The Quidditch Pitch

Chapter 5: The Quidditch Pitch

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Draco had no intention of developing an acquaintance with Harry Potter or Ron Weasley. Unfortunately, they had other ideas.

Starting the day after Halloween, the pair of them started to act very strangely around Draco. They said hello to him in the mornings, and bid him goodnight while they dressed for bed. If there was an empty seat at Draco’s side, one of them might occupy it, and they would colonize any table where he elected to sit by himself. Once, they had even picked up their plates and moved down the Gryffindor table so as to disrupt his solitude with their noisy chewing and insipid chatter. This had been bad enough from Granger, but with all three of them triangulating, Draco scarcely had a moment to himself.

Granted, he could conceive of worse things. One morning, he forgot his satchel in the Transfiguration classroom, and he’d hardly had time to groan and spin on his heel before Saint Potter came strolling up the corridor with two satchels slung over his back.

“Forgot something, Malfoy?” he called smugly.

Or once, when he’d cut himself slicing foxglove in Potions: Draco hissed and dropped his knife, catching Weasley’s attention. “Ooh, ouch,” said Weasley mildly. “You know what to do with that, yeah?”

“No,” Draco snapped, cradling his finger to his chest. At home, minor scrapes and bruises were healed by Dobby, or if it was more serious, his mother.

“You got to tie it up. Pressure makes the bleeding stop. Bill taught me. Here,” and he drew the grayest, rattiest old handkerchief Draco had ever seen from his pocket. He shook it aggressively at Draco. “Well, wrap it, don’t just sit there.”

And after class, he had seen Draco to the hospital wing, even though he’d complained all the while that the visit was unnecessary and Draco was being a baby.

Granger found this behavior far less mystifying than Draco. “They’re trying to be friendly,” she said, with a lightness in her tone that implied she was laughing at him. “You’re so sour that you can’t tell when people are trying to be nice.”

“I don’t need their charity.”

“It’s not charity, it’s friendship. People doing things for each other. You might try doing something nice for one of them, sometime, you know.”

He bristled. “I don’t owe them anything. I didn’t ask them to be nice to me.”

“All right, then, don’t,” she said. “But I don’t think that you’re being fair to them. Harry and Ron are good people, and they grow on you when you get to know them.”

He hauled open the door of the library and held it for her. “Like a species of fungus,” he deadpanned, and followed her inside.

Midterm exams finished. Results were posted outside the classrooms, papering an ivory swathe down the doorframe, a Doric declaration of academic achievement. Marks generally ran in order of highest to lowest, although the kinder professors went alphabetically. Flitwick, for instance, refused to give a grade lower than 50%, and offered a ten-point jump for any student who came in to review their mistakes after the fact. Snape not only sorted by score, but divided the list into categories of ‘Acceptable,’ ‘Needs Improvement,’ and ‘Unsatisfactory.’ Draco led the pack of ‘Acceptables,’ with a midterm score of 102%, a perfect O. He’d found an error in one of the questions and corrected it, presuming it was a trick question. Granger trailed him with a score of 101%, since she’d been the only other student to find the error, but her correction had less detail than his.

Neville Longbottom had burrowed to the bottom of the ‘Unsatisfactory’ group. This was disappointing to him and Draco both, since he had been laboring weekly over Longbottom’s cauldron. It did not matter. Longbottom was immune to instruction, incentive, and punishment. He had singed off his own eyebrows twice in a week and proved prolific in the art of turning cauldrons to molten slop. Draco had started wearing fireproof gloves to their lessons.

“I don’t understand it,” he spat, pacing the floor.

Snape sat behind his desk, grading papers. He allowed Draco to vent his frustrations in his office on the understanding that he was under no obligation to listen to them.

“He’s like an automaton. I explain something, he says he understands, and then he doesn’t do it. I ask him, again, if he understands it, and he says yes. And then he doesn’t. Do. It. I tell him, Longbottom, if you don’t do this, I’m going to club you upside the head with this ladle, do you understand, and he says yes, I understand, and then he doesn’t do it.”

“Welcome to teaching,” Snape said flatly. He circled something and struck it out.

“It’s maddening! And now he’s got me worried about his midterm marks, like I don’t have enough to concern myself with.”

He had received another letter from his mother. She had been beside herself at the story of the mountain troll, which he may or may not have edited to emphasize his role in the battle, and he had to write a long letter convincing her not to withdraw him from Hogwarts and bring him home. Dobby had made a mugwump roast for Samhain, which Draco had been aggrieved to miss, and she was thinking about turning one part of the East Wing into a music hall. And, she added, she was going to start taking visitors at the house again — for the first time in ten years.

Draco threw himself into a chair. “Don’t know why he’s not in Hufflepuff, anyway,” he said grumpily. “He’s got all the spine of a cuttlefish. ‘O-o-o-oh, I’m s-s-s-sorry, M-M-M-M-Malfoy!’ He’s less of a Gryffindor than I am.”

Snape said, “The hat does not necessarily Sort one where they would be happiest.”

“You’re telling me. Sir.”

The office fell quiet save for the scratch of Snape’s quill. The sound of water moving through old pipes groaned overhead. Somewhere, water was dripping onto stone, and the candlelight flickered eerily over various jars full of green embalming fluid, illuminating the shadowy objects that floated within.

Draco eyed Snape’s knee. Peering out from beneath the shield of his cloak, he caught a glimpse of red-spotted white gauze.

“Is your leg all right, professor?”

Snape moved his leg out of sight, hiding it beneath his cloak. “Perfectly.”

He frowned. He didn’t see any reason that Snape should lie to him, unless the answer was particularly embarrassing. He persisted, “Has Madam Pomfrey taken care of it? Or do you have your own supply of dittany?”

“Your concern is touching, but I do not require it.”

Draco slouched in his chair. Tapping his feet, he cast another bored look around the room. “I heard the Slytherin commons are in the dungeons,” he said. “I wouldn’t know, I’ve never been. Is that because your classroom’s down here, or is that a coincidence? The Potions Master can’t always be Head of Slytherin.”

“Draco.”

“Yes, professor.”

Snape dropped his quill in the inkwell with a brisk movement. “Tell me what you think of Harry Potter.”

Since the question came out of nowhere, Draco had to take a moment to think. “Normal,” he decided, after a moment. “Quiet. Bit stubborn. Could do to keep his nose out of other people’s business. Granger likes him, but with her there’s really no accounting for taste.”

“Do you find him arrogant?”

Draco frowned. “Not really,” he admitted.

“Self-serving? Spoiled? Cruel?”

“Possible, unlikely, and no.”

“Do you like him?”

“Merlin, no,” Draco retorted. “He’s a shabby piece of half-blood riffraff in need of a haircut.”

This answer had a curious effect on his professor. Snape put his knuckle to his mouth and gazed into the middle distance, lost in thought.

“Er… professor?”

“You are dismissed,” he said suddenly.

Draco stumbled to his feet. “Did I say something wrong, sir?”

“Dismissed,” repeated Snape, with a curious intensity in his voice, and when he looked at Draco, his gaze passed cleanly through him, as if he didn’t see him at all. Then, without another word, he stalked out the door, leaving Draco alone in the dungeon.

---

The first Quidditch match happened on a bright, cold morning, under a sun-washed blue sky and over a field still iced thickly with frost. Draco intended to spend the day reading, but Lee Jordan, the resident bastion of house spirit, conducted a raid of the boys’ dormitory and bullied everyone down to the pitch to support the team. Draco made a symbolic protest of refusing to wear the Gryffindor scarf — which he regretted instantly once the highland wind raked across his neck. The stands had filled up, the speakers boomed with music, and the banners flickered bright and blinding in the winter sun. When the Gryffindor team soared out on their brooms, the Gryffindor stands shuddered with the weight of stamping feet. Draco, who had arrived late and squeezed in with Granger in the nosebleeds, clutched his seat and fought a wave of nausea. Nevertheless, the house spirit was so thick you could practically smell it. It was admittedly invigorating.

Which made the game itself all the more disappointing. Slytherin walloped Gryffindor by seventy points in a war of attrition between captains Wood and Flint, punctuated by Terrence Higgs neatly pocketing the Snitch at the two-hour mark. Draco, who had come determined not to get involved in the game whatsoever, nevertheless found himself standing up and shouting whenever one of the chasers fumbled, which happened embarrassingly often. He jeered at Flint when he fouled Katie Bell, not because he had any particular affection for Bell, but because it was a clumsy and obvious technical that the referee really ought to have pulled him for; and though he would deny it, when Flint caught a bludger to the face, Draco elbowed Potter — dispassionately and courteously, of course — in excitement.

Granger, who remained engrossed in their Transfiguration textbook throughout the match, only looked up at the ending klaxon.

“Oh,” she said, sounding not-quite-disappointed. “Is it over? Did we win?”

Draco sighed. “No, Granger. Generally, the team that’s booing and sighing at the end isn’t the team that won.”

On the way back from the match, Weasley shared in Draco’s disgust.

“I mean, Wood’s a decent captain,” Weasley said tragically, in the same way one might have said, ‘Oedipus was a decent king.’ “But he hasn’t got the chasers. It’s not his fault. Flint’s got Pucey and Smithers, and what does Wood have? Except for Angelina he’s got no muscle…”

Draco sniffed. “It’s the seeker’s fault. If Bronson caught the snitch when Gryffindor was ahead in the third quarter, that would’ve been the game. And don’t tell me the snitch doesn’t come out that early, because every quafflehead worth his salt knows that’s a myth, and I’d remind you that Krum caught the snitch in the second quarter in last year’s friendly with Romania.”

“No, mate, and I hear you, I do, but it’s the chasers, it’s all in the chasers, they’re the meat and potatoes of the game…”

“Nonsense. What would you know about it? Your team’s the Cannons.”

Potter was quiet for much of the walk back to the dorm, trailing behind them with Granger. As they were filing back into the Great Hall, Draco noticed him hanging back to stare wistfully at the quidditch pitch.

“Oy, Potter,” he called. “Are you coming in? It’s cold.”

“Go ahead without me,” he replied.

“Did you forget something?”

Potter shook his head. He put his hands in his pockets and sighed. He gazed at the checkered towers of the pitch like a sailor on the dock watching a ship set sail.

Draco followed his gaze. “You ever play, Potter?” he said, hopping down from the stoop. The door swung shut behind him.

“I was raised by muggles,” he said. “Never rode a broom before this year.”

“You liked it, though.”

He shrugged. “Thought it was pretty good, yeah.”

“Pretty good,” repeated Draco. He glanced at the pitch. “You know, you’re not grossly terrible at it. Flying.”

“Yeah? Thanks, mate.”

“That’s not praise, it’s factual,” he said in clipped tones. “Hooch loved you. Think she was filing adoption papers at the end of the lesson.”

“I don’t know about that. She was being nice.”

“False modesty flatters no one.” A gust of wind raked across their faces, and he wished once again for a scarf. “It’s a shame first years can’t try out.”

“I couldn’t anyway,” said Potter, finally turning towards the castle. “I don’t have a broom.”

Draco, whose father had owned a fourteen-piece antique broomstick collection, found this nearly inhumane. “How do your muggles get around, then?” he asked. “Floo?”

“They drive.” At Draco’s uncomprehending look, he continued: “They’ve got these things called cars? They’re boxes made of metal, with rubber wheels underneath them, and when you get inside and press some levers it moves around…”

“Like a rolling jail cell?”

“Sort of. If you want to go somewhere far away, you can get in this big metal box called an airplane, and it’ll go up in the air and fly you where you want to go.”

Draco balked in horror.

“And you’ve been on one of them, these ‘airplangs’?”

“Oh, not me,” he said. “Uncle Vernon once flew to Berlin for a business trip, and they took Dudley to Disney World when he was five… I didn’t go, though. They hired a sitter and told me to re-grout all the showers before they came back.”

‘Grouting’ sounded so obscene that Draco feared asking what it was. He could no better express his sympathy than with a disgusted, vehement: “Muggles.”

“S’not because they’re muggles, it’s because they don’t like me,” Potter said peaceably. “That’s all right. I’m not very easy to live with.”

Having lived with Potter for almost two months, Draco knew this to be a lie. None of the other Gryffindor boys were so freakishly neat, so careful to keep their things on their own side of the room. None besides Potter bothered to make his bed in the morning, not when the house elves would do it anyway once they left. It was honestly annoying: it made the rest of them look lazy by comparison.

“I think it’s criminal to let muggles do that to a wizard,” Draco said coldly, believing every word more than he had before. “And I’m not saying this out of any great love for you, Potter, but they should have been carrying you around on a litter and kissing your feet, and thanking you for the privilege.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Potter said uncomfortably.

“Well, I do. And you shouldn’t have had to wait until you were eleven to ride a broomstick, that’s just depressing.” He lifted his nose. “ I went flying for the first time when I was six.”

Potter wrinkled his nose at him. “You did not, Malfoy.”

“I did, thank you!” He paused and admitted, “My father took me.”

“Oh,” said Potter, a touch wistful. “That must have been nice.”

“Yes. He’d promised it to me as a treat if I sat through Parsifal at the Royal Wizarding Opera without falling asleep. I don’t think he expected me to do it, but I persevered, and he was a man of his word. When my mother saw us up there on the broomstick I think you could hear her shouting from China… Of course, it was perfectly safe, he took me on one of the slowest brooms he had, and there were all sorts of Cushioning Charms.” Draco broke off, suddenly aware he’d been rambling. “He wasn’t a great flier,” he added, belatedly, unsure of why he’d told Potter this. “Passable, but not great. Could have been excellent, naturally, but he never trained. He liked the broomsticks more than flying itself. I’m probably better now than he ever was.”

“So he’s not around, then.” Potter’s voice held neither sympathy nor condescension, and for that, Draco was pathetically grateful.

“No. He’s dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

Draco bristled and was about to snap at him when Potter said, “My dad’s dead, too. When I was a baby.” He chewed on his cheek, reflective, while the wind tangled his dark hair. “Wish he could’ve taken me flying.”

There was really nothing to say to this.

“Rough.”

“Yeah,” agreed Potter. “Dinner?”

“Sure.”

But Draco found himself returning to the conversation again and again over the course of the evening, his mind curving back towards it like a planet orbiting a star. The sound of Potter saying Wish he could’ve taken me flying ran on a loop in the back of his head. At first, it irritated him. It made it seem like Draco was lucky to have his father die later in life. Was that what Potter had implied? That Draco should pity him, because he had it worse?

But that just didn’t sound like Potter. It wasn’t in his nature to be spiteful or jealous, merely oblivious, and blind to his own insinuations. That wasn’t his fault, either. He wasn’t used to his words being taken seriously. It sounded like the muggles who raised him barely paid attention to him.

This last thought stuck in his head like a grain of sand, irritating him. It struck him as dangerously, almost violently, irresponsible that Potter hadn’t been told about magic sooner in his life. For a muggle-born like Granger, it was one thing: her parents weren’t to know, and couldn’t be blamed for not knowing. But there were wizards in Potter’s family before him, and his muggles would have known about them. So why hadn’t he been taught? Why hadn’t anyone told him? Why let the poor daft fool stagger into a world he knew nothing about, equipped with nothing but an underdeveloped sense of self-interest?

He stewed until it was late enough that the other boys trickled back into the dorm and started getting ready for bed. As he lay on his four-poster and tried to sleep, he heard Potter’s footsteps — you could tell because after dark, Potter always tiptoed, careful not to wake anybody, while everyone else stomped in — followed by a rustle of hangings and the opening of a dresser. When the drawer creaked, Potter stopped, and eased it out slowly, painstaking in his effort not to make any noise.

It was wretched, when you thought about it. Draco had no idea what Disney World was and would rather summer in hell than find out, but it was still boorish beyond belief not to invite the whole family, at least if two-thirds or more of the relatives would be in attendance. A pureblood would never make such a mistake. His Great Uncle Orion had once sent Grandfather a Howler for failing to invite him to a tea party, on the grounds that because four of seven living Blacks would be in attendance, it was technically a family reunion.

Draco sighed, knowing then what he had to do.

Potter yelped when the hangings of his bed were ripped back. He hauled up the sheets to cover his (clothed) chest.

“Shoes and cloak, Potter,” Draco snapped. “It’s going to be cold.”

“…Where?”

“Where I’ll dump your body if you don’t get up and get moving , do you think I’ve got all night?”

One thing you could never say of the Boy Who Lived, he reflected, as said Boy hopped around in the darkness on one foot, searching for his other sock: call him stupid, call him reckless, call him green as the fresh-cut grass, but you couldn’t say he wasn’t game.

They crept down the stairs and through the portrait-hole. The corridors of Hogwarts were different at night, somehow bigger and longer, and far darker, as the lanterns that lit them in the evenings all extinguished once curfew passed. Moonlight streamed through the clerestory windows and lay in long milk-white bars on the wood, dappling the marble columns of the Great Hall. The castle sighed and groaned, resettling in its firmaments.

Draco crept along the side of the hallway, checking each corner before he turned it. He didn’t dare light his wand for fear of making themselves more visible to Filch.

Potter followed, mimicking his actions. “Oy, Malfoy,” he whispered. “Where are we going?”

“Keep your voice down! Out of the castle.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m demented, apparently. Come along, quickly.”

They darted down the Great Staircase, at which point Draco broke into a sprint for the front door. There was nothing else for it: anyone in the Great Hall could be seen from overhead and all directions by anyone who happened to be on the staircases above, and the only thing for it, if you weren’t invisible, was to dash and pray. Potter raced after him, making surprisingly good time for his shorter legs, and they hauled open the doors together.

Outside, the lawns shone under a full coat of frost. Silvery clouds gathered like skeins of wool around the full and luminous moon, pockmarked here and there by stars. The lake had turned white and still as a marble plate, and somewhere in the dark quill-feathers of the trees, a nightingale was singing. It was cold, cold enough to turn the hairs on one’s neck upright and to pebble the flesh of one’s arms, but the wind had gone away, and now the night was still and dark and cool as a shard of black ice, silent save for the susurrus of the trees and the lonely strain of birdsong.

Draco and Potter crossed the lawns, their cloaks dragging over the brittle grass. The quidditch pitch swelled out of the night sky like a beast with eight heads, dark and eerily silent.

“The pitch?” Potter perked up. “Is that where we’re going?”

“No, we’re taking a moonlight stroll by the lake. Mind your cloak! You almost tripped me.”

The gates were closed and sealed by a padlock the size of Draco’s head. Potter gave them an experimental rattle. “Rats,” he said. “Locked.”

“Well spotted. Any other observations for the gallery?” Draco hunted through his pockets for his wand.

Potter squinted up at the fence, evaluating. “Bet we could climb it,” he said, after a moment. “S’ not that hard. I’ve watched Dudley and his mates do it a hundred times. You could use that bar there as a foothold, and pull yourself over the top. Hop down, no problem.”

“Yes, Potter,” drawled Draco. “‘Hop down’ a ten-foot fence. Brilliant idea. When I reflect on my life, I often find I’ve dedicated insufficient time to my passion for rappelling…”

There was a rattle of chains, and he looked up sharply. Potter had attached himself to the ironwork and was scrambling, lizard-like, up the bars of the gate.

“Potter! Are you mad?”

The gate rattled and shook, but held fast. He quickly reached the top and swung his leg over the bars, careful not to bruise the Potter Family Heirlooms on the points of the fence. Then he slithered down the other side and dropped neatly to the ground.

“All right,” he said, ruddy with exertion. “Now you.”

Draco, stone-faced, lifted his wand and tapped it on the padlock. “Alohamora. ”

The padlock clicked, and he made a show of prodding the gate open with a single finger. It swung wide. He walked through.

“That’s useful,” Potter said appreciatively. “Did Flitwick teach us that?”

“It’s from the textbook.”

He didn’t mention that it was several chapters ahead of where Flitwick had them. He’d been bored, and the library had been closed.

They hopped a turnstile and climbed the stairs down to the locker rooms. Potter started for the Gryffindor dugout, but Draco stopped him.

“No. Slytherin.”

“Why?”

“Because they have better brooms.”

The Slytherin locker rooms were dark as pitch. Draco whispered “Lumos,” and the beam from his wand illuminated a set of gleaming brass lockers, wood benches, and green-and-silver hangings on the walls. He marched past the row of lockers, scanning the names: Higgs… Pucey… Fletchley… Flint…

That’d do it. Flint was a Twenty-Eight name, and Adrian’s mother had been the sole heiress to the fortune. Draco tapped the combination dial and muttered another “ Alohamora.”

“This is so cool,” said Potter, spinning around. “This is where they hang out before the match, yeah? And practices?”

Draco ignored him. He took down Adrian’s broom — a Comet Two Eighty, not bad — and a pair of dragon-hide flying gloves. They were going to be several sizes too big for either of them, but that couldn’t be helped. “Catch,” he said, tossing the gloves at Potter. With barely a glance at what was being thrown, Potter plucked them out of the air. “Put those on.”

For himself, he found and emptied the locker marked Bole . He’d noticed one of the beaters riding a particularly nice Cleansweep Seven, and he’d never tried a Cleansweep before.

“We’re not stealing these, are we?” Potter said doubtfully.

“Of course not. Team equipment will be loaded with Tracing Charms.”

“Won’t they notice if we take them out of the pitch?”

Draco snapped the hem of his glove, rolled his fingers into a fist, and called the broomstick into his hand. It smacked his palm with a satisfying thwack.

“That’s why we’re not leaving the pitch,” he said, and he strode past Potter onto the field.

The moonlight blazed almost bright as day. Draco mounted his Cleansweep and kicked off, swiveling a little while he got his bearings. The balance was different from his broomstick at home, more sensitive, but he soon hit his stride, and looped a lazy circle around the pitch for a warmup. When he came around the last turn, Potter had joined him in the air, and was hovering in the center of the field.

Draco leaned forward and increased pressure on his front-hand by a fraction. The Cleansweep bucked and dove, dipping its nose precipitously before he righted himself and steered it into an incline, white-knuckling the front-hand grip. He could feel the power humming under the wood, anxious to be let free.

“All right there, Potter?” he barked.

Potter turned his head. He was positively electrified with glee.

“This is magic!” he shouted.

“Of course it is! Not going to catch a muggle doing this, are you?”

He banked and cut a J-curve through the air, accelerating into a breakneck incline, and leveled off once he’d reached Potter’s height. They hovered next to each other, the breeze ruffling their hair. Seen from above, they might have resembled the twin eyes of a yin-yang symbol, one white, one black.

Potter shuffled a little, reseating himself on the broom. “It’s sort of — alive,” he breathed, stroking the handle. “It’s like I can feel what it wants to do.”

“That’s because you’re sitting on a good broom. Comets are notoriously finicky, they take a strong hand, but if you don’t mind being an active rider, you can get a lot of performance out of them. Cleansweeps, like this one for instance, they’re more sensitive. Faster, each to each, than Comets, but harder to control, and the speed is useless if you don’t know how to use it. Now, the model that everyone’s excited about, the one that’s supposed to thread the perennial needle of handling and speed, that’s the upcoming Nimbus—”

He stopped: Potter was smiling.

“What?”

“Nothing. You just sound like Hermione,” he said.

“I resent that!”

“Why? She’s brilliant,” he said simply. “Smartest person I’ve ever met. I wish I could sound like Hermione about something.”

Of course, it was true. Nevertheless, he suspected he was being subtly called a boffin. The mischievous glint in Potter’s eyes did nothing to disabuse him of this idea.

Potter started a slow helix upward. “Any idea how fast these things can go?” he asked.

“Sure. I could tell you.” Draco shrugged. “Or we could find out.”

This was the right thing to say. Potter’s face lit up with an animal grin. “First one to five laps?”

“Five sickles on it.”

“Why not ten?”

“Ooh. Wouldn’t be too rich for your blood, Potter?”

“Doesn’t matter, since it’s your money I’m taking.”

“Hark at him! Second time in the air, and he thinks he’s Krum.”

“Hardly takes a Krum to beat you,” Potter said, grinning.

“Funny. Do you want to fly, or do you want to talk? I know you’re better at one than the other.”

Potter extended his hand. “Shake on it, then. Five laps, ten sickles. We’ll both start from the goal-hoops.”

“You do that,” said Draco, and took off like a shot.

As the wind ripped through his hair, he could hear Potter hollering behind him: “ Oi! Not fair!”

Like taking candy from a house-elf, he thought, suppressing a grin.

He dropped down on his belly and the Cleansweep soar. The world became a blur.

The distance to the stands vanished so quickly that he misjudged the time it would take to turn, and he had to haul the broom into a hairpin to avoid collision. It banked and swerved at the twitch of his hand. The wind roared in his ears. His pulse pounded in his chest, strong and deep as a timpani drum. Every motion of his hand corresponded with a movement of his body in three-dimensional space, turning the race into a complex game of acrobatics, athletics, and aerodynamics, all conducted at breakneck speed.

This was flying: not the low-hovering circles that Hooch had them crawling through in classes, but flying that thrilled, flying that soared, that dared gravity to look up and realize how it was being spited.

He crossed the field again, knit a tidy loop around the goalposts, and raced back the way he’d come. It occurred to him that he didn’t know where Potter was, and he checked over his shoulder, momentarily concerned that the boy had toppled off his broom.

A shadow soared over him. Potter’s Comet dropped in from above and leveled in the airspace just before Draco’s nose, forcing him to bank or else crash into him. The Cleansweep swerved and shuddered at the sudden jerk, and Draco veered off his line, nearly tumbling into the stands.

“Potter!” he roared. “That’s cheating!”

Potter laughed, loud and free and slightly crazed, and accelerated again. “Fair play, Malfoy.”

Well, that was not to be borne. He would not take a lesson in cunning from a Gryffindor.

Draco hauled the Cleansweep back in line and raced after him.

They sliced a pair of close turns around the goal hoops and cut twin lines across the field. Potter was, he had to admit, indecently good. Though he’d never learned the theory, he appeared to simply understand the physicality of flying, how to move and where and how far in advance. As they went into a turn, he naturally countersteered against the pull of momentum by tipping his shoulders against the direction of the broom, and when they hit the straight-and-narrow, he drew his elbows in, cutting air resistance.

Whether he realized he was doing these things, it was anyone’s guess, but somewhere in the back of Harry Potter’s hindbrain lurked a very good quidditch player, and it was having the time of its life.

The third and fourth laps they spent in a dead heat. On the fifth, Draco made his move. As they approached the goalposts, he wrenched up the nose of his broomstick, forcing a steep deceleration as air resistance threw itself against his body. Using his nose as a pivot point, he hauled the back of the broom around in a sweeping motion — turning like a spoke around the nose of the broom, instead of guiding the whole broom through the curve — and, steadying out, sped off in the other direction. The move gave him a few precious seconds on Potter, who caught what he was doing only once he’d initiated his own turn.

He raced back for the hoops, thinking cheerfully of the way ten sickles would jingle in his pocket.

He was just past centerfield when from behind him there came a great cry, and Potter shot past. The boy was plastered down to the line of his broom, legs outstretched, barely touching the footholds, remaining astride it by sheer arm strength alone; his cheek was pressed to the wood, and his elbows were locked to his chest. At the speed he was moving, the current alone ought to have blown him off the broomstick, but it hadn’t. He had reduced his aerodynamic footprint to the size of a dinner plate, which — because he was smaller than Draco — meant that even on an older broom, he could outpace Draco on a straight-and-narrow, since he didn’t need to position his body for a turn.

Which the git must have very well known, because as he cleared Draco’s nose, he shot him the tiniest, shyest little smirk he’d ever seen.

Then he crossed the line of the goal-hoops and let out a victorious shout.

“Did you see that?” he hollered, circling around and pelting back at Draco. “I got you!”

“Yes, I saw it,” Draco said sourly, starting back down for the pitch. Potter followed him.

“I really thought you’d trounce me,” he said, eyes sparkling. “And when you did that sweeping thing near the end I thought you had me for sure.”

“That makes two of us.”

“You were right about the broom, by the way. You sort of need to yank on it, I think I’m too small.” Potter landed clumsily beside him and staggered off the broom, shaking with excitement. “Still,” he said, “that’s really cool. Is this what wizards do all the time? When they’re not working, or sleeping?”

Draco almost snorted in derision. “For professional quidditch players, I suppose.”

Potter’s eyes became saucers. “You can fly for a living?”

“Sure. If you’re very, very good. And if you don’t mind getting hauled around the continent for nine months of the year, living out of hotels, shilling for fitness potions…”

“And they pay you for it?”

“Not enough, in my opinion.”

“That’s mad,” said Potter dreamily. Casting a last look around the quidditch pitch, he sighed, “I’d pay to do this.”

Draco was still sour about his loss when they made it back to the castle. He managed to get Potter to stop talking about it by appealing to the need for silence while they crept back to the common room, but even so, being beaten put him in a foul mood. Besides, Potter had cheated. That drop-in from above was patently against the rules of quidditch. It wasn’t a real win.

And so what if, as they climbed the second-floor staircase, Draco hopped silently over the trick stair, and continued on his way without bothering to warn Potter about it? So what if, as Potter followed him, he planted his foolish foot right smack in the hole where the stair should be, and toppled face-forward? And so what if, when he did so, Draco — instead of trying to catch him or break his fall — gave a hearty snicker to himself, and kept going?

It wasn’t as if Draco installed the trick stair. It was Potter’s own fault for not looking.

“Trouble with the leg, Potter?” he inquired, leaning against the banister, enjoying himself.

“It’s stuck!” Potter tugged fruitlessly at his ankle. “Give me a hand, would you?”

There was something patently hilarious about Harry Potter fighting a losing battle with a staircase. Draco decided to enjoy it a little longer. “I don’t know. I think you’ve almost got it,” he yawned.

A soft meow at the bottom of the staircase made them both jump. A black cat prowled into the puddle of moonlight on the landing, and sat down, staring at them with luminous yellow eyes.

“Mrs. Norris,” Potter whispered. He and Draco made eye contact, and they wore the same expression of dawning dread.

“Filch—”

“Second floor—”

“ Move!”

Potter tried to take a step, but his leg hauled him down. With a cry of frustration, Draco swept down, seized the other boy by the armpits, and pulled with all his might. With a splinter of wood, the trick stair released him, and the two went tumbling to the floor.

Mrs. Norris let out a piercing MEOW.

“What’s that, my sweet?” croaked a froggy old voice from around the corner. “Do you smell something?”

MEOW.

“What’s that? What is it you see?” The voice came closer, echoing in the landing, thick with glee. “Have you found some mischief, my love?”

Quick as a flash, Potter popped up and scrambled up the stairs on his hands and knees, followed by Draco. They sprang upright at the third-floor landing and ducked out of sight behind a statue of Helga Hufflepuff.

“I heard that!” came Filch’s shrill cry. “You, there! Stop! Students out of bed! Students out of bed!” And there came the horrible scrape of a cane on hardwood, and the limping thump-thump that meant he was hobbling after them.

“Run,” Potter hissed, and grabbing Draco’s elbow, he took off sprinting down the corridor.

He was shockingly fast: Draco’s legs burned in the effort of keeping up. Hurtling down one hall and then another, it took him a moment to realize that Potter didn’t actually know where they were going — they were taking a zigzag pattern into the depths of the castle in the hopes of losing Filch. It was because of this that they soon rounded a corner and found themselves in a dead-end hallway, with the clattering three-footed footfalls of Filch fast approaching behind them.

“Fantastic,” he spat. “Well done, Potter. Couldn’t have led us anywhere else?”

“I didn’t see you helping!” retorted Potter. “Come on, in here.” He seized the nearest doorknob, which rattled but did not turn.

“Merlin. Out of the way!”

Draco whipped out his wand and blurted a sloppy Unlocking Charm. The lock clicked anyway, and Potter whipped the door open, hustling them both inside.

It slammed closed, and they slumped against it. Through the wood, they heard a cat’s woeful meowing grow louder and then quieter as it prowled past the door. Its master soon followed. “Lost them, did we, my sweet? Not to worry… They must be hiding around here somewhere…”

Potter poked Draco’s arm. “Lock it,” he mouthed.

“You lock it,” Draco muttered, embarrassed. He didn’t actually know the counterspell.

A rumble like a distant thunderclap shuddered through the room. Draco stiffened. Beside him, he felt Potter do the same.

The other boy turned around.

“Malfoy,” he said, in a very thin voice.

“Don’t tell me.”

“Malfoy, we should—”

“I don’t care. Don’t tell me.”

Wordlessly, Potter grabbed his shoulder and whirled him around.

Above them blazed the sallow, bloodshot eyes of a monstrous dog, so vast its bulk covered the distance between ceiling and floor. It had three heads. Its noses twitched and canted in their direction, while three drooling mouths poured slippery ropes of saliva from yellowish fangs. It was standing quite still, all six eyes staring at them, as Draco supposed he himself might stare at an intruder who burst suddenly into his bedroom at some unthinkable hour and disturbed his sleep.

He dropped his head, quite certain that if he continued to look at it, he would faint away. In this way he noticed that between its paws laid a square of wood, hinged, with a small iron handle and a padlock. It was a trapdoor.

Draco remained motionless, stomach roiling, as the abyssal growls increased in volume. Frozen in terror, he barely noticed that Potter had been hissing his name.

Finally, Potter gave up on a coordinated effort. (This was wise.) Seizing Draco’s wrist, he flung himself out the door, using his body weight to drag Draco with him. The door slammed shut, and they pelted back down the hallway. Draco regained more and more use of his legs the farther away he was from the dog, and by the time they reached the third-floor landing, he felt very nearly capable of independent movement.

Unfortunately, this came at precisely the wrong time.

“What on earth?” said a thin, watery voice.

Draco startled. It wasn’t Filch.

“I believe it is w-w-well past your curfew,” said the voice, losing some of its timidity. “You should not be here… Mister Malfoy… Mister P-P-Potter.”

And Professor Quirrell emerged from the shadows, gazing at them with an expression of grave foreboding.

---

“Detention for a month, ” Potter groused, dragging his spoon listlessly through his porridge. “After classes every day, and on Saturdays, including quidditch matches…”

“No!” Weasley dropped his sausage biscuit in horror. “Not quidditch, too? Does he know the season’s on?”

Granger sniffed. “It’s your own fault, both of you,” she said. “You shouldn’t have been out of bed after curfew. You’re lucky it was only detention, and not house points. Then we all would’ve been punished.”

“Lucky—” Potter erupted.

“And as for you,” she told Draco. “I thought much better of you. I’ve come to expect a certain degree of recklessness from Harry and Ron, but I thought you took school more seriously.”

He sneered at her. She blinked at him, clearly expecting an apology, but he was more than happy to disappoint. “How dreadful a shock that must be for you,” he said. “I’ll be sure to ask your permission next time, Mum. ”

She withdrew, stung.

“What do they think they’re doing, keeping a thing like that locked up in a school?” said Weasley, changing the subject. “If any dog needs exercise, that one does.”

“I dunno, but it’s protecting something. Malfoy saw a trapdoor, which means it’s probably some sort of guard dog.”

“A guard dog for what?” asked Granger skeptically. “Who’d want to steal anything from Hogwarts? And if it’s so valuable that you’d need a—” She glanced around, and lowered her voice. “A three-headed dog,” she continued, “to defend it, why not put it in Gringotts?”

“Hogwarts is safer than Gringotts,” Draco said boredly, turning a page of his newspaper.

“I dunno,” frowned Weasley. “Seems like if you can get into a room with ‘Alohamora,’ it’s probably not the safest place in the world.”

“There’s also the dog,” Potter reminded him.

“Yeah, but still… Where the devil d’you even get a beast like that, anyway? You can’t very well pick it up from the pound.”

“Seems like something Hagrid would know,” Potter suggested, and the others agreed.

Draco shuffled his paper and said nothing. He’d become acquainted with the groundskeeper once or twice, in passing, and decided to keep his distance. Half-blood or muggle-born or whatever they were, wizards were one thing; half-breeds were quite another, and he’d already debased himself quite enough this year by associating with blood traitors and rabble. Besides, the brute’s size intimidated him.

In truth, he felt dismal about the ordeal. He didn’t care so much about his academic reputation as the fact that, since Snape had learned of the detention, his mother would soon know of it as well, and he could already feel her disappointment emanating across the many miles between here and Malfoy Manor.

He had decided to blame Potter for everything. It had been Draco’s mistake for trying to do something that benefited anybody besides himself; clearly, it had backfired, demonstrating once and for all that selflessness was for chumps. If Potter hadn’t tripped, they wouldn’t have been caught by Mrs. Norris, which would have prevented them from running into that awful dog, and Quirrell wouldn’t have found them.

The grudge festered all the way to detention that night. He slouched into the classroom late and tossed his satchel on the desk with bad grace, dropping into his chair. Potter, who was already there, winced at the sound.

Quirrell clasped his hands behind his back. “Good evening, gentlemen,” he said. “Tonight you will be writing lines.” He spoke with an arch and aristocratic accent, vaguely Turkish.

Potter sighed and began pulling out some parchment. Draco, feeling indolent and ill-tempered, did the same, only slower.

“In your best handwriting, I would like you to write the following.” Quirrell flicked his wand at the blackboard. The words I am very sorry appeared in white script. “Please write until you have reached five hundred lines or detention is finished, whichever is coming first. Mister Potter, you have a question?”

“May I borrow a quill, professor? I’ve forgotten mine.”

Quirrell hesitated. Draco glanced up from his parchment.

“Of course,” said the professor. He went and retrieved one from the teacher’s desk at the front of the room. Then moving slowly, he approached Potter’s desk with short, halting steps. He held the quill out by the very point of the nib. A vein pressed out from his temple.

With evident unease, Potter took it. As the quill changed hands, Quirrell gasped and snatched his arm back.

“Professor?” said Potter, alarmed. Quirrell staggered away and leaned on the desk.

Potter shot an anxious glance at Draco and began to rise from his chair. “Professor?” he repeated. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

Mastering himself, Quirrell stood up. “Please continue writing,” he announced. “Unfortunately, I have just remembered some urgent affairs that are calling me elsewhere. I trust that you will follow instructions in my absence. Good-bye.”

He swept out.

Draco stared after him. “What’s his problem?” he said.

“I dunno.” Potter paused. “D’you think he’s coming back?”

“No clue.”

“Suppose we could just leave,” he suggested.

“I suppose we could.”

“But if he comes back, we’d get another detention.”

Draco snapped his fingers. “How’s this. I’ll go, and you stay, and if he comes back, you just tell him that we got worried, and that I went to find him.”

Potter lifted an eyebrow. “And what do I get out of that?”

It was a classically Slytherin question; Draco was almost proud. “Well, you won’t get in trouble if he comes back.”

“Yeah, but you won’t, either.”

“I see this as a case of mutual benefit.”

“But you get to leave, and I don’t.”

“We must all make sacrifices for the greater good.”

“Why don’t you stay, then, and I’ll go?”

“Because I’m a terrible liar,” lied Draco. “I’ll crack under the first sign of pressure. If you get me alone with an interrogator, I’ll crumble to pieces. Quirrell could ask me anything, and I’d probably tell him.”

“You think your winning argument here is that you can’t be trusted?”

“Potter. Listen. This is a classic logical dilemma. If we both stay, and he doesn’t come back, we’re idiots. If we both leave and he does come back, we’re cooked. If one of us leaves, and the other lies, we’re both in the clear, regardless. The third outcome is clearly optimal! But it only happens if someone stays back. If we can’t agree on who stays back, then we’ll sit in here the whole time, and probably come out looking like idiots when he doesn’t show.”

“Okay, but I don’t see how any of that means you should be the one to go.”

“Because,” Draco said patiently, “I’ve buried the lede. You see, I’m going to go no matter what. So the only decision you have to make, really, is whether you’d like to keep us both out of trouble, or risk getting us both into more of it.”

Potter fell quiet for a moment, mulling this over.

“Right,” he said thoughtfully. “So, if you leave, and I stay, what’s stopping me from just telling Quirrell the truth?”

Draco slouched low in his chair. “Unbelievable.”

“You did have me for a minute, I’ll give it to you.”

“Can’t believe we’re going to sit here for an hour and do nothing because you couldn’t take one for the team…”

“We’re going to sit here for an hour because we’ve got detention, and that’s no more my fault than yours,” said Potter fairly. “Or we can both leave. I’d be alright with that, too.”

The negotiations were interrupted by the door opening. Instead of Quirrell, however, it was Snape.

“Hello, Professor!” exclaimed Draco.

“Hello, Professor,” muttered Potter.

Snape ignored both of them. “Where is Quirrell?” he demanded, his eyes flitting around the room, like Quirrell might be clinging to the rafters.

“Gone,” said Draco and Potter at once. Draco added, “We were just debating whether or not to go looking for him.”

Snape rounded on Potter. “What did he say to you?”

“Nothing in particular, sir.”

“He said nothing to you? Did you arrive before Mr. Malfoy? Did he say nothing to you, then?”

“He said ‘good evening, Mister Potter,’ and ‘you may sit down,’ I think,” said Potter, blinking. “Also, ‘here are your lines.’ Erm, and I asked for a quill…”

Snape dismissed this with a jerk of his head. “What else?”

“Nothing, sir, honestly.”

He scanned Potter’s face for evidence of lies. Finding none, his eyes narrowed. “Students should not be left alone in a classroom. You should have found a teacher. Five points from Gryffindor,” he snapped. Then he spun on his heel and beckoned. “Come, Draco.”

Draco scrambled out of his chair, beaming.

“Wait,” Potter called after him. “Where are you going?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Draco simpered. He sent a nasty smile over his shoulder. “Oh, and if he comes back, do tell Quirrell what happened, wouldn’t you?”

He traipsed out, following Snape, and the door swung shut on Potter’s flabbergasted face.

Buoyed by the sublime satisfaction of this moment, Draco practically floated down the halls on Snape’s heels. He didn’t even think to ask where they were going until they’d climbed the Grand Staircase and were hurrying along a slim corridor hung with portraits of various wizards in purple hats. “Do you have a letter from my mother, professor?”

“Hush!” There was real anger in Snape’s glare. “Do you mistake me for deaf?”

“N-no, professor.”

“Then draw upon whatever dismal reserves of restraint you possess,” he said, “and lower your voice.”

Draco bowed his head, chastised. “Sorry, sir.”

The Potions Master stopped in front of a portrait of Giffard Abbott, a portly wizard from the fourteenth century. “Dragon’s egg,” said Snape.

Abbott sighed. “Oh, to be young again…”

“Dragon’s egg,” Snape repeated tersely, and Abbott swung forward with another sigh.

Behind him lay a small servant’s corridor, dark as night and so narrow that Snape had to step sideways through it. Draco, who could fit easily through, hopped into the passageway and swung the portrait-hole closed behind them.

In a moment, Snape’s wand flared with light. Though it wasn’t necessary, Draco whispered ‘Lumos’ and held his wand aloft, adding his weak torch to Snape’s brighter one. If Snape was impressed by his godson’s proficiency in Charms, he gave no sign of it.

They moved along the passage, their feet shuffling on the dusty floorboards. Through the walls, Draco could hear voices murmuring, and footsteps from the rooms beside them. Pipes rumbled overhead. They were moving inside the castle walls; if he remembered his Bagshot, these passages would have been built into the original castle for staff use, before it was kept by house-elves. Bagshot wasn’t quite clear on who these servants would have been; some scholars thought it was simply a hired corps of witches and wizards, while others suggested the Founders had magically animated golems to cook and clean. But Chroniculus Punnet — whose magnum opus, Decline and Fall of the Wizarding Empire, had been Lucius’s favorite book — went still further, and claimed that the first servants of Hogwarts had been muggles kept under the Imperius Curse. (Bagshot had written a scathing dissent to Punnet’s theory in the Journal of Contemporary Magical History, and Professor Binns refused to answer questions about it.)

When they emerged through an alcove on the other side of the passage, they were outdoors, in the covered walk beside the Transfiguration courtyard. The sun had long since set, and their shadows danced long and freakish in the light from the braziers. They extinguished their wands and as Draco was tucking his back into his interior pocket, voices echoed from the end of the courtyard walk.

“I understand you are upset, Cornelius, but I cannot endorse what you propose…”

“Whyever not? We’ve got the political capital for it. Bones says the DMLE has been spoiling for something to break in the new auror cohort, and Asquith assures me that we have the votes in the Wizengamot…”

“But you will not have mine,” said a calm, elderly tenor. “You have neglected and brushed aside… not the least of which… possibility of a challenger. You have not been half careful enough, I think, with Runcorn…”

Draco looked up at Snape, who wore a tense, alert expression. As the voices came closer, he swiftly stepped into the shade of an alcove, pulling Draco in behind him. He pressed a finger to his lips.

“A protest party,” scoffed the other voice in a hoarse Estuary accent. “With your contingent on-side, we’d have a supermajority…”

“And a consolidated minority of increasing cohesion and drive… I confess, I am surprised I must explain the dangers…”

“I appreciate your candor,” said the voice, sounding like it actually rather did not. “But this will come to vote, and I warn you now, if you align yourself against me, my side… there will be those who paint you as a sympathizer.”

“Are you threatening me, Cornelius?” The voice was almost indulgent, like a parent questioning a child.

“What, I? Never. You insult me with the suggestion. But there are strong voices in my party, sir, strong voices, and I cannot be held responsible for what they say or do.”

“I am, I confess, less versed than you in politics,” the voice said politely, now so close Draco could hear the rustle of robes. “I have much to learn; it was my impression that the job of the Minister of Magic was to lead his party, and the people in it…”

The voices shrank away. When they were on the verge of becoming indistinct, Snape stepped out of the alcove and into the torchlight. “Come,” he told Draco, and they hurried down the hallway after them.

As they turned a corner, Draco saw who it had been. Albus Dumbledore stood in a set of midnight-blue robes, inlaid with silver trim, and a matching cap so long it hung below the ends of his shock-white hair. A pair of golden half-moon spectacles sat on the end of his narrow nose.

Beside him stood a short man shaped like a flower vase, clad in a pinstriped suit, and sporting a receding crown of gray hair underneath a green porkpie hat. Draco recognized him with a start: it was the Minister of Magic.

“Good evening, Professor Dumbledore,” purred Snape, strolling into the light. Less reverently, he added, “Minister.”

“Hello, Severus,” said Dumbledore warmly. “A lovely night for a walk, is it not?”

“It is,” Snape said, “passably temperate.”

This was an obvious lie; it was almost December, and bitterly cold. Draco frowned at him.

“Cornelius and I were out to do a bit of stargazing before he returns to the Ministry,” Dumbledore informed him. He gestured to the skies. “One can see stars out here in the highlands that one never glimpses in the city, no matter how keenly one looks… the smog, of course, obscures them. London, for all its charms, has a problem focusing its eye on distant objects.”

“Of course,” said Snape softly, raking his eyes over Fudge’s person. “I often find it… profoundly enlightening… to stargaze.”

Fudge said: “Yes. Stargazing.”

His Oxford tapped a reveille on the cobblestones.

“I know you for a fellow appreciator of the heavens, Severus,” Dumbledore agreed. “But to what do we owe the pleasure of this young man…?”

There was an awkward beat of silence. Snape drove his heel down on Draco’s foot.

Oh. “Malfoy! Draco Malfoy, sir,” Draco blurted, sticking out his hand. “Pleasure to meet you.”

“And a great pleasure to meet you as well, Mister Malfoy,” said Dumbledore, shaking his hand gently. “I had hoped to make your acquaintance earlier. I hope it is not too bold of me to say that you were the great revelation of this year’s Sorting. There are a few upsets every year. I believe it was a second cousin of yours who caused a similar sensation in… 1970, Severus, was it not? Can it be so long ago?”

“Seventy-one,” said Snape.

“Oh, dear, but I do think you must be wrong. Are you sure? It may have been after your time…”

“I was in that cohort, Albus.”

“Ah, you must be right, then.”

“Malfoy, you said?” Fudge glanced at Draco, appearing to notice him for the first time. “Of the Wiltshire Malfoys, surely? Son of Lucius?”

“Yes, Minister.”

The Minister’s hands disappeared behind his back. “Terrible business,” he said stiffly. “About your father. Terrible business.”

Draco did not know what to say. He looked to Snape for guidance, but received none.

“I strongly disavowed it,” announced Fudge, seemingly speaking to no one in particular. “I unambiguously and plainly disavowed it. It does not matter what a man’s crimes are, or how many number his sins; I do not celebrate unsanctioned bloodletting. In this country, we find justice in a court of law, not in the hands of renegades. Lucius Malfoy was a free man.”

Unambiguous and plain are synonyms, thought Draco.

“It was a dark day for the wizarding world, I say, a dark day,” rambled Fudge. “It never would have happened in my Ministry. Secretary Bones and I have worked tirelessly to secure Azkaban. We have doubled the size of the auror force, and expect to increase it fifty percent over the next calendar year. The Witness Protection Agency — our invention, by the way — has developed protocols to guard the anonymity of those who give testimony…”

Draco wondered if Fudge knew he wasn’t old enough to vote.

“Have you eaten, Minister?” asked Snape suddenly.

“What?”

“Have you eaten dinner? If you have not, you must join us. The kitchens are making blood pudding.”

“Oh. No, I couldn’t—”

Snape lifted his voice over the Minister’s. “The Hogwarts recipe is quite rare. They harvest the fresh blood of suckling piglets, each no older than a day, and mix it with ground sausage carved from the rump of a virgin mooncalf. This is served in a gravy of duck fat and beef stock, seasoned with the sausage drippings, and whatever blood remains from the pigs.”

Cornelius Fudge paled. He dabbed his forehead with his handkerchief. “Delightful,” he managed. “Unfortunately, I must really take my leave. I am not at liberty to… that is… I have a prior engagement which I must attend. Pardon me, Professor — young Malfoy — Albus.” And with a dip of his porkpie hat, he walked quickly down the corridor, disappearing from sight.

Dumbledore sighed. “Excessive,” he said, “and a touch unwarranted, I think. He means well.”

“He’s a simpering, pompous fool.”

“He’s the Minister of Magic.”

“What did I say?”

Dumbledore turned to Draco. “I imagine you are somewhat confused,” he said kindly. “I will explain. Professor Snape has elected to foreshorten the Minister’s visit. Our Potions Master has even less patience for tedium than I, and politicians do tend to… shall we say, ‘pontificate’?”

“I beg your pardon, professor, but I don’t take your meaning.”

Snape’s mouth was flat but twitching.

“The Minister is a vegetarian,” Dumbledore clarified.

Draco burst out with a snort of laughter.

“I am glad you share your godfather’s sense of humor,” said the headmaster indulgently. “Laughter is the most precious of all magics. Now, I apologize for the rudeness of what I am about to do, but would you allow me to borrow your Potions Master? I have a question about the constellation Orion which I believe he alone can answer.”

This dismissal was as gentle as it could be, and Draco did not mind the opportunity to leave: he was wretchedly uncomfortable, and felt up to his ears in matters he didn’t understand.

“Draco,” called Snape, as he was leaving. “Turn around.”

He obeyed. Snape made a show of looking him over, and snapped: “Where on earth did you get all that dust on your robe? Ten points from Gryffindor, for failure to meet standards of public hygiene. Give it here.”

Draco’s mouth dropped open. The dust on his robe came from the servant’s passage, and the same was encrusted all over Snape’s own cloak.

Rendered too speechless to object, he shucked his robe. Snape snatched it and cast a Scouring Charm. “There,” he said coldly, thrusting it back at Draco. “If I catch you flouting the dress code again, it’ll be twenty points. Good night.”

With that, he and Dumbledore strode off together into the night. Dumbledore cast a sympathetic look at Draco as they left, and he heard him say to Snape: “…a certain measure of kindness… a child so very young…”

A chill stole through the courtyard. Fuming, Draco shook out his robe to put it back on. As he swung it about his shoulders, something small and white fluttered out of its folds, and he caught it before it hit the ground.

It was an envelope. The address read simply ‘Draco.’

He grinned and looked up, but Snape was already gone.

---

NEXT CHAPTER: 9/6/22

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