Ceremonials

You Want a Revelation, Some Kind of Resolution

October 2010

Draco stopped short when they'd reached their destination. Whisky had made this seem like a fun idea an hour ago, but now he had second thoughts.

Especially given the present inebriated company.

"Just come in with us, it'll make it even funnier," said Potter.

"Right?" chimed in Weasley. "Like, look we're all mates now, betcha didn't see that coming, eh, Professor? "

Draco bristled but refrained from hexing him.

"You two go on. I should get back to Granger."

"McGonagall already caught you once tonight, are you really going to traumatize her again?"

Draco glared at Potter. "Enjoy your nonsense."

Weasley looked truly crestfallen at being denied this so-called "bonding moment" between the three of them and allowed Potter to steer him into the office.

Draco dithered as the door closed. He meant to walk away, really he did, but then the twin drunken call of "SIR!" had him rooted to the spot.

"Must you both bow every time?"

The familiar cool tone, one he hadn't heard in more than a decade, spoke and Draco found himself inching closer to the door and almost pressed up against the wood.

"Sir, you'll never guess where McGonagall caught Hermione and Malfoy snogging this year," said Potter.

Traitorous wanker.

"I'm sure you're about to shriek the answer at me."

"Oh come on, have a guess."

"No."

"Outside the kitchens!" crowed Weasley. "How thick can you be? They must've passed a dozen alcoves or something on the way."

"I think they like being caught," said Potter in disgust. "Okay, Sir, settle a bet—"

"No."

"—how many points would you dock from their houses for catching them?"

"As neither of them are students and I am no longer a teacher, that question is irrelevant."

"Yeah all right, but say, hypothetically, they were students—"

"They are not."

"—and you were their teacher still—"

"I am dead and only a portrait."

"—just how many points would we be looking at here? And would a detention be involved?"

Draco almost laughed at the drunken doggedness of Potter and Weasley and the long-suffering sigh it inspired from Snape.

"Though the amount of points deducted is at a teacher's discretion, according to the Hogwarts Official Code of Conduct, public displays of affection are eligible for twenty points taken and, if after curfew, a detention added."

"Yes!" exclaimed Weasley. "Pay up, Harry!"

"Oi that sounds...hey you asked Hermione before we came up here, didn't you?"

"Yep. She had that word for word. How's that for a winning strategy?"

"More like a Slytherin strategy," argued Potter. "Right, Professor?"

"Please leave me out of this."

"Anyway," said Weasley, "guess what I just read in the Prophet, Sir."

"Waving aside the shocking revelation that you can indeed read, I can assure you that I do not care for any salacious printed gossip."