-O-

The summer before Draco's second year at Hogwarts has started very badly and ended worse, and he couldn't help but feel it was about ninety percent Hermione Granger's fault. Maybe one hundred percent her fault.

Slytherin had lost the House cup, despite the fact that Gryffindor lost their final Quidditch match soundly, and were at the bottom of the rankings going into the Leaving Feast. Somehow Dumbledore thought whatever Potter, the weasel, and Hermione had done at the end of the year justified a buttload of points. And in a particularly annoying twist of the proverbial knife, the prat Longbottom- a boy so jumpy that he sent sparks up for help at the mere mention of a noise-was given ten sodding points, lifting the Gryffindors above Slytherin on the house leaderboard. As Draco had already practically assured his father via floo call that Slytherin had won the House Cup, this was very hard to accept.

There were wild rumors galore about whatever it was that the trio had done - everything from Potter had destroyed an ancient Hogwarts dark artifact, to a story where they'd fought a room full of goblins riding dragons. There was some nonsense about Quirrell going crazy and getting killed in the event- no huge loss, as far as Draco was concerned. That babbling buffoon couldn't seem to tell the difference between a grindylow and a gryphon, and had been a rather useless Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.

Draco couldn't help but wonder if this supposed artifact had been the philosopher's stone, but he had no way of finding out. Hermione had not even realised that he'd overheard them discussing Nicholas Flamel in the first place, much less that it had been he who had offered her the book she'd needed to find out about Flamel's extensive work in that field. He could only hope that the supposed artifact had been the philosopher's stone, and that it was actually gone.

-O-

He had been home precisely six days when everything went to hell. The grading report from Hogwarts has arrived, and with it came the wrath of his father, who was supremely angry about his grades. Though they'd been quite high, they'd been accompanied by his class ranking- a large red number two out of forty four was scrawled across the bottom of the grading report signed by Professor Snape.

Mercifully, Draco and Narcissa had been out when the grading report had arrived, so Lucius had had some time to compose himself. It had not been nearly enough time however; in the hour or so that he had been alone at the house, Lucius had taken to Draco's suite, destroying the handful of sentimental toys he still had from his childhood. The toy broomstick. The hand carved wooden dragon puzzle sculpture, which stood 3 ft high and came apart into dozens of intricate pieces. His stuffed hippogriff Carlton. There was a tiny pile of cinder in the bottom of the fireplace in his room; Draco could see one of the milky blue marbles that had been Carlton's eyes in the bottom of the grate. This hurt in particular, as Carlton had been his first stuffie- his only one really. Draco rushed to the closet, a small wave of relief settling over him as he spotted the wooden box stored below his outgrown summer robes at the very back of the space. His muggle books were still there, surprisingly. He turned back to the room to survey more of the damage and try to figure out what was going on.

The grading report was sitting on his nightstand.

A chill came over Draco as he read the report. All of the grades were quite high. Every one of his professors had had good things to say about his performance in class. It wasn't that the grades weren't good enough. It was the number two at the bottom of the page. Draco knew the first and only thing that Lucius would ask: who beat you for number one? He worried about what his father would do when he told him who he suspected that it was.

Draco had suffered beatings in his young life. His mother did what she could to protect him from that. But she wasn't always there, and she wasn't always able to stop Lucius. And truth be told, Draco knew that occasionally she had incurred them as well. They didn't happen incredibly often, but what the beatings lacked in quantity was far made up for in quality. His lip had been split more than once by the hefty signet ring on Lucius's hand. One time when he was about eight, in a particular torrent of rage about a broken crystal vase that had belonged to Lucius's grandmother, Lucius had grabbed a red hot poker that he'd just used to stoke the fire in his study fireplace. Swinging it deftly, he'd struck Draco on the upper back, shattering Draco's right wrist with it as the young boy had raised a hand to protect his face. In bright sunlight, Draco could still make out the faintly raised pink scar from the burn, just on the bottom of his arm.

But this beating, the one that was about to happen- this one would be bad. Not only for that red number 2. But because the person who had received a number 1 on their grading reports was a muggle born.

-O-

The cruciatus curse had many side effects, depending on the strength of the curse and the fury of the caster. Thankfully, Lucius's resolve was tempered by Narcissa's pleas for mercy, and the effects were not as bad as they could have been, even taking into account that it was the first time Draco had ever experienced that particular curse.

Back in Draco's room after it was over, Pim dripped dittany on his open wounds, and rubbed arnica salve into his muscles where he was able to. There were too many bits of broken glass in his skin to apply it very well, unfortunately. Draco's nerves twitched painfully across his entire body.

Pim was elderly, and had cared for members of Narcissa's family for many years. The Black family members were no strangers to scathing words meant to cut deeply into the soul. But beatings were not so common. Pim had learned that Malfoy men, however, were likely to settle disagreements with wands, weapons, and fists. Draco could tell that this bothered Pim, but the elfin way was not to criticise a master.

Draco lay in bed on his stomach, too many small cuts from the shards of Lucius's crystal highball glass littering his back to feel comfortable enough to lay on it. In a strange way, though, it was almost a comfort, being forced to lie with his face buried in his pillows. This way, he knew Pim didn't have to witness his tears; Pim was too kind hearted to withstand that.

-O-

Properly chastised and punished for his failure, Draco resolved to do better with his second year at Hogwarts. He would defeat Hermione Granger, take down Harry Potter, and do all that he could to come out on top this year.

He had told his father this many times over the summer after the punishment was over,. The tears had long been dried, and There was an unspoken remorse that fell over the dinner table between the man and his son in the nights after the cruciatus curse and crystal glass incident. Draco was sorry that he had let his father down, and in his own way he felt that Lucius might be sorry as well.

But Lucius grew tired of the discussion of how Potter had cheated to make his way on to the Gryffindor Quidditch team, of how the mudblood Granger had beguiled and cozied up to the teachers and had become the class favourite to earn the top grades she received. It did not matter if Draco believed what he was saying, so long as his father believed it, he thought.

"Draco, it matters not to me what this filthy little mudblood does in her classwork, nor if Potter cheated. You are welcome to get back at them in any way that you see fit. But their actions are not your shortcomings. Your actions are your shortcomings."

-O-

Blaise and Theo had come to spend a couple of days during the summer with Draco at Malfoy Manor. Draco was privately glad that they had come to him, rather than him having to go to to their houses. For as gloomy as the Manor could be if Lucius was home, this week had been a welcome reprieve. Lucius had traveled to France and Spain on business and would be gone all week. Tiberius Nott could make one wish that even a beautiful day would pass faster. Blaise's stepfather Selwyn was a creepy, annoying old man. And as for Blaise's mother, her seeking, probing, beautiful eyes and extreme attractiveness made Draco feel incredibly uncomfortable for reasons he didn't understand in her presence.

The three boys lounged on the banks of the lake just behind the gardens at the Manor, eating fruit, cake, and sandwiches and drinking Tiffy's delicious elderflower juice. They played two on one Quidditch, taking turns as the keeper. They had a contentious ongoing chess tournament, in which all three boys had claimed to be the victor. Blaise had brought another muggle contraption. He called it a laptop, and it seemed to have endless games of far superior quality than the Gameboy that he had kindly passed on to Draco at the end of their first school year.

"What are you looking forward to most this year, Drake?" Theo asked languidly, staring up into the blue sky littered with fluffy white clouds.

"I'm trying out for the Quidditch team. I'm hoping to make it. I kind of like to try my hand at chaser, but Father believes I am better suited to be seeker. Father is buying me a new broom when we go into Diagon Alley before school starts."

"But your Silver Rocket 4 is in pristine condition. Why do you need another one?" Blaise asked in confusion.

"Father just thought it would be better," Draco answered lamely. In truth, Lucius felt like he needed every possible advantage to make the team. His father didn't believe that his skill alone would be enough.

"So how many girls do you plan to snog this year?" Blaise smirked lazily.

"Eight," Draco answered with unearned confidence and swagger. The real answer, of course, was none, although for some reason that gave Draco a moment of pause. Hermione Granger popped into his head. He shoved the thought aside. What is silly idea! He thought.

"I myself am going for an even dozen," said Theo magnanimously. "I want every witch to have a chance to enjoy my talents and charms."

"You're such a fucking tosser, Nott," Draco said, throwing a bit of cantaloupe at his friend and hitting him on the side of the face.

"Takes one to know one, mate!" Theo grabbed a handful of grapes and whipped them at Draco's face. Draco ducked, then grab the grapes from the ground and whipped them right back towards Theo. Theo was ready for him, and used his wand to wordlessly redirect them. His magical aim was not very good however, and the grapes ended up smacking Blaise directly in the forehead.

"Well, if that's how this must be. I hope you arseholes are prepared for battle," Blaise said dryly, taking up a large plate of ripe berries.

The three of them couldn't help but laugh about the afternoon's food fight that night and well into the next day, long after Pim had come and admonished the three of them for making such a great mess, and chivvied them inside to clean up for dinner with Narcissa. It had taken them excessively long showers to get every bit of fruit juice and pulp off.

-O-

As he and his father made their way through Diagon Alley to complete his school supply list, Draco trailed behind slowly. He had already been chastised in Bourgin and Burke's for begging and poking around too much. He had been admonished for his table manners at Florian Fortescue's ice cream parlor - who cared if he had his elbows on the table whilst finishing an ice cream cone? Even the act of buying his new broomstick at Quality Quidditch Supplies was soured by his father's sneer.

"I suppose I should buy the entire team one of these fancy new brooms, yes? I'm not certain that they will allow you to be seeker without a little... shall we say, gift?" Lucius cut his eyes at Draco, as if wanting to make certain that Draco understood his opinion of his son's Quidditch skills. He had never even asked if Draco wanted to be a seeker. Draco could not remember ever even flying with his father. As a matter of fact, Draco much preferred being a chaser when he played with friends, but because Lucius had been a seeker, and because Lucius knew that Harry Potter was a seeker, apparently there was no better position for him on the Slytherin Quidditch team.

Now, he and Lucius were fighting their way into the entrance of Flourish and Blotts bookshop, taken by surprise by the flurry of excitement contained within the expansive but poorly laid out shop. They quickly made their way left towards the reception desk, where presumably his school books would already be waiting. Once again, he wondered why they hadn't simply gotten the books delivered by owl post as they had done the year before. In this claustrophobic and labyrinthine shop, his father seemed to be distracted and anxious, which was entirely unlike the elder Malfoy wizard. But Draco knew better than to ask what It was that they were doing here.

Textbooks procured and a charm placed upon them to levitate the package behind them, they started to the door. Lucius was growing more and more on edge, his eyes darting around as if looking for something. Draco suppressed a sigh, turning to his left to try to discern what the excitement had been about further back in the shop.

There had been a book signing with that prat Gilderoy Lockhart. Draco had seen a few of his books at the Manor, ones his mother sometimes picked up for light reading. And Narcissa often read the magazine Witch Weekly. This bloke was on the cover quite often, peacocking and preening as though he were royalty. Draco rolled his eyes at all the witches falling all over themselves to get close.

Then a voice called out above the crowd, and suddenly, speaking of a peacocking prat that people thought of as royalty, Potter was standing in the front of the crowd, shoved up next to Lockhart. The older man smiled even wider, which Draco wouldn't have thought possible, whilst Potter shifted uncomfortably, turning red and looking at the group he'd emerged from for help.

Draco looked where Potter was staring. A ton of red heads- must be the Weasleys, of course. Then his eyes fell upon a familiar head of bushy hair. Two, in fact- it appeared that Hermione was accompanied by a taller and older version of herself, evidently her mother. Though where Hermione's hair crackled with the excitement and magic contained within the bookshop, the elder Granger's hair fell in soft, silken waves. Next to them stood a tall sandy-haired man, who appeared to be trying to look everywhere at once and whisper something excitedly in the woman's ear. Great, Draco thought. She'd brought both her muggle parents. He wondered how he could get himself and his father out of the shop without Lucius noticing them.

To his surprise, Lucius had also turned in that direction, and even more surprising, seem to be edging his way towards the crowd. What was he playing at? Draco fervently hoped that Lucius wasn't about to bring up grades and class rankings. He wasn't sure he could live down the embarrassment of being called out in front of Hermione. Not to mention, his nerves were still a bit frazzled after the beating he'd received over those grades, primarily because of the witch across the room.

By now they were nearly upon the group. Draco decided that it was best to focus Lucius's attention on Potter rather than the Grangers. Harry Potter was a rival he knew his father shared with him.

"Bet you loved that, didn't you, Potter?" Draco's spat, knowing full well that the other wizard has likely felt nearly as uncomfortable there in the spotlight as he himself had felt upon seeing them.

Potter gave him a death glare, but Draco's mission was accomplished- Lucius was almost entirely focused on the scar faced young wizard.

"Famous Harry Potter. Can't even go into a bookshop without making the front page," Draco scoffed. To his great amusement, the smallest of the redheads rose to Potter's defense.

"Leave him alone, he didn't want all that!"

The girl was clearly a Weasley, and yet where her brothers looked like they'd been fried then pickled like potion ingredients, she looked like a graceful little bird with jewel bright eyes that reminded him of Hermione's. Her magic likewise crackled in the air- Draco felt that if she'd been born into a different family, he'd have found her great company.

"Potter, you've got yourself a girlfriend!" Draco crowed delightedly. He couldn't help but take the piss out on Potter- no one in their year had had a real girlfriend yet, and the idea of having one still seemed a bit absurd to his twelve year old brain.

The girl flushed with embarrassment and looked as though she wanted to hex him. Draco thanked the gods that she likely didn't know much magic yet- with as many children and as little money as the Weasleys had, he doubted the girl's education until now had included much magic. Possibly none, if her git of a brother Ron was the metric against which to judge, Draco thought snidely.

And speaking of said git, the angry little weasel stomped up to join in the discussion. And to Draco's horror, he saw that he was joined by Hermione.

Draco hadn't had much chance to interact with Hermione after that night in the forest. He'd hoped that the event would open up the chance for them to talk more often, even if it was just in class, but there'd been no such moment. Soon after that night, the first years had begun diligently revising for exams, Hermione the most diligent of all. Then the night of that artifact business had happened, and the entire school was focused on the trio. Draco couldn't find a discreet moment to talk with her alone before the school year had ended.

"Oh, it's you. Bet you're surprised to see Harry here, huh?" the weasel sneered. Draco was confused. Why would he be surprised to find a classmate in a bookshop that sold their textbooks for school? He tried very hard not to roll his eyes in annoyance however. He and Hermione had left each other on good footing, he didn't want to upset that tenuous balance.

"Not as surprised as I am to see you in a shop, Weasley. I suppose your parents will go hungry for a month to pay for all those." Draco spoke quietly so as not to attract the attention of any adult nearby. Lucius would probably flog him for sparring in public, and despite his father's disdain for the Weasley parents, Draco still didn't want an adult to reprimand him. Not to mention, Draco really didn't want the Grangers to think badly of him. He wasn't certain why it felt as though that mattered, but in the moment, it did.

Weasley had no compunction about attracting negative attention, however, and the situation quickly went arse over tea kettle. The git dumped his books off on his sister then made as if to rush Draco, but the cooler heads of Potter and Hermione grabbed him from behind to stop him. This caught the attention of Weasley's father, who came to chivvy the group along to the outside of the stuffy and crowded shop.

The ruckus has also caught his own father's attention. Lucius, formerly anxious and on edge, appeared at Draco's side with his usual glib and snide air. Draco clenched his teeth, fearful of what was about to happen. And all of it would take place in front of these normal looking muggle parents who had no clue of the feud about to erupt here. Merlin, why has she brought them here?

"Well, well, well — Arthur Weasley," Lucius said, more a statement of disdain than of greeting.

"Lucius," said Mr. Weasley, nodding grimly.

"Busy time at the Ministry, I hear. All those raids . . . I hope they're paying you overtime?" Lucius's sneer grew larger as he looked down at the smallest Weasley, holding what must have been thirty books in her cauldron.

Lucius reached down, and for a wild moment, Draco thought he might be offering to help ease the obvious burden of the books' weights. Instead, his father dug through the cauldron, extracting the oldest, most battered textbook that Draco had ever seen being sold in a store. Lucius flipped through the book, smirking with disgust at the dusty pages.

"Obviously not. Dear me, what's the use of being a disgrace to the name of wizard if they don't even pay you well for it?" Lucius sneered at the older, bespectacled Weasley.

Draco chanced a sidelong look at the Grangers, now huddled with their daughter held close at the edge of the group. With the sheer number of people crammed into the small space of the shop, they had nowhere to go and Draco felt unease bubbling in his stomach.

"We have a very different idea of what disgraces the name of wizard, Malfoy," Mr Weasley spat out, only a thin veneer of politeness covering his disgust.

"Clearly," said his father, and now Draco saw the blond man look at the Grangers properly with a barely disguised sneer of revulsion. This whole time, Draco had thought- hoped- that the muggles had escaped his notice, but he should have known better. "The company you keep, Weasley... and I thought your family could sink no lower."

Without warning, Mr. Weasley leaped towards his father, knocking Lucius into a bookshelf behind them. Draco stepped aside towards the Grangers to avoid being hit. He had the vague notion of blocking the books from hitting her as well, though he had no idea where that instinct had come from. Thankfully, there wasn't time for him to analyze that because his father and the ginger man were throwing punches and knocking each other into bookshelves. Pages were flying, children screaming, and Mrs Weasley had waded into the fray to yell loudly at her husband for fighting. Now Hagrid had come into the space where there had barely been room for a normal size person. He locked eyes with Draco as if to say, why am I not surprised? Then with the dexterity and strength of a father dealing with bratty tiny toddlers, he pulled the two men apart, yelling at them to break it up.

Draco's eyes went to his father, knowing that his father would not appreciate being treated like a child, especially by someone he considered to be a mere servant. For a moment, Draco was worried; Lucius's hand was inside of his robe, as though reaching for his wand, and Draco flinched out of instinct. But instead of the thin, sleek elm and dragon heartstring wand, his father only held the book he had taken from the Weasley girl. He held it out to her, muttering parting insults to Mr Weasley, and turning swiftly towards the door.

Draco finally gathered the courage to look at Hermione, and was surprised to find not only anger there but concern and a little bit of hurt.

"I'm sorry for that," Draco said as quietly but as clearly as he could to Hermione and her parents, and rushed to follow his father out the door.-

-O-

Lucius was striding quickly to the Leaky Cauldron to take the floo home. Draco assumed he would still be upset and angry about the encounter, but to his confusion, his father seemed almost happy. Lucius wore a self satisfied smile for the rest of the evening, even as his mother fretted over the black eye that was developing on Lucius's visage. Even their brief conversation about the Grangers didn't dampen Lucius's mood.

"Was that girl there the mudblood of which you spoke, the one who cheated her way into the top spot of the class?" His father asked with a sneer.

Draco knew he had never said that Hermione had cheated, only that she had worked to impress and befriend the professors. But his father was in too good of a mood for Draco to spoil.

"Yes that's Herm- that's her. Granger is her name." Draco corrected himself quickly.

"Well, I expect better results from you this year. You have been given every gift in life, Draco. Do not squander it and allow this mudblood to take what is rightfully yours. I expect the top spot from you this year."

"Yes, Father."

There was nothing more to say; Lucius had spoken, it was up to Draco to act.

As the night wore on and dinner was served, Lucius's eye bruise darkened from reddish purple to black. Draco wondered why his father didn't just heal the black eye, as it looked to be fairly minor. A simple spell would make it disappear. When Draco asked him, however, he simply smiled and said a bit mysteriously, "a battle scar is hard fought, and hard won."

-O-

The Hogwarts Express ride back to school that year was uneventful. He sat with Theo and Blaise, Vince and Greg hovering at the edge of their crowd. Draco and the two larger boys walked down the train cars looking in the windows, trying to spot Potter and the weasel in the cars, just to stir up a little fuss before the professors got involved and could dock house points, but he could not find them. It was very odd. Had word of their near fight reached Hogwarts? Were they expelled?

Draco looked in one car and quickly looked away, reddening slightly. Hermione sat with the youngest Weasley girl and the Patil twins, along with some other Gryffindor girl that Draco vaguely recognised. No Potter in sight. As he moved on down the train corridor, however, the door to the girls compartment opened and Hermione stepped out, calling to him.

"Malfoy? Can I talk with you?"

Draco gestured for Vince and Greg to keep going back to their compartment and turned back to Hermione.

"What did you need, Granger?" He intended it to come out gruffly, but it came out more as an offer. Merlin, he needed to gather his wits about him better before he spoke to this witch alone in future.

"I just- I wanted to say, I don't blame you. About the thing in the bookshop that day," she blurted. "You shouldn't have tried to rile up Harry and Ron, but I know the three of you get into it sometimes. But it was Mr Weasley who threw the first punch. Frankly, I was a little surprised by that whole thing."

Draco chuckled softly." Yeah, me too. Then again, he did raise that git so..."

Hermione shook her head with a knowing smirk. "Ron really isn't a bad guy you know. He's actually a great friend."

Some kind of hot... something- boiled up inside of Draco and he felt his face flush. It was like anger but what was there to be angry about? He wasn't angry at her, and Weasley wasn't even here, would likely never know that he and Hermione were having this conversation, so it made no sense. He tried to push away the feeling and cover it with snideness.

"Yeah, with friends like that, who needs enemies? Trying to start brawls in bookshops of all places," he scoffed.

"I agree, that's why I just wanted to tell you that I didn't blame you."

Draco looked up into her copper eyes, eyes which had filtered into his dreams more times than not over the summer. Most of the time, the dreams had barely been there at the forefront of his mind once he woke, details forgotten almost instantly. But a couple of times, including this morning, the dream had been quite vivid enough that he could recall it in great detail and had relished the physical sensation that accompanied it. His face flushed even hotter than before, recalling what had happened when he awoke this morning.

"Thanks, Granger." He turned back to his compartment as she murmured her goodbye, and his eyes widened considerably as he walked. Because as they parted, he was almost certain (though he could not be sure) that she had called him Draco and not Malfoy.

-O-

The Wonder twins were at breakfast the next morning, and it gave Draco much delight to witness the howler that Weasley's mother had sent about stealing a car and crashing it. He along with the rest of the Slytherin table guffawed heartily.

Now that he was back at Hogwarts, Draco felt the tension that had hovered over him for most of the summer, worrying about his father's wrath, was gone. He started eating three full meals again, something that he had done sparsely in the summer, mainly subsisting upon lunch and a handful of snacks that Pim would sneak him on the days that his father was home. His father was almost always at breakfast and dinner when he wasn't traveling, so it was easier to feign sickness, or only take a small amount so that he might be done quickly. Draco had lost a bit of weight, and knew he looked rather gaunt and drawn, but hopefully the delicious food at school would turn that around.

He threw himself into his courses, intent on besting Hermione this year. He found himself watching her in classes again, telling himself that he was trying to find a weakness in her school work that he could step into to garner the top spot. To his annoyance, there did not seem to be one.

One evening, Draco chose a study table in the library near hers, waiting until she disappeared into the stacks to locate another reference tome. When she'd disappeared, he casually wandered to her table, looking down at the several inches of parchment filled with her neat, square handwriting. Her essays seemed to be really well organised and in depth; Draco did not even recognise some of the spells and runes referenced in some of them.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" A stern voice piped up behind him. It was Hermione, and she sounded far more standoffish than he had expected. Then again, Potter had just departed, so perhaps she didn't want to appear too friendly in case he was still nearby.

"I just noticed that you misspelled conscientiousness here," Draco said, pointing at her essay. "There's a 't' in the word."

"Ah, you're right. Thank you." She tapped her wand on the page and the word corrected itself. As she settled in her seat and began to unwrap a red sugar quill, Draco caught a whiff of scent that seemed familiar, taking him back to his days in the garden of the Manor. Not wanting to walk away from her, Draco pointed to another part of the page.

"What is this spell? I don't recognise it." Draco knew many spells from his study at home over the years, but he had not swallowed the books as apparently Hermione had.

"Oh, the Protean charm! It's a really brilliant way to make things match your original object. Let's say you have a flower bed of rose bushes, and one is beautiful and healthy, but the rest look a little dead and tired. You can charm the sad looking ones to look like the beautiful one. And if, say one day you're tired of pink roses, you can change the original bush to yellow, and they'll all turn yellow."

"Interesting. Do they need to be next to each other? Or can you pick the roses and give them to a friend, and when you change the colour, do the roses that you picked also change?"

"Yes, that's the interesting thing about the charm, it works across space. In fact, I was wondering if it would apply to parchment. My parents are not able to get messages to me easily, unless I happen to send an owl to them and they have it bring back their messages. Last year my father had a small emergency surgery and my mother wasn't able to tell me at the time. If I could figure out a way to leave them a charmed bit of parchment and I have the copy, they could write a message, and I could read it immediately. Then I could owl them back. Or, perhaps I could make two pieces of parchment, both with the charm, and we can send messages back and forth..." Hermione seemed lost in thought with the possibilities, miming writing in the air with her sugar quill.

Draco sat back in wonder. Here was this young witch, looking up far advanced charms and solving problems with them. Draco had never encountered someone like this. He wanted to say something interesting to keep the conversation going. "Well does it need to be two pieces of parchment for each of you? Can't you just make one parchment for each of you and you can write back and forth?"

"But what if you write at the same time? And what if you are using the same part of the page? Will the writing just overlap?" Hermione's eyes seemed to sparkle with the prospect of new challenges to overcome.

"Maybe you can make the words vanish after they are read? Or you have one section of the page for you to write, and one section for your parents?

"Hmm, that's interesting. I like that." Hermione said, fingers tapping out a staccato beat on the table top.

"The next question is, how do you alert the other person that you have written? How will they know to look at the parchment?" Draco pondered, now also lost in thought.

"Maybe it glows! Or it hoots like an owl!" She suggested, and they both laughed, picturing a hooting piece of parchment.

"I'm not so sure about that, Granger," he said easily.

"Yes, perhaps not. But thank you for the ideas, Malfoy. I don't usually have..." Her voice trailed away here, and Draco realised that her usual study companions probably did not offer much back and forth discussion like this.

"No problem, Granger," he said with a small smile, pushing his chair back to stand.

As he walked away, Draco felt a bit sorry for Hermione. He was able to use the fireplace in the Slytherin common room to floo call his mother anytime. Presumably the same applied to the Gryffindor common room, but as muggles, the Grangers would not have access to a floo.

Because she's a mudblood, a voice whispered as though from the depths of his mind. It sounded a lot like Lucius's voice. He shook his head as though to clear his mind of the words. He supposed she was technically a mudblood, even if he thought the word sounded grossly inaccurate. But it didn't really seem to matter- this witch was kicking his and everyone else's arses in every subject they were taking, and she was making it look easy he thought ruefully.

He sat back down in his chair at his own study table, then looked up to find her watching him. Her copper eyes sparkled as they met his silver ones, and she blushed prettily, licking her lips and popping the red sugar quill between them. Draco flushed as well and looked back down at his own essay.

He had enjoyed that whole interaction a lot more than he would ever admit.

-O-