Someday, I will own something of great importance. This will not be Harry Potter, as J K Rowling already owns it.

Election Day

Ryua made a half-hearted attempt to dishonor Lucius again, but Lupin managed to catch her before she sent off an owl. "It was dangerous to begin with, although I know Arthur appreciates it. With a Dark Mark, it's not going to work."

If she hadn't already known this, Ryua would never have backed down, but instead she spent the rest of the day blowing up dangerous things in the unexplored parts of the house. Everybody else wisely left her alone.

She was in a moderately more talkative mood by supper, having eliminated many biting doorknobs, cursed chests, three boggarts, and a nest of rats. The rest of the evening went to spending time with Hermione, namely, reading school books.

The next morning, the entire house had a gloomy atmosphere. The dementor mists had gotten thick again, which didn't help tempers. "All you have to do is look the other way for two seconds, sir," Ryua kept saying, "And there won't be anyone for us to be worried about."

"I will not have you thrown in Azkaban, Ryua," was Dumbledore's constant reply. "As of right now, Lucius is a popular, upstanding member of the community, and we cannot do anything that will injure our position further."

"Can't I at least throw a pie at him?"

"It would be a waste of a perfectly good pie," Dumbledore said, although he did chuckle slightly.

The sun burned the mist off by ten. It was blistering hot out, so Ryua borrowed one of Hermione's light, sleeveless vests, and took a rather gothic looking leather arm band out of her great-great-great-great aunt twice-removed's drawer to cover her newest acquisition. "Think anyone'll get suspicious?" she asked Hermione, eying her reflection in a mirror after spending half an hour figuring out how to lace it up.

"Nah. It kind of works for you, actually…"

"Good," Ryua said, sighing with relief. "It's way to damn hot out to wear anything with sleeves…"

True to wizarding tradition, the election had to be held outside. This was supposed to ensure that the elements could watch over the proceedings and give their blessing to whoever was chosen. Ryua had a private hope that the heat would give way to a freak snowstorm and everyone would be so superstitious that they'd toss Lucius out on his fancily-groomed behind…

But the sky stayed clear, the sun beating down as you'd expect at the end of September. The gathering was more enormous than anyone could remember, with a bigger turnout of witches and wizards over the age of 17 than was in the record books. Ryua was pleased to see that even on the magically cooled platform, Lucius was looking rather hot and uncomfortable, slightly nervous at the turnout.

There were a lot more giggly witches in the polls than Ryua would have liked, all wearing buttons with Lucius' too-charming face on them. "Just on hormones alone, he could win this," she murmured to Harry, who was standing next to her.

"There's more than infatuated witches here," he said back, trying to be encouraging.

"Yeah, there's a group of infatuated wizards over there," Ryua pointed, picking out a group of too-pretty-to-be-straight men moving up the queues.

"I was trying to be optimistic…"

"I know," she said, giggling.

The results were projected across every communications device possible to prevent cheating, so everyone could see the numbers growing. Arthur, to give him credit, had an incredible following, all things considered. It was heartening to know that not all the wizarding world was dumb enough to be bought out by Lucius.

However, the outcome was inevitable. Lucius pulled steadily ahead, coming to a two-thirds majority over the other candidates combined. It was rather a good thing that Dumbledore had insisted Harry follow Ryua everywhere, or she would have done something drastic. Like curse the results, kill Lucius, send up the dark mark over his head, summon a demon, burn down the platform…

"Just calm down," Harry hissed in her ear, holding tightly to her shoulders. "There's nothing we can do now. It'll be fine…"

"No it won't," she said furiously, trying to shake him off without causing a scene. "He's vicious, and in Voldemort's pocket!"

"He's not the sole power in the ministry. Anything he wants to do has to go through the lower ministers, and anything major has a public reforandum… We'll be fine."

"I think you're underestimating him," Ryua said, although she did stop struggling. "He'll make Minister a dictatorship by Christmas."

"But not right now. And Dumbledore won't let them touch the school. Which is where we'll all be in just a couple days, so relax, alright?"

He had a point, and once Ryua got a hold of her emotions, she could see the point in not doing anything drastic. It gave her the utmost pleasure, however, to notice that a plain, non-magical pigeon relieved itself on Lucius' hair, on his way into the Ministry. Not many people noticed, but Ryua was sure that the Quibbler at least would have a story on the natural world rejecting their choice of leader…

Lucius didn't try anything for the first few weeks, just assured and strengthened his position inside the ministry. This allowed the students and teachers living at the Order to get back to Hogwarts. It made them all feel surprisingly better about the whole situation, actually to be back in the school.

As the students were boarding the train, Ryua scanned the crowd to see how many of her fellow Slytherins would be arriving at school. Ashley made it, dropped off with Ginny personally by Fred and George. Pansy was at the far end, and Crabbe and Goyle were with her. Millicent was nowhere to be seen, or Draco. Ryua's heart sunk at that, and she started to panic slightly. She'd been so sure he'd be back at school…

Cardington, one of the aurors who'd escorted them to the train, startled her out of her thoughts by nudging her shoulder. "Here. You'll be needing this at school."

She jumped, turning around to face him. In his outstreached hands lay a wrapped bundle she recognized as a broomstick. "You finished it!" she said gleefully, not quite snatching it from him.

"Yes," he said. "You'll find it different from any other racing brooms you've been on, I'm afraid."

"Oh?" Ryua asked eagerly, not even noticing the platform was almost empty.

"I'll tell you on the train," he said, steering her onto the nearest compartment. "Or we'll be late for term."

"We? You're too old to be a student, aren't you?"

"I'm only nineteen…" he said, looking almost bashful. Almost. "I'm the Dark Arts teacher for this year."

"Cool." Ryua said. "You'll have no problem impressing people… our last DADA teacher banned wands in her class."

"Really?" he asked, looking surprised at her. "That's about the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"Yeah, we thought so too. Put together a group of students to study it ourselves, so they banned all clubs, teams, and groups. Naturally, we just found the Room of Requirements and kept on going."

"What's a Room of Requirements?"

"Oh… a room in Hogwarts that becomes whatever you need it to be. Quite helpful, actually. But that's enough about the school. What about this broom?" Ryua asked eagerly, unwrapping it and carefully folding the cloth for reuse.

It was a rich, dark red, which almost seemed to glow in the calm lights. The grain was curly, making an iridescent, rippled effect along the handle. It darkened nicely towards the back, where polished ebony twigs were individually woven on, the tips arranged in a pyramid for better aerodynamics. "Well, it's bloodwood and ebony, as requested," Card said, "And finished with plain waterproof oil. It's hand-shaped, not magically formed, you see. In fact, one of the two spells on it on it is the one allowing it to fly."

"Really?" Ryua asked, running her hand along the slightly curved handle. It would be a foot taller than her standing, and the wood was incredibly smooth.

"Yes. This means no safeties. You'll be able to pull off more stunts that way, but if you lose control, the broom can't do anything to correct it. And ebony has some natural spell-nullifying properties, but added anti-jinx spells interfere with the handling. So, learn to duck more than bludgers."

"No problem there…" Ryua said, thinking that the Nimbus' fancy spells still hadn't been any help over summer. "So, what's the other spell?"

"Well, if someone steals it, you can order it to self destruct."

"… oh. That sounds… actually kind of fun!" she giggled. "It's absolutely beautiful. Thank you."

"My pleasure. Now, I assume you'll want to go search the train?"

"Yeah," Ryua said swallowing nervously. "He's got to be here somewhere…"

"Good luck." Card said, turning away to go find a compartment full of troublemakers to intimidate.

Wrapping her broom back up and tying it on her back, Ryua started to wind her way through the train. She'd never noticed how many people her height had light blonde hair before. She kept thinking Draco was sitting on a bench, or pushing first-years along the corridor, or reaching into the luggage racks. It always turned out to be someone else, though, and she kept searching.

She finally got to the front of the train, and paused in front of the prefect's car. He has to be here…There wasn't any movement she could see though the frosted glass, since they were far enough in the journey to have the prefects out on patrol. Gingerly, Ryua eased the door open, looking around. She did a full turn, and there, sitting in the corner right beside the door was her brother. "Draco!" Ryua said, closing and locking the door behind her. "How're you doing?"

"Been better," he said wryly, looking up at her. "But I've been much worse too…"

Ryua plopped beside him, giving him an impulsive hug. "I've been worried sick. The only times I heard from you, you were in pain…"

He laughed, resting his head on her shoulder. "Well… it was a fairly common state of being… So, fill me in, what's been going on? I've only heard bits from Bella about some big plan of Lucius'…

"He's Minister for Magic," Ryua groaned. "Legally, and with a two-thirds majority vote. We tried everything we could to stop him…"

"Ouch." Draco said. "So, what did you do? Bella and …him came down the stairs… said you were doing something dangerous… and that's when they…"

"Yeah, I noticed…" Ryua said dryly, pulling up a sleeve. "I was going to have a very public revelation about what a cruel father Lucius was."

"No way," Draco said, straightening up and looking at her. "You've got some guts."

"It would have worked too…" Ryua said sadly. "I've got enough scars to get him thrown out of the Ministry entirely. But with a Dark Mark…"

"Yeah, he'd have made sure that your arm was 'accidentally' revealed somehow."

"But… it's not a problem right this second. We're both here, alive, and Dumbledore's promised he's welcoming us back. Ashely too."

"Ashley was branded?" Draco said, shocked.

"Yeah, snuck right into a meeting at the Snape manor. Snape brought her to…" Ryua choked off her sentence there, suddenly realizing that she was talking to a Death Eater about the most important secrets of the Order. "…the Weasleys. She's been living in Fred and George's shop since then."

Draco looked calculatingly at her. "You're not telling me something."

"I… I can't…" Ryua said, feeling uncomfortable. "I have to talk to Dumbledore first…"

"Okay…" he said, pushing the matter out of his mind. He was probably better off not knowing. "Maybe I'll go check on Ashley now…"

Ryua grinned. The two of them had some definite chemistry, although she thought they were both probably too shy to do much about it. Not that it mattered, as they were in another arranged marriage. Since Severus hadn't been bothering the Malfoys about it, they all had a tendancy to forget it even existed. Ryua wished the both of them luck, and heartily believed they could actually get along, maybe even like each other. Unlike Lucius and Narcissa… or her and Blaise… "They should just outlaw the things…" she muttered, before wandering off to find Harry on the train.

Author's Note: I dont' really like this chapter... but it had to be written, and I wanted to update this week, so...

Does anybody have anything they'd like to see happen at school? Just so I have some ideas for the too-common days of writers' block.