[Not long after...]

Harry was still thinking about what Malfoy had said, wondering, testing really, the thought of the other boy telling the truth. After all, it really did seem a lot of effort to go to, if all you really wanted to do was kill Harry Potter. Still, it was possible that Malfoy was playing an elaborate joke... Even so, it'd need to have a grand punchline to skive off school. Particularly if he really wanted to sell this... No, as odd - and it was odd - to think of Malfoy as not being who he had been acting like these last two years... He seemed genuine. Which left him with one real question - did he really want to help Malfoy, of all people?

Beside him, Draco was thrashing through plans as if piling them crumpled atop a wastebasket until they hit the ceiling. Anything was better than asking, wasn't it? Because Draco didn't know what he was going to do if Potter said no. Oh, sure, he had plans... but none of them seemed worth a knut. It seemed so... depressing... so half-assed - so Gryffindor to pin his hopes on only one plan... Irritated with himself, with the world for actually existing, he looked out at the horizon, not halting, but casting his gaze around and behind. And then he had to pay attention to his horse, quieting him, because he saw a gaunt black dog out of the corner of his eye. "Potter, I think we're being followed..." Draco Malfoy said, with a hint of a drawl, and so smoothly it was hard to tell from his lips that he had spoken at all, as Malfoy drew on some of his training.

Harry's head snapped up, as his thoughts resolved, glancing backwards as nonchalantly as a Gryffindor could. Unnoticed, Malfoy rolled his eyes at Harry's avoidance of looking at Draco - that was just criminally obvious. Hadn't anyone taught Potter anything?

Harry laughed, a bright sound carrying far in the clear morning air, "Oh, it's just a dog!"

Draco looked back again, considering, wondering if Harry had ever heard about what a Grim was...

"Do you suppose it's friendly?" Harry continued, sounding the slightest bit nervous. A Gryffindor afraid of a dog, of all things? Malfoy filed this away for future use - hidden knowledge was never wasted.

"Only one way to find out," Draco cried, losing himself in the simple amusement of having found a dog, of all things, all the way out here on the moor. To placate his more suspicious instincts, he reasoned that if they didn't deal with the dog, it could always follow them until they slept. Better to deal with it while they could see - he didn't even have a ward with him, let alone a wand.

Halting, they hopped off the horses (both of them pausing a moment to stretch), watching the dog, who was just behind and to the left of the horses, as he laid down with just a trace of a sigh.

The great, gaunt dog was doing his best to look friendly and harmless. It wasn't working well, he feared, as he laid his head down on his paws. Luckily for him, the boys innate need for companionship (pack) won out over concerns about a feral dog's safety. Children always believed themselves invulnerable.

"What have you done to yourself!" Draco purred, as he approached the dog, squatting and offering a hand to be sniffed. Cousin, the dog caught the scent, going still and looking between the blond and the black-haired boy. Moments later, the dog gently licked the hand, then, in a swift move, ducked his entire head under the boy's hand. Draco, used to hunting hounds half the size, began to scratch the dog behind his ears. "He's friendly, Harry!" Draco cried, as Harry moved quickly closer, giving the dog a gentle pat, enjoying the quick thumps of his tail on the ground.

The big dog rolled unexpectedly onto his back, putting his body nearly under Draco. Draco yelped, hopping backwards while retaining his position, as Harry smiled, "He wants his belly petted." Draco frowned, as Harry began to stroke the dog's belly, unknowingly affirming the dog's role in his new pack.

Snape had vaguely expected to wake to a knock at the door. After all, they had set out numerous heatlamps (an artifact of the year the Weasley Twins had conjured a snake for every Slytherin in the house. Harmless garden snakes, of course. It had been the Hufflepuff badgers that had caused all the trouble. There never was such a thing as a harmless badger).

Instead, he had risen at the normal time, and checked his wards. Draco Malfoy was not in the Slytherin dungeons. Thoughtfully, Snape strode across his room, with movements clean and precise as cut glass. He hadn't been at dinner either. With an abrupt slicing gesture, he activated the standard tracing charm. The Astronomy Tower - still sulking, child? With a relatively warm sigh - the cheer of a wisp of cold in the dungeon chill, Snape headed upstairs. Students parted before him, threading themselves together in his wake. A few Hufflepuffs scurried to get out of his way. All the normal ways of showing respect to the domineering professor.

Striding up to the top of the Astronomy Tower, Snape stared around, looking for the bone china face of Draco. With a frown, he looked again. And then he flicked his wand into the tracking spell, downstairs, before mentally asking himself why he had bothered climbing all those stairs for nothing. He was two steps down before he paused, thinking suddenly - I hadn't seen him as I strode up... Fretfully, he walked downstairs, his strides taking him down three times as fast as he had come up, his long legs skipping two stairs for every one he touched. Halfway down, he spelled the tracking again. Not far now. Three turns later, he paused, fishing the hairclasp out from behind a sconce. With a sigh, Severus Snape wondered what had happened.

Always be prepared is a Slytherin precept, dearly as beloved as it was to any boyscout. At least it was after Snape was done teaching the lackwits and dunderheads. With a cruelly smug smile, he activated the second tracking charm. Only to frown - it was disturbingly near Hagrid's hut. Draco hadn't liked the man, had never ceased to make fun of his heritage and lack of magical ability. Why was he there? Hoping the moping teen wouldn't make him late for breakfast, Severus Snape set off with a crack of his robes, as his long legs swished across the floors. As he walked out of the castle, he couldn't help but look, and listen - the habits of a spy are hard to break, after all. Wondering, suddenly, if Draco had been doing other things, other than sulking. Hopefully not fighting, Snape thought, It was bad enough talking to Lucius when it wasn't about his son making trouble. Lucius had always been more about loyalty and protection than common sense, and he truly had never seemed to understand why the school thought he should punish the boy. Thus it was my fault, my duty to make sure he learned. Made all the harder by a father who spoilt him rotten.

Halfway around the hut, Snape paused, looking at a muddy shoelace, half hidden in the muck. Something deep within him had gone cold, he knew, as he stared at it, Did they dare? Had they truly dared to take him? After a moment's pause - his countenance had not changed even the slightest, but he had inwardly wanted to compose himself a bit (ever unwilling to admit how upset he had been). How unlike Hagrid not to notice...unless, it had happened while he was tromping the Forbidden Forest, at night. Snape let the ghost of a wolfish smile grace his thin lips - students would have run from this display of teeth. It's time I talked to some Slytherins... And with another crack of his robes, he was striding off towards the Great Hall. Yes, indeed, he would be missing breakfast today. Mirthlessly, he smiled - let them wonder. And for the life of him, he couldn't have said whether he meant the teachers or the students.