'I dunno,' said Charlie. 'I'd rather deal with a lot of enraged dragons than have to pry two lust-crazed adolescents off each other.' He looked at Ron. 'They're your best friends, you go peel them apart.'
'Yeah, Weasley,' said Draco. 'What are you afraid of?'
'Spiders,' said Ron. 'Heights. The number thirteen. Peanut butter…'
'It was a rhetorical question, Weasley,' interrupted Draco.
'Oh,' said Ron.
'Peanut butter?' Draco said.
'Oh, just shut up, Malfoy.'
Harry, Hermione, Charlie, Ron and Draco sat around the small kitchen table in Charlie's tent. Charlie himself was utterly silent while the four of them told him everything that had happened.
Harry and Hermione sat together at one end of the table, their hands interlaced over the arm of Hermione's chair. Ron sat opposite them, and Draco had pushed his chair back, away from the table, turned it around, and folded his arms over the back. He looked unconcerned, but Hermione had noticed that so far he hadn't looked at her once. He was living up to his end of the bargain, anyway, she thought. Even if she wasn't. Not quite.
'Salazar Slytherin,' said Charlie, shaking his head in wonder. He looked over at Draco. 'Well, I suppose from now on you can say you defeated the most evil wizard in history.'
'I suppose I did,' said Draco, looking rather cheerful. 'If, that is, you mean defeated in the sense of 'having met'.''
'He let us go,' said Hermione, in a dead sort of voice. 'We didn't defeat him.'
'Although I made a lot of very cutting remarks and I'm pretty sure I wounded his feelings severely,' Draco pointed out.
'Let you go?' said Ron, looking puzzled. 'Why on earth would he let you go?'
'No idea,' said Draco.
Hermione looked at him, than quickly away. So far, they hadn't mentioned the love potion — she'd left it entirely out of her version of events, although she had told them everything else. It weighed on her; in fact, she felt as if she were carrying around an enormous brick with the words LYING TO HARRY emblazoned across it. But she didn't see what else she could possibly do. 'Maybe he realized I wouldn't make a good Source after all,' she said weakly.
'Maybe he didn't like the look of that sword,' said Harry, jerking his chin towards Draco. 'Remember what Lupin said, that sword can kill anything, even the risen dead.'
Hermione shuddered.
'Maybe,' said Ron quietly, 'Malfoy convinced him to let them go.'
They all swung around and looked at him in astonishment.
'You had plenty of time in there by yourself, didn't you, Malfoy?'
said Ron, in the same quiet voice. 'Did you make some kind of deal with him?'
Even Draco looked shocked. 'Deal?' he said, blankly.
'Well, you didn't come back to get us,' said Ron, still looking at Draco. 'You must have been doing something all that time.'
'Ron,' said Harry. 'If Malfoy didn't come back to get us, I'm sure he had a good reason.' Harry looked squarely at Draco. 'Didn't you?'
Hermione watched Draco out of the corner of her eye as all the color drained out of his face. 'I couldn't,' he said haltingly. 'The veelas-'
'Fine,' said Harry, without rancor. 'It doesn't really matter, does it?'
he added, looking at Ron. 'If Hermione's all right?'
In answer, Ron pushed his chair back from the table and walked out of the room.
Harry watched him go, biting his lip. 'He's acting so strange-' he burst out, with vexation. 'Something's bothering him.'
'Let me guess,' said Charlie. 'He's moody, irritable, snaps at everyone, and spends a lot of time staring off angrily into space.'
'Yeah,' said Harry. 'What's that about?'
Charlie shrugged. 'He's sixteen,' he said.
'So am I sixteen,' said Harry. 'So is Malfoy.'
'Yes, well, neither of you is exactly normal, are you?' pointed out Charlie.
'Cheers, Charlie,' said Draco, with a half-smile.
'Oh, you know. The famous Harry Potter, and Malfoy, you're pretty famous yourself these days, what with recent events. I might have let my subscription to Witch Weekly lapse, but I do read the Daily Prophet. You two going off to Magid school made front-page news.'
Hermione glanced at Harry, and saw that he was smiling. 'What?'
she said, curiously. 'Is that funny?'
'No,' said Harry, 'it's just — ' he paused, and looked down at the table. She got the feeling he was reluctant to say whatever it was he wanted to say with Draco there, but he seemed determined to forge ahead anyway. 'When we realized that someone had kidnapped you,' he said to Hermione, without actually looking at her, 'I just assumed it was to get to me.'
