"What is this?" Snape asked. He looked wary at the small, brightly colored box on his desk. McGonagall had taken an almost vicious delight in making the wrapping paper as bright and gaily colorful as possible.

"Your Christmas present," I said. "I know it's a couple of weeks late, but it took me a while to make it."

I'd already given my gift to Neville, another handkerchief like I'd given Hermione. Potter I'd given some Wizard cards. I hadn't seen Draco yet.

Staring at the box as though he thought it held a severed head, Snape looked back up at me. "I do not require gifts from students."

"That Foe-glass you gave me was kind of a big deal. I like to pay people back."

He was silent for a moment, and then he smirked.

I'd certainly paid Voldemort back; the fallout from that debacle was still being felt all through the Wizarding world. It was a sign of just how small the Wizard population was that the deaths of less than a platoon's worth of men had such an outsized impact.

I shrugged, and held the box out to him. Although I was pretending to not care about his opinion of the gift, I'd put a lot of work into it. Having him reject it was going to irritate me.

He opened the box cautiously, looking as though he wanted to use his wand to check it for traps. He didn't, though, for which I gave him props.

"What is this?" he asked.

He was staring at the wooden lily as though it was a rattlesnake in his hand, a combination of horror and apprehension on his face. His entire body was tense for some reason.

"I made it myself," I said. "With a cutting spell."

"What flower is this supposed to be?" he asked, and there was a strange edge to his voice. It was almost as though he was ascribing some meaning to the flower that I hadn't meant to give it. I'd looked through his flower book; had I made a mistake?

"A lily," I said cautiously. "It's a symbol of purity."

He was silent for a long moment, staring at the flower with a look that showed a sudden, old sorrow. For just a moment he looked as though he had aged ten years, but then he straightened up.

"I know what it is," he said tersely. "Who told you?"

"Told me what?" I asked. For once my confusion was genuine.

He was silent for a moment. He studied my face, as though he was looking for any hint of deception. For once, I met his gaze unflinchingly.

"I find myself beginning to believe that you just know more than just about things that put you in danger," he said finally.

I shrugged. I still wasn't sure what this was all about, but I'd apparently stumbled onto a sensitive subject. I'd noticed that the pages in his book talking about lilies were more worn than the other pages; I'd assumed that meant that they were a favorite of his. Perhaps I'd been wrong.

"This...must have taken time," he said. He stared at it. "The cuts are very precise."

"I'm getting good at cutting things," I said brightly. "And it was good practice for later. And I wanted to do something nice for you."

"It is not your place to be... nice," he said. "And it could be dangerous for both of us for you to be seen giving me gifts. There are individuals who would see you dead, people who I am forced to interact. It would go poorly for both of us for this to be discovered."

I rolled my eyes at him.

"I wouldn't give this to you in front of anyone else," I said. "I'm not an idiot."

"You are somewhat less of a dunderhead than your classmates," he admitted reluctantly. "But you are not an adult. Children sometimes make foolish mistakes."

"So do adults," I said. "They join up with people they never should have and get involved with a bad crowd."

"My tolerance for your impudence is not unlimited," he said. "Some conjecture is not simply dangerous to you, but to me."

"They sent six Death Eaters to kill me," I said. "Here. You know that I'm not like other kids. I'm not going to lay down and die. If they kill me, I'm going to take as many of I can with them."

The faintest ghost of a smile appeared on his lips. It was so faint that I could have been mistaken that it even existed. Was that approval, or was he enjoying the thought of what I might do to his Death Eater buddies?

"Please attempt not to drag others along with you," he said. He was silent a moment. "Some enjoy living and do not have a Gryffindor-like tendency to throw themselves into danger."

"I don't do that!" I protested. "Danger throws itself at me! It's like I'm a magnet for trouble."

"On that we can both agree," he said.

"I blame the hat."

Staring at me for a moment, he nodded.

"The Sorting Hat is beholden to no one," he said. "It is an artifact of a bygone age. It is as old as the oldest of the ghosts in Hogwarts, and is possibly one of the oldest minds in the world."

I hadn't done a lot of research on ghosts; although their use as spies was obvious, I lived in a castle full of portraits that served the same purpose. They couldn't damage me physically, and they couldn't take over my mind, so I'd preferred to focus on more immediate concerns.

"I spoke with the hat," he said. "Questioned its choice. It told me that its mandate was not just to do what was good for the individual student, but what was good for the school and for all of Wizarding Britain. It thought that you would be an agent of change."

I shook my head.

"I don't want to be an agent for change. I'm tired of all of that; why can't I simply move on into obscurity."

"I fear you would find obscurity to be rather boring," he said. "You have chosen the only path that is in your nature."

I looked at the lily. What did it mean to him, really?

"Your Dark Lord won't win," I said. "He's too petty and short sighted. Someone like Grindlewald might have had a chance, but Tom is no Grindlewald."

"You don't know what you are talking about," he said stiffly.

He'd once fallen for Voldemort's line.

"He's got vision and determination," I said. "Unwavering conviction. People mistake that for charisma. Everyone wants to be significant; most people channel that into work, or family, or achievement."

"And you know this at eleven, because?"

I ignored him. "People who feel that they can't do that, it's easy to tell them that they deserve better, because of their race, or their gender, or their religion. People like that, all you have to do is tell them that an enemy is attacking their group, and they have to defend it. That gives them permission to use violence."

I'd studied radicalization, especially in reference to the Fallen. They'd worshiped the Endbringers, and while they hadn't been anything nearly as dangerous as the Slaughterhouse Nine, they had been fanatics.

"Get a group of them together, and they will feed on each other. Violence begets violence."

He was staring at me.

"You've researched how to become a Dark Lord," he said. There was an incredulous note in his voice.

"I've read between the lines," I said. "And if you win, then you aren't a dark lord. You're just Minister for Magic, or the Emperor or whatever."

"No one would accept a muggleborn dark lord."

"You never know until you try," I said, grinning at him.

"You just have to find the right leverage. You win by taking existing prejudices and widening them. Tell them you know how the world really is. Make them think they can make a real change. Ultimately the only thing that changes is who's in charge. They'll tell you that you are better than everyone else. If something bad happens to you, it's not your fault; it's the others."

His lips tightened. Had Voldemort used some of those tactics against him? Was I essentially calling him a fool a sap? I didn't mean it that way.

"I'm not planning to become a Dark Lady," I said. "That's a whole lot of work I really don't want to be bothered with. Have you considered running for Dark Lord?"

"What?" he asked, startled.

I suppressed my urge to laugh at the look on his face. He looked like a deer caught in the headlights. Hadn't the thought of taking over ever occurred to him? He might not have Voldemort's sheer power, but he was at his side constantly.

Even Hitler had generals who had wanted him dead.

"You've got the look already," I said. "All it would take was giving the right people a little... push. Make people believe that what you're offering is better than what the Death Eaters or the Ministry is offering."

He regained his composure. "My position is precarious enough, as apparently you seem to know. I would prefer to keep my head, instead of having the entire Wizarding world after it."

"Well, if you change your mind let me know. Enjoy the present," I said.

Before he had a chance to either thank me or give me detention for some weird reason, I turned and left.

Marching up into the Slytherin dorms, I headed toward the boys stairs. There were no protections on those to prevent the girls from entering, which I thought rather stupid, really. Given the nature of teenagers, it was surprising that there wasn't an explosion of teen pregnancies every year.

Maybe there was a section in the syllabus where the boys and girls were separated and we were given a lecture on contraceptive magics. Likely it was in the restricted section. Maybe it wasn't, and I just hadn't bothered to look it up.

After all, it wasn't something I was going to have to worry about for a good, long while.

It didn't take long for me to find Malfoy. He'd just returned from the holidays with his family, and he was the only one in the common room.

"Malfoy," I said. "We need to talk."

The look of apprehension on his face was amusing. How much had he heard from his father, who was likely in contact with their master? In retrospect, I likely could have discovered whose parents were active Death Eaters simply by their reactions in the aftermath of my adventure in the Forbidden Forest.

Those who didn't react differently were at the very least not being kept in the loop by their parents. Those who were probably were acting as spies for their parents anyway.

Deciding that I would watch everyone around me closely over the next few days, I pushed forward.

"I wanted to thank you for your gift," I said.

The look of relief on his face was palpable.

"I brought you a gift as well," I said, pulling the brightly colored box from behind my back.

The look of anxiety on his face was suddenly back.

What was it with these people? Why did they assume that if I was giving them a gift that it contained some sort of hidden trap? Didn't they know that I tended to be more direct when I intended to move against someone?

He took the gift gingerly.

As I watched, he carefully opened the gift. As he opened the box, I watched his face carefully.

Snape wasn't the only one I'd made a statuette for. I'd put effort into this one; it was a carving of an acromantula, made up as a pendant.

His face paled; I was right that he'd been informed about what had happened. I'd assumed that the chess set was a message from his father. In a way this was my message back to him.

It was a message that what had happened wasn't a coincidence, that the deaths of the Death Eaters had been planned.

People like Malfoy respected strength. The question was whether or not he would share this message with his master, or whether he would keep it to himself.

That would give me a measure of his loyalty; it would tell me whether I actually had an opportunity to turn him toward me, or whether I was barking into the wind.

Voldemort ruled by fear.

How would he deal with this defeat? It made him look bad, but it was being concealed by the Moody.

The series of defeats they were suffering was more damaging than the initial loss, though. There had been other Death Eaters captured, although some of them had escaped already. Undoubtedly this was because some of them were released either by people who were sympathizers in the government, or by people who were controlled by magic.

"What is this? He asked.

"A gift," I said. "And a reminder."

He understood what I was saying immediately. He looked at it more closely.

"This wasn't transfigured. How did you make it?"

"With the cutting charm," I said. "It was good practice for the future."

I didn't smile when I said it, not like I had with Snape. He paled a little. There were more than one kind of message, and he was bright enough that he got it.

It likely boggled his mind that I would have expended this much effort just to make a point. In truth, it had been my proof of concept before I'd worked on Snape's lily. I was very familiar with the shape of spiders, after all.

The spider was actually almost as good as the lily. I'd made fewer mistakes because I'd used actual spiders as models, and because my familiarity with it had made it relatively easy. I'd made some mistakes, but I'd repaired them. It was a nice piece of work overall.

The fact that it reinforced his idea of me as slightly crazy was only a bonus.

"I've decided to make this my symbol," I said. "In honor of…well, I guess you might know."

"Is it true?" he asked in a low voice, looking around.

There was no one around us, and there were no portraits in the Slytherin common room. This was by design, as Slytherins more than those in other houses did not like being overheard while they were making various plans.

My bugs confirmed that there were no invisible watchers, either, at least not any they could hear of smell.

Wizards using invisibility was common; controlling their sound was less common but not unheard of. I doubted that most of them would think about masking their smell. I had some bugs who had acute senses of small, and this was something I was habitually doing now.

I had no intention of being surprised by invisible attackers in the bath, not again.

"Are you asking if Potter and I decided to take a walk out in the forest?" I asked.

If anything, his face paled even further. That was impressive given that his complexion was already pale to begin with.

"I'm not confirming anything," I said. "But if it was true, what would that mean for you?"

"How did you know?" he asked.

"I know a lot of things," I said. "The question is what you intend to do about it."

"What do you want me to do?" he asked.

"Use your head," I said. "Keep your eyes open. Consider who it would be wise to be loyal to; someone that you may never meet, or someone who has the ability to make a real difference in your life."

He looked conflicted.

"You don't understand," he said. "What being disloyal means. It's not just what they do to you; it's what they do to your family."

"And you think I'm different?" I asked.

"I think you go after people who go after you," he said. "But you aren't cruel."

He'd obviously been watching me carefully; more carefully than I'd thought. Obviously [LF1] I'd made a big impression on him.

"No one says that loyalties have to be obvious," I said. "Sometimes it is good to keep your true loyalties to yourself."

He frowned.

"No one says you have to openly ally yourself to a mudblood," I said. "But there are little things people can do to help. There's a difference between being obvious like a Gryffindor, and subtle like a Slytherin."

His look turned considering.

"I've looked your family up," I said.

After my encounter with Malfoy senior, I'd been interested in what I could learn, mostly about his history, but Wizards were very interested in family histories.

"They've become successful by knowing which way the wind blows and turning their sails in that direction. They started with nothing, and over time they became one of the richest houses in Wizarding Europe."

"The third richest," he said.

"It's smart," I said. "And that's all I'm asking now. Be smart, watch which way the wind blows, and do what you have to do to keep yourself and your family safe."

He frowned and after a moment he nodded.

I stepped back, and I smiled.

We shook hands.