A/N: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH! Here I promised you an update on time and now it's Tuesday and I just realized I totally forgot to post one. I blame the SAT! Forgive me. :sobs and grovels:
The third door down, on the right side of the Boys' Dorm, opened softly. A waist length black braid bounced against her back as a girl made her way down the hall and skipped lightly down the stair leading to Common Room. She paused on the landing and glanced over her shoulder. A thoughtful smile flickered over her face as the door she'd just left clicked shut.
"So, what do you think?" Greg asked, turning away from the door.
"She's absolutely serious." Vince replied slowly from his seat on his bed.
"I got that. She truly thinks she hates Moody…actually she really may, but she also fears him."
"Probably why Alex hates him. She wouldn't take fear any better than Draco does. They're two of a breed. Highly powerful, highly prideful-"
"High-strung." Greg interrupted, smirking.
Vince shrugged. "That too. The point it, she views Moody as a threat, but, apparently, a threat she feels capable of handling."
"Not quite." Greg put in, finding a seat near his friend. "If she truly thought she could handle him she would never have come to us. Even if she did confide her plans in somebody it would be Zabini. If Alex is asking us for help…" he shook his head. "She's not just afraid, she's terrified and she's calling on anyone she thinks she can trust for help."
"And she trusts us?" Vince asked incredulously, unknowingly copying Blaise's comment from earlier. "We only really met her…ah…a week ago. Maybe two."
"But we've earned her respect. She said it herself, Draco's her equal. If he considers us worthy companions then she'll take his word on it…now that she knows we're not just mindless cronies that is."
Vince laughed. "We must have been doing a better job than we thought if we managed to fool her so completely."
"I'm afraid I have to agree with that one." Greg allowed himself a smirk. "but back to the issue at hand."
"The real issue, as I see it, is not Moody at all. It's Draco."
"Really?" the mentioned boy asked from the doorway. "How so?"
Vince shot his friend a level gaze. "You're messing with her."
Draco chuckled. "Really?" he asked again. "How so?"
"Not sure, entirely, but I'm not an idiot. I have spent more than a second around you. You are up to something."
"So, why is that a problem? I'm always up to something."
"Greg can be convincing when he wants to and in this case I happen to agree with him. She's terrified and desperate. She would know better than to trust you otherwise."
Greg snorted. Draco shot him a glare.
"I'd rather not let her think she has support and then find out later that you're going to make her problem worse."
"Awwww! I think lil' Vincey is sweet on Alex." Draco clasped his hands beneath his chin and sent Vince his best "come hither" stare. Vince glared at him wordlessly.
"Come on, Draco. You know the Code(1) as well as we do. Prize Honor above all else. Once lost it can never be regained. If we agree to do this we're in all the way. If you double cross her to prove your point, whatever that may be, then you'll be crossing us as well...and probably getting us into the same mess you're getting her into."
"And what mess is that?" Draco asked, a hard note edging his voice. Silence reigned for a moment as Vince and Greg exchanged looks. Finally Vince spoke up.
"Turning her in...to Moody or to Dumbledore."
Draco's eyes narrowed slowly and he was breathing through clenched teeth. "Not. Going. To. Happen." He bit out at last.
"Why?" Greg challenged.
Draco hesitated, as if considering his options.
"Try truth Draco. It's easier to keep straight."
"Moody needs a lesson more than Alex does...right now."
The other two exchanged another glance and shrugged. "Agreed."
"So," Greg leaned forward, interest gleaming in his eyes, "what are our plans?"
Draco smirked. "I think you're going to like this."
"Good evening, gentlemen." Alex greeted approaching where Greg and Vince sat across from Draco in the Great Hall.
Draco turned and smirked in a way that was almost a smile, extending his hand to help her over the bench.
She took it, throwing Draco a grateful look as she settled herself next to him. From next to Greg Blaise raised an eyebrow.
"Good evening yourself." Draco responded once she'd settled herself.
"So?" she asked quietly, ignoring the food spread out before her and leaning closer to Draco.
"They're on board and they know their part of the plan." He smirked again. "We did get called 'bloody idiots' and a few other unrepeatable things though."
Alex laughed and glanced at the two boys under discussion. "I've been called worse, I promise you. As long as they settled down after a while we're fine."
It was Draco's turn to laugh. "If they hadn't settled down I wouldn't have let them out of the dorm."
"Good." Finally Alex turned to the lavish dinner before her and made herself a plate. "Mmm. Potatoes, Draco?"
He raised and eyebrow and shrugged. "What the hell."
"So, now all we have to do…Oh! Blaise! I forgot." She all but dropped the bowl of potatoes in Draco's lap as she whirled away to look at her friend. "Did you talk to Tania?"
"Tania? Who-"
"Dethart idiot. You introduced us you know." Alex shot absently over her shoulder at the boy who'd held her undivided attention until a second ago.
Greg and Vince snorted at the expression on Draco's face.
"Yeah, it took some doing, that girl is as shy as you aren't, but I finally got her to promise me she'd go. I'll just have to find her before she has a chance to give me the slip on the day of and we'll be fine."
"Good! Now all we have to do," once again Alex was just inside Draco's personal space, her entire being focused on only him, "is get down the details of our part."
Draco blinked for a minute before he caught up. "When? Saturday night for starters?"
Alex smiled brilliantly and Draco felt as if someone had walloped him over the head with a wand. "My dorm or yours?" she asked.
Draco coughed and took a hasty swallow of his water. "Common Room?" he suggested. "One?"
"Deal. See you then." Alex stood up and left the hall briskly. Draco watched her go then glanced at her plate. Somewhere in the conversation she'd eaten her dinner, though he couldn't remember seeing her do it.
The trio across the table burst out laughing.
"I…take it you've never seen Alex on a mission before, Draco?" Blaise asked, still snickering.
"I guess not." Draco muttered, belatedly remembering to glare at the three co-conspirators. It only set them off again.
"Care to share the joke?" Pansy asked with feigned interest, slipping up behind Draco and placing a hand on his shoulder.
Blaise smiled politely and shook his head. Pansy shrugged.
"Draco?" she asked, leaning close, "a word?"
He shrugged, glared at the trio once more and shoved a last spoonful of potatoes into his mouth before following Pansy from the Hall. "Well?" he demanded once they'd passed through the doors.
She lifted on shoulder, the corresponding corner of her mouth lifting slightly as well. "I'm bored, Draco. Aren't you?"
"Not really." He responded.
She seemed taken aback for a moment then recovered herself. "Well, I'm not doing anything tonight. Will you have a half-hour free?"
Draco frowned slightly. He needed to work late tonight and tomorrow if he was going to be free to meet Alex on Saturday. "Sorry, Pansy. I have homework."
Without waiting for her response he walked farther down the hall, heading for his dorm. It was only as he spread his books out across his desk that he realized he'd just turned down one girl for another…something he'd never done before.
And it wasn't, he realized, annoyed, as if he was trading sex for sex. He was trading sex for…well, Alex wasn't going to sleep with him, that he was sure of.
Aw, to hell with it! He had too much to do to worry about a stupid decision and this History of Magic homework was killer.
A/N: There you go. Review.
(1) I found a pic when googling the word Slytherin of a piece of parchment with sweeping red lettering across it. It was a code of honor/list of rules for Slytherins supposedly handed down from Salazar himself. I've always really liked it so that's where the quote came from. I'll probably include the entire thing in my next Interlude, a list of Slytherin rules etc.