A/N: Sorry for the long wait, guys. I've started up clinic, and it's fun, but also exhausting, and leaves me less time to write. Hopefully you'll all like what I've managed to cook up in this chapter!

Learning how to make a Patronus had to wait, sadly, because their first Defense class wasn't until the end of the week.

Draco trudged to Divination as slowly as he could get away with.

He was not looking forward to it, and clearly Granger wasn't either, if the sigh she gave as she entered the trapdoor to the classroom ahead of him was any indication. He'd gone through the book over summer, of course, and hadn't been particularly impressed with the subject.

He was even less impressed with Professor Trelawney, but he had to admit it was hilarious when she told Granger that her mind was closed. Draco nearly laughed aloud and had to bite his tongue to stop himself.

He thought it was all a bunch of hokey, until Trelawney drifted over to his table, and asked for his cup.

"Oh!" she gasped, nearly throwing the cup back down on the low table.

"What?" Draco snapped. The whole class was looking at them now.

"You, my dear boy," she took his hand and patted it nervously. "You have the Grimm."

Draco gaped at her. She couldn't be serious.

"I thought it looked a bit more like a deer, actually," he told her, as he glanced back at the grounds in the cup and froze.

She wasn't wrong. The grounds had shifted, changed.

There was a black dog, sharp teeth bared, on the bottom of the cup. And, just above the dog, there was a second little blob of tea leaves that looked a bit like a bird. Surely, a bird wasn't that bad, Draco thought.

"Well, what about that?" he asked Trelawney, pointing out the other shape. She looked at it and tsked, shaking her head.

"Oh, my dear boy," she said again. "That is a black swan. You will suffer, and then… you will die."

Draco shivered a little at her pronouncement. The rest of the class had broken out into whispering, mostly of amusement, and Draco wished he could laugh, too. He was sure it was all nonsense, but he felt a little numb, for some reason.

Crabbe leaned over.

"Can I have your stash of chocolate frogs when you kick the bucket?"

The incident in Divination had him feeling weirdly on edge the next few days, and it didn't help that it was all anybody could talk about. By the time Care of Magical Creatures rolled around, Draco had started to feel frustrated by all the talk.

Hagrid picked Weasley, of course, to do a demonstration with a hippogriff in front of the class. Weasley fumbled his way through a simple bow, and the rest of the class backed up as the hippogriff reared away. It did eventually acknowledge Weasley, but when Hagrid called for another volunteer, nobody stepped up.

"C'mon, now," Hagrid said, looking around at them. "'E's real gentle."

The hippogriff punctuated his sentence by ripping apart the dead stoat Hagrid had tossed him.

"If I need ta, I'll just pick one a – "

A sudden push between his shoulder blades caused Draco to stumble forward.

"Malfoy!" Hagrid cried, delighted. "C'mon up!" Draco glared back to see it had been Blaise and Theo that had pushed him. They both looked totally unrepentant.

"Reckon 'e's scared 'cuz of the Grimm?" Draco heard one of the Gryffindors say. Finnegan or Thomas, he wasn't sure, but he fixed a scowl on his face as he walked toward the hippogriff.

"Right then, all's you gotta do is bow, real slow like," Hagrid instructed.

"Can't be too hard," Draco scoffed loudly, bowing slowly. "If even Weasley managed it."

Pansy laughed at his dig, high-pitched and loud, and made the mistake of glancing over to smirk at the class. He realized what a horrible, terrible decision he'd made when he heard Granger's gasp, and looked back at the hippogriff only to see its claws descending.

Draco had never dealt with pain very well.

A symptom of being a coddled only child, perhaps? Whatever it was, he didn't remember too much detail, other than a vague recollection of Granger yelling that he should be taken to the hospital wing, and then Madam Pomfrey managed to get a pain potion down him, and he fell right to sleep.

When he awoke, the next day, it was to find that he'd missed several classes, including Defense, and a visit from his father.

It was the latter that had him a bit nervous.

Madam Pomfrey cleared him shortly after he awoke, after a dose of Dittany and instructions to return the next day so she could check on the nearly healed wound.

He went to find a quill and parchment immediately. At least it wasn't his right arm that was injured, he grumbled to himself, as he penned a letter to his father, thanking him for his concern, and for visiting. Draco (on paper, anyway) expressed regret that he hadn't been awake for his father's visit, and did his very best to downplay the injury. Whatever action his father had decided upon, he would most likely be unable to dissuade him from, but he thought he should at least try.

His father's reply came via the Daily Prophet.

"Your father's in the Prophet," Pansy said at breakfast.

"Brilliant," Draco said, distracted by Weasley, Longbottom, and Granger glaring at him from the Gryffindor table. He sneered back.

"He's having that hippogriff that attacked you put down."

"What?" Draco said, finally giving Pansy his full attention.

"That nasty beast that hurt you, Drakey," she cooed. "He's going to have it executed."

"Don't call me that," Draco said automatically, and tried to grab the paper from her. She pulled back and glared at him.

"Manners, Draco, whatever would Narcissa say?" She asked, but without waiting for an answer, handed him the front page, sniffing, "I only need the Society pages, anyway."

Draco read the article quickly. His father had filed a suit to have Hagrid's hippogriff executed.

Well, he thought, that explained the abrupt increase in hatred emanating towards him from the Gryffindor table.

Perhaps he should just run away and hide in the forest with Cygna, he thought gloomily, as he noticed that even some of the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws were shooting him nasty looks.

Oh, Salazar. They had Potions with the Gryffindors next.

Potions was alright, but only because Snape was his usual self. Draco made sure he was thoroughly surrounded by Slytherins in as many classes as he could.

He wished his father hadn't started a suit against the beast, but there wasn't anything he could do at this point. His father never listened to him, anyway. So, maybe he complained about his injury loudly, and wore the bandage for several days after Madam Pomfrey had said he was alright to take it off, but if he was going to suffer for what his father did, he was at least going to play it up.

What he did not expect was the look Professor Lupin gave him when he stayed after class.

"I expect your arm is feeling better?" Lupin asked, with a pointed glance at his wrapped arm. The bandage was entirely cosmetic by this point.

"Ah, yes, thank you. It's, uh, nearly healed," Draco said awkwardly. "I wanted to ask about the Patronus? You did say, on the train…"

"The Patronus spell is extremely difficult," Professor Lupin told him, seriously. "Are you sure you want to learn it?"

Draco nodded firmly.

"Good," Lupin said. "Now, first things first. The incantation goes like this: Expecto Patronum."