'And trying to embarrass me during a prefects meeting is your idea of how to do that, is it?'
'No, that part was just for fun.'
'Maybe Harry thinks that sort of thing is funny. But I don't. I think you're an ass, Malfoy. A smirking, two- faced, insufferable ass.'
'Two-faced?' Draco laughed, not kindly. 'You should talk. I wasn't born yesterday, Weasley…'
'More's the pity,' snapped Ron, 'we could have started your personality over from scratch.'
Draco looked at him, a small smile playing around his mouth. 'I see the way you look at her,' he said, apropos of nothing. 'Do you think I'm stupid? Do you think we all are?'
For a moment, Ron just stared at him. The blood had begun to pound in his ears, and his mind hummed with disbelief. Surely Draco hadn't just said what he thought he'd said. 'What did you say, Malfoy?'
Draco slowly unhitched himself from the wall and stood looking at Ron with consideration. His eyes were an almost lucent gray in the faint light, the color of a knife edge, and as cutting. 'I was watching you this morning,' Draco said. 'I've been watching you for a few days now.
Honestly, Weasley. What do you think you're playing at?'
Ron felt as if his blood had thickened and it was taking huge, convulsive efforts of heart and breath to continue pushing it through his veins.
Everything seemed dizzy and distant and painful. He heard his own voice say, 'I have no idea what you're talking about.'
'I think you do,' said Draco, even more quietly. His voice was sugar syrup poured over shards of ice. 'I think you know exactly what I'm talking about.'
'I don't see,' said Ron, fighting down the urge to back away, 'where you get this idea you have some insight into my private life — '
'You think you can make me look stupid? You think I'd let you?' Draco interrupted, his very slow and soft. 'Your private life is hardly going to stay private the way you've been behaving. Luckily for you I'm more observant than most, but even the most clueless Hufflepuff would figure you out eventually. You wear your heart all over your face, Weasley.
Which, in your case, is a bad move.'
'Just because you're a liar, Malfoy, doesn't mean everyone is,' Ron snarled. Rage was beginning to take the place of the shock that had paralyzed him. He spoke without thinking or stopping to consider the fact that Malfoy was right.
'I'm not talking about everyone — I'm talking about you,' Draco said. 'You saved my life — and I owe you.'
'You've a funny way of showing it,' Ron muttered, perplexed by this new turn the conversation had taken.
'I'm trying to help you, Weasley,' Draco said. 'That's why I'm telling you that I know.'
'There's nothing to know!' Ron half-shouted.
'Not yet,' said Draco, and Ron felt a whoosh of relief in his stomach that was almost painful. So he doesn't know, not really. 'You do know what I'm talking about,' Draco added. 'Let me offer a little guidance. Forget about it.'
Condescending bastard, Ron thought, staring at the blond boy, whose attitude had settled into a smug sort of curious calm. Why doesn't he just forget about my sister, then, if it's meant to be so easy?
'Go on and glare at me like you hate me,' Draco added with a shrug.
'Doesn't matter to me, as long as you take my advice.'
'Why do you care?' Ron heard his own voice crack, rage making his skin prickle all over. 'You don't give a fuck about me, Malfoy, and you never have. Am I supposed to believe this show of solicitude is for my benefit?
First off, you're a liar, and second off, you're wrong, and third off — third off, you have no idea what you're talking about. So just…sod off, will you?
Go mope around after my sister or whatever the hell it is you do for fun.'
A look of astonishment flashed across Draco's face — he had not expected Ron to react this way, and Ron felt a vicious jolt of pleasure at having surprised him. The astonishment was gone in a moment, and Draco's mouth settled into an even thinner line. 'Fine, Weasley,' he drawled. 'I suppose it's as I long suspected, and your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.'
Ron glared at him. 'Twenty points from Slytherin,' he said.
Draco's mouth opened in surprise. 'For what?'
'For interrupting the meeting,' Ron said savagely, 'and for just generally being a grade-A, all-around arsehole. I'm going to go back in there now, and you are going to come with me, and I swear to Merlin that if you say one more word, I'll take a hundred points from Slytherin. Let's see how the rest of your house likes you then.'
Draco lowered his eyelids, hiding his expression. 'I guess absolute power really does corrupt absolutely,' he said, and there was an undercurrent of mirth in his tone that made Ron itch to smack his face. Instead, he spoke quietly but firmly.
'One hundred points,' he repeated.
Draco said nothing after that, and followed Ron to the door without making another sound. Ron wanted to feel triumphant as they reentered the prefects' meeting room, but all he felt was an odd sense of…disappointment. For an insane moment there he'd thought that Draco really did know everything, but he hadn't, not really, and the burden of secrecy felt even heavier than it had before. He almost would have preferred it if Draco had in fact hauled off and punched him in the face, which would not have been unexpected. With a sigh, Ron picked his wand up, and began to speak.
'Who did you get?' Hermione asked of Draco as they filed out of the prefects' room. The other students were pouring off down the hall, glad to be done with the meeting, chattering amongst themselves as they opened up the parchments that would tell them what student they would be buying a gift for. Wanting to wait for Ron, who was gathering his Quidditch things together, she paused outside the door. Draco leaned against the wall beside her, and looked over her shoulder as she unfolded her own piece of parchment and glanced at it. 'Oh, I got Ron. That'll be easy.'
'Yes, a large pair of pliers to remove the stick from his — '
She interrupted him hastily. 'Who did you get?' she repeated.
Draco unfolded his parchment, looked at it expressionlessly, folded it back up, and shoved it in his pocket.
Hermione looked at him curiously. 'Oh, come on, aren't you going to tell me?'
Draco shook his head slowly. 'Life is a meaningless lottery of chance,' he said. 'I just keep telling myself that.'
Hermione snorted. 'I'm getting this feeling you got Seamus Finnigan.'
'Bingo,' said Draco briefly.
Hermione burst out laughing.
Draco looked cross. 'It isn't funny.'
'Uh-huh,' replied Hermione agreeably. 'What's important is that you believe that.'
Draco was spared answering by the meeting room door banging open — it was Ron, looking businesslike with a sheaf of parchments under his arm, and Pansy, carrying the empty box that had held the students' names. She looked as sour as she always did. Ron nodded at her briefly, and she headed off down the hallway. Ron looked at Hermione and rolled his eyes.
'Having fun with Pansy?' Hermione said, her mouth curving into a sympathetic smile.
'She's a regular breath of vile air as usual,' said Ron with a shrug. 'At least she agrees to head up practically every committee known to man.
Makes my job easier.'
