Draco stormed out of Potions in a foul mood, he wasn't at all happy. Uncle Severus had had the nerve to doubt and insult his superior potions abilities, even complimenting Grangers potions. Instead of making the basic fever reducer that they had been, it had seemed as if they had been making some sort of mind control potion. It really was quite out of character for Uncle Severus to point out his mistakes, small as they of course were, and this would have to be another thing to tell his father.
Dinner would be in around forty five minutes like every day, it was always served half past five, until then, it was free time that could be spent in the common room or the library, flying, or anywhere else within reason. Then, dinner was served buffet style, and ended at quarter past six. Detention normally started at half past six, which gave you time to get whatever you needed from your dormitory, and to get to the place where you had the detention, as you would obviously only get in more trouble if you were late. If you didn't have detention, you were free to do whatever you wanted, such as quidditch practice. Curfew was different for different years, and 5th year curfew was nine pm, meaning you had to be back in the common room by nine pm. There wasn't really a lights out time, except for first to third years, the other years had to be reasonably quiet, or their heads of house would come, and Draco knew from experience that Severus Snape at three 'o' clock in the morning was not a pretty sight, so generally Draco tried to keep quiet, and the others in his dorm as well when it got past around ten pm.
He decided that he would go to the owlery to deliver a letter to his father, once he had stopped in an empty classroom or somewhere to edit his letter, and add in the bit about his Uncle Severus forgetting about blood purity, which Draco was sure that his father would be interested to find out. Then, he'd drop his things off at his dorm except his quill, and have dinner then walk to detention with Selena, and do his homework when he got back to the common room. Not exactly a great day, but it would have to do.
He started walking towards the owlery, unfortunately, it was really near to the Gryffindor tower, so he normally saw quite a few of them heading to their own common room, in the last few days when he had been coming to the owlery to deliver letters to his parents and Aunt, he had seen Potter in here a lot. Once, he had tried glancing over his shoulder to see who he was so obsessed with writing to, but the letter had been quickly taken out of his sight.
He glanced down at his letter, making sure that the grammar and spelling was correct, as his father always insisted on proper letter writing. It said: -
Father,
The first week back has not been at all satisfactory, and I felt that I should inform you about what has happened. I found out that nothing happened to Harry Potter, proving that he is exempt from the rules when he performed underage magic in a muggles house. Then, once I arrived and went to the Prefect's compartment, of course Pansy was the other Slytherin Prefect, I then discovered that for Gryffindor, the Prefect is Granger, the muggleborn who always gets higher marks than anyone else, blood purity is really going downhill.
We had our first Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson today, and our new teacher is ministry appointed, she opposes Potter, and I know that you said she would be a good influence, and appreciate pure blooded students, especially Slytherins, which would definitely mean me, since I'm the purest Slytherin, and a Prefect, but she had the nerve to give me a detention, even though I wanted tonight to get a feel for my new broom, I am of course, very grateful for that Father.
Uncle Severus has also behaved rather strangely today, again, even though you assured me that he would be here to help me. Maybe next time you talk to people, you should use different persuasion techniques. He favoured Granger over me in Potions, saying my potion wasn't up to standard!
Yours sincerely,
Draco Lucius Malfoy.
Father had given him a new owl after the one he had received in first year had been hit by a stray curse when they were practising duelling, and he looked in the large room, wondering where she was.
He spotted her at the back of the room, near the window and clearly yearning to fly, Draco fulfilled her wish, tying the letter to her leg, patting her head and telling her where to deliver the letter to.
Checking his watch, he realized that he only had twenty minutes to get to the dungeons, dump his stuff and then go to the great hall for dinner. It was a good thing the dungeons were fairly near the great hall.
He flew down the stairs, rounding a corner and unfortunately walking straight into Professor Snape someone who he was not in the mood to talk to at all. Snape wore his usual sneer, and said "Draco, I thought you knew better than to run in the corridors,"
"Sorry Professor," replied Draco, dripping sarcasm. "Oh, and by the way, my father will know about how much you love mudbloods now."
Professor Snape looked slightly confused, "Draco, what are you talking about?"
"You said Granger's potion was good, and mine needed extra newt's eye,"
Professor Snape glared at him, then said "Well, Draco maybe I might have to drop your marks, it's quite simple really, you don't do good enough potions, you don't get a good enough mark," He decided to write a note to Lucius later, incase he got the wrong end of the stick with Draco's letter, not realizing that Draco was simply becoming too arrogant, expecting his marks to be handed to him, like everything else in his life. Sweeping past Draco, he left to go and join Dumbledore for a quick meeting before dinner, whilst Draco dashed down the stairs, breaking into a run once more and panting out the password – 'Gobstones'
Pushing the door open to his dorm, he found it empty, and then strode over to his bed, the middle one, and emptied the contents of his bag out, grabbing his quill, ink and parchment from the mess on his bed.
Only just did he make it to the hall in time, when he sat down, Dumbledore was waving his wand to make the food appear, it was a good thing there were no rules about when you had to be there for. Being a bit late to dinner didn't really matter.
After a rather enjoyable dinner of steak pie and crème brulee, he headed over to the Ravenclaw table, from there he and Selena walked through a few corridors to Umbridge's classroom, which was next door to the Defence classroom.
They stopped outside the closed door to knock, and Umbridge's high, girly voice answered – 'Come in,'
They entered, only to see Harry Potter sitting at a desk looking rather depressed…