Meet Your Match

4. Apologies And Invitation

“So did you fix it?” Thomas asked, sliding into the desk next to him.

Draco only hesitated for a moment. “No, I wouldn’t say I fixed it.” There was no point pretending he didn’t know what the other man was talking about.

“Well, did you apologise at least?”

Thomas was turned ninety degrees in his chair to face him full-on, one elbow resting on the desk. Draco kept his gaze on the front of the classroom. For some reason, he was hopeless at concealing his thoughts from his friend. More so than any other one he’d ever had. Draco had seriously considered whether his Occlumency only worked so well because he’d always been hiding from other magical people; no matter how hard he tried, Thomas could read him like a book.

“Erm.” Draco cast back over the conversation with Granger. “Actually, no, I don’t think I did.”

Thomas adopted a pained expression which Draco appreciated from the corner of his eye. When Draco failed to elaborate, Thomas dropped his head into the hand he'd braced on the desk. He ran his palm over his close-cropped brown hair as he settled in, seemingly preparing to be thoroughly exasperated. “What did you do, then?” he finally asked.

“I let her yell at me a bit.”

Thomas chortled at that. “Oh, you ‘let her’ did you? Trust me, Hermione may be small, but she could have had you on your arse if she really wanted to. You aren’t about to let her do anything.”

Draco made a noncommittal noise, internally recognising that Thomas had no idea how true that actually was. He cleared his throat.

“I actually yelled at her a bit, too.”

Thomas heaved a sigh. “Why am I not surprised?”

“The whole thing was a mistake.”

“Yeah, she said you said that.”

Draco looked at him sharply. “You spoke to her about it?”

Thomas nodded, looking put upon.

He rolled his eyes. “So why are we having this conversation?”

“Well, I had to make sure you didn’t think whatever you’d done was fixing it. It really was a very simple instruction, I can’t see where you went wrong.”

Draco gave a snort at the idea of him fixing things with Granger ever being simple. “Who says I want to fix it?”

Thomas laughed again. “Oh, please. Spare me the theatrics. It’s never been more clear that the two of you are a—”

Draco raised a warning hand. “If you say the word ‘match,’ I will slap you so hard your eyeballs will switch sockets.”

Thomas just grinned at him. “Now that we’re done pretending you don’t want to fix it, why don’t you tell me how you actually intend to do it.”

Draco squeezed his eyes shut and dropped his head onto the table in front of him. The smooth wood was surprisingly cool against his forehead. “Has it occurred to you that maybe fixing things for Granger means staying as far away from her as possible?”