A/N-I don't want to be a review whore or anything, but having a couple of reviews would be nice, you know?

"Mr Malfoy! Over here please." The strict voice of the new Headmistress called as he was about to enter the Great Hall with Luna Lovegood, ready to eat and watch the First Years get sorted. As soon as he heard the firm voice of the Headmistress however, Draco wasted no time in saying goodbye to Luna and hurriedly walking over to where McGonagall was standing. It seemed that McGonagall was calling over all the 8th years, granted there weren't many so far, but they were gathering by her at the bottom of the staircase nonetheless.

He observed the two groups with only a fraction of interest as he stood off awkwardly to the side, as by the glares he received he was clearly not being welcomed back like a hero as most students had. But, then again, Draco wasn't really expecting them to. Blaise, he saw, was already standing there talking to one of the twins-the one that was in Ravenclaw. There was also two Hufflepuff's standing together chatting with a Gryffindor, although Draco didn't know them. At least not much. He distinctly remembered one of them-Lavender Brown was it?-going out with Weasley for a short while back in sixth year, and seeing them snogging everywhere he went to try escape his troubles. As if planning to kill Dumbledore wasn't bad enough, the sound of them two moaning would haunt him forever. The other two? Well, one of the Hufflepuff's was ginger too, but in Draco's opinion, had a calmer colour of red than any of the Weasleys'. He had about the same amount of information on the other Hufflepuff. All he had really come to understand was that the Abbott girl might have had, or is still having some sort of relationship with Longbottom. Potter and his little gang-minus Ginny-were called over when McGonagall caught sight of them, and when they approached, they were welcomed with the congratulatory praises that came with being heroes. When all the 8th years that were written down on her little register, that said who was returning, were standing in front of her, she called for all of them to follow her as she lead the group away from the Great Hall without any explanation. Not that they needed one to do as they were told from McGonagall. She was just that scary.

"Professor, where are we going?" Lavender Brown questioned the Headmistress with the curiosity that no one else seemed to have. Yes, they were wondering what exactly was happening, but it wasn't piqued as much as Lavender's was.

"I reckoned that you would've had enough of watching the First Years get sorted by now; besides, the Sorting Hat seems to be running out of songs. I dare say that compared to previous years, this sorting might be quite a disappointment. Anyway, you won't be missing food if that's what you're worried about. I'm almost certain that you all know where the kitchens are, either way, the House-Elves will be more than happy to serve you all in your new dormitory." She explained with a small smirk on her face. Upon seeing that almost all ten students were about to bombard her with questions, she cut them off firmly. "No questions now. I'll explain when we get there." The walk to their new common room and dorms was familiar to all students gathered, but no one was paying much attention to where they were going; much preferring to whisper excitedly amongst themselves of what could await them.

"I bet they built a whole new annex on the grounds or something for us." The optimistic Susan Bones whispered to her two friends, Lavender and Hannah.

"No, they've probably just converted an unused classroom. They wouldn't waste all that time, energy and space on only ten people." Hannah said, her logical side shining through. "One of them being a Death Eater." She added in a conspiratorial whisper. But Draco, who was about 5 metres behind the girls-even further away from Potter's gang who were who were a good 30 metres away on the other side of the corridor-walking at a slow, sombre pace, still heard them. Draco grew even more irritated and angry than he was with Blaise on the train. He felt a pain in his back below his shoulder blades, as if something was trying to tear its way out from inside him-but it wasn't as if he hadn't experienced pain as bad or worse as he was right now. 'That should be them fucking wings' Draco thought to himself as he remembered what his father told him and what he had read. He rolled his shoulders backwards, trying to relieve himself of the pain. 'They can't come out now. They just can't. What if I can't put them back when I want? What if someone sees?' Thinking angry thoughts to himself about how unfair his life was when half the things he hated about himself weren't really his fault, just made him angrier. Soon, combined with the sensation of the wings trying to protrude from his back, his hands had started to feel as if they were getting hotter and hotter. Confused about his hands suddenly feeling like he was gripping a white-hot iron as if his life depended on it, he lifted them so that his palms were near his face. Red. They were completely red, as if he had stuck them in a pot of paint. And glowing. They were starting to glow. His hands felt like they were on fi-

'NO!' Draco's mind screamed as his eyes bugged out of his head at the accurate conclusion. Only in his mucked up life, should he be the Veela to acquire the rare trait of shooting fire from his hands. Still rolling his shoulders back, feeling only a fraction of the pain subdue, he also started breathing cold air on his hands in an attempt to cool then down. He could almost feeling the strange looks that Lavender's little gang were giving him as they looked over their shoulders. Them looking at him wasn't helping with controlling his anger- it only seemed to make it worse-but the pain was making him think more logically about it. If anger was causing him to grow wings and begin to throw fire, then calming down would be the best antidote for it. Closing his eyes, Draco began to picture in his mind, the delicious smelling Gryffindor robes that his mate was wearing. The pain in his back slowly stopped, but his hands felt a searing pain as if he had plunged a hot poker into a cold bucket of water-he was sure that he even heard his hands hiss and sizzle.

"How strange." He heard the Brown girl whisper, which was accompanied by giggles.

"Dark arts must've messed with his head. Can't say I'm surprised." Abbott replied just as quietly as she looked over her shoulder at him, for what must've been the fifth time.

"Freak." As soon as it left Lavenders mouth, as cliché as it may sound, the word bounced around in his head. It seemed to echo all around him and whisper tantalisingly in his ears until all he noticed was the hum of the word. The pain and burning sensation should've returned combined with renewed anger, but, oddly enough, he felt an unusual sense of calm. Suddenly it was as if Draco left his body and was looking into a broken pensive. Pieces of a long forgotten memory seemed to surface to the front of his mind. Only fragments of the whole thing though, like a movie reel that had been snapped and scattered. The images were somewhat unclear, and pieces of colour were missing in places, but what was prominent was the sound.

"Freak! You're a freak, Dragon!" A scared voice came from the mouth of a small girl. White tears were trailing down the shadowed face of the girl as she stumbled backwards from a young Draco Malfoy. It seemed, in this particular memory, that Draco was the only thing that was completely in Technicolor. He quickly jumped to his feet from his place on the ground, opposite the crying shadow.

"No, wait please! Mia!" He cried, begging for her not to leave him. When the shadow-girl seemed to disappear, the little grey eyes of Draco looked down to the little primrose that was constructed out of blades of grass in his hand.

When the older Draco saw that the grass primrose's petals were changing into vibrant red and the centre yellow, it was clear that the flower was constructed out of magic. 'Must've done magic in front of that Muggle.' Draco reasoned to himself as that memory faded away and he returned to his place on Earth. That was the first time he'd been called a freak-and experienced a flashback quite like that one- and he had desperately tried to forget it, remembering the heartbreak that his young self had experienced because of it. The girl, though just a mere shadow in the memory, seemed to hold a familiar resemblance. He was tempted to believe it was because he knew her, more than the memory had suggested, but he knew it was a lie. From the reaction of the shadow, it looked as if the girl was a Muggle and if Draco remembered, he had had no great relationships with any Muggle. Shaking off all the strange feelings, he changed his posture to an intimidating one and his glared at the gang in front of him as they continued to whisper. Once they caught sight of him, they changed the subject of the conversation immediately and went back to talking about what the common room would be like. Draco smirked to himself, satisfied at their reaction to him.

"I hope it's not decked out in house colours. I mean, green and red? That's just too Christmas-y. Don't even get me started on how the other house colours will clash with each other's. Hopefully, McGonagall has some decorating sense." Lavender ranted. Although it was exactly what he wanted to get them talking back to what they were before, he wasn't really interested on what colours do and don't go together. Not that he didn't find it true about how none of the house colours actually went together, but he had had more than enough of his Mother talking about interior designing and he didn't need it from someone else.

After a couple more minutes, the ten 8th year students found themselves all grouped around McGonagall who was standing in front of a door. Taking in his surroundings for the first time, Draco's soul felt like it was being weighed down with lead. Here? Was the common room here? It looked different since he was last there, but he still knew where he was. He was sure that this was the place where it all kicked off; where everyone knew that war was coming. The Astronomy Tower. He was aware of the Headmistress saying something, but her voice was barely reaching his ears as he relived the night. His reverie didn't last long though, soon he was broken out of it as people behind him pushed past, or more like rudely shoving him out the way. Looking around, it seemed that Potter also wasn't moving. He stood only a couple of paces to the side of him, and seemed to be thinking of that night, the same as Draco was. Suddenly, Harry's head snapped to look at Draco. They held eye contact for a couple of seconds, though it seemed more like they were seeing which one of them could face up to their nightmares first, until Draco, not wanting to lose to Potter again, walked briskly past him and into the room just in time to catch a part of McGonagall's lecture.

"-badly damaged with curses, jinxes and other spells to the point that it would've taken longer to repair this Tower so that it's fit for Astronomy classes again, than to just build a new Tower. So we constructed a brand new Tower for class on the other side of the castle, and only when that was done and we were thinking about where we should put our few 8th years, did we change the Tower into this 8th year common room." McGonagall lectured as she led the 10 students into their new home for their last year. The Tower was shorter because of being practically demolished during the war, and so had far fewer steps to climb to enter the common room, which came as a treat to the 8th years who remembered being on the verge of passing out when they reached the top for Astronomy. It was still tall however, and the small balcony that was closed off by a sliding door overlooked the Forbidden Forest. Thankfully, the colour scheme wasn't a mixture of the four houses' colours, which would've looked very ugly indeed, but it was decked out like a log cabin with deep reds, greens and browns. The room had two burgundy loveseats, a rather large maroon sofa with matching armchairs and a roaring fireplace next to a lovely wooden table, which looked as if it could fit all ten of them around, and chairs. At the back corner of the common room, were different coloured doors built into the wall as the spiral staircase continued to lead upwards. The first one was a royal blue, and then a couple of steps away from that was an orange door that clashed horribly with the blue on its right and the forest green on its left. Then there was a lilac door, yellow, wooden, red, pink, white and the last one was black. McGonagall then got everyone to gather in a circle around her. To Harry, it reminded him of the First Task in the Tri-Wizard Tournament when all the champions had to choose their dragon from a bag similar to the one that McGonagall was brandishing in front of them now. "As I go around the circle you will all choose your key to your room. The colour of the key will match the colour of your door and all your things will be magically moved into there. Now, the keys are suited to different types of personalities but only I know which personalities the keys match to. There will be no way to trade keys with anyone else or duplicate them because it will only respond to you and your personality, understand? I must ask you that, when choosing your key, you pick the one that burns your hand. Don't worry, as soon as you pull it out of the bag, it'll stop burning. It's a little invention of mine." She added as she saw that Hermione was about to ask something. "Right then, you first Ms Abbott."

"There's no point in even picking, we all know who's going to get what." Draco commented dryly, making Hannah stop halfway through putting her hand in the bag.

"Please elaborate on your thoughts Mr Malfoy." McGonagall said making it clear that there was no way that Draco could just refuse to speak his mind.

"It's clear that Weasley will get orange-it matches his hair after all. Blaise will get green, for Slytherin. Bones will get yellow, for Hufflepuff. Patil will get blue, for Ravenclaw. Granger's will be red, for Gryffindor's little Princess. Brown will get the wooden one because she's as clever as. Potter will get the white one, as a sign for the light side for which he fought with. Longbottom, well, he'll get the pink one because he's a pansy. Well, maybe not anymore, but still. And Abbott will get the purple one because that's the only girly colour left." He stated as if it was obvious. Nevertheless, as the others thought about it, they had to admit to themselves that it made a lot of sense. "And me, I'll be getting the black one for my role on the dark side." He finished bitterly with a smile that looked more like a grimace.

"Well Mr Malfoy, we'll have to see if it plays out like that. Now, is there anything else you have to say, or can we continue on?"

"By all means Professor, begin."

Hannah gingerly stuck her hand in the bag and withdrew it only a second later so quickly that the key went flying onto the armchair behind them. McGonagall peered over Hannah's shoulder as she went to go collect the key and mentally congratulated herself that the personality keys were working perfectly. "Pink. That'll be the eighth door up. Ms Bones, your turn now." Even more cautiously than Hannah did before her, Susan placed her hand in the bag and after a while of rummaging about and a hiss of pain, found her key. "Green. That'll be the third door. Ms Brown, you next." And it continued like that until all ten of them had picked their keys; Lavender: orange, Hermione: red, Neville: Lilac, Draco: black, Padma: yellow, Harry: blue, Ron: wooden and Blaise got the white key. "See there Mr Malfoy, it seems the only predictions you got right were yours and Miss Grangers; some you got jumbled up and others were completely wrong." She said smugly as she threw in a knowing look at Draco. "Oh, and I'll be needing to talk with you. Don't worry-" Hannah who shrieked as her key dropped to the floor interrupted her.

"Professor! Something's wrong with my key!" Unable to form any more words, she pointed to the key on the floor. The bright pink key was rattling on the ground as parts of it twisted, widened and shrunk into different shapes. The Professor didn't do anything, for a while apart from stand there and look as it happened.

"Nothing to worry about that, it'll happen to everybody's soon. I just forgot about that part. The key will also transform into an animal representative of you-still in its colour-it'll most likely be your Patronus. It'll move as well, so when that happens, there's nothing to be worried about. Ah, here, see. A mole, Miss Abbott, if I'm not mistaken." McGonagall said as she bent down to pick up and placed it in Hannah's palm. Lavender and Susan immediately rushed to Hannah's side when the Professor moved away, to see the pink animal in her hand.

"Oh, oh, look! It's happening to mine now!" Susan bounced excitedly as she watched her key that was laid on her palm. The transformation happened quicker than Hannah's and once it was complete; Susan was looking confused at the animal on her palm.

"What is it Susan?" Hermione asked curiously from the other side of the room.

"It's a... squirrel?" She asked herself. "A green squirrel?"

"Maybe if you give it some nuts, it'll stop looking so sick." Lavender joked. Draco was just about to zone out completely, his eyes focused on Lavender, Hannah and Susan's little conversation, when McGonagall approached him. She looked him up and down, before staring directly into his stormy, grey eyes while he raised a perfect blonde eyebrow at her.

"Follow me Mr Malfoy. There's something we need to talk about, away from anyone who might listen in. Besides, I'm sure you wouldn't say no to a visit to your Godfather." She said briskly as she walked quickly out of the Tower and down the corridor, Draco trailing behind her, towards the Headmistress's office. They reached the office quickly, as it wasn't far away from the Tower, and she didn't waste any time in locking the door or sitting behind her desk. "Let's not waste any pleasantries Mr Malfoy, I know of your transformation during the holidays and the Minister of Magic plus the whole Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures have known since your birth."

Draco looked greatly put out by what he'd just been told, believing until then that only his family, plus the Seer and Blaise knew of his heritage but now was on the verge of sulking because it seemed that it was actually over a hundred people. "What is the purpose of this meeting, Professor?"He sneered.

"I don't know whether you realise, but the school is full of students with eyesMr Malfoy, and you should be aware that a couple of those eyes caught your moment of weakness on the train. The purpose of this meeting is to tell you, that should a moment of weakness like that happen again on your way to class or during the weekend, the common room is designed to make any Veela magic you may be experiencing more... manageable."

"So, you're saying that, I go in there and I'll be able to get myself back in control? No jumping her, no...nothing?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying. If your friend is strong enough to drag you back there that is; and if you do end up back at the common room, there's no need to worry about being in trouble for skipping class."

"Thank you Professor." Draco said sincerely. Subconsciously, his eyes travelled up the walls to see the portrait of the deceased potions master, ex-Headmaster and Godfather, sleeping. McGonagall followed his line of sight and smiled sadly at the portrait.

"I'm sorry for your loss; I know he was fond of you. I'm even sorrier that he's sleeping when you were probably expecting to be able to speak with him, but he of course also knew about your heritage and told me some brief information for me to pass onto you; after all, it's not my business but yours. He said that there will be information for you in the library about controlling your change of minds, I'm not really sure what that means but I have an idea you do. Either way, the library and its Magical Creature's books are for your complete use, including the ones in the Restricted Section." McGonagall stood up now, concluding the meeting. "I also don't know whether you noticed, but the wall outside the 8th years Tower is quite bare, unlike the other common rooms that have a portrait entrance; this one doesn't."

"Where is this conversation leading Professor?" Draco asked, now also standing up and walking towards the door, not liking the feeling of dread that started as soon as the next conversation subject did.

"I understand that the other 8th years aren't particularly fond of you Mr Malfoy, but when you get back to the Tower, tell the rest of them that as their 8th year project all of you are to construct a painting together to go as your portrait entrance. You all will be excused from the first two weeks mornings to complete this painting and I must see it when it's done. If it is not finished by then I'll have you all in detention for however long it takes for you to actually finish it." She left no room for objections as she firmly pushed him out her door and called, "There will be no ferreting out of this!" She smirked at him when she saw his bewildered face. "Check your key!" He heard her shut the door behind him and lock it as he walked down the steps. He sighed heavily. Draco could almost imagine the horror that'll become of the 8th year project. 'But, on the plus side,' Draco thought. 'If the painting goes horribly wrong, they could always pass it off as abstract or modern art.'

When he reached the bare wall that McGonagall was talking about, he took a good long minute staring at it. When he first reached here, he was prepared to never go inside unless he had to, hating the memories, thoughts and feelings that plagued his being of that dreadful night where he dragged his body up the stairs, heavy with a burden he could not do; and all the nights after that at Malfoy Manor, where they dragged in a new prisoner nearly every evening. Now, Draco was looking at the brick wall and mahogany door as if it was some kind of heaven. And it was, for him. He could escape to here now to stop the Veela magic from controlling him, but the downside was that he had to be the person to keep his head out of the gutter for long enough that he had enough sense to return here as fast as he could. Blaise didn't seem like he was going to be crawling back to him anytime soon, more like the other way round; and Luna was only in her 7th year, she wouldn't have the same classes as him so she wouldn't be any help, thinking along the lines of that she would see the disaster that would happen if he was just left for his Veela to take over and get him back to the Tower. He reached inside his pocket and pulled out his key that had moulded itself into its animal while he was in the meeting with McGonagall. A ferret. "Bloody fantastic." He sneered to himself as the memories of 4th year formed in the front of his mind. 'At least I got the black door and not the white, otherwise looking at this thing would've been unbearable.' He thought to himself as he stopped the black ferret from running around on his hand as he placed it back in his pocket and opened the door. 'Maybe the ferret is meant to mean something...I wonder what the relationship between weasels and ferrets are..."

Everyone had seemed to have settled into their new common room nicely and, by the looks of things, had the House-Elves bring them something (probably against the will of Granger) to eat and had all had their dinner on the wooden table together, without waiting for Draco. Again, not like he expected them to. Hannah and Neville were on one of the loveseats together and Ron and Lavender occupied the other. Hermione seemed perfectly OK with it though, conversing happily with Susan at the dining table. Padma and Blaise were standing together by the sliding doors, talking as if they'd been friends for ages. Everyone was smiling, happy and as Draco was standing in the doorway unnoticed, Padma's laughter rang through the room. It made him quite bitter, seeing everyone happy and getting along with each other, when he was sure that only Blaise would even spare him a second glance. It sounded childish and selfish, he knew, but after ten minutes of just standing by the door and no one noticing that he had returned because they were took fucking happy with their lives, he just snapped and wanted to squash their happiness. If only a bit.

"Listen up!" He called into the common room with an authoritative drawl that grabbed everyone's attention. "There's a message from McGonagall that needs passing on to you lot."

"And why should we listen to what you have to say? You could be lying to us." Lavender Brown piped up, trying to sound as intimidating as she possibly could. Some of the others gave nods of agreements to her statement, while her boyfriend verbally made his thoughts known, and others just stayed quiet.

"Because if you waited to hear what I was going to tell you, then you'd realise that there'd be no reason for me to tell you something like that." Draco snapped.

"Well," Padma said impatiently. "What is it then?"

"She wants us to construct a painting together, and, if we don't have it done in two weeks time, we'll all be in detention until it is done."

"A painting? But I'm so bad at art!" Hermione said.

"What's the painting for?" Harry asked slowly.

"The painting, Potter, is for our portrait entrance. And, I don't care Mudblood whether you can or can't do art. We're all in this crap together and it doesn't matter whether it's good or not." A loud gasp came from the mouth of Hermione and everyone in the room turned silent. Tension that never used to be there suddenly built up until it was suffocating them. Quickly, Hermione picked her key up from the table and ran to her room, slamming the red door behind her. As soon as she left, wands were about to be drawn from her long-time friends, but to them it seemed that someone had already gotten him with a powerful hex. Draco was doubled over, groaning in anguish, and his hand was on top of his heart as if it might relieve him of any pain.

"Zabini." Draco ground out, as for the second time that day, his vision started to be clouded with colourful spots. He could almost sense that the tension in the room had abated to satisfaction and confusion, although some of the previous anger still remained. He heard the loud footfalls of Blaise come towards him, but the closer they got, the quieter they were.

And then, Draco passed out.

A/N-Phew! That took a lot of planning. I had to think exactly who should get which door, who should be predicted what door in relevance to who actually got it among other things like what colour goes with what personality and animals etc. I tried my best to match colours with personalities, but I don't think it's entirely right or good? Is this chapter even good?Rushed? I don't think it's my favourite. If there's any mistakes tell me!

And, how do you think they make the moving pictures? With some sort of magic paint, do they have to say a spell, paint with their wand? Any ideas?

Oh well...

P.S, I was going to write a snippet of the next chapter, but wasn't sure how to do it. Like just put in what seems like random bits of speech, or just a paragraph that might sort of spoil it a bit. I don't know. How do you want it written?

That was a long note...