Draco was sitting by the black lake, on a wide rock as high as his waist. He was looking out over the water, thinking. There had to be some way to understand what was wrong. There just had to. It was like an itch that lived on the inside of his skin. He closed his eyes, letting the faces of everyone he knew play over his mind, rising out of his memory. Significant numbers of them were unchanged - Crabbe and Goyle didn't know how to worry, Draco figured. After all, they had him to watch out for them. Snape's face seemed chiseled, recently - flinty, where once it had seemed like chipped obsidian. And just as likely to strike sparks if you weren't cautious with your words. McGonagall's face had that bluntness that one expected out of a mace, not the old battleaxe that she really was. You could tell she was trying to hold herself together - and against all odds (particularly for a Gryffindor) it was working. Maybe she cried in private? Always possible - everyone knew how she favored her young lions. She was known to be almost as partial as Snape was to his Slytherins - and that was always more justifiable, as everyone else hated the Slytherins.

Lost in thought, Draco's eyes had slid nearly shut, when he heard the sounds of Crabbe and Goyle bumbling over. The crack of a stick (on the sandy shore?), a grunt, rustling of cheap cotton robes... He turned around before they could say a word, leaving them both with open mouths as they looked at him. "Find anything interesting from the Weasleys?" Draco snapped, his voice drill-sergeant hard - and just as impersonal. If he wanted to yell at the brutes, he'd use a different tone, and well they knew it.

"Nope, nothing." Crabbe said, his voice characteristically gruff.

"I think they saw us following them..." Goyle said, proving once again that he was the more articulate one.

And then a very curious thing happened. Goyle and Crabbe began to sing.

"There's a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza. There's a hole in my bucket, dear Liza a hole."

"Then fix it dear Henry, dear Henry, fix it!"

At this point, the both of them picked Draco up under the arms and began to spin him around - still singing. Draco closed his eyes (which didn't help with the motion sickness, but did help him think).

"With what should I fix it dear liza dear liza. With what should I fix it, dear liza with what?"

"With a straw, dear Henry Dear henry, dear henry, with a straw, dear Henry, Dear henry a straw."

"You're not Crabbe and Goyle, are you?" Draco said, in a voice that would have sounded weary, if not for that he had to shout over the cacaphonous singing. As it was, it merely sounded... abrupt.

The two lads turned broad Weasley grins on him - and kept singing. Draco, whose stomach was starting to feel the unasked for spinning, finally hissed, "Enough" in a deep carrying voice that he had stolen directly from Rubeus Hagrid.

The hideous, nay, wretched singing stopped. "You sing even worse than they do, you know?"

"Nah, we sing loads better this way. They've got quite a voice, Greg and Vince. Carries near back to the castle." Draco very carefully did not turn around to look. For one, he thought he might fall over. For a second, he thought there might be people looking at the decidedly abnormal display of gaiety.

"But they've only been following you for a week! How'd you pull it off?" Draco's inner spoilt child could only be suppressed for so long, it appeared. "Polyjuice takes a month to brew."

"Luckily, we came prepared." The twins shared a smile over Draco's head. "Tell anyone and you'll regret it, but we always have a pot on." No wonder they were constantly able to slide things even past the teachers, Draco thought. Imagine impersonating Snape! No one would ever ask what the potion was, for fear of the Potion Master's foul temper.

"You don't like being followed that much?" Draco asked.

"Well, as much as it interferes with business..." one of the twins said to the other.

"we figured that if you needed mischief, you'd just have talked to us!"

"Which means you're about..."

"Something bigger than mischief!"

"And we gotta know -"

"What's been bothering the Silver Prince of Slytherin." Oh, great, a new nickname, Draco Malfoy thought crossly.

"Nothing's been bothering me." Draco Malfoy said, shaking his head. "In fact, I think that's the problem. I've become bored."

"Want some help with that?" the twins had identical grins on their faces, which was odd, as Greg and Vince weren't normally that synchronous.

"You two couldn't possibly help me. You're veritable whirlwinds of chaos, yet manage to be quite boring despite that."

"Boring?"

"... boring?"

"Yeah. But I'll tell you what, when I do figure out what's bothering me - assuming it isn't nothing... You want in?" Draco Malfoy gave his shark's grin.

"It's skullduggery that he's talking."

"Something we specialize in."

"What do you say, brother?"

"I don't know, what do you say brother?"

And they stopped looking at each other, and looked at Draco Malfoy with what he hoped was their serious face (being Weasleys it was hard to tell).

"We're in."

[Well, that gets the sharp Gryffs off his back for the moment. Read and review, folks! ]