Draco looked pleased. "As they should."

"Blaise Zabini looks particularly threatening," Ron added.

Everyone looked at Draco, who cocked his eyes towards the ceiling, his expression neutral. "Well, she is my girlfriend."

"Thanks for reminding us," said Harry. "I think I might have otherwise missed the point when she threw herself at me screaming 'You hit my boyfriend! I hate you!´"

"Yes," said Draco noncommittally. Everyone kept staring at him. He continued to look expressionless. Nobody understood how he and Blaise had started dating, how serious they were, or in fact, if he even liked her.

Talking to Draco when he did not want to tell you something, Hermione reflected, was liking trying to converse with a particularly uncommunicative wall.

"All right," said Harry finally, standing up. "I guess we´d better get back."

He nodded over at Draco. "Next time, you win. We have to keep it even."

"Right." Draco touched the tips of his fingers to his temple in a mock salute, and Harry headed for the door.

"Wait a second," said Hermione, and he paused. "Aren´t you forgetting something?" and she lifted up her face to be kissed.

"Oh, right," said Harry, and reached around her to grab his Firebolt from a peg on the wall. "Thanks."

He left, followed by Ron. Hermione stared after them in disbelief. "I-," she began, and then her face crumpled. "Argh!" she exclaimed, and she threw the bloodstained sponge she had been holding at the wall. "Honestly!"

Draco ducked the sponge and came up looking sympathetic, or at least as sympathetic as he ever did, which meant that he wasn´t smirking. "He still doing it?"

"All the time," said Hermione, her face a mask of unhappiness. "He just acts like I don´t exist. I can´t remember the last time he walked me to class, or…" her voice trailed off. "And when I try to talk to him about it he just says I´m imagining things and that heś busy. I know heś busy…what with being Quidditch captain, and Auror classes, and thatś why he turned down being Head Boy, but…"