CHAPTER TEN

A few seconds, minutes, or hours later, I wrench open my eyes to the sight of another pair of bright green ones. They're looking worriedly at me. Of course.

"Potter." I try to mumble scathingly, but it comes out like a weak, hoarse 'puhhhtuuh'.

"You're such an idiot, Malfoy." Potter says, his tone filled with disgust but his face looks somewhat worried. I turn my head and realise we're in the hospital wing. How did I get here?

"What happened? Was I poisoned?" I croak, trying to sit up. I bet someone wanted to take me out and stop me from repairing the family name because they think we should all be in Azkaban.

"No Malfoy, you drank yourself silly, shouted about how much of a catch you are and I never should have dumped you, vomited all over yourself and Verity Jones and then passed out cold. I had to drag you here just to get you away from the press."

Oh.

"Oh." I say. "Well, granted, I may have gone overboard on the drinks, but I thought the evening went rather well." I successfully snogged a woman, and I'm all over the papers as not doing anything evil for one whole evening. It probably couldn't have gone better.

Potter has the nerve to roll his eyes. "If you say so. Now, I'm going home, you've wasted enough of my time."

I blink a few times, confused and a bit stung. I take a deep breath but my anger flares. "I didn't need your help, Potter. Why are you even here, sat by my bloody bedside like I'm some damsel in distress, if it's such a waste of your time?"

Potter, who had started to turn away, stops still and frowns. "I don't-"

But I'm not done. "You don't know? Well stop blaming me for your crippling hero complex and go fuck up somebody else's evening, if you've got better things to do."

"Right." Harry says, still half turned around, his face in profile. "You're right. I'm the idiot, and I'm going."

He gets up and walks off, leaving behind a horrible silence after my yelling. And now my head hurts, so I swing my legs out of the bed and stand up feebly. No one is around, no one seemed to have heard my shouting, so I might as well use this opportunity to go home and get into a real bed.

Outside, the wind is a lot colder and the darkness is blacker than earlier. It manages to ease my headache a little and clear the rest of the buzz from my brain. The coaches lined up to take us back to the train station are well lit, and I clamber inside one and try to think about anything but how annoying Potter is. Waste of his time. The idiot doesn't even realise how big-headed he is, because he's so wrapped up in being the bloody Golden Boy Chosen One Who Lived that he thinks the authority on fixing problems. Well, I don't have any problems that involve him, so he should keep his giant head out of my business. He probably thinks I'm about to switch back to being a Death Eater any second, so he feels like he has to keep personal tabs on me. Or maybe his life is boring now that the Dark Lord is gone, so he has to find ways to bring excitement back to his day, since he obviously doesn't derive much from Granger and Weasley anymore. Hah, I should have said that to his stupid face in the hospital wing. That would have shown him.

I'm smirking to myself as the carriage pulls up to the station, and I hurriedly cross the platform and go inside the main building, which has an open Floo port, guarded by the two giant Aurors that frisked me and took my wand when I first got here. They give me my wand back, which I snatch disdainfully, and I grab a pinch of powder and toss it into the grate, calling out "Malfoy Manor" as I step into the flames.

Mum and Dad are waiting in the drawing room as I arrive, and look expectantly at me as I step out of the fire. "How did it go?" Mother says, after casting the spell to close the grate.

"I think it went rather well, actually." I say, my confidence in this statement rather diminished now that I've thought about it and remembered the majority of the evening. "There was a huge scene when I donated the gold. I put it right in the Slytherin hourglass."

Mother smiles, so I can't help boasting. "And I danced with a Hufflepuff, so that'll probably be in the papers too."

"Was Potter there?" My father asks, half-casually, half-stiffly. "You look rather… dishevelled."

I glance into the mirror above the fireplace and he's not wrong. My shirt collar is all opened, and my lips look dark and puffy. And my hair.

"Well yes he was, but I was too busy with Verity Jones to bother with him." I have pretty much given up trying to explain to my parents that nothing has actually happened between Potter and me.

Mother's eyes gleam. "Ooh, good choice, darling."

Father gives her a look. "Good choice? Wasn't she a Mudblood?"

"Dear, we're calling it 'Muggle-born' now, and if I remember, her grandparents were Cornfoots, so she's at least half-blood."

My sluggish brain is trying to process this information in a way I understand. "So it's a good thing I snogged her?" I leave out the information about puking on her shoes afterwards.

"Yes, darling," Mother says, looking proud. "It shows we don't care about blood distinction anymore."

"Well, it was a crazy night, so who knows how the Prophet will spin it." I say quickly, and don't even have to fake a yawn to be excused, because I'm so tired I can't help letting one out.

The next morning I make my way to the breakfast table and Mother is there, fully dressed and looking immaculate, but with a pout. She stands up when she sees me.

"Oh, Draco, you were right. The Prophet have just focussed Potter again! The part about our large donation wasn't even in there! We practically rebuilt Hogwarts for them, and all they can write about is you rekindling with Harry!"

Rekindling? "Let me see that," I say, trying not to seem eager when I snatch the paper from Mother, and look at the front-page spread. It is filled with pictures of Potter and me. In one photo, we're dancing, and his head is tipped back with laughter. Then there's one with his arms around me, supporting my weight while I was presumably passed out. The third has us making eye-contact over the crowd, with our heads circled in red and a dotted line showing the reader how we're 'searching one another out'. The very centre one shows me yelling something at him, face scrunched up, and him looking baffled. I don't remember that part at all. The headline is 'POTTER AND MALFOY MAKE MORE SPARKS AT HOGWARTS'.

"Oh, crap." I sigh, skimming the horrid, drippy article. But Mother comes over to me and envelopes me in a hug.

"Don't worry, darling. It's not so bad, really. I don't mind that you lied. If everyone knows you're back with Harry, it shows you must have turned over a new leaf. And last night you came back happier and more animated than I've seen you for a while, so I did suspect…"

"Mother, look, I didn't lie, the Prophet has it all wrong-"

"Shh, sweetheart. It's okay, I know the Prophet exaggerates. Look, I bet you didn't – let's see what it says here," Mother grabs the article and picks a bit to read. "Ah, I bet you didn't 'embrace tightly and lay your head against Harry's strong, broad shoulder for the duration of three love songs'. I know you well enough to know you'd never act like that in public. And his shoulders aren't that broad. Yours are at least as broad as his. Maybe just a little smaller…"

As Mother goes on about shoulders, I sigh and flop myself in my seat in front of breakfast. There's no getting through some people. We get through breakfast a little more normally, but before I can return to my bedroom and lock myself in for the day, as has become my ritual, Father beckons me into his study and I follow him. He sits down behind his desk, which is littered with parchment, and picks up a quill.

"Son, what would you say is your most heroic trait?"

What? Completely baffled, I just stare at Father, as he's hunched over a bit of a paper and prepares to write.

"Well?" He says, looking expectantly up at me above his reading glasses.

"Er, well, I'm, erm… Determined… and I know how to duel I suppose… What exactly is this for?"

"Your Auror application form. It's left a space for a specific example of bravery here, but I can't think of a good enough lie."

"What about the time I…" I wrack my brain. I must have done something heroic before, even by accident. "Well I am brave. Maybe not a hero, but I'm brave."

"Yes but we need proof, we're not applying for an airy-fairy lets-talk-waffle role here, this is serious." Father says, waving his hands around as though to mimic fluttering.

"I did save Potter's life that one time." I say, the beginnings of recollection coming back to me.

"You did?"

"Yes, it was right over there," I point out to the hallway. "He came in with his face all bloated, and I knew it was him, and everyone wanted me to say it was him so they could kill him or something. But I lied and said I wasn't sure. I thought I'd be killed on the spot for lying, but I was lucky I suppose." I feel like the story is awfully lame, compared to real acts of heroism. But it's the best I've got.

"That's perfect!" Father says, and begins hurriedly scratching the parchment.

"What? What are you putting?"

"… Risked own life… withheld information regarding the location and identification of Harry Potter in the face of Death Eaters… saved his life…"

Oh Merlin. He's really putting it. I sit down on the other side of the table and tell him at least to flesh out the story so it sounds more like I stood up to Death Eater interrogation or something. We start getting quite into the whole application process, and when I proof-read the parchment at the end, I'm actually quite proud of myself. Maybe I shouldn't have put that 'organic Unicorn rearing' was my favourite hobby, but honestly, I'm sure it's fine.

We decide that we'll go straight to the Ministry to drop it off personally, to really make an impression. I run upstairs to get dressed and put on a rather fetching set of robes and some great boots that I can really strut around in. After fussing with my hair for a little bit, I consider myself looking spectacular. I head back downstairs, and find Father wearing a suit without his robe and looking at me as though someone just pulled out one of his teeth.

"We are leaving our robes at home, Son. We look more Muggle without them, which is absolutely dreadful, but must be done in this climate."

I look out the window. "The climate? But it's raining."

"No, Draco." Father says snappishly. "The political climate. If we show up in Muggle gear, it'll look like we're re-aligning ourselves with the current paradigm."

What on Earth is he on about? "Um, alright then." I say, and shrug off my robes. My shirt, trousers and waistcoat are very fine, but I still feel somewhat underdressed.

"We don't have to travel the Muggle way, do we?" I say, looking outside to the sheets of rain that are starting to positively thud against the window.

"Absolutely not. We just have to make it look like we've travelled the Muggle way. We'll Floo to a place nearby and use the visitor's entrance."

I nod and tuck the rolled parchment into my waistcoat, but don't feel great about this whole situation.