Roman Holiday

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Draco, who had forgotten that morning to tuck his Charms homework into his textbook, was on his way up from the Slytherin common room to grab a sandwich in the Great Hall. After the post-curfew events of last night, going off to bed together in the same room had seemed a bit brazen, not to mention risky … so he and Hermione, as they parted ways in the entrance hall, had agreed to meet in the library during lunch hour to check out their new study space.

He was running far enough behind schedule that the first muffled gasp from the curtained alcove off one of the dungeon corridors barely made him pause.

He’d only gone a few steps farther, however, when a feminine voice, tight with barely-concealed panic, choked, “Stop it!”, and was answered with a masculine chuckle and a slap.

Draco froze. He knew that voice. And that laugh.

Striding back to the alcove, he yanked aside the curtain to reveal Forrest Avery - or at least Avery’s back. He had a girl pinned to the wall by way of his beefy hand around her wrists and his large body against her smaller one. His free hand was out of sight, but from the girl’s whimpering Draco thought he could surmise what was going on.

As for her identity, only one female student at Hogwarts had hair that colour.

Ginny Weasley.

Ginny had the misfortune to be the youngest sibling in a family which had made more than a few enemies in Slytherin House. The fact that she was a girl, and small for her age at that, only made her more vulnerable.

Up until this year, she’d been Untouchable - not even an oaf like Avery cared to have two angry (not to mention well-muscled) Gryffindor Beaters breathing down his neck. Now, however, there was only Ron. Protective as he was, he couldn’t be everywhere at once.

And that flaming hair made an excellent target.

“Let her go,” he said. Avery twisted his head lazily, but didn’t release his victim. Seeing Draco, he smirked.

“I’ve got dibs, Malfoy. You’ll have to wait if you want a go at her.”

“Let her go,” Draco repeated. A wand - Ginny’s, he assumed - lay on the ground. He picked it up before Avery could tread on it. “She’s never done anything to you.”

“Wait your turn, I said,” Avery grunted. Draco’s jaw clenched.

“Avery, you slug,” he said calmly. “The lady’s not willing, and you’re twice her size. As the senior Slytherin prefect, I’m telling you to back off. You want to pick a fight, try me instead.”

“You’re not as pretty as she is,” Avery said, leering at Ginny. “Though certain of us are beginning to doubt your manhood. You’re gonna want to watch yourself in the showers, Malfoy. Slytherin House doesn’t like pansy little turncoats like you, even if you do have a rich daddy.”

A muscle began to tick in Draco’s cheek. “For the last time,” he said, holding on to his artificial calm with both hands, “get the fuck away from her. Or I’ll make you sorry you didn’t.”

“Mind your own business, you little loser,” Avery said nastily. “She likes me. Don’t you, sweetheart?” He squeezed Ginny’s wrists painfully, grinning unpleasantly at Draco when he’d forced a cry from her. “See? Sounds like a ‘yes’ to me. And what are you gonna do about it, anyway?”

The next second, Draco had him pinned against the wall.

Wands weren’t necessary for this, Draco thought grimly. Putting aside the fact that duelling in the halls was prohibited, the use of wands implied equality.

And this big cockroach wasn’t even remotely his equal.

He might be smaller than Avery, but he’d had more than his share of experience with bullies. Damned if he was going to walk away, when he saw it happening right in front of him.

That, he thought, would make him entirely too much like his mother.

“Think it’s fun to slap girls around, do you?” he hissed. “To hit people who can’t fight back? See how this feels, then.”

If Lucius Malfoy had passed on to him any useful information at all, it was the inherent vulnerabilities of human facial structure. Overtaken by savage satisfaction that encircled and enflamed him like a hot red mist, Draco drew back his arm.

And shattered Avery’s nose with one clean blow.

The snap of the cartilage, the spray of the blood, the anguished gurgle, sent a heady sense of power washing over him in waves. If he squinted a little, he could almost see another face behind the red splatter - sneering, faintly lined, very much like his own.

He’d do anything to wipe out that sneer for good.

He put his hands around Avery’s throat and squeezed.

“Thirty points from Slytherin,” he said softly. It wasn’t enough, but it was all he was authorized to take. “And I’ll be passing in a detention referral to Professor Snape, make no mistake. Now, apologize.”

“To that filth?” Avery sneered. For all his current resemblance to a cranberry muffin - the destroyed nose, the large purple bruises beginning to bloom, raccoon-like, around his eyes - he had retained an astonishing amount of bravado. “I’d sooner die.”

What the hell? Draco thought. He’d just severed his last tie to Slytherin House, and had the blood on his hands to prove it. “That can be arranged,” he promised, and increased the pressure of his grip, feeling the beat of blood under his thumbs like the frantic scurry of mouse feet. Avery’s eyes bugged through the swollen slits of their lids.

“Say it,” Draco insisted, not sure if he was talking to Avery now or to Lucius Malfoy, and not really caring. “Damn you, say it!”

He’d expected Ginny to grab her wand and take off the minute she was free, but for some reason she was tugging on the back of his robes. “Stop,” she said urgently, going up on her toes to hiss into his ear. “Malfoy, it’s not worth it - let him go!”

“It’s worth it,” he insisted, shaking Avery so that the back of the bigger boy’s head bumped into the stone wall with a mushy-sounding thwack. “Anyone’s worth it. Anyone.”

Determinedly, Ginny pushed in between the two of them, shoving Draco back. “Stop,” she said again, her lips trembling. “Don’t kill him, Malfoy. You’ve got enough problems as it is.”

The knowledge in her eyes, more than her words, stopped him cold. He staggered back against the opposite wall of the alcove, not objecting when she yanked the curtain more firmly closed.

Avery was on the floor next to them, holding his throat and retching helplessly. Neither of them paid him any attention.

“I do, do I?” Draco said softly. “And what exactly would you know about my problems? Someone been telling tales out of school?” He felt a hot jab of disappointment. “Potter, maybe?”

“No!” Ginny looked scared again, but she lifted her chin in a mutinous thrust that reminded him suddenly of Ron. “I have eyes and ears,” she said. “Unlike my brother. I know that ‘Mione isn’t sleeping alone these days; even with wards on the door, those dormitory walls are pretty thin. And I know who checked out that book of Muggle poetry at the beginning of the year; I saw your name on the card.”

She met Draco’s eyes with a challenging air of hauteur that looked faintly amusing on her, like a little girl dressed up in her mother’s robes. “I’m not sure I approve,” she said, “or even understand. But it’s not my decision, now, is it?”

Silence, while they sized each other up.

Not so vulnerable after all, was she? Draco thought. Tiny little thing like that, you expected fragility and easy tears - not the ironclad determination of a dump truck.

No, Ginny Weasley had her own code of honor, that was plain to tell. Draco made a quick decision.

“That lack of your brother’s,” he said slowly. “It’s sort of working to my advantage at the moment.”

Ginny’s lips twitched.

“If he hears anything,” she said, “it won’t be from me. I owe you one.”

Leaving the unconscious Avery on the floor in a puddle of his own blood and bile, they walked up to the Great Hall together in silence.

**

Hermione was waiting, not exactly patiently, at their usual study carroll in the back of the Restricted section.

“Where have you been?” she hissed. Draco shrugged.

“Prefect stuff,” he said noncommittally. “I got stopped in the hall. Had to write up a detention referral.”

To his immense relief, Hermione let it go at that. He was glad he’d taken the extra minute to wash his hands and charm the blood off his robes. “Madam Pince showed me where the room is,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for you so we could open it together, though.”

He wasn’t expecting much from the room, but it turned out to be exactly the distraction he needed.

You could have looked for it for years and never found it: back in a particularly musty, sneeze-inducing rack of old yearbooks from the 1300s, Hermione located a small, grotty-looking volume the size of his hand that was faded from what might have been blue to cobweb-grey. “Page thirty-five,” she whispered conspiriatorially. “Right here, see?”

Draco peered over her shoulder. The page was blank.

“Um … no,” he said. “What’s to see?”

In answer, Hermione pulled her key from a chain around her neck. “Like this,” she said, and touched the tip of the key to the middle of the page.

Immediately, with a faint popping sound, she was gone. Draco caught the book before it hit the floor.

“Okay,” he said doubtfully to himself, and dug his own key out of his pocket. An instant later, the library had disappeared. Impressed despite himself, he glanced around at his new surroundings.

Dumbledore moved quickly, he had to give him that. The room sparkled with cleanliness and boasted a freshly laid fire - apparently the house-elves had access. Floor-to-ceiling shelves were lined with books. One corner boasted two laboratory tables and a small but neatly arranged ingredients cabinet; Draco assumed that its lower drawers contained all the measuring tools and chopping knives they’d need. A door between two bookshelves gave him a glimpse of blue tile and hinted at the presence of bathing and eliminatory facilities.

Immediately, he got a visual image of Hermione, naked and wet and covered in bubbles. His own private mermaid.

Hmmm.

No time for that now, of course. He tucked the thought away for later and turned back to his survey of the main chamber.

The rest of the room looked like a cozy little parlor: comfortable chairs, cushioned footstools, and a narrow little chaise longue that looked about as wide as a broomstick; when he sat down tentatively on it, however, he could feel it expand to fit him. Curious, he lay down on it, and was astonished when his feet didn’t hang off the end. Hermione laughed.

“I’ve read about those,” she said. “They’re like the wizarding version of a sofabed.”

“A what?”

“Never mind,” she said, and dropped down next to him. “Well, what do you know? It fits two.”

Well-suited for chemistry, indeed, Draco thought, amused. Old Dumbledore was even more of a romantic than he painted himself. But aside from the snogging possibilities, intriguing as they were, this room presented an entirely viable solution to what had been, after today’s altercation with Avery, a pressing problem.

He wasn’t going to have to spend a night in Slytherin House, ever again.

Knowing the Headmaster, he’d foreseen that, too.

**

He took the opportunity to move his belongings out of the dungeon while his classmates were at dinner, then locked and warded the door to the empty prefect’s bedroom the way he normally would. No sense advertising that he’d taken other quarters.

Dropping into a seat at the end of his House table with a hint of expatriate swagger, he had just started in on his roast beef when Ron Weasley tapped him on the shoulder.

“Hi,” he said neutrally, and tried to read the expression on Ron’s face. No go.

“Ginny told me about what happened today,” Ron said. His eyes were shuttered, his face carefully arranged into blank politesse. “That was decent of you. I appreciate it.”

“Least I could do,” Draco said. “Avery’s a thug.”

Ron looked for a moment as if he might smile, then quickly glanced away. “Thanks,” he said again, and walked hastily away, back to his spot at the Gryffindor table. Even from the back, he looked relieved that the encounter was over.

Draco caught Hermione’s eye. She looked ridiculously pleased. He sipped his pumpkin juice to hide a smile.

Things were definitely looking up.

**