For a day, Draco listened. Everyone thought he had such a big mouth that no one would really believe he had mastered one of the most basic of Slytherin tactics. From shadows, from corners, even in the Great Hall, his ears were open and his mouth was shut. Oh, and the things he heard! With a bit of a smirk, he stuffed the juicier ones into the back of his head. Blackmail was always useful, and you never knew whose help you might need next.

"Neville."

"Can you believe Longbottom?"

"There's no way, absolutely no way this is going to work! Neville Longbottom!"

"I wish I could tell Harry how much we were counting on him." Oh, sure, because that would make him less dead.\

"New Zealand - just you watch."

"Canada, at least they speak English there."

"Zaire." That was Blaise, strangely enough. He had seemed haughty before, but really?

"The Dark Lord's got plans, and now that the World's Savior is gone..."

"Longbottom? He's pathetic."

The Hufflepuffs, strangely enough, seemed to be taking the whole thing the worst. The Gryffindors were putting up a brave front - because of course they were. It was what they did. The Ravenclaws seemed to think that neutrality was an option. Draco knew that it wasn't, that standing in the middle was the worst place to stand. And people thought Slytherins were cowards! Judgement and prudence and cunning were Slytherin virtues - but a snake knows when to strike, and when to hide in the grass waiting. The Slytherins were gloating, insufferably - even the ones that weren't Dark. Every single Slytherin remembered Potter's tendency to steal victory from them, and not just on the Quiddich field either.

From the top of the school, to the bottom, no one seemed to notice that something was wrong. Granted, Draco thought in a brief moment of kindness, one couldn't expect Granger to be thinking clearly right now...

Unbeknownst to him, one set of blue eyes had been watching him, sitting out on that tombstone. The airhead was waiting for him, flanking him and walking to the top of the Astronomy Tower. Draco Malfoy, for all that he prided himself on his cunning and stealth, hadn't noticed.

Draco Malfoy smelled something odd, nearly the scent of nutmeg. Turning about, he saw Luna Lovegood, a small handful of flowers in her hand. Walking past him, she pressed the flowers into his hands, ineffably smiling, and saying, "no rest for the wicked. Just something for your sleepwalking."

Draco Malfoy shook his head amusedly, letting the flowers fall one by one off the edge of the tower. Like hell he was going to be seen with - what were these, anyway? [a/n: kola flowers, imported.] His mother loved flowers, but he'd never seen anything like these.

Looking out over the black lake, Draco Malfoy shook his head, wondering why everyone was blinkered idiots, blind to the obvious. Oh, he'd expect it out of Hufflepuff, and it wasn't surprising that the Gryffindors would fall for anything, but even the Slytherins were smug and selfsatisfied at the news. Draco Malfoy was less than sanguine about the odds of the Dark Lord winning, and that didn't even call into question what a victory would actually mean. It had been one thing to cheer for a Slytherin victory, preferably on the backs of kowtowing Gryffindors. It was another to smell the bloated corpses of a wartime victory - it turned Draco's stomach, and that wasn't easy to do (the Slytherins had a King of the Hill game where they competed to gross each other out. Draco was rather good at winning.)

What was happening? Draco hated being clueless about what was going on. It was worse, now that he knew that no one (except maybe Lovegood? of all people...) was even concerned. not knowing was dangerous, and Draco's inquisitive nature was urging him towards something daring and quite possibly impulsive.

When nothing makes sense, break it worse.