After a filling dinner, Draco was ready to slip off to the RoR, where Hermine would also be.
He was able to slip off in the confusion to the different common rooms, and Mya joined him a few minutes afterwards.
"MYA!"
"DRAY!"
They practically sprinted into each other's arms, and Draco was glad they felt much the same as they had the previous times she had been there. A few minutes of being who they really were. It was a good change, a change he wished was permanent.
"Merlin, Mya. I missed you so much."
"I missed you too Dray. I really did."
"You think the room can whip up something so we can watch a movie?"
"We've never asked. Let's try it."
Dray thought to the room itself, and to their surprise, a television showed up. It seemed to work fine in the magic of the castle, even with the electronics it was made of. Mya thought for a moment, deciding on a good movie, before asking the room out loud for a few episodes of The Muppets Show. They watched two of them together before deciding that it was probably best to return to their dorms. It was getting late. They hugged one last time, and separated into their separate rooms.
Draco sighed as he laid in his bed, arms above his head. He just wished the play was over.
.
The next morning, Draco was teasing Harry, and he heard Hermione telling him to "Ignore him, he's not worth it." Pansy did an even worse impression than him, and Draco was glad he didn't have to do anything else.
He kept fainting and swooning, knowing what was needed to play the part. He went to his Arithmancy class after breakfast, getting the course rules and agenda. After his continued studies over the summer, this was going to be a piece of cake. He was at the same level as all the other muggle students, and had a head start on the magical students. Well, all of them except 'Mione.
Lunch was another swoon fest, Draco sat on the table and teased Potter more than he ever had over this one incident. Yes, it was quite ridiculous, but needed to keep up his cover.
He was grateful for the new class. It gave him something to think about. Although, the professor could be a bit better. Once everyone had gathered for the class, Professor Hagrid (he was determined to show respect, if only in his head.) called out to the class. "C'mon now, get a move on! Got a real treat for yeh today. Great lesson. Everyone here? C'mon."
The class was led to the edge of the forest, and Draco had a moment of fear that they were actually going in it before he spotted the paddock at the very edge.
"Everyone gather 'round here, now. 'Round the fence. Tha's it. Now, the first thing yer gonna wanna do it open yer books."
"How?" It was a legitimate question, Draco had not been able to discover how to open the book without it nearly biting his hand off. Pulling out his roped-shut book, Draco held it up.
"Eh?"
"How do we open the Merlin forsaken things?" A few more people brought out their books, held together with all sorts of things. Mya had bound hers together with a book cover the backwards way. She was a genius, really.
"Yeh - yeh haven' been able to open them? Has anyone done it?" Everyone shook their heads. "Yeh've gotta stroke them, like this." He grabbed Draco's book, and Draco gave him a look of disgust. Hagrid then slid his finger under the rope and snapped it. Stroking the spine of the book, Hagrid gave everyone a look of 'duh!' as if they were supposed to understand that. The stupid book shivered a little before laying flat in Hagrid's hand.
"Oh, how silly we've been. Why didn't we just attempt to stroke them? Why didn't we guess?" He wasn't acting as much here. He really was disgusted by the books, the menace they were.
Hagrid left to get the creatures they were studying today, and Draco started teasing Potter again, until Brown cut in with a squeal. A few strange creatures came out of the forest, Hagrid leading them. "Hippogriffs! Beautiful, aren't they?" Not as beautiful as Mya, but they were beautiful in their own way. Draco was hardly listening, but he did catch the comment that he shouldn't offend the creatures. Of course, that was most likely exactly what was going to happen. He could feel Hermione's eyes boring into the back of his head, telling him to pay attention.
He turned back to the lesson in time to see Potter climbing on the back of one of the hippogriffs. It took off, flying a couple of laps around the paddock before landing gracefully.
Draco took over the one Harry had been with already.
"This is very easy. I knew it must have been, if Potter could do it. I bet you're not dangerous at all, are you? You great, ugly brute?" He knew it was wrong. He knew it would end in pain. Bracing himself, he felt the talons scrape down his arm, and screamed a moment later. The pain wasn't immediate, but when it hit, he almost collapsed. He did though, on purpose. It was a great pain, a different type of pain than what he was used to.
"I'm dying!" He wasn't really, but knew how to act. It was all a part. An exaggeration, in this case. A big one. "I'm dying, look at me. He's killed me!"
Hagrid took him to the hospital wing, where Madam Pomfrey healed him in less than a minute. He knew he would have to keep an injured act up, though, and knew it would not please Mya. But she also knew it was all an act.
.
He stayed in his common room during classes until about halfway through double Potions. He wished he was anyone else as he swaggered into the classroom, acting as if he owned the world. Pansy had been hanging off his arm for the past couple of days, and he was about sick of it. He was fed up with the double life he led.
During the class, he forced Weasley to cut up his daisy roots, even though he was perfectly fine. Draco also forced Potter to skin his shrivelfig. He had regret deep in his words, though it never bled through.
His father was petitioning the execution of the hippogriff, even if Draco was against it. But 'whatever had hurt Draco was a bad thing in this world and needed to be put down,' at least in his father's point of view. His father also wanted Hagrid fired. That was exactly what Draco didn't want. But what could he say.
After the class had ended, he watched Hermione walk a bit slower than her friends and take shelter in an alcove at the top of the staircase. Then she shoved past him and headed up the stairs. Again. What was going on? Draco smirked as he passed Potter and Weasley, looking into the alcove. No one was in there. This was all very strange.
.
He went to his last class of the day, Arithmancy, and was surprised to see Mya there as well. Didn't Harry and Weasley say something about having Defence right after lunch? Why is Mya here?
It was all confusing. Luckily, he only had a little bit of work for this class, and left happily.
After a while of working on the work for all of his classes in private (Slytherins never did work in the common rooms or dorms. It was quiet, the way he liked things. And Crabbe and Goyle still didn't know where he went.) He heard Mya enter the room with her own bags. He nodded at her in greeting, finishing the last little bit of his Potions essay. Once he did, he looked up to see Mya looking over one of his other essays, for one of the classes he had missed earlier that week.
"Everything looks good here."
"Course it does, we are the equivalent of a fourth year. Wanna get even more ahead?"
She laughed the beautiful laugh of hers before pulling out one of the fifth year Transfiguration textbooks she had bought that summer. They worked on that for a while, until they agreed to put the wands away and work on the wandless stuff. They were a little bit behind here, but they would be able to catch up. Wandless magic was more difficult after all.
Draco looked into offensive spells over the summer, just in case of a situation where they would need them, and found a couple of different ones that wouldn't cause too much harm to the people. It was more on the surroundings, as the spells were pretty explosive. Some of the ones he had found were 'Confringo', 'Bombardia', and 'Bombardia Maxima'. They could cause quite the explosion, if the theory was anything to go on. The two of them would wait a few more days before trying those ones, though. Hopefully, the spells wouldn't be needed this week. Draco doubted it.
Also, Draco finally learned about Mya's cat the hard way. He was hugging her and sneezed, a cat hair tickling his nose.
"Mya, do you, by any chance, have a cat?"
"Yeah, why?"
"I might have an allergy." She just laughed at his predicament. Though the cat was smart, and somehow was in the room already the next time they were in there alone.
After they had depleted their magic for the night, they just lay relaxing in each other, sharing warmth. "Hey Mya."
"Yeah?"
"Happy birthday."
She gasped as she realized the time. She was now fourteen years old. And of course Draco was the first to tell her. He would bring her her present later that evening.
Draco had a summer birthday, so she wouldn't be able to be there for it for quite a while yet, but at least she would be able to celebrate hers with him. She turned to him and kissed him, pulling away a second later. He caught her lips in his, and kissed her back.
A few minutes later, the both of them pulled away, breathless. Draco had realized something, but didn't know how to say it without completely scaring her away. He decided to just say it. "I love you."
She froze, and he feared he had over stepped. Then she kissed him again. "I love you too, Dray."
It was nice to finally be able to say that to each other. Some might say they were young, but Draco knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. He would do anything to protect her.
.
It was nearing Halloween. Draco was gearing up for the change that was going to happen, it was always this day that it was on. At least the first Hogsmeade visit was today. He probably wouldn't be able to say anything to Mya while they were there, but he knew she was thinking of that date he had promised her someday. He couldn't wait until he could be out in the open with their relationship.
Their love had only grown in the month since they had told each other, and they were saddened whenever they had to leave each other. It relieved them greatly when they could go to the RoR and just be themselves.
The Hogsmeade visit itself was boring, nothing much had happened. Hermione had come up to him in the three broomsticks before she had noticed his 'bodyguards' and backed off. He wondered what that was about. He enjoyed a couple of butterbeers with his housemates. Even if he didn't want to be there, the people were mostly good. They stood up for each other.
Draco decided he was just going to enjoy the feast for once, and let Hermione enjoy her first one. He remembered first year was the troll, and second year was the Deathday party for Sir Nicolas. He did have to make at least one remark, though, and did to as Potter, Ron, and Mya were leaving the hall back to their common rooms.
And then Sirius Black had gotten into the castle. No one knew how, but it happened. Everyone had spent the night in the Great Hall, and the other houses were a bit confused until Professor Dumbledore had explained, and then whispers and gasps rose throughout the room.
Everyone was conspiring about how he had gotten in, and Draco rolled his eyes at some of the ridiculous theories. The Dementors would stop the disguises and flying, and you still couldn't Apparate on grounds. There were enchantments against it.
.
Draco's team pulled out of the match against Gryffindor because of the weather, and used Draco to do it. He had never been more disgusted at his team. He was reminded of one of the muggle phrases Hermione had told him. 'You get what you get and you don't throw a fit.' If only The Slytherin quidditch players could understand that. But it was muggle, so they would never listen to it.
Though, in the end, Draco was glad they had pulled out. The dementors were a nasty piece of work. Whoever had thought of them could be forgotten. Harry fell into the gathering of the creatures, and Draco almost screamed with the rest of the school. He was scared for the boy, even if he had never let him see the true side of him.