Astoria swiped her quill under her chin, dragging the filmy feathers against her skin one way, then the other, and back again. Her dark, ebony eyes played over the fluffy turrets and swirling hills the clouds created, looking as soft as pulled cotton candy. She wondered if there was a spell to bring a cloud to earth and...weave into a cloak, perhaps. Or shape into a animal, like those funny Muggle men who shaped balloons into flowers and poodles and the like.

"CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"

Astoria jumped so hard her knee knocked into the underside of her desk and, wincing, she looked up. The one, mad blue eye of her Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher glared into her. It reminded of her the day she looked up from a book into the startlingly vivid, almost painful light of her father's lit wandtip. It was the kind of look that punched. The kind that made her want to shrink backwards, and that weakness was exactly what made her spine stiffen in defiance.

"Are you hoping to learn a Shielding Charm from the sky, Miss Greengrass?" he asked gruffly and she flushed a little in spite of herself, closing her hand on the spine of her book, and she shook her head.

"No, sir. I'm sorry." And she meant it. After all, she was in the wrong, this time. Her family wouldn't have wanted her to mess up in the first place, but surely would have wanted her to own up to it.

He harrumphed at her and returned to teaching, directing his wand at the board. Blocky lettering formed across it with a flick of the slender wood, and with another, they enlarged enough for even those in the back row to see.

Smiling slightly in affection of the brusque professor, Astoria reached into her bag and pulled out a fresh roll of parchment.

o-0-o

Astoria walked along the brightly-lit corridor, flipping through her newest choice of a spellbook, this one having to do with how to invent a spell. Her idea in Defense Against the Dark Arts had intrigued her, enough so to pull her mind from the lesson at hand, to Moody's chagrin.

She frowned at the pages, munching on a crisp green apple in one hand without looking from the book balanced open in the other. It looked complicated. Really complicated. As she was browsing what to do first, what resources she'd have to dig up, she heard malicious words magnified to what seemed to be a purposefully loud volume.

"And there's a picture, Weasley!"

She paused mid-chew, looking up curiously, and found herself directly outside the Great Hall with a small crowd of students who had apparently stopped for the same reason that she had.

"A picture of your parents outside their house- if you can call it a house! Your mother could do with losing a bit of weight, couldn't she?"

With a sinking feeling in her stomach like the sail of a boat being cut free, Astoria snapped her book shut and slipped it into her bag, then moved closer. She was still small enough to slip through the crowd of older students, from natural frailty and the fact that she was twelve years old.

As she knew he would, it was Malfoy who came into view, flanked by the huge, chortling forms of Crabbe and Goyle. She couldn't even remember which guard dog was which, and she didn't try. Instead, she searched for the Weasley Malfoy was directing his words at, hoping that it wasn't Ron or Ginny, because the first was short-tempered enough to attack the heir of the oldest, most influential family in the Wizarding world, and the second was a friend. As much as a Gryffindor could be her friend, anyway. She had omitted that particular friendship from the monthly letters she wrote to her parents.

Her gut sank, a pebble settling against the bottom of a riverbed.

Ron Weasley stood about ten feet away from the pale, pointed bully, visibly trembling with the restraint it took to keep himself from attacking. Harry Potter was quick to leap to his defense.

"Get stuffed, Malfoy." Then he murmured something to Weasley that Astoria couldn't catch and she breathed a soft sigh of relief as it looked like the red-headed boy would leave with his friend.

Then Malfoy had to sneer- "Oh yeah, you were staying with them this summer, weren't you, Potter?" His name slipped off his lips, encased in loathing and derision and a thousand other things that made Astoria glare at him before she could think. "So tell me, is his mother really that porky, or is it just the picture?"

"You know your mother, Malfoy?" Harry shot back, and Astoria sucked in a quick breath as he seized the back of Weasley's robes. "That expression she's got, like she's got dung under her nose? Has she always looked like that, or was it just because you were with her?"

Astoria's breath caught, trapped between shock and the almost overwhelming urge to laugh. She couldn't help it. She'd never been able to stand up to Malfoy, even if she'd always wanted to for as long as she'd known him, and it was gratifying to see someone else do it.

Malfoy had a flush in his pale cheeks. "Don't you dare insult my mother, Potter."

"Keep your fat mouth shut, then," said Harry as he turned away, pulling Weasley with him.

Astoria gasped as Malfoy whipped out his wand and directed the tip at Harry's back- and she was frozen the spot, unable to tell if she should act like she wanted or stay passive like she knew was her duty- and then BANG!

The spell erupted from the end of his wand, but in the light that lit up the hall, Astoria screwed up her eyes and wondered what she was seeing as it faded.

"OH NO YOU DON'T, LADDIE!"

She spun and there was Professor Moody, limping down the white stone staircase, his wand pointed right at the- the...

Astoria stared, blinking several times to make sure she wasn't hallucinating.

An albino ferret sat, shivering, on the floor. Precisely where a wild-eyed Malfoy had just been.

Did he just- Did he just turn Malfoy-?

If she had been able to tear her eyes from what was once a haughty boy that she wouldn't admit scared her, she would have seen Moody turn to Harry and ask gruffly, "Did he get you?"

"No," answered Harry, bottle-green eyes wide with awe and a touch of shaky admiration. "Missed."

As they spoke, one of the hulking boys approached the quivering ferret and stooped to lift it tentatively, as though unable to believe his eyes. Astoria knew she was still having trouble believing hers. The urge to laugh was there yet again, pressing on her throat and trembling in her lower belly.

The guard dog had made a mistake.

"LEAVE IT!" shouted Moody, causing every student there to jump once more.

"Leave- what?" asked Harry who, like Astoria, thought the professor was talking to him.

"Not you- him!" growled Moody, jerking a thumb over his cloaked shoulder at Crabbe, who had frozen in the act of picking up Malfoy. The ferret. The ferret that was Draco Malfoy. That ferret.

A laugh, bubbling and unstoppable, rose in Astoria's throat and she hastily bit off another chunk of apple to muffle it. She turned away to hide her face, covering her mouth, her face growing red with the effort of stopping the amusement that burbled to life. Her eyes caught Daphne's, and her sister frowned at her, but that only made Astoria giggle even harder and nearly choke on the sweet-and-sour fruit.

The thunk of a wooden leg on the stone floor made her look up, seeing Moody stride towards the Malfoy-ferret, who squeaked in terror and darted away like a white slash streaking over the flagstones towards the dungeons. Astoria couldn't blame him, but she covered her mouth and choked on a laugh anyway.

"I don't think so!" yelled Moody, brandishing his wand once more, and the second-year Ravenclaw gaped at him as yet another jet of light struck the ferret. He flew into the air, claws flailing helplessly, and then hit the floor with a terrific smack.

Astoria covered her mouth, eyes huge, and her amusement was wiped away by horror. He could seriously hurt Malfoy! This had gone too far. But what could she do? She was just... She was just her, a disgraced Greengrass, and Moody was a full-fledged Auror. He caught the wizards her parents associated themselves with for a living.

But as the ferret bounced upward again, squealing like a piglet, she couldn't keep silent. "Professor Moody. Hey- Professor Moody."

Dozens of eyes turned to her and she shrank back, biting her lip, before reminding herself that she was a Green- No, she was Astoria. That had been enough to help her face her parents' wrath, her sister's hurt pride, and her own doubts. It would be enough to face Moody too. It had to be. Again, the fact that she wanted to shrink made her spine straighten and shoulders square and eyes become level. Though the flush in her cheeks probably gave away more than she wanted it to.

"I don't like people who attack when their opponent's back's turned. Stinking, cowardly, scummy thing to do," Moody informed the ferret before, at last, both eyes turned to hers, but kept Malfoy bouncing off the floor like he was playing with a yo-yo. He waited, grizzled eyebrow raising as Astoria tried to find the words to articulate what she was feeling. It was hard when she could feel everyone's eyes on her, like a thousand beetles crawling over her skin.

She steeled herself, met Moody's mismatched eyes, and waved at Malfoy, wincing as he hit the floor once more. "You're hurting him."

It sounded feeble even to her own ears.

Smack went the ferret. Plink went a pin against the floor.

"Stop," she elaborated, the pregnant silence only fueling her self-consciousness.

Moody opened his mouth and she steeled herself for the backlash, but she was saved by a shocked voice carried towards her over the heads of her classmates. Sailing towards them with a stack of books in her arms was Professor McGonagall, her eyes followed Malfoy's progression through the air. "Professor Moody!"

"Hello, Professor McGonagall," said Moody politely.

Astoria shut her mouth and backed up, into the crowd, a tight knot in her chest easing at the sight of the Head of Gryffindor. She wanted to be brave, she really did, but she was glad she no longer had so many eyes on her. McGonagall would take care of it.

"What- What are you doing?" she asked, still staring at the ferret.

"Teaching," said Moody, in a matter-of-fact kind of way.

It took her a moment, but she figured it out in the middle of a word, "Teach- Moody, is that a student?" she shrieked, the books tumbling from her hands.

"Yep."

"No!" McGonagall's wand slashed through the air and with a loud snapping noise, Malfoy (now thankfully human) sprawled on his back, usually sleek blond hair stuck all over his pink cheeks. He pushed himself to his feet after a moment of lying there, gaping in pure horror at the ceiling, and much as Astoria disliked him, she couldn't help but feel sorry for him. Her dislike was, she knew with a grimace, unfounded. He was pureblood, Slytherin, from a well-respected family, and only treated those who were naturally inferior to him as such. Or at least, that was what her parents told her, but the day Astoria was nominated a Ravenclaw, she began wondering and poking and pulling from Samuel and Alyssa Greengrass. Sometimes she felt like the lone thread in a tapestry that slowly unraveled from the rest.

Whatever they told her, Malfoy was a bully. However much influence his family wielded, she did not want to pander to him like she saw Daphne- her proud, beautiful, smart sister- do every day. She couldn't describe exactly what was so wrong with that, but she knew it made disgust and anger twist up in a hard knot in her belly, and it made her respect for her sister lessen every day like water taking away bit by sandy bit of a golden shore.

Astoria hardly listened as McGonagall scolded Moody with increasing ferocity as the seconds ticked on, her onyx eyes on Malfoy as he straightened his robes and avoided everyone's eyes. She wondered if it had hurt enough to make tears spring forth.

She bit into her apple, shifting the strap of her bag so it stopped digging into her shoulder, and watched as Moody hauled Malfoy towards the dungeons with a growled threat of speaking to Snape.

Taking the last bite of her apple, she tossed the core into the trash, keeping her eyes on Malfoy's retreating back as she thought. And then, slowly, an idea began to form. An idea that sprung half from cunning and the other from compassion. She expected the first was probably due to growing up with three Slytherins in the same house. The second... She didn't know where the second had come from, but she knew it had no place in the pureblood mantra her parents upheld.

But however much she'd tried to deflect and dodge and evade it, she was not her parents. The knowledge weighed heavily on her. She had failed them. She wondered how long it would take before they realized what they'd raised.

She grasped at the fraying threads of the only life she'd ever known.

So what if she felt sorry for someone she detested? No one had to know. No one need ever hear the tiny doubts that had sprung from the back of her mind, no one ever had to know that she was starting to wonder if this red-tinted world was one in which she belonged.

She'd find a different way of being their perfect pureblood princess, even if she lost some of her perfection along the way. She didn't know if such a thing was possible, but she had to try. They were her parents.

Pulling out her wand, she siphoned the juice from her face, and came to a decision.

She pocketed her wand and followed the boy she knew was a bully, the one she knew had nothing to hide from his parents, because he was everything they'd ever wanted.

I can be, too, she insisted. I will be, too.

o-0-o

Astoria had followed the grizzled professor and his reluctant charge for a while, wondering how to best approach them, and she could feel her confidence seeping away the longer she stayed back. Doubt was starting to climb up from the recesses of her mind, her hesitation making her remember that handling a snake was better left to those who could charm them into submission.

Finally, as they neared Snape's office, she steeled herself and walked forward with her chin tilted up.

"Professor Moody."

He turned, his silver-streaked mane clinging to the cloak he never went anywhere without, and watched as the Ravenclaw girl came forward. His drilling gaze made her have a hard time meeting his eyes, whether electric blue or beady black. But the knowledge that he intimidated her made her determination harden all the more, curdling to something hard and fierce deep in her belly.

"Save it, Miss Greengrass," he said gruffly. "If you're here to fight on this scum's behalf again-" he shook Malfoy's shoulder none too gently, and the boy shot him a look of pure loathing- "you can turn back around and go to your lunch."

Astoria lifted her black eyes to his, words clumping on her tongue, wondering why she had thought this was a good idea. Malfoy was staring at her, icy eyes narrowed, but she couldn't judge whether it was from derision or calculation or curiosity.

She drew herself up.

"Malfoy needs to tutor me."

Moody's expression didn't change, and she felt her hopes sink and dissipate like they had never been. Malfoy was still staring at her, a furrow between his pale eyebrows, but she didn't look at him. Her courage rapidly dwindled.

"Does he now?" asked Moody slowly, and the question caught her so off-guard that she blinked, losing the false poise she gathered to herself as a shield for a moment.

"Uh- Yes. Yes, he does," she answered, more firmly. "I have a- a test next period and I have to go over...er..." For the life of her, she couldn't think of a subject. Those bi-colored eyes were drying up her reserves of words, and she wanted to shrivel on the spot.

"Transfiguration," supplied the last person she expected to come to her aid (even though it was to his benefit, too). Both professor and girl looked at Malfoy, who was glaring at Moody once more.

Moody didn't look convinced. At all. With a surge of embarrassment, Astoria remembered that he'd been an Auror. He could probably see through her lie like it was glass.

So she dropped the pretense. Or, well, half of it, anyway.

"Professor Moody, with all due respect, I need a tutor now and turning him into a ferret will ingrain your lesson into his brain better than trying to convince his favorite teacher to punish him."

Astoria licked her lips, watching the corners of Moody's mouth twitch like he was about to smile, and hardly daring to hope that that meant she'd been successful. Malfoy, on the other hand, looked furious, high color rising into his cheeks. That made her own lips try to curl upward, and she was suddenly struck with how ridiculous this situation was. Here she was, trying to protect her enemy who was supposed to be her greatest ally, with the argument that being turned into a ferret was probably the worst punishment any student would ever get.

She bit back the urge to start giggling.

Convinced her eyes were betraying her, Moody let out a slow chuckle and released his grip on Malfoy's shoulder. "Alright, Greengrass, you win. Good luck with your Potions test."

"Thank you," she said, relieved, and watched him clunk away. It was as she glanced up at Malfoy, the other half-reason she'd rescued him lining her lips, the one that sprung from cunning, that the professor turned at the end of the hall and called, "Miss Greengrass?"

"Yes?" she asked, head snapping around.

"I thought your test was in Transfiguration."

It took her a moment, but when she realized her stupid, stupid, stupid mistake, her eyes widened and her lips parted and she flailed for words to remedy the situation.

Moody grinned and walked away, rounding the corner, leaving a very confused Ravenclaw and a near-hissing Slytherin behind.

Swallowing with difficulty, hardly daring to believe her scheme had actually worked, wondering what the heck Moody was thinking, she turned to Malfoy and realized... She'd done it.

She grinned. Holy heck, she'd actually done it.

"What?" he snapped.

Giddiness lent her courage. It made her laugh instead of cringing backwards, as Malfoy's razor words always made her want to do. It was easier to back away than to meet his eyes and tell him what she thought, because when she became afraid, her words became muddied and blurred.

But right then, she just laughed. She knew something he didn't. She had him now. She'd won.

"You," she said, still grinning so widely that it hurt her cheeks, "owe me a favor now."

He stared at her, eyes starting to narrow as he processed what she was saying. "Don't be a stupid Ravenclaw, Greengrass, people will talk about you more than ever. You, like any pureblood, are obligated to unstick any situations like that from me because of who I am. Duh."

Astoria, still riding on her high, refused to let his sourness wipe away her smile. "You know what people will talk about even more? A Malfoy who can't keep his honor intact."

He sneered. "You're one to talk, Ravenclaw. Tell me, did Mommy Greengrass faint on the spot when she heard?"

Her good humor faded. At first, as she stared into his cold gaze, she felt...crestfallen. She'd hoped that he would- She'd wanted-

Fine. Whatever. Wishing that he'd thank her was a fool's hope. But what made anger start to trickle in from all sides was the knowledge that he was right. The fact that the Hat had sorted her into Ravenclaw wasn't as big as the problem that she genuinely liked it there. She liked the people and the way it challenged her and how she didn't have to tear herself two ways in order to steady the boat.

And she hated that he knew as well as anyone else that it made her so, so unforgivably different from who she was supposed to be. Who she wanted to be.

"You know what, Malfoy?" she snapped, fury and frustration mingling to form something like courage. "I am a Greengrass. I'm a pureblooded witch. My lineage is just as long as yours, my family is just as prestigious as yours, and my name is as part of the Sacred Twenty-Eight as ever. Even if I was a Hufflepuff, my blood is going to stay the same. And I just saved you from a month of detentions, so man up and admit that you owe me."

Her lips snapped shut, her dark eyes widening as she realized what had come pouring from her mouth, but she didn't regret it. Not at all. It made her feel powerful. The fact that somehow, she was able to throw some fight back sometimes, even though she may very well have just offended a very important Slytherin, created the illusion that she was his equal in all but height. He deserved it.

She glared at him. You deserved it.

Besides, she'd been protecting her name and her pride. That was surely allowed.

Malfoy's sneer was still in place, but she waited with bated breath, trying to exude confidence and poise. She hoped he didn't realize how very nervous she was.

"Pfft, fine," he answered after what felt like hours, and she blinked, opening her mouth before she could reconsider.

"Wait, really?"

He looked at her and she flushed. He smirked.

"Yeah, Greengrass. Call me generous, call it a favor for Daphne to entertain this playtime of yours-" she scowled at him- "and I am kind of curious as to what you'd ask of a Malfoy."

He shrugged and looked away, and her lips twitched with the reminder that he was probably still shaking off the ordeal of being turned into a ferret. She was torn between feeling sympathetic and wanting to laugh.

Realistically, she knew flattery was probably the best way to mend the damage she'd surely done, even if he wasn't showing it. So, cringing slightly at what she was about to do, she said, "Well, I'm glad you're upholding the family honor like a proper Malfoy."

She'd meant it to emerge less condescending. Oops.

Annoyance flashed across his pointed features, he threw her a look that could've curdled milk, and he stalked away so stiffly it looked like a metal rod for a spine. Haughty and royal like a peacock too proud of flashy feathers. "You're a God-awful liar, by the way."

Astoria watched him go, unable to help feeling that this time... This time she'd won.

She grinned.

Special Disclaimer: The famous scene with Malfoy as a ferret, along with the dialogue included in it, does not belong to me. Well, most of it. XP

Also, can we just acknowledge what a sasster Harry is? Please? XD