Surprisingly, Filch had agreed to put up the nets and the Gryffindor team were the first to use them. It was just as well – the only players surviving from the previous team were Alicia, Draco and Lee, which left them eight players and ideally a couple of extras to find. Some players looked quite good, with Dean Thomas showing the potential to be a useful bat, but most of them were average at best. In order to bring the team into a semblance of the team that had two years ago swept all before it Lee instituted practice sessions twice a week. These sessions were long and gruelling. They all started with a run around the castle from the main entrance. When they returned they did stretches on their way to the nets and then two players padded up whilst the rest prepared to bowl at them. They would continue until everyone had had a bat, then it was time for fielding practise, with either Lee or Draco hitting balls out for the others to catch or driving balls quickly along the ground for them to stop. These practice sessions took eight hours of each week out of Draco's life, which should have concerned him, with OWLs coming up straight after the holiday. It didn't though, somehow, Draco was quietly confident about all of his OWLs going well, after all, he was top or nearly top, of the class in everything he did- there was no need to show concern. By the time that the Easter break had arrived, the team looked as though it might win some matches, given a bit of luck. At the final session of the pre-season training, Lee told them all to keep practising as much as possible over the holidays.

Despite Hermione's disapproval at spending this critical time playing sport rather than revising, Draco managed to spend about an hour every day in the nets, either on his own bowling at the stumps or with Harry or Ron giving him throw-downs to practise his batting when he could persuade them to risk the wrath of Hermione and abandon their revision for an hour or so. Despite the regular practice, Draco still managed to do plenty of revision. On many days he went to bed with aching wrist from writing so many essays and plotting so many arithmantical charts. Even once the holiday was over and relatively normal service had resumed, Draco still spent most of his time revising. In lessons they were revising, in their spare time they were revising. In the sleep they dreamt about revising. The only time Draco felt truly relaxed and could forget about exams was when he was practising cricket. Then he worried about how the team would come to actually resemble a team that could win the cup. The cricket season would only begin after the exams though, so Draco didn't worry about it too much. On one hand it was a long way away, on the same hand it was also Lee's problem to worry about.

Preparation for exams would have been easier of course had it been possible to get a good night's sleep every so often. With Harry in his dorm, that simply wasn't going to happen. The bad dreams that had told Harry of Arthur Weasley's attack were continuing and increasing in their manner. According to Harry, every dream was the same. It started with Harry as a dispossessed body, floating through a strange place to a corridor. The corridor had a door at the end. The non-body would, somehow, walk along the corridor to the door and try and open the door. Each time, Harry had explained, he would get closer. He still had no idea where the door was though. As Draco fell asleep, he wondered, as everyone else in the dorm did, quite how close Harry would get to opening the door that night.

As it turned out, Harry was getting very close. Close enough to read the sign on the door. He had woken up in a cold sweat and had soon after woken Draco and Ron.

'I could read the sign on the door.'

'What did it say?'

'Dept of Mistries' Harry spelt out.

'You sure you read that correctly. Mistires isn't a word.'

'No. It isn't. But that's what it said.'

Draco had turned pale.

'Don't you know what you've been looking at then?'

'No.'

'What?' Why'd you expect me to know?' Ron retaliated under Draco's heavy gaze.

'Because it's where your own father was attacked. I thought you might have heard something. Besides. What on earth was your father doing outside of the Department of Mysteries?'

That meant something to Ron, who looked slightly shocked.

'The Department of Mysteries.' Ron whispered, wondrously.

'What's this department place, then?' Harry asked.

'It's top secret.' Ron began. 'I don't know anything about it.'

'I do.' Draco said, mysteriously. 'I've overheard a fair few conversations about it.'

'Oh yes?'

'Yes. It's in the Ministry somewhere. It's a sort of research department, I think. The people who work there aren't even allowed to talk about it, so whatever they do there must be important. No wonder He wants to get whatever's in there.'

'Yeah. But wouldn't the aurors or hitwizards be guarding it or something?'

'Not if they think it's well enough protected.' Draco said pessimistically.

The next morning, or rather, later that day, they had their first OWL exam. Despite a knot in his stomach, Draco chatted nervously beforehand about the exam. He and Hermione ran through the fundamental laws of transfiguration and their notable exceptions. The conversation came to an abrupt halt as they were called in to sit the paper by a formidable, elderly witch. Filing in to the Hall, they took whatever seat they fancied. The invigilator gave a series of long winded announcements telling them not to cheat before starting them off. Draco dipped his in the inkwell and feverishly started to work. He quickly filled in the cover sheet of the answer book and opened the question paper, the knot in his stomach getting ever tighter. Then it went. He was caught up in the adrenaline rush. He could do this. He really could. All the questions were easy. Well, as easy as could be expected. He began to write like a man possessed. He scribbled and wrote and slowly the blank answer book began to transform into a filled answer book, containing Draco's best attempt. Two hours later, the exam was over. The adrenaline surge ended and Draco was left sitting there, in his seat, whilst the papers were collected in. This seemed to take even longer than the exam had and he was mightily relieved when it was done and they were at long last allowed to leave.

Outside of the hall, Draco met up with Hermione, Harry and Ron and walked with them back to the common room, discussing the exam in a strange kind of post-mortem all of the way. It turned out that Draco had answered some questions differently to Harry, who appeared concerned about it, particularly when Hermione came down on Draco's side. When he heard this, Draco felt a great relief. What if he'd put the wrong thing down? Thankfully, it appeared that he hadn't. Taking a seat in a great armchair near the empty fireplace, Draco let out a sigh of relief. That was better. Not long after, lunch appeared in the common room, since the great hall was out of bounds to all during exam time, except when people had exams in it.

Tucking into a chicken leg, Draco felt cautiously optimistic. The first exam had gone well and the second part, the practical transfiguration exam, which was due to take place after lunch didn't seem like it was going to be too hard either. Finishing the leg and starting on the accompanying potato salad, Draco decided that he was going to have another look through that transfiguration book of Dumbledore. After all, it might have a few useful clues in it. And possibly, which Draco felt was more important at that exact time, some inspiration. He quickly turned the pages, barely scanning each one, until his eyes fell across a diagram. That looked impressive. And not too difficult either, a quick swish. Yes. That would do for a party piece if he was asked for one and just in time too. That very moment, Harry came bounding up the stairs, two at a time to tell him that they were running late.

Since they were running late they ran to the great hall so as not to miss their next exam, practical transfiguration. They bounded through the slightly crowded halls, jumping stairs three at a time and bounding over the trick stairs which weren't there as they rapidly descended. Draco was beginning to be slightly out of breath when they reached the ground floor. He doubled over, placing his hands on his knees and locking his elbows in place. Three deeps breaths should help. And another three. And another. Good. They were being called in in alphabetical order. He was safe for a while, as Crabbe had only just been summoned. Enough time to get his breath back, After all, it was no good trying to perform magic when out of breath ordinarily, how much worse would exam nerves make that?

This time there was nothing to say. No last minute theoretical points to discuss, just a wand to prepare and a wrist to loosen up. Draco pulled his wand out from inside of his robes and swung it about like a sword.

'What?' he said, in reply to Hermione's accusing glare.

'You know what.' She began to reply, but at that moment she was called in. Not long after Hermione had reappeared, Draco was asked to go in himself. Resigned to his fate, he rolled his shoulders forwards and backwards and stretched his neck by tilting his head from side to side. One final shoulder roll and he was in the zone. An elderly woman called him over to her.

'Hello dear, I'm Madame Marchbanks. How are you doing?'

'Fine thanks.' Draco said nervously.

'Don't worry nothing to worry about, eh? Just a few quick transfigurations and it'll all be done. First things first though. What's your name?'

'Draco Malfoy.'

'Good, we have to check it's the right person, see.'

'I suppose so.'

'Well, the first thing I want you to do is to is a vanishing spell on that rubber mouse, there. See it?'

'Yup.' Said Draco. He looked at it and calmly levelled his wand in its direction, firmly gripping it with his right hand and resting it over his left arm, held out horizontally in front of him. A quick rotation of the wrist and the rubber mouse was gone.

'Very nice. Can you bring it back?'

Draco did so. Madame Marchbanks made a note of something on her clipboard.

'Well, that's good. Now, let's move onto something a little bit different. You see the kettle next to the mouse?'

'What, that great big copper one?'

'That's the one. I want you to turn it into a copy of the mouse. You have two minutes to think about it.'

Now this was much harder. How was he supposed to do that. The keetlle was a lot bigger than the mouse. He'd have to dispose of some of it somehow. But how could he do that? A brief memory of some advice that Professor Flitwick had given floated into his mind. Remeber. Each stage of the exam is a precursor to the next one, start with the easy bits then move onto the harder ones. Of course. HE'd had to vanish the mouse, so he was clearly meant to do the transformation and simultaneously vanish the rest of it. That had been in the textbook, hadn't it? Draco gave it a go. The kettle turned into a small, grey, rubber mouse, just like the one he had vanished not long before.

'Very nice. The ends of the whiskers are a shade lighter than in the original, but a ver nice piece of work. How did you deal with the excess?'

'The excess?' Draco said with a hint of confusion. Then what Marchbanks had been saying became clear. 'Oh, right, the excess, I just sort of simultaneously vanished what I didn't need to make the mouse. Is that alright?'

'A very novel approach, but perfectly workable. I was expecting you to use Hauptmann's minimisation manoeuvre, but your method works just as well.' There was a brie pause. 'Well, you've done very nicely so let's see how good you really are. Do you have something you'd lkike to show me?'

'Yes, I think so.' Said Draco, apparently uncertainly.

'Very good then. Carry on.'

'Could you just step back a few paces. I don't think there's enough room.'

'Not enough room?' Madame Marchbanks' bristly eyebrows ascended into her hat. Then Draco cast the spell. He'd seen Dumbledore do something similar at Christmas a few years ago, when he'd drawn a chintz armchair out of thin air. That was pretty advanced transfiguration. He'd do that.

Suddenly, another idea crossed into his head. Why stop there? Why not do a desk as well. And instead of an armchair how about a spinny chair? A wingbacked one. Yes. In red leather. That's what he'd do. Might be hard though. Should he do it.

'I'm waiting.' Madame Marchbanks kindly prompted.

'Oh, right, sorry.' Draco muttered. Under his breath. Now what would the incantation be. Of course. Draco said the words and waved the wand in what appeared to the untrained observer to be a rather haphazard manner. It was in fact a highly controlled waving about. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the chair and desk appeared. On top of the desk was a green leather writing surface, surrounded by brass. He'd done it. Well, almost. The leather on the chair was green. Never mind, Marchbanks wouldn't know. That'd do.

'Very impressive, Mr Malfoy. You're clearly one to watch.' The witch said, giving away little of what she was thinking.

'Thank you, I think.'

'Well that's it. You can go. Have a nice afternoon.' She said dismissing Draco. He wandered out of the Great Hall and out into the entrance hall. From there he turned left and headed outside to the nets, where Lee was wrapping up the session.

'You're a bit late, Draco.' He said, after the others had gone on their way.

'Well, I had this small little thing called an exam you see.' Draco explained, playing along.

'And you think that's more important than turning up to training?' Lee joked, 'Well, I fancy staying for a bit more. I need to work on my backwards defensive. Would you care to bowl a ball or two?'

'Suits me. So you want me bowling just short of a length then?'

'There or there abouts. You warm up whilst I get padded up. It wouldn't do to get injured now. You might not be fit for the matches.'

Draco stretched his shoulders in particular, although he gave his whole body something of a warm up which culminated in a quick jog. This would make a nice break from revision, Draco decided as he ran in to bowl the first ball to Lee.