A/N: Hey there! Kind of a filler chapter, but I like to take my time instead of having major evenements in every chapter. Still not beta read, sorry. Enjoy!

Chapter 4:

The hospital wing was very quiet that evening. McGonagall had dropped him there to serve detention and he had been bored out of his mind. A whole evening wasted just because he had broken a few windows. Draco was sitting on the cold stone floor, surrounded by vials of different colours. Madam Pomfrey was a good nurse but organisational skills were definitely not her dominant force. He had been asked to sort through the vials and to organise the supply closet, needless to say, without magic.

The big clock in the main room rang 10 pm and he stood up and dusted his trousers. He pushed the vials he hadn't sorted out on one side and turned off the light before stepping out. He would have time to do it the next evening. He knew he would be in detention again, like he had been for the past two days. He kept getting into trouble, everyday, something else befell him and threw him off balance.

He tried though. Dumbledore's words a couple nights ago had hit too close to home for his liking. He knew he wasn't his father but he was scared of becoming him anyway. He had made humongous efforts to avoid getting into fights. He had withdrawn into the shadows and just wanted people to ignore him. But it hadn't worked out. When the other students had gathered that Draco Malfoy, bully almighty, had shut down and given up even defending himself, they took advantage of it.

Draco couldn't really blame them. He knew he very possibly deserved it. Even the younger Hufflepuffs were provoking him in the halls and it took everything he had not to hex them into next Wednesday. Of course, there inserted itself the problem of the broken windows. He had never understood why glass reacted that way to his anger, but well, it did. And with consequences.

McGonagall was sure he had done it on purpose when a shard had flown right into a Gryffindor girl's face. Snape had to give him another detention when he made Neville Longbottom's potion vial blow up, seriously burning the poor boy. Then it had been when he had finally blown up and told Granger to stuff her wand down her throat during Herbology.

"Finished Mr Malfoy?" the nurse demanded in a tired voice.

"No Madam. But I'll probably be back tomorrow night anyway," he replied bitterly.

"Already planning your next detention? Are you taking pride in it? Are you trying to break the Weasley twins' record?"

"I'm not trying anything. Detention just seems to be my middle name these days," he protested.

The nurse rolled her eyes and pointed to the door.

Draco took the path of the Slytherin common room without any conviction. At least, being in detention, he didn't have to deal with them. Well, he didn't have to deal with Pansy or that brat of Zabini. While he could understand that his best friend was mad at him, he certainly couldn't cope with Zabini. The boy had taken upon himself to stalk Draco to annoy the hell out of him. And surely, he was sitting in the common room when Draco stepped inside.

"Ah, Malfoy. Fancy seeing you here," Zabini drawled while stretching his legs and resting them on a chair. Draco grabbed his astronomy book and studiously ignored his classmate.

"Finished with detention? Do you also break windows at home? I wonder how mummy reacts when you do that. It must have been a pain dealing with a child like you while your daddy was away cavorting with merlin-knows-who."

The blonde boy snapped the quill that was lying on the table. He had reached the conclusion that the worst was not having his life displayed in the Daily Prophet but the way people reacted to said display. Everyone thought that Narcissa Malfoy had paid the journalist to write heart-wrenching rubbish in an attempt to save her reputation and the one of her son, And Zabini seemed to enjoy twisting the knife in the wound like no one else.

"Lost your tongue Malfoy?" Blaise snickered from his seat near the fire.

"No Zabini, but unlike you, I plan to have a career and for that I need my grades not to be as abysmal as yours so kindly shut up and let me study," Draco replied with a sweetness that would usually make people run for cover. Draco Malfoy hardly ever yelled; but you certainly knew when to avoid him.

Blaise smirked. He was after Draco and he wasn't about to give up. Draco Malfoy had presided over Slytherin ever since he'd stepped a foot in the school, but things were about to change. He wanted to bring him down; he was tired of being second. "So how's your mother doing? I bet she's delighted to be rid of Lucius. Why doesn't she get rid of you as well?"

"You're going too far Blaise," Pansy interrupted. She was mad at Draco but she knew he was really close to his mother and would not handle the attack very well. Which obviously, Zabini was aware of too.

"Pansy, go shag your Gryffie boyfriend."

The girl turned a nasty shade of red and hexed the black-haired boy before turning on her heel and marching off towards the exit. Even though blood was throbbing at her temples, she could hear Draco's hasty step behind her and she knew she'd have to explain herself.

"Stop right there Pansy," he said in a low voice.

"Leave me alone. You don't want to piss me off right now, ask Zabini," she gritted through her teeth, unable to look at her friend.

"I think if someone can be pissed off, it's me."

"Don't even go there Malfoy."

"So who is it? We both know that Zabini just doesn't throw stuff in the air like that. He knows something."

"What do you care?"

"I care because you went off on me for not telling you everything and then I hear you go behind my back and have your own little secrets! Ever heard of that concept called hypocrisy, Parkinson?"

She snorted inelegantly. "Don't think everything is always about you. I had an understanding with him. He doesn't want it out either mind you!"

The blonde teenager raked his fingers through his hair and sighed. This was going nowhere. "I thought we were friends. I thought you would tell me something like that."

"You weren't honest with me either! Why didn't you tell me your father hit you? How can you even talk about friendship and confidence?" she yelled. She watched as anger, frustration and finally sadness swept through his eyes.

"It was none of your business," he replied coldly. "It was none of your business and I didn't want you to have to deal with my lunatic of a father. There, happy?"

"No, I'm sad. I thought we were closer than anything else but you couldn't tell me your secret and I couldn't tell you mine. It was too hard to tell you that I was seeing Ron Weasley. Now leave me alone; go to hell. I don't want to hear what you have to say about Ron."

She sounded defeated and he felt sorry. However, he would never admit it. "Fine, go see your boyfriend!" he spat angrily.

She turned around to face him, her eyes shooting daggers. "Saying how you feel would scorch your tongue, wouldn't it? You always have to hide behind your bastard mask. Everybody hates you Draco. Every single person in this school hates your heartless, arrogant self. And I've tried. I've put up with you and your moods, and I know that you're not so cold inside but in moments like this, you make me want to rip your head off."

"Funny, that feeling is mutual. I'm not a bloody charity case. If you don't want to be my friend, fuck off, I don't need you to be my pity buddy and to painfully put up with me as you so eloquently said it."

He watched her storm off and felt betrayed. He knew he wasn't the best example for a friend but everything she had said was taking the cake. Basically, he was her good deed and that was all.

"Trouble in Wonderland, Malfoy?" Blaise joyously shouted from the entrance of the common room. "It's okay, with a body like hers, I'm sure your mummy will quickly find a new daddy for you and you won't feel that lost anymore."

This time, Zabini saw the punch coming and punched right back. And from punch to kick to hex to hurling each other across the hall with all their housemates noisily encouraging the fight, professor and head of house Severus Snape was eventually alerted of the racket involving his precious students. He quickly sent the students to bed and then proceeded to drag his godson and Blaise to the headmaster office… Again.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Taylor, get out," Luke growled clutching the coffee pot with all his strength.

"I'm a paying customer. You can't throw me out with no valid excuse. I can make your reputation go down in flames!" Taylor replied indignantly.

"I do have a valid excuse: you're spoiling my oxygen supply."

"I'm just saying, this place would look charming if you would just agree to put a few flowers on the tables to celebrate spring."

"And this summer I'll arrange hay crowns around the diner and have a cow in my window display to celebrate summer like in the Little House on the Prairie?"

Lorelai gagged. "Luke, you never told me you were an Ingalls fan!"

Narcissa snickered at the recurrent diner insanity and reached for the coffee pot, scared that the beloved beverage might end up on Taylor's head instead of in her cup.

Luke turned towards the disturbance "Don't you two have anywhere else to be? Other people to traumatize perhaps?"

The blonde woman pretended to think for a second, then turned to her brunette friend. "No, we don't. Do we Lore? I think we already filled our quota with Kirk this morning."

"Yes indeed, I don't think he'll ever be able to see a Stephen King movie ever again."

Luke furrowed his brow. "Do I want to know?"

"Hmmmm, no," Lorelai laughed as Luke walked away, imagining the worst.

She then quickly downed her coffee and grabbed her coat. "I have to get back to the Inn, one of our maids resigned and now I'm short on staff and I better arrange something before one of our guests finds themselves getting out of the shower to discover there's no towel on the rack."

Narcissa's head shot up from her bowl at that. "You need a maid?"

Lorelai sighed and rolled her eyes. "Yes, it's been nearly a week and Michel has been excruciatingly annoying all yesterday just because he had to make a bed once in his life and sweated a bit, which apparently, ruined his Italian silk shirt."

"I'll do it."

"What?"

"I know, I've never done anything like this, but I'm a quick learner. I'll do it. I'll fill in," Narcissa insisted. "I need a job Lorelai. And it may not be a dream job, but it's something. I'm bored, I'm idle and I hate it. Please please please, we can bully Michel together," she made her puppy eyes and smiled evilly.

Lorelai laughed at the thought. Narcissa hadn't ceased to amaze her in the fortnight that she had spent with her. The woman was crazy, funny, smart, but there was something about her that the Gilmores, after evenings and evenings of talk about their new neighbour, could not figure out.

"Okay, I think you'll be great. It's nothing complicated. If I could learn it, surely, you can as well. And it'll be fun to see Michel's face when he hears I gave you the job." She smiled sadistically, already rehearsing the scene in her head.

Narcissa felt curiously excited. She had a job. So, alright, she was a maid. She was basically doing the same job that she had ordered her house elves to do ever since she could speak. She had never paid them any attention. They were just there. Invisible. And somehow, it made her happy to think that she was going to be invisible just like them.

She started work immediately. She knew she had a lot to learn but she could manage; never in her life had she been more motivated to do anything. She was simply flying all afternoon and her enthusiasm was communicative so everybody was in a good mood. Except Michel of course, but then again, it was very rare for him to be chirpy.

Narcissa had never felt more alive than since she had left Lucius but right now, with her house starting to look like something, her new friends, her new job and people simply liking her, she was ecstatic. And even more so when she got home that night to see Bill Weasley sitting on her porch, idly playing with a straw of grass. She approached him while chatting to Lorelai and Rory.

"Weasley, what are you doing on my porch!"

"Why Cissa, aren't you happy to see me?" he pouted.

"Depends. Are you going to cook dinner?"

"Hmm. Maybe. If you keep the blonde woman from next door away from me," he replied with a frown.

Rory and Lorelai snickered. "But Babette is a whole part of the Stars Hollow experience, person to whom we still not have been introduced," Lorelai interrupted looking pointedly at Narcissa.

"Right. Lorelai, Rory, this is my old school friend Bill. Bill, this is Lorelai, my friend, neighbour and boss, and her daughter Rory."

"Boss?" he laughed. "You. Have. A. Job?"

"Oh, do you have to be so cynical?"

"I'm sorry, I'm just used to the Malfoy manor mistress whose only job was ordering staff around."

"If you're going to be a jerk, you might as well get off my porch you great prat!"

"Come on Cissa, I'm a loveable jerk," he joked.

"Only the days you're mute, deaf and blind," she replied without missing a beat.

He held a hand to his chest in a pained expression and the girls burst out laughing.

Dinner had been wonderful. Narcissa had invited the Gilmores to stay and Bill had once again amazed them all with one of his mother's secret recipes. Of course, he had added his dash of magic in it but Rory and Lorelai had been busy coddling the brand new coffee maker and hadn't seen a thing. Then they had played Pictionnary and Rory had finally called it a night when she remembered the amount of homework awaiting her. Now the house was quiet and Narcissa had become thoughtful.

Bill eyed her mirthfully. "I'm impressed Cissa. I didn't think you could make it. And look at you. You have everything you should have had years ago."

"I'm happy. I should have done all this years ago. I know, I wasn't ready. But I threw away fifteen years of my life being miserable." She sighed and fixed her eyes on the blazing fire that they had lit earlier.

"You shouldn't have regrets."

"I know Bill, you don't believe in regrets. You think every experience is worth what it's worth and teaches us how to grow from there."

"Yep, exactly. Would you be enjoying all this so much if those miserable fifteen years hadn't existed? Would you even be here at all?"

"Bite me Billy," she cut. She knew he was right and it frustrated her.

"Don't call me that!" he protested vehemently while she laughed at him.

She curled up against him on the couch. "I hope Draco's okay."

"Bah, he'll be fine," Bill interjected. Narcissa looked at him in surprise; he didn't know much about her son. "Well, he takes after you," Bill finished and winked at her.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Calm had finally settled over Hogwarts. The Slytherin fight had been sorted, at least till morning, the Gryffindor usual partying had been shut down by their head of house and even Filch and Mrs Norris had gone to bed. That's how Pansy preferred the castle. Silent like a tomb and deserted, like it was abandoned. She rested her forehead against the cold window of the Room of Requirements and hid her feet deeper under her blanket.

She heard Ron shift in his sleep but he was a heavy sleeper and she had been fairly silent. She wasn't sure if she felt like talking right now. Her brain was jammed with the events from the evening and she needed to step back and gain a new perspective before she could seriously analyze them.

"Pansy, you're going to freeze over there," Ron mumbled, his voice thick with sleep.

She walked back to the bed and curled up next to him. After nearly five months, she still had trouble believing that he, Ronald Weasley, Gryffindor and Harry Potter's right hand man, was her boyfriend. She allowed her body to relax as warmth spread through her muscles. She hadn't realised how cold the window sill actually was.

"Ugh, you're an icicle!" Ron cried, suddenly very awake due to her very cold body pressing against him. She chuckled but he felt something was off with her.

"Look, I know we made it a standing rule from the beginning that we wouldn't talk about Malfoy, but something is bothering you, I know it's about him and I hate seeing you bothered like that," he blurted out quickly, blushing ever so slightly.

She, of course, noticed the blush. "Aw Ron, I think it's cute that you worry about me," she teased.

"Do not call me cute," he groaned.

She smiled at him and kissed his (cute) freckled nose. "I'm fine, really."

"Sure you are; and I'm Snape's hidden child."

Pansy sighed and hid her face in his dark blue shirt. "It's just, we had another fight tonight."

"He's a jerk," Ron quipped.

"Ron," Pansy replied sternly. "He's not a jerk. He's… difficult."

"Yeah, yeah. What happened?"

"He knows about us and he thinks I'm a hypocrite for being mad at him for things he kept from me. I kept you from him," she frowned, aware that Draco was right.

"You two have been at each other's throats for days now. Don't you think you could try talking to him? Really talk, not just throw stuff at each other?"

Pansy laughed bitterly. "You're thinking about you and Hermione. A little talk and everything is fine. Draco doesn't talk. Draco clams up and freezes you out and refuses to feel anything and on top of it, he's stubborn enough to never ever forgive you."

"Why do you bother with him?" Ron frowned.

"Why do you bother with Harry?" she shot back, knowing that the boy-who-lived could drive you up the wall as easily as her blonde friend.

Ron shrugged. "I don't know. I guess you and I both like a challenge; or masochism. I still think you should try talking to him. At least you'll know you've tried and he can mull it over for the next ten years and show up at your wedding," he ended mockingly, which never failed to make her laugh.

"Now you're just implying he's slow!"

"Uh uh."

She elbowed him in the stomach but laughed nonetheless and decided to put her best friend aside for now. After all, she was in a secret room, in the middle of the night, with a handsome looking boy who could hardly keep his hands off her. Life wasn't THAT bad.