A/N: This does not fit the pattern of previous chapters, but it's vital to
the plot and what this story means. (Yes, I have a meaning. Don't know how
it got here, but I have one now.) There isn't that much description in the
first part, it's just dialogue, but the second speaker's Julie and there's
only two people there. You'll figure out whom she's talking to rather fast.
Here you go.
Chapter Eleven: A Long Talk and a Night of Quite Odd Dreams
"Why are you so keen on knowing this?"
"It happened before I was born and it seems that I'm somehow snarled up in all of it. So I want to know what you can tell me, please."
"There's not a lot I'm sure you want to know."
There was a tense pause and a belligerent reply:
"Try me."
"He was obsessed with controlling the entire world. There were people under him who all had a special mark-"
"I know about that."
"And his followers were made to view him in a godlike sense. There was plenty of room for advancement, provided you had the ambition and your blood was what he considered 'pure.'"
"I've heard of that, too. I need specifics."
"Well, his symbol was used in every aspect of his propaganda."
"I've seen it."
"He also wanted to kill or enslave all the people with certain racial background. I heard of plans he made for the systematic murder of thousands...millions."
"Was he crazy or drunk on his own power?"
"Both, very; a megalomaniacal psychopath. He employed other such psychopaths to do his bidding, one for propaganda, one for espionage, one for the killing plans-"
"This is sounding very dire from your point of view."
"It should, Julie! He planned to eliminate part of the human race!"
"It's also familiar. D'you know Voldemort's a plagiarist?"
"What?"
"A Muggle did that, Malfoy, ever heard of Adolf Hitler?"
"Hermione?" Malfoy asked quietly, knocking on the Potions room door. Since Severus had switched subjects, Defense Against The Dark Arts was held in 'his' dungeon, whilst Hermione favored a bright airy room on the third floor with a skylight and huge windows. At nighttime there were stars and lots of moonlight, thus suiting it perfectly to evening entertaining. Sure enough, the brown-haired professor was hard at work labeling vials of something blue. She looked up and saw his face drawn and pale with shock. Immediately she put down the vials and moved to the front table of the room.
"What is it, Draco, you look as though you'd just seen a boggart there," she observed, motioning him to sit down and drawing out a chair with her wand. "I thought you and Julie were just talking…"
"We were, but then she made me tell her about You-Know-Who and…is it true that a Muggle once did what he planned to with all Muggles?"
"Genocide, you mean? Yes, it's happened several times in history- -which were you thinking of?"
"Oh, you mean like in the Dark Ages. Julie mentioned one guy, Adolf Hitler,"
"That was the nineteen-forties, actually, Hitler's Nazi Party and the Holocaust. When you hear old Muggles talking about 'the war,' that's who they were fighting. Had you honestly never heard of this?"
"No…nineteen-forty- -that was when You-Know-Who was at school!"
"I imagine he probably admired the Nazis' efficiency. There were over six million Jewish people murdered in concentration camps, not to mention Gypsies, Poles, homosexuals, clergy; pretty much everyone who wasn't a tall blond-haired Aryan."
"So this Hitler looked like me?" Draco asked in a low voice.
"No, actually, he was dark-haired and short. Didn't look Aryan in the slightest. He had this idea about a 'master race' of Germanic people taking over the world, with people like the Poles and Eastern Slavs as 'inferior beings' and servants, whilst people like the Jews had to be murdered."
"Just like the pure-bloods would rule with muggle-borns as servants, and all Muggles had to be killed off?"
"Exactly."
"Why didn't I ever hear about this?"
"I don't know, maybe because Voldemort was stealing Muggle methods and didn't want people like your father to realize he was nothing but a plagiarist?"
"That's what Julie called him, too, when I told her about some of the plans he had to kill all the non-magic people." The blond Slytherin looked more depressed than Hermione had seen him in a long time. "And my father was the man he put in charge of it."
"Draco, you can't beat yourself up about your father's being a Death Eater…your mother more than made up for it spying for Dumbledore and so did you when you found out where Wormtail had taken me. Have I ever thanked you for that?"
Malfoy smiled weakly and answered her:
"Several times, actually, every time I look sad in your presence."
"Good, because I'll thank you again. You aren't allowed to be sad in my presence."
"Are you the same Mudblood Granger I cursed the front teeth of in Potions class?" Malfoy was grinning now, knowing that he had finally succeeded in winning her friendship. -did her daughter have something to do with that?- "I don't want you getting all maternal and stuff just 'cause you married my mentor, now."
"Alright, Draco, we'll stay on the old footing of tolerance. But do me a favor and don't let the Death Eater thing mess you up. You're so damn pathetic-looking when you aren't being caustic and Slytherinish."
"I don't think that's even a word, Professor Gingersnap."
"I said it, didn't I? Now it is. And don't call me Gingersnap, ferret-boy."
"Yep, it's still you, alright." He gave the professor-ex-classmate a grin as he left; off to the Muggle Studies section of the library. When he got there he found Julie with a stack of books. She was perched on one of the wooden chairs, elbows on the table as she randomly flipped pages, studying. With the fingers of her left hand she absently twirled a little of her dark- bushy mixed-house hair, unconsciously imitating one of her mother's more irritating habits from back in school. Except when Julie did it, Malfoy found himself finding the habit endearing and sweet, a sharp contrast to the combination of sarcastic and know-it-all that his mentor's daughter had proved to be from the start of his knowing her. She looked a little like her mother in posture there, but more like her father in facial expression as she read. Malfoy pulled a chair out and joined her at the table. She pulled a book off the stack and slid it straight to him.
"That's got what you're looking for, page twenty-five."
It was with a peculiar smile that Malfoy realized she had seen him come in and been expecting it.
Obediently, he thanked her and turned to page twenty-five. It was a chapter on the Muggle Holocaust, indeed, exactly what he had wanted to learn about. What was up with the girl that she thought of that? She was definitely her parents' daughter, he decided, resisting the temptation to look at her once again.
It didn't work and Malfoy found himself shocked at her Muggle clothes, plainly visible under her Hogwarts robe. Not that Muggle clothes were shocking, he wore them himself fairly often now, but the way that they fit her was ludicrous! Julie had on some bluejeans that looked as though they'd been taken apart and then sewn on tight, until the seams reached her knee and flared violently. And her shirt- -well, it didn't look like any shirt he'd seen before. It was made out of patches of cotton cloth, squares about the size of his hand in three different colors and patterns, sewn symmetrically into a shirt like a man's with a collar, and tied at the bottom like most girls did. The white patches were set almost intentionally over her chest, and even with the robe on it was plain that she was a very well built female even for her age. Julie also had her mother's liking for outrageously unbuttoned collars above lapels, and enough bare neck for two vampires was visible. She didn't dress like that for class, he hoped. Her dad probably took points off of houses for checking his daughter out, and had he been there, Malfoy knew he'd have lost a few. He abruptly looked down at the textbook again, quickly scanning the page and then turning it, aware that Julie might notice he'd read too slowly to not have been distracted. She said nothing, but turned a page quietly. He wondered then what she was reading about.
Julie had a book about Muggle music open in front of her, but she was no more reading it than Malfoy had been reading his for the past two minutes. Damn it, did he have to wear those black satin shirts around her again? And a black leather wizard's cloak, was he trying to give her brain damage from hormones here? Her parents' friend had grown up to just about the height of her 'Uncle Harry,' six-two at the most but still very tall, at least to a girl who was five-seven last month and slowing down. He also couldn't help but remind her of James Marsters now that she'd thought of it, only a little less frightening with those gray-blue eyes. The orphanage cat had eyes that color, she remembered. Only Malfoy's were searching and hopeful instead of crazed and sharp from catching mice and rats. He looked as if his entire life had been one huge lie, forcing him to rewrite his background from something wrong. She knew that the lost look was justified, and sometimes she wanted to comfort him. But he also tended to be as sardonic and hardened as her dad, a Slytherin hallmark and way to hide real feelings. It was only when he was reading or talking of something serious that he let his defenses down and she could see his past in those lovely eyes. 'I am such a stereotypical git,' she thought, quickly going back to the page again. 'He's my mum's age, why do I think his eyes are cute?'
'Because they are,' a nasty little thought prodded. Damn her hormones anyway. If it wouldn't prevent her from growing right, she would ask her mother to counteract all this nonsense with some potion. There had to be a cure for a dirty mind. Maybe she would ask Madam Pomfrey- -no, definitely not her, unless she felt like missing two classes as the nurse checked all fifty-six bones in her regrown hands. Somehow Julie felt Madam Pomfrey was proud of them, especially since she had caught the Snitch twice with the new bones, and letting the nurse-witch admire her handiwork (inadvertent pun, damn hormones!) simply took too long when she had classes. And she couldn't very well go up to her mother and say 'Mummy, that Slytherin you hated in school is giving me furious hot pants, have you got a potion to knock that out?' The mere thought of her mother's reaction to such a remark caused an inadvertent burst of laughter as she was supposed to be studying a boring text. Horror of horrors, Malfoy leaned over:
"Something humorous in yours, then?" It was clear that his own book was hard to stand. Julie tried her best to look Slytherinish and pointed out a paragraph.
"This book says the Moody Blues wrote music 'of a hippie type.' They practically invented the genre of post-Berry intricate psyche-rock!"
Malfoy gave her a blank stare. She explained:
"'Of a hippie type's like saying Hagrid wears clothes of a larger type. It's such a ridiculous understatement as to become totally inaccurate connotively."
"So you've gotten all bent over Muggle songs?"
"Basically," she confessed, slightly red. "Maybe you shouldn't read that one so close to bed. Did you take Muggle Studies back in school here?"
"Nope. What I know about their music's ridiculous."
"How so?"
"It's so little, just 'loud' and 'guitars with picks.' Wizard bands play their guitars with wands y'know, like that one fellow Tremlett in the Weird Sisters."
"I've heard their one album, it's Mum's, I think."
"Most likely she got it from Weasley –Ron, she's a Muggle-born and still likes their classic rock."
"So do I, actually, since I was very small."
"Really? Well, tell me about intricate psyche-rock, because I've got no idea why that pissed you off."
That was what the kids in most of Julie's old orphanages would term to be a fatal mistake, as Starcatcher knew the Moodies and the Beatles like her parents knew potions or Harry knew brooms. Fortunately, however, Malfoy found her description of the classic-rock elements fascinating, especially when she drew a sitar in midair for him. They had to blow the lines away before Madam Pince came and reprimanded them for smoke in her library, but still it proved an interesting topic for both of them. Malfoy also told her about wizard songs, how one of his favorite drummers half-Transfigured himself with an octopus in order to play a custom-built circle kit.
They wound up in the Gryffindor Common Room, headphones on each, at three a.m. listening to each other's favorite bands. Julie had survived Terpsichora Potion almost a week ago, and the effects had finally worn off entirely. Still, it was hard not to imagine Malfoy singing the way she had with Donaghan. He was so handsome and kind right now, she could barely keep from slipping her hand in his.
For his own part, Malfoy was definitely the worse for wear from Justin Hayward, tiredly realizing that Julie was beautiful. The song 'Nights in White Satin' was nearly eight minutes long, but he understood why Julie said it was the Moody Blues' greatest hit here in England and Stateside too. It was the kind of hopeless love song that could make a guy forget whose daughter this girl was. Julie had gotten one every bit as slow by the Weird Sisters, and slowly she began to slump over and fall asleep. Malfoy caught her and let her rest on his chest, moving her feet up onto the end of the couch with his wand as he put his own directly beside them there. When the wizard stereo stopped, he took her headphones off, carefully so as not to disturb her sleep. She looked so innocent asleep, that like the hair- twirling the contrast made him like her more. Unconsciously, Julie snuggled close to him, reminding Malfoy that she should be up in bed. Why, she had classes tomorrow and he had let-
Classes…with her parents, the Granger-Snapes. This was Julie Snape he was holding here, what was he thinking? He picked her up and tried to get her to her room. Suddenly he stopped as the headphone cord got too tight. If he pulled it out he'd wake up the Gryffindors. His arms were busy holding the Seeker now. What a pathetic, if humorous problem, that.
Malfoy managed to get the headphones off in a series of neck movements, using his shoulder for leverage to push them off. That solved, he had to look for Julie's sleeping place. It turned out to be the only fifth-year room with an album cover on the door distinguishing. A non-moving album cover, that is, as several girls had decorated their doors too. He nudged her door open with his foot and moved timidly to her bed- -should he undress her? Not completely, obviously, as the mere idea was making him a little too warm for an autumn night, but she shouldn't sleep in clothes that way, no, much too hot. Malfoy decided her robe was the easiest, undoing the single catch and taking it off swiftly. Robes were loose enough to not offend modesty with their removal, but those jeans looked too tight to be comfortable. So he very nervously unknotted her patchwork shirt, hoping the tail was long enough to do for warmth, unbuttoned her jeans and tried to get them off. Big mistake. The bloody flares were tight enough to cling to whatever was underneath, so he was forced to touch her waist and just ease them off. From there they went faster, and Julie stirred.
Malfoy froze, readying an explanation should she wake. She didn't, just shivered and stretched her hands. She was cold, so he covered her legs with the comforter, noting perversely that it shouldn't hide such fine works of art. Julie wasn't built like a usual Seeker and had long, great legs, ending in feet he knew she didn't get from her father's side. Oh, why couldn't she be fifteen years older, now? If she had been he'd have joined her, but she wasn't, so…
Malfoy tossed her jeans and robe on a chair and then wrote a little note for her, explaining that she'd fallen asleep and he had put her in her bed. He paused a moment before signing it 'D. Malfoy,' as she never used his first name out of age respect. He would have liked to sign it 'Draco,' but it wasn't right; he was supposed to be more of a teacher type. Why was he fancying this Gryffindor? Still, there didn't seem any harm in giving her a goodnight kiss, so this he did.
He didn't know that Julie dreamed about this all night long.
***********************************
The next morning, the Seeker awoke slowly. She was having such a strange dream, completely out-of-character, but so interesting she had to hang onto it. Julie was used to having her hormones freaking out, but this side effect was brand-new if a little bit scandalous. Why had she dreamed about a blond guy undressing her? It was odd in that the only blond Gryffindor boy was a first-year, and the person in her dream had been very tall. Why would she be fantasizing about- -good lord, she had not gone to bed in her room! Julie tried to remember the preceding evening, sorting her thoughts like a mad sock drawer as she tried to figure out how she'd gotten there. Talking in the dungeon with Dad's old friend Malfoy…then the library, with him there, and the Common Room-
She had fallen asleep in the Common Room, and beside Draco Malfoy, no less, what would the other kids say to this? Had Malfoy carried her up to bed? Ridiculous, he probably just half-led her up the steps into her room, he wouldn't just pick her up like a sack of books…or would he?
As she got out of bed she noticed her socks were still on her feet. Julie never slept in socks as a sacred rule, ever since an April Fools' Day prank had glued them to her feet, so she had definitely not gone to bed herself. She was also missing her bluejeans, and with a dim realization of shock she remembered which underwear she had on. Could she have looked more like a narcoleptic closet slut? First her Muggle flares she'd resewn in seventh grade, which were too tight for most wizards to find normal, then those godforsaken panties in dark violet satin; he must have thought she was the biggest nymph in Gryffindor. What had she been thinking when she bought those things?
She remembered. The color had gone with her favorite bra. Heaven spare us, she was wearing that too and it showed through her shirt quite outrageously. Not to mention her shirt was unbuttoned enough to show half of it. Well, she was certain to hear about it from her father- -would Malfoy tell him about the whole incident? Maybe not that he wound up undressing her, after all, the age gap between her father and Malfoy was the same as the gap between he and her mother- -she was doing exactly what her mum did! 'I'm such a git!' she thought angrily. 'Why did he have to be so goddamn nice last night after being such a bugger before? I can't take this nonsense!' It was while she cursed aloud under her breath that she noticed the note on her reading chair.
Julie Starcatcher,
I hope that in the future you learn to look at your watch when you stay up late. Your records are stacked in the Common Room, as are several of mine that I thought you might like to listen to later on. I hope you don't mind, as I borrowed the Moody Blues one with the rainbowy cover and the Beatles one where they're walking across the road. Sometime we'll have to meet up to discuss them and switch them back. It was very nice talking with you last night.
-D. Malfoy
P.S., Your room is really dark at night, do you know that?
She promptly began swearing to herself.
"Arrrgh! He's such a bloody…Slytherin! A perfectly nice, innocent note, and then that evil little postscript to screw things up! What a complete and total-" Julie realized she was giggling as she cursed. "I am such a git to even let this get to me."
He was a Slytherin, true, but he was also a dish, and since when was she so Gryffindor that Slytherins weren't allowed to be thought of? After all, her mother'd wound up with a Slytherin- -no, that was a very bad thought! Terrible! Not good thought! And yet…she was also part Slytherin herself, too. Julie wasn't going to let any blond dishy guy humiliate her with that kind of two-faced note, nevermind how much older than her he was! This was war of the sort that her 'uncles' waged.
So naturally, she wrote owls to them for advice.
Chapter Eleven: A Long Talk and a Night of Quite Odd Dreams
"Why are you so keen on knowing this?"
"It happened before I was born and it seems that I'm somehow snarled up in all of it. So I want to know what you can tell me, please."
"There's not a lot I'm sure you want to know."
There was a tense pause and a belligerent reply:
"Try me."
"He was obsessed with controlling the entire world. There were people under him who all had a special mark-"
"I know about that."
"And his followers were made to view him in a godlike sense. There was plenty of room for advancement, provided you had the ambition and your blood was what he considered 'pure.'"
"I've heard of that, too. I need specifics."
"Well, his symbol was used in every aspect of his propaganda."
"I've seen it."
"He also wanted to kill or enslave all the people with certain racial background. I heard of plans he made for the systematic murder of thousands...millions."
"Was he crazy or drunk on his own power?"
"Both, very; a megalomaniacal psychopath. He employed other such psychopaths to do his bidding, one for propaganda, one for espionage, one for the killing plans-"
"This is sounding very dire from your point of view."
"It should, Julie! He planned to eliminate part of the human race!"
"It's also familiar. D'you know Voldemort's a plagiarist?"
"What?"
"A Muggle did that, Malfoy, ever heard of Adolf Hitler?"
"Hermione?" Malfoy asked quietly, knocking on the Potions room door. Since Severus had switched subjects, Defense Against The Dark Arts was held in 'his' dungeon, whilst Hermione favored a bright airy room on the third floor with a skylight and huge windows. At nighttime there were stars and lots of moonlight, thus suiting it perfectly to evening entertaining. Sure enough, the brown-haired professor was hard at work labeling vials of something blue. She looked up and saw his face drawn and pale with shock. Immediately she put down the vials and moved to the front table of the room.
"What is it, Draco, you look as though you'd just seen a boggart there," she observed, motioning him to sit down and drawing out a chair with her wand. "I thought you and Julie were just talking…"
"We were, but then she made me tell her about You-Know-Who and…is it true that a Muggle once did what he planned to with all Muggles?"
"Genocide, you mean? Yes, it's happened several times in history- -which were you thinking of?"
"Oh, you mean like in the Dark Ages. Julie mentioned one guy, Adolf Hitler,"
"That was the nineteen-forties, actually, Hitler's Nazi Party and the Holocaust. When you hear old Muggles talking about 'the war,' that's who they were fighting. Had you honestly never heard of this?"
"No…nineteen-forty- -that was when You-Know-Who was at school!"
"I imagine he probably admired the Nazis' efficiency. There were over six million Jewish people murdered in concentration camps, not to mention Gypsies, Poles, homosexuals, clergy; pretty much everyone who wasn't a tall blond-haired Aryan."
"So this Hitler looked like me?" Draco asked in a low voice.
"No, actually, he was dark-haired and short. Didn't look Aryan in the slightest. He had this idea about a 'master race' of Germanic people taking over the world, with people like the Poles and Eastern Slavs as 'inferior beings' and servants, whilst people like the Jews had to be murdered."
"Just like the pure-bloods would rule with muggle-borns as servants, and all Muggles had to be killed off?"
"Exactly."
"Why didn't I ever hear about this?"
"I don't know, maybe because Voldemort was stealing Muggle methods and didn't want people like your father to realize he was nothing but a plagiarist?"
"That's what Julie called him, too, when I told her about some of the plans he had to kill all the non-magic people." The blond Slytherin looked more depressed than Hermione had seen him in a long time. "And my father was the man he put in charge of it."
"Draco, you can't beat yourself up about your father's being a Death Eater…your mother more than made up for it spying for Dumbledore and so did you when you found out where Wormtail had taken me. Have I ever thanked you for that?"
Malfoy smiled weakly and answered her:
"Several times, actually, every time I look sad in your presence."
"Good, because I'll thank you again. You aren't allowed to be sad in my presence."
"Are you the same Mudblood Granger I cursed the front teeth of in Potions class?" Malfoy was grinning now, knowing that he had finally succeeded in winning her friendship. -did her daughter have something to do with that?- "I don't want you getting all maternal and stuff just 'cause you married my mentor, now."
"Alright, Draco, we'll stay on the old footing of tolerance. But do me a favor and don't let the Death Eater thing mess you up. You're so damn pathetic-looking when you aren't being caustic and Slytherinish."
"I don't think that's even a word, Professor Gingersnap."
"I said it, didn't I? Now it is. And don't call me Gingersnap, ferret-boy."
"Yep, it's still you, alright." He gave the professor-ex-classmate a grin as he left; off to the Muggle Studies section of the library. When he got there he found Julie with a stack of books. She was perched on one of the wooden chairs, elbows on the table as she randomly flipped pages, studying. With the fingers of her left hand she absently twirled a little of her dark- bushy mixed-house hair, unconsciously imitating one of her mother's more irritating habits from back in school. Except when Julie did it, Malfoy found himself finding the habit endearing and sweet, a sharp contrast to the combination of sarcastic and know-it-all that his mentor's daughter had proved to be from the start of his knowing her. She looked a little like her mother in posture there, but more like her father in facial expression as she read. Malfoy pulled a chair out and joined her at the table. She pulled a book off the stack and slid it straight to him.
"That's got what you're looking for, page twenty-five."
It was with a peculiar smile that Malfoy realized she had seen him come in and been expecting it.
Obediently, he thanked her and turned to page twenty-five. It was a chapter on the Muggle Holocaust, indeed, exactly what he had wanted to learn about. What was up with the girl that she thought of that? She was definitely her parents' daughter, he decided, resisting the temptation to look at her once again.
It didn't work and Malfoy found himself shocked at her Muggle clothes, plainly visible under her Hogwarts robe. Not that Muggle clothes were shocking, he wore them himself fairly often now, but the way that they fit her was ludicrous! Julie had on some bluejeans that looked as though they'd been taken apart and then sewn on tight, until the seams reached her knee and flared violently. And her shirt- -well, it didn't look like any shirt he'd seen before. It was made out of patches of cotton cloth, squares about the size of his hand in three different colors and patterns, sewn symmetrically into a shirt like a man's with a collar, and tied at the bottom like most girls did. The white patches were set almost intentionally over her chest, and even with the robe on it was plain that she was a very well built female even for her age. Julie also had her mother's liking for outrageously unbuttoned collars above lapels, and enough bare neck for two vampires was visible. She didn't dress like that for class, he hoped. Her dad probably took points off of houses for checking his daughter out, and had he been there, Malfoy knew he'd have lost a few. He abruptly looked down at the textbook again, quickly scanning the page and then turning it, aware that Julie might notice he'd read too slowly to not have been distracted. She said nothing, but turned a page quietly. He wondered then what she was reading about.
Julie had a book about Muggle music open in front of her, but she was no more reading it than Malfoy had been reading his for the past two minutes. Damn it, did he have to wear those black satin shirts around her again? And a black leather wizard's cloak, was he trying to give her brain damage from hormones here? Her parents' friend had grown up to just about the height of her 'Uncle Harry,' six-two at the most but still very tall, at least to a girl who was five-seven last month and slowing down. He also couldn't help but remind her of James Marsters now that she'd thought of it, only a little less frightening with those gray-blue eyes. The orphanage cat had eyes that color, she remembered. Only Malfoy's were searching and hopeful instead of crazed and sharp from catching mice and rats. He looked as if his entire life had been one huge lie, forcing him to rewrite his background from something wrong. She knew that the lost look was justified, and sometimes she wanted to comfort him. But he also tended to be as sardonic and hardened as her dad, a Slytherin hallmark and way to hide real feelings. It was only when he was reading or talking of something serious that he let his defenses down and she could see his past in those lovely eyes. 'I am such a stereotypical git,' she thought, quickly going back to the page again. 'He's my mum's age, why do I think his eyes are cute?'
'Because they are,' a nasty little thought prodded. Damn her hormones anyway. If it wouldn't prevent her from growing right, she would ask her mother to counteract all this nonsense with some potion. There had to be a cure for a dirty mind. Maybe she would ask Madam Pomfrey- -no, definitely not her, unless she felt like missing two classes as the nurse checked all fifty-six bones in her regrown hands. Somehow Julie felt Madam Pomfrey was proud of them, especially since she had caught the Snitch twice with the new bones, and letting the nurse-witch admire her handiwork (inadvertent pun, damn hormones!) simply took too long when she had classes. And she couldn't very well go up to her mother and say 'Mummy, that Slytherin you hated in school is giving me furious hot pants, have you got a potion to knock that out?' The mere thought of her mother's reaction to such a remark caused an inadvertent burst of laughter as she was supposed to be studying a boring text. Horror of horrors, Malfoy leaned over:
"Something humorous in yours, then?" It was clear that his own book was hard to stand. Julie tried her best to look Slytherinish and pointed out a paragraph.
"This book says the Moody Blues wrote music 'of a hippie type.' They practically invented the genre of post-Berry intricate psyche-rock!"
Malfoy gave her a blank stare. She explained:
"'Of a hippie type's like saying Hagrid wears clothes of a larger type. It's such a ridiculous understatement as to become totally inaccurate connotively."
"So you've gotten all bent over Muggle songs?"
"Basically," she confessed, slightly red. "Maybe you shouldn't read that one so close to bed. Did you take Muggle Studies back in school here?"
"Nope. What I know about their music's ridiculous."
"How so?"
"It's so little, just 'loud' and 'guitars with picks.' Wizard bands play their guitars with wands y'know, like that one fellow Tremlett in the Weird Sisters."
"I've heard their one album, it's Mum's, I think."
"Most likely she got it from Weasley –Ron, she's a Muggle-born and still likes their classic rock."
"So do I, actually, since I was very small."
"Really? Well, tell me about intricate psyche-rock, because I've got no idea why that pissed you off."
That was what the kids in most of Julie's old orphanages would term to be a fatal mistake, as Starcatcher knew the Moodies and the Beatles like her parents knew potions or Harry knew brooms. Fortunately, however, Malfoy found her description of the classic-rock elements fascinating, especially when she drew a sitar in midair for him. They had to blow the lines away before Madam Pince came and reprimanded them for smoke in her library, but still it proved an interesting topic for both of them. Malfoy also told her about wizard songs, how one of his favorite drummers half-Transfigured himself with an octopus in order to play a custom-built circle kit.
They wound up in the Gryffindor Common Room, headphones on each, at three a.m. listening to each other's favorite bands. Julie had survived Terpsichora Potion almost a week ago, and the effects had finally worn off entirely. Still, it was hard not to imagine Malfoy singing the way she had with Donaghan. He was so handsome and kind right now, she could barely keep from slipping her hand in his.
For his own part, Malfoy was definitely the worse for wear from Justin Hayward, tiredly realizing that Julie was beautiful. The song 'Nights in White Satin' was nearly eight minutes long, but he understood why Julie said it was the Moody Blues' greatest hit here in England and Stateside too. It was the kind of hopeless love song that could make a guy forget whose daughter this girl was. Julie had gotten one every bit as slow by the Weird Sisters, and slowly she began to slump over and fall asleep. Malfoy caught her and let her rest on his chest, moving her feet up onto the end of the couch with his wand as he put his own directly beside them there. When the wizard stereo stopped, he took her headphones off, carefully so as not to disturb her sleep. She looked so innocent asleep, that like the hair- twirling the contrast made him like her more. Unconsciously, Julie snuggled close to him, reminding Malfoy that she should be up in bed. Why, she had classes tomorrow and he had let-
Classes…with her parents, the Granger-Snapes. This was Julie Snape he was holding here, what was he thinking? He picked her up and tried to get her to her room. Suddenly he stopped as the headphone cord got too tight. If he pulled it out he'd wake up the Gryffindors. His arms were busy holding the Seeker now. What a pathetic, if humorous problem, that.
Malfoy managed to get the headphones off in a series of neck movements, using his shoulder for leverage to push them off. That solved, he had to look for Julie's sleeping place. It turned out to be the only fifth-year room with an album cover on the door distinguishing. A non-moving album cover, that is, as several girls had decorated their doors too. He nudged her door open with his foot and moved timidly to her bed- -should he undress her? Not completely, obviously, as the mere idea was making him a little too warm for an autumn night, but she shouldn't sleep in clothes that way, no, much too hot. Malfoy decided her robe was the easiest, undoing the single catch and taking it off swiftly. Robes were loose enough to not offend modesty with their removal, but those jeans looked too tight to be comfortable. So he very nervously unknotted her patchwork shirt, hoping the tail was long enough to do for warmth, unbuttoned her jeans and tried to get them off. Big mistake. The bloody flares were tight enough to cling to whatever was underneath, so he was forced to touch her waist and just ease them off. From there they went faster, and Julie stirred.
Malfoy froze, readying an explanation should she wake. She didn't, just shivered and stretched her hands. She was cold, so he covered her legs with the comforter, noting perversely that it shouldn't hide such fine works of art. Julie wasn't built like a usual Seeker and had long, great legs, ending in feet he knew she didn't get from her father's side. Oh, why couldn't she be fifteen years older, now? If she had been he'd have joined her, but she wasn't, so…
Malfoy tossed her jeans and robe on a chair and then wrote a little note for her, explaining that she'd fallen asleep and he had put her in her bed. He paused a moment before signing it 'D. Malfoy,' as she never used his first name out of age respect. He would have liked to sign it 'Draco,' but it wasn't right; he was supposed to be more of a teacher type. Why was he fancying this Gryffindor? Still, there didn't seem any harm in giving her a goodnight kiss, so this he did.
He didn't know that Julie dreamed about this all night long.
***********************************
The next morning, the Seeker awoke slowly. She was having such a strange dream, completely out-of-character, but so interesting she had to hang onto it. Julie was used to having her hormones freaking out, but this side effect was brand-new if a little bit scandalous. Why had she dreamed about a blond guy undressing her? It was odd in that the only blond Gryffindor boy was a first-year, and the person in her dream had been very tall. Why would she be fantasizing about- -good lord, she had not gone to bed in her room! Julie tried to remember the preceding evening, sorting her thoughts like a mad sock drawer as she tried to figure out how she'd gotten there. Talking in the dungeon with Dad's old friend Malfoy…then the library, with him there, and the Common Room-
She had fallen asleep in the Common Room, and beside Draco Malfoy, no less, what would the other kids say to this? Had Malfoy carried her up to bed? Ridiculous, he probably just half-led her up the steps into her room, he wouldn't just pick her up like a sack of books…or would he?
As she got out of bed she noticed her socks were still on her feet. Julie never slept in socks as a sacred rule, ever since an April Fools' Day prank had glued them to her feet, so she had definitely not gone to bed herself. She was also missing her bluejeans, and with a dim realization of shock she remembered which underwear she had on. Could she have looked more like a narcoleptic closet slut? First her Muggle flares she'd resewn in seventh grade, which were too tight for most wizards to find normal, then those godforsaken panties in dark violet satin; he must have thought she was the biggest nymph in Gryffindor. What had she been thinking when she bought those things?
She remembered. The color had gone with her favorite bra. Heaven spare us, she was wearing that too and it showed through her shirt quite outrageously. Not to mention her shirt was unbuttoned enough to show half of it. Well, she was certain to hear about it from her father- -would Malfoy tell him about the whole incident? Maybe not that he wound up undressing her, after all, the age gap between her father and Malfoy was the same as the gap between he and her mother- -she was doing exactly what her mum did! 'I'm such a git!' she thought angrily. 'Why did he have to be so goddamn nice last night after being such a bugger before? I can't take this nonsense!' It was while she cursed aloud under her breath that she noticed the note on her reading chair.
Julie Starcatcher,
I hope that in the future you learn to look at your watch when you stay up late. Your records are stacked in the Common Room, as are several of mine that I thought you might like to listen to later on. I hope you don't mind, as I borrowed the Moody Blues one with the rainbowy cover and the Beatles one where they're walking across the road. Sometime we'll have to meet up to discuss them and switch them back. It was very nice talking with you last night.
-D. Malfoy
P.S., Your room is really dark at night, do you know that?
She promptly began swearing to herself.
"Arrrgh! He's such a bloody…Slytherin! A perfectly nice, innocent note, and then that evil little postscript to screw things up! What a complete and total-" Julie realized she was giggling as she cursed. "I am such a git to even let this get to me."
He was a Slytherin, true, but he was also a dish, and since when was she so Gryffindor that Slytherins weren't allowed to be thought of? After all, her mother'd wound up with a Slytherin- -no, that was a very bad thought! Terrible! Not good thought! And yet…she was also part Slytherin herself, too. Julie wasn't going to let any blond dishy guy humiliate her with that kind of two-faced note, nevermind how much older than her he was! This was war of the sort that her 'uncles' waged.
So naturally, she wrote owls to them for advice.