A/N: The scene with Harry, Ron, and Hermione isn't canon, although is based on the following line: "Malfoy, jealous and angry, had gone back to taunting Harry about having no proper family."

Chapter 11: Acceptable Lines

Breaking things off with Sophie was easy. Draco worried she might put up some sort of fight, but she agreed that they'd done what they intended.

"We'll stay friends?" she asked.

"I'd like to," Draco replied.

He didn't see how that challenged the acceptable lines of them interacting. Draco simply resolved that, until he understood it all a bit more clearly, he just wouldn't go with a Muggle-born again. That firmly sat on the wrong side of proper.

Really, Draco was more relieved to not have to think about girls at all with his new freedom. The feeling returned to Draco like he was on some sort of right track, until he woke up with a start in the middle of the night.

It was still dark in the dorm, and the other four boys all breathed evenly with sleep. Even if Draco was happy to no longer have a girlfriend, his thoughts finally had the chance to catch up to him. How had his father heard about Sophie if Draco wasn't the one to say? He would bet all his pocket money that Nott had told his own father, who would have been more than happy to pass along the message.

Draco found his annoyance had tempered by the time he properly woke up for the day. If that was how Nott wanted to play, then Draco would happily oblige.

He watched Nott carefully for any sliver of weakness. The only thing Draco could really see was his fancy on Daphne. Moping about her outshone everything else. Nott leaned a lot on Blaise, who seemed to be his only real friend right now. Perhaps if Draco found a way to peel him away. . .

"Blaise." Draco approached him on Wednesday afternoon in the common room. "You like flying, don't you?"

Blaise nodded. He'd proven himself all right at it in the four lessons they'd taken.

"Care to come with me and Crabbe out to the pitch?" Draco slipped his hands into his trouser pockets. "Flint gets out of History of Magic at four. He lets me use his broomstick if he isn't, you know. He'd probably let you take it for a ride."

"Erm. . ." Blaise looked down at the chessboard between himself and Nott. Although Draco didn't dare glance at Nott, he could feel a glare like daggers on him. "I'm a little busy, actually. Another time?"

"Suit yourself."

Given that Nott likely pointed out what Draco was up to as soon as he and Crabbe walked away, Blaise's loyalty showed its place in subsequent declines. Draco found he didn't mind so much, since Goyle was now brave enough for him and Daphne to do their homework by themselves in the common room. Daphne giggled a lot. Every time she did, it seemed to drive a new hole through Nott's heart.

With Goyle elsewhere, Draco realized that a lot of the extra effort he had to put into explaining the homework went toward him. Draco was able to finish things quicker with just him and Crabbe working together. The novelty of that and the extra free time started to wear off by Friday. Draco missed Goyle.

"Are you and Daphne still sitting together at the match tomorrow?" he asked Goyle in the dorm. Draco wanted to know, yes, but Nott was also there, so he would have to hear the answer.

"Yeah," Goyle replied. "How come?"

"Just wondering." Draco shrugged. "We hardly see you."

"Better look out, Goyle," Nott muttered from his bed. "Malfoy'll be looking to break you two up soon enough. We can't have him not having his way, and all that."

"Like you wouldn't enjoy that if I did, Nott." Draco puffed up indignantly. "Why don't you write your father about it, see if he can't do something on your behalf?"

"Sounds more like something you would do," Nott coolly replied.

"Except that you already did." Draco threw his shed jumper onto his bed. "You wrote your father about me and Sophie, knowing he'd tell my father, hoping I'd get into trouble. Didn't you?"

"What?" Nott frowned. "Don't be stupid. Why would I care who you go with?"

"Maybe you do, maybe you don't, but you hoped my father would have something to say about it, didn't you?"

"I didn't!" Nott said with a jab of his finger.

"Liar!" Draco yelled.

Everyone was standing now, Draco and Nott spitting distance away from each other at the dorm's centre, Crabbe and Goyle hovering threateningly behind Draco, and Blaise looking ready to run for a prefect again. One showed up then in their doorway: Stanley Macmillan, a fifth-year.

"What's going on?" he asked. "I thought Bletchley told you two to stop fighting."

Draco and Nott both tried to speak at the same time, making Macmillan wave his hands at them.

"One at a time," he said. "Malfoy."

"He ran to my father about who I was going with to make us have to break up," Draco answered. "He knew my father wouldn't approve, since she's—"

"I DID NOT!" Nott roared.

"That's a big accusation," Macmillan replied. "Have you any proof, Malfoy?"

"Just that my father found out somehow, and our fathers know each other, and Nott's been—"

"I didn't do it!" Nott cut him off again, a tone of desperation seeping in. "I didn't, Macmillan! Honest!"

Draco pressed his lips as Nott's face crumpled. The silence to follow was filled by his sobs. Tears ran freely down his cheeks.

"I didn't," he weakly said, voice high. "I didn't do it."

Macmillan rubbed his neck and sighed. His gaze came to Draco, who wished he could take all of this back. Then again, Nott had started it.

"You all wait here," Macmillan said. "Malfoy, Nott. . .you two touch each other, talk to each other, or so much as look at each other while I'm gone, and you'll be in detention until your bollocks drop."

Draco didn't have anything else to say, anyway. He folded his arms on his way back to his bed, slightly nauseous with guilt. Nott stopped crying by the time Macmillan returned, although still sniffled and wiped at his eyes.

"We'll just wait," was all Macmillan would say.

A tense ten minutes passed. To think, Draco could have pretty much been curled up asleep by now. He sighed at one point, which was about the loudest sound to be made in the room until a scowling Bletchley appeared. Behind him was Snape.

Draco swallowed. The bottom of Snape's robes coming to a standstill along with his feet seemed to suck all the air out of the dorm. The temperature went with it when Snape's dark eyes landed briefly on Draco while he took in the room.

"Would someone care to explain why I'm required to settle the squabbles of eleven-year-old boys?" Snape asked in a quiet voice that positively dripped of irritation. "And why Slytherin's capable prefects are not sufficient?"

Draco couldn't think of anything to say. It seemed even more stupid now with an adult in the room.

Macmillan spoke up: "Malfoy thinks Nott got word to his father he was going with a Muggle-born, Professor."

Snape's gaze returned to Draco. Draco wanted to say that he took it back, that maybe he'd been wrong, but his tongue seemed stuck to the roof of his mouth. He put his head down instead, staring at a twist in his shoelace.

"I happen to know how Lucius heard that," Snape said, "and I can say with full confidence that it was not through Nott."

Draco's head snapped back up. "Who was it?"

"Your father is a school governor, Malfoy. He doesn't need one of your dormmates to inform him of the goings-on within this castle."

Draco felt his face grow warm.

"Oh," he said so quietly he didn't think anyone heard him.

"Was there anything else?" Snape asked, then hummed shortly when nobody replied. "Very well. Malfoy, Nott, I expect you in my office at eight o'clock Sunday evening."

"For what? Sir?" Draco hastily added to avoid sounding rude.

"Detention." Snape's upper lip tugged upward halfway through the word. "For wasting my time."

Nott had stopped sniffling by the time the five of them all crawled into bed. Draco felt as though it was his turn for that.

He hadn't even wanted to fight in the first place. Draco resented feeling stupid, having not considered his father had his own avenues for information about what he was up to. That wasn't Nott's fault. It was his own.

Maybe a week ago, Draco would have been pleased to make Nott cry like he had. This didn't feel good at all. The sadness portion of Draco's guilt sharpened when he thought about how much he had liked Nott before they came to Hogwarts. He remembered Nott calling his name all excitedly at the performance they'd gone to in August, how his face lit up and his hand was a waving blur when Draco noticed him across the theatre lobby. Draco had been so disappointed he wasn't allowed to go sit with him. Nott had been just as much fun otherwise to play with as Crabbe and Goyle, even if his mum didn't let him do as much.

Draco ended up crying himself to sleep after all, upset that he had probably lost a friend. It was all so stupid. Draco couldn't even recall what had started it all.

He remembered, clear as day, when Potter walked out onto the Quidditch pitch come morning.

"Ugh," he said, sneering.

"What?" Crabbe asked over the applause around them for the Slytherin team.

Draco just shook his head.

Slytherin crept ahead of Gryffindor as Flint, Adrian Pucey, and Graham Montague grew relentless in moving the Quaffle up the field. Flint's strategy of 'penalty shots are worth the foul' was liberally in action as well. Draco was just yelling in Crabbe's ear about how Potter couldn't even handle his Nimbus when Potter spit the Golden Snitch out of his mouth.

The Slytherin section erupted into howls of laughter. Draco was no different. He hung off Crabbe's arm, needing the physical support as he imagined just how wide Potter's mouth had to be in order to catch the Snitch like that.

Draco wiped tears of mirth from his eyes when he registered that the howling around him had turned to one of outrage. Madam Hooch was blowing her whistle. She hovered on her broomstick close enough that Draco could see the furious look on Flint's face when he flew up. Draco felt his own expression furl that way when he saw the Gryffindor team hugging each other down on the pitch.

"Wait." The din around Draco was too loud for his voice to be actually audible to anyone beyond himself. "She's counting that?"

It would seem so. For every complaining Slytherin, there were three people in the stands that cheered wildly for Gryffindor's sham of a victory. Draco felt positively ill with rage at the sight of Potter's beaming face. He bet if Higgs did that, the Snitch would have been released again, Gryffindor would have taken a penalty shot for some contrived reason, and then the game would have carried on as normal.

Draco found himself among similar minds and mood in the Slytherin common room. He really wanted to sit with the team to vent about it, but only the reserves had made it back so far. When Flint led the team in, Draco decided it was probably best he not approach.

He had never seen Flint so angry in his life. Higgs looked like he might end up grinding his teeth to the gums from how set his jaw was. It made Draco feel marginally better to imagine someone sticking their fingers down Potter's throat to dislodge the Snitch from his larynx.

More determined than ever, the Slytherin team hit the pitch the next evening for regular Sunday practice. They played longer than usual in attempt to work out their lingering indignation. Higgs didn't want to talk about anything to do with Potter, which Draco was more than happy to oblige. He almost forgot about his detention with Snape.

Nott was already there. He sat at a table in one of two chairs. While Nott looked back at Draco over his shoulder, Snape loomed over the other side of the table. His black robes looked like a dark mass beneath his floating head in the dim office.

"Evening, Malfoy," Snape greeted him. "Nearly late."

"Sorry, sir." Draco had hoped to hear 'nearly'. "Quidditch practice. I lost track of time."

"Take a seat."

Snape pulled his wand out. With a wave of it, sheets of parchment, two inkwells, and quills to match manifested. A mobile blackboard appeared beside Snape, along with words across it: 'I will respect my fellow Slytherins'.

"By this, I mean all Slytherins, top to bottom," Snape said. "You will respect my time and position of authority by not creating situations where I must intervene in your interpersonal affairs. You will respect your prefects by honouring the guidance they have given on how to get along. Above all, you will respect each other. Perhaps after yesterday's Quidditch match, you understand more clearly just how limited your sphere of camaraderie is within this castle. It was much the same when I was a student. If you alienate your fellow Slytherins, you will soon find yourself left with no one."

Draco swallowed. To his left, Nott shifted in his chair.

"You'll do two-hundred of these tonight." Snape indicated the line on the blackboard. "Should we ever have a repeat detention of this nature, the line you write will become more specific. I will also take less care to be concise. Begin—and not a word between the two of you."

Sighing to himself, Draco opened his inkwell. The scratch of quills were soon the only things audible in the room. His and Nott's ran almost in sync at times. Occasionally, Snape's joined in as he made red-coloured notes on the homework he marked at his desk.

Draco stopped briefly at nine o'clock to count his lines. His relief to be about three-quarters done did not reach his hand. By twenty past, when Snape counted them instead, Draco's hand throbbed. 'I will respect my fellow Slytherins' felt about burned into his brain. It kept on repeating even when Snape dismissed him with a curt 'good night'.

Halfway back to the common room, footsteps sounded behind Draco. He'd been rushing, hoping not to run into the Bloody Baron, but he stopped so that Nott could catch up.

Nott came around a corner and stopped abruptly when he saw Draco. His arms hung limply at his sides, his thumbs rubbing his fingers as they sized each other up.

"All right?" Nott tentatively asked.

Draco released his bottom lip from his teeth. "I'm sorry."

Nott stared hard at him, maybe trying to see whether Draco was serious or not. Draco didn't like to apologize, but he doubted he would feel better about this until he did.

"Me too," Nott said. "I shouldn't have teased you about Potter. I don't know why you'd ever want to fancy him, anyway. He's a prat, isn't he?"

"Bigger than we even knew, apparently." Draco paused. "I shouldn't have accused you of telling my father about Sophie."

Nott migrated closer. Draco pushed off the wall with his shoulder, and they started walking together on for the common room.

"Is that why you're not going with her anymore?" Nott asked. "Your father put a stop to it?"

"Yeah." Draco didn't want to make things bad between them again by admitting how Sophie helped rob Nott of Daphne.

"She's not bad for a Muggle-born. I don't see her like a Mudblood. You must not, either."

"No, she's all right, that one."

A handful of their footsteps echoed in the corridor around them.

"Was your father mean about it?" Nott quietly asked.

Draco shook his head. "He just reminded me that I'm the last of two very important bloodlines, and what that means for the things I do in my life."

"It's not like you—you know. . ."

"No," Draco said quickly, growing warm in the face the same way he suspected Nott did. "It's all right, though. Sophie and I are going to stay friends. I won't bother going with a Muggle-born again. It's not worth the trouble."

"Probably not."

Going to bed with some sort of truce established between them made Draco think that he and Nott might possibly go back to the way they'd been before everything fell apart. However, Nott still sat off at breakfast with only Blaise. The two of them took their usual places in their Monday classes, and did their own thing through the afternoon. Both were cordial whenever Draco's path crossed with theirs, but not friendly to the point that they properly converged. While Draco laid in bed on Friday night, the thought he might have cocked up beyond repair kept him from drifting off.

Dejection draped over Draco, going into the weekend. Not only did he feel down about Nott and Blaise, but he only ever saw Goyle in class anymore. Draco felt pretty secure about Crabbe—that he wouldn't be ditching him anytime soon—but Crabbe was the only one he could rely on at the moment.

On Wednesday morning, Draco and Crabbe happened to rise from the Slytherin table at the same time Potter, Weasley, and Granger walked past from the Gryffindor table. Draco and Crabbe fell in quiet step behind.

"I'll spend lunch in the library," Granger was saying to the other two. "You really ought to do that History of Magic assignment, Ron. I don't want to spend all evening helping you when you could be researching instead."

Weasley groaned. "I don't want to do homework at lunch. Let me help, I'll do it later. Swear it on my life—"

He cut off with a grunt when he caught an elbow in the ribs from Potter. Potter glared at Draco over his shoulder, to which Draco raised an eyebrow.

"Feeling nosy today, Malfoy?" Potter asked.

"Why, up to something, Potter?" Draco coolly replied. "Figuring out how to win your next Quidditch match?"

Potter rolled his eyes.

"I mean, I suppose I understand why Madam Hooch allowed it." Draco spoke louder, keeping them from returning to whatever inane conversation they'd been having. "Nobody would want the poor little orphan that saved the wizarding world to feel like he wasn't special, would they? It's not like anyone would care if the match got thrown against Slytherin."

"Shut up, Malfoy—"

"But—Potter, I couldn't help but notice. You haven't received any post since the game? Aren't those filthy Muggles you live with so proud that you showed up real athletes? Or did they just happen to train you to catch the Snitch that way? What did they do, toss pellets at you like a mooncalf in the zoo?"

"Maybe that's how you were fed at home," Potter shot back, "but we ate at this thing called a table."

Draco scowled. Anything he could've retorted with would've been lost anyway against the shout of a laugh Weasley let out. Granger went from preparing to have to hold Weasley back to snickering into her hand.

"Come on," Draco told Crabbe in an icy tone. "Before someone sees us mingling with this riff-raff."

Draco's bad mood persisted into his Astronomy lesson, and failed to improve during Charms. His frustration translated into difficulty performing a Locking Spell, now their class had finished with Unlocking Charms. Even Crabbe managed before him.

He kept his head down in Transfiguration while taking notes. Draco normally prided himself on his participation with Professor McGonagall, since she was so difficult to please, but his feelings had changed greatly toward her in the last month. He dawdled at the end of the class, ending up last in line to hand in the assignment from last Thursday. Draco avoided McGonagall's gaze at the desk and curtly tossed his work onto the pile.

"Malfoy."

Draco came to a halt halfway to the door, as did Crabbe, and turned back. Draco didn't much like how severely McGonagall regarded him over the top of her spectacles.

"Might we have a little word?" she asked, as if Draco had any choice.

"Go find us a spot at the Slytherin table," Draco told Crabbe.

Even though McGonagall remained seated behind her desk with her forearms crossed on its surface, Draco felt like a field mouse stepping up in front of a hungry hawk. He kept his expression straight, but the tips of his fingers were probably white where he held the strap of his bag.

"I've noticed a decline in attitude lately," Professor McGonagall said. "Your homework hasn't changed in quality, but I'm curious if you care to enlighten me on your sudden flippancy. Is there something we need to discuss?"

Draco would have never dreamed to air his grievances with McGonagall to her face. He thought she would have been just as satisfied to keep something unspoken, so long as Draco maintained his marks. He'd still yet to get homework back from her with something less than a ninety on it.

With a steadying exhale through his nose, Draco steeled himself. "Professor, before I came to Hogwarts, my father told me that you are not one to cross."

One of McGonagall's eyebrows twitched, as if she wanted to raise it.

"And Professor Snape told me that you're very fair," Draco said.

McGonagall studied him for a moment. "Have I been unfair to you, Malfoy?"

"You've been unfair to Slytherin house." Draco's heart picked up with nerves. "You've been unfair to all the first-years. You let Potter have a broomstick, but nobody else can."

"Potter has a broomstick because he's on the Quidditch team. Is he supposed to play on foot?"

Draco suppressed a sneer, for he didn't like the dryness of her tone. "He shouldn't have won the match by catching the Snitch in his mouth. That's not right. That's not Quidditch. The match was thrown to Gryffindor. And you let Potter have a broomstick when we were all told in our letters that we weren't allowed to have one. And he didn't even get detention when he did what Madam Hooch told us not to do in flying class. We were supposed to keep our feet on the ground while she took Longbottom to the matron."

"You didn't receive a detention either," Professor McGonagall replied. "I'm not blind, Malfoy. Potter was not alone in the air that day."

Draco willed his cheeks not to darken, but he could feel some warmth there anyway. He'd never thought about that.

"As for Quidditch." McGonagall slid her forearms forward slightly. "You yourself wasted no time finding a workaround on the broomstick rule, didn't you? I've seen you flying around on Flint's."

"Mmm," Draco said, for he didn't know what else constituted a decent response.

"Here's a rhetorical question: if Terence Higgs was not available to play as Slytherin's Seeker, do you think the privilege to join the team wouldn't have been similarly extended to you?"

Again, Draco didn't know what to say. He resented feeling a ripple of delight because he would rather stay angry.

"And, were you Slytherin's Seeker," Professor McGonagall continued, "you too would be allowed your broomstick. Unfortunately for you, that was not the situation. Potter's was different, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's being treated as more than."

Draco refused to nod, even if he begrudgingly saw her point. He was back to wishing he was somewhere he could kick something.

"For the record, I too was disappointed with how the match ended." Professor McGonagall stood and began to gather the pile of homework. "There's not much glory in an accidental Snitch capture. It wasn't an accurate representation of the talent on my house's Quidditch team."

"No, Professor."

"However, only Madam Hooch had control over that call. It's beyond the scope for you to place responsibility on me."

Draco averted his gaze. "Yes, Professor."

"I see you don't feel any better about it, Malfoy. I wouldn't expect you to, especially when you were working toward joining the school league before Potter even first touched a broomstick. Were I in the same position as you, it would be very hard not to feel as though it was all handed to him on a silver platter." Professor McGonagall settled all her things in the crook of her arm. "You've been given a head start by Flint that not many would get. You have a year to train until you would potentially play your first Quidditch match. I've marked enough of your assignments this term—and seen you and Higgs out on the pitch from my office—to know you understand the value of hard work. If you keep up with it, Malfoy, it will pay off. Perseverance always does."