Ch. 7- The Good Guys

A/N

Sorry this took so long to get it. It's been written for ages, but I'm not pleased with it, so I've been trying to make it better. I gave up.

I've been seriously messing up the timeline of Ginny's boyfriends in the sixth book. During this part, she is still dating Dean Thomas, I'll try to do better from now on. I know, I know, I failed at keeping track of them.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter. I only own River and the plot.

Terry Boot, Michael Corner and Anthony Goldstein were really the world's best Ravenclaws and incredible friends. As soon as I told Terry what had happened with Ron, his friends and him went into all out prank planning mode. They had spent all day in a corner of the common room. Occasionally loud exclamations were heard from them. I would hear Michael's booming, reassuring laughter, Tony's short, loud burst of chuckles and Terry's dry, scoffing laughter periodically. I was curled up in one of the large blue chairs in front of the fire, reading my book on Arithmacy and a smile was constantly playing at my lips.

"Terry?" I yelled over to the corner without lifting my nose out of the book.

"Yes, River?" He asked

"Yes, River?" Anthony and Michael gave a rather squeaky imitation of Terry's actually quite deep voice (though they got his accent to perfection) and I heard a soft thud as his fist made contact with one of their arms.

"What is our next class?"

"Ancient Runes." He called back.

"Ancient Runes," Anthony and Michael squeaked in response before dissolving into peals of laughter.

"How long until it starts?"

"Half an hour,"

"Half an-" They were both cut off by a very neat lip locking hex by Terry. I finally lifted my nose from my book and looked over at him, exchanging a quick grin at the way our friend were trying to talk around the hex. I stood and closed my book then walked over to him.

"I had better go… I've got to… um… pick up…" I was cautious to explicitly mention Draco in Terry's presence.

"I know, don't worry. Should I save you a seat with us?"

"I don't know… yeah, you better, but don't be surprised if I don't take it." He smiled softly. I put my hand on his shoulder and dipped to gently kiss his cheek. He turned his face and brushed his lips around my cheekbone. I ruffled Tony and Michael's hair and then left the common room, confident that they were returning to their plotting behind my back.

I entered the hospital wing to find it rather busier than usual. It seemed the entire Hufflepuff Quidditch team was in there, all with various injuries.

"The Slytherin team made a good show of hexing them," A smooth drawl commented from the bed next to where I was standing. I turned around to see Draco casually sprawled across the bed. His torso was bare and I got a little distracted by his well defined chest and casually chiseled abdomen. Then I saw the place where his perfect, pale skin had been marked by some spiteful spell. All that was left was a thin white line. The same went for his face.

"Snape's quick work saved me an awful lot of scarring and the permanent disfiguring of my face. That would have been a real shame," He ran his hand vainly across his jaw.

"Yes, you do need good looks to make up for your impossible personality," I teased playfully.

"Shut up, Trife. Have a sweet." He tossed me a chunk of Honeyduke's best chocolate and I bit into it gratefully.

"I'm not allowed to go until she's done dealing the Hufflepuffs. She wants to give me one final look over. You might as well make yourself comfortable." He motioned with one graceful hand to the chair on his right. I sat in it. It was amazing how he could control the situation despite the fact that he was the one laying in a hospital bed.

"You sent my letter to father to the wrong place," he said casually.

"I sent it to the Manor…"

"He's not at the manor. He's in Azkaban after the little stunt he pulled at the Ministry at the end of last year." Draco's voice took a cold edge to it, but his facial expression remained smooth.

"I thought that… well, I thought that Voldemort would get him out."

"He's being punished for his foolishness at the Ministry. He'll be out eventually. The point is, my mother forwarded the letter, but she used one of our owls and returned yours and Potter's to the school with her response and a satisfactory bag of sweets, which she insisted I share with you. I sent them to the owelry." He motioned to a bag of sweets on his night stand, which I assumed were the sweets his mother had sent him and I dug into it for a bit of toffee. I found a few chunks pretty quickly and started sucking on the sweet candy.

"I've got the world's biggest weakness for toffee."

"I'll be sure to remember to get you some for you birthday." He flippantly said. Everything with Draco was always so casual. Then a look of vague disturbance came across his face. "When is your birthday anyway?"

"Next Wednesday, in fact."

"And you're coming of age?"

"Yep. Finally,"

"I came of age about a month ago, best birthday ever. Even… well, even the Dark Lord wrote me a note. Mum and Father were so pleased about that."

"Were you pleased?"

"Scared shitless, rather. It's like eating something the Weasley twins gave you, if they had no consciences." He laughed bitterly.

Madame Pomfrey bustled over and smiled kindly at me.

"Hello Miss Trife, how are you?"

"Excellent, thanks, and yourself?"

"Oh, you know, hanging in there, I'm quite busy,"

"I see that. Want me to hex the Slytherins that gave you this mess?" I grinned slyly at Madame Pomfrey. She laughed.

"No, no dear, that's quite alright, that'd probably only give me more work in the end. Now, let's have a look at you, Mr. Malfoy," She ran her skilled hands over the scars on his chest and face, watching for any sign of discomfort. His expression remained emotionless. She ran her wand down his chest, mumbling incantations under her breath.

"Well, you seem good enough to go. Mind, you'll have to take it easy, no quidditch for at least a week. Oh, and Mr. Malfoy? No more dueling!" The kind women shook her finger at Draco. Her smiled at her.

"Yes, ma-am"

"You always say that, and yet I get you in here about once a month still,"

"Hey, I get provoked, what can I say?" He chuckled.

"Why do I doubt that?" She shook her head at the blonde boy.

"Maybe I just like seeing you," He grinned as he put a white undershirt on.

"You flatter me, boy, now scat!" She left laughing.

"You could charm the bees' knees of the bees," I said to him. He smirked at me.

"I think a better phrase is that I could charm the pants off anyone. It's a well taught Malfoy skill, passed down from father to son for generations." He buttoned his crisp uniform shirt over his t-shirt and began blindly tying up his tie before pulling a sweater vest over it. He stood up, to reveal that he was dressed only in pajama bottoms under the sheets.

"Hand me those slacks?" I handed him the black pants and he stepped out of the emerald green pajamas and into the neat black slacks. Even being mostly naked didn't take the smooth expression off his face. It seemed that the boy could pretend nothing bothered him.

"And the socks, next, please?" I passed him a pair of black socks. He sat at the foot of the bed and tugged them onto his feet before stepping into the leather loafers that were on the ground next to his bed.

"My robes?" I passed him the emerald green trimmed robes and his prefect badge. He shrugged into them, then pinned the badge right next to the Slytherin crest on his robes.
"Merlin, I need a shower," He said, running his hand through his silver blonde hair.

"Here," I lifted my wand and waved it at his head, muttering scourtifis under my breath. The dirt and grease seemed to vanish from his hair. The rest of him seemed to have been pretty well cleaned by Madame Pomfrey when she dressed his wounds.

"What was that spell?"

"A modification on scourgify specifically for cleaning dirt and grease out of hair or skin. Terry created it."

"Terry Boot?"

"That's the one."

"Yeah, he's pretty clever, isn't he? If I remember right, the top of the class is as follows: A Miss River Trife, a Miss Hermione Granger, a Mister Terry Boot, and a Mister Draco Malfoy."

"That would be correct"

"Don't sound so proud, Trife. It's just because you and Terry are Ravenclaws that you're ahead of Granger and me, respectively."

"How do you figure?"

"Smarter kids to study with," I laughed.

"That probably is the reason I'm ahead of Hermione. I'm only about a half a percent ahead of her in Charms, Potions and DADA. That's hardly anything. And she's just a full percent ahead of Terry in Arithmacy and half a percent in Ancient Runes. He's a full percent ahead of her in Potions, leaving him only half a percent behind her overall. It's a source of constant annoyance for Terry and we hear the complaints a lot in the common room," Draco laughed at my accurate repetition of the scores.

"Only a Ravenclaw would know how close the top three scholars are." He teased as he stood and slipped the strap of his worn, gray leather messenger bag onto his shoulder and shoved the sweets and the letter from his mum into a pocket of the bag.

"To Ancient Runes, then?" He said, offering me the crook of his arm as he turned to go.

"To Ancient Runes," I said, slipping my hand into the crook of his arm. We exited the hospital wing to general mutters from the Hufflepuff Quidditch team. Draco grinned slyly as I scowled at them.

"Stay calm, River, it's not a big deal," He whispered, straightening his frame and looking down his nose at the Hufflepuffs. He graced them with the Malfoy sneer and the whole lot of them flushed and turned away. Ernie Macmillion's eyes stayed on me for a moment longer than the rest, and, in return, Draco's cold steel gaze stayed on Ernie for a moment longer. It was amazing to watch Draco's expression shift from cool impassiveness, to haughty frustration in mere seconds. Ernie's own brand of haughtiness didn't stand a chance against that of a Malfoy. After Ernie broke the gaze, Draco turned his head back to facing forward, a tiny smirk on his lips.

"Why can't I do that?" I asked, amazed at the affect a simple glare had.

"It hasn't been bred into your genes for generations. Nor have you watched your father give that same look to lesser people your whole life." Draco said, in a slightly stuck up way.

"You really are annoying, Malfoy,"

"Right back at you, Trife:"

"No, but really, you've given me that same exact smug smirk countless times, and you've given me that same exact steely glare with it, too, and it's annoying and it never failed to make me eventually whither and curse you. Seeing you give it to Ernie just reminded me exactly how much I despise your presence,"

"Here I thought we were getting along," He rolled his eyes.

"We are. That's what's so bizarre. That glare used to infuriate me, no matter who you were aiming it at, now, I find it down right amusing. What are you doing to me? Are you turning me into a Slytherin?"

"Hardly. If I'd thought there was any hope for you, I would have started years ago," he rolled his eyes again. I was beginning to find the eye roll quite as aggravating as I used to find his glare.

"The Sorting Hat was practically dying to put me in Slytherin, you know. But I'm muggleborn… there hasn't ever been one of my kind in your precious house," I practically spat.

"Are you resentful? Did you want to be a Slytherin?"

"No, Merlin, no, I just hate that my birth took an entire possible future away from me."

"I didn't know it was that way for you, too," He practically whispered, awe in his voice.

"What do you mean 'too?'"

"Well, my birth gives me a decided future. I had to be a Slytherin. I will become the next Mister Malfoy. I will inherit all that entitles. I will… well, let's face it, we're not fooling anyone anyway, I will marry a pureblood, probably a Greengrass or a Parkinson. I will make a lot of money. I will be respected. I will be very nearly feared. I will carry an ancient walking stick instead of just a wand. I will follow in my father's footsteps. I will have one son to follow in my footsteps. And, like every blonde haired Malfoy boy before me, I will do it well. I will not disappoint. It will not matter if I'm happy or not, I'll have to do it."

"I, on the other hand, will work my arse off, twice as hard as you will, for half the recognition. I will clamber and fight my way to the top. I will train hard. I will study hard. I will work hard. I will get married when I have time. I will start a family if I have time. I will blaze my own path. I will do my best to do it well. I have nobody to disappoint except myself."

He looked upset for a second.

"That's not fair at all, River. You're smarter than I am. You're more ambitious than I am. You deserve a future like mine more than I do. What if I gave you that future? What if I helped you, took you under my wing, brought you to the top one day?"

"You'd be murdered. Let's not kid ourselves, Draco. If Voldemort didn't get you, your father would, if neither of them did, Bellatrix would. You're the heir to the Malfoy fortune, and, even more impressively, the Malfoy name,"

"At the end of this, the Malfoy name won't require as much respect,"

"You'll fix that,"

"You sound so confident,"

"That's because I am, Draco."

"So, let me help you one day?" He grinned cockily in my direction.

"You ever been turned down before?"

"Never."

"I'm doing this on my own, Draco. First of all, I hate you just as much as I like you. Second of all, you really would be murdered. I'm not exaggerating,"

"No… you're right. I would be, swiftly and probably painlessly, but still murdered."

"I'm what, Draco?" I said, removing my hand from the crook of his arm.

"What?" His pale brow knitted in confusion.

"What did you say?"

"I said that you were right. That-"

"No, stop there, you said I was right. Say it again."

"You're right," He said with a laugh.

"Yes! Yes! He finally admits it!" I jumped into the air as he laughed louder at my antics. A wide grin spread across my face.

"We're going to be late if you don't stop that."

"Alright, let's go," I walked forward and wrapped my arm around his narrow waist. He draped his arm over my shoulder.

"But, seriously, River, there's something I need to say to you."

"Shoot."

"I'm not a good person. I've got a lot of mistakes on my shoulders, a lot of sins to my name. But I'm really trying to-" just then he was cut off by Ron running past us, his ears transfigured into the droopy ears of a dog and "Warning: lousy friend" burned into the back of his robes. I heard three familiar laughs, one booming, one short, one dry and I looked up to find my three Ravenclaw boys, my good guys, clutching each other as they laughed.

"You really are trying to become one of the good guys, I know Draco." I said as I caught Terry's eye and dissolved into peals of laughter.

"No, not one of the good guys, just one of your good guys," Draco smiled, his arm tightening around my shoulder as we walked together into the classroom, thoroughly ignoring raised eyebrows and confused mutters. I took my seat next to Terry, and Draco, much to my surprise, claimed the seat on my other side. A note drifted into my lap from his hand.

I want to hear the story about why Boot, Corner and Goldstein hexed Weasel king I looked down at his surprisingly neat and feminine handwriting before quickly scrawling a note back.

Let's just say it involved him accusing me of being a gold digger. As if my parents didn't make enough money to keep me in complete and total comfort for the rest of my life.

Why didn't you tell me? I could hex the ginger into oblivion.

Because, Draco, I'm really not that angry. He's entitled to be angry at me. I'm just waiting for him to apologize, which he will. He's loyal.

Terry slipped a note under my hand, shooting me an annoyed glance.

River, I am not taking notes for you. Will you stop passing notes with the blonde boy wonder and try to focus on the lecture?

I turned and stuck my tongue out at Terry and he stuck his out back at me. But, all the same, I focused my attention back to the front of the classroom, my hand scrawling letters across a blank page.