Chapter 3: Bonding

Foxlet gliders are notorious for their loyalty to their bearers. In the past, during times when more often kept as pets, this loyalty was shifted both through breeding and magical means onto the witch or wizard who would hitherto care for them. Such a process was at times as detrimental as it was advantageous, however, as due to the nature of the creature's intelligence and their magic, they would more specifically choose their owners rather than the reverse. In an attempt to remedy this difficulty, breeders urged young foxlets towards bonding to first one individual and then another who shared a strong affection or similarly strong feeling towards their original owner. This process is largely a magical phenomena and is irreversible when such affiliation has been asserted.

Unfortunately, in the years since the development of such, the frequency of a lessening of such 'affection' between bond owners to be replaced with often less positive opinions varied the inclination towards amicable bond parents to the foxlet gliders. The result of such an alteration lies in that creatures are often bonded to individuals in a less solely positive or even aversive relationship. The moderation of this, in breeders, has been largely experimental – most recently, juveniles have been found to exhibit a strong inclination towards bonding with any two individuals who demonstrate a particularly pronounced regard for one another, regardless of the nature of that regard.

Draco woke relatively early. That in itself was unusual. Even during the war, somehow, he'd always been able to sleep long and deep. The sleep of the mentally exhausted, his mother had once told him, for which he could only agree. He had certainly been 'mentally exhausted' on more than one occasion. There was just something so taxing about having a horde of violently aggressive murderers in ones home.

Blinking awake, Draco glanced around himself curiously. He had to wonder what it was that had woken him, given that the dark grey curtains that surrounded his bed should have muffled any sound physically as well as they did magically. It hardly mattered, however. When Draco was awake, he was awake. Regardless of the time – nearly seven o'clock in the morning, a quick Tempus charm proved – he wouldn't be able to fall back into unconsciousness.

Swinging himself from his bed, Draco swept aside the curtains and slipped into the dormitory. The boys eighth year dormitory, as it were, not the Slytherin dorms. It had apparently been unanimously decided at the beginning of term that they would all share the same quarters, regardless of house. That the eighth years themselves were something of an 'other' entity.

In the past, Draco knew that would have vexed him. That the dormitory, the bedding coloured in creams, silvery greys and purples, would have frustrated him that it wasn't of Slytherin colours. That he had to share the room itself with not four others but eight. Eight, because nine was how many eighth year boys had decided to return that year.

Not anymore, however. Draco might have that urge, the little objectionable voice in the back of his mind telling him to grumble and complain at the injustice afforded to the noble house of Slytherin, but he quelled it. Not anymore. Or at least not now. Draco couldn't bring himself to bother, or to incite the further regard of those around him. What was the point, after all? It was only for a year anyway.

Instead, he skirted his bed to his trunk and set about accio-ing the robes, shoes and undergarments that he would need for the day into his hands. There was no point in wasting time lying in bed anyway, even if there was nothing else to be done should Draco ready himself accordingly. Classes wouldn't start for nearly two hours, but he hardly cared. Besides, up early and getting ready he may be, he wasn't the earliest to awaken. A glance over his shoulder showed that another two grey-shrouded beds were already absented of their occupants, the curtains half drawn and revealing the mess of slept-in sheets. It only took Draco a frowning moment to remember just who had been there, a brief glance around the rest of the room to identify his fellow eighth year boys.

Blaise was beside his bed on one side, Theodore a little further along. There was Hopkin's bed, Boot a little along and Goldstein alongside. Which left the three Gryffindor's – ex-Gryffindors – huddled up the opposite end of the dormitory. Two beds of which were vacated, and Draco recalled the third as occupying Longbottom. Which left…

Potter and Weasley. What were they even doing out of bed so early in the morning?

Draco considered. He considered for a moment, with the same shadow of obsessive urge to strike up a fight, to know what they were doing, to taunt and tease, that had once so gripped him. For a moment he let himself feel it, feel the urge to go and follow the path of their passage just to know where they went. Of course they were off somewhere, up to something. When were they two – or three, including Granger – ever not?

But then the urge died. Died and dissipated. Draco wasn't here to hound after Potter. Or Weasley or Granger, for that matter. He was at Hogwarts to finish his schooling, his studies that he had to physically force himself to become motivated for in the listless drifting of his circumstances. More than that, however, it was to have somewhere to escape to, if only briefly. His father was in Azkaban, his mother under house arrest – there was no other place for him to go unless he wanted to closet himself behind the manor walls with his mother.

He didn't. Draco loved his mother but he'd had enough of confinement over the past months to want nothing more than to avoid a continuation of such. Bundling his clothes together, Draco resolutely ignored the empty beds of the ex-Gryffindors and made his way to the bathrooms.

When he returned – was it really nearly an hour later? He must have lost track of time – the rest of the boys were swimming into wakefulness. Hopkins stumbled past him, only half awake with towel dragging on the ground behind him, and was shortly followed by Longbottom. Theodore was the only other person even vaguely presentable and… when had he been in the showers? Draco must have missed that too.

Blaise was sitting up in his bed when Draco returned with pyjamas in tow. He followed Draco's passage with sleepy eyes, yawning in response to his raised eyebrow. "You're up early."

Draco paused in the act of stowing his pyjamas away. Then he shrugged. "Not really."

"I've been awake since just after seven. You're up early."

"You woke up just after seven and you still look like that?"

Blaise blinked at him, frowning and rubbing the heel of one hand into one eye. "Like what?"

Draco only shook his head and turned back to his folding. "I'm going to head down to breakfast, I think. Theo, are you coming with me?"

Theo glanced up from where he was tying his shoes. "Why?"

"I don't know. Company, perhaps?"

"Why?"

"You're fighting a losing battle, Draco," Blaise said with a smile, clambering from his bed in a fashion that he somehow managed to make look elegant with his overlong limbs rather than awkward. "You really have been away for too long if you've forgotten. Theo doesn't like company."

Draco hadn't forgotten. Not really. The fact had simply… slipped his mind somehow. Or perhaps his mind had forcibly slipped it, ignoring the fact for hopes of the company he could acquire. Oddly enough, Draco found he had become somewhat dependent upon the simple presence of others around him. He and his mother had spent just about every moment they in one another's company over the past months, had even gone so far as to sleep in the same room, if in different beds. At least they had done until after a week or so, and they'd only slept alongside one another because Narcissa had requested it.

Of course it had been her request.

Now, Draco found that he had almost come to need the company. He didn't know why, didn't know what he expected would happen if he didn't have someone beside him at all times, but the thought of without filled him with dread.

Some of that dread must have made itself apparent upon his face, despite his attempts to limit such a display, for Blaise spoke up a moment later. Already starting to strip off his clothes, he glanced over his shoulder towards Draco. "If you give me five I can come with you."

Draco frowned. "You should take a shower. You'll stink."

"I showered last night."

"Have another one."

Blaise snorted. "You and your unerring cleanliness."

Draco rolled his eyes. Shaking his head, he slung his book bag – largely empty given that it was only first day – and made his way towards the dormitory door. "Well, maybe I don't want your company if you're going to stink up the air around me."

Blaise snorted once more, knotting his tie with expert fingers. His back and white tie, as was the uniform of the eighth years. It looked strange, given that it should have been silver and green. Strange but… Draco found he didn't care all that much anyway. "If you've got such a problem with it then just leave. Prat."

Draco spared him a momentary glance over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow. "Whatever," he replied, then he made his way down to the common room. Despite his words, however, he did pause at the foot of the stairwell to await his friend.

The common room was of the same colouration as their dormitory – the pervasiveness of what was evidently deemed 'neutral colours', was impossible to overlook. Plush purple couches, dark grey rugs over the paler stone floors, walls a creamy shade that was actually relatively pleasing to the eye. Beige drapes hanging down the walls warmed the room further, alongside the heavy, violet curtains that were gathered upon either side of the windows. Even the fire seemed to be tinged just faintly purple, as if in deference to the colour scheme.

Draco settled himself upon one of the desk chairs that lined the walls, each facing said walls as if to promote a rigorous study environment. Not that it would be hard; the common room was small, small and circular and diminutive in comparison to the Slytherin counterpart, and, Draco could only assume, the rest of the house common rooms. Such was likely because their cohort had less than a quarter of the number of any other house and each person who made up that quarter was actually committed to completing their N.E. with as many Outstandings as possible.

Well, except maybe Weasley, but then Weasley had never been a particularly 'Outstanding' student. Oddly enough, the thought didn't even induce a smile from Draco as he pondered the room in silence.

Blaise descended minutes later and didn't comment as Draco rose and fell into step beside him. That was one of the best things about having Blaise as a friend – he might tease and jest, might riddle Draco with sarcasm like the strikes of a hex, but he knew when to tamper it down. They made their way from the top of the centre-most tower in the school and descended towards the Great Hall.

Hogwarts had recovered astoundingly from what it had been. Draco had seen the destruction, just as everyone else had in the days following the battle. Not a floor was untouched, a corridor unblemished, and most of the outer walls and windows were more punctured with holes than a crocheted quilt. The response team had worked wonders upon the ancient castle; not a stain remained, not a smear upon the walls or a stone out of place. It was almost as though it had never happened, the battle erased entirely. Draco wasn't sure if that was better or worse than being able to see evidence of the destruction that had been.

The Great Hall was no worse – or perhaps no better – than the rest of the school. Draco had seen it last night, had seen the hall as it had been thick with students though not as many as there should have been, and just as brightly lit and jovial as every other welcome feast. It didn't make the contrast to the aftermath of the war any better, however, for having seen it twice. Not in the slightest.

The doors were affixed properly back upon their hinges. The enormous pile of rubble that had been the destruction of the West Wing stairwell, that had been heaped to the side of the doors, was gone entirely. Inside, the tables of the four houses stretched the length of the hall, illuminated by the early morning glow of sunlight pouring through the tall, arching windows and beaming from that which stretched behind the staff table.

There were, surprisingly, already a significant number of students in the hall. They were speckled across the tables, nibbling at toast and ladling themselves bowls of porridge that buffeted along every surface. The Gryffindor table was a riot of noise, even louder than Draco had expected and seemingly centralised halfway down the room with a horde of collected students laughing and screeching and peering over one another's shoulders at what Draco could only fathom at. He ignored them entirely, instead turning towards his own table.

Even though, as an eighth year, Draco was permitted to sit wherever he would have liked, he still found himself making his way over to the Slytherin table. It was sparsely spotted with occupants, a pair of third year girls whispering to one another halfway down, seventh year Garth Hinkley working his way through a plate of sausages by himself. There was even the two first years, a boy and a girl, seated at the very opposite end of the room as though they believed it to be their designated spots. They were only first years. Two. That was all Slytherin had acquired that year. If nothing else, it spoke of the number of pureblood families that had chosen against sending their children to Hogwarts that year.

Draco eased himself down onto the bench and immediately reached for the toast rack. Blaise settled himself beside him. "Pumpkin juice?"

"Please."

"I was actually asking if you could pass it to me."

"Then in that case, no. You can reach for it yourself." Draco ignored Blaise's frown in favour of buttering his toast. "It's nearly as close to you as it is to me."

Blaise sighed long-sufferingly. "Must you always be so difficult?"

"I must."

"Wonderful. And here's me thinking you might have outgrown that."

Draco pause in the act of reaching for the jam. He turned slowly to where Blaise was pouring two glasses of juice. "Why would you think that?"

Blaise paused himself. Paused, glanced towards him, and then shook his head decisively. "No, I didn't mean it like that. I didn't mean you would have outgrown it because of that. I just thought –"

"Thought what?"

"Salazar, Draco, do you think you could perhaps ease off on the frostiness a little bit?" Draco didn't reply, only stared at his friend flatly until he sighed. "I meant that such behaviour was a little immature for you. Just like this is."

"Immature how."

"Oh, now you're just being deliberately obtuse."

"Hardly. How?"

"Because you're eighteen now, Draco." Blaise reached his fork across the table and spear a sausage from the central plate, setting about cutting it into bite-sized pieces with a daintiness that bellied his size and general demeanour. "You've been an adult for over a year now. Most people that age are above pettiness."

Draco stared at Blaise for a moment, his knife still poised above the bowl of jam. He stared, and his indignation rapidly died to be replaced with self-reprimand. Honestly, he was getting irritated at that? At such careless words from his friend? What was the point of it? It didn't help that Blaise was right; it really was beneath him.

And yet, as he turned back to his toast, even with the mental chiding ringing through his mind, Draco felt a hint of satisfaction. He was a realist in many ways; even as he revelled in it, even as he pursued the teasing and taunting, the tormenting and, dare he admit it, the bullying that he had enacted in his teenage years, he knew himself to be in the wrong. Draco had enjoyed himself, but it had been… it had been wrong. True, most of his fellow students, holier-than-though Hufflepuffs and chivalrously pig-headed Gryffindors included, did the same, but it didn't exactly justify his own actions.

Draco was an indignant person. He was entitled, he was spoilt, and he liked getting his own way. He would kick up a fuss when he didn't, and that fuss was avoided by his friends and family like the plague. He knew this and he still acted as such. Or at least he used to. He had until last year, with the war, with the Death Eaters, with the return of the Dark Lord in full power. Draco had been cowed, he could admit that, too. Cowed and terrified and he wasn't – ironically enough – ashamed to admit it.

Draco had thought he'd lost that part of himself. That the objectionable, even arrogant person that he had been had fallen prey to the terrors of war and disappeared into the past. But now, after what he'd just felt under the rap of Blaise's words, after such little provocation… perhaps he wasn't so far changed as he had considered himself to be.

"You're terrifying the fourth years."

Draco glanced up from his toast towards Blaise, who didn't appear to have turned his attention from his sausages for long enough to even notice said fourth years. "What?"

Blaise pointed his knife down the table towards a boy and a girl who were deliberately turned away from them. "Those. Scared shitless."

"By me?"

"By you."

Surprisingly, Draco felt a small thrill well within him. A thrill that was accompanied by guilt and sheepishness and immediately suppressed but satisfied nonetheless. "And why would they be terrified of me?" He asked casually.

"Because you're smiling like a mass-murderer, that's why," Blaise explained. "What's got you so happy?"

"Would you really like to know, Blaise?"

"I would. That's why I just asked."

"Are you really sure you'd like to know?"

Blaise paused for a second, stared at Draco, then slowly settled his face into a frown. "Okay, now I'm not so sure. You did that on purpose, didn't you?"

Draco only raised an eyebrow and turned back to his toast.

As it happened, Blaise didn't get a chance to pursue his questioning further, for in that moment, just as Draco took his first bite, the raucous horde at the Gryffindor table abruptly parted as several people rose to their feet to vacate their seats. Draco naturally felt his eyes draw towards them – he'd been drawn to doing as much too often over the past years for a single year of doing without to handicap him so. And, of course, it was Potter who had drawn the attention of the crowd. Potter and Weasley and Granger. Weaslette accompanied them, but it was clearly they three who drew the attention.

Draco didn't think he hated Potter. When he really thought about it, he wasn't sure if he'd ever truly hated him. Disliked, certainly, perhaps even been a little envious of him at times, though he'd never admit as much out loud. But hated? No, Draco didn't think so. He'd hated more people in the past year than he could count. He knew the difference now, just as he knew that, as he stared at the Golden Trio of Gryffindor depating the room, he didn't truly hate any of them. Irritated, frustrated, and disgruntled by, certainly, but hate? No, not really.

What really bothered Draco was that they seemed to attract attention. Just like that, wherever they went. Draco used to love being in the spotlight and even if such a love had dwindled somewhat over the past year – being in the infamous spotlight before the Wizengamot and standing trial had more than diverted most of such desires he might possess – the memory of his disgruntlement, his jealousy, still welled within him. Draco bit at a particularly large chunk of toast and couldn't quite suppress the frown that drew across his face as he watched them.

A frown that became increasingly raised brows the longer he stared at them, incredulity rising alongside. "What the…?"

"What the hell are those?"

Draco could only agree with Blaise's sentiment, even if he couldn't answer him. His breakfast hung from his fingers all but forgotten as his gaze fixed upon the creatures that curled one around Potter's neck, another in the crook of Weasley's arm, the third tucked to Granger's chest like a child would hold a plush toy. They looked like cats. No, they looked like foxes of some sort. No, they weren't foxes, even, for they looked slightly different to that, in colouration and in shape. From what Draco could make out, they appeared to have three tails each. And from the attention that the entirety of Gryffindor table were affording them – or at least Draco assumed it was the creatures and not just the Trio themselves, though he couldn't be certain – they were exceptional.

How did they manage to do something so unexpected, so noteworthy, in less than a day of being back at school?

Draco was aloof. He was past petty rivalries. He was matured and practical, logical and reserved. He was. But he was also just a little bit irritated. Potter's at it again…

"Really, what are they?" Blaise reiterated. "Why are they even allowed to bring them into the school? Surely that's not allowed. From what I've heard, the headmistress had plans to keep everything low key and non-threatening this year."

"You honestly think they're threatening?" Draco drawled with deliberate casualness. He'd never seen any creature so un-threatening in his life. Surely something so fluffy even lacked claws.

"They're obviously some sort of magical creatures," Blaise explained, as though it truly were obvious. "Isn't the gamekeeper supposed to take care of them? Owls, cats and toads; that's it. That's all the pets students are allowed." Blaise shook his head. "I suspected the school to be lenient with comfort pets or whatnot, but this?"

Draco glanced briefly at his friend – had such really been considered? Really? Comfort pets? – but only for a moment. A moment was all the chance he got for a second later his attention was drawn back to the Trio. Or, more correctly, to Potter. To Potter and the creature wrapped around his neck who quite suddenly snapped its head upwards, coiled from around Potter's neck jerkily enough that he paused in step to frown curiously upwards as it planted its little feet upon his head. An instant later it squealed.

That was the only word that Draco could call it. With an echoing "eeeeee-yip-yip-yip!" it flung its snout upwards and fluttered its ears like wings. Then, with the attention of the entire room upon it, it scrambled from Potter's head and took a dive.

No. It flew. Sort of. Or at least glided.

Draco felt his eyebrows straining to climb into his hairline as, just like everybody else in the hall, the fox-creature soared across the room on what looked to be some sort of webbing between its front and back limbs. It didn't fly very well, all things considered, and skidded across the Ravenclaw table, leapt into flight – into gliding – then crashed slid across the Hufflepuff table. And back into the air once more.

It flew straight at Draco.

Draco was not fond of animals. He'd never had all that much to do with them and more than that, they were dirty. All animals were dirty and Draco sorely disliked any mar upon his own personal cleanliness. So when the flying fox-thing soared straight towards him, he was on his feet and scrambling away from it so quickly that he almost crashed to the ground in his haste to throw himself from his seat. An attempt that was managed just in time, was steadied and enabled his standing just in time for the fox to crash into him.

It was warm. It was fluffy. And it was wrapping itself around Draco's face. Squealing "yip-yip-yip"s sounded in chatters in his ear, though at a more muted volume, and Draco was…

Draco was horrified.

Mortified.

He wanted it off.

Raising his hands, Draco fought to bat the thing off of him as he stumbled backwards. To peel the little feet, the paws – no they were different to paws, seeming somehow to grab at him like fingers in their hold – from their clutching. He felt his back slam into the wall, scrambling to dislodge the creature in a frenzy of rising, crashing horror, confusion, rage and yes, just a little terror. But the thing was adamant about sticking to him like glue. It would. Not. Budge.

Draco had just about decided to spin and throw himself into the wall behind him with the intent of crushing the thing, to hell with the fact that he'd likely give himself a concussion, when the fox abruptly disappeared. Disappeared as though it had been forcibly removed which, as Draco, panting, slumping back against the wall with a hand to his head and the mess that had been made of his hair, saw was true enough.

Potter stood barely four feet away. Potter and the menace of a creature who, apparently for Potter at least, was compliant. It hung in his hands, legs dangling and tails swishing as it tilted its head up towards him like a child peering at their parent. The incessant "yip-yip-yip"s continued like the chattering of a monkey and Draco could have sworn that the open-mouthed lolling of the devil-fox's mouth was spread in a smile.

And Potter. Potter was standing there staring directly at Draco with much of the same expression he'd worn when last Draco had confronted him directly. The expression he'd worn when returning Draco's wand to him. There was evident apology, weariness, a little wariness and awkwardness. A very distinct awkwardness, as though Potter didn't really know what to do but was going to do it anyway.

With an effort at reacquiring composure, Draco pushed himself from the wall. His hands still worked compulsively to fix his hair, his heart hammering in his chest and demanding he gasp for air more rapidly than he already was. Than he'd forced himself to do. He suppressed the urge. The display that had just been performed – unwillingly on Draco's part – was embarrassing enough. He wouldn't heave and pant like a fish out of water just because he felt like it.

Adopting a frown, nearly a scowl even if it was terribly difficult to do so in the face of the expression Potter turned towards him, Draco straightened his back. "Potter. What the fuck was that? What. The fuck. Did your little demon just do?" He gestured at it, though it would surely have been impossible to misunderstand to what Draco referred to. "Has it gone rabid?"

Potter opened his mouth to reply, apology welling upon his face more pronouncedly, but closed it again a moment later and pressed his lips together. Instead he turned down towards the little fox-thing and studied it wearily and just a little chidingly. As though the fox even cared, which it definitely didn't if the excited wriggling of its tail, of its entire body, was any indication.

Every pair of eyes in the room was turned upon them. No, was turned upon Potter, Draco knew. Of course they were turned upon Potter and even Draco had to admit that it didn't surprise him. Potter demanded attention, even when he professed that he didn't want it. He wasn't a tall person, nor was he particularly large; if anything he drifted more towards the skinny side, if not quite as scrawny as he'd once been. His hair was a constant mess, was still slightly overgrown as it had been years before as though his time on the run was still lingering upon him in essence, and the state of his robes wasn't that much better.

And yet in spite of it all, Potter drew attention. It was in the set of his shoulders, perhaps, the disregard of any objections that anyone might pose to him. It was in the focus of his gaze as he turned it one more upon Draco, the clear, guileless gaze that peered through his glasses and fringe unblinkingly. More than that, though, it was the shadow of his actions that held weight. Physical mass, stretching out behind him like a shadow. It was the weight of what he'd done but months before, of the menace that he'd defeated and the people that he'd saved in the process. It was in the actions of intended sacrifice that he had enacted, that he had been prepared to commit.

That was what made Potter stand out. It was what drew gazes. It was what made Draco consider that, had they not been rivals for so long, had they not been on opposite sides of the war, had they perhaps not known each other quite so well as they did in all the wrong ways, that he might maybe have fancied him just a little bit. Maybe. He was different entirely to Blaise, the only other boy Draco had dated, but Draco couldn't really find complaint in that fact.

In fancying Potter? Definitely. In that difference in particular? No, not so much.

Which, Draco considered as he gave a physical shake of his head to rid the thought, he really shouldn't be thinking about right at that moment. Wrong time, wrong person, wrong circumstances. Especially when Potter's rabid beast had just tried to attack him. "Well?"

Potter quirked his lips to the side. He tucked the fox-thing into the crook of his arm and scratched his head with the other hand. "Um… how to go about this…?"

"How to go about what?" Draco hissed. He was very aware of the fact that the entirety of the Great Hall, professors in attendance included, were watching their exchange. No, Draco found he didn't like the spotlight anymore at all. Certainly not after such an embarrassing display. "Potter, I demand that you to explain, if you would. Immediately."

Granger, Weasley and Weaslette had drawn up behind Potter and, surprisingly enough, were regarding him with a mixture of curiosity, exasperation, surprise and something that could even be considered amusement. What the…?

"I think… Pips might have just chosen you," Potter said slowly.

Draco snapped his attention back towards him. Then towards the fox-thing – the… the Pips? What was that? "What?"

"Look, this is probably going to take a little bit to explain," Potter reattempted, still scratching at the side of his head with an expression of growing awkwardness. "Long story short, though, McGonagall gave Hagrid permission to ask us to look after these foxlet gliders and they've bonded to us. Problem is that they need to bond to two people. And, um…" Potter glanced behind him towards his friends and his shoulders slumped just slightly before he turned back to Draco. The apology was thickly caked in his expression. "Um… Pips seems to have chosen you."

Draco stared. He blinked. He opened his mouth and stared some more. "What?"

"Yeah, that's what happened with Ginny," Potter nodded, gesturing behind him to Weaslette. "Same thing almost exactly. Pips' chosen you to bond to."

"What?"

"She's bonded to you. With me."

Draco stared some more. Stared, and felt an upwelling of dread settle within him. Potter's words weren't quite registering but… he thought he could discern their meaning just a little. What he could make out wasn't favourable in the slightest. Bond? With the rabid fox? With Potter?

What?

"I…"

"Look, I'm really sorry about this, Malfoy," Potter sighed, and he did indeed sound sincere. "But we don't really get a choice in the matter." Behind him, Granger, Weasley and Weaslette nodded their agreement like a clutch of bloody yes-men.

Draco stared. And stared. And what the fuck was this all about? What the… what the fuck? What had be just unwittingly been drawn into? A bond? A magical bond? Against his will?

What. The. Fuck.

Potter was still sheepishly apologetic. His friends behind him wore vaguely similar expressions, though less genuine and more faintly amused. From the corner of his eye Draco caught sight of Blaise staring with eyebrows raised, twisted in his seat so that he could observe the performance like an audience member.

And the little fox-thing – the foxlet glider, Potter had called it, the Pips, was staring up at Potter with a wolfish smile. Smiling, then turning that smile towards Draco. Staring not with two big black eyes – Draco could have sworn it had only had two – but with three, a third wide and pale in the middle of its forehead. Its tails still wriggled and ears still twitched, the chirruping little chatters of "yip-yip" continuing through its half-open jaw.

The bloody thing looked far too satisfied with itself, with the mess it had just made. Draco had just wanted a quiet year. A calm year. A year to collect himself, to work out where he stood, to instil some sense of normality upon his life when he hardly even knew what normal was anymore. But this, this foxlet, had just flipped his intentions upon their head.

Merlin, he wanted to hex its bloody head off.

A/N: Thank you to all of my lovely readers! I hope you're enjoying the story so far. If you are and you have a second to spare, please let me know what you think. I'd love yo hear from you in the reviews - anything you're inclined to share from comments to questions to constructive criticism.

Thanks again, and I'll be updating again soon :)