Кассандра Клэр - Draco Dormiens

Parvati shrugged. "You must actually like him."

Hermione rolled over on her bed and looked up at the ceiling. "I do like him," she said.

"Despite the fact that he's spoiled, selfish, has a bad temper and a mean sense of humor, likes to pick on people who are weaker than him and.." Parvati trailed off at the look on Hermione's face. "Well, he does," she said.

"I know," said Hermione. "Not so much as before, but…he's a good person really, Parvati."

Parvati turned around and looked at Hermione, hard. "Then why aren't you dating him?"

"Because…"

"Because he's not Harry," said Parvati, showing a rare amount of insight.

Hermione turned over on the bed restlessly. "Not any more," she said.

"Oh, go on, Ron," said Harry crossly. "Just do it."

"I will NOT," replied Ron, sounding equally cross. He was hovering in midair on his broomstick over the Quidditch field, facing Harry, who was sitting astride his Firebolt with his arms crossed and looking furious. They'd been engaged in flying practice for about an hour before Harry had made his rather peculiar request of Ron, and both boys were flushed and irritable. Harry's white shirt was sticking to his back with sweat.

"Why not?" Harry snapped. "Just knock me off my broomstick. Come on, have a go!"

"Why not?" echoed Ron in disbelief. "How about because I don't want to spend the rest of term explaining to Dumbledore why I murdered you in cold blood for no apparent reason?"

"Dumbledore said the Magid power would manifest itself if I faced danger," said Harry. "It won't work if I just jump off my broom. I have to be scared. And if you won't help, I'll just go into the Forbidden Forest and feed myself to Aragog."

"Harry," said Ron desperately, "Dumbledore also said that the power manifests itself between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. You're only sixteen. Give it a rest already!"

"Malfoy's only sixteen, too-" "Oh, shut up about Malfoy!" yelled Ron in a rage. "I'm sick of hearing about him!

Just because he's dating Hermione doesn't mean I'm going to help you kill yourself!"

Harry's eyes narrowed to angry green slits. He seized his wand, and before Ron knew what was happening, Harry had pointed the wand at him and shouted "Rapido!"

Ron's broom shot forward uncontrollably, Ron barely hanging onto it, and plowed into Harry, knocking him sideways off his Firebolt. Ron, hardly managing to steady his own broomstick, saw Harry plummeting to the ground. He grabbed for his wand, aimed it at the rapidly falling Harry, and hissed, "Wingardium leviosa!"

Harry, who hadn't made a sound while he was falling, yelped as his flight was arrested ten feet from the ground. He hung there in midair, looking reproachfully at Ron. "Idiot," muttered Ron, and moved his wand so that it was no longer pointing at Harry.

Harry fell the remaining ten feet and landed on the bare ground of the Quidditch field.

Ron sighed, pointed his broomstick downward, and came to a swooshing halt next to Harry, who was lying spread-eagled on the ground, staring up at the sky and looking as if he never intended to get up.

"Zero," said Harry glumly. "Zip. Nada. I have NO Magid powers. At least, not at the moment."

"Harry," said Ron, getting off his broom, "has it occurred to you that wanting to be able to turn Draco Malfoy into a slug and step on him is not a good enough reason for your Magid powers to start working?"

Harry put his hands over his face and said something that sounded like "Urgh."

"There must some other way to get your powers working," said Ron, "Some way that doesn't involve you risking your life."

"I've been reading up on it," said Harry. "Salazar Slytherin's powers kicked in when he had to face a dragon that was threatening his village. But that was a zillion years ago, when there were still lots of dragon roaming around. The dark wizard Grindelwald, his powers kicked in during some kind of battle, which is also no go, and Rowena Ravenclaw's started when she was struck by lightning. Which is hard to arrange."

"Harry…" said Ron slowly. "You need to talk to Hermione, that's what you need to do."

Harry parted his fingers and looked up at Ron with suspicious green eyes. "Why?"

"Because she's your best friend, dolt," said Ron. "Because you miss her and it's making you nuts."

"Whenever I see her," said Harry, taking his hands away from his face, "I want to be sick."

"Now that's romantic," said Ron.

"Whenever I see her with Malfoy, I want to be sick," Harry clarified.

"Well, you'll have to get used to it eventually," said Ron.

"I don't want to get used to it," said Harry, sitting up abruptly. "I want my Magid powers to start working, that's what I want."

"That's magic," said Ron, not without sympathy. "What you've got is heartbreak.

Magic won't fix that."

"I was thinking about this summer, Hermione," said Draco.

It was breakfast time. They were sitting together at the Slytherin table. (It was Hermione's fourth breakfast with the Slytherins. She was even beginning to get used to the sound of Goyle slurping and spitting at every mealtime.) Draco was eating toast with shocking rapidity — Hermione had already found out that he was one of those boys who could eat anything and everything and remain skinny -

and Hermione, who didn't have much appetite, was nibbling on some pumpkin seeds.

"What about it?' she asked.

"Well, I know we were talking about me visiting you at your parents' house. And I do still want to, but my mum wrote and reminded me that my Uncle Vlad was saying he was hoping I'd come see him this summer, he's got a massive castle in Romania, and I thought, if you wanted…"

Surreptitiously, Hermione squinted across the room at the Gryffindor table. She could see Harry, sitting with Ron; Lavender was on one side of him, and Parvati was sitting next to Ron. As Hermione watched, Lavender speared a piece of toast on her fork and offered it to Harry.

Harry ate it.

Lavender giggled.

"Meanwhile," continued Draco, "I've dropped out of Hogwarts and become a hired assassin for the Ministry of Magic."

"Wha-what?" spluttered Hermione, turning to look at him.

He was smiling, but the smile didn't reach his gray eyes. "Hermione, love," he said, pointing. "Are you really going to eat all of those?"

She looked where he indicated, and jumped. Somehow she had managed to shell a pile of at least a hundred pumpkin seeds. The seeds themselves lay in one neat pile, the shells in another. She couldn't remember having shelled even one seed.

"Oh," she said sheepishly. "I'll, um, save them for later, I think."

"Okay, that does it," said Draco, and stood up.

Alarmed, Hermione stood up too. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm a bit easily distracted these days — " "I've noticed that," said Draco. "It's all right. I just remembered something I've been meaning to do. I've been putting it off, but now seems like a good time to get it over with."

"Can I help?" she asked, feeling guilty.

"Definitely not," he said.

He reached out and touched her very lightly on the cheek. Then he dropped his hand.

"I've got Quidditch practice this afternoon," he said. "I'll see you at dinner."

Harry had arranged to be sitting alone in the Gryffindor common room that afternoon. He was therefore astonished when the portrait hole opened and Draco Malfoy stepped through it. He straightened up and surveyed the shocked Harry serenely.

"I can't believe the password is still 'boomslang'," he said, and flopped down in an armchair. He stretched his long legs out towards the fire. "You Gryffindors are a trusting lot."

Harry lowered the book he was holding and looked anxiously around. "You want to be a bit more careful, Malfoy," he said. "If other people knew you had the password…"