CHAPTER FOUR

Draco caught sight of Ginny's red hair on the platform in Hogsmeade, and catching Alana's hand, dragged her through the crowd. "Hey, Gin!"

"Where've you been?" she demanded when she turned and saw them.

"I had to go up to the front and talk to the prefects, didn't I?"

"The whole train ride?"

"Pretty much. Come on," he said. "I'll tell you as much as I can in the carriage."

He led the way across the platform to where a line of horseless carriages stood waiting for them. He pulled open the door, helped Alana, then Ginny inside. He looked quickly about before climbing up into the seat and shutting the door behind himself.

"We were planning—with Neville—to fight."

"You have a plan?" Ginny asked.

"A bit of one."

The carriage door jerked open. "Oops," said a Ravenclaw fourth year who'd come up with his friends. He quickly shut the door again, and Draco folded his arms over his stomach.

He said, "Maybe we'd best talk when the carriage is moving..."

"But we won't have much time, will we, then?"

"So far we haven't planned much beyond the prefects—how to get around the new rules: how to get the post out when the prefects are supposed to be searching it all for information and loud complaints, how to keep the Carrows from heading up discipline…."

"Are they bad news?" Ginny asked.

"Oh yeah," Draco said.

The carriage lurched forward. "They were with Blaise," he said, whispering even now as the carriage wheels clattered on the rutted lane. "When he—" Draco couldn't bring himself to say it, but by Ginny's frown, he knew she understood.

"And they're here—at the school? After that?"

"It could even be their reward," Draco muttered. "Getting out of Durmstrang. Back to Britain."

"That's sick."

Draco nodded.

"So what's the plan? How can I help?"

"To fight?"

Ginny nodded.

Draco hesitated. "Gin," he said slowly, "I'm not sure your mum—"

"I'm not going to sit in the corner and let them—let him just— Ron is out there. With Harry. And all my other brothers are in the Order—well, all but Percy—and—"

"And that's exactly why I think your mum'd want you to sit this one out. You're the only one who isn't—"

"I'm the only one who'll have to be taking classes from his Death Eaters, facing them everyday."

"And if you just keep your head down—"

Ginny raised her chin in the air. "I'm a Weasley, Draco. They won't leave me alone just because I keep my head down. They'll be on me for information. They'll want to either break me or turn me, and I'm going to fight them."

Draco sat back against the moldy leather. He stared. "Gin," he breathed.

"You can't talk me out of it, Draco Malfoy. If you won't let me fight, I'll just go behind your back and—"

"Gin," he said again, "I said I'd protect you. I promised your brothers..."

"So help me fight then. Help me get ready. Don't let me go out there blind. You'd be protecting me then. You'd be keeping your promise."

Draco bit his lip. The carriage slowed to a stop—to Draco's relief. "Later," Draco said. "We'll talk about this later." He jerked open the door. "What the—" The whole school was being jostled into a single file line. The students fidgeted, cast wide eyes around as they whispered to friends. The taller ones craned their necks to try and see through the open door of the entrance hall. Argus Filch, the caretaker, was walking up and down the steps, muttering to himself and yelling at students who stepped out of line, who made the line crooked.

"Don't try and avoid this, Draco Malfoy." Ginny jumped down beside Draco. "I—" She looked up the dark stairs too.

"What's everyone waiting in line for?" Alana wondered, joining them.

"Dunno," Draco muttered. "Mr. Filch!"

The caretaker's already small eyes narrowed as he turned toward Draco.

"What's going on?"

"Inspection, Malfoy," the caretaker grunted.

"I wasn't told about any inspection."

"Well, students are hardly told—"

"Head Boy," Draco said, tapping the badge that he had removed from his pocket just before they had pulled into the station and pinned reluctantly to his chest. "Inspection of what?"

"Gotta make sure no Muggle-borns try to sneak in, don't we?" Filch turned quickly and stalked up the stairs away from them. He did not stop as he barked at a small Hufflepuff who had stepped out of line to try and get a clearer view up the steps.

"Blood Status," Ginny muttered. "They're checking for Blood Status."

Draco nodded. "Come on," he said, waving them toward the end of the line.

The line moved slowly through the fog, and the entrance hall looked inviting with its bright torches. Draco watched the front of the line, trying to discern what test awaited them, fought the desire to jump to the front. He stayed because Alana and Ginny were with him.

The Carrows stood together in the entrance hall. Alecto had a pointed hat pulled low over her bent head that covered some of the hideousness of her lopsided face. She carried a scroll and was talking to students up front in a loud, carrying voice. Her cackle made Draco cringe. Her brother, Amycus, leered at the line of students, his uneven eyes shining with excitement that he seemed barely able to restrain, and handled a Secrecy Sensor like someone who had never had a lesson in swordsmanship.

The hall itself looked as it always had: cavernous and well-lit on this feast night with the bronze doors of the Great Hall thrown open to spill the light of the floating candles. The hourglasses shone in the torchlight, the gemstones of the four Houses all still trapped in the top bulbs, glittering ruby, emerald, sapphire, and diamond.

"Bones," Alecto Carrow said as Susan Bones stood before her, trembling. "Your auntie was killed off last year, wasn't she? Ministry witch? Too close to Dumbydore?"

"D—Dumbledore. Yes," Bones stammered.

"And didn't you have family killed before that too? Who was it? Long time ago..."

"My—my Uncle Edgar," Bones whispered.

"Well, your blood's pure," Alecto said, checking off Bones' name on her scroll, "even if your family stupidly chooses to associate with a disgusting lot of Muggles, Mudbloods, and blood-traitors. We'll have our eyes on you, Bones. You just keep in line. You wouldn't want the chance to meet your uncle, would you?" Alecto sneered.

"N—no."

"Into the Great Hall with you."

Bones ran off, and Draco, frowning deeply after her, stepped forward.

"Ah, Malfoy," Alecto said as he came before her.

"Alecto," he returned coldly.

"Professor Carrow," she corrected.

"You can't both be Professor Carrow."

"Just give us your name, Malfoy," Professor Alecto Carrow snarled.

Draco crossed his arms over his chest. "You know my name."

"You're supposed to be setting an example for the school."

"And I am."

"A good example. One that the D—" she smiled, blinked, and corrected herself, eyeing Draco as if she were privileging him with a shared joke, "that our new headmaster would approve of."

Draco frowned. "Draco Malfoy," he spat. "Though I think our new head," he added in an undertone, fixing Alecto with a glare, "would prefer you call me 'my lord' now."

Alecto started, and Draco allowed himself a smirk. "Of course," she said. "Your name's right here on the list." She put a tick mark next to it. "Go on through."

Draco swept past the siblings.

"Name?"

Draco turned. Alana was in front of Alecto.

"Ala—"

"She's with me."

Both Carrows turned on Draco.

"What?" Amycus sneered.

"She's with me," Draco repeated. "Her blood's pure. I'll vouch for her. Alana O'Toule. She'll be on your list."

Alecto glared at Draco, and Amycus' mouth hung open stupidly. After a minute, Alecto consulted her list, made another tick. "Fine," she spat. "Go," she shot at Alana, who hurried past and caught Draco's outstretched hand.

Alecto turned back to Ginny. "Name?"

"You know her name, Carrow," Draco called, and Alecto let out a small roar of frustration. "That's Ginevra Weasley."

Alecto bent her head low over scroll to check for Ginny's name, but Draco interrupted her again. "Oh come off it. The Weasleys' blood is as pure as mine. Everyone knows that."

"Fine!" She pressed so hard with her quill that the point stabbed through the parchment. "Go! Just take that—that—"

"Careful, Carrow," Draco called, barely restraining a laugh.

Ginny hurried past the Carrows too and looked over her shoulder as she ran. As she came up beside Draco and Alana, she whispered, "Well done. Harry would be proud."

Draco beamed. As he looked along the line of students, he saw his smile reflected back at him from several faces, including Neville Longbottom's. Ernie Macmillan of Hufflepuff gave him a nod, and Anthony Goldstein of Ravenclaw gave him a thumbs-up.

"You gave them hope," Ginny sighed.

"That's one way to win over the prefects," Alana giggled. "Come on."

Draco sidled into a seat beside Alana at the Gryffindor table with Ginny on her other side. Neville put a hand on Draco's shoulder and smiled at him as he slid later into the seat beside him. "I talked to the Patils and to Anthony Goldstein," he murmured. "In the carriages. They were reluctant, but after what you just did to the Carrows, maybe..."

Draco gave him a grin.

"It doesn't look any different," Ginny said. She spoke quietly; they all did, and they all cast eyes up to the High Table where Snape sat in his usual black in Dumbledore's chair.

"What were you expecting?" Draco asked, fiddling with his Head Boy badge. It was attracting a fair few glares from the Gryffindors, and he wanted it less visible, but it was hard to hide the gleaming silver. Though, he noticed, most of those who glared had been there already when he had sat down, and those who joined the table after him whispered to their friends and pointed, hiding grins.

"I don't know," Ginny returned. "Black? Some giant altar to the Dark Lord?"

Draco stopped fiddling to look up at her. "He's still laying low, Gin, remember?"

"Everyone knows."

"I wish everyone did," Draco muttered.

"No you don't," Neville countered.

"If everyone knew, he'd be a lot easier to fight. Who can fight a ghost?"

"Who's fighting ghosts?" Nearly Headless Nick had been floating down the table to a seat, but he stopped to ask.

"No one, Nick. It's a turn of phrase."

"Hmph." The ghost's eyes raked Draco. "Head Boy?"

"Against my better judgment. Have the ghosts found out anything about the new management?"

Nick frowned and lowered himself into a seat across the table from them. One of the younger students shivered and shifted aside for him. "It has us all in an uproar, you know," Nick confided. "I've rarely seen the Friar so incensed. We had a meeting the other day. Some of the ghosts are talking about leaving—those who can. Poor Myrtle." He shook his head. "All we've heard is not good, young Malfoy."

"No," Draco agreed, glancing up at the table again, "it's not."

The Carrows took seats side by side at the High Table.

The doors opened, and Professor McGonagall, wearing a very closed expression, led the first years into the hall. She placed a four-legged stool in front of the High Table and accepted the Sorting Hat and the roll from Snape. "They're keeping things as normal as possible," he observed as McGonagall turned to face the hall, though she then surprised him by launching into the Sorting without allowing the Hat to sing. But then the Hat was often sharp and blunt in its commentary about the school's current climate, so perhaps it was not surprising that this year it would be muzzled.

Neville frowned, "McGonagall doesn't look happy with all this."

"None of them do," Ginny frowned.

"The Carrows look pretty chuffed though. And Snape—" Snape was wearing a small smirk. Draco had seen him wear just such an expression before, just having leaked Lupin's condition to the school, and once or twice when he had been punishing Harry.

"I hope Dumbledore's right about him..." Ginny said, voicing Draco's thoughts. Draco, who had been given a like reprieve by the previous headmaster, felt that he couldn't distrust Snape—didn't want to distrust Snape. After all, Snape had always declared himself to be on Draco's side...

"Hmm," Nick said with a frown. "Oh!" he cried and tried to join in the applause as one of the first years was made a Gryffindor, but incorporeal hands, of course, can't clap.

Snape said nothing when the Sorting ended, merely nodded to signal that Professor McGonagall should return the Hat and stool to their places till the next year. Draco hoped there would be a next year at Hogwarts. Snape didn't even speak to signal the start of the feast; the food merely appeared on the tables. It felt wrong, and Draco guessed that he wasn't the only one who felt so; the hall was unusually quiet, the first years being inducted and introduced mostly in whispers and murmurs. As he looked around, he couldn't help noticing how empty the tables seemed, swollen though they were with the first years, with the Muggle-borns gone.

"He's like some horrible old gargoyle," Ginny complained during pudding, "just sitting there, watching. And the moment any of us mess up—"

"Dumbledore said he's on our side," Draco reminded, but he shot another glance up at the new headmaster.

"And Harry always complained he wasn't."

"If we can't trust Dumbledore..."

"We don't know what Dumbledore would have said now, do we?" Ginny dropped her gaze to the golden plate, mashing her ice cream with a spoon. "Harry's still out there, still fighting. His opinion seems to matter just a bit more than Dumbledore's right now. Dumbledore's dead because—"

Ginny's gaze went to the window behind the High Table, the star-spangled sky. "They should be here now." Ginny groaned, throwing her elbows onto the table and catching her chin in her hands. "They all should—Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Dumbledore."

When the last of the food disappeared, the students remained in their seats, looking at one another, to see who would be first to stand. Slowly Draco inched out of his seat.

Then Snape stood.

"Those returning students may have noticed that we have several changes in staff this year." His voice rang oddly through the hall, grated on Draco's ears, made him recoil as he sank back into his seat. "I, Professor Snape, have been elected headmaster—"

"Elected," Ginny scoffed.

"—and I am joined by Amycus Carrow, who will be teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Alecto Carrow, who will be teaching Muggle Studies. Both of their classes will be mandatory for each of you."

No one dared whisper about these changes, but Draco saw a number of students exchange askance glances, especially at the Slytherin table.

"I want to warn you all now," Snape said in that quiet voice that could command a room of first years, "that I will demand strict adherence to the rules as headmaster. I will not tolerate foolishness from my students. Your behavior reflects not only upon yourselves, but also upon your professors, your families, and myself. You need to understand this, and if necessary, I will make it my mission to make you understand this."

This pronouncement rang through the hall, sending a shiver along even Draco's spine.

"To bed," Snape called.

There were several moments where still no one dared quite move. Draco looked at Neville. "Come on," he muttered and got out of his seat, turning to the Slytherins behind him.

The school followed his and Neville's lead eagerly.

Above the scrabble of shoved benches, Pansy called, "First years here. Come on now. First years."

Draco went up to her and reminded, "That's supposed to be the job of the fifth years."

"Idiots," Pansy growled as the first years, all looking very little, gathered around her. "They're over there." She turned from him with just the quickest pout, and Draco with a frown went to herd the two fifth year prefects into place.

The girl was long- and dark-haired, with a narrow face, prominent cheeks, and a high forehead. On looking at her again, Draco thought that she looked quite familiar... "Muggle Studies?" she was saying to her companion. "Why on earth would we want to learn about Muggles? Now?"

"I'm not sure how much learning there'll be," Draco cut in.

The prefects jumped.

"I don't think Carrow goes within fifty feet of one whenever she can avoid it. Forgetting something?" he added.

The boy dropped his eyes, and the girl blushed.

"No, forget it," Draco relented. "Pansy's got it covered." Already the Slytherin first years had vanished from the hall, and lines of first years from the other Houses were following, wending their way through the general mob of people flooding the doors. "Let's go," Draco suggested, "don't want to be last left with our new headmaster."

They were pliant prefects, Draco thought, as they stood up and started toward the doors.

Draco caught them up. "Remind me of your names?"

"Greengrass," the girl said.

"Aha! that's it." Draco smiled. "Prentice Greengrass?"

"Is my half-brother."

"Your hair is darker than his."

"Half-brother," the girl repeated.

"And Daphne's your sister? You look more like her." Draco spent little time looking at Daphne. A quiet girl of no extraordinary beauty or talent, she hadn't merited much of his time, but they were in the same year; he saw her often enough.

Greengrass nodded.

"So," Draco wondered, "do I call you Greengrass or—"

"Asteria if you like."

Draco turned to the other prefect. "And you?"

"Vaisey."

"You played on the Quidditch team last year, didn't you?"

"Yeah."

"Draco!"

Draco turned to see Alana fighting to remain against the throng and smiled. "I'll see you both—"

"—after a snog fest with your Gryffindor girlfriend," Asteria Greengrass finished for him. She turned her nose up in the air, wrinkled as if with a bad smell.

Draco frowned. "Around the common room," he finished. He looked over the two of them again then broke away without further comment. Alana was waiting by the doorjamb, and he caught her hand as he came near and pulled her into the tide of people leaving then over to the side by the hourglasses. He had stood here with her just over a year earlier when she had confessed to love him.

It felt as if it had been longer ago than that...

"Will you be all right tonight?" he asked, touching her face.

"Will you?" she returned.

"It's not as if the school's changed that much," he told himself as much as her.

"Sure. We've still a headmaster. Still the same four Houses."

"Of course. You'll look after Ginny, won't you?"

"I wouldn't be her friend if I didn't."

"She's never been in Gryffindor without a brother there."

"She'd have had to do it next year anyway."

"But under the circumstances..."

Alana stood on tiptoes and caught his cheek with a swift kiss. Her hand came up to brush his neck. "You're too sweet sometimes, you know?"

He felt his eyes slide away to a darker corner of the hall. Sweet? That was hardly a word he'd have thought applied...

"Don't. It's a good thing."

"I'll worry about you all night," he admitted.

"I'm the Head Boy's girlfriend," Alana said with a half-grin. "Who would dare hurt me?"

"I wish it were a short list."

She laughed shakily. "The long arm of the law will get them, won't it, if they do?"

Draco's eyes darted back to her. "Yeah. Maybe. If he takes my side. If he doesn't send them after you."

"I'll be all right," she promised, sealing it with a kiss. "Don't worry, Draco," she said and tried to pull away.

He kept hold of her hand.

"Draco," she sighed.

"Can't I— I wish— At least let me walk you up to the dorm?"

Her expression softened into a smile. "All right."

xxx

They said goodnight again beside the Fat Lady, who rolled her eyes. Draco watched Alana through the portrait-hole. He was just turning to go when the portrait swung abruptly shut, and the Fat Lady called him back with, "So, we'll have a Slytherin Head Boy this year? I can't say I'm surprised."

Draco looked down at his chest, where the pin still shone. He turned back to her. Though the shafts of moonlight through the clerestory were bright, they were not quite bright enough for him to read her expression well. "Nor am I," he answered honestly.

"I am a tad bit surprised they chose you."

"I think he's hoping that power corrupts, but," he assured her, "I won't let it go to my head."

"Hmph," the Fat Lady said.

"Watch over her."

The Fat Lady crossed her satined arms over her ample bosom. "I guard the door, Malfoy. I can't be expected to watch over every individual—"

"If you guard the door, you guard the ones behind it. Just don't let anyone outside of Gryffindor through," he finished, turning away.

"Except you?" the Fat Lady called out curiously.

Draco turned back. "Except me," he agreed, fighting a grin and wondering whether the Fat Lady had softened toward him to make the suggestion herself.

He then set off alone through the dark corridors. Draco tried not to let himself think as he consciously lingered in patches of moonlight, avoided the darker passages to either side. When he did think, his mind reminded him of everything that had gone wrong, all that could still go wrong. He felt Dumbledore's absence from the castle. Draco thought about having to take on Dumbledore's responsibility, to watch over the students since no one else in charge could, and almost stumbled with the great weight. Only Dumbledore could know everything. Dumbledore and maybe the Dark Lord—definitely the Dark Lord.

"What are you still doing out of bed?"

Draco leapt and froze, his eyes flying to the dark recess of a staircase. "Carrow," he breathed.

Amycus Carrow tilted his head.

"What are you doing out?" Draco asked.

"I'm a professor of this school, an authority figure, and—"

"So am I," Draco concluded. "And in fact, I think I outrank you, don't I?"

Carrow's face deflated in a frown. "Of course, my lord," he mumbled, bobbing his head again.

"So don't ask me where I'm going," Draco snapped, imitating his father as best he could. "Let me patrol," he invented, and with more bravado than confidence, set off again for the door to the dungeons.

xxx

The night was not done with surprises however. He pushed open the door of his bedroom to find it already occupied, in fact bustling with activity.

He stopped on the threshold.

Vincent Crabbe was stretched out on the bed nearest the doorway. Theodore Nott was shifting through the contents of a trunk at the foot of the next bed over. Gregory Goyle sat on the next, watching Nott, and in the second to last bed Blaise Zabini was curled up tight with a book near his long nose.

"You're here," Draco said. "You're all here."

For the past two years, he and Blaise alone had shared the bedroom. But after last June, he hadn't expected Blaise to dare to return to Hogwarts, let alone to be asked to share a bedroom.

Perhaps sensing some of his seething anger, Zabini looked up from his book, met Draco's glare, and quickly looked back down.

Nott straightened, and he smiled at Draco crookedly. "We're here," he agreed. "And we've a special assignment too."

"Oh?"

"You."

"Me?"

"I'm afraid you've not yet truly regained the trust of your master, Malfoy."

"And what? You're all supposed to be my nannies?"

Nott shrugged. "If that's the word you like best. We're to watch over you, make sure you continue down the path you ought, no detours, no creative loopholes."

Draco crossed his arms. "You're snitches."

"Again, the word is yours, but the assignment remains."

"So do I have an assigned bedtime? Curfew?"

"Not if you don't make them necessary, though this is an awfully late hour. I suppose you were…?"

"He was with Alana," Zabini said without looking up from the pages. "Saying goodnight. I saw him."

Nott smiled. "The Gryffindor?"

"Who told you—"

"That's her," Zabini confirmed.

"You keep away from her," Draco snarled, taking a step forward.

"Easy, Malfoy," Nott said. "We're not here to curtail your social life, as long as that social life doesn't lead you astray. There've been Gryffindors in the Dark Order before."

"She will never—"

"As long as you are, that's what matters. Just keep in line, and we won't have any troubles. The last bed," Nott gestured to the only empty bed, the one farthest from the door, "is yours."

Draco looked down the line. "So you'll hear and have plenty of time to stop me if I decide to take a nighttime stroll."

Nott shrugged again. "It's late. We should all be in bed. We have Muggle Studies in the morning."

"Muggle Myths, maybe, you mean," Draco grumbled, but he stalked down the aisle with all their eyes on him, and he yanked shut the green velvet curtains on the right side of the bed before he even took off his day clothes, putting up what barrier he could between himself and his jailers.

The last time he had seen Crabbe and Goyle, they had left him beaten and unconscious in an alleyway.

The last time he had seen Nott had been in a bit of woodland by the Burrow. Nott had come to warn him that his hideaway could not remain secret. And he had promised that the next time that they met, it would be with drawn wands, that they would meet as adversaries—because he hadn't felt himself able to escape this war and couldn't imagine switching sides.

The last time he had seen Zabini, he hadn't expected to meet him next as a villain. He had had to learn from Harry the bitter truth about what Zabini had done. He had been blind. He hadn't seen that Zabini had fallen prey to the Dark Lord's promises, and he was still unsure what had made the proud, independent boy genuflect and crave the Dark Lord's benefice.

All of it turned his stomach. He curled on the bed. He hadn't slept with his wand in hand since escaping his cell in Durmstrang, since the only visitor that he could expect was the Dark Lord himself. But he kept his wand in his fist now, and he rolled over to face them, thinking they'd come at him directly if they came.