Watching Crabbe and Goyle play Wizard's chess had to be one of the most utterly amusing things on the planet.

Both being incompetent oafs, their brows puckered in confusion as their pieces danced around the chessboard, shouting complaints and cursing angrily. Draco was outright laughing, stifling the sound with a sleeve of his robes.

"Uh... horsey-dude to... J-3?" Crabbe guessed, jabbing a bulky finger at one of the pieces.

"I'm a knight, you idiot!" The piece shrieked with indignation. "And there's no such thing as J-3, it only goes up to H!"

Crabbe pulled a face. It didn't look as though he'd understood a word of what the chess piece had said. Draco wiped tears of laughter from his cheeks, wrapping one arm around his rib-cage in an attempt to stop them aching.

"My turn," Goyle interrupted gruffly. "You - " he pointed at his Queen - "take out that guy." Goyle, this time, pointed at one of Crabbe's pieces.

"I can't get there," the Queen replied in an irritable voice, sounding more than a little impatient. "Unless you want me to somersault over a couple of his pieces and then cartwheel into position?"

Draco couldn't contain his laughter much longer. Tears streamed silently down his face as he shook with sniggers. Despite his stern mental orders that he stop, he couldn't help himself. Crabbe and Goyle's stupidity was just too hilarious.

"I gotta go." He choked out eventually, darting from his armchair and out of the Slytherin common room. Once outside, he took a steadying breath. In their free lesson time, rather than work on their respective assignments, the two goons had attempted a game of Wizard's chess. Thus Draco's current state of hysterical laughter.

Deciding it was best to avoid the common room for a while - at least, until Crabbe and Goyle had finished their 'game' - Draco strode through the dungeons, quickening his pace when he heard Pansy call his name. Later, when she pouted and fluttered non-existent eyelashes at him, he could pretend he didn't hear her. He did it all the time - why concern himself over it now?

Well, whatever. There was still a spare hour before Defence Against the Dark Arts - time he could spend in the Room of Requirement, fixing the -

"Hey!"

There was a yell of protest as Draco collided with someone. Blinking in shock, Draco stumbled back a few steps, eyes wide: he had mistakenly run into Blaise Zabini, who'd been prowling around the dungeons like an overgrown cat. Swallowing his anger, Draco frowned and opened his mouth to grudgingly apologise.

"Idiot! I bet you did that on purpose!" Zabini hissed, his dark, slanted eyes narrowed into dangerous slits.

Draco's frown became a scowl. Screw an apology - if Zabini treated him like that, Draco wasn't going to be responsible for Zabini's resulting injuries.

"Like hell I did it on purpose!" Draco retorted angrily, and for once, truthfully.

"Don't even try it, Draco! You're just bitter because Slughorn didn't invite you to that damn party of his." Zabini sneered; Draco grit his teeth and clenched his fists. Usually, Draco would have been jealous; but this year was different. His Master had given him a task, and its importance far exceeded that of any parties Slughorn might or might not be hosting.

Draco opened his mouth to tell Zabini this. Unfortunately, as was what usually happened, the words got lost on the way to his mouth.

"Shut the hell up, Blaise. At least my mother isn't a tramp who'll marry anything as long as it's got money."

Oops. Draco clapped his mouth shut and reminded himself that just because he enjoyed saying these things inside his head didn't mean he could say them out loud.

Zabini's face, usually attractive and complacent, twisted with anger. "What did you just say about my mother, Malfoy?"

"Well, everyone says it, Zabini, just they do it behind your back." Draco was definitely digging himself a grave with this one. But he couldn't stop himself, not quite. Yesterday's remark - 'even your boyfriend's leaving' - still stung like an open wound. Harry Potter, as Draco's boyfriend? Yeuch, no thanks.

"I'll teach you to be rude about my mother, Malfoy," Zabini snarled, his hand diving into a pocket and retrieving his wand. Draco raised a delicate eyebrow.

Over the summer, his aunt Bellatrix had introduced him to multiple dark spells - curses, jinxes, hexes - stuff that would have been useful the previous year, when trying to catch Potter's gang - 'Dumbledore's Army', or something like that. Zabini didn't stand a chance.

Smirking, Draco bit back a laugh. "Good luck, Zabini. I've learnt a lot over the summer, stuff you wouldn't even dream of -"

" - like learning how to keep hold of your wand?" Interrupted an amused-sounding voice from behind. Zabini's eyes rose as he scanned the intruder; spinning around, Draco's words sputtered to a stop when he saw that Harry Potter had approached silently from behind, looking entertained.

"What do you want, Potter?" Draco asked irritably. "I was just about to turn Zabini into a platypus, and you're interrupting me."

"Actually, it's more about what you want, Malfoy," Potter replied in a deceptively pleasant voice. He held up the wand clutched in his left hand; it looked familiar. In fact, it almost looked like...

"My wand!" Draco spluttered furiously. "How - what - hand it over, Potter, or I'll jinx you into a jelly!"

"Good luck doing that without your wand, Malfoy," Potter replied sarcastically, rolling his eyes and trying, unsuccessfully, to hide his grin. "You must've dropped it in the dungeons. Running away from Parkinson, I'm guessing - she was looking for you in an old classroom."

"Give it back!" Draco tried his best at a demanding tone: it came out as a childlike whine. He felt vulnerable without his wand; it was unusual for him to feel like this, cornered like one of those dungeon-rats Crabbe and Goyle liked torturing.

"Yeah, yeah," Potter rolled his bright-green eyes again, and Draco's stomach gave a lurch. Probably something to do with the fact Potter was acting so flippant when the survival of Draco's wand was on the line.

"Um - excuse me, Draco," Zabini sounded annoyed, standing behind Draco - "but are we going to finish this, or not?"

"In a minute!" Draco turned back to face Zabini, waving his hand in a dismissive gesture. "I'll get my wand back, we can finish our argument, I'll turn you into a platypus, it'll be like Potter never interrupted."

"Oh, sorry," Potter's eyes widened in mock-innocence, "was I interrupting something personal?"

"You be quiet for a minute," Draco spun back around, trying not to get too dizzy, to face Potter. "Just hand over my wand, and then you go back to your pumpkin-juice-and-warm-fires common room and I can finally turn Zabini into a platypus. Which is completely overdue by this point."

"And what do I get in return?" Potter enquired in a teasing voice; with the skill of a born-Seeker, he flipped the wand in the air and caught it in the same hand.

"You get to see me in a crappy mood - "

" - Ooh, lucky me -"

" - and when I get my goddamn wand back, not even your Weasel-king bestie or Mudblood girlfriend will be able to protect you!"

Potter bristled. Understandable - despite his fallen-angel appearance, he was still the school's Golden Boy, and thus was 100% anti-swearword. "Don't call her a Mudblood! Her name's Hermione, and besides, she's not my girlfriend."

"Wonderful." Draco replied sarcastically; despite this, he was at least a little glad the Mudblood wasn't Potter's girlfriend. Only a little, mind you. Just because the Weasel-king was so obviously in love with her it constantly amused Draco.

"Draco - " Zabini started behind Draco, sounding annoyed.

" - one second, Zabini -"

" - one second until what, hmm, Malfoy? Are you and Zabini going to get back together?"

"Shut the hell up, he's not my boyfriend!"

"Draco, I swear to God, if we don't start fighting in three seconds, I'm leaving -"

" - I want to duel too, but Potter's got my bloody wand, hasn't he - "

" - I know, you idiotic piece of - "

"Draco!"

All three boys froze as Pansy's voice called out, sounding more than a little upset. Harry Potter looked ready to start laughing, twirling Draco's wand around in circles; Blaise Zabini, with a roll of expressively dark eyes, sloped off and disappeared in shadows.

"Hand over my wand!" Draco hissed, in a much quieter voice.

"Well, I say worldwide rule of 'Finders Keepers' applies to this situation -"

"Draco!" Pansy called again, sounding much closer this time. Draco made a sound of distress in the back of his throat and imagined Pansy coming around the corner of the dungeon corridor: he and Potter standing only a couple of meters apart, completely alone...

Draco grabbed Potter's sleeve and dragged him, ignoring his sounds of complaints, down an adjacent corridor. A few feet down the corridor, Draco found what he was looking for: an old broom cupboard, used to house Slytherin brooms back in the years of never-never. Wrenching open the door - which squealed in protest - Draco shoved Potter inside, continuing to ignore him.

"Draco?" Pansy's voice was alarmingly close: it was almost as though she was standing right behind him.

Draco was hit by an overpowering sensation of irritation and disgust: he didn't want to talk to Pansy. He could run away - but that wasn't his style. Besides, the Slytherin dungeons were an Unplottable labyrinth of identically gloomy corridors, and he was just as likely to run into Pansy rather than run away from her.

His nose wrinkling in disgust, Draco decided he'd have to do the unthinkable. Something so disgusting only lowlifes like Goyle, or Zabini, even considered it.

Get into a broom cupboard. With Harry Potter.

And not even a very clean broom cupboard, at that.

Dear me, Draco. Are you sure you didn't plan this?
I bet he did u

Thank you for reading! x