dormitory?'
'Apparently he came down the chimney,' said Seamus darkly. 'What do you say we stuff him back up it?'
'Try it and I'll break every bone in your body,' said Draco in a soft and deadly voice. He still hadn't turned around to look at Seamus, but Harry could tell from the sudden change in his posture that he was very aware of the movements of the three boys behind him. 'Potter…come with me.
We need to talk.'
Harry looked at Draco's outstretched hand, and crossed his arms over his chest. 'I'm not going anywhere.'
Draco looked utterly exasperated. 'Okay, fine.' He took a deep breath.
'You asked for it….Ron,' he said, his voice very firm, 'is not now, and never has been, sleeping with Hermione.'
A stunned silence. Dean. Neville and Seamus stared with open mouths, frozen in a tableaux that would under other circumstances have been very funny. Harry stayed where he was, sitting up in bed, frozen. Bizarrely, Neville, speaking from the depths of his bed, was the first to break the silence.
'I'm not sleeping with Hermione either. Is that newsworthy?'
'Oh, fuck the hell off, Longbottom,' said Draco, but the side of his mouth twitched. He pitched his voice low, and spoke again: 'Potter…?'
Harry flinched once, violently, at the sound of his name, without being able to prevent it. The next words he spoke tumbled out of his mouth without him even thinking about them, 'I don't believe you,' he said.
'What?' Draco looked stunned — Harry had a feeling he'd been prepared for a number of reactions, but not this one. 'How can you — '
'You said what you came to say,' Harry said. 'And I don't believe you.
Now go away.'
Draco went white, then two red spots appeared on his cheekbones. His eyes flashed. 'Not until you listen.'
'I'm not interested.'
Draco moved so quickly that Harry had no time at all to pull away: his hand shot out and closed around Harry's upper arm, jerking him unceremoniously off the bed, swinging him around, and flinging him to the floor. Harry hit the ground sprawling, the breath knocked out of him.
'You,' said Draco, breathing hard and staring at Harry as if he had never seen him before, 'are a total — a total — I don't think a word has even been invented yet to describe what you are, but you are one. And a total, total one at that. Aren't you listening to me? Did you not hear what I said? Do you not care what you're doing — to her, to everyone?'
Harry didn't get a chance to reply. Suddenly, Seamus was standing between them, having moved as quickly as if he had Apparated there. He faced down Draco, looking furious. 'How dare you burst in here like this, Malfoy,' he said. 'Are you trying to be funny?'
Draco's eyes trawled slowly over to Seamus, raking up and down him with a look of amused disbelief. 'At least I can be funny when I try, you tedious little worm,' he said. 'Now, if you don't mind, this doesn't concern you.'
'It bloody does concern me,' Seamus said. 'This is our dormitory, our house, and Harry is my friend. And I do believe he told you to go away.
Translated into Slytherin, that means: 'fuck off, you stupid bastard'.' He took a menacing step forward. 'Got that?'
'Finnigan, you'd lose a battle of wits with a dead monkey,' said Draco, sounding weary. 'If you want to hit me, hit me. But quit with the attempts at repartee. It's painful.'
Seamus' mouth twitched. Then he rolled up his sleeves — an almost quaint gesture — and began to walk toward Draco. Draco kept his arms at his sides, his eyes still on Harry. He wore an expression of amused detachment. He wasn't going to hit Seamus back; that much was obvious.
Even without being able to read Draco's mind, Harry could tell what Draco was thinking — this was Harry's dormitory, his place, his responsibility to do something. Draco didn't plan on doing a thing.
Harry sighed. He felt suddenly exhausted, tiredness welling up within him like blood welling from an open cut. 'Let him alone, Seamus,' he said quietly, and sat up.
Seamus, looking astonished, half-turned to look at him. 'What?'
'I said let him alone,' said Harry in a dead-tired tone. He looked at Seamus, and Seamus did a double-take, as if what he saw in Harry's expression had shocked him. 'He has a right to be here.'
'So you want to talk to him?' Seamus asked, very quietly.
Harry nodded. 'Yeah. I guess I do.'
Draco smiled: a cocky, sideways smile. 'In that case…'
Harry started to get to his feet. 'We can go down to the common room — '
'No.' It was Neville. 'There'll be people there.' He looked at Dean, and then at Seamus. 'We'll go.'
Dean looked miffed. 'We will?'
'Yes,' Neville said, and cast a pointed, sideways look at Harry. 'I admit I don't know what this is about, but it's obviously important. So we'll go, and we'll come back later.'
'We will?' said Dean again, now sounding gloomy.
'Yes, we will,' said Neville firmly, took hold of Dean by the back of his pajama top, and marched him towards the door. After a moment Seamus, having cast a considering look at Draco and Harry, followed them. They all three went out, and the door shut behind them.
'Typical,' said Draco, turning back to Harry. 'No Slytherin would give up a night's sleep just so his dorm mate could work out his interpersonal problems.'
'It doesn't matter,' said Harry, still feeling bone-weary, 'just tell me whatever the hell you came here to tell me, and go away.'
'I already told you,' said Draco, crossing his arms across his chest, 'and you didn't believe me.'
'Because I — '
'Which,' Draco went on as if Harry hadn't spoken, 'considering I'm the one person in the world who cannot lie to you, is pretty damn ironic.'
Harry paused. There was a note of sharp bitterness in Draco's voice that Harry had rarely heard there. 'How,' he began, and paused again -
something seemed to have caught in his throat — 'how do you know they aren't — that it's not true?'
Draco sighed, and looked down at Harry. Had Harry been in another mood, he would have noticed how tired and drawn the other boy looked: his eyes swam in blue hollows, and there were dark lines of strain by his mouth. 'I can tell you so you'll have to believe me — '
'No. No. I don't want anyone else in my head.'
'Fine, then.' Draco sat down on the trunk at the foot of Harry's bed. 'I know because I saw it for myself, all right? I saw Ron with the girl he thought was Hermione. Of course, it wasn't Hermione. You know how I know that? Because the actual Hermione was standing next to me at the time.' Draco gave a short bark of laughter and looked up at the ceiling.
'You honestly think she'd ever do that to you?' he demanded. 'You honestly think she'd even want to?'
Harry looked at him, but he was hearing Ron's voice in his head. I'm in love with Hermione, and she's in love with me. 'And you're so sure…'
'Of course I'm sure. I told you why I'm sure. I'm absolutely, utterly sure.
Ron's been shagging someone, but it isn't and never was Hermione.
Someone's playing bloody tricks on all of you, I promise you that. Now do you believe me?'
Harry looked down at his hands, and said nothing. He wondered when he had started biting his nails again. Bitten they certainly were, down to the bloody cuticles. He curled his fingers in protectively against his palms.
Draco's voice tightened. 'Potter? Why would I lie?'
