Draco Malfoy was thinking. Well, perhaps brooding would be a better term for it, truly. He sat, ankles crossed, in the gazebo out in his mother's gardens (they were really the Malfoy Gardens, but if anyone else so much as touched a rose... he knew better than to get on his mother's bad temper, it was legendary). Severus Snape had said something to him, and that always bore more consideration than practically anything anyone else might do.

But, first, Draco had to figure out what exactly Snape had said. In his mind, he made a list:

1) You're old enough to know something now (which had the implication that when he was younger, he either didn't or shouldn't or couldn't have heard - or was it listened? - or understood?)...

2) Your parents were upset about the match (now, this had possibilities! Endless possibilities, which Draco hadn't half gotten done exploring before Snape practically pointed at one of them...)

3) His parents hadn't much to do with his betrothal.

The third was the one that bore most thinking over. It went without saying that it could have been his grandparents... or that a cunning ruse could have forced their hand. But, he thought, standing up and chucking a stone into the pond which rippled as the stone sank without a skip, I think I'm missing something.

There was one other thing bothering him, after all, and that had been the impish look in Severus Snape's eyes as he took his leave. I've become inveigled in one of Snape's plots. Why am I not more bothered by that?

Striding back towards the house (his legs taking on the aspect of Snape's longer ones, as his impatience got the better of him), Draco Malfoy was already considering which terrible tomes (a childish nickname, even if sometimes accurate. Some of the tomes liked to scream under their chains, after all) he would need to consult.

And, his hand nearly on the veranda's door, he suddenly came to a full stop. Betrothal announcements were published in the paper, weren't they? Now all he needed was to look at the Daily Prophet... Oh, it wasn't like the elder Malfoys could be bothered to keep back volumes... but Zambini's mother was a high-flying socialite who loved all the flattery, all the oohs and aaahs over the rich and famous (like herself!). She'd have kept the entire history of the Daily Prophet, if she could, and was fond of referencing some of the more fatuous articles. You thank people for compliments because they're supposed to be lies was a saying she had been fond of.

Tommorrow, then, Draco thought, as he turned and grabbed a broom, wanting to purge his mind of all longranging thoughts, and simply sink into the pure joy that was flight.

[a/n: Read and review, my pretties! This'll be the first of a few chapters in which Draco tries to figure out what is really going on.]