After her first week of Potions classes, Draia understood why she needed tutoring. She was more than a bit behind the rest of the students in her knowledge of the subject, and even the whispered help of her partner, Maggie, couldn't enable her to create a potion correctly. By her third and final class of the week, Professor Malfoy was so frustrated with her that he actually took five points from Slytherin and gave her a detention. Then again, she did make her cauldron spit out some substance that ate a hole through Harriet Malfoy's robe.

In retrospect, Draia reasoned, she probably would have gotten off free were it not for the fact that she burst into uncontrollable laughter upon seeing the hole exposing the other girl's shoulder.

Come Saturday night, she was very annoyed at the thought of wasting her evening in the Potions lab. As she walked towards the door of the common room, Thomas Flint ran up to her.

"Hey Potter!"

"What do you want, Flint?"

"After your lesson, will you meet up with me in the boys' dorm?"

Draia frowned, "Won't I get in trouble?"

He shook his head. "I'm a Prefect. You'll have no trouble."

"Alright, fine. I'll see you after my torture session."

"Thanks!" he responded cheerfully, and walked back to the couch.

Now what's all that about? Draia wondered as she made her way to the Potions lab. She shrugged mentally, and made a note in the back of her head to think about it later. Right now, she had the present to deal with.

Inside the lab, Harriet was at the demonstration table, bent over a cauldron. She didn't notice Draia's arrival, and the Slytherin had to clear her throat to catch the other girl's attention.

"You're late," announced Harriet in an irritated tone, as she measured out powdered something-or-other for her concoction.

"Sorry," replied Draia, shrugging, as she made her way to the front of the room. "One of my housemates stopped me on the way over."

"Yes, well, perhaps if you spent less time socializing and more on your studies, we wouldn't have this inconvenient arrangement in the first place."

Draia sneered at Harriet's hunched over form as she made her way to the cupboard to retrieve her own cauldron. "I've been here for, what, a week? Who are you to make pronouncements about my social life? You don't even know me."

"For which I'm very thankful. Now, if you'd open up your textbook to page seventy, we can try to make this as brief as is humanly possible." As she spoke, Harriet pushed her own cauldron to the side so Draia could place hers on the table. Instead of grabbing a chair from behind one of the students' desks, Draia transfigured her book bag into a slightly wobbly three legged stool.

"Show off," muttered Harriet. "Now, according to Pa- I mean, Professor Malfoy, your main trouble has been with paying attention to directions. The entirety of the directions. He says you dumped all of your ingredients into the cauldron at once."

"Well, I don't see why it makes any difference- it all ends up having all the same things, anyway..."

Harriet cast a disgusted glance at Draia. "If you mix powdered unicorn's horn with phoenix tears, then add a dash of powdered moonstone, you have a powerful healing draught. Mix the horn and moonstone, then add the phoenix tears, and you have an explosion of fantastic proportions. There is quite a difference."

"Well, pardon me for not caring..." grumbled Draia, idly thumbing through her potions text.

"You may want to keep in mind that I'm a prefect and am perfectly capable and entirely willing to take points from Slytherin," retorted Harriet. As the other girl opened her mouth to respond, Harriet continued, "And I'm sure your father would be interested to learn about your smoking habit."

Draia's mouth closed quite firmly.

"Let's try this again, now that I have your attention. Open your text to page seventy..."

------

Because Millicent was out of town, Hermione found herself with little to do on Saturday evening. Deciding it was important to do a little post-fifteen-year-disappearance friendship mending, she invited herself to Harry's rooms at Hogwarts. After admonishing him for having intended to spend his night reading adventure novels in his bathrobe, they talked for hours. Hermione was careful to avoid any topics relevant to Harry's life prior his departure, and Harry certainly didn't tread near the subject. Until...

"So, why did you marry Ginny Weasley?"

"Hermione, I don't want to-"

"I don't care. Everyone else may have believed your 'Oh, we're so in love' ruse, but I knew she got over you fourth year, and was certainly no wilting flower to love you while you chased after men. So what's the reason?"

Harry sighed as Hermione curled herself into the corner of his couch, as if awaiting a long story. "Luna," he answered,.

With a frown, Hermione asked, "What do you mean, 'Luna'? That's not an answer. What does Luna have to do with anything?"

"They were together. It was a marriage of convenience. Sort of so we could have kids, and keep a good public image. Ginny thought that Luna was charming, in a crazy kind of way, and Luna saw Ginny as the next best thing to Ron, since you had him. It was actually supposed to be a good surprise for Draco, not a bad one- Ginny wanted me and him to be in charge of whatever children she had." Harry paused, and took a sip from the glass of Firewhiskey and Coke (quite the mouth tingling combination) sitting in front of him. Wiping his mouth off with his sleeve, he continued, "I guess I should have told him that Ginny was with Luna before I told him I was marrying her."

Hermione was silent for a moment, before an exasperated expression took hold of her face. "Is everybody gay?" Harry grinned at her pointedly, and she exhaled loudly in annoyance. "Yes, I understand that I'm not one to be saying that, but... Ginny and Luna? That's a bit too much."

Harry shrugged, "It wasn't my idea. Nor was the marriage- that was all Ginny. I thought Draco would be pleased..." he mused, his eyes glazing as he slipped into memories. Hermione caught his attention with a smack to his arm.

"You two have some talking to do."

"We've been through this."

"Oh, for God's sake... have you seen anyone since breaking up with him? And one week things don't count."

"Well, no- Hermione, I'm thirty-five. I have a sixteen year old daughter. It's a little late in life for me to date."

Hermione smiled indulgently. "He hasn't seen anyone since then, either. You go all misty eyed when you talk about him. He goes all misty eyed when he talks about you. Shouldn't there be some reconciliation?"

"It's been too long, 'Mione. I just can't."

With a sigh of resignation, Hermione looked Harry in the eyes and said, "Suit yourself. But I'm willing to bet that Draco's thinking of you right now, even."

------

Draco was actually asleep at an abnormally early hour, dreaming about green horses that chased after him telling him they would make him eat more vegetables.

------

After what was in her opinion an excessively long and infuriating tutoring session, Draia returned to the Slytherin dorms. Her mind was turning over the many cutting things Harriet had said- that girl certainly developed quick grudges and leapt to assumptions. She practically thinks I'm the next Voldemort. "I'm sure you fit in quite well at Durmstrang." Stupid cow. Of course I fit in at Durmstrang, because unlike you, I have more social graces than a leprous squib...

Exhausted, Draia started towards the door leading to the sixth year girls' dorms, before remembering her earlier conversation with Flint. With a groan, she turned and went towards the boys' dorms instead. She knocked on the door, and Flint was instantly opening it for her. "Come in, we've been waiting for you forever!"

With a shrug, Draia apologized, "The slave driver overworked me," as she stepped into the room. Asides from Flint, Greg Goyle, Mitch Rabion, Lindsay Crabbe, and Jesalyn Thelps all sat on the beds of the room. They smiled and nodded greetings to Draia, clearly expecting Flint to be their spokesman.

This is not a good thing. Nope. Not at all- Maggie said anything involving Flint, Rabion, and Thelps at the same time is the kind of thing I should stay away from. Damnit.

"I'm really tired, so if you could just tell me what you want..."

Flint nodded. "Well, nothing tonight, but we were wondering if you could teach us some of the things you learned at Durmstrang... because McGonagall," he practically spit the name, "doesn't feel that it's an important part of our education. But you must know what you're doing."

"Exactly what's in it for me?" asked Draia with a false cool tone. In reality, her heartbeat sped up- her schoolmates had all but announced their position in the current conflict. Maggie had explained some of the Slytherin mannerisms and ethics to her, saying that many of their housemates would support a cause as vocally as they safely could, but it was a shock to Draia to actually witness it.

But... these were alliances that could put to her advantage, and her father's too. So if the compensation was enough...

In her thoughts, Draia didn't notice Thelps standing up and walking- no, sauntering- towards her. She finally returned to the present world when she felt the other Slytherin's hand on her thigh. Flint spoke, although to Draia he seemed to have moved miles away. "After that thing with the seventh year, your proclivities are pretty well known. Jesalyn here is more than willing to help with that."

Jesalyn wasn't an ugly girl at all; in fact, if you ignored the fact that she had a tendency to look down her nose at pretty much everything, you could say she was beautiful. And she had very, very clever hands.

Struggling to speak, Draia replied, "That's.... that's good. That works. That works very well, oh, that's working very well indeed... maybe that could work well a little higher- oof!" she cried as Flint grabbed Jesalyn off of Draia.

"I'm glad that's sufficient for you. You two can... chat... after our first lesson, which will be tomorrow," announced Flint.

"Will it, now?" asked Draia, eying the dark haired boy with what she hoped was a dangerous look. Jesalyn moved back towards her, and Draia felt a tongue on her neck. All thoughts of pleasing her father and gathering information dropped from her mind. "Tomorrow's good."