"Detention, Malfoy. And if you value your life I suggest you haul your scrawny arse out of here as fast it will move." Longbottom raises his wand in a miserable attempt to look intimidating. But am I intimidated? Of course not. He is a measley Gryffindor and I am a mighty Slytherin. A mighty naked Slytherin. "And have no doubt that Proffessor McGonagall will be hearing about this. Not to mention the entire student body."

I grin. "Longbottom, it may shock you to hear, being the oddly frigid plant-snogger that you are, but most of the student body will actually want to hear of this." I throw Weasley a side-long glance and notice that her cheeks are scarlet. "Tales of my nakedness in the school magazine would rake in phenomenal sales."

Zabini chuckles ominously, and Longbottom looks rather sickened by the thought. And is it just me or is he glowing green with envy? My abs are enough to make a grown man weep in self-pity, and seeing as Longbottom is clearly 75 percent woman his self-confidence is already low enough.

Green is certainly not his colour. In fact, nothing is his colour.

Why is Weasley dating him again?

Longbottom's mouth opens and closes rapidly before he thinks of a comeback that he deems worthy enough. "Didn't you listen to what I said? Get out of our common room."

It annoys me that he says 'our' in a way that implies him and Weasley are married or something. I don't really know why it annoys me. Perhaps it's the tone of voice he says it in.

"So, you expect me to wander through the corridors of school starkers?" I demand.

Longbottom folds his arms and looks immensely chuffed with himself. Git. "It's as much as you deserve, you foul little Slytherin. Perhaps a naked frolick around the school will teach you a lesson."

I turn my eyes to my friends in the hope that one of them will lend me some clothing. Turns out that Hugo and Albus scarpered ten seconds earlier and Zabini and Goyle were also about to make a dash for it. "You honestly think I'm walking around school with you and your naked butt? Dream on!" Zabini says, giving me a wink and a grin. He is enjoying this far too much for his own good. I'm so going to get him back. "People already think I'm gay as it is, and I'm not encouraging those rumours."

I can't help the chuckle that forces its way up my throat. "People think you're gay?"

"Yeah...it's something to do with the side of my head that my parting's on," Zabini adds conversationally before being dragged out of view by Goyle, presumably to the Slytherin common room, leaving me alone with a beetroot-red Weasley and a leprechaun-green Longbottom (out of jealousy...you know).

This is not awkward at all.

"See you at dinner then," I smile at the two of them before strolling calmly out of the corridor, trying not to think about the hundreds of students I could potentially bump into on the way to my common room.

Shit.

The head's common room is on the seventh floor. The Slytherin common room is in the dungeons. And I'm going to have to go down the main staircase.

I've reached the end of the corridor, narrowly avoiding being groped by a homosexual suit of armour, and dodging behind a gargoyle to avoid a couple of fourth years, when a pair of trousers gets thrown at me. Closely followed by a pair of boxers that read 'ENTER THE DEVIL'S SNARE IF YOU DARE'.

I look up to find an apologetic Weasley.

"What's this about?" I ask. They must be cursed or something. Why else would she be giving me them?

"I stole them out of Ernest's washing pile. I thought you'd appreciate the underwear," she says, bursting into a fit of giggles.

I hide behind the gargoyle and quickly pull on the Devil's snare boxers in relief. I am trying my hardest not to think of that fact that Longbottom has probably worn this pair of underwear. I pull the trousers on quickly too, though they fall a bit low down due to Longbottom's slight chubbiness.

"What about a shirt?" I ask without thinking.

"Hello? I risk life and limb so that you don't flash the entire school your trouser ferret, and this is how you repay me?" she says sarcastically. "Besides, I couldn't find one."

I lift my eyebrows.

"Is that Weasley-code for 'I just want to see you topless for longer'."

"No, it's Weasley-code for 'I couldn't find one'." I continue to grin at her as she rolls her eyes at me. "Not everyone wants to see you naked, you know Malfoy. And those of us who have, don't want to repeat the experience."

With this she spins around and begins to march off, before turning around again.

"Oh, and keep the boxers. Ernest won't want them back after you've used them."

"I have a cunning plan."

Zabini groans. "Why is it that whenever you say that I get a sudden sense of foreboding?"

"It's because," Goyle says, peering up from the book on Quidditch formations she's reading, "The last two cunning plans he came up with, ended up with him being punched in the face and having his clothes melt off him. Thus making his plans neither cunning or in fact with any positive result at all."
"No result? What are you talking about? Weasley's given me a pair of underwear," I remind them proudly.

"Yeah, a pair of her boyfriend's underwear," Goyle grins. "And if I'm not mistaken they have some have a crude Herbology innuendo on them."

I sit down on the floor. "Do you want to know my cunning plan or not?"

"That depends on whether it is cunning or not," Zabini says, rubbing his forehead sleepily. "Did you come up with this cunning plan?"

"Indeed I did. I thought long and hard about it and finally came up with my most cunning plan yet," I inform them, shuffling slightly nearer the fire to warm myself up a bit. All this being naked had left me with a bit of a chill.

Goyle peers up from her book again. "Most cunning plan yet? Doesn't that just mean, most stupid plan yet?"

"None of my plans have been stupid. They've just been..."

"Ill-conceived?"

"Ridiculous?"

"Shockingly flawed?" Goyle puts down her book, deciding that our conversation is more interesting than the fifty greatest dives of the 1987 Quidditch Season.

I look at her darkly. "I was going to say unsuccessful. And besides, just because my last few plans have been unsuccessful doesn't mean this one will be. I have planned this one with astounding prescision."

Goyle swings her legs from the side of the armchair to the floor and leans forward. "Don't you think that the time has come for the cunning plans to be thought up by myself and Zabini?"
It sounds as though they do not appreciate my talent at coming up with plans. How...ego-crushing.

"It depends. What's your idea?"

"It is surprisingly simple, yet simplicity is what makes it so perfect," Goyle smiles widely, and exchanges a sneaky little look with Zabini.

I fold my arms in defiance. "Tell me it, and then I will make an educated and informed descision as to whose is the best plan."

Goyle slips down from her armchair so she's sitting on the floor next to me. "If we can't drag Weasley away from Longbottom, we have to..."

I jump up. "I know it! I KNOW!" They both sit there silently, encouraging me to continue with their eyes. "We poison him."

"I hadn't actually finished yet, you buffoon. And seeing as I don't want to be expelled, we won't be poisoning anyone." Goyle shakes her head at me and yanks me back down to the ground. "If we can't drag Weasley away from Longbottom, we have to drag Longbottom away from Weasley."
Zabini's eyebrows furrow, and he raises a finger to indicate that he has found a flaw in this plan. Personally I can't even see that it is a plan, as there has been no planning gone into it. It is just a theory, with no plan attatched. "How do you propose we get him away from her?"
Goyle smiles the most evil smile I have ever seen grace the face of anyone in Slytherin. "For that, we need to launch our next mission. And it involves..." Goyle reaches into her pocket and pulls out a tiny glass flask of a faintly purple looking liquid, "...this."

"And...er...what is 'this'?"

Goyle shoves the flask back in her pocket. "Stolen from my mum's secret supplies, it is. You'll see what it does when we feed it to SFB."
Zabini frowns again. "SFB?"

"Soil-for-brains. We've been through this Zabini, honestly. You'd make the most useless spy ever." Goyle rolls her eyes at Zabini as he 'oh's' in recognition. Then she turns to me. "Your mission, Malfoy, should you choose to accept it, is to make sure that Weasley remains in the library until about ten'o'clock this evening, so that Zabini and I can initiate operation SFB."

"She doesn't need me to make her stay in the library. She'll voluntarily stay there out of love of knowledge absorption."

"Just do it, Malfoy, before I hex you."

List of things that have definately changed about Rose Weasley

1. So far, in the two hours that have passed since I plonked my rather handsome posterior in her nearest vicinity, she has not yet called me any name beginning with P: for example, prat, pillock, poncy pervert...etc. This is an unusual feat on her behalf. I imagine it is a result of excessive cake consumption - she did eat quite a bit at dinner. Not that I was paying attention to her pudding choice, of course.

2. I tried to peek at what she was writing before on the pretence of copying it (she had informed me that she was writing a Potions essay) but she refused to let me even copy the title. Though, this may not actually be a change. Maybe I am just not familiar with her strange private study habits.

3. Her skirt is about five inches higher than it has ever been before. No longer does she resemble a nun that was kicked out of the nunnery for being TOO nun-like. This can only be good news. Though I am going to be honest when I say it is unnerving me a little bit.

4. She has not mentioned Longbottom's name once. Not even in a try-to-make-Malfoy-jealous context. Very odd.

5. She just laughed at one of my witty jokes. Now that is a sign of a Weasley gone mad.

6. I just got a peek of her 'homework'. It is not homework. It is a letter to someone mysteriously named: M. Could this be short for 'Mother'?

Or perhaps 'Malfoy'?

Or maybe I should just stop dreaming. It most probably is Mother.

7. She is remaining in the library although she has no homework. Which means...She is clearly choosing MY company over SFB's company! I knew she couldn't resist my unfailing charm!

8. I spoke too soon. She is trying to leave now. I must stop her...it's 9:35...

"Err...You're not allowed to leave the library yet," I inform her in my most business-like tone. It is a complete lie of course. She is perfectly allowed to leave the library whenever she wants, and to be honest there's nothing much I could really do about it. Other than putting her under a full body-bind.

Oh buggerations, the bloody librarians looking this way. Well, that scuppers that little cunning plan there.

"Not allowed? Not allowed?" she gives me a withering look. "It's a free world, Malfoy. I can walk out the library door whenever I like."

I shake my head in a serious manner. "Try if you want, but you should know that there's a rampaging hoarde of first years that have been attacking any people from fifth year or above that pass through the Charms corridor."
"No there's not."

I fold my arms. "Yes, there is. I have heard gruesome tales of lowly sixth years who were cruelly ambushed and taken hostage."

Weasley is silent for a few seconds. "You know, when you lie your left eyebrow twitches a bit." I put a hand over my left eyebrow and eye her in annoyance. How does she even pick up on these things that even my own family members haven't noticed? "Just admit it, you only want me to stay here because you have some secret revenge plot going on and you don't want the Head Girl to find out about it."

"Indeed, I do. Now just stay here, so that my evil revenge plot can take place, and then you can have a go at me later," I inform her, grabbing her arm lightly and trying to pull her back to her chair. She digs her heels into the carpet.

"Detention."

"What?" I exclaim, dropping her arm. "I was lying! I have no secret plot, and even if I did, do you really think that I would admit to it so freely! I am a criminal mastermind."

"You would admit to it freely, because you would be trying to double-bluff me because you are a criminal mastermind," she deduces. Wrongly. "You would think that I wouldn't fall for your admitting the truth, when in reality I can see right through your little plan. You're telling the truth because you think I won't believe you!"

I don't know about you, but I am thoroughly confused right now.

"But then, you might even have thought that I would have worked that out, so then you could have been playing a triple bluff and in fact hiding an ulterior motive whilst pretending to be plotting some ingenious prank, but the ulterior motive is in fact worse than the pretend prank that you have invented to conceal it..."

When she rambles, it is actually quite endearing. Especially since she thinks that I am being entirely serious about this matter. When in fact, I suppose I am plotting a secret plan, but I don't know what that plan is. So therefore I can't be held responsible for its consequences.

"But, you might have thought I would have worked that out, and I would have thought that the ulterior motive is what I should be worried about, when in fact -"
Now the rambling is getting annoying.

"Silencio," I say, before hastily returning my wand to its place of pride up my sleeve.

Weasley is now throwing me a severe death glare.

"It is now my turn to talk, you measley Weasley." A witty bit of alliteration there. "There is no secret plan going on, and personally I am offended that you would jump to that conclusion."

Weasley gives me a look.

"Alright, I suppose it is to be suspected after the common room nakedness stunt, so I'll change that to mildly offended. My intentions are entirely honourable. Is it too much to ask that a student can't sit in the library with another student without there having to be something going on?"

Weasley nods and raises her eyebrows.

What is it about her that makes me admit stuff?
"Fine! There is something going on, but I don't know what it is, so you can torture me all you like, but it'll never work. And you can't give me detention for knowing something was going on but not knowing what it was. So frankly, I'm considering leaving this ghastly library right now. Care to join?"

Weasley wildly indicates that she does not want to join me. So I reach forward and link my arm with hers. She kicks me in the shin in an attempt to get me to let go of her arm, but my toned manly Quidditch arms are no match for a 5ft2 ginger maniac.

"You know, it is actually quite calming walking along with a silent you."

She steps on the back of my foot to stop me walking. I stop, let go of her arm and turn to face her. She gesticulates that she would like to be able to talk again. I feel a little bit bad for rendering her speechless - seeing as her razor sharp insults are the only weapon she has - and I mutter the counter-incantation.

"Detention."

"You see, this is why I put that bliddy silencing charm on you! With your frequent cries of detention even McGonagall would get annoyed."

Weasley steps forward, and twiddles her wand in her hand. This cannot be a good sign. She could reduce me to a pile of dust with a well-placed hex, and every one of her hexes is well-placed.

I should not have silenced her.

"You deserve this detention."
I put my hands up in mock-defence. "In the name of the law, I would like to know the charges against me."

Weasley twiddles her wand a little bit more, and several pink sparks fly out of the end. "The charges? Well, you're an annoying idiot, for starters. And, you have a secret plot going on, AND you silenced a member of the Prefect team. Need I continue?"

I look thoughtful for a second. "Is there any way the charges can be dropped? Perhaps, payment...in the form of..."

"If you say sexual favours, I will charm your hair permanently pink."

Let me know what you think, please :) There will hopefully be another chapter on the way soon, and I'll try post it as soon as possible :)