Black Glass 1

Black Glass I - First Bite

- former maniac of SSC

A/N : Yes, this is the promised Dracofic... it will replace The Haunting for a while... because I am enamoured with Draco... Anyway, no worries, Alohomora 3 is being written... not like anyone cares, anyway. And please send me ideas for it (Alohomora) because I'm kind of lost here. My email is in my bio or something. SSC is my dearly beloved school (blech). I am obsessed with black glass. It's the title of a novel I'm writing right now. The plot stuff comes in in the next installment, although the Draco thing in this is part of it already. In this story I'm trying not to do too much Pansy-bashing, which everyone does. Don't get me wrong, I don't like her, but I think the Slytherins ought to be given a chance...

Disclaimer : No one you recognise belongs to me...

Draco headed towards the stairs very slowly, so that he would not be heard. His silver-blond hair shone in the moonlight from the window, and his grey eyes turned silver from the side. He went up the long spiralling flight of stairs to the Astronomy tower, wincing at every creak. His hair, which needed cutting, was touching the collar of his robes like small silver ferns. Most of the girls in Slytherin found this teasing and rather saucy, and surrounded him like subjects. He had an air of danger and mystery that appealed to girls in, oh, every house, with his defiantly longish hair, smooth, pointed face and superior attitude. If they had known that he was escaping, now, to this place of solitude, they would have laughed their heads off.

He was halfway up, and stopped for breath, feeling a cool breeze lift his hair and set it back down. He smoothed a hand over his silver-blond locks protectively, glancing around. He thought he heard footsteps and moved a little faster, although he knew that there was no one to hear him at this moonlit hour.

The top was nearing him - or was he nearing the top? Draco smirked at himself for even thinking that kind of idiotic phrase, and climbed into the Astronomy tower as soundlessly as he had exited his common-room earlier. The stars were very bright, and the moon shone cold on the castle. Draco looked around, and jumped in shock as he realised he was not alone.

Leaning on one of the railings, poring over a thick Astronomy book, stood a person clad in robes.

Clapping a hand over his mouth to stifle a gasp, Draco moved silently back towards the stairs, staring at the person - the girl. However, as he turned around, he could not help looking at her. Her long hair without the hat, let down over her shoulders, gave her an air of total unassuming innocence, and Draco tried not to imagine what her eyes would look like. Her hand, moving over the pages, was very pale. It occurred to Draco that he should go, and he put one foot on the stairs.

The stair emitted a loud creak, and the studying girl turned around. It was Hermione Granger.

Draco's expression turned from one of caution and surprise to a smirk. It was a sort of defence reaction, and he straightened out his face almost immediately. It was too late - she had seen the smirk, and her expression turned cold. 'What are you doing here?' she asked, in a tone that boded no greeting.

He smiled at her, a kind of neutral smile. The smile he usually gave her and her friends was a smirk, a superior grin, or sometimes a hateful forced smile. This time he was unsure of what to think. She did not smile back. 'I might ask what you are doing here,' he said.

'I was here first,' she said childishly. 'And I was studying, for your information.'

Draco nodded, fixing her with that strange smile. He saw her shiver and grinned inwardly, but said in a mock-polite voice, 'Always the good little student, aren't you? Don't let me disturb you.' Turning to go, he put his foot on the creaky stair again, mentally vowing to get revenge on it somehow.

'You haven't told me why you're here yet.'

He turned around, genuinely surprised this time. 'Anything wrong with wanting a little solitude? This seemed like the perfect place. I was wrong, as usual.' If it hadn't been midnight and if the moonlight hadn't been illuminating her robed figure with the long hair down her back, he would have snapped, 'Got a problem?' Even now he was having a hard time keeping back his usual sarcastic crack about 'Potty and the Weasel'.

Hermione laughed without smiling. 'No one's stopping you,' she told him. 'Do what you like. Just don't distract me.'

You bet I'm going to distract you, Draco thought to himself, smirking.

She turned back to her book after one last glance at him. Draco came up beside her after a few seconds and leant over the railing as well, looking out at the stars, as he was accustomed to. Out there he didn't need to be a Slytherin, didn't need to live up to his father's expectations. He could be anything he liked. Of course, sometimes he did like being a Slytherin. Heck, he loved it most of the time. But on certain occasions, up in his dormitory alone, it was as though a crushing wave was bearing down upon him, and he climbed up to the tower o' nights to escape reality for a while.

'What are you studying now?' he asked her, peering over her shoulder.

'Constellations. Stars,' was the somewhat muffled reply. Draco suddenly wanted to... well, he didn't know just what it was. He just felt strange. He looked into the book without seeing what was in it.

'Interesting,' he remarked in a bland tone. 'And which one would you be studying?'

'Sirius,' Hermione replied, her tone softening slightly. 'The Dog Star. And Orion, as a whole.'

Draco smirked yet again, and had to straighten out his face. Sirius! 'Reminds me of someone I once knew,' he said. 'The Dog star...'

There was a sharp crack. Hermione's hand had connected with his pale peaked face, and a red mark appeared on his white cheek. She paused, a hot flush creeping up her neck, and turned back to her book abruptly. 'Don't you dare speak like that again,' she said, in a voice that was more tremulous than angry.

They stood in silence for about fifteen minutes, Hermione feverishly looking up the names of stars, and Draco just staring. He realised that out here it was all different, that they would go back to hating each other the next morning. Or, rather, he would go back to hating her the next morning. Because he certainly didn't hate her right then.

'We should go back down,' Hermione said uncertainly. 'It'll be morning soon.'

'Yes,' Draco replied, also uncertainly.

They stood there still, neither wanting to move. Draco's eyes were fixed on the Dog Star. As soon as he realised that, he turned away in disgust, and looked at Hermione, who was to his surprise staring up at him.

'Something wrong?' he asked nonchalantly, and walked over to the stairs. She gathered up her book and came after him, both of them stepping carefully over the creaking boards. Their descent was much more cheerful than Draco's solitary ascent had been, as the tension had all but vanished. Hermione slipped over a loose board and Draco put out a hand to steady her.

They parted ways after they had climbed down all the way, and Draco slipped back to his common room, his mood decidedly more light-hearted than it had been when he had slipped out. He whispered the password and went to his dormitory, where he fell asleep at once amid the droning snores of Crabbe and Goyle.

The next morning, as Draco headed down to breakfast, he thought rather irrationally of Hermione. Flanked by Crabbe and Goyle, he sat down at the breakfast table and looked across at the Gryffindors. There she was, with 'Potty and the Weasel', as Draco had labelled them, and she was looking over at him. Draco quickly looked down at his plate, and Goyle looked at him in puzzlement, just as stupid as he always was. 'Something wrong?' he asked.

'No,' Draco said, running his fingers through his wispy hair. 'Nothing at all.'

They ate as the owls came in with the morning post, and there was a box of sweets for Draco; he put it next to his plate, giving one to Goyle and Crabbe each. Pansy Parkinson, who was smiling at him, asked him for one too, and Draco handed it over impassively. He felt neither like nor dislike for the girl, who was always hanging onto him. He felt a kind of compassion for her, being so unattractive, unlike some of the Slytherin girls who were attractive in a rather more revealing way than some of the teachers would have liked. Blaise Zabini, for one, had long dark hair and blue eyes like dark mysterious pools. You could never tell what she was going to do next. Most of the Slytherin boys, including Draco at one time, thought they were madly in love with her(!).

'You look tired, Draco,' Pansy remarked, brushing back her hair. 'Are you all right?'

'Yeah,' Draco said. 'I'm fine.' Pansy had always been very nice to him, and he had been nice to her in a way, although always impersonal. Now she smiled at him over the breakfast table, and looked down at her plate. Draco's gaze wandered over to Hermione again, and this time she wasn't looking at him; she was looking at Ron, who was telling her a joke. Draco gazed at her from under hooded lids, and said nothing.

'What's so interesting about the Gryffindors, Draco?' said Pansy with a sharp-eyed glance towards Hermione. 'And the little Mudblood Granger?'

'Nothing much,' Draco said calmly, turning back to Pansy, 'except that they all look like dorks.' He felt no difference whatsoever saying this, although he expected to. Nope, same old Draco, he thought to himself with relief, as he heard Pansy giggle.

'For a moment there I thought you looked interested,' she said. Draco pushed his hair back from his peaked face and smiled the strange hypnotising neutral smile that he had just discovered the other night. It had the same effect on Pansy as on Hermione, only rather more pronounced. She shivered pleasantly, her eyes not leaving his face. Draco rather enjoyed having this effect on the Slytherin girls, not to mention Granger.

'What's our first class today?' Pansy asked.

'Double Potions with the Gryffindors,' Draco replied.

Pansy wrinkled up her nose. 'Possibly my least favourite subject,' she said. 'Snape doesn't like me very much. I'm not too good at it. Not as good as you.'

'Oh, you'll be OK,' Draco told her. 'If you need anything you can ask me.'

Pansy shivered again as he smiled that neutral smile. It seemed to suggest that he had a double nature, a halved face, one half angelic goodness and the other mystery and darkness. Save her with one hand and destroy her with the other. It was no wonder that about half the entire house had a crush on the slender sixteen-year-old. Pansy, for one, had always adored him, and although she knew he probably didn't like her back, there was still a chance, she thought. He had always smiled at her, unlike some of the Slytherin boys who found her extremely unattractive and jeered at her. Yes, he was cruel, but Pansy felt that he was a nice person. A rare quality in a Slytherin boy like Draco.

The sixth-year Gryffindors and Slytherins headed towards Potions, and Snape greeted them frostily. Draco quite liked the frosty teacher, who was actually very nice under his rough exterior. Draco had found this out during a certain incident in his fourth year with the teacher. He sat down with Crabbe and Goyle, and Pansy sat in the back elbow to elbow with the two Slytherin boys patrolling Blaise Zabini. She didn't look too comfortable. Blaise had had her eye on Draco for a while, and up till that morning, he had quite liked it. Now he wasn't quite sure what he thought of it.

'You will all need partners for this morning's work,' Snape informed them, casting a glance around the dungeon classroom with a rather nasty grin. 'Shall I choose for you, or shall you choose them yourselves?'

A mutter of dissension amongst the students meant that they would rather have him stay out of their business.

'It doesn't really matter what you think,' said Snape with another nasty grin. 'I'm going to let you choose... for now... in an orderly fashion, I beg of you. Otherwise, I shall be pairing the Slytherins with the Gryffindors.'

The students got up and began to move about, choosing partners. Harry Potter and Ron Weasley paired off, as usual, and Crabbe and Goyle paired off as well. Pansy was trying to move over to Draco, but was blocked by the two Slytherin boys, who were fighting over Blaise Zabini. She in her turn was moving towards Draco. He shivered unpleasantly and looked around at a loose end.

'You seem to be taking rather a long time choosing,' Snape said to Neville Longbottom, a round-, fresh-faced boy whom no one wanted to pick because of his accident-prone reputation. 'You can partner Parkinson - make it snappy.' Neville, an absolutely terrified expression on his face, moved towards Pansy, who was frowning slightly and looking over at Draco. Snape paired up Milicent Bulstrode and one of the Slytherin boys fighting over Blaise. Then as he looked around, he realised that the only people left without a partner were Blaise Zabini, the Slytherin boy who was acting like her bodyguard, Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy.

Blaise walked up to Draco and asked him in her musical, dark, voice, whether he would like to partner her. The rest of the class were beginning to arrange their scales and cauldrons. Draco refused politely with that neutral grin he loved, and winked at the Slytherin boy, who winked back. Then he looked over at Hermione, who had obviously been trying to decide between the lesser of three evils.

'Shall we sit?' he asked, and without a word they sat down together and began to arrange their apparatus like the rest of the class. Snape shot Draco a puzzled look, as did the rest of the class, and proceeded to explain the lesson of the day.

'Today,' he said, fixing his eyes on the class, 'we will be learning the Polyjuice Potion.'

A/N 2: Ah, yes, the plot. ::searching around in her Plot Bag:: Hmmm, it is rather warped I grant you, but it contains - or will contain - Tom Riddle, Voldemort, Lucius Malfoy, Dobby and many, many more... The next part will probably be done by Taylor. Review, please!