Maslach 6

Chapter 5

"I'm curious," Doctor Gallows said, stretching his legs out on the floor to improve circulation (how long had they been sitting here?), "what was your first project?"

Draco chuckled, running his hand sheepishly through his hair. "It was stupid, something about the long-term effects of gillyweed. Most of my projects were a little silly, actually; I choose them to keep myself both in the club and out of the limelight. There were…a few that Riv and I did together that were…big, though." The doctor noticed the boy both smiled and cringed when he said this, as if trying to forget something very pleasant.

"Anyway," Draco said, shaking his head, "I'm getting ahead of myself. I believe out next noteworthy adventure took place at my first visit to Hogsmeade. It was really everyone else's second, but my father was apparently too preoccupied with Ministry affairs to send in my permission slip on time. It was a rather smashing occasion, especially when Crabbe, Goyle, and I ran into two of our favorite people in the world…

…

"Well, look who's here." Draco chuckled as he slid down the snowy ridge, coming face-to-face with Weasley and Granger. "You two shopping for your new dream home?"

The five of them were standing near the fence surrounding Hogsmeades's Shrieking Shack, supposedly the most haunted building in Britain. Draco wasn't really sure if that was true or not, but as it was his first visit to Hogsmeade, he felt like it was his duty to see and judge for himself.

As for running into Weasley and Granger, it was just a stroke of good luck. The lattest letter from his father (all the usual nonsense about maintaining the Malfoy image and financial dealings of all kinds) had put him in a terrible mood (well, that and that his latest project had just hit a blank wall). In stressful times like these, it was always good to find someone to annoy.

"Big grab, isn't it, for you, Weasle-bee? Doesn't your family sleep in, uh, one room?" He sauntered a little closer to the pair, throwing off and aura of self-importance he like to think wasn't just an act.

"Shut your mouth, Malfoy."

He inwardly bristled at the sound of the name, bout just smiled. He had learned a long time ago to separate his emotions this way. Feeling too much was just another way of being vulnerable. "Oh, not very friendly." He slipped his hands into his coat, as if to clean them of the matter. "Boys," he nodded to Crabbe, who chuckled, "I think it's time we teach Weasle-bee how to respect his superiors."

Granger slipped between them. "Heh. Hope you don't mean yourself."

It came out without the least bit of thought on his part, two months of Birdie's equality rants vanishing from his mind with an audible poof and replacing themselves with how much he hated this girl. "How dare you talk to me, you filthy little Mudblood?"

Draco felt the snowball before he heard it, a crunch of cold and pain on his jaw followed by a whoosh. For a moment he glared at his enemies, determined to make them pay for their insolence, but Weasley and Granger weren't even paying attention to him. They were staring off into the trees to their right, faces worried. There was no snow on either of their gloves.

Looking out into the woods himself and seeing nothing but trees and snow, Draco remembered where they were and started to panic. "Who's there?" he called authoritatively, his thoughts teeming with the ghosts of Muggle-born witches and wizards bent on revenge.

The woods was silent except for the snowfall, and he was just beginning to think he'd imagined the whole thing when another snowball hurled itself at them from thin air, hitting his fur-lined hunting cap. Before he could even look up, two more fit him in the chest. THUD! THUD!

Trying to ignore the sting, he looked to Crabbe and Goyle for help just in time to see Crabbe's pants come down around his ankles and Goyle's hat brim fall over his eyes. Goyle then started spinning around screaming by the end of his own scarf and Crabbe fell flat on his face, and Draco could only stand there trying to comprehend what was going on. Dumbfounded, he looked back up into the woods, and was quick enough to glimpse what appeared to be a thick black rope flick into the air and disappear behind the ridge.

He shifted quickly from bewilderment to anger. Why, that little…

He had stumbled backwards into Crabbe's ankles, falling flat on his back in the snow. Something that felt very much like hands wrapped around his ankles and started dragging him toward the Shrieking Shack. His mind turned away from thoughts of strangling his friend (along with her sick sense of humor) and back to the spirits said to haunt this place. When the hands slackened, he kicked himself free and was up the ridge in a panicked heartbeat, shoving Crabbe back to the ground in an attempt to flee faster. Through his rage, he could make out Weasley and Granger, who had been strangely unaffected by the attack, laughing at the retreating trio. Another day, he mused as he ran. One day, I'll make all three of them pay.

…

By the time they had reached the Three Broomsticks, the trio's terror had faded to defeat and humiliation; Crabbe and Goyle were already bellowing about what they were going to do about the little piece of owl yarp that had done this to them. Draco joined in the conversation, but as he already knew the source of their problems, he wasn't much of a participator. He only hoped the two dolts hadn't seen the braid, or connected it to its owner. With luck, she wasn't even in Hogsmeade anymore.

This hope was crushed to smigereens the second he walked into the bar and saw the Gryffindor girl sitting alone at a booth meant for six, surrounded by parchment and butterbeer glasses, and generally looking like she hadn't moved from that spot in days. Her disinterested scowl almost made sick; he knew she had seen him come in.

The three Slytherins picked a table and ordered gingered butterbeer, Crabbe and Goyle still sulking. "I say Weasley and that Granger girl did this!" Crabbe shouted, taking a thick swig. "What do you say to getting a house elf to put frog spawn in their beds tonight?"

"Genius!" Goyle said, wiping a froth moustache off his lip. "They make us squirm, we return the favor." He turned to Draco. "You in, Malfoy?"

"Uh…I'm sorry, what?" Draco tore his eyes away from River's hair (could it have been a branch he'd seen?) and looked at his sneering friends.

"Do you think Weasley and Granger did this?" Goyle said, taking another swig. "And if so, how do we get them back?"

Draco stared into his amber drink, thinking hard about what to say. "They can't have done it, you oaf. I got a good look at them once or twice; neither had their wands drawn, and they were just as surprised about the snowballs as we were. Furthermore, why do you want to drag out this…this humiliation? I say we just let this entire episode go, and get them another time."

They were both staring now; Draco had never turned down a chance to humiliate a Gryffindor (in front of them, anyway) and the fact that he kept staring off into the booths was a little unnerving. The two goons followed his gaze to River's booth across the tavern.

"Hey, isn't that that weird girl who runs the Meet? What's she doing out of her rat hole?" When Draco didn't laugh, Goyle waved his hand in front of his betters' face. "Earth to Draco."

Draco jumped, spilling most of his drink down his front. "Watch it! What is with you two?"

"What's wrong with you?" Crabbe and Goyle chorused in unison. "You're acting very…odd."

"I'll be right back." Without another word, Draco picked up his glass and started across the hall.

"Where in the world are you going?" Crabbe was starting to get more than a little freaked out. "Did that snowball have a rock in it, 'cause I think it messed up your brains."

Draco turned back to them, keeping his face as normal as possible. "My brains are just fine, thank you. I just need to ask her something, that's all." He turned his back on the dumbfound boys and strolled forward.

…

River didn't even look up from her work as he approached. As she didn't acknowledge him in the least, he could only stand there and listen to the growing silence. As most of the school was in Hogsmeade right now, the tavern was mostly populated by students. Every single one of them was now staring at Draco, silently condemning him for even going close to the girl they considered a freak. When the silence grew uncomfterble, Draco coughed to get her attention. No need to drag this out for longer than nessecery.

"Is there something I can do for you, Draco?" She still hadn't looked up, scribbling at her parchment with the intensity of a madwoman.

"How did you…?"

"Intuition." Having finished a sentence, she now designed to look him in the eye. "And the way our classmates reacted. So again, is there something I can do for you?"

"I wanted to run my project idea by you. Do you have a moment?"

River smiled, but with venom. "Are you mad?" she whispered.

Draco smiled back, quite a bit more cheerfully. Picking up a stack of spare parchment from the bench and putting it on the floor, he sat down at the end of the booth.

Sound immediately turned back on as all the students in the tavern tried to make sense of what they were seeing. Some seemed lighthearted about the situation, but others (mostly Slytherins) threw dark scowls at the pair. The popular dark Slytherin and the weird Gryffindor girl. This would be going around the castle for months.

Birdie rubbed her temples. "Congratulations." She said dryly. "You have just committed your first act of social suicide."

"Since when do you care what they think?" Draco gestured to all their staring classmates. When she didn't even smile, he sighed and leaned forward onto his hands. "Look, forget it. I really did come over here to ask you something."

Sighing herself, River put her quill down and leaned back, taking a swig of her butterbeer. "Fire away, then."

"Why were you following the three of us just now?"

Her eyes were calm and impassive. "I don't know what you're talking about. I've been here most of the day. Ask anyone."

"And what were you doing when you weren't here?" He tried to keep his voice flat and emotionless.

Another gulp of butterbeer. "Well, I thought I'd go visit the Shrieking Shack, since it's the one place in this village I didn't visit the first time I was here. But there were already people there, so I hid behind the hill until they left."

"Riv, don't lie to me. You knew it was us."

She looked him straight in the eye. "Of course I did. Who else would be spewing such revolting language at me housemates? Or have such simple-minded companions?"

"Simple-minded? You don't dare…"

"They're currently talking about putting frog spawn in Ron and Hermione's beds. Call me a genius, but if they were smart, they would think of something original. And much more damaging."

Draco put a hand up to stifle his laugh. If the others in the room heard it, things could get out of hand much too quickly. "Yeah, no arguing there. But getting back to it, why did you charm us?"

River's eyes narrowed. "Draco, that wasn't me."

"What are you talking about? You were hiding behind a hill, heard me get angry at Granger, and charmed us to teach me a lesson. It couldn't have been anyone else."

River finished her drink and squeezed her eyes shut, thinking hard. "I'll admit I threw the snowballs, but believe me when I say that's all I did. You may need constant reminders of the difference between right and wrong, but you're also my friend. I would never intentionally scare you like that."

"Well, if you didn't do it, who did?"

"I don't know," River smiled over the rim of her glass, "but I like their style." She picked up her quill again, and Draco could see he was losing her to her work. "Anything else you want while you have my attention?"

"What are you working on?" It was a bit of an impertinent question, really, but he didn't want to go back to Crabbe and Goyle's table just yet.

She looked a little surprised, but then smiled. It was something else, her smile. It took a face normally bent over parchment and obscured by flyaway hairs and brought it to the forefront of the onlooker's mind. He wondered vaguely if she knew that, but she didn't seem the type to preen.

He sat still in the candlelit pub, listening to her plans for improvised magical firework bombs and reading the diagrams she was preparing. He was fully aware their classmates were still staring and gossiping, and that he would pay for this impulsive decision for the next few weeks, but he didn't care because for just a little while he could forget about his father and the pressure of schoolwork and being a Malfoy. He was just another Hogwarts students sitting with his somewhat crazy friend in a booth in the Three Broomsticks, and for once, it was nice to be out in public with someone he actually cared about.

That, and he simply couldn't believe how nice she looked in the light from a fire.