Okay, probably too little too late but just so you know this is HBP compliant but AU to DH. Also thanks for the reviews, guys :D

Back at Hogwarts it had been grudgingly done, of course. Rather maliciously done if it came to that. And it hadn't happened all at once, at first Draco had had not idea that he would ever want to ask a Hufflepuff out. He was annoyed enough at having to get through detentions with her.

The following days of detention were not as bad as the first had been. Draco found that the time passed more quickly if he helped Bones though she didn't seem to care if he did or he didn't.

He didn't taunt her again. There was no point, he told himself. She was too stupid to take his insults seriously, and he could content himself with smirking at that permanent-looking streak of green twisting through her hair. He didn't let himself consider that he might like having someone around who neither feared nor loathed him. She was a Hufflepuff after all, her opinion wasn't relevant.

She spoke to him as they worked; not of anything important. It seemed that she was trying to get to know him. Someone like her could hardly add to his social circle though, so he mostly ignored her.

Eventually she gave up; but the silence they lapsed into was not a tense one as Draco was used to. In fact, if he could in any way admit this about himself and a Hufflepuff, he would have thought that the silence was amicable. Because she was Hufflepuff, however, he merely acknowledged that the silence wasn't uncomfortable.

He was bored enough eventually to glance across at her and consider conversation starters. "You're pure-blooded?" was the one he finally settled upon.

She shot him a shocked look, before her eyes narrowed into an uncertain frown. "Does that matter to you?" she asked slowly.

Draco shifted, wondering whether after all his failed attempts at deliberately insulting her he had finally succeeded in doing so accidentally. If this was his only chance at hurting her though, he was going to take full advantage of it. "Not particularly," he drawled. "After all, someone like you could hardly fall further in my esteem."

That only made her laugh again, shoulders relaxing and a look of relief crossing her features. Draco wondered whether he should have merely told her that, yes, it mattered.

"Yes," she said. "I'm pure-blooded. It's a bit annoying really. Muggles sound so exotic."

She was appalling. Worse than Mudbloods really, because at least they had no choice but sympathise with their magically challenged relatives. "Are you kidding? They can't do the simplest spells. An Alohamora is beyond them."

"But have you seen how they compensate?" asked Bones excitably. "They don't need Alohamora. They have people who can open locks by poking at them with little bits of metal."

"Yes, Bones. Those are called keys; we have them too."

That made her laugh yet again. Draco thought that she laughed more than all of his friends put together; it wasn't entirely unpleasant.

"They get to move their own chess pieces," she said dreamily.

"Why would you want to move your own chess pieces? It's menial. All muggle work is. They don't get to do these things; they have to." He tried to ignore the fact that he was scrubbing the Potions room floor as he said this. It made his point slightly blunter, he felt.

"I think that it would be fun to move your own chess pieces," said Bones wistfully. "You could smack the other player's pieces flying and if you won at the end you could use your evil cackle. There are so few opportunities in life for the evil cackle."

"Evil cackle?" asked Draco, giving her a Look that he hoped conveyed all of the mountains of contempt he felt for her.

She nodded earnestly.

Draco felt that the Look was not working so he raised an eyebrow, hoping that it would help.

She chewed her lower lip for a moment, looking nervous, and Draco was sure that the eyebrow had not failed him in this. There were so few things in which it did fail him, thankfully. Then she smiled self-consciously. "I haven't really tried it yet," she said.

Before Draco could ask her what the squall she was talking about, she laughed. It was a cheerful laugh, light and bubbly but perhaps a little hysterical around the edges. Then she stopped and studied him expectantly, her warm, round face serious.

"Are you kidding?" asked Draco icily. "That was your evil laugh? That?"

Bones flushed pink. "It's a work in progress," she protested. "I mean, it needs some tweaking, maybe…" When Draco fixed her with the full force of his Judgement Look, she wriggled uncomfortably before laughing her usual sunshine laugh. "Okay, so it's terrible. I thought…since you're a Slytherin. I mean, isn't that what Slytherin's do? In their spare time?"

Draco stared at her. "You think we have nothing better to do? Than think up manic laughs?" He didn't admit that maybe once or twice he and Zabini might have tried it. Just in case they ever took over the Wizarding world. Blood-curdling laughs were certainly an asset in some cases.

Bones shrugged uncertainly. "I don't have any Slytherin friends," she admitted.

"I should say not. No one in my House would associate with you." Great, he'd made her smile again.

"So, you don't know anything about evil cackles?" she asked.

"Look," said Draco coolly. "You're a Hufflepuff, but I don't ask you if you spend your spare time lying in doorways as practice for being a doormat or heading to the kitchens to wallow in filth with the House-elves, so…"

"Yes," said Bones.

"Yes?" She was more confusing than the Malfoy Manor hedge maze; and they still hadn't found Uncle Rafe's body in there yet.

"I mean, we don't lie in doorways, and the kitchens aren't filthy; but we help the House-elves."

Draco's mouth dropped open. "What do you mean? They're House-elves; you don't have to help them. It's their job."

"Usually," said Bones cautiously, as though she'd had this conversation before with unhappy results. "When you have a job, you get paid."

"Oh for Merlin's sake," said Draco, laughing despite himself. "That Granger's been brain-washing you."

"No," said Bones reluctantly. "We know about her S.P.E.W. initiative but we don't subscribe to it."

"That's astonishing," said Draco flatly. "Let me guess, you don't want to liberate the elves, you'd rather join them?"

"Well…" This subject made Bones look incredibly uncomfortable so Draco pushed, raising a demanding eyebrow at her and curling his lip a little. She folded just as Hufflepuffs always did. "We thought if we showed the House-elves what it's like to be treated kindly, they might demand kindness. They don't care about money or power. They like working. But they value kindness; and they deserve it. So…"

Draco smirked. "You think that anyone's going to give them something just because they deserve it?"

"No." The Hufflepuff's eyes were clear and steady. "Those in power have never relinquished anything to those who have none. Not without a fight. We just want the elves to consider that they are worth fighting for; even if they only demand kindness."

He had thought at first that there had been a spark of intelligence in her, muted by her resolve to think the best of people. He was wrong, he realised now. There was a whole flame of intelligence in her; she just didn't seem to care enough to show it. Only much later did he realise that she masked her intelligence because she was afraid to show it. Not afraid of what people thought, nothing like that. In some ways Bones had been more prepared for the upcoming war than anyone Draco had ever met, including Dumbledore.

But for now she was merely an average-looking witch who searched for the good in everyone she knew. It was perhaps one of her major flaws that she usually found good; even where none existed.