In which you finally find out what Draco is.
******
Draco spent the entire Transfiguration hour attempting to climb out of a bookbag. Two feet of vertical fabric was surprisingly hard to climb. Also, the whole satchel seemed to be soaked by something slick.
It wasn't ink, that's all Draco had gathered so far.
As it was, he was too absorbed in his futile escape attempts to be paying much attention to what was going on outside the bag. If he had, he would have heard McGonagall fail both Crabbe and Goyle. Again.
This would have alerted him to what was to come next. It was common knowledge in Slytherin that when Crabbe and Goyle—for they always managed to do bad together—failed something a very particular chain of events would occur.
First, they would stare dumbly into space, for minutes at a time, as the failure was absorbed.
Second, they would get progressively grouchier as their active brain cells picked up on the anger concept.
Third, they would find something to mutilate. If one was handy, a first year. Otherwise, small mammals.
Draco, currently, fit this idea quite well. And he was already caught, another plus.
Of all this he was delightfully unaware, and if he noticed a bit more force than necessary in the way the bag was jerked up at the end of the lesson, he was too deep in his contemplation of his own fur to connect it.
******
Hermione Granger, Prefect, Head Girl Candidate, Top Student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, was on the hunt.
Her sources had just informed her that Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle had just failed Transfigurations. Again.
In her six years at the school, Hermione had picked up on the pair's indiscreet tendency to torture young students after being failed. She had also developed quite a knack for finding and stopping them.
Her sources has also informed her that Goyle and Crabbe had been informed they would soon be the first eighth year seventh years since Ulga the Unclean's amazing eleven year education at Hogwarts nearly two hundred years earlier. Hermione had informed her sources that Crabbe bore a striking resemblence to said Ulga.
But despite possible familial pride, Crabbe and Goyle seemed noticeably destructive today. Hermione thought this as she fought against the flow of Hufflepuff first and second years currents fleeing a suitably dark corridor.
Wand out, the girl continued her hunt more slowly, the cries of escaped Hufflepuffs dimmed into only a faint atmospheric echo which no longer masked her steps.
Trusting more in her prey's animal stupidity than her own stealth, she approached a door left slightly ajar. Fleeing twelve-year-olds had such poor manners.
She peered in. Hermione was relieved when she saw that no student was currently being tortured. In her book—and it was large—a day without student torture was a good day. Still, Crabbe and Goyle were very focused on something. Judging by the squeaking, that something was very much alive.
Tone fierce and wand steady: "What have you got there?" She was the picture of intimidation to a certain two Slytherins.
They didn't answer immediately, but when they turned they stepped apart enough for Hermione to see between them. She repeated herself, edging closer.
"A squirrel." It was hard to tell who answered. With a wave of her wand, she freed the animal from the miniature quartering device. Her show of magic made the other two gulp audibly.
"That," she gestured, "is not a squirrel. It's a sugar glider."
There was a dumb pause, and then:
"I told you we could eat it!"
******
Draco spent the entire Transfiguration hour attempting to climb out of a bookbag. Two feet of vertical fabric was surprisingly hard to climb. Also, the whole satchel seemed to be soaked by something slick.
It wasn't ink, that's all Draco had gathered so far.
As it was, he was too absorbed in his futile escape attempts to be paying much attention to what was going on outside the bag. If he had, he would have heard McGonagall fail both Crabbe and Goyle. Again.
This would have alerted him to what was to come next. It was common knowledge in Slytherin that when Crabbe and Goyle—for they always managed to do bad together—failed something a very particular chain of events would occur.
First, they would stare dumbly into space, for minutes at a time, as the failure was absorbed.
Second, they would get progressively grouchier as their active brain cells picked up on the anger concept.
Third, they would find something to mutilate. If one was handy, a first year. Otherwise, small mammals.
Draco, currently, fit this idea quite well. And he was already caught, another plus.
Of all this he was delightfully unaware, and if he noticed a bit more force than necessary in the way the bag was jerked up at the end of the lesson, he was too deep in his contemplation of his own fur to connect it.
******
Hermione Granger, Prefect, Head Girl Candidate, Top Student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, was on the hunt.
Her sources had just informed her that Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle had just failed Transfigurations. Again.
In her six years at the school, Hermione had picked up on the pair's indiscreet tendency to torture young students after being failed. She had also developed quite a knack for finding and stopping them.
Her sources has also informed her that Goyle and Crabbe had been informed they would soon be the first eighth year seventh years since Ulga the Unclean's amazing eleven year education at Hogwarts nearly two hundred years earlier. Hermione had informed her sources that Crabbe bore a striking resemblence to said Ulga.
But despite possible familial pride, Crabbe and Goyle seemed noticeably destructive today. Hermione thought this as she fought against the flow of Hufflepuff first and second years currents fleeing a suitably dark corridor.
Wand out, the girl continued her hunt more slowly, the cries of escaped Hufflepuffs dimmed into only a faint atmospheric echo which no longer masked her steps.
Trusting more in her prey's animal stupidity than her own stealth, she approached a door left slightly ajar. Fleeing twelve-year-olds had such poor manners.
She peered in. Hermione was relieved when she saw that no student was currently being tortured. In her book—and it was large—a day without student torture was a good day. Still, Crabbe and Goyle were very focused on something. Judging by the squeaking, that something was very much alive.
Tone fierce and wand steady: "What have you got there?" She was the picture of intimidation to a certain two Slytherins.
They didn't answer immediately, but when they turned they stepped apart enough for Hermione to see between them. She repeated herself, edging closer.
"A squirrel." It was hard to tell who answered. With a wave of her wand, she freed the animal from the miniature quartering device. Her show of magic made the other two gulp audibly.
"That," she gestured, "is not a squirrel. It's a sugar glider."
There was a dumb pause, and then:
"I told you we could eat it!"