Five hours further down the track, the train jolted again, this time coming to a complete stop. The lights went out. The compartment went cold. Suddenly the carriage jerked from side to side. The feeling of coldness grew and with it a feeling of sadness, of loneliness, of despair. Draco looked up. A thing was floating down the corridor. It placed a scaly claw on the door and dragged it open. It entered the compartment.

Draco? What are you doing here? Mocked his father's voice.

I thought I told you that you couldn't have food unless you've been a good boy. What have you done to deserve it today?

That memory faded and was replaced by another.

You're not trying hard enough Draco. By your age I could do far better than that. You're not a squib, are you? I couldn't love a squib.

Draco tried to block it out, but the memories kept coming. Then, just as soon as they had started, they stopped. Draco looked up, and saw Professor Lupin standing in front of him.

'Here, have this.' A rather hoarse and raspy voice croaked out. In the man's hand was some chocolate.

'Go on, it'll help.' The Professor encouraged. Draco took the chocolate and put it in his mouth. As the taste spread he began to feel calmer, more relaxed, the whole experience began to fade from the vivid continuing experience into a recent memory, to be filed away with the passage of time. Lupin gave some chocolate to Harry as soon as Hermione had woken him up, and then went off to find the driver. They had arrived at the station before he had returned, where they transferred themselves into the horseless carriages that awaited to drive them up to the castle. The weather was threatening rain and a few spits and spots were all that those in the first few carriages suffered before they arrived safely in the castle. Those in the last carriages got wetter still, but were dry by the time that Professor Flitwick carried in the Sorting Hat. The first years however were not dry at all. It was now raining so hard that it looked as if they had all fallen in the lake. Hagrid alone looked dry. A water repelling charm probably, thought Draco.

He was still pondering how Hagrid had managed to do this without the use of a wand when the sorting ended. Professor Dumbledore stood up to give his usual start of term notices. No going in the Forbidden Forest, no throwing fanged Frisbees in the corridor, new staff. The list went on and on. Draco could feel his stomach rumbling when suddenly the old man stopped and gave a warning about the dementors. This one chilled Draco to the bone.

'Dementors will not distinguish between their prey, and those who get in their way. They cannot be fooled by disguises, disillusionment charms or even invisibility cloaks.' Draco felt Dumbledore staring at Harry as he said this. Then the feast began and nearly all was forgotten in a display of gluttony that Draco couldn't bring himself to be ashamed about. He had eaten far too much by the time dessert came round, but he made room for it anyway. The usual varied choice of Hogwarts feasts was gone, replaced instead by death by chocolate. There were chocolate tarts, chocolate cakes, chocolate ice creams, chocolate fondues. It was almost as if Dumbledore knew about the train, and had ordered dessert as an attempt to dose everyone with chocolate to make up for it. Eventually, even the greediest student could eat no more, and Dumbledore declared the feast over. With a screech of benches being pushed over the stone floor, the school stood up and headed to their dormitories.

'How's everyone doing then?' asked Draco as he entered the dorm. He was the last to arrive and everyone else was in bed.

'Not bad, though I nearly didn't make it back.' Said Neville.

'Why?' asked Harry.

'Oh. Sirius Black. Uncle Algy said that he's supposed to be heading this way. Didn't want me to come as he thought I'd be in danger.'

'What do you mean heading this way, he'd be mad to do that, what with all the dementors being about. ' Draco rejoined.

'Yeah, but that's not why. He told me that Black had escaped to. Well, He's escaped to come after you, Harry.'

'WHAT?'

'Yeah, apparently he's been talking in his sleep for months now, saying "He's at Hogwarts." Over and over again. Ministry reckons he must be after you Harry.'

'Why me?'

'Uncle Algy said that Black was one of You-know-who's greatest supporters. Lost everything the night you, well, you know.' Neville shrugged. Harry nodded in tacit agreement, glad that his friend could see that for what was a cause of great celebration for the rest of the wizarding world was always going to be one of personal tragedy for him.

'The Ministry reckon Black escaped to come after you.' Neville finished. The room fell silent in shock. Black had escaped to kill Harry? Why? He was his godfather. Why would he do that? But Draco knew that Azkaban did funny things to people. His mother spoke in hushed tones whenever his aunt Bellatrix was mentioned. Whenever she had gone to visit her, she had always come back feeling faint and would burst into tears without warning. Despite being cloaked in mystery, the dorm fell asleep quickly that night, knowing that Black could not possibly get at them, safe as they were inside the castle walls.

At breakfast the next morning, Professor McGonagall gave Draco his timetable. It was horrendous. So many more lessons than last year. Draco was griping about it all through breakfast. In the end, he only stopped because he got a glimpse of Hermione's timetable, which was not just full to bursting but actually cracked. She had lessons that overlapped, lessons which were on at the same time and some days without any chance to get a break for lunch. Both Draco and Hermione had Arithmancy first thing. They ran out of the hall and up to the classroom that Percy Weasley had hinted was the right one. Outside were three Ravenclaws and a Hufflepuff.

'Is this it then?' Draco asked. Six people didn't seem like many for a class. It wasn't, but nonetheless, when Professor Vector arrived, she seemed unfazed by her apparent lack of students.

'Ahh, good, you're all here then. Nice big class this year. Well, shall we go in?' And in they went. The arithmancy classroom was one of the most boring that Draco had ever seen. It had rows of wooden desks with wooden chairs behind them, a large desk at the front for the teacher next to a large blackboard and that was it. Nothing else. No artefacts on the walls, none of the strange things in jars or skeletons of Defence Against the Dark Arts, not even the collection of maps that Professor Binns adorned his classroom with. The place was bereft of all such things with only a blackboard at the front to break up the otherwise dull wood-panelled walls. Draco felt his spirits being crushed by the very atmosphere of the place, somehow he knew this was going to be less fun than even double potions with Snape. Well, maybe not quite.

Professor Vector started the class off by asking a few questions.

'Do you all have your books? Good. Have any of you read any of it yet?' Only Hermione's hand went up.

'Ahh. I see we still have some work to do then. Do any of you know what Arithmancy is?'

Draco stuck his hand up lazily. There was no point racing Hermione's up - she'd win every time. It was however Draco who got picked.

'It's the study of the magical properties of numbers and how these can be applied.'

'An excellent answer, Mr... Malfoy? Wasn't it?' Draco nodded proudly, 'It is, as Mr Malfoy says the study of the magical properties of numbers and the application thereof. Many people confuse Arithmancy with Numerology, a topic that does indeed loosely come under the purview of Arithmancy, but in many ways it is more closely allied with the diviners. For those of you who are looking to study Numerology in much detail I would advise you to speak to your Head of House and change subject immediately, since we will not be touching upon it at all in this course. This year will be a hard one for many of you, particularly those who have not had a significant mathematical educations, since we will be studying the relationships between numbers in addition to the basic properties of magical numbers, so that you can more easily come to appreciate the applications we will be studying if you join me for your NEWT levels. Arithmancy is a uniquely satisfying subject with a level of theory that is far better understood and more precisely determined than in other subjects. This means that there will be little practical work involved, which some of you may enjoy.

Draco spent the rest of the class taking notes, as Professor Vector talked about the magical significance of primes and how this could be related to the number of movements made by the wrist when casting charms.

The rest of the day was busy too, but he had time to meet up with Harry and Ron at lunch. Hermione was presumably in a lesson, because she wasn't there.

'Have a good morning? How was care of magical creatures?'

'Yeah, Care was pretty good; Hagrid introduced us to a hippogriff called Buckbeak. Harry even got to ride him. '

'Yeah, but I still think I'd rather have a broom under me, it was a bit, uncomfortable.'

'Hippogriffs, they're supposed to be really dangerous, aren't they? '

'Seemed alright to me. No-one got hurt or anything. As long as you pay them respect, they won't attack you. Quite reasonable animals really.' Ron deadpanned before his face burst out into a massive grin.

'Hermione enjoyed it too, I think, though she did seem a bit nervous.'

'Hermione? Wasn't Care of Magical Creatures first thing this morning?'

'Yeah, it was. Why do you ask?'

'I was with Hermione in Arithmancy then. How could she have been with you guys? You don't think she's got a twin sister or something she hasn't told anyone about - I mean, how else could she be in two places at once?'

'No idea, we'd better keep an eye on her – if weird things like this keep going on and Hermione's not doing too well, we can go to McGonagall about it- she'd help Hermione out.'

'What? Grass on Hermione?' asked Harry, shocked.

'Well, only when we're sure and if we can't think of any other thing to do.' Blustered Draco. The three boys finished wolfing down their lunch and went off together to Charms. There they saw Hermione, who sat with them as they worked.

When Draco got back to the common room that evening he was shattered. Not as shattered as Hermione though, who spent the entire evening starting an essay for Muggle Studies and doing the reading Professor Flitwick had set for next week's Charms lessons. Draco did the reading himself, but couldn't be bothered to start the essay for Vector- his only other homework- yet. He still had plenty of time, and his Tuesday afternoons were pleasantly empty for catching up on work. With the reading done, he had just enough time for a quick game of chess with Ron, before it was time to go to bed.