Draco was bored, once again. Apparently, study hall was nothing more than a time for revision, but he still wasn't sure if he planned on doing well in this muggle school. Instead, he was trying to get the hang of the muggle pen his father had given him. He had to admit (however embarrassedly), it was much easier to write with a pen than with a quill, though his name just didn't look quite as impressive in ball-point ink.

"Excuse me, Mr. Malfoy? Umm… Draco?"

Draco looked up, startled. A red-haired woman wearing a yellow sweater peered down kindly at him. Draco's lip curled; she could have easily been a member of the Weasley clan. Draco noticed she was smoothing the front of her skirt compulsively, as though she was nervous.

"Hello there, I'm Ms. Pilsbury. Well, soon to be a Mrs, but for now I'm still a Ms., ha! Anyway, I'm the guidance counselor here, and we think it's a good idea for new students to meet with me when they first start school here. You know, to make sure the transition is smooth." She gave another nervous laugh and began rearranging her collar. Draco stared, nonplussed. This woman was completely mental.

"Now, if you'll follow me?" She asked and began walking away, heels clicking smartly on the tile floor. "My office is right next door, not far at all! Oh, you might want to take your school things."

Scowling, Draco shouldered his bag and followed the Pilsbury woman from his classroom. A guidance counselor? He didn't need guidance. In fact, he had an overabundance of guidance, between the Dark Lord's demands and his father's expectations. Well, perhaps they didn't exactly 'guide' him as much as control his every move. But at any rate, he certainly didn't need advice from a woman who looked as though a solid gust of wind would completely undo her.

They entered Ms. Pilsbury's immaculate office and Draco sullenly took a seat in front of her desk. There were a few moments of activity as she pulled out a file (Draco could only assume it was his file) and carefully spread the contents across her desk, making sure each paper was evenly spaced. Draco sighed loudly.

When she finally seemed satisfied, she folded her hands and looked up expectantly, smiling cheerily. The silence stretched. Draco stared at the desk top, deliberately not meeting her eyes.

She coughed slightly. "I see from your file that you played cricket in England. Why don't you tell me a little about that?"

Cricket? Draco wondered, bewildered. What kind of nancy-sounding sport is that? Or maybe it was a game involving insects. He settled for an insolent shrug in answer to the woman's question.

"Please use your words, Draco," Ms. Pilsbury admonished. Draco nearly gagged. What was he, five? Still, he continued his silent rebellion.

Thirty uncomfortable minutes later, during which Draco was content to merely sit and listen to the woman prattle about the "adjustment process", she dismissed him, asking Draco to return to meet with her the following Monday as well. This school is full of Hufflepuffs, he grumbled inwardly as he took the piece of chocolate she offered and left.

000

Santana rested her head on her hand, deep in thought. She'd been thinking about the new guy, Draco, for the better part of the day and couldn't help but feel like she'd seen him before.

Realization hit her as the bell rang, signaling the end of the day. He was the boy she'd seen Karofsky and his idiot friends slushie that morning! She'd even spoken to Draco, what had she said? "Welcome to High School," or something equally moronic. God, she'd been so stupid! Not wonder he'd been staring at her during Spanish. He, of course, had recognized her right away. And here she thought he'd been checking her out all class. No. He had been checking her out. How could anyone not? It was understandable why she hadn't recognized him though, she decided. He looked pretty different when he wasn't covered in blue muck. Just then, Brittany sidled up to Santana, shoulder checking her lightly.

"Hey, girl. Is that party still on for tonight?"

"Hell yeah!" Santana said, shoulder checking Brittany back. It was a bit forceful and Brittany went careening into a locker. She bounced right back though; that was the great thing about Brittany. She was too stupid to let something like that bother her.

000

Draco scowled as he wearily made his way amongst the hundreds of students towards the school entrance. He was utterly exhausted and, truth be told, he was feeling a tad… lonely. Without Crabbe, Goyle and Pansy at his side, he was completely out of sorts. Life here was so bloody different, like a new game where no one had taught him the rules. He'd needed to use the restroom during English and was nearly dragged to the pricipal's office by a Hagrid-sized gym teacher who demanded to know where his "hall pass" was. Clearly the professors here didn't trust the students at all. With good reason, he figured. He didn't trust anyone here, either, though that had more to do with their blood status than the suspicion that every student wanted to skive off class.

His father had informed Draco that his new guardian would meet Draco personally in front of the school at the end of the day, driving one of those muggle vehicles. Draco had gasped in anger upon learning he would not be staying with his father in the wizarding inn an hour away.

"Surely I won't have to live with muggles!" Draco shouted mutinously, pacing back and forth. Lucius gave his son a look of utter disgust.

"Of course not, Draco. That would be nothing short of cruelty. You will be housed with a Squib by the name of Sandy Reyerson. The man is a complete idiot but he's the best we could do on such short notice."

Draco's scowl deepened as he remembered the conversation. His father could be such a bastard sometimes. Well, most of the time, actually. At least no one had to wonder where Draco had inherited his least desirable personality traits. He plopped himself down on a bench at the school's entrance and nibbled on the "Hershey" chocolate the Pilsbury woman had given him. It was nothing compared to Honeydukes', he decided. Still, he hadn't wanted to touch the food the school cafeteria had to offer, and he finished off the chocolate bar rather quickly.

And so he waited.

And waited.

And waited.

He even got so bored as to take out the few History notes he'd bothered to take, as the teacher had hinted at a pop quiz the following week. He glanced up as a shadow passed over his notebook.

Two girls clothed in identical red-and-white uniforms stood before him. Their arms were linked, their hair pulled back in high ponytails. Draco recognized the brunette from his Spanish class earlier that day. He fought to keep his expression completely neutral and uninterested as she opened her mouth.

"Hey."

She slinked over and sat beside Draco. The blond muggle bounced on the other side of him.

"I'm Santana. We have Spanish together."

Draco gave her a quick nod of recognition as her minty breath ruffled his hair. She was practically pressed up against him. He tried not to think about how short her skirt was.

"My parents are out of town so I'm having a party tonight, some cool people are going to be there. You could come, if you want." Santana said with a careless shrug. "Afterwards, everyone's just gonna sleep over." She held out a slip of paper that Draco took as nonchalantly as possible. There was no way he was going to a muggle party, he already knew, but he felt there was no sense in offending the girl (not yet, anyway), as they would have to share the back row of the Spanish classroom for however long he was trapped here.

"Anyway, see you around," she said and got up with her friend. The blond girl stopped short before Santana could get very far, though.

"You're kind of hot. What's your name? I'm Brittany by the way," Brittany said, and held out her hand. Draco looked at her vacant expression and wondered if her last name was Lovegood. Then again, he'd met so many nutters over the course of the day, he wasn't even fazed.

"Draco," he answered after a moment, ignoring her outstretched hand. The sound of his voice startled him, a little. He realized it was the first word he'd spoken in hours.

"Oh. That's a funny name! Ha! Draco. But I guess it could be worse. Like, Bridget, or something," Brittany said, mostly to herself.

Santana glanced at Brittany in confusion. "Uh, Bridget is a pretty normal name, Brit."

"Not if you're a boy," Brittany retorted as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Besides, who wants to be named after a bridge, right?"

Draco realized the look on his face must have been that of utter revulsion, but he couldn't help it. He wasn't sure if it was humanly possible for anyone to be so thick. Then again, his best friends were Crabbe and Goyle. But still…

Apparently Santana thought her friend was an idiot, too.

"Oh my GOD, Brittany!" She hissed, then stalked off. Brittany followed.

000

In the end, the squib, Sandy, arrived around six o' clock. He was driving a beat up blue car that reminded Draco of the flying car Weasely and Potter had driven in their second year. That memory, coupled with his obscenely long wait, had Draco positively seething as he stormed up to the car and yanked open the passenger side door.

"Hello there," the man said, glancing at Draco uninterestedly. Sandy Reyerson had buggy eyes and a bald pate that gleamed with a thin sheen of sweat in the dying sunlight. Draco shot him a look of loathing as the car pulled away from the curb.

"Oh, now, don't be like that," the man said in a high, reedy voice. "I don't like this any more than you do. I would never have agreed to have a snotty teenager in the house but, well, my brother's friends can be quite persuasive, so I didn't really have a choice here."

That piqued Draco's interest.

Sandy noticed Draco's questioning look. "You didn't know? My bother is one of your father's pals. You probably know him. Looks like a rat?"

"Wormtail is your brother?" Draco asked incredulously. Well, he supposed it made sense; he could see a slight resemblance.

"Half-brother," Sandy said sourly. "And I haven't seen him since I was ten. How is Peter doing anyway? Hanging out with the wrong sort of crowd, if your father is anything to go by." Draco sneered at the slight. Sandy either didn't notice or didn't care, because he continued.

"Here I am, living a thoroughly muggle life, the happiest I've been in 20 years, and suddenly my dear brother's pal shows up on my doorstep, demanding I shelter some bratty teenager. It just isn't fair. Peter always got his way. Guess that's what I get for having the nerve to be a Squib," he added bitterly.

Draco listened to the man grumble for the entire car ride. When they finally arrived at Sandy's abode, Draco's disgust for the man doubled. The house was small, dingy, and, and Draco's opinion, positively rancid. Draco's bedroom was little more than a storage closet; there was barely room for a bed and rickety chest of drawers. Sandy pointed to a large leather suitcase lying on the worn comforter.

"Your dad left this here earlier, you can put your stuff in the drawers if you want. Or not, I really don't care." Draco was about to ask about a house elf, when he stopped himself. Of course this place didn't have a house elf. He wasn't even sure if Squibs were allowed to own them.

Draco's stomach clenched uncomfortably, which had nothing to do with his uneasiness about the living arrangements.

"What about food?" he demanded. "Sure you plan on feeding me at some point?"

Sandy shrugged. "There's, like, a hundred frozen dinners in the freezer. Help yourself." Then he turned and walked away.

Draco wasn't sure what a "freezer" was, but it sounded like he'd have to make his meals himself! Good lord, he was going to starve to death.

Just then, a woman's voice echoed angrily from somewhere in the house. A man's voice cut her off, and the sound of squealing tires erupted from the living room. Confused, Draco dashed towards the sound of the commotion. The sounds were emitting from a strange black box. For a brief dizzying moment Draco thought there were miniature people stuck inside the box, talking loudly. Then he noticed Sandy was sprawled out on the sofa, a look of surprise on his face.

"Wait- don't tell me you've never seen a TV before?" Sandy asked, eyebrows raised. Draco turned his attention back to the box, where a woman was now passionately kissing a man as music swelled in the background. Then the scene cut to a completely unrelated scenario. A teenage boy was talking to a girl inside what looked like a muggle classroom. Draco's brow wrinkled in confusion. Where had the original man and woman gone? Where was the music coming from?

Sandy hooted with laugher and waved around a funny black rectangle covered in buttons. "I'd forgotten how archaic you wizards are! Oh, this is funny. Grab a seat, you've got sixteen years of television to catch up on. Here," he tossed Draco the black rectangle and left the room, still laughing.

Frowning, Draco lowered himself onto the couch and continued to stare at the screen. Once the initial shock of seeing miniature people stuck inside of a box wore off, he began to wonder how it worked. It seemed to behave very much like a wizard radio, but he wasn't sure how the muggles managed to create a visual version of the radio. Bewitched gnomes, maybe? Or a type of boggart? No, it would seem some sort of variation of a Visual Switching charm was in play- but then Draco remembered the box had to be utterly non-magical in nature. He was in a Squib's house, after all.

The minutes passed quickly and Draco began to realize he was watching a story unfold, much like a play. There was a teenage boy who wanted to play a muggle sport involving an orange ball, called "basket-ball". The boy was conflicted because he also wanted to sing and dance. Draco snorted as the boy began to play basket-ball while singing and dancing. Perhaps Draco's knowledge of the muggle world was limited, but this plot line seemed very unrealistic. Why couldn't the boy just do both? It seemed like a moronic, self-imposed moral dilemma worthy of Potter. Utterly ridiculous. Yet Draco continued to watch, transfixed.

An hour later, Sandy arrived at the front door (Draco hadn't even noticed he'd left) to find Draco leaning forward in his seat, still staring at the screen.

"Hey kid, I found this in the car. I'm assuming it's yours," Sandy tossed a slip of paper on the kitchen table. Draco glanced at the paper and turned back to the screen.

"Some muggle girl's party," he muttered distractedly.

"You were invited to a party? By which girl? Is she hot?" Sandy snatched up the paper. "It started an hour ago! I'll drive you over."

"No thanks," Draco said. "I would prefer not to-"

But Sandy was already grabbing his car keys. "Come on kid, you don't have a choice. I want you out of the house as much as possible. Besides, it's good for teenagers to socialize and all that."

Draco scowled as Sandy turned off the muggle TV with the black rectangle. He stalked to his room to change and to throw a few choice items into his leather bag before heading outside to the car, where Sandy was waiting impatiently. Fifteen minutes later Sandy pulled up in front of a stately two-story house. Draco sneered. It was nothing compared to the Malfoy Manor, though a small part of him admitted it was a pretty large house. He could hear the distant thud of a bass coupled with the muffled shouts of drunken teenagers.

"Make good choices!" Sandy called out the open window as Draco left the car. "Wait- want some weed?"

Draco turned, nonplussed. "What, you mean gillyweed?"

"No. Like, pot. You know, the good herb. To smoke. To have a good time! I'll sell it to you cheap since you're living with me."

Draco's eyebrows lifted in surprise. Perhaps muggles called it simply 'weed', though Draco couldn't understand why anyone in their right mind would want to smoke gillyweed. Draco had stumbled upon a few of the older Slytherins snorting gillyweed seeds before the Yule ball, swearing that it heightened sexual pleasure, but Draco wasn't sure if that were actually true. And, obviously, eating gillyweed gave you the ability to breathe underwater, as Potter had so brilliantly demonstrated during the Triwizard Tournament. (Stupid git.) But to smoke it sounded downright shifty.

"Er, I'll pass," Draco said. He had smuggled an enormous bottle of Firewhisky (courtesy of his father) into his bag. He figured that was all the good time he would need.

"You're missing out," Reyerson said, shaking his head. "Lemme give you my number in case you change your mind. You do know how to use a telephone, right?"

"I'll figure it out," muttered Draco. He was anxious to get inside.

000

"There he is! Do you see him? THAT'S BLOND BOY!" Kurt practically blasted Mercedes' ear off in excitement as Draco stoically entered the house. Kurt was on his third cup of "Jungle Juice" and his volume had been steadily increasing as the night went on.

"Shattup, Kurt! Geeze, way to be obvious!" Mercedes snorted into her own red plastic cup and the two collapsed on the floor, gasping for breath.

000

Draco paused in the doorway, taking in the scene before him. To be honest, he hadn't been sure what to expect. But from the looks of things, muggle parties were even more boisterous than the worst Hogwarts parties Draco had seen in his time. Abrasive music assaulted his ears as Draco sidestepped a pair of idiotically laughing friends and he watched, amused, as a bathing-suited Asian boy slid down the banister, his hoots of joy turning to groans of pain as he careened off the railing and smashed into a large urn.

Draco made his way to the kitchen where a large punch bowl and dozens of bottles littered the counter tops. He spotted a tray of sandwiches and gratefully took one. A couple was intertwined on a couch, watching what Draco recognized as a muggle "tee-vee", though Draco wasn't sure if they could hear anything with the thudding music that seemed to be everywhere.

"What's up, man!" A bespectacled boy in a wheel chair skidded up to Draco and held up his hand for a high-five. Draco defensively lifted his arm and the boy slapped his hand enthusiastically.

"Great party, right?" the boy shouted. Just then, the blond girl Draco recognized as Brittany sidled up to the boy and intertwined her hand in his.

"Come on, Artie!" She shouted. "I want to be alone with you!"

"Sorry, man! Duty calls!" the boy, Artie, shouted as Brittany led him down a hallway.

Pansy had often told Draco that he was a quiet drunk. Give him two (or three, or four) glasses of Firewhisky and he was content to sit in a corner and let the excitement revolve around him while he observed, utterly at peace with the world.

And so it was that Draco made his way to the furnished basement (where a majority of the people were congregated), uncorked his bottle of Firewhisky and found an unobtrusive corner from where he could watch the intermingling of about a dozen inebriated muggles undisturbed.

He was just at the point where he felt he was (maybe) starting to relax a little when a large girl broke through the crowd, shoving a few teenagers out of the way with what Draco thought was unnecessary force. Her eyes focused on Draco and she made a beeline towards towards him, draining a plastic cup and crushing it in her hand as she went. She tossed it to the side as she approached and practically straddled Draco. He leaned back nervously, clutching his Firewhisky to himself protectively.

"You are a very, very, very, VERY ATTRACTIVE MAN," the girl shouted, making Draco jerk back. The chair tipped over and he leapt deftly to his feet, quickly becoming terrified as the monstrous, belligerently drunk girl advanced. He grabbed towards his pocket for his wand but, of course, it wasn't there.

"I JUST WANT TO GIVE YOU A WARM WELCOME TO MCKINLEY-"

Here she engulfed Draco in a crushing hug as he tried to dart around her towards the exit.

"-MY NAME IS LAUREN-"

Draco struggled in vain to relinquish the girl's death grip.

"Don't touch me- filthy muggle- let GO!"

Suddenly, someone has grabbed him by the collar and was wrenching him backwards. Draco was forcibly spun around and found himself nose to nose with a furious looking youth with a buzz cut and dark eyes.

"What were you doing with MY girl?" the boy shouted, showing Draco in spit.

Before Draco could say anything, the boy had raised his fist. Draco tried to raise his own arms to defend himself, but it was too late. Before Draco could register what was happening, he felt his head snap back as the boy's fist collided with his left eye, and the world went dark as Draco collapsed to the ground.