If there was anyone Draco Malfoy hated the most in the school, the first would be scarhead Potter - the famous Boy-Who-Lived. Draco hated how people gasped when they hear his name, how the professors loved him, how the first years simply admired him. He hated how Potter was able to play Quidditch in first year, and Draco wasn't. How could Potter get better treatment than him? He was a Malfoy, for Merlin's sake!

The second would be Granger.

Draco couldn't say what, but there was always something about her that ticked him off. Maybe he wouldn't have hated her so much if in the first potion class, she had just quailed in front of her betters like she should. Or looked hurt when he'd called her a mudblood. Or winced. Or anything, other than sitting there with that infuriating half-smile.

Maybe her calmness was what made her so irritating. Sometimes, Draco would even get a crazy notion - that she thought he wasn't worth reacting to! Draco didn't know who she thought she was, because he was clearly superior to her. He was heir Malfoy, the richest and most influential family in magical Britain. He lived in a mansion, with five house elves at his bidding. His father had the ministry and the school's board of governors wrapped around his finger. His father could get him almost anything he wanted.

Granger was a mudblood. Yes, Draco knew Salazar Slytherin said that mudbloods should be welcomed, but clearly they would never be nearly as good as him. Because when they had no prestige to their name, when his father was worth ten times more than their fathers, what chance did they have? What did Granger have to be proud of?

But somehow, Granger never broke composure. Not when he took her loser friend Longbottom's rememberall. Not when he'd tried to flick puffer-fish eyes into her cauldron in potion class. Not even when he pelted her with the best curses he'd learned from older Slytherins and from the Malfoy library. He still had no idea how he'd lost that duel. How dare someone as common as her beat him, a Malfoy?

He didn't even get to see fright on her face when his spell hit her. She'd been facing away from him.

And somehow, the sight of her lying still on the floor of the duelling platform didn't make him feel good either.

He tried to squeeze as much satisfaction from it as he could - since he'd already lost Slytherin 400 points for it, as well as earned himself weekly detentions all the way up to Christmas. He tried to get people to laugh at how spectacularly Granger lost, but no one seemed to find it very funny because really, what would you expect when you pit a second year against a professor? Then he tried to get his fellow Slytherins to say that Granger's been taught her place, but somehow the conversation kept being diverted, and always managing to end with concerned inquiries to how his forehead must've hurt from the stinging hex. Draco didn't like this at all. Slytherins were subtle people. They still acted the same as they always did, as long as he steered clear of the last five minutes of the duelling club, but Draco could tell that something was not right. It almost felt as if they were starting to not listen to him! Weren't they all clambering over themselves to please him last year around this time? Didn't they know they have to get on his good side, or they wouldn't be invited to his father's winter ball?

Later that evening, Snape had called him, Crabbe and Goyle to his office without any notice or elaboration beforehand. There, they had been silently asked to sit, again with no explanations given. Draco was forced to look down to avoid the gaze of the black eyes that bored into him from across the table. There was a reason Snape was the Slytherin Head of House.

"Do you three know why you are not expelled yet?" Professor Snape finally began, in a perfectly neutral tone.

Crabbe and Goyle actually looked at each other and shook their heads, the idiots.

"Because Madame Pomfrey conducted a detailed analysis of Granger's injury and determined that even together, your three bludgeoning hexes would've been too weak to do any more than create some painful bruises. It was only due to your unfortunate timing and positioning with my spell that Granger's ribs were cracked, and only due to Lockhart's miscast spell that she requires any amount of hospitalization at all.

"You are still here, Draco, not because the professors are afraid of you or your father. You are still here only because they do not yet consider you a danger. For your own sake, all three of you should remember this. As you grow older, there will be consequences to acts like this - Azkaban, for example, and even your fathers' name will not excuse you."

In other words, he hadn't gotten away with anything. But of course they would say that, wouldn't they? In reality, they all knew father would have them fired if they dared expel Draco, right?

So why was he so afraid to meet Professor Snape's eyes, and why had he not written home yet?

But Draco didn't dwell too much on these thoughts when there were much better things to think about - namely the Quidditch match tomorrow, and how he would bask in the glory as Slytherin's hero. How the whole house would gather around him like Gryffindor had done for Potter. At least his classmates were still enthusiastic when they talked about Quidditch. Avery, Pike, Nott and Zabini wished him luck. Pansy, Tracy and Daphne insisted that he didn't need it, because he would catch the snitch in no time. Crabbe and Goyle smirked widely and nodded along, though in Draco's opinion they'd nod along with anything. Flint whispered that he had access to a decent source of butterbeer, and that Draco could look forward to it at the victory party.

Draco had only the slightest hint of a feeling that perhaps their intention was to distract him with Quidditch, but that flickered out as quickly as it came.

And so on the morning of the game, Draco strolled in to the Great Hall, full of excitement. There, he was greeted by his house, and accepted two slices of toast buttered for him by Pansy. After he finished, Crabbe and Goyle dutifully picked up their unfinished food to follow him to the Quidditch field. As he was left, he heard the mudblood Thomas talking to Potter not far behind: "Hey Harry, good luck on the game! You know, I still kept the banner of the lion eating a snake from last year. Shall we bring it out today?"

"Let's not," came saint Potter's reply, "It'll be mean, and Malfoy doesn't represent the Slytherins at all. I mean, Theodore, Blaise and Daphne are all really nice. I'm sure they didn't like what Malfoy did yesterday anymore than we did..."

Ha! Who was Potter to say things like that? Gryffindor's Golden Boy certainly did like to kid himself. Draco would ask Nott, Zabini and Daphne about what they thought of Potter and his fan club at the victory party - no, as the team carries him back to the castle on their shoulders. Then they'd all see how Slytherin they really were.

Still smirking, Draco met his team in the changing room and put on his emerald Quidditch robes. He held his head high as he marched out to the field, to the cheering of the Slytherin section of the benches. As the captains shook hands, Draco caught Potter's gaze for half a second. Draco sneered. Potter returned a hateful glare that actually bordered on murderous.

Then they'd kicked off, and everything began to go downhill.

Draco searched for the snitch while deliberately swooping around the field to show Potter how brilliant his new broom was, but it was starting to rain and making it difficult to distinguish the fluttering of wings or the glittering of the gold. At least Potter wasn't having any more luck, especially with his glasses and the Weasley twins circling him. Presently, Draco's nenemis seemed to be dodging a bludger that just seemed to have it in for him.

But even as Draco laughed at his predicament, he found that it was becoming increasingly difficult to deny that there was a reason Potter had been chosen as seeker even as a first year. And Draco found himself realizing that even on his newer, better broom, he might not be able to swerve quickly enough to dodge that bludger.

The Weasleys were no longer hovering around Potter now, having apparently decided that the rest of the team needed protecting too. This gave Draco an unobstructed view of Potter just in time to see him do a hilariously stupid sort of twirl through the air. "Trained for the ballet, Potter?"

Potter turned his head to glare, before suddenly swerving to the left and gaining speed. He must've seen the snitch! Wasting no time, Draco chased after him. Potter was fast, but the Nimbus 2001 did have certain improvements. Draco leaned forward with anticipation. They were almost neck to neck now, and soon enough he would over take him -

But then Potter suddenly did a sharp flip and doubled back.

"What the -" Draco barely managed to say, before the bludger slammed into his back and he felt himself fall...

...

"... almost the same injury as her, isn't it?"

"... except not as bad, because Lockhart didn't ..."

"... Malfoy and Potter are lucky... didn't have to suffer that fool...call himself a professor... nerve to come and put a note under her pillow..."

"... you think Potter did this just to shake off the bludger, or because of yesterday?"

"Oh, he's awake. He's awake."

Draco woke in one of the white beds of the hospital wing, wincing, and opened his eyes to the sight of his housemates hurrying over to him. Avery filled him in on what happened. Apparently one of the bludgers had been jinxed to target Potter specifically. Potter had, in what Avery called a surprising display of Slytherin cunning, apparently decided that he had no chance unless he took the other seeker out - though Pike and Zabini didn't quite believe this interpretation. Either way, Draco, who'd thought he'd seen the snitch, followed him and got wiped out by the bludger instead. Professor Snape had saved Draco, of course, causing him to just float down slowly rather than crash. Meanwhile, Potter continued to loop and swirl to dodge the bludger. He did eventually catch the snitch in the gulley somewhere, but not before the bludger broke his elbow.

So now both seekers were lying in the infirmatory. (Though Madame Pomfrey had sensibly put them as far from each other as possible, perhaps because both of them had a rather large entourage of visitors accompanying them.) Madame Pomfrey had already healed them. Apparently Lockhart had also offered to heal them on their way up, but thankfully Professor Snape had shouted "Protego" before he could even get a word out. The embarrassed look on his face, Avery swore, had been hilarious.

But Draco didn't exactly feel like laughing right now. This wasn't how he wanted the game to go. And though that wasn't going to stop him from milking this injury for all it's worth, there would be no victory party. All because he fell for Potter's trick, which funnily enough didn't even count as cheating.

He wanted to be carried back a champion, not an invalid. He wanted his whole House to shake his hand and gather around him with awe. Well, all the Slytherin second years were here now, as opposed to just the Gryffindor Quidditch team for Potter. This made him smirk smugly for a moment, until he noticed how every once in a while, someone's eyes would flicker to the third occupied bed in the hospital wing when they thought he wasn't looking.

And Draco had a tiny suspicion that perhaps for many of them, visiting him was an excuse to be inside the hospital wing so that they might have a chance to see a certain someone else. This time, it didn't flicker out.

Well, there was one way to fix that.

Draco laughed loudly. "Nott, I heard something else that's hilarious today. Pothead over there seems to think you were going to defend the mudblood yesterday!"

Even Draco was surprised with the effect of his own words. In the blink of an eye, the room had went dead silent, so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. Everyone froze. Even Potter, who'd just woken as well, sat up and turned toward Draco in surprise. Granger didn't move. She was probably under the effect of some potion still.

Nott cocked his head. "Come again, Malfoy?"

Translation: Are you sure you want to ask that? And are you sure you want to ask that here?

Well, sure he did. "I asked, Nott, if you're friends with Potty, Weasel and the mudblood."

Now everyone was waiting with bated breath. The Slytherins looked simultaneously surprised, curious, and something else that Draco couldn't place his finger on. The Gryffindors looked dubious. And Potter was staring at Nott nervously but expectantly. It was blatantly obvious now that whatever Nott say next would have dramatic reactions. And there would be no taking it back.

And throughout all this, Theodore Nott glanced around once, calmly, giving nothing away. "Well, since you're so interested, Malfoy," he finally said, and Draco was struck by how the silkiness of his tone reminded him of father and Snape and, somehow... Granger? "While I'd rather not associate myself with Ronald Weasley - no offense - Zabini, Greengrass and I are in fact close friends with Harry Potter. We are also close friends with Sally Granger, who I believe is the muggleborn you're referring to. And while we're on that topic, Malfoy, we think what you did to Sal at the duelling club was utterly despicable."

What? Nott had to be joking, right? Any second now he would burst out laughing at how Potter was stupid to even believe that, right?

"It's true," said Zabini, "none of us wanted to say it yesterday, but since you insist on bringing it up..." He shrugged.

What? How could they side with her instead of him, a Malfoy and a fellow Slytherin? Draco's jaw dropped. "But she's a mudblood! Why do you care? I didn't think you would stoop so low, Nott!"

"Because Sal is smart, caring, and a great friend, Malfoy." Greengrass crossed her arms, "and because we're not a house of crooks and villains. Honestly, dirty tricks like this is part of the reason why our house got such a bad rep! And just after the Baron showed us what we used to be, just when we have a chance to make friends outside our house, you want them to forever remember us as the house that attack people behind their backs?"

The room was still silent. The other Slytherins, Draco noticed, were watching the exchange like spectators at a duel - a duel that was starting to feel rather lopsided. Why wasn't anyone speaking on his behalf? Draco looked to Crabbe and Goyle for assistance, an act that turned out to be pointless because the two morons apparently only had one programmed response - crack their knuckles and look menacing. Nott merely spared them a condescending glance.

On his right, Pansy was opening and closing her mouth as if she wanted to say something, but couldn't think of anything else to say.

"What about Slytherin unity?" Draco shouted, "What's wrong with you lot?"

"Well Slytherin refuses to stand by your rash decision to attack someone behind the back, on stage, just because you lost a duel," said Zabini coolly.

This finally stirred the rest of the Slytherins out of their spectatorship. "Indeed," Pike nodded, "it was very un-Slytherin of you, Malfoy."

"Yeah, were you even thinking?"

"And it was a direct breach of duelling etiquette too! It'll bring shame to our family names!"

"You can't rope all of us into this, Draco!"

Draco looked around at his murmuring housemates desperately. He didn't even want to see what the Gryffindors' expressions were. "You choose the Gryffindors over us!"

"No, Draco," said Tracy Davis quietly.

"Because the ultimatum is actually everyone else, Harry Potter, Sal, Nott, Zabini, Greengrass or you, mate," Avery told him, "We all want a unified Slytherin House. Please don't make us choose, mate."

Translation: You're still valuable to us, but if it really comes down to that, you won't like our decision.

"I hope Sal gets well soon," Daphne told the Gryffindors. This time, there were nods all around.

"Come and find us when you're ready, Malfoy," said Zabini, before he, Nott and Greengrass made their exit after giving everyone in the hospital wing one last sweeping glance. The rest of the Slytherins slowly trickled out after them. Potter and the Gryffindors gave him an awkward look, before thankfully shuffling out as well.

Translation: You know where we stand. Whether you still want to be friends is up to you now.

Eventually, Pansy was the only ones left by his bed, apart from Crabbe and Goyle. She swallowed. "See you later, Draco?"

Draco nodded numbly, staring after her as she left, before gathering his things from his bedside and quietly slipping out as well. He'd never felt so lost.

But at least they hadn't cast him out. He'd lost - and he wasn't even sure how much or to whom, but they were still willing to have him back as long as he could accept it and move on. And Draco Malfoy wasn't stupid. He knew he had to figure out what he'd done wrong, and then...

Draco looked over at Granger's bed in the furthest corner.

He'd have to make amends.

A.N.: I originally wanted Draco to do something more dramatic in the hospital wing, but then I realized that he would look too much of a monster after the duelling club. Ah well...