I wish I could just ignore life and write fan fiction instead.


Weren't the school days supposed to be a fun time?

Draco for one couldn't wait to be done and get away from Hogwarts and all of the problems he'd made for himself.

Of course, leaving school meant going into voluntary isolation alone with his mother. He loved his mother, naturally, but he could imagine much more interesting things to do with his eighteen-year-old self than hiding out in a secure cottage alone with her and no real contact with anyone else.

Weren't the good guys supposed to vanquish The Dark Lord so he wouldn't have to hide, anyway?

They were sure taking their sweet time doing that.

Since he still had almost five months left here, however, he supposed he would have to deal with his problems.

Dealing naturally meaning 'avoiding any unpleasantries'. So, currently he was avoiding Theo, Granger and Astoria. Pansy too, although she seemed to be getting on fine without him. He couldn't quite decide whether he was avoiding Blaise as well. Considering how little he wanted to listen to Blaise's dating advice, he supposed he was.

Basically, he was avoiding everyone he liked.

That sucked.

He was currently sitting in an abandoned common room late at night because he found himself unable to sleep. It being the weekend, sleeping in wouldn't be a problem, but he'd just been feeling rather restless in his room earlier and decided to come out here to read.

Honestly, he preferred not to spend any waking time around his bed. His memory of the last encounter was much too vivid. He frequently caught himself wishing she'd come back, but it didn't take a genius to figure that she wouldn't. Staying away was the smart thing to do. For both of them.

Damn hormones.

With an annoyed growling sound he got up. It really was time to go to sleep or suffer trying.

He had just reached his door and was about to open it when he heard another door softly open and close further down the hall, followed by light footsteps. Feeling rather puzzled, he hesitated, waiting to see who it was. When he did see, his jaw dropped.

"Oops," she muttered, fidgeting a bit.

He cleared his throat. "Mind telling me what you're up to, Davis?" he asked.

She stuck her nose in the air. "You're not the boss of me, Malfoy."

No, he wasn't. But he really couldn't decide whether he hoped Tracey Davis had come from Blaise's or someone else's room.

He couldn't help his frown. "If you were at Blaise's, I don't understand why he hasn't said anything."

The girl blushed and looked away. "Keeping a low profile."

Something clicked. Something really ugly that made him want to shake the innocent-looking little bint in front of him until it clicked for her too.

"You're using him."

"No, I'm not." The way her blush deepened belied her words.

Draco leaned his shoulder against the cold stone wall and crossed his arms over his chest, frowning at her. "You'd think you didn't understand what that feels like. I'm actually beginning to think that you really don't know the feeling but have just been playing him all along."

Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open with indignation. "He—" She stopped and looked around, then took a step closer and lowered her voice. "He was the one who wanted this. He said it would be ok just… being what it was. He wouldn't leave me alone! What would you expect me to do?" At the end, her voice was just a hiss.

"I'd expect you not to take advantage of someone just to get your own jollies. At least not him. What is this? Revenge? You should know by now that he's sorry and wants more from you than the occasional tumble."

"Sorry doesn't make things right," she muttered.

"So it is revenge, then?"

"No, it…" She sighed and closed her eyes for a second. "You really don't think he can handle it?"

"He can handle it. But you're misleading him if you're not serious about it."

"But I told him—"

"Before or after you jumped into bed with him again?"

Her mouth turned into a tight, narrow line. He had managed to annoy her. He didn't particularly care, though.

"I get your point, Malfoy."

"Do you? Do you really?" he asked. "Because just because he's easy to get into bed doesn't mean he doesn't have feelings, Davis."

"You seem to continually forget how he abused my feelings," she coldly reminded him.

"I don't care about your feelings. You are not my friend. And in how many languages does he have to tell you that he's sorry before you get your head out of your arse, anyway? Seems to me that he's already tried quite a few." He gave her mussed hair and swollen lips a rather meaningful leer, the crudest he could manage.

Her flush returned, this time as much from anger as from embarrassment. "I'll make sure he knows who to thank for me not coming back," she said, before storming off.

And Draco was sure Blaise would really appreciate it.


"How could you?"

Draco winced. It really hadn't taken Davis long to tell Blaise about their conversation, had it? He'd barely sat down to get his admittedly late breakfast and there it was, a really angry Blaise.

Actually 'angry' was probably the wrong word. He looked… wounded.

"I just told her what's what."

"And how would you feel if I told a certain someone else your little secret?"

Draco's hand froze halfway to the bread. "It's not the same. This was hardly a secret."

"Yeah? One could argue that neither is yours."

Draco winced again. "Look, I'm sorry. But if she wanted your, eh, relationship to go on, she could have just ignored me. I didn't force her to do anything."

"No, you manipulated her instead. Told her that it wasn't enough for me. She's not a monster; she doesn't want to hurt me, so she told me it was over. Thanks to you."

"Well, was it enough for you?"

"For now, yeah! I could have made it into more and now you had to go ruin it all for me!"

Draco wearily rubbed his eyes. He was tired. "Blaise… if she doesn't feel it—"

"What? You're the grand expert on what's possible and what's not?" Blaise interrupted. "You? Who can't even tell when the girls are actually interested in you? Yeah, I know about that although you certainly didn't tell me."

He knew about Astoria? "Wasn't my secret to tell," Draco muttered.

"You are so busy protecting some trust fund you will be able to enjoy all by your lonesome in seven years if you deny yourself happiness that you don't understand you could be missing out on something good, which, if it worked out, others would kill to have, and you're telling me what can and cannot be done?"

"All right!" Draco held up his hands in surrender, not really wanting this to go on. "I shouldn't have said anything to her. I was out of line. I'm sorry."

"Yes, well…" Blaise muttered looking down on his own empty plate, "sorry doesn't fix things, does it? You ruined it for me. Because I might have finally ended up happy with her and you just couldn't stand that, could you? You had to go and make sure that everyone would be as miserable as you."

"You know that's not—"

"Marriage."

Draco didn't quite follow so he just blinked and shut up.

"Marriage," Blaise repeated. "That's what I was heading towards proposing. To prove to her that I meant it. It might not have worked, she might have turned me down, but that was my plan. I was just going to spend some time reminding her how good we were together first. Show her how much I loved her; that I'd do anything for her. Do my best to make her fall for me again. And now, because of you, it's RUINED!!!"

The shove of his plate and cutlery to the floor was so sudden and the shout so loud that several people in the Great Hall turned to look at Blaise. Draco was just happy that nobody was sitting close enough to have heard anything else.

"And for what?" Blaise hissed. "So you can feel better that she's not using me anymore? Well, you know what? I hope you learn. I hope you do realize what you maybe could have had. And when that happens? I hope it is too late and that you will have to live your life never having it."

Draco flinched at the anger. "Be reasonable. You couldn't have married her anyway. You're only eighteen and—"

"And you don't get to decide what I can and cannot do!" Blaise interrupted. "Just because you don't want something doesn't mean the rest of us can't be allowed to. I wanted this. More than anything. You made sure it couldn't happen. You just don't know, do you, Draco? You can't imagine what it's like to try and get what you want, to aim for happiness. I had gotten just one step closer and you ruined it for me!"

There really wasn't much Draco could reply to that, so he didn't. Blaise spent a few more moments staring him down and then he abruptly left.

After Blaise was gone, Draco decided that nope, this really wasn't his year.


"Mr. Malfoy!"

When Draco saw the Gryffindor Head of House aiming straight for him as he was leaving the Great Hall, he immediately went through any possible offenses he might have made in his head.

For the first time since he began attending Hogwarts, he actually couldn't come up with anything damning.

That probably wouldn't keep her from coming up with something, though. It was also entirely possible that someone had made something up and was having a laugh somewhere.

"Mr. Malfoy," Professor McGonagall repeated, "have you seen Miss Granger?"

Draco stared blindly for a second. "Eh… what?"

"The Head Girl." She gave him a look that clearly questioned his intelligence.

"Um, no. No, I haven't. She must have eaten earlier or something."

"Right." The professor frowned a bit absent-mindedly. "Could you give her this note for me? Don't bother trying to read it, it's been magically sealed for her and you do not want to find out what hex is on it."

"No!" Draco cringed when his exclamation had McGonagall's gaze back full force on him. "I mean… girls dormitories. I can't."

"Don't even try to pretend that you don't know that you're capable of entering the girls dormitories as Deputy Head Boy." Now her look didn't even question his intelligence anymore.

Draco fought back another cringe. "But—"

"I think I know what's going on here," McGonagall mumbled, narrowing that uncomfortable gaze on him.

His cheeks went pink. Great. Blushing like a girl now. Very suave, Draco. "I'm sure that's not—"

"It's because of her heritage, isn't it?"

"Her—? Oh. Yes! Definitely, that's why!" He nodded just a tad too enthusiastically.

"50 points from Slytherin!"

He winced. Reassuring the professors that he was still very much a racist might not be a very good plan. It just seemed so much better than the alternative….

The elderly witch sighed and shook her head, no doubt losing faith in the pureblood youth of today. "I don't have time for this. Go up and give her this and then leave. It's hardly the worst chore you'll ever get." The note was shoved into his hand.

"But, Professor…" he whined.

"What?"

"… It's in Gryffindor." And it was Saturday morning. And it was in their girls dorms. He might as well draw a bullseye on himself and be done with it if he went up there.

"Why, so it is…" McGonagall turned her back on him. "Don't dally now."

Draco gaped at the professor's back. Had she just smirked? That was it! That old hag was definitely evil!


When the knock sounded on Hermione's door, her first reaction was to frown and put down the book she was leisurely sitting on her bed reading.

She didn't get a lot of knocks on her door. That was mostly because she didn't spend that much time in her room and Harry and Ron weren't actually able to come knock on her door.

There was another knock.

She hadn't even dressed properly yet. She was wearing her very Muggle pyjama bottoms and t-shirt, because… well, it was comfortable.

This was an issue, because the knocker was probably Ginny and Ginny, being rather more girly in her appearance, didn't understand the value of comfort over presentability. One would think she'd be just a mite more tomboyish with six older brothers.

Too bad people didn't always conform to stereotypes.

The third knock was almost frantic.

She sighed and got up, moving a sleeping cat as she did so and crossing the room on her bare feet. This had better be more important than gossiping about Harry or, worse, gossiping about someone she didn't care about at all.

She finally opened the door as the fourth knock was sounding.

"About damn time," Malfoy almost hissed, glancing nervously down the hall and pushing uninvited past her before she could recover from her surprise.

What was he doing here?

"I don't recall asking you to come up here," she pointed out as she rather hesitantly closed the door behind him.

"I—" He stopped dead as he'd turned back towards her and frowned. "Muggle thing?" He indicated her clothes.

Hermione felt her cheeks heat and crossed her arms rather defensively over her chest. "Last I checked, wizards and witches wore clothes too."

Draco grinned. "Last I checked, we also used the laundry basket," he said, indicating her discarded robes. "You really are just a slob, aren't you?"

Hermione scowled and picked up the robes to put them away. "That's none of your business. Why are you here?"

"Because McGonagall wants me to die." He handed her the note.

"Oh, ok." She took the note from him.

"You're not even going to ask why she wants me to die?" he complained, sitting down in her only chair.

She shrugged. "Not really. It's a common enough reaction." She patted his shoulder.

He made a face. "Thanks."

She opened the note. "Oh, I'm sure she doesn't want you to die," she amended.

"Then why send me up here? With a bloody note? What's so important it couldn't wait, anyway? You do know that I had to go through your common room, right? And I will have to on my way out as well. Turning my back on people!"

Ignoring Malfoy's ramblings and reading the note, it was Hermione's turn to make a face. "I have to redo every single schedule I took great pains to get done last night!"

Draco laughed at this, making her glare at him. "Oh, come on," he said, still sniggering. "It's funny if you're me. Why do you need to do that, anyway?"

Hermione pursed her lips. "They're moving something important into the school tonight. Some artifact or other. They can't risk bringing it to attention by bringing in Aurors, but I'm to assign more people to keeping the halls secure at night. This means that everyone gets the pleasure of wandering about at least one night a week now; doesn't that sound fun?" She turned her back on him, resigning herself to the fact that her Saturday would now be spent making this work.

He made a very unenthusiastic sound. "Why just us? Why not all older students? Or, you know, at least the goody ones? Make that Potter walk about and feel ridiculous because there's nothing there besides shadows and cheeky paintings."

"Take it up with the ones in charge," she neutrally replied, realizing he was occupying her only working area.

"Yeah… Maybe I will."

She stepped up in front of him and poked him rather ineffectively with her bare foot. "You're in my chair."

He raised an eyebrow. "What are you going to do about it?"

She pretended to think about it. "Hex you. And then have my friends hex you. And then hex you some more."

"Can't have that," he murmured and then abruptly stood, coming up much too close.

Hermione's eyes widened in startled surprise as she looked up at him. He was looking at her in that way again. The way that usually brought no good with it. No, this was definitely not good. This was never good.


Apparently Hermione took offense at his amusement. "And you're an egocentric, vain, inconsiderate, manipulative, rude…"

Draco sort of tuned out as the list seemed to go on and on and there didn't seem to be anything new on it. He already knew this and she knew he knew, so, really, she was just venting.

When she finally stopped to catch her breath, he decided to shrug and say, "You're not all that, either."