Probable Reaction

Prologue

Perhaps he was following the Malfoy tradition of becoming mentally ill, or it could be the warm weather in the endless deserts of Egypt, but he missed being at school. Its endless hallways, its towering staircases that could stretch up to the heavens.

Whatever it was that he longed for there, he wasn't sure, but one thing was that it had to be better than here. Sure, the rolling dunes of sand and forgotten tombs of age-old kings were cool, but after four weeks of his break, he was bored. Damn his parents for leaving him there!

Of course, as soon as he had been dropped off and settled into a hotel right off of the banks of the Nile in some obscure town, they had hightailed it to the Bermudas. They had said something about some relative's wedding there and promised they would be back right after, but Draco was quite sure they were lying out of their teeth. They would most likely just leave him there until the last day and then right back to Hogwarts for his sixth year.

So there he sat, staring out of his second story window at the sand dunes. Any company at all would have been nice. Crabbe, Goyle, even Pansy 'The Pug' Parkinson, would have been preferred to the large amount of empty space and hot air around him. He was even starting to think about Hermione Granger.

His first reaction when he had thought of Granger had been to fake vomit. Second had been to put a cold compress on his head, in case he was getting heat stroke. Third was to laugh at himself and go back to counting the number of sand grains in his shoe, and that had been a week ago.

But now that he was completely and utterly out of things to occupy himself with and his shoes were very much sand free countless times over, he had begun to think of her more. Her mangy brown hair that would have made a very nice rat nest had it not been attached to her head. Her teeth, like large skipping rocks that belonged in the Nile, not her mouth.

Her eyes, soft and gentle, with a fierceness about learning and all things scholarly.

He, of course, was not one for a Mudblood. Nor was he very keen on having a girl that might, in some way, be considered smarter than he was. But she had such flair, such a vibe, and such a powerful and painful strike of her hand that he couldn't help but think of her. Not in 'that way' of course, just thinking innocently.

She was probably off on some wild adventure with Potter the Saint and the red-haired Weasley wonder at that moment, fighting evil forces and all around having a good time while his mind rotted in Egypt. He could go rewrite his Ancient Wizarding Civilizations essay for a fourth time or uncover yet another pyramid, but he didn't want to. He wanted to be exploring the world!

But one thing stayed in his mind for awhile as he gazed longingly out. He had listened to some conversation, overhearing that she was going to visit her grandmother in some foreign city for the summer. Something about boots and vines and...

Venice.

That was it. The beautiful city of Venice Italy. She would be there having fun while he was stuck in the desert for the summer.

But a smile, very broad and Malfoy-ish, splayed across his lips as he dashed over to his trunk tucked in a corner of his room. He had never really promised to stay in Egypt. His parents had just assumed he wouldn't be going anywhere. And he had a nifty unprogrammed Portkey tucked into a pocket somewhere. He could tell it to go to Venice and...

It was time to give the Mudblood a visit. Shake things up a bit.

And besides that, all this exposure to the Egyptian sun couldn't be very good for his skin tones.

***