What Draco Malfoy wanted more than anything in the world was to be fucking alone; at the very least, he wanted to be in the presence of someone who actually enjoyed his company, and he certainly wasn't making any progress there.

Pansy Parkinson had said nothing during the Prefect's meeting, and her silence had spoken volumes as to what he would be facing when he met his fellow Slytherins.

Because Pansy knew.

Of course, she knew, because she would have heard it from her father. Every student whose parents were affiliated with the Dark Lord would have heard, would have directives to watch him but not speak with him. Not to associate with him at all. They would scorn him.

It's all just as well, Draco thought dully. They had never really been friends anyway. He had used Crabbe and Goyle for their size and stupidity, had used Pansy for… more primal ends than that. He could do without the lot of them.

Really, he could.

But as he slid open one compartment, he felt the loss acutely when Pansy Parkinson and Theodore Nott met his eyes with threatening glares. The compartment was occupied by only one other person, whose indifference seemed to practically radiate from him; Blaise Zabini sat, arms crossed over his chest, looking quite as calm and collected as he ever did, and Draco could think of only one reason why Zabini didn't seem to share in his housemates' animosity.

Zabini wasn't a Death Eater, had no family members who were, and could likely care less about where Draco Malfoy's loyalties lie.

Draco stepped into the compartment, fixing first Nott and then Pansy with lengthy stares before he sat down.

"You dare -" Pansy hissed, her dark eyes flashing cruelly. "Filthy blood traitor!"

Draco shrugged, trying to seem as nonchalant as he could. He would never let on how badly the insult had stung. A blood traitor was as bad as it could be, far worse than a Mudblood.

He raised a brow, eyes connected full-on with hers. "Careful Pansy," he said. "I could name a fair few ways you're filthier than I am."

If Pansy had flushed at the insinuation, Draco couldn't tell beyond her thick layer of creamy makeup. She straightened, crossing her legs and arms. "That was before," she said loftily. "Before you turned your back on the Dark Lord."

Theodore gave her a withering glance. "Shut up, Parkinson," he snapped.

"Don't tell me you're as scared as he is!" countered Pansy.

Nott turned a set of pale green eyes back toward Draco, who met them and tried to appear unaffected; Nott bared his even teeth but did not speak.

Pansy gave a girlish giggle. "Do you think you're protected, Draco?" she simpered. "Do you think your precious Headmaster will keep you safe? He's angry. Not even Hogwarts is safe for you now."

Theo clicked his tongue, taking Pansy by the wrist before he pulled the girl to her feet. They left the compartment together, Nott leading Pansy along as she shot Draco a last, parting glower.

For a moment, there was silence, and Draco rolled his eyes toward the ceiling.

"Really done well for yourself this time, haven't you, Malfoy?" came Zabini's voice, more of a statement than a question.

Draco sighed, tipped his head back to rest against the seat, and wondered just why the Order had insisted he return to school in the first place.

And he wondered, not for the first time, if he'd make it out of his seventh year alive.

.

br

.

At the Slytherin table, Draco sat between Blaise Zabini and Tracey Davis (neither of whom were associated with Death Eaters) and ate the feast in silence. Finally, he could enjoy a meal without the furor of Order members surrounding him, without their comfortable companionship and stupid inside jokes, and without the utter decency of them all clouding the air he was trying to breathe. Being with his own sort, even if none of them were speaking to him or being the least bit friendly, was a relief in its own right - even if the Weasley mother's cooking had been far better than decent. Far better, he dared to venture, than the elves' cooking at Malfoy Manor. Not that he would ever admit that out loud, of course.

To anyone.

Draco studiously ignored the Slytherins' stares as he reached to pour himself a glass of pumpkin juice. When Goyle did manage to catch his eye, Draco only sneered his response, and the oafish boy's gaze drifted down to the Head Boy badge pinned to Draco's robes.'

"Dumbledore give you that badge as a reward for your loyalty, Malfoy?" Goyle jabbed.

"For having the highest marks, actually. Something you'd know nothing about. Although," Draco mocked condescendingly. "I'll admit I'm rather impressed by your ability to put together an entire sentence without grunting."

Beside Draco, Tracey snickered into her beef stew; Goyle's neck was turning a shade pinker and his face seemed to strain with anger, but he did not appear to have a reply.

Across the Great Hall, he could see the Golden bloody Gryffindors having a grand old time. He could see the back of Granger's bushy head next to Weaselbee's, and in front of them, Potter and the Weasely girl were smiling and sitting very close together. From their demeanors, it was quite obvious that Granger had said nothing to them about the shared common room. If she had done, Potter and Weasley would likely be staring hatefully in Draco's direction by now or else protesting the injustice.

Draco snorted softly at that thought. As though it would really be so different than the two of them living in the same dank, dirty house at Grimmauld Place.

Or maybe it would, he reasoned... at Grimmauld Place, they weren't alone.

The chatter in the Great Hall stopped abruptly, and Draco turned to see that Professor Dumbledore had risen from his seat, clapping his hands once together. The food disappeared from their plates, which were now their normal gleaming gold, and the aged wizard cleared his throat.

Draco was sure that he wasn't the only one to notice that the Headmaster's right hand was still black as char. He wondered how far the decay had now traveled; he hadn't wanted to ask when Dumbledore had appeared at Grimmauld Place the night before, and if Draco was honest, he wasn't completely clear on the story behind it anyway. At that thought, Draco shifted his gaze to Potter and watched him for a long moment; in the background, Dumbledore carried on with school announcements. Potter was watching the Headmaster with rapt attention, practically hanging on every word, like the pathetic lapdog he truly was.

"...As many of you will no doubt have read in the Daily Prophet, and which many more of you remember quite clearly, Voldemort's mercenaries penetrated this castle's walls near the end of term last year." He paused. "I wish to assure you that the means by which they skirted our defenses have been mended."

Draco felt a heavy gaze fall across his shoulders and looked back toward the Gryffindor table to see that Potter and the Weasley girl were staring unabashedly at him; Draco stared back. Really, if there was something the two of them needed to say, they'd had all sodding summer to accomplish it. Draco could see no reason why they felt the need to appear so hostile now, not after they had mostly ignored him for the last two months.

"...Nevertheless, I urge each and every one of you to watch very closely for traces of Dark Magic in any of your fellow students and teachers, especially for evidence of the Imperius curse, and I advise you all to exercise good and careful judgment at all times. Voldemort and his followers gain power every day, and while the Ministry of Magic may choose to downplay his growing strength, I feel that to do this would be a terrible injustice to you all."

Professor McGonagall sat to Dumbledore's left, tight-lipped and rigid with her hands folded in front of her. Draco's eyes followed the professors' High Table until they came to rest upon the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, who, to Draco's shock, had his gaze fixed upon the thoroughly unaware Hermione Granger. Severus Snape looked thoughtful as he regarded her, eyebrows furrowed against one another and his pale fingers circling a goblet which he seemed to have forgotten was in his hand.

"And with that being all said, I would finally like to congratulate our new Head Girl, Miss Hermione Granger."

Uproarious yelling rose from the Gryffindor table, and most of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw cheered enthusiastically as well. He couldn't see Granger's shy smile from where he was seated, but he suspected strongly that it would be there… as though she could possibly be that embarrassed as much as she showed off in classes.

"And our new Head Boy, Draco Malfoy."

There was a smattering of polite applause from every table except one.

Almost nobody clapped or cheered for Draco Malfoy at the Slytherin table… and those who did had no idea why their fellows were sitting still and silent in their seats, or why the others were glaring scornfully at the Head Boy as though he had betrayed them all.

.

br

.

"Come along, Miss Granger," Snape said boredly, approaching the Gryffindors from behind as they stepped through the doors of the Great Hall. Draco followed him, smirking as Granger turned on her heel to acknowledge their Professor; Potter, Weasley and the other red-headed girl turned with her, clearly confused.

But Granger did not look confused at all. She looked panicked.

"No," she whispered incredulously.

It had been barely audible, nothing more than a quiet denial of the truth and, clearly, Granger had not meant for the Defence instructor to hear it - but Draco could see the shape of her mouth as it formed the word and could only grin as he waited for her public reprimand.

"Excuse me, Miss Granger?" Snape said softly. "Are you refusing to comply with a Hogwarts Professor?"

Hermione's mouth opened and closed soundlessly. "What? N-no!" she stammered, unable to collect herself. "I was only - I mean, I wasn't -"

"Five points from Gryffindor for insubordination," Snape said simply, and beside Granger, the other three visibly stiffened. "Now, come along."

Professor Snape continued to cross the entrance hall, and as Draco followed, Granger fell into step beside him. He passed her a superior smile as they ascended the steps, to which she responded with an indignant huff.

They were on the seventh floor when Granger finally spoke, her last ditch effort to somehow stop what she knew was happening. "Please, sir. Where are we going?"

Draco heard rather than saw the Snape's annoyance. "To your common room, Miss Granger. Where else would we be going?"

The color drained from her face, and she met Draco's eyes with utter astonishment. "But, sir, the Heads have never before in history shared a private common room!"

Snape stopped and spun around to face them. "Are you quite sure about that?"

Granger seemed to falter, apparently wondering if she'd been wrong, whether Head Boys and Girls had, in fact, been sharing a private common room since Hogwarts was founded a thousand years ago, and whether she'd been naive to think otherwise.

"Well, well, well..." Snape drawled, an unkind smirk pulling languidly across his features. "It would appear that the insufferable know-it-all does not know everything."

He had lingered on the last word, holding Granger's eyes condescendingly for a moment as he turned to face painting in front of him. Before them was a rendering of a witch and wizard arguing vehemently with one another, and all around them, benches filled with more shouting people rose higher and higher in tiers. Draco's eyes came to rest on the table at which the foremost witch and wizard were sitting and saw that, on the parchment between them, a date had been inscribed: 1689.

"The International Statute of Secrecy," said Draco before he could even think about it.

Granger's eyes flew across the painting, found the parchment on which the year was written, and seemed to realize that Draco was right, for she shot him a look of begrudged jealousy.

"Basilisk," Snape said, and the witch and wizard in the painting both turned from their argument, seeming to notice the three of them for the first time. They both shrugged, and then the painting swung forward to reveal a round passageway… nothing at all like the entrance to the Slytherin common room, Draco realized.

"The Headmaster wishes for both of you to report to his office tomorrow, after the last bell and before dinner," Snape informed them, before turning on his heel to continue down the corridor the way they had come.

Draco turned to Granger and, with a dramatic bow, gave her a triumphant grin.

"Ladies first."

.

br

.

The common room was at the top of a short, spiraling staircase, and was neither large nor small. A couch faced a blazing fireplace, framed by two armchairs on either side of it. A matching set of staircases curved toward each other on the opposite wall, and on the landing where they met were two wooden doors. Presumably, a door to her dormitory and a door to his own. The wall that spanned from the bottom of one staircase to the bottom of the other was a bookshelf, filled to the brim with books of different shapes and sizes, and in front of it, separating the bookshelf and the couch, was a long table for studying.

Interested, Draco approached the bookshelf and was pulling a thick red tome from it when he heard her angry voice behind him.

"Malfoy," growled Granger.

He turned, and then stopped as panic seized his heart - Hermione Granger was looking quite as crazy as he had ever seen her, wand brandished directly at him.

Draco reacted immediately, dropping the tome and quickly drawing his wand before he ducked - just as the yellow light from Granger's hex sailed past him and hit the staircase banister, which burst into flames.