What Do Dragons Hoard?
Draco walked smugly along the high street of Hogsmeade, Hermione trailing at his side. She was still in obvious disbelief. They were currently strolling past shop windows garbed in no more than one layer of clothing. People wrapped in scarves and jackets stopped to stare at their passing.
She shuffled closer, trying to take better advantage of the invisible sphere of heat surrounding him. He had shown her the spell but so far she had failed to hold it for longer than five minutes (much to her annoyance and dismay). Draco, however, found it highly amusing that he had mastered a spell she had not.
"Please try not to look so full of yourself, Draco. It's most unbecoming and certainly not gentlemen-like." Her eyes were stern.
"Oh now, now, let's not get disheartened. After all, I only finally managed it after my father locked me out in the snow overnight with nothing more than the clothes I was wearing and my wand. I was eleven I think. Oh don't look so surprised; you know of far worse things my father is capable of. I believe you are just analysing it too much. It's similar to a patronus; you need to feel it."
Hermione stepped into the shelter of a deserted doorway, Draco quickly following suit. Placing her wand between her palms she concentrated hard on trying to push the warm, elated energy from her most joyful memories into her wand as he had instructed. Her focus wavered as Draco reached around her adding his hands to her own.
"Close your eyes." His voice was little more than a whisper. "Trust me." Pulling her close he forced some of his own energy into her hands. "Feel that warmth? Now imagine it as a small sphere. As I add more energy I want you to make the sphere larger. I want you to continue to do so until it completely surrounds us. Think you can do that?" The brief nodding motion against the side of his head told him she understood. Draco's mind was full of thoughts of his first broom; the day he was given his own annex of the house; his 16th birthday when his father told him he was proud of him…
"And you've just successfully managed to complete the spell." His lips brushed her ear as he spoke and suddenly the heat from her hands was burning hot forcing him to flinch away.
"Oh, Draco, I'm so sorry! I didn't burn you did I? I didn't mean to lose focus like that."
"I'm perfectly fine. It appears I was being more of a distraction than a help," he said smirking all the while. Her cheeks became tinted pink. The feeling of her in his arms and the scent of strawberries lingered in his mind as he reluctantly increased the distance between them before slowly moving back out onto the main path. "Now where do you wish to visit?"
"Well I wouldn't normally go there, seeing as Ron and Harry don't exactly enjoy reading as much as I do, but would you mind if we visited the bookshop at the end of the high street? I've been dying to go there since first year but Zonkos always seemed to prevail with the other two."
"I don't mind at all. I can go check up on the place."
"Check up?" she asked perplexed.
"I own it," he answered smiling. "Come on, you can tell me what books you would like to see grace the shelves." Taking her hand, much to his own astonishment as hers, he guided her through several shortcuts until they were standing outside the entrance to a dark walled bookstore with brightly coloured tomes lining the windows. Large gold letters above the doorway read 'The Dragon's Hoard'. Eagerness to enter was clear on her face.
"Come on, let's go in." He pulled her forwards towards the glass panelled door. Since when had holding her hand seemed so normal? A couple of years ago he would have pretended that even the thought of doing so sickened him. Things had changed. He let the smooth skin of her hands slide from his grip as he pushed the door ajar and ushered her inside.
