Кассандра Клэр - Draco Dormiens

"You kissed Draco Malfoy in a WARDROBE?" Lavender demanded, when Hermione was finally finished.

"Well, that wasn't really the point of the story," said Hermione, "but yes."

"But he's so…evil," said Parvati, her mouth open.

"Yet oddly attractive," said Lavender, beginning to giggle. "Come on, Parvati…he is cute…I've never seen anyone else with hair that color. Like Christmas tinsel."

"I guess," said Parvati, looking unconvinced.

"Did he get all sweaty?" asked Lavender. "Did he take off any of his clothes?"

"LAVENDER," howled Hermione. "I'M NOT TELLING YOU THAT."

"Well, how about Harry?" asked Lavender unrepentantly. "How about kissing him?

Was it great?"

Hermione pondered whether kissing Harry could be called 'great'. It had been shattering, heart-breaking, wonderful and awful at the same time. Was that

'great'?

"It was okay," she said.

Lavender rolled her eyes. "That's exciting," she said.

Parvati said, curiously, "So are you going out with Draco now?"

Hermione considered this. "I don't know," she said.

"But you aren't going out with Harry," said Lavender, in an offhand tone.

"He's not speaking to me," said Hermione. "So that would be a no. We're not going out, and," she added, with a pang, "I doubt we ever will be."

"Well," Lavender said, with slight hesitation, "since it didn't work out with you and Harry, I was wondering…if you'd mind…if I asked him out."

Hermione stared at Lavender with her mouth open. "Lavender! Honestly!"

Lavender didn't seem abashed. "I recognize you haven't done a lot of dating, Hermione," she said coolly, "so you might not know how this works. I can't speak for everyone, but I've stayed away from Harry for the past few years because we knew you liked him and we thought he liked you. Now, though…"

"What'd you think, Hermione?" snorted Parvati. "Harry's famous, he's rich, he's good-looking and he's nice, too. Plus he's saved the world, oh, five or six times now. Of course, he's a terrible dancer," she added thoughtfully, "but most people don't know that."

"And our last year is coming up," said Lavender. "We're going to need partners for the Yule Ball, for the Seventh Years' Dance, and Harry'll be Quidditch Captain by then…"

"And whoever goes with Harry'll probably get their picture in Witch Weekly," chimed in Parvati.

Hermione looked at them both as if they had suddenly turned into werewolves.

""Are you telling me," said Hermione, "that from now on it's open season on Harry?"

"Well," said Parvati, "pretty much, yes."

Hermione realized that after six years of hanging out almost exclusively with Harry and Ron, she obviously didn't know the first thing about other girls. She gazed at Lavender in mute horror, and Lavender gazed back, looking sympathetic but firm. "I'm sorry, Hermione," she said. "But you really shouldn't care…should you?"

Hermione slept through that day and most of the next. When she finally got up and went down to lunch on wobbly legs, she found that the world she had known had changed overnight.

There was never any point trying to keep secrets at Hogwarts. Especially when they had to do with Harry. Everyone knew what had happened, where Harry and Hermione and Ron had gone, that Draco Malfoy's father was in jail, that Draco had nearly died, and that he and Hermione were now rumored to be, if not going out, at least seeing each other.

When she walked into the Great Hall, everyone turned and stared at her. She looked, out of habit, immediately for Ron and Harry. She found them, sitting at the Gryffindor table with Fred and George. When they saw her, Ron gave her a nervous smile.

But Harry looked away.

Hermione bit her lip hard. She would not cry. She looked away from them — and saw Draco. He was sitting at the Slytherin table, taking up three seats with his long legs as usual. When he caught sight of her, he smiled.

That decided it. Without even thinking about it, she walked across the hall and sat down next to him.

She heard the hissing buzz of voices that raced around the room like wildfire, but she didn't care. She was just happy to see Draco. His left hand was wrapped in white bandages but other than that he looked as healthy as he ever had.

"Hey," he said, as she sat down next to him, and he folded up the Daily Prophet he had been reading. "Do you know what I've been thinking?"

"No," she said, smiling.

"What to name our first child," he said. "I suppose that depends on whether it's a boy or a girl. If it's a boy, I was thinking Draco Junior. Or we could always name it Harry, just to confuse old Four-Eyes. He'd never know what to make of it."

"Draco…" she spluttered, then saw that he was grinning, and threw a waffle at him.

He ducked it. "Sorry," he said. "But you should hear the way everyone's talking.

They seem to think we've had the Romance of the Century, not just a few kisses in a musty wardrobe."

"Oh…" Hermione put her hands over her face. "How does everyone find out about these things?"

Draco shrugged. "I have no idea. But I will tell you that it got rid of Pansy Parkinson for me, for which I will be eternally grateful. She came up to me this morning in hysterics and demanded to know if it was true. Of course I told her it was, figuring that anything that got her so upset had to be good. So she told me she was never speaking to me again."

He grinned and flipped open the Daily Prophet again. Hermione caught sight of the front page of the paper, and gazed at it in shock. LUCIUS MALFOY ARRESTED; CHARGED. She caught sight of some of the words in the smaller text: "Illegal use of Epicyclical Charms", "kidnap and torture", "testimony by Narcissa Malfoy," "sentencing to follow."

Draco followed her gaze, and put the paper down.

"Sorry," she said, looking up at him. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," he said, and he looked it. "I got a letter from my mother yesterday. She pretty much told me everything that was going to happen. So I'm not surprised.

And," he added, "he's not going to Azakaban."

"Good," said Hermione, although privately she thought Lucius deserved Azkaban more than anyone she'd ever met. Glancing up and down the Slytherin table, she saw people looking quickly away. "Everyone's staring at me," she said under her breath to Draco.

"That's because you're the girl who dumped Harry Potter for Draco Malfoy," he said cheerfully. "Whether you knew it or not."

"Great," she said. "Now I've had two imaginary boyfriends. All the trouble, none of the benefits."

"You want benefits?" said Draco, looking at her with a curious smile.

Hermione went as red as if she had been dipped in boiling water. "Um," she said.

"Come on," he said, and held out a hand to her. "Let's take a walk down to the lake. I want to show you something."

"Um," she said again.

"Not that kind of thing," he grinned.

"Okay," she said, put down her plate, and followed him out of the hall.

Harry and Ron watched her go, Ron with bemusement, Harry with quite a different expression.

"So," he said, "I guess this makes me Just Stood Back Like A Prat And Watched Her Go Off With Malfoy Guy, after all."

"Oh, no," said Ron cheerfully. "I'm proud to say you didn't stand back. You went bravely forward, and made a huge idiot out of yourself, and she still went off with Malfoy."

"Thank you, Ron," said Harry.

"But at least you took action," Ron said.

"That's me. Action Guy."

"Actually," pointed out George, "strictly speaking, it would be Malfoy who's getting the action here."

Harry dropped his fork. "Would you NOT say things like that around me?" he said accusingly to George.

"Sorry," said George, but his mouth was twitching with laughter. He held his plate up over his face to cover his expression. So did Fred.