The League of Promising Youth

Chapter 24: The League of Promising Youth

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Plastered against the windows of Gryffindor Tower, dripping wet and still festooned with spirit wear in red and gold, the house watched from afar as the Minister of Magic entered the grounds. His early arrival had driven the school hastily back into the castle, shepherded by the loud direction of Professor McGonagall, and now their only glimpses of the man were stolen from a distance through the tower window. Draco felt rather sorry for the Slytherins, who from the basement common room would get to see a plum load of nothing at all.

Dementors rose in a dark column against the checkered sky. Dumbledore and a small attache of professors, including McGonagall, Flitwick, and Snape, headed down across the rain-splattered lawns to form a welcoming party.

Hermione, who was short, huffed and craned her neck trying to see over the cluster of heads in the window. Draco stepped aside to let her look, but there was no longer anything to see: the professors had shrunk to a dark watery blot in a sea of green, and disappeared among the trees. “I wonder why he’s come early,” she said intently. “Did he mean to surprise Dumbledore? Catch him off his guard, before he’s had time to prepare?”

“Maybe he got a meeting moved up,” said Draco boredly. “I wouldn’t bother yourself over it, bureaucrats’ schedules are rarely the stuff of reason. Say, Granger — don’t get too distracted by all this Minister rot, would you? It’s not hardly what the rumors make it out to be. He’s not here to talk to students, and only the really slimy ones will try, so for most people it’ll be like he’s not come at all. You’re better off holing up in the library and waiting for it all to blow over.”

“Distracted?” she repeated. He suspected he’d offended her; in his defense, it didn’t take much. “I shouldn’t get distracted? Nobody in this tower’s done homework in three days!”

“Don’t be offended. I’m only telling you that there’s no reason to bother yourself.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “And yet I don’t see you warning off anybody else.”

He put his hands in his pockets to keep them from fidgeting. She had a way of sniffing out when he was lying — and he was lying through his teeth, to be certain — but he didn’t feel at ease telling her his real concerns: that she, in particular, should endeavor to steer as clear of the new Minister of Magic as was possible.

Draco didn’t have a good reason to feel this way. He just had a strong and irrational urge to put as much distance as possible between Hermione and the Ministry. Perhaps she was right, and it wasn’t fair that he hadn’t warned off Harry or Ron in the same way — but that was different. Ron’s father worked in the Ministry, and Harry was the bloody Chosen One. They had people, good people, wizards, most importantly, who would look after them. Hermione had no one looking out for her at all. Someone ought to do it.

Anyway, the thing with him and Hermione was different than the thing with him and Harry, or him and Ron. Everyone knew that, it was obvious. He didn’t go looking for Harry or Ron when he was bored, and they didn’t save plates of toast for him at breakfast. They couldn’t sit together and read for hours without saying anything, couldn’t talk about loud music and novels and tell him things that actually made the muggle world sound decently interesting. —It wasn’t as if he didn’t get on with Harry and Ron. But there was more to him and Hermione, more layers to it, like fathoms of a seabed. And one of the layers, he suspected, involved not letting each other get embarrassed or insulted or hurt, if it could possibly be avoided. The idea of anything like that happening to her displeased him. It was sour and unpleasant and he tried not to think about it.

Besides, he was fairly certain she would do the same for him. If he was in danger of putting his foot somewhere he shouldn’t, he knew she would come running from the other side of the castle to shrill at him.

Exhausting business. How Harry and Ron went about watching each other’s backs, he had absolutely no idea; it was like a pair of beagle puppies being appointed each other’s keeper.

“Quite, because I don’t care if the rest of them waste their time,” he said blithely, and he dropped his eyes to adjust the button on his cuff. “I wouldn’t care if you did, either, but it felt unsporting not to tell you, since you’re playing at a handicap in the world of wizarding politics. Don’t get offended at that, it’s not an insult. It’s not your fault your parents — lovely as I’m sure they are — couldn’t teach you.”

She wrestled with the decision of whether or not to be cross with him for this. With tangible reluctance, she decided not to.

“I’ve read loads about it,” she said, sourly. “Loads and loads.”

“And to my great resignation, I expect you’re about to endeavor to prove it,” he said. “But do you fancy something hot to drink, first? I still can’t feel my toes.” He shook his sleeve, and water coursed from his quidditch robes with a polite and emphatic plop.

On their way out of the Tower, he listened to her chatter with a familiar combination of irritation and relief: she showed little interest in the Minister, the Ministry, or any of the subjects likely to land her in trouble. She was far more interested in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, which he duly informed her was such an underfunded shoebox of a department that nobody in the upper circles even remembered it half the time. Her outrage on this issue carried them all the way down to the kitchens. Then he lobbed her a theoretical question about Transfiguration, and she launched breathlessly into an exposition on a conversation she’d had with Professor McGonagall that appeared to entirely drive the Ministry out of her mind.

In fact, the only other thing she said about it, as they were waiting for their hot cocoas, was: “Ron says he’s a dreadful politician, anyway. His voting record on elvish welfare is purely horrendous. I wouldn’t like to meet a man like that.”

“You mean to tell me elvish welfare isn’t a priority for the Cavalier Party? I’m distraught.”

“Who are the Cavaliers supposed to be, again? Tories or Labour?”

“How should I know? It doesn’t map exactly, our politics are infinitely more complex than muggles’, and there’s years of history between them… Are Tories the ones against taxes?”

“Among other things,” she said passionately, “like human dignity, and distributive justice, and public health—”

“That’s the one,” he said, yawning. “Oh, Granger, look, they’ve still got peppermint wands leftover from Christmas. Don’t tell me you’ve never had a peppermint wand…? Who raised y— Merlin, don’t give me that look, I heard it as soon as I said it.”

On Friday evening, Draco left the common room early. It pained him to do this, because it was just the sort of rare night in Gryffindor Tower that he could tolerate: Ron and Hermione had ceased bickering, if only out of mutual exhaustion, and arranged for an armistice over tea and biscuits, which they nibbled by the fireplace while they occupied themselves with various diversions — she, a book, and he, a chess problem from the Prophet . Harry, exhilarated from the victory of his Patronus, had taken his pocket snitch down to the common room and offered Draco a game of keep-away to keep his seeker’s skills tight. Fred had stolen some trifle tart from the kitchens and George had put one of his muggle records on. So it was with no little measure of self-sacrifice that he turned Harry down, made an excuse about forgetting his Transfiguration notebook, and descended the stairs to the fourth floor lecture hall.

The door to the hall sat slightly ajar, and through it came a slice of golden light as thick and yellow as rich butter cake. Laughter floated from inside, and the clink of glasses against each other, the casual burble of a social occasion. Draco adjusted his tie and twisted his cuffs straight around his wrists. He shook his arms out and breathed deeply and then pushed inside with the confidence of someone who had never hesitated in the first place.

When he had gone to the Yule Hunt at Knotscliff he had been startled and satisfied to see the number of pureblood families concentrated in the same room. Now it slightly alarmed him: he had understood what Theo had meant when he extended the invitation, but it was another thing to see the composition of the party, and to see how many of them wore Ministry uniforms. Witches and wizards in high-collared robes of royal purple drifted back and forth from a drinks table, where towering sculptures of champagne glasses foamed white, and house-elves shepherded around platters of appetizers balanced on their large flat heads. Occasionally a witch or wizard would take one from the tray without looking down or even realizing there was a creature beneath it.

It reminded him of the Samhain bonfire, over a year ago, with its sense of informal camaraderie under veneers of ceremony. It didn’t matter whether anyone in the room actually knew each other. Everyone knew why they were there, and that was enough.

“Mister Draco?” squeaked a voice by his knees. He looked down and saw a house-elf with a pair of women’s hair ties wound around his wrists, holding a clipboard.

“Dobby?” he said, bewildered.

“Yes, sir, Mister Draco, sir!” chirped Dobby delightedly. “It is so good to be seeing you! You are looking so tall! Goodness, Dobby is having to hurt his neck to look at you! Dobby is sorry for not visiting over the winter, he feels very badly about it, and he is hoping that Miss Narcissa is not angry with him either, but Dobby has made so many friends in the kitchens, you see, and last summer his friends said to Dobby, have you seen the tallfolk city of Lunn Donn, if not then you must see the tallfolk city of Lunn Donn, and so Dobby went, and saw so many tallfolk, and some tallfolk who were not wizards also — is Mister Draco knowing about this? Tallfolk who are not wizards! Like elves without ears! — and Dobby tried to ask one about it, but then Dobby’s friend Pippy says no no no Dobby Freed-Elf, you must not talk to them, for they are very scared of us. A tallfolk, scared of an elf! Dobby is astonished still. But he is still sorry he could not be with Miss Narcissa during the holidays.”

“Dobby,” Draco broke in, a bit pleased, and a bit bemused. “That’s fine. We found help.”

Dobby paused. “But the help is not as good as Dobby,” he said confidently. He shot a furtive look at Draco.

“…Absolutely not, it isn’t. In fact, it’s dreadful. The house has gone to pieces.”

Dobby nodded sagely, as if he expected this. “Dobby is truly sorry, sir. But he is worried also, for his friends are now saying: have you seen the big wizard city of Barleesoona? And Dobby is saying, what do you mean, there is another tallfolk city? How many cities do the tallfolk need? And why so many, when smallfolk and horsefolk and merfolk have none? His friends are telling him, we too have been asking these questions, and we simply do not know. But it is great fun to go to the tallfolk cities, and so Dobby is not complaining.”

“Right,” said Draco, furrowing his brow. “Of course. Dobby, what are you doing here? It’s a private event.”

“Well, the Minister is needing to use the Hogwarts facilities for his reception, sir,” the house-elf explained, “and this is including the kitchens. Now, Dumbledore has come and said to us — all private-like and secret, when the Minister is gone — you will not be needing to do this as part of your job at Hogwarts, this will be an extra job for volunteering only, and he will pay everyone who is volunteering a double wage for the hours they are working. And many elves are saying, we will not, because many elves are not liking the Minister. But double wages is a lot of money, and Dobby is a hard worker, so he volunteers!” He beamed and brandished the clipboard. “And then Spratt says to Dobby: you will have a very special job! Because Dobby is one of not many elves in the kitchens who knows his letters, you see, Mister Draco! So he is in charge of writing the guest names on a list.” He showed Draco the list on the clipboard, which, sure enough, contained a long list in Dobby’s tiny chicken-scratch.

“But he is not having to ask you for your name, sir,” he added, winking. “You, Dobby is recognizing immediately, always! Even if you is getting terribly tall.”

“My mother has voiced the same objection,” said Draco. With a sincerity that surprised him, he said: “It’s good to hear you’re well. You should, er— take care of yourself.”

“And you also, Mister Draco!” Dobby glanced around skittishly. He crept closer to Draco’s knees and whispered: “Mister Draco, we is not supposed to be touching or speaking to the wizards. So Dobby is going to pretend he has not said anything now. But he is happy to see Mister Draco, and hopes we will be seeing him in the kitchens soon.”

And delivering a fond pat to Draco’s knee, he hurried away to intercept the next passel of guests.

Draco slipped along the back wall, avoiding eye contact with anyone who could recognize him. He looked for Theo, and found his father instead, holding a goblet of wine and talking animatedly with a group of wizards near the dais. In his company was a tall and square-faced wizard with a black beard and a long, well-kempt mane of hair, dressed in a gray suit and a handsome purple cloak with gold trim. As Draco watched, he smiled at something Sibelius said and sipped from a fingerbowl of champagne. A pair of Aurors hovered only a footstep behind him, their hands resting on their wandsheaths. They weren’t drinking.

It had to be Runcorn. Draco recognized his face from the Prophet editorials, and distantly recalled it glowering out from a campaign poster in Knockturn Alley. He was taller in person, and projected a different kind of man than the Prophet made him out to be. He looked calmer than he sounded in the newsprint. Unlike the one in the Prophet, this Runcorn wasn’t shouting or glowering or beating his fist on a desk; when he broke into laughter, it put warm crow’s feet around his eyes. Really, he could have been a professor. He certainly wasn’t half as scary-looking as Lupin.

Beside him stood Sibelius Nott, Prescott Parkinson, Orpheus Greengrass, and Garrett Goyle. Orpheus and Garrett were having a heated debate of some sort. Prescott said something under his breath to Sibelius, who snorted into his glass. Runcorn observed it all, speaking rarely, except to answer a question someone put to him.

Sandwiched between Sibelius and Prescott, looking more uncomfortable than an egg at an omelet station, was Theodore. He wore a cream-colored ascot that clashed horribly with his complexion and held his mouth pursed in a lemon-sour twist of loudly broadcasted displeasure. His expression was a strong argument for euthanasia.

When he noticed Draco, he perked up a little bit, which was not saying much. He lifted his drink slightly, as if to toast him, and gave a horrible twitch of the mouth that looked like a smile with palsy.

“It is considered rude to stare,” said a deep, silken voice.

Draco turned on his heel. “Professor,” he drawled, masking any startlement he felt. “I didn’t know faculty were invited to this kind of soirée.”

Snape materialized from a shadowy corner of the room, dressed in a high-necked set of black dress robes that were only slightly more formal than his usual teacher’s gear. “I have acquaintances here,” he said, in a tone that revealed nothing. “I make a point of maintaining connections that may serve me in the future.”

“So you’re here to brownnose, like the rest of us.”

Snape’s eyes glittered. But he only said: “Careful,” and placed a hand on Draco’s shoulder. With a grip like an iron claw, he steered him out of the Minister’s sight. “Have you come to reacquaint yourself with your father’s old friends? Rarely does one find so many of them concentrated in the same place. Excepting, I suppose, a meeting of the Wizengamot.”

“Theodore invited me.”

“Nott?” said Snape. His expression was unreadable. “Interesting. Are you close to the boy?”

“I suppose. Most of the time he’s a shady little git. Decent gentleman, though, when he puts in the effort. I’d vouch for him, but don’t tell him that.”

Snape’s fingers bit into Draco’s shoulder, hard enough to make him wince — a succinct warning that they were not speaking privately. “He does his father’s bidding.”

“Theodore? No.” Draco scoffed. “He loathes his father. Can’t stand him. He came to France with Mother and I, and his father didn’t write him once.”

“And yet he puts enough faith in his son to introduce him to the Minister of Magic. Don’t you think that indicates a measure of affection for the boy? Men of his position tend to feel… proprietary about their sons.”

The word proprietary sparked something in Draco’s chest. He wondered if his father would have felt that way about him; whether Lucius would have grown more protective or proud of him with age. Then he resolved not to think about such things. It wasn’t as if he needed protecting, anyway. Considering how Theodore spoke about his own father, perhaps he wouldn’t have even liked him — and that thought was so profoundly unsettling that he gave a little shudder to be free of it.

“I don’t know what his father thinks. To be honest with you, professor, I’ve not spent a great wealth of time contemplating Theodore Nott’s family melodrama.”

“True. I imagine you remain plenty occupied with your own,” said Snape coolly, which made Draco scowl, not so much at the insult but at being robbed of the last word. He opened his mouth to snip back at him but found that they had moved on, through an archway lined with gold foil and white lilies, up to a cocktail table that glowed white like a pregnant moon. With Snape’s hand still fast on his shoulder he found himself herded into the crowd around the table, which included a scattering of spotty-looking wizards in or approaching old age, none of them in Ministry wear. Snape lifted a lavender cocktail from an orbiting golden tray, thrust it unceremoniously into Draco’s hand, offered the table a curt utterance of: “Draco Malfoy.” Then he retreated, leaving Draco with a full glass, a row of blinking faces, and the welling suspicion that he had just been parked at the kiddie table.

“Was that ‘Malfoy,’ I heard?” inquired one of the wizards, a bowl-faced old man with a round belly and a rich tweed suit under his traveling cloak. “Not Malfoy as in Lucius, surely?”

Draco twisted his mouth in the thin, vaguely aggressive smirk of the pureblood. “The same,” he said. “If we’ve met before, I don’t remember you. Are you with the Ministry?”

It was a courtesy question; obviously the wizard was not, for he wore nothing of the sort. But he pinked with pride and stood up straighter.

“No, m’boy, not I. Never a Ministry man, no matter how hard they begged me, and they have begged me. But I said no, for I was young and full of folly, and I wanted to be an academic… I took my Boards young, you see, for a moment I was something of an ingénue. When you’re young and exceptional, truly exceptional, all anyone tells you to do is academia — I’m sorry, I’ve buried the lede fathomless deep, haven’t I? Professor Horace Slughorn, at your service.”

Draco nodded to him. “Sir.”

“A round of introductions may be in order, since our dear comrade Severus so faithlessly underwhelmed us in that department. This is Professor Ezekiel Ezzazz, Potions Master at Ilvermorny, best hand at a Pepper-Up I’ve ever seen; Master Spinoza Springbok, research fellow at the Potions Institute of Oxford, dear comrade, like to think I’ve taught her half as much as she taught me; Professor Pityr Petrovsky, Professor of Alchemy at Durmstrang, I’m sure I don’t need to introduce him; and my dear little teacher’s pet, Bertha Jorkins, the sweetest Gryffindor I ever taught. She works for the Department of International Magical Cooperation — remind me where, exactly, Bertha?”

“Magical Games and Sports,” said Bertha, without much enthusiasm. She was a plump, slightly sour-faced woman around his mother’s age, and she wore a rather drab gown of black velvet that even McGonagall might have dismissed as frumpy.

The professors gave him a series of small nods and waves. Draco returned them, and turned to Slughorn. “And where do you teach, sir?”

“I beg your pardon, dear boy?”

“You said you were a professor. I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I don’t know where you teach.”

“Ah,” said Slughorn, as cherries bloomed in the milky swells of his cheeks. “Well, teach — I put that aside some years ago, to do research. I’ve an emeritus position at Cambridge, so I spend some time there, but really, I so rarely have the time to come in and supervise—”

“Supervise!” crowed Professor Ezzazz, who spoke with the brash, flat drawl of an American. “Supervise? You ain’t supervised anything besides your wine cellar since 1981. If you’ve touched a cauldron in the past five years, I’ll eat my darn wand.”

“Oh, be nice,” said Professor Springbok. “When’s the last time you published, Ezekiel?”

“More lately than him! And the difference is, I got kids I got to teach. It’s not like I’m sittin’ around and gettin’ paid to think about stuff.”

“Secondary school,” simpered Springbok, in tones of delicate scorn. “How taxing.”

“High school,” corrected Ezzazz.

“Oh, yes. High school. Pardon me.”

“My research demands constant attention!” insisted Slughorn. “It is most important work!”

“You’re all potioneers?” said Draco, this time with an interest he did not have to feign.

“Nyet,” said Professor Petrovsky, surprising everybody by breaking his silence. “I am an alchemist.”

Slughorn blew a raspberry and flapped his hand. “Potato, po-tah-to,” he cooed. “Whatever the Soviets call it, these days. Honestly, you’d think that the Slovaki Minister would put some effort into reintegration, especially after everything that’s happened…”

“Is different discipline,” said Petrovsky stubbornly. “Is not the same. You sit over cauldron and stir with little stick. Alchemists tamper with laws of cosmos.”

“Gonna start a swear jar for you saying ‘laws of cosmos,’” muttered Ezzazz.

“Is different! Severus agrees.”

“Severus is a purist,” said Slughorn jovially. “Of course he’d agree with you. He probably thinks we should be doing all our brews in cauldrons of sterling silver, with rods of tempered gold…”

“But that’s better, isn’t it?” interrupted Draco, his curiosity overwhelming his graces. “The purer the metal, the less interference there is with the magic?”

Only Petrovsky nodded at him approvingly; the others shot him a few odd looks. Slughorn said, with a touch of discomfort, “Well, certainly, in terms of theory, that would be right… but in practice, of course, it just doesn’t do. It’s far too expensive, and the quality tradeoff with pewter or cast-iron isn’t nearly enough to justify it. Putting aside the problems with manufacture, silver is notoriously finicky…”

“I see,” said Draco, though all he heard was that Snape had been correct.

“Actually, don’t be so sure,” piped up Ezzazz. “There’s this fella in New York who says he can do things with silver you wouldn’t believe. Guy by the name of Gallahad. He thinks he can stabilize the tempering process enough for mass-production.”

“You can’t possibly mass-produce silver, it’s too expensive,” objected Springbok.

“It is now. But that’s what I’m saying, if you could transmute it from cadmium or palladium, you could have much more of it.”

“Oh, if that’s all.”

Everyone laughed.

“Permanent elemental transmutation is highly theoretical magic,” said Draco. He leaned over his drink, fascinated. He wished Hermione could hear what the professors were saying; she’d be thrilled out of her mind. “Has someone figured it out?”

“Only in laboratory settings,” admitted Springbok. “My team recently converted two moles of mercury into gold and maintained it for three hours without interfering with the stasis chamber.”

“ How? Where did you get that much energy?”

“Read my paper,” she said, a bit smugly. “Forthcoming in the Potions Review, March 1994.”

“But you’re serious? At your laboratory, you’re actually doing that kind of work?”

“I see Severus has already converted you,” Slughorn said grandly, cuffing Draco on the shoulder. “That sly old lizard! Isn’t it just like him to have a protege hiding under his cloak. Isn’t that just like him, Pityr? And he never said a word about it.”

Something in Draco’s face must have been crestfallen — Snape had never mentioned him, at all? — because Slughorn blanched and hurried to correct himself. “Not that I’d hear of it, if he had,” he babbled. “Severus and I don’t speak more than once a year… he’s a lovely man, I’m sure, but we’re not exactly chums, are we? I’m sure he couldn’t name any one of my past three apprentices, and if you know me, you know I don’t make any secret of it…”

“Peace, Horace,” said Petrovsky suddenly, and Slughorn cut himself off with palpable relief. “I know of this child, Malfoy.”

Slughorn brandished a hand. “And there you go!” he bellowed. “I’m sure you know Severus better than any of us! Certainly you’re the only one he ever talks to at conferences; I can’t remember how many times I’ve turned around to find the two of you holed up in a corner, muttering about formulas.”

Draco perked up. “Snape told you about me?” he asked Petrovsky, trying helplessly not to sound pathetic.

Petrovsky fixed his eyes on Draco. They were small, ice-blue, and set in a face of hard planes and deep hollows, like the side of a Nordic glacier. “He asks me for consult on potion,” said the professor. “Requires special ingredient most plentiful where I live. Is difficult to get. I say to him, if you do this thing for me, I fetch. He says, okay. He does favor. I give him ingredient. We meet, and I say to him, why do you need this? This is hard potion. Can achieve similar effect with spells. He says: similar not enough. Must be potion. I say: okay, Severus. But for what do you need mooncalf blood so much?”

A ripple of interest passed through the crowd at the table.

Petrovsky continued to stare at Draco, unperturbed. “Then he says to me: what is point of doing favor for you if you insist on being nosy shit?” (Draco bit his tongue to suppress a grin. He could all but hear his godfather’s voice.) “And again I say: okay, Severus. Your business. Not mine. But perhaps he thinks to himself, I should not make Pityr mad, in case I need ingredient again. Perhaps he thinks, Pityr is good friend to have, he makes things easier for me. So he says: I will tell you little bit, and then you take your nose out of my zadok, yes? And I say deal. And he says, there is boy in England, young boy, big house. Someone breaks into big house and steal shit. I say, ah, so you want potion to find out who? He says no. Need potion for this woman, boy’s mother.”

Draco startled. “My mother?” he said. “What did she want with—”

“So,” continued Petrovsky, without seeming to hear him, “I say, who is boy? And he says, you remember Lucius Malfoy. I say: show me the man who has forgotten Lucius Malfoy, I show you a dead man. And he says yes. This is his child. My godson.”

Slughorn gave a small exclamation. “Godson!” he said. He peered at Draco over his spectacles, as if seeing him for the first time. “He never said anything about a god- son! My goodness! He was that close to Lucius? Stars, I never knew!”

Springbok made a noise of delighted surprise. So did the other professors. They all turned and looked at Draco. It was a testament to the thick mantle of secrecy that Snape wore tightly around his person that the revelation of a godson seemed to shock and please a crowd of people for whom the most arcane complexities of magic itself had long since ceased to be any amazement.

Draco, meanwhile, was vibrating with a queer sort of filial pleasure. It was a pathetically small victory, really, to be simply acknowledged, but it was such an unexpected concession from Snape that he could not help but be pleased.

There was dancing now in the center of the room, in a ring carved out by a line of glowing runes in the floor; white-haired wizards steering their youthful wives in lurching spirals, glossy couples in matching robes holding each other with a fashionable, otherworldly disdain; and in between them, a few students, cherubic and ill-suited to their fine dress robes, still wearing Hogwarts ties of green and silver. A full-bodied witch with hoop earrings so large they sat on her shoulders opened her mouth and poured out a deep jazz contralto, while small fireworks of laughter went off in rotation around the room. More trays of cocktails floated out of the aether, the glasses deeper and wider than the first round, and somehow a wizard’s hat had ended up hooked on the chandelier. A pair of house-elves were fencing with martini skewers for the amusement of some upper-ranking Ministry officials. Unbidden, Draco thought of Dobby, and quickly turned away.

He excused himself from the potion masters and slipped out to the men’s. While searching for somewhere to put down his cocktail near the door, he quite accidentally bumped into Pansy, who had stumbled in after a group of loud Wizengamot members and had yet to remove her fur coat. Her pigtails were braided and studded with emeralds, and she wore a pink dress of shade and cut horrendous.

“You!” she gasped, with a hostility he was sure he hadn’t earned. “What are you doing here?”

“And good evening to you, too. I was about to say it had been too long, but apparently you’d prefer it was longer.”

To her credit, she recovered quickly. “Don’t snip at me, I’ve just spent a simply desolate forty-five minutes with Madam Pomfrey. Dumbledore’s making me take this stupid extra class called ‘therapy.’ I told him it was utterly unfair to make me do extra work, since it’s not my fault he let some murderous creep sneak into his school, and he was lucky I hadn’t told my parents — you should have seen his face, you would’ve loved it — anyway, come here, then,” she grumbled, and hauled him down by the collar to plant an ungracious kiss on his cheek. He gave her a light one on the cheekbone and withdrew.

“I was invited, if that’s so terribly difficult for you to believe,” he added.

Her mouth puckered with distaste. “Of course you were,” she sighed. “Trust Teddy to blab all over the castle about it. Even when we were told to keep our mouths shut! You haven’t told any of the Gryffindors, have you? Say you haven’t, or I’ll have to go put an awl through his head.”

“Tell them what?” he said, frowning. “What are you afraid of? You think some Weasleys might float in by accident?”

She leveled a manicured fingernail at him. “For one, they very well would,” she said darkly, and he had to admit she was right. “This is just the kind of occasion your ragamuffin housemates would love to spoil with some sort of mischief. For two, even you being here is a breach of secrecy.”

He stared at her for a moment, speechless. “Pansy, I’m a pureblood,” he said incredulously. A beat passed, and he added: “My family’s older than yours.”

This touting of the pedigree impressed her not at all. Instead, she smacked his chest, which was the highest part of him she could reach. “For heaven’s sake, don’t you think I know that? Yes, Draco, you’re pureblood. Look around! So’s all of Slytherin house, and most of them aren’t here, either.”

It was true: of the not-insignificant number of Slytherin students (though Slytherin was the smallest house) less than a quarter were in attendance. It hadn’t occurred to him how few were there until Pansy pointed it out.

“So it’s a Ministry party,” he drawled. “All right. That’s no big secret, either, everyone here knows who my father was—”

This drove her even deeper into the throes of frustrated aggression, which she vented by pinching him. “A Ministry party? Draco, think! You know how many Ravenclaws have parents in the Ministry? How many Hufflepuffs? Even your friend Weaselbee’s father works in the — I don’t know — Department of Muggle Crap, or what-have-you.”

“Misuse of Muggle Artifacts,” he said distantly, distracted by the observation that she was right. “Fair enough. Theo didn’t tell me what the occasion was. It’s for the Cavalier party, I suppose, is that it? That’s why Weasley and his lot didn’t get invitations?”

“No,” she said, her irritation patent. “There are lots of Ravenclaws with parents in the Cavaliers, too. No. It’s just Slytherins and you. Why do you think that is?”

He stopped scanning the crowds and looked down at her. She was clasping her winter coat to her chest like a child’s stuffed animal, strangely rigid, as if she were afraid of something. Him?

“Theo invited me.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “He did. Because Theodore, the spectacular dolt, thinks you’re his friend.”

“I am his friend,” he said, stung.

“Sure you are. Yes. But — oh, I can’t say this without offending you, so you’re just going to have to get over it — but here’s the truth. Teddy doesn’t know you’re not a Slytherin.”

He blinked. “Parkinson,” he began slowly, half convinced that this ‘therapy’ had put her off her rocker. “Everyone knows I’m not in Slytherin. Nott especially. He was there, actually, at our Sorting. I wear a tie, I board in the Tower, I fly chaser for the Gryffindor team—”

“Yes, yes, all that rubbish, it doesn’t mean anything and you know it,” she said impatiently. “If I had a galleon for every student who’s ever been Sorted wrong, I could buy your Manor and the next three over! Did you know Cordelia Newcastle has been sleeping in the Hufflepuff common room for three months because she can’t stand being in Slytherin? It’s true. There’s been a spare bed in the dungeons since November. Theo, sweet stupid boy that he is, thinks you’re a Cordelia. And he won’t see reason when I tell him he’s wrong.”

Draco had no idea what to say. For some reason, the first thing that came out of his mouth was: “Why do you think he’s wrong?”

“Because you’re not,” she sighed. “I mean, bless you, and everything, I do think you’re a decent chap, and you’re the only Gryffindor that I don’t want to put my own ears out after talking to, but you’re not one of ours. If it came down to it—”

“If it came down to it, I’m still his friend,” he said coldly, straightening his back. It reasserted several inches of height between himself and Pansy, and he looked down on her from an even greater vantage. “I don’t like your implication, Parkinson, and I recommend that you withdraw it if you’d like to remain on civil terms.”

Unfazed, the second year folded her arms and thrust her chin up to meet his eye. “I won’t,” she said steadily. “You’ll only prove my point if you get upset about this. You don’t look out for him like I do.”

“Of course not,” he sneered, “seeing as I don’t live up his arse—”

“Oh, now who’s being uncivil?”

“I’ll say you have a lot of nerve claiming to look out for him, seeing as he’s had a full plate cleaning up your messes ever since you came to school.”

“My messes? Mine? If you mean the time with the She-Weasel, she attacked me, and you did a fat load of nothing about it until Teddy forced you, which pretty much proves my point!”

“Attacked you? Don’t make me laugh. You called Granger a slur, what did you expect—”

“A slur?” she said softly. “A slur? So the truth is a slur, is it, now, Draco?”

He flinched away. The impassive set of her face made his skin crawl. “All I’m saying,” he said, in tones of cold disapproval, “is that you had no business being surprised when she jumped you. You know very well what that word means, and what kind of reaction it would get when you said it in front of those people.”

The disapproval in his voice made her duck her head and squirm. “Maybe,” she said stubbornly, yielding nothing. “Maybe I wanted to see how you would react. You ever think of that?”

He laughed unkindly. “Don’t let’s pretend that you cared about me until Theo told you to.”

Her head snapped up, expression blazing. “That’s not fair,” she said, with surprising vigor. “He never told me to care about you. I was the one who asked him to introduce me. And I was hurt when you didn’t say anything, you ignominious moron. I wanted to be your friend.”

He gaped at her.

“Are you mad? You wanted to be my friend, so you decided to try insulting my others?”

“What else was I supposed to do? I was eleven!”

“You might have tried an owl, first!”

They stared at each other, bristling with aggression.

“Merlin,” she said suddenly. “This is exhausting. I don’t know how you all live like this in the Tower, I think I’d die. Can’t we just lie and say we’ve made up? I swear not to care if you won’t.”

“Smashing idea,” he said immediately. “Let’s.”

“Good,” she said, and held out her hand. They shook firmly, and the argument was over.

There was a crescendo of silver on glass, and spoons tinkled against a flotilla of champagne bowls. Runcorn had mounted the podium at the fore of the room, and his voice rang out in artificially magnified peals of deep, sonorous bass.

“Witches and wizards, gentlefolk, friends,” he began. “I thank you all very sincerely for joining me here. I know you have taken time away from your jobs — which I know to be very strenuous—”

Giggles of the artificial and obliging variety susurrated.

He smiled with fatherly condescension. “And I apologize for that. The work of saving the world has never been easy. I thank, also, those of you whom I have taken away from your studies; for you, too, the work of saving the world has begun, though as I recall, it never seemed quite so glamorous as the work your parents now perform.”

Claps and laughter rose from the students in the crowd, who raised their voices even higher than their elders, perhaps to compensate for their smaller number.

As Runcorn continued to speak, Draco leaned over to speak in Pansy’s ear.

“You never said what the party was.”

She kept her eyes locked on Runcorn. One would suspect she had some deep fascination with Ministry smalltalk, so steadily did she refuse to look at anything else. “It’s not a party. It’s a recruitment event.”

“…For what?”

“It’s called the League of Promising Youth,” she muttered. “It’s a civic association for students.”

“Pedigreed students,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Pedigreed Slytherins. With Ministry connections.”

“I’m sure they’d let a Ravenclaw join, if one wanted to.”

“How much would you bet on it?”

He’d put too much acid in it; she pressed her lips together and arched her nose even higher, as if allowing the remark to drift underneath her notice.

“And the point of this ‘civic association,’” he said, in a low voice, “is to do what, exactly?”

“Well, I don’t know, Draco, I’ve only just got here,” she snapped. “I assumed they were going to tell us once we’d been properly initiated. I’m not even technically invited to join, it’s for third years and up, but my father said I could use his connections to get in if I wanted to.”

“And will you?”

“I don’t know! That’s why I came, isn’t it, to see if it’s my shout? I mean, I don’t care a fig for politics, and my father disgusts me utterly, but if all of my friends are going to be doing something, I’m not going to be the only one who’s not in the club.”

“You wouldn’t be the only one.”

“In fact I would. They came around the Slytherin commons and delivered little invitations, wax-sealed with the Minister’s crest and everything. Everyone who’s anyone got one. Theo’s been punched, and Daphne, and Blaise…”

“You wouldn’t be the only one,” he said, “because I wasn’t invited.”

She glanced at him, half-exasperation, half-guilt. “But you’ll get in if you want it, though,” she said. “You know that, don’t you? With your money, and your pedigree? You could walk right up to the Minister and ask.”

Draco’s mouth felt dry. He could hear Runcorn speaking, but he couldn’t focus on what he was saying. A prickle ran up the base of his spine, cool and sharp, like the thrill of fear that afflicted him when he was flying into a steep dive.

“I have to go,” he said abruptly, and turned.

“What? No! What did I say?” Pansy clutched his arm, following him to the door. “Draco. Don’t be dramatic. No one cares if you’re a Gryffindor. It’s just a stupid tie.”

She was lying, or at the very least she was wrong, but he couldn’t concentrate enough to tell the difference. It didn’t matter, anyways. “It’s not that,” he said.

“What, then?” she demanded.

“I don’t know,” he said, taut with frustration, and he was telling the truth. “I should go.”

“What? No. Don’t leave me here,” she said at once. “Don’t be such a girl about it. I need you to protect me against my parents. They want to introduce me to some boy from Scandinavia — I expect they’ll want me to marry him — you owe it to me as a friend to pretend to be in love with me for an hour, at least.”

He tore his arm from her grasp. She let go and stumbled back, eyes wide and wounded, like a spanked cat.

“What is the matter with you?” she demanded. “That was a joke.”

“I’m sick,” he said, and after a moment he realized he wasn’t lying: his stomach had been seizing ever since Runcorn took the podium. “I have to see Madam Pomfrey. I’m sorry, Parkinson. I’ll make it up to you some other time.”

Runcorn’s speech had reached a crescendo. He turned away from Pansy and ducked out of the warm room into the cool, welcoming air of the hallway beyond, where, for some reason unknown to his conscious mind, he broke into a run.

---

On Sunday morning, after spending the better part of Saturday in bed, Draco went down with Hermione for the first Hogsmeade visit of the term. Ron, who was still not speaking to Hermione on behalf of Scabbers, stayed behind, and Harry gave some half-hearted excuse of wanting to stay in and do homework. Draco could have laughed. If it didn’t hurt Hermione’s feelings, he wouldn’t have cared.

Partly to distract her, he told her what had happened at the party.

“But that’s vile,” she exclaimed. “Absolutely vile. It’s obvious what they’re doing — rounding up all the students who’ll regurgitate their ideas back to them, all the same backwards traditionalist doggerel. It’s nepotism, pure and simple. I’m shocked that Dumbledore’s allowing it.”

“I’m not sure Dumbledore’s allowing much of anything,” he said flatly. “It’s the Minister of Magic. What’s Dumbledore going to do, kick him off the grounds?”

“He could,” she said hotly. “Hogwarts might be a public institution, but that doesn’t give the Minister leave to swan in and do as he likes, especially when it comes to threatening the welfare of children.”

“I hate to break it to you, Granger, but I don’t think Runcorn’s a threat to anyone in that room.”

“And I didn’t say it was their welfare at risk, did I?” she countered evenly, with a subtle lift of her chin. “Nothing you’ve said about these people’s politics makes me feel terribly good about them rallying their children into — what is it, anyway? Some sort of secret society?”

“The League of Promising Youth, Pansy called it.”

“The ‘League of Promising Youth,’” she repeated, curling her lip. “God, it even sounds sinister. I’m glad you had the sense to get out of there, Draco. Those people sound haughty and insensitive and downright bigoted. I’d think less of you if you’d stayed, honestly.”

Her fury warmed him. Talking to Hermione about the party had a way of soothing his nerves, somehow, and dispelling the dismal sense of malaise that had settled over him for the past twenty-four hours. When she spoke, everything seemed so orderly and clear. Of course it was wrong, for the Minister to be cherry-picking his favorite students; of course Draco had been right to leave. Framed this way, the decision made him sound heroic and principled. It was much better than thinking he’d fled because he was too nauseous and cowardly to sit through a harmless speech.

“It wasn’t even a good party,” he said dismissively, as if he hadn’t been having a perfectly good time before Pansy showed up. “I didn’t get to talk to anyone important. I got stuck at a table with a bunch of academics.”

“No! Did you really? Tell me everything you heard.”

He hid a smirk by turning his face towards the lake. “I can’t remember it all,” he said vaguely. “I suppose someone mentioned a bit about pure elemental transmutation; supposedly she converted a mole of mercury, in her laboratory—”

“A mole? That’s not possible!” Hermione whirled on him, mouth agape, transfixed. “You’re joking! You misremembered.”

“Mm, you’re right. It was two.”

“Two!”

He grinned at the lake. It was a very pretty lake, today: the sun was iridescing off the chipped surface of the waves, and refracting pieces of the egg-blue sky. “Yes, two,” he said. “Mercury into — actually, guess.”

“Well, it’s not gold, obviously,” she said. When he remained silent, she gasped: “No. It isn’t! It isn’t. You’re playing with me.”

His cheek twitched. He ironed it out, sternly.

“You ought to pick up the June edition of Potions Review. That’s all.”

“Draco Malfoy, you know I can’t get wizarding magazines!” She was practically wailing. “I’ll be out of school by June, and they don’t deliver to muggle addresses! You’re lying.”

“Then you’ll just have to be very nice to me.”

“Be serious. You’ll get one for me, won’t you? I’d pay you back. I figured out how to exchange currency at Gringotts, you know.”

He wrinkled his nose, disgusted. “When have I ever let you pay me back for anything?” he said, horrified. “It was a joke. I could buy that magazine. I’m not going to shake you down for ten galleons.”

She ignored him. She was talking fast, and walking faster. Hermione always did this: her body ran on words the same way a steam engine did on coal. “It’s just not possible. I don’t think you would lie to me about it. You know how important it is! You and I have talked about it before, this very thing, and we decided it was impossible. Didn’t we say it was impossible? No, you wouldn’t lie…”

“Granger, I’m not lying,” he said amusedly, breaking into a jog to keep up with her. “Stop fussing. I’ll get you the magazine.”

“After you read it first,” she muttered.

“Naturally. The day I let you win is the day you get bored of me.”

“I would never get bored of you,” she said indignantly.

“Because I never let you win. Exactly. We agree.”

“No, because you’re far too interesting,” she said. “You’re like a maladapted bird of paradise. I shouldn’t expect I’ll ever find someone who’s so fully self-contradictory in so many ways.”

He made a scandalized noise. “If that’s not the richest thing I’ve ever — pot, meet the blackest, grimiest, filthiest kettle—”

“Hush,” she said, falling still. He stumbled a few steps and doubled back, following her gaze. They had crested a hill and came upon a row of old stones overlooking a ridge that led down to the gamekeeper’s hut. Below, among the orange valleys of the pumpkin patch, stood a trio of Ministry officials in high-collared purple uniforms with silver studs.

“Aurors,” said Draco, frowning deeper. “Why are the aurors here?”

“Shh!”

The door swung open. Hermione made a small chirp, like a startled bird, and then shoved them both behind one of the larger stones. His back hit the rock and he made a noise less of pain than of surprise.

When he opened his mouth to object, she shoved her finger against his lips. Her arm made a brace across his collarbones, surprisingly firm, for all her lack of natural size and strength. He could feel her driving against him with all her might, which was not much — he could have easily shoved her into the dirt with a flick of his arm — but it was more than he expected.

He didn’t quite know what to do. If Harry or Ron had taken liberties like this, Draco could have body-checked them into the mud and been cheerfully on his way. He sort of stared at her for a moment, waiting for her to realize the extent of her indiscretion, but the daft girl wasn’t even looking at him. She was peering around the rock, holding him in place with one hand, apparently expecting him to simply remain where he was put.

He narrowed his eyes and carefully pried her finger away from his mouth. “Granger,” he hissed.

She ignored him, peering around the rock to see what was happening below. “Look!” she whispered.

“Granger, what the hell—?”

“Shut up! I’m trying to hear!”

He rolled his eyes and turned around. The door to Hagrid’s hut creaked open, and a trio of aurors stepped out. Two of them carried between them a large steel box with handles welded out of metal, and sealed with a glowing red padlock the size of Draco’s head. Both wore gloves.

“…call the Romanians, and have them on standby,” said a voice. Draco leaned closer, struggling to hear, and his chest bumped Hermione’s shoulder; she made an absent, irked noise, and shouldered him back. He glared at her.

“Yes, sir.”

“And notify the Minister, of course, once you’ve done all that. He’ll be invigorated by the progress we’ve made here today. If you can get him personally on the Floo, tell him that the search will be extended by… oh, three weeks should be sufficient, don’t you think? For the grounds?”

“Yes, Lord Nott.”

“Until the end of March, then. With apologies.”

Draco sucked in a breath. Sibelius Nott emerged from Hagrid’s hut, a sight so strange it sent a pang of cognitive dissonance ringing through his skull. Descending from the stairs with a prim and characteristic distaste, Theodore’s father paused in the pumpkin patch and brushed a patch of something pale and crumbling from his sleeve. It looked like ash.

He glanced down at his robes, and his expression darkened. Draco noticed that there was a long, jagged tear in the silk near his knee. “And call Magical Creatures,” ordered Nott, after a moment. “Have someone out to put down that dog.”

“Yes, sir.”

With a last sneering flick of his sleeve, he swept after the aurors, following them down the wooded path to Hogsmeade.

Hermione waited until they were just out of sight. Her expression was dark and unreadable. Draco let out a slow exhale and murmured, “Well, that’s interesting, isn’t it? Do you think that Hagrid—”

But Hermione was gone: she was hurtling down the hill, so fast that even Draco had to sprint to catch up with her.

She flung herself against the door, hammering. “Hagrid!” she shrieked. “Hagrid, open the door! Are you in there? Are you alright?”

The door cracked open, and Hagrid shambled out. Draco balked. The half-giant was in a bad way: red hemispheres rimmed his eyes, and tear tracks ran down in gobbets the size of small rivers through his great uncombed beard. He was even more shabbily dressed than usual, and scorch-marks peppered his shirt.

“They took ’im,” he croaked, kneading a giant and phlegm-clogged handkerchief. “They took ’im away from me. From his daddy that loves ’im, they took ’im, an’ they’re fixin’ ter ship ’im off, Merlin knows where…”

“Took who?” said Hermione breathlessly. “Hagrid, took who?”

“You’re a father?” Draco said, flabbergasted.

“’E was jus’ a little bloke,” moaned Hagrid, “and now ee’s gone! Gone… they took Norbert away…” And he slumped down on the stoop, his head drooping so low that his great shag of hair swept his knees.

Hermione immediately dropped to her knees and cradled his hand between her own. “Who’s Norbert?” she demanded. Her tone was hard and, in Draco’s opinion, not at all comforting, unless you happened to know Hermione. Then it was still not very comforting, but it didn’t give the initial impression, which was that you were about to be horsewhipped for information. “Who did they take away?”

“Or what,” added Draco. Hermione shot him an aggrieved look, but he shrugged: with Hagrid, it was a fair question.

“Ee’s on’y a baby,” sobbed Hagrid.

“A baby?” Draco exclaimed. Hermione scowled and drew her finger across her neck, but he refused to be sorry for it. The idea of anyone entrusting Hagrid with a human child was almost as unfathomable as Hagrid actually siring one.

“Yes,” Hagrid agreed tearfully. “A baby. Jus’ a little baby dragon.”

Draco let out a high-pitched bark of laughter. He couldn’t help it. He really couldn’t.

Hermione put her hands over her face. “A dragon,” she mumbled. “A baby… a baby dragon. So: a dragon.”

Draco did not trust himself to speak. Or, rather, he did not trust himself to say anything that wouldn’t make Hermione look at him in the way he hated, so instead, he stepped down from the stoop and stalked restlessly over to the nearest pumpkin, where he stood, his hands on his hips, putting every ounce of willpower he possessed into not saying what he wanted to.

He was very proud of himself when he didn’t. He walked back to where Hagrid sat and found Hermione still attempting to comfort him.

“It’s okay, Hagrid, really,” she was saying. “It’ll be alright. They’re taking him to a sanctuary, probably, where he’ll be taken care of, and he’ll be with his own kind… lots of other dragons for him to play with, and, and… goats to chase, and everything…”

Draco arched his eyebrow at her and mouthed: Goats?

She threw up her hands furiously. He hid a snicker under a cough.

“But ’ee won’ be with his daddy,” sobbed Hagrid. “’Ee won’ be with me. They don’ know how ee likes his milk, and they didn’ take his favorite blanket…”

“I’m sure he’s distraught,” said Draco dryly, and Hagrid — apparently in concurrence — broke into a great wail. Fang broke into a pang of sad howls, too, apparently sensing his master’s distress. It took several minutes for Hermione, with scant help from Draco, to calm them down.

“How did you even keep a baby dragon?” Draco said, mostly rhetorically, since Hagrid was in no state to answer. “You live in a wooden hut. Next to a forest. That’s remarkable. It’s actually remarkable that you haven’t died.”

“You,” hissed Hermione, “are not helping.”

Luckily, Hagrid seemed not to hear them. “An’ now I can’ teach, either,” he managed, between gulps for breath. “Because they’ve suspended me license. An’ I’m on temporary probation fer unlicensed possession of a Class Five creature. An’, an’ when they come back, they said, they were comin’ with a warrant ter search the rest of the paddock… all of me stables an’ warrens…”

Hermione sat up very straight. “They’re coming back,” she said, in a strangely calm voice. “You’re sure?”

Hagrid nodded shakily. “They said they’re lookin’ for signs o’ Sirius Black,” he sniffled. “Tha’s how they got a warrant fer Norbert, was someone gave ’em a tipoff about me hut… I dunno what ter do. I really don’. If tha’s what they do with Norbert, I dunno wha’ they’ll say when they find Buckbeak…”

Draco said, “You’re right, they’ll probably take him,” and realized too late that he sounded altogether too chipper. Too late, for Hagrid roared with dismay. He cringed, and hastened to add: “But, you know… he can fly, so I don’t think their odds are very good of keeping him. He’s a wild animal. I’m sure he’ll get out if he wants to.”

“He won’, though,” moaned Hagrid. “Tha’s the rub of it. I’ve trained ’im to fly back here every time he takes off, because he’s expectin’ treats and food and the like. They’ll know jus’ where to find ’im, if he gets out. An’ if they think they can’t release ’im into the wild, they’ll — they’ll—”

Based on the way Hagrid exploded into an even more violent profusion of tears, Draco had a pretty good idea of what they would do.

Hermione, however, had gone quiet and still. She had ceased to comfort Hagrid at all; she had even dropped his hand, and now was lacing her fingers in front of her mouth, deep in thought.

“The whole grounds?” she said. “All of it? Including Hogsmeade.”

Hagrid bobbed his head. “Tha’s what ee’ said.”

“Right,” she said calmly. “Right. Of course. They’d want to be thorough.”

She stood up and brushed off her hands. “Hagrid,” she said, with all the warmth of a staff sergeant, “you’ve got to reapply for your creature handling license. A special license, this time. Draco’s right, the general one really isn’t appropriate for someone in your position, and you’ve more than enough experience to pass the written exam. I’ll help you. There’s books on it at the library, you can take them out on my account. I’ll come down with some materials tomorrow, and we can start working on the appeal.”

Hagrid lifted his head and blinked at her, his craggy face bright with hope. “Ye will?” he said. “Tha’s — tha’s plum kind of you, Hermione, but — no, yer a student, yeh shouldn’ take time out of yer studies for tha’.”

“Nonsense,” she said crisply. “This is what my studies are for. What’s the point of knowing everything if you aren’t going to help people? We’ll have tea after classes. By the way, you really must keep Fang inside. Don’t let anyone from the Ministry see him.”

With that, she gave Hagrid a brief but mighty hug, and then bid him goodbye. “Come on,” she whispered to Draco, taking his arm and pulling him away from the cottage. “There’s no time to waste. We’ve got to find Professor Lupin.”

“What now?” he said, irritated at being yet again denied access to the memorandum on where, exactly, they were going. It didn’t stop him from following her, though. “Why Lupin? Has he got a hippogriff stashed in his closet?”

She paused and stared at him, wide-eyed, as if she couldn’t believe that he didn’t see what she saw.

“No,” she said. “They’re doing a full sweep of the grounds. That includes the Shrieking Shack.”

---

-pansy and draco’s approach to friendship is like. i will pretend to dislike you SO MUCH that you have no choice but to like me in return. and then the other person does it back to them and they are like >:0!!!!

-it is canon in my heart that snape hates every one of the people at that table, save two. you can guess which two

-poor hagrid. I did say buckbeak would be coming back!

-next chapter going up in a week! its drafting title (not final, has since been changed) was “the beginning of hermione granger’s promising career as a delinquent genius.”

---