The next morning

To Hermione's immense surprise, Draco was out of bed when she woke up. She discovered him in the kitchen, sipping coffee and poring through a copy of Grey's Anatomy, a tome she referred to when conducting wrongful injury claims on behalf of her clients.

'Good morning!' Hermione kissed his cheek on the way to make herself a cup of tea. 'Enjoying the book?'

'Uh, not really,' Draco mumbled. He closed the book and set it down, looking a little green.

'Were you after something in particular?'

'Oh, no, no. Not at all, in fact. Just interested in the, er…' He shot out of his chair. 'Oh, no!' I'm late for a… thing! See you later, love.' He aimed to kiss Hermione's cheek but missed and kissed air instead.

'Okay, darling,' Hermione said as she stirred her tea. 'Will you be going to the pub to' –

Pop! Draco had apparated.

- 'night?' she finished in bewilderment.

She made a mental note to send out some owls when she got to work. Time to have a chat with the girls.

Later that morning, Draco's office

'Yikes, Draco. You don't look so good.'

Draco stared at the wood markings on his walnut desk. 'I can't get those images out of my head.'

Blaise sat opposite him and handed over a takeaway coffee. 'What images?'

Draco shuddered. 'Do you know how many diseases of the penis there are?'

Blaise was used to all sorts of odd questions coming from his best mate, but this one was a doozy. 'No,' Blaise replied shortly. 'And I don't want to know.'

Draco nodded sagely. 'Very wise.'

'Why are you looking at pictures of diseased penises, anyway? Because if this has something to do with the next bet, you can count me out,' Blaise warned. 'My ears are still ringing from Pansy's telling-off last night.'

'Just a side project,' Draco muttered hastily. 'To be honest, I can't come up with a decent third bet. Guess we'll have to brainstorm it tonight in the pub.'

'It might be easier to pray for intervention,' suggested Blaise.

'We can do both.'

Evening at the Leaky Cauldron

Four heads – two dark, one red and one blonde - bowed in concentration over their Butterbeers as they tried to come up with a third bet that was satisfactory to all parties.

Sometimes prayers are answered.

'Hi, boys!'

All four heads popped up in surprise as four lovely ladies made their way through the pub to their table.

'Hello, love!' Draco smiled his first genuine smile of the day as Hermione sat next to him. The others happily made way so that Pansy, Ginny and Lavender could sit next to their respective partners. 'Fancy seeing you here!'

'Well, it appears that some bets have been keeping our men from coming home at reasonable hours, so we thought we'd stop by where the action is,' Hermione smiled. She kissed Draco lightly on the lips, glad to see he looked happier than he did this morning.

'And, to be honest, we don't want to see a repeat of last night,' added Ginny. 'I've never seen so much mud inside a building in my life.'

Harry turned red.

'Which is why,' Pansy said, signalling the bar for some Butterbeer, 'we've decided to help you select your last bet. Unless you've come up with one already.' She looked at Blaise apprehensively. 'You haven't, have you?'

'Nope. Not yet.'

'Thank Merlin,' shuddered Lavender.

'Excellent,' said Hermione happily. 'Why don't you all try growing a beard for thirty days? Longest, fullest beard wins. And not even you four could possibly come to physical harm from doing it.'

Silence.

'Don't all applaud me at once,' said Hermione archly.

'Who would judge the beards in the end?' Ron asked. 'It can't be any of you. You're all biased towards at least one of us.'

'We'll ask the wizard with the best beard of all to judge them!' said Ginny happily.

'Who's that?'

'Dumbledore!' supplied Lavender.

The boys started laughing. 'As if he'd be interested in a stupid beard competition!' Blaise cackled, until he saw Pansy's face. 'Sorry, sweetheart.'

'I Floo-called him today,' Hermione said smugly. 'He said he'd be delighted to.'

The table lapsed into silence again as the boys looked at each other.

'You know,' Hermione said idly, 'beards were traditionally regarded as a sign of virility and dominance in men.'

Four pairs of male ears pricked up. 'That so?' asked Draco, oh-so-casually.

'Oh, yes,' Ginny continued. 'Men with full, lush beards always got the pick of the women over men with ratty little beards.'

The ladies sipped their Butterbeers and waited.

'Sounds like a good idea to me,' said Draco. 'All in favour?'

'Aye.'

'Aye.'

'Aye.'

'Carried!' said Draco.

'Oh! One thing I forgot to mention,' said Hermione. She stared down each and every man. 'No magic. You must grow them naturally. Professor Dumbledore has been instructed to scan for magic on the final day. If he finds the slightest smidgen of it, you lose.'

That's the trouble with an intelligent girlfriend, Draco lamented. They're so damn intelligent.

'We wouldn't dream of it,' said Blaise courteously.

The girls beamed. 'Good!' said Hermione. 'Ladies, fancy a curry and a movie at ours while the boys grow their beards?'

'Sounds perfect!' They got up, kissed their boyfriends goodbye, and shashayed out of the pub.

The boys watched their girlfriends' arses as they departed.

'Now,' said Draco, returning his gaze to the trio. 'What are we going to do for an actual bet?'

'Yep.'

'Yep.'

'Yep.'

They put their heads together.

The following evening at the Leaky Cauldron

Blaise, Ron and Draco stared at the box that Harry plonked on the pub table.

'That's it?' Ron asked uncertainly.

'Sure is.' Harry prised the top of the box. 'Gentlemen, welcome to Jenga.'

Draco pulled a block out. 'It's just a bunch of short, stubby sticks.'

'That's right,' he said. 'We set the game up by stacking the blocks on top of each other in sets of three. Each player uses one hand to pull a block out from the tower and put it on top. The last person to stack a block without toppling the tower is the winner. And without using magic, as agreed.'

Draco smirked. 'Easy.'

Harry smirked back.

Turned out, it wasn't as easy as Draco thought.

Battle Jenga ended up taking over three hours, after Blaise, Draco and Ron insisted on some 'practice' games first, so that the Muggle-raised representative didn't have an advantage.

The pub staff were in two minds about whether they approved of this particular bet. One the one hand, the boys were keeping more or less quiet. On the other, they were concentrating so hard they kept forgetting to drink up.

They were relieved in the end when the final battle was completed and Blaise emerged from the metaphorical dust and debris as the winner.

Slytherin two; Gryffindor one.

Hermione was in the kitchen going over some statements in preparation for a hearing in the morning when Draco apparated in.

'Hi love, how was the pub?'

'Exhausting,' groaned Draco, and dragged himself off to the bedroom.

Hermione followed him five minutes later – only to find him out cold, face down on the bed, still clothed.

She looked at the time. It was only nine-thirty.

She looked up. 'When I said I wanted him home earlier, Lord, this wasn't quite what I had in mind.'