Whelp

sorry for doing so. The pieces – not just the knights, but the queens and half the pawns, too – started shouting at him to 'Get on with it!' and 'Over two, up one!' and 'Lemme take him out; oh, please, I've always wanted to take a knight!' Also, Draco rolled his eyes again.

Harry hated that. 'Sorry,' he muttered.

Many of his pieces were gone, already, and he'd hardly taken any of Draco's, so he knew he was going to lose. Well, now he knew. At the start, he'd rather liked the way the pieces crashed into and smashed each other to dust, so he'd deliberately set up pieces to be destroyed, until Draco had caught on and made him stop, saying, 'You're only s'pposed to kill my pieces,' in a slightly whiny voice. 'You're not even trying.'

Well, Harry had been trying. He'd just not been trying to win. And now, there was no point to doing so. Chin cupped in one hand, he glanced up at Draco through his fringe. 'Can't we just make 'em smash again? That was fun.' With an almost sly smile, he added, 'You've won anyway. You can smash up my king if you want.'

Draco stared at him for a minute, and Harry thought the other boy might refuse, but then Draco nodded. 'Well, all right. I did win, really.'

After Draco exploded Harry's king in a satisfactory manner, they spent the next little while setting the pawns after one another, until all the pieces were complaining, and both boys were cheering on the combatants, over a table strewn with shards of chess pieces.

Then a house elf appeared beside the table and announced, 'Master Malfoy is saying tea is served, sirs. Youse is to be going to the north garden now.'

'Thank you,' Harry said, standing up and starting to clean up the table.

The house elf's eyes – big, green balls, like ones for tennis – opened wider than Harry could have imagined was possible and then blinked once, slowly. Draco's eyes were wide, too, and he hissed, 'You're not supposed to thank house elves.'

'Why not?' Harry asked, though he worried his lower lip. Dappin hadn't liked it much at first, but never said he couldn't. And Nelli didn't seem to mind at all. Besides, Harry wished someone had thanked him, even once, when he was house elf at the Dursleys.

Draco grimaced. 'It's just not on. My father says so.'

'My father says I'm supposed to be polite,' Harry countered. 'And it's polite to thank people who've done a job for you.'

'But house elves aren't people.'

'They are so!' Harry shouted. The house elf in question was turning its head from boy to boy, watching them both with a horrified expression.

'Not like us! They're regulated.'

'What's that mean?'

Draco face was reddening, and it contrasted quite a lot with his pale, slicked-back hair. 'I don't know! But it's bad, whatever it is, and they are it.'

Harry couldn't help himself. He laughed.

And as if realizing the silliness of their argument, Draco, too, burst out laughing a moment later.

'Sirs . . .' the house elf ventured after a while, when they showed no signs of calming down. 'Master Malfoy . . . tea . . .'

Draco, holding his sides after he'd been practically rolling around on the floor, grinned at Harry before saying, perfectly politely, 'Thank you, Dobby. Please let him know we're on the way.'

Dobby gaped at them both a moment longer, then jerked his head in a nod and popped out. Then Harry and his new friend raced downstairs.

---

When Dobby the house elf appeared, instead of the boys, and looking a bit wild-eyed, Severus gave the creature a hard look, but didn't immediately jump to his feet and start interrogating it, like he wanted.

'Where are they?' Lucius asked, obviously annoyed by his son's tardiness, but not appearing particularly concerned.

'Th-they is o-on the way, M-m-master Malfoy, sir.'

Lucius' eyes narrowed at Dobby; the little elf's behavior did seem out of the ordinary. It was trembling and its eyes, if possible, were even larger than before. 'What else do you wish to tell me?' he asked coldly.

'N-n-nothing, Master Malfoy, sir! Dobby is g-giving the young s-s-sirs your message, Master Malfoy, sir, and the young sirs is on their way, now, yes, they are!'

'Very well,' Lucius said, though he did not look mollified in the least. 'You may go.'

'Yes, sir, Master Malfoy!'

True to the house elf's word, the boys tore into the garden a moment later, looking breathless and sweaty and rather rumpled. But both were grinning, and Severus relaxed a fraction.

Lucius, however, pierced his son with a hard look. 'What is the meaning of this, Draco?'

Draco stood straighter and adjusted his robes, which were askew, either from their running, or some other activity. The boy then clasped his hands behind his back and jutted his chin out slightly. 'Forgive me, Father. Harry and I were finishing a game of Wizard chess.'

Severus caught the look that Harry shot at Draco, even as Harry copied Draco's pose, and his straightening,