Roman Holiday

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Being the only children of their parents, Hermione and Draco both understood all too well the seductive lures of privacy. Sharing their respective dormitory rooms for their first four years at Hogwarts had only made the subsequent escape into prefects’ solitude sweeter.

And so it was with caution that they approached the hidden refuge of the library room, which Hermione referred to, only half-joking, as ‘Elysium’.

Paradise.

Familiarity, after all, did not always breed contempt. But too much proximity could, and though nary a word of discussion on the topic ever passed their lips, they both knew it.

So Hermione made a point of spending a few evenings a week with Harry and Ron, while Draco gritted his teeth and performed an occasional obligatory stalk through the Slytherin common room, thereby perpetuating the misconception that he still slept there. It was quite amusing, really: he’d sweep in scowling, like Sherman through Georgia, wait five minutes, then slip out again under the Invisibility Cloak. It was an efficient little trick, aided by the fact that since his run-in with Avery, the other Slytherins averted their eyes and let him pass without so much as a murmur of censure.

What he heard on his way out, of course, was another matter.

On the other hand, he didn’t have to eavesdrop at all to hear the flying rumours that linked his name romantically with Ginny Weasley’s - those were all over school. Ginny, for her part, appeared to be thoroughly enjoying the hailstorm of gossip that this fallacy provoked, perhaps because the very topic turned Ron puce with ill-concealed bile.

The long-despised heir to the Malfoy fortune might be handy enough when it came to rescuing Ginny, he told Harry and Hermione privately, but damned if he was going to let her date him.

This statement was found amusing in the extreme by all concerned.

Draco had to admit that the gossip was advantageous, chiefly for its smoke-screen effects. If the entire student body went into a fit of whispering, every time Ginny winked at him from the Gryffindor table, they were hardly likely to notice that he and Hermione Granger went simultaneously missing for large chunks of time, several times a week.

Also, it provided him with a certain amount of evil satisfaction to think about the news trickling back to Malfoy Manor. Pureblood or not, the idea of his only son dating a Weasley was guaranteed to have Lucius spitting nails.

Possibly, Draco reflected, Arthur Weasley wasn’t too happy about it either.

But then, that was Ron’s problem, wasn’t it?

**

All else aside, the evenings that he and Hermione spent in the library hideaway were some of the most tranquil and pleasant he’d ever experienced at Hogwarts. Quiet, comfortable, and spacious enough to let them pursue their separate projects without bumping elbows or having to share table space, the room was also lined with books that seemed hand-picked for their helpfulness, interest value, and general unavailability through other, more conventional, outlets.

Knowing their benefactor, this seemed unlikely to be coincidental.

And when the pressures of scholarship threatened to upset their equilibrium, other pleasures popped up to distract them - that marvellously inventive chaise longue, for example, and the aquatic delights of the big blue-tiled bath. Later, after Hermione left - she took her duties as the senior Gryffindor prefect seriously, and spent the night in her own room, in order to be available if necessary - Draco would lie back against his pillows, safe in his hidden, fire-warmed cocoon, and fall asleep listening to the books breathe around him.

All in all, life could be much worse.

**

A week after they’d taken possession of their new digs, Hermione discovered a most useful Advanced Replication charm. In addition to reproducing the object of the spell itself, which was basic magic that the average third-year could perform without difficulty, this trickier version of the charm also replicated any enchantments that the object carried. Immediately, she’d made two spare copies of the Keyhole Book, as well as an extra key for each of them.

Draco Transfigured his spare key to look like a Remembrall, and kept it in the bottom of his bag, under his textbooks. The Keyhole he carried with him as well, as it hadn’t taken him two days to discover that Elysium could be accessed from anywhere in the castle or on the grounds, provided that he carried both the Keyhole and the key.

Doing this meant hanging onto the Keyhole as he went through it, rather than letting it drop back to the library shelf. The resulting effect was near-total impregnability - rather like locking himself in the bathroom, except that only Dumbledore and Madam Pince had the necessary knowledge to perform an emergency Alohomora to rout him out. (Seeing as this was the case, Draco took the precaution of burying the library’s copy of the Keyhole behind some back periodicals on a top shelf, on which the dust lay nearly an inch thick, then charming another inch of dust on top.)

Okay, so he was a little paranoid.

He and Hermione avoided discussion of his parental predicaments, but they both knew that Elysium was earmarked as Bolthole Number One, should Lucius Malfoy set foot on Hogwarts property - with Slytherin’s cozy underground chalet presenting a possible alternative. The existence of the Invisibility Cloak just gave him another layer of insurance.

If anyone came to get him, day or night, Draco was braced to disappear.

In the meantime, he and Hermione were working overtime on what they’d optimistically dubbed the Protection Potion.

**

Their first attempts to meld the Illuminata with the Armoring Fluid had yielded only modestly encouraging results. For their experiments, they’d co-opted a few dozen oranges from the kitchens and treated the fruit with an Anti-Rot Charm - considering the circumstances, the idea of slicing into Draco’s arm repeatedly held no appeal for either of them.

So far, the potion-treated oranges resisted the knife only until the effects of the Armoring Fluid wore off - on average, this was holding steady at about four minutes. After that, they cut easily, though for a considerable period of time afterwards, if the halves of the orange weren’t completely separated, the fibers could be observed trying to re-knit themselves. Small cuts in the surface of the orange rind would repair themselves up to six or seven times, before the Illuminata gave way to cold hard steel.

So, not a complete wash. Even so, they were drinking a lot of orange juice. It was clear that in order to achieve any meaningful results, they’d have to first strengthen the Armoring Fluid.

“Oh, is that all?” Draco had said ruefully, when Hermione pointed out this fact. “Fix a potion that’s been faulty for millenia and eluded the best minds in the wizarding world? Lead me to the cauldron; we’ll be done by dinnertime.”

Hermione didn’t deign to reply to this.

Snape’s snarkiness aside, she’d been right about one thing: the lacewings were, indeed, the formula’s weakness. Draco took it upon himself to experiment for a sturdier, workable substitute.

Hermione, in the meantime, was immersed in the problem of making her Discman ghost-compatible.

Apart from her curiosity about the actual demise of Salazar Slytherin - the fact that he’d lied to her so calmly and convincingly alternately rankled and impressed her - she was convinced that Slytherin still held the trump card on the Fils du Couteau. Even if she and Draco could get the Protection Potion to work, they still needed to know what exactly to protect. As Slytherin had designed the curse and activated it once before, chances were good that he had a pretty good idea of Voldemort’s planned procedure.

The Discman was the key to unlocking all that vital, jealously guarded information. Hermione had already selected her lure: a crystal-clear digital remastering of Vladimir Horowitz playing the Rachmaninov Second Piano Concerto with the New York Philharmonic.

Seven hundred years of British folk songs and Pergolesi opera couldn’t begin to prepare even the most urbane, forward-thinking music lover for Russian Post-Romanticism. Six bars, and Slytherin would be putty in her hands … or at least putty through her fingers. She was sure of it.

It was a pity that she couldn’t figure out how to desolidify her miracle machine.

**

It was the night before the Halloween feast. Draco, who had raided Snape’s stores for a sampler of alternative insects, had four otherwise-identical Armoring potions simmering side-by-side, and was industriously removing the wings from the carefully-labelled carcasses. Hermione had located a Latin-English dictionary and was working her way through all the possible Latin synonyms for the word ‘vaporous’, her wand determinedly pointed toward the hapless Discman.

Perhaps, she’d confided to Draco earlier, etymology would prevail where the spellbooks had failed her.

It was a good thing she’d Replicated the Discman several times before commencing. So far, her linguistic experiments had caused one machine to dissolve into a small silver puddle and another to condense itself into a pocket-sized thunderstorm which rained furiously over her notes for two minutes, broke into a brief shimmering rainbow she could have balanced on her palm, then abruptly vanished, leaving behind a single silver coin on the table. Yet a third had grown bandy little legs and tap-danced while tinnily singing “Stormy Weather”, until a well-placed hex from an irritated Draco reduced it to smoldering electronic rubble.

Not one of them, however, ended up looking like something a ghost could use to discover Rachmaninov.

Hermione sighed, muttered a Drying Charm at her notes, and dutifully recorded the results. If nothing else, this approach to spellcasting was certainly entertaining.

“Well, it’s not ‘vaporous’,” she said. “Can you think of another word to try?”

Draco ripped the wings off yet another desiccated housefly and frowned. “How about ‘transparent’?”

“Well, I’ve already gone through all the matches for ‘foggy’ and ‘insubstantial’,” Hermione said, doubtful. “Which is sort of the same thing, isn’t it?”

Draco shrugged. “Worth a try, though,” he pointed out, and Hermione nodded absently. She was already flipping pages.

“Let’s see,” she murmured, scanning the list. “Epicrocus - no - interluceo - no, that doesn’t sound right, either. Hm.” Her finger stopped consideringly and tapped the yellowed page. “Perluceo. To shine through; to be transparent. That might work.”

She picked up her wand and pointed it at the Discman. “Okay,” she said. “Last try before I start my Arithmancy homework. Perluceo!”

To her amazement, the little stereo glowed for a moment with bright silver-white light, then faded to a familiar pearl-gray. Hermione peered at it closely, then picked up a stray quill and cautiously poked at it.

The quill passed straight through the Discman, stopping when it hit the table.

“Finite Incantatem,” she said slowly, and watched displaced atoms scurry back into place under cover of another streak of white light. This time, the quill hit solid matter.

Cool. Way cool.

She felt Draco’s hand on her shoulder and twisted back to look at him. He’d stopped dismembering beetles and was staring speculatively at the newly-solidified Discman.

“That,” he said, “is pretty damn intense.” Hermione beamed at him.

“Well, that’s that,” she said. “No time to lose now.”

He looked bemused. “What’s what?”

“Tomorrow night,” she said. “Eat fast, and then meet me in the trophy room. I’m going to introduce you to a friend of mine.”