Sometimes the Dragon Wins

CHAPTER 11 - ON THE RUN

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It was Draco who revived her with a bowl of gazpacho.

Hermione fluttered her eyelashes and, considering the logistics of the situation, kept her eyes firmly closed.

Lord Voldemort.

What the...

Why was...

How did...

She had to act quickly. "Bathroom. Water," she moaned.

"I'll take her," she heard Draco say. An intruding hand slid under her butt and curled over her shoulder. She was hoisted into the air a la Gone With the Wind.

"Pansy?" Narcissa Malfoy's voice sounded faint and disapproving. "Sorry my Lord. The moment must have been too great for her, my Lord."

She kept her eyes firmly closed until she felt those same interfering hands release her onto something soft. She looked into the impassive bullets that were Draco's eyes.

"So much for that fabled Gryffindor bravery, Granger."

She was lying on a rather large bed.

"Why are his eyes blue?" she muttered. "They're supposed to be red. Harry said they were red."

It was the first thing that had come into her mind, and it was a stupid thing.

"He eats the root of some plant to make it red. Only for public appearances, really," Draco said boredly.

"He wants to marry Pansy?"

"Sorry," he shrugged guilelessly. "I should have mentioned that. Good riddance to both of them."

"But right now I'm Pansy," Hermione reminded him.

"Shit happens," Draco sighed.

"Oh, grow a conscience!" Hermione snapped.

"I wasn't expecting it either," Draco protested. "If I'd known I'd have poisoned his food. I'm the Dragon. I'm supposed to kill him."

"Poison is a cowardly murder device," Hermione informed him primly.

"Murder is a cowardly device in general," Draco shrugged. He brightened. "Hey, perhaps you could kill him for me. In bed."

"I'm not even going to reply to that."

"You weren't so full of morals a few hours ago..."

"Malfoy, I might be a confused teenager but I'm not going to sleep with Lord Voldemort. I'm not that fucked up."

"I'm confused too," he admitted. "Adolescence is hell."

There was a depressingly companionable silence.

"You'd better go and flirt with the Lord of Darkness," Draco said finally.

Hermione sighed dismally.

"It's all right Granger. I'll see that he doesn't try anything," he said gruffly. "I doubt he'll want you in that horrible outfit anyway. Now come on."

She followed him out of the room, feeling rather numb and surprisingly calm. Well, she'd stripped for giants and had kissed Draco Malfoy. Why not dine with the Master of Evil?

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About half an hour later, they were standing in front of a stylishly industrialised building proclaiming the name "Nightshift" in garish pink.

Harry didn't feel too nervous. He'd been to a club once last summer with Hermione when she'd still been his girlfriend. That had been a warm experience, alright. And it hadn't just been the dancing and the beer and the heated interior of the place... But that was over now.

He wasn't much of a dancer really, but he'd found that he quite liked dancing on his own - letting the music take over and make his body respond spastically.

Pansy, who had never even heard house music, never mind mingled with Muggles, looked reasonably calm as well, but she'd confided that she was nervous. She'd been horrifically surprised to see that their wind-mussed hair fit in perfectly with some of the other people in the queue's artfully moussed hairdos.

And a grey school shirt hitched up slightly made an adorable miniskirt. A few buttons undone on the blouse and Pansy looked completely slutty and utterly desirable.

The bouncer at the front was glaring down at them. "You with the fucked-up hair!" he barked.

Pansy looked at Harry helplessly. "Is he going to hurt us?"

"I think he means we can go in," Harry said.

"Oh," she moved beside him as if she'd never doubted that, only to be stopped by a pretty girl in the queue.

"Och, you hair looks fabulous!" the girl squealed in what could only be termed as a Cockney accent.

"What styling gel did you use?"

"Wind," Pansy said, glaring.

"Is that a new product?" the girl demanded.

"I've heard of it. It's new in the Pantene range," her friend said knowledgeably.

Harry steered Pansy up to the front of the queue.

The bouncer glared at them hatefully. "Your hair looks good!" he snapped. "Go in!"

"My hair does not look good," Pansy snarled. Harry dragged her inside, mentally reminding himself to give her a course in Muggle-isms.

But once they were inside, he forgot all about it.

Smoke, pumping house music, flashing disco lights splashing red and green and blue shadows across spastically twisting figures, glittering silver balls distributing flashes of white light across the room, the smell of sweat and too much heat and too much smoke and too much alcohol and adrenaline, mingled with the sweet hint of marijuana... bliss.

Pansy stared at the set-up suspiciously for a moment.

"Let's have a drink," Harry yelled to her above the music.

The flashing light accentuated her impossibly clefted cheekbones, full mouth and narrowed blue eyes. Suddenly she was more than just an attractive raccoon.

She was beautiful.

She scowled up at him. "What are those things?" she demanded.

She was pointing at a cigarette dangling from the fingers of a dancing boy's hand, flickering feebly against the assault of the lights.

He explained the concept of cigarettes to her. (Wizards only smoked pipes.) And then he bought her a drink with the money Lord Voldemort had given him to bribe the Slytherins with.

'Dirty money deserves to be spent on destructive things,' Harry thought defiantly as he bought a packet of Gauloises "Super Legeres" and another Heineken for each of them.

Pansy liked beer. And she'd taken to cigarettes like a squirrel takes to nuts, or a miser to money. She was already inhaling, and it had only been her third cigarette.

He had a feeling that she always did everything she liked to the hilt.

'Lucky Draco,' he thought, feeling the unfamiliar tinge of jealousy for a moment as she coughed after a too-deep pull of the cigarette, attempting to cover it up and becoming noticeably purple from the effort in the process.

He bought another Heineken for them and then another.

And then Pansy decided she wanted to dance.

Harry had forgotten that neither of them had had anything to eat in ages.

Inevitably they were both quite drunk.

As her body pressed against his, moving away to wisp like a frail branch in the wind before him, arms flailing, eyes closed in euphoric abandon, he let go. He let the vibrating bass take over his body. He let the blood in him fizzle with the thought of her.

'This is not Draco Malfoy's girlfriend,' he thought. 'This is my own high-cheekboned Venus. This is my own pulsing body. This is my own throbbing heart.'

And after that, it seemed quite natural to lean in, put his hands on her waist and pull her towards him. She moved against him, allowing him to feel her thighs shuddering rhythmically before putting her arms around his neck.

She smiled up at him.

It even felt quite natural to lean down and kiss her.

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"So," Draco said.

"Hmm," Hermione agreed.

He swung the doors open to the Long Dining Room.

Hermione managed to put a guilty, disgraced expression on her face. She'd washed off some of the bothersome make-up in the bathroom as Draco, lounging in the bathtub, gave her a quick overview on Pansy's relationship with Voldemort.

Voldemort, it seemed, had been looking for a wife - for that typical Dark Lord reason: to produce an heir.

And Pansy's father, Harold, had been looking for a way to integrate himself into Voldemort's exclusive little inner-circle.

Little one-year old Pansy had undergone a series of tests to prove her pureblood tendencies and her fertility, and Voldemort had found himself a wife. To be delivered to him, post-haste, on her eighteenth birthday. Of course, thanks to Harry, he'd evaporated - presumed dead - so the deal had been off.

But now, according to the beautiful lounge lizard in the bath, negotiations were underway again.

Pansy was blissfully unaware of this. Draco, however, had been instructed to "make her a woman" so he'd been aware of the betrothal to Voldemort.

He had not made her a woman, in spite of garbled promises to do so. This had come as something of a revelation of Hermione, who'd assumed that Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson went at it like rabbits in the Slytherin dungeons.

The beautiful, heavy sounds of Mahler's music propelled her feet into walking and her mind into waking.

Lord Voldemort turned around and smiled anxiously. Narcissa Malfoy glowered - mostly at Draco.

Hermione took her seat next to The Spawn of Evil.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

Hermione studiously avoided meeting his eyes, and focused on his nose, which was unfortunately, a rather attractive feature on his rather attractive face.

"The moment was too great, my lord," Hermione intoned in a breathy voice.

"And she hasn't had a bite to eat in 24 hours," Draco added rationally.

Voldemort shrugged his rather attractive, broad shoulders. (Damn it!)

"That certainly explains it then," he said pleasantly.

Hermione fixedly stared at a sliver of salmon.

"Eat!" he ordered heartily. "We wouldn't want you to lose those lovely child-bearing hips!"

Hermione choked on her sip of spiced wine.

Voldemort flexed his long fingers nervously. "As always, the food is wonderful, Narcissa."

Narcissa smiled tightly.

He-Who-Shall-Not-Shut-Up was not discouraged by the rigid silence. "Nice weather, eh?"

More silence.

Voldemort smiled over at Draco. "So, why haven't you scallywags been in school?" he inquired, in a very lovable voice. "I've missed you in Herbology."

Hermione busied herself with the salmon.

Draco, Crabbe, Goyle and William all suffered from simultaneous coughing fits.

The gods had not been kind enough to temporarily deafen Narcissa Malfoy. "You haven't been in school?" she asked. It was the sort of voice that said, "Busted! Grounded! Screwed!" a voice inherent to all mothers. And Narcissa did the voice so well.

Another coughing fit ensued.

Voldemort cringed apologetically.

"I SAID," Narcissa hissed, "Have you not been in school?"

The gods had deemed it fit to temporarily deafen Draco, who was calmly nibbling at a crabstick, as if the most furious thunderstorm in the world was not hissing and blowing around his head.

And then Hermione saw it. Narcissa's beautiful face and body shook, as if invisible armies of cockroaches were marching over her spinal cord, and the blue of her irises darkened to black. Her nose elongated. Fury, always there, but hidden, took its place at the forefront of her personality. Narcissa Malfoy turned into a Veela.

When her voice came, it sounded like crashes of lightning.

"You lied to me!" she shrieked.

Voldemort, looking distinctly uncomfortable, started folding his napkins into interesting origami-figures.

William, having plugged his fingers into his ears, furiously hummed the tune of "I Will Survive."

Crabbe and Goyle, self-declared metalheads, were concentrating on the classical music playing somewhere behind them.

Hermione couldn't help but staring in fascination though.

Draco looked mildly irritated as Narcissa Malfoy, looking like a cross between a pale Barbie-doll and an eagle literally swooped towards him - a cruel hawk about to pounce on a stubborn tortoise.

"You are grounded!" Narcissa yelled. "Your grades are going down!"

As Narcissa the Veela raged, Draco's protruding lower lip became all the more obvious.

"Can I just finish my meal?" he asked at some point.

Hermione marvelled at his coolness.

Accusation upon accusation upon shout upon screech hailed down onto him.

And then her arm swung backwards.

Draco's wand appeared suddenly, where it had been nestling in the recesses of his robes. "Impedimenta!" he said irritably.

Narcissa froze in mid-swing.

Draco got up and strolled over towards his motionless mother. "Can you hear me mum?" he asked, looking beautifully tortured and confused.

There was a flicker of recognition in Narcissa's eyes.

"I'm really sorry," Draco said. "I know you love me, and that you have issues, but I'm not going to take it if you humiliate me in front of my friends. And I was really hungry and you were making the meal unpleasant."

Draco sighed and turned to glower over at Voldemort, who was still attempting to look unobtrusive. "And you!" he snapped. "I'll deal with you later! Petrificus totalus!"

He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Remained-Seating fell off his chair and slumped onto the floor.

Draco twirled his wand between his forefinger a few times, grimly surveying the situation.

"Right," he said determinedly. "Stuff those prophecy books. We're leaving. From now on, I'm doing this my way."

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"What did you do with your Firebolt?" Pansy asked suddenly.

Harry looked down at her. She was staring at the shore rather distantly. It was hardly a romantic scenario - with early morning hot dog peddlers yelling "Lovely and hot! For you and your lassie, only five pounds!" A couple of older men were attempting to initiate a conversation with a few girls (horrible chat-up lines like: "Your father's penis must have been a chilli because you're hot, baby" were abundant), and were being cruelly ignored for all their inventiveness. It all reeked of seasalt and hormones and recycled beer and too much testosterone.

But still, Pansy was holding his hand.

He half suspected that she would have preferred to be sleeping, but she was trying.

She was trying, and he was doubting.

Pansy didn't want hot dogs, she wanted caviar. She wanted to sleep under silk sheets and have servants bring her expensive wizarding cocktails or intricately prepared breakfasts. She didn't really know what to make of Harry Potter. She'd been bought up to know what to make with people like Draco Malfoy, who could certainly buy her caviar.

But Harry couldn't.

She gripped his hand tightly, as if trying to banish her thoughts.

Harry was also desperately trying, but much as he wanted to, the entire night's events felt disturbing. After the first snog it had become a bit of a blur. A few more Heinekens, and a dare to down a few tots of Stroh rum (Harry's throat had been on fire), another packet of cigarettes, more dancing and then drunken swaying and then, again, kissing until the club closed.

Actually, the club hadn't so much closed as become an orgy. There'd been too many bodies pressed against the walls. It had taken them a while to realise what was in fact happening, but upon closer investigation and subsequent insane giggling, they'd run outside.

Harry had never had sex and had never actually thought that people would be blatant enough to do it against the walls of a public place. The thought made his ears flame, although it had a certain appeal to his hormonal teenage mind. They'd stood outside, gasping for breath and trying not to laugh too conspicuously, until an uncomfortable silence had overcome the laughter.

There didn't seem to be enough alcohol in the world to justify a relationship between him and Pansy Parkinson. It was simply wrong.

"I, err, transfigured it."

"Your Firebolt? Into what?" she smiled mischievously.

Harry yawned - elaborately. "Err, a cigarette. Hope I haven't smoked it."

She sighed, a little sadly. "We'd better go and sleep a bit."

"Do you think the Slytherins are at Malfoy's place?"

"I don't know," Pansy said, irritably. "Harry, I mean... Pot..."

"Don't say Potter," he snapped. "Don't call me that. That's not fair."

She looked sad. "We can't do this, you know."

She was still holding his hand.

"I know," he said. "This is too complicated."

"It wasn't complicated at all," she said, smiling slightly. "That's what the best thing was."

He smiled down at her. "No, it was very easy, wasn't it? In fact it still seems easy."

"Only when you don't think," she said gloomily, turning her face away. Her features molded into a determined expression. "Come on, we should go back."

Harry held onto her hand desperately as she started walking up to the beach.

"Fancy a swim?" he asked.

"It's February."

"I thought you were braver than that," he teased.

"I'm a Slytherin Potter. We don't do bravery."

He let the "Potter" go.

"Bollocks."

She sounded incredulous. "You think I'm brave?"

Harry looked over towards her. Her feminine features were fierce in the moonlight; she seemed to be glaring at the horizon.

"Yes I do," he said honestly.

Her expression softened slightly.

"In fact, I think Slytherins in general are brave." He continued in spite of her amused snort. "But you don't call it bravery. You call it rebellion. You stand against the whole world, laughing, defying everyone."

"Yes," Pansy admitted. "That is true. It's fun, too."

"You're the only students except for the Gryffindors who disobey the rules."

"What makes us so different then, Harry?" she asked harshly. "Is it because we're all dark wizards and you're all wonderful?"

"No," he said softly. "We just believe different things."

She was silent for a while as they walked. And then she removed her hand from his.

"You really are a good person, Harry Potter," she whispered sadly, tucking her hand into her coat pocket.

"Why aren't you holding my hand then?" he asked, surprised at his own frankness.

"Don't ask that," she growled.

More silent trudging.

"Anyway, you have a girlfriend, and I have a boyfriend."

Harry remained silent. If she was bright, and he had the surprising notion that perhaps she was, she would know that both their relationships was very much a farce. What he had with Cho was merely a way to pass the time, and to try and avoid thinking about Hermione, who had been acting terribly strange the last few months. He still loved Hermione somewhat - he loved her a hell of a lot more than Cho - but being with Hermione had been too intense. If he'd lost her, or some evil minion had seen her and decided to kidnap her, or do something as unoriginal as that, well... he would have been rather shattered. And he honestly didn't feel much for Cho. She was a nice enough girl, and she was terribly pretty, but she didn't have many inner qualities that Harry connected with.

Certainly, she was reckless and spontaneous, and she could be counted on to have fun with, but if he wanted to just sit quietly and talk, she became irritable. There was nothing lasting there.

And Pansy and Draco. That was another ridiculous cover up. Most of the school had assumed that Draco was gay, and that he was paying Pansy to go out with him as a cover. Admittedly, the rumourmongers had been girls who'd been scorned by Hogwarts' most beautiful blonde. Personally, Harry didn't believe that his enemy was gay. He couldn't have cared less, but it was hard not to notice the slightly pleased smirk Malfoy's face contained when he noticed crowds of girls watching him enter a room.

Anyway, whatever he was, he was not in love with Pansy.

"I love Draco," she said suddenly.

Harry breathed in slowly. Who was she kidding?

She was staring at the white pebbles on the beach as studiously as he was. "I do," she said, determinedly. "He's very handsome."

"That's a good relationship basis," Harry said. He cringed. He hadn't meant it to come out quite as sarcastically as it had.

If only they could stop walking and try and understand what mind games the other one was playing.

Pansy wasn't being honest. That was a certainty.

Harry took a deep breath. He wasn't used to being forceful or bossy, but being gentle and quiet wasn't going to work on Pansy. He'd seen enough soap operas at the Dursleys' home to know that women like this one would want him to take the lead.

"Wait," he said, with as much authority as he could muster.

"We're here anyway," she said.

Harry didn't even look. "Pansy, I'm not asking you to marry me."

Her mouth curved into a slight smile. "I'm glad. You have no idea how much trouble that would be."

Harry glared at her, exasperated at his own inability with words. "I just want to kiss you again, all right," he said.

She smiled slowly and cupped his neck with her hand. "Just this once then."

Her eyes were sparkling, but it might have been tears.

He leaned in towards her and their lips met.

It could have been wonderful. It could have been a collision of two worlds, with pink clouds and bluebirds twittering and all that. It could have rivalled the old movies.

Could have.

"What the hell?"

Could have, if it hadn't been for the sudden appearance of five figures on the beach. Harry broke away and stared at the strangers in confusion. A convenient moonbeam illuminated a flash of platinum hair, and the speakers became apparent. Draco Malfoy, Hermione, William Thornton, Crabbe, and Goyle had apparated onto the beach.

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AUTHOR'S NOTES: All right, I have never been to Brighton and I have no idea what it's really like. I know there's a beach and I know that denizens of the UK like to spend their holidays on its pebbled beaches. (I might be wrong about that, of course.) I'm almost positive that there is no club named "Nightshift in Brighton. There is a "Nightshift" in South Africa though, very cool place, much cooler than I wrote it, with eighties, alternative and house floors and flame throwers and dancers and all kinds of fabulous things. I was too lazy to look up clubs in Brighton, sorry. The next chapter will focus on Ginny and the other neglected characters; Voldemort might grace us with an appearance, and Draco burns. Thank you for all your reviews, you make me terribly happy.