Chapter Two

When Draco Malfoy woke the following morning he felt more tired than he usually did. He couldn't decide whether it was because he had been used to getting up later over the summer or whether it was because he'd taken longer than usual to fall asleep the previous night. Either way he felt slow and groggy as he forced himself out of bed and into the shower. He rubbed shampoo into his hair and stood under the hot water mulling over the fact that he was once again back at school. Back for another year at Hogwarts, he sighed to himself.

Draco certainly hadn't missed the change in his appearance over the summer. Looking at himself in the bathroom mirror he could see that his hair had gotten lighter, he'd grown several inches taller and there was something else too. Something he couldn't quite put his finger on. His parents had certainly noticed a change in him as well. His mother had spent the good second half of the summer cooing over how tall her son had grown and how very handsome he was becoming. At the time Draco had brushed this off, not wanting to be fussed over by his mother in such an embarrassing way but secretly he had felt quite pleased with himself. Even his friends on the train yesterday seemed to have noticed that something about Draco had changed. Pansy Parkinson in particular had been overly friendly to him and he was now concluding that his recent growth spurt was a possible contributing factor to this behaviour. She'd even tried to stroke his hair, he remembered feeling slightly disgusted. He hated anyone else touching his hair.

At breakfast in the great hall Draco found he'd lost most of his appetite. He just sat playing with his food and staring off into space. The hall was packed full of excited students all stuffing their mouths with food and swapping stories about their summers. Owls were hooting and swooping overhead dropping letters and packages to students sitting at their various house tables. The thought of being back in this ridiculous place was making him feel sick. It wasn't helping that Pansy and another of his closest friends, Blaise Zabini were sitting either side of him and having an excited discussion about their school subjects for the year.

"…anyway, I'm taking potions this year. I was worried you know, that I wouldn't get an Outstanding in my OWLS last year, but I scraped through," Pansy was droning on beside him.

"Potions? I'm not taking potions. I'm doing Defence Against the Dark Arts instead. It's going to be a lot more useful than brewing boil curers and silly things like that," Blaise was ranting on to his other side.

Honestly, Draco thought to himself, why did they sound so happy to be back here? He peered down at the rest of the Slytherin students at his table, plates piled with toast and sausages and half empty goblets of pumpkin juice. Most of them seemed to be acting like everything was normal, like nothing had changed since last year. Maybe everything was still normal for them, Draco sighed to himself. They probably hadn't spent the last few months of their lives living in fear.

Just then Draco was startled slightly by a hand on his left shoulder.

"Is something wrong Draco?" Pansy was staring at him looking rather concerned.

"No I'm fine thanks," he mumbled and tried to shrug Pansy's hand away.

"It's just that you've been rather quiet…"

"Tired, I guess," he said dismissively as he pushed his almost untouched plate of food further away from himself.

"You were looking distracted just now," Pansy persisted, "You looked a bit worried actually."

"Don't be silly, I'm completely alright, I was just, I was just thinking."

Pansy didn't seem fully convinced but to Draco's relief didn't press him any further. She slowly lowered her hand from Draco and made a move to stand up from her seat.

"Come on then, time for Potions," she smiled and gestured to her sullen looking friend that he ought to get up too.

Draco impassively allowed himself to be dragged by an enthusiastic Pansy in the direction of the dungeons.

"Oh, I'm so very glad that we have Potions together this year," she chirped on as they reached the entrance to the Potions classroom. "I'm mean, it would be better if we still had Snape as our teacher of course but Potions really is my favourite subject." As they had been some of the first to leave the great hall after breakfast Pansy and Draco found the class was still empty as they entered and they were free to choose whichever table they desired to set their cauldrons up on. Just as Draco hurried forward to choose one of the tables closer to the back a voice made him look up.

"Ah, welcome, welcome, and who would you two be?" A man with an almost ridiculous looking moustache, a rather round stomach and wearing a robe in a deep shade of plum appeared from behind the desk at the front of the room -the desk that had belonged to Snape until now.

"Professor Slughorn," he announced, "I'm your new Potions master for this year. Take a seat please and we will leave further introduction till the rest of the class arrives." Draco wasn't quite sure what to make of this new professor. He looked rather daft with his shiny bald head and he was wearing a shirt with a yellow bow tie under his purple robes. Draco was not sure he abided by people who wore things like yellow bow ties. Nevertheless he followed Pansy to a seat and started preparing himself for the lesson, taking out his text books and his brass scales and placing them carefully on the table.

By the time the rest of the Potions students had arrived, Professor Slughorn had flicked his wand at the direction of the chalk board and the instructions for a complicated poison antidote appeared in a fat-lettered scrawl. A scrawl which Draco intelligently noted seemed to perfectly reflect the appearance of this round-bellied wizard.

"Find a seat everybody and get your things out. You will be turning to page 14 of your books today," Slughorn said as he looked round at the nearly full classroom of sixth year students. Pansy had begun to arrange a selection of glass vials into size order and Draco was closely reading page 14 to himself and trying to make an attempt at understanding exactly what he would have to do to make this potion.

It was a good ten minutes into the lesson and Draco had already begun cutting up his rat's tail into thin slices when a loud bang and rush of air made him look up from what he was doing just in time to see the door burst open emitting two flustered looking boys into the room.

"Typical," Draco muttered under his breath, loudly enough for Pansy to hear, who sniggered. Harry Potter stood at the back of the classroom with a slightly panicked expression on his face as though he'd been rushing frantically to arrive where he was now. Trailing him, as always, was his red-haired weasel of a friend, Ron.

"Harry!" Slughorn beamed opening his arms in a welcoming gesture. "Come in, come in m'boy." Harry looked around at the rest of the class. His chest was still heaving slightly and his dark fringe was hanging in disarray over his eyes, the back of his hair stuck out at odd angles. Ron was looking equally as ruffled.

"We're brewing poison antidotes today so you'll need your cauldrons out. Find a seat somewhere boys and get started. The others have already had almost a quarter hour to prepare their ingredients," he stepped forward and spoke directly to Harry now in a slightly quieter voice, "but don't worry Harry. I know you're more than capable of catching up."

Draco let out a low groan. Of course Harry sodding Potter was Slughorn's new favourite student already.

Draco watched as Potter's eyes scanned the classroom and came to rest on the table where he and Pansy were sitting at a table to themselves. To his surprise Potter pursed his lips slightly and after using his index finger to adjust his glasses further up his nose began striding towards him and Pansy. Confused, Draco glanced around the room and was suddenly hit with the realisation that the only free seats left in the class where the two opposite Pansy and himself. Draco huffed loudly not caring if his annoyance was made known to the new arrivals as Harry and Ron set their things down on the table in front of them.

"Don't flatter yourself in thinking we chose to sit next to you, Malfoy," Ron said as he took out his books, followed by several pieces of crumpled parchment. He appeared to be just as irritated by the current seating arrangements as Draco was.

"Well, I certainly didn't invite you over here," hissed Draco as he snatched his textbooks further away from Ron and Harry's side of the table.

"We know that!"

"What are you even doing here anyway, Weasel?" Draco sneered across the table, "I didn't think you'd be smart enough to get into this class."

"Shut up, Malfoy!" Ron snapped. Ron's eyes quickly looked down and Draco was pleased at how uncomfortable he appeared to have made him. Harry remained strangely quiet, Draco thought, as he began to sort through jars of ingredients on the table in front of him, pausing every so often to pull strands of his brown hair nervously down over his forehead.

Draco's table worked on into the lesson, mostly in silence. Draco had so far managed to achieve an auburn coloured liquid in his cauldron, which his textbook read was the near ideal colour for his potion to be at the stage he had reached. He continued adding various ingredients and stirring with a smug grin on his face as his potion slowly faded to a perfect deep crimson. Every so often Draco would peer curiously in Harry Potter's direction.

Draco soon found his mind wandering back to the run-in he'd had with Potter on the train yesterday. He couldn't help but thinking that there was something odd about Potter this year. It had been rather strange the way that Harry had just sat staring up at him when he'd first found him on the floor of the train. Maybe it was just his imagination but Draco was sure that for a brief second Potter had looked almost pleased to see him.

Don't be ridiculous, Draco muttered internally. You hate Potter and he hates you. Besides, only seconds later he yelled at you and threatened to blow you up. There was something unusual about the way Harry had looked at him though. And then Harry's eyes…

Draco gasped in fright as he glanced briefly up at Potter only to be met by the very set of bright green eyes that Draco had been thinking about staring directly into his own. For several seconds Potter's emerald eyes just glared at him as though they were participating in some unspoken staring contest. Then a loud sound of cracking glass cut into the silence of the room as the vial Draco had been holding slipped from his fingers and smashed on his desk causing everyone nearby to jump slightly in fright.

"Draco!" Pansy gasped beside him.

"Mmm…sorry," he mumbled reluctantly lowering his gaze from Potter's and looking down to see his desk covered in a spilt blue liquid and pieces of broken glass.

"Not to worry, not to worry, dear boy," Slughorn appeared behind him shaking his head at the mess Draco had created. Yet he seemed to be smiling. "Let me put that right for you." And with a swish of his wand the pieces of glass flew back together repairing themselves so that the vial was good as new again. With a second flick of his wand Slughorn made the shimmering blue liquid vanish and Draco's desk was clear again.

"Thank you Sir," Draco said picking up the glass vial and running his fingers over the repaired glass.

"Don't mention it," Slughorn nodded tucking his wand back into the inside of his robe and smoothing his walrus-moustache with his fingers. "Just try to keep a hold of your equipment in future…Mr…Mr…"

"…Malfoy!" Draco prompted sounding rather outraged that Slughorn didn't seem to know who he was.

"I am sorry, Mr. Malfoy," Slughorn apologised. "There is another bottle of mermaid-scale extract in the cabinet over there if you wish to replace that which you spilt." Draco could feel his cheeks heating up and he just nodded and made his way to the store cupboard trying to avoid eye contact with any of the students who were still watching him. That included Potter.

"Very hard to source, actually, mermaid scales…" Slughorn began to ramble as he walked off to check on the cauldrons of several Ravenclaw students at the far side of the room.

When he returned from the cupboard, Draco noticed Potter smirking at him out the corner of his eye.

"What's so funny, Potter?" he asked, glaring angrily at the Gryffindor boy.

"Nothing, just you dropping things and looking like a bit of an idiot."

"Oh, piss off Potter. It's not as if you're always in control of what you're doing."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that I don't see your potion turning red like it's supposed to," Draco nodded at Harry's cauldron full of a bubbling antidote which had turned a light shade of purple.

"At least I haven't smashed any bottles on my desk yet," said Potter defensively trying to cover his cauldron so that no one could peer at its wrongly-coloured contents.

"At least I don't go around bashing my own head open on things!" Once again Potter's hand flew up to his hair as he desperately attempted to arrange his fringe to cover the healed cut at the side of his forehead.

"Just leave it would you!" he growled angrily at Draco who just glowered and continued to stir his potion, a slight grin tugging at the corner of his lips.

"What happened to Potter's head?" Pansy was asking him a while later as they walked to their next class together.

"Oh, I don't know," said Draco, "stumbled down some stairs or something I expect."

"To be honest I hadn't even noticed he'd done something to his head until you mentioned it Draco. In fact it wasn't that noticeable at all. How come you…"

"Oh, no, it was just that, yesterday, on the train, I noticed it. It looked a lot worse then."

"Really? Hang on, when did you see Potter on the train then?"

"Oh, it wasn't for long, he was just being a prat, you know, blocking my way so I shoved him about a bit."

"So, you wounded his head?"

"No! ...I mean…no. It wasn't me that did it. I just happened to notice it yesterday… when it was worse."

Of course Draco was lying slightly. The cut on Potter's head hadn't in fact looked much worse the day before. However, Draco didn't want Pansy to make the mistake of thinking that he spent time studying Potter's face intently enough to notice things like barely visible cuts and scrapes.

"I see," Pansy said.

"Mmm."

"Draco?"

"Yeah."

"Are you sure you're feeling alright? You're not sick or something," Pansy grabbed hold of Draco's sleeve, "because you've been acting a bit weirdly all morning. You hardly ate anything at breakfast. You've been reasonably quiet all morning and then in Potions dropping that glass everywhere…"

"Honestly Pansy, I feel fine. Like I said before, I'm just really tired." Draco shook Pansy off his arm and hurried forward down the corridor without looking back.

After a week of being back at Hogwarts Draco couldn't decide whether he would rather be back home at Malfoy Manor with his parents or whether he'd rather be here at school again. Part of him longed to have his own room to himself, not to have to get up for lessons, not to have to be surrounded by infuriating people. People like Potter. However, there was another part of Draco that was glad to get away. At least now that he was at school he wasn't surrounded by Death Eaters who had spent the majority of the summer waltzing in and out of Draco's house to hold meetings as though it belonged to them.

"At least here I'm safe from being drafted into Voldemort's army," Draco was muttering to himself as he strode down a third floor corridor on Friday evening. He was feeling particularly pissed off because at dinner he'd discovered that Urquhart, the new Slytherin Quidditch Captain for this year, was making all the members of last years team re-trial for their old positions. Everyone, which, to Draco's annoyance, included him as well.

"Honestly though," he continued to vent under his breath, "Me? Draco Malfoy, having to re-trial for Seeker?"

Had people begun to forget who his father was or something? Had people forgotten how rich and powerful his family were in the Wizarding world?

Draco growled through his teeth as he advanced further down the corridor. To any other student who might have passed him Draco would probably have looked rather frightening with his robes billowing behind him as he marched rather angrily down the hall. He was just about to begin descending the staircase on his way to the dungeon when he was stopped by a muffled sound coming from behind him. He stood stock still for several seconds.

Maybe he was just imagining things. But then he heard it again, it was the sound of somebody screaming, a boys voice. Draco spun around expecting to see whoever was making the noise somewhere in the corridor behind him but there was no one. The sound was getting louder and he was sure he could hear other voices too but he couldn't make out what they were saying. Draco was rather unsure whether he could be bothered to find out where the sound was coming from. It was cold and getting late and he had homework to do. Several more seconds flew by as Draco pondered this but he soon found his Slytherin curiosity got the better of him as he started to rush back the way he'd come in search of the source of the raucous.

The screams and yells grew louder and louder and Draco followed them until he found himself in front of a closed classroom door. He pressed his ear up to the wood. The screaming was coming from inside, he was sure of it. He pressed himself further into the door straining to hear when the screaming stopped and Draco was able to hear a voice speaking.

"You won't be telling anyone about this little…incident," the voice was saying. The screaming was replaced by what Draco thought sounded like somebody sobbing.

"I didn't hear you!"

"No" –sob- "No…I won't" –sob, trembled the defeated sounding voice of the person crying.

"Stop snivelling and talk properly," yelled the other boy. There was a sniff and a moment of silence.

"No, I won't," said the crying boy, louder this time and without sobbing.

"That's more like it…" there was a pause which was filled with another loud sob, "…and if you do happen to let anyone find out about this you know what will happen to you, don't you Smithe?" Then there was the sound of fist hitting flesh and a loud moan of pain.

"What is it that" –sob- "I've done" –sob- "wrong?"

"You haven't done anything wrong," the first boy spat angrily.

"Then why..?"

"You don't know do you? You really don't understand what you are?"

"No…I…"

Draco heard the first boy utter something inaudible under his breath and suddenly the second boy began to scream again, even more violently than before as though he was experiencing some kind of hideous torture. Draco was suddenly overcome with a feeling of urgency. He wanted desperately to know who was in the room. He rattled the doorknob frantically only to find that it wouldn't budge.

Damn it!

Draco tried again, ramming into the door with his shoulder but still nothing happened. The screaming was still echoing in his ears as he pushed and pulled at the door with no success. Suddenly realising how stupid he was being Draco took a step back from the door and pulled his wand from his pocket.

"Alohomora," Draco said and he tapped the knob of the door thrice with his wand. He waited but didn't hear the lock click. Just to be sure he tried to door handle again only to be disappointed as it remained lodged shut.

"What an earth is going on? What is that noise?" Draco leapt in fright as Hermione Granger came rushing up behind him looking positively terrified.

"What the hell are you doing Draco?" she gasped, her eyes coming to rest on the wand Draco still held in his extended hand. "Who is making that noise?"

"I have no idea!" Draco tried to explain, "There are two people in there and I think one of them is attacking the other."

"What are you doing standing outside the door?"

"I was trying to get in! I can't though. The door is locked. Whoever is in there has put some sort of locking charm on the door and I can't get in open!"

"Don't be ridiculous Malfoy!" yelled Granger who was getting increasingly panicked by the nature of the blood-curdling screams coming from behind the door. Granger drew her wand and rapped it on the door knob.

"Alohomora," she said, trying her best to keep her voice steady.

"I've already tried that!"

"Seriously, what is happening in there?" shrieked Granger, raising her arms in disbelief. All of a sudden the screaming stopped and an eerie silence ensued.

"We have to get in there!"

"Honestly, Malfoy, move out of the way," Granger stepped between him and the door and put her arms out, taking steps back as though herding Draco away from the door. "Just step back would you." Draco grudgingly did as he was told and backed up into the wall. Granger aimed her wand at the hinges of the door.

"Reducto," a jet of light shot from the end of Hermione's wand and hit the door causing an almighty crash and a burst of smoke as the door fell from its hinges and landed flat on the floor in front of Granger and Draco with a deafening smash.

"Fucks sake!" Draco exclaimed as he gaped at the massive wooden door which Granger has just blasted from its frame. But before Hermione had time to respond she had climbed over the door and rushed into the empty classroom. Draco hurried after her.

"Oh my god," he heard Granger gasp in front of him. He pushed past her craning his neck only to be met by the sight of a young brown haired boy curled up on the floor tears pouring uncontrollably down his flushed cheeks. The boy looked young enough to be in first or second year and was wearing Hufflepuff robes. Draco scoured the room desperately searching for where the other boy he'd heard speaking had disappeared to. He was nowhere to be seen. The rest of the room was completely empty.

"Are you alright? What happened to you?" Granger had rushed forward to comfort the young boy. The boy didn't say anything he just shook his head and continued to cry into his sleeve.

"I could hear screaming before. Are you hurt?" Granger asked with panic in her voice. Again the boy said nothing.

"Come with me. We have to take you to the hospital wing and then I'll go and report this to Dumbledore," said Granger as she tried to encourage the boy to stand up. Draco didn't know what to do he just stood and stared at the Hufflepuff boy crumpled on the floor.

How the hell had the other boy managed to escape to room?

It just didn't make any sense.