All's Fair

Chapter Sixteen

Draco scowled at Pansy and Blaise as the three Slytherins made their way down to the paddock for Care of Magical Creatures. His two friends were giggling like schoolgirls.

Well, admittedly, one of them was a schoolgirl, but she was also a Slytherin, and, in Draco's opinion, the two were mutually exclusive. Slytherins did not giggle, blush or... well, generally embarrass anyone except those who were not fortunate enough to be in such an esteemed House.

Pansy and Blaise were most assuredly not conforming to the aforementioned rules, (Draco had chosen to ignore his own previous discrepancies, because he was a Malfoy, and this meant that he could pick and choose what rules he had to follow). "Will you two please pull yourselves together?" he finally hissed, casting concerned glances around for any sniggering year mates.

"Oh shush, Draco. We're plotting," chided Pansy.

"You're always plotting! Just do it less annoyingly!"

"Fine, fine," said Blaise, waving his arms about as if it would help him dispel the situation. "Draco, give us a break. It will all become clear in a few minutes. Well worth the plotting, I assure you."

"It had better be," Draco huffed. "It doesn't involve me, does it?"

"Hah!" snorted Pansy. "No, this is just for us."

"Well, not exactly just for us. But you know the theory."

Draco raised an eyebrow, and then looked around the paddock to see which of his year mates had arrived. To make a change, the Gryffindors had actually arrived at the lesson on time. Draco was immediately put on his guard. He did, however, seek out Harry's gaze, and gave him a small smile when he thought that nobody was looking.

"Aww," cooed Pansy, who had been looking.

"Shut up."

Blaise, looking decidedly dodgy as he sidled over to the Gryffindors, headed straight for Hermione. Draco looked questioningly at Pansy, who smirked but said nothing, and after a moment the two friends followed.

"Hermione, you're looking positively radiant today."

The girl in question turned her head to fix the speaker with a probing stare. "What are you up to, Blaise?" she asked suspiciously.

Blaise feigned horror and clasped a hand to his heart. "Fair lady, you wound me!" he cried. "All I wanted was to say good day to the most beautiful maiden in the school."

"Maiden," Ron sniggered. "If that's what you want to think, Zabini, you are welcome to do so. But I wouldn't count on it being quite true."

As Hermione blushed crimson, Blaise's eyebrows shot a few centimetres up his forehead.

"Look, this is getting stupid," interrupted Pansy as Hermione began to try to defend herself.

"I was going to-"

"You were taking too long," she snapped. Pansy and Blaise shared a look, and then quickly took out their wands.

"Wha-?" asked Ron, fumbling in his pocket for his own weapon.

There was a tense moment, and then everyone seemed to speak at once. Jets of something flew out of Blaise and Pansy's wands. Hermione yelped and muttered a spell, and a shield grew in front of her. Ron's input was a puff of purple smoke that caused him to trip over his own feet and go flying forward. Harry cried out in shock and fell backwards onto the soft grass beneath their feet.

Everything was still.

"What," Draco hissed, "The. Fuck. Is. This?"

Pansy blinked at him. "What is what, dear?"

Draco growled and pushed Ron away from him. There was a jangling sound as the chain that had appeared between them moved.

"Ah," said Pansy slowly. "I see."

"Pansy, I don't know what this thing is, but if it is not off by the time I count to three you will soon be an ex-witch," he snarled. "One. Two. Three..."

Harry, who had jumped up a second earlier, quickly nipped in front of Draco and snatched the wand from his hand.

"Not that I wouldn't love to see Pansy hexed into oblivion, but can we return to the task in hand?" He looked at Draco's wrist. "Or rather, on hand?"

Harry waited expectantly for someone to laugh. Nobody did.

"Right. I see. Um. So what do we do now?" He looked at Hermione hopefully.

Hermione, however, was looking at Ron. In the silence that had fallen as everyone waited for her to speak, it was possible to hear a high pitched keening sound coming from the redhead.

"Ron," said Hermione gently, "now I know that you're attached to Malfoy, but-"

This was evidently the wrong thing to say.

Ron panicked.

"I'm attached to Malfoy!" he yelled, shaking his chained wrist frantically. "Malfoy! Near me! On a chain! Attached! Help, murder! Murder!"

"Shut up!" yelled Draco.

"It's started already!" screamed Ron.

Hermione stepped forward and slapped Ron, and he promptly shut up. She looked at the chain, tapped it with her wand, and muttered, "Finite Incantatem."

Nothing happened.

She tried it again. And then a variety of unlocking spells, plus a few other ones that nobody else recognised. Still nothing.

A frightening look appeared in Hermione's eyes. "Ron, Malfoy, you might want to close your eyes."

Ron immediately went death white and squeezed his eyes shut.

Draco went a pale pink, and opened his mouth to ask what on earth she was planning, but was cut short when the girl murmured a spell and a jet of fire shot out of the end of her wand.

"Clever," commented Harry. "You've turned your wand into a blowtorch."

Ron whimpered. Draco closed his eyes.

Hermione directed the flame at the middle of the chain, which began to glow red. The glow slowly spread up the chain, until Draco snapped, "I don't know what you're doing, Granger, but it's incinerating my hand. Stop it!"

Hermione, however, did not stop. She did not even appear to hear. Harry took pity on Ron and Draco, and cast a cooling charm on the cuffs around their wrists.

Just as Blaise had mustered the courage to open his mouth, and so was only a few minutes away from suggesting that Hermione stopped, there was a clinking noise and the chain snapped in half. Ron raised his arm to look at the remaining links still attached to it. As he moved, the metal disintegrated, and the redhead gave a sigh of relief.

"Well," said Pansy happily. "That wasn't so bad."

Draco and Ron turned to give her matching death glares, which only resulted in the blond bursting into uncontrollable giggles.

"Sadistic cow," Draco muttered to himself, but Pansy chose to ignore him.

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"I cannot believe that you flew up here," gasped Harry.

Draco sniggered. "I'm just full of surprises. Aren't you happy to see me?" He grinned down at Harry, who was currently pinned under him on his bed in the Gryffindor boys' dormitory. Harry had never seen him coming.

"I've never been a huge fan of surprises," said Harry. "They never turn out to be very nice."

Draco gasped in shock. "Don't you like me?"

Harry grinned, then wrapped him arms around Draco and rolled over so that he was straddling him. "Oh, I certainly like you," he whispered huskily, rolling his hips. Draco made a small noise in the back of his throat and pulled Harry's head down to kiss him hungrily, sliding one hand under his shirt and up his back.

Harry shivered when he felt Draco's cool fingers on his back, and began to kiss a line along his jaw and down his neck, fumbling with the buttons on his shirt. He swirled his tongue in the hollow of the other boy's collarbone, enjoying the way that it made him gasp and arch his back, and felt something hard pressing into his groin.

"Harry..."

"Shh," Harry whispered, trailing his tongue down Draco's stomach. He was playing with the button on the blond's trousers when there was a loud hammering on the door.

"Harry, what the hell are you doing in there? Why is the door locked?"

"Bloody Weasel," Draco muttered as Harry rolled off him, and although he said nothing, Harry was tempted to agree.

"Harry!" Ron yelled, "Open the door! You're not in there with someone are-"

There was silence from the other side of the door as Ron thought for a moment. Then:

"Malfoy!" Ron howled, "Get out of my dorm and stop molesting my best friend!"

Draco, who had just finished buttoning up his shirt again and was in the process of getting up off the bed, collapsed back onto it, wracked with silent laughter.

"If you're not out in ten seconds, Malfoy," Ron warned, "I will come in and cause pain. And I'm being very lenient here."

"He always ruins our fun," pouted Draco. "I suppose you're going to make me leave again, aren't you?"

"Eight..."

"Sorry," said Harry, looking very apologetic.

"Six... five..."

Draco stalked to the window and picked up his broom. "Bye," he muttered.

"See you tomorrow?"

"Two..."

"Wouldn't miss it."

Draco grinned, waited for Ron to mutter the unlocking spell and burst red-faced into the room, then gave him a jaunty wave and flew out of the window.

Once Ron had finished swearing profusely at the space where Draco had previously been standing, he turned to look at his best friend. He took in the state of his clothes, his mussed up hair, and the rumpled [bed-covers] behind him.

"Harry..." Ron started, turning faintly green.

"Yes?" Harry replied innocently.

Ron sighed. "Never mind. I'm going to go to bed."

"Sure you don't want to know-"

"No! I'm going to bed."

Harry laughed. "Goodnight, Ron."

"'Night."

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"Draco," smirked Pansy. "Back so late?"

The boy in question scowled at her. "Not as late as I could have been."

Pansy's eyebrows shot up. "Really? Do tell."

"There is nothing to tell," he growled. "Your soon to be pet Weasel made sure of that."

"Made sure of what?" asked Blaise, approaching his friends.

"Ron interrupted Draco when he was trying to get cosy with Potter," Pansy giggled.

Blaise snorted with laughter and collapsed into an armchair by the fire. "Ron? You say his name almost... nicely."

"Don't let it fool you," said Pansy happily. "Nice isn't really the word. The word is-"

"I don't want to know!" yelled Draco. "Please, please, spare me!"

"Well, since you begged. You don't do that often."

"Bet Potter knows how to make him beg," commented Blaise, who then ducked when Draco hurled a cushion at him.

"I hate the way that you two twist every little thing I say."

"But if we didn't, then wouldn't we be boring?" Pansy said sweetly.

"If you don't want people who answer back, then Crabbe and Goyle are over there," Blaise added, gesturing towards the corner. The two hulks were currently trying to play chess without any pawns or kings.

"Point taken. But it doesn't mean I like it."

"Draco, you very rarely like anything."

"Nothing wrong with having high standards," Draco sniffed.

"You just came back from an almost-tryst with Harry Potter. A Gryffindor. With messy hair. And you say you have high standards."

"He's, uh," Draco searched for a word. He dismissed 'cute', 'hot', 'nice' and 'Harry' in favour of, "a celebrity."

"So is Lockhart."

"Pansy, if I remember correctly, you were quite taken with Lockhart in second year," Blaise said, grinning.

"Yeah, well, that was the year I was also 'quite taken' with you, Draco and Snape. At least my taste has improved."

Draco howled with laughter. "Weasel!" he choked.

"Well, if the Dark Lord hadn't killed himself, then he would have been a war hero," said Pansy, trying to defend herself.

"Rubbish excuse."

"Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer."

"I asked a question?"

Pansy thought for a moment. "You must have. I sort of lost track of where we were, though."

"So did I," admitted Draco. "Blaise?"

"You just went from one idiotic point to the next. I stopped listening."

Draco sat and looked into the fire for a minute or two. It was exceptionally boring. He excused himself not long afterwards and retired to bed.