Guuzen no deai ga mirai made kaete shimau
kiseki o shinji na yo umakeu ikusa
It's gonna be OK!
A chance meeting can change your whole future
Believe in miracles, things will work out...
It's gonna be OK!
Dare ni m wataseni taisetusena mono wa hitotsu
Chance wa ichido dake te ni irero yo ashita ja osoi
There's just one thing so important you can't entrust it to anyone --
There's only one chance, reach out for it -- tomorrow's too late
Tabun umaku iku ze dakara umaku izu ze
Chance wa me no mae
Daijoubu kitto OK!
Tabun umaku iku ze dakara umaku izu ze
Owari no nai yume no tame ni
Maybe it will turn out fine, yeah, so I'm sure it will turn out fine
Your chance is right in front of you --
It's fine... it's sure to be OK!
Maybe it will turn out fine, yeah, so I'm sure it will turn out fine
The dream never ends...
# # #
And so Lucius Malfoy returned from Nigeria. The African Ministry of Magic was having some strange problem with a hex on zebras - the muggle newspapers were blaring with news of orange and lime striped zebras running through the majestic savanna. Strange, yes. But the clothing companies were having a field day with orange-striped zebra faux fur as a new fashion. After a while, the magical world decided to leave the muggles to their new fancy, and Lucius had been able to go home.
And for this Lucius was unbelievably glad. Despite being the end of February, it was hotter than an oven in the savanna, and he embraced the cold, sleety weather of England happily from a change of blazing hot sun. He also embraced the fact that he was coming back to a quiet family life with his wife. He was ready for a mug of tea and around a year of sleep to make up for jet lag.
He got one out of two of these wishes. He was enjoying his mug of tea when Narcissa walked in, red faced.
What she said next definitely denied him a year of sleep. "He knows, Lucius."
Narcissa could have been talking about several 'hes', but Lucius was a pretty sharp person, and he promptly gasped in the steaming tea, and elegantly bent over, spewing tea from his nostrils and coughing.
"What?"
"Correction," Narcissa said dryly, after watching her husband drop his teacup on the rug, staining it. "they know."
"You told them?!" roared Lucius, lunging out of his chair. Narcissa stepped neatly aside, looking up dolefully at her enraged, sleep-deprived husband.
"Not exactly," she said mildly. "They figured out most of it on their own. I just filled in the rest of it." Lucius heaved, looking quite like a bull. "Lucius, they would have figured out eventually anyway. What difference does it make if it's now, or five years from now?"
Lucius spluttered, at a loss for words for once.
Narcissa arched an eyebrow.
Lucius gave up on the staring contest and plucked his teacup from the rug, and refilled it was shaking fingers, heaping in the sugar. "What happened?" he asked. Narcissa sat down on the couch and filled her own teacup, blowing on the steam.
"Sit down," she ordered her husband. "This could take a while."
# # #
Harry's eyes popped open in the infirmary. He felt a bit disoriented and hazy, but otherwise okay. The curtains were drawn around his bed so it was hard to tell the time of day, but he wasn't sleepy anymore. In fact, he felt more wide-awake at the moment than he had in his entire life, he thought.
Sitting up, he drew aside the bedcurtains and grabbed for his Quidditch robes, which were the only things he had to wear, and drew the red crimson material over his head, smoothing back his dirty hair with his absent hands. His fingers were numb and he had to patiently wait for a bit before they'd comply with his wishes. White curtains had been drawn around another bed in the infirmary, signifying that Malfoy was resting peacefully in the medical haven. Harry sniffed. He hated the smell of the infirmary - the smell of magic working miracles was too nauseating at the moment and he stepped out of the stuffy room in a trance, not caring if Madam Pomfrey attempted to stop his efforts.
It was during a class, and nobody was out roaming the halls, save the occasional errant student that neglected to take any notice of him. Harry, feeling blissfully disconnected, wandered aimlessly through the empty halls, marveling at the sound of his shoes echoing against the tile floor. Nothing else seemed to matter so much, as long as he could stay in this bleak sense of indifference.
After meandering around for a while, he finally swerved his way up to the Gryffindor dorms and the Fat Lady smiled at him.
"Having a rough week, dear?" asked the portrait fondly.
Harry blinked at the painting thickly. "Screw you," he said evenly.
The Fat Lady made a face at him. "I hate the new password," she muttered, swinging on her hinges. "It makes me feel so insulted every time somebody wants to get in."
"Password changes in a week," Harry told her, stepping in.
"Good. This time, however, don't let that Fred Weasley character pick it out!"
The picture clicked shut behind him, as Harry walked forward into a heated screaming match.
"I hate you!" Hermione reached for a vase of red roses and hurled it at Ron. She missed by quite a lot and the porcelain chips shattered on the wall as water and roses fell down.
The entire room was in shreds. The pictures had been ripped, the frames broken. The scarlet covering on the chairs had been slit in several places, and the creamy white stuffing pulled out and hurled around the room. Various colored splotches dabbled on the walls like thrown paint, and cracks and dents were smattered all around.
Ron aimed his wand at Hermione and shouted angrily. Something greenish whizzed out and Hermione ducked. Green ooze smacked the wall with a wet sound, trailing down the white walls.
"Go to hell!" Ron screamed.
Hermione glowered and threw a book at Ron's head. It hit, and Ron hissed in pain as her rubbed the new tender spot. They both glared at each other.
"How could you do this to me?!" the two irate teenagers chorused.
"You stole my girlfriend!" Ron snarled, lunging. He grabbed Hermione's hair and both of them somersaulted.
"You stole Harry's crush!" Hermione shot back, after they finished tumbling. "What's so wrong with me doing what you're doing?"
Harry blinked. Hermione had stolen Ron's girlfriend? Who was Harry's crush? He watched the two roll on the ground for a bit more. Well, they had be be talking about Cho. He had never told either of them directly that he had a crush on the Oriental girl, but he had been quite obvious about it. So, did that mean that Hermione was homosexual? Well, she had to be at least bisexual, Harry thought.
The situation was almost comical. If Harry hadn't been so detached, he would have probably laughed. There he was, thinking about his best friend's sexual orientation while the two people in question rolled and punched and bit and kicked on the magic-stained floor. It was almost pathetic.
Finally, Ron noticed him. He let go of Hermione's hair and looked up, turning rather ashen. "Um, hey, Harry. How's it going?"
Harry favored both of them with a blank look before ascending the stairs to his dormitory. The screams of his feuding friends echoed loudly, even after Harry put his pillow over his head. He wished he could smother himself.
To his shame, two tears leaked from his eyes, pooling in the lenses of his glasses. A sob ripped from his throat, muffled into the soft mattress. Everything was so misplaced and forgotten and hopeless that nothing seemed to matter, but it all did, and it was probably never going to get better.
# # #
The entire pot of tea had been downed and Lucius had since been reduced to drinking aged tequila straight from the bottle by the time Narcissa had finished. Bottles of brandy, gin and rum also lay empty at his feet. Narcissa drew up the side of her mouth, knowing that she probably shouldn't have let Lucius drink so much, but she hadn't really noticed while she had been talking.
"'M such a moron," Lucius said, slouching down in his chair.
Narcissa, who knew very well that Lucius had no head for alcohol, eyed her husband warily. "Well, there's not much you can do about that anymore..."
"Pansy," he muttered. "'dis is all Pan-" - he hiccuped - "Pansy's fault."
"Lucius," Narcissa said after a moment, "you're drunk."
Lucius rolled his slightly pink-rimmed eyes towards her and buried his face in his hands. "'M sorry," he whimpered quietly. "'M sorry, sorry, sorry..."
Gingerly - in case Lucius became violent - Narcissa scooted across the room and slid into the seat next to her husband, putting her arms around his chest. He leaned back into her body.
Lucius was not a very touchy-feely person to begin with, and this sudden eagerness for human contact somewhat startled Narcissa. It was very cramped on the plush chair, and not to mention the tequila fumes and Lucius's warm body, made feverish by the alcohol. Lucius sniffed, sighed, and settled backwards.
"'M sorry," Lucius offered. "'M sorry that D-Draco had to find out, sorry that he's not your son, sorry that this ever happened, sorry that..." He stopped abruptly, running out of things to be sorry for. "'M sorry," he finished finally.
Narcissa sighed and drew the inebriated one closer to her, gently kissing his temple. "It's all right. I'm sorry also."
Sighing, Lucius's eyes fluttered shut. "Love you."
Narcissa smiled at her husband. Oh, Lucius, you're so sweet like this... even if you are a little... wobbly. "I love you too."
Her words fell upon deaf ears, as Lucius had fallen fast asleep. Unable to move because of the dead weight on her lap, Narcissa blew out a sigh and settled against the back of the chair, watching the setting sun peek out from behind the windowsill, and eventually falling asleep herself.
# # #
Inky blackness fell over the atmosphere when Harry next rose from his bed. He wasn't sleepy at all anymore - on the contrary he was wide-awake, albeit a little drained and hollow feeling. His cheeks felt puffy from tears and he was headachy from stifling his sobs into a mattress until he fell asleep. Massaging his sore head, he walked out of the room and down into the bathrooms, where he slurped greedily at the tap water and splashed the rest of the cold liquid over his face.
Toweling himself dry, he felt strangely better. Replacing his glasses, he peered in the mirror. The glum lighting of the bathroom made him look sickly and pale, and his glasses looked huge for his face. His hair was so greasy it actually shone in the pale candlelight, and he might have taken a shower if his hygiene actually mattered to him. Instead he shuffled out and sat in one of the destroyed chairs - the teachers hadn't been in to fix them yet. After a few minutes of silence he got up and went back up to his room to grab his invisibility cloak.
Tonight would be a good night to look at the stars, and the Astronomy Tower was never locked.
# # #
The moon filtered through the windowed dome of the Tower, glittering off of the reflecting mirror tiles. The moonlight pooled in the mirrors, making it ripple and waver like actual water. A long shadow was cast into the lake of moonlight, a shadow that belonged to a person standing by a panel in the window-dome. Harry threw his invisibility cloak off his shoulders and addressed the figure that was sharing the room with him. "Malfoy, are you stalking me?"
Weird taboo. I'm always where he is.
Malfoy looked ethical in the moonlight, holding a smoking wandtip in one hand. In the panel of thick glass in front of him, a portal about as tall and wide as a door had been chiseled, the edges unfinished and sharp. Nighttime air ghosted through the opening, pushing silver blonde hair backwards and black robes upward. He dropped the wand, and it clattered to the tile, and proceeded to roll into the puddle of moonlight.
"To be or not to be, is that the question, Malfoy?" Harry asked, in a half-jokingly, half-exasperated tone.
Malfoy didn't even spare him a glance over the shoulder. "Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles. And by opposing them? To die; to sleep, no more. And by sleep to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir. Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. To die; to sleep; to sleep: perchance to dream, ay there's the rub... for in that sleep of death, what dreams may come... " He said it softly, so softly that the blowing wind nearly drowned him out.
It took a moment for Harry to regain his articulation. "Shakespeare buff, are we?"
"Fuck off, Potter."
"Yeowch. It has teeth."
Malfoy did not respond to this either, but he reached out his hand and gripped the sharp glass edges of the hole in the dome. Dark liquid soon dribbled down the sides, and Malfoy still kept his vigilant lookout over the land surrounding Hogwarts.
"You're not going to jump," Harry said dully.
"Don't even start on talking me out of this."
"I'm not talking you out of this. I want you to find some other way to bite the dust because I'm jumping." The statement was hollow. A delaying tactic. Not because he wasn't interested in dying - the idea had merit - it was just that jumping seemed like a very uncomfortable way to go, and he felt an obligation to at least attempt to keep Malfoy alive for the moment, so he could say he tried. Or he could say he pushed him off the edge. Whatever suited him at the time.
"Like hell you're using my hole. I got here first."
The argument was unusually subdued. No yelling, no screaming about bad blood or bad hearts. Just sadly quiet, like something insignificant.
There was awkward silence as Malfoy withdrew his hand from the sharp glass, and looked at the red slice in the skin. Harry walked up and stood on the ledge. Malfoy stepped aside, and now they were both in the chill night air.
Awkward silence. "Is there anything you'd like to talk about?" Harry asked stickily, like the words were hard to say.
Harry expected an angry bite, or at least a sarcastic drawl. "Potter," Malfoy said quietly, "you've destroyed me. What else do you want? Apologies? Do you want me to beg for forgiveness for wronging your muggle-born friends? Whatever you want, fine. I won't be around long enough to watch you enjoy it anyhow."
The soft, defeated voice was almost enough to make Harry want to cry. Almost. "What do you mean, 'I've destroyed you'?" he asked gently, feeling estranged.
Dull, dirty gray eyes peered at him lazily. "Potter, I'm half muggle. How the hell can I hate muggle borns if I'm one myself? That's rather - hyprocritic, don't you agree? And I'm not going to twist around and say that I've seen my wrongs because I'm a muggle born myself, and I can't go on the way I have." He looked out at the chill night, and then back at Harry. "So, I'm going out with a bang. If you want me to put a good word in for you to God, then go down there and make sure I fall in an attractive position, would you? Have a nice life."
And he walked off the edge. Harry snatched his wrist and dragged him back inside the dome.
"You actually think," Harry said dryly, "that I'm just going to stand here and watch you fall to your doom?"
"You don't have to watch," Malfoy said, looking slightly annoyed. His face softened again into that indifferent state. Harry shuddered. "Go out the eastern door, and down the stairs. I'll wait until you're gone."
Harry swallowed. It was so easy. He could just turn around and walk away, and Malfoy would wait, the end of his life measured by his enemy's fading footsteps, and... jump...
"No."
Malfoy's face hardened, and he yanked backwards with the arm Harry held. Thrown off guard by the sudden shift of his weight, Harry stumbled forward, but threw himself away from the opened glass dome. Malfoy fell forward with him, his neck whipping in an uncomfortable position as he rolled over and landed squarely on Harry. Snarling, Malfoy hauled himself upwards and threw himself towards the hole in the dome, falling over the edge.
Harry kept a clamp-hold on Malfoy's right leg, but the weight of Malfoy's body mass falling into empty space was too much for Harry to stop. Before he could react, he was dragged savagely over the sharp glass, tearing off several layers of skin, and falling into the frigid night air.
# # #
It had been a fairly easy task, getting into Hogwarts, even at the dead of night. His influence was sufficient, and security was incredibly lax. Not that he planned to check in with Dumbledore anyway - that would lead to a litter of unwanted questions that would waste precious time and energy. The halls were very dim, almost as dim as the memory guiding him through the halls of his old school.
He and his son were exactly alike; after all, he knew what Draco was going to do, given the circumstances. It was the exact same thing that Lucius himself had tried to do when he had been landed with Draco as his son nearly sixteen years before. But somebody had stopped him from jumping - a certain female someone that had come up to gaze at the stars found the distraught teenage boy standing on the outer ledge of the Astronomy Tower, contemplating whether he should jump into the wind or not.
She had talked him down. He didn't know how, bless his soul, but she had talked him down. He didn't even remember what she had said, exactly, but it had gotten him off the ledge and into the dome.
Lucius Malfoy was never a man of many emotions. In fact, there were only two people in the entire room he ever allowed himself true emotion in front of him - two people that had ever seen him at his extreme happiest or in tears. And those were his father, who was long deceased, and the teenage girl that had talked him down from death, who became his wife.
And that was why he was so amused when he watched the exchange between his son and Harry Potter, as his son stood on the brink of death, and another boy, who was just as confused and unhappy, halfheartedly tried to talk him down. Lucius was especially impressed with the Shakespeare quotations on behalf of his son - so he really had been listening all those times he read to Draco in bed.
He was, however, not amused when Draco finally chose death and leapt over the side, dragging Harry Potter with him.
Lucius lunged over to the open portal and whipped out his wand.
"Wingardium Levosia!"
# # #
Falling through empty air was actually quite exhilarating, once you got used to the shock, Harry noted, spreading out his limbs to catch the breeze. His glasses fell off, falling upwards as he fell down. The ground became very blurry now, with his watering eyes and his glasses gone. So he shut his eyes and waited for impact. It was the only sensible thing to do.
And then a feeling of great pain, like he had been nailed in the stomach very roughly with a metal pole. Harry felt for sure he had hit the ground, until he felt himself rising upwards, gasping for a breath that his lungs desperately wanted but couldn't seem to handle.
I'm dead. The thought came dimly as his eyes squeezed tightly shut. I'm dead and I'm going for Judgement... Oh God, oh God, oh God...
And then he was on solid ground. His eyes opened to the blurry scene of the inside of the Astronomy Tower and his brain reeled with the fogged vision of a large blurry figure nearly tackling a smaller blurry figure - which had to be Draco.
"Don't you ever do... ever, ever..."
Harry blinked. The voice was very familiar, though Harry couldn't quite put a finger on it, to his frustration. Rubbing his eyes, he wished desperately for his glasses so he could see straight.
"Father..." The whimper came from the Draco-blur. Panic sliced through Harry in his post-near-death-experience haze - he most assuredly did not want to be half-blind and wandless in front of Lucius Malfoy. Groping carefully across the tiled floor, he shimmied to the wall and started to feel around for the door, keeping his unfocused eyes carefully on the living blurs in front of him.
"Why?" asked Lucius, grabbing his son's shoulders hard enough to bruise in case Draco decided to bolt for the window again.
Draco mumbled something incoherent into his father's robes. It sounded vaguely like 'Hybrid scum... don't want me'.
Lucius groaned and pulled his son back; shaking Draco so hard that his head bobbed back and forth like he was nodding 'yes'. "I don't give a damn if you're mudblood scum, you're my hybrid scum!" he cried, unsure of how to word what he wanted to say. "Do you know what hell you'd put your mother-" He had to stop here... considering that Narcissa wasn't, technically, Draco's mother. After clearing his throat uncomfortably at the silence, he shook Draco again. "Narcissa in if you jumped?!"
This made Draco burst forth again, indignantly. "She's not my mother!" he screamed. "My mother's a magic-phobe!"
Waves of crimson fury broke over the shore that was Lucius. Releasing his son, he pushed Draco so that he reeled and slapped him, hard, across his right cheek, knocking him to the floor. "I also don't give a damn if your mother's a goat!" Lucius bellowed, looming over his son furiously, hand raised in case Draco tried to get up. "She still loves you, for what reason I can't begin to fathom, because she obviously means nothing to you!"
The sight of his father hovering over him with his hand raised was enough to keep Draco on the ground. He curled around himself in a protective ball, in case Lucius resorted to further violence and shook like a jelly mold.
Meanwhile, Harry had been relentlessly edging around the circular tower, feeling behind him for an opening to exit out of, while keeping an eye riveted on Lucius Malfoy, who was screaming himself hoarse at his son. Seeing the violent mood that Lucius seemed to be in, Harry moved even faster across the slick floor, scooting somewhat quietly over the mirror-like tile.
His hands slid across a wand that had rolled around the perimeter of the domed room, and he grabbed at it, shaking as he pressed against the glass wall, gripping the shaft of wood like it was the last concrete thing on earth.
# # #
Narcissa pounded up the stairs towards the Astronomy Tower. Unlike her husband, she had been unable to avoid detection, and an irate Professor McGonagall was skimming behind her heels in a nightrobe.
"Mrs. Malfoy, please!" The Professor said shrilly, gathering the folds of her white robe in a hand. "If you won't tell me what's going on, I'll be forced to take legal action...!"
"Do whatever the hell you want," Narcissa snapped. "Send me to Azkaban, snap my wand, whatever, but you're not stopping me!" She didn't even glance over her shoulder as she rounded on for another set of stairs.
This actually stunned the professor into silence for a moment, before she picked up speed. "Would you at least tell me what's going on? What's so important that you have to come barging into Hogwarts at-" she paused to look at a timepiece on her wrist "-three thirty in the morning?!"
"No," Narcissa replied evenly, stomping up the last flight of stairs and flinging open the doors to the Tower.
It was freezing in the room, mostly because of a large hole that had been cut in the glass on the westerly side of the dome. Draco was laying, curled up on the floor while Lucius bellowed above him, and Harry Potter was pressed up against the wall next to the hole in the dome, shivering, disheveled, and grabbing a wand like he was being attacked by a Blast-Ended Skrewt.
"Ehen?" was the only coherent sound that Professor McGonagall was able to make out as Narcissa swooped across the room to her son - Harry - and left the teacher behind, gawking at the scene.
"Harry?" asked Narcissa gently, kneeling beside the boy, gently placing a hand on his matted black hair. "Harry?"
Harry turned his crossed green eyes in the direction of Narcissa, breathing hard. "It's cold," the boy said quietly.
"I know it is," Narcissa said sympathetically, slowly sliding her fingers over Harry's wand, wincing, as they were as cold as ice. "Harry, let go of the wand. It's going to be all right. I promise."
Harry sniffled as he looked at the woman's blurry outline. Promises were fake. Promises were made to be broken. Promises never came true. But, he sniffed, and his iron-grip on the wand loosened and became lax.
"Promise?" he asked tentatively.
Not much, but a start.
# # #
Summer that year was warm. Harry pulled on a new pair of jeans and a nice-fitting red shirt as he looked out his window at four, Privet Drive. The sun was high in the sky, glistening off of the silver maples and the evergreens that looked out of their environment in the heat of the London summertime.
He bounded down the stairs and peeked into the kitchen, where his Aunt Petunia was carefully making egg-salad sandwiches. Dudley had lost over a hundred pounds during the school year, due to the horrible food they had at Smeltings. But the doctor still had him on a somewhat strict diet, but egg salad seemed to be okay.
"Aunt Petunia, I'm going now," he told her. Petunia drew back her lip over her horselike teeth and nodded stiffly, as if it needed great effort.
"Okay," she said, heaping egg salad onto a slice of rye. Another pause. "Tell-tell Draco and Narcissa I said hello, would you?"
"Of course," Harry consented, walking out the door into the late July sunshine.
A lot had happened in the past three months. But it was okay. After Harry had gotten over the initial shock of having new siblings and another set of family, life had somehow gone on as normal.
At first it had seemed cruel. After all of the trauma, the sun still rose and sank, Snape still gave detention and Fred and George still played pranks on everybody and anything that moved. But Harry soon found that the steady rhythm of Hogwarts life was good for him, keeping his emotions in check and keeping him from thinking too much.
He would not be living with Narcissa. It was too much trouble, being Harry Potter in the Malfoy Mansion. And Draco sure couldn't come and see Petunia, as Petunia wasn't even really ready to see him yet. As of now, she still hadn't told Vernon and Dudley about her other son.
It was going to take a while, getting everybody to accept everything, but it would happen eventually.
"Behind you."
Harry whirled around, to come face to face with Ron. Hermione was standing right next to him, and at a very wide distance behind them, came Draco.
The relationships between everybody were strained, but after spending a day down Knockturn Alley with Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle, Harry managed to talk Ron and Hermione into going out with him and Draco down the street for ice cream. He suspected that the only reason that Hermione and Ron were doing this was because they felt bad about the whole Cho fiasco, though Harry had assured both of them many times that he was just fine with it.
"Hey guys," Harry said, nodding to each of them in turn.
"They had better have double-whip-chocolate-pecan-supreme," Draco announced, not stopping or slowing down for greetings. Harry looked at the boy, amused, as Draco quickly put three houses of distance between them and himself before stopping. "Are you coming?" Draco asked irately.
"Sure," Harry called. "But you're going the wrong way. The ice cream shop is that way." And he pointed in the direction that the threesome just came in. Hermione tittered.
"He's actually rather amusing," Hermione admitted. "Just watching the guy making an ass out of himself talking to parking meters is worth the entire trip."
"They look just like intercoms!" Draco protested, storming back up.
"Let's go," Ron groaned, tugging Harry's arm.
The walk wasn't long. It wasn't quiet either, with the four of them bantering with each other, and Draco commenting loudly about how strange the lines on the road were, and that the blinking lights on the corners of the room confused him.
The fights weren't as severe as they had been in years past, however. Harry bought them all ice cream (there was no double-whip-chocolate-pecan, to Draco's loud protest), and they sat in the sun, slurping their treats before they melted.
"This flavor is interesting," Draco said, prying a lump of cookie dough out of his cone. "Not bad."
"I told you so," Hermione scoffed, licking her own scoop of the same flavor.
"Yeah, well sherbet beats all, so you both lose." A green streamer of melted ice cream drizzled onto Ron's hand and he had to lick it off quickly. Harry shook his head over his own cone of toffee-chip, and didn't answer.
"Well," Draco consented, tearing out the lump of dough with his fingers; "the mudblood has to be right sometimes."
Hermione's eyebrows snapped together angrily as she glared at Draco from beneath her bangs. "Some people never change, you know that?"
Draco shrugged.
Still angry, Hermione glared at her round scoop of white ice cream, thinking. Shrugging, she tore the knob of ice cream off her cone, grabbed the dripping mass in her hand, and threw it hard at the back of Draco's neck.
The impact of the ice cream pushed Draco slightly forward onto his cone. Harry and Ron gaped, waiting for the reaction.
"Little League," Hermione said, crunching into her sugar cone. "Five years before I came to Hogwarts. Best pitcher ever, they said."
Draco shrugged, licking his ice cream nonchalantly. "Well, you can't let good ice cream go to waste, now can you?" Reaching towards the back of his neck, he rubbed, and then came back with two fingers full of ice cream. "Lick it off," he ordered.
Hermione stared at him. Ron spluttered over his sherbet. Harry coughed on his toffee. "Eeew!" Hermione cried, covering her face. "No way!"
Draco's lips curled in a smile as he shook his head, turning back to his ice cream. "Perhaps you'd like it straight from my neck, then?"
"Nasty!" Hermione squealed, covering her face.
Draco chuckled, standing up and stretching. "Very well."
And with that he turned the cone upside down and dropped it down the back of Hermione's shirt.
Hermione screeched with the unexpected coldness and whirled around, grabbing Ron's ice cream.
"Hey!" Ron yelled, grabbing for the cone. "That's mine!"
"Malfoy, I'm going to get you!" Hermione cried, launching herself over the table at the boy. Not to be outdone, Draco grabbed Harry's toffee cone and drove it into Hermione's disheveled mop of hair.
"Give me back my ice cream!" Ron wailed, ripping open a packet of ketchup and flinging it at Malfoy. It slapped his cheek with a wet sound and left a red smear of ketchup on Draco's skin.
"This means war!" Draco yelled, lunging at Ron.
Harry ducked under the table, smothering a giggle.
So life wasn't perfect.
But, it was absolutely okay.
# # #
Kitto ok...
# # #
Quick A/N: Ah... have to go ref a soccer game, so this'll be quick. I know that the chapter is a little rushed, but I had to get it finished. Please review, and 'Kitto OK!' is not mine. Major brownie points to people that know where the song came from! (Hint: It's Japanease. ^_~)
~Moxie ^_^