"So, what did your girlfriend do?"
"Future wife," Draco corrected automatically. It was the final class of Tuesday afternoon, and he'd yet to solve Hermione's riddle. Saying that he was tense would be an understatement. "Pass me the asphodel, would you?"
Blaise Zabini's dark fingers slid across the pitted wood of their shared table, scooped up the handful of powdered root and dumped it on the desk in front of Draco. "I'm just saying, she's getting a lot of glares. More than usual. She must have done something to annoy the Gryffindors."
"I need the measure. Pass it over."
Blaise did as he asked, then tapped the desk, drumming out a familiar tune. Draco flicked a glance towards his fingers, frowning at the other Slytherin. "Is that Celestina Warbeck?"
"My mother had You Stole My Cauldron, But You Can't Have My Heart on repeat for six months before I got my Hogwarts letter. It grows on you after the first three." The tapping didn't stop. "No, I really want to know, Draco. Why is Potter's pet glaring at her?"
"He won't be glaring at her once I have a free hand to pick up my wand," Draco muttered under his breath. "Can I have that knife?"
The knife exchanged hands, and Blaise stopped tapping. "You know, it's funny how fond you are of her. I mean, what with the Malfoy name meaning what it means."
"What's that?"
"Bad faith, mostly. The stories I heard all said your family were quite fond of muggle royalty until the Statute of Secrecy went through. After a whole lot of fuss over Merlin knows what, probably not wanting to change his social habits, Titus Malfoy was slain, Brutus took over the family, and suddenly muggles were hated and always had been- at least that's what he and everyone he knew said. So the Malfoy's are supposed to be muggle-hating traitors."
"She's not a muggle, she's a muggle-born. Bit of a difference. Where's the pestle?"
Blaise slipped the pestle out of the sleeve of his robe, looking up to see Draco's raised eyebrow. "What?"
"Nothing." The blonde took the pestle and applied it to the mortar, grinding the asphodel more finely.
"That's what I thought. Anyway, about Hermione."
If the chairs at the potions table would allow it, Blaise would have been spinning slightly, turning back and forth. Just the idea of it was enough to annoy his partner. "Think this is fine enough?"
"You're the one who's obsessed with beating your girlfriend at Potions."
"Future wife."
"Bless you, you think it matters. Ha! What did she do?" Blaise was technically a migrant. He'd been raised in Venice for years, then Paris, and then Madrid, and had only moved to London six months prior to receiving his Hogwarts letter: his entire knowledge of the Malfoys was based on what his mother remembered from meeting Narcissa and Lucius at a few parties before she moved to Italy to be with her fourth husband. Perhaps it was this that lead to Draco befriending the dark-skinned boy. Or perhaps Draco was more tempted by things that would cause him grief than was healthy.
Either way, he sighed and explained quickly about the blackmail, leaving out the reason, largely because he didn't know it yet. All the while, he worked away at the potion, determined to beat Hermione. And that would not count if Professor Snape was the one who declared his Vitamix Potion better, because he already knew he was being treated with favourism.
Blaise listened to the story, his face impassive. When it ended, he grinned. "I didn't think she had it in her. Just remember that what goes around often comes back around."
"I have no idea what that means. Pass me a vial, would you? This is done."
"Muggle expression; it's saying that the key to revenge is giving as good as you get." He leaned over to rummage through his bag, then pulled it onto the desk to look closer. "I don't have a vial."
"Check my bag. And hurry up, I need to keep my wand on this until you do, or the entire thing will be ruined."
Blaise moved to do as he was told, getting up to retrieve the bag from the other side of the desk. This left him crouching in the aisle between Draco, who had sweat on his forehead, and Hermione, who looked as calm as his mother did when faced with another dead husband. Theodore Nott passed Hermione a vial as Blaise searched for his own. Draco watched his movements for a long moment before finally looking at Hermione. That was when it clicked. "What did you say?"
"I can't see any vials. What's this?" Blaise pulled out an envelope, raising it. Draco didn't notice.
"About that ridiculous expression. The muggle one."
" You mean 'what goes around comes around'? The key to revenge is giving as good as you get."
Draco was still grinning when he waited for Hermione to grab her bag at the end of the lesson. He knew that Neville was waiting for them so that they could go for a walk outside, just like they had planned at lunch, at his own encouragement. It was that or let Hermione study and get harder to beat in class. The walk was better for them.
"Blaise took off running," Hermione observed, looking through her bag one last time to check she had everything she needed. "Did you scare him?"
"Maybe. I know what happened."
"Well, I'd hope so, Draco." She looked up at him, absently tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "You were sitting next to him all lesson, after all."
"You know what I mean."
"Do I?"
"I know what you used to get Potter to agree with your deal."
"And what, pray tell, did I use?"
"The door. The troll didn't close it."
Hermione hummed in agreement, nodding once. The strand of hair she'd just shifted out of her face, falling exactly where it had been before she'd bothered moving it.
"Potter and Weasley did."
She hummed again, shouldering her bag. Her smile was one of pride- apparently, she was pleased that he had finally come to the conclusion she wanted him to.
"And they locked the door."
She stared at him for a long moment, still smiling, before finally nodding. "It's about time you worked it out, Draco. I mean, Halloween was on Thursday. You definitely know how to make a dramatic finale, don't you?"
He laughed at her, grinning still, before grabbing her wrist. "Come on, Neville's waiting."
✦
After dinner, Hermione dragged both him and Neville to the library. She set them all up at her usual table around Blaise and Theo, who had taken to sitting at the end as they worked, and pulled all three essays for tomorrows Transfiguration class towards her.
"Ethics of the Transiguration of living creatures, Neville," she corrected instantly, circling it and adding an S with the pen she'd taken from Draco's hands. He stammered some apology for the mistake as she continued to read through it, correcting errors in his grammar and making little notes he might add to improve his theory.
She kept discussing the essay with Neville, who seemed fine with it, essentially ignoring Draco as he leaned back in his seat. Her not paying attention was fine with him, at least for a few minutes, as she could be incredibly bossy while she edited. And it wasn't that it wasn't fun arguing with her- it certainly made writing the essay to start with a lot more entertaining- but she always won. Sometimes, he missed being first. He was taking full credit for her successes, though, she had been right to say he would- why shouldn't he, when it was him that supplied the information by buying her all the books?
"What was in that envelope?"
"What envelope?"
"The one that was in your bag, genio. The one I found while looking for a vial?"
"Oh!" Draco moved quickly, grabbing his bag. Hermione shot him a disapproving stare, as did Theo from beside Blaise, while Draco emptied the satchel onto the table. The envelope looked like parchment, which was odd, since wizarding England had adopted muggle tools after the Wizarding War. Writers were fond of typewriters, students of ballpoint pens, and artists of pencils. Draco in particular liked paper, because it was light and thin, and could be folded into just about any shape one could imagine. That the envelope was parchment told him exactly one thing.
He paled, tempted to toss the letter away and never speak of it again. He ignored Blaise's concern as he tore the thing open, dumping the contents onto the table: a single letter.
Hermione was looking at him curiously. Theo had buried his head in his book. Draco noticed none of this as he unfolded it, pressed it against the table, and read it through as quickly as he could. Then he went back and read it again, slower. "What's he playing at?"
"Who?"
He looked up at Blaise. "My father."
"Your father the muggle hater?"
"Excuse me? Draco. Your father hates muggles?" Hermione did not look pleased. "So why-?"
"Law. And choice. And- and it's about you."
"What! That's impossible, I've never even met-"
"He wants to know if you can stay at the Manor over Christmas."
Hermione was staring at him. "I- I was going to go see my parents. I haven't- not since August."
"Well, yes, none of us has. But, Hermione, he used your name. Your name. I didn't even know he knew it."
"Does it say why?"
"You read it," he said, and passed the paper to her, She held it with shaking fingers, her brow furrowed in concentration. Draco knew exactly what she was reading.
Mother would like to spend some time with her, to assess her worth. To see if she really was the genius Draco had described her as. To see if she was capable. Or not. To decide if she was good enough.
Privately, Draco wondered if Lucius was planning something bad. He couldn't be, though, could he? People would know where Hermione was: Neville was reading over Hermione's shoulder as he tried to seem as though he wasn't, and Theo and Blaise had both listened to their conversation. Plus there was Hermione's parents, muggles who would surely contact McGonagall or Dumbledore if they suspected anything had happened at all.
"Draco."
"What?"
Hermione's gaze was steady, something he wasn't sure he'd have been able to accomplish, were he in her shoes. "Do you want me to come?"
He stared at her. He was being asked if he wanted something? That hadn't happened since... it had never happened. He said something, and he was given it, and that was that. That was how he'd gotten her in the first place. So why was she asking?
Oh, that's right. I didn't say what I wanted when this started. "Yes," he said, voice small.
"Then I'll go. Obviously I'll go. 'Til death do us part, and all that."
"You haven't taken any vows yet."
Hermione looked at Neville. "Neither have you, but would you let her do something she didn't want to do?"
He shook his head. No.
Hermione smiled. Perhaps it was tense, but it was there. "Exactly."