Roman Holiday

Chapter Thirteen

Waking up next to Draco Malfoy was, Hermione decided, a mixed bag. Once she got past the obvious girl stuff - how young he looked with his eyes closed, that amazing platinum spill of cornsilk hair against the pillows, the surprising warmth of his body, the acquisitive way his arm curved around her waist - reality began to intrude.

Reality. And not just the obvious oh-my-God-I’m-not-a-virgin-anymore, I-can-never-touch-a-unicorn-again, I-hope-my-dad-never-finds-out Post-Coital Panic. Scary, unanswerable questions too, bubbling out of her self-conscious like some evil, revelatory potion she’d rather not drink.

What will Harry and Ron think?

How am I going to face Snape again?

Will Draco still give me the time of day at school? Or is he going to pretend it never happened?

Worse yet: will he spread it around? Turn the gift I gave him into some kind of pathetic Quidditch locker-room joke?

It could get ugly, come the start of term. Hermione liked the New Draco, but she wasn’t sure she trusted him.

But even that concern, valid as it might be, paled in the face of this frightening-but-true wake-up call: they weren’t safe in Rome anymore.

Check that, Hermione thought. At the moment, she couldn’t think of a single place, other than Hogwarts, where both she and Draco were either safe, or for that matter particularly welcome. And Hogwarts was out of the question, at least for now. She’d read “Hogwarts: A History” until she could recite it in her sleep, and NO student came back early from summer break. EVER. Except for -

Prefects.

She was a prefect. And so was Draco.

Convenient, that.

And if she remembered correctly from last year, orientation for new prefects started … well, three weeks before the start of term. With a move-in date several days prior to that.

That was it, then. They didn’t have to hide out in Rome for the next month; all they had to do was get to Hogwarts. Surely, when Dumbledore heard their story, he’d let them stay. It wouldn’t even look all that odd.

**

She’d thought Draco would be relieved to hear this, but he didn’t look as happy as she’d imagined. “We have to leave today?”

“Honestly, Malfoy, are you still asleep?” She jerked the pillow out from under his head and batted him with it. “Yes, yes, yes! We can get out of here - we’ve got somewhere to go!”

He frowned. “So, that’s it?” he asked. “That’s our holiday, the end of it? What about all that stuff we talked about last night at dinner? What about the Pietà? What about our tickets to La Bohème? What about the Colosseum?” He punched his pillow half-heartedly, looking as petulant and disgruntled as only he could. “I just got here,” he said mournfully. “I don’t want to go back to bloody Hogwarts, not just yet.”

Hermione sighed. “You know as well as I do that we can’t avoid your father forever,” she said. “The longer we stay in Rome, the better his chances of finding us get. And he’s not even pretending allegiance to the Ministry anymore - none of them are. If he catches us, it’s an Avada Kedavra for me and probably worse for you.”

He winced. “It’s too early in the morning for this.”

She patted his knee. “Come on. We have to go rescue our luggage. But I’ll make you French toast before we do. Better yet, I’ll teach you how to make it yourself.”

He looked up, marginally more hopeful. “You can cook?”

**

By the time they’d cleaned up the excess powdered sugar and the egg Draco had dropped on the kitchen floor and eaten their breakfast, Lucius Malfoy had disappeared from the front steps of the pensione. That meant one of two things, they decided grimly, staring at the building’s façade from the safety of the Invisibility Cloak.

Either he’d given up on them for the time being - possible, if unlikely - or he’d decided to wait in the privacy and comfort of their room.

They didn’t intend to find out the hard way.

They detoured to the little trattoria across the street for backup coffee and a plan, picking out a table by the window where they could keep an eye on the street. Half an hour later, there was still no sign of him.

“Now or never,” Draco said grimly.

They used the pay phone in the hotel lobby to request maid service to their room, thanking their remaining lucky stars that the desk was crowded and that no one noticed Hermione’s disembodied voice or the telephone hanging, seemingly, in mid-air. Still under the Invisibility Cloak, they trailed the maid up to their room, waited breathlessly as she knocked, and slipped noiselessly in after her.

The room was empty.

They waited with growing impatience until she left, compiled their belongings hurriedly into Draco’s biggest trunk, and had just hauled it back under the cloak with them when footsteps sounded in the hall and stopped outside their door.

“Oh, shit,” Draco mouthed, and they both stood trembling, trying not to breathe, as someone muttered “Alohomora!” and the door swung open.

Lucius Malfoy had returned.

**

One thing was in their favor, Hermione thought frantically. The room looked as if it had already been abandoned. Judging from the elder Malfoy’s curses, he was buying this scenario and less than thrilled with it.

Please, please, please, she chanted inside her head. Let him leave, let him leave, let him stomp out that door and let me never see his ugly nasty face again. Next to her, Draco was trembling. She put her hand comfortingly on his arm, and felt the muscles relax a little underneath her touch.

They both had their wands out, underneath the cloak. Hermione hadn’t touched hers in more than a month, but they were necessary for a couple of reasons today. If it came down to it, she’d told Draco in the coffee shop, they had one spell apiece.

If Harry’s experience was anything to go by, an underage practitioner got one warning. She’d been hoping they wouldn’t have to go there, but things were looking bad now. If only he’d leave … if only they could slip out the still-open door without him noticing …

She jerked her head toward the door, and Draco, nodding, began to move with her. Malfoy the Elder was pulling out drawers and swearing, making enough noise to cover the faint rustle of their clothing and the bump of the trunk against their legs. They inched toward the door, reached it, and hit their next obstacle.

The door was cracked open, but they’d have to open it the rest of the way to get the trunk through.

Shit.

They glanced back at Lucius, who had turned his rage on the bed linens. He was turned at a three-quarters angle to the door … if they were quiet enough, slow enough, perhaps he wouldn’t see …

Then, before she could stop it, before she even knew it was coming, Hermione sneezed.

And the game was up.

Malfoy’s head came up like a hippogriff scenting sheep. He grabbed for his wand.

“Go,” Hermione said in a low voice, and abandoning pretense, they wrenched the door open, dragged the trunk through, and slammed it behind them just as a blast of green light took it from its hinges.

Running. Down the hall. Dodge. Thank God, still invisible - cloak hasn’t fallen off yet.

Running. Stairs? Elevator?

Elevator not here. Stairs.

Down the stairs. Voice behind us, angry. Jets of pure green danger, ricocheting off the walls. Dodge. Duck. Run.

It’s just the Impedimenta Curse, but if it hits us we’re goners.

Cloak slipped off our heads - shit. Disembodied heads, floating through the lobby.

Screams.

Man with a wand, pointing green death, yelling. Chasing the heads.

Stitch in my side. Can’t slow down. Run.

Street. Get to the street. Get your wand.

“Now!” Hermione yelled, and they threw up their wands. Please God, let it come, she thought, let it come, RIGHT NOW, and I’ll never ask for anything else again.

Malfoy, fighting his way through the lobby. Running down the steps.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Where is it???

Sweet, sweet, glorious relief.

The color of relief is purple.

Relief speaks bad Cockney English. Relief has pimples.

“Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the -“

“Right,” Hermione said, gasping. “We know. Here, take this, will you?”

She threw the trunk up the stairs, grabbed Draco’s arm to haul him up with her.

“’Ere, wot’s this?”

“Emergency transport, you said,” she panted. “Well, this is an emergency. Close the doors!”

“But -“

“CLOSE THE DOORS, I SAID!”

Malfoy had Draco’s other arm. Quick glimpse of bared yellow teeth, fierce blotchy face. Pure rage. Hermione didn’t even think, just hauled out her wand again.

“Petrificus Totalus!” she yelled, and Malfoy’s hand fell away. One more yank, and Draco was on the bus.

The doors closed, and with a BANG!, the Knight Bus was off.

Their last sight of Rome was of a crowd gathering around a dazed, immobilized wizard, and a big brown barn owl, flapping dispiritedly in circles above the street, an unread letter tied to its leg.

Possibly they were in big trouble.

But they were safe.

TBC