serpent's wing 20
Not much to say really. Draco's still got mood swings a pregnant woman would envy but that's about it. Sorry about Trelawney, I'll try and make her a little less hackneyed if possible, I just find it difficult to write someone who is so cliched without seeming cliched myself.
AC196 Dec-02
Severus’ morning began much as any other. His Slytherins continued their usual machinations under his watchful eye. Draco, he was pleased to observe, was less withdrawn and had, in fact, been improving steadily for the last week. The rest of the house was restless around him as they manoeuvred to gain advantage in the wake of the recent changes. The combination of challenge and censure seemed to being doing him some good, though whether he truly would redeem himself was something only time could tell.
The first years had all adapted to Hogwarts now, not that he had expected any less. Any child who would still be crying for their mother after three months, would not have been sorted into his house. He felt his lips narrow slightly in annoyance when he caught Lucifer Malfoy attempting to lord it over his year mates. Severus was far from pleased at seeing this as it was almost like history repeating itself and he did not need to speak with another set of Malfoy parents concerning their child’s rash, reckless and unacceptable behaviours. Of course, he noted, Lucifer would never suffer quite the shocking reality check that Draco had just undergone because he would never achieve the heights that his cousin did. By this time in his first year, Draco was already the leader of his age group amongst the Slytherins and Lucifer would be hard pressed to be given the time of day by most of his fellow first years.
His lips twitched as a mocking smirk struggled to form. This year’s crop of Slytherins held too many real young aristocrats for even the Malfoy name to overshadow them, much less the petty scion of a cadet branch. Of course, that did not even begin to describe Maxwell’s response. Far more mature, vastly more intelligent and, more telling, singularly uncaring of social graces, Severus knew the youth had left the Malfoy brat apoplectic with rage by no more than his typical non-response. The young fool seemed to have a knack for irritating Malfoys and Severus had idled away some time contemplating letting him loose on Lucius.
“Severus?”
He frowned and looked away from his students’ table to find Flitwick looking at him curiously. “Yes?” he replied shortly.
The little wizard was too accustomed to Severus after more than a decade of working together and he did not even flinch at Severus’ sharp tone. “I was wondering what you thought about today’s papers.”
“Excuse me?” His temper remained steady, uncertain as was about whether the interruption warranted an increase in irritation for wasting his time or not. He was unamused to see the little gnome roll his eyes at him but was forestalled from retort when the front page of the Daily Prophet was pushed in front of him.
“That!” the charms professor exclaimed, pointing at the black and white photograph of a cloud of smoke and flames rapidly shooting up into the air over Gringotts while the rest of Diagon Alley, or what was visible in the phot, shook violently. Flitwick leaned close and said more quietly, “Do you think You-know-who had something to do with it?”
This time, Severus did glare, affronted by both Flitwick’s foolish melodrama as well as by the unwelcomed invasion of his personal space. “I find that extremely unlikely,” he hissed back in annoyance.
“Oh? And why would that be, Professor Snape?”
Severus was not terribly surprised that Simba had overheard him, his kind did have inconveniently acute senses. However, that did not excuse them from displaying some semblance of common courtesy. Severus glared down his long nose at the brute and sniffed scornfully. “Surely you can tell for yourself, as knowledgeable and perceptive as you would have us think you are.”
Thick black lips were pulled tight as their corners curled up and revealed a flash of sharp canines. “Unlike some, I have no intimate knowledge of how this would-be lord of yours thinks.” Unspoken was the opinion that Severus was all-too knowledgeable for a supposed school teacher.
“So you say,” Severus murmured very lowly and was rearded with a vicious glitter of copper eyes. “But it is obvious,” he declared calmly, aware that all of their fellow teachers were listening, out of a desire to learn what he knew - Flitwick - as well as a desire to watch him belittle Simba - Minerva. Severus flicked the paper in his fingers dismissively. “No one died. If the dark lord had been involved, whether the phenomenon was to invite terror to merely to distract all eyes while he implemented some dark plot, there would have been deaths and many of them.” He paused and considered the billowing smoke and flames again. “Unless he wished to put us off guard or one of his followers was acting in his name but not with specific instructions… possible but not probable.” His former master had issues with control.
More likely was that the goblins were responsible, perhaps implementing new schemes to complicate life for the Ministry. History had proven to them that armed uprisings were futile but that did not mean the sneaky little buggers had to accept the ministry’s incompetent and heavy-handed overseeing. This would hardly be the first time in the past few centuries that the stubborn little monsters had devised some manner of contrivance with no purpose aside from that of making life for witches and wizards more difficult. As Severus believed that most witches and wizards deserved any such harassment that might come their way, he wished more power to the goblins.
He dismissed the issue as unimportant, though he certainly wouldn’t forget it lest that was not the case, and returned to observing his Slytherins.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The last person George expected to encounter as he, Fred and Hero headed to the kitchens to snatch a quick breakfast had been Trelawney. Fred’s eyes were as wide as George thought his would have to be when the loony old bat practically pounced on the three of them. Or rather, pounced on Hero was, as far as Hero could ever do so, looking far from pleased.
“Poor, poor child! Your future is grim. Beware! Beware!”
George choked. It was almost the same speech, word for word, that the divination professor had inflicted upon Harry last week. Ron had gone to great pains to repeat the entire ordeal verbatim in the Gryffindor common room after that particular lesson.
“Death trails in your shadow, nipping at your heels!”
George smirked at Hero from behind Trelawney’s back and snapped his teeth. Hero momentarily transferred his glare to him and George grinned back cheekily.
“Doom looms around you and your path will be beset by trials. Your life itself must be the coin you pay the gatekeeper of the future! Betrayal will befall you and you must stand alone in the face of unspeakable odds!”
Then how could she speak of them? George snorted loudly and Fred rolled his eyes in agreement. This was even more pathetic than when she had latched onto Harry. At least with Harry, there was a bloody dark lord after him that made her phoney predictions at least theoretically possible, if not holding even a fraction of truth. Fixating on Hero as she had, just proved the wench was completely mental.
“Beware the General of no army and watch for the child of thirteen who was not…”
Fred began flapping his robes behind her like a great loony bat. She leaned closer and George winced. Poor Hero, not only was his personal space invaded but he’d undoubtedly just copped a lungful of her noxious incense.
“In the end, you possess nothing and you will shatter!” The Slytherin’s fearless mask driving her to greater heights of drama, she whispered loudly. “Death follows you. Death will come for you. You must heed my warning.”
She paused, apparently awaiting a response but obviously not pleased by the one she received. When Hero began to turn away, dismissively, she snatched at his robes only to have her wrist caught in an unforgiving grip.
“Let me go!” she protested, twisting. Hero released her immediately and continued what he had begun previously, he walked away from her. “You must heed my warning!” she shrieked after him.
Hero stopped and turned slightly so that the icy glare from his shadowed eyes could reach her. “I must do nothing,” he told her coldly.
She flinched and slumped. “But I’ve told you! Why won’t you listen to me? I’ve Seen this! You will die!”
“I have no reason to fear death.”
George’s eyes widened, there was an expression on Hero’s face, an actual expression… a disturbingly fey expression that gave him goose bumps. Fred was gaping too, he saw, as the two of them drew closer together in reaction to an encounter which was now quickly heading away from stupid and rapidly moving towards creepy. Even as Hero’s face became uncharacteristically open, Trelawney’s lost all expression.
“Death will come for you,” she repeated.
“Aa,” Hero agreed, his eyes lighting up and shining with feeling. “He will come for me, for who else can be trusted to walk at Shinigami’s side amidst the battlefield. I am War’s angel, her soldier and her weapon. I have no cause to fear Death.”
Hero and the bat were staring at each other unrelentingly and George and Fred were staring at them with total disbelief. George did not need to look at his twin to know that exactly the same thought was rushing through both of their minds. What the Hell? This kind of fuss could be expected of Trelawney, although George hadn’t ever heard of her hunting her victim of choice down in the halls instead of waiting for them to attend her class before, but not of Hero and it was almost freaking George out. The weird flickers of almost-gold in the Slytherin’s eyes, though just a reflection of the flames in a nearby lantern, changed the situation from pathetically odd to hair-raising.
“Oi, Professor!” Fred interrupted the staring insistently. “Professor!”
Trelawney flinched and looked away from Hero. “Yes?” she whispered after a moment of hesitation in which she refused to look back at the teen she had been haranguing minutes previously.
“Can we go? We’ve got to get breakfast so we can get ready for class.”
“Of course,” she answered quietly.
Looking at her eyes, magnified and distorted as they were by her thick glasses, George realised that he now knew what nervousness looked like in a beetle’s expression. “Thanks,” he blurted bluntly as he and Fred tried to hustle Hero away from the awkward scene. It was a sign of how strangely Hero was behaving that he let them.
“Whew!” Fred exclaimed when they were out of earshot of the professor and the kitchen entrance was in sight. “Now that was bloody bizarre.”
George nodded in total accord. “What, by Merlin’s balls, was that about, Hero?” The twins stared at the smaller student caught between them.
Hero let them drag him a few steps further, until the painting that was the way into the kitchen was right in front of them, before he seemed to snap out of his daze. He shook off their hands and took two steps away from them before roughly running a hand through his messy mop of hair and sighing. His face, when he finally looked back at them, was tired and worried with a large dose of irritation thrown in.
“I do not know. Perhaps she finds entertainment in harassing me.” The nasal voice had more than a hint of aggravation in it.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Fred agreed easily, “She finds a student in every year to do something like that to.”
“But that was a bit above and beyond for a first year that has never even been in her class!” George objected. Something about the whole thing smelled funny.
Fred snorted. “Probably would be wise for you to not do divination when the time comes, Hero. Don’t want her doing that to you every class like she does with Harry.”
“Except she doesn’t do that even to Harry,” George pointed out to his brother. “She spouts some vague nonsense about bad omens and gives him good grades for predicting his own death but she doesn’t waylay him on his way to the kitchens!”
“Hn.”
George frowned at Hero. Did Hero care about anything at all? First Malfoy and now Trelawney, it seemed that he attracted persecution like jokes did pranksters. “And what were you going on about, Hero? You went as mental as she is!” George eyed him suspiciously. “You have no reason to be afraid of dying?”
“It did shut her up.”
George could have hit his brother. How could they expect the fanatically private Hero to level with them about something that had obviously affected him, and not for the good, if they were giving him ready-made excuses? “I thought you didn’t lie, Hero.” He had never done so before… George thought but Hero did have the perfect kind of face for it - one that didn’t give anything away.
Hero looked at him blankly for a moment and then he smirked. “I am not that Duo Maxwell.”
George and his twin didn’t have a clue about what he meant and just started dumbly. Hero’s expression fell back into the familiar non-expression as he reached out to tickle the pear.
“You’d tell us if something was wrong, wouldn’t you, Hero?” George insisted as he followed the smaller teen into the warmth of Hogwarts’ kitchens.
“Aa.”
Geoerge had to be satisfied with that. It was not as if he could tell whether Hero actually was lying.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Draco listened to his classmates listlessly. The holiday lists had been posted after breakfast and, for the first time in his life, he would have to put his name up. If he wanted to, he could probably work himself up into a good tantrum over it but the idea left him cold. Strange that, he’d never realised how pointless some things could be. Staying at school for Christmas was hardly an ordeal, after all.
Greg and Vincent sat to either side of him, their presence often being the only thing that stopped dissent in the house from breaking into physical violence, well, that and the fact that Draco was in trouble for using powerful dark magic and not just the bullying. Where, once, he had been feared because of his father and family, now that he had so publicly fallen from favour, none of his housemates dared challenge him because of his own magic. The irony did not make him laugh. Draco was just very glad that most of them did not realise how very fine a line he now walked.
At the desk in front of him, Blaise turned around, caught his eye and smirked. Draco raised an eyebrow and followed the other youth’s pointed gaze to the Hufflepuffs that shared charms with them.
Finch-Fletcherly was making a fool of himself by panting over Bones. Draco snorted, the imbecile didn’t have a chance, even Draco knew that the girl was involved with Boot in Ravenclaw and he’d spent most of the past couple of months controlled by his wand and obsessed with the mudblood.
Draco paused and repeated that thought. It sounded so wrong and more than a little disgusting when put that way.
“Oi, Draco? You in there?” Blaise leaned back in his chair, twisting so that he could wave a hand in Draco’s face.
Draco batted it away, annoyed. “Of course I am, Zambini. What’s your problem?”
Blaise frowned, his voice lowering. “You’ve been acting odd for a while, Draco.” Next to him, Theodore turned around and started listening while Blaise continued. “You were being very indiscrete for someone attending a school run by muggle-lovers.”
“Now you’ve gone quiet but you’re always spacing out,” Theodore added.
Draco glared, defensively. “There is nothing wrong with me and, even if there was, this is neither the time nor the place!” HE glanced around. The Hufflepuffs were all still watching the Finch-Flecherly disaster unfold and the Slytherin girls were plotting something of their own. Flitwick hadn’t arrived but there was still another five minutes before class started.
“Then when is?” Blaise demanded, “You’re never around now, Draco. Between your detentions and the time you have to spend with Maxwell, when do we get to see you?”
“Why are we doing this now?” Draco hissed.
Blaise glared back obstinately. “It’s not something I wanted to do. Personally, I just wanted to make fun of the would-be Romeo over there but this has come up and it needs to be dealt with!”
“We’re your dorm mates, Draco,” Theodore told him quietly, “This is not something we can ignore.”
“What,” Draco sneered, “Afraid I’m going to snap during the night and hex you all in your sleep?”
“No!” Theodore rolled his eyes. “Greg and Vincent’s snoring would have made you do that a long time ago if it was ever going to happen.” A certain episode in first year with Theodore, some pillows and a couple of near smothering was proof of that.
“What we are afraid of,” Blaise explained intently, “Is being caught in the crossfire when the others start wanting your status or just wanting to put you in what they think is your place more than they fear you doing to them what you did to Maxwell.”
Since no one but a couple of teachers, the mudblood and Draco, himself, knew exactly what that was, the fear was going to dim sooner rather than later. Leaving things to the imagination made a great impression but solid facts made a lasting one. “Class is about to start,” Draco reminded them coolly.
“Draco-” Theodore started but Draco interrupted before he could get going again.
“Not. Now. Later,” he bit out.
“When?” Blaise persisted. “This can’t keep being put off.”
“Later,” Draco growled, tired of repeating himself.
“Lunchtime?”
“No.”
“Draco-”
He scowled. “The mudblood didn’t show for breakfast so I have to make sure he turns up for lunch.” His lip twisted into a disgusted sneer. “The professors are concerned that he isn’t eating enough so I, for my sins, must wipe his nose, tie his shoes and spoon feed him.”
“We’ll get someone else to do it,” Theodore suggested.
Amusement filtered into Draco’s black mood. “Oh?” he inquired snidely, “Who? You? You are the one wanting to talk but, if you must, please feel free. I spend too much time with the filth as it is.”
“What about Vince and Greg?”
Blaise looked at Theodore like he was stupid and Draco didn’t have to do anything other than gesture for his minions to stay quiet, Blaise saying it all for him. “Do you want another broken arm? This is hardly the time to indulge your tendencies towards sadism, Theo.”
“Okay, okay, Merlin.” Theodore gave Blaise a disgusted look. “So who do you suggest?”
“Who else is there?” Blaise asked rhetorically. “Everyone else is either intimidated by him or he’d just ignore them, if not both.”
Flitwick chose that moment to rush into the room, apologising profusely.
Blaise and Theodore turned back to face the front of the room but not before giving him identical looks to tell him that they weren’t finished yet. Draco took that as proof that the two spent entirely too much time together. He hope nothing of the sort happened to him, considering the company he had to keep.
Glancing at Greg who was staring at Flitwick blankly, Draco wondered what it would have been like if one of his two friends and bodyguards could think further than the next meal.
Well, he likely wouldn’t get away with treating them as he did. They’d actually expect that he listen to them and do what the wanted at least some of the time rather than just accepting that he knew best. Draco was self-aware enough to know that he wouldn’t have liked that and, no doubt, it was the reason that, despite his wealth and position within Slytherin, he had never truly made and friends. Or allies either, he realised. When he had ruled, he’d ruled alone, giving others scraps only as it amused him and that was why, now that his standing was threatened, he had no support to turn to.
Vincent and Greg were muscle, pure and simple, which was the reason he could trust them. Blaise and Theodore, on the other hand, were not involving themselves in his potential problems out of the goodness of their hearts. Self-interest was their motivation as they had spoken no less than the truth when they predicted the occurrence of crossfire in the future. Draco had been ignoring it, for the most part, but the higher years were getting restless. Draco had only stepped into the role of house leader at the start of the year, a role mostly supported by his family name, and now he had screwed up and his father had publicly rebuked him in the Slytherin common room. The imagined threat of his father was gone, leaving Draco to stand or fall on his own.
If he fell… if he fell, Draco realised, he had better leave the school. Life was bad now, with the teachers watching his every move, Maxwell constantly underfoot, Potter and his pack on his nerves and the bitter truth that it was all due to his own stupidity. But, to fall under the authority of someone, anyone, that he’d ranked in Slytherin, would be a slow, torturous death. His recent behaviour had consequences past detentions and probations and it was not as though he could admit that it might have been due to outside influences. That would be tantamount to admitting he had no will of his own. He would be better off committing suicide!
Though it seemed all so pointless now, he could not permit himself to relinquish his standing in Slytherin. He would need to act soon, while the speculations over what types of dark magics he was capable of were still at the forefront of people’s minds. That way, he would have them that much more wary of him and that much more hesitant to act in opposition to him. The question was what actions he should take. He had never had to work for position with his housemates before, teachers, yes, thanks to perfect Potter’s influence, but never students. So how was he supposed to start this?
It had never seemed a fraction so complicated before he had started double-guessing himself. Perhaps he should at least hear Blaise and Theodore out, though they probably intended not to give him a choice in the matter. Perhaps he shouldn’t disillusion them about that. Both were intelligent and could provide information that no one else would willingly give him. It wasn’t like he could ask Vincent or Greg for advice.
It was an endlessly painful lesson. Draco couldn’t remember what had been discussed, although his notes would suggest that at least a part of him had listened to the lecture on shield charms. It might have been a previously unsuspected prescience predicting that he’d need them in the near future or, more likely, his hand was just pre-programmed after all these years. Trelawney-style abilities aside, if Draco needed to resort to shield charms, the poxy ones taught in this class weren’t going to be up to snuff.
Draco was the first student out of his seat when the lesson ended, despite his inattention. “Draco!” Theodore demanded, “Wait!”
Draco frowned over his shoulder. “I have to catch the first years,” he snapped crossly. “I’m not going to miss them because you couldn’t keep up!”
“But-”
Draco ignored them and strode out, leaving his dorm mates behind. The first years would be in herbology, he thought, but it was not like he had memorised their schedule as well as his own. He had, however, stolen a quick glance at his cousin’s that morning when he’d noticed the mudblood missing, knowing that he’d have to see that Maxwell attended at least one, if not both, meals in the great hall that day.
He was lucky. By ducking into one corridor and coming out in a classroom two floors down and one wing across, he managed to reach the doors nearest the greenhouses before the first yeas had dispersed.
Even more fortunate, the mudblood was still there with the little group of rebels that Draco had never gotten around to breaking before his disgrace.
“Mudblood!” he yelled out, causing not just Maxwell and his little pack to look up. He ignored the less than friendly looks his language had attracted. If they had a problem with him, they could like it or lump it. Maxwell hadn’t said anything about it yet and if anyone had a problem with it, then it should be him. If the prick didn’t object, aloud and in actual words, Draco wasn’t going to bother censoring himself. Why should he?
Before he could get worked up, Maxwell approached him, his little pack following mindlessly behind him like sheep. The self-awareness that he was cultivating warning him, Draco, in a course of action that was becoming a reflex, took a deep, and hopefully calming, breath before he was forced to interact with the aggravating mudblood.
Maxwell just stood in front of him rudely, not saying a damned word and Draco sneered. Why did he get lumbered with the mute maniac? “Mudblood,” he sneered, “I see you have your little followers with you, good.”
Maxwell still said nothing, instead staring at Draco as blankly as Vincent or Greg would have. Lithaniel and Winton were different matters, both first years pushing themselves forward to stand even with Maxwell. Lithaniel’s face was cool with no sign of any antipathy towards Draco, even though it had to be there, as previous encounters had proven. Winton, on the other hand, was staring up at him with open defiance, undoubtedly ready to leap to the mudblood’s defence should Draco even think to look at him strangely. She should have been in Gryffindor, really, how she was going survive seven years in Slytherin with her attitude was a catastroph in the making.
“Can we help you, Malfoy?” Lithaniel’s voice was perfectly polite, overly so in fact and Draco had to restrain his approval. He might not like the little larva but the brat might actually evolve into a decent Slytherin one day. He was well-born, well-mannered and, more importantly, quietly cunning in a way that kept him from being noticed, one of the reasons Draco had not really had much to do with him.
Draco’s own expression smoothed out into one of arrogant neutrality. “As a matter of fact, you can,” he told them. Winton opened her mouth, no doubt to say something impolitic, but a well placed elbow by the first year behind her, Chang, kept her quiet. Draco was grateful for that for, although he’d enjoy putting the little bint in her place, he did need to keep this short.
“Maxwell,” he said, gesturing sharply at the silently watchful mudblood. “Was not at breakfast this morning.”
“And you are telling us this, because?” Lithaniel enquired coolly.
Draco’s eyes narrowed and he gave a small, sharp smile. The mudblood,” he watched the ripple of anger run through the group with amusement, “Has a habit of skipping meals. Our esteemed head of house has made it my business to ensure that he attends meals in the hall at least twice a day.”
“I ate breakfast.”
“Meals in the hall,” Draco repeated pointedly to Maxwell. He looked at Winton and asked ingeniously, “Surely you would not mind ensuring he makes it for lunch?” To refuse would, of course, make her vulnerable to accusation of being uncaring and indifferent or a poor friend, criminal acts to the Gryffindor-minded sheep like her, so he doubted she would refuse even just to spite him.
“Didn’t you just say it was your job to make him go?” Lithaniel pointed out.
“I did,” Draco agreed easily, enjoying Maxwell’s evident displeasure about being discussed like this. “Or rather, it is my task to ensure he goes. Nothing was ever said about me being there with him and, as his friends, I thought you might have been interested in making sure he takes care of himself. He does look rather tired and underfed, don’t you think?” Maxwell levelled a glare on him that, though it made him tense up with both anger and apprehension, Draco otherwise ignored.
Lithaniel and Winton looked at each other and then turned in tandem to stare at Maxwell carefully. He transferred the glare to them, though it was several orders of magnitude less intense.
“He’s right,” Winton sighed in disgust, “You look like crap, Duo.”
“Hn.”
She rounded on Draco then, “Don’t think you’ve played us, Malfoy! We’re not doing this because you’ve manipulated us or anything of the sort. We’ll go because Duo’s our friend.”
“Of course, Winton, I wouldn’t dare think otherwise,” Draco assured her drolly.
She seethed hotly for a moment before Lithaniel grabbed her arm and pulled her away. “Come on, Beth, don’t let him goad you.”
“Stuck up prick,” Draco heard her hiss, “I bet he’s the reason Duo doesn’t have an appetite.”
Part of the reason, at least, Draco agreed as he watched the little herd of first years push past him. Maxwell gave him a last, unimpressed stare before allowing two of the others to urge him forwards. Draco allowed the rude leave taking because he didn’t have the patience to remind them of the respect he was due but he did make a mental note to deal with it later. It was one more sign of his status eroding and he could not afford to allow it to continue, however, the more important task at hand was not playing with first years. He needed to find Blaise and Theodore and have an unwanted but necessary discussion.
He didn’t have to go far before he found both Blaise and Theodore ambling towards him. “You took your sweet time,” he noted critically.
Theodore shrugged carelessly. “First had to explain to Vince and Greg that we needed them to save us some food.”
“And you took off like a scalded cat, kinda hard to keep up with that kind of velocity,” Blaise retorted.
Draco snorted as he passed them and they fell in behind him. “Didn’t stop you from following me.”
Theodore shrugged again. “Well, we wanted to have another go at convincing you to listen to us instead of just fobbing us off and now we find you’ve fobbed Maxwell off instead.”
Draco smirked briefly. Yes, first years, even impertinent ones, did have their uses. He read lead his two hounds down a rarely used corridor, striding confidently despite the gradually increasing gloom. “You were both so insistent,” he drawled and pushed open a thick door. “That I decided to make arrangements.” He cast a lumos, not allowing a hint of his hesitation at touching his wand show, and gestured into the long abandoned room of some forgotten student club. “Please take a seat, I believe you wished to discuss some things with me.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Draco stared at the wall behind Blaise and Theodore silently, a chaotic mixture of fury and shame so strong within him that he was rendered silent. Blaise and Theodore had been honest with him, he would give them that, they had told the truth as they saw it and Draco now had to deal with the taste of bile in his mouth and a hollow feeling that was becoming too familiar for him.
He had never expected his housemates to love him and he would have had no use for it anyway. Their fear and respect, on the other hand, he considered no more than his due as a Malfoy and as a wizard of not inconsiderable potential. To learn that the younger years simply feared him was not a harsh blow, they did not yet know enough to give respect and until they learned, fear was an acceptable substitute. To know that the higher years were wary of him as one would be of a werewolf and, behind lip service to his family name, scorned him as a fool, was not what he had expected. Those miserable, two-faced cretins! How dare they consider themselves his betters? How dare they look down on him? He who had never crawled for anyone and they who had grovelled at his feet when they supposedly scorned him! It was not about honour, they were Slytherins, not Gryffindors, it was about pride. Draco’s pride in himself that was not due to his name and the utter lack of it displayed by the worms that populated the rest of his house.
His wand was in his hand, gripped tightly by bloodless fingers. He could feel the power gathering and being channelled into the weapon he held. It was dark and it was rich.
“Draco!”
Draco slowly followed Blaise and Theodore’s wary gazes to where a globe of ugly black was growing at the tip of his wand, near the snake’s head. He raised the wand so that the tip was in front of his eyes and stared at the dark magic coldly. And those fools thought they had nothing to fear from him without his father behind him.
“It’s true then” Blaise murmured, “He’s blooded his power.”
“A bloody idiotic thing to do while he is still in school,” Theodore hissed back. ‘Hogwarts is run by a light adept and he doesn’t look too kindly on dark wizards, even adolescent ones.”
“We are Slytherins,” Draco interrupted them icily. “It is only to be expected.”
“Not for all of us,” Theodore argued stubbornly. “And no while we’re at Hogwarts.”
Draco sneered. “That’s what Snape’s for.”
“That hardly helped you, Draco!” Blaise reminded him snidely.
“I was not exactly discrete,” Draco returned. Tripping the wards of the school to bring the entire faculty down on his head while in the middle of attempting to torture a housemate was not on the level of a bit of judicious experimentation. His actions were not something he should be proud of. He let the magic disperse and deliberately set his wand down. He looked back at his dorm mates. “My behaviour of late has not been… wise,” he admitted.
Blaise snorted. “Draco, you’ve been running around like a Hungarian Horntail. You’ve stirred the whole house up and for no real reason. You’ve gained nothing by any of it. I would not call that unwise, just dumb.”
Theodore refused to meet his eyes and Draco bit back his reflexive anger. “Maybe,” he said, conceding little. “But, if anyone thinks that means I’ll let them walk over me, they have another think coming.”
“Obviously,” Theodore agreed quickly, plainly referring to the ease with which Draco now could turn his magic to darker purposes. “But there’s a difference between being a Hungarian Horntail that strikes out blindly and indiscriminately and being a kneazle that battles its enemies or stalks its prey with precision and intelligence.”
“Dragons are feared, Draco,” Blaise continued the analogy. “But they’re also made into boots or locked up in glorified zoos. Kneazles go where they want when they want. Which would you prefer to be?”
“Kneazles are just cats, Blaise,” Draco pointed out snidely, but he did see the point the two were trying to make.
“And cats are sneaky and vicious,” Blaise rebutted.
Draco was tempted to point out that, in effect, the Gryffindors were represented by what was, in the end, no more than a big cat and ho did that fit into their increasingly absurd analogy. Then he remembered that the Gryffindors could be surprisingly sneaky, he only had to look at the Weasel’s twin brothers, and they were all bloody violent when roused. He realised his argument had no point other than to provoke Blaise and Theodore.
“Very well,” he said instead, “There’s a war coming, the rest of the house versus me. What do you expect from me? To capitulate? Hardly, bosom buddies like the sickening trio we might not be, but you surely know me better than that.”
They looked at each other and then at Draco. “We would hardly be so foolish,” Blaise agreed easily.
Theodore snorted. “You have never backed down from a confrontation, Draco. No matter how cowardly you might be at times.” Draco stiffened in outrage and then remembered that a healthy sense of self-preservation was nothing to scorn. “You are like the proverbial bulldog that’s bitten into something juicy when someone slights you. You don’t forget it and you do get even. Why else have you persisted in your feud with Potter all of these years?”
Draco sneered, “Because he’s a bloody prat and I resent the way he’s allowed to get away with murder!”
“True to that,” Blaise agreed, a touch of his own disaffection with the favouritism given to the Gryffindors showing. “But that’s neither here nor there. You are on a precipice now, Draco. One wrong move and you’ll fall and right now you don’t have anyone to catch you.”
“Are you offering to fill that position, Blaise?” Draco sneered, offended and sick with the truth.
Blaise sneered back. “Of course not, Draco. Why should I help you at all? I find your opinions childish, narrow-minded and short-sighted while you, yourself, are overbearing and foolhardy. Many times I have wondered why you weren’t sorted into Gryffindor.”
“Then why are you here?” Draco spat back, wondering how it had come to this. He and Blaise may not have exactly been friends but they had never before been enemies.
Theodore touched Blaise on the shoulder and looked at Draco seriously. “Because they won’t stop just with you. Once you have been dealt with, they will then turn on us.”
Blaise snarled, “Just because we’re in the same year.”
For a moment, Draco didn’t believe them but it did make a horrible kind of sense. To stop anyone getting so above themselves again, the higher years, boys and girls, would make an example out of everyone associated with Draco. Luckily or unluckily, depending on how one looked at it, that could only include those of his year, even if labelling anyone other than Vince and Greg as his supporters was now obviously a gross exaggeration.
“Crossfire indeed,” Draco murmured, sobered.
“If you don’t at least come out even, Malfoy, we’re all stuffed.” Blaise gave a bitter snort. “So, yeah, we have a bit of interest in see you get your head out of your arse. I mean you’ve proven you have the magic to lord it over us, the dark magic you used stank you the common room for days, but you’ve yet to demonstrate that you have the brains.”
“Blaise,” Theodore said, pushing at the other wizard.
Blaise laughed angrily. “Why are we bothering, Theo? Nothing’s getting through his ego, let alone his thick skull.”
“Oh, I’m listening, Zambini,” Draco retorted harshly, “You think I don’t realise what a mess I’ve gotten myself into? Do you think that I don’t know how badly I’ve screwed up? But do you want to know something else? It doesn’t matter!” Draco laughed bitterly at their startled faces. “These school-yard power plays? They are pointless. Being the king of the hill? Who the hell cares? It’s all pointless!”
His head was whipped to the side by the stinging blow. Theodore looked at him solemnly as he lowered his hand. “You’d better start caring, Draco. Or I think you’ll find these pointless school-yard power plays are a little more than you can handle.”
Draco touched his cheek, shocked by the strike. It was nothing compared to what he’d suffered at Maxwell’s hands but that Theodore would dare… “I notice you haven’t mentioned your other option,” he pointed out distantly.
“Which option is that?” Theodore replied, non-committed.
Draco met his brown eyes steadily. “The one where you both use this as an opportunity to overpower me and then offer me up as a sacrifice to placate the sixth and seventh years.”
We considered it,” Blaise admitted, a hint of regret in his voice.
Theodore nodded. “But we dislike them even more than we currently dislike you. You are loud, Draco, and arrogant, but you aren’t really vicious except to a select few, most of whom are Gryffindors. Having you as the ranking Slytherin is annoying but bearable. If we humour you, you just leave us alone. There are those in the higher years that would not be so easy to please. They have waited for years for the seniority to let them do what they wanted and they fully expected to have ranked everyone when they started the year. Then you messed that up for them by coming back as a prefect with a father who is very likely the right-hand man of the dark lord. They didn’t dare call your bluff, not when your father has a history of stepping in to ease your way. That threw everything into disarray because simple seniority was no longer enough to gauge rank.”
Draco had some good guesses as to who Theodore had hinted at. Slytherin did tend to attract more than its fair share of distasteful personalities, or maybe just being sorted into the ‘dark house’ moulded normal individuals into that. The increased rumours of the dark lord ever since Potter had returned to the wizarding world had also marked an increase in that kind of questionable person within Slytherin house. Draco remembered how he had felt when he’d had the mudblood at his mercy and wondered if he wasn’t one of those individuals.
“No matter what your motivation, it’s all very well to say, ‘don’t lose, Draco’, but I do not see you explaining how I go about that.”
Theodore answered quietly, “You might think this is a revolutionary idea, Draco, but you could ask for help.”
“Or will it hurt the Malfoy pride to ask” Blaise sniped.
It might hurt the Malfoy pride, Draco realised, but it didn’t hurt his. “Will you help me?”
Theodore smiled genuinely and even Blaise relaxed. “You only had to ask.”
AC196 Dec-02
Severus’ morning began much as any other. His Slytherins continued their usual machinations under his watchful eye. Draco, he was pleased to observe, was less withdrawn and had, in fact, been improving steadily for the last week. The rest of the house was restless around him as they manoeuvred to gain advantage in the wake of the recent changes. The combination of challenge and censure seemed to being doing him some good, though whether he truly would redeem himself was something only time could tell.
The first years had all adapted to Hogwarts now, not that he had expected any less. Any child who would still be crying for their mother after three months, would not have been sorted into his house. He felt his lips narrow slightly in annoyance when he caught Lucifer Malfoy attempting to lord it over his year mates. Severus was far from pleased at seeing this as it was almost like history repeating itself and he did not need to speak with another set of Malfoy parents concerning their child’s rash, reckless and unacceptable behaviours. Of course, he noted, Lucifer would never suffer quite the shocking reality check that Draco had just undergone because he would never achieve the heights that his cousin did. By this time in his first year, Draco was already the leader of his age group amongst the Slytherins and Lucifer would be hard pressed to be given the time of day by most of his fellow first years.
His lips twitched as a mocking smirk struggled to form. This year’s crop of Slytherins held too many real young aristocrats for even the Malfoy name to overshadow them, much less the petty scion of a cadet branch. Of course, that did not even begin to describe Maxwell’s response. Far more mature, vastly more intelligent and, more telling, singularly uncaring of social graces, Severus knew the youth had left the Malfoy brat apoplectic with rage by no more than his typical non-response. The young fool seemed to have a knack for irritating Malfoys and Severus had idled away some time contemplating letting him loose on Lucius.
“Severus?”
He frowned and looked away from his students’ table to find Flitwick looking at him curiously. “Yes?” he replied shortly.
The little wizard was too accustomed to Severus after more than a decade of working together and he did not even flinch at Severus’ sharp tone. “I was wondering what you thought about today’s papers.”
“Excuse me?” His temper remained steady, uncertain as was about whether the interruption warranted an increase in irritation for wasting his time or not. He was unamused to see the little gnome roll his eyes at him but was forestalled from retort when the front page of the Daily Prophet was pushed in front of him.
“That!” the charms professor exclaimed, pointing at the black and white photograph of a cloud of smoke and flames rapidly shooting up into the air over Gringotts while the rest of Diagon Alley, or what was visible in the phot, shook violently. Flitwick leaned close and said more quietly, “Do you think You-know-who had something to do with it?”
This time, Severus did glare, affronted by both Flitwick’s foolish melodrama as well as by the unwelcomed invasion of his personal space. “I find that extremely unlikely,” he hissed back in annoyance.
“Oh? And why would that be, Professor Snape?”
Severus was not terribly surprised that Simba had overheard him, his kind did have inconveniently acute senses. However, that did not excuse them from displaying some semblance of common courtesy. Severus glared down his long nose at the brute and sniffed scornfully. “Surely you can tell for yourself, as knowledgeable and perceptive as you would have us think you are.”
Thick black lips were pulled tight as their corners curled up and revealed a flash of sharp canines. “Unlike some, I have no intimate knowledge of how this would-be lord of yours thinks.” Unspoken was the opinion that Severus was all-too knowledgeable for a supposed school teacher.
“So you say,” Severus murmured very lowly and was rearded with a vicious glitter of copper eyes. “But it is obvious,” he declared calmly, aware that all of their fellow teachers were listening, out of a desire to learn what he knew - Flitwick - as well as a desire to watch him belittle Simba - Minerva. Severus flicked the paper in his fingers dismissively. “No one died. If the dark lord had been involved, whether the phenomenon was to invite terror to merely to distract all eyes while he implemented some dark plot, there would have been deaths and many of them.” He paused and considered the billowing smoke and flames again. “Unless he wished to put us off guard or one of his followers was acting in his name but not with specific instructions… possible but not probable.” His former master had issues with control.
More likely was that the goblins were responsible, perhaps implementing new schemes to complicate life for the Ministry. History had proven to them that armed uprisings were futile but that did not mean the sneaky little buggers had to accept the ministry’s incompetent and heavy-handed overseeing. This would hardly be the first time in the past few centuries that the stubborn little monsters had devised some manner of contrivance with no purpose aside from that of making life for witches and wizards more difficult. As Severus believed that most witches and wizards deserved any such harassment that might come their way, he wished more power to the goblins.
He dismissed the issue as unimportant, though he certainly wouldn’t forget it lest that was not the case, and returned to observing his Slytherins.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The last person George expected to encounter as he, Fred and Hero headed to the kitchens to snatch a quick breakfast had been Trelawney. Fred’s eyes were as wide as George thought his would have to be when the loony old bat practically pounced on the three of them. Or rather, pounced on Hero was, as far as Hero could ever do so, looking far from pleased.
“Poor, poor child! Your future is grim. Beware! Beware!”
George choked. It was almost the same speech, word for word, that the divination professor had inflicted upon Harry last week. Ron had gone to great pains to repeat the entire ordeal verbatim in the Gryffindor common room after that particular lesson.
“Death trails in your shadow, nipping at your heels!”
George smirked at Hero from behind Trelawney’s back and snapped his teeth. Hero momentarily transferred his glare to him and George grinned back cheekily.
“Doom looms around you and your path will be beset by trials. Your life itself must be the coin you pay the gatekeeper of the future! Betrayal will befall you and you must stand alone in the face of unspeakable odds!”
Then how could she speak of them? George snorted loudly and Fred rolled his eyes in agreement. This was even more pathetic than when she had latched onto Harry. At least with Harry, there was a bloody dark lord after him that made her phoney predictions at least theoretically possible, if not holding even a fraction of truth. Fixating on Hero as she had, just proved the wench was completely mental.
“Beware the General of no army and watch for the child of thirteen who was not…”
Fred began flapping his robes behind her like a great loony bat. She leaned closer and George winced. Poor Hero, not only was his personal space invaded but he’d undoubtedly just copped a lungful of her noxious incense.
“In the end, you possess nothing and you will shatter!” The Slytherin’s fearless mask driving her to greater heights of drama, she whispered loudly. “Death follows you. Death will come for you. You must heed my warning.”
She paused, apparently awaiting a response but obviously not pleased by the one she received. When Hero began to turn away, dismissively, she snatched at his robes only to have her wrist caught in an unforgiving grip.
“Let me go!” she protested, twisting. Hero released her immediately and continued what he had begun previously, he walked away from her. “You must heed my warning!” she shrieked after him.
Hero stopped and turned slightly so that the icy glare from his shadowed eyes could reach her. “I must do nothing,” he told her coldly.
She flinched and slumped. “But I’ve told you! Why won’t you listen to me? I’ve Seen this! You will die!”
“I have no reason to fear death.”
George’s eyes widened, there was an expression on Hero’s face, an actual expression… a disturbingly fey expression that gave him goose bumps. Fred was gaping too, he saw, as the two of them drew closer together in reaction to an encounter which was now quickly heading away from stupid and rapidly moving towards creepy. Even as Hero’s face became uncharacteristically open, Trelawney’s lost all expression.
“Death will come for you,” she repeated.
“Aa,” Hero agreed, his eyes lighting up and shining with feeling. “He will come for me, for who else can be trusted to walk at Shinigami’s side amidst the battlefield. I am War’s angel, her soldier and her weapon. I have no cause to fear Death.”
Hero and the bat were staring at each other unrelentingly and George and Fred were staring at them with total disbelief. George did not need to look at his twin to know that exactly the same thought was rushing through both of their minds. What the Hell? This kind of fuss could be expected of Trelawney, although George hadn’t ever heard of her hunting her victim of choice down in the halls instead of waiting for them to attend her class before, but not of Hero and it was almost freaking George out. The weird flickers of almost-gold in the Slytherin’s eyes, though just a reflection of the flames in a nearby lantern, changed the situation from pathetically odd to hair-raising.
“Oi, Professor!” Fred interrupted the staring insistently. “Professor!”
Trelawney flinched and looked away from Hero. “Yes?” she whispered after a moment of hesitation in which she refused to look back at the teen she had been haranguing minutes previously.
“Can we go? We’ve got to get breakfast so we can get ready for class.”
“Of course,” she answered quietly.
Looking at her eyes, magnified and distorted as they were by her thick glasses, George realised that he now knew what nervousness looked like in a beetle’s expression. “Thanks,” he blurted bluntly as he and Fred tried to hustle Hero away from the awkward scene. It was a sign of how strangely Hero was behaving that he let them.
“Whew!” Fred exclaimed when they were out of earshot of the professor and the kitchen entrance was in sight. “Now that was bloody bizarre.”
George nodded in total accord. “What, by Merlin’s balls, was that about, Hero?” The twins stared at the smaller student caught between them.
Hero let them drag him a few steps further, until the painting that was the way into the kitchen was right in front of them, before he seemed to snap out of his daze. He shook off their hands and took two steps away from them before roughly running a hand through his messy mop of hair and sighing. His face, when he finally looked back at them, was tired and worried with a large dose of irritation thrown in.
“I do not know. Perhaps she finds entertainment in harassing me.” The nasal voice had more than a hint of aggravation in it.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Fred agreed easily, “She finds a student in every year to do something like that to.”
“But that was a bit above and beyond for a first year that has never even been in her class!” George objected. Something about the whole thing smelled funny.
Fred snorted. “Probably would be wise for you to not do divination when the time comes, Hero. Don’t want her doing that to you every class like she does with Harry.”
“Except she doesn’t do that even to Harry,” George pointed out to his brother. “She spouts some vague nonsense about bad omens and gives him good grades for predicting his own death but she doesn’t waylay him on his way to the kitchens!”
“Hn.”
George frowned at Hero. Did Hero care about anything at all? First Malfoy and now Trelawney, it seemed that he attracted persecution like jokes did pranksters. “And what were you going on about, Hero? You went as mental as she is!” George eyed him suspiciously. “You have no reason to be afraid of dying?”
“It did shut her up.”
George could have hit his brother. How could they expect the fanatically private Hero to level with them about something that had obviously affected him, and not for the good, if they were giving him ready-made excuses? “I thought you didn’t lie, Hero.” He had never done so before… George thought but Hero did have the perfect kind of face for it - one that didn’t give anything away.
Hero looked at him blankly for a moment and then he smirked. “I am not that Duo Maxwell.”
George and his twin didn’t have a clue about what he meant and just started dumbly. Hero’s expression fell back into the familiar non-expression as he reached out to tickle the pear.
“You’d tell us if something was wrong, wouldn’t you, Hero?” George insisted as he followed the smaller teen into the warmth of Hogwarts’ kitchens.
“Aa.”
Geoerge had to be satisfied with that. It was not as if he could tell whether Hero actually was lying.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Draco listened to his classmates listlessly. The holiday lists had been posted after breakfast and, for the first time in his life, he would have to put his name up. If he wanted to, he could probably work himself up into a good tantrum over it but the idea left him cold. Strange that, he’d never realised how pointless some things could be. Staying at school for Christmas was hardly an ordeal, after all.
Greg and Vincent sat to either side of him, their presence often being the only thing that stopped dissent in the house from breaking into physical violence, well, that and the fact that Draco was in trouble for using powerful dark magic and not just the bullying. Where, once, he had been feared because of his father and family, now that he had so publicly fallen from favour, none of his housemates dared challenge him because of his own magic. The irony did not make him laugh. Draco was just very glad that most of them did not realise how very fine a line he now walked.
At the desk in front of him, Blaise turned around, caught his eye and smirked. Draco raised an eyebrow and followed the other youth’s pointed gaze to the Hufflepuffs that shared charms with them.
Finch-Fletcherly was making a fool of himself by panting over Bones. Draco snorted, the imbecile didn’t have a chance, even Draco knew that the girl was involved with Boot in Ravenclaw and he’d spent most of the past couple of months controlled by his wand and obsessed with the mudblood.
Draco paused and repeated that thought. It sounded so wrong and more than a little disgusting when put that way.
“Oi, Draco? You in there?” Blaise leaned back in his chair, twisting so that he could wave a hand in Draco’s face.
Draco batted it away, annoyed. “Of course I am, Zambini. What’s your problem?”
Blaise frowned, his voice lowering. “You’ve been acting odd for a while, Draco.” Next to him, Theodore turned around and started listening while Blaise continued. “You were being very indiscrete for someone attending a school run by muggle-lovers.”
“Now you’ve gone quiet but you’re always spacing out,” Theodore added.
Draco glared, defensively. “There is nothing wrong with me and, even if there was, this is neither the time nor the place!” HE glanced around. The Hufflepuffs were all still watching the Finch-Flecherly disaster unfold and the Slytherin girls were plotting something of their own. Flitwick hadn’t arrived but there was still another five minutes before class started.
“Then when is?” Blaise demanded, “You’re never around now, Draco. Between your detentions and the time you have to spend with Maxwell, when do we get to see you?”
“Why are we doing this now?” Draco hissed.
Blaise glared back obstinately. “It’s not something I wanted to do. Personally, I just wanted to make fun of the would-be Romeo over there but this has come up and it needs to be dealt with!”
“We’re your dorm mates, Draco,” Theodore told him quietly, “This is not something we can ignore.”
“What,” Draco sneered, “Afraid I’m going to snap during the night and hex you all in your sleep?”
“No!” Theodore rolled his eyes. “Greg and Vincent’s snoring would have made you do that a long time ago if it was ever going to happen.” A certain episode in first year with Theodore, some pillows and a couple of near smothering was proof of that.
“What we are afraid of,” Blaise explained intently, “Is being caught in the crossfire when the others start wanting your status or just wanting to put you in what they think is your place more than they fear you doing to them what you did to Maxwell.”
Since no one but a couple of teachers, the mudblood and Draco, himself, knew exactly what that was, the fear was going to dim sooner rather than later. Leaving things to the imagination made a great impression but solid facts made a lasting one. “Class is about to start,” Draco reminded them coolly.
“Draco-” Theodore started but Draco interrupted before he could get going again.
“Not. Now. Later,” he bit out.
“When?” Blaise persisted. “This can’t keep being put off.”
“Later,” Draco growled, tired of repeating himself.
“Lunchtime?”
“No.”
“Draco-”
He scowled. “The mudblood didn’t show for breakfast so I have to make sure he turns up for lunch.” His lip twisted into a disgusted sneer. “The professors are concerned that he isn’t eating enough so I, for my sins, must wipe his nose, tie his shoes and spoon feed him.”
“We’ll get someone else to do it,” Theodore suggested.
Amusement filtered into Draco’s black mood. “Oh?” he inquired snidely, “Who? You? You are the one wanting to talk but, if you must, please feel free. I spend too much time with the filth as it is.”
“What about Vince and Greg?”
Blaise looked at Theodore like he was stupid and Draco didn’t have to do anything other than gesture for his minions to stay quiet, Blaise saying it all for him. “Do you want another broken arm? This is hardly the time to indulge your tendencies towards sadism, Theo.”
“Okay, okay, Merlin.” Theodore gave Blaise a disgusted look. “So who do you suggest?”
“Who else is there?” Blaise asked rhetorically. “Everyone else is either intimidated by him or he’d just ignore them, if not both.”
Flitwick chose that moment to rush into the room, apologising profusely.
Blaise and Theodore turned back to face the front of the room but not before giving him identical looks to tell him that they weren’t finished yet. Draco took that as proof that the two spent entirely too much time together. He hope nothing of the sort happened to him, considering the company he had to keep.
Glancing at Greg who was staring at Flitwick blankly, Draco wondered what it would have been like if one of his two friends and bodyguards could think further than the next meal.
Well, he likely wouldn’t get away with treating them as he did. They’d actually expect that he listen to them and do what the wanted at least some of the time rather than just accepting that he knew best. Draco was self-aware enough to know that he wouldn’t have liked that and, no doubt, it was the reason that, despite his wealth and position within Slytherin, he had never truly made and friends. Or allies either, he realised. When he had ruled, he’d ruled alone, giving others scraps only as it amused him and that was why, now that his standing was threatened, he had no support to turn to.
Vincent and Greg were muscle, pure and simple, which was the reason he could trust them. Blaise and Theodore, on the other hand, were not involving themselves in his potential problems out of the goodness of their hearts. Self-interest was their motivation as they had spoken no less than the truth when they predicted the occurrence of crossfire in the future. Draco had been ignoring it, for the most part, but the higher years were getting restless. Draco had only stepped into the role of house leader at the start of the year, a role mostly supported by his family name, and now he had screwed up and his father had publicly rebuked him in the Slytherin common room. The imagined threat of his father was gone, leaving Draco to stand or fall on his own.
If he fell… if he fell, Draco realised, he had better leave the school. Life was bad now, with the teachers watching his every move, Maxwell constantly underfoot, Potter and his pack on his nerves and the bitter truth that it was all due to his own stupidity. But, to fall under the authority of someone, anyone, that he’d ranked in Slytherin, would be a slow, torturous death. His recent behaviour had consequences past detentions and probations and it was not as though he could admit that it might have been due to outside influences. That would be tantamount to admitting he had no will of his own. He would be better off committing suicide!
Though it seemed all so pointless now, he could not permit himself to relinquish his standing in Slytherin. He would need to act soon, while the speculations over what types of dark magics he was capable of were still at the forefront of people’s minds. That way, he would have them that much more wary of him and that much more hesitant to act in opposition to him. The question was what actions he should take. He had never had to work for position with his housemates before, teachers, yes, thanks to perfect Potter’s influence, but never students. So how was he supposed to start this?
It had never seemed a fraction so complicated before he had started double-guessing himself. Perhaps he should at least hear Blaise and Theodore out, though they probably intended not to give him a choice in the matter. Perhaps he shouldn’t disillusion them about that. Both were intelligent and could provide information that no one else would willingly give him. It wasn’t like he could ask Vincent or Greg for advice.
It was an endlessly painful lesson. Draco couldn’t remember what had been discussed, although his notes would suggest that at least a part of him had listened to the lecture on shield charms. It might have been a previously unsuspected prescience predicting that he’d need them in the near future or, more likely, his hand was just pre-programmed after all these years. Trelawney-style abilities aside, if Draco needed to resort to shield charms, the poxy ones taught in this class weren’t going to be up to snuff.
Draco was the first student out of his seat when the lesson ended, despite his inattention. “Draco!” Theodore demanded, “Wait!”
Draco frowned over his shoulder. “I have to catch the first years,” he snapped crossly. “I’m not going to miss them because you couldn’t keep up!”
“But-”
Draco ignored them and strode out, leaving his dorm mates behind. The first years would be in herbology, he thought, but it was not like he had memorised their schedule as well as his own. He had, however, stolen a quick glance at his cousin’s that morning when he’d noticed the mudblood missing, knowing that he’d have to see that Maxwell attended at least one, if not both, meals in the great hall that day.
He was lucky. By ducking into one corridor and coming out in a classroom two floors down and one wing across, he managed to reach the doors nearest the greenhouses before the first yeas had dispersed.
Even more fortunate, the mudblood was still there with the little group of rebels that Draco had never gotten around to breaking before his disgrace.
“Mudblood!” he yelled out, causing not just Maxwell and his little pack to look up. He ignored the less than friendly looks his language had attracted. If they had a problem with him, they could like it or lump it. Maxwell hadn’t said anything about it yet and if anyone had a problem with it, then it should be him. If the prick didn’t object, aloud and in actual words, Draco wasn’t going to bother censoring himself. Why should he?
Before he could get worked up, Maxwell approached him, his little pack following mindlessly behind him like sheep. The self-awareness that he was cultivating warning him, Draco, in a course of action that was becoming a reflex, took a deep, and hopefully calming, breath before he was forced to interact with the aggravating mudblood.
Maxwell just stood in front of him rudely, not saying a damned word and Draco sneered. Why did he get lumbered with the mute maniac? “Mudblood,” he sneered, “I see you have your little followers with you, good.”
Maxwell still said nothing, instead staring at Draco as blankly as Vincent or Greg would have. Lithaniel and Winton were different matters, both first years pushing themselves forward to stand even with Maxwell. Lithaniel’s face was cool with no sign of any antipathy towards Draco, even though it had to be there, as previous encounters had proven. Winton, on the other hand, was staring up at him with open defiance, undoubtedly ready to leap to the mudblood’s defence should Draco even think to look at him strangely. She should have been in Gryffindor, really, how she was going survive seven years in Slytherin with her attitude was a catastroph in the making.
“Can we help you, Malfoy?” Lithaniel’s voice was perfectly polite, overly so in fact and Draco had to restrain his approval. He might not like the little larva but the brat might actually evolve into a decent Slytherin one day. He was well-born, well-mannered and, more importantly, quietly cunning in a way that kept him from being noticed, one of the reasons Draco had not really had much to do with him.
Draco’s own expression smoothed out into one of arrogant neutrality. “As a matter of fact, you can,” he told them. Winton opened her mouth, no doubt to say something impolitic, but a well placed elbow by the first year behind her, Chang, kept her quiet. Draco was grateful for that for, although he’d enjoy putting the little bint in her place, he did need to keep this short.
“Maxwell,” he said, gesturing sharply at the silently watchful mudblood. “Was not at breakfast this morning.”
“And you are telling us this, because?” Lithaniel enquired coolly.
Draco’s eyes narrowed and he gave a small, sharp smile. The mudblood,” he watched the ripple of anger run through the group with amusement, “Has a habit of skipping meals. Our esteemed head of house has made it my business to ensure that he attends meals in the hall at least twice a day.”
“I ate breakfast.”
“Meals in the hall,” Draco repeated pointedly to Maxwell. He looked at Winton and asked ingeniously, “Surely you would not mind ensuring he makes it for lunch?” To refuse would, of course, make her vulnerable to accusation of being uncaring and indifferent or a poor friend, criminal acts to the Gryffindor-minded sheep like her, so he doubted she would refuse even just to spite him.
“Didn’t you just say it was your job to make him go?” Lithaniel pointed out.
“I did,” Draco agreed easily, enjoying Maxwell’s evident displeasure about being discussed like this. “Or rather, it is my task to ensure he goes. Nothing was ever said about me being there with him and, as his friends, I thought you might have been interested in making sure he takes care of himself. He does look rather tired and underfed, don’t you think?” Maxwell levelled a glare on him that, though it made him tense up with both anger and apprehension, Draco otherwise ignored.
Lithaniel and Winton looked at each other and then turned in tandem to stare at Maxwell carefully. He transferred the glare to them, though it was several orders of magnitude less intense.
“He’s right,” Winton sighed in disgust, “You look like crap, Duo.”
“Hn.”
She rounded on Draco then, “Don’t think you’ve played us, Malfoy! We’re not doing this because you’ve manipulated us or anything of the sort. We’ll go because Duo’s our friend.”
“Of course, Winton, I wouldn’t dare think otherwise,” Draco assured her drolly.
She seethed hotly for a moment before Lithaniel grabbed her arm and pulled her away. “Come on, Beth, don’t let him goad you.”
“Stuck up prick,” Draco heard her hiss, “I bet he’s the reason Duo doesn’t have an appetite.”
Part of the reason, at least, Draco agreed as he watched the little herd of first years push past him. Maxwell gave him a last, unimpressed stare before allowing two of the others to urge him forwards. Draco allowed the rude leave taking because he didn’t have the patience to remind them of the respect he was due but he did make a mental note to deal with it later. It was one more sign of his status eroding and he could not afford to allow it to continue, however, the more important task at hand was not playing with first years. He needed to find Blaise and Theodore and have an unwanted but necessary discussion.
He didn’t have to go far before he found both Blaise and Theodore ambling towards him. “You took your sweet time,” he noted critically.
Theodore shrugged carelessly. “First had to explain to Vince and Greg that we needed them to save us some food.”
“And you took off like a scalded cat, kinda hard to keep up with that kind of velocity,” Blaise retorted.
Draco snorted as he passed them and they fell in behind him. “Didn’t stop you from following me.”
Theodore shrugged again. “Well, we wanted to have another go at convincing you to listen to us instead of just fobbing us off and now we find you’ve fobbed Maxwell off instead.”
Draco smirked briefly. Yes, first years, even impertinent ones, did have their uses. He read lead his two hounds down a rarely used corridor, striding confidently despite the gradually increasing gloom. “You were both so insistent,” he drawled and pushed open a thick door. “That I decided to make arrangements.” He cast a lumos, not allowing a hint of his hesitation at touching his wand show, and gestured into the long abandoned room of some forgotten student club. “Please take a seat, I believe you wished to discuss some things with me.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Draco stared at the wall behind Blaise and Theodore silently, a chaotic mixture of fury and shame so strong within him that he was rendered silent. Blaise and Theodore had been honest with him, he would give them that, they had told the truth as they saw it and Draco now had to deal with the taste of bile in his mouth and a hollow feeling that was becoming too familiar for him.
He had never expected his housemates to love him and he would have had no use for it anyway. Their fear and respect, on the other hand, he considered no more than his due as a Malfoy and as a wizard of not inconsiderable potential. To learn that the younger years simply feared him was not a harsh blow, they did not yet know enough to give respect and until they learned, fear was an acceptable substitute. To know that the higher years were wary of him as one would be of a werewolf and, behind lip service to his family name, scorned him as a fool, was not what he had expected. Those miserable, two-faced cretins! How dare they consider themselves his betters? How dare they look down on him? He who had never crawled for anyone and they who had grovelled at his feet when they supposedly scorned him! It was not about honour, they were Slytherins, not Gryffindors, it was about pride. Draco’s pride in himself that was not due to his name and the utter lack of it displayed by the worms that populated the rest of his house.
His wand was in his hand, gripped tightly by bloodless fingers. He could feel the power gathering and being channelled into the weapon he held. It was dark and it was rich.
“Draco!”
Draco slowly followed Blaise and Theodore’s wary gazes to where a globe of ugly black was growing at the tip of his wand, near the snake’s head. He raised the wand so that the tip was in front of his eyes and stared at the dark magic coldly. And those fools thought they had nothing to fear from him without his father behind him.
“It’s true then” Blaise murmured, “He’s blooded his power.”
“A bloody idiotic thing to do while he is still in school,” Theodore hissed back. ‘Hogwarts is run by a light adept and he doesn’t look too kindly on dark wizards, even adolescent ones.”
“We are Slytherins,” Draco interrupted them icily. “It is only to be expected.”
“Not for all of us,” Theodore argued stubbornly. “And no while we’re at Hogwarts.”
Draco sneered. “That’s what Snape’s for.”
“That hardly helped you, Draco!” Blaise reminded him snidely.
“I was not exactly discrete,” Draco returned. Tripping the wards of the school to bring the entire faculty down on his head while in the middle of attempting to torture a housemate was not on the level of a bit of judicious experimentation. His actions were not something he should be proud of. He let the magic disperse and deliberately set his wand down. He looked back at his dorm mates. “My behaviour of late has not been… wise,” he admitted.
Blaise snorted. “Draco, you’ve been running around like a Hungarian Horntail. You’ve stirred the whole house up and for no real reason. You’ve gained nothing by any of it. I would not call that unwise, just dumb.”
Theodore refused to meet his eyes and Draco bit back his reflexive anger. “Maybe,” he said, conceding little. “But, if anyone thinks that means I’ll let them walk over me, they have another think coming.”
“Obviously,” Theodore agreed quickly, plainly referring to the ease with which Draco now could turn his magic to darker purposes. “But there’s a difference between being a Hungarian Horntail that strikes out blindly and indiscriminately and being a kneazle that battles its enemies or stalks its prey with precision and intelligence.”
“Dragons are feared, Draco,” Blaise continued the analogy. “But they’re also made into boots or locked up in glorified zoos. Kneazles go where they want when they want. Which would you prefer to be?”
“Kneazles are just cats, Blaise,” Draco pointed out snidely, but he did see the point the two were trying to make.
“And cats are sneaky and vicious,” Blaise rebutted.
Draco was tempted to point out that, in effect, the Gryffindors were represented by what was, in the end, no more than a big cat and ho did that fit into their increasingly absurd analogy. Then he remembered that the Gryffindors could be surprisingly sneaky, he only had to look at the Weasel’s twin brothers, and they were all bloody violent when roused. He realised his argument had no point other than to provoke Blaise and Theodore.
“Very well,” he said instead, “There’s a war coming, the rest of the house versus me. What do you expect from me? To capitulate? Hardly, bosom buddies like the sickening trio we might not be, but you surely know me better than that.”
They looked at each other and then at Draco. “We would hardly be so foolish,” Blaise agreed easily.
Theodore snorted. “You have never backed down from a confrontation, Draco. No matter how cowardly you might be at times.” Draco stiffened in outrage and then remembered that a healthy sense of self-preservation was nothing to scorn. “You are like the proverbial bulldog that’s bitten into something juicy when someone slights you. You don’t forget it and you do get even. Why else have you persisted in your feud with Potter all of these years?”
Draco sneered, “Because he’s a bloody prat and I resent the way he’s allowed to get away with murder!”
“True to that,” Blaise agreed, a touch of his own disaffection with the favouritism given to the Gryffindors showing. “But that’s neither here nor there. You are on a precipice now, Draco. One wrong move and you’ll fall and right now you don’t have anyone to catch you.”
“Are you offering to fill that position, Blaise?” Draco sneered, offended and sick with the truth.
Blaise sneered back. “Of course not, Draco. Why should I help you at all? I find your opinions childish, narrow-minded and short-sighted while you, yourself, are overbearing and foolhardy. Many times I have wondered why you weren’t sorted into Gryffindor.”
“Then why are you here?” Draco spat back, wondering how it had come to this. He and Blaise may not have exactly been friends but they had never before been enemies.
Theodore touched Blaise on the shoulder and looked at Draco seriously. “Because they won’t stop just with you. Once you have been dealt with, they will then turn on us.”
Blaise snarled, “Just because we’re in the same year.”
For a moment, Draco didn’t believe them but it did make a horrible kind of sense. To stop anyone getting so above themselves again, the higher years, boys and girls, would make an example out of everyone associated with Draco. Luckily or unluckily, depending on how one looked at it, that could only include those of his year, even if labelling anyone other than Vince and Greg as his supporters was now obviously a gross exaggeration.
“Crossfire indeed,” Draco murmured, sobered.
“If you don’t at least come out even, Malfoy, we’re all stuffed.” Blaise gave a bitter snort. “So, yeah, we have a bit of interest in see you get your head out of your arse. I mean you’ve proven you have the magic to lord it over us, the dark magic you used stank you the common room for days, but you’ve yet to demonstrate that you have the brains.”
“Blaise,” Theodore said, pushing at the other wizard.
Blaise laughed angrily. “Why are we bothering, Theo? Nothing’s getting through his ego, let alone his thick skull.”
“Oh, I’m listening, Zambini,” Draco retorted harshly, “You think I don’t realise what a mess I’ve gotten myself into? Do you think that I don’t know how badly I’ve screwed up? But do you want to know something else? It doesn’t matter!” Draco laughed bitterly at their startled faces. “These school-yard power plays? They are pointless. Being the king of the hill? Who the hell cares? It’s all pointless!”
His head was whipped to the side by the stinging blow. Theodore looked at him solemnly as he lowered his hand. “You’d better start caring, Draco. Or I think you’ll find these pointless school-yard power plays are a little more than you can handle.”
Draco touched his cheek, shocked by the strike. It was nothing compared to what he’d suffered at Maxwell’s hands but that Theodore would dare… “I notice you haven’t mentioned your other option,” he pointed out distantly.
“Which option is that?” Theodore replied, non-committed.
Draco met his brown eyes steadily. “The one where you both use this as an opportunity to overpower me and then offer me up as a sacrifice to placate the sixth and seventh years.”
We considered it,” Blaise admitted, a hint of regret in his voice.
Theodore nodded. “But we dislike them even more than we currently dislike you. You are loud, Draco, and arrogant, but you aren’t really vicious except to a select few, most of whom are Gryffindors. Having you as the ranking Slytherin is annoying but bearable. If we humour you, you just leave us alone. There are those in the higher years that would not be so easy to please. They have waited for years for the seniority to let them do what they wanted and they fully expected to have ranked everyone when they started the year. Then you messed that up for them by coming back as a prefect with a father who is very likely the right-hand man of the dark lord. They didn’t dare call your bluff, not when your father has a history of stepping in to ease your way. That threw everything into disarray because simple seniority was no longer enough to gauge rank.”
Draco had some good guesses as to who Theodore had hinted at. Slytherin did tend to attract more than its fair share of distasteful personalities, or maybe just being sorted into the ‘dark house’ moulded normal individuals into that. The increased rumours of the dark lord ever since Potter had returned to the wizarding world had also marked an increase in that kind of questionable person within Slytherin house. Draco remembered how he had felt when he’d had the mudblood at his mercy and wondered if he wasn’t one of those individuals.
“No matter what your motivation, it’s all very well to say, ‘don’t lose, Draco’, but I do not see you explaining how I go about that.”
Theodore answered quietly, “You might think this is a revolutionary idea, Draco, but you could ask for help.”
“Or will it hurt the Malfoy pride to ask” Blaise sniped.
It might hurt the Malfoy pride, Draco realised, but it didn’t hurt his. “Will you help me?”
Theodore smiled genuinely and even Blaise relaxed. “You only had to ask.”