It was the next day before Draco Malfoy heard the floo again - the Greengrass girls well settled, he stood, wondering who could be there. Walking in from the kitchen, he saw Greg and Vince, looming like two hulks in the half-darkness of early summer morning. "What's wrong? Why are you here...?" Draco Malfoy asked, his face one of concern that few ever saw.
Greg said not a word, which was unusual to say the least. At last, Vince spoke up, "Protection. Security. Safety." And it was then, that Draco Malfoy realized something had gone abnormally wrong. (Not in a million years would he have expected his minions to remember the forms. Still, he owed them his loyalty, as they owed him theirs).
"Granted" Malfoy said in a voice that sounded steelier than he felt. He motioned for the house elf to get both his minions some tea, and he beckoned them down onto the couches, which sighed a bit at their weight.
"P'fess'r Snape said, if I valued my mind - my life, that I should go here, and stay." Crabbe said, in that slow way that he had. Draco knew that he was remembering the exact words - it was a talent Draco had made use of, time and again.
"Why, whatever's wrong?" Draco Malfoy asked, his voice tender as a newborn fawn, dread curling deep in his gut.
"Screams, I dunno what happened. Scared to look, really - unending, stop-your-ears to stop hearing them screams." Crabbe said, and Malfoy wondered if the Dark Lord had brought Muggles to the Crabbe estate (it was really too small to call it that, but give them their dignity).
"Muggles maybe?" Draco Malfoy offered, almost hopefully.
"Dunno, didn't see. Shouldn't anything be left to scream like that - not even a hippogriff." Crabbe said slowly. And Goyle said nothing at all - which disturbed Malfoy more than Crabbe's words.
Goyle didn't say a word that entire day, not even when the Greengrass girls snuck up to plant kisses on his face - though he did grow terribly red from it.
[a/n: just a short taste - we'll get more of Draco next chapter.]