Roman Holiday

Chapter Thirty-Six

Draco, still picturing the belligerent, bewildered look on Ron Weasley’s face, was humming as he opened the door to the Slytherin common room. A genius, that’s what he was. In one fell swoop, he’d not only given the Gryffindors something to think about, he’d also - albeit very subtly - told Lucius Malfoy and the rest of the Slytherins to go screw themselves.

The next time he got on a broom, he’d be free. Flying just for himself again, for the sheer joy of doing it.

That was a happy thought.

Lucius, of course (that was how he preferred to think of him now; donating sperm for an evil science experiment didn’t make you a father, not in Draco’s book anyway), would be furious when he found out. From the looks of the faces in the common room, his housemates weren’t going to throw him a party anytime soon, either. Draco, striving to look cool and disinterested, slid one hand surreptitiously into the side pocket of his robes.

It was a sad day when you needed your wand to assure your safe passage through your own dormitory. Then again, he didn’t give a fuck what any of them thought about him, anyway.

Hostile stares bored through him as he passed. He felt eyes on his back, but kept his head high. Give him two minutes, and he’d be blessedly invisible. Give him ten, and he’d be safe in the cozy little prefect’s room in Gryffindor Tower.

Safe in her arms.

Hard to believe he’d ever felt anything for Hermione Granger but this blinding adoration. Hard to believe he’d ever preferred this room to that one, that he’d called those trolls in the corner his friends and traded kisses with the smirking, hard-faced girl now perched in Avery’s lap.

He reached his room, dropped his books, collected his Invisibility Cloak, and slipped back into the hallway. Glancing around to make sure he wouldn’t be overheard, he laid a particularly nasty hex on his bedroom door; he’d caught Avery’s eyes on his way through the common room, and not liked the speculative look in them.

Anyone who came snooping around his bedroom in his absence would get more than cheap thrills.

By the time he crossed the Great Hall and started up the staircase toward the Fat Lady’s portrait, he was humming again, and so lost in thought that he didn’t notice the pair of sharp blue eyes marking his progress.

**

The Gryffindor common room was crowded and noisy, its occupants a good deal more convivial than the gathering he’d just left. Draco spotted Harry and Ron holding court from the two big armchairs by the fire, surrounded by a giggling group of fourth-year girls, and allowed himself a momentary pang of envy.

They looked so sure of themselves. So sure of each other. When had he ever had a friend like that?

For a moment, he wished he could take off the cloak and join the happy little group by the fire. To joke, to flirt, to exist in easy camaraderie with his acknowledged equals, with people who had never called him anything but ‘friend’ - that would be sweet indeed.

Sweet. And utterly out of the question.

He tore his eyes away and climbed the stairs to Hermione’s room.

She was at her desk, writing furiously, her free hand running absently through her newly-trimmed copper curls. If she heard him come in, she was too engrossed to look up.

He hung the Invisibility Cloak over one of her bedposts, shucked off his shoes, and padded over to look at what she was doing. Beside the stack of notes at her elbow lay a swatch of grotty-looking fabric, a tube of toothpaste, a pipette, and a beaker full of what looked rather like vodka.

“Hi,” he said, and tried not to look too pleased with himself when she jumped.

“Jesus, you scared me. Hi.” She pointed her wand at a stray fluffy slipper, muttered something unintelligible, and nodded with fierce satisfaction as the slipper morphed into a ladder-backed chair. “Have a seat. How was your day?”

“Tolerable,” Draco said, pulling the chair up to her desk and turning it around so he could straddle it. Damned if he’d look impressed, even if that was a massively cool little bit of Transfiguration. “That doesn’t look like our Potions homework.”

“It’s not,” Hermione said, frowning at her notes. “It’s the Illuminata.”

Draco gaped at the clear, oily liquid in the beaker. “That? That’s the Illuminata? It’s finished?”

Hermione nodded. “That’s it,” she said flatly. “Nothing much to look at, is it?”

Draco shot her a swift sideways look. “What’s the matter with it?” he asked. “You look awfully glum - I’d have thought you’d be dancing in the streets by now. Doesn’t it work?”

Hermione made a derisive sound in her throat. “Oh, it works all right,” she said. “Look at this.”

She spread the fabric - an old, stained piece of what looked like Dobby’s erstwhile tea-towel uniform - flat on her desk, siphoned a small amount of the Illuminata into her pipette, and allowed a single drop to fall onto the towel. The liquid shone greasily for a moment, then disappeared, taking with it the tomato-sauce stain on which it had landed. Though the rest of the towel looked as woebegone as ever, there was now a circle in the middle of the rag, about an inch in diameter, that looked as if it had never been out of the box.

“Wow,” Draco said. Hermione smiled grimly.

“Okay, take two,” she said. “Check this out.”

She lifted the cloth away and gestured with a jerk of her head toward the scarred wood of her desk. Where the Illuminata had soaked through the fabric, there was a coin-sized spot of gleaming virgin varnish.

“Wow,” he said again, and Hermione forced a laugh.

“One more thing,” she said. “Mixed it with my toothpaste. Started out with just one tooth, so I could make a comparison, but I was too vain to leave things that way.” She bared her teeth at him in a Gilderoy Lockhart smile that didn’t reach her eyes. Draco, half-blinded by her mouthful of gleaming hospital-white enamel, leaned on the back of the chair and frowned in confusion.

“Call me slow, Hermione,” he said, “but I’m sensing something’s wrong here. And I have no idea what it is. Aren’t you happy that the potion’s working?”

Hermione threw up her hands in frustration. “Think about it,” she said, exasperated. “What we have here is a substance that shows everything it touches in its best possible light.” She grimaced. “It’s the last undiscovered mystery of the seventeenth century. A bona fide miracle potion.”

Draco shrugged. “Yeah,” he said. “But that’s a good thing. Isn’t it?”

“Imagine the commercial possibilities,” Hermione went on, as if he hadn’t interrupted. “Cosmetics. Furniture polish. Detergent. The list just goes on. Do you know, I had a spot on my chin, this morning?” She glared at the beaker. “One dab. Gone. And that’s not even taking into consideration its potential mood-altering properties - those alone open up the market to a whole new demographic. It’s like a wizarding version of Ecstasy.”

“Ecstasy?” Draco repeated, confused. “But that’s what you wanted. To make people happy.”

“I didn’t want this!” Hermione’s voice had started to rise. “To see it reduced to its lowest common denominator? Turned into lip gloss and acne cream and floor wax? Exploited as a hallucinogenic?”

She buried her head in her hands. “I should never have even begun the project.”

Draco stared at her helplessly. “What do you want, then?” he asked. “Why did you go to all the trouble, if you didn’t want what it can do?”

Hermione let out a shuddering breath and faced him with glittering eyes. “I want what Palestrina did,” she said. “I want to use it for something worthy. And honorable. And permanent. Something that matters.”

She dug savagely at the soft spots under her temples. “Something that doesn’t just make the world prettier, but makes it better. And I can’t fucking think of anything.”

Oh, Draco thought, suddenly understanding. “Scared?” he asked quietly. Hermione nodded miserably.

“I was so excited about this,” she said, “until I actually saw what it did. Now, I’m just terrified that I’m going to use it in a way that’s not worthy of it.” She blew hair out of her eyes. “All I can think of is mixing it with the Armoring Fluid - but I can’t start that until tomorrow; Snape said I had to test it on its own first.”

“Hm,” Draco said, and thought for a minute. Finally, he squeezed her hand.

Ever the conscientious scientist, he thought ruefully, even when it meant beating herself to emotional pulp. Well, maybe he couldn’t fix her problem, but he could certainly distract her from it for a while.

It was almost certain to work, and if it didn’t, they’d both be dead by morning anyway.

“Up for an adventure?”

Hermione looked suspicious, but nodded warily. “What kind of adventure?”

“I happen to know,” Draco said archly, “that Argus Filch is very fond of hot chocolate.”

Startled, Hermione let out a snort of unwilling laughter. “Drug Filch? That’s your idea of a worthy cause?”

“Can you think of a nobler one?” He pulled her out of her chair. “Come on. Put some of that in a test tube, and let’s go visit the kitchens. I’ve been waiting to see that man smile for five years; I bet you ten Galleons his face cracks.”

Hermione hesitated, then gave an internal shrug of mental capitulation.

It was true - bad boys were irresistible.

And after all, she thought, grabbing her notebook, research was research. Pity this whole thing was Top Secret: the thought of Argus Filch in the grip of the Illuminata tempted her to ask Colin Creevey along on their little expedition.

Well, it couldn’t be helped. She’d have to make up for the lack of photographic evidence with her prose.

“You’re on,” she said to Draco, and let him lead the way.

**

Severus stared moodily into the depths of the beaker. On the verge of drinking it, he’d set it back down.

No need to be hasty.

He dipped one finger into the potion, up to the first knuckle, and then held it up to the light. The Illuminata clung to his skin for a moment, then seemed to vanish inward, as if his pores were exuding upon it some subtle gravity. Severus spread his hand against the table and studied it: four calloused, time-hardened fingers with nails yellowed by long exposure to chemical reactions.

And one with a diamond-clear nail and skin as new as an infant’s.

He swore, just once, under his breath. Hesitated. Then, as if against his better judgment, he pushed up one sleeve of his robe.

The Dark Mark.

It never went away entirely, though sometimes it lay on his arm so quiescently that it seemed only a shadow, or a lingering remnant of a bad dream. At other times, it flared into a steady black throb, pounding temptation through his bloodstream like a traitorous heartbeat. Voldemort could project through his Mark any emotion he chose - on the surface level, one might automatically expect the infliction of pain, but that wasn’t always the case. The Dark Lord knew his followers’ - and former followers’ - weaknesses, all too well.

And he hadn’t forgotten Severus Snape’s.

At random moments - the middle of the night, the dinner hour, halfway through his lesson with the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff first-years - the Mark would buzz to aching, insidious life, and Severus would find himself battling a sudden wave of heart-stopping, nerve-jolting need. When it inevitably receded, ten or twenty or a hundred seconds later, he’d be left with the greasy-tasting aftermath: headache, nausea, fine tremors in his hands that took every ounce of his considerable self-control to conceal.

After fifteen years of this, he was as well-conditioned as one of that Muggle Pavlov’s dogs. He might still like to look at a pretty face or figure, but the thought of the act itself filled him with stomach-roiling, sweaty self-loathing.

Or had, at least, until Hermione Granger had streaked past him into St. Peter’s Square on a borrowed red moped, and led him on what was turning into the wildest chase of his life.

That night with her, amid the heady fumes of the raw new Illuminata, had been the first time in nearly two decades that he’d been with a woman, and been his own man. Was it any wonder that he was obsessed with her?

He dismissed that unwelcome thought with considerable effort and returned his attention to the beakerful of Illuminata. Dipping his forefinger into the potion once more, he let a spare drop of the glistening liquid fall onto his arm, squarely over the dark head of the serpent.

And felt a hiss pass through his body like an exorcism, like a faraway scream.

The Dark Mark writhed on his arm, and he felt the first wave of hot anger run through him like boiling water in his bloodstream. Under the hot pain was a faint chill of fear.

Good, he thought. You’d better be afraid, you bastard. It’s a brand new day, and a schoolgirl’s got you on the run, do you hear me?

Steadying his hand, he poised the beaker over his forearm and poured.

More screaming. More heat. More pain. Confusion, too, and terror, and fury - killing, bloodying rage, the snake on his arm snapping its shadowy fangs wildly and straining away from the stream of silvery liquid.

Die, he thought, glaring at the snake. Die, goddamn you. If I can’t cut you out, I’ll fucking poison you instead.

There was an inch of liquid left in the beaker. He drained it without a second thought, and felt the shadow-Voldemort, far away, scream in protest.

Snape threw back his head through the sudden hot blanket of pain, and felt the Illuminata sizzle down his throat like a cleansing draught of acid, and laughed like a madman.

He didn’t know what the hell he was feeling right now.

But for lack of a better word, he was going to call it ‘hope.’