Voldemort's Daughter

by Tsubasa Kya

Inuyasha crossover. Harry has the distinct impression that Kagome is lying. Well, either she knows about Voldemort and lies about it, or she must be really stupid. Obviously she's not the latter. What's a hero to do? Kill her? Book 6 replacement KagoDraco

21. Birthday Presents

Title: Voldemort's Daughter
Author: Tsubasa Kya
Dude, where did my disclaimer go?!

15,141 words

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Chapter 21: Birthday Presents

Kagome. Was. Lost.

Well, that wasn't exactly very surprising to her, but it was the truth. She was lost amongst the labyrinthine corridors of her new school. It was so much bigger than her last school, even though she was well aware her school had more students. That was also not mentioning the fact that in her old school she only had one classroom and the teachers came to her and the other students rather than the other way around. Here, she quickly learned that teachers got the classrooms and the students migrated about the school all day trying their best not to get lost.

It was only the first day and she was already sorely homesick. She wanted to be sitting in room 303B with Inuyasha in the seat on her right, constantly demanding her help on his assignments or asking for a spare scroll of parchment or borrowing a writing brush… If only Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru could get along! Maybe if they could, Inuyasha could've transferred schools with her instead of being left behind when his father made the executive decision to transfer her.

She turned yet another corner. "Where the heck am I, anyway?" she asked herself since no one else was around to ask. Everyone else was in the class they were to have before lunch. She had a free hour before lunch (at least that was what Chavi said the blank spot on her schedule meant and she did trust Chavi at her words) so her intention was to find the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom and check up on Sesshoumaru. Or would it be 'checking in with Sesshoumaru'? She wasn't sure.

But she did want to see him, and that required finding him in this ungodly large place. In order to find him, she had to figure out where the hell she was. She'd gone up staircases, down staircases, and at one point, she even fell up a down staircase and found herself at the top of it but that still only made it so she was even more lost than before.

Somewhere along the line, she managed to stumble into a library and it was because of this that she felt a small bubble of hope. Back home, there were always people in the library, even if it was just the first day. Unfortunately as she searched the library, the place was found to be terribly dead.

With a miserable groan, she plopped her school bag on a table and sat down at it. Kiyoshi had gone off, she assumed to hunt mice or something. She'd managed to find her way to the Slytherin house entrance again after Ancient Runes except when she left her bedroom again she realized she'd left her wand and her key to her bedroom on her desk (Sesshoumaru would be so proud of her!) which meant she couldn't exactly get in her room without help.

That was another great reason to go to Sesshoumaru; she hoped if she whined and complained enough, he'd go down with her to her room and magic the door open because her wandless lock pick spell didn't work on the door and without a wand, she was pretty much out of alternative options. Someone—Blaise or Chavi, she couldn't remember which—had said that she needed to see one of the teachers if she lost her key but she couldn't recall what teacher that was.

And now, she was lost in a giant castle and for some curious reason, no one was in the library! How could that possibly be? Were the English currently boycotting libraries or something? She knew the English had a lot of stupid notions such as banning the majority of books that held useful information or whatever, but she would've never, ever guessed that she would find a library so empty!

Surely the students realized that they were already well into the new school year. They already had two classes! Well, she had two classes already, even if some of them didn't.

She sighed and rested her head on the table. Hopefully someone would magically realize she was in the library and—

"Kagome?" She heard Chavi's voice not far from her and jolted upright, managing to cause herself to tip right off the chair and fall on her rump. "Kagome, what are you doing here? I thought you said you were going to go back to your room and nap before lunch?" Chavi inquired, sounding more curious than anything else.

Chavi reached a hand down to Kagome to help the foreigner up and Kagome accepted the offer and then righted her chair. "Well, that was the plan, and I did go back to my room," Kagome said, "it's just that I couldn't sleep so I thought I'd find my Guardian."

"Your what?" Chavi asked.

"My Guardian… he takes care of me; you know, gives me money if I need it, watches out for me, that sort of stuff." Kagome didn't really know how else to describe what Sesshoumaru did for her. "He's like… a dad, or something." That was a very disturbing way for Kagome to describe someone who she'd crushed on for the past ten years at least…

"I'm going to guess you're not trying to find Professor Llywellyn," Chavi said with a small smile.

"How'd you guess?"

"He doesn't seem to like you much from the way he treats you." The girl pushed the library chair back in place beneath the table and then adjusted her blazer sleeves. "Well, I'm done here, so I can help you out. Are you looking for the other new professors? Professor Tetsuya or Sevina?"

"Professor Tetsuya," Kagome said. "What were you doing here in the library? No one was here when I came in."

"Madam Pince, the librarian, gets copies of the new class books every time they're printed, so I help her catalog them and put them in their proper places. In return, she lets me into the Forbidden Section of the library whenever I want; it really does pay to be friends with the librarian." Chavi smirked and Kagome guessed 'friends' wasn't the real term between the two of them. It sounded more like a 'you do this for me, I'll do this for you' relationship, which wasn't really friendship.

"At the Magic Academy, we don't have a forbidden section of books. There's only one book that has been banned in the entire Japanese magical community." Kagome grabbed her bag and threw the strap over her shoulder, then followed Chavi toward the exit of the library.

"What book is that?"

"The Ice Prince by Drake Ignatius Malfoy," was Kagome's response.

"I don't know why your country banned that book," Chavi said, "since I'd hardly call it a book of the dark arts. I've read it several times—I even have my own copy—but it's more like a dark fantasy story."

"Your country does funny things too," was Kagome's response. "Like banning any book with black magic spells or potions in them!"

"I'd say those bans are justified," Chavi said.

"Hardly! How can you protect yourself if you don't know what's coming? And Black Magic isn't evil either, though I'm sure Professor Sevina will teach you all about the different states of magic as we categorize them in my country and then you'll see what I'm talking about."

It didn't take long for Chavi to lead Kagome to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. On the way there, Kagome was able to ask Chavi more questions about the school and get tips on how to navigate it without (hopefully) getting lost. When they got there, Kagome knocked on the door and just a few seconds later, her knocking was answered by Kikyou.

"Ah, Kagome-chan," Kikyou smiled at her and stepped aside, beckoning the two girls to enter. "I see you have made a …friend…" Kikyou frowned at Chavi's somewhat revealing clothes (it really went without saying that Kikyou was incredibly conservative, and had loathed the school uniform at the Magic Academy, instead choosing to wear non-revealing kimonos every day).

"Uh huh!" Kagome chirped, barely taking notice of Kikyou's disapproving look. Chavi hardly looked like she cared—probably because Chavi didn't care what others thought of her (she dressed however she liked, thank-you-very-much). The two girls entered the room, and Chavi noticed many changes from how Umbridge had the room. There were—thankfully—no pink frills anywhere. The center of the room was left completely open to free floor and small, comfortable looking maroon cushions were lined up all around the room with low tables made of polished mahogany in front of each cushion. Instead of walls to hold things, two of the walls which made up the outer wall of the castle had been replaced with glass to create large windows that let in outside light.

'Professor' Sesshoumaru Tetsuya was sitting on one maroon cushion at a table, a tea cup resting in front of him. He leaned against the window with no worry at all that it would break. Next to him was a tall Englishman who Kagome knew only by sight, yet Chavi thought for a moment she was seeing Harry Potter sitting there. He had the same messy black hair, the same lightly tanned skin, and even wore the same type of round frame glasses. The only difference was that this version of Harry Potter didn't have those stunning green eyes Chavi was attracted to (not, of course, that she would ever, ever admit she was attracted to a Gryffindor, what with her friends all severely against Gryffindors—she would take her childhood friends over any romance no matter how stupid she thought her friends were most of the time).

"We're just sitting down to a cup of tea," Kikyou said pleasantly. "Would you girls like to join us?" She was already getting down two cups. Chavi was going to politely decline—she'd just hijacked her first book of the year from the Forbidden Section of the library and wanted to take a look at it before lunch—but Kagome grabbed her hand and dragged her across the room.

So much for politely declining, Chavi thought as Kagome chirped they would love to join. Instead, Chavi smiled appreciatively and accepted the cup of tea, kneeling as Kagome did in front of the low table.

Kagome was glad Chavi had agreed to stay. She was afraid Chavi wouldn't want to at first. "Thank you, Kikyou-san," Kagome chirped as the slightly older woman poured her a cup of tea.

"Thank you, Professor," Chavi said in turn as hers was poured.

"Well, if it isn't the troublemaker," the Harry Potter look-alike chirped boisterously, with an amused glance at Kagome.

Kagome blushed profusely. "I hope you aren't too mad at me…" Kagome said.

"Mad?" he laughed, "Hardly, though I was sorry not to get to meet you personally that day because of what happened. Because of you, sales on bows and arrows have never been higher!" He grinned and looked at Chavi, holding out a hand to the girl across the low table. "Nice to meet you, young lady. I'm Jesse Potter, a friend of Miss Higurashi's Guardian here." Chavi shook his hand as he jutted his chin toward Sesshoumaru.

"Nice to meet you, too," Chavi said. Her mother had drilled her in manners, even though her father couldn't have given a rat's ass about manners in most cases. She rather thought her father's anti-social, mannerless behavior was suited to one who nearly glued himself to his cauldron all summer long, though. Chavi's mother was still working on getting her father 'tamed' in civilized society. He had a tendency to… um… let his mouth run away without him. "I'm Chaviah Melody."

"Melody?" Sesshoumaru inquired. "I have memorized the names of all students in this school. None have the surname 'Melody'."

Chavi grinned ruefully. "My apologies, Professor. I'm used to people calling me by my middle name in place of my surname, so it's habit to introduce myself like that now. Snape is my last name."

Jesse Potter's eyes went wide. "A beautiful girl like you is Snape's kid? Please tell me I'm hearing things."

"I'm afraid you heard correctly," Chavi chuckled. "But I get that sort of reaction a lot. I don't look anything like either of my parents, which raises many questions."

"What kind of questions?" Kagome asked.

Chavi shrugged. "Both of my parents have black hair, and I'm blond. My mother has blue eyes and my father has black eyes. Mine are green. The only suggestion that I'm like either of them is that I'm tall and thin like my father."

Kikyou set a plate of cookies on the table. "Go ahead," she said to the eager Jesse Potter. He attacked the plate, taking four at once with a grin. "Girls?" she asked. Kagome took one, but Chavi shook her head.

"They aren't poisoned," Jesse Potter chuckled. "Kikyou wouldn't poison me, would you dear?"

"I wish she would," Sesshoumaru grumbled. "You're more trouble than you're worth."

"Hey, I'm not as bad as your princess here," he nodded to Kagome and she turned red again, promptly hiding behind her cup of tea. "I've never met anyone who attracted so much trouble." He glanced at Chavi. "You might want to rethink being friends with her," he sounded like he was joking as he said it, but that made Kagome no less embarrassed. "She'll cause you more strife than you need. You'll go gray early. Look at Sesshoumaru—already white haired and he's barely nineteen years old."

"It is justified," Kikyou said lightly. "I mean, he will be twenty in a month, after all."

Chavi couldn't help but giggle, which was very strange. She didn't normally succumb to giggles. She laughed, or chuckled, but never giggled. But it was the strangled look on the new professor's face that forced her to giggle, and at least Kagome joined her in the giggling so she didn't feel so strange. "I think being friends with Kagome will be a piece of cake in comparison to my other friends." Chavi said and Kagome beamed happily.

"And speaking of birthdays," Kikyou tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Someone seems to have missed hers; we were forced to lug a great deal of gifts all the way here."

"Probably useless junk wrapped in what would've been good cloth." Sesshoumaru grumbled. "At least from Inuyasha."

Kagome squealed happily. Chavi had to refrain from digging her finger in her ear to make sure she still had an eardrum. "Really? Inuyasha sent me a birthday present? Please, please tell me you're not kidding!"

"Simmer down," Jesse Potter chuckled. "You'll break something."

"I won't break anything," Kagome promised and calmed down considerably to explain to Chavi, "Inuyasha's my best friend. He's always given me the most thoughtful gifts."

"Thoughtful isn't how I would describe 'useless'," Sesshoumaru said.

Chavi wasn't quite sure she was following the conversation, but if she thought about Blaise and the gifts he gave Chavi for her birthday, she figured she could probably understand. Everyone else had gotten her something useful last year; Pansy got her a gift certificate to her favorite muggle clothing store (which was surprising that Pansy would step foot in muggle London for such a trivial thing as a birthday gift), Draco had gotten her a rather expensive voodoo kit from Knockturn Alley, and Chavi's parents had taken her out to eat at a very expensive muggle restaurant (Chavi was considered weird among her friends because she loved muggle things) and then they showed her the new house they'd just bought, where she would finally get her own room.

Last year's birthday present from Blaise was a pair of enchanted dancing shoes. He'd made her put them on and she spent the next seven hours dancing because she couldn't get the damn things off, so she simply had to exhaust herself while wearing out the spell and then didn't even have the energy to throw the shoes at Blaise. She was nervous about what he was going to give her this year; she still hadn't gotten his gift. Draco had given her a new (slightly illegal) spell book, Pansy had given her a gift certificate for Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions (Pansy preferred to give money or gift certificates so people could get something they might actually like), and her parents gave her an entirely brand new potions kit (and a shopping trip they would never be informed of), but Blaise wanted to top their gifts.

Chavi was admittedly very afraid. After all… it wasn't unreasonable to imagine Blaise giving her a gift that would literally bite. He'd done that when they were seven by giving her an anal seven-headed swamp snake (cut off one head, and two more grow from the stump…not her type of pet). She'd re-gifted the pet less than a week later for Draco's mother, who thought it was the sweetest gift in the whole world and then Chavi spent the rest of the day hiding in Draco's closet with him as his mother played with her new pet, and said pet ate Draco's dog…in seven bites.

That had to be the scariest day of Chavi's life… but if she was lucky, Blaise forgot about her birthday!

Then again, if this 'Inuyasha' character's gifts were like Blaise's gifts, Chavi doubted Kagome would sound so excited.

"His gifts aren't useless!" Kagome said and promptly pouted. "Well, okay, so maybe they're not very useful, but they're still thoughtful!" She looked at Chavi and explained, "Last year he made me a FATE CHEST, but my other friend Kouga bought me a real FATE CHEST and the cards to go with it. He was sort of upset that Kouga took his idea, and he'd spent a lot of time working with Kikyou-san to make sure the spell on the box worked the way it should."

"What is a FATE CHEST?" Chavi asked.

"FATE is a game," Kikyou explained. "The English have banned it because the accuracy of its predictions frightens many people."

"Predictions?"

Jesse Potter said, "It's like tarot cards, except different. It's difficult to explain without showing you how its done, but you place an item in the chest that is very meaningful to you—usually your wand—and the cards are laid down, F-A-T-E-. You choose which category you want to know more about and you get up to three more cards to lay down which you can lay in any of the categories as much as you want."

"I'll show it to you sometime," Kagome assured Chavi. She looked back at Sesshoumaru eagerly, wondering what Inuyasha got her this year. "So!" she questioned.

He rolled his eyes at her behavior before pointing his slender white birch wand at another door; without him saying a single word, the door opened up and several wrapped packages of various sizes flew out. Sesshoumaru carefully set them on the floor behind the girls.

Chavi watched as Kagome searched for Inuyasha's present. It turned out to be the largest one there. It was flat and square. She took the note attached and opened it. "Dear Kagome," she read aloud in English, though it was written in Japanese, "At first, I was going to give you this really cool looking bow I saw at PDI, but I changed my mind."

Jesse Potter sighed dramatically, "Well, so much for him giving a good gift…" he mumbled.

"Since you're all the way on the other side of the world, I bashed Kouga's head into a brick until he bled all over. Since it was such a pretty sight, I thought I'd get a painting of it for you." Kikyou winced slightly and Kagome continued reading, "Actually, I'm only kidding. I know you don't like it when me and Kouga fight, so I changed my mind on that idea (but I really did think about doing it). Dad helped me get this, so I hope you like it. It's a magic window. I have the other one, and when I get to school I'm going to hang it up on my bedroom wall. If you ever want to talk to me, just open the window panes and we can talk as long as I'm in my room. I'll leave the curtains open so you can always see if I'm there. I don't exactly hate you, Inuyasha."

It was amusing to Kagome that after all they'd been through growing up, he still couldn't admit he loved her as much as any big brother would love their sister. He felt that saying things like that was a girl thing, and if he said it, it would challenge his manliness.

"Wow, that really is a pretty cool sounding thing," Jesse Potter said. Chavi had to agree. She wasn't sure how useful a bow would've been, or a painting of a guy's head bleeding all over the place, but certainly a window for communication with someone all the way across the globe had to be worth something. "Open it up. Let's see what it looks like," Jesse Potter added.

Kagome pulled the string on the tie that kept the rather thick blanket around the window. The blanket fell away (she was so going to put that thick blanket on her bed, so even if the window wasn't that great, the blanket was still going to be put to good use in her icy room) and revealed a very nice, two-pane window with a ruffled curtain in her favorite color of deep green.

When she looked through the window, she couldn't see anything except bright red—presumably Inuyasha's curtain since his favorite color was red. Sesshoumaru said, "He is not at school until tonight, remember?"

"Oh, yeah," Kagome said. She'd forgotten the school year hadn't started for her old school officially until tomorrow.

"Pretty cool anyway!" Jesse Potter said. "What else did you get?"

Kagome set the window down carefully and looked at the next present. This one was from Kouga, and couldn't possibly be a window. She peeled the note away and read it aloud like she had Inuyasha's. "To: My Woman. From: The most hottest guy you've ever seen (someday you'll realize you love me too—and I am NOT a stalker). I don't know what Lame-o Inuyasha gave you this year, but I already know mine is ten times better. I bought a way for you to write to us! I know Kiyoshi is still too small, so I purchased this cool box thing. The store owner said it's a magical letter box. You can put a letter in it, and it'll appear in MY letter box. Everyone except Inuyasha can use it 'cause he sucks and I don't want him to go in my room. So you can talk to all of us except Inuyasha. Sorry, but I can't have losers like him talking to my woman. I even painted the flag green since I knew it was your favorite color. I know you love me, Kouga."

She pulled the cloth wrapping away from the box, unable to keep herself from grinning. It was a small wood box with a hinged door on the top and a green flag on the side. "Wow, I don't think I'll be without my friends this year," Kagome said.

Sesshoumaru clucked his tongue, "You realize this means you'll still be doing half of their homework? I would recommend keeping the curtain closed on the window, and only checking the box for mail once a week or they'll crawl all over you. I expect only the highest marks from you now that I am your parental unit as well as your Guardian."

Kagome flushed slightly and nodded, glancing at Chavi. She simply grinned. "Professor, you sound much like my father. If my grades fall below perfect 'O's, he said he'd transfer me to another school immediately and not let me come to his."

"Ah, I do recall Snape is the potions teacher?" Chavi nodded. "He is very useful. He has given me many tips on teaching here in England—most of which, I will definitely employ."

"I'm not sure that is a good thing," Chavi admitted.

"Why not?" Kikyou asked.

Jesse Potter said, "Dear old Snape has wanted to be the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor for years—since he was in school, even. I doubt he's ever wanted anything more in his life. He might attempt to sabotage your career."

"I highly doubt anything will sabotage my career here, other than the fact that I am not human." Sesshoumaru sniffed self-righteously before glancing at Kikyou. She said nothing and sipped her tea. A moment of silence passed and Kagome started on her next present.

"This one is from Miroku!" Kagome chirped. She took the note and read it quickly. "Dear Lady Kagome, I hope your year in the new school goes well. We will all miss you dearly. I hope you make many lasting friendships there… if not, here is a book of potions to use against the most annoying of your enemies. Much love, Miroku." She unwrapped the book and grinned. "100 Variety Potions: Volume 9 by Inshorn Qurvain." She hugged it with a grin, "I love it!"

"That book is banned in England," Jesse Potter said. "So are volumes one through eight."

"A lot of things are banned in England," Sesshoumaru stated loosely. "Me, having a wand, is banned. Do you see me quivering and turning in my wand because it's banned?"

"No," Jesse Potter admitted.

"Now ask me if I care that her friends gave her a book illegal in this country, but legal in our own?" Sesshoumaru said dryly.

"Hey, I'm not saying it's bad." Jesse Potter said. "I was a Slytherin myself when I went to Hogwarts… But discretion should be used."

"I'll keep that in mind," Kagome said and moved onto the next present. "Dear Kagome-chan," she read, "Do you realize you left me alone among a horde of hormonal teenage boys? I am really annoyed at you for transferring, even though I know it wasn't your fault. Please inform Sesshoumaru he's an ass for taking the teaching position." Kagome glanced up at Sesshoumaru and, with a wicked gleam in her eyes, said it again, "You're an ass. Sango said so."

He rolled his eyes. "So I have heard, many times."

"Aside from the fact that I now hate Sesshoumaru probably as much as or more than Inuyasha, I miss you already. Inuyasha keeps attempting to build something in his room. He has so far set fire to his room six times, blown up his bed and his desk twice, and no longer has a solid door (there is a very large hole in the middle). He says he is going to be a great inventor someday for the magical community, but I feel he's only good at destroying things. That will come in handy when he finally cracks and becomes Japan's most wanted criminal. Either that or he's going to find he's secretly in love with Kouga and the two will become the next big scandal in our small group. I'm not sure which idea is more promising: that he's gay and attempting to hide it, or that he's going to go insane and start killing everyone. Anyway, this gift is from both Shippou and me; I did the picture, and he made the frame (I hope you would realize that from the macaroni noodles and school glue). He promises he's working on his letters, and said next time, he's going to write the letter. That kid is really devoted to you, Kagome. I think you should just adopt him already. He's been in the orphanage too long. Much love, Sango and Shippou."

She opened it to find a picture of her and all her friends (Shippou included) rough housing at the train station in Japan. She knew the picture was taken at the end of the last school year, just a few months earlier. Shippou had finished his first year of Primary School. He was five now. She was going to have to send him a birthday present. She could use Kouga's mailbox if she got something small. He loved wax crayons. Those shouldn't be hard to get a hold of, right?

In the picture, Inuyasha's normally silver hair was a bright, neon pink courtesy of Kagome's latest prank on him. He looked really annoyed at Kouga, while Kouga looked very smug. Tiny Shippou—he was a fox demon, his upper body the body of a boy and his legs that of a fox—was in Kagome's arms, laughing at Miroku who had a very red cheek. Sango was glaring dangerously at Miroku, shaking a fist at him. Other students walked through the photo randomly. It was a magical photo after all. After a moment, all of them turned to the camera and moved into place for the photo. Kagome and Shippou ended up between Kouga and Inuyasha, who both slung their arms around her shoulders and made peace signs at the camera. Shippou, still in Kagome's arms, made two peace signs—one for Kagome, the other for him since her arms were occupied. Miroku and Sango were next to Inuyasha, also making peace signs. Everyone wore very bright smiles in the photo.

The frame Shippou had made was made out of bamboo rods and had little noodles and dried beans glued to it. It had a backrest so she'd be able to place it on the table by her bedside.

"Seems that one is the best gift of them all," Chavi remarked.

Kagome was startled there were still people in the room. She'd forgotten for a moment where she was. She smiled and passed the picture to Chavi. "They're my friends. I've known them all since Primary School, except this little guy here. His name is Shippou. My parents lived next to Shippou's parents home, so I'd go over there in the summer and help teach the kids their letters. He is one of sixteen children. He sort of attached himself to me, and when his parents passed away in a fire last Christmas, he had to go to Inutaishou-sama's orphanage. My friends think I should adopt him, because he loves me so much."

Chavi stared at the picture for a long moment before asking, "…Why does this one have pink hair?"

Kagome grinned. "More to the point, why was he dumb enough to fall for my prank? That's Inuyasha."

"As great as this all is," Sesshoumaru drawled, "shouldn't you both be heading to lunch? The bell has long since rung."

"You're right," Kagome said, beginning to pick up her things. She'd shoved the book from Miroku in her bag (which was on the verge of exploding) but the picture seemed too delicate for such rough treatment, and the mailbox and window were both too large.

"Leave them, Kagome," Sesshoumaru said. "I will have a house elf take them to your quarters."

"Okay," Kagome said. She stood up and offered a hand down to her new friend. Chavi accepted it and she pulled the girl up. "Thanks for the tea and cookies." Kagome said.

"Don't mention it." Sesshoumaru said. After a short pause, he said, "Seriously. Don't mention it. I want everyone thinking I'm the spawn of hell. Kind streaks do nothing for a reputation."

Jesse Potter chuckled. "You are the spawn of hell." He took something from the pocket of his robes and tossed it at the girls. Kagome barely caught it. She looked at it curiously. "Happy birthday, monster." He said to her with a cheeky grin. "You won't get one of those replaced, so be careful with it. Don't lose it."

Kagome opened the small box. Inside it was a very pretty ring. It was thin and delicate and had a small diamond as an adornment to it. She made a face at it and Chavi asked, "Are you asking her to marry you?" incredulously.

Jesse Potter laughed loudly, "Good heavens, no. Anyone who can put up with her is going to have to be a very patient man, because she's the clumsiest, trouble-attracting woman you'll ever meet. No, that's something different altogether, but I'm not going to tell you what." Kagome turned bright red. She wasn't as bad as he said, surely!

"You know she's going to lose it, right?" Sesshoumaru asked. "It's a pretty expensive gift considering you just met her for the first time."

"I've known you since you were a boy, Sesshoumaru." Jesse Potter said. "If you are willing to put your time into her care, then there certainly must be something worthwhile about her, eh?" Sesshoumaru had nothing to say to that and Kagome felt strangely flattered.

Chavi had a question completely unrelated to anything they were currently discussing however and she decided now was as good a time to ask as any. She was simply too curious to not ask. "I'm sorry, but Mr. Potter, are you at all related to Harry Potter?"

Jesse Potter raised an eyebrow at Chavi. "What makes you ask?"

"You look almost exactly like him."

"I'm surprised you could tell," he joked but he didn't leave her in suspense very long. "Yes, I am."

"But Harry said he wasn't related to PDI! I asked him when I first met him," Kagome said.

"Ah, but Harry wouldn't know of me, Kagome." Jesse Potter said.

"Why not?" Kagome and Chavi asked in unison.

Jesse Potter simply grinned. "You figure it out. You both seem like intelligent young girls… I wouldn't want to provide you with all the answers. Get going to lunch."

Kagome and Chavi left and headed to lunch as they were instructed. Kagome stuck the small box with the ring inside her pocket and tried to puzzle out why Harry wouldn't know who Jesse Potter was.

"I've got nothing," Chavi said abruptly. "I can't figure it out. Why would Potter be placed with two muggles when he had a living relative in the wizarding community?"

"I think Harry mentioned something about how his parents died and he was sent to live with his aunt and uncle." Kagome said.

"Hmph." Chavi muttered, "After his parents died, he was placed with two muggles. I always thought it was because he had no other family. Now to find out he's got a wizard relative… who looks exactly like him… I wonder if James Potter was his father or if this Jesse Potter was… Who is Jesse Potter, anyway?"

"He's the co-founder of Potter-Demon Industries; they make weapons for the magical community. He's very famous and popular in Japan. He's number one on the list of Most Sought After Bachelors in the entire country, even more popular than Inutaishou-sama himself, and he's ruler of the magical community! You have to admit, Jesse Potter is very attractive for an older guy." Kagome blushed even as she said that. "Even if he does wear those funny glasses, people love him!"

"Well, yes, he was sort of attractive," Chavi admitted, and her mind supplied, But I'm biased because I find Harry attractive and thought Jesse Potter looked like Harry. Dear heavens, don't let daddy ever use legilimens on me or he's going to murder Harry and then lock me in a tower! Her father absolutely hated Harry. He would have a fit if he knew Chavi had openly flirted with Harry throughout the entire class of Divination. Even when she had to read Harry's tea leaves, and he had to read hers, she was having loads of fun with the Gryffindor.

And oh could she make him blush. She'd played with the button on her shirt so much during class the threads had snapped, so she gave it to Harry with a suggestive wink and watched him turn purple in the face. Why were Gryffindors so much fun to tease? Or, more accurately, why was Harry? She'd teased Ron Weasley all hour too, but it wasn't as much fun as Harry.

They passed by some Slytherins exiting the Great Hall and Kagome heard word of a bet between Blaise and Draco from the girls. Kagome glanced at Chavi, "What's this about a bet Blaise has?"

"Oh, that," Chavi waved her hand dismissively, "Blaise and Draco are always making bets. They have some sort of masculinity complex or something—probably from hanging around all girls mostly. See, there's Pansy and all her girlfriends, there's me though I have been told I'm more like a guy, and then there's Blaise and Draco in our side of Slytherin. Crabbe and Goyle are too stupid for intelligent conversation, so Blaise and Draco are surrounded by girls. Plus, now there's you, so they're always trying to one-up the other by making bets that are bound to failure."

"What's the bet?" Kagome asked.

"Blaise and Draco were bantering about whose the bigger man, as is normal for them, so Draco boasted that he could get anyone to go on a date with him. Blaise bet that Draco couldn't get Hermione Granger to go with him to Hogsmeade but Draco claimed he could if he wanted to, and she'd go willingly—no attached spells. But of course, Draco turned it on Blaise and said he couldn't get Granger to go on a date with him even if he put her under the Imperious curse. So now the race is on and both of them are going to try getting Granger to go on a date with them to Hogsmeade first weekend of October." Chavi explained as they sat down to lunch between two bulky Slytherins.

"What's the big deal about this Granger girl? Why her?" Kagome asked.

"She is considered to be one of the most unattainable witches of our year." Chavi looked over at the Gryffindor table. "I don't see her here, but she's usually with Harry Potter and Ron Weselfurt or whatever his name is. Granger's something of a book worm, and if you ask me, she's going to be Head Girl next year. I sort of admire her," Chavi got glares from a few Slytherins but ignored it, "because she's such a prude."

"Oh, shove it," said one Slytherin scornfully. "Even Granger has nothing on you. The only thing worse than a prude is a skank like you who rides on daddy for all your grades."

Chavi smiled tightly. "Makenrow, I'd like to hear you say that to daddy. I'm sure he'd love to hear your opinions." The Slytherin clammed up and scowled. "Well, if you can't say it to daddy, then don't say it at all. And next time you think of interrupting my conversation, I can't guarantee certain things won't slip out of my mouth when we're in the middle of Potions class." The Slytherin huffed and got up, leaving the Great Hall.

Kagome blinked. "So your dad's a teacher here… I think I've figured that much out."

"Mhm. He's the one up there, on the end. Daddy looks mean, but he's such a softy. We used to live in an apartment in Diagon Alley; lived there most of my life. I didn't get my own room until last year when daddy bought a house in Hogsmeade just down the road. But daddy bought the house for me and mum, because we wanted it. He was happy with the apartment." She picked at the food on the table, taking only healthy things like the fruits and vegetables. Kagome followed suit. She wished she could have rice cakes, but there weren't any at the table.

"If you live just down the road, why would you take the train to Hogwarts? Seems silly to travel to King's Cross only to come back to where you started." Kagome said.

"Mum forced daddy and me to go to a family reunion. Those are about as fun as getting stabbed in the gut repeatedly." Kagome winced at the analogy. She guessed—accurately—that Chavi did not enjoy her family reunions. Kagome always loved hers… though now her family was dead. "The only thing worse than the reunion itself is knowing it's a week-long event and that I have to wear ball gowns, though I find comfort in the fact that daddy is more uncomfortable than I am."

"What's your family reunion like?" Kagome asked. "Mine always had lots of friends, because our whole family was Grandpa, me, dad, mom, and my little brother and that doesn't make much for a family reunion."

"Usually I can take a friend to the reunion. We have one every summer, but I can only take a friend if they're male or Grandma Leera screeches about my sexuality and attempts to disown me. This year, I couldn't take anyone though, 'cause Draco wasn't available and Blaise had his own rather unfortunate reunion to attend." Chavi nearly smirked when she saw Harry Potter look across the room at her and toyed with the shaft of celery on her lip. She enjoyed the sight of his bright red face more than she knew she should admit. He looked away.

"My mom always made the best food for our family reunions. We had a really long table that we'd stretch out in the courtyard and my brother and I would invite all our friends over, and they'd bring their families. There were always over a hundred people there, so mom came up with games for us kids to play. We had lots of things, like the barrel run and the three legged races." Kagome found an apple in a fruit bowl and picked it out. "Why was Blaise's reunion 'unfortunate'?"

"His mum has had at least eight husbands; a lot of people think his mum ate them or something, but she's just had really bad luck and they took off on her, leaving her their houses and fortunes. This summer, all those husbands got together and there was a reunion to try figuring out which one of them is really Blaise's dad, since for some reason, all of them want to claim Blaise as their son. Probably has something to do with the fact that all the Zabini fortune—including all the houses the Zabini's own—is in Blaise's name." Chavi said. She turned the subject back to their original conversation. "Anyway, Blaise and Draco don't stand a chance with Granger. Especially Draco. I doubt there's anyone in the world who Draco had less chance with than Granger."

Kagome thought about her own 'relationship' with Draco and found herself raising an eyebrow, though she said nothing to the contrary. If Chavi didn't already know, she'd doubtless find out soon enough.

"And even funnier," Chavi said, "is that Potter and Weselfurt will probably tell Granger what's going on." She finished up her celery before hoisting herself off the bench and pulling her bag onto her shoulder. "Come on, then. We've got Double Herbology next with the Ravenclaws. If we get there early, you should be able to meet Professor Sprout."

-

Draco sighed as Shiva skipped ahead of him two steps, stopped, looked back at him to make sure he was still following her, and then skipped ahead of him again. It was a vicious, never ending cycle with children. He really did love his little sister, but was he ever so silly? He watched her twirl around in a circle, fall on her rump, bounce back up, and skip again. He winced and hoped the house elves could get that brown dirt stain out of the dress.

Then again, he had to remember he was on his way to Herbology (running late to class of course, because he had to get Shiva from Pansy—to which he found much displeasure in the fact that Hermione Granger was actually the one watching Shiva—and then had to go to the kitchens and get Shiva some food) and Shiva really loved to play in the dirt. Maybe Snape would watch Shiva for the duration of his class? No, that was impossible because Snape had potions with first years during the time Draco had Herbology.

Draco really wasn't looking forward to Care of Magical Creatures. Snape had potions class with the second years—nearly as frightening as first years, as the second years were equally as incompetent—at that time. Draco's only alternative option was to take Shiva with him to class. Yes, he did want any chance he could take at getting Hagrid sacked (and win the bet against Granger) but he did not want that chance to be at the risk of Shiva's well being.

"Dee-dee, am I going the right way?" Shiva asked, staring up at him with wide, childish eyes (those eyes were his downfall, he swore it; he'd have to be a monster to ignore those eyes!). He simply nodded and she skipped ahead again, tripped on her skirt, managed to successfully tear a big rip in the hem of the expensive fabric, and raced ahead again completely ignorant to the fact that she'd trashed her dress in just a short ten minutes.

Maybe he should've listened to the advice of… he threw that thought out before it could finish. No Malfoy would suffer being improperly dressed. The logical part of his mind reminded him that magic could only fix something so many times before he'd have to spend money… The Palls' did send Draco off with plenty of… No. He would not, could not, bear seeing Shiva in such common clothing! That stuff was something the Weasley family would dress their kids in.

Draco hurried forward as fast as his limping leg would allow and took Shiva by the hand. She smiled up at him and swung his arm back and forth as much as her tiny arm could reach, still half-skipping. She was humming whatever song it was that Granger had sung to her.

Granger… damn, he hated Blaise. Why was it that he had a best friend who lived to make his life miserable? Did Blaise realize the Christmas present he'd given Draco's mother last year nearly ate Shiva? People-eating plants from African jungles were not good Christmas presents! Sure, Narcissus had absolutely loved the gift (Blaise was a favorite of Narcissus's because he gave the best, most thoughtful gifts ever) but Draco was terrified to know there was such a thing in his house.

Maybe if he just let Granger get close to Blaise, Blaise would grow attached and start giving the girl gifts. She'd be devoured by his attachment—probably literally. Then he could win in his bet against Granger and Blaise almost simultaneously, since dead people could not date, and neither could they make sure people were not fired. The plan was almost foolproof…

Except the plan had way too many loopholes. He knew Blaise was trying to take his mind off of what happened to him that summer, but Blaise didn't even really know. What happened to him needed to stay on his mind; he couldn't get complacent. He couldn't allow anything to get in his way. He still had no bloody idea how he was going to steal it from… er… not steal, but liberate, because Malfoys did not stoop to such ghastly common behavior as stealing… so he was going to liberate the artifact from the Ministry of Magic (well, they didn't really deserve it anyway, since it was a part of Draco's family history to begin with so any way he looked at it, he could justify his behavior).

But he had no idea how he was going to liberate the artifact, and he honestly didn't know what the artifact really looked like. So while he was attempting to liberate an artifact he knew only by description (he didn't even have a name for it, he only knew what it did) from a place he had already failed to break into… er… enter discretely, because Malfoys did not break into places like common thieves…

What he needed was a good, solid plan. He looked down at Shiva and suddenly had an idea. It wasn't a plan, exactly, but it was the start to one, and he could use Shiva to his advantage. He stopped walking and Shiva looked up at him expectantly. He knelt carefully in front of his sister, a warm smile on his face he would only ever give her, and said, "Granger was really nice to you, wasn't she?"

"Who is Granger?" Shiva asked.

"Er, your new friend 'Mione. I call her Granger, because it's indecent for a boy to call a girl by her name unless they're girls like Pansy or Chavi." Yeah, that should calm any inquiries about why he called her Granger, at least for a while, and hopefully Shiva wouldn't get confused because the names were incredibly different. Shiva was a very smart little girl, but she was still just a child. That wasn't to say that Draco was much older than her; just thirteen years, so he was pretty much still a kid himself.

"Uh huh! I like 'Mione." Shiva said and he thought, God, I must be the most disgusting person I've ever met to use Shiva like this. He kept his thoughts from his face and Shiva positively glowed as she looked at one of her favorite people ever—him. He really hoped his mother recovered soon (he was turning a blind eye to the fact that his mother's chance of recovery was as slim as one-in-one-billion). That way, when his mother got better, she could take care of Shiva again.

"Well, I'm glad you liked her," he said, making sure to pit his voice in a sad tone. Shiva was always very perceptive about the changes of tone he would make to his voice, which made it far easier to handle her—sometimes. He'd already started teaching her to answer to whistling commands. If she was getting too far away from him, he could let out a sharp, quick whistle and Shiva would scramble back to him. If she did something he liked, he would let out a long, low pitch whistle, somewhat like a cat's purr, and she would practically preen happily that she had done well.

"What's wrong, Dee-dee?" Shiva asked, worry lacing her childish tone. Internally, he was both grinning and wincing. Shiva was like putty; easily manipulated. But anyone could manipulate her, and that thought scared him. He didn't want her to get hurt, but he didn't want to teach her to be distrustful of people in general.

It was only pure luck and incidence that he managed to make friends with Blaise, Chavi, and Pansy. Blaise's mother was a close family friend, so he was often brought over. Snape was Draco's godfather, so Chavi often came over or else Draco might get to go visit Snape during the summer for a few days. Pansy's family was also close to Draco's family; so close, in fact, that Draco and Pansy had been betrothed since birth, practically.

He didn't want Shiva to blame luck on any friends she might make, and he didn't want her to be played by those who might seek to gain from her. She was a Malfoy! She should be the one playing; she should never be the one played!

"It's just that…" he paused, knowing the pause would be rather dramatic for the three-year-old. Indeed, she was already pouting. He brushed her bangs from her eyes; he would have to ask Pansy if there was a way to keep the bangs from falling in her eyes all the time. Shiva hated when he wore hair potions, so he doubted he'd ever get her to agree to one and if he attempted to give her a hair cut, she would bite him or whoever had come near her with scissors. "Well, Granger and I really don't get along, but I don't want to leave you alone. Remember, I promised?"

"I remember, Dee-dee! You don't have to talk to her. But please, Dee-dee, can I play with her again? She was really fun! We made a fort and she sang to me and everything. I can play with her while you do your reading!" Shiva was really the messiest looking Malfoy Draco had ever seen. Pictures of him from his childhood had shown the perfect child, not a stain on him (though he had never seen a childhood picture of him smiling). Shiva was so far from him, he almost found it amusing.

There were rips and tears in her expensive gown. Dark brown stains were everywhere, and everywhere there was visible ivory colored skin, she was smudged in grass stains. He took a kerchief from his pocket, licked a corner of it, and scrubbed at a dirty spot on her nose. "Yucky, Dee-dee!" she whined, attempting to impede the assault on her hard-earned dirt.

"Bah! You're filthy," he complained right back at her. "You need a bath."

"No – bath!" she yelled.

He hastily agreed with her so they wouldn't have to shout about it in the middle of the lawn. "Alright, no baths for now."

"NEVER!" she screamed, snapping her teeth at him.

My sister is a monster, Draco thought. "Okay, okay," he agreed with her. She will be taking a bath later, he assured himself mentally, though the cynical part of his brain assured him he was kidding himself. "If you see Granger, you can ask her really nicely if she would play with you, okay?" She perked up very quickly and he was glad the bath subject was forgotten.

"Yay!" Shiva cried happily. "'Mione's going to play with me!"

"I said you can ask her," Draco reminded her. "If she says no, you're not to bother her, understand? And you can't play with her during class. It has to be in the evening, after all the classes are done. Those are my terms, okay?"

"'Mione won't say no to me," Shiva assured him.

Curious, he asked, "What makes you say that?"

"No one ever says no to me," Shiva said, "except Mr. and Mrs. Palls, but they don't count 'cause they're muggles."

Draco watched as Shiva skipped happily ahead of him and he realized she was right. No one said no to her; was that a bad thing? There was very little that Draco's parents had ever denied him, but there was absolutely nothing that Draco's parents (or Draco) had denied Shiva. She wanted a pony last Christmas; Lucius had gone to France and bought the best pony he could find. Even though Lucius hated Shiva because she never showed signs of being magical as normal babies did (which forced them to assume she was a Squib) he still spoiled her.

No one except the muggles Draco and Shiva stayed with that summer had ever said no to Shiva. Draco tried to say no. He tried to be firm with her. She somehow wormed her way around all his rules, finding little loopholes to exploit.

Am I manipulating her, or am I being manipulated by her? He wondered.

He tossed the thought aside. Of course, a three-year-old knew nothing about manipulating. He would use Shiva to get under Granger's skin. He'd show Granger the side of him he reserved only for Shiva and his mother, and Granger would be like putty in his hands. He'd get Granger to help him figure out what the artifact from the Ministry of Magic was, and by getting close to her, he'd get close to Harry Potter and he could find out from him how the stupid Golden Boy and his entourage had managed to break into the Department of Mysteries last year. Then he'd take the mudblood to Hogsmeade on a date—make her think he liked her—and after a few days, he'd crush her hopes and dreams and she would no longer be a hindrance to him; he could get Hagrid sacked before Christmas even arrived and by the end of Christmas, he would've liberated the artifact from the Ministry.

He could hardly believe how perfect the idea seemed.

With a smirk planted on his face, he approached the awaiting little girl and entered the sixth year's greenhouse. He completely ignored Professor Sprout's questioning glance and stalked over to where Chavi stood, taking place next to Kagome (most unfortunately—oh what he wouldn't give to shove the girl into the mouth of a man-eating plant). Shiva, of course, managed to find a veritable playground in a sack of rather unsanitary fertilizer against the wall behind Draco.

He groaned. Why did Shiva like dirty things so much?! He was never like this when he was her age!

He heard Kagome giggle at him (stupid girl) and glared at her. "Shut up," he hissed.

"Right-o," Kagome chirped—oh how he loathed that smug little knowing look on her face. Before he could yell at her some more, and then turn and tell Shiva to get out of the dung-and-dirt mixture, she said to Shiva, "Sweetie, do you want to help me?"

And of course, Shiva was ecstatic to help play in the dirt so she raced right over and Kagome's dirty hands gripped Shiva under the armpits and lifted her easily up to the table where she seated the girl on the edge and explained what they were doing.

Draco really, really didn't like Kagome. And what about that restraining order he had against her?! Why was he standing within ten feet of her? Oh, yeah… he approached her, not the other way around. Not that a piece of parchment saying she couldn't get closer to him than one hundred feet was going to do him a whole lot of good, since it had been six years already and the spell that would keep her one hundred feet away obviously wore off. Inevitably that made him question the capabilities of the Ministry because the restraining order was a ten-year and the spell was supposed to last ten years.

In all honesty, he would've loved to expose the Ministry for their inability to do something right, but then the Daily Prophet would undoubtedly dig up why he had the restraining order on Kagome in the first place and that wasn't exactly information he was willing to have exposed. He was still breathless over the fact that Kagome, a mudblood, was placed in Slytherin. There was no way she was a pureblood; she simply couldn't be if she'd been adopted. Purebloods did not give up their children to orphanages.

He shook his head mentally. He really needed to get going on his work… what was he supposed to be doing? Damn, he should've listened to Kagome as she explained things to Shiva. Somehow he got the feeling his perfect 'O' status was going to drop this year. Already he'd been late to two classes, and since Divination hardly counted as a class (he was only taking the class because it was an easy 'O', since all he had to do was predict a few things and cause his predictions to come true—such as predicting Goyle would break his chair, and then sawing a crack in one of the legs) so basically he'd been late to all of his classes so far.

And that Professor Llywellyn didn't seem like the type of guy to mess with. In fact, Llywellyn seemed clinically insane. He sort of scared Draco with the way he widened his ordinarily almond shaped eyes, leaving a lot of white space around his brown irises.

Of course, Draco being afraid of something was hardly anything new. Out of all his friends, he had the most fears. Chavi was afraid of the color pink, fluffy teddy bears, and her cousin 'Ratstalker' as she liked to call him (but there was definitely real reason behind the third fear, since Ratstalker was madly in love with her—Ratstalker kidnapped Chavi and locked her away in a tower of his parent's home, forced her into an entirely pink outfit, surrounded her by fluffy teddy bears 'of devotion', forced her to drink a love potion, and quickly found out his plan backfired as Chavi had looked out the window of the tower and saw the figure of a man in the distance and fell in love with said unknown man for the next twelve days… And Ratstalker felt the terrible wrath of Snape, who had found the note left by Ratstalker for Snape stating that Chavi would be his wife within four hours).

Blaise was afraid of commitment, and avoided it like the plague. He was also afraid of getting someone a present they didn't like, but to be honest, he'd never given a present someone liked except to Draco's mother who made Hagrid's definition of 'interesting' seem like cute, cuddly bunny rabbits.

Pansy was afraid of thunderstorms, and she spent almost every thunderstorm in Blaise's room (Draco refused to let her into his room because he couldn't stand the way she squeaked every time the thunder rattled even the Slytherin house underground, though he did wonder if it was so bad in the Slytherin dungeon, how bad would it be Gryffindor tower?).

And then there was Draco. He had a very long list of fears. His biggest fear was of blood, though after that summer, he thought he was starting to cope with that fear. Other fears he'd developed and maintained through the years were the fear of: hippogriffs, swamp snakes that grew two heads if one was cut off, the Forbidden Forest, death, dandelions, fire, going outside when it was dark out (he had no problem with darkness indoors, so he didn't understand that fear, he only knew it was there), Hermione Granger, cranberries, centaurs, Death Eaters, over-easy eggs, Voldemort, pigs (not including the Weasley kind, since he wasn't afraid of the Weasleys), and dragons (though his father criticized him for every fear he had, the fear of dragons was criticized the most).

Just thinking of his long list of fears put him in a gloomy mood. He looked at his pot of dirt; his hands had moved on their own and planted twelve bulbs in the pot, similar to how Kagome's looked next to him: half of the bulb sticking out of the dirt, the other half buried.

Kagome whispered to him, "You have to do three pots of twelve," as if she'd known he wasn't sure what to do next. Two of Kagome's pots were done. He glared at her (he did not require help from her) and aimed his wand at the stack of pots up against the wall.

"Accio pot," he muttered and the pot flew toward him, managing to whack a fellow unfriendly Slytherin in the head on the way. Kyle Marcus jeered at him, and Draco—in a foul mood already—aimed his wand at the sack of fertilizer behind him. "Wingardium Leviosa," he said. He levitated the sack to his pot and carefully manipulated it into tipping fertilizer in his pot. Professor Sprout hated when they used their wands, but no one really listened to her crooning anyway; everyone did it the easy way.

Once he had as much fertilizer he needed, he checked Professor Sprout's location (she was on the other side of the greenhouse with her back turned) and then used the spell to lob the sack of remaining fertilizer over three Ravenclaws and smirked as it landed nice and neat on Kyle Marcus's head, causing the big Slytherin to crash forward into his third pot of bulbs. Fertilizer, bulbs, broken pieces of clay pottery, and Kyle Marcus went spewing all over the floor by his station.

Instantly Professor Sprout was bustling over asking questions. Kyle Marcus was glaring hatefully at Draco. Draco raised one eyebrow at the boy, silently conveying a message. Payback for this morning, Draco thought. I feel better already.

"I can't believe you did that," Kagome hissed. "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing's wrong," Draco grinned widely, feeling strangely elated that the witch was so shocked at his behavior. She sounded really pissed off. Why was that such a good thing? It should be a crime to be so happy to make someone so mad. He almost wanted to risk doing it again, just to make her even more angry.

Not that causing injury to Kyle Marcus was something he didn't like doing to begin with… so maybe that was why he was so happy. That was a good explanation. He was happy because Kyle Marcus had wrecked whatever the hell the project they were working on and he had to start all over. Kagome's anger had nothing to do with it. Then again… he'd always gotten excited when he managed to ruffle Kagome's feathers back in Primary.

"You could've seriously hurt him," Kagome said. "Why would you do that?"

"Dee-dee, I'm hungry," Shiva whined.

"Not now, sweetie; your hands are dirty," Kagome said instantly, and then continued to glare at Draco. It was official; that glare looked really, really hot on her. That was a problem: he hated her. He couldn't be turned on by his enemies! That was like suggesting that he could be attracted to Harry Potter, which was an entirely disgusting notion. Not that Draco was saying Potter was ugly, exactly. Potter did have some sort of attractive quality to him that… ugh, he was not even going to think about it.

"Get used to it, Higurashi," Draco said, putting as much venom in her name as he did when he called her 'whelp'. "That was nothing compared to what I'm going to do to Marcus later."

Actually, he had no plans for later, so he wasn't sure why he'd said he did. Why was it that his mouth kept running ahead of him? The recklessness had begun at the end of last school year and only got worse as the summer dragged on, until one gorgeous day in the beginning of July (about a week after he'd been initiated as a Death Eater), Draco told you-know-who to shove a corkscrew up you-know-where, which really didn't go over that well.

And thus began basically every problem Draco currently had. But really, it was Voldemort's fault; he shouldn't have pissed off an angry, arrogant teenager with a death wish by giving said angry, arrogant teenager (with a death wish) an order that wouldn't be followed even if the fate of the world relied on doing that one, simple thing.

Draco frowned as he looked around his work station; somehow between the irritable thoughts of Kagome being potentially attractive (perhaps admitting she had potential wasn't too bad, but she was still a far cry from attractive what with her rats-nest hair job, her screwed up and imperfect clothing, and the fact that she'd managed to get dirt and fertilizer all over herself—was she still afraid of bugs?—but he would never admit she had that potential out loud) and his rather disturbing thoughts of Voldemort with a corkscrew shoved up his bum, he'd managed to finish his last two pots.

He looked around for a watering can. He could've sworn there was one by Kagome, since she just finished watering her pots. There, on the other side of Pansy, was a watering can. He took two steps away and heard a sudden splash behind him. The hem of his robes got wet. He looked back; there was a water puddle on the floor. Looking up, he saw the watering can.

And Kyle Marcus was scowling at the near-hit. Draco smirked, took his wand out, and (with a quick swish and flick of his wand) sent the empty can careening over the heads of Ravenclaws (who were used to this type of behavior and would say nothing on it as long as they remained out of it) and watched it just barely miss Kyle Marcus's head. Kyle Marcus ducked and instead of hitting him, it smashed into the side of Heston Graybin's face (after it soared over the four-foot tall Norm Treffer). Graybin was down for the count and Draco was extremely satisfied (Kagome was glaring at him because her legs got wet and she thought he did it) as he went to borrow the watering can from Pansy's station.

When he got back to his station, he found that all of his bulbs from one of his pots had been mysteriously dug up. He glared at Kagome, "I didn't get you wet," he snapped quietly.

"And I didn't dig up your bulbs," she said easily and turned back to her little game of Let's-constantly-clap-our-hands-together-because-it-will-annoy-Draco-while-singing-a-stupid-song-about-Patty's-cake with Shiva.

He had to replant the stupid bulbs now, and he still had no idea what the heck kind of project they were working on. What were they planting anyway? Damn, he would have to ask Chavi later. As everyone else was let out early for having their work done (it went a lot faster if one used magic to levitate things like the fertilizer or the pots) Draco found himself stuck in the room for another fifteen minutes.

When he was finally finished, he left to find his sister. The evil woman, Kagome, had kidnapped Shiva (with the help of Chavi, Pansy, and Blaise, blast them!) so he really wasn't sure where Shiva was. He knew Shiva was in good hands with his three friends, but Kagome was probably evil enough to attempt to turn Shiva against Draco (something he would be very angry about if that actually happened).

He found them sitting by the lake. Kagome was still keeping Shiva's attention, but now they were playing some sort of hopping game. Magical lines of color had been drawn on the grass and two snitch-sized stones were tossed. The two would jump in the boxes and… and he really couldn't see a purpose to the game.

Blaise whistled loudly, catching Draco's attention. Draco went over to his (quirky) friend and eased himself down. If it weren't for the fact that his leg couldn't handle it, he might've even plopped down with a heavy sigh, but his leg couldn't handle it. "What an absolutely outrageous day!" Draco whined.

Blaise ignored his complaint (he usually did, because Draco had many complaints about basically everything) and whispered, "I really don't get this game. They just keep hopping back and forth. I'm getting a cramp just watching it," Blaise shuddered. Ah yes, the bane to Blaise's existence was any form of exertion except Quidditch.

"What's with the stones?" Draco asked. "I mean, they're just tossing them and then ignoring them, and then tossing them again."

Completely ignoring the fact that Blaise and Draco were already talking, Pansy interrupted by shoving her hand in Draco's face (at least she appeared to have washed; Kagome and Shiva were both still so filthy, a high powered jet stream of water wouldn't get them clean). "Do these fingers look off to you? I went to Madam Pomfrey but look what my finger does when I do this," she did some awkward thing and her fingers bent backwards. Draco winced in disgust.

"Ew!" Blaise cringed. "Pan, that is the most disgusting thing I've ever seen!"

"That is really gross," Draco added. "Looks painful."

"It doesn't hurt. I can just bend it up and down." Pansy said.

"Pan, you have double-hinged fingers," Chavi said, "don't let it go to your head. It's a birth defect, not a side effect." Chavi never bothered to look up from her book as she let the words slip carelessly from her mouth.

Pansy shrieked in terror. "Defect?! I'm not defective!" Draco stuck his finger in his ear and wiggled it a bit, making sure he still had an eardrum. "Chavi, how could you say that?"

Chavi shrugged and rolled over on the grass so she was lying on her stomach (and her skirt ended up hiked a bit more; seriously, Chavi needed a lesson in modesty… or a lesson in caring, because she didn't care and maybe that was the problem). She propped her chin on one hand and rested her book in front of her, holding the brittle pages of the tome open with her free hand. Draco elbowed Blaise when he caught his friend's eyes wandering to the quite visible cleavage Chavi showed. It had been hilarious when she gave her button to Potter. Draco had thought Potter's head would explode from all the blood pressure. If Snape ever found out his daughter had been flirting with Potter… Draco grinned. Snape would probably pop a few blood vessels.

"Chavi," Draco said, "put some clothes on or something."

"Does it bother you?" Chavi murmured, looking up at him through her long, curled lashes. She might look demure when she wanted to, but Draco knew she was anything but demure. She was downright shameless sometimes, he thought, which was really strange since she was probably the only Slytherin above fourth year who was still a virgin. (Of course, that was not counting Kagome, as Draco seriously doubted anyone would want to bed her).

"Yes, it does," Draco said seriously. He did sometimes wonder why Chavi was still a virgin; heavens knew she was good looking enough to have men audaciously crawling to kiss her feet and do her bidding like she were some all-powerful queen (and in some cases they did—she had a lot of Ravenclaw admirers), but none of her friends would look down on her if she did get involved with someone. Draco thought a relationship would be healthy for Chavi, because if she spent much more time in the library, she'd probably magically transform into Granger.

"Alright," Chavi smiled at him devilishly and held her hand out to him. "Give me your blazer. I'll wear that."

"Absolutely not," Draco said. "Tie your robe shut. I'm not undressing so you can actually have something to wear."

"Then I guess I stay like this—half naked as you seem to think I am." He grumbled as he took his robe off and then his blazer, handing it over to her. He pulled his robe back on. Why was it she always demanded his clothes when he was just looking out for her? He watched as she sat up, pulling off her robe and pulling on the blazer over her own seemingly too-small clothes. As she lifted her arms, the hem of her shirt exposed her belly and a rather nasty set of scratches.

Blaise had seen that too. "Chaviah!" Blaise practically tackled the girl as he launched himself at her, causing her to fall back down into the grass. He pinned her arms above her head, pulling the hem of her blouse up to show the nasty scratches. Draco thought Blaise was rather lucky her legs were bent beneath her or else he would've been in some serious pain.

"Gerroff, you big oaf!" Chavi growled, glaring at him.

"Chavi, you have a sore tummy!" Shiva gasped.

Kagome stared at the spot on Chavi's stomach curiously. "Did you scratch yourself?"

"Blaise, get off her," Pansy snapped, whacking the boy upside the head. "You don't just tackle a girl! Now look, you've ripped three more of her buttons off!" She dragged the boy off and Chavi glared at him.

"I'll thank you to stay off," she said. She slammed her book shut, crammed it in her bag, and stood up. She appeared not to care that the bottom three buttons on her shirt were missing, and that due to those missing buttons, her shirt was pressing open and they could clearly see the four perfectly lined scratch marks. She glared at them all before taking off toward the castle.

Draco grabbed her robe and his bag. "Watch Shiva for me," he told Blaise and Pansy. "I'll meet you in Potions."

"Dee-dee," Shiva called to him.

He glanced at his sister, already several paces away—he was going to follow Chavi and find out what was with the scratches. They were most certainly not there yesterday night, and she'd worn that blouse she'd adjusted especially so it would show her belly button. Ordinarily, he might've caught up to her, but he barely managed to keep up with her long strides enough to know she was headed for Slytherin house.

She didn't stop in the common room, so he walked the long corridors until he came to her bedroom door (coincidentally also his bedroom door) and he knocked on her nameplate. The door flew open and an angry Chavi was standing in the way. "Go away," she said. "I'm not in the mood for your questions."

Draco raised an eyebrow at her and pushed his way into the room. She didn't protest much more than an angry growl, so he took that as a good sign. She slammed the door closed and glared at him some more. He turned to her and he simply stared at her. He didn't really need to ask anything with her. If he stared long enough, she'd give in. He loved that he knew that about her; she'd avoid questions if they were verbal, but she couldn't stand his 'method of questioning'.

As he had known she would, she cracked. She leaned against the back of her door and said, "Alright! Fine! I had a run-in with Marcus this morning. Okay?"

"Not okay," Draco said. "Explain to me what happened."

"Kagome and I went to take a bath this morning after that new class got let out. When we were done, I brought her back to her room, and I went to go in my room and Marcus was there. I didn't notice him until I'd gotten my door open and…" she frowned.

Draco winced, "Did he do anything?" He would've been in his room at that time, most likely. But the rooms were sound proof.

Her silence was all he needed as an answer. Something had happened. Out of all the things that Marcus could do to a girl like Chavi… his mind made a terrible list. She stared at the ground for a long minute and then said, "Marcus didn't do that, if that's what you're asking. This," she waved to the scratches on her stomach, "is just where he grabbed me and dragged me in here. I got these for fighting him—I nailed him a good one in the chest with my heel when I did get free, and he's got scratches all over his arms. I think he might've been looking to do that, but changed his mind when I started kicking his arse." She looked a bit smug for a moment. "Now why don't you tell me muggle self-defense is useless, Drake?"

He caught her green eyes with his. "Are you hurt, Chavi? Seriously, I want to know."

"I've already seen Madam Pomfrey for any damage, though Marcus did use the Cruciatus curse on me and I didn't tell Madam Pomfrey about that." She sighed, "Don't go telling Kagome or Blaise; Pansy knows, but you know how Blaise gets and I'd rather not find out how Kagome will react to an Unforgivable."

Draco thought about that summer and closed his eyes. He could picture it in his mind's eye. A happy family having dinner, unaware that Draco was watching them from beneath an invisibility cloak. They were completely ignorant to the fact that he had orders to… He shoved the memory away; it would do him no good to think of that now. Not that it would matter to anyone else, but he didn't follow those orders and doing so got his mother and sister in trouble.

If he had just listened, his family would be safe; he wouldn't hate his now-dead father so severely, because Lucius would've never given up the family secret to appease the Dark Lord's anger (though he still ended up dead anyway), and he would still be working for an evil (who had no class whatsoever—seriously, eternal life and world domination as an ultimate goal? What ever happened to originality anyway?) wizard.

"Higurashi may be an idiot," Draco said, "but I'll say one thing for her. She's seen and dealt with worse than the Cruciatus."

"What is your history with her, Drake?" Chavi asked finally.

He'd wondered how long it would take one of them to ask. That didn't make him any more willing to tell, but he did wonder how long it would be. "We simply clashed personalities in Primary School," Draco said, though it was far more than a clash of personalities that caused the gigantic rift between Draco and Kagome. Their 'clash' left scars on both of them.

"It has to be more than," Chavi started, but Draco raised an eyebrow at his childhood friend.

"Drop it," he told her. "You'll get no more from me. It was six years ago, it's already happened, I'm done thinking about it." She only looked more curious, so he attempted to stall her curiosity. He didn't want to have her questioning Kagome about it, since he really had no idea if Kagome would talk about it. "And before you go asking questions, realize that Higurashi doesn't like talking about it any more than I do." Chavi frowned, but they could hear a loud bell as it rang throughout the entire castle. "Oh yay," he drawled, "Potions class." He would never tell Snape (or anyone else) but Potions was the hardest class he had. Snape always made it look like he constantly gave Draco an easy ride (Snape got a kick out of tormenting Potter) but he seemed to come down harder on Draco for perfection because he actually cared.

At least Draco wasn't Chavi. He wouldn't be immediately transferred out of Hogwarts if his grades fell below 'O' in every class. Chavi would. Of course, when his father was alive, if Draco came home with less than perfect grades his father would freak out, call him wretched names, and lock him in his room. Damn Granger… his father smashed, ripped, and burned up almost everything Draco owned when he found out a mudblood had better grades than Draco.

And Draco was going to totally crush her in revenge… actually, he wouldn't have ever bothered getting revenge except he did have that bet with Blaise and somehow crushing Granger seemed fitting at the moment… It was just a really good thing that Blaise didn't know about the strangled animosity between Draco and Kagome, or Draco would've failed the bet before it even began. She was probably the only person in the world who he had absolutely no chance with (not that he wanted one, of course).

Chavi grinned at Draco. "Daddy's lesson plans for this year shouldn't be too hard. We're mostly going to get time consuming potions and we'll probably be paired off."

Draco grumbled, "It's those time consuming potions that are the hardest. Oh, and while we're on the subject, you want to do me a favor?"

"Depends," she said as she grabbed her bag. "I do like how this shirt only has three buttons now, so if you ask me to change shirts, then 'no' is the only answer you'll get."

He glared darkly at her. Shiva had better not grow up to like clothes like Chavi wore, that was all he had to say about that. "No, it wasn't about the shirt, but do you want Godfather Sev to see you like that?" he looked pointedly at the scratch marks.

"Good point," she said. She went to her closet and shifted through her blouses, pulling out one that was equally as tight as the one she was wearing and then went behind her changing curtain to switch shirts. Draco had never really understood why she had that curtain, since no one could get in her room without her assistance and they didn't generally hang out in her room. It was always either Draco's room or the common room.

"So what's this favor about?" she called over the curtain.

"Remedial Potions. I'm one of the prefects being forced to 'aid' the stupid sixth years who McGonnagall convinced Snape to keep in class even though they were below the level they needed to be at to continue forward." Draco crossed the room to Chavi's bookshelf, peering at the titles. He was unsurprised to find that most of the titles on the shelf were slightly illegal.

"What about it?" Chavi asked. "You want me to watch Shiva during that time?"

"No, I'd like you to take my place tutoring the idiots."

She scoffed and the shirt she'd been wearing was tossed to hang over the top of the standing curtain. She pulled down the other one. "Absolutely not, Drake. I'll watch Shiva, but I'm not a prefect so therefore should not be asked to do prefect duties."

"Aw, come on, Chavi. Pansy wouldn't even be a prefect if you didn't turn Dumbledore down. You're more than qualified."

"So what if I get good grades. I have to. Daddy wouldn't have it any other way. That doesn't make me qualified to tutor a bunch of morons about something they'll never understand in a million years."

With a rather cruel smile on his face that he had to viciously tamp down, he pulled out his trump card. "Potter is going to be there." Ah yes, the scandalous secret she'd tried to keep from herself for years… Her growing attraction to Harry Potter. She'd worked so hard to become invisible at Hogwarts (which only got harder the older she became because she grew to be quite attractive) so people wouldn't accuse her of riding on her father for her grades. It was the reason why she'd turned down the prefect badge. She would easily slip in and out of each class unnoticed when Harry Potter was a part of that class because everyone loved the bloody Golden boy.

But Draco was probably one of the closest people Chavi had to a confidant, and he took pride in noticing the little things about her that she tried to keep secret from even herself. The way she stared so intently at Potter every time he was in her class, the way she would find herself short of breath every time he happened to look in her direction (but somehow never really seemed to see her, if his cluelessness to who she was earlier that morning was any indication), and the discrete (yet obviously pleased) flush to her cheeks as she flirted viciously with Potter earlier that morning were obvious indications that she was crushing on the Gryffindor.

"Who cares if Potter will be there?" Chavi snorted heavily and Draco almost thought he was going to have to tutor Potter. He was going to need that extra couple of hours for studying—or most likely wrestling Shiva into a bath—or sleeping. If he had to tutor a bunch of idiots, he'd only stress himself out and at that point, stress was the last thing he needed.

"You'd get more time to torment Potter; I don't think he's popped a blood vessel in his brain quite yet," Draco tried.

She walked out from behind the curtain, pulling her robe over his blazer (he probably wasn't going to get that back) and found her to be smirking. "Alright, then," she agreed. "I suppose I can do this for you."

He smiled at her and told her sincerely, "You know, if you like Potter, you can go after him. A moron like him would still be single." He was surprised to see a pink tinge to her cheeks. "Did you think I wouldn't notice?"

"There's nothing to notice," she said, "because I don't like Potter."

"And you're going to tutor Remedial Potions because you want to," Draco added, "not because Potter's going to be there and you can turn on the charm and turn him red as his house."

She flinched slightly, "Okay, maybe I… do…" she said slowly. Then she very slowly, very carefully met his eyes.

He held up his hands in surrender, a broad smirk on his face. He did so love it when he was right. "All I have to say is, if you go after him you're looking at a lot of work. He's an idiot, and not to mention the Dark Lord's enemy. You'll put yourself in bad eyes."

She smiled a saccharine sweet smile, pulling her robes over her shoulder. "Drake, dear, you know I love you, but you're blind if you haven't noticed by now that I walk to the beat of a different drum. You follow You-know-who, and even if I'm your friend, I think that's the dumbest mistake you could possibly make."

"You have no idea," Draco murmured but thankfully she didn't hear.

"What?" she asked.

"I said 'Go after the moron'," he lied. Blaise and Pansy knew what happened to Draco that summer, and they knew the consequences behind what happened, but he wasn't going to tell Chavi. He couldn't bear the thought of her forthcoming 'I told you so' speech.

She smirked at him. "Well, I suppose I could see what happens," she agreed, "but if—on the very slim chance—Potter and I end up more than 'flirter and flirt victim', you better help me break the news to Blaise because I'd rather not have him offing Potter."

"Agreed," Draco said, "but breaking the news to Godfather Sev is all up to you. I'll have no hand in it." She winced but nodded. And, he realized this might just work more to his favor. If Chavi could get close to Potter, she could get Potter to tell her about how he broke into the Ministry, though he wouldn't tell Chavi about that yet. He'd simply have to work her curiosity up slowly and surely she'd ask… But he'd keep the Get-close-to-Granger-and-Potter-will-follow idea just in case. Not that he wasn't going to crush Granger anyway….

Manipulating Chavi was going to be much harder and have more consequences than manipulating Shiva would.

It took a long moment of mental contemplation for him to decide against manipulating Chavi. She was one of his best mates, and one of the few people in the world who didn't like him because of who he was or what he could do for them. He wasn't going to risk what he had with her, at least not yet. He'd go with the Granger plan first, and if that failed, then… it simply couldn't fail. He didn't want to do that to Chavi.

"Darling, you're staring at nothing again," Chavi said. "We need to get going or daddy's going to throw a fit." He nodded at her and the two of them headed for Potions class. He really, really hoped his plan to reel Granger in would work.

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