Pansy Parkinson watched, her heart in her throat, as Ronald Malfoy closed his eyes and pressed his lips to the back of her hand. His head was bowed over their intertwined fingers, his mouth warm and soft, but also well-formed and firm as he kissed her. She never suspected the rumors about his vast experience weren't true, but some boys with a lot of kissing experience just ingrained bad habits. Not Ronald. From this kiss on the hand alone, a shiver was running through her, from the backs of her knees racing upward.

She snatched herself free.

"Sorry," he said, lifting his head from his now empty hand, smiling almost shyly. "Let myself get a little carried away. Could have been worse though."

"You broke our rules, Ronald Malfoy," Pansy said, covering her throat to hide the flush rising there, hoping her hand was not visibly shaking.

His shy smile was verging on a smirk. "Come on, Pansy. I had been doing so well. That was my first kiss of the school year and it's November already. Well, the first one except for at breakfast with Hermione today, but that was all her."

Pansy scoffed, disgusted, turning in a circle as she stepped to where he couldn't reach her without standing up from the table.

"Ah, there we go," Ronald said, nodding smugly whether he knew it or not. "I was a little hurt, you know, when you didn't seem mad about Hermione. I was worried you didn't actually like me much, even after all the nice times we've had together, here and walking around the grounds alone. But look at you now. You do care."

Pansy crossed her arms, tossed her head. "And that's what you want, is it? You feel better now that you've toyed with my feelings and used another girl to try to wind me up? Is it fun, Ronald?"

He saw his error too late, jumping to his feet, his face blanching. "Pansy, no. I wasn't playing with your feelings. I was joking - "

"Hilarious."

"No, not exactly joking. I was just wondering how much - "

Someone was pushing through the false wall, into the room. It was Harry, tucking the Map back into his pocket, Hermione following close behind.

"Come along, Ronald," she was calling over Harry's shoulder in that maternal tone of hers, barely glancing at Pansy. "We spotted smoke from Hagrid's chimney. He's back and needs to be warned about having his class inspected by Umbridge, like all the rest of the teachers."

"Right." Ronald nodded at Hermione, but followed Pansy toward the door, his jaw working but not speaking. She was gone before he could say another word.

"Pansy up here making another fire call with Zdravko?" Hermione asked.

Ronald frowned. "What?"

"Her Bulgarian boyfriend?"

"Oh, yeah," he said. "Yeah, it's not looking so good between the two of them. Sad, really."

Hermione led the way to Hagrid's hut, her mind working frantically, trying to come up with a lesson plan for Monday's Care of Magical Creatures class which Umbridge wouldn't be able to criticize during her inspection. All three of them walked briskly through the darkening evening. The temperature had been plummeting since noon, and the air felt cold and crystalline, like snow.

Walking two metres ahead of the boys, Hermione was thinking harder than ever. Behind her, Ronald nudged Harry with his elbow and asked, "What do you think she meant, this morning before the match, when she kissed my cheek and told me good luck?"

Harry laughed, more like a snort. "Oh, I dunno, maybe 'good luck'?"

"Come on, Harry," Ronald groaned. "Besides that. Was it, like, a signal or something? A sign that it might be alright now for things to - to change between us? She's sixteen. Maybe she's ready."

"Look," Harry said, "I always knew this was coming - since second year, really. So I've had loads of time to decide what I'd do about it. And in all that time, I've decided that what I'd do is nothing."

"Harry - "

"What? You're both my best friends and if you want to risk getting all romantic, I can't be involved. Sorry. Sort it out amongst yourselves."

Ronald heaved a great sigh as he watched Hermione's back, her hair bouncing ahead of them.

He really was lost, and Harry almost felt sorry. "What's the good of asking me anyway?" Harry said, returning the elbow nudge. "What do I know about kissing?"

The boys were laughing then, shoving each other along the path, Ronald cheering Harry, pressing him with advice on how to wind up alone with Cho Chang and find out a thing or two about kissing.

Ahead of them, Hermione's mind was not as focused on Hagrid's lesson plan as the boys may have imagined. She fought to concentrate but kept drifting away, distracted by thoughts from her meeting with Draco Malfoy earlier in the day, revisiting things he'd said that needed further explanation.

There was, "If you want a line on whether Ronald fancies you or not, ask him yourself, Granger. Or send Potter. Send anyone but me."

And then, "The longer it goes, the less it gets like what happened with Ronald. One more go at kissing my cheek and, I promise you, it will be nothing at all like it."

And last of all, "I am overcome."

When she backed away, after kissing Draco's cheek a second time, his eyes had been closed. Overcome - he had declined her apology for making him feel overcome but he definitely seemed angry. Or perhaps not. She had yelled back at him each time he'd raised his voice to her, but she hadn't been angry herself. Her emotions had been fully engaged but not in anything like rage. What would it be called instead? She needed to think.

Pushing herself back into the moments she'd spent sitting next to Draco on the stairs, she remembered that her blood had been rushing, and her breath had been coming fast, and her hands had been hot in spite of the weather, and her skin had felt electrified, and he had been so beautiful and magnetic even in a keeper's helmet that she could hardly look directly at him.

And he had been almost cute when they'd sparred over bowtruckles, and he hadn't expected her to talk about quidditch, and he'd listened to her ridiculous scheme and helped her with it, and cleaned the porridge from the dishes before he handed them back to her, and all the while he was careful with his brother's feelings, and he was indeed best in potions in their year, and -

By the stars, kissing him, even when it was only on the cheek, was nothing, nothing, nothing like kissing anyone else. Not Ronald, not Viktor, no one. Idiotic as it was, she fancied Draco Malfoy - fancied him rotten and to the exclusion of every other boy she knew.

She shivered inside her cloak. It wouldn't do. It would not do at all. She was on her feet, in the cold, on her way to try to save Hagrid from Umbridge's attack on his teaching. It was an attack Draco Malfoy would not only be cheering but fueling. No, Draco Malfoy was not someone she should be longing for. Not her, Hermione Granger. She was master of her own life and she would master this too. Somehow…

For now she spun around to face Harry and Ronald. "Hurry up, slow coaches," she sang back at them. She looked them both over, passing quickly over Harry's face, settling longer on Ronald's. He returned her look with a gravity she'd seldom seen in him outside of a chess match. It was the look he had in the moment of decision, before reaching out a hand to move a piece.

Ronald was still looking at her as he broke into a run, linking an arm through hers as he caught her.

There was a notice board kept in the Slytherin common room charmed to spare Professor Snape the bother of having to go amongst the students to communicate with them. When he wanted a word with a student, their name would flash on the board in curving green luminous script. Draco had just seen his name appear. He was now outside the door of Snape's office, knocking. At the touch of his hand to the wood, a parchment drifted down from the dark ceiling above his head. This was the message. And it wasn't from Snape, but from his father.

The note told Draco that Hagrid had just returned from a dark and dangerous mission to contact the giants on the continent, in the north, and draw them into the looming conflict in Britain. It was grim news. Dumbledore was expert at making himself the image of something sweet and silly, when all the while he was trawling the forests and ditches for giants and werewolves to come teach at the school, bringing their restless hordes with them.

Draco, his father explained, needed to reprise an old role of his, picking up where they'd left off trying to get Hagrid removed from Hogwarts, especially now that he was in contact with his giant mother's people. Hagrid had made himself a danger not just to Hogwarts but the entire wizarding world.

Something had to be done. If Draco could succeed in highlighting Hagrid's weaknesses during Umbridge's inspection, it was possible he could be removed, stopped. Once again, Umbridge was the answer, the sweet evil voice of the Ministry doing Draco's father's dirty work - that is, the parts of his dirty work Draco hadn't been called upon to do himself.

On the stairs outside Snape's office, Draco bowed his head over the parchment, sick. It would be another week of making a show of himself toadying to Umbridge. And he wouldn't be harassing a clever, experienced teacher like Hermione's dear old McGonagall, but a new teacher with unconventional methods who Hermione was willing to fight for - willing to fight him for.

Things were bad enough already but there was still one more paragraph left to read in the message. It was odd, the tone falsely casual, the words vague mentions of the holidays. It was something like a warning that urgent matters might call Lucius and Narcissa out of the country at Christmas, and the boys might wind up spending their entire holidays somewhere other than home for the first time in their lives. They had missed Christmas Day for the Yule Ball last year, but it had just meant Narcissa had made the second half of the holidays extra festive. There would be none of that this time.

Draco's head drooped between his knees. Christmas and New Years at Malfoy Manor were legendary, highlights of the year for people who weren't even members of their family. And now there might be nothing. And what did his father mean by the boys spending the break "elsewhere"? Where was that? Aunt Bella was in prison, Aunt Andromeda was disowned, Lucius was an only child with no close relatives to send them to. There was no one left in Britain to take them. Unless…

No, they couldn't mean that. Their father could not mean to send them both to have Christmas with Ronald's scruffy biological family in that cramped, wreck of a house. Wasn't that where Potter always spent his holidays too?

Draco stood up, crumpling the parchment in his fist. Ronald could go to the Weasleys. He would do alright. But Draco would stay at school. At least that way he could get some work done. That's how he would convince his parents not to force him, if it came to that.

Back in the corridor, outside Slytherin house, he found Pansy coming back from meeting Ronald in the vanished room. She looked stormy, the personification of the bad weather coming in over the lake.

They stopped in front of each other, mirroring one another's mood. Draco felt a little like he might want to hit Ronald, and since he wasn't going to, he looked for a little satisfaction in asking after whether Pansy had punished him for the breakfast kiss from Hermione.

"I didn't mean to, but he wouldn't let it alone and I told him off in the end," she said.

"The end? So have you finished with him?" Draco asked. "Put a stop to whatever that was going on between you?"

She shrugged. "I dunno. Probably."

"Lucky you," Draco said, "to be over it."

Pansy laughed, loud and bitter, her voice echoing up the hard stairs and walls. "Oh, I am not over it. Not at all. In fact, I have never liked Ronald better. And that is precisely why I can't keep it up."

Undermining Hagrid's class the next morning was only too easy. It was hardly even sporting. Between Umbridge and Draco, Hagrid was put to such a thorough routing that Ronald called Draco on it with a snowball to the back of the head on their way back to the castle.

The entire class stopped, knee-deep in their snowy tracks, waiting to see if the Malfoys would fight for them. Draco returned the snowball hit, striking Ronald in the chest instead of the face. It was a de-escalation, a sign that he knew he deserved it, but the rest of the crowd didn't know how to read the brothers' signs.

Without siblings of their own to teach them, Harry and Hermione couldn't read them either, and Harry threw himself between them, shouting. "No, Ronald. If you're caught fighting again, you'll be banned from quidditch along with the rest of us."

Ronald scoffed, jerking his chin toward Draco. "Like he cares. You'd love the both of us to get banned, wouldn't you Draco?"

It didn't take long for the crowd to get cold and bored enough to leave off gawking and go back to their trudging up the hill. The Malfoys weren't going to fight but they were going to have a keenly unpleasant conversation. Ronald waved Harry and Hermione away while Draco dried the melting snow from his hands on his cloak.

"What was that all about?" Ronald asked him. "I know you've never liked Hagrid but today - you were right out of order, even for you."

"Because it's not me," Draco burst. "It's Dad. He's on Umbridge's side."

Ronald frowned. "Why in the world?"

Draco drew in a huge breath, words bursting out of him as if through a broken dam. "Because she's the Ministry, of course. And the Ministry is doing what Dad and the rest of them want it to right now. So I have to help. I mean - obviously. Why do I have to take a snowball in the head and explain this to you. Aren't you supposed to be Mother's darling little chess puppy, the strategist? Brilliant strategy, Ronald, closing your eyes and whistling through all Dad's schemes so you won't have to answer for them. Absolutely brilliant, hoping to pass yourself off as more of a pet than a son - "

The rant ended, cutting dead at the word "son." Ronald's face was white, his eyes enormous, bright and glistening. Without a word he turned away, stomping back to the castle.

Draco let out a strangled cry. "Ronald, no," he said, running behind him through the snow. "No, that's not what I said. You know I don't believe - . You know - "

"I know that you're the son and heir and I am the foundling, the life sentence, the pet. Yes, I know."

"Will you shut up, Ronald. I never said - "

"No, you don't have to," Ronald finished. "I will let Mother know you brought it up though."

"What do you want from me?" Draco was shouting again. "You want me to stand here and testify about how adored and equal we are? You want to call the crowd back so I can make a brotherly love confession? That's one way to keep me in my place."

Ronald stopped. "Your place," he snarled. When he turned back to Draco, Ronald had that look again - the one from the chess game, right before a move. "I've been wrestling with something for weeks, Draco, and you've finally pushed me to do it. I'm starting a new experiment. One I cannot do without your help and you ARE going to help me. There will be no girls involved, but it did come to mind from something girls have to say about us, the brothers Malfoy."

Draco flinched when Ronald tapped the end of his nose.

"It was Pansy who came up with it, honestly," Ronald said. "Smart girl. Not given nearly enough credit. I was explaining my love potion theory to her and she assumed I was trying to say the love potion accident happened not between Molly and Arthur Weasley." His mouth turned into the smug but guarded smile he used just before announcing "check." "But between Molly and our own dad."

Draco laughed, bitterly and wickedly, bending at the waist. "You don't believe that."

"At this point, I don't know what to believe."

"Well, if you believe that, then you're an idiot," Draco said. "It's not possible. Imagine Dad having Mother waiting at home, and then he goes off and gets himself love potioned by - "

"Watch your mouth," Ronald snapped. "And listen. I'll keep on working with Pansy to see if I'm damaged by a love potion. That is, if she'll let me. And I'm not letting go of Hermione either. I think she and I may be on the verge of something. But even if I do alright with the girls, this issue of who my father is will stay the same."

Draco was shaking his head. "No. If you can connect with a girl the way you want to it proves Dad wasn't with Molly Weasley because there's no way they were ever even a little bit in love," he argued.

Ronald shrugged. "You know I'm a loyal son and I adore our father. But his past is nothing if not sorted and surprising. Even you have to admit that, Draco. And since the topic of what kind of son I am has come up so conveniently just now, here in the snow, you've already made yourself part of this. There must be a potion out there that can show us who my father is."

Draco barked a laugh, miserable as ever. "How would I know?"

Ronald shrugged. "You can find out. You have to. I won't pretend I have the potion skills to do it myself, so I am calling on you, Draco, to help me." Ronald was standing taller, taking on the same grand posture everyone assumed when demanding some immense act of service from Draco. "I am calling on you to help me as my brother - maybe as my real brother, truly related to me, by blood."

The sooner Draco proved that Ronald was the biological offspring of Molly Prewett and Arthur Weasley, the sooner he could stop being furious at Ronald for suggesting anything otherwise. It meant he spent a frigid November night not in front of the fire in his common room, but in the library, behind the rope of the restricted section, searching for a formula for a paternity potion.

The books were littered with passages in runes, slow going as he kept referring to dictionaries and grammars to interpret them. Draco was exhausted and cross even before he lowered his hands from rubbing at his eyes and found Hermione Granger standing across the table from him.

"Ronald says I'm not to fight with you about what you did in Hagrid's class this morning," she said. "Even though you deserve to be fought with over it."

Draco sighed and stood up to re-shelf a book even though Pince hated when they did that.

With his back turned to her, Hermione rifled through the sliding pile of books he'd been reading. She scoffed. "You're looking up the runes word by word? Pathetic, Malfoy. Just take a runes class."

"There isn't enough time in the day, obviously," he said. "And my father wants me in Divination, with Trelawney."

"Your father, your father," she chided.

"Can I help you with something?" he said, rounding on her. "So you can get what you need and leave me in peace?"

"I'm not here for you," Hermione said, dropping his runes dictionary back onto the table. "My Protean charm isn't quite right yet. Trust me, I'd rather not be in here. I thought I had returned that book for the last time, but here I am, fishing it out again."

Draco extended his hand. "Let's see it. The charm."

She shrunk away, her hand sinking into the pocket of her skirt, clutching something there.

"Keep your secrets if you like, Granger," Draco said. "But I grew up literally cradled in the arms of a Protean charm, didn't I? And you shouldn't work on problems like this alone for too long. It makes for tunnel vision. Keeps obvious solutions out of sight. You know that."

She did know it. Letting out a breath, she walked around the table, standing close to him to show him a galleon she'd taken from her pocket. "It heats to alert the bearer exactly like it's supposed to. That was easy," she said. "But I'm trying to charm it to show simple, readable messages. It's tricky and not quite right."

He took the galleon from her, careful to keep their skin from coming into contact as he did so. "How are you trying to get the messages to display themselves?"

"In a basic black ink," she said. "It's not fancy, but there's something about the metallurgical connection between the gold and the liquid ink that's too unstable. The ink just runs out and makes for a bunch of dirty laundry."

"Of course it does. Don't introduce a second modality," Draco said. "No ink. Stick to the heat. Use the heat that's already there to melt the message into the metal."

"Molten letters?" she said. "But that uses so much energy. It's dangerous. Someone could get scorched."

He shrugged. "Danger is the only thing that works."

She was thinking it over, standing close to him, tilting her head to look at him, as if his face was a focal point that let her mind break into something new.

He looked back at her, eye to eye, speaking softly. "He's bringing giants back into Britain. You know that, don't you?"

She blinked, her mouth opening, and then closing again.

He went on. "It's incredibly reckless. Someone has to do something. In a densely populated, civilized society like ours, like the British Muggles' - it's too dangerous," he said, his voice almost a whisper, quiet enough that he bent lower, to where she was sure to hear him.

Her smile was sad. "Danger is the only thing that works."

In the silence, he slipped the galleon into the pocket of her robe. She saw him swallow. He leaned his forehead against hers. "It's your turn to start it," he said.

She shook her head, rolling along the curve of his forehead. "It's not. I started it on the stairs."

"That was just on the cheek."

"But it was twice. Might have kept it up for hours if you hadn't - "

Through arguing, Draco broke through the centimetres of space between them and kissed her. She lunged closer, backing him against the oldest, most precious books in the library's collection. She resisted the pull of his hair and slid her hands up his chest, her fingertips curved over his clavicle.

The heat, the risk still hummed between them but they weren't strangers to each other this time, and they were alone, able to attend to each other properly. His hand cradled her jaw, his fingers splayed across her cheek, fine-tuning the connection of their mouths to something that had to be close to perfection. The curves and contours of her mouth fit into his so completely, so naturally even as he pushed deeper, past where he'd ventured before, coming further into her mouth with his.

There was her voice again, sweet and high, making her desire for him into something he could hear. It was not a library sound, and maybe that was why she said into his mouth, "We have to stop."

His own voice was low and hoarse, his lips still moving against hers as he answered. "I'll stop as soon as you do."

And her hand was on the back of his head, pressing him down, holding him close, alarmed he might actually stop.

On the other side of the shelves separating the restricted room from the rest of the library, a chair leg scraped against the floor. It sounded like damage and they broke apart, Hermione's eyes darting around, watching for Madam Pince. Draco straightened his posture and leaned away from the bookcase, but couldn't yet move or speak.

Hermione cleared her throat. "No second modality in the Protean charm," she said in a normal speaking voice. "Right. That might be it. Thank you, Malfoy. I won't be needing any books from here after all. So then I'll just - just be going."