Roman Holiday

Chapter Eight

Two a.m. They were lying side by side on their stomachs, heels kicking in the air. There was a soccer game on the television, muted. They weren’t watching it.

“Are you going to go home?” Draco asked. Her eyes snapped up to meet his with such raw anger in the soft brown depths that he flinched.

“Are you kidding?” She snorted. “Let that miserable old … Scrooge …” - here Draco looked puzzled, but she didn’t notice - “cheat me out of the most fun I’ve had in my life? I think not.” She gnawed absently on her right index fingernail - an old bad habit from childhood. “What I need,” she mused, “is for Snape to THINK I’ve gone home, without actually going anywhere.”

“Home,” Draco repeated. “Or maybe … somewhere else?”

Hermione considered this. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

“You mean, send him off looking for me,” she said slowly. “On a wild goose chase.” She grinned. “Malfoy, sometimes I like the way you think. How would we do it?”

He’d leaned off the bed and was rummaging in his suitcase. “We can figure the details out later. This should help, though. Here, catch.”

He tossed her what was unmistakably an Invisibility Cloak, and laughed at her look of astonishment. “What? Only Potter can play with the cool toys?”

She gaped at him. “How long have you had this?”

“Since I figured out how Potter’s disembodied head appeared in Hogsmeade, third year,” he said, looking a bit sour. “Lucky for you that you weren’t in on that little prank. I still owe those two a handful of mud to the face.” He paused, looking thoughtful. “Each.”

She tried, with only moderate success, not to laugh. “Admit it, Draco. You’re no angel, either.”

He shot her a look of choirboy innocence. “Why, Miss Granger. Whatever can you mean?”

Hermione gave him the hairy eyeball. “You’re awful,” she said. “You say the most appalling things to them, and about things they can’t help.”

“Such as.”

She shifted uncomfortably. “Well, take Harry for instance. He can’t do anything about his … famousness; he was only a baby! And Ron’s awfully sensitive that his family doesn’t have any money.”

“We all have circumstances that we can’t help,” Draco said. For a moment, he looked almost bitter; then he rolled over, propped his cheek on his elbow, and smirked at her. “Of course I go for the easy shot; it’s so little effort, and the reaction’s so … satisfying.” The smirk widened into a persuasive, aw-come-on-it’s-funny smile. “Take that Mudblood crack I throw at you all the time, for instance. You have to notice that Weasley’s far more offended by it than you are.”

She stared at him, open-mouthed. “You’ve been insulting me for five years, just to get at Ron?”

“Of course,” he said. “It’s so easy. You must know he’s in love with you.”

“In …” Hermione’s mouth, which had just closed, fell open again. “You’re joking, right?”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, don’t pretend you don’t see it,” he said. “He was so jealous of Krum, two years ago, that his face turned green every time the two of you walked by. So relieved that you broke it off, last fall, that you stayed home and studied for your O.W.L.s instead of going to Bulgaria over the summer. I heard him talking to Potter about it.”

Hermione didn’t know what to say. “But - but I don’t …”

“Don’t feel the same way?” Draco looked her over, amused. “Not surprised. Nevertheless, speculation is rampant. Half the school is waiting breathlessly for you to either put him out of his misery, or dash his infant hopes and make a play for Potter.”

“Harry???” Hermione shook her head helplessly. “Now that’s just silly.” She scowled at him suddenly. “Malfoy, you’re so full of it. No one’s wondering about my love life. I’m hardly the Class Beauty.” She paused. “Now, if I was Parvati, maybe. Or Lavender…”

“Oh, I don’t know.” He let his eyes drop to where her bare thighs disappeared into Carlo’s shirt. “You’d be surprised how many admirers you’ve collected, Granger.”

Hermione snorted. “Name one. I dare you.”

He cut his eyes away, then looked back at her. She was surprised to see him looking rueful and a bit embarrassed.

“Well, there’s me.”

**

At her flabbergasted stare, he frowned and waved his hand dismissively. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. I’m not Weasley, and I’m not Longbottom, and I’m not going to sigh and make moon eyes at you behind your back.” He gave her a tight little half-smile. “We’re not a love match, you and I. Can’t be. But that doesn’t mean I don’t look at you in Potions and want to hex your robes off.”

Hermione didn’t know whether to laugh or hit him. “You idiot,” she snapped. “What makes you think I want your high-and-mighty attentions?”

“You let me kiss you.”

She ignored that. “You just as good as come out and say that I’m not worthy of public acknowledgement, and then you expect me to fall at your feet? What do you want, a lollipop for honesty? A sympathy shag?”

“Oh, you’re worthy,” he said, and she gaped at him. “It’s not that.”

“You’re a big, fat liar, Malfoy,” she said. “It’s no secret that you hate Muggle-borns.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Look, Hermione,” he said. “I was a prejudiced, narrow-minded little prat when I got to Hogwarts, no denying it. But I’m not stupid. I see what’s in front of me. It’s obvious that you’re the most talented witch in our class, just like it’s obvious that Longbottom and Goyle should have snapped their wands in half years ago and gone to join the Royal Army.” He paused for breath. “But if I took you home for dinner, my father would kill you. And then he’d make me wish he’d killed me, too.”

“You’re really afraid of him,” Hermione said slowly. Draco made a derisive sound in his throat.

“Hell, yes, I’m afraid of him. Death Eater. Voldemort’s second-in-command. More money than the Ministry. More power than Fudge.” He shook his head wearily. “If I started dating a Muggle-born, he’d pull me out of school and I wouldn’t see daylight until that goddamn mark was stamped into my arm and it was too late to go back.”

He shot her a glance that was almost angry. “You don’t get it, because you aren’t in that incestuous little Slytherin circle. Crabbe and Goyle aren’t my friends. They’re only hanging out with me because their fathers want to curry favor with mine. If I put one foot out of place, the details will be on his desk in half an hour.” A muscle jumped in his jaw. “I get an inheritance from my grandmother when I turn eighteen. Until then, I’m powerless.”

“Your mother …?”

“Never looks farther than the newest diamonds,” he said, sounding tired. “Takes some kind of prescription potion from her pet medi-wizard. For headaches, she says. Addicted, most likely.”

Hermione studied him sympathetically. He had turned his face away, and his shoulders were trembling with suppressed emotion. She slipped her arm around him. He flinched, but didn’t draw away.

Sadness was coming off his body in waves, a crushing desolation that made her lip tremble in sympathy. She wished he was being sarcastic right now, even cruel. It was so much easier to handle.

How to cheer him up?

“Draco,” she said. “We’ve got a whole month. In this beautiful place. If we can figure out how to send Snape off to Namibia looking for us, we can still have ourselves a really good holiday.”

He twisted back around to look at her. His eyes were still bleak, but he managed a hint of a smile. “Namibia, huh? And here I was thinking of the Arctic Circle.”

**

Snape hadn’t slept well.

Check that. He hadn’t slept at all.

He’d told her the truth last night. He’d only meant to scare her. The fact that the situation had gotten so out of hand, the fact that he’d lost control, made him sick to his stomach.

He’d had an apology all prepared for when they met in San Pietro today. And then she hadn’t come.

Now it was nearly two o’ clock in the afternoon, and he was knocking on the door to her flat. Mentally he rehearsed his carefully prepared speech, wincing to himself as he got to words like “inexcusable” and “never my intention” and “deeply regret”.

By the time he got to the end, she still hadn’t answered the door. He knocked again, louder.

“You look for Hermione? She not home,” a voice said behind him. Severus jumped. Turning around, he saw an old woman in support hose and a headscarf, carrying a basket of groceries and beaming at him good-naturedly. “She leave this morning,” she said in clear but broken English. “Give me the key. The boy she with, her cousin, he say they go to visit friends. In …” - she searched her memory for the unfamiliar name - “oh, si. Bangkok.”

Severus frowned. From what he’d gathered, Hermione’s cousin had been a girl. “In Bangkok,” he repeated. She nodded. “Tell me, Signora -“

“Malione,” she offered, and offered him her free hand. He shook it perfunctorily.

“Signora Malione,” he repeated. “This boy she was with - did he have dark hair, rather untidy? A scar on his forehead?”

She looked blank. He gritted his teeth and tried again.

“Red hair, then?” he asked. “Freckles?”

She shook her head. “No, no,” she said, waving her hands. “All white. Hair, skin, eyes, all pale.” She grinned at him. “Very English, no?”

Severus was getting a bad feeling about this. “Signora,” he said. “Did you happen to notice a ring on his left hand? Heavy silver, shaped like a snake? Emerald eyes?”

She nodded in recognition, and he felt his heart sink.

Malfoy.

Signora Malione bid him ‘addio’ and went into her flat. He sank down on the steps, barely noticing that she’d gone.

Why Hermione would go anywhere willingly with Draco was a mystery to Snape. He suspected, however, that last night’s events had more to do with it than not.

He closed his eyes. One more thing for him to feel guilty about.

The bigger question was this: what was Draco doing with Hermione?

Draco wasn’t evil, Severus didn’t think. Lucius Malfoy hadn’t yet managed to drag his son over the edge with him. On the other hand, he couldn’t see Draco willingly sharing so much as an espresso royale with a Muggle-born witch, much less whisking her away on a tour of Southeast Asia.

The whole thing reeked of coercion, or at the least, deceit. And it was a sure thing that the heir to the Malfoy fortune wasn’t in Rome without his father knowing about, and approving, the excursion.

Dammit, Hermione, he thought in exasperation. I thought you had more sense than this.

He sighed and rubbed his temples. Short of owling Dumbledore, the only thing to do was find Lucius Malfoy and shake the information out of him.

Sweeping a glance to make sure no one was watching him, he turned on his heel and Apparated.

**

“Think he bought it?” Hermione murmured into Draco’s ear.

They were huddled underneath the Invisibility Cloak on the stairs, a scant meter away from the step where Snape had sat down. It had been very difficult not to giggle.

“Hard to say,” Draco muttered back. “But I think so.”

“Well, then.” Hermione stood up, careful to remain draped, and pulled him with her. “I think we’ve got a city to see, don’t you?”

They sneaked down the back stairs, piled onto the moped, and were off.

**

TBC