"Sometimes you get further with people by treating them like people." — MM, The Boys
Chapter II
She remembers occasionally wondering why Harry hates his public attention so much. It's definitely not the best kind of attention — she would hate to be constantly reminded of her parents that were slaughtered by a mass murderer, too. But there were moments, every now and then — like when he got pulled up on stage to shake hands with the then glorious Gildhory Lockhart, or when he got away with blowing up his horrible aunt simply because of who he is — that she would wonder why. Now, however, with all the eyes burning into her skin, her scalp perspiring and the hairs on the back of her neck rising, she truly understands Harry Potter.
In her peripheral vision, she can tell both Ron and Harry are eyeing her, but for once in her life, she's not sure she wants to read what's there, so she keeps staring straight ahead at Dumbledore. "Hermione Granger!" he shouts, louder, more pressing, his piercing gaze sweeping across the Hall, making her flinch.
From beside her, Harry nudges her. "C'mon, 'Mione," he murmurs. Her eyes remain fixed on Dumbledore, who suddenly looks very tall and powerful with his long silver beard flowing over his indigo robes. "You need to go." She licks her dry lips in response, still hesitating. "D'you want me to come with you?"
Finally, she gains the courage to look at him; Harry's emerald eyes are soft, looking like crystals in the flickering blue firelight behind his glasses. Oh, Harry. Sweet, down-to-earth Harry. It takes a lot of effort to not just hug him there, in the Hall where everyone is watching her like she's a Blast-Ended Skrewt. Instead, she shakes her head and attempts a smile. When she gets to her feet, her knees are weak; it takes a supporting squeeze on her arm from Harry to continue forward, away from the Gryffindor table, towards Dumbledore, towards the Goblet of Fire.
When she reaches the podium, her blood roars in her ears. Or the whispers are buzzing in her ears. She can't really tell. Taking a few breaths, she convinces herself to step onto it. To tread uneasily under the eyes of her large audience. To stop dead in front of Dumbledore, tall, looming Dumbledore, his eyes piercing from behind his half-moon spectacles as she looks pleadingly up at him. Silently she's begging him to understand that this is a complete and utter misunderstanding. A mistake. Maybe even a prank. She wouldn't put it past Fred and George, probably snickering in a corner somewhere, after the way she'd proved them wrong with the anti-aging line Dumbledore had drawn around the Goblet.
She slowly shrinks under her headmaster's stare as it doesn't grow any warmer. When he outstretches his hand, she takes it as an opportunity to lose eye-contact. Gingerly, she takes the parchment from his palm. Her name is scrawled over it in the most beautiful cursive she's ever seen. Hermione has the abrupt urge to bawl. Not cry. Bawl, like she did at the prime age of five, when the old hag at Greenwich Library wouldn't let her borrow any books. She was justified then and she's certainly justified now.
"Well, off you go, Miss Granger," Dumbledore says, jolting her out of her ridiculously timed memory, and when she glances up he's nodding at the door the other champions had left through. It's definitely not her blood roaring in her ears. It's buzzing. She doesn't try to strain her ears lest she hears something that makes her topple over.
Bowing her head, Hermione walks briskly across the High Table of the teachers: her stomach ties in knots as she imagines the disappointment on Professor's McGonagall's face, flinches at the thought of Professor Flitwick's furrowed brow and unjustified guilt paints Professor Sprout's raised ones in her mind's eye. Then she reaches the very end of the table, next to where the shut door, with its rims glowing orange and red, waits for her. Hagrid is sitting there… Hermione wouldn't be able to miss him if she tried. Nibbling her lip, she drags her stare from the door to meet his eyes, but he doesn't give his usual warm smile or wave, instead looking completely stunned.
Hermione swiftly swings open the door and shuts it behind her.
The other three champions are standing over a fireplace, their silhouettes looking tall and impressive. Not half an hour ago she was rolling her eyes at them. Famous Quidditch player, Half-Veela, Hogwarts' favourite Hufflepuff. What is she? A bookworm who thinks she's significant because she can spot things that really aren't her business to spot.
Fleur Delacour looks up from the fireplace, eyes narrowing in at Hermione, who spontaneously winces. "Have they asked us to come back?" Gosh, has her French accent always sounded this pretty? Do the magical French still put people's heads on spikes?
"Um, no." As Delacour frowns, Hermione twists her lips before more words tumble out. Maybe she should describe what has just happened when there are teachers present — she's read about Veelas before, and she knows that when they get angry they grow wings and spit out fireballs. And they're bound to be angry… at least, Delacour and Krum, because it would appear that Hogwarts has another champion.
From beside the beautiful French girl, Krum raises his bowed head from over the fireplace; Cedric Diggory has been looking at her the whole time, she realises, and she blushes furiously under the scrutiny of three pairs of champion eyes. This is worse than the Great Hall, somehow.
The door opens behind her, making her jerk; Ludo Bagman has a hand on her shoulder as she whips around, an astonished gleam in his eye. "Incredible!" he exclaims. "Beyond incredible!"
"What is?" Delacour demands from behind her, the haughty tone of her voice making Hermione's palms sweat. She squeaks slightly when Bagman swivels her around to face the three other champions again.
"As strange as it is to say it," and Hermione squirms as Krum pushes himself away from the wall near the fireplace, to stare intently at her, now, "meet the fourth Triwizard Champion." Krum's heavy brows draw together; Diggory's eyebrows raise slightly in polite surprise.
Delacour laughs airily, tossing her perfect silvery hair over her shoulder. "This is a funny joke, Mr. Bagman." She saunters over towards them, and Hermione finds herself shrinking backwards into Bagman.
"Oh, Miss Delacour, as surprising as it may seem, this is no joke!" Now she pauses, icy-Atlantic eyes narrowing dangerously as she frowns. A bead of sweat trickles down Hermione's neck; she glances at Krum, who's brows are furrowed deeply, now, and at Diggory, who still looks like someone's just told him that he can jump wand-lessly off the astronomy tower and land on his feet like a cat.
"There can't be four champions!" she says, gesturing sharply towards Hermione. "She's not even of age!"
Bagman's chuckle vibrates on her shoulders. "The anti-aging line was only put there this year as a safety precaution. Seeing as she's gotten past that, the Goblet selecting her means that Miss Granger will have to compete."
The door slams open, and Hermione's palms are sweatier than ever as multiple footsteps accompany their owners. Professor Karkaroff, Madame Maxine, Professors McGonagall, Snape and Dumbledore all make their way into Hermione's line of vision.
Delacour marches to her headmaster, exclaiming, "They are saying this little girl will be competing with us!" Madame Maxine places her enormous hand on her student's shoulder, numerous opals glimmering on her fat fingers. In spite of herself, Hermione's blood boils at 'little girl'. She dares to shoot the French girl a filthy look when both her and her headmaster are safely glaring at Dumbledore.
"What is the meaning of this, Dumbly-dorr?" Maxine's voice is deeper and huskier than Delacour's, but she has the same regional accent.
"There was supposed to be an anti-aging line," Karkaroff adds, his steely smile never reaching his icy eyes. Her skin crawls as they rove over her; Karkaroff's lips curdle, and his left arm twitches slightly. Glancing away, Hermione's eyes land on Dumbledore. Her headmaster regards them, before his piercing gaze roots her shifting feet to the spot.
"Did you put your name in the Goblet of Fire, Miss Granger?" Dumbledore asks calmly.
"No."
"Did you get an older student to put your name there?"
"No." Now ask for your lawyer.
"She's lying!" Maxine snaps, waving her large hand so that Karkaroff has to duck. Shooting her a filthy glare, the Durmstrang Headmaster still nods in agreement. This unfortunate timing mixed with her last thought draws a snort out of her, which she hastily disguises as a sneeze. Both headmasters are eying her in a way that tells her they're not convinced, and she mentally scolds herself. It's normally her that hisses at Ron to shut up when he's trying to egg on Snape in potions lessons, but she's starting to understand what he means whenever he argues he 'can't help it'.
"It wouldn't be the first time Granger breaks the rules," Snape drawls, drawing attention to his shadowy corner, eyes glittering maliciously, and she makes a mental note to apologise to Ron for telling him off about 'egging'. "I wouldn't be surprised if Potter put her up to it." In fact she might even encourage the egging from now on.
"Harry Potter?" Karkaroff snarls, rounding on Dumbledore. "Just because your students feel special, it doesn't give them the right to insert themselves somewhere they don't belong!" Hermione glares at the smirking Snape, before training her eyes on Dumbledore, who's watching Karkaroff vent, "You clearly made a mistake with the anti-aging line."
"That is entirely a possibility," Dumbledore says politely.
"You didn't make a mistake!" Professor McGonagall defends him angrily. "And if Hermione says that she didn't put her name in, and that she didn't get another student involved, then that is the truth!" She also gives Snape a furious look, before Karkaroff scoffs and Maxine laughs indignantly.
As McGonagall's lips thin, the creak of the door has them all turning around. Hermione realises Bagman had released her shoulders a while ago, looking half-confused and half-uncomfortable at the situation in front of him. He glances over his shoulder at the imposing figure of Mad-Eye Moody blocking the entrance of the room. One of his hands is clutching his infamous staff, the other a squeaking ferret.
"It must be the truth," he growls, tongue flicking over his lips. When the ferret chomps at his finger, drawing blood, and Moody doesn't flinch, Hermione raises her brows. "It takes talent to trick the goblet into accepting four students. Somebody must have altered it to believe there were four schools competing."
Karkaroff makes a derisive noise. "Forgive me for not believing your conspiracy, Moody, but did you not attack your neighbours' bins a month ago because they were making 'suspicious' noises?"
"Constant vigilance!" Moody barks, making Hermione jump. She casts a furtive glance at the closest sane person, and starts edging towards Ludo Bagman, who has a thoughtful expression on his face.
"But do people not call you the brightest witch of your age, my dear?" Bagman asks, his eyes locking onto hers; Hermione stops in her tracks. "I hear you're very talented, starting from Arthur Weasley all the way to many of your professors." She feels her face go red, opening her mouth without a clue of how to respond. Thankfully, McGonagall interrupts.
"She is," she states boldly, and if Hermione was blushing before she's boiling alive now. "Which is why she would have the sense to not put herself in a competition of which she is underqualified for." It would take a miracle for her to turn around to face the eyes searing into her back. Hermione keeps her focus fixed on the haggard Mad-Eye with his twitching bulging eye and whiskers, the frantic ferret still twisting in his fist. For the briefest of moments she's reminded of 'Scabbers'.
There's an undignified snort, some gabbled French and then Maxine is saying, "Perhaps the, ehh, brightest witch of her age feels the need to prove how bright she is." When she scowls at the ferret, it pauses its efforts and its pink nose twitches in her direction; its slate grey eyes make contact with hers.
"She's always trying to prove herself in my classes," Snape adds venomously. She's aware that McGonagall is defending her in the background, but Hermione's not really processing her words… As soon as Snape had stopped talking, it threw its tiny head back and started, well, hiccupping, or squeaking rapidly, and maybe it's due to rodent paranoia from Pettigrew last year but she's pretty sure the ferret is laughing at her. See. Little details. She should be focusing on the elephant in the room: the fact that she's a Triwizard Tournament Champion. The fourth one. Underqualified and underage and all. Quite frankly she thinks her brain is still trying to process it, more comfortable thinking about bawling in the library at five years old, the French Revolution and suspecting a laughing ferret.
"—and really there's nothing to be done. It's a binding magical contract." Bagman's voice cuts through her reverie, and Hemione blinks. Turning around without really thinking about it, she goes stiff when many eyes flick to her. She's boiling and it has nothing to do with the fire — Karkaroff is glaring daggers at her, Krum is frowning in her direction, Maxine is scowling at her and Delacour refuses to even look at her, her small, perfect nose in the air. McGonagall looks like she's about to pounce on Snape, who's sneering in turn. Diggory is shifting nervously next to McGonagall, who's the closest teacher to the fireplace.
And Dumbledore… He's studying Hermione like she's a new discovery in the realm of magic. For some reason, that makes her the most uncomfortable.
"Well, it appears that Miss Granger will be competing," he says cheerily, eyes twinkling. Her stomach swoops; 'underqualified', McGonagall had said. What's worse than uncertain doom is the prospect that she'll make herself look like a complete idiot in front of not one, but three student bodies.
"Then," Karkaroff snarls, "Maxine and I will get all of our students to put their names in the Goblet again, so we all have two students competing." The Headmaster of Beauxbatons makes an approving noise.
"That's not how it works, Karkaroff," growls Moody, and Hermione watches the Durmstrang Headmaster's icy eyes narrow. "Once the Goblet has decided, it closes until the next Tournament."
Sneering in a way that can compete with Snape, Karkaroff rounds on Hermione. "Granger, is it?" Skin crawling, she nods, having a hunch of where this will be going. The ferret squeaks maniacally behind them. Karkaroff scoffs. "I've not heard of this name before."
"Karkaroff —" McGonagall begins warningly.
"I'm just curious, is all. Dagworth-Granger, by any chance? It would explain your 'brightness'."
"No," she says haughtily, feeling none of the confidence in her voice. Nonetheless, her brows draw together as she stares right at the Headmaster of Durmstrang, just goading him to say what he so desperately wants to say. "My parents are Muggles."
He gestures towards Hermione, his now bulging eyes swooping over the room. "You're telling me all it took to outsmart this ancient magical object is a Mudblood?"
The reaction is instantaneous.
McGonagall is opening her mouth furiously, wordlessly, perhaps shocked that he can be so unabashedly brash in a room full of people. From behind her, Bagman clears his throat and Moody grunts. Maxine doesn't make any outward reaction, but Delacour's eyebrows twitch as she finally looks at Hermione. Not wanting the French girl's judgement, she glances over Krum, who's now frowning at his headmaster, and Diggory, who's giving Karkaroff a dirty look. She expects to see a smug smirk on Snape, but his expression is blank as he stares at Dumbledore… who doesn't have a twinkle in his eyes anymore.
"I have enjoyed you as my guest, Karkaroff," he says calmly, "but I'd appreciate it if you reserved your bold choice of language for outside of my school."
It's silent, now, except for the crackling of the fire and the laughing (squeaking) ferret behind her.
Finally, Karkaroff scoffs disdainfully, giving a contemptuous look towards her headmaster. There's a vein twitching in his forehead as he pins her with his icy stare, and goosebumps erupt over Hermione's crawling skin as he stalks towards her. With Krum in tow, her shoulders relax when Karkaroff passes her with plenty of distance; the Durmstrang student gives a fleeting twitch of his lips — a smile, she realises, too late, before he's out of her vision and leaving the room past a shuffling Mad-Eye. Ron would literally faint if she told him that Viktor Krum the eighteen-year-old World Cup Quidditch Player had smiled at her. Oh, Harry and Ron. They will either be the sanest people in the school for believing her, or the most insane for standing by her side. Either way, they're going to have the time of their life tonight laughing about it all.
Dumbledore claps his hands, a polite smile making his silver beard twitch. "Madame Maxine, a nightcap?" The other headmaster tuts in response, leading Delacour to leave too, her large arm against her student's tiny, dainty back. Their rapid jabbering of French starts fading before Dumbledore says, "Mr Diggory and Miss Granger, although I have no doubt your housemates are waiting to celebrate with you, I suggest you get some rest."
"Yes!" exclaims Bagman, stepping forward in her peripheral vision with a beam on his face. "Like I said, the first Tournament will be the twenty-fourth of November so you will need all the rest you can get!" Why is Hermione's brain worrying about keeping on top of homework and schoolwork?
She doesn't try to stop it, when she glances at Diggory and his hesitant smile. As they make their way towards the door — where Mad-Eye is next to, leaning heavily on his cane — Hermione starts distributing subjects into times of the night. Transfiguration at eight, Charms at nine, Arithmancy at ten, Ancient Runes at eleven, Potions at twelve…
Nibbling at her bottom lip, she lets Diggory leave through the door into the Great Hall first; that's when a white flash catches her eye. For a second, she shifts her unfocused gaze from the back of Diggory's head to one of Moody's gnarly hands — and, once again, the ferret is staring at her, nose twitching, completely silent.
She envies it and its simple life.
x.x
x.x
All it takes is a few hundred galleons to get someone to sell what he requires to be kept a secret. At the early hours of mornings, he would leave the wards of Malfoy Manor and lurk in a nearby forest, with glamour charms to distort his face enough into unrecognisable. He would drop the bag of coins into the waiting hand of his smuggler. Draco had never seen a face or heard a voice, and was perfectly fine with that — all he'd wanted each time was the Wolfsbane potion as an unregistered customer.
He'd made rearrangements during school to be met at Hogsmeade, and this is no exception for the November full moon. Until he can successfully brew (and obtain the ingredients) himself, he will be taking galleons out of his monthly allowance. As a result, the Wolfsbane have always been effective enough, and his moods have always been relaxed enough, that he hadn't even transformed whenever the time was due.
Draco had thought — as he knows he will inevitably transform at some point — that he would first be on all fours with a powerful jaw and a set of fangs that can change a witch or wizard's life forever.
Instead, he's wriggling with four thin limbs, his whole body the size of Mad-Eye Moody's sweaty palm. True to his name, the Professor has been holding him in grips that varied from firm to in danger of crushing Draco's tiny ribcage. He hopes Moody likes raw steak, because he'll be craving a lot of that after all the nibbling at his coarse skin, with his new set of teeth. The iron has settled itself in Draco's tongue and his pink paws are itching to scrabble for more blood.
Abruptly, the equilibrium he'd grown accustomed to lurches, and Draco is hurtling forwards towards the unforgiving Hogwarts stone. As he gives a high-pitched squeal, he wonders if ferrets can land on their feet as well as cats can. Once his small, pink paws slam against the ground, he winces at the sharp pain in his front hunches. Cats are superior, then.
Combined with a rodent's powerful nose, Draco's sensitive nostrils can detect what has happened in this room for the past year and then some. Mad-Eye's sweaty scent lingers, but Draco can smell something else… A potion. It's not one he recognizes, but he knows Moody has been carrying that scent with him. Students have been here, too, and the scents that are familiar are his once favourite body spray that now surges the deepest loathing in his veins, and chocolate and cinnamon from a mutual ally. That's not the only thing he picks up on, though — still lingering in the room like Liriope's Dandelion is the faint presence of the pines of the Forbidden Forest, and the distant bitter tang of Wolfsbane. So this is the office of the Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor.
Who is now leering down at him, his bulbous blue-eye twitching.
Draco snarls at him, baring his tiny blood-stained teeth, but it comes out as a pitiful squeak.
Maybe he'll skip the Wolfsbane this month and wait in Moody's office at the glow of the full moon.
Mad-Eye snorts, taking out that flask of his. As he drains whatever it is into his gullet, Draco catches a stronger whiff of the potion. He knows he's powerless in his situation: Mad-Eye has a wand, and he has tiny feet that can barely scamper quick enough to the door all the way across the office. Which also happens to be shut. Draco doesn't know much about ferret anatomy, but he does know it was physically impossible to try to get free of Mad-Eye's iron grip; he is unlikely to be able to fit through the gap at the bottom of the door quick enough.
The mad Professor tosses his flask aside, which falls to the ground with a hollow thwock.
Draco keeps his eyes on the man's hands. The one that's not clutching his staff has gnarly fingers playing with the handle of his wand in his filthy coat's pocket —
It's directed at him before he can even tense his haunches — Draco's muscles seize with mind-numbing, blood-freezing, soul-wrenching pain as they tear apart and reconstruct. His squeaking morphs into howls, becoming deeper and deeper as his bones shatter to reform a bipedal, tall skeleton. It takes his legs all of two seconds before he collapses onto his backside. He grits his regrowing teeth as his tailbone throbs, but he soon forgets the added pain… As his brain enlarges and becomes more complex, he can better understand what has happened to him.
And he is livid.
Draco snarls ferally, plunging his hand into his uniform — he raises his wand at Moody, a dark curse he'd practised over the summer on his lips, but then his only form of defence is tugged out of his clenched fist and clattering to the other end of the classroom. Balling his other fist, Draco watches Moody's wonky grin raise slowly.
"You think you can duel a man who was an auror longer than you have lived?" he growls lowly, then barks a laugh. "Trust a Malfoy to walk blindly into everything."
Narrowing his eyes, they flit between his wand resting uselessly on the floor, and at Moody, showing off all of his crooked teeth. "You'll regret that," Draco hisses, and it's a promise, as sure as the ache in his shoulders, as sure as the lingering of the man's iron essence at the back of his throat. It infuriates him when Moody only laughs at him, still looking down at him, even in his human form.
"Stupid boy. Lurking in the shadows... I hope you enjoyed what you heard." Draco sneers. He probably would have, if he hadn't been Confunded too. But they both know he's not going to report Moody's unprofessionalism, because Moody is a well renowned Auror in retirement and Draco's surname has been in all the articles relating to the World Cup's homicide events. There were only three things going through his frantic ferret brain: get me out of this man's hand, it's funny that Snape's making fun of the girl that smells like green apples, and everyone's going to get away with everything except me.
As he slowly becomes more reaccustomed to his human features, Draco's ears twitch at the laughter of a couple of students in a distant hallway; either they're Prefects, or they're skipping curfew, because it's late at night. He had heard Mad-Eye approaching, too, the careful clunk of his staff and the methodical thunk of his wooden leg as he hobbled closer, he had sniffed the reek of foul sweat and that potion from his flask, but he didn't expect the man to ambush him — he'd forgotten that bulging eye can scan through solid objects.
Before Draco can even consider an appropriate threat, the Professor snorts again, turns and shuffles, clunk, thunk, to his desk. For a few moments, he hesitates, testing for a trap; once he pushes himself to his feet, taking a few tentative, unsteady steps and the madman doesn't whip around, Draco strides swiftly to his wand, swipes it up, paces faster to the door, hauls it open and nearly sprints out of the office. He has no doubt Mad-Eye's big eye is rolled back in his head, watching him all the way.
Draco makes his way out of the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, eager to be rid of the scent of Lupin. The corridors of Hogwarts are sleeping uneasily. Very few portraits are dozing, excited murmurs and hushed whispers drifting with his footsteps. A few dimly lit candles are flickering by the walls. He watches his shadow dance from a full silhouette to a distorted figure as he walks. Running his tongue over his teeth, he feels the iron tang fade when he swallows over his dry throat.
She got away with it. She always gets away with it.
Even Igor Karkaroff, the man with enough balls to, according to his father, rat out the Dark Lord's entire army — including Draco's Aunt Bellatrix, and Uncles Rodolphus and Rabastan — just swallowed back his rage in the face of Albus Dumbledore and stormed out of the room. It's only because she's so close to Harry Potter. If she had been sorted into Ravenclaw or, somehow into Hufflepuff, or, Salazar forbid, into Slytherin, she might not have ever been such good friends with Saint Potter. Then, she wouldn't be Potter's Mudblood. She would just be a Mudblood.
A nobody.
Draco's father would be proud of him. It's only because she's Potter's Mudblood that he's disgusted at his son always being second in class to her. Maybe if she wasn't who she is, he never would have felt obligated to go out into that forest under the full moon. If his father knew what he has become, he would never be proud of him.
When he rounds a corner, he stops short on his tracks. It's a narrow corridor with portraits dozing under the starlight filtering through the large windows. The only thing that should be roaming it are ghosts.
"I could report you for breaking curfew, Mudblood."
From where he's sprawled lazily against the windowsill, Dean Thomas' strange quill pauses over his oddly coloured parchment. He looks up at Draco with raised brows, who responds with a signature Malfoy sneer.
"But then how would you explain why you're breaking curfew, too?"
Lips curdling into a smirk, Draco takes two confident steps towards him as he drawls, "I have a legitimate reason for being out so late. I was having an important conversation with Mad-Eye about this year's curriculum. I wanted no details missed." Thomas actually has the audacity to snicker at him. When he mutters something that sounds suspiciously like 'sure', Draco takes a few more steps towards him, his hand sliding unsubtly into the pocket of his robes. "Something funny, Mudblood?"
For a few moments, Thomas' dark eyes lock to Draco's. He has a terribly strange feeling, something like his soul is being probed. "What do you think about the dark, Malfoy?" Draco sneers.
"I fail to see the relevance of your question."
"It's just a question," Thomas replies, shrugging. A few heartbeats pass.
"I think that's it's for being in our dormitories," he says, sneering pointedly at the Mudblood. Thomas nods, his lips twitching. He bows his head, his odd quill resuming its work on his strangely coloured parchment. Draco leans forward slightly on his toes, glimpsing a sketch of a treeline rimming what he can easily recognise as Hogwarts Grounds. Then he glances out the window, eyes narrowing as he realises the outside looks as if Thomas had sketched it out himself. He scowls. Why is it the Mudbloods that are talented?
"I think it's the best time of the day," breathes Thomas, his quill scratching gently over the parchment. Draco takes another peek. "It's where all secrets feel safe to slink out, because everybody who's watching should be asleep." All the blood drains from Draco's face when he realises that Thomas is sketching the half-moon that is hiding behind a cloud from beyond the window.
With his hand still in his pocket, Draco's fingers find his wand and wrap around the handle. "What is that supposed to mean?" he snarls. The quill pauses again. Thomas looks up. His heart pounds in his chest.
"Well, I mean, you're crying, Malfoy." Brows shooting together, Draco's hand leaps from his pocket and reaches for his face and, in his dawning horror, roughly wipes away the drying tear tracks on his cheeks. "Either your conversation with Mad-Eye went rather badly or you're mad about Hogwarts' Champions."
"Neither," Draco snaps. He coughs up the first excuse that comes to his mind, not caring how stupid it sounds. They both know now he's not going to report him for being out after curfew. "I'm allergic to dust."
Then he storms out of the starlit, moonlit hallway, leaving Thomas alone with his strange quill and parchment.