Chapter Forty

Draco rubbed a cloth once more down the gleaming wood of of his broomstick, then set it aside and recapped the tin of high-grade polish he'd been using. He'd been sitting in a corner of his dorm room for an hour, working on making the broom perfect for flight in the upcoming game, and thinking over his plan for the match that evening. He'd talked a big game with Granger the other night, but when it all came down to it he wasn't looking forward to throwing the match. Malfoys weren't known for their failures (perhaps because anyone who claimed to have bested them ended up cursed), and Draco knew that Blaise, and any others who had any minuscule reason to dislike him, would seize any opportunity to look down on him if he did so. Quidditch, despite Potter's show-offy skills, had always been something Draco had excelled at, and he didn't relish tarnishing the joy he always felt when he took to the skies by going into a match with the intension of playing anything less than a perfect game.

"Ready yet?" came a voice from the door in tandem with a short knock, and Draco looked up to see Phil poking his head in. "Vaisey is in the common room rallying the troops, and he keeps looking up the stairs as if he thinks you're going to sneak out the window."

Draco snorted, pushing away how close to the truth Vaisey had been. What if he did just hop on his broom and swoop out the window? Maybe scoop up Granger on the way, just grab her hand as she crossed the greensward between Weasley and Potter and pull her up in front of him to be whisked away into the sunset. He felt his lips tip up in a faint smirk as he pictured Weasley's red face and shouting as the pair of them shot into the sky in front of him, his voice fading away as Granger buried her face in Draco's chest, clutching at him as they rose higher—

"I certainly hope that look is because you're ready to flatten Ravenclaw," Phil's voice cut into Draco's thoughts, and he frowned, the vision fading from his mind's eye as he pushed to his feet and quickly brushed down his Quidditch robes.

"I gave Vaisey my word that I'd play," Draco replied, rolling his eyes. "Good to know he trusts me." He crossed the room toward Philip. "Ravenclaw won't know what hit them," Draco added, In more ways than one, he continued silently, already internally cringing as he imagined Corner's delighted look of scorn when Draco took his eventual K.O. His expression darkened at that. Corner would not be the one Draco allowed to take him down, he decided fiercely, no matter the stakes, he couldn't bare to humiliate himself that badly.

"Oy, Malfoy," came Vaisey's booming voice as Draco and Phil descended the stone staircase that opened onto their large common room. The Slytherin Quidditch team was grouped near the section of wall that would magically open to allow them into the dim dungeon hallway, and Vaisey sported a look of poorly concealed relief to have finally spied Draco striding across the room. "About time you showed up. We can't win this thing without you."

"Vaisey," Draco acknowledged with a nod, shouldering his pristine broom as he neared the group, and suppressing an urge to roll his eyes as a few of his teammates glared at him, "glad to know your speeches on team morality have improved."

Vaisy's demeanour turned businesslike as Draco finally joined the group, and he straightened up, glaring down his nose at them all. "Alright, everyone out. We should have been in the changing rooms ten minutes ago. I don't want Heartwick to try and claim any advantage by reaching the pitch first, so get out there and take in the conditions."

Phil joined Draco as he left the common room at the back of the pack, deliberately putting space between himself and Vaisey. "Vaisey's in fine form tonight," he murmured, glancing at the back of their captain's head as he stomped down the hall.

Draco snorted under his breath. "I can't wait to see what sort of mood he's in after the game." The comment wasn't exactly meant to be overheard, so Draco kept his gaze straight ahead even as he felt Phil glance over at him.

"Yes, well, keep your head up," Phil advised as the group trooped up the stairs toward the main floor. "And watch out for Corner."

Draco nodded, his lips tightening as he ran over the plan in his head once more. He'd told Granger that he would pull off some sort of injury during the match, but to make it believable he'd still have to play his hardest. No doubt Vaisey, not to mention Pansy, Cartwright, Anderson and the rest of the inductees into the mysterious P.E.R. society, would notice if he appeared to put less than his total effort into flying, and he couldn't afford for his 'accident' to be questioned. If he could manage to play up a minor injury enough to make it to the Christmas holidays without suspicion, then he and Granger and—Merlin forbid—the rest of her gang of Gryffindors, would have two weeks to come up with a better understanding of what the group wanted with that blasted biography.

Speaking of Granger, Draco's mind drifted back to the library once more. He still couldn't believe he'd been so brazen as to put his hand on her leg when she'd started to get up from the couch. He was used to touching the girls he liked—Pansy in particular had often put herself in a position where touching her would be unavoidable—but he'd seen the way Hermione had turned red and pulled away from his touch, and she'd seemed nervous the entire time they'd talked after too. He didn't think she was exactly against him touching her, per se, just that putting a hand on a a girl's leg when you weren't even dating was not done in polite society. He was still surprised Granger hadn't just kicked him in the face as he'd bent over her. And, damn it, the smooth, silky feel of her skin as his Quidditch-calloused fingers had grazed her calf still made his heart race. He wanted to touch her again. More, and for much longer, and on purpose. But for all his overtures, Hermione didn't seem to get his changed feelings for her. He was going to have to do something about that, and soon. But first he had to get himself bloodied up, preferably without taking a plunge from two hundred feet in the air to the pitch below.

"—See you after," Phil's voice cut into Draco's daydreams, and he realized they'd exited the castle and were halfway across the grounds to the Quidditch stands. Phil was lifting his hand in a wave as the team headed toward the tents that housed the changing quarters, and Draco nodded vaguely in his direction, turning back to his teammates and giving his head a shake. If he didn't get his head in the game his 'accident' would be worse than he planned.

xXx

Hermione wrapped a scarf around her neck as she followed Ginny, Harry, Ron, and Violet to a place in the stands, waving to Lavender as she made her way toward the Ravenclaws to cheer for her boyfriend. Privately, Hermione was pleased that the house rivalry had eased a bit this year, and the fact that Lavender was the only red and gold clad girl amidst a sea of bronze and blue wasn't looked down upon. That said, Hermione was glad to have something else to focus on besides the match. Draco had assured her that even though he planned to make his injury look bad it wouldn't be, but that he couldn't tell her what he planned to do exactly so that her reaction would be real. They couldn't afford for anyone to be suspicious, he'd told her as they'd parted ways after the library, she'd just have to watch the game like any other spectator to see what happened.

"Alright, Granger?" called a voice across the crowd as Hermione jostled for a spot on the benches, and she looked up to see Miguel and Phil waving from the edge of a large group of Slytherins further down. She lifted a hand to wave back as she staked her claim on a suddenly briefly vacant space on the bench.

"Oy, Munoz," Ginny called, turning at the sound of his voice and smiling sweetly. "It's only Ravenclaw today, so looks like your house has a chance. Enjoy it while you can!"

"You talk a big game, Weasley," Miguel turned overly innocent dark eyes on Ginny and offered her a wide grin. "Perhaps I should sit with you so you can instruct me on the finer points of winning?" He blew her a kiss.

Harry turned around then, stepping up next to Ginny and draping an arm around her shoulders, pulling her smaller frame against his side. "If anyone is going to be privy to private instruction from from my girlfriend, Munoz, it'll be me."

Ginny rolled her eyes and poked Harry in the side, making him wince around a chuckle, and Hermione instantly thought of Draco, and how he'd have taken that comment and run with it… right into something deeply inappropriate. She felt her lips twitch into a smile, though it quickly faded as she remembered what was going to happen at some random point in the match. How she wished she could be oblivious like the rest of her friends. This must have been what Harry often felt like in past years. While Hermione wrestled with her thoughts, her friends settled into their seats, and minutes later the first blast of a whistle announced the start of the match.

xXx

"Alright everyone," Vaisey growled, prowling back and forth in front of a line of Slytherin players standing just inside the entrance of the changing tents, brooms resting against their shoulders like soldiers ready for battle. "Ravenclaw play well, as much as I hate to admit it, and several of their players aren't nearly as averse to dirty tactics as anyone who wasn't sorted into green and silver ought to be; therefore we need to out-maneuver them. Play smart. Fast and dirty has its place, but don't get cocky. Their Seeker is speedy, Malfoy, so keep on her and don't let her get ahead of you on the snitch. Corner and Ravenscourt can occasionally be as brutal as the beaters on their team, and Heartwick is just as sneaky, so I'll need all Slytherin Chasers on point today." He paused for Malfoy and the Chasers to give him quick, assertive nods, then continued. "Beaters," Vaisey met both their eyes before continuing, "be quick and deadly. The sooner we can put anyone on Ravenclaw down for the game the better."

Draco shifted his feet and tried not to look suspicious. He wondered if there would be a way for him to win the match, catch the snitch and all, before he took his fall, causing himself an apparently terrible injury. There would be some comfort in allowing himself to be humiliated in front of the entire school if the Slytherin team at least didn't lose. No one could say he'd faked getting hurt if it happened after he'd caught the snitch. Draco could formulate a situation easily in which a jealous Ravenclaw player attacked him while he gloated at the end of a perfectly played game. He felt a faint smirk tilt his mouth up. Yes, he thought he could work something out to this end.

"Now get out there and kick some Ravenclaw arse!" Vaisey was shouting, pointing savagely in the direction the Quidditch pitch, and Draco quickly lowered his broom, getting ready to mount it the moment he passed outside into the open air.

xXx

"Yikes!" Hermione shrieked, biting her lip and clutching Ginny's arm as a bludger narrowly missed blasting the end of Draco's broom to kindling. One of the Slytherin Beaters had swooshed into place in the split second before Draco would have been sent hurtling two hundred feet to the grass below, belting the bludger in the opposite direction with a mighty blow. Ginny turned toward her with a raised eyebrow.

"If I have bruises on my arm in the morning, Hermione Granger, then you're going to have to brew me Essence of Dittany," she announced, and Hermione retracted her hand with a rueful smile, trying to reign in her emotions.

"Sorry, Ginny. I—I guess I'm just a little on edge. That was a close call!" Hermione tried to school her features into something less just-this-side-of-panic, but she wasn't sure she succeeded.

"I know Micheal and Malfoy aren't the best of friends, Hermione," Ginny replied, giving Hermione a gimlet eye, "but even I can admit he's decent on a broom; you don't have anything to worry about."

Hermione leaned into her friend's shoulder and refocused on the match as best she could, biting her lip to stifle a gasp as Draco narrowly missed colliding with all three Ravenclaw Chasers as he zipped after the Snitch. The glittering golden ball was lost in the chaos and Draco returned to circling the the pitch once more.

xXx

Draco swore under his breath, grabbing the handle of his broom tightly and turning sharply into a barrel-roll, missing a collision with Ravenscourt by a hair. The handsome Chaser had been at the head of an arrow-shaped flying tactic Draco knew had been coined by, obviously, the Appleby Arrows, though he was of a mind to send the English Captain a strongly-worded Owl, considering how he'd almost been unseated by it. Perhaps he wouldn't have to stage a flying accident after all, he'd only have to continue to allow himself to be distracted. He righted his broom and rose up above the chaos, scanning the sky for the now once again missing snitch. He permitted himself one last glance down into the stands, seeking and quickly locating Hermione sitting among her friends, her face half-hidden behind her hands. He could practically hear the way she had probably gasped or shrieked at his near-miss, and smirked a little to himself. For someone who prided herself on not getting carried away with things, he certainly enjoyed seeing Granger give-in to her emotions with the tension of a close match.

Whoosh!

Draco felt the fringe on his forehead flutter as something shot past him, and blinked, pulling himself out of daydreams of getting Granger to let loose in other, more fun, ways.

"Pull your head out of your arse, Malfoy!" Vaisey hollered from somewhere behind Draco, and he glanced over his shoulder just in time to see one of the Slytherin Beaters shoot past him, bat raised to knock the bludger that had nearly unseated Draco back toward Corner. "Daydream on your own time!" Vaisey shouted, and Draco shook himself, forcing his mind back on the game. That was the second time in five minutes that Ravenclaw had nearly taken him out. He needed to get his head in the game.

Something glittered at the far end of the pitch and Draco shot off toward it. The Ravenclaw Seeker—Worthington, he thought her name was—was about hundred feet below him and further down closer to the Slytherin goal posts, and hadn't yet noticed Draco shift directions; he'd have maybe thirty seconds on her, and he intended to make them count.

xXx

"Malfoy seems a bit off, doesn't he?" Hermione heard Harry murmur to Ginny, and tore her eyes away from the blur of players in the air to glance at him. He lifted his eyes to hers. "I'm not being funny," he added with a faint lift of one corner of his mouth, showing her that he wasn't making a comment in poor taste. "I mean, he seems distracted. He might actually take a bludger to the head if he's not careful."

Hermione pressed her lips together and swallowed hard. Anxiety was so thick in the air around her that she felt like she just might drown in it. "Oh, I—I'm sure he's just looking for the snitch," she muttered, her eyes already back on the match, searching for the tiny blond figure she knew to be Draco. "You're no stranger to bludger strikes yourself, Harry."

Harry cleared his throat and she flicked her gaze briefly back his way. "Yes, well, if Malfoy doesn't want to end up with no bones in his left arm, then he'd better pay a lot more attention that he seems to be."

Harry was right, Draco was zipping about as usual, but there was less cockiness and surety in the way he was flying. He'd narrowly missed two bluger attacks and one drone strike by the Ravenclaw Chasers simply by virtue of stopping in the middle of the pitch and floating in place. She couldn't imagine what he was thinking about up there. Was his plan simply to let one of the Ravenclaw Beaters take him out without even pretending to fight? Surely not. He'd promised a show. He was, however, finally appearing to put in some effort, and the next ten minutes of game play held Hermione captivated.

xXx

Draco swore loudly, pulling his broom up short as a Ravenclaw player popped up in front of him like a freed cork. When his eyes registered Corner's smug expression, Draco snarled in frustration.

"Easy there, Malfoy," Corner smirked, bobbing up and down and side to side, blocking Draco's efforts to see where the snitch had flown off to. "Didn't your mummy ever tell you not to let your emotions get the better of you?"

"All's fair in the air," Draco shot back, narrowing his eyes and leaning forward as he aimed his broom straight for Corner's sneering face. He'd always preferred action to words anyway. The Ravenclaw boy held position for two long seconds before his lizard brain kicked in, informing him that Draco did not intend to stop if Corner didn't get out of the way, and Draco's snarl slid into a smirk as Corner twisted sideways at the last possible moment, turning his broom into a barrel-roll and avoiding Draco's charge by an inch. Unfortunately the snitch was long gone and Draco was forced to return to scanning the skies.

Things were not going well. Worthington had noticed Draco's flight across the pitch just before Corner had popped up, and it was by pure luck that she hadn't caught the snitch in the interim. She had, however, seen the way Corner had been blocking Draco, and he now had to endure her superior smirk every time they met eyes in the air. Draco wasn't one to support hitting girls, but he thought if she maybe accidentally fell off her broom he'd feel a bit better about the situation.

xXx

"Posuimus…"

Hermione's head jerked up and she frowned over her shoulder, narrowing her eyes at the row of spectators behind her. No one met her gaze though and she gave herself a little shake, turning back around in her seat. She must be hearing things.

"…enim resurgemus…"

The words drifted on the wind, tossed among the chaos of yelling, cheering, and cursing from hundreds of Hogwarts students, but Hermione was sure she'd heard them this time. She turned around again, scanning the crowd nearby, then squinting harder as she looked in the direction of the nearest Slytherin students.

Miguel and Phil were sitting two rows up, the pretty, blonde, Sylvia between them, though her eyes were only for Phil—if the way she kept sneaking glances at him was anything to go by. Phil saw Hermione looking and lifted a hand in a short wave, causing Sylvia to frown faintly and lean in a little closer to him, drawing his attention back to her, a slight flush on his round cheeks. Then there was a mix of Hufflepuffs, and a few Ravenclaw boys—who's eyes locked onto Hermione's for several seconds, their gazes coldly superior, and she recalled several of them from Micheal's gatherings over the past few months. Shivering slightly, and wondering why they were perched there, looking as if they were spying on her, Hermione continued to take in the crowd. The process of discovering who'd most likely said the words was made harder with the non-segregated seating that had come in post-war: with all four houses sitting anywhere they liked during matches it made locating a specific person in the crowd difficult.

"Alright, Granger?" a low, snide, voice came in her ear, and Hermione jerked to her left to find that Pansy Parkinson and one of Blaise's goons—Anderson, she thought—had moved down to the row behind her. Pansy had her arms wrapped around one of Anderson's bulky biceps, and Hermione worked to keep the disgust off her face at the sight. Pansy smirked at her, enjoying the fact that their presence had startled her.

"Parkinson," she murmured, deliberately ignoring Anderson in the vain hope that he would disappear if she didn't acknowledge him. Anderson grinned down at her, seeming to enjoy the slight height advantage he had over her by virtue of their position on the bench one row up.

"Who're you supporting, Granger?" Pansy asked sweetly, dark eyes sparking with challenge.

Ginny turned to look over then, but her attention was pulled away a moment later when one of the Slytherin players took a tumble off their broom from the tail-end smash of a bludger. The player had just barely been saved from a one hundred and fifty foot free-fall by a record-breaking dive of one of their Beaters, and the crowd surged up in cheers and shouts of both anger and relief. Hermione took in Anderson's predatory grin and Pansy's leading smirk, and narrowed her eyes.

"I'm supporting a friendly match at my school," Hermione returned, voice and face as neutral as she could make them. She hoped Ginny wouldn't say anything, because if she did, Harry would likely notice, and if he joined in then it was likely that Miguel and Phil would take notice, and if they did, then Draco would want to know what had happened… and, well, it was all really a lot more drama than Hermione wanted to deal with at the moment.

"Friendly, she says," Pansy simpered in return, eyes narrowing at Hermione as if zoning in on the way each word poked holes in Hermione's deflective sentence.

"My school, she says," Anderson added, a dark look in his own eyes. "Are you really sure either of those words will apply by the time the year is over?" His comment was said so quietly that Hermione would almost have thought he hadn't meant for her to hear him, if his cold eyes weren't so laser-pointed on her own.

"I have a right to be here as much as anyone else does," Hermione hissed back at him furiously, half-forgetting her plan not to draw the notice of any of her friends. "Traitors like you are the ones who ought not to have been allowed back in!"

Anderson's expression hardened. "You're contradictory as always, Granger," he sneered, all pretence of cordiality gone now. "You can't claim to support inclusion in one breath and place yourself above others in the next. What would Dumbledore think? Oops," he sneered, a fake look of shock and sadness coming over his features, "he's dead. I guess we'll never know."

Hermione felt her heart speed up at Anderson's callus words and forced herself to take a deep breath so she wouldn't pull out her wand and curse him. Pansy seemed to read her mind.

"Now, now," she smiled coldly, flicking her eyes between Hermione and Anderson. "Play nice, you two. Don't you know Hogwarts is all about house unity these days? There's a use," she smirked, "for everything and everyone. Even house elves and mud—that is, muggleborns."

Hermione swallowed back her anger at Pansy's not-so-Freudian-slip of the tongue. Her words had been calculated to remind Hermione not all that subtly about her belief in Draco's limited fascination with Hermione, and how, once he had taken what he wanted from her, he'd toss her aside and move on to bigger and better things. Hermione wanted badly to snap back about how she knew about Pansy's simpering, desperate, attempts to get Draco to take her back, but that would mean admitting she had been spying on them, and Pansy, dim as she was, would probably make the leap that Hermione knew more than she was supposed to about the secret society she and Draco were involved in; not to mention showing her hand to Anderson.

"I'm sure I could think of a few uses," Anderson agreed, his piercing gaze chilling Hermione on several levels. Before she could respond to that there came a rippling gasp across the nearby crowd, shouts cutting off in mid-yell as people squinted across the pitch at something happening in the air.

xXx

It all happened very fast in Draco's recollection afterward. He'd been tailing Worthington with the plan that he could cut her off in the split second it would take for her to kick her broom into high gear if she spotted the snitch before Draco did, while still keeping one eye out for Corner, and the Ravenclaw Beaters, when there was a commotion about fifty feet below where the Seekers were circling in the air. Draco saw Ravenscourt and Corner tossing the Quaffle back and forth at a quick pace, somehow out maneuvering the swooping Slytherin Chasers, and gaining ground on the Slytherin goal posts at speed. Vaisey held position, eyes sharp and watchful, as he waited to see which of the opposing players would take the shot. As they neared the hoops the Ravenclaws dropped into arrow formation once more, looking for all and sundry as if they meant run Vaisey over in the air to clear their way. The Slytherin Beaters dropped down on either side, bats raised, and smacked bludgers hard from either end, scattering the Chasers like a flock of pigeons, and Draco started to relax as all three took off in separate directions. He took a second to locate Worthington and felt his heart lurch when he realized she'd flown in the opposite direction while her teammates had orchestrated their last play. Had she seen the snitch?

Draco turned his broom hard, catching up with her quickly, doing his best to ignore the impressive cursing coming from the Ravenclaw players as he zeroed in on Worthington. He didn't see any glint of gold in the vicinity, but that didn't mean the snitch wasn't lurking just out of sight; Worthington had been going at quite a clip. Just then Draco noticed twin shadows appear on the backs of two of the Slytherin Chasers coasting below him; he frowned, his brain taking a second to translate their meaning. Glancing up, he realized that the Ravenclaw Beaters had circled overhead during their Chasers' attack—worse still, Draco suddenly realized that the Chasers' play had been a mere distraction. In the next second he saw that the two bludgers' shadows were narrowing in on a single target, and not the Slytherin Chasers' but the Seeker: him!

Swearing loudly, Draco tried to take in the entire pitch in the few seconds he had left before the attacking bludgers made kindling of his bones. Then, as if to torture him in his final seconds of consciousness, he saw a flash of gold way down near the grassy playing field that spanned the bottom of the Quidditch arena. Deciding he had nothing left to lose, and praying to any gods that might take pity on him for one or more of his own teams' Beaters to knock at least one of the bludgers off course before they could strike him, Draco leaned forward and aimed his broom straight at the ground.

xXx

If she hadn't been so terrified at the scene playing out before her eyes, Hermione—unable to turn away from the seemingly inevitable train wreck that Draco and the Ravenclaw bludgers seemed unlikely to escape—might have laughed at the sour look that had graced Anderson's face behind her when Pansy shrieked as Draco started his suicide dive. Her fear for his well-being was real enough, all things considered, and Anderson—a clear internal struggle for both his house team to win, yet a desire for Draco to be taken down several pegs with a humiliating and quite literally crushing defeat, warring within him—had jealously glared between her and the drama in the air.

Hermione somehow managed to close her eyes at the last possible moment. Perhaps it was an internal survival instinct, her brain telling her that she probably wouldn't want the memory of Draco's mangled and possibly dead body imprinted on her mind's eye for the rest of eternity, no matter what his pre-game plan had been. "Ohhh I can't look!" Hermione cried, grabbing Ginny's arm and burying her face in her friend's shoulder. "Is he dead? Did Ravenclaw win? Is Micheal Corner gloating? Oh, Merlin, I don't think I could bear it if he's gloating."

There was a second wave of gasps throughout the crowd, interspersed with three loud thuds. Hermione felt her heart stop in the silence that followed. And then a new sound rippled across the crowd around her, building slowly as more and more people realized what had happened.

"I can't bloody believe it!" came the sound of Miguel from somewhere behind her.

"He'll be insufferable after this!" came the half-exasperated, half-amazed, voice of Sylvia immediately afterwards.

Hermione peeped one eye open and squinted up at Ginny's face. Ginny was looking down at her, grinning. "She's not wrong, you know."

"What are you talking about?" Hermione squeaked out, pulling back and frowning at Ginny. Ginny put her hands on Hermione's shoulders and turned her back toward the pitch.

"Look for yourself."

Hermione leaned forward and peered down over the wooden railing, clutching onto it with shaking hands. The Slytherin players were all swooping down to land next to a crumpled figure on the ground, Ravenclaw players keeping to the air nearby, muttering their disappointment. It took her a minute to understand what had happened.

"Slytherin win!" boomed the announcer's magnified voice across the growing muttering and rising cheers of the watching crowd. "In a move that looked destined to fail, Slytherin Seeker Draco Malfoy has caught the snitch! The final score is Ravenclaw 90 points, Slytherin 170!"

"They won," Hermione muttered shakily, still dazed. Draco was still on the ground, but he was sitting up, one fist thrust into the air with something gold fluttering madly within his fingers. She watched as two of his teammates helped him to his feet, supporting him on either side. Hermione's stomach swooped uneasily as she took in what appeared to be an injured and probably broken leg. He'd promised a show and he'd delivered, though his pain looked very real. She hoped it was worth it.

"Come on," Ginny said, pulling Hermione to her feet and starting to push her down the aisle as students began to stand and mill around them. "Let's go down the Great Hall for the semi-finals night feast!"

Relief melted through her as Hermione pushed her way through the crowd, Ginny at her back and Harry, Ron, and Violet behind her. She grinned shakily over at Sylvia and Phil, noting the way Phil was gallantly attempting to clear a path for the girl, though he wasn't particularly strong and Miguel apparently decided to help him, if the tang of magic on the air and subtle flick of his partially concealed wand were anything to go by. Phil found a clear path appear before him without warning, and he stumbled, blushing and catching his footing with a hurried look at Sylvia behind him. She politely pretended not to have noticed, and smiled at him as he stepped back to let her pass.

"I have to admit that final play by Malfoy was pretty incredible," Harry called up to them. "Though if you tell him I said so, I'll claim I was imperioed."

"It is enough that you admit it once, Potter," Miguel laughed, and Harry grinned back, the clear camaraderie that boys apparently found in Quidditch bonding them across the lines of their houses.

Glancing back as she neared the stairs, Hermione found Pansy and Anderson had gone, vanished in the crowd, and she wondered briefly at their reason for dropping by. It might be nothing, just Pansy up to her regular tricks spreading gossip and dissent, but it might not be. She'd have to ask Draco about it when she saw him next, though knowing Madam Pomfrey and her strict visitation rules, she probably wouldn't be allowed to see him in the hospital wing until the next day.

"Don't worry, Granger," a clear, light voice floated back to her over the crowd, and Hermione turned to see Sylvia watching her, a faint, knowing, smile on her lips. "I'll let him know you asked after him." Her smile grew into an amused smirk at Hermione's blush, but the crowd carried her away before Hermione could say anything in reply.

"Concerned for someone's well-being?" came Ginny's teasing voice in Hermione's ear as she hooked elbows with Hermione so they wouldn't be forced apart in the jostling crowd while they made their way out of the stairwell and onto the sloping hill that lead back up to the Castle.

"Yes," Hermione replied, without thought of demurring. Even though she knew Draco would be just fine after the matron was through with him, his spectacular crash was still horrifying to think about.

"He'll be fine," Ginny said bracingly, bumping Hermione's hip with her own, her voice a shade more serious. "You know Quidditch, it always looks worse than it is."

"I know," Hermione made herself agree. "It's just—he sounded like he was in so much pain." She couldn't help herself, Draco's shout of pain had seemed to echo all the way up to where she'd been sitting, even though she had definitely been too far away to hear anything beyond the smash of broom, body, and bludgers.

"Hey," Ginny said, pulling her to a stop a little to the side, moving back so a group of chattering Gryffindors could pass them on their way up the stone stairs set into the side of the hill. "All boys, not to mention girls, go all in when playing Quidditch. We all know what we're signing up for, Malfoy is the same. It hurts when it happens but makes for nothing more than an epic story afterwards. Okay?" She held Hermione's eyes until she cracked a small smile. "Good. Now let's go grab a Butterbeer before Ron guzzles them all, alright?"

"Okay," Hermione said, taking a steadying breath. There was no way Pansy or Anderson, or any of the other P.E.R. members could say anything after a match like the one Draco had just played, she told herself. Especially considering the way Draco had played up his injured arm in third year. This injury was very real and would take at least a week to fully recover from, leaving Draco free to skate through exams and out into the Christmas holidays without suspicion, just as he'd planned. Now all she had to do was the same.

xXx

I'm so sorry for the huge long break between updates! If anyone is still reading this I'm so grateful! :) My co-writer is on hiatus again and I decided to continue without her. Hopefully she'll have time in the future again, but if not I promise to carry this story through to its end. :) Also, I'm not great with Quidditch scenes, so I hope I did this one justice. XD

Note: I scoured the internet but was unable to find a direct reference to the position Michael Corner played on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team. Therefore, I made him Chaser. If you have proof of his actual position, I'm game to know it! :)