Day 2

The next day, Draco woke up and went through his usual routine: he dragged himself out of bed, took a long shower, got dressed, woke Crabbe and Goyle, and went to breakfast. He had almost completely forgotten about yesterday's incident until the entire school quieted when he walked into the Great Hall.

~Sheesh, are the rumors that bad?~ he asked himself as he sat down at breakfast. Across from him, Pansy gasped. Draco gave her a questioning look.

"You look HORRIBLE!" she said loudly, pulling a small mirror out of her purse. Draco took it and looked at his reflection. He dropped the mirror as he caught sight of his neck. The skin was eight shades of purple almost three quarters of the way around; with several spots so dark they were almost black. His bloody school shirt did little to mask the horrid colors as his towel had when he was fixing his hair earlier that morning.

"Jumping jigging jellyfish," he croaked out, so quiet that he could barely hear himself. His throat hurt twice as bad this morning as it had the day before.

~Damn, but I bruise easily! I hate that! I look HORRID! I should just go back to bed and not let anyone see me until it has healed,~ Draco thought to himself. ~Or wear my scarf all day long, but that could get hot.~

Draco picked the mirror back up and began examining his throat. He barely noticed the predictable late entrance of Harry, and the shocked look he gave Draco when he spotted the bruises. When Crabbe and Goyle joined Draco and Pansy at the Slytherin table, they were almost as shocked to see the colors of Draco's neck.

"That looks like it hurts," Crabbe said.

"A lot," Goyle added. Draco nodded and handed Pansy back her mirror.

"Maybe you should go see Madame Pomfrey again, Draco," Pansy said as she took her mirror. Draco shook his head.

"What good will she do?" he asked quietly. Pansy gasped again.

"You sound worse than yesterday! What if he did irreparable damage? That would be horrid! Oh dear!"

Draco sighed and began picking at the food that had appeared on the table. Shortly, the owl post arrived again. This time, seven owls landed in front of him, offering legs to have notes removed from. Draco untied them all and read one of them silently, sighed, then handed it to Pansy.

"'Drakkie-Poo-Poo,'" Pansy began. "Cute. Can I call you that?"

Draco gave her a death glare.

          "Fine, spoilsport, 'Drakkie-Poo-Poo, I heard about your horrible run in with that evil Ron Weasley yesterday, and I wanted to say I hope you feel better! You cannot possibly ever get permanently hurt! I would be so devastated! I would cry for days, then miss classes, flunk out of school, go have to see a psychiatrist for the rest of my life, and eventually die a horrible death! I love you so much, it would be the only solution for such a horrible series of events. If you need help raising money for an operation of any kind, we members of you fan club would donate money! We adore you Draco, but me most of all! Sincerely, Fiona O'Brian, Fan Club founding member.' Draco, that is RICH!"

Draco sighed, opened another letter and read it. Then did the same for all the rest of the letters in the pile. They were all rather similar, hoping he would get better soon, saying that they absolutely adored him, and either wanted his children or wanted to marry him. It was rather sickening. He sighed and stuffed them all into his book bag.

"Are they all like that, Boss?" Goyle asked. Draco nodded, then put his hand to his throat. That hurt too! Everything hurt with this damned injury. Goyle sensed something was wrong. "Should I go get Madame Pomfrey, Boss?" he asked. Draco started to shake his head, but Pansy interrupted.

"Of course you should! What if he's hemorrhaging? He could be dying with that amount of bruising and no one would know until he was dead! Go get her, hurry!"

Goyle jumped up from his seat and literally ran over to the staff table where Madame Pomfrey was eating breakfast. He spoke quickly to her, and she sighed before dragging herself to her feet and following him over to the Slytherin table.

"Mr. Goyle, I told him that he would have rather extensive bruises for sev…er..al… days…" When she caught sight of the bruises around Draco's neck, her entire demeanor changed. "Oh dear!" she exclaimed. "Those are much worse than I had anticipated. Up to the hospital wing, immediately!" she commanded. Crabbe and Goyle dragged Draco to his feet, and helped him to the hospital wing. Draco just sighed.

~This is just plain stupid. You can't die from bruising. Bloody overreacting,~ he thought. ~It was funny earlier, but now it's just pathetic.~

Madame Pomfrey poked, prodded, inspected, made notes, and asked Draco questions until he was about ready to kill someone. She asked him for the hundredth time to describe the symptoms, the pain, and everything else she could think of. Draco had answered her the first time, barely able to get that much of a response out, and then just kept giving her the Malfoy Glare™ whenever she asked again. Finally, she bustled off to check some of her reference books. He sat there for quite a while before she returned, telling him that his injuries were not life threatening, but he would need plenty of rest to not wind up with serious consequences. Draco sighed as she went through the list of what to and not to do as he was recovering, and when she finally dismissed him, he thankfully left rather quickly.

He had already missed his first class – Divination – and were halfway through his second of the day – History of Magic – which he had no desire to walk into late, so he went back to his common room to sit for a while before Care of Magical Creatures, which he had even less of a desire to attend; he didn't feel like sitting around all day, though, so when the time arrived, he went to the class.

When he got to Care of Magical Creatures, Draco stood at the back of the group as Hagrid introduced the newest breed of dangerous animals they were going to be studying. Today it seemed to be a most charming critter: Cavernauls. Cavernauls were small balls of fluff that resembled rabbits with very large pointed teeth. Apparently, if you managed to make friends with one – meaning you managed to keep it from eating any part of you in a fifteen-minute period – it would grant you the answer to any question you asked. Draco looked overjoyed as Hagrid handed him a rather large white Cavernaul. With a sigh, Draco put the thing on the ground and sat down next to it. The thing immediately began looking for something on which it could chew. Deciding to try and prevent another trip to Madame Pomfrey's today, Draco offered it some grass, which it quickly ate up, then began nuzzling his hand for more. He found more grass, and as he was feeding it, looked around at the other students. He was apparently having much more luck than the rest of them. Goyle's Cavernaul – an ugly gray thing – was chewing on his ear, Blaise's had been eating large chunks off of his pants, one of the Gryffindor's was chasing her around the field, and the mudblood's was eyeing her book bag with a hungry gleam to it's blue eyes. Only Har-POTTER's was behaving as well as Draco's.

~Well isn't that just so Potter. Can't let anyone else be good at something. Always has to be him.~ Draco sighed and fed more grass and a few thistles to his Cavernaul. It took to the thistles most greedily, so Draco picked it up and went off in search of more. He set it down in a big patch of them and began feeding it again. Then, for a lack of anything better to do, he began talking to it.

"I doubt you can understand me," he told it in a raspy voice, "but my name's Draco. I don't know your name. I don't know that you have one, actually. So, since I don't know if you have a name, I think I'll call you Angie, short for Angelina, of course. Angelina was my grandma's name. Grandma Angie was my mother's mother. She was one of the few people who I really thought liked me as a little kid. She spoiled me rotten, but she liked me. I was really sad when she died. More so than I was when any of my Malfoy grandparents died. They hated me. Only saw me as an heir to their name. Pompous asses. I doubt you care, though, so I'll spare you and talk of something else. Do you have many friends as a Cavernaul? I doubt. It doesn't seem that many critters would like rather carnivorous bunnies. I like you, but I am known for having weird tastes. That's why I don't have many friends either. I don't think anyone should be without friends, but I suppose everyone has to have someone to hate, and that just usually winds up being us, eh Angie? Maybe Hagrid would let me keep you. I rather like you. You're nice and quite and I bet you'd eat anything I wouldn't at dinner."

He sighed as his throat began killing him. He was so sick of not talking that he had tried as hard as he could to keep talking, if only to get it out of his system. Alas, his voice would have no more of it. Since he could no longer talk to it, he kept feeding Angie instead. Angie seemed to care less if he was talking to it or not, as long as he kept feeding it. Just as Draco was about to try and start talking with it again, it stopped eating and looked up at him.

"You have made me happy. I am now your friend," it said in a strange voice. Draco's eyes almost fell out of his head. "You may ask me any question you want and I will answer it. You are only permitted to ask one question, however, so be warned."

Draco looked at it for a minute.

"Um…to tell the truth I really didn't listen that well to Hagrid when he was talking to us. So, I have no idea what I want to ask."

"I will wait for five minutes."

Draco quickly racked his brain, trying to find a question to ask. Several rather obvious questions flitted through his head: was Voldemort going to beat Harry in the end? Was he subscribing to the right side? Was his father going to die in Azkaban and finally leave him alone? Was he ever going to get up the balls to ask the man of his dreams out? Did Harry like him as much as he liked Harry? Finally he settled on a rather vague one, but one that had been nagging at the back of his head since he had decided that Death Eater-ism was not for him.

"Hey, Angie," he said. The Cavernaul looked up at him. "Is there a happy ending for me? I mean, I'm halfway between being killed by the Light Side because I might wind up a Death Eater, and being killed by the Dark Side because I will probably wind up a spy for the Light Side. Do I get a happy ending or does it all go to hell for me?"

The Cavernaul looked like it was almost smiling, in a very strange rabbit-y way. "There is a happy ending," it said. "I will not reveal all, for you did not ask for all, but you do have a happy ending after all of this is over, with a kind man who was practically made for you."

"I don't suppose you could tell me who he is," Draco said wincing as his throat began to hurt a great deal.

The Cavernaul really did smile this time.

"I break the rules by telling you this, but I like you a good deal. The man you wind up with is none other than…"

((A/N: Aw, I really aint THAT mean. None of you have read Juliet and Romeo have you?))

"…than Harry Potter."

"WHAT!?" Draco yelled, his voice breaking under the strain put on his damaged vocal chords. The entire class immediately looked over at him, worried, although only half of them were worried for Draco's health. Draco looked as if he had been hit with a 2x4. "Are you serious?" he croaked as Pansy, Goyle and Crabbe ran over. The Cavernaul nodded. Draco looked as if he was about to die, fall over, or sing to the sky in pure joy. He quickly concealed this as his three friends made their way over to him.

"Draco! Are you alright?" Pansy asked. "Did the evil Cavernaul tell you something horrible? Why were you talking to it? Don't you know you're sick?! You should be resting! Oh Draco, do try an be nice to yourself occasionally!"

Draco waved and shut Pansy up.

"It's nothing. I just…found out something strange," he croaked again, sending Pansy into a tizzy.

"Draco! You are going to kill yourself. You should know better than talking and then screaming! Of all the things to do!"

Draco sighed and turned back to the Cavernaul.

"Thanks for the info I guess. You're always welcome to come find me if you want free eats. Maybe Hagrid will let me adopt you after the classes are done with you guys."

The Cavernaul nodded, then Draco picked it up and started walking it over to Hagrid. Crabbe and Goyle were immediately protesting, saying that he shouldn't be doing anything strenuous with his injury and all. As Crabbe tried to take Angie away and Goyle insisted that Draco go right back to the Slytherin dorms and back to bed, something inside of Draco snapped.

"Merlin! Shut up already!" He croaked out again. His voice felt tight and painful, and he knew he wasn't going to be able to speak for a while after this. "I can handle myself! I don't need you two as babysitters! I know that I'm bloody hurt, but I'm not bloody dying! I'll fucking live! Give me a break and save your pity and worry for someone who needs it, you bloody p-" his voice finally gave out under the constant stress and disappeared entirely as he was finishing his rant. He tried to say something else, but no words would come. With one last famous Malfoy Glare™ aimed at his two cronies, he handed his Cavernaul back to Hagrid and took off for the castle without a backward glance.

Well, that's chapter 2! How'd you like it? Can you tell there's really no plot? ^_^ Well, there isn't. I hope to have the next one out soon. Please R&R! I'll write faster if you do. I'm in college now so I have lots of time. Ok, thank yous to the following people, who also get chocolate chip cookies with scenes from JxR (the naughty ones) on them! Yay to them!

Offchops: Thanks! I hope it doesn't wind up with lots of plot holes. I don't really know what I'm doing. But here's to hoping it winds up interesting, if nothing else!

Jaina2: Thanks! Here's your more! I hope you enjoy!

Well, that's everyone, sadly enough. Super Kudos to these two people for reviewing! I love you! ^_^ See yall next chapter! PLEASE R&R! I WILL GIVE MORE DESSERTS NEXT TIME!

Ciao!

~Vividian