Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters – they're all property of J.K. Rowling. Anything you don't recognize probably belongs to me, unless stated otherwise. The only thing I can take credit for is maybe the plot.

Author's Note: Chapter two, here, and not much to say about it. Read and enjoy.

Chapter Two

Beneath the table in the Great Hall, Theodore gripped Tracey's hand. Once or twice before, while they watched the first-years being Sorted, his hand had – of its own accord, he said – run up her thigh. Now he was watching the short newcomers scurrying to their new homes for seven years, being congratulated by their new family. He cheered, albeit half-heartedly, whenever one was sorted into Slytherin.

Tracey had a hard time concentrating on Dumbledore's annual Beginning-of-the-Year speech – not that she ever really tried to listen – because all throughout, Theodore rubbed his leg against hers and tried to untangle his hand from hers to place it in very inappropriate places. She started to wonder if she had given him too much potion after all. She felt the weight of hundreds of eyes on her, and not only Slytherin eyes, but Hufflepuff eyes, Ravenclaw eyes, Gryffindor eyes.

Finally, Dumbledore sat down, and their dinner distracted Theodore long enough that people stopped staring at them.

A short distance down the table, she glanced over and saw Malfoy and Pansy snogging rather passionately – but they weren't getting nearly as many stares, not nearly as much hostility. Unless one counted all the girls that envied Pansy and wished upon every star in the sky that they would one morning wake up in her place. Tracey envied her, too, but not because of whose arm – whose face – she was on. Pansy didn't have anything to be ashamed of: she wasn't a half-blood.

His plate clean and stomach full, Theodore wrapped an arm around her waist and took up where he had left off.

Tracey pushed him away long enough to say, "Hey, why don't we go to the common room."

He smiled lazily at her. "Sounds like a good idea to me."

He practically pulled her down the hall, down the stairs, to the entrance to the Slytherin common room. The password rolled out of his lips in an excited burst, and a stone door appeared out of the solid wall and swung aside for them.

He led her inside and was about to take the stairs up to the boys' dormitories, Tracey's hand still in his grip, when Tracey dug in her heels. "Theo." She had to hold on to the doorframe, and even then he didn't stop right away. He was a few steps above her; he looked down over his shoulder. "Theo," she said carefully, "it's been a really long day. I'm pretty tired right now."

He stared. "When has that ever stopped you before?"

She twisted her hand out of his grip and retreated a few steps. "Not tonight, all right?"

Theodore was completely still, searching her face. He took a few steps down until her head was at his chest level. "If you want." But he didn't sound very gracious, just like a child that hadn't gotten his way. He kissed her and then took the stairs up two at a time.

Tracey sat in an arm chair in front of the crackling fire, thinking, until she heard the raucous laughter of a crowd of Slytherins filing through the entry. Some settled into the various arm chairs and couches that scattered the room; others headed directly up to their beds.

She was watching the timid first years sneaking up the stairs and huddling together in tight groups, when her chair tipped up suddenly, sending her sprawling on the floor. She flipped around angrily, expecting to see some clumsy underclassman that she could proceed to disembowel.

The anger went out of her eyes immediately, taking with it most of the color in her face.

Draco Malfoy let the chair legs crash back down onto the stone floors, and the sharp cracking sound punctuated many of the conversations around the room, a definitive exclamation point. He grinned nastily at her. "This is my chair, half-blood." Pansy and her gang stood behind him, snickering; Crabbe and Goyle stood to his left.

He sat with one leg dangling over the armrest. The hem of his long, black cloak brushed Tracey's splayed fingers. She stood with as much dignity as she could muster. In her mind's eye, she could see herself standing up to him, telling him off, punching him in the face.

But in the end, she settled for the more realistic solution: she hurried off like some boot-licking, cowardly first-year. Their sharp laughter haunted her all the way up to her dorm room.

With the door closed firmly behind her, the laughing stopped, although it replayed over and over in her mind. She flung herself face first on her bed, the one closest to the door, and buried her face in a pillow. Her palms and knees hurt where she landed so suddenly; resting like they were, they soon began to throb painfully.

Not a good way to start off a new year.

What seemed to Tracey like a few seconds later, she was jolted out of her sleep by "Half-blood, wake up!" Tracey pushed herself up on her forearms to look around and saw Pansy and Daphne collapsed on Pansy's bed, laughing.

"I can't believe that she actually responded to that!"

"Shit, I know! At least it shows that she knows her place."

They calmed down slowly, laying on their backs and suffering every now and then from a resurgence giggles. Tracey lay back down with her face in her pillow and started to fall asleep again.

But they wouldn't have it.

The springs in her bed groaned as both Pansy and Daphne jumped on, on either side of her. They lay on their stomachs, too, and tried to get a look at her face from below. Pansy took her shoulder and shook it roughly.

Tracey turned her head on her pillow so she could see Pansy through a half-open eye. "What?" She wasn't in any mood to play the Nice Game with Pansy.

Evidently Pansy wasn't in the mood either. "What the hell are you doing to Theodore?"

"What do you mean? What were you doing to Draco at–"

"That's not what I mean." She wasn't smiling, and her wide eyes were narrowed dangerously. Up so close, Tracey could see the fading amused flush on Pansy's cheeks. She had the delicate facial structure of one whose family hadn't had to work for generations. Tracey buried her face in her pillow, not sure if she was trying to hide her lumpy face from Pansy's icy glare or trying to suffocate herself. In any case, she was having trouble breathing.

She dared a peek to the side, but Pansy hadn't gone away. She hadn't even stopped staring. Daphne on her other side was practically breathing down her neck. Millicent stumbled in through the door, tripping over someone's pair of discarded shoes. But even Millicent sprawled in a heap on the floor wasn't enough to take the attention off of Tracey.

Finally, the pair of Evil Eyes that had burned a sizable hole in the back of her head grew to be too much. Tracey pushed herself up without a word and backed off her bed. She shuffled stiffly around to her trunk and started rifling through the clothes inside. She pulled out an old-fashioned nightgown, with a lacey collar and the hem brushing down to the floor, a style probably popular in the early nineteenth century. She dared a glance over her shoulder.

Pansy and Daphne's heads had swiveled to follow her, and they were still giving her very Evil Eyes. Almost out of the range of her vision, Tracey saw Millicent standing and staring at her, her mouth agape, with a look of horror on her face. She shook her head, as if to say, Merlin, Tracey, what have you done? They'll devour you and then they'll eat me for dessert!

Tracey slipped out of her uniform, a bit self-consciously with three pairs of eyes at her back, and tugged on her nightgown. While she was carefully – much more carefully than usual – folding her uniform and putting it in her trunk, she said, "Why does it matter to you what I'm doing with Theodore?"

"Not with, to; what are you doing to him?"

"I'm not doing anything to him," she said calmly, trying to keep the vial of pearly liquid out of sight and out of mind. She would give herself away if she started dwelling on it. "He likes me, that's all."

Daphne said, "Oh, don't be a ninny, Tracey. We're talking about Theodore. Theodore Nott. Theodore Nott whose family is very rich and respected." Tracey pretended to be absorbed in tidying up her trunk. She put all her books on one side and all her clothes on the other. "And you have nothing to speak of, except dirty blood. You live around Muggles, don't you?"

Tracey imagined what Daphne's face would look like with a big, bloody crater where her pointy nose used to be.

Pansy slid off the side of the bed and walked around to lean on the end, close to where Tracey was kneeling. If she wanted to, she could have kneed Tracey in the face without much strenuous movement. Tracey looked up at her, growing more and more aware by the minute that she had maybe stepped too far over the line. The part of her mind that was realizing this was obviously a bit slower than her mouth. "Why do you care so much, anyway, what Theo does and who he does it with? You both have boyfriends, after all, so it's not like I'm competition or anything." She felt like kicking herself; it would save Pansy the trouble.

"We're not dating above our station. We have blood purity to worry about."

She slammed the lid of her trunk. "You still haven't answered my question. This–" Here she gestured elaborately to herself and then in the general direction of where she assumed Theodore was at the moment "–doesn't concern you at all! It couldn't concern you less! If Theodore and I want to have lots of dirty-blooded babies, that's our business." They stared at her with Evil, Hateful Eyes. "Merlin, just leave me alone." She threw herself onto her bed and crawled to her pillow, almost elbowing Daphne in the eye.

They stood at the foot of her bed, silently accusing. Tracey sat up and, in a sharp movement, pulled shut the drapes on all three sides of her four-poster bed. She could see their outlines through the velvety fabric. Digging the heels of her palms into her eyes, she made a strangled, defeated noise.

Pansy took this as her cue and peeked in one of the sides. "It's just that–" Tracey groaned loudly "–it's a bit strange how much he's changed, isn't it? I mean, before, at the end of last year, I remember him making fun of you with the rest of us. He never even spoke to you, except for class or 'Davis, pass the butter and jam.' He treated you like the rest of us, and now he won't leave you alone. He's gone mad."

Muffled slightly by her hands still covering her face, Tracey said, "He's not mad. People change, don't they?"

Daphne draws aside the curtain on the other side of the bedpost. "Not that much. People don't go from hatred to love, other than in bad romance novels. Blaise and I were friends before we started dating. So were Draco and Pansy. All of us, friends."

"Then Theodore and I are anomalies. Can you just let it go for tonight? You'll have plenty of time over the next ten months to make fun of me. Don't want to tire yourself out so early on; what would you do the rest of the year?" She had a hard time keeping the bitterness out of her voice. Oh, such cheek. She would pay for it over the next few weeks, but right now she was tired and cranky and didn't really care that Pansy's face was screwing up in that way that it does when she's overeaten or angry, or that Daphne's face was turning a shade of lavender. To show them that she was serious, she grabbed her pillow and forced it down over her face and then relaxed.

Sounds under the downy pillow were muffled, but she heard Pansy and Daphne eventually shuffle off to bed.

Definitely not a good way to start a new year, Tracey decided.