Queen of Hearts

Game Three: Straight Flush

*~*

'It'll be fine,' Katie encouraged Harry, patting him on the back. Harry looked up at her, whey-faced. 'Those Puffs are going down, I promise.'

'I -- I think I'm going to be sick,' moaned Harry.

'Buck up, mate,' Ron, who was passing, said. 'I've never known you to be this nervous before.'

'I wasn't captain before,' Harry said, rubbing his head in anxiety.

All too soon, Madame Hooch called for them to come out on to the pitch. For a moment, as everyone looked at him, Harry vacillated. Then he recalled that he was supposed to lead the team on to the pitch. It was what the captain had to do.

This certainty calmed him and he strode out on to the bright, chilly sunlight. Behind him, the team fanned out in a V-shape.

The intensive, regular practices showed. His team moved like a well-oiled machine. Four goals were scored by Gryffindor in the first five minutes and before half-an-hour had gone by, Harry spotted the Snitch hovering over the opposite goalposts. He tore after it with blind determination; Cedric's replacement didn't stand a chance.

Then it was all over and Harry was sinking to the ground still holding the Snitch, in a huddle of cheering team-mates. The crowd, who had barely had time to settle, were streaming on to the pitch.

Just as Ron left off clapping him on the back in favour of receiving Hermione's approval for his goal-keeping, Harry felt himself grasped firmly around the arm and spun around. He found himself looking straight into Smythe's smouldering eyes.

'Good flying, caro,' Smythe said, an enigmatic smile playing about his lips.

'Er.' Harry's mind raced. 'Thanks.' Smythe surely wasn't going to do anything, was he? Not here. In front of all these people.

'You have something ...' Smythe said, swiping his thumb against Harry's cheek. 'Your mascara ran.'

As Smythe strolled away without another word, as was his wont, Harry heard Malfoy's faintly nasal drawl through the crowds. It was a pretty distinctive voice, it had to be admitted, otherwise how would Harry have been able to pick it out?

'... seen better flying from a drunken mayfly.'

'What was that, Malfoy?' said Harry, pushing his way past two or three people to where Malfoy was standing, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle.

Malfoy quirked his mouth. 'Well, if it isn't our resident fairy-boy,' he remarked to the world in general. 'Always wondered why you were so good with broomsticks, Potter. Now I know.'

It was so utterly ridiculous that Harry had to laugh. It seemed to infuriate Malfoy, which was all to the good. 'Perhaps you should try it,' suggested Harry. 'That way you could maybe, even, catch the Snitch.'

The crowd nearby, who'd been following the exchange with half an ear, submitted a few approving snickers for endorsement. Malfoy lit up with rage and Harry smiled.

'You think you're better at catching it?' Malfoy spat.

'Based on past evidence -- yeah,' Harry said. 'Why? Are you putting up a challenge?'

Malfoy regarded him speculatively. Harry tried his best not to be affected by it, but failed. Malfoy stepped closer to Harry, so that in the thrum of the chattering, yelling crowd, his words were hardly audible.

'You up for it, then, Potty?' he mouthed. 'You, me, some Beaters to keep things interesting, midnight rules?'

'Midnight rules?'

Malfoy's smile was slow and, when it came to its full extent, very wide. 'In other words -- no rules at all. After all, you like to break them, right?'

'And you like to cheat.' Harry pulled at his lower lip. 'You're on.'

'Harry?' Susan's worried voice came in his ear. He half turned towards her.

'... if it wasn't for, you know, the social welfare payments there would be less bloody, you know, crime among the working classes. Even though, you know, maybe it's best to let them, you know, kill themselves off ...'

'I call Susan for Beater,' Harry announced to Malfoy.

'Out-of-house players?' Malfoy objected, but Harry waved a mocking finger in front of his face.

'Midnight rules, remember?'

'Fine,' Malfoy grated. He turned on his heel and stalked off.

'What's all this about?' Susan whispered.

Harry turned shining eyes on her. 'This is your chance to play Quidditch and win, Suze. You're up for it, right?'

'Put like that,' said Susan, 'how can I refuse?'

Harry grinned and clapped her on the back. It was like patting a brick.

'Oh, and Harry?' Susan added speculatively. Harry turned to her. 'Call me Suze again and die. Understand?'

*~*

Harry ambled into Defence Against the Dark Arts a little early, having awoken at six from a nightmare that had left him sweating and unable to return to sleep. He could only recall fragments, but Smythe and red-hot pokers seemed to have featured highly, as well as the old reliable of the fanged boots.

'OH MY GOD, Harry, hi!' Belinda gushed. 'You are totally early.'

'I know,' said Harry, pushing his glasses up his nose to cover his discomfiture. 'Er.'

'So I looked at your timetable,' said Belinda, waving a parchment that Harry recognised as his own in front of his face. 'I think you have totally got the right idea. I was, like, hoping you'd help Draco with his essays, too?'

'Sure,' said Harry, his heart sinking. He could just see himself having to write Malfoy's essays for him, due to the fatal combination of Malfoy's general Defence ignorance and his 'I don't give a crap' attitude towards the subject. 'Um. I was wondering. Why you didn't ask Hermione to help him?'

'That's Hermione Granger, right?' Belinda clasped her hands to her chest, setting her bangles a-jangling. 'OH MY GOD, the girl is, like, a genius!'

'Exactly,' said Harry.

'But she's perfect at everything,' said Belinda. 'Whereas you, Harry, are bad at things sometimes, so you could understand where people are coming from when they are bad at things.' She beamed at him.

'Oh.' Harry digested this information. 'But, also, I hate Malfoy. Utterly. And so does he. Hate me, I mean, not himself. So surely someone who didn't hate him would be more suitable?'

'I'm sure I have, like, been through this, Harry,' Belinda said, starting to frown. 'This hatred thing you have going is not good. It's not good, Harry. OH MY GOD, do you realise the damage you're doing to your karma with all this bad feeling?'

'Uh, no,' Harry said, and rushed on when he saw Belinda's disapproving expression. 'There's a good reason for it. His father is a Death Eater and he's a flaming g -- he's been enemies with me and my friends since the first day of school.'

'First of all, Draco is not a Death Eater,' Belinda said. 'Second of all, everyone's either a wet hen or a nasty sodding bastard when they're young. Give Draco some time to grow up and he may improve.'

Harry, rather flummoxed by her use of 'bastard' instead of 'like', merely nodded and refrained from mentioning that the only thing that would improve Malfoy was, possibly, a coffin, or failing that, a good kick up the arse. He wasn't adverse to delivering the latter, but he also doubted that would be great for his karma. At least in Belinda's opinion.

'I was also, like, thinking about it,' Belinda went on, 'and you should sit together in this class. OH MY GOD, Draco does nothing but chatter with his friends. He has a very poor attention span when it comes to Defence, although Sev assures me that he has perfect focus in, like, Potions.'

'Sev?' Harry repeated weakly, wondering if he'd stepped into an alternate universe and not noticed.

'Professor Snape, to you,' said Belinda. 'OH MY GOD, don't you take Potions too? Sev was talking about you.'

'Oh God.'

'No, I don't think he's particularly religious,' Belinda reflected. 'In fact I recall him saying once all religion is a prop for the weak and an excuse to wreak gratuitous violence on other humans for the strong, by which I take it he totally, like, has not discovered the Way of the Lotus. He said everyone in his Advanced Potion class was a bloody fool, I think.'

'Even Malfoy?' said Harry in surprise.

'OH MY GOD, I am being totally unprofessional!' cried Belinda, smacking herself on the forehead with her beringed hand. Harry stared at her. 'Anyway, Harry, I'll tell Malfoy to go sit beside you when he comes in, unless you want to sit up the front.'

'Oh, no, the back is fine,' Harry assured her.

'Great! You two should get along comme une maison brûlant,' said Belinda, sending him a bright smile.

'I really need to learn German,' Harry muttered to himself as he sank into his chair and awaited Malfoy's arrival.

He didn't have long to stew. Within minutes the rest of the class began to trickle in. Belinda took Malfoy aside and Harry watched his face turn the shade of an indignant peony.

'What did I do?' Malfoy moaned as he sat down beside Harry. 'Two classes beside Potter! What did I do in my past life to deserve it?'

Harry rolled his eyes. 'Perhaps you were your grandfather and had your father who had you,' he suggested facetiously. 'That's enough of a crime for anyone's lifetime.'

Malfoy eyed him balefully. 'My paternal grandfather died when I was six,' he said.

'So? Don't let the bad logic put you off, Malfoy. It never did before.'

'Of what are you talking, fool?'

'Thinking you can beat me at Quidditch,' Harry said. He gestured at Malfoy's thumb, where the healed cut had left a hairline red stripe, much like Harry's. 'Your whole pureblood shit. If that's not illogic I don't know what is.'

'Ah, shut up, you queer,' Malfoy snapped. Harry felt a peculiar dart in his stomach at that, but he resolutely ignored it.

'Do you speak German, Malfoy?'

'God no. Terribly guttural language, that.'

'Oh.' Harry brooded for a moment. 'Pity.'

*~*

'You're coming to Hogsmeade with me.'

Harry reflected that Smythe, in all the time Harry had known him, had never been able to phrase a question so it came out sounding like anything other than a statement of fact.

'Sure, whatever,' said Harry, trying to prevent a tidal wave of nerves from engulfing him at the prospect. Going to Hogsmeade with someone made you practically married.

The day in question, Harry woke in the middle of the night. Checking Uncle Vernon's watch, he found that it was four am.

He had an inkling that he wouldn't be able to get back to sleep, so he swung his legs out into the nippy air and retrieved yet another Potions essay from under his bed. Typical of Snape to set them an essay on a Hogsmeade weekend. What had he said again?

'I know some of you think Hogsmeade weekends are for gallivanting around, holding hands and being, in general, reprehensibly decadent --' Harry, whose mind had summoned up the image of Smythe's hands, had blushed and drawn Snape's eagle eye down upon him '-- you can just forget that. Your NEWTs are only a year, nine months and twenty-five days away and you cannot afford to waste a second. Not a single second!'

Everyone, but everyone, had turned to smirk at Harry when Snape turned his back on them to retrieve marked essays -- even the Ravenclaws. Well, everyone except Malfoy, who'd stared at Snape's back as if the Secret of Life had been dyed into his robes with hair-grease.

Still, Harry thought, with a sort of grim satisfaction, being awake at the crack of dawn did at least mean he'd make some headway on the bloody essay.

At about six he headed into the bathroom to try and do something with his hair. At seven he gave up in despair and opted instead for a ferocious sally with his eyeliner. He looked, as Malfoy had said, like his eyes were bleeding black gunk, but Harry thought if you couldn't look well you may as well look atrocious. The logic was far from impeccable, but he was too nervous to care.

As eight, and then nine, rolled around, some of his dormmates entered the bathroom, stretching and yawning. When they saw Harry, as one, they all tried to curl in on themselves, as if The Big Gay was catching. It was only when Ron came in that some semblance of normality resumed.

'Harry,' he acknowledged him. Everyone relaxed slightly at Harry's brief nod and the lack of any insatiable jumping of other boys, which, by accepting a date with Smythe, he clearly had plans to do.

'So -- you and Smythe are tch-tch, eh?' said Seamus, winking and making a horrendous sucking sound with his mouth.

'Don't be disgusting, Seamus,' Dean said faintly, from behind a beard of shaving foam.

'I think we should embrace alternative lifestyles,' said Neville earnestly.

'I need to piss,' said Ron. 'Excuse me.'

'I think I'll go now,' said Harry, getting to his feet and smoothing down his robes.

'Good luck, Harry,' Seamus said, 'you'll need it.'

Harry thought he probably did, at that.

*~*

After half-an-hour of waiting, as everyone else tripped out past him, Harry thought it was only fair to assume he was being stood up. Oddly enough, he felt quite relieved. Whistling under his breath, he headed outside into the wintery sunshine, shoving his hands in his pockets to keep them warm.

'Hobo chic, is it?'

Harry rolled his eyes. Without turning around, he said, 'What was that, Malfoy?'

Malfoy brushed past him, knocking Harry's shoulder with his own. The paleness of his face matched the sky exactly -- it was sure to snow soon -- and Harry noticed that it only made his eyes look bigger and more -- well, he'd nearly thought 'stunning', but 'bigger' was probably sufficient description on Harry's part.

'Where's your boyfriend, fairy-boy?' Malfoy taunted, walking backwards to keep Harry in view.

'Right in that pothole behind you,' said Harry, raising his eyebrows. Malfoy twisted his head around in panic and nearly tripped over his own feet, which Harry thought was a jolly good laugh. 'Ha, made you look.'

'Shut up, you bloody pillow-biter,' Malfoy sneered, once he'd resettled his robes.

'What was that?' said a new voice. Both Harry and Malfoy jumped in shock and, at least on Harry's part at least, mild apprehension.

'Uh,' replied Malfoy, his lips turning even paler. His eyes became slightly glazed-looking, and Harry felt that strange sick little jerk in the pit of his stomach again.

'I looked for you in the Entrance Hall,' Smythe accused Harry, who felt absurdly guilty. He shrugged, feeling unable to frame the words for an explanation. 'Anyway, you're here now, I guess.'

Smythe stepped closer to Harry, so that he was engulfed in Smythe's spicy aftershave. His hand curled around one of Harry's wrists and the other tilted his jaw up into a more convenient position. Harry, who was really only half-dreading one of Smythe's breath-robbing kisses, realised Malfoy was still there when his voice cut across the frozen air.

'Oh, get a room, you perverts.'

Harry felt himself abruptly dumped as Smythe turned his attention to Malfoy. Smythe's blue eyes glittered with malice, as well as something that was pretty close to what they showed when Harry was half-naked and whimpering beneath him.

'Perverts, is it?' he breathed, advancing on Malfoy. Either from a false sense of courage or from being rendered immobile in fear, Malfoy stood his ground. He didn't speak, which seemed to add fuel to Smythe's -- not quite anger, more -- baiting. 'I asked you a question, pretty boy.'

Malfoy thrust his chin up in defiance. Harry, engrossed by the spectacle, stepped closer for a better view. 'I am not a pretty boy,' he spat. 'And you should keep your disgusting antics behind closed doors.'

'Oh, really?' Smythe sounded amused. He stepped even closer, pushing up against Malfoy, who from pride or wounded dignity refused to move. He darted his head sideways and licked the column of Malfoy's throat. Malfoy shuddered even as he exclaimed, 'What the fuck d'you think you're doing?'

'Perverted things,' said Smythe, running his hand across Malfoy's chest. Malfoy seemed powerless to stop him. It would have occurred to Harry to be jealous if it weren't for the fact that it was one of the hottest things he'd ever seen. 'Because you like it, Malfoy. You want it. You just can't admit it.'

'... don't want anything ...' Malfoy managed. Smythe's hand darted between his legs and Malfoy let out a stifled moan.

'Oh, I disagree,' whispered Smythe, smirking. 'Look at Harry, Malfoy.'

Swallowing rapidly, Malfoy turned his glassy, almost anguished eyes on Harry. Harry felt his chest inexplicably tighten. Smythe had started nuzzling Malfoy's neck, dusting it with the light, dry, hopelessly arousing kisses that he usually inflicted on Harry just after he'd rubbed him off through his robes. Much like he was doing to Malfoy now.

'Keep looking, Malfoy,' Smythe murmured, his hand still busy. He moved his mouth to cover Malfoy's, his other hand gripping him around his neck.

Despite the bitter cold of the day, Harry felt as if he were standing in front of a burning bonfire. The odd thing was, though, as Smythe's eyes closed and he subjected Malfoy to the kiss Harry had privately dubbed the Jaw-Breaker, Malfoy kept his eyes on Harry. It meant the angle of the kiss was wrong and Harry could see both their tongues clearly. Harry's fists clenched and Malfoy's gaze moved lower, to Harry's obvious erection.

Harry was pretty certain that if Malfoy had possession of his mouth, he'd be smirking.

Abruptly Smythe broke the kiss and wiped his mouth on his hand. 'Not bad,' he allowed. 'Harry's better, but that's only to be expected.' He turned a full-wattage smile on Malfoy, who looked as though he'd been smacked over the head with a mallet. His lips were wet. Harry couldn't stop looking at them. 'After all, he's a pervert.' Smythe yawned and wandered back over to Harry.

Harry wasn't prepared to be swept into a kiss, but Smythe, who exuded the epitome of scrawny sexuality, was a lot stronger than he looked. Harry had to work his mouth pretty quickly to keep up, but just as they were getting into a tongue-meshing rhythm, Smythe pulled away to call, 'Go away now, pretty boy.'

Harry wanted to watch Malfoy leave, to see his expression, to wonder if it was anything like his own had been on watching Malfoy being snogged to within an inch of his life by Harry's boyfriend.

'What was that all about?' Harry pulled himself together enough to demand, after about five rather hot and breathless minutes.

'What was what about?' Smythe asked, smiling lushly.

'Don't give me that. You kissed Malfoy. In front of me!' Harry dragged his hands through his haystack hair. 'Why are you even here if it's him you want to be with?'

Smythe sounded genuinely surprised. 'I don't want to be with him,' he said, as if Harry were hard of intelligence. 'He just needed to be taught a lesson, that's all.'

'Oh, really? A lesson? Right.' Harry felt himself beginning to build up a head of steam. 'Why you, though? Why him? It doesn't -- Arg!' He ground to a halt, because the next words in his head were: 'It doesn't look as if the two of you need me around' and it sounded unspeakably wimpy, not to mention that Malfoy and Smythe were far better suited than Harry and Smythe.

Or Harry and Malfoy.

Not that that errant thought, wherever it hailed from, had any bearing on the proceedings at all.

'Why, Harry, are you jealous?'

Harry stared at Smythe, anger and confusion warring over his features. Smythe clucked his tongue almost affectionately and pulled Harry to him, touching his lips to Harry's hair. Harry, although still offended, allowed himself to be hugged. It didn't happen often, even with Smythe.

'You don't need to worry,' Smythe told his hair. 'Malfoy's all bone and no bite. Whereas you ...' his voice dropped seductively to match his hand, which had slipped just between the fastenings of Harry's robes.

'Still going commando, eh?' Smythe's voice was definitely less smooth now. 'God, you kill me, you know that?'

Harry groaned quietly as Smythe thrust his hips against Harry's. This hug was turning into a lot more than a simple embrace. As usual.

'Come on,' whispered Smythe. 'Let's go downtown, baby.'

*~*

Draco stared furiously at his ruined leather-bound notebook. Cows weren't good for much, apart from shoes and the occasional rib eye steak, but the pale suede notebook had been extremely expensive, a gift from his father. Draco had only gone and knocked a full inkwell over it with his elbow. A black splodge of ink pooled in the valley of the two pages, dripping wetly on to the cover. Draco mopped the mess up irritably with a roll of Crabbe's unfinished Remedial Charms essay. Which reminded him. He had his own essays to be writing, one for Defence and yet another for Potions. Snape couldn't bear the thought of letting his NEWT class slack off when another member of staff threatened to rival him in the giving-impossibly-hard-assignments stakes.

Blaise had blithely announced in a promising Potions lesson, during which no-one had melted anything they shouldn't have, that he had been set two Arithmancy chapters, a Defence practice paper and a Transfiguration evaluation to complete during the weekend. Upon hearing this, Snape had promptly set them four rolls of parchment on the various uses of eye of newt, to hand in the following Monday. This was far more sadistic than necessary; they'd only covered newts' eyes once in the syllabus, about three times in their entire school careers and two of those times the eyeballs had been used as a substitute for cuttlefish sperm, which was difficult for Hagrid to procure.

Despite the overwhelming workload, Draco was not scribbling down the formula for the new Potion they'd been making. It had been a brew that had a distinctly spicy and foreign aroma which seeped into whatever clothes he was wearing, his skin and his hair and which refused to leave until he'd scrubbed himself down in the shower and bunged the robes in the laundry basket so that the elves could deal with the stink. Draco was working on a Quidditch line-up.

He wasn't planning for the ordinary house matches; he'd done that already, weeks in advance. Politeness and social etiquette - well, peer pressure - had dictated that he choose the Keeper, two of the Chasers, and one of the Beaters from his own year. He'd made Crabbe a Keeper, because he'd always wanted to be one. Besides, everyone else who'd tried out had been hopeless. A snotty fifth year called Alison Levitt was the third Chaser and the other Beater was a snarling, irritable third-year called Robert Cronin who had wild, staring eyes. Draco had picked him solely because he was still brandishing a heavy wooden club -- he'd brought his own -- when Draco had broken the news to the try-out hopefuls. It hadn't necessarily been the wrong choice - Robert hit Bludgers with such intense ferocity that it took about ten seconds for them to, figuratively speaking, pick themselves up, dust themselves off, wave away the pink elephants and start zooming towards another player. Still, Robert had to work on his aim. A broken rib had been the result of their first practice as a team.

No, Draco was working on which two players would be representing his team in the midnight Quidditch match he'd challenged Potter to. He wasn't sure exactly what misguided thoughts had compelled him to challenge the boy to a match, when Draco had lost to him every single time the two had competed. It wasn't as if he would have six other people to blame if the inevitable happened and he lost - this was one-on-one. Well, three on three, technically, but it was obvious to anyone with half a teaspoonful of grey matter that it was solely Potter versus Draco. Only one of them could win and he had a hunch about which horse most of the spectators would be betting on.

It was true what Potter had said, Draco did like to cheat, but there wasn't much one could feasibly do to stop Potter streaking ahead on his Firebolt and capturing the Snitch. Draco could always hex him, but a curse's ability to hit its target when the target was moving at sixty kilometres per hour was dubious and Seeking required skill and concentration, pure and simple. Draco's only way to ensure a victory was to use his cunning - according to the Sorting Hat he had some locked away somewhere - and underhand tactics to really give Potter a knock.

The way to get underneath Potter's skin, Draco had learnt after six long years, was to always go for the emotional attack. Potter didn't get out of control when Draco jabbed the back of his head repeatedly with a quill, but if you so much as mentioned his dead mum, then he turned into The Boy Who Was A Raving Lunatic. The last time Draco had quite literally played that card, it had been at the poker game, which had ended in one too many painful bruises and disappearing pot, which Heinrich was still furious about. It wasn't wise or in particularly good taste to bring up deceased parents again, but for the game, Draco had to find someone who could not only fly tolerably well, but affect Potter when he had to play against them - affect Potter almost as much as Potter affected Draco.

Draco scowled at his stained notebook and Crabbe's crumpled parchment. He could ask Ron to fly for him, except he didn't fancy getting punched in the face. He could capture the Mudblood and tie her to one of the hoops as a hostage - midnight rules, remember? Draco snickered to himself, then banged his fist on the table in exasperation. Oh, it was hopeless. Potter, astonishingly, didn't have anyone that would be remotely willing to challenge him. Even though he'd been acting like a complete arse for the past couple of months, he was still liked by all his old friends. Potter wouldn't give a toss if anyone he hadn't been close to turned up on Draco's team. It was stupid. Potter must have some enemies ... a friend he had stabbed in the back, someone he beat in a competition ... a spurned lover ...

Bingo.

*~*

Draco skulked in the darkness of the shadows next to Rowena's statue, shifting his weight from one foot to the other in nervousness. To get Chang to talk to him, he would have to be extremely persuasive. Without the aid of two primitive-looking henchmen, who were usually quite adequate at convincing people to do things they didn't want to do, Draco was not at all sure the conversation would be a success. He might even have to act charming. Draco didn't like to read as a child and consequently never saw the princes' expressions on the covers of storybooks, but even he could have guessed that the heroes of the Brothers Grimm did not sneer.

The man in the Ravenclaw portrait, who had been amusing himself for the past ten minutes by doing thrilling things with his abacus, sighed heavily. He slid off the stool, at the same time swinging his portrait sideways. A first-year girl poked her head through the entrance warily, as if she thought someone might be lying in wait for her. She wrinkled her nose as if scenting the air and then waited for a few seconds. Evidently deciding it was safe, she was about to clamber through when Draco coughed quietly, under his breath. The first-year turned her wide and horrified eyes on him, shrieked like a cockatoo and disappeared.

Draco sighed. He supposed he did look slightly rapist-esque, lurking in the darkness, but he had a perfectly good reason - he didn't want to be accosted by Smythe, who was exactly the type the first-year should give a wide berth if she wanted to avoid sexual deviants. Draco squirmed, thinking about his last encounter with Potter, who'd seemingly turned into a raving nancy. He hadn't even seemed to mind having Draco as an audience when him and Smythe had been - well. Enjoying their nanciness together.

Draco had been scared shitless when Smythe had bent down and licked him - yes, licked him, like some sort of animal - but despite Draco's best efforts to regain control of his leg muscles so he could flee, the only thing that was activated was the thing that he most wanted to lie dormant. Even though the chilly wind had been dragging its icy fingers across the damp patches on his neck, Draco had been burning up. His face had been on fire - he touched his pale cheek unconsciously - and that was before Smythe had kissed him. Draco had tried to fight it, he'd told himself that he wasn't turned on, although his body had been behaving as treacherously as the Slytherins were reputed to be. He'd been fighting a battle that wasn't so much 'losing' as reminiscent of England's performance at the last World Cup, especially when Smythe started doing increasingly perverted things with his fingers. Still, Draco had managed to retain some small shred of sanity. Until Smythe had rasped 'Look at Harry'.

Suddenly it hadn't been Smythe Draco was kissing, it was Potter. Potter, who was scum and a Gryffindor and male. Enormously. Draco had managed to drag his eyes down low enough to witness for himself just how male Potter was. To his great embarrassment, Draco hadn't torn himself away and vomited at that point, he'd snogged Smythe back. Hard. Draco hadn't been thinking about his earlier humiliation because it was Potter he was snogging. Although, not really. Well, as good as. He'd probably tasted Potter on Smythe's lips ...

Draco wiped his suddenly sweaty forehead with his sleeve and focused on the nice, soothing mental image of Hagrid in bondage gear. To his relief, the hot feeling and sudden tightness between his legs diminished. If he was spotted by Chang, or anyone else for that matter, hiding in the shadows with a hard-on, he'd be labelled a virtual sex offender and Smythe would need no further clarification that he was, in fact, a pervert like Potter.

The little girl poked her head out of the hole again, but this time it was soon accompanied by a familiar blushing-cheeked one. The girl pointed at Draco and Matthew grinned in recognition.

'That's 'im. Wun of the big 'uns, and 'e was 'iding behind the statue...' She had a voice that was high-pitched and grating, and about as pleasing to the ear as the sound of rusty nails being painstakingly dragged across a blackboard.

'That's Malfoy, Wendy. He's friendly, not like the other big ones. He won't hurt you or anything.'

'Huh,' Wendy huffed, and added, 'Huh.' She had poker-straight blonde hair tied in two severe bunches and freckles that were so dark it looked as if she'd been sprinkled generously with cocoa powder. Matthew inhaled gratefully, in the way that one does when one has noticed a way to end the lull in a conversation.

'What's that making a dent in your robes?' Matthew asked, looking downwards. Wendy eyed the protrusion beadily, and Draco looked down at the tent by his crotch, aghast. So much for his 'I will not negatively influence the children' resolution. After a nanosecond's horror, he remembered he wasn't aroused in the slightest, not after being scrutinised by Ovaltine-Face Wendy. Also Draco was fairly sure that if he was, the bulge would be more central, and less in the vicinity of his right hip.

'Oh,' he answered, smiling at Wendy in the hope that she wouldn't start speaking again. He pulled it out, where he'd tucked it into the waistband. 'It's my wand.' Wendy tugged at Matthew's ear viciously and began to whisper perfectly audible slights against Draco into it.

'Chang!' cried Draco, seeing sleek shoulder-length hair swish past him. She ignored this and Draco decided on a more familiar approach. After all, Prince Charmings were suitably courteous, but they didn't bother with formalities like surnames.

'Cho,' he supplied feebly, sounding as if he were reading her name off a register. Cho spun around so fast, Draco wondered that she didn't get whiplash. She was certainly holding her head at a funny angle. Draco realised just in time that she was waiting impatiently for him to speak.

'Please could I talk to you for a second?' Draco asked hopefully. 'Please' constituted being charming, didn't it?

'Well, I won't go out with you,' Cho replied, after an impressive millisecond's hesitation. 'Not even to make Potter jealous.'

'Good,' Draco answered, bewildered. Why on earth would Cho think he wanted to make Potter jealous? The silence yawned emptily for a few awkward seconds, during which Cho began to preen. This unashamed narcissism reminded Draco that Cho was of course a girl, just like Pansy, and therefore she had only been doing what she spent the majority of her female time doing, which was talking about herself. 'I don't mean that I want you to go out with me.'

'Good,' replied Cho. She tossed her head like a disgruntled pony. 'Bye then.' She began to flounce away, but Matthew, who had been watching the exchange avidly, grabbed Wendy's palm and blocked the hole. 'Out of the way, squirt!' Cho flashed Matthew an annoyed look.

Wendy wrenched her hand free of Matthew's and scuttled away out of sight, but Matthew stayed where he was, although his knees knocked together a little.

'Why wouldn't you want to date Draco?' he asked. He looked as if he was blushing, but with him you could never be too sure. 'He's really nice.'

Cho appeared to be as stunned by this statement as Draco was.

'Bloomsbury?' Cho asked helplessly. She looked Draco to Matthew in consternation. 'Did you bewitch the kid or what?'

'No,' Matthew answered. 'But we're friends.' Draco buried his head in his hands.

'Please just go back to your common room, Matthew,' he gritted out through his teeth. 'Just go now, OK?'

'I'm helping,' Matthew mouthed over Cho's shoulder.

'Don't help me, Matthew,' Draco pleaded. 'Please. Don't help me.'

Matthew looked Cho up and down appraisingly, as if assessing whether it was safe to leave Draco by himself with her, then, giving a half-hearted 'You're on your own, mate' shrug, he climbed through the portrait hole, quickly followed by the portrait, which slammed over the entrance. Cho turned to face Draco, looking bemused.

'I've noticed that you're a really good flier,' Draco began, inspired. Compliments always worked wonders with Pansy.

'Well. Yeah,' said Cho, looking pacified. 'It's usually a basic requirement for the Quidditch Captain. I'm Captain, by the way.'

'Really? Well done,' Draco congratulated, even though he'd known about it ever since the feast on the first day. 'Well, there's a kind of unauthorised evening match taking place and I wondered if you would like to play.'

Cho, who had been nodding absent-mindedly during his speech, started to shake her head vehemently. 'I'm sorry, Malfoy, but I don't really have the time --'

'Just the one match,' said Draco, doing his best not to grovel. 'It's sort of -- you know -- elite. It's taking place late at night, the teachers don't know --'

'Elite?' asked Cho, her eyes glinting. Draco nodded, encouraged.

'Yeah,' he drawled, trying to sound bored and superior, instead of merely desperate. 'It's only the best players, very intense.'

'Well, I'll think about it,' Cho said doubtfully, tossing her hair again. She certainly had an equine complex. Draco wished he had brought some sugar cubes to sway her. 'But I'm not sure --'

'Look,' said Draco, grasping at straws. 'It's against Potter. How do you feel about Potter now? He thinks he's going to win, like he does at everything else. Don't you want to see him lose?'

It was like pressing a magic button.

'Harry!' Cho exclaimed, shading her eyes with her hand and fluttering her eyelashes dramatically. 'Don't talk to me about that boy. He asked me to the Yule Ball, you know, then showed up with one of the twins, the Patils, not the Weasleys - I never could tell them apart. The Patils, not the Weasleys. Well, I never could tell them apart either. Then last year, he - Harry -- follows me around for a term, like some kind of stalker -- ask Marietta if you don't believe me - and then takes advantage of me when I'm vulnerable and emotionally in a bad place and so I decide to use him as a shoulder to cry on, but he's just not interested. I mean he's just not interested. Then he decides he likes Granger better anyway, so he buggers off. And so I buggered off too, because I wasn't going to let that frizzy bitch get the better of me.'

Draco stared. He wondered how to press the magic button to turn Cho off.

'And then he blanks me again, while he tries to get Granger to notice him, but of course she was working her magic on Weasley, so this year Harry comes back and ignores them both, just to spite me and he ignores me too, as if I don't matter and I don't count, and I'm holding the most infinitesimal bit of importance in his mind currently, and he's clearly expecting me to talk to him first. As if! So when I don't talk to him, he flips out and starts wearing make-up and hanging out with Mark, just because I used to like him in third year, but that's water under the bridge, but Harry! Don't talk to me about him.'

'You can get him back,' Draco inserted quickly, whilst Cho was drawing breath. 'Not like that, obviously, because you're so much better off without him, but you can get revenge for the way he treated you.'

'He treated me abysmally,' wailed Cho. 'Abysmally.'

'So you'll do it?'

'Oh, all right,' snapped Cho. She extended her hand in a businesslike manner. 'As long as you tell me when this thing is going to happen. You're Seeking, I presume?'

'Oh? Yes, I am.' Draco nodded. He looked at her outstretched hand and wondered whether to clasp it or kiss it. He settled for shaking it and half-kneeling as he did so. 'Seeking. Thank you, Cho.'

Cho looked gratified.

'Oh, I'm not doing it for you,' she assured him, walking over to the portrait and reciting the quadratic formula. The portrait swung open, exposing the hole. 'I'm not doing it for Harry, either. I am Quidditch captain, after all. I'm going to analyse your flying styles and use the information against you in the upcoming matches.'

'Fair enough.' Draco shrugged as Cho disappeared from view. On the night he'd be trying so hard to catch the Snitch before Potter did that he doubted he'd give anything away about his flying style. Anything he'd miss having, that was. It was Potter who was always the professional when it came to Quidditch. Potter would always maintain the correct diving position, come hell or high water. Perhaps not hell, actually. Dementors weren't exactly Potter's thing.

Draco rubbed his hands together in glee. Now he had Cho Chang on his side. Cho Chang, an egotistical, self-obsessed seventh-year. Cho Chang, Harry Potter's ex-girlfriend. Draco wondered if Smythe would be watching.

This match had the potential to be very interesting.

*~*

'Beating!' Cho echoed shrilly, as she shied away from the bat Draco was trying to force on her.

He'd thought Cho would be more amenable to the idea of playing the position if he dropped the bomb on her at the last minute. This, it turned out, had been a very bad idea. She had gone berserk.

'No-one said anything about effing Beating!'

Draco winced at the noise and tried to shush her, looking apprehensively at the closed door. A girl's screams could really carry in Hogwarts. Robert was sitting underneath the cloak pegs, cradling his club in his hands as if it was his firstborn child. Draco wouldn't have been surprised if Robert had made it himself, with his bare hands, it was so knobbly and uneven. Even more so now, as metal spikes were protruding from it at odd intervals.

'Robert!' exclaimed Draco, incredulous. Robert shuffled about and grinned uneasily. He had been dressed in full Quidditch gear since break, despite Draco's not-so-subtle hints about confidentiality. Robert tenderly traced a spike with his thumb.

'Er,' he asked hopefully. 'Midnight rules?'

'You expect me to wield an ugly wooden club whilst manoeuvring a broomstick, and then to take a swing at whatever might decide to hurl itself at your head, with little to no thought for my own safety?'

'We-ell,' Draco hedged. 'That is kind of what Beating entails.' He glanced edgily at Robert. 'You don't hit anyone, mind - just the balls. Right, Robert? You're not going to whack anyone with the bat, are you?'

'Oh, of course not,' Robert replied innocently, with the same affected surprise crooks put on when they say, 'No, of course not, officer, do you really think I'd try to bribe you?' to the nice policeman.

'You said that the match was elite,' Cho groused. 'And yet you want me to fly alongside the original Dennis the Menace --'

'Who?'

Cho shook her head impatiently. 'Never mind,' she snapped. 'The point is, I can't Beat. Not in this light, not when I've just done my nails ... and I don't know how. I've always Seeked or Chased.'

'It's really easy,' interrupted Robert. He gripped his bat in a restrained excitement, his eyes wide and frenzied. 'You - you don't think you'll have the strength, when you see it hurtling towards you, then suddenly, deep down, you tap into this wild anger, and everything gets faded out in this wash of red, and you just let it out in this fantastic burst and you feel the release as you swing and then you hear the crack!' He performed the mime equivalent of brutally beheading someone. Cho stared and Robert wiped the foamy saliva from the sides of his mouth, beaming.

'Lots of people use Beating as an outlet for their rage,' Draco pointed out, after a silence. 'You're a Tornados supporter, right? Julian Valiant says that Beating's way better than therapy. And cheaper.'

'Are you suggesting I'm mental?' Cho inquired. She jerked her shiny black head at Robert. 'Like him?'

'No, no!' Draco amended, flustered. 'I just meant, if you want to let out your rage towards Potter, here is a great, socially acceptable place to do it. Chang, you're the best flier I've seen, honest. Anyway, you wanted to analyse Potter's flying style for matches.'

'I could do that from the stands,' Cho objected, although she looked mollified by Draco's compliment - well, lie. Cho could fly tolerably well, but her midair turns were all over the place. 'There will be people in the stands, I take it?'

'Probably.' Draco shrugged, unconcerned. 'It is meant to be a secret from the establishment, so don't get your hopes up or anything.'

'All right, if you shut up, I'll do it,' Cho conceded, kicking the wall of the changing room experimentally. 'As long as you do me a favour.'

'What?' Draco smirked.

'Break that little habit of losing you have once and for all,' said Cho. 'I know Harry's got a Firebolt, but you --'

'Oh no he hasn't,' Draco interrupted, trying to ignore the dig. He'd been looking forward to revealing this little stroke of genius. 'Midnight rules, remember?'

'You stole Harry's broom? Wouldn't he have noticed already?'

'No,' Draco answered, trying his utmost not to add 'you tool'. 'We worked out beforehand a set of guidelines - we each get to choose a deciding factor that will work to our advantage. Before we start, I'm going to tell him that the Seekers have to swap brooms. Easy.'

'Bullshit,' said Cho. 'Potter will never let you so much as touch his precious Firebolt, let alone ride it. He's such a pretentious little --'

Much as Draco appreciated chatting with someone who shared his vehement antagonism towards Potter, it was beginning to irritate him. Was Potter all she could think about?

'If he doesn't, he'll forfeit the whole match.' Draco grinned, baring his small, pointed teeth. He really was quite proud of himself for thinking of it. The Hat had been right, he did have cunning. Sly like a fox. 'We decided on it all earlier. Quite civilly, too.'

'You really are a little bastard,' Cho said approvingly, lacing up her boots. 'Don't you think, though, that he's blatantly going to think up a requirement for you that's completely --'

Justin Finch-Fletchley stuck his head round the door and recited his message with all the enthusiasm of one who has been forced at wand point to perform an errand.

'You have to, you know, come out now, the others are all waiting on the, you know, pitch,' he mumbled resentfully, before disappearing. Robert charged outside after him in glee, waving his bat in the air.

'I guess we'll find out soon,' Draco answered, his stomach churning in what it seemed was an effort to turn its salad-based contents into butter. It was a familiar sensation, the one he felt whenever playing against Potter, but it didn't feel any the less disconcerting because of that. Cho stood up resolutely and put her hand on the doorknob. She was exactly Draco's height. Odd. And Draco was noticing this why? He lurched towards the exit, wondering if Cho would go back on her decision to be Beater if he threw up in her hair.

Outside it was cold, much colder than it had been during the day, but Draco's desire to be sick on Cho's head did not diminish. Damp leaves squished beneath their feet and the icy mud sucked wetly at the soles of their boots. Justin Finch-Fletchley and Zacharias Smith walked a good twelve feet in front of Draco's team, muttering angrily to each other.

'Why'd you bring me here, you pillock, it's not as if I don't have anything better to do of a Friday night --'

'You don't! I tried to discourage Susan, because, see, the hoi polloi, you know, the masses, see the four Quidditch balls as, you know, phallic symbols --'

Draco couldn't quite see the dynamics that made that friendship work, but he supposed that they were simply too complex for an outsider to understand their subtleties. It was hardly a long walk. The bickering duo turned abruptly and made their way up into one of the stands, leaving Draco who was --hyperventilating-- breathing heavily, to lead his paltry team on to the pitch in silence.

The pitch had been illuminated by flaming torches that hung in the stands and were suspended in the air. Several of the spectators also bore Omniculars that had been enchanted to make beams of light shine from the lenses. They trained these spotlights on Draco, Cho and Robert as they walked on. Draco glared up at them, trying to see who was gathered. There were about thirty people, all scattered in the two 'neutral' Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw stands. Crabbe and Goyle were seated on the stairs, intent on causing the most inconvenience to everyone. Zacharias Smith seemed unwilling to squeeze past them. Weasley, Granger and three other Gryffindor boys were huddled warily in the back row. They had obviously turned up uninvited. Draco didn't know if Potter's former best mates were a couple yet, but the Mudblood was clearly too worried to be bothered with any amorous advances Weasley might make. She looked almost as terrified as Draco felt.

Marietta Edgecombe was there, giving the Gryffindor pack dirty looks. Robert seemed to have amassed about twelve of his equally philistine friends, who all roared wordlessly when he came into view. There were other small groups of students, huddled together for warmth, but the instantly recognisable Smythe was nowhere to be seen.

Standing in the centre of the pitch, ahead of Draco, Cho and Robert, were three dark silhouettes. The tallest, in the middle, was obviously Potter. Draco knew at once, from his stance, the way he held his broom ... everything. There was a much larger silhouette to Potter's right, which, upon closer scrutiny, proved to be the Susan girl. The huge Beater's bat looked as weightless as a matchstick in her muscled arms. Both Robert and Cho cast her dismissive glances. The person standing on Potter's left was cloaked in shadow.

Potter's expression as Draco and his team-mates stalked up to him was unfathomable, but as they got closer it became apparent that he had gone above and beyond the call of duty with his awesome eye make-up. His irises were ringed with circles of smoky black eyeliner that completely covered his lids, making him look smouldering and dangerous. His skin was also a shade paler, but Draco didn't dare to hope that it was due to nerves, the like of which he was currently experiencing.

'You look like a racoon, fairy-boy,' said Draco.

'Call it war paint.' Potter shrugged, his face gleaming in the torchlight. His gaze travelled far enough for his vision to encompass Draco's team in its entirety. Then Potter did a double-take on the person on his right, astounding in itself because she wasn't the one growling and snarling under her breath.

'Cho?' rasped Potter, his face twisted in confusion.

'Harry,' Cho acknowledged haughtily, gripping the handle of her Arrow in a regal manner.

'I hate to break up this little reunion --' Draco smirked, relieved that all was going more or less to plan '-- but I'll be needing you to let go of that broom, Potter.'

Potter, who was staring at Cho in utter amazement, as if she were dressed in a long flowing gown and top hat instead of the slightly more conventional Quidditch robes, tore his eyes away with difficulty.

'What are you talking about, Malfoy?'

Draco motioned towards the Firebolt. 'Midnight rules.'

Potter laughed in a derisive manner. 'That's utter crap, Malfoy. It's not even bloody Quidditch if one of the players doesn't have a broom.'

'Oh, I fully intend to give you a broom,' Draco assured him, smiling. The crowd was silent, straining to hear. A few seemed to have trailed long, flesh-coloured things on to the pitch. 'We swap.'

Potter's face hardened. 'No.'

'Oh, come on.' Draco grinned nastily. 'It's only a Nimbus, but I'm sure you can cope.'

'You can't have it,' protested Potter. 'It was given to me by --' He stopped himself and inhaled deeply, not looking at Malfoy but at his boots in the muddy grass. 'Sorry. No.'

'Then you forfeit,' said Draco in triumph. 'That's what we decided.'

Robert made an indignant noise like a whine in the back of his throat. Potter looked at his Firebolt, which he was now holding in a death grip. If it had been a rooster's neck he was grasping, he would either have been arrested by the RSPCA or been awarded a prize for Most Efficient Farmboy. Potter swallowed several times. Then he took the broom in both hands and extended it to the Draco, who snatched it off him.

Draco turned the Firebolt over and over in his hands, enjoying the feel of the streamlined, aerodynamic wood. It had obviously been well looked after. It was clean and polished, in near mint condition - apart from the groove where Potter's hands had grasped the stick tightly during all those years of practices, matches, flying. Draco fingered the curve of the dents.

'If you get the smallest scratch,' warned Potter, his voice wavering, 'If you dare screw up, crash, and bang her up in any way - I'll castrate you, I swear.'

'I'll take good care of her, don't worry,' promised Draco. He even meant it. Potter blinked, looking almost as bewildered as he had when he'd clocked Cho, then took Draco's Nimbus from the blond boy's clammy fingers.

'Right,' he said, dragging the back of his gloved hand across his eyes, so that the eyeliner smudged artistically across a cheekbone. 'My turn.'

*~*

Harry's stomach was churning as he held Malfoy's Nimbus lightly between his fingers. There were a good few dents and scratches along the surface, which Harry surmised were the result of the temper tantrums Malfoy threw when he lost.

Still, it could have been worse. Harry had flown Nimbuses before and beat Malfoy on them.

Not when

he's flying a Firebolt, you haven't, a nasty little voice at the back of his mind piped up. Harry banished it. There was no room to entertain the sort of doubt that came from the niggling suspicion that it had been dumb luck and a superior broom that had accounted for all his wins against the boy now standing opposite him, lavishing covetous smiles on the broom in his arms. Malfoy hadn't been chosen as the youngest Seeker in a century; Harry had.

Just hold on to that thought.

'Right,' he said. 'My turn.' He scratched at an itch under his eye before turning to the last member of his team, who had been standing back in the shadows, holding the cage. 'Smythe, you're on.'

He thought he heard Malfoy gasp when Smythe came out into the Omniocular-sourced flashlights, but that was only to be expected given that Smythe had practically assaulted him the last time they had met. Harry still hadn't quite forgiven Smythe for it and that was one of the main reasons he on the pitch with Harry right now, as aside from the basic rudiments of flight Smythe had very little knowledge of Quidditch. However, Harry was banking on his reflexes, deceiving strength and the psychological effect he'd have on Malfoy to back him up in the game.

'What is that?' Cho demanded, fear and disgust warring in her voice.

Harry, who had knelt down in the mud to unfasten the locks, looked up at his opponents and smiled widely. 'Cats,' he said.

'You what?' Malfoy said, sounding rather high-pitched.

'Kitty-cats, felines --' Harry paused for effect, shooting a look at Cho '-- pussies.' To the accompaniment of indignant yowls, Harry reached inside the cage and withdrew a small grey cat. It turned insane yellow eyes on Harry and made a spirited attempt to claw all the skin off his hand. Wincing as little bubbles of blood oozed from the cuts, he stood up quickly and thrust the cat at the boy with the spikey bludgeon.

He indulged in a blank look for all of five seconds, after which interval the cat dug its claws into his arm and proceeded to hang upside down from it, spitting.

'There had better be a very good reason for this, Potter.' Malfoy's voice was dangerous, but then so were the alley cats.

'Oh, there is,' said Harry, unable to suppress the pure glee in his voice. 'Cats are traditionally the familiars of witches -- well, in Muggle literature, at least. They ride on the witches' brooms --'

'No!' Malfoy howled, but it was too late. Harry had another cat -- a tortoiseshell tabby that sported long ragged fur, a squashed Persian face and molten insanity, dripping from every unsheathed claw -- by the scruff of its neck and was advancing on Cho.

'Uh, I really don't like animals --' she began, apprehension leaking from her voice like a noxious gas.

'I shouldn't worry about that,' said Harry comfortingly. 'They don't like humans.' He pushed the cat at Cho's chest. She didn't raise her hands to pick it up, but it didn't matter because the cat curled its paws into the front of her robes and hung on like Grim Death With PMS.

'Now, Smythe here helped me with the spell,' explained Harry. 'They aren't going to run away from you, which would be their natural instinct. However, they still may try to jump off your brooms or something. You forfeit the game if one of the cats hit the ground before you do, and you're not allowed to kill them.' He hadn't intended to add the last disclaimer, but the other boy on Malfoy's team had finally collared his cat and was sharing a mutually murderous stare with it.

'Do I not get a cat?' asked Malfoy, seeming as if he hoped that Harry had forgotten him. He also seemed torn between that happy thought and the far less happy one that Harry had something worse in store for him, in which case he'd certainly take the cat.

'Oh, you do,' Harry assured him. 'We've got someone really special for you.' He crouched down again and clicked his tongue. 'Here, Crookshanks. Come to Harry.'

'HARRY POTTER!' a thunderous voice suddenly came from the stands. 'WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH MY PET?'

Harry stood up, Crookshanks cradled in his arms. He dithered for a moment, then cupped a hand around his mouth and called, 'Don't worry, Hermione, he'll be fine.'

'HE'D BETTER BE. MALFOY, YOU SCUM, HURT MY CAT AND DIE. SLOWLY. OVER SEVERAL DAYS.'

Harry turned an evil grin on Malfoy, running his fingers through the thick fur on Crookshanks' head. Crookshanks turned a luminous, intelligent gaze on Malfoy, who gulped.

'Do you catch that, Malfoy?' he asked. 'If you hurt her cat, Hermione will kill you. Slowly. Over several days. And don't think she won't, either. Gryffindors are quite protective of their familiars.'

'I heard, Potter,' snapped Malfoy, looking distinctly green. 'Give me the goddamn thing.'

Harry stepped forward and held Crookshanks out for him to take. This cat demanded more care than the other two and not just because Harry had stolen him from his best friend for the night. Crookshanks started up a low, rumbling purr that Harry knew from experience could go on for hours with no respite. At night, before a roaring fire and half-asleep in a comfy armchair, that purr could be relaxing. On a dark pitch, with nerves twanging and flying against your greatest rival, Harry thought the noise would be akin to that of fingernails across a blackboard.

'Good boy,' he said under his breath. Malfoy, whose arms were momentarily tangled with Harry's, looked up, startled.

'What did you say?' he spat.

'I was talking to the cat,' Harry said haughtily. He dropped his voice. 'Part Kneazle, you know. They can spot untrustworthy people.' He let that sink in before adding, 'I'm not quite sure what they do to them when they find them, but I am very interested in finding out.'

'Christ,' groaned Malfoy. Harry beamed and withdrew. Not a flicker of his eyes showed that his heart had started to race at Malfoy's proximity. Good thing Harry wouldn't be that close to Malfoy again, it would have put him off his game.

Harry looked around. Susan was by his side, staid and chewing gum with loud smacking sounds. 'All right?' he said under his breath.

'I don't know,' said Susan. A typical Susan answer. Harry smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring manner.

'Just don't let the snakes put you off,' he said, nodding towards the stands. He could spot some of Malfoy's classmates; Zabini, with his arms crossed and a pout on his face, the goons and Heinrich, who was looking fixedly at the goalposts.

'Oh dear,' said Susan.

Justin took that moment to scream: 'Be, you know, careful, my, you know, darling!'

'Oh dear,' Susan repeated, going scarlet. 'I don't know him.'

'Know who?' Harry grinned and twisted his head to Smythe.

Smythe quirked an eyebrow. Harry felt something plummet out of the bottom of his stomach. Come to think of it, that probably was his stomach.

'If we win,' breathed Smythe, 'do I get a special reward for participating?'

'Yeah,' Harry said shortly. 'My eternal gratitude.' He turned to face his adversaries. Cho's cat was sitting calmly on her head, while below it Cho was having hysterics by degrees. The other boy's cat was swinging from the back of his robes while he vainly tried to clip it with his bat.

Crookshanks was curled around Malfoy's neck. Harry raised his eyebrows and the cat fixed him with its steady stare. The fact that Malfoy looked terrified was little consolation; Harry had hoped Crookshanks would have gone into spitting mode, at least. Still, the fact that Malfoy's Beaters were both incapacitated was a feather in Harry's cap.

'Where's the game-starter?' he asked. There was to be no referee; midnight rules, after all. Anything went.

'I am here,' Luna's dreamy voice informed him. 'Except that I may be a butterfly dreaming that I am a human and that I am here ...'

'Right, right,' said Harry. He swung his leg over Malfoy's broom. As one, everyone else on the pitch did the same. Luna was holding the box with the Snitch and the unchained Bludgers inside; an ominous rattling emanated from it.

'Ready, steady,' Luna said. The six players tensed for flight. 'Hot cross buns, on your marks, teddy bears, oranges and lemons --'

'What the hell?' Malfoy complained.

'GO!' Luna screeched, opening the box with a brilliant smile.

Harry was already in the air as Malfoy scrambled to catch up, but he could see that would take very little. As soon as Malfoy took off, his silhouette blurred with speed. Harry could only watch in awe and slight nausea, wondering if that was how Harry looked all of the time -- sort of spread out against the air.

Around him, there was chaos. The Bludgers occupied the greatest amount of attention but the cats were coming in a close second. The boy spent half of his time trying to hit his own back and the other half whacking Bludgers so hard they dented and hung in the air for seconds at a time, stunned.

Cho was screaming her head off and waving her bat wildly; by complete chance, quite a few of her wild swings brought it into contact with a ball and no one was more surprised than she was when this happened. Susan was flying up and down the pitch, methodically hitting a Bludger and following it to hit it again.

Harry experimented with a few loop-the-loops and Wronski Feints during the first three-quarters of an hour; it was hard work. He had to urge the broom on, every muscle straining. He'd forgotten about having to do this. He'd become too used to a broom that responded to every whim before he'd even thought them.

Smythe didn't appear to be doing anything except wincing and falling flat on his broom every time a ball came within spitting distance. However, as Harry watched and kept one eye peeled for the Snitch, he sat up and fixed his gaze on Malfoy.

'Hey, Draco!' he yelled. The blur hesitated for a second and Malfoy paused in the air, utter exhilaration painted across his features. Crookshanks was wrapped around the bristles of the broom, all his fur on end.

'What?' Malfoy said uncertainly and Harry applauded his choice of players. Even Cho wouldn't have distracted Harry from his search to that extent. As he scanned the sky for the Snitch, he could almost hear Smythe smirking.

'Nothing,' sighed Smythe. Harry spared a glance for him and almost choked when he saw Smythe innocently sucking his little finger, his head tilted and his tongue clearly visible to everyone. Including Malfoy, who was looking severely unnerved.

Then Harry saw it. The Snitch, dazzling his eyes, tantalisingly within his grasp. Every neuron fired, sending electric sparks out through Harry's hair, to the edges of his fingers. He kicked the broom forward, almost sliding backwards as his hands sought for a worn grip that wasn't there -- Malfoy did, after all, still hold his broom incorrectly.

'Bugger!'

The word rebounded around the stadium but Harry paid it no attention. He was straining forward, hanging on to the broom with his knees and luck.

Then Malfoy was beside him, the ends of the Firebolt almost frazzling from the speed. His elbow jostled Harry's. Harry shoved back, feeling the connection with flesh, which forced a soft 'Oomph!' from his foe.

Harry realised that Malfoy was close, very close indeed. They weren't just flying neck and neck, they were flying knee and knee, side and side, arm and arm, almost -- too near for Harry's thudding heart and his suddenly somersaulting stomach -- cheek and cheek.

'Bugger,' Malfoy said again, stretching his hand out. Harry could see it wavering in the air ahead, just the merest of measurements ahead of Harry's own. The Snitch still dangled there insouciantly, for once not darting off at the approach of Seekers but instead taunting them.

Harry attempted to knock Malfoy's hand out of the way, as he had done so many times before, but it didn't work. There was too much power in the broom Malfoy was riding and not enough in his own, and he really wished he hadn't thought the words 'Malfoy' and 'riding' in the same sentence --

In a last-ditch effort, ignoring the raucous screams all around him -- interspersed with the occasional feline shriek -- Harry pushed himself off his broom almost entirely and lunged, pinning one wing between his fingers, at the exact same moment as Malfoy's fist curled around the tiny ball.

Then Harry was falling, dragged off his broom by the momentum of the dive and the only thing between him and oblivion was a tiny metal wing, fluttering madly and already starting to tear away --

Crookshanks bellowed. It wasn't the sort of noise that should have come from anything smaller than an elephant. In the split second before he passed out, Harry saw the cat scrabbling up Malfoy's neck, which with the rest of his torso was hanging down below the level of the broom due to Harry's weight. Malfoy's eyes widened even more as claws sunk into the skin of his neck. Everything went black.

*~*

Harry had always been crap at Divination. However, he was aware of a sudden and very pressing flash of prescience: if he opened his eyes right now, he was going to be in an immense amount of pain.

His eyelids fluttered on an instinctive impulse. They wanted to open when Harry was awake, which he was.

The pain settled on him like a warm blanket. Although to make the analogy more truthful, it settled on him like a blanket of nails.

Harry gurgled. He wanted to say something suitable for the occasion, like 'I bequeath all my worldly goods to Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger', but his vocal chords seemed to have gone on sudden and total strike.

He became aware that he seemed to be in a muddy depression and, also, that he was not alone. Harry weakly raised an arm to bat the cat away. 'Geroff, Crookshanks,' he groaned. At least, that's what he meant to say -- it came out as 'Goff, ookank.'

'Ever articulate, I see,' came the most unwelcome voice Harry could ever have heard.

'Wha -- 'foy?'

'Yes. I think I've broken my leg. Cheers, Potter.'

Harry blinked rapidly, dislodging a beetle. 'Wha'? Dead?'

'No, I only wish I was.'

Harry spent several crowded minutes figuring out what exactly had happened. He had fallen, obviously. He didn't think he was dead, unless he'd gone to some ring of Hell wherein the punishment meted out was of the muddy and crushing genre. Malfoy was there, under him to some extent, but his voice had come from the side. With an extreme effort, he turned his head, saw Malfoy's face and screamed.

Malfoy's mouth drooped even more. 'Why, deafen as well as maim me, Potter. I'm sure I won't need my eardrums in the intensive therapy I'll need after being trapped under you.'

'You are?'

'Yes, you fell on top of me.'

'Oh God,' Harry moaned. He went to bury his face in his arms, only to find that one of them was underneath Malfoy. In fact -- in other circumstances, their relative positions could be regarded as suggestive in the extreme.

'Where is everyone?'

'My team-mates are fighting cats,' said Malfoy. He was breathing shallowly and Harry could tell it was an effort for him to talk. 'The Puff went for help, for us, and made everyone else scatter. She said not to move us in case our spines were broken.'

'Smythe?'

Even through his pain, Malfoy blushed. 'Not sure. I think he went with -- with the Puff.' He clenched his teeth and blew out through his nostrils. 'Could you not move your leg again?'

'Why?'

'Because it is right on top of my broken one.'

'Right.' Harry said. He thought for a moment. 'Sorry.'

'Piss off.'

Harry eyeballed Crookshanks, who was curled up between their bodies now and who had started to purr. He shoved his hand under the cat's belly in an effort to push him off, but instead managed to tangle his fingers with Malfoy's.

'Who won?'

Malfoy grit his teeth. A second later, Harry felt pressure on the hand that was underneath his body. He realised it was still holding the Snitch's wing. The fact that Malfoy had managed to move it too had to mean ...

'A draw?' Harry breathed. 'All this for a draw?'

'I hate you so much, Potter,' whimpered Malfoy.

'Shut up,' said Harry, closing his eyes and dragging his teeth over his lower lip in frustration.

'Stop ... doing that,' Malfoy said. His voice sounded laboured. Harry's eyes shot open.

'Doing what?'

'With your bloody lip!' Malfoy wailed. The fingers of the hand that were now effectively squashed under Crookshanks' considerable bulk twitched against Harry's. An imp of mischief came into Harry's brain. He felt winded and severely bruised, but that was no deterrent to a chance to torment Malfoy. The fact that Malfoy was injured and unable to escape only made it the sweeter.

Harry refused to pause and consider why he enjoyed winding Malfoy up so. It was enough that it was fun.

'What, this?' he said, parting his lips slightly and running his tongue across them.

'No, not that either!' Malfoy sounded frantic now.

'You seem a little -- uptight, Malfoy,' said Harry, grinning. With his body meshed against Malfoy's the way it was, Harry could feel exactly how uptight Malfoy was.

Malfoy squeezed his eyes shut and made an incoherent whining noise. 'I saw you got a bit distracted by Smythe too,' Harry continued inexorably. 'You're easily distracted, aren't you, Malfoy? Odd how it's always boys ...'

Malfoy's lips drew up over his teeth in a primeval snarl. 'Fuck you,' he spat.

'I'm taken,' said Harry.

'By Smythe?' Malfoy snorted.

'Yeah. Jealous?'

'No need,' said Malfoy. Harry was surprised by how smug he sounded. 'He's anybody's.'

'What is that supposed to mean?' demanded Harry, his fingernails scraping a warning across Malfoy's knuckles.

Malfoy laughed. It was not an amused or pleasant sound. Harry felt a cold sweat appear on his forehead.

'Surely you know he's playing you? Oh, wait, I forget -- the Great Harry Potter is too fucking thick to see beyond the end of his nose.'

'Explain yourself or you will find my wand shoved in a part of your anatomy that you will not find comfortable,' warned Harry.

'Huh, I'm sure you've experience in these matters,' said Malfoy. His eyes were open again and glittering with malice. 'But Smythe is a slut. He'd go for anyone he thought he'd a chance of shagging. Let me tell you, Pansy was quite upset when she found that out.'

Harry opened his mouth to retort, but too much of what Malfoy had said rang true for him to formulate a suitably cutting response.

'You've been done,' said Malfoy. The contentment in his voice was like sandpaper to a raw wound.

Harry, scowling, tensed his leg and Malfoy's cackle turned into a gasp of pain.

'I don't know what you're acting so high and mighty about,' said Harry, 'Smythe almost destroyed you the other day and you have a hard-on now.'

'So do you.'

Harry realised it was true. 'This is a disaster,' he said dismally.

'We really need to do something about that before people come to dig us out.'

'What do you suggest?' snapped Harry. 'A little mutual wanking? You want me to give you a blow-job with the cat sitting on your head?'

'Actually, Potter, I was thinking more along the lines of concentrating on cold baths, chocolate cake, that sort of thing,' said Malfoy. His tone was almost prim.

'Oh.' Harry subsided and did as he was bid.

A few minutes of blessed silence later, Harry heard muted voices.

'Harry?'

'Susan?'

'We've come to get you out of here.'

'I think Malfoy's broken his leg.'

'I have,' Malfoy's indignant voice cut in.

'It's okay.' Susan's voice was hushed. 'We're going to get you inside and cleaned up, then Malfoy will fall down some stairs and we'll bring him to the hospital wing.'

'I'm going to be pushed down some stairs?' Malfoy complained. 'Haven't I suffered enough?'

'God, and you called me thick,' said Harry. 'That's what they'll tell Pomfrey, you pillock.'

Malfoy didn't deign to reply, so Harry looked up to see who 'we' consisted of. There was Ron, looking concerned, with Heinrich. Heinrich was looking at Susan, whose hair had come loose and was spiking out over her shoulders, with a face like a stunned fish.

Harry leaned on Ron's shoulder as Heinrich and Susan made an armchair for Malfoy. He sat into it with much griping and protests about catching something Hufflepuffian. He still had the Snitch, minus one wing, in his hand.

Harry wordlessly held up the other wing as they marched into the darkness. Ron shook his head.

'Come on,' he said, his voice brooking no arguments. 'Hermione said she'd patch you up. And then,' his voice became ominous, 'we're going to have a little talk.'

*~*

'Hand,' commanded Hermione. Harry held it out. Hermione ran the tip of her wand along the scratches, muttering something under her breath. The wand-tip glowed white and the cuts closed in on themselves.

'Cheers,' said Harry warily. To all intents and purposes, he was trapped on his bed, with Hermione cross-legged next to him, trussed up in a blue dressing gown and Ron leaning against one of the bedposts.

'Now,' began Ron, 'I reckon this has gone on long enough.'

'Look, I told you, there are reasons why I can't hang around with you in public any more,' Harry protested.

'It's not that,' said Hermione. 'Well, perhaps a little, but for now we'll respect your decision.' She shared a significant glance with Ron, who moved to sit beside her.

'No, it's about your -- relationship -- with Mark,' said Ron. Harry reminded himself, again, that Mark was actually Smythe's name. 'We're worried about you, mate.'

'He slept with Lavender not two months ago,' said Hermione bluntly. 'She was devastated afterwards because he dumped her like that.' She snapped her fingers to emphasise her point. 'From what I gather, he does that a lot. Boys and girls, he doesn't seem to mind.'

Ron opened his mouth to speak and perhaps offer even more evidence of Smythe's dastardly ways, but Harry beat him to it. 'I know,' he said.

Ron's mouth fell closed in surprise. Hermione frowned, looking exceedingly disapproving. 'And yet you still go out with him, knowing that?'

'No,' Harry hastened to add. 'I just found out recently. Tonight, in fact.' He pursed his lips. 'Malfoy took great pleasure in informing me of it.'

'Malfoy?' Ron's eyes bugged. 'He warned you off Smythe?'

'Not so much warned as --' Harry struggled to find the right words '-- gloated. He basically said Smythe was going to make a fool of me just like he has lots of other people. Like Pansy.'

'Pansy? Isn't she Malfoy's girlfriend?' Ron looked astonished.

'Is she?' Harry didn't like the way his stomach clenched at Ron's words. Perhaps he was getting indigestion or something.

Hermione's eyes were brimming with concern. She leaned forward to capture Harry's hand -- the hand that had so recently been trapped under Malfoy's warm body -- in her own. 'You are going to stop seeing him now, aren't you?'

'I don't know,' Harry said thoughtfully. Hermione's face dropped. 'Oh, I will stop going out with him. I just might -- get some revenge first, perhaps.'

'Why? What did he do wrong?' Ron was puce with embarrassment.

Harry flushed in his turn. 'He did snog Malfoy in front of me.'

'He did what?' Ron exploded.

Harry nodded. 'Oh, yeah. He's always going on about Malfoy -- probably fancies him too. Trying to make me jealous, I think.'

Hermione and Ron exchanged another look. 'That's worrying,' Hermione said quietly.

'Why? You just said he'd go for anything that moves. Malfoy is no exception.'

'No -- it's just. Well.' Harry had never heard Hermione so stuck for words before. He raised his eyebrows. 'Look, Lavender said he used to do the same thing to her! Tease her about Seamus,' she finished, sounding almost angry.

'So he uses the same tactics on everyone. What's the big deal?'

'The big deal, Harry, is that everyone knows Lavender was sweet on Seamus for ages,' said Ron. 'Smythe sparks people off the people they -- fancy.'

'Yes, but I don't fancy Malfoy!' spat Harry, while his stomach fizzled at the unnerving thought.

Ron and Hermione exchanged yet another look. Harry felt himself growing angry at this sudden closeness between the pair.

'If you don't,' Hermione said carefully, her expression that of someone combing a field for landmines but with the terrible feeling one is just under their foot, 'then why are you blushing?'

*~*

Draco lay despondently on the hard mattress of the hospital bed. He didn't even have a bloody screen to seclude himself from the commoners. Not that there were any riffraff around at the moment, but when the screaming first-years made an appearance - and they always did -- he'd have to endure looking at them as well as seeing them, which could prove painful. Even though being a Prefect had its perks, as he was now an authority figure and to be feared, the children were emboldened when they were in large groups. Just last week, one of them had had the audacity to ask him what Prefects did really.

After being dropped off at the hospital wing by Bones and Heinrich, who mumbled something vague about a staircase changing at just the wrong time and then buggered off, Draco had been forced to drink a Dreamless Sleep potion and, unsurprisingly, fallen into almost immediate dreamless sleep. Now it was morning and his leg was itching like mad, but since Madame Pomfrey had trussed him up in what looked like highly sophisticated bondage gear, he couldn't move without what felt like samurai daggers shooting up his leg from the knee. Some kind soul had thoughtfully placed his wand on a table not two metres away, but when he'd tried to grasp for it, he'd overbalanced and wrenched his leg out of position. It had been an immense effort not to black out from the pain.

'Just lie there,' Pomfrey ordered as she put him right, whilst fluffing his pillow in a maternal way. It felt a bit odd. 'If you don't move an inch, then you'll only have to spend two days in here, at the most. I want to make sure you don't have a concussion.'

'Two days?' Draco had squawked in indignation. 'When Potter had to re-grow his sodding bones, he was only here a night.'

'Harry Potter had to re-grow his bones?' Pomfrey asked quizzically, screwing up her lined face in an effort to remember.

'Yes,' Draco replied impatiently. 'Our second year, November, Slytherin versus Gryffindor match, a rogue Bludger broke his arm and Lockhart de-boned it.' Draco paused, licking his dry lips, and then added, 'Git', a little unsure as to whether he was referring to Potter or Lockhart.

'I'm not sure I remember,' Pomfrey had apologised, smiling blandly and patting Draco firmly on his -- broken! -- leg. 'But you see, Mr. Malfoy, that Potter boy has been to see me an awful lot.'

'Tell me about it,' Draco had ground out from between clenched teeth. Pomfrey smiled again, a little less politely, and then had bustled away on the pretence of going to check the bedpans in the next ward.

Draco didn't like hospitals or any variations thereof. Despite his conventionally 'sickly' appearance, he rarely got ill. When, a few years back, Narcissa developed a liking for prescription medication and had needed to fabricate excuses to go to see a Healer, she complained that he stayed healthy out of pure spite, which was more or less true. In fact, his last visit to the school hospital wing had been in third year - Christ, that was ages ago - and he'd stayed for a grand total of fifteen minutes. It had actually taken less than five minutes to patch him up - the rest of the time was spent persuading Pomfrey to give him a sling as well. It hadn't been showing off, exactly. He might've actually needed the sling, in case unforeseen after-effects began to take their toll on him.

Everything in the communal ward was polished and scrubbed to within an inch of its life. Draco wriggled uncomfortably as the harsh fibres of the bed scratched at his back. Clearly it didn't matter how cheap Pomfrey was when buying supplies -- as long as the blanket was clean, it was good enough for invalids. It gave off a funny smell too, the faintly antiseptic aroma of the detergents and healing potions. Draco's neck tingled ominously and he hoped that the bed wasn't going to give him a rash. He had enough spots to deal with as it was, he didn't need the back of his neck erupting in boils.

In an attempt to distract himself from his prickling neck and the dull throbs of his leg, Draco propped himself up on one wobbly elbow and gazed out the window, which was smeared with dust. They'd doused the entire room with enough soap to rinse the grease out of Snape's hair completely, but they'd left the windows untouched. Typical. Draco wiped the glass away with one finger and resumed his staring session, until a couple of moving figures caught his eye.

Astonishingly, two students appeared to have decided to brave the bitter, sub-zero climate of the grounds, and were having, of all things, what looked like a picnic next to the lake. It seemed that they didn't mind braving the frostbite and slow death through hypothermia that came with the territory. Draco peered closer at the couple, then choked on his spit. One of the would-be Artic explorers was Smythe. He was wearing a red and off yellow -- it was meant to pass for gold -- scarf, that he'd undoubtedly borrowed from Potter. Draco looked more closely at the second figure on the blanket. It couldn't be Potter, not unless he was bunking; only seventh-years were allowed grounds privileges in the middle of the day.

Smythe was sitting underneath the cedar tree with a slightly chubby - and very pretty, in a milkmaid-y sort of way - girl, who had dark auburn hair that reached down to her considerable chest. Draco couldn't for the life of him remember what house she was in, or what her name was. Perhaps she was that sort of girl; she was wearing a beige cardigan over her robes, after all. There was a substantial amount of books lying in the grass beside them, as well as a silver flask. Draco guessed that they were probably revising for NEWTs or simply reading. Ravenclaws tended to do that, read of their own volition. The girl with the auburn hair was talking animatedly and Smythe was shaking his head and smiling in that enigmatic way of his and the scene wouldn't have looked incongruous at all if it weren't for the fact that Smythe's hand was up her robes.

Draco blinked. Closer inspection confirmed that he wasn't just seeing things -- Smythe's right hand was clasping a hardback copy of Transfiguration in Modern Society and his left was currently massaging the cardigan girl's inner thigh. Cardigan Girl was doing a fantastic job of appearing unperturbed, but as Smythe's persistent hand rose ever higher, her mouth opened and closed several times, like a goldfish. Draco watched in consternation, his panting breath fogging the windowpane. The girl waved one of the hands that wasn't clutching the blanket in a death-grip towards the castle and said something, probably about unwanted spectators. Smythe grinned, leaned over to either whisper or put his tongue in her ear - and knowing Smythe, it was probably both - then withdrew his hand and started leafing through his book casually, as if nothing had happened. Red-cheeked, the girl did the same. Draco relaxed and sank back down on to his pillow. He wondered if Potter knew.

It was Potter's own bloody fault, getting mixed up with a character like Smythe. Smythe was clearly trouble and as mad as a hatter. Even though Draco had some doubts about Potter's sanity, especially recently, at least the boy didn't turn up out of the blue and lick your fucking neck. Or snog you in the middle of the road, when you were minding your own business, not antagonising anybody ... Draco shivered. At that moment, the door to the ward swung open, revealing someone he hadn't thought about for a surprisingly long time.

'Draco!' Pansy simpered, rushing to his side. 'Are you feeling all right? Does it hurt terribly?' As she neared him, a noxious mix of chemicals wafted up Draco's nostrils.

'What's that smell?' he choked.

'My scent,' Pansy beamed down at him. Her dark bob bounced as she talked. 'It smells of bluebells, right?'

'Right,' Draco agreed, breathing through his mouth. He glanced at the large clock hanging on the stone wall. It was nearly ten o'clock. 'Hey, are you cutting class just to see me?' Draco's lungs and nasal passages were on fire due to Pansy's new perfume, but he was touched nevertheless.

'Well, it was Charms.' Pansy made a disgusted face, and Draco recalled just how much Pansy detested Charms. Probably because she didn't have any. 'Also, I haven't had the chance to speak to you for positively ages, you've been so busy with Quidditch.'

'Mmm,' Draco said. Not only had he been busy with Quidditch, he'd been actively ignoring her for the past couple of weeks. Six years of their on-again, off-again, hey-I'm-not-doing-anything-at-the-moment-let's-fool-around relationship was beginning to make him think that life was less stressful when he wasn't playing suitor to Pansy's Queen Bee. The silence dragged on for a few seconds and Pansy perched on the side of the bed. Draco stared at the ceiling and coughed.

'Would you like to hear about what Daphne told me yesterday?' Pansy blurted out suddenly. Draco smiled, grateful to have something to fill the silence.

Pansy beamed at him, relieved, and started to talk about how Daphne was a 'cross-eyed slag' and wasn't it hilarious that she could never wear purple again? Draco had just settled comfortably into a nice, familiar rhythm of nodding and mumbling at regular intervals and Pansy's voice was beginning to become a soothing hum in the background, when the door opened again.

'Er. Hi there,' Potter said to Pansy, who stopped mid-prattle and eyed him warily. Draco glanced upwards. Potter was still wearing the remnants of eye make-up from the Quidditch match and it didn't look as if he had had a particularly restful night's sleep. Or a shower. Pansy didn't reply to the greeting and merely glared. Potter turned to Draco, who tried to look as dignified as possible, even though his leg sticking out was at a disturbingly large angle to his body.

'What are you doing here, Potter?' asked Draco, acid dripping from his voice.

'Don't you have somewhere else to be?' Pansy cut in, placing a protective hand on Draco's leg. Draco tried, unsuccessfully, not to wince. Potter looked quizzically at Pansy, who raised one of her over-plucked eyebrows in alarm.

'Parkinson, don't your Charms set have a test right now? I heard Flitwick say it to Binns.'

'So?'

'So don't you need to be there?'

'I was just leaving, actually.' Pansy scowled, blushing in embarrassment.

She turned to plant a cool kiss on Draco's forehead, then flounced out of the room imperiously, nose in the air. Since her head was tilted upwards, she banged her shin on a bedpost as she left, but she reached the door in one piece, limping, and banged it shut. All in all, it was a pretty impressive exit. Potter turned to Draco again in tired amusement, doing that thing with his lip again. Draco refrained from commenting.

'Look, Malfoy, I just wanted to see how you were. Since I'm partially responsible for the whole leg thing.'

'Well done for being so fucking noble,' Draco muttered. 'It was your fault entirely, you tosser. You fell on me -- and dragged me off my broom.'

'My broom,' corrected Potter.

'Whatever.' Draco scowled. 'Too bad it wasn't a windy night; the Whomping Willow could have demolished it once I was done.'

'You snapped a couple of twigs, actually,' Potter pointed out, looking irritable. Then again, that was his usual expression, except for when he started dragging his teeth across his bottom lip ... and he'd just started doing it again, right now ...

'Screw you, I'm not paying to repair it.'

'I wouldn't dream of asking,' retorted Potter. 'Wouldn't want you to spend all of what's left of Daddy's money.'

'Fuck off.'

'Make me,' Potter taunted. Draco laughed sourly and pointed at his bad leg in mock regret.

'Oh Potter, if only your minions knew that you bullied people who couldn't fight back.'

'Minions?' Potter repeated slowly. 'I don't have minions. I have friends, Malfoy. It's an unusual concept for you to grasp, I know.'

'You have friends? You mean the Puff? Or Granger and Weasley?' Draco sneered. He glanced at the window behind him pointedly. Potter's eyebrows furrowed, but he didn't follow Draco's gaze. 'And you have a boyfriend too, I suppose?'

'Look, I came to see how you were, and you're clearly still a snivelling bastard, so everything must be peachy.' Potter scowled, turning to leave. He almost had his hand on the doorknob, before Draco called out to him.

'Did you miss me, Potter?'

'What?' Potter had whipped round, yanking his had away from the metal doorknob as if it had scalded him.

'You skipped a class to come and check up on me,' Draco pointed out.

'I skipped our study period,' spat Potter, advancing on the bed.

'You could've come at break,' replied Draco, raising his eyebrows smugly. 'Unless, of course, being a Gryffindor, you just felt you had to be the bigger person and come as soon as possible.'

'You know, you're right.' Potter smiled nastily. 'I came here, just like Pansy, to fluff your pillow and kiss you better and hear you bitch on about how much your stupid leg hurts.' Potter strode over to the bed and punched the pillow beside Draco's head. Draco squirmed and tried to push Potter away without dislocating his kneecap. Potter still managed to yank Draco's head up by pulling his fringe, knock his chin against Draco's temple -- Draco thought Potter's lips might have brushed Draco's hair, but he couldn't be sure -- and retreat unscathed.

'You're really sick,' Draco huffed. 'Fucking fairy-boy perverted freak.'

'I'll take that as a compliment.' Potter grinned. 'How long are you going to be in here, anyway?'

'You care -- why?' asked Draco, rubbing at his damp forehead with the back of his hand.

'You have Defence tutoring, dickhead.'

'I'll miss it, then,' Draco said distractedly, now wiping the back of his hand on the sheets. 'Sorry.'

'In case it escaped your notice, you are crap,' replied Potter, leaning against the adjacent wall. 'You can't really afford to miss a class before the holidays.'

'I can afford to do whatever I fucking want,' Draco snarled. A little too loudly; Pomfrey hurried in through a side-door, looking harassed. Her eyebrows fused to her hairline once she saw Potter.

'Oh! Mr Potter, you shouldn't be in here,' she scolded, wiping her hands on the front of her robes. 'We were just talking about you,' she added, motioning towards Draco.

'Really?' Potter asked intrigued. He looked at Draco. 'About what in particular?'

'Your stupid boyfriend,' Draco muttered under his breath. 'He's outside trying to score with some girl.'

Potter looked disbelieving and unconcerned for a whole two seconds, then strolled with calculated slowness over to the window. Draco looked at his toes primly, and waggled them to see if it would hurt much.

'Well?' he asked, after a moment's breathless anticipation.

'They're reading, you tit,' Potter said in disgust, turning away. 'And Smythe -- Mark's not exactly the type to recite sonnets.'

'More the type to shove his dirty mitts up her skirt,' muttered Draco. 'Too bad - he's moved on to greener pastures after turning you into a flaming poof. Whatever will you do?'

'What did you just say?' Potter hissed.

Just then, the screaming first-years made an entrance. First was a squat girl with pigtails, yelling fit to bust, followed two others, who were clinging to each other and wailing. They also had pigtails, but rather than wearing them on their heads, as was customary, they seemed to have stuffed them into their pockets. What little hair was left on their heads was falling out and on to their shoulders at an alarming rate. Their school robes looked as if they'd been trimmed with the fur of some exotic and endangered animal, which, Draco conceded, with his hands over his ears, was not a bad look. The first girl was still bellowing as loud as she could. Ernie Macmillan stood in the doorframe, a crazed look of helplessness in his eyes.

'My dear Madame Pomfrey,' he shouted, above the girl's yells. 'Could you please - assist -'

One of the balding girls let go of her equally moulted friend, and punched the foghorn-voiced girl in the mouth. This quelled the yells, but the other girl, whose hairline had done eighty years' worth of receding, curled up into the foetal position and commenced shrieking.

'Mr Potter!' Pomfrey trilled pleasantly, making her way to the trio with the air of one who had handled much worse situations and not resorted to violence or suffered a nervous breakdown. 'Shoo now, Mr Malfoy needs his rest!' Potter looked unwilling to leave, despite the banshee-like wails of the first-year. He looked rather more willing to punch Draco's lights out.

'My dear - Pomfrey -' Ernie managed, panting. He had given up trying to shush the girls, and was now attempting to muffle the noise with a pillow. It wasn't working particularly well.

'Mr Macmillan, she'll suffocate!' Pomfrey admonished sharply, forcing the squirming girls on to separate beds. 'Mr Potter, kindly leave. Now.'

*~*

Draco placed his palms face-down on the duvet and pushed himself up into a sitting position, very carefully. With painstaking slowness, Draco shifted his bad leg sideways until it was sticking out over the side of the bed at a right angle to his body. That being successfully accomplished, he swung his other leg round to meet it. He bent his knees with the caution usually reserved for the use of those who smell distinctly of roast beef and still decide to pursue a career in magizoology and then placed his bare feet on the cold tile of the floor. The sensation of having red-hot skewers stuck into his leg below the knee was pleasantly absent. Either Madame Pomfrey had spooned liberal amounts of Novocain in the pumpkin juice she'd handed him earlier that evening, or his broken bone was fixed.

Easing himself off the side of the bed, Draco began to toddle awkwardly around the dark room. The days were getting shorter and the few lanterns on the walls did little to improve the general gloom, but he could at least see where he was putting his feet. His joints still felt a bit stiff and reluctant to move, as if they needed oiling, but the injury was definitely healed. Draco padded to the opposite wall and back, grinning to himself.

The sound of approaching footsteps just outside, however, sent him hobbling hurriedly back to his bed. When Pomfrey had removed his leg bindings, she'd promised to slip something much stronger than Novocain into his pumpkin juice if he attempted to exercise his bones before morning. Draco scrambled underneath the covers just as Potter poked his head around the door.

'Oh,' Draco panted, breathing heavily. 'It's you.'

Potter entered the room, clad in his school robes with his battered brown satchel slung over his back. He removed some familiar looking textbooks from his satchel and a crumpled piece of parchment with instructions scrawled on it in ink. He then dropped them unceremoniously at the foot of the bed. 'Here you go. Homework.'

'Goody, Potions!' exclaimed Draco in an excited voice. 'I'm touched, Potter. You shouldn't have.'

'I wanted to,' Potter began, and coughed unexpectedly. 'I wanted to make sure you didn't think you could copy off me when you came back to lessons. Somehow, I don't expect you to try and cheat off Parkinson, seeing as she cheats herself. But you love her anyway, don't you? Makes it easier, I'd imagine, dating your intellectual equal.'

'Pansy's a nightmare,' retorted Draco. 'She came and read to me earlier.' Potter looked as if he were about to comment on how uncharacteristically selfless this was. 'From her diary.'

'You're not tied up anymore,' Potter remarked, hiding something that might have been a smile. 'Can you walk around yet?'

In occasions when Draco wasn't concentrating fully, when he was, for example, staring at someone's mouth and the way their lips curved slightly upward when they were amused, his own mouth sometimes moved faster than his brain, with no real time for communication between the two.

'No,' it replied, startling his brain into a numbed silence. 'Still hurts like hell.'

Rather than countering this statement with a derisive comment, Potter bit his bottom lip, which became flushed with colour. Draco wondered briefly at the squeamishness of someone who himself was incredibly accident-prone, but soon realised what was going on. It was the infamous Gryffindor Guilt affecting Potter, so textbook that it deserved its own chapter in Hogwarts: a History. The idiot clearly still felt responsible -- which he was -- for breaking Draco's leg and was even now stressing over it. That was why he'd come to visit him twice in one day and why he'd brought him his homework, although that was a hidden apology Draco could have done without.

'You're just milking it for attention,' Potter ventured, sounding uncertain.

'Attention?' Draco sneered. 'I haven't received any grapes or bouquets yet, for your information. Pansy's the only one who came to see me - although I have been getting a lot of unwanted attention from you.'

'You're trying to tell me that after spending the whole day with Pomfrey, you're still in too much pain to lift your lazy arse out of bed?'

'Yeah,' Draco agreed, intent on guilt-tripping Potter for all he was worth. 'I can't move at all. It's probably more serious than she thought. I may have to be transferred to a real hospital.'

Potter did not seem to hear this. He was strolling closer to Draco, looking suspiciously pleased about something. He dipped a hand into the dark folds of his robes and withdrew it a few seconds later, bearing his wand.

'I guess that puts you at my mercy, then.' Potter grinned, baring his teeth.

'What're you doing?' Draco demanded, trying not to let the nervousness show in his voice. Potter loomed over him, his eyes shining brightly in the reflected torchlight.

'Nothing,' he replied innocently, then waved his wand. 'Petrificus Armus!'

Draco felt the muscles in his arms tense and snap to his sides rigidly. He tried to move them in terrified frustration, but couldn't. They were frozen in position. Potter hadn't bothered binding his legs, though, seeing as he was rendered immobile by his fictitious pain. If he wanted to, he could stretch his foot out and give Potter a good kick in the ...

'I'm just going to ask you a few questions.' Potter smiled, plonking himself down on the dresser. Draco knew that smile; he'd used it himself. It could mean any number of things, but 'Don't worry, I'm not going to do anything bad to you' definitely wasn't one of them.

'Won't answer any stupid questions,' said Draco, with all the eloquence of a pouting five year-old. Potter raised his eyebrows. 'And if you dare touch me I'll scream for Pomfrey.'

'Question One, Malfoy. Why are you so full of crap?'

'Fuck off,' Draco snarled in response.

'Make me,' Potter taunted. Draco said nothing, but the tendons in his neck tightened. 'I thought so,' Potter said, his voice soft, and then resumed a businesslike demeanour. 'Question Two, what spell would you use to slow down an assailant?'

Draco, who had been expecting something more along the lines of 'You have a fat head, don't you?', spluttered. 'I'm sorry?'

'It's called deceleration. Retardation. Slowing down a potential attacker,' Potter informed him. 'We practised this jinx not a bloody week ago.'

'It's the Intra ... Impa ... look, I don't care.'

'You will care when you fail your NEWT,' said Potter through gritted teeth. 'And I'll care next term when Belinda gets on my case about why you're still crap at Defence, so I'm going to make you care. It's the Impediment Jinx.'

'Good luck with making me care,' Draco huffed. 'All I care about is ...'

'Is?'

'Is getting you and your disgusting stink as far away from me as possible!'

'Question Three,' Potter interrupted, ignoring the insult. He paused and some indecipherable flicker of emotion passed over his face. 'You liked it when Smythe kissed you, didn't you.' It came out as a statement, not a question. Draco found it hard to believe that it was ever intended as such. There was a pause.

'You liked it even more,' Draco countered, feeling a cold thrill of satisfaction as he saw the dark blush creeping up Potter's cheeks. He licked his lips, which tasted as dry as two rustling sheets of parchment. 'You're sick, you know that?'

'I'm sick, am I?' Potter asked, lowering his head so that he was staring Draco in the eyes. Draco gazed back at him.

'If you got turned on by your boyfriend practically raping me in the middle of the road, then yeah, you pretty much are.'

'What about you?' Potter hissed. His face was about two centimetres away from Draco's own. Draco assumed this was some kind of Gryffindor intimidation technique, which, much as he hated to admit it, was working perfectly. Although this might be largely due to the fact that his arms were currently pinioned to his sides. 'You have a girlfriend and yet boys turn you on.'

'No, they don't,' whispered Draco, but he doubted that Potter actually heard or even registered the fact that he'd said something, because all of a sudden Potter had closed the two centimetre gap that lay between them.

The first thing Draco noticed about the change in position was Potter's hand. It was a little sweat-dampened. The reason Draco knew this was because Potter had dug his fingers into the crook of Draco's jaw, pressing on the bone almost to the point of pain. However, before Draco could fully register this and protest accordingly, Potter's mouth was tickling his, his lips barely touching Draco's but leaving fiery trails in their wake all the same.

Draco wished more than ever that he had the ability to move his arms, so that he could take hold of Potter's hands, or shove him away, or pull his hair, or something. Draco's heart was thudding violently, so fast that he was sure his whole chest was vibrating with the ferocity of it.

Draco had been halfway through his 'don't' when Potter moved, so his mouth was still hanging half open. Potter discovered this early on in the proceedings and used it to his advantage, flicking his tongue across Draco's exposed lower lip. Draco tensed, with the definite intention of jerking his head away from Potter's teasing mouth. However, somewhere along the neural pathways the message got re-routed and Draco found that, far from turning away, he was arching up towards Potter, opening his mouth more and even tilting his head, which helped when Potter slid his tongue past Draco's lips to meet his tongue --

The best thing to have done would be to pull his head away so he could do something less horrifying, like vomiting into Potter's lap. But Draco's mouth was doing that thing again, where it ran ahead without beforehand discussing the sanity of its decisions with his brain. Draco was kissing Potter back.

Draco couldn't move his shoulders to lean into the kiss and there was a dull ache at the back of his neck. Potter's glasses were digging uncomfortably into the bridge of his nose, but for some reason Draco was kissing Harry Potter back. Hard.

Potter withdrew, and stared at Draco for a few seconds, wearing a dazed expression. Then he wiped his mouth on his sleeve, rubbing his tongue against the fabric.

'Eugh,' Draco mumbled. He could taste Potter's saliva in his mouth. He tried to orchestrate a sentence that consisted of more than one syllable and failing miserably. He tried again. 'Absolutely disgusting.' Potter laughed weakly and picked up a box of tissues from where they had fallen to the floor.

'Think you might need these for later on?'

'Absolutely disgusting,' Draco repeated, spitting out the words. 'Get the hell away from me, would you?'

'I thought you'd never ask,' said Potter, standing up and re-adjusting his satchel. He turned and was halfway to the door before Draco remembered something.

'Wait!' called Draco, making Potter spin on his heel. 'Could you possibly lift the jinx, now that you're done molesting me?'

'Right, you'll need your hands free,' Potter smirked, waving his wand and releasing Draco's arms. They relaxed and hung limply at his sides. 'Sleep tight.' He was gone before Draco could return the obligatory 'Fuck you'.

Draco sat in bed, staring at the ceiling. His arms weren't frozen to his sides, but he still felt numb. If he thought for a second about what Potter had just done, about what he had just done, he might start screaming.

Draco lifted his hand and rubbed his mouth clean with the back of his hand. He pulled one of the tissues out of its box and scraped at his mouth with it. Then he picked up the tissue box and hurled it across the room.

It didn't help.

*~*

Christmas. It was almost Christmas.

Harry realised this with a queasy jolt, when he woke up one morning to find the windowpanes frosted with icicles in the shape of humorous vegetables.

Harry hadn't given much thought to how he would spend his first Christmas without Sirius. Even though he'd only known of Sirius for three years, it seemed much longer. It looked to be an impossible task to surmount the twisting in his gut when he divined just how alone he would be during this festive season.

His best friends, true to their promise, did not try to force contact on him. Every so often Ron would send him a nod down the Gryffindor table, or Hermione would pause by his desk and smile before hurrying to join Ron. However, he hadn't talked to them or had a proper conversation since their revelations regarding Smythe had come out two months before. Most people thought they had fallen out; Harry devoutly hoped that this news had filtered back to Voldemort.

Susan seemed to be conducting some kind of illicit affair with Heinrich Moon. That was, if discovering the two of them snogging in a broom cupboard comprised an affair. Harry would like to have called it a momentary aberration of sense, but then again Susan's last boyfriend had been Justin Finch-Fletchley. She was now Beater for the Hufflepuffs.

As for Smythe, it had been a toss-up between Harry retaining his dignity and walking away from Smythe without a fight, or confronting him in the most humiliating way possible. As the latter option bore the risk of mortification for Harry as well, he'd gone for the former. It might even have been the more courageous one; it was certainly the nobler. Harry didn't really care. His method had been to blank Smythe; to walk away when he approached.

It was clear that Hermione's, Ron's and even -- loath as Harry was to admit it -- Malfoy's estimations of Smythe's character had been correct. For about a week Harry was the recipient of numerous wounded looks and elegantly-worded notes protesting Smythe's innocence. He had ceased pursuing Harry after ten days and last Harry heard, he had shacked up with at least three other people in the meantime. With people who didn't make a fuss about infidelity and were prepared to do the dirty with him, Harry imagined.

Harry still intended to wreck his revenge on Smythe somehow, but as time went on it seemed ever more petty and childish to do so. His scar had started hurting again and every time it did, there was a report in the Prophet concerning another disappearance or unexplained attack on Muggles.

Harry paused at the door to the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom. Inside, he knew, was festooned with fairies -- Belinda had a considerable personal collection -- and mistletoe. Belinda seemed to think it was amusing when people bumped into each other underneath it and either fumbled their lips against each other's cheeks or dashed away squawking. Harry couldn't quell the thought that she was perhaps an indoctrinate of pop sociology or, failing that, a very cruel person.

There was only a few days to go before they broke up for Christmas; the register of students staying at Hogwarts for the holidays had been passed around the day before. It seemed evenly split; some people yearned for the safety of their family homes, others preferred the certainty of Dumbledore's protection.

The register had gone to Hermione and Ron before Harry. There had been a G.P. marked beside their names. Harry had put down Hogwarts. He didn't think he could face returning to Grimmauld Place; not ever, maybe, but certainly not with the memory of Sirius tunelessly singing carols permeating every brick of the building.

Malfoy was standing in the centre of the room, flicking his wand at the bouquets of mistletoe that drooped from every conceivable crevice. As Harry watched, one of them burst into flame. A second later Malfoy let out a hiss of irritation as flakes of ash settled on his hair and shoulders.

'And people say I don't think things through,' remarked Harry, striding over to the nearest bunch of threatening white-berried stalks and pointing his wand at it. He thought for a moment and then muttered one of the more basic Transfiguration spells. For some reason he ended up with a conch shell, but at least it was better than mistletoe.

'Because shells are so much more efficient than burning things, of course,' said Malfoy.

'At least you've mastered the Incendus.' Harry dropped his books on to a nearby desk and looked about for somewhere convenient to dispose of the shell.

'Give me that.' Malfoy snatched it out of his hand and held it to his ear. 'I can't hear the sea!'

'Why would you?' Harry was impatient. 'It used to be a shrub, for crying out loud!'

'I don't think mistletoe grows --' Malfoy began, but Harry cut him off before Harry's large ignorance of the complexities of Herbology could be revealed.

'Anyway.' Harry glared at Malfoy for good measure. 'I think we should practice some more jinxes tonight, but when you go home you need to find someone to practise on, your wristwork is abysmal --'

Malfoy had started smirking. 'I'm sure there's a reason why your wristwork is so impeccable, eh, Potter? You missing Smythe terribly?'

At the start, Harry had exploded when Malfoy taunted him about his failed relationship. Of course it had only encouraged Malfoy to continue in the same vein -- and a very long vein it was too -- and by the time Harry became conscious that he never should have supplied Malfoy with such a fruitful opening, the damage was done.

'Yeah,' sighed Harry. There was nothing to be gained in teasing Malfoy these days; that botched kiss had made things incredibly awkward between them. Not only did they harbour mutual loathing for one another, but also Harry had liked kissing him far more than he cared to admit. He presumed Malfoy had merely thought it was vile -- but it was a kiss. The most intimate thing people could do, even more so than sex because that was only a need; a bodily function. However, no one had to kiss.

Coming to terms with fancying Malfoy -- a little bit, only, mind -- made things distressing and boring and nerve-wracking, most of all because Harry knew there wasn't going to be a repeat performance of that interlude in the hospital wing -- and a good thing too.

Malfoy seemed to hesitate even longer before shooting out retorts, but maybe that was just Harry's imagination.

'Your Body Bind leaves a lot to be desired,' said Harry, 'and you need to aim when you cast a Stunner, I keep telling you, it's no use hitting walls and grass ninety percent of the time --'

'I'm not going home for Christmas,' said Malfoy unexpectedly. 'So I expect I'll have to keep practising on you.' His eyes shone with what Harry took to be undisguised malice.

'Oh, is that so? How d'you know I'm not going home for Christmas?' Harry snapped.

Malfoy shrugged. 'I checked the register.'

'Oh.' Harry gave this due consideration. 'Why aren't you going home?'

'None of your business.'

Harry rolled his eyes and pushed his sleeves up. He shot Malfoy a suspicious look, but Malfoy was concentrating on incinerating another bunch of mistletoe, a small frown line between his brows.

'I told my mother that I need to study,' added Malfoy.

Harry yawned. 'That'll be almost true, anyway. If you count giving me bruises in more places that I can find as 'study'.'

'Now that's what I call kinky.'

A voice detached itself from the shadows as Harry and Malfoy whirled around in shock. Smythe approached them. For some reason, he was chewing on his bottom lip.

'Harry?' His voice was uncertain. 'May I talk to you?'

'You already are,' Harry pointed out. Malfoy sniggered and Smythe turned narrowed, bloodshot eyes on him.

'Well, if it isn't the pretty boy. Moved in on my turf yet, have you?'

Malfoy looked revolted. Harry's heart flip-flopped. 'I am not your turf, Smythe. I am not your anything. What do you want to talk about?'

Smythe's gaze slid from Harry to Malfoy and back again. Half his mouth quirked upwards, although his long hair obfuscated the expression in his eyes.

'I just wanted to give you a Christmas present,' he said, pulling a slim white box out of his pocket. 'It was meant to be for sharing, but --'

There was a question in his voice.

'Perhaps you should give it to someone you can share with,' suggested Harry, his voice steely.

'Right.' There was a sigh in Smythe's voice. 'I thought you were worth one last try.'

'I am?' Harry was surprised, too surprised to even notice Malfoy spluttering in the background.

'Of course.' Smythe stepped forward and touched his thumb to the corner of Harry's mouth.

Harry thought, through the muzzy fog that was masquerading as his brain, that Malfoy might be having an asthma attack.

'Cheers,' managed Harry. Before he could do anything to prevent it, Smythe's mouth had captured his own and he was kissing Harry with fevered urgency.

'Smythe --' he began, when Smythe at last broke away. Smythe, panting lightly, pointed upwards. Harry looked and saw a large glistening bunch of mistletoe right above his head.

Harry was pretty sure it hadn't been there before.

Smythe placed the box on the desk beside Harry's books. 'Remember, to deactivate it you just have to want to,' he said and slipped out of the door.

'Are you going to open that?' Malfoy's voice carried heavy overtones of accusation, but Harry wasn't quite sure why.

'Of course,' he said. 'Otherwise what is the term 'recklessly foolhardy' for?'

He shuffled the lid off and looked inside. What looked like a greeting-card-factory's-worth of glitter was nestling on an oyster-silk lining.

'Do you know what this is?' he asked, holding it out so that there was a desk between Malfoy and him.

'Nope.' Malfoy peered closer, inhaled some and promptly sneezed.

They were engulfed in all-embracing darkness.

*~*

'Okay, Malfoy, stop messing about now.'

'Me? You're the idiotic Gryffindor in this equation, remember?'

'Okay, let's be sensible about this. Do you have your wand?'

'Yes.'

'Me too. So let's cast a light spell and see where we are.'

'I am not doing anything you tell me to do.'

Harry felt the short fraying tether on his patience slipping from his sweaty grasp. 'Fine. I'll do a light spell and you can do whatever you like and it may or may not include a light spell, all right? You git.'

He hadn't said the last part quietly enough because Malfoy informed him, 'If it weren't so dark I'd punch you.'

Harry ignored him. 'Lumos!' Nothing happened; his wand remained cold in his palm. He shook it and tried again. 'Lumos!' A blaze of light failed to materialise.

'Great. We're having some kind of magical power failure,' groaned Harry. 'Can wands suddenly stop working?'

'Of course. When the wizard is dead.'

'Do you think we're dead?'

'God, I hope not. Stuck with you for all eternity? Hell would have nothing on it.'

Harry sighed gustily and became aware that they weren't in total darkness, after all. A few points of light shimmered near the ceiling. It had to be a ceiling, because Harry could feel floorboards under his palms and they weren't a popular feature in the great outdoors.

'What did Smythe say? To stop this we just have to want to? Come on, then.'

'You think I haven't wanted to leave since we got here, Potter, you great fool?'

Harry looked down at his wand. It wouldn't take much of an effort to stab Malfoy to death with it and of course, there was the added benefit of not having to develop enough darkness in his soul to cast a Killing Curse.

'Not if I get you first,' said Malfoy. Harry looked up in surprise.

'What do you mean?'

'Stabbing me to death with your wand. Not if I get you first.'

'I wasn't -- how did you know?'

'Call it intuition.' There was a rustle of robes as Malfoy got to his feet. Harry shivered, deciding that a few of Malfoy's burning mistletoe bunches wouldn't go astray right about now.

'We're still in Hogwarts.'

'How do you know?' Harry got up and felt his way across the walls to where Malfoy appeared to be craning his neck upwards.

'I can see a little bit of the sky and the constellations are the same.'

'Well, that's a relief. I suppose we should try looking for a door.'

'If we had a broomstick we could just fly up to the window,' mused Malfoy.

'Yeah -- but we don't.'

Harry could feel Malfoy's withering glare burning through him, even in the tiny illumination that the dots of light far above provided. 'Why did you kiss me? In the hospital?'

Harry was stunned by the question. 'I suppose -- I suppose it seemed like a good idea at the time.'

'I recall I haven't got you back for that,' said Malfoy. He was closer now; Harry could feel his breath against his neck. His hand reached up and grabbed Harry's collar, pulling his face down. The action made his robes slide down his left arm, but Harry didn't have time to notice the loss because Malfoy's fingers replaced it, playing a concerto against Harry's exposed collarbone. Harry was about to protest that Malfoy would break Harry's neck with all this yanking when his mouth brushed inexpertly against Harry's own and Harry forgot about everything else entirely.

Malfoy kissed as if it was revenge -- which for him, it probably was. His teeth dragged at Harry's lower lip and his hands were almost pinching the skin of Harry's neck, digging into the hollows as if he were trying to get a hold of Harry's very bones. Harry wasn't about to stand for that; he shoved with all his strength and Malfoy overbalanced. They went down in a tangle of limbs and a sequence of affronted 'Ow!'s.

'What'd you go and do that for?' complained Malfoy. His hands pulled at the cloth that had somehow become intimately acquainted with his face. Harry couldn't tell where his legs began and Malfoy's ended, but he did know that his legs liked this state of affairs very much indeed.

'Shut up,' Harry said, clambering over Malfoy's body and grabbing the hand that was still brushing the hair out his eyes. Malfoy's pulse jumped under his fingers and his skin was roasting hot. Harry liked it and he wanted to taste it, so he did, tracing patterns on Malfoy's skinny wrist with his tongue.

'Right, so, you've proved Smythe correct but would you care to employ your talents elsewhere?' Malfoy's voice was petulant, but he hadn't attempted to shift Harry's weight off his chest and his other hand was convulsing on Harry's knee. 'My mouth would be favourite.'

Harry abandoned Malfoy's wrist, giving it one last lick that made Malfoy bite down on a sigh. Harry wriggled so that they were laying chest to chest, ignoring the jolts of sensation that this induced, and laid his cheek against Malfoy's.

'You're heavy,' complained Malfoy. Harry pressed down harder and Malfoy shut up, lifting his damp wrist to his mouth to bite down on it.

'Are we quits yet?' asked Harry, propping himself up on his elbows and lifting his face a few inches from Malfoy's.

Malfoy's lips were wet and he kept licking them; at last, Harry could see why that habit could be so disconcerting. Not waiting for Malfoy to reply, he dragged his mouth along Malfoy's cheekbone, licking the folded skin just beside his eye.

'This is us, Potter.' Malfoy's whisper was malevolent. 'We'll never be quits. Never.'

'Good.' The word ended in a moan, which Harry realised had come from him. He rubbed his cheek against Malfoy's, indulging himself in the feeling of skin on skin. That was, until Malfoy grabbed the front of his robes and pulled him down into a savage kiss, jabbing the same cheek that had been caressing his own with his pointed nose. When he pushed open Harry's lips with his tongue, Harry was so surprised he let Malfoy roll on top of him.

Malfoy was clumsy and had no technique to speak of and Harry didn't ever want him to stop.

After a while, they both forgot where they were. For a few precious seconds, they forgot who they were, too.

*~*

Draco leaned against the desk, holding the rustling pages of the Prophet tightly before him. The huge jet-black letters swam before his eyes, performed the backstroke, then assembled back into perfect formation and glared out at him with all the heartlessness of bold type. They even seemed to be quivering in malevolence; it was only when Draco concentrated on this troubling fact that he realized it was due to his hands. They were shaking like mad. He folded the paper in two neatly, then four. He slid it precisely into his leather bag and sat down on his hands to stop them trembling. Draco gripped the worn, stable wood of the desk tightly. Splinters dug into the soft skin beneath his nails.

That Hufflepuff boy he'd just walked past on his way to the Defence classroom had given him a funny look, he was sure of it. It had been in the second corridor, where Peeves, perverse botanist that he was, had somehow managed to fashion all the holly and ivy into obscene shapes. The boy had rounded a corner, stopped in his tracks, and looked at Draco in a funny way before continuing, a little more briskly. Draco wondered what would have happened if that boy had been Matthew. What would his face have looked like -- shocked, disbelieving, horrified -- hate-filled?

The headline echoed hollowly through Draco's mind. 'The universe is having me on,' Draco thought. 'This is an extremely misguided joke, this is a prank of marvellous proportions ... Somebody, somewhere, is taking the mickey out of me.'

Draco licked his lips in agitation. It was slightly more comforting to think this was all at his expense. Though he didn't particularly appreciate the brand of humour, Draco smiled to himself. Then he tried laughing. The laugh sounded so alien and strange, as if it belonged to some psychologically defunct, non-human creature, that he soon stopped. His smile probably looked off as well. It felt like a superhuman effort to tug at the muscles in his cheeks and hold them in place to help it maintain its shape.

Potter pushed open the door, exactly two minutes late. He hadn't bothered to brush his dark hair. He yawned amiably and nodded at Draco when he saw him sitting on the desk. He clearly didn't know. Yet. Draco wondered if Potter would even have turned up if he'd known about it.

'Wands out,' Potter announced, in the middle of his second extravagant yawn. Draco drew his wand dumbly, as Potter kicked the door shut and turned to face him. 'Christ, I love saying that - makes me almost sound like an authority figure.'

Draco didn't say anything. He merely smiled. It was all rather funny, really. Potter was such a distraction, with his stupid jokes and his messy hair and his perpetually annoying presence. He might even have been able to distract Draco from urgent thoughts of the Prophet article, but unfortunately, the news in the Prophet was to do with him. Everything in Draco's life had to do with Harry Potter. It was rather funny, really. Ironic.

'Why are you smiling in that weird way?' Potter asked, frowning slightly, as he strode over to the store cupboard to find some pillows. Draco would usually have delivered some cutting remark about basic hygiene or the importance of hairbrushes by this time, but he was uncharacteristically silent. 'And why aren't you talking? Not that I'm complaining, you understand.'

'I don't know,' Draco replied, grinning lopsidedly. He was suddenly struck by an inexorable thought. In one quick movement, he raised his wand and pointed it at Potter, who was carrying a large pile of blue and yellow cushions. 'Stupefy!'

Potter's mouth opened slightly, he swayed, letting the garish pillows fall unceremoniously and then keeled over, cracking his head sickeningly on the stone floor. He lay there in a crumpled heap, not moving. Draco's fixed smile twitched out of place. He realised that he was still sitting on his left hand, to stop it trembling. Draco slid off the desk went to stand over Potter. His hands hung limply at his sides. It would be so easy just to...

Draco's mouth twitched again; he crouched and lowered his wand over Potter's spectacles. 'Ennervate.'

Potter gasped instantly, making Draco jump backwards in undignified alarm, then choked on his air and rolled over, groaning curses loudly, on to one of the pillows which had not impeded his fall in any way whatsoever. Draco waited patiently as Potter used his elbows to lever himself up to a sitting position and then stared at him incredulously.

'I mastered the art of Stunning,' Draco said. Potter snorted from his seat on the floor.

'Gee,' he said irritably, using a word Draco had never heard anyone speak aloud before- and with good reason, he now decided, as it made you sound like a twat - 'why the hell didn't you just tell me that, instead of showing me?'

'I don't know,' Draco answered. He shook his head, realising something was obscuring his vision. It turned out to be a lock of his own white-blond hair. He was due for another haircut soon. Draco grinned to himself, although this arbitrary fact was hardly amusing.

'You don't know,' Potter muttered, standing up, and feeling the back of his head gingerly. "I'm glad you're in a good mood, at least." He pressed a sore spot at the back of his head, wincing, and withdrew his fingers.

'So. What are we doing today?' Draco asked after a pause, tucking stray hair behind his ear. He didn't think he could handle this, having Potter instruct him on jinxes and hexes and proper wand work and how to defend himself against the forces of evil. Potter glanced at the back of his hand, which had a smudged note written over the knuckles.

'I think Belinda said we were to move slightly ahead of the syllabus,' Potter replied. 'So now we should focus mainly on -'

'I don't want to do the syllabus,' Draco interrupted, stepping closer to Potter, invading his personal space, but not touching him, never quite touching him. Potter exhaled heavily, sighing.

'Malfoy, piss off. You're supposed to use this time to be learning.'

'So teach me,' Draco suggested innocently, sliding his hands around Potter's waist and pressing his mouth awkwardly to Potter's, desperate for some sort of release. It was fine for the first couple of seconds; Draco did manage to lose himself briefly. Potter was making half-hearted attempts to extricate Draco's hands from his sides, even though he was kissing Draco back furiously.

However, the headline was projected on the back of Draco's eyelids, lasering out into the soothing blackness, and he couldn't bloody ignore it. He couldn't concentrate on the sensation of Potter's warm hands clasping his narrow wrists, not quite shoving them away, or that of Potter's chapped lips bruising his own. Draco opened his eyes involuntarily, saw the awkward up-closeness of it all, and wrenched his mouth free, panting.

'Leave me alone,' Draco muttered, pulling away. The room spun. 'What the hell am I doing here?'

'Supposedly having a lesson,' Potter retorted. 'And what do you mean, I should leave you alone?'

'Fucking crazy,' Draco murmured, at a loss as to whom he was referring. He grabbed his bag from the desk where he'd left it. 'I need to leave. I have a thing.'

'You have a D in Defence, that's what you have.' Potter scowled, put out. 'Can we resume the lesson as normal now? First you try to attack me, then you try and shag me --'

'No,' Draco said. 'Look -'

The door opened again.

*~*

Harry turned in annoyance. It was far from unusual to have Malfoy in a strop and acting with about as much mystery as one generally got from a moody git, but all the same, a distraction was the last thing Harry needed. Malfoy would use the opportunity to slip away before things could be resolved and that would mean other, more pleasant occupations would have to be postponed.

Professor McGonagall was standing in the doorway, looking as angry as Harry had ever seen her. However, her glare was directed towards Malfoy, who -- Harry noted in amazement -- looked pale and apprehensive.

McGonagall was holding a crumpled page of newsprint in her hand.

'Harry,' she said, her voice sounding constricted, 'come with me. The headmaster sent me to find you.'

'What do you mean?' said Harry. 'We only just got here! We haven't even started on any -- lessons.'

McGonagall's eyes widened. 'You are still tutoring Mr Malfoy, after what has happened?'

Harry blushed. What had happened was quite the incentive to keep 'tutoring' Malfoy, but Harry didn't care to share that fact with McGonagall, of all people. 'Well, yes,' he muttered, 'I am.'

'Potter, you should go,' said Malfoy. His voice sounded strained and as if it were coming from a great distance away. When Harry jerked his head around to Malfoy, his eyes face a distant look.

'NO!' Harry burst out, stumbling across to Malfoy. He reached out, but Malfoy stepped back, shoving something into Harry's chest as he did so.

It was another newspaper.

Harry stared at Malfoy in complete incomprehension, but Malfoy ignored him. Grabbing up his books, he darted for the door. Harry made to follow him, but found his way blocked by McGonagall.

When she spoke, her voice was kind. 'I think you should read that, Harry.'

Harry scrabbled to unfold the paper. He blinked once or twice at the huge headline, some part of his brain refusing to take it in.

'DEATH EATERS ATTACK MUGGLE TOWN OF LITTLE WHINGING: ENTIRE AREA DESTROYED'

Harry raced through the rest of the article, his heart jumping so feverishly he wondered if there was a skipping rope inside his chest. Random phrases popped out of the text and lodged in his brain, burrowing into the darkest corners.

... escaped convicts ...

... many thousands of Muggles dead ...

... victims subjected to Cruciatus ...

... Potter's relations, the Dursley family, decapitated ...

... Lucius Malfoy ...

'I'm going to be sick,' said Harry. He proceeded to do so, all over McGonagall's shoes. Her face was not exactly delighted as she Vanished the vomit, but her hands were gentle as they helped Harry into a chair and gripped his shoulder for support.

'I'm very sorry, Harry,' said McGonagall.

'So am I,' said Harry, and he did mean it, in more ways than he could ever have imagined.

*~*

Voldemort was ruthless, but Harry would never have guessed that he would target people whom Harry despised. No one was safe, Harry realised; neither his greatest friends nor his greatest enemies.

Not even his lovers.

Harry, at the beginning of the year, hadn't factored the last group into his equations, simply because he never visualised having any. Despite Smythe's philandering ways, he hadn't deserved to be put in the danger he was now in.

As for Malfoy ... Harry couldn't even begin to express his feelings in that particular case.

McGonagall walked Harry back to Gryffindor Tower without speaking. Harry was grateful for that; there was nothing she could have said that would make Harry feel better and much that would have made Harry feel indescribably worse.

He'd hated the Dursleys and now they were dead. The fact that he wasn't glad; that he was, in fact, horrified and sick and on the verge of tears; that confused him. The guilt was over-whelming, a physical presence that was almost tangible.

'I will check on you tomorrow,' said McGonagall, at last, when they were standing outside the Fat Lady's portrait. 'I believe Professor Dumbledore wishes to speak with you now.'

'Okay,' said Harry. He rubbed his hands on his arms, trying not to think about the horrible hollow feeling in his stomach, and most of all not about Malfoy.

Harry said, 'Fitzweezer,' and climbed through the portrait hole. He was startled to hear his name being called when he got into the common room, because everyone in his year had gone home for Christmas, and that voice sounded remarkably like --

'Oh, Harry,' said Hermione, running over to him and engulfing in him in a mammoth hug. Harry spat out a mouthful of her hair and looked over her shoulder. Ron was just behind her, looking uncomfortable. Seamus, Dean and Neville were rising from their seats on the sofa and Lavender and Parvati were in the process of dismantling a subdued game of cards.

'What -- what are all of you doing here?' Harry was bewildered.

Hermione didn't elucidate, only buried her face in Harry's neck. Ron stared at his feet and the others looked everywhere but at Harry.

'I owled your friends to return once the news came to my attention, shortly after dawn this morning,' said Dumbledore, emerging from the shadows under one of the staircases. 'I felt, in the light of this recent tragedy, that you would need their help and support.'

He advanced on Harry; Hermione seemed to take her cue from that, for she retreated to the shelter of Ron's arm around her shoulders. By the time Dumbledore came to stand before Harry, both Hermione and Ron were perched on the arm of the sofa.

'I am sure that you are both shocked and conflicted by these atrocities,' said Dumbledore. Harry nodded in mute acquiescence. 'It is natural to feel like this on hearing of the death of someone you disliked acutely. Such was the case for Professor Snape, on learning of the murder of your parents.'

Harry started; he had not considered it like that. He wished he hadn't now; he had no desire to have anything more in common with Snape than he already had.

'This is why I believed it desirable to recall your classmates from their celebrations,' continued Dumbledore. Something steely crept into his expression. 'I am well aware that these past few months have been ... troubled ones for you. However, when it comes down to it, you need people around you whom you can trust; those whose, shall we say, associations, have never been in doubt?'

Harry stared at Dumbledore, whose voice dropped even lower.

'I think, Harry, that Mr Malfoy has had sufficient tutelage in Defence Against the Dark Arts. Do you not agree?'

Harry felt something inside of him twist and break, a little. He swallowed and looked up into Dumbledore's hooded, inscrutable eyes.

'Yes, sir,' agreed Harry.

*~*

'It is nice to have you back, Harry,' sighed Hermione. It was the third or forth time she'd said it since the night of the Dursleys' murders. Harry was grateful that his friends still liked him after the ostracism and general bad behaviour he'd subjected them to, but the repetition was starting to grate on his nerves.

'It's nice to be back,' said Harry, but without much real conviction. Ron sent him a sharp look, but Harry feigned a deep interest in the buckle of his satchel, which had worked loose.

It was the second Defence Against the Dark Arts class of the new term. Hermione was all in a tizzy as Belinda was returning the results of an exam she had set on the first class back. It had been a test of everything they'd learned since September. Hermione had had colour-coded notes, as usual, which put Harry off. He preferred studying by the avoidance method -- avoiding it until it was impossible to continue doing so. All the same, he thought he'd done all right -- but if he didn't it wasn't going to be a massive calamity, as it would be for Hermione.

Harry was still sitting next to Malfoy in this class; there was no way of escaping it. Belinda was one of those teachers who expected students to keep to the same seating plan. As she had a high tolerance for chatting in class, it was going to be doubly difficult to sit beside Malfoy and not talk to him ...

Not remember the way his mouth felt.

Not think about the sound he made when Harry pressed him up against a desk to kiss him breathless.

Not consider that his father had murdered the last family Harry had left; a murder so brutal, the details had gained a Ministry seal of secrecy for fifty years, as they were considered too disturbing to be released to the general public

Not want him anyway.

Not live with the knowledge of what that made Harry and how it could never be, anyway ... and how that

hurt. A senseless, useless grief that had nothing to do with death.

'Well done, Harry,' chirped Belinda, placing Harry's marked paper on his desk. It was adorned with a large, circular O inscribed in sparkly pink ink. Harry summoned up a smile for her. It proved an amazingly difficult task, equivalent to climbing Mount Everest nude and using a chocolate pickaxe.

Belinda's bright voice saying, 'You too, Draco,' caught Harry's attention and, before he could stop himself, his eyes had flickered over to Malfoy's paper. For a second, Malfoy made as if to cover it with a hand, but slowly -- trembling slightly -- he drew it back, very obviously so that Harry could see it.

Draco Malfoy

Overall Mark: O

.

~FIN~