Chapter 16: The Election
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
“They were found near the library,” said McGonagall. “I don’t suppose either of you know what they were doing there? Or if they were meeting someone?”
“Near the library?” Draco repeated faintly.
“Filch discovered them in an empty classroom. Whoever paralyzed them had hidden them behind a locked door.”
A wave of dizziness struck, so strong Draco swayed back from the bed.
A locked door.
Wish whoever did it would come out and say, even just to other Slytherins… I think we’d all like to buy him a drink…
“Hermione always goes to the library on Saturdays,” said Harry quietly. “I don’t think she was meeting anyone.”
Theo, hoisting his goblet skyward with an insufferable smirk, as if he had a secret worth toasting… To our faceless friend…
“She must’ve been there for hours,” Ron mumbled. “Poor Mione…”
You notice how nothing here stinks of muggle?
“I will escort you back to Gryffindor Tower,” said McGonagall heavily. “I need to address the students, in any case.”
Draco spun on his heel and took off at a sprint for the infirmary doors.
“Mister Malfoy!” cried McGonagall in alarm. “What are you doing?”
“Malfoy!”
“Hey, wait!”
He slammed into the doors, and they burst open. Footsteps scuffled on the stone behind him: Harry and Ron were following.
“Draco!” shouted Harry. Draco ignored him and thundered down the stairs, three at a time, his feet almost flying over the steps. “Where are you going?”
“I know who it is.”
“What?” demanded Ron. They stumbled after him, feet scrabbling on the stone. Harry was still wearing his quidditch robes, and Ron had red war paint smeared all over his cheeks. “Who?”
“Theodore Nott.”
“That maggot!” snarled Ron. Then: “Who is Theodore Nott?”
“Yeah, who?”
“Slytherin,” Draco spat, rounding the banister and plunging into the dungeons. “Pureblood as they come. Sacred Twenty-Eight, which means, for reference, Potter, his blood’s nearly blue as mine. Blood purist, naturally.”
“Naturally,” echoed Harry. “But he’s — he’s a student? Like us?”
“Temporarily, seeing he’s about to be dead,” snarled Draco. Ron grunted in approval.
“Yes, but,” panted Harry, as they dashed down some stairs, “how’d he do it? Madam Pomfrey said it was a — a complex spell—”
“He’d find a way. He could ask his father for help, he’s a former Death Eater.”
“You say that like yours wasn’t,” Harry said, not unfairly.
“Yes, but mine’s six feet underground, so he’s not exactly a reservoir of paternal advice!”
“He’s talking sense,” agreed Ron. “I mean, check the boxes, Harry. Slytherin? Pureblood? Son of a Death Eater?”
“That’s not a reason, though,” Harry said incredulously, “that’s just, like — I’m as angry about Hermione as you are, mate, but you’re describing half of Slytherin House.”
“I saw him this morning,” said Draco. “Early. He said he was looking for Pansy — in the library, on a Saturday morning, of all places — God, someone should have me put down for idiocy, I’m as bad any other Gryffindor—”
“Oi! That’s Hermione you’re talking about!”
“Almost any other Gryffindor.”
The Slytherins were still trickling in from the match, a dispirited troupe of green and silver. Draco spotted Theo’s quidditch robes at the tail of the line, chatting idly with Daphne and Pansy.
He found his wand already in his hand.
“NOTT!”
Theo turned around. “Draco!” he said, breaking into a smile. “Did you hear about it? The election? Tell me you didn’t come running down here just to celebrate, you know we would’ve invited you to the party—”
“FLIPENDO!”
He went sailing into the wall, and his head cracked against the stone.
“THEO!” Pansy screamed. She dashed to his side and fell to her knees, cradling his head.
“Blimey,” mumbled Ron.
The Slytherins broke into shrieks and surged away, clearing a path for Draco’s approach. His pulse thundered in his ears.
“Get away from him,” he ordered Pansy.
“You shit! ” She glowered up at him, her face knotted in loathing. Theo stirred in her arms, groaning. “You could have killed him!”
“Move,” he said, pointing his wand at Theo.
“What the hell, Draco?” Daphne demanded. She seized his arm, and he shrugged her off forcefully. “What was that for?”
“Nothing he didn’t earn.”
“What are you talking about?” Theo shouted blearily, struggling to sit up. Pansy made a noise of distress and forced him back down. “I haven’t done anything!”
“This is for Hermione, you tosser,” said Ron grimly, adding his wand beside Draco’s.
“Granger?” Theo repeated, dumbfounded. “What’s her problem with me?”
“Don’t play dumb!” roared Ron. He shoved his wand so close that it almost poked Theo between the eyes.
Theo threw up his hands. “I swear I’m not playing,” he said smoothly, darting a nervous glance at Draco. “Really. Just dumb.”
“Hermione’s in the Hospital Wing,” said Harry quietly. He’d taken out his wand, but hadn’t pointed it at anyone yet. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
Theo’s mouth fell open. “No,” he breathed. “Granger? I had no idea. Is that why they canceled the match?”
“Oh, ‘is that why’? Don’t be cute,” sneered Draco.
“He’s not,” said Daphne calmly. “They didn’t tell us anything. Hooch said to go to the common room, and the Head of House would explain after that.”
“There was another attack,” Harry told her. “Two. Hermione, and a fifth year Ravenclaw.”
“They were found near the library,” said Draco, and watched in satisfaction as Theo’s face went rigid with shock.
“That’s a shame,” said Daphne, still calm. “We guessed it was an attack, but we didn’t know who it was. I swear.” She pointed. “Theo’s been at the quidditch pitch all day, Draco. It couldn’t have been him.”
“He wasn’t, though,” said Draco. “I saw you at the library this morning.”
“And I told you, I was looking for Pansy,” Theo said patiently.
“Yeah? Looks like you found her pretty easily.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say. Yes, I did find her. She was in the loo. No, I didn’t paralyze Granger.”
“Why should I believe that?”
He spluttered, “Why? Why should you — because it’s none of my business. And it’d be bad form.”
“Bad form?” repeated Ron furiously. “That’s your problem with it? It’d be impolite?”
“I know it’s not of much importance to you, Weasley,” sneered Theo, “but some of us take pride in our manners—”
“She’s a human being, and you’re worried about hurting her because it’d make another PUREBLOOD SAD?”
Ron was roaring. On each of the last three syllables, he poked his wand sharply into the soft part of Theo’s neck. Theo gave a yelp — more of surprise than pain, Draco thought — and Pansy let out a scream like a ferret, and threw herself at Ron.
“Expelliarmus!” shouted Harry, and a jet of red light knocked Pansy to the ground. Her wand sprang out of her hand and clattered to the floor, inert.
“Pans!” Theo surged to his feet, wobbling slightly, and slid his wand from his pocket. It twirled through his fingers while he stared down Harry, expression dark. “You’ll regret that, Potter.”
“Not before you do,” snarled Ron. “Petrificus tot–”
“Petrificus totalus!”
Theo’s jinx barely missed Ron’s chest, as he jerked out of the way. He rounded on Harry. “Reducto,” he snarled, slashing his wand and Harry hit the floor, just in time for a red curse to sail over his head and shatter a huge crater in the dungeon wall behind him.
Daphne jumped in front of Pansy, wand outstretched. “Stop it!” she cried. “Stop it, stop it, stop it! Draco! Make them stop!”
“Expelliarmus!” shouted Harry again, and Theo threw up a sloppy Shield Charm that did not absorb the spell so much as refract it — it bounced off the shimmering curtain and struck Ron, whose wand sailed to join Pansy’s on the floor. But now Theo’s back was turned on Draco.
“Petrificus,” Draco spat, and the spell caught Theo’s wand-arm, which locked stiff as a board.
Theo swore foully, and tried to pry his wand from the newly-formed vise of his fingers.
“Expelliarmus,” Draco added, and Theo’s wand flew free, only for Harry to snatch it neatly out of the air. Draco advanced, twitching up the sleeve of his wand-hand, and with a coil of anger burning his gut, he put his wand to Theo’s temple.
“Draco,” said Theo, with a trembling veneer of calm. “Let’s be reasonable about this.”
“Give me one good reason my next word shouldn’t be the Reductor Curse.”
“Draco,” said Harry sharply. “No. Hang on. What?”
“Butt out, Potter.”
“We’re not going to kill people!”
“Give me a moment, I’ll get back to you.” He ground his wand-tip into Theo’s temple.
“Hermione wouldn’t want you to,” Harry said. “She’d stop you.”
“Hermione is in the Hospital Wing because of this bit of venomous slime,” Draco snarled, “and for that reason, she’s not here to stop me, so it’ll be his own fault, won’t it?”
“Venomous slime?” said Theo weakly. “And to think I invited you to my Christmas party.”
“When I make it to ‘one,’” said Draco, “the next word will be Reducto. Five. Four—”
Pansy screamed. Daphne had to throw herself in the way to prevent the smaller girl from leaping at Draco. “NO!” she screamed. “TEDDY! Malfoy, stop it, you — you vile, loathsome — muggle-loving blood traitor!”
It was remarkably easy to ignore being called a blood traitor; Draco marveled at how something that would have devastated him just a year ago now seemed to have no effect at all. “Three,” he reminded Theo coldly. “Two.”
Theo laced his fingers over his head, cracking his knuckles anxiously. “Because it’s a nightmare to get brains out of silk,” he suggested. “Especially when one’s threatening to spill quite so much.”
“Nott.”
“Merlin, I thought you had a sense of humor. All right, one good reason. See, I’ve only got the one, but you don’t want to hear it,” he said, with false levity. “I didn’t do it. The thing you’re angry about. It wasn’t me.”
“My next word, Nott, if you think I won’t then you don’t know me—”
“STOP!” Pansy screamed, writhing Daphne’s arms. “Stop it! It wasn’t him, I swear, please — don’t kill him!” She added, in a wail: “Granger’s not even dead! None of them are!”
“What, that’s your winning argument?” said Ron acidly. “No harm done, she’s only comatose?”
“No! Paralyzed, only paralyzed! He promised!”
Draco lowered his wand.
“He promised?” he repeated slowly.
“Yes!” Pansy slumped in Daphne’s arms, sobbing. “He — he — I didn’t, I couldn’t, so — but he said, he promised, and they didn’t die, they’ll be fine, so— so—”
“Pans?” Theo’s voice was thin with disbelief. “What are you talking about?”
She shook her head violently. “I didn’t,” she sobbed. “I wouldn’t. He wanted me to — but I wouldn’t! He took me and said, he said, it would — it would be funny, and — to get D-D-Dumbledore in trouble, you s-s-see, and — but he wanted me to use the Killing Curse but I couldn’t, I tried to do it first but I couldn’t, so I used Rictosempra major instead—”
“It was you?” Ron said hoarsely.
She ignored him. “A-a-and then I wanted to s-s-stop,” she wailed. “Because I got s-scared when I s-saw her in the Hospital Wi-i-ing, and everybody said the person who d-d-d-did it would go to Azkaban, and I can’t go to Azkaban, I just can’t, I’m only eleven! But I told him, and he s-s-said now I’d done it once I had to d-d-do it again, I c-couldn’t back out or he’d tell Dumbledo-o-o-re—” She broke into a howl, and Daphne hauled her into an embrace, cradling Pansy’s head against her chest.
“Shush,” cooed Daphne. Her cheeks shone with tears. “Shush-a-shush, Pansy, it’s okay. You’re alright. It wasn’t your fault.”
Theo looked murderous. He said, “Someone forced you?”
“Mm-hm,” moaned Pansy. “He said if I told anyone he’d fail me, and I can’t fail, or my parents will be s-so angry.”
“Which professor?”
“N-n-n.” She shook her head, her pigtails flying.
“Which professor, Pansy.”
“It was Podmore,” Draco said suddenly. Pansy flinched. “I’m right, aren’t I? It’s Podmore. That’s why you wanted me to walk you to Defense.”
“You mustn’t tell anyone,” she whispered.
Theo looked at Draco. Then he looked at Harry, then Ron.
“Truce?” he said.
Harry nodded. “Truce,” he agreed. He tossed Theo his wand, and he caught it. “But what are we going to d—”
Wordlessly, Theo strode from the corridor. His green robes snapped sharply in his wake.
“Teddy?” called Pansy in alarm. “Where are you going? Come back!”
“Podmore,” Harry groaned. He raked a hand through his hair. “We’ve got to — yeah, no, we’ve got to help.” He broke into a jog after him.
“Merlin,” muttered Ron, retrieving his wand from the floor. “Here we go again. Can we maybe take a minute to think about it, this time, before we go charging off—?”
“He’s going to need us,” shouted Harry. “He can’t duel a professor alone.”
“Technically he can,” Draco muttered. “What he can’t do is win. Now, I, for one, can see myself coming to terms with—”
“It took four of us to beat Quirrell!” Harry climbed the stairs two at a time, disappearing. “Come on!”
“Quirrell?” repeated Daphne. “Beat him? Is that — is that why he left?” She gaped at Ron. “Did you kill our Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor?”
“Don’t worry, he was actually You-Know-Who in a trenchcoat,” Ron assured her. “But we didn’t kill him. I just hit him with a sword, and then Harry turned him to dust.” He paused. “Actually, now you mention it, we might have done.”
“What the hell? Draco, he’s joking, right?”
But Draco was running after Harry, because he was right: it had taken four of them, and he didn’t particularly want Theo dead, either, now he knew he hadn’t hurt Hermione after all. Ron, swearing in exasperation, soon followed him.
“Idiots!” Daphne shouted, still cradling Pansy. “Where are you going?”
The answer was Podmore’s office. They rocketed into the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, and found it empty save for a sixth year Ravenclaw boy with cornrows, who Draco recognized as Podmore’s TA, grading papers in the corner.
“Where’s Podmore?”
The Ravenclaw blinked at Theo. “I don’t usually answer questions put to me in that tone.”
“It’s about the recent attacks,” said Draco smoothly, stepping in front of Theo, in the hopes of hiding the other boy’s homicidal grip on his wand. “We have urgent news.”
“Well, if it’s urgent,” said the Ravenclaw doubtfully. “He went down to the greenhouses to harvest mandrakes. The Restorative Draught should be ready soon… good Lord, what’s all the hurry about?”
Theo was out at the word ‘greenhouses,’ and Harry only a heartbeat after him.
Ron sighed. “Thanks, mate,” he said to the Ravenclaw, and then he and Draco followed.
Running down from the D.A.D.A. classroom to the greenhouses took less time than usual, because Theo only touched every third or fourth stair. On the last flight, he hopped onto the banister and rode it sidesaddle down to the Great Hall, then thrust open the oak front doors with a blast from his wand, and surged out onto the sun-bleached lawns.
“You know,” said Ron to Draco, as they brought up the rear, “if we could get Nott to wait, we might be able to go get McGonagall, or Dumbledore.”
“Great idea,” said Draco under his breath, winded from running. “You go fetch him and say so.”
The chances of this were slim: both he and Harry, well-conditioned from quidditch, easily outpaced Draco and Ron on the race down the lawns.
They reached the greenhouses, the door to which hung open. Inside, flames flickered bright and shimmery through the frosted glass.
“The mandrakes,” Ron said, horrified. He skidded to a halt at the bottom of the hill, as did Draco and Theo. Only Harry, upon seeing the fire, continued to charge: without pausing, he shucked the top piece of his quidditch robe, tossed it aside, and charged into the burning greenhouse.
“HARRY!” Ron bellowed. “ARE YOU MAD?”
For a moment, there was nothing, no sound, just the crackle of flames ravaging the flora.
Then Harry staggered back out the doors, carrying a heavy terracotta planter in each hand. The leafy follicles of the mandrake plant protruded, singed but whole, from the top of each planter. His face was stony from effort: he was a small boy, and each planter was about half his size.
Ignoring Ron’s cry of relief, Harry dropped these, wiped some ash from his forehead with the back of his hand, and plunged back into the greenhouse.
“Merlin,” Draco snapped. “Perfect fool of a Gryffindor. Get out of my way.”
He shoved Ron aside and strode after Harry.
It was boiling hot inside the greenhouse, and flames danced everywhere, walls of fire, singing the glass. The air tasted of ash and soot and dead leaves, and he could barely see through the billows of smoke that foamed from every planter. Draco threw his sleeve over his nose, breathed shallow, and shouted: “Aguamenti!”
Water poured from his wand, in a wide jet, like a hose. He swept it over the flames, and where the twin jets met, great plumes of smoke erupted like the breath of a volcanic eruption. He put out a ring of fire around the mandrakes, and then moved the jet over to a crop of pygmy trees whose branches had turned black from soot. But it wasn’t enough: no matter how much water he poured, the fire was still greater, burned higher, and billowed more smoke that made it hard to breathe.
Harry seized his shoulder. “It’s no use,” he shouted. “It’s not enough. We’ve got to carry them out.”
“But the smoke—” He broke off, coughing.
“I know! We’ve just got to be fast!”
“I can’t carry—”
“You can! You have to!”
He began to explain that it didn’t matter, and that the mandrakes would burn to death before they managed to evacuate them all. But at that moment, a muffled voice cried, “Reducto!”
The front wall of the greenhouse exploded, and a million glass shards fell like raindrops to the floor.
Smoke unfurled from the greenhouse and poured into the afternoon sky, staining the clouds black. Immediately it became easier to breathe. Draco dropped to his knees, gasping, as he raked fresh air into his lungs for the first time in what felt like days.
Theo stood with wand outstretched, a triumphant expression on his face. “God,” he said, “I love that spell.”
“It’s aces,” Ron agreed. “Here’s my favorite. Wingardium Leviosa.”
And with a swish-and-flick that would have brought tears to Hermione’s eyes, he levitated the largest mandrake planter from the burning wreckage of the greenhouse, lifting it high over their heads, and depositing it safely in the lee of Hagrid’s cabin.
Harry laughed, part relief, part delight. “Thanks,” he called to Theo.
“Don’t mention it, Potter.” Theo, breathing heavily, lowered his wand. “Your friends are barmy,” he said to Draco. “Properly mad.”
“Takes one to know one, Nott,” he said, dabbing sweat from his forehead discreetly.
“That is the weakest of all possible comebacks, and the only reason I can’t do better is I’m still flustered from saving your skin.”
“HARRY? WHAT THE HELL DID YEH DO TO THE GREENHOUSE?”
Hagrid had heard the commotion, and came hurrying out of his hut. He held the largest, frilliest, most hideous pink umbrella Draco had ever seen, and was wielding it like a poker.
“There was a fire,” said Harry, unnecessarily. “We fixed it. Hagrid, it’s urgent. Did you see Professor Podmore come by here?”
“Podmore?” Hagrid was distracted, and stricken, by the site of the charred greenhouse. Draco sympathized immensely. “He came by jus’ a minute ago ter harvest some o’ the mandrakes. Wha’ happened ter you lot?”
“Never mind that. Where did he go?”
“He wen’ into the forest,” Hagrid said, looked wildly between them. “Said he had ter get another ingredient fer Snape. I — oi, you there! Where d’you think yer goin’, lad?”
Theo had plunged down the path into the forest. Ron moaned in exasperation.
“Hagrid, Podmore’s behind the attacks,” Harry said urgently. “You have to get McGonagall. Get Dumbledore. Tell them Podmore set the greenhouses on fire and went into the forest.”
“Tell him to ask Pansy Parkinson,” Draco interrupted. “Ask her about it. She’ll tell you.”
“All righ’, but — Harry! Where are ye goin’?”
Harry had sprinted into the forest.
“Theodore Nott’s going after him alone,” said Ron, “and Harry’s got a complex about these kinds of things. Unfortunately, so do I. See you, Hagrid,” and with a sigh, he took off after Harry.
Draco had never been this deep into the forest before. He could vividly remember Dumbledore telling the first years not to cross the forest threshold at the Opening Feast, a warning he’d always taken gladly and without reinforcement. But now, with the castle far behind them, and nothing but the sourceless rustling of invisible creatures in the thick foliage around them, did he realize how big it was. They had been hurrying along the path for almost fifteen minutes, wordless in their haste, and he had no idea how far they’d gone from the greenhouses, or how much path was left ahead. The woods stretched out for miles beyond the Hogwarts grounds, he knew; if they kept going, they might very well be there forever.
The path shrank, and they had to clamber over fallen logs and tree stumps, ringed in the teeth marks from some giant pair of jaws. Spiderwebs clustered thickly in the foliage, and Ron walked into one without paying attention, yelping and swatting it away.
“Careful,” hissed Draco. He cleared the cobwebs from Ron’s shoulders with a quick Scouring Charm and brushed him off. “Don’t go flailing about, you’ll bring the whole forest down on us.”
“I hate spiders.”
“I’m not in love with them, either, but keep your voice down.”
“Will you lot keep up?” Theo’s voice wafted out of the darkness, irritated.
Draco exchanged a foreboding glance with Ron and re-lit his wand.
A clearing appeared in the distance, lit not by sunlight but a watery blue gleam. The boys extinguished their wands as they came in sight of it, and dropped to a crouch, creeping through the brush. Theo and Harry went down on their hands and knees, clambering under the roots of an oak tree older than Draco’s fortune, and with a quiet whine of displeasure, Draco did the same.
In the clearing stood a man in a dark pinstriped suit. A skein of yellow hair clung like a cap to his skull, and his pale eyes glowered from deep within a square, leathery face. Professor Podmore knelt at his feet.
“…burned, and soon gone. The girl has grown difficult…”
“Irrelevant,” said the wizard coldly. “Why are they not yet dead? Why have you tarried?”
Hunched in the dirt, Theo stiffened at the sound of his voice. “Yaxley,” he whispered to Draco.
“It is impossible,” said Podmore dully. “The infirmary is warded. Poppy Pomfrey has refused visitors.”
“Why did you not execute the deed yourself, to begin with?”
“I do not… I cannot…” Podmore shuddered. He dropped onto all fours.
“Imperio. Answer me.”
Podmore gave a strangled cry.
“ Imperio,” cried Yaxley. “Imperio! Answer me!”
“…Dumbledore… asked to inspect… my wand…”
“And what do I care for that? I ordered them dead! Crucio!”
Screams filled the clearing. A flock of ravens lifted from the boughs above and fled, cawing.
The baying of Podmore’s agony made all of them squirm in discomfort, but for Harry, it was too much. He leapt up. Draco gasped, “Potter, no,” but it was too late. Harry vaulted the tree root and ran into the blue light, shouting, “Petrificus totalus!”
The spell flared and died against Yaxley’s wards. Yaxley turned, and Podmore collapsed, the curse broken.
“Mister Potter,” he said.
Harry brandished his wand. He had on his side not one single weapon besides a wand and heart far too big for its own health — that, and one very angry Theodore Nott, who had jumped into the clearing after him.
“Yaxley!” he barked. “Explain yourself!”
“Theodore?” Yaxley had been surprised; now he was shocked. “What are you doing here? Where is your father?”
“At home, celebrating his victory,” said Theo coldly. “And I’m sure he’d be very interested to learn what you’ve been doing with his best friend’s daughter.”
“What Sibelius doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” said Yaxley, “and what Prescott Parkinson doesn’t know could fill a book.”
“You’re telling me, but you can’t — this is a school, it’s not—”
“What is happening at Hogwarts is absolutely essential to what comes next,” he said calmly. “Dumbledore must be ousted.”
“So you’ve been terrorizing Pansy all year?” he snarled. “I don’t like Dumbledore, either, but this isn’t how we do things.”
Yaxley began to reply, and then gave a bark of laughter: Draco had stepped into the clearing.
“And the young Malfoy. Fitting, that you should join us so belatedly.” He pointed his wand at Draco, conversationally. “This was your father’s idea, you know. Years ago, at the height of our glory, he confessed to me an idea for how one could dismantle the Hogwarts administration and replace it with a more suitable infrastructure for our purposes.”
“You mean Voldemort’s purposes,” snarled Harry. Yaxley flicked his wand at him, and Harry’s jaw snapped shut. Sounds of panic emitted from his throat as his teeth refused to part.
“He was a brilliant man,” Yaxley told Draco. “I know he would have approved of the work we do today.”
Draco shivered. Trying very hard to keep his voice flat, he said, “I rather think he wouldn’t approve of you pointing your wand at his son, Yaxley.”
Yaxley reached into his robe and withdrew a small black book. The cover was unvarnished leather, split from age, and the pages were yellowed from use. It bore no title. “He told me it would begin with a diary,” he said simply. “No mere book only, but an artifact of enormous power, which the Dark Lord had entrusted to him many years ago.”
A rustle came in the bushes behind them, and Ron gave a yelp. Draco glanced backward, and watched a large black spider hurry out of the underbrush, about the size of a rat. At the sight of it, a rough craggy voice filled his ears.
Don’ hurt the spiders.
He glanced at Yaxley, who was distracted by Ron. Shifting subtly, covering the movement with his robes, Draco lifted his foot and brought it down hard on the spider’s head. It crunched under his heel.
At the sound of Ron’s voice, Yaxley’s head cocked, and he swept his wand in an arc at the trees. Foliage wilted in a curtain of death. Roots shrank, leaves blackened, and fat sheaths of bark rolling into ashy coils at the feet of withered trees. The rosebush hiding Ron sagged and wilted, revealing him.
“How many of you are there?”
“At least one more,” said Ron brashly, lifting his wand. “Dumbledore’s on his way. You should be scared.”
“Of Dumbledore?” Yaxley smiled, fanning himself with the book. “How could I fear Dumbledore? He is an old man, and he allowed my poppet—” He flicked his wand at Podmore’s body, and his limbs twitched — “to run amok in your castle for a year. Even now, the Ministry has sent a detail of uniformed goons to place him under investigation, and now, without Fudge to protect him, he will find it much harder to interfere with the course of justice…”
Theo said, “But I don’t understand—”
Yaxley’s lips twisted in irritation. With a shadowy cousin of what might have been patience, he said, “Theodore, you are young, and you have much to learn. Leave us. Take Draco. Attend your father. Our victory is in hand, and celebrations will be in order. Meanwhile, it will be fitting… if Mister Potter… christens our Lord’s second regime with his blood.”
Ron roared and leapt in front of Harry, but Yaxley’s wand was already moving. With a slash, he killed the blue lights in the clearing, and they plunged into pitch darkness.
Somewhere in the slate of black, a booming voice roared, “AVADA KEDAVRA,” and green light shot across the clearing. There was a cry and a scuffle of movement, and something knocked Draco back into a tree. He slammed his head against the bark, and felt it tear at the back of his robes.
“Expelliarmus!”
“Crucio!”
“Verdimillious!”
Bolts of red light flickered here and there across the clearing like a lightning storm. Yaxley seemed to flit from one place to another, his weathered face contorted in fury, wand chasing Harry’s gleaming golden shape through the darkness — now Harry dived out of sight, and Yaxley was pointing at Theo — and Draco never knew quite how it happened, whether Yaxley had seen one dark-haired boy and mistaken him for the other, or whether in his rage he had decided it no longer mattered — but Yaxley cried, “ Serpensortia,” and a long, black cobra leapt airborne from a seam in the air, hissing, its eyes fixed on Theo, who saw it and screamed — Harry hurled himself in front of the other boy, and opened his mouth, and a sound like sand running over stone came slithering out—
But now the snake was pausing, lifting its head, swaying back and forth in the rhythm of Harry’s voice. Draco gaped.
He was a parseltongue. The Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, Gryffindor’s favorite son, and he was a parseltongue.
Where the hell had he learned that?
The snake bowed its head and slithered into the trees, harmless. Harry slumped against Theo, gasping for breath.
“ LUMOS MAXIMUS!”
Yaxley’s wand blazed like the rising sun, and the clearing filled with blinding light. Draco clapped his hand over his eyes to shield them and threw a Body-Bind Jinx vaguely in Yaxley’s direction, hoping against hope that it hit something. Someone gave a cry of fear.
When he opened his eyes, he saw that Yaxley had gone stiff, not from the Body-Bind, but in terror of something large and black and furry that was crawling out of the trees behind Harry and Theo. It dangled from the trees on six immensely long, hairy legs, and from its bulbous head, studded with eight ruby eyes, hung a pair of shining curved pincers, sharp as the edge of a scythe. It clacked them together, and it made a sound like swords being crossed.
Ron made a sound like a dying goat. Draco, frozen in fear, watched as the thing hauled itself over Harry’s head, its gigantic bulk passing so close that it ruffled the hair on his head. Harry had closed his eyes, and his shoulders heaved with each breath.
Yaxley shrieked, “Avada kedavra!”
The curse struck the spider square beneath the eyes, and it sagged from the trees, keeling over onto the clearing with a terrible crunch. Its corpse landed on Yaxley’s cobra, crushing it. Venom welled from its inert fangs.
Theo groaned, out of disappointment or disgust or terror, or perhaps all three. Ron whimpered.
Yaxley’s breath came in gasps. “Acromantula,” he said. “The Forbidden Forest teems with them. Dark Creatures — lamentably large — but no mere Beast, regardless of size, is a match for a true wizard—”
The second spider sank its pincers into his shoulder.
Yaxley’s howl was lost in the rumble of the trees. Spiders poured out of the darkness, waves of them, hordes, a swarm of hairy wiggling legs. Spiders the size of carthorses, spiders the size of dogs, spiders the size of carriages, and at least two or three as large as Hagrid’s hut, whose massive bulk knocked the trees together as they waddled into the light. Pincers clacking, the spiders converged with horrible hisses and screams.
The net of them drew tight around the clearing, forcing the boys into the middle, near Yaxley, who was writhing and screaming as the spider above him drove its pincers again and again into his neck, leaving a mess of carnage that Draco was grateful he could not see.
Ron, with a wailing sob, leapt onto Harry’s back to try and escape the flood. But there was no escaping, for they were everywhere, above them and below them and walling in the forest on all sides, and the large ones were beginning to cast thick nets of cobwebs between the trees, erecting silver walls of glistening sticky rope as thick as steel girders…
Moving fast, Draco seized Harry and Theo with an arm each, and hauled them in back-to-back in the center of the clearing. They needed to leave, but how? They couldn’t apparate; none of them had a Portkey; and they couldn’t get out without fighting their way clear…
He had an idea.
“Dobby,” he mumbled.
He screwed his eyes shut and thought about the Manor on Christmas morning, the smell of roast chestnuts on the great fireplace, snow thick on the gables and wafting past the windows… he thought of swimming in the lake in summertime, and the smoky smell of the kitchen after breakfast had been prepared, coffee grounds and bacon grease, and the smell of rotting oranges in a secret cabinet under the silverware…
“Dobby!”
A crack split the air.
“Master Draco?”
The elf stood in the center of their little ring, holding a bread knife and a pat of butter. At the sight of the clearing, he gave a shriek and dropped them. Then he said a word Draco hadn’t ever heard from him before, and loudly.
“DOBBY!” Draco could have kissed him. “Apparate us!”
He didn’t hesitate. Dobby seized Draco by one hand, and Harry by the other, and twisted hard on his heel. Draco snatched Theo’s wrist as they went, and with a winnowing tug in his gut, the clearing vanished.
They snapped into existence in a high-ceilinged circular room. A number of strange silver instruments whirred and trailed smoke. The walls were covered with portraits of old headmasters and headmistresses, and at the back of the room sat an enormous, claw-footed desk; behind it, high on a shelf, a shabby, tattered wizard’s hat. A large bird with feathers the color of flames perched on a mount suspended from the ceiling, and at the sight of them, it gave a curious chirrup.
“Good Lord!”
Professor Dumbledore stood by the mantelpiece, next to Professor McGonagall, who was taking great, steadying gasps, clutching her chest. Between them sat Cornelius Fudge, who sat hunched in an armchair by the fire, cradling a glass of something amber. He and McGonagall modeled Dumbledore’s mystified stare in triplicate.
Draco risked a glance in the mirror behind Dumbledore’s desk. The four boys looked awful: wild-haired and muddy-kneed, their uniforms ripped and studded with twigs, scrapes darted here and there like smudges of clay. They would’ve been chased out of most reputable establishments with a broom.
He took a deep breath. “Headmaster,” he said. “Professor. Minister.”
“Former minister,” Theo corrected, under his breath.
Harry stepped forward, silencing both of them. “We figured out who’s behind the attacks,” he said. Then he withdrew a small black book from his robes. Theo gave a small hiss, as if in pain. “And we have this.”
Dumbledore’s mouth parted. Swiftly, he crossed the room and took the book from Harry. He paged through it with an energy that Draco had never seen in the old man before, touching each blank page almost reverently, as if it contained the deepest secret of his heart.
At length, he snapped it shut, and slipped it into some secret pocket of his voluminous periwinkle robe.
“Cornelius,” he said, “I believe I must take leave of you.”
Fudge pushed himself to his feet, leaning heavily on the chair. “Of course,” he said blearily. “Of course. Serious business. I think… I must go, as well… there is much to be done, at Ten Downing… I must prepare the transition.”
“Transition?” said Ron. It was the first thing he had said since they escaped the spiders, and it was weak from strain. “What d’you mean, transition?”
Dumbledore was still gazing at Harry with an anguished admixture of worry and pride. “I suppose your adventures have sequestered you from worldly news,” he murmured.
Ron pointed at Fudge. “Didn’t you win?” he said, in accusatory tones.
Fudge balked. “Young man,” he sneered, drawing himself up, “your friends and yourself have achieved a great victory. We should not sully your triumph by allowing politics to intrude…”
“He lost,” said Theo quietly. Fudge turned a baleful eye on him, but Theo did not so much as quiver. “It was cocked. Fudge won Northern Ireland, Runcorn and Fudge split the South, Runcorn and Asquith split the North. Fudge had a plurality, but without a majority candidate, the second ballot goes to the Wizengamot. The top two candidates go head-to-head for a bare majority. That was Runcorn and Fudge.”
“So what?” Ron rounded on Fudge. “You’ve the majority, haven’t you?”
“But Runcorn is Leader of the Opposition,” said Theo, speaking over Ron. “So he recused himself, obviously, but his party cut a deal. One vote for the Magical Security Act, in exchange for each vote for Runcorn.” He added, “My father wrote me as soon as he heard.”
“They’d never,” said Draco instantly. “That’s tosh. The Coalition wouldn’t—”
“Five seats flipped,” said Theo, shrugging. “They passed the bill this morning. Runcorn’s getting sworn in tomorrow afternoon.”
Fudge listened to Theo with a greedy sort of dread. Ron gaped.
Harry, who had a lump on his head where a Death Eater’s curse had thrown him into a tree, plucked some brambles off his robes and glanced around like he was anxious for the conversation to be over.
“You’re a precocious young man,” Fudge croaked to Theo. “Your memory for detail, if nothing else… I am sure you will go far. Our children are the most important…” But where he seemed on the verge of launching into another stump speech, he suddenly faded, and the gusto leached out of him. Tiredly, he said, “Albus, I must go. The next twenty-four hours will, perhaps, define my administration’s legacy more than the previous two years… I am very, very busy…”
“With what?” said Ron angrily. “Got any other elections to lose?”
“Mister Weasley,” snapped McGonagall. Chastened, he fell silent.
“Doesn’t anyone want to know,” Harry said loudly, “who was attacking the school? And how we stopped them?”
With immeasurable chagrin, Fudge cringed and retreated. Draco watched him in disgust. He’d rather lick someone’s shoe than seem so small.
“Harry, I would like nothing more,” said Dumbledore sincerely. “And I should be honored to reserve an hour of your time to do so, after these lovely people have taken their leave of us.
“In the meantime, I believe all your friends have earned some food and sleep.” Theo twitched, hard, at being referred to as Harry’s ‘friend.’ “I suggest that you all find your common rooms for a moment’s respite, and then help themselves to some well-earned victuals in the kitchens. I will instruct our friends to prepare something suitably hearty… and to prepare a berth for our guest,” he added, inclining his head to Dobby.
Dobby hid behind Draco’s leg. “Dobby is greeting Master Dumbledore,” he squeaked. “Dobby is sorry for intruding, but Dobby was trying to save Master Draco, and he went to the safest place he knew.”
“‘Dumbledore’ will do perfectly well,” said Dumbledore gently. “You will forgive me for being unorthodox, but I have never much liked the title of ‘master.’”
With a start, Draco noticed that a spider had bitten Dobby’s arm, and a ring of pincer marks wept blood down to his elbow. Pointing his wand at it, he muttered “Episkey.” Dobby made a sound of surprise, fingering the wound.
“Dobby is forgetting to heal himself,” he said. “A thousand pardons, for embarrassing the House of Malfoy—”
“Don’t — that’s not — don’t say that,” Draco mumbled. Dobby fell silent as if compelled, which of course, Draco realized, he was. “I mean. You can talk if you want to.”
Dumbledore watched the exchange with an unreadable expression. “Draco,” he said politely, “could you spare your servant for a moment? I should like a word with him.”
“Yes, sir.” Draco patted Dobby’s head. “It’s alright,” he advised him.
He trailed out of the office behind Theo and Ron.
In the hallway, Ron yelped and smacked something on his shoulder.
“Spiders,” he said. “ Giant spiders. I hate magic, actually. If I ever see one of those things again, I’m going to snap my wand and go live as a muggle.”
“I’m telling Pucey to move the bonfire next year,” Theo muttered. “Acromantula. Merlin. Why don’t they tell anybody about them? They ought to have an exterminator in.”
“Good thinking, calling your house-elf,” Ron said fervently. “Think he saved our skin.”
“Yes, it was a neat bit of household magic,” sniffed Theo. “I wish I could’ve done it. My father doesn’t let me call Mimsy, he says I’m to wait until I’m old enough.”
Bewildered, Ron said, “You’ve got one, too?”
“Oh, yes. Ten of them.”
“Ten!”
Draco buried a cough in his arm that sounded like “excessive.” Theo narrowed his eyes.
“ Some of us run a full household, and like to host parties from time to time. It’s not like living alone with your mother in the middle of the country, where you’re practically self-sufficient…”
The next cough was “frippery.”
“Bully for you, you’ve a house-elf and a thesaurus.”
They reached the stairwell, and Theo hopped down the first step before realizing neither of them followed “Ah,” he sighed. “I forgot I was among barbarians.”
“Piss off,” Ron said warmly. “You nearly got us all killed tonight, running after him like that.”
“Mm, yes. That was quite uncharacteristic of me.” Draco noticed that Theo didn’t apologize. “I suppose you expect me to be grateful.”
Ron rolled his eyes. “Why can’t you lot just say ‘thank you’?” he asked philosophically, though it was pointed in Draco’s direction. “It’s right in there with all that rot about ‘manners’ and ‘form.’”
“Can’t,” yawned Draco, leaning against the banister. “Implies you owe them something.”
“He does owe us.”
“Ah, but it’s not polite to say so. You’re supposed to wait around for a few decades, stumble into a miscellaneous bit of trouble in a totally unrelated situation, and then write him a veiled missive explaining your predicament, so he can respond by secretly intervening on your behalf and call in one of his other favors to exculpate you without ever breathing a word of it to another living soul.” Draco polished his fingernails on his robe. “Or let him die for you, or something.”
Theo was nodding vigorously. “That was my preference,” he admitted.
Ron shook his head despairingly. “You’re so weird,” he told Draco.
“Your face is so weird.”
“Oi! Fair enough.”
He lifted his hand and engaged Draco in the celebratory majyyks of the Muggle High Five. Draco’s palm smarted.
Theo watched with fascination and horror.
“You’ve gone native,” he said to Draco. “Astonishing. Your father would weep, you know.”
Draco considered this. Then he shrugged.
“I’ve still got twice the class in my pinky finger that you’ve got in your whole family tree.”
The corner of Theo’s mouth twitched.
“Snot-nosed weaselly bastard.”
“Ratty, mop-headed tosser.”
“Blood traitor.”
“Chauvinist.”
Theo turned to Ron. “Tea is at four on Sundays,” he said formally. “You will wear a tie. You will button your shirt. You will not be late. You will compliment Daphne’s accessories.”
“Wot?” said Ron. Draco snickered.
“See you both in hell,” called Theo, trotting down the stairs. “Or Potions, I guess.”
Once he was gone, Ron turned to Draco.
“Pretty sure there’s a match on,” he remarked. “Lee Jordan’s got a Spell-O-Vision projector in the fourth year boys’. Fred said something about popcorn.”
“Who’s playing?”
“You really care?”
This was fair.
“I want to change into good clothes, first,” he said. “Wandering around like this, people are going to start thinking I’m a Weasley.”
“Not to worry, mate, you haven’t got the looks,” said Ron. And jostling each other roughly, they started up the many stairs to the Gryffindor Tower.
Hermione Granger snored when she slept.
He hadn’t known that. Of course, he’d never spent the night in the same room as her before.
It made it nearly impossible to sleep, but he didn’t mind. The chairs in the infirmary were damn near impossible to sleep in, anyway, and he much preferred her snoring to silent.
Madam Pomfrey said it would take several days for the potion to work. Paralysis had given way to unconsciousness, and Colin had even begun to murmur in his sleep, but everyone still “had to be patient, Mister Malfoy, we can’t wave a wand and have them all back, now” — though precisely why that was so beyond the realm of comprehension, in a magical castle, was rather beyond Draco.
Still, he could be patient. He was an extremely patient person.
No, you’re not, Hermione would have said.
He didn’t know why he wanted her back, honestly. She was such a heinous bother.
Draco yawned and rearranged himself in the chair, slinging his legs over one of the armrests. His head rested against the side of her bed, cushioned by a stolen pillow. Madam Pomfrey clucked disapprovingly at him for robbing the bedding of the infirm, but in his defense, it served the very important medical purpose of preventing a crick in his neck. Besides, Hermione would hardly miss it.
It was early enough in the morning that none of the Gryffindors had come in for their daily visits, yet. If he remembered the schedule — and he’d memorized the schedule, at this point — it was Dean’s turn, which meant he and Seamus would be there about twenty minutes late, probably holding some leftovers from breakfast for Draco and whatever homework Hermione needed from the day before. Then, once they left, Draco would quietly copy his own answers onto her paper, slip it into a folder, and sneak it beneath the flowers on her bedside table.
She’d be spitting mad at him when she woke up and found them. She’d give him a howling earful about earning her own grades, and breaking academic rules, all of Hogwarts’ downright medieval punishments for plagiarism. He couldn’t wait.
The sun sent a querulous finger of light down from the clerestory windows, and as it poked her face, she gave a riotous snort. Her eyes slid open, wide and summery brown.
“Hermione,” he said slowly. It felt odd on his tongue.
She blinked rapidly, in the fashion of someone still clearing the last figments of dreams from their eyes. “Draco?” she mumbled. Her voice was almost gone from lack of use. He sat up and snatched the empty glass by her bedside.
“Aguamenti. Water?”
“Mm-hm.”
She drank in deep, greedy swallows. He watched her with greedier eyes: the simple movement of her throat, the way her eyes flit instinctively around the room, noting the surroundings, lingering on doors and windows. There was something surreal about watching her move after having lain still for weeks — like watching the Winged Victory of Samothrace beat her wings.
After a moment, she turned her head. “Draco,” she repeated.
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Right. So, you remember how I never liked Professor Podmore? Well, listen to this—”
“To my bed?”
“Oh. That.”
Hermione’s bedside bloomed with marigolds. They fountained from a dozen vases on her table, tumbled from a flotilla of mason jars and copper pots around the bed skirts, and heaped high at the foot of the quilt in unpotted mounds, spilling a waterfall of cherry gold petals onto the floor. Red and gold and ribbons of green lifted and danced with each cool breath of the vents, drifted into her hair, littered the snowy tangles of her bedsheets. She twitched her hand, and found one slipped neatly between her thumb and forefinger.
“What,” she repeated, staring at him. “What am I supposed to do with these, Draco.”
“Well.” He shrugged, drawing his knees up to his chest. “If you’d been quicker about getting well, we wouldn’t be in this situation. The first day, I only came with a dozen.”
“…And the second day?”
“Another dozen,” he said. “Obviously. You can’t bring day-old flowers, that’s rude.”
“And then…”
“You’ve got to think about this from my perspective,” he drawled, gazing at the ceiling. “I mean, you could have woken up any day. And what was I going to do? Be caught without fresh flowers? What am I, a Weasley?”
“So you… Draco, you can’t possibly think…”
“That’s a joke, by the way, he didn’t neglect you. Dear Ronald brought some daisies and a pack of Chocolate Frogs. They’re in one of these pots. Now, I would have gone for Cauldron Cakes, because I know you prefer them, but I didn’t want to get anything that would go stale.”
“I don’t… this is absurd,” she said faintly. “And — and—” She sat up, her jaw forming a hard corner of determination. “And I’m still not speaking to you.”
“Fine, we can skip to that part. Hold on,” he said, rifling through his pockets. He withdrew a battered scrap of parchment and unrolled it, clearing his throat. “I, Draco Malfoy, being of sound mind and body—”
“Is that your will?”
“This will go faster if you let me finish. Being of sound mind and body, hereby apologize to Hermione Granger, to whom I have done a very wrongful thing; and for whose forgiveness, if forthcoming, I would be very grateful.”
“That’s not a proper apology,” she said tiredly. “That’s a template for an apology. You can’t show up with a shop full of flowers and a prewritten script and possibly expect everything to be alright again.”
“Wasn’t it a good script, though?”
“Draco!”
“All right. How about this: I was a ponce,” he said, “and I shouldn’t have called you — that word. I’m used to saying it—”
“Oh, are you, now—”
“—and if you’d listen I’d tell you that’s not an excuse, but it’s the reason I used it, not because I wanted to be cruel to you. Which I didn’t. Want to. Though I was. Obviously.” He folded the parchment in half, then folded it again. “Speaking personally was a terrible experience,” he said, “and I don’t intend to do it ever again.”
She frowned, twirling the flower between her fingers. “Okay,” she said. “But it’s not just me. You have to… I don’t want to think you’re not saying it because you want to make me happy. Even though you believe all of it, otherwise.”
“I don’t believe—” He hesitated. “All of it.”
Her brows knit together.
“Okay. I don’t believe the rot about muggle-borns. You and Creevey, you’re just witches and wizards. Annoying witches and wizards, but you’re Gryffindors, so there’s a selection effect.” He added, “Also, it’s making it doubly embarrassing that you’re beating me in Transfiguration, so this rah-rah equality business is incidentally in my interest.”
“And muggles?”
He threw his arms around his knees, scowling. “I don’t — can’t you see when a man is trying? Muggle-borns are one thing, because I know you, but if you’re going to start talking about muggles and wizards being the same or any of that radical stuff, I just don’t know—”
“That’s all right,” she said, surprising him. “We don’t have to… not right now. But you really do mean it? You’re actually sorry? Not just for the name-calling.”
“Yes,” he said, nervously.
She slumped back on the bed. “Oh, thank goodness,” she sighed. “I was so sick of being mad at you.”
He grinned. Dropping his knees, he hopped onto the mattress, bouncing some of her pillows into the air. She squawked and shuffled over so he could lean against the wall. “Makes bloody two of us,” he said. “Let’s never do that again, it was awful.”
“Although… I don’t know. You are much nicer when you’re sorry for something.”
“If you want flowers, Granger, all you have to do is ask.”
“Speaking of,” she said, laughing, “what on earth am I going to do with all these? Actually.” She lifted a handful of blossoms and tossed them haplessly on the bedspread. “I can’t take all these back to the Tower.”
“Why not? I’ll help you.”
“Because I’ll get stares! And Lavender might try to shank me.”
“Brown owes me one,” he said, shrugging. “And I can get some for her, too, if she wants.”
“Don’t do that, she’ll fall in love with you,” Hermione said distastefully.
“And what’s so wrong with that?”
“Nothing, but you don’t want Lavender in love with you. When she had a crush on Harrison Ford, she wrote him a bunch of sonnets and tried to send them by owl.”
“I still don’t see what’s wrong with that. ‘If music be the food of love,’ you know…”
“Harrison Ford is a muggle,” she said patiently, “and they were bad sonnets. Did you say there was candy? I’m starving.”
“Good woman for trying, though, Brown,” he said absently. His fingers drummed on the side of the bed. “Say — Granger.”
“Yes?”
“Can I have that?” He pointed at her wrist, where she wore a crumpled silk hair tie with an elastic band. Parvati had once called it a “crunchy” or something like that.
“You want a hair tie?” Her glance at his hair was deeply skeptical. She took it off, anyway.
“Yes. I want you to watch this.” He cleared his throat. “Dobby, come here.”
A crack echoed in the infirmary, and Dobby appeared at the foot of her bed. Hermione yelped.
“Master Draco,” he said cheerfully. “Miss Grain Jar! You is awake.” He looked around. “You is very much liking marigolds,” he observed frankly.
“Yes, she is, it’s marvelous. Dobby, can you tell Granger what you talked to Dumbledore about?”
Hermione eyed Draco warily, but she spoke to Dobby in a kind voice. “Yes,” she said. “If you’d like to, Dobby, you can tell me. Only if you want to.”
“Oh,” said Dobby anxiously. “Dobby certainly can! Dumbledore told Dobby that if his masters ever found they no longer required his services — or if he found himself without employ — he would be free to come and work for the kitchens at Hogwarts, as a free elf.” He straightened his pillowcase. “He said also,” he said proudly, “that Dobby was the finest and bravest house-elf he had ever known, and that he would be proud to pay Dobby — real money, a wizard’s wage!”
“That’s wonderful, Dobby,” said Hermione sadly. She handed him a marigold, which he took, cooing in delight. “I hope it happens, one day.”
“Yeah,” said Draco casually. “Me, too. Catch.”
And he tossed the crunchy at Dobby, who caught it.
“Master has given clothes,” said Dobby wondrously. “Master has given Dobby a—” He looked up at Draco, spellbound. “What is it?”
“A crunchy,” Draco informed him.
“Um,” said Hermione.
“Master has given Dobby a crunchy,” said Dobby in disbelief. He broke into a beam. “Dobby has a crunchy, and Dobby is free!”
“Scrunchy,” said Hermione insistently, “it’s a scrunchy, Dobby, it’s for your hair—”
“See, here’s the thing,” said Draco. “Dumbledore won’t let me bring you to school. Something about slavery being a bad example for other students, I don’t know. So I thought, if you came to work in the kitchens during the year, then you could come back to the Manor during the summers, and we’d — well, I don’t know what he’s paying you, but I’ll bet we can pay you more.”
Dobby had slid it up his arm like a gold bracer, and was hopping around Hermione’s bed like a child on Christmas morning. He spun, and leapt into Draco’s arms, who gave a quiet oof.
He could feel the heat of her smile like a physical emittance, a ray of sunlight, a tongue of fire.
“Don’t look at me like that.” He stroked the back of Dobby’s trembling head with as much dignity as he was capable. “I hope you don’t think this means anything vis-a-vis our ideological debate.”
“Which one?” she said, beaming. “I’m winning all of them.”
“You’re winning one of them, and that’s because I happened to put my foot in it so badly I had to reevaluate my whole life philosophy to get back in your good books. You won’t catch me making that mistake again, Granger, I warn you.”
“No,” she said, waving a marigold delicately under her nose. Her eyes sparkled. “I don’t think you will.”
The fool witch insisted on going to the Closing Feast, against his better judgment and Madam Pomfrey’s. They hammered out a compromise wherein she came, but in one of Pomfrey’s wheely-chairs, and Draco got to push her around. He took great joy in this important duty, particularly the bits wherein he got to shout at people to get out of his way, he was moving an invalid, please and thank you. Harry and Ron loved the chair, too, but mostly because once Hermione abandoned it, they got to use it to go scootering up and down the aisles of the Great Hall, cackling madly, until Percy accidentally stepped into their path without looking, which put paid to it in spectacular fashion. McGonagall howled herself hoarse at all three of them. Hermione ate Draco’s serving of cake. It was an unusually excellent night.
The next day, the sun blazed on a caravan of students trundling down the path to the Hogwarts train station. Draco ended up wedged into a compartment with Hermione, Harry, Ron, Ginny, and the twins, who roped them into a game of Exploding Snap — Draco tied with Fred for the win, because they both cheated — and set off the last of the Weasleys’ Filibuster fireworks from the window, watching the explosions pop and crackle over the emerald hills. Hermione huffed in disapproval, but she didn’t run to get Percy, and Draco was proud of her.
“…six one zero four,” Harry was saying to Ron, “and it’s called a tele-phone, you put in some muggle money and they let you talk to whoever you want…”
“Felly-tone, got it. Remind me why can’t I just Floo?”
“We’ve been over this, you can’t stick your head through my aunt’s fireplace, she’ll have a heart attack.” Harry paused. “Never mind. Strike everything I’ve said, here’s what you need to do—”
“…that Ravenclaw prefect, Penelope Clearwater,” said Ginny. “That’s who he was writing to all last summer. He’s been meeting her all over the school in secret. I walked in on them kissing in an empty classroom one day…”
“You’re lying,” said Fred breathlessly.
“Ginny,” said George, overwhelmed with emotion, “you’re my favorite. You are.”
“I thought I was your favorite.”
“Only for your face, Freddie.”
“Right back at you, Georgie.”
And in the corner, wedged between Draco and the wall, Hermione was showing him how a cassette worked. She had his New Order album open on her lap, and with her finger, she traced how the rolls of tape spun around each little wheel. “It’s coated with a magnetic film,” she said, “which reacts when it comes close to a magnetic field.”
“Magnetic field? That’s magic, then.”
“No, it’s muggle science. So then the electromagnetic head on the cassette reacts to the coating, and it moves, which makes the sound waves…”
“‘Electromagnetic.’ That’s magic, surely.”
“No. That’s still muggle science. And you hear the sound waves because the headphones have a little speaker…”
“With an Amplification Charm.”
“No.”
She showed him how the reel could move forward and backward, and change the direction of the song, and at that point he declared it had to be magic, whether or not she would admit it. Then he insisted she take it apart and explain it again.
Meanwhile, the window glowed with the first heatstroke of summer. The compartment smelled of stale candy and Fred’s noxious cheap cologne. He was going home, where his mother waited for him, likely expecting an explanation as to just what her son had done with their house-elf. At his side, Hermione was babbling about something irrelevant and complicated with such verve one would think she intended to earn a degree in the subject.
Draco felt certain that thirteen was going to be his year.
Welcome to the end of Year Two! Thanks for sticking with it!
Same deal as the first time, I’ll be taking a hiatus to finish Year Three. Year Three is a bit longer than the others, and it’ll be the end of Volume One. It’s longer than Years One and Two, so it’s taking a minute to finish. Once it’s done, it’ll go up in much the same fashion that these first two have – regular update schedule, you know the drill.
I’ve been motivated throughout by the generosity of your comments, which are a treat to read. Thank you, thank you!
Happy October, and I hope you have a wonderful Halloween (or Samhain.)
Love,
GT 🍵
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