The Birth of an Idea

"I don't believe it was you, Draco," Pansy announced as soon as she saw Malfoy come into the Slytherin Common Room. She stood up from a huddle of 6th years that consisted of Crabbe, Goyle, and 3 other Slytherin girls, and walked towards him. "None of us do," she said, leading him to their group.

"She's right," a brunette Malfoy recognized as Alexandra Flint, their former Quidditch captain's sister, said. "We think Potter and Weasley charmed that show earlier so it would say the opposite of what happened."

Five other heads nodded in agreement.

"They probably even had Granger to do it so they wouldn't make any mistakes," Pansy said, clinging to his arm. "Knowing how clumsy Potter and Weasley are, and you know they always include that filthy Mudblood in their plans," she added, giving a dark scowl.

"Don't be thick Pansy," Malfoy said. "Granger couldn't have done it, she was in the—" he paused, and then looked at each of the six people looking at him in admiration.

"Well, whoever did it, we still don't believe it was really you back there," the blond girl in the group, Amy Lochwood, said.

"We're on your side, Draco Malfoy," the last girl, Millicent Bullstrode said proudly, and they all nodded again.

"Did you hear that, Draco? None of us are against you," Pansy said happily. "And we're all against Potter, Weasley and Granger!"

Draco smirked, irritated by her overly cheery voice but thought that it wasn't totally useless. Pansy had just reminded him of something useful. Potter, Weasley and Granger! it echoed in his head. The Golden Trio was always together and there's no way Potter and Weasley would do something as big as that without telling their Mudblood friend. That meant that Granger knew. Granger knew that it wasn't Weasley that she had kissed that night at the library. And so she knew that the real people in the projection were Potter and Weasley. Granger knew the truth.

He looked again at the six Slytherins looking at him. None of them had a clean record with the professors and even the six of them weren't enough witnesses to prove that it wasn't really him who'd cowered in front of Potter. But if it was everybody's favorite Mudblood who told the truth, then the whole school would believe that Harry Potter was a fraud.

He grinned. "Pansy, you're a genius," he said.

Pansy fainted.

Author's Note: Hmm… I really didn't expect my chapters to be this short. But these are really just to get the story moving since obviously, nothing big's happened yet, although something will, really. I just need these fillers so it'd be clear by the next chapter (and I hope I was able to show these) that a) Hermione's already sure that it was Draco who looked like Ron whom she had kissed at the library the night before, even without getting the confirmation from Professor Brooks, and b) that Draco's planning on using Hermione to prove his innocence—that's what he realized from Pansy, and that's why he's going to talk to Hermione in the next chapter.

Whoops! Did I say too much? Oh, well, you'll find out soon enough enough anyway so it's okay to put a few spoilers here. Besides, how many people really read the 'author's notes' anyway? :P

Don't forget to review! Thanks very much to everyone! (I'll mention your names in the next chapter, hopefully I have more time by then.)

Oh, and don't I just suck at chapter titles? :P