Draco fastened the last of the clasps on his robes and stepped back, looking appraisingly into the mirror. "Very dapper, sir," it said. Draco ignored it. He hated these galas, hated posing for Daily Prophet photos with his parents, hated the snobbish wizards and witches flashing smiles in their finest robes, hated the outlandish food. The elven wine was not so bad, and the women were opalescent in their beauty, but he could never shake the feeling that he was as phony as the people around him.
The ballroom was nearly full when he entered it from a side door at around midnight. There they were, the fakes, the flatterers, the sycophantic waifs in their puffy ball gowns. He looked around the room with casual interest. They had really outdone themselves this time, Draco thought. The towering walls of the room were decorated with sweeping, sheer draperies that hung loosely over tall windows and French doors leading to dimly-lit terraces and the frosty night air. The ceiling was aglow with lanterns, complete with live fairies, the likes of which Draco had only ever seen at Hogwarts. The floor swirled green and grey under the feet of the dancers, and a great stage protruded a little into the dance floor. He watched Death Eaters whirl past where he stood in a nearly deserted corner. Each of them was leering haughtily at their dates as they danced to the plucking and pounding of instruments and sultry voice of a boldly thin woman in violently purple robes languishing on the dais. He tried not to look at her, tried to block out the incessant twang of the harp and tap-t-tap of the snare drum and the wavering chords of a giant grand piano.
Draco wolfed down a few hors d'oeuvres and a crystal goblet or two of wine. He was not hungry. He just wanted to leave as soon as possible. His father spotted him and nodded. He nodded back, noting the smugness in his face.
"Dear boy! What year are you in now, Draco?" asked a plump man Draco recognized as Cornelius Fudge.
"My seventh."
Fudge nodded congenially. "Good, good. Well…" Then he was distracted by a fellow ministry official and abruptly left Draco's side.
In she swept then, through the arch from the great entrance hall, her ebony hair out of her face in a loose, elegant bun and turning every eligible bachelor's head. Her dress was a black tool confection, layers of transparent fabric overlapping each other like petals, the hems left un-sewn. The deep emerald tear-drop earrings and matching necklace complemented her gown well. She was a vision, much older than she normally looked in her school uniform with the skirt she had bewitched to her mid-thigh. How she got away with such things, he did not know.
Her hand rose to her mouth, and Draco saw a silver cigarette holder poised between her fingers, an unlit cigarette fitted to the end. He crossed the few yards of marble floor between them and procured an antique lighter from a pocket inside his robes. She smiled and leaned in as he flicked the flint with his thumb. Flame embraced the fragrant tobacco before he snapped the lid shut, and smoke billowed from the remaining embers. She took a long drag, her dark eyes smoldering.
"Thank you," she simpered, smoke spilling from her mouth.
"You look…" he paused, allowing the right flattery to come to him "…exquisite,
Darling."
She gazed at him as if deciding whether or not this was to her taste, then inclined her head slightly. "Again, thank you. The invitation said formal." She took another drag. The glowing coal blazed bright red, but ash quickly smothered it back to deep orange. "Fancy a dance?"
"If I wanted to dance, I would have asked you." She looked somewhat crestfallen, but regained her composure quickly.
"Fine, then I'll find someone else to dance with me." Her refined elegance was replaced with the girlish air he was so used to at Hogwarts.
He scoffed at her. "Do whatever you like." He made to walk away, back to his corner, but she grasped his arm and held him back.
"Please, Draco, I want to dance with you."
"You cannot always have what you want, Pandora." He rested his hand on her cheek, bending his lips to her ear. "Especially when what you want cannot be bought with your father's money. Now run along." He straightened and left her side. She fumed, but did not follow him. Instead, she walked seductively by a line of eager young men, all of whom gaped at her. Soon she was asked to dance and her dress swayed beautifully around her and her jewels sparkled dazzlingly, but her eyes were malicious and her skin was chalk-white.
She wears rage well, he thought, lighting a cigarette of his own and taking several long draws from it before letting his hand fall to his side. This was pointless, boring even, and Draco wondered when would be an appropriate time to extricate himself from high wizarding society.
What a ruse, he thought, taking another drag. How amusing my father must find all of this, throwing a party to celebrate his release from Azkaban. He seems to have recovered nicely. Lucius, arm around Narcissa's waist now, was speaking with several high-level Ministry employees.
Draco decided the best time to leave was the present, as both his parents and his "date" were occupied. He flicked his half-smoked cigarette onto the dance floor and slipped once again though the kitchens, following the maze of hallways back to his rooms. Once there, he cast off the constricting, high-necked dress robes, cursing Madame Malkin under his breath, and stripped down to his boxers. Just as he was pulling pajama pants over these, he heard voices in the hall outside.
"Just here, Miss." There was a shuffle as the house-elf bowed and backed away, then a knock.
"Draco, it's me." Pansy had pursued him. He was tempted to send her away, but instead he picked up his wand from the dresser next to him and unlocked the door, tugging his pants up as he did.
"I left the party to be alone."
"I'll be alone with you." She batted her eyes at him and took several brave steps forward, allowing the door the creak shut behind her. It thudded closed, the sound echoing through the room. She gave him an once-over with her eyes, drawing ever closer. "What are you doing? It's too early for bed." The space between them closed, and she coiled her hand into his coyly. Pansy gazed up at him, her brownish-black eyes cowish. Her other hand chanced to his bare chest, and she walked it up to the base of his neck. "Kiss me." He did, though it was lackluster and devoid of emotion. He let her push him backwards into a bureau chair. She sat on his lap. He felt disgust wind up his body from the places she was touching his skin, hot and pounding.
"Not now, Pandora." He pushed her roughly off of him, and her dress rustled as she stumbled to regain her balance.
"Stop calling me that. Everyone calls me Pansy now, Draco."
"I am not everyone."
"I don't care who you are." Her face was defiant, but her voice quivered.
He stood up and turned to stare into the mirror. "Don't be silly, of course you care who I am." Draco watched her move behind him. He picked up a simple cotton shirt from the bureau before him and slid it over his head. "I'm tired now, Darling, please go away. Your adoring fans are waiting for you."
"I don't know why you call me 'darling' if you never act-"
"Enough," he whispered. Her mouth closed abruptly, as if he'd shouted at her.
"I'm not scared of you." He moved so suddenly this time she did not have a moment to react. He was inches from her, his fingers tight around her wrists, pushing her backwards into the wall adjacent to his bed. Her back hit the hard plastered stone with a dull thud; her hands wrenched, trying to break his grip. His hands constricted further, and she stopped struggling.
Draco leaned in, and her hair brushed his nose and cheek softly as, once again, he spoke into her ear. "Oh, I think you are scared of me." Her eyes darted to the black tattoo on his arm, and it twitched menacingly as if in response. "You have no idea what I am capable of, Pandora. If you are not scared, you are even more foolish than I thought." She made a tiny noise, like an animal in pain. He released her and strode to his bed.
She left quickly and without another word, and he showed no sign of noticing her parting. The sheets were cool and soft against his bare arms and feet. The comforter seemed to absorb his body heat and release it ten-fold. Soon, he had drifted off into a dreamless sleep, thinking how meaningless the night had been.
A week later, Christmas break ended, and school began afresh. NEWT year was proving difficult, and Draco privately wondered whether all of these foot-long essays and extra star charts were worth his time. His father's voice would creep into his mind then, saying "we must keep up appearances, Draco."
Why should he keep up appearances, Draco thought spitefully, with two-thirds of the golden trio gallivanting around Great Britain in search of the Dark Lord himself? He should be out fighting, he thought, he should be doing something useful instead of describing the various functions of pixie wings and filling out diagrams of chimaeras. Snape was gone, Potter and Weasley were gone, indeed, nearly a fourth of the students had not returned to Hogwarts in the fall.
The Slytherin house was just as full as ever, brimming with students whose fathers wanted to "keep up appearances." However, Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff had noticeably fewer occupants.
Unfortunately, one chary little know-it-all had come back for her final year. Draco's mouth went dry at the thought of her bigheadedness, of her interfering, graceless conduct. Still, she had managed the best grades in their classes every year, surpassing even himself in every subject. He told those who bothered to ask it was because he was not putting all that much effort into his schooling, but inwardly he knew that he had been, that she had beaten him, and he hated her for it.
He was taking six NEWT level classes this year: Defense against the Dark Arts, Potions, Transfiguration, Astronomy, Arithmancy, and Charms. Even so, on Monday mornings, one of his precious few free periods was devoted to school dealings and his head boy duties. The morning classes started again, Draco had one of these meetings with the prefects and head girl. Many of the previous prefects had not come back to Hogwarts, so new ones had been chosen from the appropriate years. There were six from each house, and they were, across the board, incapable of getting any work done without bickering among themselves for at least an hour before doing it.
A long table cut through the narrow room, and papers were scattered along it. Draco was battling a headache as twenty-five voices melded into one cacophonous hum. The argument was over the appointment of a chairperson for the Committee of Proper Punishments and Admonishments, something Draco did not care about at all. The preceding chairman had stepped down due to a particularly nasty jinx he received from a "disgruntled student," and now he was trying to explain the dangers of such a post to a wholly deaf audience.
Draco stood up, gathered his papers together with a flick of his wand (some jetted over from the other side of the table to rejoin their mates), and marched from the room. The door had hardly shut behind him before Hermione Granger darted out if it, pure rage painted on her face.
"Where do you think you're going, Malfoy?" Draco ignored her, and continued his slow walk down the corridor. "I am talking to you, you git. Come back here! We are not through."
He rounded on her. Her wand was out; she looked absolutely livid. "I am." His eyes flashed dangerously, but his voice was low and composed.
"You are head boy, Malfoy. This is your respons-"
"I didn't want this, Granger. You like being bossy, so you just handle it. I've got class." He turned on his heel and began to walk away again.
"Malfoy! We have the same class!" She was following him now. Draco wondered if the others had even noticed they were gone. He was halfway down a short flight of steps when she said the magic words. "Just because you're a Death Eater-" Finally, the wrath he had barricaded inside for so long erupted and in a flash he was a yard or so from her, his wand raised, white hot anger pulsing through him.
"Do not pretend to know anything about me, Granger. You cannot understand! No one-"
"And you know me so well, then, do you? You think no one can comprehend what-"
"Stop interrupting me-"
"You first!!" They stared at each other in a deadlock. Draco could not believe how brazen she was to speak to him in such a way, but she had a point. He couldn't help but compare her to Pansy, who was so fickle and dull, bold in her men and money, yet with a personality like dead grass. Hermione had style, and he admired her for it, but that didn't make him hate her any less. She lowered her wand an inch or two, and this time her voice was relatively calm. "You've never tried to explain… what I mean to say is… well, I'm listening, and I understand more than you think." He scoffed at her, and she glared at him reproachfully. "I'd be surprised if you knew my first name, let alone anything else about me." She turned her back on him affectedly and flounced off toward the meeting room.
High windows cast alternate shadow and sunlight on her as she went, and he watched her go, wand at his side. She did not glance over her shoulder, nor did she even seem upset. Her robes billowed behind her, and her walk was as confident as ever. When her fingers gripped the door handle, he shouted "Hermione. You're name is Hermione." She showed no sign that she had heard him, and her long auburn hair swished as she disappeared back into the riotous sounds of the meeting.
Draco was fifteen minutes early to Transfiguration, and Headmistress McGonagall had not arrived yet. It was amazing to Draco that McGonagall would have chosen to retain her teaching role as well as take up the duties of headmistress. He could not quite get used to calling her by this title, however, as it did not seem to fit her. The only other headmistress Hogwarts had had during his years there was Umbridge, and she had been dismal, dispite the obvious perks of getting on her good side. McGonagall was the stark opposite of this, second only to Dumbledore in her fair-mindedness and creativity. It was she who had allowed for his return to Hogwarts that fall, discounting the events at the end of last term. Apparently he had not done anything wrong, not anything so reprehensible that she required his expulsion, that is. This allowance had seemed far-fetched, but Draco thought maybe she had allowed him to stay at the school (not to mention made him head boy) in order to keep an eye on him.
In some ways he felt indebted to her. Hogwarts was his home, a place apart from mansions and house-elves and high expectations, away from his father and the Death Eaters. He tried to forget about the marking on his left arm, tried to pretend that he had never knelt before the Dark Lord to receive it, but pushing it from his mind was useless; it would only surface again later, the memory even more powerful.
He had been sitting in the sill of a huge window at the end of the corridor which overlooked the Quidditch pitch, peering through the frosted glass to the deserted grounds below. It was already snowing half-heartedly now, and Draco thought that by dinner they would have flurries whipping around the castle. Just as he was cursing his new rooms with their "lovely" views of the lake and drafting bay windows, the Headmistress rounded the corner to his right, her heavy shoes clacking on the steps of the staircase then the gray stone floor.
"Mr. Malfoy! You are early." She flicked her wand and her classroom door swung open to permit them. "Did the meeting finish early?"
"Well, it did for me."
She shot him a severe look. "You must give your prefects a chance, Mr. Malfoy. They need your and Ms. Granger's guidance to succeed."
"Maybe if our guidance made any impression on them…" but his voice trailed off. He could not think of anyone he would rather argue with less at that moment than McGonagall. Hermione appeared on the same staircase as McGonagall just then, and the three of them entered the class, Draco and Hermione glaring at each other malevolently.
"The two of you must learn to get along before you can attempt to lead. It's been a little over a quarter of the school year now, and, frankly, I'm surprised that Christmas went over as well as it did with you two arguing constantly. Yes, I've noticed," she said in response to their rather stunned expressions, "and I am not at all impressed. I would expect better from you Ms. Ganger, Mr. Malfoy."
People were arriving in the class now, though there were not nearly as many as there had been in their previous year. NEWT levels were incredibly difficult, and none but the best made it into McGonagall's Transfiguration lesson in their seventh year. "Now, sit down, the pair of you. You will be working together on today's lesson." she raised her voice so that the class as a whole could hear her.
"Today we will be practicing transfiguring particular body parts. This may prove difficult for some, since the entire body must undergo a subtle change to, say, turn one's ears into batwings…" She did this, and the class laughed. She really was much more relaxed with students of excellence. Hermione risked a glance at Draco, and he caught it. She smiled a little, but he did not smile back. "…eventually being able to transfigure one's legs into a fish tail, for example, or enhance one's eyes with cat-like night vision. Alright, let's split into pairs- Nott, Finnigan, the two of you will be working together today."
The class droned on with Hermione and Draco barely looking at each other, let alone speaking. When the bell rang, Draco squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. When he opened his eyes again, they were steel gray and rounded once more, and no trance of the piercing hawk-like eyes remained. He watched Hermione out of the corner of his eye as she trailed her wand along the inside of her arms, long brown feathers that had hung there disappearing in its wake. She stowed her Transfiguration book, notes, and quill in her bulging backpack, and stuck her wand into a pocket in her robes for safekeeping. Without so much as a nod of farewell, she exited the class. Draco stared after her, a fog-like grogginess still clearing from his eyes.
Around him, others in the class had not had such an easy time putting themselves back together. Seamus, who had attempted crocodile teeth, could not persuade the fangs back to their normal state. McGonagall swept around her classroom, helping students and looking as though she would rather laugh as much as anything. She cast Draco a stern glance as she passed him that said "well, get out, then" and he hastened to pack up and head to Defense against the Dark Arts, knowing he'd have to deal with Hermione there as well.
Pansy was waiting for him outside of Charms, his last class of the day. She wore a pouty smile and that too-short skirt, her hair held back by a girlish gray headband. "You're late," she fussed, hooking her arm into his and wheeling him around to face her before he could enter Charms.
"You should not have waited for me."
"The bell hasn't rung yet. It's fine." She seemed like she was purposefully delaying him.
"Let go." He shrugged her off, and she, nonplussed and clearly hell-bent on moping, followed him sulkily into the well-lit classroom.
"You know something, Draco, you treat me like dirt, but I'm still here." Draco plopped down into a straight-backed chair and swung his backpack onto the table in front of him.
"I wish you weren't."
"You don't mean that." Pansy sat down beside him. "Look at me, Draco!" He turned to face her, his cold gray eyes expressionless. She brought one of her small, bare-fingered hands to his cheek, smiling almost lovingly, but Draco knew better. Again, her touch repulsed him. He knew it shouldn't, knew that half of Slytherin would do back-flips naked in the snow to have her hand on their cheek, but he couldn't help thinking of her as used goods. He closed his eyes and waited for her to go away. After a moment of silence, he felt her fingers slide off of his skin. "You're hopeless." She sighed, and stood up. Two other Slytherin girls waited for her at the back of the class, and they grinned as she strolled over to them and sat down. The three put their heads together, ready to do a little gossiping before class.
Draco opened his eyes. Muted light was pouring in from the windows. The window at the front of the class overlooked where the road to Hogsmeade would have been, but the whole of the grounds was covered in a layer of fine white snow and the well-beaten path was no longer visible. The gates could still be seen in the distance, and the walls around it were capped with clumps of snow. He could see all of this through a veil of falling snowflakes and frost on the window. No one had trudged through the white and muddied it yet; it was too cold for the students to go outside today, and the prefects had had to stand at the main exits of Hogwarts and ask students to please find a warm, dry classroom to sit in or else go to their common rooms during the breaks.
Herbology had even been cancelled due to the extreme cold, which had not fussed Draco at all. The wind was aiming the snowfall, which was steadily strengthening as he sat there, at the windows to his left. It's beautiful, he thought, but turned his gaze back to the front of the room. He could hear Pansy and her friends giggling behind him, and the chatter of twelve or so other students that had made it to NEWT levels in Charms.
Flitwick entered the classroom then, Hermione hot on his heels and towering over him. She looked flustered, and knocked one of Dean Thomas's books off of the table as she sat down next to him. The book landed near Draco's chair. He ignored it.
"Hey, Malfoy, can you hand me that?" Dean whispered after Draco didn't move. Draco kicked it to him, and leaned in to open his own book. The reflected sheen of his Head Boy badge cast an oval spot of light on the pages. He watched it move up and down over the tiny script and picture with his breathing, and felt eyes on him. He knew Pansy was staring at him, but that wasn't it. He stole a glace at Hermione. She ducked her head toward her backpack on the floor at that very moment. Her hair fell into her face, and she tossed it out of her way as she sat back up, empty-handed. She looked at him quickly, but now he was studying her, and she turned a light shade of pink, focusing her attention resolutely on Flitwick.
Draco sneered despite himself. Hermione was conservative-looking as usual: her plain white tennis shoes poked out from beneath her robes and her hair was un-styled, though not nearly as frizzy as in years past. She wore no make-up, unlike Pansy who must spend fifteen minutes every morning plastering eye-liner and lip gloss on her face to achieve her desired smoky-pouty look. Hermione was writing furiously now, and every few minutes she would re-tuck the hair behind her ears. She didn't look at him again.
Before he knew it, Draco had spent all of Charms watching Hermione. The bell rang, and he jumped a little at the sound. He stuffed his book back into his pack and slung it over his shoulder. What was wrong with him? He hadn't absorbed anything from his classes all day. Hermione pushed past him through the small crowd of students at the door.
Ginny Weasley met her outside of the Charms classroom, and she smiled quickly at Draco as he passed. Pansy caught up with him, but he shrugged her off. He made a beeline toward his room. His plan was to skip dinner and study as punishment for blowing off his classes. When it came to the NEWT-level workload, he couldn't afford to get behind.