Roman Holiday

Chapter One

Disclaimer: All the Hogwarts gang belong exclusively to J.K.R, not me. And it's a sure thing I'm not making money from them.

He was bored.

That had to be it.

Three weeks into the summer hols, and he was out of his skull with sheer, unadulterated ennui.

Nothing was going to happen today that hadn't happened yesterday. And the day before that. And the day before that. He scanned his airy, spacious room with patent distaste. Nothing in it was what he would have chosen.

A million places in the world to go and see, conquer and explore. And he was stuck HERE, in this dismal place, for yet another dreary summer in the Ancestral Summer Manse. Apart from his bickering, preoccupied parents and the furtive little shadows cast by the house-elves, he was utterly and completely alone.

God, his father was cheap.

Draco cursed the centuries-dead Malfoy who had possessed the singular bad taste to build in Lucerne - honestly, Switzerland in the summer? - then flopped down on his bed with a long-suffering sigh. The one good thing about having weeks and weeks with nothing to do but stew was that he had plenty of likely targets.

First on the list. Potter.

Potter. That freak of nature. That utter, utter prat. The Golden Boy with the Midas touch. Never mind the rumours about his tragic past, his tortured childhood with the Muggles. Wasn't it enough that the whole damned school threw flowers at his feet, the second he deigned to grace the room?

Draco scowled. Potter, the hero. Potter, the saviour. Potter, who blithely broke one rule after another and somehow, some way, emerged victorious with his halo intact. Besting dragons. Slaying serpents. Laying multiple curses, dangerous, illegal curses, on unsuspecting passers-by who were just trying to verbally level the odds a bit.

All else aside, he owed him one for that Furnunculus Curse on the train.

Potter wasn't the only one, either.

Weasley.

Weasley, the hanger-on. The sycophant. Trailing Potter like a pet poodle, robes flapping above his skinny ankles. Basking in borrowed glory. God. It made him sick.

And … Granger.

Granger. The Muggle.

Granger. The Mudblood.

Granger. The annoying know-it-all.

Granger, who'd had the gall to show up to the Yule Ball looking like a film star at an awards show, as sleek and shiny and powder-blue mysterious as a pile of newly-minted Sickles fresh from the vault. Next to her, his own date Pansy had looked about as appealing as a dressed-up Pekingese.

Draco groaned. She'd been haunting his dreams ever since.

Not that he liked her or anything. God, what a joke - could you see his father's face if he brought her home to Sunday dinner?

No. It'd never do.

But there was something about her. Energy. Intention. A crackling purity of focus that consumed her every motion.

Passion. That was the word. An unrelenting, uncompromising passion - for knowledge, truth, justice.

Granger. The Crusader. Draco could picture her in men's clothes, in snow-white armor, dreaming dreams and seeing visions. Faithful to the death. She had that kind of loyalty.

He thought back to the whole house-elf thing from last year. What was the acronym again? S-P-E-W?

Lots of laughs in the Slytherin common room over that one. But every so often it occurred to him that no one, anywhere, at any time, had ever felt that strongly or single-mindedly about HIM.

At which point it was time to go kick one of the house-elves or bug his father for a new racing broom, because just about anything else was preferable to admitting that he'd like to be the focus of Hermione Granger's attentions, nay, affections.

He rolled over and punched his pillow. Just once. Just once, he'd like to get Granger alone, without Potter and Weasley there to get all bristly and heroic on her behalf.

She didn't need them anyway. She'd cleaned his clock but good, all on her own. But when they were around, he didn't have control of himself. Found it necessary to snarl and posture, mostly because their very existence pissed him off so mightily.

He'd like to catch her on her own. See if they couldn't have a conversation.

Not that he was interested or anything.

Just curious, that's all. And didn't his father always say that one of the marks of a strong wizard was the ability to infiltrate enemy ranks?

Draco sat up, hugging his pillow, and grinned to himself. If he played his cards right, he might just be able to kill two birds with one stone. That is, spring himself from this gloomy excuse for a holiday, and catch a little quality time with the Mudblood while he was at it.

Where was she spending her summer again? He'd overheard her talking to Parvati, near the end of term.

Of course.

Rome.