Title: Recovery

Summary: A Malfoy always recovers spectacularly from a fall...

"One more Mr Malfoy, and then you may leave," Madam Pomfrey said in her firm voice.

"Can't you make it taste less like Hippogriff excrement? Honestly, it's supposed to make you feel better, not vomit all over the place. Father's healer makes it taste like chocolate." But Draco's voice was free of venom, and after mutinously glaring at Madam Pomfrey, he gulped the sludge down. Madam Pomfrey ignored his mimes of retching and handed him a small bottle of clear green liquid.

"Pepper-Up Potion. Two sips after breakfast until the bottle runs out, or until you feel better," she said. Draco grunted in response. "You may leave now. I suppose your…friends are waiting at the door. Oh, and no Quidditch for the next week." Draco made no reply, thinking how his friends would not be waiting at the doors, as he had refrained from telling him the day of his release. He'd wanted to make a quick detour to the Room of Requirement. Alone.

"Draco!" The pink-clad banshee threw herself onto Draco and wrapped her arms around his shoulders as he emerged through the Common Room door.

"Aaargh!"

"Oh, oh, sorry! I'm so sorry, Draco! Where does it hurt, baby? Let me help you!" Pansy cooed. In his peripheral vision, Draco saw the curious glances directed at him. A Malfoy always appears unruffled.

"Here," Draco said to Pansy, handing her a paper bag of the remainder of his sweets. He bit back a nasty retort when she kissed his cheek. Honestly, did she think she was his mother? He watched her bounding up to his dormitory, entirely oblivious to the disapproving stares following her frilly form.

"Ah, the prodigal son returns," came Blaise's cool voice. Draco gritted his teeth and turned towards the fireplace.

"Well-spotted, Blaise. You always had a knack for noticing the obvious," Draco returned icily. Blaise raised an eyebrow, seemingly unruffled. Draco mustered his most disparaging sneer.

"I expect Daphne's eagerly awaiting your arrival at lunch," Draco said. If Blaise was surprised by Draco's retort to his jibe, he was astounded by Draco's transparent demand to leave.

"Right. Excuse me." And with that, Blaise straightened and walked to the door. The only crack in his unfazed façade was the cord bulging in his neck as he clenched his jaw. Draco smirked and arranged himself languidly in the seat Blaise had just vacated.

"What a spectacular return to form."

In the week following his release from the Hospital Wing, Draco renewed his efforts with the Cabinet. Upon picking up on rumours that he had lost his edge, he made an effort to appear at meals, and, in general, snippily insult anyone within his vicinity. It took more effort than he thought he could muster to appear as normal whilst making his best attempts to arrange a coup on a school that had remained unassailable for over a thousand years.

But I'm trying. So damn hard.

Draco felt Crabbe and Goyle approach before he heard them.

"Crabbe, Goyle. I trust you didn't scoff the entire table's food before they got there," Draco greeted them. Goyle grunted out a gravelly laugh.

"Draco, we think it, the – the thing – is ready."

"You think?"

"Yeah, we do," Crabbe growled.

"Relax, Crabbe. You'll get indigestion." Draco fingered his chin thoughtfully. "Tonight I'll check it out. Alone. It's beginning to look suspicious. And Potter's been dogging me for weeks, I'm sure of it." Crabbe and Goyle nodded.

"Actually, I won't wait till tonight. I'll go now. If anyone wonders where I am, tell them I had a check-up with Pomfrey."

"Okay." Draco straightened fluidly and strutted towards the door.

"Oh, and Crabbe?"

"The next time you eat the sweets off my bedside table I'll use you as target practice for the curses Aunt Bellatrix taught me over the holidays."

Draco slipped down against the rickety bedposts and heaved in a shaky breath. The cat brushed past his thigh, winding its tail around his twitching wrist. He was almost there. He could feel it. Borgin had managed to Vanish an entire cat over, a big fluffy thing that had promptly marked its territory on Draco's shoe. But he barely took notice. A cat? Next it would a handful of the Dark Lord's finest Death Eaters. Draco struggled to quash the leaden dread he felt in his stomach, rather than the hysteric excitement he should have been feeling. He had no excuse now – within a week it would be done and he would have survived and triumphed and he would be the Dark Lord's finest servant. Again, Draco struggled to feel the tiniest spark of excitement. At least it'll all be over, he thought with a stab of optimism.

Draco snorted.

Yeah, right.

"Well it's obvious she's been using Potter's pathetic crush on her to get into the Quidditch team. I mean, have you seen how she flies?" Pansy snickered, and her friends giggled.

"Blaise tells me she plans on going professional," Theodore Nott said mildly. Draco raised his eyebrows.

"Well, Blaise would know, wouldn't you, Blaise?" Pansy teased. Tracey Davis sniggered.

"I happened to be at one of Slughorn's dinner parties" – at this he glanced at Draco – "when she mentioned it."

"I'm sure the Chudley Cannons could make space for her… with that hair she'd fit right in," Draco commented dryly. Pansy and her posse shrieked with laughter.

"Oooh, Blaise, here comes Daphne!" Pansy said and gestured to the blonde descending the hard stone steps from the girls' dormitories. Blaise glared at Pansy for a moment and then stood up.

"If you'll excuse me. I'm going to dinner." Nobody missed the upwards curve of his cheek as he greeted Daphne, or way he tenderly took her hand.

"That boy is so whipped," Tracey said. "Who would have thought Blaise would stick to one girl longer than two weeks?" Pansy grinned slyly.

"Well… let's just say that Daphne has brought some new stuff to the table, if you get what I mean," she said in a low voice. Nott frowned slightly at Pansy before announcing his departure for dinner.

"I'll come with you, Theo," Tracey immediately said.

Draco half expected Pansy to go when the rest of her friends left, but she remained seated on the arm of his chair.

"Are you still sore?" she asked, out of the blue.

"No."

"Then why do you keep disappearing all the time, if you're not going to the Hospital Wing?" Surprised, Draco studied Pansy. He'd always thought it was his parents' intention for him to marry someone like Pansy. And he had enjoyed her attention all these years.

"I've nearly finished."

"With the mission?"

"Yes."

"Oh Draco! That's why you've been gone so much! Oh, baby, I'm so sorry … I-I thought you were cheating… You're so brave!" She gushed, stroking his bicep. "I'm sorry I doubted you, Draco. Let me make it up to you…" She leaned in and kissed him wetly. She wrapped her arms around his neck as she lowered herself onto his lap. Draco blinked when she ran her tongue in what she imagined to be a lascivious fashion around his mouth. His hands automatically found her bra straps, but instead of slipping them off her shoulders, he moved his hands up to her arms. She moaned loudly in his ear. And then Draco detached himself from her, untwisting her arms from around his neck.

"Get off me, Pansy. I'm going to dinner."

"I'll come with you!"

"Don't. This – whatever it is – is over."

With that, Draco dislodged himself from under her and headed for the door.

"Draco…?" Her tearful voice didn't make him look back.

Pansy Parkinson was definitely not the girl he wanted to marry.

Author's Note: Sorry it's such a jumbled chapter… I'm not particularly happy with it.

Draco is quite confusing in this chapter! In front of his friends he's all macho, but alone he's still trying to keep his head. But I inserted this little break-up in the end because it was his way of rebelling against all the expectations everyone has for him. You know, be the perfect Malfoy, be a murdering Death Eater, marry someone suitable, etc. And also because the chapter felt a bit dull. Next chapter's the big one :)

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