He was absent-mindedly tapping his foot, not really listening to the muffled bangs his large shoes made on the thick carpet, or even voices of his acquaintances around him for that matter. Simply staring out the window with his head in his hands, the passing scenery was slowly lulling him to sleep, the blur of the cold country-side making his eyelids droop. He was guiltily content, for he had seen the Weasley girl board the Hogwarts Express, ending the days and nights he spent in longing. Of course, just seeing her wasn't enough, not even close.

"Hello handsome," squeaked an annoyingly sugar-coated voice in left ear. "I saw you at the Christmas Eve party, though you pointedly ignored me. Now, I know you didn't do that on purpose, right? You wouldn't want to ignore me now would you? Because I was this close to telling daddy, and you know how much he doesn't like his baby getting hurt."

His body tensed instinctively, he should have known the brat would pounce the first chance she got. So he ignored her at the party, instead choosing to snog an older red-head in his bedroom, but what the fuck did she expect? The girl meant nothing to him, and she never would, and there was nothing her 'daddy' could do to make him want her. But he only responded with a growl as he shuffled away from his pursuer, Pansy Parkinson, who in turn just moved with him, giggling in a way she thought to be coy. Knowing he couldn't be rude to the rich bint whose family was deeply entwined with his, Draco couldn't say, or do, what he truly wanted to, which was to hex her off a fifty foot cliff and watch her clingy body splatter onto some cleverly placed, sharp rocks at the bottom. Yes, he'd had that fantasy plenty of times before, but in the end he knew it all boiled down to his family name, and what would happen to him if he did indeed murder the slut.

Instead, he stood up gruffly and marched out of the train compartment, ignoring the imploring looks of his fellow Slytherins, to whom he felt no bond with anymore. His old friends were too bigoted and deliriously misled due to their easily manipulated minds and Draco didn't want to feel like them anymore, it wasn't a drastic change as he wasn't suddenly going to worship at saint Potter's feet, but he rather felt the same toward the Dark Lord as well. He was his own man, not a flawless one, but rather one that followed his own rules and made his own choices, yet going down this path was not easy. All eyes were on him, waiting for him to make a mistake that would wind up being his downfall, and any imbecile could see he was prone to making hasty decisions and following dangerous instincts and desires.

To Draco, being safe meant being a tool, someone's slave, while associating with the 'right' kinds of people and staying away from the wrong, it meant marrying someone like Pansy, living out an unbearable existence and leaving your 'legacy' for your offspring to carry out and continue, hoping they'll go further but never quite caring. It was all so plainly stupid and flawed, it seemed a miracle he'd never noticed before, that everything he had been bred to believe and do; it was all just a waste of time.

A flash of color caught his eye, and he lazily turned his head and looked straight into a compartment he thought was empty at first glance, but now he could make out a small group of people sprawled all around the small space. There were about six or seven students grinning crazily, with thick smoke flying out the open window, leaving only a slightly clouded appearance over the crowd. Moving closer to get a better look, Draco put his arm up against the sliding door, just near the small panel of glass that you could see through, and watched with interest as they sucked on a strange little thing that looked to be on fire, passing it around something of a circle so everyone could have a turn. A small looking boy who looked one or two years younger than him with mousy brown hair that fell to his shoulders took a long suck, laughing with what looked to be pleasure, smoke flowing out of his mouth and nose as he did so. None of them were in their robes yet, from what he could tell they were still in their muggle clothes, which to him was a bit careless since they only had about an hour or so of the journey left.

The mousy boy took one final share of smoke and passed on the burning contraption to a girl who was lying on the floor, drawing things in the air with her small, pointed fingers with one hand. She rose then, her hair a tangled mess hanging in her face, making Draco do a double-take. It was her, Ginny Weasley, with the strange kids he'd never seen before. It didn't quite look like her though; he'd never seen her look so ragged, from what he saw her eyes were wild and the lop-sided grin on her face didn't seem her own. Standing closer still to the compartment door, there were a million questions rushing through his mind. Like what the Weasley girl was doing separated from the Golden Trio, what the fuck the burning thing was, why these idiots were inhaling it, why everyone in there, including her, looked so hammered and why they hadn't noticed his looming face in the glass panel after about ten solid minutes of him watching. Suddenly, one of the girls in the room, a tiny girl with olive skin and large eyes glanced over her shoulder and caught Draco off guard. He was sure he was caught now, and he quickly tried to come up with an excuse, or at least an insult, to stop them from asking uncomfortable questions about why he was watching them.

Instead, she simply stared at him for a moment longer, making him uncomfortable but unable to turn away, until she finally broke the contact and grinned in his general direction. Swaggering to her feet, she slowly walked up to the door and slid it open, making Draco jump back in alarm.

"What the fu-"

"Do you want to come in now? Or are you just going to stand outside and stare for a bit longer?" she asked innocently, leaning against the doorframe for support. Seeing his bewildered face at the stench that was flowing from her, she laughed heartedly, almost crazily, and caught hold of his shirt-sleeve and dragged him in. He coughed throatily, the smoke worsened as the girl slid the door shut shakily, he had to cover his mouth with one arm to stop the disgusting stuff from going up his nose or down his throat any more.

"Aubrielle! You dumb bitch, why in Merlin's name did you bring Malfoy in here?" yelled a hoarse voice from near the window, Draco twisted his torso to get a better look at the speaker who was a fairly large boy, shrouded in a corner of a seat with an unpleasant look of disgust on his face.

"He wanted to come in," said a smooth voice that Draco was surprised to find belonged to little girl who brought him in. "Leave him alone, he's with me."

"He can't be here, you don't fucking understand that now but when you come down from that green cloud of yours will. If he tells Snape or anyone at the castle, we'll be done for!" the boy yelled, his brutish face contorting with rage. He stood up fluidly, storming over to Draco, who twisted around fully and stared the boy straight in his eyes.

"What exactly would you be done for, now?" drawled Draco effortlessly, arms crossed across his chest. The look on his face was obviously intimidating enough to make the other boy shift away uncomfortably, or maybe it was just the situation in which he was now put. Suddenly, a wicked grin came over the boy's face, the look in his eyes surprising Draco.

"Why don't you see for yourself?" he grunted. "Go on, give it a try." And he looked over Draco's shoulder at the little girl who passed him the smoking thing. "This, this is a joint. You smoke it, obviously, and well, it's even better than magic." He passed it onto Draco with a wink, watching with glee as he fondled the smoldering joint between his fingers. The end was burning a dry, grey color with ashes slowly falling to the ground. It smelt disgusting, and the longer he spent standing in this small compartment, the more light-headed he became. He didn't like the feeling, everything was getting slightly hazy, thought it wasn't too obvious.

"No thanks," Draco spat, flicking the burning remains into the lap of the tiny girl, who hungrily brought it to her lips and puffed away happily. "I'm not in the mood to turn into a slobbering git." Looking out the window, he could tell some time had gone by since he first left his compartment for his walk, the sky was darkening, Hogwarts would surely be looming somewhere in the not-so-far-off distance. "We're almost at school, you might want to do something about this lot."

With that, he gave one final glance around his shoulders and caught sight of the famous redhead staring at him questioningly from her position on the floor, before leaving the troubled mob behind. She wasn't his problem, and if she wanted to hang around with trouble then that was her choice. Whatever they were up to, it obviously wasn't anything good, he just wished he knew exactly what it was they were doing. The sight of her imploring face burned fresh in his mind, and accompanied with it was the image of her looking so…vulnerable, lying on the ground like some roughened rag-doll. He didn't like any of it, nothing about his new discovery was pleasing, for some unknown reason he couldn't stand the idea of her around such filth and common trouble-makers. With a huff of indignation he spun on his feet and left behind the only person he truly cared about.