Draco Malfoy wasn't tired, and even though his head hurt (and not just from the hangover, thank you very much), he decided to emerge from his room before the girls got up the nerve to get Crabbe to knock the door down. Maybe he ought to try to get Goyle to say something? Just thinking about it, he was already down on all fours, creeping catlike towards the main room. He slipped into the washroom, his grey eyes and platinum hair peeking out as he assessed the situation.
The girls were glaring knives at each other - all three of them, and that didn't look likely to abate anytime soon. Well, without outside interference, at any rate. Most likely they were all blaming each other for his unscheduled rendevous - which was quite all right with him, as they were all at fault. Frowning quietly, he amended that - they were all at fault, but the Greengrass sisters hadn't a reason for their scheming, so they were twice as much at fault as Pansy. Twice her weight too.
Crabbe and Goyle were nearer to him, sitting on a sofa. Crabbe was juggling his wand, and Goyle was staring... at nothing in particular. Draco Malfoy was about to change that, if he did nothing else constructive with the day.
Light as a feather, or an owl in the wind, he traipsed behind the couch, folding his ring and little finger down, and then raising his hand. With the lightest of touches, he stroked Goyle's earlobe. Goyle shot out of the chair, gasping soundlessly in astonishment. Draco frowned, having hoped that it would be enough for his ... friend... to say something.
Nevermind that, Draco thought crossly, he would just have to try harder.
Goyle, recovering from fright, looked curiously at the overstuffed couch - as Crabbe was trying to contain his laughter. Goyle walked slowly towards the couch, kneeling on it to look behind it. As Goyle's face bent close enough to see Draco's arse, Draco raised two fingers - poking straight at Goyle's eyes. Goyle toppled backward, and at this point the girls took notice, tuttutting at the notoriously clumsy boy.
Judging that Goyle's reaction boded ill, Crabbe looked warily behind himself, before also rising. Goyle, on the other hand, was standing stiffly - apparently even his dignity could be assaulted successfully. With stiff and powerful movements, Goyle again kneeled on the couch - ready this time for Draco's hands reaching up. Quicker than you'd have believed, Goyle seized his small friend's hands by the wrists and hauled him up until his toes could barely touch the floor. And all this without saying a word.
Draco frowned, thinking that he'd need to devise a more cunning scheme to make Goyle say something, anything. This silence from his normally talkative friend was growing intolerable.
Crabbe looked at Draco, dangling almost like a child, and began to laugh.
"Draco, dear, would you care to have a seat? We still have some tepid tea if you're really quite thirsty?" Daphne asked with suspicious formality and even more suspicious grace.
"Yes, I do believe that would be lovely. If you'll excuse me, Gregory?" Draco said, in tones of forced politeness.
Gregory Goyle, far from releasing Draco Malfoy, hauled him up by the wrists, his feet dangling in the air, as he physically walked his smaller friend to the chair (that Astoria helpfully held out for him.) Goyle then plonked Malfoy into the chair, his hands on his hips and a glare on his square face. The visage said Sit far better than words could. Draco Malfoy couldn't help but admire it.
[a/n: write a review. If this chapter doesn't remind you a little of Sirius Black, you have no soul.]