A/N: I've had a few unexpected days off (don't worry not sick or anything), so here, have another chapter!

"I hope you're happy being a murderer."

"What?" Draco asked, rather startled, and looking up from scribbling his name on his Transfiguration homework to find Granger standing defiantly in front of his desk, with Weasley and Longbottom flanking her.

Granger opened her mouth to answer just as McGonagall swept into the room and called for everyone to take their seats. She shot him a particularly venomous glare, pulled a newspaper from within her robes, and leaned forward, hissing, "Murderer," as she slammed the paper on his desk.

Draco hardly heard McGonagall's introduction to the lesson of the day (but it was no concern, he always read ahead) as the headline and article on the front page caught his eye.

FERAL ANIMAL SENTENCED TO EXECUTION, the headline of the Daily Prophet proclaimed.

Bloody hell, thought Draco. He'd completely forgotten about the hippogriff. He'd also assumed that nothing would actually come of the suit his father had brought, but obviously he'd forgotten what his father was capable of. The article, written by Rita Skeeter (of course), went on and on, describing a bunch of fabricated attacks, and ended with the date the animal was to be executed.

Draco did a double take at the date, which was three days away. It was very soon, but his father was involved, and, he supposed, it was an animal, not a person.

He was sorry that the hippogriff was going to be killed, but there wasn't anything he could do about it, and he had more important things to worry about. Like how they still hadn't found Pettigrew.

"Now, Draco," Lupin had said after they got the map from the twins, and Draco had known that he wasn't going to like what his Professor had to say. "You know that neither of us can sit around all day watching the map for Pettigrew. We'll keep the map here, and after your classes you can come by and help me keep an eye on it."

Draco had been forced to concede that Lupin was right; as much as he wanted Pettigrew caught, he wasn't willing to sacrifice his marks. His preoccupation with the map was probably why he'd forgotten about the hippogriff entirely.

It wasn't fair, really, since it was his father who was having the beast executed, and not him, but that didn't stop the entirety of Gryffindor House sending him cold glares over the next few days. Draco kept his perfected sneer up at all times, and did his best to ignore them, sneaking off to the DADA classroom at every opportunity.

Granger was in a particularly foul mood on Friday, the day the hippogriff was to be executed. She showed up late to Divination, which was odd, because they had it directly after lunch, so she should have had plenty of time, but then again, now that he thought about it, she always showed up late to Divination. He didn't blame her; it was a useless class.

Today, they were gazing into crystal balls, which would have been interesting if he could see anything other than general fogginess. Trelawney, of course, took one glance at his crystal, shrieked, and tossed the cloth back over it.

"Er, professor?" Draco asked, apprehensively.

"No, no!" Trelawney cried dramatically. "I cannot speak of it! It's terrible!"

She patted his cheek, making sympathetic noises, and then turned to the next table.

Draco was tempted to lift the cloth and try to see what she'd seen, but he really didn't feel like tempting fate. Well, he was going to just make something up for his assignment anyway. Perhaps he'd say he saw his death at the hands – er, tentacles – of the Giant Squid? That sounded tragic enough.

He'd just bent to write it when Trelawney reached Granger, Longbottom and Weasley. She started to make anxious noises as she looked at their ball, and after about five "Oh's with accompanying hand-wringing, Granger snapped.

"Let me guess. One of us is going to die. Horribly."

Trelawney stopped her moaning and blinked at Granger through her huge glasses.

"My dear," she said, reaching out and patting Granger's hand, "may I say that I have always felt that you possess very little receptivity to the resonances of the future. Very little aura, I am afraid."

Granger sat very still for a moment after Trelawney had finished, while turning a bright shade of red to rival Weasley's hair, and then she was a flurry of action. Without a word to anybody, she packed up her bag, swung it up on her shoulder, not even noticing that, in her haste, she'd knocked the crystal off their table, and then she was out the door.

Trelawney merely sighed and smiled, shaking her head at Granger's retreating bush of hair.

The class slowly started pretending to turn their attention back to their crystals, while really gossiping quietly about Granger. Draco ignored them and tried to come up with something sufficiently horrific to write for his crystal ball observation.

They had an hour's break after Divination, and Lupin had a class, so Draco had meant to use it for a quick fly around the Quidditch pitch, but just as they reached the bottom of the stairs, he saw the crystal ball that Granger had sent rolling tucked into an alcove.

He waved off Crabbe and Goyle as he picked it up, dumping his heavy bookbag on them and telling them to go on back to the Common Room without him, and trudged back up the stairs to deliver the crystal ball. He probably wouldn't get to fly now, he thought sourly as he entered the trapdoor to the quiet tower. Luckily, Trelawney seemed to have wandered off and he wouldn't have to make polite conversation with her.

Draco located the table Granger had been sitting at, carefully placing the ball back in its stand, and was about to step away when he saw something odd inside of it. It was very small, but it glowed persistently. Draco squinted at it, trying to make the shape out, when there was a ghastly noise behind him.

Nearly jumping out of his skin, he turned to find Trelawney standing right behind him, and she made that awful noise again as she took another breath.

"Professor?" Draco asked, uncertainly. "Are you alright?"

Trelawney stared at him unblinkingly and then grabbed his arm with her hand.

"It will happen tonight," she rasped, her great big eyes Seeing right through him. "The Dark Lord lies alone and friendless, abandoned by his followers. His servant has been chained these twelve years. Tonight, before midnight... the servant will break free and set out to rejoin his master. The Dark Lord will rise again with his servant's aid, greater and more terrible than ever he was. Tonight... before midnight... the servant... will set out... to rejoin... his master..."

Then, with a gasp that made Draco frightened that he might see his Divination Professor expire in front of him, she shook herself, and her eyes abruptly focused on him again.

"Hello, dear," she said, sounding vaguely confused. "Did you need something?"

Draco gently pulled his arm free from her now-lax grip, and hastily said, "No, no, thanks Professor."

"Was it something I said?" Her tremulous voice followed him as he scrambled down the ladder.

It most definitely was, but Draco was pretty sure she wasn't addressing him, so he didn't answer her, deciding it was a much better idea to get away from Trelawney as quickly as possible. He took the steps down two at a time, and only stopped when he reached the bottom, leaning over to catch his breath with his hands on his knees.

A quiet noise caught his attention, and he glanced over to see a tiny, blonde little wisp of a girl tucked into an alcove with a book half as big as she was perched on her knees. Her uniform had the blue accents of a Ravenclaw, and she wasn't wearing any shoes.

"What're you looking at?" Draco snapped, a little annoyed that someone had seen him so panicked and disheveled.

"Oh," she said, apparently unbothered by his hostility, "I was trying to see the Blibbering Humdingers, but I think you've scared them off."

"Er, sorry," Draco said, completely taken aback.

"That's alright," she said, with a shrug. "They'll be back."

"I'll just… get out of their way, then."

He thought he'd excused himself nicely, but before he'd taken five steps the girl called out to him.

"Don't forget it's the full moon tonight!"

Draco turned back and looked at her in confusion.

"It's important," she said, smiling back at him serenely.

"Right. Thanks." Draco finally managed to say, and then he quickly walked away, still feeling very anxious about what Trelawney had said. He knew that prophecies made by Seers were important, and not to be ignored, but he didn't think Trelawney was one – at least, he'd never heard of a prophecy made by her, and the varied predictions she made in class were either patently false, or so vague that they could be made true in any number of ways.

All the same, her voice, the look in her eyes… and he couldn't deny that the fact that it involved the Dark Lord made him very nervous. If it was true, he wondered, could she have meant Pettigrew was 'the servant'? If so, was their attempt to track him down doomed if he was just going to escape anyway?

Draco shook his head. Thinking about this was just giving him a headache. And then there was that odd girl, whose name he'd completely forgotten to ask. What in Salazar's name was a Blibbering Humdinger, anyway? She must be insane.

Although... maybe it would be worth reminding Lupin that tonight was the full moon.