Chapter 8

Draco, Pansy, and Blaise met in the Owlry early the next day. In their hands, they held vials, filled up with a memory. It was Professor Moody's first class, from each of their perspectives. They had considered just sending one memory, but determined that having more than one would enhance the reliability of the anonymous tips. These memories were all heading to the Ministry, in particular, the Minister of Magic himself. They weren't sure what he thought of Moody, but could only hope that he wouldn't approve of this.

After they had secured the vials and a letter to a school owl—again, for anonymity, that was crucial, Draco turned to his own owl. He had another vial, filled with the same memory, along with every other encounter they had had with Moody. This one was for his father. First, he wanted the Dark Lord to see what they were up against and how Hermione was faring. Secondly, he wanted his father to raise hell with the rest of the school governors about Professor Moody's teaching techniques. If that didn't get the fucker fired, Draco wasn't sure what would. But it was at least a starting point. Merlin only knew how long they would all last with Moody there. It was far worse than Draco had originally thought it would be.

The school year had never dragged on so long. It had felt like they had been there months, but in reality it had only been over a week. Days were moving along like hours it seemed, making it ever more apparent that they would be getting caught eventually. They wouldn't last like this—they couldn't.

They headed to the Hospital Wing after finishing up at the Owlry. Though Draco had cast the sleeping spell on Hermione himself, Madame Pomfrey had determined that their friend needed to stay the night—it was a mix of dehydration, lack of sleep and nutrients, and the like. Apparently Hermione hadn't been eating as much as she said she had been.

When they reached the room, Hermione was sitting up in bed and cast them an annoyed look. She obviously wasn't too happy about her current place of residence, "If I had known I was going to have to stay here, I would have forced myself awake your little charm and kicked your ass, Draco."

He smiled sarcastically as the friends pulled over chairs, "Then perhaps we could have been neighbors—I could have taken that bed over there."

It was Pansy that spoke next, after they had settled into their seats, "We just sent our memories to the Ministry," she told her, "Now all we can do is wait. Hopefully it doesn't take too long before we hear some news back. I can only assume since Lucius is a governor, it won't take too long."

Pansy left out that they had sent more memories to the Dark Lord, knowing that Hermione would probably be a bit pissed off that they had taken that matter into their own hands. However, He needed to know.

"In order to secure the situation a bit more, let's make sure we take memories of any other class of questionable nature," Hermione said, nodding, "That way if for some reason this isn't enough to get him fired, they'll be paraded by memories in the mail every other week until they had no choice but to act."

Draco wanted to smile at the suggestion, since it meant that Hermione was feeling better, but he didn't. Instead he began to think of his own little plan as his friends spoke. He had decided that he needed to switch the focus off of Hermione for a while, and needed to figure out how to get Professor Moody to focus in on him.

The Dark Lord had specifically told them to avoid one-on-one contact with the man, but somehow that just seemed like the best move to Draco. He wanted to see how the former Auror would act around him in a detention. Would he try anything at all? Based on the results of this little test on Moody, Draco would be able to determine how to pull the focus off of his best friend. He had full faith in his own Occulemency, and knew that he could hold his own being one-on-one with him.

With his plan set, Draco tuned back into the conversation with his friends. It had actually gone off topic from plans and former Aurors and the Death Lord—a rarity for them. Sometimes it was though they were years older than their actual ages, with everything they had to deal with. Draco was always pleased when he heard his friends talking about normal teenager stuff; of course, his brain never really turned off when it came to planning.

"Well, I personally think that the Jelly-Legs jinx is a little amateur, Blaise, we're trying to really get a good laugh out of it," Pansy said, casually examining her nails. It seemed the conversation had come back to plotting ways to irritate their least favorite Gryffindors, "I'm more fond of the Bat-Bogey Hex, myself."

"What are we, second years?" Hermione asked, with a laugh, "We've moved way beyond the slightly irritating spells. It's time to make it really hurt."

Blaise shot her an amused look, "Well, now we have Hermione's opinion. Of course, she shot a Dark Lord-modified stinging jinx at Weasley on the train, so we already knew she likes to play rough."

"You can be next, if you like," she quipped, sending him a sweet smile, causing Draco to laugh. She was definitely feeling better.

"Whoa, whoa, Hermione, I'm never getting on your bad side, don't get the wrong idea," Blaise replied, "In fact, I think we need more Dark Lord-modified spells to use on them. You're right, we're not amateurs anymore."

"If we last until Christmas, I'll have him teach me some more," she promised, before glancing at her watch, "you better head to class. You've missed breakfast, and Pomfrey says I'm to stay here until at least tomorrow," she finished, making a face.

The next day passed without incident, as they didn't have Moody to deal with. As of now, they had heard nothing back from Lucius about the Dark Lord's opinions of their memories, nor had they heard any gossip around the school about the Ministry. Draco had convinced Madame Pomfrey to keep Hermione one more day in order to give her 'more time to rest,' though really he just wanted her to be able to skip this lesson of Defense Against the Dark Arts. First of, because Draco didn't think she could handle herself in front of the Former Auror just yet, but mostly because he didn't want her to stop him when he made his move to get detention with him.

The three Slytherins walked into the classroom and took their seats, waiting until class would begin.

"At least we're done with the Imperius curse," Pansy said, offhandedly, "Now he'll talk about one of the other Unforgivables, and it's not like he can practice those on us."

"Don't speak too soon, Pans," Draco replied, "Perhaps he is planning to Avada us all for the sake of a good lesson."

"I wouldn't be surprised," Blaise said, just as Moody's office door opened and the former Auror began making his way down to the classroom.

"We have two more Unforgivable Curses to learn about, and we shall be leaving the worst for last. So, today, we will be talking about the Cruciatus curse. What can any of you lto tell me about this particular curse?"

Draco raised his hand, ignoring the slightly confused faces of his friends beside him. Moody fake eye did a rotation of the class, obviously seeing if there was anyone else he could call on, "Malfoy, right?"

"Yes, sir," he said, before smirking, "I was wondering if you were going to be using us as test subjects for this curse as well. After all, you've already broken the law several dozen times over by using the Imperius on us—I figure at this rate, you might as well keep going and see what happens."

The former Auror opened his mouth to speak, but Draco kept going, "After all, I'm quite curious to see how much the Ministry can cover up and ignore your antics. They have been doing it for years, after all, and I'm wondering how much special treatment a Ministry employee can get before the Ministry is forced to act against them. You've been breaking laws for your entire career; I'm sure at the beginning they ignored it because you were getting the job done, but what about now? Now that you're retired, pretty much you're just a nuisance now, right? Simply looking at the facts, of course, though because the Ministry is bound to get fed up with you eventually—"

"Detention, Mr. Malfoy, tomorrow night after dinner. Another word and perhaps I will test my luck with the Ministry a bit more and practice my Cruciatus curse on you."

Author's Note: Hey y'all... it's been a while. I don't think it's taken me this long to update in a while, I'm sorry I suck! This semester of school has been an absolute mess, though I finally have some time off! (Well about three more weeks, but that's still good!) so I'm sure I'll be able to give you at least one more update (fingers crossed)

Anyways, back on topic! Thanks to DragonMistressofRedemption888, Mezzem313, SlytherinEquestrian, Bobbie1776, hoshiakari7, cleotheo, aeireis, Pank98, AmayaBlack, LadiePhoenix007, Aghaliam, not really sane fairy, Midnight Little One, and two guests for reviewing.

I did this chapter in Draco's POV because of many requests for it/more of the rest of the Slytherins! I hope you all enjoy it, please let me know what you think! Love you all!