Ravyn: This is Thalia's and my attempt to take over the world by sheer profusion of ebil plotting - including snarkiness, Slytherins, and other such good things. Enjoy!

Thalia: Yes. This will have some very odd pairings. But it promises to be highly interesting nonetheless. And if anyone can make it work, it's us ;) There shall be lots of snark, of course… and lots of fun stuff as well! Review and reassure us that you love us! ::bats eyelashes::

Disclaimer: Do you think we own Harry Potter? Yes? Okay. If you do, I won't do anything to dispel the delusion ;) ::cackles and takes advantage of::

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.

~*Demented Detention*~

Gryffindors, he decided for not the first time, were the bane of the universe.

Nevermind that the rest of the bloody school thought the precise opposite.

Damn Wood. Damn Potter. Damn Malfoy and his bone-headed scheme with the damn Dementors.

Damn McGonagall for taking FIFTY BLOODY POINTS... it wasn't even as if Potter had been injured... and then... and then, besides the half angry, half smug Gryffindorks... there was Percy Weasel.

Weasel the Insufferable Head Boy from Hell.

Bloody smirking and shaking his head like some sententious bastard who...

Marcus Flint wanted to bash the prat's teeth in, just thinking about it. Damn Percy Weasley too... and damn his smug Head Boy holier-than-thou attitude. Damn the badge.

Damn the Gryffindorks and their perfect little lives.

With these happy thoughts in mind, he stalked out of the Slytherin Common Room, scowling blackly. He had a detention to go to.

~*~

If in a single, spiteful glare there were the power to clean a room, the Hogwarts entrance hall would have been cleaner than it ever had been in all that bloody book Granger was always going on about. As there wasn't, Draco was still faced with the keenly unpleasant task of cleaning it himself.

Without magic.

With… whatever the hell the strange red plastic brush he'd been given was. Bloody Muggles and their insane… teethbrush things.

Crabbe had already set about polishing the banisters, carefully enough that Filch would find it satisfactory, but in enough time that the staircase would not decide to move and leave the Slytherin hanging. Goyle, meanwhile, had begun dusting the picture frames and was being squawked at by a particularly sour portrait of an old witch who glared down at him between sneezes.

Flint looked most unhappy, already on his knees and scrubbing angrily at the filthy hall floor. He and Draco had unquestionably been given the hardest task (Draco would have thought that, with mouths like Granger's, Muggles could afford to make these brushes a bit bigger), but then again, considering that their accomplices could easily have been mistaken for mountain trolls, it was quite obvious why he and Flint had been deemed the ringleaders – and therefore received harsher punishments.

It was also quite obvious that, were it not for these two mountain trolls, Flint may well have murdered him where he stood.

Yes, this detention, coupled with Gryffindor's victory (despite their efforts to change this), definitely had not made Flint a happy Slytherin.

So, with Flint's relative mood in mind, Draco got down on his knees and began to clean – or at least made some semblance of it. In all honesty, not only did he despise such menial labor, but, with so many servants to scrub the floors of Malfoy Manor (and house elves to clean the floors for their servants), Draco wasn't used to this sort of thing. He gazed at the bucket of soapy water suspiciously, as if even the soap were not clean enough for him, and then tentatively plunged his toothbrush into the bubbling liquid.

Stupid Filch. Stupid McGonagall. Stupid, bloody Potter. This was all his fault. He should be here scrubbing floors, not Draco. And on top of it all, his brush was red. Gryffindor red, he thought, glaring down at it. The red of Potter's Quidditch robes. The red of Weasel's hair. The red the little Weasel's cheeks whenever he teased her about Potter…

A flash of the same red, and he saw another Weasel coming down the stairs. (Merlin, they were everywhere. A bloody plague, that family.) But it wasn't one of Potter's pets; it was – whatever the hell his name was. The smart ass one who'd sucked up to Dumbledore enough to be made Head Boy.

Insufferable git.

That seemed to be about what Flint was thinking; he admittedly wasn't fond of the Gryffindors, but Draco had never seen him glare with quite so much loathing – except perhaps at Wood.

"Good evening, Flint. How do you do?"

If, by any sort of miracle, Weasley had been expecting a civilized greeting in return, he was sorely disappointed.

"Really, Flint, there's no need to be angry at me just because you got yourself a detention. You got off easy, if you ask me. Were I Professor McGonagall, I would have given you a much harsher punishment for something as foolish as what you did. Harry could have been seriously hurt –"

"Weasley, if I'd wanted your pompous, self-righteous opinion, I'd have asked for it."

"That's understandable – for someone with all the wit and intelligence of a Wit-Sharpening Potion to which someone's forgotten to add the scarab beetle."

"Are you finished, Weasley, or did Clearwater finally notice what a prat you are and now you have nothing better to do than stand over me and gloat?"

Interesting, Draco thought. He'd never noticed just how much the two seventh years seemed to hate each other. Obviously, there was quite a house rivalry between most of the Slytherin and Gryffindorks, but, well, this was just…

…Amusing as hell.

"Actually, I have got some business to attend to. I've got to see Penny about that ten Galleons. See, we had a little bet going on the match this afternoon, and since your pathetic attempt at sabotage failed, I won."

"Ten Galleons, Weasley? Merlin, what would you have done if you lost? Your entire family isn't worth a whole ten Galleons."

Yes, there was definitely something going on here, Draco thought, the detention and dirty floors by now completely forgotten. Either their sore house rivalry had been nursed so intensely for six long years that they were no longer capable of looking at each other with anything less than loathing…

…Or they were shagging each other rotten.

At that most… unpleasant and disgusting mental image, Draco was sorely tempted to vomit… until he realized that it would mean him, cleaning the mess up himself. On his knees. With the bloody tooth brush thing.

"Are you really so stupid that you can't tell I'm busy here?" Flint was snarling at Percy Weasley, evidently too tired to come up with suitable comebacks. "Sod off, you redheaded loser!"

Weasley gave him a complacent, condescending sort of look. Yes. A look of condescension. From a Weasel. And then he spoke, wrinkling his nose in a manner that would have done Draco's own father proud. Well, had his father recovered from the apoplectic shock of seeing his favourite sneer being borrowed (without express written permission) by one of that family.

"No, Flint. I'm not the loser. You are. In every sense of the word. Tell me… besides Quidditch, which you really aren't even that good at unless you cheat… what area aren't I better than you in?"

With that last parting shot, Percy Weasley, Head Boy badge glittering in a manner most offensive to the Slytherins' eyes, stalked off, his head held high.

Draco chanced a look at his Quidditch captain's face… and almost flinched.

They'd always thought that Percy Weasel was too wussy to be in Gryffindor… but to incite that look… yes, he was one of the brave and stupid all right.

Whatever heinousness Flint had in mind, though… remained to be seen.

It would be a very good show. He was sure of it.

Well, assuming he survived this degrading, bloody detention…

~*~