Harry had held out hope that his two best friends would patch things up before the Christmas break, but it was the twentieth of December, and he and Ron were leaving for the Burrow tomorrow. With Slughorn's party tonight, he was beginning to accept that wasn't going to happen.
Maybe they'd use the break to cool down. Think things through. Come back with some perspective.
Those hopes, already modest, sank steadily throughout Transfiguration.
McGonagall had set them to work on the fiendishly difficult business of human Transfiguration, each student standing before a mirror as they attempted to alter the colour of their own eyebrows.
Harry was starting to think she was doing it on purpose.
He glanced at Ron, who stood with his jaw set and his eyes fixed on his reflection in the stubborn hope that staring hard enough would produce results. So far, he'd managed to make his eyebrows cycle unhappily between green and yellow before snapping back to ginger.
Hermione, by contrast, had finished in good time — her brows now a deep, even shade of forest green. She had the focused look of someone who was very deliberately not paying attention to the person beside her.
"You could help him," Harry murmured to her.
Hermione glanced at Ron briefly. "He looks fine."
Ron gave his wand another frustrated flick — and promptly produced an impressive, walrus-like moustache across his upper lip.
Hermione's composure cracked entirely. She laughed.
Harry bit back a smile. Ron went scarlet.
"Glad someone finds it funny," Ron snapped.
"I'm not laughing," Hermione said, though she very clearly was.
"Would you like a hand?" Harry offered, keeping his voice mild.
"I'm fine!" Ron said tightly, and jabbed his wand toward his reflection. The moustache grew more elaborate. Hermione pressed her lips together, shoulders shaking.
It deteriorated from there. Ron, apparently deciding the best revenge was to make Hermione miserable, began doing an extended impression of her every time Professor McGonagall asked the class a question.
"Oh, I know, I know!" he said, shooting his hand up and bouncing in his seat with wild exaggeration. "I know everything, always, because I'm Hermione Granger and I simply can't help it."
Lavender and Parvati dissolved into giggles. Harry frowned, watching Hermione's smile fade.
McGonagall cleared her throat with a sound like a door slamming. "Mr Weasley, your impressions are both unnecessary and disruptive. I suggest you turn your energy toward the task at hand."
Ron muttered something apologetic. Then, not five minutes later, he did it again — louder this time, more elaborate.
Hermione's grip on her wand had gone white-knuckled. She was staring at the mirror and saying nothing, which Harry had learned to recognise as the particular silence of someone working extremely hard not to explode.
"McGonagall's not going to keep letting it go," Harry said under his breath to Ron.
Ron clearly didn't hear — or chose not to — and raised his hand once more, his voice taking on the particular pitch of someone who had committed fully to a terrible idea. "Oh, Professor! I know exactly what this is useful for! It's for making certain everything is absolutely, entirely, perfectly—"
Hermione turned. "And what exactly do you know about perfection, Ronald? Professor McGonagall has been trying to get you to levitate a feather since we were eleven and you still look surprised every time it works."
Ron's grin vanished. His face turned the same shade as his hair.
Harry winced.
"Not everyone's perfect, Hermione," Ron said, his voice dropping to something brittle. "Especially not someone who's off playing house with the Slytherins."
"At least they can cast a Transfiguration Charm," Hermione said tightly, and left the moment the bell rang.
Harry shook his head at Ron and went after her, looking through each corridor as he descended a floor.
He found her outside a girls' bathroom, accompanied by Pansy, who had a hand moving in small circles on Hermione's back and was watching Harry approach with a measuring expression.
"Potter," Pansy said.
"Parkinson." He stopped a short distance away. "You left your things, Hermione." He held out her book bag.
"Thank you, Harry." She took it, turning away slightly to press the backs of her fingers to her eyes.
Pansy's gaze moved between the two of them, sharp and unreadable. She said nothing further. The sight of her and Hermione side by side would never quite stop being strange to him — though he was beginning to understand it more.
Hermione turned back, offering him a strained smile. "I should go. I've got—" She hesitated.
"Theo's waiting for you at the Quidditch pitch," Pansy said smoothly. "You said you'd help with his Care of Magical Creatures assignment."
Hermione nodded. "Yes. That. Thank you, Pansy." She walked away briskly, not leaving Harry any room to offer something comforting, not that he'd have known what to say.
Pansy watched Hermione go. "Weasley managed to find a new way to be a right arse, I see."
"They had a row," Harry said.
Pansy raised an eyebrow, her tone dry. "Yes, I'm aware."
Harry turned slightly toward her. "I suppose you know, since you're friends with her now."
"I know plenty."
He studied her for a moment, then said, before he could stop himself: "How would you like to come to Slughorn's party with me tonight?"
The words sat in the corridor between them. Pansy blinked — a genuine pause, which was more reaction than he usually got from a Slytherin.
She gave him a slow, deliberate once-over. Harry resisted the urge to shift on his feet.
"Slughorn's party," she said. "With you." It was not quite a question.
"Yes. I thought — Hermione seemed to be, er, getting on well with you. If it helped her somehow—"
"You think inviting me to a party is going to fix things between her and Weasley." Pansy's expression was flat. "You must be truly desperate."
She exhaled. "Alright. I suppose I'll come. It's remarkably short notice — I'll need to find something to wear."
"Right, yeah, totally understand if—"
"Wear a black tie, Potter."
Harry blinked. "A black — right. Black tie. I'll meet you in the Entrance Hall at eight."
"You'll collect me from my dormitory," Pansy said, and walked away.
Harry stared at the empty corridor.
---
"You could have asked literally anyone," Ron said at dinner, with the expression of a man who had witnessed something personally offensive. "Anyone in the entire school, and you chose Parkinson?"
Harry pushed food around his plate. "Momentary lapse of judgement. Let's move on."
"That's a very generous way of describing it."
Ginny pointed her fork at Ron. "Didn't you tell me last September that Pansy was—"
"I don't recall that," Ron said quickly.
"She's actually rather decent when you take the time," Ginny said, with the tone of someone who had formed this opinion independently and stood by it.
"Not you too," Ron muttered.
Lavender and Parvati arrived, wedging themselves into the seats beside the boys, and Parvati looked across at Harry with a smile. "Where's Hermione?"
Harry glanced up. "She's—"
"Here." Hermione walked up and settled across from Parvati. "Are you going to Slughorn's tonight?"
"No invite," Parvati said, pulling a face. "I'd love to, though — it sounds like it's going to be brilliant. You're going, aren't you?"
"Yes." Hermione smoothed her napkin. "I'm meeting Cormac at eight and we're—"
There was a sound like a sink being forcibly unblocked. Ron surfaced, coughing. Hermione continued as though she had neither seen nor heard anything.
"— walking up to the party together."
"Cormac?" Parvati asked, leaning forward. "McLaggen? That Cormac?"
"The very same," Hermione said pleasantly, with distinct emphasis. "The one who very nearly became Gryffindor Keeper."
Harry looked at her. "McLaggen?"
Parvati giggled. "You do have a type — Krum, then Vaisey, now McLaggen—"
"Only the very best," Hermione said, her smile serene and pointed.
Ron's face had done something extraordinary. "You're going with McLaggen? Are you serious?"
"Completely." Hermione didn't flinch. "And I don't see how it's any concern of yours."
"It's a concern because — he's—" Ron sputtered.
"I need to go and get ready," Hermione said, rising from her seat. "I told Daphne I'd get ready in her room." She gathered her things.
"Daph?" Parvati asked.
"Daphne Greengrass." Hermione said with a small smile, and walked out.
Ron stared after her. Harry put his head down on the table.
---
Daphne was attending to Hermione's hair with focused precision. "Am I going to have to send Pansy to tell Draco to put on his good robes?" she asked, with the air of someone performing a public service.
Hermione's cheeks warmed. "I've already asked someone, Daphne. As I've said."
Daphne sighed gustily. "So depressing."
Pansy appeared in the doorway in a fitted black dress, hair perfectly straight. The effect was, as usual, immaculate.
Hermione and Daphne both looked at her.
"Where are you off to?" Hermione asked.
"You haven't got an invitation," Daphne added.
Pansy's eyes glinted. "I'm not the only one capable of securing one."
"Blaise?" Daphne guessed.
"No. And I still don't know who Blaise is bringing." Pansy drifted toward the mirror to deal with a strand of hair.
"Then who?" Hermione pressed.
"Someone with passable taste," Pansy said. "Don't concern yourself."
A knock at the door. Pansy crossed the room and opened it to reveal Theo, already dressed and looking rather well for it.
"Ready, Daphne?"
"You clean up surprisingly well, Nott."
"High praise."
Hermione stood, smoothing her blue dress. "I'll meet you all there. I said I'd find Cormac outside Gryffindor."
Daphne and Pansy turned toward her with matching expressions.
"Cormac McLaggen," Daphne said flatly. "Really."
Hermione shrugged. "It's just someone to go with. You both said you didn't want me going alone."
"I said I wanted you to go with Draco," Daphne said. "Tall, blonde, objectively handsome, someone over whom you had what I would describe as a thorough emotional crisis—"
Hermione's face flooded with colour. "I did not have—"
"You were pacing," Daphne continued serenely. "You said, and I quote, 'his hair is genuinely ridiculous and I think about it more than I should.' You rambled about the way he looks at you when you're arguing—"
Hermione clapped her hands over her face. "Merlin's beard, stop talking."
Pansy smiled pleasantly from the doorway. "That'll be my date."
"Date?" Theo mouthed at Daphne, who shook her head.
Pansy opened the door. Harry stood there, almost presentable — blazer, dark tie, hair only marginally worse than usual.
He looked at Pansy. "You look—"
"Don't," she said, stepping past him. "Let's go."
"Potter?!" Daphne and Theo said together.
---
At the party, Hermione stood beside Cormac McLaggen and stared at a middle distance, offering responses of "mm" and "oh, really?" at intervals she hoped were plausible.
She had spotted Daphne and Theo arrive not long ago. Harry was still conspicuously absent. Blaise and Pansy she couldn't see, but neither of those absences surprised her particularly.
What did surprise her — what made her stomach drop — was the moment she caught a familiar head of platinum hair near the door.
Draco. In an impeccably tailored black suit. Looking, to her considerable irritation, devastating.
She watched him scan the room with that detached expression he wore in public — like he was performing a slow, unimpressed audit of everyone in it. And then his eyes found her. His jaw tightened by a fraction.
"Daphne," Hermione murmured, stepping closer to her. "What is he doing here? He didn't have an invitation — he said so himself."
Daphne glanced toward the door. Blaise had appeared just behind Draco, confirming Hermione's suspicion. "Of course he talked Blaise into bringing him." She exhaled. "Men."
Cormac's arm was still around her waist. His expression had curdled. "Malfoy turning up uninvited? How predictable. How low."
Daphne made an evaluating noise. "Low? I don't know. He looks rather... striking this evening. Don't you think, Hermione?"
Hermione fixed her with a look. "No."
Cormac scoffed, grip tightening slightly. "I never understood what people see in him. Always lurking about like he's above everyone."
Draco, midway through a word to Blaise, turned his head just enough to indicate he'd heard every syllable. A slow smirk.
Cormac, oblivious to the full weight of the moment, carried on. "And the hair. Does he spend more time on his hair than—"
"I do," Draco said, materialising at Hermione's other side with the unhurried ease of someone who had been heading there all along. "Though I appreciate the observation."
Hermione considered the various merits of voluntary disapparation.
Draco's gaze moved over her, and for a moment something in his expression became unguarded. "Blue suits you, Granger," he said quietly.
Hermione felt a real smile pull at her mouth — the first honest one of the evening. "Thank you... Draco."
Something shifted in his eyes at the sound of his name.
Daphne made a small, gratified sound into her drink. Theo was watching with the expression of someone getting his money's worth.
Cormac was not pleased. His grip on Hermione's waist was pointed. "Since when do you go around handing out compliments, Malfoy?"
"Less a compliment, more an observation," Draco said evenly, his attention drifting to the hand at Hermione's waist. "You do tend toward the most excruciating option, Granger."
"If that were true, I'd be here with you." The words were out before she'd finished thinking them.
Silence.
Theo actually choked on his drink. Daphne looked as though Christmas had arrived early.
Hermione briefly contemplated the structural integrity of the floor and whether it might swallow her.
But Draco's lip twitched. He glanced briefly away, as though buying himself a moment — something almost like flustered about him. "Touché, Granger."
Cormac rounded on Hermione, jaw set. "What is that supposed to mean?"
Blaise materialised smoothly. "It means, mate, that if she genuinely had the most appalling taste imaginable, she'd be on Draco's arm right now instead of yours. So technically — take it as a compliment."
Draco let his gaze settle back on Hermione, eyes flickering with something that had gone very quiet. "Exactly." A beat. "Not sure yet whether I should be flattered or offended."
"I know somewhere quieter," Cormac said tightly, eyes never leaving Draco. "Hermione? Just us."
"That sounds perfect," Hermione said, turning away from Draco's gaze before it could do any more damage. "Shall we?"
Cormac steered her away, looking gratified.
And then Draco's hand closed gently around her wrist.
Hermione stopped. The warmth of his fingers — careful, not restraining — sent something electric up her arm. She looked at him.
Draco looked back. His grip was barely anything. He seemed, for just a moment, entirely uncertain of what to say.
"Granger—" He released her, turning back toward the others.
Hermione left.
Blaise shook his head. "Mate. You're pitiful."
"You let her walk away with that?" Daphne rounded on Draco, smacking his arm. "What is wrong with you?"
"Greengrass, I am going to confiscate your wand if you don't—" Draco grabbed her hand before she could land a second one. "It's a terrible habit."
"You are an embarrassment," she said flatly.
Draco shot her a dark look. "I'm not duelling McLaggen in the middle of Slughorn's party."
"Would've made for the best evening we've had in months," Theo observed.
"She was hitting on you and it went completely over your head," Daphne said, throwing her hands up.
"She wasn't hitting on me."
"'If that were true, I'd be here with you,'" Daphne quoted, enunciating each word with precision.
Draco rolled his shoulders. "None of you stopped her either, so kindly leave me alone."
"Because you are the one she's waiting for!" Daphne said, with the exhausted fury of someone who had been watching this for months. "Why are men so obtuse?"
"What are we talking about?" Pansy asked, appearing at the edge of the group, Harry one step behind with two drinks.
"Draco grabbed her and then let her leave," Blaise offered.
Pansy looked at Draco. Then at Harry, who handed her a glass.
"Granger," Blaise added, in case there was any ambiguity.
Pansy closed her eyes briefly. "Of course."
"She's a grown witch — she made her choice," Draco said.
"She was practically begging you to stop her," Daphne said. "The way she looked at you when you grabbed her—"
"You let her leave with McLaggen?" Harry cut across the group, voice sharp. They all turned to look at him.
Draco stared. "You came with Potter?" he said to Pansy.
"He invited me," she said, taking a sip of her drink.
"Why?" Blaise asked, frowning at Harry.
"I thought Hermione could use a friend here," Harry said, with creditable composure. "I didn't realise you'd all be in attendance."
Draco muttered something under his breath about it being the least charming development of the evening.
"Just stay out of it, Potter," Draco said, louder.
"I'd love nothing more," Harry said, "but she's my best friend, Malfoy. And you apparently let her walk off with McLaggen of all people."
"She's not helpless."
"No," Harry said, "but that doesn't mean she should have to be."
Theo, voice low: "You do know what McLaggen is actually after?"
Draco's fingers tensed at his side. "I'm aware," he said through his teeth.
He had grabbed her. Without thinking. And she had looked at him — just for a moment — like she was waiting. Like she wanted him to say something.
And he hadn't, because what was he supposed to say? Don't go. Stay here with me.
As if that wouldn't be completely unhinged.
"She's your friend," Draco said finally, turning to Harry. "She's your responsibility. Not mine." He walked away.
Pansy looked at Harry. "Weasley's sister wasn't wrong," she said quietly.
---
Hermione was doing her best to look engaged while Cormac described, at length, the precise mechanics of a save he had made in a match against Hufflepuff two years ago.
She nodded at what she hoped were appropriate intervals, her mind stubbornly replaying the way Draco's fingers had closed around her wrist. The careful, tentative quality of it. The way he'd looked at her.
She hadn't imagined it. Had she?
"Hermione?" Cormac said.
She blinked. "Sorry — I was just thinking. Quidditch isn't exactly my area."
"I'm just saying," Cormac said warmly, steering her further from the main crowd, "nobody handles the Keeper position quite the way I do. The instincts required are—"
"Mm," Hermione said.
Harry, meanwhile, had found himself cornered by Eldred Worple, biographer, and Sanguini, an exceedingly attentive vampire, both of whom seemed to feel that Harry's unique proximity to death made him ideally positioned to lend his name to a memoir.
"You must understand, Potter, the world deserves to know—"
"Right," Harry said. "Yes. Absolutely."
Pansy, who had been gamely performing the role of attentive date beside him, touched his arm. "Harry, darling — would you mind terribly?" She looked genuinely parched.
Harry caught her meaning immediately. "Of course." He excused himself and went to fetch drinks, leaving Pansy to redirect the conversation elsewhere — specifically, toward Draco.
Harry surveyed the room as he poured. He spotted Theo and Daphne finding seats at one of the side tables. No sign of Hermione. No sign of Draco either.
He wasn't sure what to make of any of this. What he was increasingly sure of was that Ginny had not been exaggerating.
Theo pulled a chair out for Daphne and sat beside her. For a moment he just looked at her, tilting his head.
"You nearly hexed him."
"I should have," Daphne muttered. Then she shook her head. "Enough about them." She looked up at Theo properly, a fraction more deliberate than usual. "Let's talk about something more interesting."
Theo's expression was amused and attentive. "And what would that be?"
"How well we look together."
He blinked. "Are your parents at it again, Daph?"
Daphne's expression flattened. "Why does every conversation about my love life end up being about my parents?" She pushed back her chair and walked off.
Theo watched her go, expression shifting into something more thoughtful.
---
"The Falmouth Falcons," Cormac was still going, "are in a class entirely—"
"Absolutely," Hermione said.
"— of their own. Now obviously the Ballycastle Bats have their moments, but the sheer tactical—"
"Right."
They rounded a corner in the cluttered back section of Slughorn's extended office, and Hermione's gaze lifted — and landed on a sprig of mistletoe directly above them.
Of course.
She could feel the inevitability of it settling over the moment.
"Well," Cormac said, with a smile that she found she actively disliked. "Tradition, after all."
Hermione swallowed the particular feeling that was not quite dread but not entirely enthusiasm either. "Right," she said, quietly. "Tradition."
---
"That was genuinely helpful," Harry said to Pansy, returning with their drinks. "I didn't think you'd manage to redirect him."
Pansy accepted her glass. "I always manage." A pause. "I sent them both to bother Draco. Two birds."
Harry raised an eyebrow. "You wanted them away from Hermione."
"I wanted Draco occupied so he didn't do something impulsive and she didn't have to deal with the fallout." She said it simply. "He's my best friend. He's also a catastrophe waiting to unfold."
Harry looked at her. "You really do care about her."
Pansy didn't answer immediately. "She's my friend," she said, in the end. Just that.
Harry turned it over. "We want the same thing, then."
"Not quite," Pansy said. "You want to keep them apart. I want to make sure neither of them does something they'll regret. There's a difference."
Harry frowned. "She's my best friend, Parkinson. I don't want to see her hurt."
"Then you'd better hope," Pansy said, "that someone stops her from spending the rest of the evening listening to McLaggen talk about himself."
As if on cue, Hermione arrived, slightly dishevelled, her hair loosened from its arrangement, her expression radiating the very particular energy of someone who had recently made an escape.
"Harry." She exhaled. "There you are."
Harry looked her over. "What happened to you?"
Hermione smoothed her hair. "I've just — left Cormac. Under the mistletoe," she added, by way of explanation, though not the kind that entirely explained anything.
Harry pulled a face. "Serves you right for bringing him."
"He was supposed to irritate Ron," Hermione said, with the dignity of someone who was entirely aware that her plan had turned on her. She glanced at Pansy and Harry side by side. "Right. What is... this."
"Convenient alliance," Pansy said.
"How did you even — no. Never mind." Hermione looked around the room, a particular kind of wariness in her eyes. "Is Malfoy still here?"
"Yes," Harry said.
"Wonderful," Hermione said, in a tone that suggested it was not, in fact, wonderful. "I need to be somewhere that isn't here in the next thirty seconds. Cormac is—"
She spotted him across the room and immediately ducked in the opposite direction. "Right, that way then—"
"I'll have the conversation," Pansy said smoothly, and moved off to intercept.
Harry fell into step beside Hermione as they circled toward the far wall. "You did know McLaggen was going to be insufferable."
"I had hoped it would serve a purpose."
"How'd that work out?"
"Brilliantly." She paused. "I'm going to find somewhere quiet to stand until it's appropriate to leave."
Harry hesitated. "Hermione—"
"Not tonight, Harry."
"I just think—"
"Please," she said, quietly, and he saw on her face how tired she actually was. He shut up.
They found a quieter pocket of the room near a tapestry, and Hermione exhaled for the first time in what felt like an hour.
And then she opened a storage cupboard to check it was empty, stepped inside, and found it wasn't.
"Shut up," came a familiar voice, a hand briefly covering her mouth before releasing it. "I've just escaped Worple and Sanguini. If you get me caught and I have to have another conversation about my father, I'll hex you."
Hermione's hand dropped away from her wand. She let out a slow breath.
Draco.
She moved to the far corner of the small space — very small, she was now discovering, with its shelves of old potions and folded cloths and miscellaneous party equipment pressing in on all sides. With two people inside, barely a foot of space remained between them.
"You frightened me half to death," she whispered, pushing his arm.
He smiled in the dim light. Actually smiled.
"You're the one who walked into my hiding spot," he said, keeping his voice low.
Hermione felt her colour rise. "I needed to get away from McLaggen."
"Right. McLaggen." He leaned against the wall behind him, arms loose at his sides. "I take it the conversation ran dry?"
"Between the Quidditch and the mistletoe — yes, rather."
Draco's jaw tightened by a fraction. He ran his gaze over a shelf of dusty bottles, not looking at her. "You're fortunate he didn't try anything more."
Hermione looked at him. "Worried about me, Malfoy?" she asked quietly.
He stilled. "You called me Draco earlier," he said instead.
She blinked. "What?"
"Earlier. You used my first name." He wasn't looking at her. "You do that now."
Hermione's heart gave a small, startled jump. She hadn't noticed. How long had she been doing it? "I... didn't realise." She shrugged lightly. "I'll be more careful."
"Call me Draco."
The words were out before he'd quite decided to say them.
Hermione looked at him. "What?"
"Call me Draco." His voice was steady, but the look in his eyes — those grey eyes in the thin stripe of light from the door — said something else. Something rather more uncertain.
She opened her mouth, and the words stuck.
She had done it already. More than once. In the Room of Requirement, in the party just an hour ago, more times than she had consciously tracked.
"Why?" she asked softly.
Draco exhaled. He looked away.
Because I want to hear my name in your mouth. Because I want to be more than Malfoy to you. What could he possibly say?
"We're friends, aren't we?" he said. "Isn't that what you wanted?"
It was. It was what she'd told herself every night for weeks. What she'd told Harry and Ron and Pansy and anyone who had asked.
But it hurt when he said it. Every single time.
"Friends," she repeated softly, managing a small smile. "I suppose I could make an effort. Though don't think it gives you licence to start calling me Hermione."
"Wouldn't dream of it," he said, and his voice was dry, but there was something softer underneath it.
She smiled, drawing her knees up slightly and resting her chin on them. "Did you see Harry and Pansy? I nearly had a cardiac event."
Draco let out a breath that was almost a laugh. "Don't remind me. It's repulsive."
"They're not actually together. I think Pansy wanted an excuse to come, and Harry needed someone who wouldn't make it complicated."
He snorted softly. "Pansy would sooner date the Giant Squid than Potter."
"At this point I rather wish I'd brought the Giant Squid." Hermione muttered. "Are all boys this committed to Quidditch?"
Draco raised an eyebrow, tilting his head toward her. "You spend time with Potter and Weasley and you're asking me that? The brightest witch of our age, supposedly. We're all doomed."
Hermione laughed, the sound quiet and real in the cramped little space. "You're absolutely hilarious, Mal — Draco." She shook her head. "So. Worple and Sanguini."
"Want to purchase the rights to my father's story." Draco's expression went flat. "'Malfoy: Fallen and Disgraced.' Working title."
"Not very catchy," Hermione conceded. "What about Malfoy: Moribund and Malevolent?"
"Moribund?"
"On the verge of death. As in your family's reputation." She paused. "Though I suppose you knew that."
"I know what moribund means. I'm not Weasley."
Her laugh escaped before she could catch it. "Had to check. Not everyone carries their vocabulary around with them."
"Machiavellian and Malevolent?" he offered.
"Machiavellian and Melancholy."
He almost smiled. "Fine. You can have the title, but only if you're my editor."
"Deal." She rolled her eyes. "Do you think it's safe to leave?"
"Probably not. But we can't stay here forever." Draco straightened up. "Go. I'll follow in a moment — no sense giving anyone something to talk about."
Hermione looked at him. "And what would they be talking about exactly?"
Draco tilted his head.
Her eyes went slightly wide. "Right." She turned away, a flush on her cheeks, and pushed the door open.
"I meant it," he said quietly, before she got too far. "You really do look lovely in blue."
Hermione paused. She looked back at him over her shoulder, rolling her eyes. "You picked the dress," she said, and walked away.
Draco waited. One beat, then two. He stepped out into the corridor — and was immediately seized by the back of his jacket.
"What the—" He caught himself, spinning to find Snape staring at him with the expression of a man in the last stages of patience.
"Have you taken complete leave of your senses?" Snape asked flatly.
"You've just grabbed me out of a party," Draco said, straightening his robes with distinct disapproval. "I'd question who's lost their mind."
"You are meant to be focusing on the cabinet. Not socialising."
Draco exhaled sharply. "By Salazar — do not say it like that."
Snape's gaze darkened. "This is not a joke. The Dark Lord does not forgive failure, and time is not something you have in abundance."
Draco's jaw set. "I am working on it. I took an evening. I've been at it for months—"
"And yet it remains broken."
"I have a plan. It's taking longer than expected—"
"What plan?"
Draco's mouth closed.
Snape watched him. "I see. And who is helping you? Because it is quite clear you are not managing alone."
"Blaise," Draco said, without hesitation.
Snape did not look impressed. "Not Granger?"
Draco went still. "Why would Granger be involved?"
"Because," Snape said quietly, "I just watched you emerge from a storage cupboard with her. Separately — though not by very much."
His mind scrambled for something that wouldn't confirm everything Snape was already thinking.
He rolled his eyes instead, adjusting his cufflinks. "Granger was hiding from McLaggen. I was hiding from Worple and Sanguini. We ran into each other. That's all."
Snape's gaze held his for a long moment.
"You've been spending a great deal of time with her."
Draco shrugged. "Pansy befriended her. I happen to be present sometimes. It means nothing."
Snape looked as though he found this unconvincing, but did not press further. He moved on to what concerned him more: Lucius, the timeline, the necessity of—
---
Pansy was heading out of the party at approximately the same time, Harry a step beside her.
"I can't find Draco," she murmured.
"That makes two of us for Hermione," Harry said, rubbing the back of his neck. "She was right there—"
"They're probably in the same place." Pansy said flatly.
Harry looked at her. "Don't."
"I'm being practical."
"Well — stop." He pushed open the door to the corridor. "Can we agree that whatever Malfoy is doing, it's our job to prevent it from becoming a disaster?"
"I've been attempting that for months," Pansy said, falling into step beside him. "You've only just arrived."
"You could have come to me earlier."
"Oh, certainly," Pansy said. "I'll just pop round to Gryffindor Tower and say, 'Hello, Potter, your best friend has developed feelings for Draco, do try to keep up.' That would've gone beautifully."
Harry was quiet for a moment. "This is all a bit—"
"Absolutely mental? Yes." She turned a corner. "It really is."
"I told you dragging her into your little group would—"
"I brought Hermione in," Pansy said, sharper now, "because I was worried about Draco. Because something is wrong and none of you would know a thing about it. I thought she might — I don't know. See it. Help." She glanced at him sideways. "I didn't plan for either of them to develop feelings. That was no one's intention."
"And yet."
"And yet," she agreed.
They were both quiet.
Then: "I need to talk to her," Harry said.
"No," Pansy said. "You need to not talk to her while looking like you're going to arrest someone. I'll talk to her."
"I'm not going to—"
"Potter." She stopped and faced him. "You look furious. She will shut down. Give me five minutes."
Harry opened his mouth. Closed it. "Fine," he said, with difficulty.
They walked.
And then, from around the far corner, they heard Draco's voice.
"You just dragged me out of a party. I'm not sure who's lost their mind here."
Pansy grabbed Harry's arm and pulled him sharply behind a column.
"You're supposed to be focused on repairing the cabinet. Not fooling around."
"By Salazar — stop saying it like that."
They pressed against the stone and stayed very still.
"I am trying to help you. I made the Unbreakable Vow, Draco—"
"Then break it! My plan is working — it's simply taking longer—"
"What plan?"
A pause. "It doesn't concern you. I have all the help I need."
"Who?"
"Blaise."
Pansy's nails found Harry's arm. He didn't move, barely breathed.
Snape said something. A beat. "Not Granger?"
Harry's jaw tightened.
Pansy processed it differently. It was clicking into place — why she'd brought Hermione in, what she'd hoped for, and precisely how far things had moved beyond what she'd intended.
Hermione fancied Draco. She'd accepted that. But fancying someone wasn't the same as love. Hermione loved Harry and Ron. She wouldn't turn against them for a school-girl infatuation.
She wouldn't.
"Why would Granger be helping me?" Draco asked.
"I'm not certain," Snape said. "But I did just see the two of you leaving a storage cupboard."
Harry looked at Pansy. She pressed her lips together and shook her head — they needed to move.
Harry didn't budge. He wanted to hear more.
Pansy grabbed his sleeve and pulled. He resisted. She yanked harder.
The sound of Draco beginning to walk away settled it. They bolted — both of them, pelting around the corner, up the nearest staircase, not stopping until they were two floors up and Pansy had hauled them both behind an alcove.
Silence. No footsteps behind them. They'd made it.
She let out a careful breath and rounded on Harry. "Do you make a habit of behaving this recklessly?"
"You were listening too," Harry said, still catching his breath.
"I was listening carefully," Pansy hissed. "You were practically vibrating. I could feel it."
Harry exhaled, leaning against the stone wall. "The Unbreakable Vow. The cabinet. Snape." He ran a hand through his hair. "He's in over his head."
"Yes," Pansy said, with a quietness that suggested she had known this for some time.
"And Hermione—"
"Doesn't know the full picture," Pansy said. "And she can't. Not yet."
"She's my best friend," Harry said. "I'm not going to keep her in the dark—"
"Potter." Pansy looked at him. "I know what you think. But if you go to Hermione right now — tonight, looking like this — she will close up and you will lose the only thread we have to what Draco is actually doing." She paused. "Let me talk to her. Not tonight. Tomorrow."
Harry stared at the ceiling for a long moment.
"Fine," he said eventually.
Pansy pushed away from the wall, straightening her dress with crisp efficiency.
And then, because neither of them had quite meant to end up this close, and because they had just spent the better part of an hour arguing with barely a foot between them, and because there was a particular kind of energy that came from adrenaline and anger and proximity all at once—
Their mouths met.
Messy. Entirely unplanned. Neither of them pulled away.
Pansy's fingers gripped the front of Harry's robes like she was trying to shut him up with sheer force. He tasted like fire whiskey and frustration, and she hated — genuinely hated — how much she didn't want to stop.
Harry's hands found her waist, his thoughts scattered. He had no idea how they'd arrived here. He only knew he wasn't pulling away.
She bit his lip. He dragged the password out from somewhere in his head and got the Fat Lady's portrait open. They stumbled through into the common room, her hands already working at the buttons of his jacket, his own equally useless at anything like restraint.
They made the stairs. He got the dormitory door open. It swung shut.
---
At some point, the room was quiet.
Pansy sat up, her back to Harry. She found her dress, pulled it on with the particular efficiency of someone who had decided not to think too much. Her fingers moved to the slight bruising at her hip where his grip had been. She studied it a moment before covering it.
"I can feel you staring, Potter," she said, not turning.
"I'm not," Harry said. He was.
She stood. "I'm going back to my dormitory."
Harry frowned. "You don't have to."
Why had he said that?
Pansy paused, one heel in hand. She turned just enough to look at him, expression unreadable. "Curl up on your chest and listen to your heartbeat?" She snorted. "Don't make this strange."
"I didn't mean—"
She didn't respond. She sat at the edge of the bed to put her shoes on, then stood and smoothed her dress one final time.
Something about how contained she was — how practised — made Harry's chest feel odd in a way he couldn't account for.
She turned for the door. Just as she reached it, Harry's voice caught her again.
"Do you do this a lot?"
Pansy's hand stopped on the handle. A muscle moved in her jaw, and the line of her shoulders said everything she didn't.
"I'm going to pretend," she said quietly, "that you didn't ask me that. Because I don't want to hex you after—" She tilted her head slightly in a gesture that encompassed the room and everything that had happened in it. Then she opened the door and was gone.
Harry lay back, staring at the ceiling. He tried very hard not to think about the way she'd said his name.
He failed.
---
The common room of the Slytherin dungeons was still occupied when Pansy arrived. They all looked up from the sofa when the door opened.
Daphne's eyebrows rose. "You're not in our dorm."
Blaise grinned. "Walk of shame?"
Pansy rolled her eyes. "I have no shame," she said simply, crossing to the group and taking an apple from the bowl on the table.
Theo set down his parchment. "So that's a yes." He leaned forward. "Who was it? Can't have been your date."
Pansy took a slow, deliberate bite of the apple.
Daphne leaned in, studying her face.
For a moment, Pansy considered the image of Harry — shirt rumpled, hair worse than usual, green eyes still dark with something he'd been too proud to name. The way he'd looked at her after, like she was a problem he couldn't resolve.
She hated that.
"It's clearly something bad, if you won't tell us," Blaise noted. "Do we need to fetch Draco?"
"No," Pansy said, with more force than she'd intended.
Blaise and Theo exchanged a look.
"Noted," Theo said.
---
"You're going to miss the train!" Hermione called up the Gryffindor stairs the next morning, one hand on her hip.
Harry stumbled down with his trunk. "What are you, our mother?"
"If I were, you'd have left an hour ago." She looked him over. "Did you sleep at all? You look dreadful."
Harry pushed his hand through his hair. "I slept." He had. Just not much. His thoughts had circled from the conversation overheard outside the party to Hermione to — inexplicably, persistently — Pansy.
Ron descended behind him, half a piece of toast in his mouth, his trunk bumping down every step.
"Relax, Hermione," he said around the bread. "We've got loads of time."
"The train leaves in twenty minutes."
"Loads," he confirmed.
Harry stopped at the bottom of the stairs. "Are you really not coming? You'll be completely alone."
Hermione crossed her arms with a faint smile. "That's rather the point."
"It's Christmas," Harry said.
"All the better." She sighed. "I'll be fine. I have plenty of books, there are the ghosts, a few other students staying on—"
"Is Malfoy staying?" Harry asked, watching her face.
Hermione didn't change expression, which was an expression of its own. "I wouldn't know, Harry. He'd be with his mother, presumably."
Harry raised an eyebrow. "Presumably?"
"Yes. Presumably." She met his gaze evenly. "Why would I know Malfoy's holiday plans?"
Harry said nothing.
Ron, mercifully, had found Ginny near the entrance and was trying to get her to hurry along, which kept him occupied.
They stepped outside. The air was sharp and cold, the sky low and grey, the ground already thick with snow. She could see the carriages lined up and students clustered around them with their trunks.
She scanned the platform without meaning to — and found Draco standing with Blaise some distance away. As Blaise moved, she caught Ginny's red hair, the girl apparently in conversation with both of them.
Ginny spotted her and waved her over.
Hermione glanced at Harry and Ron, who were talking amongst themselves, and slipped across.
"Corrupting the Gryffindors?" she asked.
Draco scoffed. "She came to us, actually."
Ginny grinned. "Dean and I needed a moment. I'll see you on the train." She darted off.
Hermione blinked after her. "Right, then. Are Daphne and Theo—?"
"Had a row about something," Blaise said. "Theo's on the train already. Daphne's with Pansy."
The whistle blew.
Blaise exhaled. "See you when we're back, then." He looked at Hermione, then at Draco, with a particular expression, and boarded.
Hermione turned to Draco. His eyes moved briefly to her blue jumper.
"Blue," he said.
She frowned. "Sorry?"
"You're wearing blue again."
She looked down. The jumper. She'd reached for it without thinking. She genuinely hadn't remembered he'd said she looked nice in it. She actually had forgotten.
"Coincidence," she said lightly.
Draco's mouth curved. He didn't push it. He tucked his hands into his coat.
"Your mother must be expecting you," Hermione said, keeping her voice steady. "You shouldn't miss the train."
"I'm not going home."
Her heart leapt very suddenly to somewhere in her throat. "What?"
"Staying here." He shrugged. "At Hogwarts."
Hermione stared. Lucius was in Azkaban, yes — but Narcissa was at home. If anything, that was more reason for Draco to go back.
"Why?" she asked, the word coming out rather more urgent than she'd intended.
He almost laughed. "Does it matter to you that much?"
Harry arrived at her side. "Hermione, we're going." He looked at Draco with brief, flat acknowledgement. "Malfoy."
He was already looking at her.
"I'll owl," she told Harry. "I promise."
Harry nodded. He glanced once more at Draco, then got on the train.
The whistle sounded again. The platform began to clear. The train pulled slowly away from the station, carriages rolling past until there was only open track and grey sky.
And then there was just the two of them, standing in the quiet, the snow drifting down around them, barely a foot of space between their shoulders.
Neither of them spoke.
Neither of them moved.
The silence said everything they hadn't yet found words for.