skin to bronze.
Fleur held her hand out to him. 'Draco, come along now.'
But he had gotten to his feet. For a moment Hermione could see only the lower half of his body as he stood in front of the fireplace. He was reaching up for something; his jumper rode up as he raised his arms, showing the bare skin of his flat stomach. He lowered his arm and backed away and Hermione saw that he was carrying one of the lighted tapers from the top of the mantel. He turned away and walked across the room, away from her, and then he held the flame of the candle to the bottom of the brocade curtains and waited for them to catch alight.
'Draco!' Hermione half-screamed. 'What are you doing?'
But Fleur had caught at her arm. 'Let him,' she said.
The curtains were burning now. Hermione could smell the reek of singed fabric. Draco stood where he was, watching the flames lick up the velvet, the glow so bright that the city view was no longer visible through the windows. There was an absorbed, intent, delicate look on his face, as if he were mastering a tricky Quidditch move. Abruptly, Draco flung the burning taper to the floor and turned away. He came quickly back towards the fireplace, stopping only briefly to seize something off his father's desk. Then he was on his knees in front of the grate, reaching his hands out, and Fleur had taken him by the wrists and pulled him through.
No Malfoy may have red hair. Colors Malfoys are forbidden to wear include canary yellow, powder blue, and pale pink. No Malfoy may use pastel stationary, nor accept letters written upon pastel stationary. At teatime, all Malfoys must pour milk into their cup before the tea is added, especially inside the Manor. Upon the birth of a Malfoy the child's name must be chosen from the following lists; for a boy: Octavian, Lucius, Vladimir, Augustus, Alexander, Darius, Draco…
Harry sat back in his chair, being very careful not to spill any coffee from his full cup onto the thin parchment pages of the Malfoy Family Code of Conduct. He wasn't entirely sure why he'd brought it with him when he'd left the flat looking for a quiet place to buy something to eat. Partially perhaps because all the books in Viktor's flat had been in Slavic languages he didn't recognize, but there was probably more to it than that.
The parchment was so old that it felt as frail and thin under his fingertips as moth wings. He let his hand trail across a page, looked up and stared out the window. The kavarna he had found was as close, he imagined, to the Leaky Cauldron as he was going to get in this unfamiliar city of cobbled streets and colorful, gabled old buildings. Where Diagon Alley looked as if time had stopped for it a hundred years ago, the wizarding section of Prague looked as if it had drifted out of a fairy tale. The small coffee shop he was in now was half-timbered, with a soft mellow glow emanating from hovering golden globes that floated overhead. Rows of pastries as gorgeous as jewelry gleamed under a glass-fronted counter top
— if jewelry had been decorated with whipped cream, chocolate, cherries, and sugary slivers of almond. It was beautiful and strange and everything looked delicious and it made Harry so horribly lonely that he wanted to crawl under the nearest chair.
He had never really been out of England before, and he had always thought that when he did go, it would be with friends. He'd vaguely imagined accompanying Ron to visit Bill in Egypt, taking some romantic trip to Italy with Hermione. Draco had traveled all over the continent and they'd spent all of an afternoon's detention together once talking about where they would go if they could go anywhere; Draco had been animated, talking about all the places he'd been that he would like to show Harry: ice palaces in the mountains of Switzerland, the glass houses of southern France, the sky over St. Petersburg burned green by the midnight sun. 'We were always on business, and my father never wanted to stop to look at anything,' he'd said, 'but it would be fun to go again, if I went with you.'
Harry had been pleased by the offhand compliment, but then that was the only way Draco ever did compliment him — offhand, as if he himself had forgotten what he was saying.
Harry brought his coffee cup up and stared unseeingly into it. He was remembering the dream he'd told Fleur about. In it, he had been a ghost inside the Manor, walking its empty halls. He had wandered them until he'd found Draco inside the library, which had looked just as it had the last time Harry had seen it, but Draco had looked ten years older, and he'd sat behind the desk just like his father, and regarded Harry with an emotionless surprise. There are so many ghosts in this Manor, he had said, but I never thought you would be one of them. What brings you back?
You, I think, Harry had replied. Did you call for me?
Draco had shaken his head. His face had been young still, lineless, but his eyes had been old. I would never call for you, he'd said. You couldn't be bothered with me while you were alive, why would you be bothered with me after you were dead?
The library door had opened then, and Hermione had come in. She hadn't seen Harry at all, but had crossed the room to Draco and put her arms around him and kissed him, and he had accepted the kiss with the ease of long familiarity. Even in the dream, the nausea of jealousy had been a physical thing; Harry felt it now, like a knot in his stomach, and wondered what it meant. Old ghosts keeping you up? Hermione had asked, and Draco had smiled up at her, and said, Only the kind that come back too late.
A sharp pain in his hand made Harry jump; coffee had sloshed out over the rim of his cup and burnt his fingers. He set the cup down hastily on the polished surface on a small table and glanced towards the front of the shop. The late afternoon sun streamed through the tinted glass window and through it Harry could see the shadows of robed wizards hurrying by on the street outside. It could almost have been Diagon Alley, if not for the ornate gilt letters that he could still read, backwards, across the window: Malostranksa Kavarna. Harry wondered if he were just homesick for England, or sick with a more specific sort of longing.
No owls, Viktor had said, but he hadn't said anything about Harry not being allowed to write letters he had no intention of sending, or at least not today. Harry felt in his pocket for his self-inking quill, found it, and began looking, in a desultory fashion, for a bit of parchment to write on.
It was hours till sunset anyway, he told himself; he had plenty of time.
Draco landed lightly on his feet next to Hermione inside the circle of wavering flame. He turned to her, breathless, his eyes full of light and defiance. 'Go ahead,' he said. 'Scream at me.'
Before Hermione could say anything, Fleur stepped in between them.
'There will be no screaming,' she snapped, holding her hands up imperiously. She was a slight girl, but taller than Hermione, and when she drew herself up to her full height, she was imposing. No longer panicked, Hermione had leisure to look at her: she was expensively attired in a clinging pastel dress, her pale hair brushed neatly behind her slightly pointed ears. Her blue eyes glowed as she flung her arms around Draco's neck and kissed him on both cheeks. Hermione rolled her eyes. Fleur's Draco-favoritism was so extreme as to be almost funny. 'It is lovely to see you,' Fleur declared. Hermione suspected this statement was not at all directed towards her. 'You look different. Taller.'
'Not likely. Perhaps I was standing in a hole last time we met.'
Fleur smiled. 'Do you like my dress?'
He drew back and regarded her at arm's length. 'Tighter than a Parkinson's pocketbook and briefer than a Weasley's bedroom stamina,' he drawled. 'What's not to like?'
Fleur punched him affectionately on the shoulder. 'You're such a tease.'
Hermione made a vomiting noise.
Fleur turned and looked at her. 'Did you say something?'
'No,' said Hermione blandly.
'Viktor will be here any minute,' Fleur said. Her little voice was coolly amused. 'I'm sure he'll be very happy to see you, Hermione.'
Hermione said nothing. Even now Fleur always managed to make her feel grubby. She slid her hands into the pockets of her jeans and let her gaze trail around the room. She had been here before, of course, the summer after fourth year. She remembered it as a sizeable, pleasant manor house, with a bit of a sprawling design and a lovely view of the sea. She had spent many pleasant hours in this study, despite the fact that all the books were in Bulgarian and she couldn't read them. Viktor had read out loud to her while she rested her bare feet on the
