Di was feeling better by the time they reached the infirmary and since it was such a lovely day, she and Ginny decided to forgo the pleasure of Madame Pompfrey's company and head out to the lake.
"So…you were dreaming about Malfoy?"
Di was fairly certain that was just about the dumbest non-question Ginny had ever asked her and was in no mood to justify it with a response.
"Was he naked?" Di jerked her head so fast around she choked on her own saliva.
Ginny, she thought, was just a little too enthusiastic about thumping her on the back for it.
"No!" She finally gasped out, coughing a few extra times to clear her airway before glaring at her friend. "We were both fully clothed."
"Huh," Ginny chewed on the inside of her cheek and studied her friend carefully.
"Huh, what?" Di asked, curious as the inner workings of Ginny's mind. Not that she really wanted to be able to comprehend them anyways. God knows what would happen to her own thought processes if she ever were to truly succeed.
"Nothing," Ginny blinked in confusion. "I was just saying."
"Oh. I was hoping you were coming up with some sane, logical, completely rational reason for why I'm dreaming about Malfoy and his unusually large-"
"I'm sensing this is a bad time."
Harry felt ill. He looked ill, too, but mostly he felt ill.
He'd spotted Ginny and her partner in crime sneaking out the main door during his free period and decided to follow them. The two of them were always good for a couple of thrills, even better than the twins, actually. Cause with the twins, there was a method to their madness. With Ginny and Di, though?
Total chaos.
Of course, this kind of chaos he definitely could have done without.
He viewed Di as sort of a sister, despite the whole 'attacking me in the corridor while under the influence of a love potion and before she'd even fully entered puberty' way back in second year.
He really didn't want to think about her thinking about Malfoy and his big…
Oh, God. He felt a little vomit work its way up his throat and choked a little bit.
"Teeth, Harry. Teeth," Di, who was sufficiently twisted enough to have followed his entire line of thought from start to finish, stated with no small amount of amusement. "I was talking about Malfoy's unusually large teeth."
"Oh." Now that made sense.
"So you heard about what happened in potions today, did you?"
"Potions?" Ginny and Di exchanged a confused look. "We were talking about Transfiguration."
"What happened in Transfiguration?" Harry blinked, wondering if the Transfiguration thing would be as interesting as the Potions thing.
"What happened in Potions?" Ginny countered, having been trained at a young age to know that it was always better if you could get the other guy to spill the beans first.
That way, you knew exactly how much you have to lie about and how far you could get away with it.
"Malfoy almost got killed by a levitating cauldron," Harry started.
"No shit?" Ginny grinned widely, her mind already conjuring up a wicked awesome mental picture.
"Zabini tackled him out of the way, unfortunately. Gave him a concussion in the process, though." Harry smiled slightly at that. Vengence wasn't exactly his, but seeing his sworn nemesis (Voldemort didn't really count. Voldemort was like a toothache that just wouldn't go away. Harry would be happy to see his snake-loving ass rotting in hell for all eternity. Malfoy, on the other hand, was more like herpes. He popped up with a fresh batch of warts every once in a while, making his life miserable, before retreating and letting him view life with a new perspective. He was kind of like a douche. Oddly refreshing in a weird sort of way.) in pain a definite highlight to his day.
"So what does that have to do with teeth?" Di had followed the explanation pretty well, her own thought processes allowing her an abridged version of Harry's, minus the whole Voldemort tangent, but not telling her anything about how Harry would know about Draco and his unusually large teeth.
"Well, he had blood on his head from hitting the floor, and when he sat up, he also had blood on his teeth, which were definitely not normal teeth. Those suckers were huge."
"How huge?" Di asked, voice shaking and face pale.
"Ah, three centimeters, maybe? No-Brain called him a vampire and he pretty much passed out after that."
"Malfoy passed out?" Ginny perked up, her mental cheerleaders having a go at things, dancing with glee at the thought of all the insults and joy she could milk from that simple bit of information.
"Like a prude in a porn shop," Harry confirmed, his own grin matching Ginny's.
"What about the teeth?" Di wanted to know, completely oblivious to the mischievous undercurrents that were passing between her usual partner in crime and her occasional one.
"Oh, those. Snape reckons it was something in the potion, which doesn't make much since when you think about it, considering that Draco was never hit by so much as a drop of the potion." Harry frowned as the thought caught up with him.
"Had to have been the potion," Di agreed, hastily scrambling to her feet and wiping the grass from her butt.
"'Scuse me," she brushed past a still cackling Ginny and a puzzled Harry and headed back to the school in search of…hell if she knew. Her sanity, maybe? Because sometime between the train ride and the start of the term she seemed to have lost it.
This is all Malfoy's fault. Her brain finally spit at her.
There wasn't a particularly large amount of rationality to go with the thought, but that was okay.
Rationality was for squares, anyways.
Conclusion, right or otherwise, reached, she pondered her possible courses of actions as she re-entered the school.
Meanwhile, back at the tree, Ginny had finally clued in to her friends absence.
"Where'd Di go?" She peered around her suspiciously, since it would be just like the brunette to cast a disillusionment spell before tackling her and shoving her face in a mud puddle.
Wand at the ready, and hand reached out to feel about for any suspicious persons who didn't belong, Ginny abandoned an oblivious Harry and headed back to the school and her next class.
Harry was aware that his two companions had disappeared, but he didn't particularly give a rats ass.
"If it wasn't the potion," he stated out loud to nobody in particular. "Then what the hell was it?"
And then…
"What happened in Transfigurations?"
Slytherin's were reknowned for their cunning and sneaky ways, which was why Blaise and Draco were completely surprised by Pansy and Daphne's plan for seeking out answers.
"This is harassment," Draco complained, tugging at the ropes binding his wrists to the arms of the wooden chair Daphne had conjured for him.
"I prefer to think of it as a friendly, non-threatening bonding ceremony." Pansy stated from her position seated on the old teachers desk in front of him.
"So that knife is just for show?" Daphne frowned.
"What's wrong with having a knife?" Draco didn't particularly want to justify that one with a response.
"It's a family heirloom," Pansy waved the question off. "Her great-great-great-great-great grandmother willed it to her."
"How the hell could she have willed it to her?" Draco wondered out loud. "She was dead before Daphne was even born."
"Her will said 'give it to Daphne.' I'm the only Daphne the Greengrass family has," Daphne pointed to herself with the knife to emphasis her…point.
"As fascinating as that is, can we get back to the matter at hand?" Blaise tugged at his own wrists and arched an eyebrow in curious frustration at his two female friends. "Why are we tied up, again?"
"Because you've been avoiding us since the train and we want to know why," Pansy stated bluntly. "It's not like the two of you to be so…"
"Mopey," Daphne finished, sticking the point of the knife into the wooden desk next to her.
Draco was affronted by the thought of him experiencing and displaying characteristics of such a plebian emotion such as mopey, but before he could open his mouth to say as much, Blaise spoke.
"I am not mopey," he stated with as much regal authority as he could possibly muster.
"You could have fooled me," Pansy snapped, good-humor drying up in an instant.
She'd been best mates with Blaise since they were diapers. Their parents had even discussed a marriage contract, they were that close. The only thing that had stopped them was the fact that Blaise's mother, while fond of Pansy, had seen their relationship for what it was, namely a familial bond rather than a potential match.
Draco she'd known only slightly less longer, since about age five. He'd dumped sand in her hair and she'd used accidental magic to give him the mother of all wedgies.
He'd been suitably terrified of her for about a day before deciding that any girl who could fight that dirty was definitely worth being friends with.
She loved both of them like brothers, the same as she loved Daphne like a sister. As far as she was concerned, blood didn't mean jack shit. These people were her family and her family was keeping secrets from her, big secrets if Blaise and Draco's lackluster attitudes were anything to go by.
Goddamnit, she was worried.
She hated being worried.
"I'm tired, I'm angry, I'm frustrated by the fact that two of my best friends have suddenly decided that I don't need to know about the big things going on in their lives, and I am this close to killing someone, and the two of you are starting to look like real good targets."
"You wouldn't kill us," Draco shot back, his usually play boy smirk popping up on his face as he regarded her with eyes full of mirth despite the…situation. "We're your best friends. Closer than family."
"Right now you're a pain in my ass," Pansy crossed her arms and glared, slitty eyed, at the two of them. "And I like pains in my asses the same way I like any other pain: gone. Now, are the two of you going to start talking, or am I going to have to get creative?"
Draco blanched while Daphne grinned wide, and Blaise stared at the two females stoic faced for a moment before speaking.
"Ginny Weasley got a spell through my shields."
Pansy didn't even have time to suck in a surprised breath before time stopped.
"Has anybody seen Draco or Blaise?" Theodore Nott poked his head in the sixth year boys dormitory, which was currently occupied by three people.
"Nobody's seen them all day, mate," Graham stated, placing a bookmark in the book he was reading and levying himself upright with lethal grace and a frown. "Why? Is something wrong?"
Theo, like most upper year Slytherins, had a certain level of disdain for the years below him, and if it had been anybody but Graham asking the question, he would have brushed him off without so much as a good-bye, but Graham was family.
"Nothing, except nobody seems to know where Pansy and Daphne are either."
Graham straightened a little bit more at that. While it wasn't unusual for Draco or Blaise to disappear for a little while throughout the day, Pansy and Daphne usually spent most of their time surrounded by throngs of admirers or suck-up wannabes.
"Do you think something might have happened to them?" Theo's eyes drifted to the other two occupants of the room with a frown.
Harper Connell was sleeping, soft snores emerging from his open mouth, and Ivan Gorgivich was hastily scribbling out an essay that was due in an hour.
Even though both of them seemed completely occupied and oblivious, Theo wasn't willing to take any chances.
"Walk with me?"
It wasn't so much a question as it was a demand and Graham didn't hesitate to obey. Theo may be in charge of him, but he honestly liked the guy. He was smart, well thought, and blessedly free of a cumbersome ego. If he asked Graham to do something, there was usually a damn good reason to do it.
"We're not supposed to be involved in this," Graham stated the second they were alone and out of ear shot of anybody, even the portraits.
"It's a favor from Grandpa." Graham choked on that one.
Oh, he had no doubt it was a favor promised by one of the Elders, but Grandpa?
"Dare you to call him that to his face." Theo grinned.
"He promised the courts he'd keep an eye on their wayward progeny."
"All of the courts?" Graham arched a skeptical eyebrow at that because, honestly, there were a lot.
"Most of them," Theo amended, hands in his pockets as he kept a casual pace. "The big ones, at any rate."
"And the rest of them?"
It was a surprisingly easily forgotten fact that wizards weren't the only magical being that was accepted into Hogwarts. It was also easily forgotten that a lot of magical beings could interbreed with wizards surprisingly well. Even more forgotten was the fact that blood from a magical being could assert authority over wizarding blood whenever it damned well pleased. And boy had it ever.
"Mother asked us to keep watch."
Graham sucked in another breath, this one emerging in a long, angry hiss.
"Mother's talking to us again?"
"Yes."
That was it. No 'apparently' or 'so they say'. Just an unequivocal 'Yes'.
"Do were need to alert the Hounds?" Something in the way Graham said it just screamed capitals, and Theo wasn't going to correct him. In a situation like the ones he was obviously considering, the Hounds would be more than appropriate.
"No," Theo stated, taking his hands from his pockets and running them through his slightly curly hair. "They're still on campus, just…hiding."
"From what?" was Graham's logical response.
"I have no idea." Theo opened his mouth to say more, but before he could so much as inhale for breath, his entire world seemed to implode.
He could vaguely hear Graham yelling, calling out after him, but he was running without pause, heading for…
Luna Lovegood woke up with a headache. Since she'd gone to sleep with a headache for the last seven nights, she wasn't particularly surprised by this turn of events.
Tired, in pain, and a little annoyed, yes, but surprised?
Her roommates were gone, off doing whatever it was that good little Ravenclaws did, leaving her in a dusk filled room with tired eyes and a heavy heart.
Sitting up in bed, she ran a hand through her messy blonde hair, definitively shorter than years previous. When the headaches had started, she'd cut the majority of it off in the vain hope that it was the extra weight causing her the pain.
She didn't really miss the hair that much, but it was still a little disconcerting to reach up and find it missing.
Yawning until her jaw cracked, she shuffled from her bed into the bathroom.
Running her hand over her face, she positioned herself in front of a mirror, eyes still bleary from sleep, and reached down to turn on the sink, looking up as she did so.
She had no idea what happened next. Juliette Celeste, one of her roommates, said she'd gone into the bathroom to touch up her make-up and found Luna lying on the floor in a pool of blood.
She was dazed and confused as she was helped to the infirmary, only peripherally aware of her surroundings.
Madame Promfrey hovered over her, asking her questions she obediently answered, still caught up in a surreal haze.
The only thing she was sure of, beside her own name, was that something was missing. Someone that was supposed to be here with her wasn't, and it was scaring the crap out of her.
Even more terrifying was the fact that she had no idea where this new desire had come from and the level at which it was consuming her…
"Miss Lovegood!" Again, Madame Promfrey was in front of her, shoving some sort of potion in her face, but Luna pushed it aside, her breathing fast and her heart beat racing. She didn't have the breath to tell the school nurse that potions wouldn't help. She'd been trying for the last couple of weeks, but nothing ever helped. Not calming potions, not headache potions. She'd been so desperate she'd even resorted to muggle medications, but nothing.
She was hyperventilating, desperate from relief, when a dark, curly haired, brown eyed, frantic Theodore Nott came barreling around the corner and right into her suddenly wide opened arms.
It was hard to say who was more shocked by her desperate grip on his shoulders, Madame Prompfrey or herself.
Rounding the corner after his leader, panting lightly at the race across the school grounds, Graham took in the scene in front of him with a quick eye and an even quicker understanding.
"Sorry, Madame Prompfrey," he greeted with a faint grin. "Couldn't keep him away."
"Mr. Pritchard," the nurse greeted the sixth year with a faint frown, her gaze drifting to the tightly clasped pair. "I take it that Mr. Nott and Miss Lovegood know each other?"
The intimately part was more or less implied, and Graham really didn't have much of a choice but to run with it.
"Been going strong for almost a year now," he confirmed with a blithe grin and a mental note to keep his story straight in his head.
After all, he was going to have to explain it to Theo later, when he came out of his mental funk.
Luna had no idea who the boy in her arms was and she was past caring at the moment. Her head hurt, her mouth tasted like the fuzzy lint you found in your pockets, and the only thing keeping her from hyperventilating was the fact that she had her arms around this boy and the knowledge that he'd protect her.
If she were in her rational mind, she'd be a little puzzled by the sudden rush of calm that seemed to envelope her at the thought. But it'd been years since she'd been rational, so she wrapped her arms tighter around the boy and buried her nose in his neck and just breathed.
"That's not possible." It was Daphne who spoke first, her baby smooth skin blanched a deeper shade of pale as she stared, knife forgotten at her side.
"I know," was all Blaise said by way of response.
"Did you contact your mother?" Part of Pansy's mind was screaming in all-too real alarm. Weasley was a known consort with the light families, while the Zabini's were almost notorious for their shady ways. If one Weasley could get through Blaise's shields, what about the others?
There was no love loss between the two clans. Pansy was damn close to hyperventilating at the all-too real thought of her best friend dying at the hands of some misguided red-headed vigilante.
"Yesterday," Blaise confirmed with a nod. "I'm expecting a letter some time tomorrow in response."
"Are your shields failing?" Was her next logical question.
"No," Draco spoke, his voice terse. "We tested them this morning. They're strong as ever."
"You don't think…" Pansy trailed off, eyebrows hitching at the thought bouncing through her head.
"What?" Blaise asked, sharp gaze fixed on the brunette.
"You don't think she's one of you…do you?"
Blaise could honestly say the possibility hadn't occurred to him until that very moment and his breath seemed to catch at the thought.
But it whooshed out just as fast as the lessons that his father had taught him from an early age swooped back in.
"Wouldn't matter if she was. The shields are supposed to work against everybody, even my kind."
His kind, of course, being both wizard and Fey.
He was only half Fey, though, a distinction that both he and his family, including his friends, counted on.
Only three people aside from his parents and guardian knew about his mixed blood, and they were all in the room with him.
"Then how the hell did she do it? And what the hell does this have to do with Draco?"
"Nothing," Blaise replied, blinking in surprise at the second question and forgoing answering the first because, honestly, he couldn't think of a single thing to say.
"Then what the hell is up with you?" Pansy rounded in on the blonde, smirking internally as he blanched in the face of her understandable anger.
"Especially with the teeth," Daphne piped in, hand drifting back to the knife. "I really want to know what's up with the teeth."
So did Draco.
"I don't know what's up with the teeth. The teeth seem to have a mind of their own."
"You're not a vampire, are you?" It was more of a curiosity question than anything else. Daphne may play the part of a dumb blonde, but she had a lot more going on for her than people thought.
And the knife was a definite part of it.
There was a reason she'd brought the knife here, after all, and not just because she had a penchant for all things sharp and shiny.
The knife had been gifted to her from an ancestor with a similar…legacy to her own. It detected the presence of certain hostile magical beings, most specifically vampires, and if Draco had been one, he wouldn't just have been flinching from the presence of the knife.
He would have been burning.
As it was, Draco was getting tired of people calling him a vampire.
"I am not a vampire," he gritted out through clenched teeth, eyes narrowed and a low growl working its way out from deep in his stomach.
"Then what's with the teeth?" Pansy asked again, arms crossed as she sat on the desk and regarded the two of them with a puzzled frown.
"I don't know," Draco replied, hesitating a moment before continuing on despite his better judgment. "But I know why I get the teeth."
He paused again and regarded his companions with a somber face.
"It's Diana Whitmore. It all started with her."
Oblivious to the fact that she was currently being discussed by four snakes in a hidden room, Di was having a hard time keeping her cool and decided that a trip to Madame Pompfrey, however belated, would be a good idea.
Her stomach queasy, she entered the infirmary to a bizarre scene.
Theodore Nott, seventh year Slytherin and a lesser Prince of Doom, had his arms wrapped around Luna Lovegood, sixth year Ravenclaw, general space case, and a friend of both hers and Ginny.
Hovering over the two of them was Madame Pompfrey, who had her wand out and was staring with complete mystification, and a growling, snarling Theo, while Graham Pritchard, a sixth year Slytherin Prince-in-training, was standing between the two of them, gamely trying to talk Madame Pompfrey into putting it away.
Standing in the doorway and staring at this bizarre tableau, she heard the footsteps behind her and turned to find Dumbledore, Snape, and Flitwick bearing down on her at a rapid pace.
She managed to scuttle to the side as they blew past, Snape sparing her the briefest glance, his eyes widening slightly as he gave the rest of the room a cursory exploration before, with one last frown in her direction, he turned his attention to the rest of the rooms occupants.
"Madame Pompfrey," Dumbledore greeted the frazzled nurse with a nod before turning his attention to Graham. "Mr. Pritchard. I dare say it would be an act of futility to try and separate Mr. Nott and Miss Lovegood?"
"Not to mention an act of massive stupidity," Graham replied with a cheerful little grimace.
"I see." Dumbledore eyed the embracing couple for a couple of seconds before turning to face a pale faced and immensely confused Di.
"Miss Whitmore. I take it you're finally seeking treatment for your little debacle this morning?"
"Huh?" Di blinked at her headmaster. "Oh, yeah, right. Finally. That's me."
"And where is your companion?" There was an odd note to his tone, but Di wasn't used to analyzing Professor's Snape's vocal patterns, so she ignored it.
Having spent the last six years under the man's tutelage and care, Graham was a little more in tune with the various inflections in his head of houses voice.
"Ginny?" Di peered around her, confused, as if realizing for the first time that Ginny wasn't with her.
"Uh, by the lake, I think. I don't know. I think I lost her." Actually, Di was fairly certain she'd left her behind deliberately, but, again, her brain was a little rattled.
Her logically thought out plan that had led her here, aside from the vague aching of her neck and head, had been something along the lines of Madame Pompfrey was a nurse, and nurses cured things, so it shouldn't be much of a problem for her to fix this.
The problem with that line of reasoning that she wasn't quite up to thinking about was the fact that she wasn't having a medical problem.
Graham, again being more used to his head of house's vocal normality, could tell that it had most definitely not been Ginny Snape had been inquiring about.
Which, of course, had him regarding Di with more interest than usual.
"Professor McGonagall tells me you threw up in the hallway. Are you feeling nauseas again?"
Abandoning her attempts at treating Miss Lovegood, since having Mr. Nott thoroughly embracing her seem to be medicine enough, Madame Pompfrey focused her attention on the only other infirmed party to walk through her door in the past five minutes.
"Uhhhh…." Di couldn't actually tell if she was nauseas or not. Mostly she felt like a shirt that was shoved in the dryer on the tumble cycle. Everything was spinning and she didn't seem to have a leg to stand on.
"How about you go ahead and lie down on a bed and we'll check you over?"
It was the first logical instruction Di had heard all day.
"What all started with her, exactly?" Pansy would have to have been an idiot not to know that Di Whitmore was somehow involved in this. She'd seen the hickey and she'd seen the way Draco had been staring at her at breakfast.
"The teeth!" Draco snarled out with no small bit of frustration. "I chased her down on the train and suddenly I had to bite her."
"You had to bite her?" Daphne tapped the knife against her shoulder and arched a disbelieving eyebrow at her fellow blonde.
"Yes!" Draco snapped back. "It was like someone else had slipped into my skin. One second I was angry, the next…"
Draco faltered, not really sure how to describe, exactly, how he'd been feeling the moment he'd cornered the brown haired vixen.
"It was like having someone put a steak in front of you after years without meat. All I could think of was biting into her, marking her…." He trailed off gone, eyes peering off into a distant something only he could see.
"Marking her?" Pansy narrowed her eyes and regarded Draco with careful scrutiny.
"It was like I had to mark her and warn other people away from her," Draco stated, suddenly tired. "She made me feel…"
"Possessive," Daphne stated, nodding her head once when Draco shot her a relieved look.
"Yes," he hissed, happy to finally have that out in the open. Daphne stared at him a moment, aware that both Pansy and Blaise had turned their attention to her as well.
The teeth, the mark, and the possessive instincts all fit. The fact that she'd never in a million years have thought that this could happen was only a vague notion by this point, since all the evidence spoke for itself.
She was surprised, though. Not surprised enough to not act like a true Slytherin, however.
"Draco, my friend…you're fucked."
"I can't find anything wrong with you."
Graham snorted from where he sat in a chair next to the bed both Theo and Luna were still occupying.
It'd been a half an hour already, but Graham wasn't about to rush them. Finding your soulmate wasn't something that happened to their kind on a daily basis. As a matter of fact, it was pretty damn rare.
Besides, he'd already made the necessary arrangements, slipping out while Pompfrey was otherwise occupied with Di Whitmore.
He'd gotten in touch with the Elder's, and the only other of his kind on school grounds aside from Theo.
Su Li's eyes had gotten real wide when he'd told her what had happened, duly impressed in spite of herself.
"Lovegood?" She had shaken her head in confused disbelief.
"The world is a strange and beautiful place," Graham had replied from where he was leaning against the wall.
"Does this change things?" Had been her next logical question.
"Only minimally. The Council is sending a fourth player in to help run fringe work while we wait for Theo to come back to himself. Orders still stand, though."
"Who are they sending?"
It was an understandable question, not just because she needed to know who she'd be working with, but also because their options were somewhat limited. They didn't have much by way of a youth force, since their numbers had been somewhat stagnant as of the last couple of centuries.
"Hanson," Graham had replied, bracing himself for her responses.
"Hanson?" Su stared at him in blatant disbelief. "As in Cobe 'Cobra' Hason? The American?"
To be fair, there were a lot of American's, but this one stood out all on his own.
After all, he had killed his clan leader at age fifteen. Granted, the guy had been…twisted. Suffice to say, if he hadn't done it, someone on the council would have.
Still, having heard stories of Nigashi Strada, Graham was looking forward to meeting the boy wonder who'd taken him down with little bit of fear, a whole lot of awe, and a hope that the kid could keep it together for the duration of his stay cause any mess he made Graham was probably going to have to clean up.
"When is he set to arrive?"
"Tomorrow, around dinner. Councilman Rasha is making the arrangements."
"And Elder Cole?"
The man Theo referred to as Grandpa had arched a surprised eyebrow at the news.
Graham wasn't part of the man's inner circle like Theo's family, so conversation hadn't been initiated.
Still, Graham had been left with the distinct impression the man was laughing.
"Keeping his silence on the matter." Su snorted at that.
"Shocking. I'm heading back to my common room now. Call me if you need anything."
"Will do. Keep your eyes peeled for strangers."
"Will do."
Ginny Weasley had completely lost track of her friend. Di had completely vanished so thoroughly that Ginny was almost positive she wasn't playing a prank on her.
Almost positive.
When Di didn't show up for Care of Magical Creatures, Ginny was worried. When she wasn't waiting for her at Herbology, Ginny was really worried.
When she showed up for Potions, Ginny was disappointed.
"Of all the classes you chose to not to attend today, why couldn't you have made Potions one of them?"
"Because Professor Snape was there when Madame Pomfrey released me from the infirmary and threatened to give me a detention if I didn't show up."
"He actually threatened you?" Ginny was impressed in spite of herself. You had to have done something pretty damn special to garner personal attention from Snape himself.
"Well, not verbally," Di corrected, leaning back on the bench and pursing her lips, glancing at her friend out of the corner of her eye. "But he gave me a look."
"Ahh," Ginny nodded her head, completely understanding. Some people were naturally gifted with words, and some people were naturally gifted with the ability to visually threaten you with a single arched eyebrow.
Snape was pretty good with both, now that she had time to think about it.
"So what did Madame Pomfrey say was wrong with you?"
"Stress." Ginny blinked because, well, Di was probably one of the least stressed people Ginny had ever met. Granted, the girl had an imagination, see her theories on 'why Draco Malfoy is biting me', but she was pretty mellow the rest of the time. Saying she was stressed was like saying the Pope kept a harem of whores.
It was almost blasphemous.
"Apparently it explains everything. The nausea, the head-spinning, the fatigue. There's only one thing it doesn't explain."
"The biting." Ginny nodded her head knowingly.
"The biting," Di confirmed, raising a hand to her neck with a sullen scowl.
Draco sat in his last class of the day, Charms, slouching sullenly in his seat while Blaise tapped his quill against the parchment in front of him. Behind them, Daphne was hunched over her parchment and Pansy was frowning as she struggled to piece together the pieces of the very strange puzzle they suddenly found themselves a part of.
On the opposite side of the room, Ron and Hermione were talking quietly while Harry frowned off into space.
He'd learned through various sources (Bea Lang) during lunch that Di had been sick during Transfiguration after waking up screaming something about Malfoy biting her.
On one hand, it could just be a happy coincidence that Di just happened to have a dream about Malfoy having extra large canines on the same day Malfoy just happened to sprout some.
On the other hand, Harry's life and happy coincidence very seldom coincided.
"So what misadventure is almost going to kill us this year?" Ron interrupted his thoughts somewhere in the middle of class with cheerful disregard.
"Huh?" Harry turned and blinked at his friend.
"Honestly, Harry," Hermione rolled her eyes. "We've been your friends long enough to recognize that look."
"What look?" Harry asked, still very much confused.
"The look you get when you're pondering something that's undoubtedly going to come back to bite us all in our collective ass later on," Ron finished his original thought, mouth quirked up in a faint grin, keeping a lookout for Flitwick in his peripheral view.
"I was just thinking about Malfoy's teeth."
"Oh, gross," Hermione winced and Ron actually turned an interesting shade of green.
Harry had a moment of perplexity before his words and Ron's commingled in his head and spit out a disgusting mental picture that had him gagging for the second time the day.
Theo released his death grip of Luna sometime around late afternoon, long after the girl in question had fallen asleep and shortly after his sanity finally returned to him.
His mind was completely boggled and the rest of him was pretty confused as well.
Grandpa had told him about this, but he'd also told him the possibility of it happening to Theo were pretty damn slim.
"We fucked up," the old man had put it bluntly. "We made assumptions that we knew better than Mother and she punished us for it. She left us to find our own mates and most of us screwed that up."
Birth rates were in the dirt, marriages that were happy rather than hostile or at the very least apathetic were few and far between.
"The only good thing about this whole mess is it's forced us to think in terms of strategy rather than relying on sheer numbers."
Before, when their numbers had still been high, going to war had been about as natural to them as breathing. They fought for everything, over everything. Now, with their numbers failing to replete themselves, they couldn't afford to lose one let alone a hundred.
The number of bitten shifters had increased.
So had the number they'd had to put down. Desperate clans were trying to turn people who had no business wearing one skin let alone two.
The Council monitored changings now, keep a careful eye on the newly turned, watching for signs of madness.
Fenrir Greyback was one of the one's who'd slipped through the cracks.
Remus Lupin was another.
Greyback they were going to kill. Lupin, on the other hand…
On the bed next to him, Luna made a small noise in her sleep, rolling over until she was firmly cuddled into his side before letting out a small sigh and sinking deeper into her dreams.
Theo stared down at his mate in complete mystification.
So, he'd found his mate, now what the hell was he supposed to do with her?