'What if your speccy little boyfriend never comes back?' said Draco gloomily. 'It would be very embarrassing for me to die trapped in my own closet.'
'Hes not my boyfriend,' said Hermione automatically. 'And he?ll come back.'
Draco looked at her hard over his butterbeer. 'Why?' he said.
'Because Harry wouldn?t leave us here to die,' said Hermione, startled. 'He might be annoyed at me, but he isn?t homicidal, now is he?'
'No,' said Draco, 'I meant, why isn?t he your boyfriend?'
Hermione discovered she was having a bit of trouble focusing her eyes on Draco.
Of course, it was about four in the morning and she hadn?t slept in twenty hours.
'Because,' she said glumly, 'he doesn?t like me that way. He said so.'
'Stupid git,' said Draco, matter-of-factly, 'I don?t think he knows what he wants.'
'Whats he feeling now?' asked Hermione, despite herself.
Draco thought for a moment. 'Sad,' he said.
'You know what I?m really going to miss?' said Hermione, who was feeling an odd drifting sensation now, rather as if she were falling asleep without being tired.
'Being surrounded by all this Armani?' suggested Draco.
'No,' said Hermione, 'You. Being like this. When we take the spell off you and Harry, you?ll go right back to being nasty and horrible, won?t you?'
'On the plus side,' said Draco, trying to sound light, 'Harry will probably stop being such a jerk.'
'Don?t call him that,' said Hermione, but her protest was more automatic than truly felt.
'You know what I?m going to miss?' said Draco, and now he wasn?t looking at her, but staring fixedly at a spot above her head.
'What?'
'Having you for a friend,' he said, very quickly. 'I mean, even back when you thought I was Harry, it was pretty good… I?ve got friends, you know, like Crabbe and Goyle, but I never get the feeling that they?d die for me. Well, they might die of me, like if I told them to eat poison they probably would, but thats more stupidity than loyalty, in my opinion.' He sighed. 'But you?d die for Harry, wouldn?t you?'
'Yeah,' said Hermione. 'Although I think I might die of him as well,' she added, and Draco grinned crookedly. Hermione leaned sideways so that she was now resting the back of her head on his shoulder. He was sitting very still; she could see the line of his profile, looking very serious and familiar in the light from the wand. 'I?ll be sorry when you start shaving,' she said dreamily (she was quite lightheaded now), 'I love that translucent quality your skin has, I always have.
And when you rip that first razor through your stubble, that?ll go with it forever.'
She tilted her head up and kissed him on the cheek.
He looked down at her. His eyes were inches from hers. 'Hermione,' he said, 'Who are you talking to?'
'I don?t know,' she said, and this time she kissed him on the mouth.
Whatever misgivings he might have had, they didn?t show. He caught her by the shoulders and kissed her back fiercely, and any half-thought she might have had that it was Harry she was kissing vanished, she had never kissed Harry but she knew that if she did it wouldn?t be like this. This was kissing a stranger, or a near-stranger; every touch of his lips on hers sent bolts of fearful excitement zinging through her nerve endings. He didn?t smell like Harry either, he smelled like Draco: lime juice, pepper, cold night air.
But when he said her name, it was in Harrys voice.
She didn?t care. They rolled over and over, kissing in the cramped confines of the wardrobe, banging off the sides, so preoccupied that neither of them noticed that someone was opening the wardrobe door and letting in the light from outside, so preoccupied they didn?t stop until a voice spoke and shattered their absorption with a sharp and furious finality: 'WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?' said Harry.
Hermione was quite miserable. Harry wasn?t speaking to her, and it looked like he might well have decided never to speak to her again. Oddly enough, he was still talking to Draco, although not with what could be termed great enthusiasm.
Draco and Hermione had sprung apart violently the moment they had recognized Harrys presence, but it had been way too late. Hermione had stumbled out of the wardrobe, half-hysterical and very sticky from butterbeer and kissing, and tried to take Harrys arm, but he had only looked down at her hand as if it was a Blast-Ended Skrewt that had landed on his sleeve, and said: 'Don?t. Touch. Me.' in a very flat, very cold, and very final voice. Then he said, 'Come on out of the closet, Malfoy. I need to talk to you.'
Draco had crawled out of the closet looking apprehensive, apparently certain that Harry was going to throw a punch at him, but Harry hadn?t. Harry seemed convinced that the person who was at fault here was Hermione, who was now perched miserably on the end of Dracos bed, watching the two boys craft a plan to get Sirius out of the dungeons.
'We?ll both have to go,' Harry was saying flatly. He had explained Siriussituation, now he and Draco had their heads bent over a sketchy map Harry had drawn of the Manor and its underground passages. 'You have to let me in down there, because I need someone with Malfoy blood to open the doors. We could both fit under the invisibility cloak, but its probably easier if you wear it and I go a little after you. If doors start popping open all over the place with no one operating them, questions might be asked. And stay under the cloak-you're Public Enemy Number One around here, the way you look.'
Draco nodded. 'Its better if we go soon,' he said, 'pretty soon they?ll be expecting Harry Potter to show up and if you don't…'
'Yeah,' said Harry shortly. 'I was thinking we?d go right now.'
'Good plan,' said Draco. 'What about Hermione?'
