Draco paced up and down the stairs to the Astronomy Tower. He had something on his mind, and he didn't like that. Shouldn't someone other than him have noticed that things just weren't adding up? He knew there was something that he was missing, but what?
And so he paced, and as his irritation grew, he sped up, climbing and cascading down the stairs in a rush of black fabric. For once, little cared he of the sweat dripping off his brow. Or the stink that someone might notice, and wonder what he had been doing. Of course, everyone would assume it was something nefarious. When did a wizard need to exercise?
Besides, he was hardly as fat as Goyle or Crabbe. Perhaps they ought to take up Hippogryff wrestling. Better not to suggest that one, they might think him serious.
It was early still, the sun beating down on the top of the tower when Draco emerged, restless still, and cast about with his eyes - the cheerful sun and crisp wind at odds with his restless, shifting temper. And so he slammed the door as he strode inside, cascading down the stairs like a waterfall, channeling each touch into the next bounce. It was a trick he had picked up ages ago, and it did him good to keep in practice.
A fragment of a thought caught at him, and he spun, dancing up the stairs with a fury, the thought trying to evade him, to slip into the shadows. Draco didn't much mind. He had all day. It caught at him and he spun on the landing, as if chasing the snitch, this time his feet barely on the ground.
The words swirled around him, emerging reluctantly out of memory long buried, "If you can't tell what's broken, why - break it worse."
Draco sat, suddenly, his feet dangling off the edge of the landing, swinging as they had when he was a child. What did he know? Longbottom, perhaps, and other people - not behaving quite right. Well, if he were to think like Longbottom - and no, he didn't mean cowering - what did that really tell him? Longbottom, now rumored to have to defeat the Dark Lord?
Neville Longbottom would find a plan. Tactics, strategy - Draco liked those things. With a thin grin (only the Gryffindors mistook it for a smirk), Draco began to walk with a will, directing himself up to the top of the tower. He could see the greenhouses from there. And Neville Longbottom, it was widely known, was a master of plants.
Draco Malfoy knew he could never hope to defeat Lord Voldemort with plants - Merlin, even Prof. Sprout would have trouble with that assignment! Still, there were unplumbed possiblities here.
And Draco hated unsolved puzzles.
[a/n: well, we've started plot. Sort of. Draco's significantly less mopey and more directed, at any rate. Read and Review, it really does encourage me to write this and not revise something else.]