"So tell me, Malfoy, do you fancy Granger?" Ethan had asked.

The word No stuck in Draco's throat. Draco heard boys sniggering. The girls made no sound and he didn't know which bothered him more. Harry Potter lounged against the back wall, expression no longer unreadable. He's smirking, damn him. Draco tried saying 'No' again, just to check.

Ethan Jugson smiled, lips pressed together. "Take all the time you need. No rush." He dramatically interlocked his fingers and put them behind his head. Draco considered conceding and instantly discarded the idea. Conceding now meant failure, his preceding speech forgotten. Father had taught him In any experience, people remember only the most dramatic moment and the final moment. This was the most dramatic moment - Draco dare not make it the final one as well.

"I don't know. I may be infatuated," he said.

Draco now faced another problem. Going on the offense meant admitting Ethan had struck a nerve. So, he'd keep lobbing easy quaffles at the center ring until the topic changed.

"What makes you ask?" said Draco.

"Oh, Sara saw you talking to her and Potter on the train and said you seemed … distracted."

"We were discussing... " Draco started casually, but Ethan cut him off even before Blaise snorted.

"I didn't ask. Why do you think you may be infatuated? Seems an odd thing to not know." Ethan had the initiative and planned on keeping it. Draco had planned to lose, but that was before Ethan started winning. That's what I get for considering this a solitaire exercise.

"The last few times I've seen her she's had this glow around her. I'm worried I'm falling for her."

I didn't have enough time or information to take Ethan into account. Draco scanned the crowd for fellow children of Death Eaters. Ethan's eyes narrowed at Draco's answer, but he was in a duel, that could be anything. The Jugsons seemed calm. Earlier the Carrow sisters had hidden behind their tangled black hair, like Bellatrix Lestrange sported during her heyday, faces hidden from Draco's view. They'd whispered amongst themselves all during the duel, clearly on Zabini's side. But now they'd brushed their hair back, leering and making smooching noises in Draco's direction.

"Would you date her, Ethan. If she was older?" Draco kept his voice light. Just another simple question, chatting with an old friend. He projected the calm he felt slipping away.

"Of course not. She's a mudblood." One question answered, thought Draco. "That doesn't bother you, Malfoy?"

"Not as much as dating a girl who destroys Dementors," Draco shot back, waiting for the laughter to fade as an excuse to consider his question. He hadn't planned on winning but now saw several options. He didn't have time to compare. Plots were best pursued at leisure, planned carefully, but Draco didn't have time. That's the point of dueling. Draco chose a non-committal gambit.

"Since you disapprove, instruct me. What do you look for in a witch?" Draco smiled - that question was a minefield. Ethan might consider it not worth answering, just to win a duel. And if Ethan answered and pressed the point, well, he was younger. He could (truthfully) plead ignorance with no loss of face. Draco tried to remember who Ethan had dated, but couldn't. Draco suspected he'd never known. He paid attention to everyone but Time is a Malfoy's most valuable commodity. Older students' hadn't been a priority. He hoped the assembled witches would glance at Ethan's girlfriend (or crush); but their looks didn't form a pattern. Ethan hadn't answered yet.

"Conceding?" Draco asked. Elsie Ambrose stood looking down at the floor, hands clasped together tightly. She had a crush on Ethan, possibly; Draco filed that away. Pansy Parkinson stared directly at Draco, watching his eyes slowly scan the crowd.

"Obviously looks are important, and a nice figure. And not bossy."

Harry Potter had watched with growing interest as the duel unfolded before him. He didn't have Draco's experience, his tutelage in manner, tone and bearing. He'd been in many arguments but never formal debates. He'd never even imagined a Slytherin duel until a few minutes ago. But Harry didn't need any particular training to recognize that as a bad answer, at least as Slytherin witches judged. They hooted ample feedback.

Harry thought Draco seemed distracted. No, not distracted. Attentive to many things. A wide-angle lens. Harry couldn't see Ethan's face, wondered where his focus was. Harry's hands sweated. Very lightly. He'd never faced social anxiety, not the stereotypical nerd shyness. When 'In the moment' Harry didn't feel social pressure, possibly didn't recognize it. And threatening situations, social or otherwise, provoked his Dark Side which forcefully shoved fear and self-doubt aside.

But watching Draco play Slytherin Truth-or-Truth with a fifth year left him nervous.

"So, just like your mother?" asked Ethan. Harry started to say something. He hadn't caught all the rules but he'd gathered duels shouldn't dissolve into playing the dozens. "How does it feel, her coming back from the dead?"

"Family is off limits, Jugson." Harry heard the edge, the threat.

"I'm not asking about her. I'm asking how you feel." Ethan pressed the point.

"You are fishing. Too vague. I don't have to answer." Draco hadn't been leaning forward, but leaned further back.

"You didn't complain when I asked how you felt about Granger" came the smooth reply.

"That brooked a single implication," Draco said flatly.

Before, words had drifted out slowly, and there were pauses. Some awkward, some artful, and not all of those had belonged to Draco. Over the last minute, though, lulls and empty spaces had fallen away. The legato fireside chat transformed – accelerando - into a brisk march. Harry wondered if that was traditional, part of the unwritten rules that so often formed a larger part of any game than the rulebook. Perhaps this was some strategy, but Harry couldn't tell whose. Now there were no pauses as words volleyed back and forth. Question and answer, call and response. Draco sounded the same to Harry, no change in timbre or pitch. Ethan sounded excited; he'd found a thread worth pulling. Harry leaned forward, for once part of a crowd.

"You're mad she's back, Malfoy?"

"Yes. You resent your brother's outburst after your father died, Jugson?"

"Yes. Because she abandoned you?"

"No. Because he'd been invited to join, and you hadn't?"

"Yes. Because Lucius should have figured it out and rescued her?"

Draco stuttered slightly. "N...Not really. That's only a minor part. You wish Robert lay dead beside your Father, don't you Ethan?" The last came out quickly, raggedly. The exchange had only taken seconds and now time seemed like it should slow, like it should stop.

"I withdraw the question, Jugson. I concede."

A second later Draco stood up as the chair pushed back from the table. Gregory preceded Lord Malfoy by several steps. To Harry Potter it seemed like they'd moved as a single unit, he couldn't tell if Draco pushed the chair back as he'd stood up, or Gregory had tugged the chair and Draco, responding to the motion, stood up. Gregory had never said a word, never threatened the integrity of the duel or interfered. But ... his hand had been clasped on the back of the chair, grip tightening at each of Ethan's last questions. Goyle and Malfoy were practically out of the common room by the time Ethan heard the words.

Padma Patil turned to Harry Potter. "I'm beginning to think this was a mistake."

Footnote - Lucius's rule (In any experience, people remember the most dramatic moment and the final moment) is a restatement of the "Peak End Rule"

Author's Note - The next update will be Weds.