A/N: Hey all, it's Ravyn, the "Prom Queen" Sobette, or so I hear. :-D Anyways, I didn't mean for this story to be so Draco-centric, but this chapter, at least, has turned out that way. I guess I just can't help myself… But I promise that I've got special SOB/cheerchic moments planned for each of my girls in subsequent chapters. Oh yeah, and I don't really think that Graham Pritchard's parents are Death Eaters, I just needed a young Slytherin scapegoat, without having to be bothered to make one up, and he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time…

Disclaimer: Let's see… Ravyn is mine. The other cheerchics are theirs. Everything else belongs to JK Rowling and the large corporations that control this kind of thing. But I'm borrowing Draco and the other Sex-gods on Broomsticks, and there's no safe guarantee that they will be returned in proper condition once their respective cheerchics have gotten a hold of them. *Grins evilly*

~ Chapter 1: Marshmallow Mayhem ~

Malfoy Manor was beautiful during the holidays. The ceilings were alive with enchanted lights that twinkled like tiny stars; the dining table and chairs had been charmed to look like gracefully sculpted ice; live pine garlands hung everywhere, filling the air with their fresh scent; and a statue in the entrance hall had made a custom of saying, "Happy Christmas!" to any who passed by – that is, until it had disturbed Lucius Malfoy, who, in a particularly foul mood, had cursed it until all it could manage was a feeble, "Hamphy Rithmath…"

Yes, the Manor was lovely around Christmas time. More importantly, it was also empty.

Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy were visiting Narcissa's family in the French countryside for the holidays, leaving the Manor in the hands of the many house elves and various other servants. The obvious options for their son, Draco, were to either stay at school or endure two weeks of his Great Aunt Mildred pinching his cheeks and telling him how cute he was. (It was, of course, the pinching that really irked him. He never tired of hearing how cute he was, even if his Great Aunt Mildred wasn't quite the person he'd like to hear it from.)

But of course, Draco wasn't about to opt for something obvious. He was a Malfoy, after all. He'd made his own plans for the holidays, and they were just about to be set in order…

Ravyn came down the stairs at her usual late hour, absently brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. In her other hand was the note he'd left on her door, which her eyes scanned briefly before meeting his. She flashed him a small smirk, and he grinned back, delighted with the mischievous sparkle in her eyes.

Yes, the Manor was lovely around Christmas time. And now it promised to be infinitely more fun, since he was going to be there alone with…

"Everybody! Oy, attention all Slytherins! Party at Malfoy Manor!"

Draco winced, his eyes snapping to the culprit: Graham Pritchard. The throng of Slytherins littered about the common room murmured excitedly at the announcement. In fact, Draco himself hadn't heard this news before. He had to shove through a group of third year girls to get at his unbidden announcer, who in this company looked quite happy with himself. That changed very quickly when Draco reached him.

"Yeah, and his parents won't even be home," Graham was saying excitedly, "so – we – can - " The younger Slytherin suddenly looked Petrified under Malfoy's malevolent gaze. The girls didn't look fazed by the older Slytherin's glare; in fact, several of them were giggling and one girl had to be propped up by her companions.

For once, Draco didn't notice the attention. "If you'll excuse us…" he said shortly before taking Graham by the collar and dragging him from the room.

"Oof!" Graham grunted as he was shoved up against the cold stone wall of the Slytherin dungeon. He didn't get a chance to say much else.

"What exactly do you think you're doing, Pritchard?" Draco demanded scathingly. "Did I tell you to invite the entire Slytherin House to Malfoy Manor, or did you get the impression that that responsibility somehow lies with you a different way? Perhaps it was my father who was so keen on this idea? No, more likely I think he doesn't know about this. Well, perhaps he would be interested to know that you've been so kind as to arrange this for us."

Graham looked terrified, but he hadn't been Sorted into Slytherin for nothing, and he managed to keep his head. "Go ahead, Malfoy," he replied. "It's your father, your house… which one of us do you think he'll blame first?"

"Which one of us is his only son and heir?" Draco shot back. Graham's last front of confidence shattered, and he cowered against the wall, unable to break away from the older Slytherin's grip. "What made you think you'd ever get away with something like this, anyway?"

"Well, I mean, everyone knows the Manor's going to be empty, and it just seemed like – eep, I mean, why don't you? How bad could it be? Everyone will love it, especially your cheering fangirl in there – ack!"

Graham squawked every time Draco adjusted his grip; of course, Draco was making no effort to be gentle about it. "That's what this is about, isn't it?" he hissed. "All right, which girl were you trying to impress this time?"

"Cai Lan," he squeaked.

"The fourth year? Are all the girls your age tired of you already?"

Ignoring the comment, Pritchard continued, "I couldn't tell her it was at my house. You know - " his voice was surprisingly conspicuous, even though he whispered the last words hoarsely " – you know that there's a Death Eater summit there."

Draco let go, and the boy dropped to his feet. He had known about the meeting at the Pritchard Mansion, of course, though he frankly wanted no part of it. The Malfoy's excursion to the French countryside was only a half-truth; while they would be visiting family there, his father would be attending the meeting of Voldemort's followers first. A waste of time, in Draco's opinion. How could one amuse one's self by mocking the Muggleborns if one was too busy trying to torture them? Of course, he didn't dare mention this to Lucius; he was fond of his inheritance, and was in no hurry to lose it.

Even if Graham did consider the fact that his parents were newly allotted Death Eaters a point of bonding between the two and had been annoying Draco to no end since their initiation.

Graham was free, but didn't dare move. Draco took a moment to enjoy the power he had over small children (And people had the gall to tell him he wasn't grateful for the little things in life…) before speaking once again. "There is not going to be a party at Malfoy Manor," he said with finality. "Everyone had better know that by dinner."

With that, he turned on his heel and stalked back into the common room, leaving the boy alone in the dark dungeon hall, sneering at his retreating back.

"Oh, don't worry, Malfoy. Everyone will know."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"So, Draco," Pansy Parkinson purred into his ear as she took a seat next to him at the Slytherin table. The roar of the Great Hall at breakfast that morning was not enough to drown her out when she insisted on pressing that close to him. "Why haven't I heard about this little party of yours before?"

"Because I'm not having a party," he said shortly, and turned his focus back to his cereal.

"That's a shame," she pouted. It might have almost been attractive if she hadn't spent the last ten years of her life attempting to persuade him with that look. Malfoys were not easily influenced, and it took much more – persuasive tactics to accomplish it.  Besides, any one of the Quidditch team's "cheerchics," as they'd been called since their first public appearance at their match against Hufflepuff, could have pulled of the expression better than Pansy.

"No," he told her, "it really isn't."

"Awe, Draco - "

"Look, Pansy, I have better things to do with my time than clean up after an entire House full of the likes of you traipsing about Malfoy Manor as if you own the place."

"Yes, that's Draco's job," Ravyn remarked from a few seats down the table. "He doesn't like it when people try to do it better than he does." Persephone giggled in the seat next to her, and they both cast sharp wry glances in his direction.

Draco glowered, hunkered down over his bowl, and said quite tersely, "Shut up." Pansy scoffed, leaving the table with a glare, and from the corner of his eye, he could see Ravyn smiling smugly. He met her eyes, adding brazenly, "I meant both of you."

In a flash, Ravyn's face went from bright to stormy. Her hands smacked down on the table, catching the attention of all of her friends. Most of them looked concerned, but a few had knowing grins. Draco had just made a mistake, and they knew it.

He was about to find that out, as well.

Ravyn rose slowly, ominously, and paced down the table. The boys across from Draco parted quickly to make room for her, not daring to be in her way just now. She leaned forward, her eyes glinting dangerously, and she said in a slow, harsh whisper, "What did you say?"

"I know you think it's funny, de Borgia."

 "Yes, Malfoy," and he nearly winced to hear his name spoken with such spite, "I do. It's not every day the Great Malfoy Ego gets crushed like this, is it? Personally, I find it hilarious. And just because you can't fix the problem some little prat, who's not only younger than you but half your size, brought about for you, that doesn't give you the right to take it out on me."

She pushed back from the table, turning haughtily on her heel and not stopping until she'd reached the doors of the Great Hall. Angry as she was, she no doubt reveled in the looks from both the Slytherin and Ravenclaw tables.

"Oh, and Draco," she added. By now, even Ron Weasley had looked up from across the busy hall upon hearing Draco's name called out so spitefully. "The only people who eat cereal with little rainbow-colored marshmallows in it are children or people with the intelligence of the blasting end of a Blast-Ended Skrewt. Which are you?"

Draco heaved a sigh as the door slammed shut behind her, letting his spoonful of cereal dribble back into his bowl. After that little display, he'd suddenly lost his appetite.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It seemed like days before Draco was able to return to the Slytherin common room in peace. His classes had dragged on interminably. Ravyn wouldn't even look at him, not to mention speak to him; he knew she was hardly as angry as she made it seem, but if she could get attention from the incident, she would. By association none of her friends would speak to him, either, and consequently his own Quidditch teammates were scared to talk to him, as if by doing so they would incur the wrath of the cheerchics upon themselves. For once, not even Pansy was there for him to talk to. That left Crabbe and Goyle, who were frankly not the best of conversationalists. They weren't even good enough to be bad conversationalists.

"No, they don't," Crabbe was saying as they descended the stairs into the dimly lit halls of the dungeons.

"Yes, they do," Goyle replied, rounding the first corner. In front of the pair, Draco rolled his eyes. Their latest debate was whether or not they made cauldron cakes in actual cauldrons. If past experiences could be trusted, this could go on for quite a while before they got bored of this train of thought. Or forgot what they were arguing about.

"Yes, they do."

"No, they don't."

"Serpent's tongue," Draco muttered upon reaching the common room door, though he would have dearly loved to be muttering a curse at the pair of them instead.

"Yes, they - "

Goyle's comment was cut off as the door to the common room slammed shut behind Draco. This would buy him a moment's peace, at least, until someone let them in, or, between the two of them, they miraculously managed to come up with the password.

The common room was buzzing with eager conversations of plans for the coming break. He heard the words "party" and "Malfoy" several times, but refrained from any violent reactions. He had bigger concerns just now.

The first of Ravyn's friends that caught his eye was Fallon Anderson, curled up in a chair before the fire, quill in hand, and scribbling madly away on her parchment. He'd taken no more than two steps in her direction when she stopped, raised her head, and glared at him. If Malfoys shuddered, he would have done so under the scorn in her dark eyes, but as it was, he simply rethought his decision and moved on.

Next he noticed Xanne Malloy and Persephone Vafer huddled over a chessboard in the opposite corner. Morrigun Lennox was hidden behind her sketchbook nearby, her brow creased in concentration. And there, on the couch next to her, Ravyn herself was talking to Akasha Noctifer. The two giggled delightedly, though he only heard the word "Riddle" in their conversation and wondered briefly what they found so amusing. He didn't have much time to think about it, though, because their delighted expressions soon turned dark as he approached. Ravyn spoke quietly to Akasha, who nodded in understanding as the other girl got up, moving quickly up the stairs to the girls' dorms. Akasha's eyes fluttered briefly to Draco before she picked up the knitting that had been discarded on the couch next to her. It was forced, as if she almost wanted to look up, to say something to him…

He took a seat next to her, knowing that of all the cheerchics, she was the most sympathetic. Or if nothing else, she was the least likely to try and hex him. Most everyone was comfortable coming to Akasha with their problems. And he was right; he was just about to speak when she beat him to it.

"Apologize," she said abruptly, her fingers deftly working the Slytherin green yarn.

"What?"

"Apologize to her," she said, leaving off her work and meeting his eyes. "That's all she wants. She knows you didn't mean it. But she wants to hear it from you."

"It's hardly too much to ask," Persephone said from the table nearby, where she had just taken one of Xanne's pieces with a faint smile.

"Even for you, Malfoy," Xanne commented wryly.

He sighed, muttered a less-than-heartfelt thanks, and moved down the couch.

"Apologize," Morrigun reiterated shortly, not even giving him a chance to sit down or bothering to look up from her art to see the blonde-haired boy gape momentarily before holding his tongue.

With minimal grumbling, Draco headed up the stairs to the girls' dormitories, the words "my father" surprisingly enough never once passing his lips.

Several pairs of Slytherin eyes watched him go. When he'd disappeared around a bend in the stairs, his teammates rose cautiously.

"They'll be making up, I suppose," Chaser Adrian Pucey remarked.

"Heh, knowing Draco, they'll only be making up for five minutes. The rest of the time he'll actually have to talk to her."

Marcus Flint, smirking at Cassius Warrington's comment, did not reply, instead saying, "I guess this means the girls will be in less of a smiting mood."

Warrington snorted loudly, causing Fallon to glance up at him from over the edge of her parchment. "Maybe some of them will."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Draco knocked on the door that he knew to be the room Ravyn shared with several of her friends. He wasn't expecting a warm welcome, by any means, but he was a bit surprised to hear a callous, "Sod off, Malfoy."

He took a deep breath. So that's how it was going to be… "Alohomora," he muttered with a flick of his wand.

There was a derisive laugh from inside the room. "Did you honestly think we'd be that stupid? Even first years know that spell. It's going to be a bit harder to get in here than that."

Silence ensued for the moment, but for her quill on parchment within. A group of fourth years on their way to their room were surprised to find Draco, arms crossed over his chest, leaning against the door. They gave him quizzical looks, but he did nothing more than raise an eyebrow in return. For Draco's part, he was just beginning to feel a bit like Crabbe and Goyle trying to get in the common room when an idea struck him.

"Evening, Pansy," he said to the wall. It didn't seem to matter that the Slytherin girl wasn't really there, because inside, the scratch of Ravyn's quill stopped suddenly. He waited for a moment, as if he were really hearing something in return. "Eh, why not? I could use a good snog, and I'm obviously not getting anywhere here…"

He hadn't even finished the sentence when Ravyn stood up so fast that her chair fell back and clattered on the stone floor. Her angry footsteps drew closer and closer, and then…

"Nice bloody try, Malfoy."

Damn. Well, it had almost worked. He really only had one good idea left, but he was hesitant to try it. Being a student, he wasn't technically old enough to Apparate, at least not by Ministry standards. But, being a Malfoy, his mother had taught him how to do it ages ago when he'd asked her. He'd heard some pretty grotesque stories of people who thought it wouldn't hurt to Apparate onto the Hogwarts grounds, but since he wouldn't be crossing any of the wards…

He felt the familiar tug starting in his stomach and the feeling of sliding through blackness. When he felt still once more, he opened his eyes cautiously. A self-satisfied smirk crept over his face when he found that he'd ended up just where he'd planned: in front of the full-length mirror in the dorm room. After a quick check – Yep, still gorgeous – he turned to see Ravyn flopped on one of the five green, four-post beds, eyes wide with horror.

"How did –? You can –? Draco, that's dangerous! Not to mention illegal, and –"

"I don't recall you ever objecting to doing anything illegal before," he commented dryly.

This only daunted her for an instant, and then she said curtly, "Just say what you came to say and get out."

"I - " He paused for a moment, mulling over the words in his head. "I've never said this to anyone before," he told her earnestly.

Her eyebrow arched slightly, but otherwise her expression was bland as she watched him with venomous green eyes.

"I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?" She sounded angry, and he was expecting another outburst from her, but she only shook her head, laughing to herself. "That's the thing you've never said to anyone? I was expecting some deep, dark secret or – You're not kidding, are you? You never have said that to anyone before…"

He shook his head slowly, and she laughed aloud now, coming over to throw her arms around his neck. "Well, you did very well for your first time," and she kissed his pale cheek.

"I'm a fast learner." She had begun to pull away, but he caught her about the waist, gathering her lips up in his own.

"I'm sorry, too," she told him when in the next few moments he'd pulled her back on her bed. "I shouldn't have made fun of your cereal. If you like the little marshmallows, that's fine with me."

He grinned, but any comments he would have had about it were cut off by a loud knock on the door. "Oy! Are you done in there yet?" Malice called from outside the door. "I only need my Charms book, and they've already made me wait five minutes down in the common room."

Ravyn smiled lightly, planted a kiss on Draco's forehead, and rose to take her ward off the door for her friend.