The Blind Spot

Chapter 27: The Blind Spot

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

“Put your hands up and move away from the cauldron,” said Draco.

Hermione looked bewildered. Apparently when he said move away from the cauldron, she’d heard sit on your bum and stare at Draco like he’s grown another head, which was understandable, considering what both heads would have looked like. Even so, this was no time to sit around goggling at astonishingly beautiful objects. There would be plenty of time for that later.

“What’s wrong? Did you hear from Sirius?”

Draco shook his head and strode into the bathroom. Harry and Ron lingered by the door with their arms folded, doing their best impressions of brick walls.

Hermione, being by several orders of magnitude the smartest person Draco had ever met, deduced at once what the unlikely allegiance before her meant.

“Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no.”

“This is for your own good.” He plucked the stirrer from her hands and clamped the lid back on the cauldron, which burbled in healthsome cheer. “I’ve spoken to Dobby. He’ll mind the potion for the next three hours. Not that he needs to, since it’s all but finished, as you very well know.”

“What if it boils over?”

“It won’t.” He flicked his wand at her books, and they rose to cheerfully pack themselves into her bag, even as she fumbled to stop them.

“What if it curdles? Dobby won’t know what to do. It’s really better to have someone who knows the signs—”

“Save your breath.” He held out her bag. “Up you get. Step lively.”

She gave a steep intake of breath, which she held in her chest for three baleful seconds, during which time he worried that she was going to make herself pass out in protest.

Then she burst out: “But I don’t want to watch stupid quidditch!”

Draco clucked his tongue. “Big mistake, Granger,” he said. “You should have stopped before ‘stupid.’”

“On the day of the big game, Hermione,” Harry said, beside himself with shame.

“Turn around three times and spit,” Ron ordered.

“Throw some salt over your shoulder,” said Harry.

“Burn some incense, while you’re at it,” advised Draco. “Today is no day to take chances. It’s the final, and none shall suffer a deserter to live. Up you get.”

“That’s why I don’t want to go! I don’t want to watch you two almost die, again! I’d be much happier if it were two strangers getting clobbered!”

“You’ve mistaken this for a negotiation. Now, either you can come, and watch your beloved housemates earn eternal glory with the best game of quidditch this castle has ever seen—”

“I choose the other option,” she said immediately. He shook his head.

“You didn’t let me finish. The end of that sentence was ‘and you can come easy, or you can come rough.’”

She drummed her fingers on the tile, concentrating so deeply it appeared she was trying to Apparate. When she spoke, however, it was in tones of such sweetness and entreaty that it flagged his fight-or-flight instinct, like the sweet colors of a poison dart frog. “Of course I’m happy to support you,” she said, doing something with her eyelashes that might be described as ‘coy,’ if the person describing it had dementia and cataracts. “I’d love to come. Really. I can’t go like this, though; I don’t have my red scarf, or my streamers. Let me go back to the dorms and fetch them, and I’ll meet you at the pitch.”

This was about as cunning as a club to the head. Thank God she hadn’t been in Slytherin.

Draco shifted his weight skeptically onto one hip. She continued doing that thing with her eyelashes, intensely, as if that was supposed to do anything except amuse him.

“Roughly it is. Boys?”

Harry and Ron moved forward with resignation. Hermione yelped and scrambled to her feet.

“No! No! I’m not coming, I won’t! Harry James Potter, if you come any nearer, they’ll have to dedicate you a whole ward in St. Mungo’s!”

“Fair enough, but wait for after the game,” said Harry, with the brave stoicism of someone who understood that this was no idle threat. “If you whomp me beforehand and Oliver finds out, they’ll have to dedicate you a building.”

Carrying her out of the bathroom was the hardest leg, as Hermione, in the true spirit of her house, fought to the bitter end with tooth and nail and jinxes that Draco only usually moved fast enough to block. When they arrived at the grand staircase there was a quick and spirited renegotiation of terms, in order to prevent the disastrous consequences of someone dropping her, and she continued the rest of the way down to the pitch while riding piggyback on Harry. Needless to say, she complained vocally the whole time.

Slytherin was leading the tournament by two hundred points. This meant, as Wood had very well beaten through their heads, that they needed to win the match by more than that to win the Cup. It also meant that Harry was under pain-of-death instructions not to so much as think of touching the snitch unless Gryffindor was up fifty.

The day was cloudless and temperate, its ice-blue sky offered up like a rare jewel in an unusually gloomy May. Students of all houses streamed down across the dew-clad lawns, vibrating with excitement for the upcoming match. Most of them wore red-and-gold scarves, hats, or jumpers, even if they weren’t Gryffindors, while just a few defiant non-Slytherins waved green handkerchiefs tied to their wands. There was hollering and noisemaking, trumpeting of horns, clapping of hands; a few raggedy choruses of Let’s have a holler for Harry Potter… and, from farther down, a hard BANG! and a small blaze of red-and-gold fireworks, followed by a screech of: “FINNIGAN!” in the unmistakable howl of Filch.

They passed some Ravenclaws with red-and-gold streamers in their hair, one of whom was Cho Chang. When she saw them, she smiled and waved.

“Good luck, Harry!”

“Good luck Harry?” Draco repeated, disgruntled; but then he noticed that Harry was blushing.

Reaching the turnstiles, Harry let Hermione slip off his back. “You should hurry, if you want good seats. The stands will fill up fast.”

“I don’t want good seats,” she said passionately. “I don’t want to see you fall and break your neck, actually, it’s rather low on the list of things I’d like to see.”

“That only happened the once,” Harry said, offended.

“Once is usually enough!”

“Nah, don’t worry about it, Harry, we’ll take care of her,” said Ginny, shouldering her way through the crowd. She wore a giant cherry-red jumper with a G on it (Draco recognized Mrs. Weasley’s handiwork) and someone had painted a lion on her cheek. “S’only pre-match jitters. She’ll cheer up once we start winning. Come on, Hermione. You can hold my hand if you get scared.”

She held out her hand. Hermione grasped it with the grim expression of someone sealing a pact with the devil.

“I’m going to vomit,” she informed Harry and Draco, matter-of-factly.

“Save it for when the Slytherins come out,” said Harry. “It’ll seem like a statement.”

Muttering to herself, she allowed Ginny to steer her up into the bleachers, gripping the other girl’s hand like a hydraulic press.

“Best go change, I s’pose,” said Harry. “Think Wood’s about done sacrificing that goat.”

But they were stopped on their way through the turnstile by Professor McGonagall, who was dressed in a frock of spiritless black, save for a single red ruby in her jabot. “Potter. Malfoy,” she said thinly. “Why are you not in your quidditch robes? Warmups will begin shortly.”

“Yes, professor. We were just going—”

“Come with me,” she ordered. Draco and Harry traded a glance of apprehension and followed her down to the sandy den of the locker rooms. The last time McGonagall had intercepted them before a quidditch match, the news had been rather dour.

She swept them into a side room near the lockers, its size and smell evocative of its former life as a broom cabinet. Draco’s heartrate spiked, and he ran through a mental list of people who might have died.

“Potter,” she began, and paused. Draco sagged: thank Merlin, it was probably just the poor sod’s wretched aunt. If there was any justice in the world, she’d keeled over dead during a bout of muggle ‘dentistry.’

“Er… yes, professor?” Harry was pale with dread.

“You are flying a Cleansweep Four. Correct?”

Neither he nor Draco knew what to say to that. “…Yes, professor.”

McGonagall pressed her lips together. Being a thin-lipped woman to begin with, this gave her the impression of having bitten a lemon.

“You are a very competent flier, Potter.”

“Thanks,” said Harry, sweating bullets.

“You have a fine talent for broom handling and a high level of general athletic skill.”

“Thanks a lot,” said Harry, sweating even more.

McGonagall steepled her fingers. It was like a row of birch twigs coupling. “At the risk of redundancy, however,” she said primly, “it remains the case, for good reason, that professional quidditch players do not fly on Cleansweep Fours.”

“Right, professor,” said Harry, who at this point would have agreed to virtually anything. It was like watching a fellow get waterboarded. Draco almost broke into a spate of nervous laughter, and was glad he didn’t; he liked McGonagall, and considered her dignified and fair, but she did not take kindly to japery of any sort.

“As Head of Gryffindor House,” she said coolly, “it would be entirely inappropriate for me to spend personal funds equipping our quidditch team. Each house team receives the same budget at the beginning of the school year; its spending lies at the discretion of the captain. It would be a violation of school rules, to say nothing of poor sportsmanship, for a teacher to become involved in the outcome of a school sporting event.”

“That’s tosh,” said Draco, incredulous. “There’s loads of money that goes into the Slytherin team. Look at their brooms!”

McGonagall regarded him impassively over her pince-nez. He closed his mouth.

“Professors,” she said, mostly to Harry, “do not play favorites. Head of House or not.”

Harry nodded. “I understand,” he said. “It’s alright, professor. I’ve been practicing on the Cleansweep, and I’ll do my best — it doesn’t matter how good their brooms are, we’ll just out-fly them. They can all come out on Firebolts if they want to. You can’t buy player quality, that’s what Wood always says.” He nudged Draco, who gave an affirming sort of cough, though philosophically he was unconvinced.

McGonagall gazed at Harry. Her eyes were bottle-green and clear, like a piece of sea-glass laved smooth by violent waters. They were also, if Draco wasn’t mistaken, slightly soft.

“Yes,” she said, after a long moment. “There are a great many things money cannot buy.”

She flicked her wand at the nearest cabinet, which flew open. “Including,” she added, in a raised voice, “the contents of that box, upon which not a single knut was spent.”

“What box?”

She nodded to the cabinet.

Tentatively, Harry withdrew a long wooden case that was several inches taller than he was. Draco had to help him lay it out on the floor, because it was heavy: the box was rich, aromatic rosewood, so deep a red it was nearly purple, with handles of gold flecked by age. The clasps were sticky, and so it took a moment to open, but once they did Harry let out an audible gasp that Draco was hard-pressed not to echo.

It was a broomstick. A beautiful broomstick, and an old broomstick, with antique warping on the seat, brass-and-leather stirrups, and a bush that had started to thin and splinter with age. For all that, though, it had clearly been taken care of: the handle gleamed a lush walnut brown, lustrous from many polishings, and the leather grips were all brand new.

The lettering on the handle read: NIMBUS 1995.

“Oh my God,” shrilled Draco. He couldn’t help it. Harry looked at him wildly.

“It’s — it’s good, isn’t it?” he said. “It looks pretty good — it’s got nice customaries, and everything—”

“You gibbon, of course it’s good! This is the grandfather model for what I’m flying! It’s the original Nimbus!”

“The original?” repeated Harry stupidly. “There are others?”

“Merlin’s saggy wet armpit, I’m going to find my copy of Quidditch Through the Ages and beat you with it. This is the first Nimbus broom. It’s got to be nearly thirty years old. And I’m willing to bet this is an original model, based on the seams along the handle… you can see, it’s three pieces, it predates the wood-warping techniques they’d develop for the 2000… a bit less structurally sound, maybe, but unless you’re trying to hit semisonic speeds that could compromise the broomstick—”

“Mr. Malfoy,” interrupted Professor McGonagall, without so much as a blink. “You will refrain from beating Mr. Potter, now or at any point in the future. And you will recall that this box does not belong to you.”

Draco whisked his hands away, cheeks burning. “Sorry, professor.”

She was not smiling — anyone who confused her expression with a smile should be fitted for glasses — but neither did she seem displeased. In sharp contrast with her expression, there were two points of lively color dancing in her cheeks. “Your excitement is appropriate,” she said. “As is your assessment. That Nimbus was purchased within the first week of its release.”

“Merlin,” whispered Harry. He looked at her. “Is it, er… did you want to… I mean, I don’t want to assume, if…”

McGonagall adjusted her pince-nez. “What you do with athletic equipment that you find, of your own account, in the Gryffindor locker rooms,” she said impassively, “is between you and your captain. As a teacher, I can have no say in the matter.”

Harry’s jaw came close to unhinging. So, for that matter, did Draco’s.

“I can fly this? I mean, you’ll let me?”

“As I said,” said McGonagall, still very much not smiling, “I have no power to change the decisions made by any member of the Gryffindor quidditch team.” She opened the door. As she was going to leave, however, she hesitated in the doorway. She spoke with her head turned away from them, in a lowered tone, almost hushed.

“It’s tall for you,” she said. “Choke up.”

Then she vanished, and the high fast clicks of her heels were fading down the hallway.

Harry said, “Draco, look.” He was pointing to a bit of lettering on the underside of the case, near the handle. It read simply: M.M.

A beat passed.

“No,” said Draco.

“Probably not,” agreed Harry.

“It was just — a nice thing to do. Another student must have left it around somewhere.”

“Yeah,” said Harry, and then they both looked doubtfully at the Nimbus, which did not look like it had been ‘left around’ anywhere in its long life.

Footsteps swelled again in the hallway, these ones much quicker and much heavier. “OI!” roared Fred, shoving his head through the door. “There you are! Would either of you two malingering bastards care to honor the team with your presence, or shall I and the rest of Gryffindor keep tearing the bloody stands apart for you?”

“Sorry!” cried Harry, as they scrambled to their feet. “Sorry! We’re coming! We got sidetracked!”

“Oh, you got sidetracked, did you? On the way to the championship game? Well, good, you can explain all that to Oliver while he’s in recovery from his heart attack!”

They sprinted down to the lockers. They could hear the shouting through two walls and a locked door.

“THERE YOU ARE,” bellowed Oliver, as soon as they skidded in. “WHAT WERE YOU BLOODY DOING? YOU’RE NOT EVEN IN UNIFORM!”

“Long story,” gasped Harry, as he and Draco divested themselves of pants with a haste usually reserved for much more enticing circumstances. “Got here — fast as we could—”

“SLYTHERIN IS WARMING UP AS WE SPEAK! THEIR ADVANTAGE IS GROWING EVERY SECOND WE’RE NOT IN THE AIR! THIS IS MARCUS FLINT’S WET DREAM!”

“Thanks a lot, Oliver,” said George. “I was scared enough to go out there without worrying that Marcus Flint wants me carnally.”

“If that doesn’t make you fly faster, nothing will,” muttered Katie.

“NINE THIRTY! NINE THIRTY, I TOLD EVERYONE TO BE IN THIS ROOM, GEARED UP, AND WHAT TIME IS IT? WHAT TIME IS IT NOW? IS IT NINE THIRTY? ANGELINA, IS IT NINE THIRTY?”

“Nope,” she said, popping her gum.

“NO! IT’S NINE FORTY-NINE! WHICH MEANS WARMUPS HAVE BEEN GOING FOR HOW LONG, GEORGE?”

“About four minutes,” said George, “but honestly, Oliver, you could cut them a break. I think I spent the morning before my first championship taking an enormous terror-shit in the prefects’ bathroom.”

Fred and Angelina tittered. It did a decent job of breaking the ice, though Oliver was still ready to breathe fire.

“Potter got a new broomstick,” blurted Draco, partially because he thought it was worth mentioning, and partially to get Oliver off their backs. Oliver broke off, heaving for breath.

“You did?” he said. “Glad to hear it. Didn’t want to say so, but the Cleansweep was a bit rubbish, honestly. What’d you get?”

“It’s a Nimbus. It’s pretty old, but, um, it’s been well taken care-of.”

“Bang-on,” said Oliver approvingly. “Any Nimbus can dust a Cleansweep, that’s for certain. Should do you a favor, too, since Higgs is on a Comet. Anyway. WOULD YOU GET YOUR ROBES ON YOUR SODDING BACKS AND GET MOVING, OR SHOULD I STICK A NIFFLER ON A BROOMSTICK AND TAKE MY CHANCES?”

They walked out onto the field to a joyful explosion of noise. A giant paper-machê lion danced above the stands, levitated by a crowd of industrious Ravenclaws, and enormous banners bearing “GO GRYFFINDOR!” and “LIONS FOR THE CUP!” unfurled from the stands.

“And here come the Gryffindors!” yelled Lee Jordan, who was wearing a suspiciously bulky black windbreaker. “It’s Potter, Bell, Johnson, Malfoy, Weasley, Weasley, and Wood! This is the best team that we’ve seen in some years, folks, and that’s with most of them on Cleansweeps. Potter’s not on his today, though, looks like he’s upgraded, thank Merlin— though not sure I recognize the model he’s carrying—”

He was drowned out by the roar of cheers from the Slytherin side of the stands as the Slytherin team landed in formation.

“And that’s the Slytherin team, for you,” said Jordan, with much less enthusiasm. “Higgs, Flint, Montague, Warrington, Nott, Goyle, Bletchley. Bit easier to make out than the Gryffindors, aren’t they, since they’re about two-thirds of the student body by weight.”

More boos came from the Slytherin crowd, and laughter from the Gryffindor one, though Draco thought it was a bit unsporting. He especially didn’t like how Goyle reacted when Jordan said it, which was to draw his head into his shoulders like a turtle and shrink into himself.

Theo, on the other hand, smiled and blew a kiss off his third finger in the direction of the commentator’s box. The Slytherin stands roared.

Flint and Wood approached each other and performed the ceremonial crunching of fingerbones.

Draco, standing across from Flint in the lineup, leaned over to whisper at Goyle. “Greg,” he said. “He’s only joking.”

“He knows that, Malfoy,” Theo said boredly. He whacked Goyle gently on the thigh with his club, and Goyle snickered, thumping him back. “Flint has this funny thing where he likes his players bigger than a dormouse on Growth Potion.”

“What’d you bring to the table, then?” said George, yawning.

“Not sure, but I think it’s whatever you do,” said Theo, “plus class.”

Draco had something for this, but he broke off when he got a better look at Theo’s face. A dark bruise circled Theo’s left eye, deep and yellowing in some places, green in others, a patchwork quilt sewn around the button of his bloodshot cornea.

“Good Lord, did you walk into a bludger?” said Draco. “Or twelve?”

Theo twitched his face away, irritated. “Shut up.”

“This isn’t trash talk, you prideful louse, it’s concern. Is Flint letting you play like that? Your visibility’s got to be piss-poor.”

“And it’d still put me just about level with your beaters on their best day, so why don’t you concern yourself with them, and not about what my captain’s letting or not letting me do.”

“Nott, for Merlin’s sake, you look like someone went at your eyeballs with a melon baller.”

“Would it kill you, for once in your life, to butt out?” snapped Theo. “Does it rankle your Gryffindor sensibilities to not have a finger in every pot in this stupid castle? Is it so hard for you to grasp the idea that your involvement is not only unwanted, but unhelpful?”

His first instinct was to give as good as he got. His second instinct was to wallop the first instinct in the nose and demand a straight answer. He honored neither of them.

Instead, Draco took his tongue between his teeth, and bit down until the pain flushed out the venom. He watched Theo while he waited, considering.

When he spoke, it was so quiet that only Nott and Goyle could hear, and Goyle frowned like he didn’t understand.

“Why did he do it?”

Theo flinched.

“Theodore Nott? Suffer in silence? Don’t make me laugh,” murmured Draco. “If that was more than an hour old, you’d have gone to the infirmary. And they’d ask the same questions I did. But that’s not fresh, and you’re not there, so what did you say to him?”

“I—”

“MOUNT YOUR BROOMS!”

Theo jerked away, nakedly relieved. Draco swore and threw a leg over his Nimbus.

“Three… two… one…”

Her whistle disappeared into the roar of the crowd. Fourteen brooms rose into the air.

“And it’s GRYFFINDOR in possession, Draco Malfoy of Gryffindor with the quaffle, headed straight for the Slytherin goal! Through Flint, but whoops, quaffle intercepted by Warrington, Warrington of Slytherin in a dead shot up the field — oh! Drops the quaffle to dodge a bludger, that’s a bit of George Weasley’s handiwork, devastatingly handsome chap, that George Weasley, still single, ladies, if anybody’s wondering — and it’s Johnson who recovers, Gryffindor back in possession, swerves Montague, ducks another bludger, and that’s a shot that’s a SHOT TAKE THE SHOT — SHE SCORES! TEN-ZERO GRYFFINDOR!”

Angelina swept over the Gryffindor stands, cheering, and a roar of delight followed her. A row of seventh years started doing the Wave. That was, until Flint came careening past her and knocked into her shoulder with a painful THUMP. She screamed and nearly fell from her broomstick, only to be boosted up by Katie.

Flint spun around, waving his arms. “Sorry! Sorry, I didn’t see her!”

Draco couldn’t tell if he was serious. He didn’t seem like he was lying, but clearly no one on the Gryffindor team believed him. Wood was bellowing for a red card. The pitch fell into disarray for a moment, and Hooch whistled for a halt.

A moment later, a beater’s bat smacked into his skull, driving his nose into the handle of his broom. Draco winced.

Fred Weasley swooped past, empty-handed, to recover his bat. “Sorry, sorry!” he snarled at Flint. “Didn’t see you!”

“MISTER WEASLEY!” Madam Hooch shot between them, pumping on her whistle, while Flint clutched his bloody nose and wailed. “That’s quite enough! Yellow card to the Gryffindor beater, for deliberate damage by improper means! And penalty shot to Gryffindor for incidental damage by negligence!”

“Come off it, Miss!” howled Fred, but Madam Hooch blew her whistle. She threw the quaffle to Draco, who caught it and zipped off to take the penalty.

“Come on, Malfoy!” yelled Jordan. “YES! HE’S BEATEN THE KEEPER! TWENTY-ZERO TO GRYFFINDOR!”

Harry swept by Draco and slapped him on the back with a breeze of laughter. The boy was speeding like the blazes, churning wind on the Nimbus ’95, his hair raked back over his head. The broom was too big for him, but that only let him zip around faster, his body arched down over the broomstick in a single clean line. Draco didn’t envy the Slytherin seeker, Higgs, who had to strain to keep up with him with his greater bulk. As he watched, Harry spun up into a dizzying corkscrew, bent himself in an inverted U over the field, and then soared back for the ground with a giddy WHOOP, WHOOP that all but taunted Higgs to try to follow.

Show-offy prat. Draco couldn’t help but be proud.

Professor McGonagall had a front row seat in the faculty box, sitting between Jordan and Professor Snape. Her face, naturally, revealed nothing, but she was watching Potter as if he were the only player on the field.

“Gryffindor in possession, back to Slytherin, back to Gryffindor, and it’s Katie Bell, Katie Bell for Gryffindor, damn fine chaser, damn fine, she’s dodging Flint — YOU FILTHY SCUM!”

Montague blocked Katie, and instead of seizing the quaffle had grabbed her head. Katie spun into a somersault in the air and barely kept ahold of the broom. The quaffle dropped into Warrington’s hands. Madam Hooch’s whistle rang out again as she soared over to Montague and began shouting at him.

A minute later, Katie put their second penalty past the Slytherin keeper.

“THIRTY-ZERO! THIRTY! HOW DOES THIRTY TASTE, YOU DIRTY SONS OF—”

“Jordan, remember our conversation!”

“But ‘dirty’ is a technical term, professor!”

Draco took the lapse in play during the quaffle repositioning to fly close to Theo.

“Nott,” he shouted, “be reasonable. None of your bludgers are coming close—”

Theo whirled, nearly taking Draco out with a swing of his club. “Get out of my airspace, Malfoy, or I’ll tell Hooch you tried to foul me,” he snapped back.

“I’m trying to help you! You can’t see out of that eye! Forget the bludgers, you can barely fly!”

“I don’t care! Piss off, or I’ll take a page out of your beater’s book!”

Theo whirled his bat into position to make good on the threat. It would have seemed more menacing if his voice hadn’t been so desperate.

Hooch’s whistle screeched again, and they tussled out another brief round of scoring, swapping the quaffle back and forth across midfield. Gryffindor scored twice before Draco could get near Theo. This time, one of his bludgers had veered wide, and nearly taken out Cassius Warrington.

“Nott,” he shouted again. “You’re listing. You’re slow. You’re right-handed! You hit to your left side, which you can’t bloody see!”

“I can see you well enough to hit you!”

“If you crash, Pansy will kill both of us, and then my mother will find something creative to do with our corpses!”

This, at last, seemed to give Theo pause. The mention of Narcissa had him pulling up and scowling at Draco as if he had thrust a rank-smelling fruit under his nose.

“What do you care?” he shouted.

“What do I — what do I care? What do I CARE? How about I don’t want to see you maimed, you noisome twat, God knows why! Because I don’t love the thought of watching you punch yourself a new nose on a goalpost! Because, for some irrecollectable reason, my mother likes you, and if you make her cry I will quite simply not invite you to the family séances. God, Daphne likes them dumb, doesn’t she, you’re as thick as— oh, hell.”

Theo had nearly fallen off his broomstick.

“WHAT?” he bellowed at Draco.

Hooch piped her whistle. “Malfoy, stay away from Nott!” she shouted. “No foul play!”

“I didn’t,” Draco cried indignantly, but she was already zooming away: Goyle had nailed a double-hitter of bludgers at Wood, which caught him in the stomach, one after the other. He reeled in the air, clutching his stomach.

“YOU DO NOT ATTACK THE KEEPER UNLESS THE QUAFFLE IS WITHIN THE SCORING AREA! Gryffindor penalty!”

Angelina scored. Sixty-ten. Fred Weasley pelted a bludger at Warrington, knocking the quaffle out of his hands, and Alicia seized it and put it through the Slytherin goal. Seventy-ten. The Gryffindor crowd was screaming itself hoarse. Draco was off his rhythm, too focused on following Theo to pay attention to the movement of the quaffle. Anyway, it was Harry’s game, now: if he caught the snitch, that was the match and the Cup.

Draco passed the quaffle to Angelina, and the crowd gave a howl that was wildly out of proportion to the quality of the pass. He spun around in time to catch Harry shoot overhead, putting on a great burst of speed, his hand outstretched. His heart jumped, and he let out a shout, ready to cheer.

A bludger hurtled into Harry’s gut. Harry shouted and slid backward on the broomstick, his momentum jolting him forward so hard that for a second he was bent double. The sound of the impact was sickening. The strap for his glasses snapped, and they went twinkling into the air below.

Katie yelped and dove to catch them, while Harry slowed to a halt and clutched his stomach, gasping.

Every eye on the pitch whirled on the source of the bludger, and every eye saw what Draco did: Goyle and Theo, having a heated argument in midair.

“FOUL PLAY!” Lee Jordan was howling into the megaphone, dancing out of Professor McGonagall’s reach. “OBVIOUS FOUL on the seeker! YOU DIRTY MEAN LUMP—”

Professor McGonagall didn’t even bother to tell him off. She was standing up, her hat abandoned, her face white as marble.

Heart racing, Draco scanned the pitch. Who could help him? Who would? To them, he was the Slytherin beater. They couldn’t give a damn if he got hurt or not.

But then again, he thought wretchedly. Then again. Maybe — maybe, sometimes, people could surprise you. Maybe.

“George,” he shouted.

George swept to a halt, hovering alongside him, and raked back his sweat-soaked hair. “Wotcher, Blondie,” he panted. “You alright?”

He pointed at Theo. “The Slytherin beater can’t see,” he shouted. “He’s blind from his left eye. If he gets clipped, he might fall.”

George grunted, waiting for the point.

“I don’t — it wouldn’t be — it’s not fair, is it? He’s playing with a bad eye. We shouldn’t let him — listen, Weasley, would you — I know it’s a lot to ask—”

George squinted. “I know him,” he said sharply, after a moment. “That’s the kid who came to our party. Theodore Snot.”

“Yes!”

He scratched behind his ear. “He’s a Slytherin.”

“Then he’s been punished quite enough, don’t you think?”

George massaged his chin. “You know,” he said to Draco, almost conversationally, “he did laugh at the Snot joke.”

Katie tossed the glasses to Fred, who zipped up to Harry and pressed them safely into his hands. There was a brief exchange that Draco couldn’t hear; Fred touched Harry’s shoulder, and Harry nodded. Then Fred shot off again, his bat outstretched in a deadly angle to his body. He swung at the bludger, sending it hurtling back towards the Slytherins, towards Goyle — but it was Fred, Draco knew, and Fred’s signature move was a backhand that spun wickedly, that spun so hard it banked the bludger in a sharp rightward curve at the last moment — devilish hard to beat, especially if you couldn’t — if you couldn’t see from your left eye—

“NOTT!” he bellowed.

Theo turned his head in time for the bludger to crunch into it.

He floated free of his broomstick, his limbs slack and unmoored to the broom. The collective gasp nearly shook the stands: it was very rare for a bludger to hit so squarely. Fred must have assumed that Theo would duck.

Draco thought he could hear two women screaming, although that was, of course, his imagination. There was no way he could pick their voices out at this distance.

He threw himself forward and started to accelerate, but he knew at once that the math didn’t work. He was too far, and Theo too low to the ground, for him to make any difference. He had caught Harry, once, on a wing and a prayer and some very unsafe flying; he couldn’t make the same magic work twice.

Head lolling, Theo tipped backward and crumpled off his broomstick. The Slytherins erupted in screams.

And then George Weasley swept up from below and caught him in his arms.

Now everyone was screaming. The Slytherins were screaming in relief; the Gryffindors were screaming in confusion; Wood was screaming, too, possibly from both. Madam Hooch was blowing her whistle at anything that moved.

“That’s WEASLEY, GEORGE WEASLEY, with the save,” Jordan said, faint with bemusement. “He’s got Nott, taking him back to the ground… and Higgs is grabbing his broomstick… everyone’s coming down for a time-out, now…”

Draco splattered a wide radius of mud when he landed. “He’s alright?” he demanded, shouldering through the Slytherins.

George had deposited Theo, none too gently, on the ground. Theo had regained consciousness and was leaning heavily on Goyle while Madam Pomfrey checked his reflexes.

“I’m fine,” said Theo weakly, clawing his way into consciousness. “Big bloody hoo-ha, for what, I ask you — I was taking a break from the game, I would’ve been fine in a moment.”

“You pissant,” said Draco in disbelief. “You were in free-fall.”

“You can’t prove that.”

“You could have broken your neck!”

“Oh for Merlin’s sake, it’s quidditch, Malfoy, the ground has Cushioning Charms.” He shoved himself upright, grumbling. “When did you become such a girl?”

“Red card,” Flint said, as soon as Madam Hooch was within earshot. “Red card on Weasley. Did you see that? He almost killed Theo, would have killed him—”

“If not for George,” snapped Angelina, landing nearly on top of him. “And nothing about Fred’s play was illegal, Flint, which is a lot more than you can say for most of yours, so why don’t you shut up and thank us for saving your player.”

“Thank you? He wouldn’t have been in freefall if it weren’t for that bloodthirsty, mud-loving savage.”

Angelina’s wand was out and at Flint’s throat before he could blink. He scrambled backward out of pure instinct at the look in her eyes. “Say that again,” she said coldly. “Say that about Fred again, I dare you—”

“FLINT! JOHNSON! BOTH OF YOU, BACK DOWN!”

They lurched away from each other with bad grace.

“Bad behavior!” cried Madam Hooch, thrusting herself between them. “Bad behavior! Very bad indeed, from everyone, with the singular, commendable exception of Mr. Weasley! Both of you, back in the air. I don’t want to see you look at each other unless one of you has the quaffle. Mr. Nott! Consider yourself benched, for your own safety.”

A groan went up from the Slytherin stands: this was the equivalent of red-carding them.

“No! No! No complaints!” ordered Hooch shrilly. “Flint, you’re lucky you’re not facing a demerit for having him fly—”

“He’s good to play, Madame H.,” said Flint earnestly. “Really, he is. He’ll swear it up and down.”

“Like he said,” Theo muttered, fumbling for his broom. “Up and bloody down.”

“I’m sure he will! But he’ll do it from the bench!”

The thirteen players rose into the air again. Draco deliberately didn’t look at Theo, who was scowling so badly it must have made his bruise hurt worse. He did, however, throw Flint a cold glare as he shot past him on the way up.

“It’s Johnson with the quaffle for Gryffindor,” said Jordan, with a certain solemnity. “Johnson to Bell, back to Johnson, dodges smellyuglybrute I MEAN CAPTAIN FLINT OF SLYTHERIN, dodges Montague also, to the goal — and Potter comes in to block Warrington — SHE SCORES! Gryffindor, eighty-twenty!”

Harry, who had almost pelted headlong into the stands, skidded to a halt in midair, reversed, and zoomed back into the middle of the field.

Draco, who was still reeling from the play with Theo, tried to lift his hand for a pass. Katie saw, and shot it over, but he fumbled, nearly dropped it, and had to sink in the air to keep possession.

Harry was racing towards something.

Draco wove through Warrington and Montague, the ball clutched under his arm. A shadow passed over his head: it was Flint.

Harry pressed himself flat on the broom handle and spun to avoid a bludger, like it was easy, like it was child’s play. The old Nimbus gleamed in the sunlight, carrying him like a dream.

Draco flipped the quaffle high in the air, sending Flint diving for it, and swept beneath his legs. Then he banked up, sharply, and tweaked the end of Flint’s broomstick. Flint yelled and tumbled sideways, rolling. Draco caught the quaffle.

Cheating wasn’t bad form if the other person cheated first. That was as good as in the rulebook. He was pretty sure he’d heard George say it, once.

Or maybe Flint just should have minded his mouth about Fred.

Harry threw himself forward, both hands off his broom. But Higgs was coming in from the other direction.

Draco swept up and almost careened into Goyle, who came in swinging his bat.

Harry knocked Higgs’ arm out of the way and lurched into midair.

Draco pulled up short and punted the quaffle as hard as he possibly could.

“YES!”

The stadium exploded. Harry soared above the crowd, shaking something tiny and golden in his fist. The quaffle soared free and was caught by Angelina, who hocked it carelessly into the stands and shot towards the Gryffindor goal hoops, where all members of the team were rapidly converging. Draco, grinning, flew to join them.

Wood was on his knees in the mud, his arms out as if awaiting divine abduction, tears flowing freely down his face. His body quaked with great ugly sobs for the five unhindered seconds before Fred plowed into him at full speed and drove him to the ground in a bruising embrace. Then George came down bellowing on the pair of them, and Angelina and Katie leapt on, too, and Harry dropped in on top, splayed over the pile of limbs. Draco landed just aside this horrific eldritch amalgamation of limbs and house spirit, and said, smirking: “What was that about Marcus Flint’s wet dream, you s—”

But he never finished, because a hand lashed out, and he was hauled in by the robes, yelping.

Inside the team hug it was warm and sweaty and smelled profoundly bad. It sounded like several people were crying; Wood was at least two of them. There were many people touching Draco at once, and he did not care for it at all. He barely enjoyed hugs with people of his own choosing on good days. This was far from being even that tolerable. It was an imposition into his bodily autonomy, for one; for two, it was damned uncomfortable. He squawked as his face got mushed up against someone’s collarbones, and an elbow drove into his stomach.

Then again: they had won the Cup. So.

Draco sighed, and went limp. Some things had to be tolerated.

The hug dissipated after too many damn minutes, and he saw that the crowd had flooded the field. Percy was hopping around like a jubilant rabbit. Their former quarrel long forgotten, Ginny had climbed her older brother like a limpet to use as stilts, and now rode on his shoulders, waving a giant Gryffindor flag and screaming. Next to Lee Jordan — who had leapt onto the microphone podium and ripped open his windbreaker to reveal a ‘GRYFFINDOR RULES’ tee-shirt underneath it, roaring — was McGonagall, who had not even reprimanded him, for she had buried her face in a red-and-gold handkerchief.

And at the head of the crowd rushing to greet them were Ron and Hermione. Ron, greeting a pile that was thirty percent Weasley already by composition, simply bellowed and threw himself into the team hug, which welcomed him noisily and immediately. Hermione, however, came rushing up — her eyes were red from crying again, but not from sadness, he didn’t think — and threw her arms around Draco’s shoulders.

He staggered back.

“Granger, Potter is over there,” he said, jerking his thumb at the pile. “The bloke who won the Cup. Caught the snitch and everything.”

“For the last time, I don’t care about quidditch,” she said, though her voice was thick. “This is for not dying.”

“I… well, alright then,” he said, trying not to sound too pleased, and consented to fifteen generous seconds of submersion in Hermione’s riotous sweet-smelling hair.

When the crowd thinned enough to leave the stadium, they were marched back to the castle amidst a parade of red and gold. Draco felt odd and surreal and the levels of good cheer that were being leveled at him: almost everywhere he turned, someone was clapping or flashing him thumbs-up. Someone actually went so far as to ruffle his hair, but when he whipped his wand out to eke satisfaction from the vile offender, they had melted into the crowd.

The whole school roved up the lawns to the castle in good spirits. But they stopped when they reached the entrance courtyard, milling around in a maze of bumping shoulders.

“What’s going on?”

“There’s something happening in the courtyard,” said Hermione, who the crowd had sandwiched under his arm. Someone jostled her into his ribs, and he gave them a rough shove back, clearing a small bubble for her to stand. “But I can’t see — can you?”

“No, I can’t, besides which there are about sixteen different people touching me. I’m sick of this. Let’s clear a path.”

He pulled out his wand; Hermione gave a squawk of disapproval; he rolled his eyes and said, “Relax, would you, I’m not going to maim anybody,” and cast a small Buffeting Charm into the crowd before them. Then he grabbed her arm and pulled her quickly through the gap, before the crowd could close up again.

In the courtyard there was a Shield Charm and a Muffliato cast around it, which meant they couldn’t hear what was happening, merely see it. The sight alone was dreadful enough, however. Sibelius Nott stood by the fountain, a stone-faced auror at either flank, holding a scroll of paper before him like an oustretched knife. Opposite him was Albus Dumbledore — looking angrier than Draco had ever seen him — and Professor Lupin, whose expression was in contrast rather calm.

“Can you hear?” hissed Hermione. “I can’t hear, can you?”

“No, they’ve got a Muffliato over the courtyard.”

“Can we get inside it?”

“Maybe if we had the Cloak, but it’s up in the Tower. Shame we can’t cast a Disillusionment Charm.”

“If only we could! Ugh, I’m such a nitwit, I spent all summer reading the Runes textbook, when I could have been doing something actually useful, like next year’s Charms—”

“Don’t beat yourself up, everyone needs some light reading,” Draco said absently. “But Nott’s leaving. Suppose we’ll have to ask Lupin himself.”

He was right. Nott took his leave of the courtyard with a flare of his purple cape, which Draco found horrifically pretentious and obviously wanted to copy for himself as soon as possible. When he crossed the threshold, the Shield Charm and the Muffliato both dropped, and he could hear the burble of the fountain once more.

Professor Dumbledore and Lupin were conversing with their heads together, a mirrored vignette of industrious woe. They scarcely took notice when Draco and Hermione appeared at their side.

“What’s going on?” demanded Hermione. Lupin had the scroll from Nott, and he held it away from his body as though it contained poisonous ink.

“Professor Lupin is taking a brief sabbatical,” Dumbledore said calmly. “A successive strain of illnesses have taken a toll on him. He will be retiring for an interminable length of time to his quarters—”

“It’s alright, Albus,” interrupted Lupin. He sounded tired. Lupin never sounded chipper, exactly, but now Draco feared him likely to keel over, so heavy was his tone. “Ms. Granger and Mr. Malfoy are trustworthy students. I have been placed under house arrest.”

Hermione shot upright like someone had sent a Petrificus straight up her spine. “For what?”

“Suspected contact with Sirius Black,” he said, with a hoarse irony that was almost amused. Draco glanced at Dumbledore, whose weathered face revealed nothing. How much did the old man know? How much had Lupin revealed?

Hermione said sharply: “On what evidence?”

“On the evidence that we were childhood acquaintances,” said Lupin reluctantly. “And on the evidence that dementors report sighting Black on the premises of Hogwarts; on the evidence that I am, of course, the most likely to have abetted his crimes—”

“That’s nothing!”

Draco jumped. Hermione radiated fury like heat. If she were capable, he believed venom would have flown from her lips. “That’s nothing! That’s so far below the threshold of reasonable suspicion it should make you laugh! Who’s your solicitor? Draco, can you call that man — Gamp, or Gunt, what was his name?”

“Gatz, yes. Easily done. I’ll owl him tonight. Unless the professor has someone he prefers.”

Lupin pinched the end of the paper and rubbed it between his fingers. “There are other charges.”

“Well? What are they?” Hermione planted her hands on her hips.

Draco interrupted, “Professor, does the Ministry think you have lice?”

It was hard to tell whose expression was stranger: Hermione, who apparently thought he had started talking in French, or Dumbledore, who thought it more like Ancient Greek.

“There are reasons for them to suspect it,” Lupin said quietly.

“What reasons? Good reasons? Standard-of-proof reasons?”

“They have… testimony from an old acquaintance of mine.”

“Does your ‘acquaintance’ have proof, then?” said Hermione.

Lupin shrugged. “As much as one ever can,” he said evasively. “Of course, if they had proof, one wonders why I was not arrested… nevertheless, I believe they take his word very seriously. If you will excuse me—”

He lifted his chin, and Draco turned to follow his gaze over his shoulder. A pair of aurors stood in the entryway to the courtyard, their hands clasped behind their backs.

“I have an appointment to keep,” said Lupin dryly. “I believe I was told that if I cooperate, they shall find no need to employ Veritaserum. Albus, you will find my lesson plans in the upper right-hand drawer of my desk. Please make the next third-year class as engaging as possible; I promised them something entertaining.”

“Don’t,” Hermione broke out. “Don’t go with them. Don’t let them interrogate you! What about Pad—”

“Albus,” said Lupin, authoritatively, and Dumbledore settled a hand on Hermione’s shoulder. Hermione broke off as if someone had cut the strings of her throat.

Lupin limped across the courtyard, a short walk made longer by the slow scrape of his cane and his bad leg against the cobblestone. Then the aurors flanked him, and taking him each by an elbow, they escorted him back into the castle. The doors swung shut with a sound as cold and final as a key turning in a lock.

Dumbledore waited until Lupin was gone to release Hermione’s shoulder. “Miss Granger,” he began, soft as velvet.

She twisted out of his reach and grabbed Draco’s hand. “We have to go,” she gasped. “Sorry, professor — I know it’s rude, but it’s really urgent — Draco, come on—”

For once, he didn’t resent her hauling on his arm like he was a reluctant oxen. He gave Dumbledore a short nod and ran after her, his long legs easily keeping pace with hers, as they flew up the stairs to the castle and careened through the double-doors.

As soon as they were out of the crowd, Hermione spun around and dragged them into a secluded alcove under a window. “Lupin,” she whispered.

“Yes. I know. They know. It’s obvious, I was right there with you—”

“But no proof—”

“They only suspect.”

“They’re going to question—”

“With Veritaserum, you damn well know it—”

“Doesn’t matter what he says—”

“—wouldn’t pass up the chance, never mind that rot about ‘cooperation.’”

“Yes! I know! But even if not—”

“Magical Security Act means he’s got the Trace on him,” he said darkly. “He’s trapped in the castle. He can’t reach Padfoot. He can’t warn him.”

“Yes, but the important part—”

“Is the interrogation will reveal Padfoot’s location, I know, I told you, I’m not Potter or Weasley, you don’t need to explain it to me—”

“No! Listen to me! The important part is the house arrest!”

He broke off. Their breath was coming in such short sharp bursts that it fogged the windowpane beside them.

“Why,” he bit out, aggrieved by the indignity of asking. He hated when she got somewhere before he did.

She didn’t notice his acrid tone. Her face was drawn with terror at whatever realization she’d come to while he was busy blustering like a ponce. “It’s a full moon tonight,” she whispered.

A bolt of fear sank deep into his gut.

“And he’s not—”

“No.”

“Even with the potion—”

“All they have to do,” she said, with remarkable evenness, though her voice was trembling, “is wait in that room with him. That’s all they have to do.”

He threaded his hand into his hair and gave a brutal, grounding tug. “Alright,” he said thickly. “So. What do we do? We have to get him out—”

“We have to take the potion, is what we have to do,” she said. “Tonight. And when he transforms—”

“Sirius won’t leave without him.”

“Sirius doesn’t know about it,” she said quietly. Her eyes were dark and clear with diamond-hard focus. It was sort of mesmerizing. “We’ll try to get the aurors off of Lupin, of course we will, but we only brewed enough potion for each of us to get two hours. If we can’t get him out, we’ll have to — I mean, Sirius is the one who doesn’t have protection. I don’t think — I have to believe that Dumbledore won’t let Lupin come to harm while he’s at Hogwarts.”

He nodded.

“Do you — do you think I’ve got it wrong?” She twisted her fingers, as if trying to wring out her indecision through her knucklebones. “Do you think I’m being cruel? To Lupin? I mean, we do have the potion — we might be able to, to, I don’t know, go get him first, and then take him, and—”

“You haven’t got it wrong,” he said. His hand closed over her fingers, stilling them. They were warm and soft, never having wielded anything tougher than a quill. “It’s brilliant. We’ve got it worked out. All we have to do is execute.”

“That’s the part where it always goes wrong.”

He drew his hand away quickly. Wouldn’t do to stand there holding her hand like a sappy twat. He wasn’t bloody Sir Luckless.

“Less of this dour nonsense, Granger, or you’ll put me right off the affair. I’m not in the business of investing in bad ventures. Remember what I said. When in doubt, just think: I’m marvelous.”

“Thank you, yes. When I’m running from a horde of dementors with a werewolf and a wanted criminal, and I’m trying to cast a Patronus, which, for the record, I have never done, I’ll just think, oh, you know, Draco Malfoy is perfectly marvelous!”

“First off, I’ve heard of worse ideas. But no, you horrible ninny, I meant you.”

And then he gave her a good-natured yank on her hair, hard enough to sting, so she didn’t think he was going soft or something. The sound she made ought to have been worth a Patronus all on its own.

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-this one goes out to everyone who liked the quidditch game in chapter 23. brought to you buy: a useless amount of research about what would even constitute a “foul” in a game this dangerous. these guys live in a pre-CTE world, babey.

-professor mcgonagall continues to be my favorite teacher because she has an immaculate poker face but underneath it she goes harder than literally any professor ever has. why does everyone make fun of dumbledore for child endangerment when mcgonagall gives a first year a BROOMSTICK and lets him play in a league against SEVENTEEN YEAR OLDS. put some respect on her name. no one does it like her.

-in case it confuses someone, “sir luckless” is a reference to a Beedle the Bard story, but I won’t say which one.

-someone had a question in the comments about whether hermione would have a time turner in this AU, which I’ll answer here because it carries zero risk of spoilers: she doesn’t! mainly because time travel plots are insanely difficult to write, and I hate them. I don’t like how POA has Harry and Ron just sort of ignore Hermione going absent for certain periods of time, and I think it’s unrealistic that she would be able to hide it from them for that long; at any rate, in this fic, Draco definitely would notice. and with respect to this story’s continuity, it would not make sense for Hermione to need one, since she doesn’t end up taking Divination (that comes up in Chapter 17) or Muggle Studies, which frees up her schedule.

-Also, less relevantly, I think the existence of time turners pushes the suspension of disbelief in the HP universe a biiiiiit further than I’d like, for preference; i.e., I think too many necessary plot developments (both in the canon storyline and before) would realistically be obviated by the existence of a time turner. secondary to that, I don’t really even think the time turner was necessary to solve the problem in the original POA book, since I can think of a dozen other ways that Dumbledore could have helped out Harry and Hermione in saving Buckbeak and Sirius, if he really wanted to.

-thank you to all who commented — i read all of them! new chapter going up next week. things are about to get hairy. wink, wink.

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