batted at everyone. Only Hermione felt herself immune to the ridiculousness. She suspected that somewhere, inside him, Draco was as well — that the ailing-prince performance was just that, a performance, and in its own way, an attempt to distract everyone. He was behaving like someone recovering from a terrible illness, when after all, the opposite was true. The terrible part was only just beginning.
'You know, I talked to Madam Pomfrey,' Hermione said, unsuccessfully attempting to take the no-longer- overstuffed pillow away from Draco.
'She said there isn't any reason that you have to stay in bed; if you're careful, and don't exert yourself, you can get up and go back to your dormitory.'
'My pillow is flat,' Draco said sadly, examining the wreckage he had created.
'Of course it is.' Hermione took the empty pillowcase from him, and put it on the nightstand. 'Do you understand me, Draco?'
'Seldom if ever,' he replied. 'But therein lies your charm.'
'Oh, honestly,' Hermione wailed. 'Wouldn't you rather go back to your own bed?'
'No,' Draco said in a decided manner. 'There's no one there and it's really boring.'
This was true. There were very few students still at school for these holidays, but the complete lack of Slytherins was notable. Not one had stayed behind.
'All right, fine,' Hermione said. 'But I, for one, am not going to be peeling you big piles of grapes, or fanning you with a handkerchief. I'm sorry you're ill, but you will get better. Snape's found every ingredient but two in the antidote, did I tell you? And he said he'll find the other two today or tomorrow at the latest. And I do wish you'd at least come and open Christmas presents with us tomorrow morning — '
'Oh, bugger,' said Draco, with feeling. 'Christmas. I forgot.'
'You forgot Christmas?' asked a light voice and a hand drew the curtain back. It was Ginny. She smiled at Draco, a smile that immediately vanished as she surveyed the wreckage of her pillow. 'Draco!' she snapped. 'What have you done with my pillow?'
'I'm not sure,' said Draco, removing a feather from his hair. 'I think I went mad with fever.'
'That was my pillow I've had since I was eight! I've slept with it every night for years!'
Draco looked unrepentant.
Ginny made a hmph-ing sound, yanked the curtains shut, and flung herself down into the chair next to Hermione's. Ostentatiously removing a book from her bag — she was now halfway through Trousers Revisited, which she had begun upon giving up on ever finding her copy of Passionate Trousers again — and began reading, ignoring Draco and Hermione both. Draco glanced at Hermione with dancing eyes.
'I told you you were spoiled,' Hermione snapped, determined not to be moved by his contagious mirth. 'You just enjoy lolling about, having everyone wait on you hand and foot and bring you sandwiches. I swear, Harry's worn a hole in the portrait pear, he's been in and out of the kitchen so much.'
Draco flushed a delicate and indignant shade of mauve. 'I do not make people bring me sandwiches.'
As if on cue, the curtains around the bed were drawn back again. This time Draco lit up like a Filibuster Firework. Hermione twisted around to see Harry standing at the bed's foot, a covered plate in his hand. 'I brought you a sandwich,' he said, and handed the plate to Draco.
Hermione shot Draco a glare, which he studiously ignored. Ginny made a faint noise and glanced briefly over the spine of Trousers Revisisted.
Draco ignored this, too. Instead, he bestowed upon Harry a smile that somehow managed to communicate that his gratitude for this gift of a sandwich had briefly — ever so briefly — drawn him back from the brink of complete dissolution. If not for this sandwich, Draco's smile seemed to say, the pain of merely going on might have become too great to bear. As it was, he would probably manage to hang on a bit longer.
Hermione resisted the urge to smack Draco soundly.
'It's peanut butter,' said Harry.
Draco paused and the dazzling smile faded slightly. 'Oh.'
Harry looked stricken. 'You don't like peanut butter?'
'I like it fine,' Draco said. 'It's just, well, it's a bit…'
'Plebeian?' asked Ginny, from behind her book, a sharp edge to her tone.
'Sticky,' said Draco woefully. 'It sticks to my teeth.'
'Oh, for goodness sake,' said Hermione.
'It's all right,' Harry said, and reached to take the plate back. 'I'll get you something else.'
'No, don't bother. I'll eat it.'
'No, you won't. There's no reason for you to eat something you don't like.
Give me the plate.'
'No, it's all right, really. Perhaps the peanut butter will give me strength.'
'Hand me the plate, Malfoy.'
A sudden obstinacy seemed to strike Draco. He clung to the plate as if it were a departing loved one. 'No,' he said.
Harry hissed an exasperated breath through his teeth. 'I don't mind,' he said.
Draco allowed his eyes to grow huge and woeful. 'Well, I mind. It's not your fault I don't like peanut butter. Anyway, I said I'd eat it.'
'I don't want you to eat it because you feel like you have to.'
'Maybe I want to.'
'But you don't want to.'
'I might have changed my mind.'
'You haven't, you're just being ridiculous.' Harry's eyes flashed. 'Give me the plate, Malfoy.'
'No,' Draco said.
'AAARGH,' said Ginny, stood up (dropping Trousers Revisited as she did so), reached forward, grabbed the plate out of Draco's hand, yanked open the nearest window, and flung out the plate. There was a moment of silence as all three of them stared at her, frozen with astonishment — then the loud sound of shattering china interrupted the silence as the plate struck the stone courtyard below the window.
Hermione, unable to help herself, winced. 'Oh, the poor house-elves,' she said. 'They do hate broken crockery.'
Harry raised both eyebrows, but remained silent.
Draco slowly lowered his hands to the coverlet, wide-eyed. 'I would have eaten it,' he said.
Ginny, her cheeks flushing suddenly scarlet, looked at him furiously.
'You're so selfish,' she said, her eyes sliding from him, to Harry, to Hermione. Hermione winced again, under Ginny's gaze, feeling suddenly and inexplicably guilty — but what for? 'You're all so selfish,' Ginny said again, her voice fierce. She scrabbled blindly for her book, seized it, and ran past Harry and out of the room before any of them had a chance to move or react.
Harry was the first to speak. 'What was that about?'
Down the hall, a door banged shut as Ginny slammed her way out of the infirmary.
'Maybe she doesn't like peanut butter either,' Draco suggested helpfully.
'Seems a bit of a violent reaction,' Harry observed.
'So it does.' Draco didn't seem very exercised about this; in fact, laughter was dancing behind his gray eyes. Harry seemed to notice this, and looked pleased.
'You look better,' he said. 'Do you feel better?'
Draco looked slightly sheepish. 'I do, a bit.'
'Having plates thrown out the window makes you feel better?' Hermione asked, hiding a smile.
'I can't help it,' said Draco. 'I may be ill, but I'm still callous and strange.'
'I'd throw plates out the window all day if it would get you better,' said Harry absently, as if his mind were on something else.
Draco looked surprised; his eyes widened and his lips parted as if he were about to say something. Hermione interrupted him.
