"Of course he wasn't alone, Harry," the crazy witch in Draco's bedroom said. "I was with him."
For a few frozen seconds, no one moved, spoke, or even breathed. Certainly Draco didn't feel capable of movement.
"You, Hermione? With him?" Potter breathed. "HERE?"
Hermione rolled her eyes. She looked rather fetching in Draco's green pajama top, a light flush high on her cheeks. "Yes, Harry, here."
Potter frowned. "How did we save the dragon in First Year?"
"We handed him to Charlie off the Astronomy Tower."
Draco scowled and shifted his feet in his embroidered slippers. That was what they'd been doing at the Astronomy Tower? Saving a murderous beast? Draco had gotten detention for that!
Potter was still suspicious. "What were the first words you ever said to me?"
"Has anybody seen a toad. Harry, it's really me."
"No, it can't be ..." Potter looked around the room, eager to find something to prove her wrong. The Auror was standing closest to the fireplace, while Hermione remained by the bed and Draco stood by his desk, the three of them forming an equilateral triangle. Potter's gaze fell on the red robe and he turned to Draco, his lightning scar standing out like an ugly wound.
"What did you do to her," Potter hissed.
"Harry!"
"What was it, Malfoy? Amorentia? Imperius? Some sick Death Eater potion?"
"Harry, listen ..."
"He must have Obliviated you," Potter said. "Obliviated you so you've forgotten who he was, what he's done." His green eyes narrowed behind round glasses. "I'm going to send you away, Malfoy, for a very long time."
Draco sighed. "I don't doubt it. She's a fool to think this makes any difference. Having her as my alibi would be worse than none at all."
Come back to us, the walls whispered. You belong here ...
"He is not going back to Azkaban," Hermione announced, just as she had in the old DADA classroom after Draco's wand gave her cat ears.
The witch then turned to Potter. "And I have not been Obliviated, Harry. I remember everything." She began counting on her fingers. "Draco Malfoy, Slytherin, former Death Eater. He let Death Eaters into Hogwarts, cursed Katie, poisoned Ron ..."
"Watched you get tortured," Potter chimed in. "Broke my nose!"
"Called me Mudblood, impersonated a Dementor, joined the Inquisitorial Squad ..."
"He wished you dead, too! And hexed your teeth! And ... and ..."
"Ratted us out to Rita Skeeter!" Hermione cried triumphantly, never wanting to be outdone. She glanced at Draco and he must have looked murderous, because she stopped listing his many sins and returned to the topic at hand.
"Draco wouldn't hurt me now," she said. "And he would never hurt Isobel. Her attacker was likely Tennant."
Potter gave Draco a long, considering look.
"Malfoy did something to you, Hermione," he said slowly. "Some spell. He captured you somehow and cast a spell."
Draco felt a chill down his spine. The scrawny git was edging close to the truth. Oh, what the fuck, it had all gone to shit anyway. Maybe Potter could help her break the Vanishing Spell after he left; Draco certainly had made no headway.
"You're not far off—" Draco began, then choked, unable to speak. "I ... I—" Again his throat tightened. "There was this—"
"You were saying something, Draco?" Hermione asked him smugly. He stared back at her, now understanding: That Vanishing Spell contract she'd drawn up included a secret tongue-tying clause.
But there was no time to deal with that, for Potter was gasping in horror. "Draco? You call him Draco?"
Draco raised an eyebrow. Apparently Hermione's use of his first name had been the final, convincing straw for Potter.
"You're up to something, Malfoy," Potter said. "Admit it."
Draco raised his hands. "I swear I mean no harm to either witch. Or to you."
"Too late, Malfoy." Potter's wand was up, and his voice full of dark portent. "You've harmed us all, again and again. I was a fool to testify for you, but I won't make that mistake twice."
"Please, Harry, listen to him," Hermione begged.
Potter transferred his dark look to her. "How could you, Hermione? Shagging Draco Malfoy? Wearing his ..." All color left the wizard's face. The black teddy flew across the room and fell at Hermione's feet. "Wearing that?"
"Harry, please ..." A tear slipped down Hermione's cheek. "Please don't—"
"Did you wear them all for him?" Potter dropped his wand, sounding devastated, and Draco's breath caught in his throat. Surely not ...
"The red one?" The young Auror was advancing on her now, but Draco again couldn't move. "The white one?"
"No," Hermione choked, "I wouldn't ..."
Her words faded as blood pounded in Draco's ears. Granger and Potter. There had always been speculation, but to hear it confirmed, to hear Potter's voice cracking with hurt and fury ...
Betrayal, the Black and Malfoy voices whispered. Draco trembled. Punishment.
He tried to raise his wand but the darkwood felt heavy in his hand, resisting. Sweat broke out on his forehead and palms. The wand slipped through his fingers and fell to the carpet. He felt dizzy.
"Draco?"
Hermione's soft voice cut through Draco's red rage and her face swam into focus, pale and tearstained. Draco took a jagged breath, trying to calm himself.
Potter, on the other hand, was making no such effort. The Auror had rediscovered the "SEX" card on the end table.
"This is all my fault!" Potter cried, his voice cracking. "I did this to you, Hermione!"
Hermione and Draco stared at him, baffled.
"You were so innocent! And I took advantage of you!" Potter stepped up to Hermione and tugged at the collar of the green top. The marks on her throat were clearly visible. "And now you need some sick, twisted ..."
"Harry, what on earth—"
"Who else, Hermione? Ron, Justin? They weren't enough, and you went to Malfoy?"
A nearby lamp fell over with a crash, felled by Draco's accidental magic. "Get your hands off her," Draco snarled at Potter. "And shut your filthy mouth."
Potter nonverbally summoned his wand and pointed it at Draco. "I will—"
"Expelliarmus!" In a flash Hermione had both their wands and aimed all three at the two wizards. Her face was pale but set.
"Harry, you are being ridiculous," she said coldly. "You didn't turn me into some crazed sex addict looking for punishment. Are you even listening to yourself?"
Potter ignored this; he was too busy pulling off his long leather coat, revealing wiry muscles and a long, half-healed cut. He tossed the coat aside and advanced on Draco. "I don't need a wand to teach him—"
"MEW MEW MEW MEW!" A cacophony of tiny, squeaky meows exploded from Draco's desk, where the silver inkpots now had white kitten heads. Both inkpots rolled off the desk toward Potter, emitting tiny hisses.
"Bloody hell!" Potter cried, stepping back.
Draco scooped up the half-formed kittens and set them back on the desk, petting the white fur to transform them back to inkpots. "I don't need your help," he told them sternly.
He turned back to see Potter and Hermione staring in slack-jawed amazement. "What?" Draco snapped.
"You ... they ... meow ..." Potter sputtered. Hermione tried to hide a smile.
Draco glared. "I believe you were going to teach me a lesson, Potter," he said, flexing his hands.
"Draco!"
Sadly, Potter didn't rise to the bait, just picked up his coat again. "Here, Hermione," he said, "put this on and we'll—"
Hermione shook her head. "No, Harry."
"I can't leave you here!"
"You can and you will."
Potter stared, clutching the long leather jacket in his hands. Draco edged over to the firewhiskey bottle as the Auror focused on Hermione. The movement also placed him between the front door and the other two. Hermione was not going anywhere with Potter.
"You have no authority to remove me, Harry," she was saying. "You're not even officially here. And I am of age, after all. In fact, I'm older than you."
"You let him ..."
"Yes."
"Why," Potter croaked.
Draco was rather interested in the answer himself, since he'd never had the nerve to ask.
"I like Draco," Hermione said. "He's good for me."
Draco nearly dropped the bottle. It was if Cranky had said to Draco, the python clamped to its leg: "I like the snake. He's good for me."
Potter's response was predictable. "How could that be good for anybody?" He pointed at Draco, who sneered back. "When I told you to find someone to help you, Hermione, I didn't mean him."
"I didn't plan on it, it just happened." Hermione was skirting the truth with surprising delicacy for a Gryffindor. "I'm sleeping. I'm eating. I'm talking to people. I don't have to pretend around him. He gets it, Harry."
"What about Ginny? Neville?" Potter suggested. "They fought in the war, too. Don't they get it?"
"No. There's you and there's Draco. And you're not here."
Draco's felt a hollow thump in his chest. Of course. Draco was a placeholder. For Potter. Who had apparently peeled an entire rainbow of teddies off her bare ...
"This makes me sick." Potter's scar throbbed like a crooked vein on his forehead. "Give me my wand, Hermione."
"What will you do with Draco?"
"What can I do? Malfoy has an alibi." Potter's voice dripped with acid.
"And Tennant Rowle?"
Potter was still glaring, but a professional tone crept into his voice. "One of the Aurors has a sister in Durmstrang. I'll have him write her, find out if Rowle really went there. And I'll be back tomorrow."
"Call ahead before you visit, won't you please?" Draco drawled. "We like our privacy."
"Draco!" Hermione shot him a glare, then handed Potter his wand.
Potter pulled on his jacket with vicious yanks. "I'm not leaving you alone in this castle with him, Hermione, if I have to quit the Aurors and enroll at Hogwarts!"
"Harry! You wouldn't dare!"
"Watch me!"
Potter charged past Draco and slammed out of the bedroom. Hermione let out a screech of frustration that sounded like one long "Meeeeeeeeeennnnn ..." Then she closed her eyes, took a few deep breaths, opened them again and looked at Draco.
For a moment, they stared at each other, unsure what to say. Then Draco's eyes fell on that damnable teddy, still lying crumpled on the carpet.
"So," Draco said, his voice deceptively soft. "Looks like I've been enjoying Potter's sloppy seconds."
He expected her to cry or plead, but Hermione just glowered as if he'd turned in a subpar Divination assignment.
"That's enough, Draco," she said. "There was nothing crass or sloppy about what I did with Harry. I'm not the one here who cast a dangerous spell to get sex on tap."
Draco seethed. "You ... you ..."
Hermione's glare intensified. "Yes, I slept with Harry, he needed me and I needed him. We needed each other because we were on the run for our lives from your Master, who would have exterminated us like animals." Magic sparked from her wand and her very skin seemed to glow.
Draco glared back. He had every reason to be upset. This was Potter. Potter was the endgame. Probably had been the whole time. Hermione had just been lonely and exhausted and trapped by a spell. But now Potter was here, and it sounded like he was staying.
Hermione looked at him, waiting for a response, but Draco felt like he'd signed another magical contact, because he couldn't speak. Seconds ticked by and he felt like he was losing ... what? He didn't know. But he couldn't speak.
Finally she huffed. "You're both impossible. Clearly I was an idiot, hoping for a sliver of understanding from either of you!"
She scooped up her book from the sofa and reentered Draco's bed, the curtains slapping shut. Suddenly, with Hermione no longer looking at him, he could speak.
"Hermione!" He dropped the glass and slammed his hands against the curtains, but they were stiffened by wards that he couldn't even see, much less break. "Hermione!" He shouted her name and hit the curtains until the skin on his palms were red and raw. No response.
Draco slid down to the carpet, his back against the bed, eyes closed. Salazar, what was happening to him? He was just as bad as Potter. Draco, too, had seen Hermione as a sexual innocent, likely knowing little but some awkward fumblings from the Weasel. That Draco was the only wizard of force and power who had truly touched her. But Potter, the Savior, the Boy-Who-Lived-Then-Died-Then-Lived-Again-To-Plague-Us-All ...
She probably never made him negotiate.
Hermione's prissy voice echoed in his mind: You should be grateful. I expect you to accept whatever I choose to offer.
She was right, of course. Draco was greedy and entitled, like all Malfoys. He'd wanted what he wanted, and he took it. First he'd hated her. Then he wanted her. And then ... he needed her? Did she need him? Like she'd needed Potter?
I like Draco. He's good for me.
Draco instinctively recoiled from any similarity with Potter, but well, they were equally fucked up. If Hermione had any of the brains she was famous for, she'd wash her hands of them both. And as Draco slid down further to the carpet and stretched out beside the bed, his last conscious thought was that she'd likely done exactly that.
***
"Malfoy!"
Once again there was pounding on the door, and once again Draco was on the carpet, blinking himself awake. But this time the sun shone through the square windows near the ceiling and there was no naked witch in his arms.
"Malfoy!"
Draco staggered to his feet and lurched over to the door. "Whoizzit?" he asked thickly.
"Let me in, Draco." It was Theo's voice, of all people's, low and tense.
"Jussiminute." Draco glanced at the grandfather clock: eight-thirty. Hermione was surely gone by now. He summoned his wand to open the door.
Theo entered quickly and shut the door as Draco, still a bit dazed, fell into the green armchair. Draco waved his latest visitor to the sofa.
"You look like hell." Theo took a seat and crossed his legs. He wore a crisp green jumper and matching tie and his polished black shoes had small silver buckles.
Draco tugged at his own wrinkled paisley robe. "Fuck you."
"Have you heard about Isobel MacDougal?"
"Yes." Draco glared. "Come to lecture me again about sullying the Slytherin name? I didn't attack that poor girl, if that's what you're thinking."
"I don't think that at all," Theo said, and if Draco didn't know better, he'd think the wizard was sincere. "But your association with her has not gone unnoticed. You need an alibi."
Draco hid his surprise. What madness was this? Theodore Nott sitting on his sofa, all prim and proper with sharp eyes uncomfortably similar to Potter's, offering to gin up a fake alibi for the Ministry?
"I have an alibi," Draco said. "So you can sod right off."
"What kind of ..." Theo trailed off and eyed the bedding and red robe splayed on the carpet. The sight of that accursed teddy sent Theo's eyebrows upwards.
Did she wear that for ...
"Ah, I see," Theo said. "And is it an acceptable alibi?"
"It was acceptable to Harry fucking Potter."
Theo nodded. "I'd heard he was in the castle."
Draco forced himself to his feet. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have class in ..." he glanced at the clock, "thirty minutes."
Theo also stood, smirking at Draco's throat and chest, exposed by his silk robe. "That must have been some alibi. Found yourself a little wildcat, Draco?"
Draco glared, knowing that the choice of words wasn't coincidence. Theo shook his head as he let himself out.
"Nothing but trouble," he called over his shoulder. "Don't say I didn't warn you."
***
On Friday morning Draco felt like he was back at the beginning of the school year. Word had spread about Isobel's attack and once again he was harsh and cold and hated by all. Cranky was nowhere in sight, and students cringed away as he passed or hissed that he should be in Azkaban.
And once again his body and mind felt battered and stretched, eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep. Those hours of touching Hermione, exploring her body, hearing her whisper and moan and murmur and giggle, had stripped Draco bare. He had lain on that carpet with her, entirely open, and before he could properly gather himself, along came fucking Potter, once again slicing Draco to pieces.
Which was horrible enough, but Potter wasn't the real problem. Hermione would keep that git in line. The issue was Tennant, who was likely back in the castle to destroy Draco and revenge himself on Hermione. And poor Isobel had been caught in the middle. Draco wished he could visit her, find out more, but Finch-Fletchley had apparently interested himself there.
So Draco went to classes and then to lunch, although he was far from hungry. Hermione fixed him with a fishy stare from the Gryffindor table. The only bright spot in the day was Theo, who demonstrated his solidarity by sitting next to Draco at lunch and asking him to pass the salt.
It was still a terrible lunch, though, made worse by Barnaby's whining about "Huggy" and "Squeezy." His pythons couldn't eat without their bones and Barnaby had to puree small animals and pour them into his familiars' mouths every morning. Barnaby carried on in this vein until Pansy finally stood up, announced that both the wizard and his pythons were disgusting and if he didn't shut up immediately she would remove every bone in his body without the use of magic. The entire table clapped at this and Draco was able to choke down a few bites of steak and kidney pie.
Then his owl Merc turned up with another missive from Mother:
Dear Draco,
Your ancestral home,
So attuned to the spirit of its new Master,
Speaks in stone and wood and glass.
Danger stalks, my son.
Shutters bang and thrash,
Lamps flicker,
Clocks spin backward
And the gargoyles appear distressed.
Please advise.
Love, Mother
Draco scowled at the parchment, ignoring the nervous looks around him at the Slytherin table. Please advise?
Still, he sympathized. It must be disturbing to live alone with banging shutters and exploding lamps and griping gargoyles. It had been much the same while the Dark Lord was in residence. His parents had feared the Manor itself would rise against the interlopers and then the Malfoys would really be in the soup. The window treatments had been especially aggressive, with velvet draperies wrapping around unwary Death Eaters' throats and silver-plated rods dropping on their heads.
But that didn't mean the current danger to Draco was so acute that his house hundreds of miles away would suddenly empty its attic of all reason. It was more likely, Draco thought, that the Manor objected to Mother's renovations. She had a heavy hand with a tape measure, Mother did, and considered her house arrest the perfect opportunity to transform every tainted inch.
So Draco wrote a short note advising Mother to give her blueprints a rest and have the elves set up the family's palatial tent from the Quidditch World Cup in the garden. She would ignore every word, of course, but he'd done his duty.
After lunch, Draco skipped his afternoon classes and began poking around the castle's secret Slytherin passageways. None of them had appeared on Hermione's Map—which he'd never gotten back—and Tennant was surely hiding in one. Unfortunately Draco's every move was being tracked by suspicious students (Ginevra Weasley was quite tenacious), and by dinnertime he'd only been able to check a handful of possibilities.
Dinner was much the same as lunch, except Draco sat with his back to the Gryffindors and Nott passed him a bowl of fried mushrooms. Draco hated mushrooms, but he took some anyway. Afterward he resumed his sweep of the castle. By nine-thirty that night, Draco had checked every passage except for the one leading from the castle grounds to an alcove opposite Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.
He hurried to the deserted second-floor corridor, keeping an eye on the time and losing a few nosy prefects. Soon he was walking up the dim corridor, his darkwood wand cleaning stains and spots on the stone floor as he passed.
But the figure before the passage entrance was not Tennant Rowle. Instead Luna Lovegood was twirling in front of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.
Large, eastward-facing windows lined the corridor, and the night's full moon cast an ethereal glow on the dancing witch before him. Her blonde hair was long and loose, her feet bare, and the pale light made it clear she wore nothing beneath her light, gauzy robe. Hadn't she heard about Isobel? Witches had no sense of self-preservation.
"Lovegood," he said crisply.
The Ravenclaw halted when she saw him and smiled. "Draco! I was just looking for you! Do you hear it? Do you hear it?" The witch hopped crazily about. "The Plimpies are prattling! Coo! Coo!"
Draco frowned. "Have you seen anyone in this corridor?" he asked.
"No, just Plimpies." She stopped hopping and faced him, still flapping her arms slightly. Despite her flighty attitude, her round blue eyes didn't look at all dreamy. She fluttered her eyelashes.
"We're alone," Lovegood breathed.
Draco's frown deepened. "Have you been drinking?"
Lovegood giggled. "Oh no, I'm drunk on ... on your auuuuura." She dragged out the last word and then twirled again.
"Ah, well, good," Draco said absently, looking past her at a tapestry of Medusa. Pull at a loose green thread in her snaky hair, he knew, and the tapestry would roll aside to reveal a passage leading to the castle grounds. He began edging away from Lovegood. "Goodnight, then—"
"Wait!" Lovegood fixed him with a sharp look. "Isobel is awake."
"She is?" Daft witch, why didn't she say that before? He stepped closer. "How is she?" he demanded.
"Quite well. She wants to see you!"
"Alright," he said.
Lovegood tapped a finger on his mouth. "The Plimpies think you're pretty!"
Draco just shook his head as he watched the witch run off, all flowing robes and rippling blonde hair. Obviously, something had unhinged whatever hinges remained in Lovegood's rattled mind.
He snapped open his pocket watch—nine-thirty-five. He'd just check this passage, then visit Isobel before returning to his bedroom. Go now, that reasonable voice whispered. Hermione will be waiting. Draco pushed the thought aside and began unraveling the loose green thread. But the voice was not silenced.
You're stalling, Draco.
What will you say to her?
Notes:
NEXT UP: Hermione considers world domination by pastry.