Potter could’ve had any girl at school: Draco did not see why the bastard had to be so set on poaching Draco’s one and only.
Potter went red up to his slimy hair and stared at his hands, clenched in his lap. Draco was glad to see he was ashamed of himself, at any rate.
“C’mon,” he said to Cho’s ruffled black head, and was mildly appalled to hear his voice come out tender. He didn’t bother looking back at any of them, and thought he’d trust Ginny with his chest.
Once he was alone in the corridor with Cho, it occurred to him forcibly that they hadn’t seen each other in almost three months. She was looking at him uncertainly, as if she wanted to please him but didn’t quite recognise him, and his hand left her elbow, hovering, waiting for her permission to settle back.
“You were with your father at the station today,” she said.
He snatched away his hand. “Thanks for coming over to say hello.”
“My parents say things—” Cho began. “It’s just—you can’t be in sympathy with him, Draco, he’s—”
“He’s my father,” Draco said, backing against the wall as if she was coming after him. “I won’t discuss this.”
“Fine,” Cho said, looking very offended. “I—I suppose I’ll just find my friends, then. Are you coming?”
Draco narrowed his eyes at her. “No. I do have friends of my own, you know. I want to see them, too.”
“Fine,” Cho said again, and spun on her heel.
Draco stood alone in the corridor. He wasn’t going to go back into the compartment so Potter could laugh at him, and he wasn’t going to stand here looking after Cho like an abandoned child, either. He’d thought—he’d thought she would stand up for him to her parents, stand by him like she stood by her friends, but… but they were her parents and she loved them, and she’d been scared when she went home. And she was sixteen, and all bound up in her friends. Draco could see why she might be less loyal to a boyfriend.
They were just a little strange to each other, after the summer. Once they got used to each other again, with Cho away from her parents, everything would be all right.
So he’d wanted her to feel tied to him, as close as she was to her friends. She would in time. They’d be fine.
He found Crabbe and Goyle and was systematically horrible to them until he felt better, and arrived in Hogwarts to find the Sorting Hat was bibbling a new song: Draco listened with half an ear and personally thought he could have written better, but it seemed to reach Potter. Though not in any soothing the heart of the savage beast capacity, it apeared, since he was scowling about the place.
Draco was tired of glancing across the table at Cho and having her fail to meet his eyes, so he got up early from the table and almost walked into Potter, who was storming away from some frightened-looking brats who’d obviously been reading those stupid news stories.
Potter was clearly concerned about this depletion of his fan base, because he looked ready to kill things and Draco was in his path. Which was just Draco’s usual luck.
“Heard all that about the houses being friends?” he growled.
Draco was really not in the mood to deal with Potter on top of everything else. He adjusted his glasses to give him a coldly dismissive look, and then pushed past Potter, with intent to sulk.
Potter made a noise like rage, and Draco looked around to see him standing braced, like an animal unsure whether he wanted to attack or just threaten.
“Sometimes I wish you had been Sorted into Slytherin,” Potter snarled. “At least then we’d be—something.”
“Something you should know, Potter,” Draco said. “I wasn’t teasing you. I really do think you’re mentally unbalanced.”
Everyone had become strange over the summer, whether it was shouty and strange, or strange and distant, but Draco had a plan to push Potter down a well as soon as he found a well, and he was hoping he didn’t need a plan to win back his girlfriend. He waited a little and then wandered up to her in the courtyard, not making an issue of the fact she had been talking to Potter a second before.
She looked at him and he looked over his glasses and smiled slowly at her, which he remembered she liked.
“Hi,” she said, and then: “Ron Weasley accused me of liking the Tornados because they’ve started winning.”
“Don’t talk to idiots like that, Cho, they might be catching. The Tornados’ rise has been slow and sure, a triumph that has unfolded to all true fans through the years. And Weasley has a stupid face.”
Cho smiled a bit. “And the Quibbler said they were cheating, did you see?”
“I don’t call blackmail cheating,” Draco said thoughtfully. “Cunning stratagem. Good idea. I mean, don’t listen to me, Cho, I don’t know what I’m saying, I think I may have a slight fever.”
“Oh, really?” Cho asked, properly smiling now. She reached up to Draco’s secret delight and put her hand briefly on his forehead.
“Really,” said Draco. “I feel most unwell. I require nursing back to health. And I think Madam Pomfrey has a spare uniform you can borrow.”
At which promising moment Potter intervened to ruin his life.
“Don’t you have Potions?” Draco demanded. “Are you too famous to go to class now, or something?”
Cho frowned at him and Potter snapped: “Don’t be more stupid than you can help, Malfoy. I’m just going to Potions. Only I saw you two had stopped here, and I just wanted to—um—Ron didn’t mean it about the Tornados, Cho, he’s just really into Quidditch, so…”
“It’s no problem,” Cho said warmly. “Who isn’t into Quidditch? Does, um, does Ron plan to try out for the Quidditch team this year? He’s got a Keeper’s build.”
Actually, he had the build of an anorexic gorilla, but Draco had made the judicial decision not to get involved in this conversation. He was going to concentrate on the sky and wait until Potter went away and stopped trying to steal his girl. He was painfully aware of the fact that he didn’t show his best side around Potter: it was enough that Potter made him look stupid and there seemed to be no help for it. Cho didn’t have to see.
“Don’t know,” Potter returned, and then, probably because his scar hurt if he didn’t have all the attention in the world: “Are you going to try out, Malfoy?”
“No,” Draco ground out, glaring at him. Potter knew about Draco and Quidditch, he clearly knew…
“What position would you try out for if you were going to?”
“Seeker,” Draco answered automatically, from long thought and childish dreams, and then wanted to bite out his tongue.
Cho was glaring at him again and Potter’s eyes were glinting strangely: clearly, because his devilish plan was succeeding, Draco was walking right into the trap, he knew it and he couldn’t help himself.
“Why don’t you try out, Malfoy?” Potter pursued. “Is it that you’re afraid you’re not good enough?”
It wasn’t that Draco didn’t know better, because he did, because most of his brain was engaged in screaming at him to stop at once, to think about Cho and what he could lose, but one wild maddened part of his mind had broken away from the rest and was running the show, screaming ‘I am good enough, I am, I’ll show you’ and before he knew it—
“Go to hell, Potter,” he said. “I’m very, very good. You’ll see.”
“I—” said Potter, and stopped. “I’m really late for Potions,” he said. “Uh. Bye, Cho.”
He shambled away and Cho’s eyes followed him, and Draco was committed to doing something very, very stupid.
It felt even stupider when he was standing in front of Roger Davies clutching a school broom and Davies was giving him a very sceptical look indeed.
“You play Quidditch?”
Draco had a sinking feeling at the disbelief in Davies’ voice, and it made him toss his head and sneer harder than usual. “I own Quidditch.”
Davies still looked doubtful. If Draco hadn’t already told everyone about how he’d cried when Fleur Delacour left him, he would have done it now.
“Right then. Let’s see what you can do.”
Anger and worry and inadequacy lasted for all of two minutes before Draco kicked off and they fell away, easily as the rest of the world. The wind ran through his hair and he spun as Cho tried to follow him, he felt as if he and broom were the still point of a turning sky, safe here, anchored here and never having to come back down or do anything but win.
Clean and simple, after years of reading and pushing himself harder, everything back in place, as if he was ten years old again and he was going to be in Slytherin and friends with Harry Potter and sometimes Father looked proud of his flying. He banked sharply, bringing it down, and watched Cho careen helplessly through the air on her own momentum with a smirk.
Just having one thing to do, and being able to do it well. The broom turned easy between his thighs, on his side, everything was on his side, and nobody in the world could catch him. He banked again and slammed his shoulder deliberately into Cho’s, knocking her away and off balance again, and he looked around for a gleam of gold.
There it was, and it was his. Cho just didn’t know it yet.
He dove, in entirely the wrong place, watched her follow him and once she was committed to her dive—she should be more careful, she should always think about every move—he veered left and the beautiful struggling winged thing was pressed tight against his palm.
He came off his broom with a sharp pang of triumph and regret, and Roger Davies came running towards him.
“Draco, you idiot! Why did you never say—look, I’m sure Cho wouldn’t mind playing reserve—”
Draco saw the fury flare in Cho’s face, but he’d already known what he had to do. He wasn’t ten any more, and he’d chosen a different life. “Sorry,” he drawled. “I’m a little too busy with my studies to join in your game, but you kids have fun, okay?”
As he turned to the sound of Davies’ outraged spluttering, he felt enveloped in a lovely warm glow, like a comfy blanket of supreme victory.
This was more or less immediately cut away by Cho’s sharp tones. “I can’t believe you did that! It would be all right if you’d wanted to play, but you clearly don’t—”
“You don’t understand—” Draco began. “I—”
“Did you enjoy making me look like an idiot?”
“I did a little,” said Draco, and then stopped in horror.
This was what Terry meant when he went on about Draco thinking before he spoke. Terry just hadn’t added ‘lest your girlfriend put her broom through your eye in rage.’
Cho looked sorely tempted, but she whirled around to rejoin her team-mates and left Draco to leave the pitch alone, trying to keep the feeling of being safe and free and flying in his mind.
It was well and truly lost when he saw Potter coming towards him from the stands, wearing a garish jumper that abused Draco’s eyesight and a funny look on his face. Draco abruptly wanted to commit suicide, but there was only a school broom to hand and they were too horrible and common, he wanted to die with dignity.
“Look at you, Malfoy,” said Potter. “You weren’t lying. You can fly well.”
It suddenly occurred to Draco why Potter’s mouth was on the verge of a grin and the urge to suicide swiftly transformed into the urge to kill. “What are you doing up early on a Saturday, Potter? As if I didn’t know.”
Potter crossed his arms defensively over his chest and Draco saw split skin, half hidden by a sleeve. There were words freshly cut into Potter’s hand that said I must not—oh, what did it matter?
“I just thought I’d come see—”
“I know what you thought, Potter,” Draco snarled. “Stop trying to sabotage my relationship.”
Potter could try all he liked, but even though he always got everything he couldn’t have this. Draco could fix this: he and Cho were going to be fine.
They broke up four days later.
She came to him still a little angry, and resentful because she had to cause him pain, and she twisted her hands together and looked up at him with the uncertain gaze that he might one day have loved. She said things about taking time off, and not getting too serious, and perhaps they should, and he realised something he had known all along. Laughing with each other, liking each others’ faces and little ways, all of the things that could one day have been something more, were not going to be enough in the face of being fifteen and sixteen in the middle of a war.
He wanted to come out of this with some dignity, but dignity was one of those things he always wanted and which hardly ever happened to him.
When Cho was done she looked at him with pity, and he didn’t need pity and he’d make her know it, for a moment all he wanted to do was hurt her for choosing him and then taking it back.
“Will you be all right, Draco?”
He laughed in her face. “I’m all right now. It’s a relief, to tell you the truth. You must’ve noticed you gained a bit of weight over the summer—I certainly did.”
Cho stared at him disbelievingly. He would have stared at himself disbelievingly, but he couldn’t seem to stop talking.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I hear Potter likes tubby women. They remind him of Weasley’s mum, you see.”
Of course all he wanted to do after that was apologise to her, but somehow he couldn’t, he just stared at her hatefully and she backed away, and said: “Don’t you ever talk to me again, Draco Malfoy” and she was crying, but he wasn’t allowed to comfort her anymore.
He heard she and Potter had been spotted bonding together in the Owlery together, and supposed she had someone else to comfort her now, or she would soon.
Hermione, instead of ministering to his broken heart in the way a sympathetic woman friend should have done—Draco had vague thoughts about cups of coffee and massages involving scented oil—told Draco he was better off while penning a love note to Viktor Krum, and then descended into an invective against Professor Umbridge.
“I don’t know, as Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers go, she isn’t so bad,” Draco said. “So she’s a little theory oriented, that’s not as bad as setting pixies on us like Lockhart or casting Imperius on us like Moody. Personally, I’m looking forward to a bit of quiet theory. I think everyone else is too.”
“What about all this High Inquisitor business?” Hermione hissed.
“People are saying the Dark Lord has risen, Hermione, in case you hadn’t heard. The Ministry’s got to do something. This school should be run better anyway, I hope she fires half the staff.” Hermione gave him an outraged look and he said defensively: “You know other people’s misery makes me feel better!”
“Then you’ll really love Umbridge,” Hermione snapped. “Did you know she made Harry keep cutting I must not tell lies into his own hand for detention? Do you want a teacher who tortures her students?”
Draco concealed his surprise behind a book. So that was what had happened to Potter’s hand. Draco preferred his own guess, which was that Potter had resorted to self-harm in a desperate bid for more attention.
“I don’t know, Hermione,” he said gravely. “If she promised to only torture Potter, I think I could just about bear it.”
“You and Harry may not get on, but that’s a terrible thing to say! She did Lee Jordan as well, and I don’t know how many others. Besides, the Dark Arts is supposed to be a practical class. She’s not a good teacher. You have to know that, Draco.”
Well, Draco did know it, but Hermione was not carrying on any campaigns against Professor Trelawney. He quite liked Umbridge. She was dreadful to Potter and had a nasty sense of humour and really, he required no more from a person. Also, he was fairly certain she wasn’t a werewolf. He couldn’t imagine a werewolf in a frilly floral blouse.
“You’re in Ravenclaw and this is our OWLs year,” Hermione said quietly. “If someone’s not teaching us correctly, if they’re interfering with all our classes, you should want to do something about it. Not laugh because people you don’t like are getting hurt.”
Draco lowered his book slowly, grudging every inch.
“Oh, all right. What did you have in mind?”
She told him. He was appalled.
He was appalled, but he went down to the Hog’s Head anyway, even though it was a low, vulgar establishment that probably had fleas and his mother would be horrified. Hermione could get very emphatic when she was upset, and anyway without him the whole thing would probably descend into raving madness and Potter worship. Those poor little Potter fans were victims of the media and their own feeble minds: they needed Draco’s help.
Draco imagined helping the Creeveys by putting them in a sack, in a river and out of their misery. From the looks on their faces when he arrived, they could read his mind.
“You invited Malfoy?” Weasley yelped as Draco made his grand entrance.
“He is one of my best friends, Ron!”
Draco was tempted to add “So there” but contented himself with a sneer and a fastidious shudder at the grim horror of their surroundings. He cast an apologetic look to Terry, Anthony, Crabbe, Goyle and Nott as they came in.
“You invited Slytherins?” Potter demanded.
Because of the poor lighting conditions and Cho’s presence, Draco made sure his sneer and glasses look was invested with the maximum possible level of contempt.
“No, that was me,” he said. “Oops. So sorry. Was I not supposed to?”
Potter made a terrible noise, like he was trying to snort through his throat. Nobody else seemed to notice how very awful the noise was, so Draco gave him another glasses look which clearly said ‘what was that?‘ and began to settle his people around him. Potter looked embarrassed and Draco was very glad.
He leaned back against a chair, crossed his arms over his chest and prepared to judge everybody.
Weasley’s brothers the Sociopath Twins attempted to order Butterbeers for everyone, a devilish ploy Draco saw right through, he’d had all of Ravenclaw trained to refuse anything from the hand of Weasley since second year. He sent Crabbe to get them eight Firewhiskies, and was greatly heartened by the Sociopath Twins looking offended and Weasley looking wistful.
“Terry Boot, you’re a prefect,” Hermione exclaimed.
Terry put his glass to his mouth to hide his guilty face and mumbled, “It was Draco’s idea. It’s always Draco’s idea,” and drank up.
“You’re very dear to me,” Draco told him, “but you’re a complete scaredy cat mother’s boy, and I hope you know that.”
“My mummy doesn’t send me sweets every week,” Terry said sotto voce, which meant Draco was engaged in a quiet but furious attempt to stuff Terry’s own jumper in his mouth while Potter made some kind of idiot-faced speech.
He would have succeeded, too, if Hermione had not interrupted herself to say—“Because—are you even listening to me, Draco Malfoy—because Lord Voldemort is back.”
Terry shuddered at the name and Draco let his jumper go, and reassuringly hit him on the arm. And then, before he could do anything else, something perfectly holy beautiful happened.
Zacharias Smith, who Draco had only known before as some Hufflepuff who was decent at Chasing and who’d been study partners with Terry last year, began questioning Potter. The look on Potter’s face was priceless.
Of course, Potter’s ego had the resilience of diamond, so he was soon up and running with his wounded hero routine, but Draco dismissed it as dreary rubbish, leaned back further in his chair and studied Smith thoughtfully. Smith had put up a really good fight before he’d let Potter put him down: with work, Draco felt he could have real promise.
His contemplation of Smith was interrupted by Susan Bones and Longbottom and Cho all trying to outdo each other with fulsome tales of Potter’s extreme brilliance at flying and evil-defeating and tournament-winning and life.
Draco was aware of how stupid he would look if he started to bicker with Cho over Potter’s glory, so he waited until Potter said, “Look, I… I don’t want to sound like I’m trying to be modest or anything—”
“You don’t sound like you’re trying terribly hard,” Draco murmured, sweetly and just loud enough for Potter to hear.
Potter stopped and would have stayed stopper if Corner, imbecile that he was, had not started babbling worshipfully about Potter’s ‘seriously cool flying.’
“Oh my God I know,” said Draco. “I am so glad someone started this group, he’s needed an official fanclub for years. Tell me, do we get signed autographs with the weekly Potter newsletter? I sure hope so!”
Potter’s deeply unconvincing protestation to Corner that he wasn’t quite as special as they were all making out, they would have to keep talking to convince him, stopped again, and then Zacharias Smith said: “Are you trying to weasel out of showing us any of this stuff?”
The resulting hysteria at seeing a Hufflepuff daring to question Harry Potter was deeply and wonderfully thrilling. As Potter stared incredulously, Weasley blustered and the Sociopath Twins threatened him with all manner of bodily harm, Draco deliberately moved his chair to the edge of his little group and as close to Smith as he could manage.
“I’m Draco Malfoy,” he said.
Smith, who was looking rather beaten down, muttered: “I know who you are.”
Draco winked. “Thought you might. Here’s another thought: I like your style. Let’s be friends.”
He held out his hand and, after a moment, Smith reached out and shook it. Draco saw Potter watching the forging of this unholy alliance with narrowed eyes, and he smiled a smile of sweet, all-embracing evil.
Everyone started talking about meeting times and places and Potter being ruler of the universe or something, Cho as energetically as everyone, and Draco felt the warm glow of everyone for once not being on Potter’s side fade. Because Cho was on Potter’s side, and it made sense, she was scared and he was the big hero who she could count on to live and win, and it made Draco’s chest hurt in a way that irritated him.
Then Hermione passed out her little sign-in sheet, saying “If you sign, you’re agreeing not to tell Umbridge or anyone else what we’re up to.”
Smith looked very doubtful.
“If I know my girl, she’s put a jinx on that thing,” Draco said, not bothering to keep his voice down. “You don’t have to sign it.”
“If you don’t want to sign, Malfoy, you’re out,” Potter snarled, scrawling his name in horrible undisciplined script like a child’s.
Draco sneered and snatched the paper from his hands.
“I’m not going to turn Hermione in, am I? I’ll sign it.”
Hermione’s face softened as he did so and Smith looked persuaded. He took the paper and signed it next, and then everyone signed, with varying levels of enthusiasm. Draco looked around and placed a private bet on Marietta, who looked deeply uncomfortable in this Dark Arts club, as the most likely tattletale. Not that he thought she would tell, not when her best friend was clearly doodling love hearts with ‘Cho Chang and the Scruffy Future Leader of Terrified Guerrilla Forces’ on her notepaper.
Draco lingered outside the pub afterwards to make sure Cho left with Marietta and not Potter, and felt so pathetic it made his throat hurt as well as his chest.
She left but she’d obviously been trying not to, and he stayed in place and tried to be normal, tried to stop the chest and throat ache, and then went flat against the wall as Potter, Weasley and Hermione came out into the sun, chattering about Ginny and Corner—older news than Cornelius Fudge and Celestina Warbeck if you were a Ravenclaw—and then about Cho.
“She couldn’t take her eyes off you, could she?” Hermione said. She sounded disapproving, because she was a loyal friend and Draco was going to buy her presents of appreciation, he was going to buy her all the anthologies she’d ever dreamed of. “You’re going to have to decide what to do about that, Harry.”
“What’s to decide? He fancies her, doesn’t he?” asked Weasley. Draco vowed to trip him in the halls tomorrow.
“I think I may have mentioned this before, but Draco is one of my best friends!” Hermione exclaimed. Draco wondered if she would like a pony.
“Well, he’s not one of my friends, is he?” Potter asked roughly. “Since he’s made it perfectly clear he hates the sight of me.”
“Did you hear the little ferret and that wart Smith,” Weasley began to grumble, but Draco couldn’t have cared less and obviously Potter couldn’t have either, because he cut in at once.
“Besides,” he said, and cleared his throat. “I really—” and he stopped there because his voice rasped, rough with discomfort even in front of his best friends, and then he went on even with his voice rasping because he couldn’t stop. “I liked her and then I saw her, with—dancing in Hogsmeade and on the train, and I can’t stop thinking about it. I think—I really want her.”
Hermione’s voice went softer, businesslike but with a blanket over it, the same voice she used when she saw Draco really did have a headache. “Harry, I didn’t realise…” She stopped and Draco was morally certain she was patting his arm. “I’m sorry, Harry. She obviously likes you, and they’ve split up: you should do whatever makes you happy.”
Draco’s hand was in the same painful knot as his throat, and actually he wanted to hit Potter in the face, because everything always did come to pass as Draco feared: Potter was taking Cho after all, and in the end, even Hermione liked Potter better than she liked Draco.
He went home and lay on his bed in the dormitory, and felt betrayed by the world because even Terry was being weird.
“You seemed to be getting on awfully well with Zacharias,” Terry said in his weird voice, being strange when all Draco wanted to do was lie there bemoaning the horror of his life and have Terry say soothing things while he did his crossword.
“He seemed cool,” Draco said, giving up on woebegone while Terry was preoccupied with being all twitchy. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to steal your study partner or anything.”
“He’s not my study partner anymore,” Terry almost snapped, and suddenly it became so clear. Smith and Terry had had one of those tragic studying arguments about flow charts and Venn diagrams in which unforgivable words like ‘I never found your notes concise anyway!’ were uttered. Terry dropped his eyes under Draco’s all-seeing gaze, and then said: “I thought he was a bit like you.”
Draco flopped back on the pillows in a tragic way, and said thoughtfully: “I suppose he is rather a handsome devil.”
“He’s not,” said Terry, and paused. “He’s very petty. I don’t think he cares much about anyone, and he can be really mean—”
Anthony frowned. “So he’s exactly like Draco, then?”
“I kill you, Goldstein,” said Draco, and made Anthony’s bed into an apple-pie bed with him inside it, which was one of his very favourite spells. He turned back to Terry while Anthony was howling in protest and said: “Was he mean to you? Because if so, say the word and he will pay for it.”
Terry frowned. “No, he wasn’t mean to me.”
“Well, then,” Draco said, reassured, and shut his eyes and thought about Cho. “If he sticks to being mean to Potter, I think we’ll be great friends.”
Terry made a small discontent noise, but Terry’d always been a bleeding heart and Draco was fairly sure he thought Potter was quite a decent chap. He had never said so, of course, because Draco would’ve been forced to injure him, and causing Terry bodily harm hurt Draco’s feelings.
For a while, Draco thought Potter was too busy making eyes at Cho and spazzing out about Umbridge’s crack-down on Quidditch to bother with his little gang. Which was fine, it left Draco more time to ponder the great stupidity of women, and the great stupidity of Quidditch, and the great stupidity of everyone in the world but him.
Then Potter gave them directions to some mysterious room, and out of sheer morbid curiosity Draco went along. After all, in a school where lessons attacked you and staircases moved, what could possibly go wrong?
The room being full of books cheered him briefly, but then Potter explained that the room gave you everything you wanted and he had to devote ten minutes into thinking of all the ways Potter had probably created an idyllic loveland for Cho before he tipped off the rest of them.
Potter had Cho, and her smiles and her golden skin, and Draco had a pile of books.
He only perked up a tiny bit when Potter let something slip about the room.
“What did you say the house elves called it?”
“The Come and Go Room,” Potter answered, blinking, and then went red when Draco snickered.
He was pleased to see Zacharias Smith snicker too. It further confirmed the impression that Smith was a boy after his own heart.
Kindred spirits were forgotten when Hermione said, “I think we ought to elect a leader.”
“Harry’s leader,” said Cho, staring at Hermione. Draco thought the words ‘and king of my heart’ were implicit, and the look on her face made his teeth hurt.
“Oh, is he?” Draco asked.
Potter glared at him. “What, d’you want to be leader?” he asked. “What do you want to teach us—the art of note-making, calculated to strike fear into Voldemort’s heart? How to look down your nose and over your glasses at the entire world? What do you know, Malfoy?”
Draco folded his arms. “Good question,” he said. “Right back at you. What do you know?”
“What do you mean?”
Draco leaned forward and grinned. “Susan,” he said. “Didn’t you have to introduce yourself to Potter last time we met?”
Susan Bones blinked and ventured a “Yes?” as if introducing herself had direr consequences than she had ever imagined.
“Didn’t you think that was a bit odd? You’re in class with Potter. Potter, are you too busy thinking about yourself and your shining fame to listen to the roll call? They have it every day!”
“I don’t think about my fame,” Potter spat.
“Mmm, ‘course not,” Draco said. He pointed at Nott. “Would you do me a favour? Would you tell me his name?”
Potter looked wildly at Nott, and then at Hermione, who looked embarrassed and wisely did not mouth the answer, because she knew Draco would’ve shopped her.
“Um,” Potter said.
“He’s in Slytherin,” Draco went on, bright and helpful. “He’s been in your Potions class every year for five years.”
“Er,” said Potter. “Er. Knight?”
“It’s Nott.”
Potter looked deeply confused. “Uh—what is it then?”
“All hail our leader,” Draco announced, and put his head in his hands. “I rest my case.”
“Who d’you think should be leader, then?” Potter asked, red as fire but not giving up because he never did and he never would and one day Draco would die of hatred.
“They’ll all vote for you,” he sneered. “You’ll do it. I just wanted to shed some light on the situation. You’re not their hero. You’re not their saviour. You’re some idiot who got lucky and who doesn’t even know their names.”
“I just want to help,” said Potter. “And you just want to pick at me, Malfoy, so why don’t you shut up or say something useful for a change!”
Draco shrugged. “Let’s vote, then.”
He didn’t trust himself not to make an idiot of himself in front of Cho. He could feel the last shreds of dignity slipping through his fingers and he hung onto them furiously: it wasn’t fair, he’d had a point, he’d be right if this was a normal school and everything wasn’t about life or death.
Everyone voted for Potter, even Anthony and Terry (oh they would pay once they were back in the dormitories) except Crabbe and Goyle and of course Draco, who would not have voted for Potter even if it was the only way to keep his hand.
Even Nott voted for Potter, despite Potter not knowing his name. Nott was a soft touch as well, it made Draco sick.
Zacharias Smith looked around, half raised his hand, and then slowly lowered it. Draco was very proud. Potter was leader by a vast majority, but Draco was still very proud. He leaned over and whispered various suggestions about their club name to Smith, feeling that ‘Dolts Anonymous’ and ‘The Doomed Association’ were better choices than Ginny’s fatuous ‘Dumbledore’s Army.’ Because they all loved Dumbledore so much, almost as much as they loved sounding like mad extremists. Poor Ginny, she couldn’t help it, sometimes her inherent Weasleyness got the best of her.
Continuing the wonderful Weasley themed evening, the Sociopath Twins tried to hex Smith when he wasn’t looking, but Draco gestured to Anthony and both of them cast the same spell the twins had been trying and left them mouthing silent curses.
“What d’you think you’re doing?” Potter snapped.
“Saving Smith!”
“I wasn’t actually talking to you, Malfoy,” Potter said, to Draco’s mild surprise.
Draco couldn’t actually tell the Sociopath Twins apart, but one half of Frenzied plus Giggling grinned and said: “Sorry, Harry. Couldn’t resist.”
“Nice leadership skills, Potter,” Draco said.
“You’re not helping, Malfoy!”
“Sorry, Potter. Couldn’t resist.”
Draco was turning away and congratulating himself on a small victory when Potter, as he always did, snatched it away from him. He poked Draco in the shoulder with his wand (Assault By Maddened Boy Who Lives! Innocent Victim Crippled For Life! read the newspaper print in Draco’s mind) and said: “Nott, you take Neville. Malfoy, c’mon. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
And Draco found himself facing down the Boy Who Lived, who spoke to snakes and battled Dark Lords and threw off the Imperius. He just stood there with his stupid hair and his stupid glasses, and he heard Hermione saying as she had once, quietly, in the midst of one of Draco’s rants: ‘Harry is a great wizard.’ Which hadn’t been the point at all. Which Draco knew, already, and that was part of the problem: it wasn’t fair to have to go to school with a living legend. There was no way to measure up, or prove him wrong when he judged you unworthy.
Not that Draco being out of his league and out of his depth was any reason to give up.
Draco pointed his wand, and then instead of casting a spell he began to speak.
“Just because they’re on your side doesn’t mean they’re funny. People on your side can be evil-minded little gits.”
Potter tilted his head, still watching the wand. “You’re one to talk about evil-minded little gits.”
“At least I know that,” Draco said sharply. “At least I don’t think I’m always right.”
“I know I’m not always right!”
He was still watching Draco’s wand. “Have you ever admitted that about anything specific?” Draco inquired. “I heard you’re ostracising Finnigan because he didn’t believe you a hundred per cent when it’s your word against the Minister of Magic’s.”
“I’m telling the truth,” Potter said dangerously, and Draco could hear the simmering anger in his voice. He was aware he could be biting off a lot more than he could chew, but it was that or back down.
“And he’s supposed to know that because everyone should know you’re always right! Your problem, Potter, is that you’re such a precious little hypocrite. You want to be always right, always the good one, and so the people who don’t agree with you aren’t even people. You’re an arrogant, judgemental git.”
“You’re an arrogant, judgemental git!” said Potter, who had descended to the ‘I am rubber you are glue’ stage of argument alarmingly fast, and who had just looked away from the wand for a brief instant.
“I’m quite comfortable with that,” Draco told him. “You should either accept it or change, but stop strutting about the school acting like—”
“I don’t strut,” Potter said, and by now he was looking at Draco’s face and had apparently forgotten the wand entirely.
“Expelliarmus!”
Draco came so close. So close. Potter only just ducked in time, the spell ruffled his insane hair, but it wasn’t good enough and sometimes Draco felt like he tried and tried only in order to be closer to winning and thus even more frustrated.
Potter came up breathing hard. “Very good,” he said, as if he was a real teacher, the unspeakable bastard. “You just need to be a little faster.” He paused before turning away, studying Draco again (as if that did Draco any good now, the bastarding bastardous bastard) and said: “So that’s what annoys you most about me, is it?”
Draco looked at him balefully, and said: “Also your face.”
Potter at that point seemed to recall he had other students—only in fifth year and teaching class already, it must be difficult to be so fantastically skilled, poor little thing—and went off to hear Cho tell him how nervous he made her. Draco thought of Cho’s smile and her hands and had to close his eyes because he needed the effort he was wasting on vision to fully experience his Potter hatred.
“He gets on my last nerve,” said Smith, popping up at Draco’s elbow.
Draco gave him a weak, thankful smile. “You are the only bright spot in the bleak horror of these classes.”
Draco wished other people were less pathetic. He made up a beautifully horrible song about Weasley’s Keeper skills and gave it to Crabbe and Goyle to distribute among the Slytherins, only to find that they’d distributed their Potions homework instead.
Then Blaise Zabini failed to goad the Weasley twins to an act of violence, which was a little like failing to turn the sky blue, even though it was clear Umbridge was just dying to kick everyone off the Gryffindor team and see them cry. The state Potter was in these days, Draco bet it wouldn’t have taken much to make him lose it either.
Sometimes Draco wished he’d been Sorted into Slytherin so he could’ve been useful there, instead of being reduced to snatching Loony Lovegood’s idiot lion hat off at mealtimes.
Potter beat Slytherin at Quidditch, Oafy Hagrid returned from what had apparently been a holiday at his sadomasochists’ club and was overheard muttering about Chimearas to Professor Grubbly-Plank and Cho continued to look lovingly in Potter’s direction during DA sessions.
When the last DA meeting before the holidays rolled around, all Draco wanted for Christmas was to go home. His father hadn’t abandoned him like Cho had, and any kind of existence without Potter had to be better than this.
Only first he had to listen to Potter yapping about how much they’d improved at jinxes and things, especially sweet little Longbottom, wasn’t it darling, he was colouring practically within the lines and everything.
“And you, uh, Theodore, your Impediment jinx is perfect,” said Potter, at which Nott beamed and Potter, for some strange reason, looked at Draco.
Was he trying to imply that Draco’s Impediment jinx was sub par? That bastard!
Finally it was time to go, and surely this year could hold no worse in store for him than Potter telling everyone maybe they could try Patronuses when they came back, in the tone of one promising children lollipops for being so terribly well-behaved.
“He’s ever so gracious, isn’t he, almost like an ordinary person,” Draco whispered to Smith, nudging him.
Smith grinned. “I feel all privileged just being in the same room as him. Merry Christmas, Draco.”
Draco smiled. “Merry Christmas.”
Potter caught the smile and it must have led him to think Draco was feeling well-disposed towards the world or something, because he decided to try the patronising act on Draco. “Uh,” he said. “Merry Christmas, Malfoy.”
Draco brought the smile up a few notches and watched Potter blink at him like the idiot he was, probably thinking his plan to subjugate the school was working and Draco was falling in line.
Then in a voice of great charm, he said: “I hope mutated holly eats your brains,” and left the room.
Even Draco’s best ideas always had a fatal flaw, because while he was sweeping out of the room he brilliantly left his wand behind, and had to leave Terry and Anthony to go back and get it. He should’ve left it there over the holidays.
He would have left it there forever rather than seen what he saw on his re-entry, which was Cho stepping into Potter’s embrace, his hand large and sun-browned at the small of her back, drawing her in, and the sheer blinding rage that engulfed Draco when he saw Potter look at him and go red, but not draw back. Potter let Cho kiss him, while Draco was just standing there watching, that complete, utter, irredeemable bastard!
Draco picked up his wand and said loudly, “Don’t let me interrupt,” and even Cho’s horrified face didn’t make him feel any better as he slammed out the door.
When Draco got back to the dormitories, Terry took one look at him and said: “Anthony, go down to the kitchens and get the house elves to raid Professor Trelawney’s secret stash now. Draco, what happened?”
“Trelawney has a secret stash and nobody told me?” Draco said wanly. “I can trust no-one. This world is an empty bitter place. I saw Cho kissing Potter and I would like to first go blind and then lose my memory and then die, thank you.”
“Get the Firewhisky,” said Terry.
“I’m pretty sure it was their first kiss,” Terry said an hour or so later, once Draco was ensconced on the window seat with the Firewhisky bottle cradled to his chest like his alcoholic child.
Draco found this slightly cheering for a moment, since Cho had been eyeing Potter all term and this must mean Potter was terminally bad with women, but then he recalled that despite being awkward around girls Potter was still going out with Draco’s girl, and he lapsed back into melancholy.
Terry saw this was doing no good, and tried a different tack. “I never thought she was good enough for you, anyway.”
“No!” Anthony said. “Certainly not! I don’t know why everyone thinks she’s so wonderful and good-looking, anyway.”
“I hate you so very much,” Draco told him in a dreamy way, and had some more Firewhisky. He felt better, like he was sitting back observing his own sad thoughts instead of actually having to feel sad. Ah, sweet Firewhisky. Terry was so clever, which was why he was in Ravenclaw, where people were clever. When Draco should clearly have been put into an entirely new house where the only qualification was to always, always lose out to stupid Potter.
“She just wanted a boyfriend,” Terry said. “She liked you but I don’t think it had to be you. It could’ve been Cedric.”
“The worst part is—” Draco began, and then stopped.
The worst part was that Draco couldn’t hate her, as he’d always hated people before when they made him feel small or rejected him. He’d paid attention because he’d wanted to understand her, and now he understood that she was scared and he understood that she’d liked him and he understood why she’d picked Potter.
He wanted to be angry with her but he wasn’t really able to, because she had chosen him, once, and nobody had ever really chosen him before.
“Do you want her back?” Terry asked, softly.
Draco thought it over, and thought about what Terry had said about Cho wanting a boyfriend. She’d been willing to consider Potter or Cedric last year. She’d been flattered and pleased and they had been good to each other, and Draco kept thinking about that place on the nape of her neck Potter was probably kissing now, and the way she used to smile at him.
Only Draco didn’t want to be the best choice for now. He wanted to be irreplaceable.
“No,” he said at last. “But that doesn’t make it any better.”
If Terry or Anthony had descended to these maudlin levels, Draco would have slapped them, but they both looked at him sympathetically because they were nice people who would never have dreamed of torturing Potter until he begged for mercy.
“It’s okay, Draco,” Terry told him. “You’re just not very good at letting go.”
Which was just a stupid thing to say, because why were you supposed to be good at letting go of people you cared about? Why didn’t people hang on as hard as they could, prove they weren’t letting go, make the other person care?
“I don’t want to let go,” Draco snarled through the Firewhisky. “I don’t understand the concept.”
Once most of the Firewhisky was gone, Draco did his favourite impression, that of Potter asking Cho to the Yule Ball.
Anthony frowned. “Is that still funny, now that Potter’s—”
Draco cut him off by making an imperious gesture with the Firewhisky bottle. “Wangoballwime will always be funny, Anthony. It will always be funny.”
He and Cho might be over, but he still had mockery left.
For Christmas Draco got everything he wanted, including a brilliant homework planner from Hermione and Father’s approval. Father had actually talked to Professor Snape about Draco and told him Professor Snape predicted great things for him.
Father brought him to the station again, and rested a hand on his shoulder.
“If you happen to have another run-in with Potter,” Father said, “—and boys will be boys, won’t they?—you might want to mention I spotted his little dog at the start of the year.”
Draco thought that mocking people about their pets was scraping the bottom of the barrel a bit, but it seemed to make Father smile. Draco’d known the studying would pay off eventually.
Smith helped continue the New Year in promising style by telling Draco after lunch on the first day that Potter did Remedial Potions.
“You’ve made me so happy,” Draco said. “I think I might cry.”
“And he says he can’t do the DA tonight,” Smith continued, scowling.
“Oh no, what a terrible shame,” Draco said. “So happy I really might cry. Just a little. In a manly way.”
A few days later, Sirius Black helped break out Aunt Bellatrix and some other people Father said had been convicted without trial in the old days. Anthony seemed upset and that made something in Draco’s stomach shift, but—well, if the Dark Lord wasn’t doing anything much besides freeing members of Draco’s family from durance vile, that wasn’t so bad, was it? Father and Mother were both really pleased. No aunt of his was going to hurt Anthony, for heaven’s sake.
Terry and Anthony were both very keen to get to the next DA meeting, though, and Draco humoured them because he was looking forward to a nice hour of Potter-mockery with Smith. Potter must know they were his deadly foes, because every time Smith whispered in Draco’s ear Draco caught Potter frowning.
“If you don’t listen you will not know how to do a Shielding Charm,” Potter snapped at him.
Draco adjusted his glasses and gave him a long, wide-eyed stare. “Oh my gosh. Would that mean I’d have to do Remedial Defence Against the Dark Arts? That’d be really embarrassing, that would.”
Draco was certain Potter was just concealing his deathly embarrassment really well.
“I’m sure that’s it,” Smith told him, lingering as Draco took the time to pack his bag into categories according to his study plan. He did not see why more people didn’t do this: it was both efficient and aesthetically pleasing.
“I suppose,” Draco said disconsolately. “Well, I’d better go off to the library. I swear, if this whole business doesn’t improve my Defence Against the Dark Arts OWL, I shall exact a terrible vengeance.”
“You don’t need to go yet,” Smith urged.
Everyone else had already gone and they were probably getting a head start on studying. This wasn’t the kind of sensible talk Draco was used to from Smith. He glanced up inquiringly, and was startled to see that all the books had disappeared from the Come and Go Room.
“What—” he began, and then noticed that Smith was actually standing rather too close to him. Draco took this special moment in his life to feel uncomfortable.
“Let’s stay here,” Smith went on.
Hufflepuffs had no concept of personal space, that was interesting, Draco thought wildly. It must be a house trait, he would tell Anthony about it for that thesis he was planning, provisionally and saucily titled The Space Between Helga and Rowena: Closer than Close—
Draco’s thoughts were cut off by Smith taking hold of his shirt.
“What—” Draco began, and then his words were cut off by Smith’s mouth.
Draco had no time to recover from the shock of this closer than close Hufflepuff experience of his very own, because at that precise unpropitious moment in Draco’s life Potter came in, clearly with a psychic premonition that he could thus make Draco’s life even worse.
“Look, Malfoy, I was waiting—” he began, and then though his mouth was still moving, he stopped making any sounds whatsoever.
Smith pushed Draco violently away and yelped: “I’m not gay!”
“What?” exclaimed Draco, who wished his verbal skills would stop failing him in times of crisis.
“I’m so sorry. It’s none of my business. I’ll go,” volunteered Potter, without moving a step away from the scene of Draco’s horrible, confusing humiliation.
“You can do what you like,” Smith snapped, shoving past Potter as he stormed away. “I’m not staying here with him.”
With another mystifyingly venomous glare at Draco, Smith left, though that was no consolation since Potter was still there and still staring. Draco glared at him.
“Right,” Potter said. “Uh. I’m really, really sorry,” and then fled.
Why did such horrible things happen to Draco, when he was only a mildly bad person? Why did they keep happening?
Now this new year was completely shot as well.