Disclaimer is in chapter 1.

The rest of the day was damage control as Xander rapidly learned to regret letting so many people know, or even have a hint of what he had been up to. Slytherins were all but publically congratulating him on the stunt, and Xander knew it was only a matter of time before it got back to Professor Snape, and quickly started working on a story that fit the facts.

He snagged Harrow and Jacobs in between classes and filled them in, leaving Draco out because the blond didn't really have any details. After that he spent the rest of the day repeating the same thing over and over, and praying that it got back to Snape before the original rumors did.

Defense class with the Gryffindors was tense as hell, but luckily Lockhart broke that up by the end when he unleashed a horde of pixies on the class. Xander and Draco wound up back to back as the damned things fluttered around, wands out for all the good they did.

"Break for the door on three?" Xander asked over his shoulder.

"Right. Vin, Greg, you with us?"

The two larger boys nodded, also waving their wands around to little effect.

"Three!" Xander snapped, barely ducking a dive bombing pixy as he leapt over a desk and rolled into the aisle.

"Hey! What happened to one and two!?" Draco yelped, sliding to the ground under a flying book, skidding into the aisle across from Xander as Crabbe and Goyle followed on their hands and knees.

Xander blasted a stupefy into the air, scattering a group of pixies that were lining up for a run on Hermione and Harry's position, then scrambled to his feet and pulled Draco along as he bolted for the door. "One and two were too damned slow and they got left behind! Now run unless you want to join them!"

They reached the door just as another mini horde of the damn things swung around, and both Slytherin's dove through under the assault, scraping their knees and elbows as they slid into the hall. They rolled over onto the backs, wincing as Greg Goyle and Vincent Crabbe were caught in the attack that missed them. The pixies picked the two hulking boys up, tossing them around for a bit, then casually flicked them out the door.

Xander and Draco split apart, rolling clear as the duo splattered into the floor and wall where they had been.

"You two dead?" Xander asked from where he had rolled to a stop.

Vince groaned as Greg just managed to roll his head up and look around with a stunned expression.

"I'd move if I were you."

"Huh?" Greg blinked. "Why?"

Xander just grimaced as the horde of students came rampaging out of the classroom, screaming and waving their hands around to hold off the pixies. They proceeded to trample Goyle and Crabbe into the ground as he and Draco pressed against the hall and watched them rush past. When the majority had gone by, Draco looked down at his two friends and winced.

"Vince? Greg? Are you two alright?"

"I think we'd better get them to the infirmary." Xander suggested.

"Don't be stupid," Draco muttered, "They're tough. Right guys?"

Vincent groaned and sat up as Gregory shook his head and rolled to his knees.

"We're fine." Vincent said after a moment. "Right, Greg?"

"Uh... yeah. Fine. What hit me?"

Xander shook his head as Lockhart came rushing out, hitching his robes up and running full bore down the hall. He risked a glance back in the classroom and winced. "Looks like Lockhart has Harry, Ron, and Hermione on cleanup."

Draco laughed, "Good for them. Come on, let's get out of here."

Xander took a breath and sighed, "You go on, I'm going to help out a bit."

Draco gave him an incredulous look, "You mean that after all that, you're going back in there?"

"Oh hell no." Xander muttered, "But my stunner needs practice, so I'm going to play sniper."

"Play what? No, never mind, I don't care." Draco shook his head, "Come on, Greg, Vince. Let's leave the mudblood lover to his friends."

"Wildblood lover, if you please." Xander replied with a smirk, causing Draco to let out a snort of exasperation as he stomped off with his bookends in tow.

Xander chuckled and snuck his head around the corner of the door, jabbing his wand in as he settled his focus on a pixy well away from the others. "Stupefy!"

Clearing out the classroom took most of the rest of the period devoted to DADA, so Xander figured practicing his stunner on the pixies should count toward his classwork, even if it was a fourth year spell. The rest of the day wasn't nearly as eventful, thank god, and soon enough Xander found himself in the library with Hermione and Wednesday as they reviewed the day's events and did their own reading.

"Thank you again for the help in Defense, today, Xander." Hermione said, sounding grudging.

Xander looked up at her, eyebrow raised, "Are you mad at me?"

"You shouldn't have done that to the Professors, Xander." She scowled.

"Me?" Xander blinked, going into his preplanned story, eyes flickering around to see who was listening. "Herms, come on, I'm a second year... I spent all summer trying to match the twins gags and failed at every shot. Ask Wednesday, I even had her check with her Gramma about potions work. There's no way I could have pulled off those transfigurations and stuff."

She glared at him narrowly, "The twins are swearing that it wasn't them, they were set up."

"I guess it's possible," Xander said, shaking his head, "But I'm nowhere near the level in potions and transfigurations to pull that off."

Hermione chewed on her bottom lip, mulling it over, then sighed. "I'm sorry I blamed you, Xander. I guess the twins have annoyed someone else."

"Yeah well, more power to them, whoever they are." Xander shrugged, mentally cataloging the listeners. A few Ravenclaws, a sprinkling of others, and Madam Pince were all in earshot. "To be honest, I was going to get them back with a prank, but after this morning we decided it would be smarter to call it off."

"We?" Hermione raised an eyebrow.

"A couple others from my house," Xander shrugged, "It's not like the twins don't deserve some payback, you know. But, like I said, after this morning... it didn't seem prudent to unleash anymore insanity."

"Well good." Hermione said after a moment. "At least you're showing some common sense. Whoever set off that insanity this morning was a complete fool with no respect for the hard work of the professors here and..."

As she went on Xander noticed Wednesday eyeing him evenly over her book, the girl's expression as unexpressive as always, but Xander clearly got the impression she didn't believe a word he had just said. He just shrugged at her and flicked his eyes to Hermione, causing Wednesday to nod once and return her attention to her book as Hermione continued to rant about rule breakers.

Xander cut her off there, "Say, who was it who cursed Neville last year anyway?"

Hermione went beet red, shut up quickly, and ducked her head into her book at that, leaving Xander to smirk softly and return to his own work in the Coven Grimoire.

Narcissa whistled softly as she read through the notes her unknown student had made. There were some advanced arithmantic and runes work there, devised as part of a warding scheme. It was work well ahead of any second year, and she wondered where he had come across it? It was only an idle thought though, as she was finding herself interested in his notes on the blood tensions in the school. She had to smile when she read the term 'Wildblood' and its description.

Narcissa was a black, part of an older pureblood culture than the Malfoy family, and she had been brought up as an alternate to take over the family bloodline. Her sister Andromeda had been the first choice, their other sibling Bellatrix being too unstable to entrust with such responsibility. When Andy fell in love with a Muggle-born, however, their Aunt had struck her name from the family register.

That had shocked many in the family to the core, and set the Blacks steadily on the road to destruction. Then Matriarch Black was NOT an approved keeper of the line, and was nothing really, but a small minded and petty bitch. The grand old lady who had trained both Andy and herself would have reluctantly accepted Andy's choice, and merely removed her from the primary line.

Now, because of the old bitch and her stupid ideas, Andy's blood was lost to the Blacks, as was the potential in the blood of her Muggle-born... no, her Wildblood Husband. And it was a very interesting bit of potential, Narcissa noted. There had never been a full metamorph in the Black line before, so the trait in Andy's daughter was either fully inherited from her father, or had resulted in the mixing of blood. A few generations down the line, it would have been a great boon to the Black bloodline to bring the descendants of that line back into the Black's primary blood.

Narcissa sighed.

So many things ruined by the small minds of fools who thought to play above their station. The wars had taken the lives of so many of the best and brightest of the world she loved, it seemed that the idiots had inherited what had survived.

Wildblood.

Narcissa reached for a quill and began to pen a note to her sister. Andy would love to hear this.

The time ran by, with Xander trying hard to deflect the blame, and credit, for the prank of the first morning. He succeeded for the most part, the professors seemed to believe that he didn't have anything to do with it, especially once Draco started bragging loudly about having taken the Twins down a peg or two.

Xander would have smacked him, but he'd expected it and planned for it. When Snape rounded on Draco, and the twit spilled his guts, Xander's cover story had already filtered through to the professor and he just angrily berated Draco in the common room, then stalked off. Snape clearly believed that the twins were to blame, and wasn't interested in hunting down nonexistent Slytherin perps.

He was the most obvious candidate, of course, but that was working in his favor slowly as many of the more even minded types convinced themselves that he couldn't have been the guy who pulled off anything that big. Harrow and Jacobs knew better, but they had done the dirty work and were both Slytherin enough to keep their mouths shut until they were safely away from the school. Xander might have to worry about what Harrow might say after he graduated, but until then he wasn't going to open his yap.

Luckily for him, Draco was bound and determined to move into the limelight and unveiled that same night that his dad had bought brooms for the team, and he was the new Slytherin seeker. The expensive new brooms were the talk of the dorms that night, and the school the next day, and by the end of the week Xander found himself relegated to yesterday's news.

The only people who believed he had pulled off the prank of the year, so far, were a few Gryffindors, and a handful of scattered kids who had all the credibility of UFO spotter back home. Oh, and the twins of course.

Xander had started letting the twins catch him with a few pranks here and there, and to be honest getting caught by a few he hadn't seen coming, just to make himself look like the poor victim. Not the most satisfying way to pass his time, but Xander much preferred to be overlooked.

His close brush with a prank spiraling out of control and nearly getting blamed for it had taught him once lesson.

Secrecy was golden.