Uh-oh. Now Draco looked anything but relieved. Hermione threw a broad smile his way, her eyes positively twinkling, but Harry somehow doubted Draco would read that the way it had been intended.
"I'd love to hear about them." Rhiannon stood up. "How about sitting in the front with me, Hermione? The boys can have the back on the way there."
The girls led the way out of the house, chattering like old friends already.
Draco rose, his legs looking a little bit shaky as he made his way to the door. "Relax," said Harry, laying a hand on his arm for a moment. "You can trust Hermione. She's just having you on, like you did her."
"Wonderful."
"It's not so bad. At least this way, Rhiannon isn't likely to notice that you're afraid of the car."
"I am not afraid," hissed Draco, lifting his chin as he marched straight out of the house and down the steps.
By the time Harry and Draco climbed into the car, Hermione was going on about how Draco had dressed up as a Dementor to frighten Harry, once. She changed some of the relevant details, though. His costume was a simple "demon" now, and she left out the bit about how Harry might have fallen to his death if the trick had worked. She did say, though, with a backwards glance at Draco, "I'm sure he feels quite bad about the whole thing, now."
"Let's talk instead about how you were crying in the bathroom while a troll was loose in the castle," said Draco, crossing his arms.
"Harry, you tell your brother everything?"
"House gossip," corrected Draco.
"Oh, I must hear more about Draco's antics," said Rhiannon, her voice lilting with delight. "The most mischief I've seen him get up to was pretending to be a stage magician."
Hermione turned around in the front seat, grinning. "Really?"
Rhiannon nodded as she signalled and turned a corner.
"And how was his act?"
"Too good, obviously," snapped Draco. "She knew almost at once that play-magic couldn't account for my . . ."
"Tricks?" Hermione sounded just a second or two away from dissolving into laughter.
"Spells," corrected Draco.
"And which spell gave you away, oh Draco the Magnificent?"
"Weather charms--"
"You cast a weather charm and expected her not to realise something was up?"
"It was just a breeze--"
"I was already suspicious before that," added Rhiannon. "On account of the rabbit he made appear inside a hat, while I was wearing it."
At that, Hermione did start laughing out loud. "Didn't you do any research at all, Draco?"
"The books I have available don't cover such esoteric subjects as pretending to do magic," said Draco dryly.
"Good thing," said Rhiannon. "I'm just as glad to know it's real. Now, what else does Draco get up to at this school you all attend? He's a perfect gentleman around me, but I'm sure you must have scads of good stories . . ."
Draco closed his eyes as Hermione began to prattle about how Draco had once tricked Harry into a detention by luring him out to the duel that never was. But then she said he'd more than made up for that by returning Harry's wand to him after it had been stolen.
"And then once, there was this hippogriff named Buckbeak--"
Grimacing, Draco started staring out the window, his expression not easing even when Hermione changed the Buckbeak story to leave out all mention of Draco trying to get the hippogriff executed. She merely said that Draco had been injured.
"Oh, you poor thing!" crooned Rhiannon.
"Yeah, nearly tore my arm off. All because I didn't bow low enough to suit it."
The way Harry remembered it, Draco hadn't bowed at all, but he decided they'd be better off not dredging all that up.
"Well, I'm not at all sure a school should have such dangerous creatures roaming about!"
"Ha. We have to take whole classes devoted to dealing with them," said Draco.
"Well, it's an elective this year, Draco, and I assume you won't be taking it," Harry put in.
"Good, you shouldn't take it, Draco. It's bad enough that you play that broom game that's so dangerous. I'll be worrying about you all year!"
And she doesn't know the half of it, Harry thought, looking out the window. He felt a little guilty about keeping her in the dark about the war with Voldemort and their parts in it. He could tell Draco did as well; he definitely wasn't Occluding when he tried to reassure Rhiannon that he'd be perfectly safe at school.
Luckily, Hermione turned things around by launching into a new tale, but by the time they reached the video store, she seemed to have exhausted her supply of somewhat-edited Draco stories.
"See, not so bad," said Harry under his breath as they got out of the car.
Draco didn't seem to agree; as he awkwardly twisted to exit the back seat, he looked even paler than usual. Maybe that was just from the car ride, though.
"So, what are we in the mood for?" asked Rhiannon as she began to browse up and down the aisles. "Drama, romance, comedy . . . what do you think, Draco?"
He threw her a sardonic look as he caught her hand in his. "My opinion's rather limited, as you might expect."
"Oh . . ." Rhiannon's eyes gleamed. "Right. Um . . . well then . . . horror, maybe? How about this?" She plucked a DVD off a shelf and handed it to Draco.
"Interview with the Vampire," read Draco, one eyebrow raised as he flipped the case over. It didn't take long for him to begin chuckling at what the back said. "Shouldn't this be shelved in comedy? It sounds so utterly ridiculous--"
"I love Rice!"
Draco laughed. "Look, I like rice fine, but this is just rubbish, it is. Mind, I haven't met any vampires personally, but I do know they aren't a thing like this would suggest--"
Harry loudly cleared his throat.
"Oh, right." Draco handed the vampire movie back to Rhiannon, then plucked a few more titles randomly off the shelf. He looked fairly disbelieving as he scanned the cases for information. "People actually want to watch these? They seem awfully . . . dark."
Rhiannon leaned over to see what he had. "Oh, those are, yes. But, it's a bit fun to be scared half to death, now and again, isn't it?"
Draco's fists clenched. "No, it's really not."
When Rhiannon gave him a close look, Draco lightened his tone and affected a laugh. "I don't think I'm in the mood for horror." I get enough of that in real life, Harry could tell he was thinking. "Maybe something more light-hearted, for tonight."
"A date movie." Rhiannon stood on tip-toe and gave Draco a quick peck on the lips. "What a wonderful suggestion."
Feeling like a third wheel by then, Harry moved off to give them some privacy. He wound his way over to Hermione, who had ended up in a section labelled "Classics."
"Anything look good?"
"Hmm, well I was wondering if something to show a little bit of history might be just the thing. The class we had at school left a lot of things out, you know."
Harry did know that, but he didn't much care. Wizard history had been boring enough that he wasn't eager to learn about the Muggle kind. He certainly didn't want to waste the rare chance at a movie on something that might remind him of Binns droning on and on.
"Maybe Casablanca . . ."
Harry glanced at the case, wondering how to put her off the idea. "Um . . . I think we'd better watch something in colour. . ."
"Oh, yes, probably so . . ." Hermione kept musing, picking up one DVD and then another, twisting a strand of hair around one finger as she pondered her choices.
The film they needed, though, stood out to Harry the second he spotted it. "Oh, perfect. We have to rent this one," he said, grabbing The Wizard of Oz. "I told Draco about it once. He and Dad had never even heard of it, can you imagine?"
"And it will give Draco and Rhiannon a context for talking over different perspectives about . . . er, magic tricks."