Chapter 5! It's not particularly eventful and I appoligize for the clifhanger-ish ending. Thanks again to my reviewers! And an extra thanks to Chibi Sephy for bringing the owl/ Weasley mistakes to my attention! I could have sworn i went through and fixed all the misspelled "Weasleys", but I guess not. Also, I'm not gonna be able to update for a while cuz I'm going to Flordia for 2 weeks! I'm so excited! But yeah, enjoy the chapter!

Disclaimer: If I owned Harry Potter, do you really think we'd still be waiting for the 6th book?

Schedules were passed out the next morning at breakfast. Draco had N.E.W.T Potions first, Transfiguration, and then Theory of Spell Creation; all periods were doubled from here on out.

"Sweet," he muttered in response to the prospect of spending an entire double period with that gorgeous new teacher.

Draco made his way to his first class flanked by Crabbe and Goyle on either side, complaining about only getting two O.W.L.'s each.

"Well, I don't know what you two expected," Draco said as they turned a corner in the dark dungeons. "Considering the fact that you hardly studied at all. In fact, you would have failed all of your exams completely if it hadn't been for me spoon-feeding you the information in my notes." Despite Draco's harsh tone, neither was offended.

However, when they parted, Draco was less than disappointed. For once, he really wanted to be alone.

"Drake!" someone called just as he was entering Professor Snape's classroom.

So much for the "alone" idea.

"Drake, you're in this class too? That's sweet." The boy, several inches taller than Draco, brushed a lock of light brown hair out of his eyes.

"Duh, Blaise, you idiot, I'm the best at potions in the year," Draco replied smugly. However, it wasn't bragging; it was the truth.

"'Cept for Granger," Blaise said, nodding toward a bushy-headed figure sitting in the back row with a smirk. Rolling his eyes, Draco smacked his friend on the back of the head.

"No chance that Mudblood's better than me." He examined Granger. She was looking over his head, as though checking to see if someone was there yet, and Draco had a sickening suspicion who.

"God, Blaise, she's looking for someone, you don't think Potter made it in this class do you?"

"Actually," said a horribly familiar voice from behind him. He spun around to see the boy he despised above all others. "Potter did make it in this class, and if you don't mind, he'd like to go inside. You're blocking the door." Draco felt his face get very hot.

"Well if it isn't the world famous Dark wizard catcher," he spat.

"Yep, and you're next on my list, so be nice and maybe I won't turn you in." Draco was going to explode, he knew it.

"I'll get you Potter. You just wait," Draco said in his most terrifyingly deadly whisper. "My father…."

Potter smirked. "Tell me about your father, dear Draco," he said in mock sweetness.

Hopelessness. It was a feeling Draco had never experienced at school, only at home. He couldn't think of anything to say in response. He looked to Blaise, but he had already sat down to avoid being in the fight. There was a burning behind his eyes. He had to get out of there.

"Why don't you go ruin someone else's life, Potter?" he whispered, before turning to join Blaise in the front row. He slammed his bag on the floor beside his chair and stared determinedly forward. He could feel Potter's eyes boring into his back, however. The burning got worse. He swallowed hard, staring at the ceiling with such force, he wouldn't have been surprised to see he had burned a hole in it. Not here. Anywhere but here. But a lump was raising in his throat. It was as though losing to Potter was the final straw after all he'd been through.

"You aren't lettin' Potter get to you, are ya, Drake?" Blaise smirked. Draco forced a sneer of his own, swallowing the lump in his throat and pushing the burning in his eyes back into his head.

"Saint Potter?" he laughed. "Get to me? Yeah, like that'll ever happen!"

What a lie.

"Settle down students!" Finally, Draco thought, thankful that his Potions master was finally here. The hushed conversations being held by the students in attendance ceased as Professor Snape stood before the class.

"So," he began. Draco prepared himself to listen carefully. "It seems you have all made into my N.E.W.T. Potions class, a very difficult honor to come by, even if you made it in by pure default." It was apparent that that statement had been directed at someone specific, who was not Draco, as Snape's black eyes were focused somewhere behind him. "However some of you," this time his eyes did snap to Draco who maintained eye-contact with his professor. "I know for a fact, are up to the challenge, and with patience and care, will do well in this difficult class." A smile played around Draco's lips, though he tired hard to suppress it until Snape looked away, which he did.

"Today will simply be a review day, for not knowing the basics will make this class impossible and very dangerous. You will use the steps on the board," He tapped it with his wand and instructions appeared in blue chalk. "To create a familiar potion. By the end of the period, I want you to have a flask of it for grading and be able to tell me what the potion is. Begin." Professor Snape sat down at his desk and began working on some paper-work.

After reading through the instructions once Draco already knew it was a Sleeping Drought and started on it.

"Dude, do you know what it is?" Blaise whispered. Draco just shrugged, not caring to share his answer.

So the assignment was graded and Draco got full marks. He picked up his bag, and was just heading out with Blaise when Professor Snape called him back.

"Mr. Malfoy, may I have a word?"

"Go on," he said to Blaise, turning around and approaching Professor Snape's desk.

"Yes sir?"

"Close the door, Mr. Malfoy." A little confused and not sure what he had done, he did. Snape sighed. "Now, I don't usually do this, but is there anything you want to tell me? Anything bothering you at all?"

"Professor, it's only my second day back, nothing's really bothering me yet…."

"That isn't what I mean." Draco thought about his father, Potter, the whole Death Eater business, and decided against it. He shook his head. The professor just glared at him.

"Don't do anything stupid, Malfoy," was all he said before telling his to get off to class.

"That was really weird," he said to himself as he walked down the hall. "Hey!"

Someone had grabbed his arm and spun him around. It was a boy from Ravenclaw he didn't know, and he had a very firm grip on Draco's left arm.

"So is it true? Everyone's saying you're a Death Eater, like your slimy father." Draco struggled violently, but couldn't seem to get away.

"Get off me!" he spat, pulling his wand out with his other hand.

"No," he said. "I wanna see for myself."

Oh God, Draco thought. He was trying to pull up the sleeve of his robes.

"Expelliarmus!" Draco shouted, throwing the boy backwards and unfortunately sending Draco flying through the air. He yelled and fell back down with a crash.

"Shit," he muttered. Didn't know that would happen. He set off at a fast pace, but still heard the boy's shout of: "Gee what a wimpy spell, I figured you would use the killing curse instead!"

Draco's breathing was heavy, and his eyes were unfocused as he walked down the corridors that he knew by heart to the Transfiguration room. Anger was coursing through him like venom, accompanied by some other emotion that he just couldn't quite place. He had never felt it before and couldn't put a name on it. All he knew was that he hated it.

Was this going to continue? This was the second time he had been violently confronted in his first two days of school. Nothing like this had ever happened before. This couldn't happen to him. Not to Draco Malfoy….

Transfiguration sucked as usual. Draco just couldn't get his stupid bird to transfigure right. He couldn't keep his mind on it, and he wasn't very good even when he was in the proper mind-set. He kept getting funny looks from people, especially Potter, which made him do even worse, making him look very bad considering Mudblood Granger had gotten hers right the second try and even dared to offer him help.

"No thanks," he had said coldly. "I don't want to get dirty."

She didn't say another word the rest of the lesson and that was fine by him.

After Theory of Spell creation (which had been a marvelous class; Draco hadn't been the only boy who hadn't been paying attention to anything but the teacher's face and their own fantasies about her) he decided to just get a jump start on his homework as he didn't want to talk to anyone. He went to dinner purposely late to avoid Pansy and blatently ignored that Crabbe and Goyle even existed.

Saturday morning, Draco stepped onto the Quiditch pitch, joining the rest of his team. He was easily the smallest Slytherin Quiditch player, as the rest were the biggest, stupidest boys in the House (other than Crabbe and Goyle of course).

Draco couldn't resist. He mounted his Nimbus Two-Thousand-One and flew twice around the pitch before Cayce told him to stop messing around. Though even as he grounded, he felt better than he had in months. The feeling of the wind in his face as he zoomed around on his broom had liberated him from his problems—for the moment anyway.

He joined the rest of the team in front of a group of nervous-looking students. Most were of the same proportions as the rest of the team: big, tall and stupid boys. However, there were others who stuck out in the group. Two girls that Draco didn't know very well, but knew were named Christi and Jennifer, were there—though it was fairly common knowledge that only boys ever made it on the Slytherin team. To Draco's surprise, Blaise was standing next to a guy who looked almost exactly like a gorilla with less hair (but not much less). Draco caught his eye and raised his eyebrows, but Blaise just shrugged.

By the time all the Chasers had tried out, Draco felt like strangling someone. The only ones who had been at all good had been Christi and Blaise but Christi was a brat and Cayce hated Blaise with a passion, but refused to say why.

"Just put them on the fucking team, Cayce," Draco said, but he may as well have been talking to himself again for all the attention anyone gave him.

The beater wannabees were better, "Thank God," Draco had whispered.

And so Quiditch tryouts ended with the entire Slytherin team in an argument that Draco knew would soon get violent. Nonetheless, he stayed, trying to yell above the noise how stupid they were being and to calm down.

In the end, Marks who, had a broken nose, Alexander Flint, the brother of their old captain Marcus Flint, who had been hit with various spells which caused him to turn a nasty shade of red and his ears to grow steadily, and Draco who, had been hit in various very painful places with a broom, nearly being knocked unconscious by an extremely hard blow right on his temple (everything kept going in and out of focus and there were lots of colors in front of his eyes that knew weren't supposed to be there), were in the hospital wing.

It was there, at about three-thirty in the morning, Draco awoke with a stomachache so terrible he thought he was dying.

Only this time he knew what it meant. When the pain stopped, Draco, panting and sweating, actually smiled. There was no way he could get to his stone now and therefore no way he could possibly get to that stupid meeting.

Father was going to kill him.

Too bad, Draco thought, it isn't like I planned for this to happen. Voldie will get over it and so will Father, worst that happens is I die, which isn't likely at all. A serious pain curse at Christmas? More than likely—but it was worth it.

So Draco just rolled onto his other side and went back to sleep.

The owls flooded into the Great Hall a few mornings after and an owl that Draco had never seen before crashed into his breakfast.

"What the hell's the matter with you?" he growled at the brown-feathered creature, snatching the letter from its leg in an unnecessarily violent manner.

"Whassa matter with you?" Goyle asked him in regard to his awful mood. In reality, it was nothing specific, just the usual, so he snarled a "Nothing, you idiot," and ripped open the letter.

It was barely two sentences, written in horrifyingly familiar neat handwriting.

Damn it that I should be plagued with such a dissapointing son. You are going to regret this next time I see you.

He didn't know what he had expected, but it hadn't been that. Draco felt his stomach clench and all of a sudden regretted not going to the meeting. He was a Death Eater, damn it, he needed to be there; weather he wanted to or not. He felt like a failure again, because even though this wasn't the life he wanted, he needed to succeed in it.

He was going to regret it. In theory, he did now, but that wasn't what his father had meant and he knew it. He was in for it.

Thanks much! Reviews are peachy keen! I'll be back in a couple weeks with chapter 6... maybe more, we're driving to Flordia. Talk about lots of time on my hands! Peace, Love, and Save the Whales!