Chapter Thirty-Nine

"I've never been one for sharing," Draco said, smirking a little at Miguel as the two bantered upon their return to the group. Hermione had been walking half a pace behind Draco as they neared the group, her thoughts whirling within her as they went, though she was pulled abruptly back to the present with these words. Sharing? Or rather, not sharing, as Draco had replied so easily to his mate, the words slipping out so naturally, as if he'd made a decision within himself and had been unable to keep it back.

#

She'd followed Draco back down the lakeshore toward the more populous areas, where couples whispered together, interspersed with the occasional shout of laughter from some other more rowdy group of students, warring with herself internally. Why had she turned away from Draco? She should have waited it out, seen if he would make a move or not. If he did, then she would know for sure, if he didn't, instead did something to break the mood, then it would also be obvious. But she'd been so afraid to be the one to take that step, cross that line, that she'd turned away. Of course, talking about Byron—a poet who Draco had insisted had to be at least halfblood—had stirred Hermione's insides, and she again cursed herself for turning away. Why was it so hard to be sure about Draco? If she compared him to last year, it was blatant that he liked her, at least as a very good friend, possibly someone he might fool around with, but he didn't act like he thought she was only worth one night. Not really. Not if Hermione was honest with herself. It was only that so many people had warned her away from him, not the least of which were Blaise and Pansy. Hermione shivered and hugged her arms around herself for warmth.

"Still cold?" Draco asked conversationally, glancing over at her as they neared the far end of the bluff where their friends were camped out.

Hermione looked over at him. Draco had his broom tipped up over his shoulder, walking next to the water, his body partially blocking the wind as they went. His ears looked faintly red in the moonlight, and Hermione wondered why boys so often went about without hats in cold weather. At least girls usually had their long hair for warmth. Perhaps she ought to knit him a hat for Christmas.

"A little," Hermione admitted, a little shyly, still unable to look Draco fully in the face.

Draco moved closer to her, the heat of his body brushing against her side as they continued on. He was carrying his broom on the opposite shoulder, leaving his left hand conveniently unoccupied as they walked, and Hermione was very aware of the fact that their fingers brushed occasionally with every other step they took. Once, when she stumbled slightly over an uneven patch of ground hidden in the shadows of the night, Hermione had leaned into Draco's side, unconsciously using his body to catch her balance, and accidentally hooking her fingers onto his when their hands came into contact. Draco's strong fingers had curled immediately about her own, smaller ones, gripping her hand to steady her, yet not releasing Hermione's hand once she'd righted herself. She felt her face flush with heat, yet didn't pull her hand away either. For the next thirty seconds they'd walked in complete silence, the moonlight pouring down over them, and the sound of her heart beating furiously in her own ears. She liked the feel of his strong grip, but such an action was intimate, and she had been too anxious and unsettled to enjoy the feeling very much. Hermione had pulled her hand free as soon as they'd neared their friends, and Draco hadn't resisted, letting her drop back behind him as Miguel had greeted them.

#

Hermione had been waving to Ginny, smiling to show that Malfoy hadn't pulled anything untoward after he'd marched her off into the night, and then he'd gone and said that. She'd frozen in shock, unsure how she was supposed to respond to Draco's declaration to their group of friends, grateful when he quickly moved on, suggesting that they all head back to the castle. She moved toward Ginny, allowing Draco to walk with his other friends, regretting her move at once when Ginny threaded her arm through Hermione's own and leaned down to whisper in her ear.

"So, how was your date with Malfoy?"

Hermione choked, pulling her face down into her scarf like a startled turtle. "W-what? We weren't— We were only—"

Ginny tightened her grip, her muscles strong from many years of Quidditch and roughhousing with her brothers. "That was a date in everything but name," she insisted. "I don't care if you deny it until you're blue in the face, Hermione Granger. Malfoy carted you off for a romantic moonlight broom ride, which, for him, was pretty impressive." She eyed Hermione shrewdly. "Did he try something?"

He might have, Hermione thought once more, if I hadn't been such a bloody chicken. Ignoring Ginny's question, Hermione focused on the other part of her friend's statement.

"I'm afraid of heights," she hissed back. "If that was his idea of romance then it was pretty poor form."

Ginny raised an eyebrow. "Think about that for a moment, Hermione," she whispered back, a smirk on her lips. "A boy will do anything within his power to get a girl he likes close to him; obviously this was a premeditated plan."

"He's never said directly one way or the other how he feels about me," she replied, still keeping her voice low so that none of the others would overhear them, though a tiny part of her called back to a rather intense conversation the night of the Hogsmeade visit, and certain things Draco had said then that were starting to make a different sort of sense than they had that night. Hermione slowed her pace even more, widening the space between where Harry, Phil, and Miguel were debating Quidditch league trivia at the head of the pack, and Sylvia and Draco were walking behind them, chatting in low voices as well. "I know he cares about me in a certain fashion," she allowed, fighting against the hope that he maybe more than cared for her as only a friend, and ignoring Ginny's snort at her noncommittal words, "but he's honestly so much of a flirt that it's hard to be sure." Her mind drifted back to the way they'd held hands for that brief moment though, to the way it had felt to have Draco's arms around her when they'd been flying…. to the way Draco had been looking at her as intently as she'd been looking at him up there in the sky, surrounded by stars. Again, Hermione cursed herself for pulling away. She knew how Draco made her feel—did she make him feel the same way? "I know what I wish…" she whispered to Ginny, "but what if he doesn't want the same thing?"

Suddenly there was a commotion up ahead. There was the sound of running and pounding feet, and then a pack of Slytherin boys with their hoods pulled up came racing toward them. They skirted Harry, surprisingly, and Phil and Miguel managed to move back in time to avoid them as well—their Slytherin instincts kicking in automatically—but they all but rammed into Draco, engulfing him in their group and knocking Sylvia sideways, the slighter girl only barely managing to keep her feet in the scuffle. She started swearing in a rather impressive manner, earning a wary grin from Miguel, though he still only gave Sylvia a cursory glance to see if she'd been hurt before returning to gaping after the mysterious retreating boys from his house.

Phil was less stunned with his response, growling after the boys in a most irritated manner, Harry coming up behind him, looking rather confused that the Slytherins hadn't targeted himself or Hermione and Ginny. Gradually the whole group concentrated around Draco where he had been preoccupied with catching Sylvia's arm so she wasn't knocked to the ground, as well as brushing down his robes where the stampeding boys had grabbed at them—seeming like they had maybe meant to rip them right off him in their whirlwind race past.

Hermione dragged Ginny forward, hurrying toward Draco and Sylvia, her heart in her throat. But before she could demand to know what was going on, Draco was frowning and pulling a piece of parchment from his pocket, staring down at it as if he didn't know how it had gotten there. She slowed as they neared, watching as Draco unfolded the paper and read it aloud, murmuring "Posuimus Enim Resurgemus," as he went.

The words sent a chill down Hermione's spine. Together We Rise, or something like it, her quick mind informed Hermione, and she bit her lip, all thoughts of intrigue and romance forgotten at the startled look on Draco's face. If she hadn't seen Slytherin colours on the boys who'd just run by, she might have thought the note was Micheal Corner's doing: dropping a vaguely threatening note, written in a pretentious language such as Latin, was exactly the sort of thing that the jumped up Ravenclaw would think exceedingly clever.

"Are you going to go?" The question was out of Hermione's mouth before she could stop herself. She stepped past Harry and Ginny where they were still staring hard at the note, frowning at it, and Malfoy, in turns, and reached for Draco's arm. He'd been working so hard to distance himself from the poisoned rhetoric of his past this year, going to some secret, clearly illicit, meeting with those who still clung to his old mentality, well, it was just asking for trouble. He squeezed her hand, but she was too agitated to feel any sense of comfort, or, Merlin-forbid, romance, from such a gesture—especially when he followed it up by announcing that he intended to attend the mystery meeting, alone, without allowing any of them to come along for backup.

Well, there was no way Hermione intended to let him get away with that. Good thing she knew a boy with much better tools for sneaking about undetected in the castle at night than simply an attitude that his reputation would protect him.

xXx

"No way, Hermione," Harry said firmly, stepping a pace away from her as if to protect his invisibility cloak from her reach, despite the fact that it was upstairs in his trunk, and they were down in the common room.

"Harry, be reasonable," Hermione protested, glaring back at him. "Someone has to go with him, you know that. Draco has changed too much, this could be a trap. He may think that everyone still fears him because of last year, but there's been talk. You must have heard the rumours by now." She turned to Ginny, who was sitting curled up on one end of the squashy red couches by the fireplace, her legs pulled up to her chest and her eyes reflecting the firelight as she refereed the argument. "Come on, Gin, you know I'm right."

Ginny looked slightly uncomfortable, but her true heart forced her hand. "Harry, I have heard a few things in recent weeks," she admitted. "People are saying Malfoy's gone soft, you know, er… because of, well, you," she finished, glancing back at Hermione.

Hermione felt herself flush slightly in pleasure at this comment, though quickly shoved it aside. "See, Harry, he hasn't got his reputation to hide behind; not as much as before. He needs me to watch out for him."

"If people are saying Malfoy's gone soft in the head over you, then you definitely shouldn't go," Harry returned at the speed of light, triumph in his eyes as if he'd just thought of a winning argument. "What if you get caught? Malfoy could get into worse trouble trying to protect you. Or he might just feed you to the wolves in order to protect himself!"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Harry, you know he wouldn't do that." He cares about me, she added silently, and felt the blush in her cheeks deepen at the thought, hoping that Harry only perceived her flush as indignation from their argument.

"He might though," Ginny said, sitting up and biting her lip. "I know he's changed a bit this year, Hermione, but ambition and self-preservation are two major traits of Slytherin. He might sacrifice you to prove his loyalty to whatever secret club he's trying to infiltrate. You should take one of us with you."

"No!" Hermione all but shouted, then caught several third years staring at her and lowered her voice. "No," she said again, quieter but no less passionate. "We wouldn't all fit under the cloak anyway—especially you, Harry—" Harry looked like he wanted to protest, but she stared him down. "By yourself, maybe, but not both of us, and I'm going either way."

"Hermione—" Ginny started again, but trailed off at Hermione's pleading look.

"Ginny, you know he wouldn't do anything to put me in danger," Hermione said firmly, holding her best friend's gaze until she finally shrugged and sat back against the couch, her silence speaking her thoughts. Hermione turned on Harry. "Harry, we'll be in the castle. I'll keep out of sight, and if anything major looks to be going down I'll get a professor, ok?"

Harry frowned deeply, looking unhappy, but finally he let out a huge huff of air, trying to glare at her around a reluctant grin. "I think I've been a very bad influence on you over the course of our friendship," he said at last, and Hermione felt herself sag in relief.

"The best kind of influence," she replied sweetly, smiling back at him as Harry turned on his heel and trudged toward the dormitory stairs to retrieve his cloak.

"You're really worried about him," Ginny stated calmly, brown eyes glittering in the firelight. Hermione felt her smile slip from her lips.

"Yes," she agreed, dropping onto the couch and leaning against Ginny's legs. She'd worry about romance and her confused heart tomorrow. Already the moonlight broom ride felt weeks ago. Tonight she needed to watch Draco's back, even if he didn't want her there. "He may not want to admit it, but he needs someone to watch out for him."

"A feat that surely Munoz or Melville couldn't accomplish?" Ginny asked slyly, and Hermione frowned at her.

"I…well…" Hermione stumbled over her response to this observation, and thought she heard Ginny giggle under her breath.

"You've got it bad," Ginny murmured, though when Hermione looked over at her, Ginny had turned her face away, hiding her smirk behind a curtain of glimmering red hair.

xXx

Draco did not look as happy to see her as she had expected. In fact, after he'd gotten over his surprise at her sudden appearance, he looked rather annoyed. Well, she was feeling a bit annoyed with him herself. After following him from the entrance to the dungeons up to the north tower, she'd had to hide out in the hallway while he and Pansy had talked with whoever had been waiting for them. They hadn't been in the classroom all that long, only ten or fifteen minutes probably, but when Blaise's lackies—Cartwright and Anderson—had walked out of the room, talking in low voices, they'd very nearly walked right into Hermione where she stood, pressed against the wall under Harry's cloak. She'd had to bite her lip to hold back her cry of surprise, and not a little fear at their nearness—and had to wonder just what it was that Draco was getting mixed up in. After all, everyone at Hogwarts knew that he and Blaise were on the outs these days, did Blaise's other friends think differently? Or had Draco only managed to put on a good enough show to convince them so?

And then Pansy had strolled out of the room, swinging her hips and smirking at Draco as if she were ready to snog him senseless the second the other two boys were out of sight—and possibly even if they weren't. Hermione felt her heart speed up with hatred for the other girl—and not only because she'd offered Harry up on a silver platter during the war last year. The way she was looking at Draco, running her perfectly shaped, sparkly green nails over his chest, pouting in the moonlight and batting her eyelashes up into Draco's face. Hermione had been forced to watch the casual gentleness Draco used even now, when pushing Pansy's hand away, that bespoke of their former relationship, followed up by her continued touching of him, that showed how she hadn't truly given up her quest for him, even as she pointedly demanded to know Draco's feelings for Hermione.

It had been that question, really, that had stopped Hermione from moving forward and revealing herself, because she was just as curious as Pansy was to know the answer. When Draco brushed her off noncommittally, Hermione felt her chest squeeze. Forget what Ginny had said about events earlier that night, Draco was just being Draco. Even if he had been acting romantic, it was clearly nothing too serious to him.

She blinked then, noticing a red smudge on one of Draco's pale cheekbones. It looked suspiciously like the same shade of lipstick currently gracing Pansy's thin lips… What if they'd been getting up to something in that classroom before coming out into the hall?

Hermione pushed back her feeling of betrayal. Despite everything, neither she nor Draco had made anything official, he was completely free to snog whomever he wished. However, despite this cool, logical, line of reasoning, Hermione felt her throat close up and she forced back the urge to cry.

"He doesn't look at you that way, he never will. And if he does, know that it's only a lark he's playing out…"

"…Granger is using you," Pansy purred, drawing Hermione's eyes to her wicked mouth as if the words she'd just heard echoing in her head had been said out loud too. Pansy was staring at Draco with glittering eyes, forcing him to listen to every poisonous word she said, and Draco's response, again careless and cold, pierced Hermione's heart like shards of ice.

No, she was reading too much into this. Draco was just playing a part, right? When Pansy finally sauntered away, kissing Draco soundly on both cheeks, and taking far too much time to sashay her way down the Astronomy Tower's many curving stairs, Hermione pulled off the cloak, revealing her floating face to Draco with a call of his name.

"Draco."

His startled look almost made her laugh, but her heart was still too mixed up inside for Hermione to truly take any amusement from his reaction. And now, here they were, arguing just like they always, inevitably, ended up doing. Both convinced they were right, both refusing to give more than an inch of ground, if that. And yet, she couldn't stop the words that tumbled out of her mouth despite Draco's strange defensiveness.

"Despite what Parkinson thinks, I actually care about what happens to you!"

Draco looked taken aback at her declaration, and a faint flush rose in his pale features. Hermione frowned at him. Why did any sort of admission of feelings seem to come in the form of an emotional outburst? And why on earth did he seem so pleased to hear her say such a thing? They were friends after all. It was only logical that she worried about his safety—even if that safety had less to do with secret club meetings than the viperous bosom of his ex-girlfriend at present. She couldn't help the tension that coated the word when she considered the closeness of Draco's relationship with Pansy, and he clearly noticed it in her tone. She'd have to work on that. She didn't need to let Pansy's needling get any further under her skin. Despite the evidence of her ears and eyes, she needed to trust her heart. Draco was only playing a part, and if he had to make nice with Pansy in order for it to be believable, well, she'd have to deal with it.

But she wouldn't be happy about it.

They reached the bottom of the stairs, their chatter dying out as they neared the the last steps in case any of the others were still nearby. Hermione hadn't said too much really, thrown by Draco's casual taking of her hand and wrapping her fingers around his elbow as they'd begun the descent. It felt rather regency to her, being escorted such, and even though she was still confused about Pansy, and Draco's treatment of the girl, the romance of such an action wasn't lost on her. Still, she gently withdrew her hand the moment their feet stepped out from the curving stone staircase, fighting the desire to slip underneath Harry's cloak and run off to sort through her thoughts.

"Let's meet after dinner tomorrow," Draco said, his voice sounding slightly off, an edge to it that Hermione might not have noticed had she not been spending so much time with him lately. He'd been walking with his free hand pressed over hers on his arm, and when she'd slid her fingers free he'd seemed to resist her retreat for half a moment before releasing her. Now he stood by the stairwell entrance, half in shadow, eyes watching her in an enigmatic manner. "We can discuss ideas for what to do during the match."

Hermione bit her lip, thinking again of the way Pansy had so casually touched Draco's face, kissed his cheeks—maybe other parts of him when Hermione hadn't been there—the look in Draco's eyes as he'd looked down on the petite, coldly pretty, Slytherin girl… The pair had been an item for years, it had to be hard to let things go. In fact, she didn't even know the precise reason why Draco and Pansy had broken up, only that after the war things had seemed to be over between them.

"Hermione?"

She blinked, drawn out of her thoughts by Draco's calling of her name. "Hmm?"

"Seven o'clock?"

Oh, right. They were discussing a meeting time. "Fine," she replied, trying to keep her voice neutral. She shouldn't be jealous of Pansy. That was over. What she and Draco were attempting to build—maybe…hopefully—was new. "Where do you want to meet? The Library?"

Draco seemed to consider the idea, then nodded. "Alright."

She nodded too, shifting Harry's cloak over her arm. "Ok, I'll see you in the usual spot then."

Draco's lips tipped up slightly at her words and Hermione felt herself flush faintly in the torchlight flickering in the nearby wall sconce. Her heart lightened a fraction. It was nice having a 'spot' with Draco. Even nicer that it was in the library, her favourite place in Hogwarts.

"Goodnight then," she said, turning quickly and throwing the cloak over herself as she hurried away. It wasn't that she needed to hide particularly, as she was a prefect and had every right to be wandering the halls at night—it was a rare professor indeed who would question Hermione Granger out of bed alone at night—but Hermione needed to distance herself from the feelings she could feel permeating the air around Draco and herself, and so she hid beneath the the cloak. When she glanced back once before turning the corner at the end of the hall, Draco was still staring after her, as if he could always see her, no matter what.

xXx

The fireplace crackled merrily across the small alcove where Hermione sat, waiting for Draco the arrive. Outside the large window where they'd watched so many sunsets earlier in the year, snow fell softly, blanketing the grounds in white. Hermione currently perched on the small reading couch near the fire, her bag on the floor next to her and her feet tucked up under her. A book was open on her lap, but she'd barely taken in a word the Transfiguration spell she'd been revising for the coming exams. Instead, she'd found herself staring out the window, thinking about the coming Christmas holidays in a few weeks and wondering again if she ought to get Draco a present when she went shopping the next Hogsmeade weekend. Speaking of Hogsmeade, she still felt somewhat anxious about returning to the village, but reminded herself that it wasn't the thing she should hold accountable for her uneasiness, and the person she did hold accountable was no longer around. She started at the sound of a book bag dropping onto the table behind her, and turned.

Draco had the strap of his bag still in his hand, and his school robes hung over his arm. He'd loosened his green striped school tie and rolled up the sleeves of his uniform shirt. He looked relaxed, yet tired. She wondered if he'd been standing there watching her for a while, she hadn't noticed him arrive.

"Good evening," he said carefully, face neutral as he walked over to where she sat. Hermione sat up, starting to swing her legs down off the couch, but Draco reached out and caught her leg, stopping her movement. Her eyes flashed to his face at once, nearly dropping her book, heart beating furiously at the feeling of his hand against her calf. Draco pulled his hand back at once, ears tinging red. "Er, sorry," he muttered. "I just meant you didn't have to get up. It's more comfortable to talk here, isn't it?"

Hermione fought the urge to tuck her feet up under her robes. She could still feel the the heat of the brief graze of Draco's hand against her leg and her mind started filling in ideas of how it would feel to have his hands on other parts of her body. She shifted against the end of the couch, clearing her throat and lowering her Transfiguration book to her lap. "Um, right, of course."

Draco leaned casually back against his end of the couch, stretching out his arm along the backrest, his fingertips nearly reaching where Hermione sat, and she couldn't help glancing at them. "How was your day?" he asked, his ears still seeming faintly flushed, though he seemed to be making an effort to act as if he hadn't been bothered by what had just happened. It was an oddly enthralling thing to see Draco look unsettled, even more so that she seemed to be the one who had caused him to be uneasy. It was usually Hermione who found herself wrong-footed after a touch or comment from Draco Malfoy, she was privately pleased that he was the one who seemed to be floundering right now.

Perhaps, as Lavender would have counselled her, this was a way for her to suss out how he felt about her when he wasn't hiding behind the projected confidence and casual arrogance bred into him all those years under Lucius Malfoy's rule.

Hermione swallowed, taking a steadying breath and busying herself by leaning down to drop her book on top of her book bag. "Ron cornered me to ask what he should get Violet for Christmas," she started, feeling herself tense slightly at the memory. Yes, she and Ron were friends again; yes, she was happy he'd found a new girlfriend—mostly—but was it really proper for him to ask his ex-girlfriend for help finding a present?

Draco rolled his eyes. "Blunt as always, Weasley is," he muttered. "So did you tell him better taste in boyfriends?"

Hermione snorted, a smile tugging at her lips. Draco's face relaxed as she did this, and he leaned a little more comfortably against the couch. "Of course that would be your suggestion," she replied, but amusement coloured her tone and Draco smirked. "No, I told him anything from the heart should do well enough, if she cares about him properly. And failing that, I saw her admiring Chandra Patel's gold bracelet last week."

Draco was watching her curiously, looking as if he were about to say something but changed his mind. "Well," he said at last, looking away toward the fire briefly, "good luck to him. I can tell you that shopping for a girlfriend hasn't been easy in my experience." His eyes drifted toward the far side of the alcove, as if he were looking at the Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.

"I'm sure they liked whatever you bought them," Hermione replied crisply, looking away too. She found she didn't like hearing Draco talk about his girlfriends, especially when his most recent paramour had been hanging all over him the previous night, looking as if she were angling to catch him under the mistletoe. She cleared her throat, hoping she sounded businesslike when she continued. "So, I've been thinking about your problem," she started, not quite meeting Draco's eye as she spoke. "Pansy can't get the book you're supposed to nick alone, right?"

Draco frowned in thought. "No, probably not," he began pensively, his gaze going far away as if considering all Pansy's moves. "She's clever enough when it comes to sneaking around, but the point of the mission is that we're supposed to do it together. Pansy isn't one to give up glory, but she also seems keen to make a good impression with Cartwright's club. I doubt she'll go rogue this early in the game."

Hermione found herself half-wishing that Pansy would go rogue, and leave Draco out of any of the club's wrong-doings, but she knew that wasn't the point; Draco was only doing this to try and stop whatever the others were up to—Pansy included.

"I see," Hermione said, nibbling on her lower lip in thought. "I suppose the book could simply 'not be there' when you went to look for it? I mean, I took it out before, I could just do it again," she offered, glancing up at Draco to see what he thought. He was staring at her, looking slightly dazed, and shook himself slightly, blinking, when she spoke. For reasons she wasn't quite able to work out, Hermione felt herself blush. She shifted on the couch, drawing ever-so-slightly away from where Draco had sprawled his limbs, hooking a finger into one of her curls and twisting it around the digit to distract herself from the sudden charge in the atmosphere.

Draco cleared his throat and Hermione glanced back over at him. He appeared perfectly composed now, his face a mask of ease now, though his eyes were still tracking her from where he sat. "You could," he acknowledged, "but it wouldn't take much to discover who had withdrawn the book, and then the plan of attack would only change from the restricted section to wherever you were." He left it at that, but there was something in his tone that said he wouldn't even entertain the idea of her getting involved.

"Well, Madam Pince surely won't let either of you check it out," Hermione countered tartly, unable to help feeling stung at Draco's immediate shut down of her simple solution. She noted the way his lips tightened at her comment, and felt a little guilty. Of course both Draco and Pansy came from families who had devoutly supported Voldemort, and as such would never be given permission to borrow any books that heralded anything dark; but Draco surely knew this already. She cleared her own throat. "Anyway, if you have another idea then let's have it."

Draco leaned back against the couch, turning his head to look out at the falling snow. "I think the original idea of faking an injury from the match—or maybe not faking one," he amended, looking sour at having to play a less than perfect game, "might be the most believable right now."

"I don't like the idea of you getting hurt because of them," Hermione blurted out, the words tumbling past her lips of their own volition. She saw the widening of Draco's eyes at her comment, and flushed, but didn't take them back. "If you must, then at least make it look real," she added quickly, biting her lip once more. She knew Madam Pomfrey could mend practically any Quidditch injury, but having Draco get hurt unexpectedly was much easier to bare than going into the match knowing that he intended to get hurt. She wasn't sure she'd be able to stand watching a minute of the gameplay.

Draco's lips curved slightly, his voice gently mocking as he answered her. "I'll give them a show," he vowed, "but no one will be able to say I went down easy."

xXx

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