Hey guys, sorry for the delay! Was hoping to get this up by Christmas for the person who would be the best sister in the world; if she didn't have so much competition, but I'm sure she'll forgive the tardiness...

Theo sat at the floating bar and Draco paced the kitchen, considering how best to explain the situation. Nott didn't seem impatient though, he was chewing his lower lip, eyes dark in thought.

"So," Draco said finally, tone irritable as he reached for the bottle of scotch. "You know I'm terrible at explaining things. Ask me a question or something."

Theo stopped chewing his lip and looked up from the bench he'd been staring at. "I don't need to," he said. "I understand the situation now."

"What?" Draco clattered the bottle against the counter and turned to frown at Nott.

Theo smiled easily. "Don't sound so put out. I've always been faster than you."

"In your mind," countered Draco, scowling. They knew each other well enough now that Nott's smile merely grew.

After a moment he turned away to study the clock hanging on the wall. Draco saw his narrow shoulders tense as they did when he braced himself for something unpleasant. "No," he said frostily before Nott could ask the question. "I did not obliviate her. How could you even think it?"

"You," said Nott, his tone decidedly calm as his shoulders relaxed. "Have done other things I would never believe you capable of for that girl." He still couldn't keep the note of resigned bitterness from his voice when talking about Bones. His gaze flickered to Draco and away again almost too casually. "If you were outed as a spy in the war, she would have been safer had she not known you."

It was true but Draco flinched anyway.

"I always thought," said Theo. Then he shrugged as though it didn't matter. But it was a shrug and it was Theo, so of course it did matter. Nott could be read through his shoulders. Nothing else gave him away. With Pansy, you could always tell just what she was thinking by her face. She hid her emotions from no one. Crabbe shuffled his feet when he had something to hide and Goyle fidgeted, unable to keep his hands still. But for Nott it was shoulders.

Draco tilted his chin up and raised an eyebrow. They were still used to bending to him; all of them. Nott gave in now too. "You were always so ashamed of her," he said, looking Draco straight in the eye. Frowning to himself, he amended, "You always seemed so ashamed of her. It never occurred to me that you were hiding her to protect her."

Draco gave a short, sharp bark of laughter and shrugged his own shoulders. He had been ashamed of her at first. Of course he had. There was nothing in her to be proud of, or even to be neutral about. And they were school kids; it had never occurred to him that he needed to protect her from anything. Cedric Diggory might have died but, to Draco, school was a sanctuary and no one's life or death could ever depend on what he did there.

Bones was flawed on a level that tainted her right to her soul. Draco was well aware of that stain; he couldn't look at her without seeing it. There was no room in his life for something as imperfect as her; nor did he wish there to be.

Only…

It still rankled that she had seen through him as she had. It burnt him with a bile-hot, black rage that refused to subside, and he wanted to hurt her for it.

He couldn't pin her. Try as he might, she would always twist and turn just so and his theories on her would be utterly shattered, and she would still be free with no notion of how much he wanted to crush her.

He turned to Zabini again finally, having run out of options on his own.

"Tell me something about the Bones girl," he'd snarled at dinner after the final source he'd had on her had run dry without proving fruitful. "Tell me what she wants. Her goals, dreams, anything."

Zabini had raised one perfect eyebrow before glancing across to the Hufflepuff table. "Why does it matter?"

"It does," Draco assured him. He was not going anywhere near the question of why.

Leaning back on the bench, Zabini scratched his jaw with his thumbnail, running his gaze casually across the room. "I imagine she's the same as any other girl," he said eventually. "She's not as pretty so she won't be as used to attention, it should make her easier to manipulate."

"You're suggesting I seduce her?" Draco didn't bother trying to keep the contempt from his voice.

"If you want to make her suffer," agreed Zabini. He made a face. "I wouldn't do it personally, but you seem determined."

"Not that determined," said Draco with certainty. But the suggestion did give him an idea. The Hufflepuff would probably be grateful for any attention really, even if it wasn't romantic attention. He didn't have to have anything to do with her publicly; and Hufflepuffs were hardly the secretive sort. If he did make friends with her then she would give him ammunition to use against her. He would just need to be patient.

"You have a plan." Blaise's tone was bored and the words were not a question.

Draco smiled. "Perhaps."

"It's very cruel." Again not a question.

Draco's smile became sharper. "Let's hope so."

Bones was moving now; laughing about something as she walked alongside Hannah Abbott, heading for the doors.

A smile flickered around the corners of Zabini's mouth. "Go get her, tiger," he said, tone still bored.

Smirking, with a trace of scorn, Draco stretched casually, tossing his half eaten dinner roll back onto his plate.

He wasn't in a hurry. The two Hufflepuffs wouldn't get to the quieter corridors that led to their dorms for a while, and he wasn't about to approach them until they were out of sight of most of the school.

When he reached the corridor outside the kitchens, Bones was leaning against the wall halfway down the hall and laughing so hard that her body shook. "Stop, stop," she whined piteously, gasping for breath and clutching her stomach as though she was afraid she was going to vomit. "Can't brea..the…"

Abbott tossed her hair. "He kept looking at me," she said. "Like this."

Bones waved her away weakly, but Hannah Abbott made a face at her and Bones collapsed to her arse on the floor, sagged against the wall and howled with laughter.

It was incredibly unsophisticated. Bones had evidently lost control to a point that she could not physically breathe; her face was rose pink with exertion and her hair was tearing free from its neat plait in clumps. Draco loathed the disgusting little part of himself that wanted to smile along with the laughter.

He walked forward with a scowl instead. Abbott saw him first, glancing across before the smile died on her face to be replaced with caution that was edged with hostility. As though sensing her friend's change of mood, Bones turned her head. Vestiges of laughter remained around the curl of her lips and the warmth of her eyes. When she saw Draco her smile grew, rather than disappearing.

She held her arms out and Draco wondered what she was doing until Hannah Abbott caught her by the wrists and hauled her up as though it was the most natural thing in the world to do.

"Hey," she said, pulling her wrists free from Abbott and dusting her butt off without any self-consciousness.

Abbott turned away and, a few moments later, the fruit painting behind them swung open. A little strange; Draco hadn't heard a password.

"Say goodbye," said Abbott. Her voice was the closest to dry that Draco had ever heard on a Hufflepuff.

Bones smiled at her friend but turned to Draco to say, "Goodbye."

"Actually," Draco drawled. "I need you to come with me."

Bones and Abbott glanced at each other. Abbott looked apprehensive, Bones looked intrigued. "Us?" she asked.

"Sweet Merlin, no. One Hufflepuff is bad enough. I doubt that I could stomach two." Draco narrowed his eyes at Bones, and added, "You."

That made Abbott frown. "Bones," she said, tone bordering on a question.

Draco had had people warn girls off him before, so he knew how this went. He leant against the corridor wall and fixed Abbott with his coldest stare. "Really, the other one's still there. It's almost as though she wants me to break out in hives," he said conversationally to Bones.

She laughed, as he had expected but Abbott turned on her heel and stormed into the Hufflepuff Common Room. Also expected. Draco fixed Bones with his brightest smile. "Follow me," he said sweetly.

Laughing again, Bones shook her head. "Hannah thought you were being serious," she said, taking a step backward, towards the Common Room door.

"And you know I wasn't," Draco lied. He smiled again. He wasn't used to using kindness to mask cruelty, but he'd seen Zabini do it often enough that it came easily now. "If you don't come with me," he said smoothly. "I will tell all of your friends about that disgusting little crush you have on Dumbledore."

She looked confused for a moment before understanding warmed her eyes. "Oh, I was hoping to keep that a secret," she said. From the way the corners of her mouth threatened to curl into a smile, Draco could tell that his ploy had worked. She thought they were sharing an inside joke, pulling out the failed blackmail ploy of last time, and it would make her bend to him. "Just," she said, eyes darkening a touch. "Let me make sure Hannah's okay." Her mouth curled again, softly. "Wait five minutes, I'll come back."

That was unacceptable; Draco scowled before he could help it. "You expect me to wait for a Hufflepuff? Where people might see me?"

Rather than having the desired effect of forcing her compliance, the comment made her laugh. "If you head back to the main hall, it won't look like you're waiting for anyone," she offered easily.

"If you come with me," said Draco, countering her offer. "I won't have to wait for anyone."

She snorted as though he was joking; which he most fervently was not, and spun on her heel, striding into the Hufflepuff Common Room without a backward glance.