Roman Holiday

Chapter Fifty-Six

They walked down from the castle past the lake to the school gates, via a path that had been cleared for them through drifts too high to see over. The path was only wide enough for two people to walk abreast on it and was slightly narrower yet at its top, filtering the winter sun that shone palely down upon them into a chilly, colorless, strangely eerie half-light. All in all, it was a solemn, whispering little procession that wound its way down to the edge of Hogsmeade. When they finally reached the gates, the students glanced around them nervously, as if expecting Voldemort himself to materialise from thin air, then took off hurriedly in rather larger-than-usual groups.

Hermione was walking off with Draco, slightly trailing Harry, Ron and Ginny, when she was halted by Professor McGonagall calling her name.

“Miss Granger!”

They all stopped in their tracks. Hermione turned questioningly around.

“Yes, Professor?”

McGonagall looked as if she wanted to say a great deal and was biting it back through sheer willpower. Her black eyes were worried and a bit softer than usual.

“For heaven’s sake, Hermione, be careful,” she said finally, in a bit of a rush. “And the rest of you, too. That miracle potion of yours won’t do you any good at all, if you don’t get the chance to drink it.”

Looking a bit annoyed with herself for saying anything at all, she turned abruptly on her heel and stalked in the opposite direction, leaving the five of them to stare open-mouthed after her.

“Well,” Hermione said after a moment’s silence, “let’s get on with it, then.”

And on that less-than-encouraging note, they set off for the middle of town.

**

Wizarding snow removal, Ron explained as they walked along, was superior to its Muggle counterpart for one pivotal reason: instead of merely displacing the snow from one location to another, those in the magical community could use the twin charms “Liquefy!” and “Evaporo!” in quick succession, to actually transmutate the solid crystals - first into water, then, literally, into thin air.

Generally, he said, this process was best attempted in pairs - there were several well-documented cases in which unfortunate witches or wizards had allowed their feet to get wet during the Liquification procedure, to the point that they then accidentally Evaporated their own shoes. But it was possible to do it alone, if one was careful.

That was the plus side. On the other hand, the town of Hogsmeade unfortunately didn’t appear to have snow-removal policies or bylaws, or even a team of civil servants responsible for the clearing of public paths. This regrettable oversight meant that each individual resident simply cleared their own passage to wherever it was they needed to go; a week of this had turned the town into a veritable warren of meandering, narrow tunnels, crisscrossing each other at random angles and often ending in cul-de-sacs, as their creators tired of clearing away the snow and simply Apparated the rest of the way to their destinations.

Under certain circumstances, this could have been fun - on a number of levels. Today, however, it seemed merely inconvenient and vaguely sinister, and Hermione was glad when they found themselves on a relatively well-travelled path that continued all the way down Hogsmeade’s main street.

They visited all their usual haunts: Honeyduke’s, Zonko’s, the Owl Emporium - then journeyed another block toward a kaleidoscopic awning that proclaimed in swirling, psychedelic colours that they had reached Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes.

Fred and George’s shop was more crowded than Zonko’s had been, partly because the proprietors’ schoolboy pranks had passed into Hogwarts legend, during their year of absence - and partly because their products journeyed into a realm of juvenile humour so ingeniously twisted, so scarily innovative, that no one else could possibly have ever thought of them.

They were also savvy businessmen - Hermione, who when they’d opened this shop had gifted them with Small Business for Dummies, had watched in amused fascination as they’d gleefully pulled every trick in the book: two-fer sales, free samples, discounts, bribery. They’d even recruited a couple of Gryffindor third-years (most notably, Dennis Creevey) to disseminate their products around school, happily exchanging merchandise for free advertising. Poor old Zonko, with his eighteenth-century Biting Teacups and his dusty decks of Exploding Snap, didn’t stand a chance.

Now, the twins whooped as Harry and Ron came through the door (causing a fountain of green slime to shoot up from the floor, drench them all in an inch of peppermint-scented sludge, then magically melt away), and dragged them off to inspect their new product line of Insulting Mirrors (“We’ve got you to thank for these, Hermione!”).

Ginny, rolling her eyes, settled down to wait for them - Draco and Hermione, however, eyeing the remainder of the displayed merchandise nervously, decided that butterbeer was a safer bet. They made plans to meet back up in front of the Owl Emporium for lunch, waved good-bye to Fred and George, backed nervously around the slime fountain, and set off for the Three Broomsticks.

The pub was dim and noisy and full of students sheltering from the cold, most of whom were debating the effects of the Protection Potion in urgent whispers. Lavender and Seamus waved Hermione and Draco over to the table they were sharing with Dean and Parvati; as they threaded their way through the crowd, Hermione heard Parvati hiss, “Ooooh - she’ll know!” and had to bite back a grin.

They’d barely settled themselves at the table when Lavender leaned forward eagerly.

“So,” she said. “Tell us all about it.”

Hermione raised her eyebrows and busied herself with removing the cap from her bottle of butterbeer. “About what?”

Lavender rolled her eyes. “About this, silly,” she said, pulling the phial of Protection Potion out of her robes. Hermione exchanged a quick glance with Draco, then shrugged.

“What makes you think I know any more than you do?”

Dean tipped back his butterbeer and took a long swallow. “Because,” he said, setting down the bottle with a clink, “Parvati and I overheard Madam Pomfrey say to McGonagall that ‘if Miss Granger hadn’t come up with this when she did, no one would be setting foot outside the castle until graduation’.”

Four expectant faces swiveled more intently toward hers. Hermione groaned inwardly.

No way she was weaseling out of this one.

“It’s my extra-credit Potions project,” she said grudgingly. “Draco and I have been working on it together.”

Seamus looked nonplussed. “But what is it?” he asked. “What’s it called, and what does it do?”

Draco cleared his throat. “It’s an augmented version of the Armoring Fluid, that’s all,” he said dismissively. “Lasts just a little over an hour, which makes it more worth its while than the original.”

The occupants of the table digested this in silence. Finally, Parvati spoke up in an apprehensive whisper.

“What do they think is going to happen?” she asked, her graceful little hand gripping Dean’s for support. “Why did they have us take it? What’s out there?”

“That,” Hermione said grimly, “is what we wish we knew.”

**

They left the much-subdued Gryffindors at the Three Broomsticks and walked down toward Madam Malkin’s - Hermione had ruined one of her school robes just that week with a sizable spill of dragon’s-blood down the front, and wanted a replacement. Draco declined to join her.

“I’ll be next door in Quality Quidditch,” he said. “There’s a new Firebolt coming out, and I want to take a look at it. Meet you out here?”

Hermione raised one eyebrow. “Boys and broomsticks,” she said with a mock-sneer. “We could all go into convents for all you lot would notice, as long as there were new racing brooms to be had.”

“That’s not true!” he protested, and she laughed.

“I know … I’m just kidding. Have fun.”

She bought the new robes, as well as a small can of what looked like a wizarding form of Scotchgard; hopefully, she thought, it would prevent the same catastrophe from occurring again. Wishing Madam Malkin and her establishment a cheerful farewell, she headed out into the winter afternoon with nothing on her mind but textile experiments and - more immediately - lunch.

She was instantly distracted by the sight of a familiar white-blond head, just now disappearing into a snow tunnel with a backwards wink in her direction. “Draco?” she called after him, puzzled, and heard his snow-muffled voice come back to her.

“Over here - come on!”

Amused and exasperated in equal parts, she ducked into the narrow passage and followed his fresh footprints through a series of twists and turns. “Draco, come on,” she panted finally as he hove into view, his back against the wall of an abandoned oubliette, his pale ears pink with cold. “I’ve seen enough of this snow to last me till I’m fifty. Let’s go eat lunch.”

“In a minute,” he said, and pulled her into a kiss. She broke free, laughing.

“What’s gotten into you?”

He nudged her against the wall of snow and nuzzled insistently under the high collar of her robes, his cold nose making her flinch and giggle. “Indulge me,” he murmured, and Hermione gave in with a little half-sigh.

It felt quite wonderful, actually: cold air and warm skin against her body at the same time, as his hands wandered inside her robes - the hard insistence of his body pressing her back - a hot line of kisses trailing from ear to collarbone and back again that were most unlike his usual, more gentle attentions.

Most unlike.

Wait a minute.

A warning bell, distant but unmistakable, began to clang in the back of her brain. Hermione, in the grip of a sudden flash of foreboding, struggled for calm.

“Honey,” she said, the unfamiliar endearment like ashes on her tongue, “we have to meet Ginny at Honeyduke’s, remember?” She pulled slightly away from him and cocked her head in feigned confusion. “Or was it Zonko’s? I can’t remember.”

He shot her a look of slight impatience, then bent his head again to administer more kisses to her neck. “Zonko’s,” he murmured. “Just one more minute, and we’ll go. Okay?”

“Okay,” she murmured, then put both hands on his shoulders and shoved hard, sending him backwards into the snow. He stared up at her, baffled.

“What the -?”

“Trick question,” Hermione said, closing her robe with shaking hands and trying not to make it obvious that she was judging the distance to the cul-de-sac’s exit. “It’s the Owl Emporium. And I never call Draco ‘honey’. So who the hell are you?”

“Oh, I think you know,” he said, getting lazily to his feet - and it was true; he was regarding her with an expression of such satisfied, gloating malice that Hermione could find no trace of her gentle lover in his stolen face or body.

On the other hand, he now looked very much indeed like his father.

“Lucius,” she said coldly, and reached for her wand.

It wasn’t there.

“Looking for this?” he purred, and held it up just out of her reach. “For such a clever girl, you’re easily seduced, aren’t you?”

He’d taken it out of her robe pocket while he was kissing her, Hermione realised, and knew also in that second that she’d never make it to the exit.

Oh, Jesus, she thought as he advanced toward her, and had just enough time to break the top of the little phial and drain the swallow of potion inside it before he’d grabbed her arm and Disapparated with her.

**

Draco emerged humming from Quality Quidditch Supplies and grinned sheepishly at Hermione. “It’s a great broom,” he said, linking his arm through hers. “Sorry it took me so long. You’re not going to run off and join a convent, are you?”

She looked confused. “Convent? Why would I?”

That’s odd, Draco thought. That was her joke in the first place. Why wouldn’t she remember it?

But then she smiled up at him, a carefree happy smile like the ones he remembered from Rome, and snuggled a little closer to his side.

“Never mind,” he said, dazzled by that smile; “it’s not important. Come on - let’s go eat.”

Arm in arm, they set off toward the Owl Emporium to meet Ginny.

**