The Subtle Knife

Chapter 1: Into Thy Hands

The pale man turned in the direction of his son, who appeared to share the same aristocratically pointed features and cold grey eyes. "Hurry up, Draco," he drawled, glancing at his silver wristwatch, although perfectly aware of the time, "the Portkey is set to leave in eight minutes."

The boy, a younger, slightly softer version of his father, stalked up to the older man and rolled his eyes dramatically. As if he didn´t already know when the Portkey was set for! He hated when his father treated him as though he were an ignorant child. "Where´s Mother?" he asked, picking absently at a hangnail on his left hand, "I would like to say goodbye to her."

A group of struggling house-elves pushed a large dark lacquered trunk with the untarnished silver-embossed initials DLM into the drawing room that already contained two of the Malfoy family. It scraped along the midnight sky marble floor that etched out the midnight sky, complete with constellations of the winter sky over England, with an inconsistent grating.

"Mind what you´re doing!" a woman snapped from behind the elves, "You´re getting marks all over my floors, you stupid ugly fools!"

Draco smirked to himself. That would be Mother coming along.

The house-elves cowered behind an antique Louis XIV ottoman, heads hung in shame, as a scowling blonde woman swept into the room in fine lavender robes. "Go shut your ears in the stove!" she barked, her visage darkening, "I don´t want to look at any of you."

The disgraced house-elves fled in a flurry of bony bodies jumbling together.

Narcissa turned to her son and her features softened, lighting up as she held open her arms expectantly for a hug. Draco didn´t move from his stance, so his mother moved and pulled him tightly into her embrace, almost savagely. He squirmed uncomfortably.

"Mother," he said, perturbed and breathless from her squeeze, "I´m sixteen now."

She sighed. To her, he would always be her little boy; her only son. "I know," Narcissa smiled wistfully at the memory of the little child that was no more. "All grown up now..." she added softly to herself.

Lucius Malfoy flicked his eyes over the hands on his watch a second time, the tiny planets moving around it in orbit. "Five minutes." He looked over to his son, gray eyes scrutinizing, who was having his mother pin his silver prefect badge to his crisp tailored shirt. "Do you have everything you need?"

The boy nodded. "Of course," he drawled arrogantly, reminiscent of his father, "I´m not some stupid Longbottom who needs his gran to send him his underwear a week later," he mocked in a falsetto voice.

A cruel grin crept across the elder Malfoy´s face, as if in remembrance of the current whereabouts of the Longbottom boy´s parents- St. Mungo´s insanity ward, out of their minds, frothing at the mouth and belted into hard beds for the remainder of their existence.

Draco sometimes wondered if his father had been one of the Death Eaters to use the Cruciatus curse on them, but he had never voiced these suspicions. He smirked back regardless.

"That is why you are a prefect and he is not, Draco," his mother piped in, ostensibly happy as she polished off an invisible speck of dust from the `P´ badge with an heirloom Irish lace cloth that had been casually lying on an ivory side table.

Lucius scowled, opened his mouth to reply, but settled on sneering instead. "Wait here." He disappeared into a secret passageway behind a life-size painting of Augustus Malfoy III (deceased) which glowered back at Draco as he watched his father´s robes billowing behind him in his descent down the spiraling stairs to one of the many secret chambers in the manor.

"Watch yourself this year, boy." The painting glared slate eyes at him, and fingered the silver-furred ferret that was slung over his velvet-clad shoulder. "I sense that there are things to come."

Draco turned his back to the painting. Augustus Malfoy III was constantly spouting out nonsense- that so-and-so would die horribly in a freak potions accident, that his father would become deathly ill from eating an orange laced with monkshood, that his mother would fall under a fainting spell and perish slowly over the course of thirty-three and a-third months. This might have explained why he had been killed in a wizard´s duel at the age of forty-one. He was as reliable as Professor Trelawney.

Not that Draco actually took Divination, but he had overheard enough from the Weasel and Potter during the countless hours he had spent spying on them in his years at Hogwarts.

His father returned to the drawing room with a flourish, slamming the portrait door with a reverberant banging that nearly shook Augustus Malfoy III from his holdings. He glared at both Draco and his father with disdain.

Lucius had a small package in his hands wrapped in thin green tissue, bound in a silver cording. "Do not open this until you reach someplace private, Draco. Consider it motivation for Head Boy status next year," Lucius gave the gift to his son, who hastily pushed it into the largest compartment of his small leather carryon bag, "and Draco," his father raised a pale eyebrow, "make sure you don´t use it yourself. Pass it on to someone less," he paused for a moment, considering, "fortunate." He waved a finger in a slight zigzagging pattern.

Potter.

Draco smiled obediently, as was expected of him. "Yes, father."

Narcissa looked forlorn, pouting slightly with concentration, her brow wrinkling slightly. "Oh, I almost forgot-" she smiled at her son. "Nobby!" She shrieked into the direction of the kitchens, abandoning all poise. "Get Draco´s treats for him, now!"

One of the multitudes of house-elves `employed´ under the Malfoy family could be heard yelping in the background. A heavy metal door slammed before it ran out and apprehensively handed Narcissa the sharply creased brown parchment package.

Narcissa then brushed off the package absently and handed it to Draco, kissing him on the cheek as she did so. She ignored his blatantly obvious wince. He wiped off the fuchsia lip imprint with a sleeve.

"I cannot have you starving at school, dear." She winked at him, brushing aside a single strand of his hair that had fallen over his eye.

Ugh. How old did she think he was? Using epithets like that.

"Don´t eat them all on the train, love," she warned with a small smile. "And don´t bite your nails, either.

Draco chose to ignore the last comment.

But his Father didn´t. "God only knows what drabble they feed the students at that school, that he has to resort to biting off his nails-"

"Finger nails, Father," Draco corrected, his voice dripping slightly with sarcasm, "not my toes or any other nail."

"I would advise you not to patronize me, Draco," his father hissed, irritated, his hand raised slightly as if to strike his son. Instead Lucius just sneered, drumming his long fingers on a Tudor-style oak table. "That headmaster is so full of rubbish and sympathies with Mudbloods," he spat, "he´d likely feed them Muggle food. Utter trash, it is. Poison."

Draco felt a cheerful, "Yes, sir," would be appropriate.

His father shot him a glare. Watch your cheek, boy, or you will be reprimanded.

Narcissa frowned and turned back to her son instantly. "Have a good year at school, Draco," she said as she he wiped a moist tear from her left eye for show, "I shall see you at Christmas!" She perked herself up immediately with this and gave the silver badge a final polish.

Draco´s father smirked. "Try to do something worthy of the Malfoy name." For once. "Don´t let that foul Mudblood best you in any class. That is disgusting and you should be ashamed of your performance last year."

Draco opened his mouth to speak.

"And think of when you would like to get your Mark," his father said openly, smiling slightly.

Draco pursed his lips in frustration. His father was purposely cutting him off. Draco was never rude enough to do that to him.

His father carried on regardless. "That day should be special for you. Perhaps next July." It was an answer, not a question.

Narcissa frowned again, her nose wrinkling in distaste, but then realized the implications of the matter and her role. "I will throw you a party," she said brightly, "and you can invite all your friends, Draco." She clapped her hands together enthusiastically and beamed at her husband, who rolled his eyes. "We can invite the Goyles and the Crabbes and the Parkinsons, of course. Their daughter is so charming..."

"Two minutes. All ready?" Lucius asked his son, toeing the heavy chest over to touch the gaudy thirteenth century magenta Assyrian-Zoroastrian fusion rug with the copper fringe that lay slapdash and looking altogether out-of-place in the center of the polished floor.

Narcissa continued to count guests off on her fingers, "- and the Nott boy and his mother- pity what happened to his father. It must have been so difficult not to have one growing up. It would be a shame if anything had happened to your father," she sighed emphatically. "Oh! The DeMents...and the Weirs, I think their daughter is a couple years older than you are Draco...and the Stuarts...the Vaughns. Are you friends with the Perks´ girl?"

Draco was studying the ceiling frescoes depicting various tortures in Hell intently, including his favorite of Beelzebub with an artful branding iron. "No, Mother. She´s a Hufflepuff."

"Oh, pity that. I could imagine her parents were none too pleased about that. Well, what about the-"

Lucius cleared his throat loudly, none too pleased with his wife. "Are you quite done, Narcissa?" he snapped. "Draco has places to go as opposed to spending all day listening to your banter.

Narcissa stopped her chatter abruptly. "I suppose it´s time you are off, then?" she offered meekly.

Draco bent down to touch the rug, treat package securely wedged under his arm. He nodded curtly, "Yes, Mother." He had waited only a moment before the familiar jerk at his navel hit him and pulled him through the intricate magical network of the Portkey system. Draco could feel his trunk digging into his side uncomfortably and his mother´s voice echoing in the distance desperately.

"Do you have your Occulus potion? I don´t believe you can buy it in Hogsmeade. Your Caring About Magical Freaks book? Did your father tie it up for you, like you had asked? Last-" her voice faded.

Unlike the golden Boy-Who-Lived, the apple of the eye of the Wizarding world, Draco had been using Portkeys longer than he had been able to walk, or even hold a wand, for that matter, his father´s wand, granted, but nonetheless still a wand. He, especially since he was a much more graceful person, did not end up in a tangled heap on Platform nine and three-quarters. The Malfoy family- well, his father really- owned a personal Portkey to the train station from the comfort of Malfoy Manor. It had been in the family since Nero Malfoy had first used it in 1862 (having stolen it from a Gryffindor at Hogwarts the previous year). Draco could remember his distraught mother in his first year when she thought that Lucius had lost the Portkey and Draco would have had to actually walk through the Muggle train station to get to the platform.

It turned out that the house elves had taken the rug out of one of the storage rooms in the attic to beat the dust out of it, but ended up having to call an exterminator for an infestation of dust rabbits that had gnawed through Narcissa´s collection of priceless sixteenth century Portuguese lounge robes. The house-elves were thoroughly reprimanded for their foolishness soon thereafter.

Draco landed perfectly composed, on two feet, at the platform, with his trunk beside him neatly at the platform without a strand of platinum hair out of place. He smirked smugly to himself and began to walk down the platform that ran along adjacent to the galvanized scarlet train engine, pulling his trunk behind himself with the magical tow cord and wheels that popped out on his command.

Crabbe and Goyle were lurching, in direct contrast, overhead of Pansy Parkinson's short and (rather) scrawny frame halfway up the length of the train. Draco felt his mouth curl up in a sneer. It seemed that they had both grown taller (and wider) again over the summer. He was doomed to be interminably dwarfed by their Goliath frames. If only he could grow another inch, or three, even. Potter was likely taller than him by now. He nodded curtly to them, to at least acknowledge their existence, and they grunted an affirmative reply. He could also hear Pansy screeched out his name in glee as he continued to walk by, dodging an increasing number of smaller (and stupider) schoolmates.

He would have time for her later.

Oomph!

Draco collided straight into what he assumed was a sniveling first year.

No, they had walked into him.

Reddened eyes and a dripping nose looked up at him and the runt snuffled more, wiping its nose on a hanging sleeve. "Sorry-" it mumbled grumpily, "watch where you're going!"

Draco narrowed his eyes as it had disappeared into a crowd of students, trampling each other as they pushed onto the train.

"Too many bloody fucking first years," he grumbled, and then shot back "Respect your elders!" His Malfoyness alone was not keeping them fearful and in line.

Filthy Mudbloods, the lot of them.

He puffed out his chest, but doubted they had the intelligence to recognize a prefect when they saw one. Draco's silver badge glinted and his chin was held pompously high. "Out of the way!" he said loudly. "Prefect going through." He sneered with relish.

Well, if it wasn't his obvious attempts to display his authority that dispersed another large clump of credulous first years, it must have been his sneer.

I can sneer well. Learned from the best.

Draco climbed about the first train carriage at the forward end of the engine, reserved specifically for prefects, and hauled his trunk aboard using a weightlessness charm.

"Mmm...Draco..." A sensuous, low voice stepped into view as he boarded. Blaise Zabini. The infamous (albeit exclusive) slut of Slytherin.

Draco licked his lips unconsciously. They were chapped.

She ran a pink tongue over full coral lips and a hand through glossy blue-black hair. Her eyes trailed along his body slowly, up, then down as she customarily did every time they seemed to meet.

"I've saved us a compartment." She grinned, flashing him a blinding white smile.

He cocked an eyebrow up. "Oh?"

The grin (which was very much like a smirk) widened and he snorted in approval, trying not to appear too pleased. Draco followed the girl into an empty compartment, decorated tastefully to Slytherin standards- black leather, that squashed down stiffly when one sat. Blaise sat down close beside Draco, her skirt riding seductively up well past her mid-thigh as she did so.

The train engine was heard to be whistling furiously in the background and the scramble of feet outside in the corridor increased its fervor. The train jerked and Blaise was shifted a little closer to Draco, who found his eyes naturally drawn to the skirt riding up even further, past the top of her pantyhose and her garter.

Blaise smiled and closed here eyes, short, blue-tinted eyelashes fluttering. She trailed an absent forefinger along his inside thigh and Draco tried not to shudder visibly. "I haven't seen you since, what- early July?" She traced a feathering circle with her fingertips.

Draco nodded slowly. Very carefully.

Focus.

Focus.

Blaise doesn't go for... He felt his breathing grow ever so slightly faster and rougher.

"We should..." she paused for a moment, searching for a word. Electric blue eyes met gold-flecked grey, "...catch up? When we get back to school, of course." She leaned into his body, her hot breath causing the fine hairs to rise. "Don't you think so, Draco?" she murmured, her hand crawling slowly up his thigh.

"I thought you only went for older men?" Draco choked before trying his voice again, "much older men?"

Blaise cocked her head closer to him, and pushed her lower lip out seductively. "But now they've all graduated. And no one in seventh year is particularly good looking this year."

Draco smirked at the indirect complement. "True."

"I have to set my standards a little lower." Blaise explained, as she toyed with a strand of Draco's hair.

This in itself bothered him. No one, not even Pansy, was allowed to touch his hair. (Except for his mother.)

Draco pushed her away roughly. "A Malfoy is substandard to no one," he hissed.

Just then, the door swung open and hit the wall of the far side of the compartment. "Here's one, Gin!" some squeaky boy called out into the train corridor before stepping inside the compartment and taking a seat across from Draco. He, too, had a prefect's badge buttoned to his shirt, lopsided, however, in addition to a Muggle camera hanging from his neck. He had rather dull brown hair and a rat-like appearance to him. Well, maybe more mouse-like, especially because he was short and runt-sized.

Draco's hand immediately curled around the teak wand in his pocket. It was tempting to give the boy a pair of mouse whiskers to match. They would look better than the almost-visible peach fuzz that covered much of his face.

But...

Something held him back, strangely, though Draco wanted to very much. Especially to wipe the silly smile from the boy's face. The kid was positively glowing, clearly happy to be returning to school and as a prefect no less. Ah, Draco could sympathize with that. The power a prefect wielded...he'd been able to give Weasley twice the number of detentions last year...it was a drug in itself...

As quickly as the first intruder came in and sat down, a second did as well, in a blur of ginger and freckles. "There you are, Colin! I thought you were in the last compartment," she said happily as she sat down at his side.

Draco groaned as he recognized the other person. "What the hell are you doing here, Weasley girl?" he snarled at her. "This train car is reserved specifically for prefects." He tapped his silver badge.

She glared back at him, brown eyes blazing and cheeks flushing scarlet. "If you hadn't realized, lack-brain, I am a prefect." She pulled out a silver badge from her baggy pant pocket (a hand-me-down from an older brother, Draco assumed) and pinned it to her chest, upside-down. "So. There."

His scowl grew and he glared back at her. Sodding bitch. Neither backed down (Draco´s eyes were drier than deserts), and the contest lasted a long moment.

"I'm leaving, then." Blaise stood up, pouting and pulling her skirt back down. "I don't share compartments with Muggle-lovers or disgusting Weasleys," she spat, turning to Draco who was still glaring. "I'd rather sit with Millicent."

Draco snapped away from the contest. No! He pleaded silently, unwilling to actually beg Blaise to stay. Don't leave me here with them! But instead he said sullenly, "Fine. I'll make them miserable all by myself."

Blaise stomped out, black hair fluttering behind her, and hips swiveling effortlessly from side-to-side.

"What the fuck did you have to sit here for?" the Slytherin cursed at the two Gryffindors. God, he did not want to spend all afternoon on the train anywhere near them, though the new opportunity to torment them held its ideals aloft. He was not in the mood to tease the younger prefects, he wanted to bother Potter, plus, Blaise had left him in what could have progressed into a perfectly good snog session, provided Pansy did not become aware of it. "Where's Potter anyway, shouldn't you be sitting with him?"

"He and Hermione were sitting with Ron," the Weasley girl glowered. "This compartment still had room, Malfoy."

The `Colin´ kid continued to have the silly grin plastered all over his rodent face. "Would it trouble you at all to ask for a...a-," he asked Draco timidly, holding up his camera, "Harry says you-"

"Fuck you," was his reply to the Weasley girl, and he turned to the rat-faced boy, "Ask me for a picture and I'll make sure to notify a really close acquaintance of my father's, Mudblood. He could make life very interesting for you."

The boy's face fell, but the girl was incensed, the carrot-coloured hair above her ears curling in anger. "Don't you dare threaten my friend ever with your Death Eater shit, Malfoy! He's a better wizard than you'll ever be," she said carefully through clenched teeth.

"Hardly," Draco smirked, "besides, I didn´t mention You-Know-Who at all. Look who´s jumping to conclusions. Not I." He was undaunted by the short and fiery redhead who wore clothes much too large for her. Her trousers were bunched up around her ankles and her sleeves hung halfway over her clenched hand. "Are you going to send one of your brothers after me? God knows you've got enough to spare. I'm so scared." His smirk spread.

The Weasley girl dived across the compartment at Draco, but the mouse-boy grabbed her shirt and pulled her back. "Just leave it Gin," he squeaked, "he's only trying to work you up."

"That's right, he's not worth it." Harry Potter stood in the doorway, hands on his hips.

Lording over everyone with his infinite and universal wisdom and Gryffindor goodness.

"Well, if it isn´t my most favorite person," Draco said softly, but no one appeared to be listening. He scowled at this.

"Harry!" The girl launched herself at Potter for an overdue hug. The Rat snapped pictures frantically of the Boy-Who-Lived, who looked generally uncomfortable with the attention.

Draco noted that Potter returned the Weasley girl's hug tiredly. He smirked to himself with this knowledge. The Weasley girl clearly did not notice; she was latched on to Potter like a leech. Unrequited love much? The girl was yet another of Potter's pathetic groupies that trailed behind him like obedient puppies and mooned over his frequent Daily Prophet exposés.

Potter must have seen his smirk because he frowned in Draco's general direction, hair messed up and looking downright shabby in his equally oversized Muggle clothes, trousers rolled up at the hem (we he and the Weasley girl trying to look like twins?) and his faded lumberjack shirt hanging to his knees, even though it was tucked in. "What are you smirking at, Malfoy?" Potter sounded annoyed, "I can't believe you were voted to be a prefect," he mumbled under his breath.

"Yeah," the Weasley girl butted in, having heard Potter's comment, "I'd reckon that your father bought you in."

Draco's eyebrows rose. "At least my father has the means to do that. Though..." he paused for a moment, "...I understand that Potter does too. Why he dresses in those rags and consorts with trash like you is beyond me."

"Shut your mouth, Malfoy." Potter's hand curled around his wand that was sticking out of his breast pocket.

But Draco just sat, a small smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. The girl was standing next to Potter protectively.

Protectively. And...

He sighed dramatically with a tragic pose. "Alas, Potter, you have bested me! You don't need to buy mindless fangirls like I do, they flock to your radiance like moths."

The shade of red that the Weasley girl turned was the best possible thing that could have happened that day. Before Potter could make some stunted and eloquent reply, Draco waltzed out of the compartment to go find the trolley witch who sold the Chocolate Frogs he decided that he craved.

"Your whole head matches your hair now, Weasley," he shot back loudly as he moved down the corridor. "Really becoming," he laughed coldly to himself. Tormenting any Weasley, especially one that had such a lasting and unreciprocated love for Harry Potter made his heart considerably lighter, after the conversation earlier with his father which had him less than thrilled.

Draco returned to the compartment some four Chocolate Frogs (and an unnoticed chocolate smear on his shoulder) later. The two Gryffindolts were still there, engaged in a heated debate about something called `ekeltricity´. Draco sat down-

Next to Potter.

Potter?

"What are you doing here still?" he drawled. "Miss me that much?" He winked coyly.

Potter glared. "No."

Draco waited for an explanation, but Potter just sat there, hands folded in his lap, staring into nothingness out the window.

"Well?" Draco prompted.

A pink flush burned across Potter's face. "I didn't want to interrupt Ron and Hermione..." he admitted finally, staring intently at his hands, fiddling with his skinny fingers.

Ron and Hermione...Ron and Hermione...

Oh.

Oh.

This was new. Draco grinned vindictively. "So the Weasel's found himself a girlfriend," he said slowly, delighting in Potter´s unmistakable squirming. "Jealous?"

Potter's pink tinge deepened to a scarlet. "You wish...shut up, Malfoy!"

Draco's eyes narrowed into vicious slits. "The Head Girl not giving you anything, huh?" He shook his head. "Poor Potter. The Boy-Who-Lived degraded to the Boy-Who-Can't-Get-Any..." he chuckled to himself.

"No, I...Cho's not..." Potter was flustered. Good. "Oh, shut up, Malfoy."

Draco ignored this and pried open the latch to the window, stretching over Potter's head to do so. Potter squashed his head down, grumbling. The air passing the train whipped in forcefully and fluttered the green paisley curtains.

Draco sighed contentedly as the wind whipped through his hair, which he had thankfully charmed this morning so that it would not be too out of place. Appearances are everything, after all.

Potter, on the other hand...

Potter, forgetting Draco´s most recent comments, was furiously trying to hold down his raven locks that floated around mindlessly around his head and face. He was losing the battle against the wind and nature, and his hair was even more ruffled that usual, sticking up in every direction possible and more.

"Close the window, Malfoy," he grumbled, suddenly losing patience. "It's too windy."

Draco shrugged. "Messing up your hair?" he asked innocently.

Potter glared.

"I only need it open for a minute." He pulled out four crumpled Chocolate Frog collectable cards from his pocket: Aristotle, Avicenna, Marie Laveau and Dumbledore.

Useless.

Draco had had the entire collection since he was seven when his father had purchased the entire stock of Frogs in the Diagon Alley sweet shop, but he was looking for multiples of Harry Potter in order to make a dartboard for his dorm room.

The mouse-boy perked up, having seen the sheen of the cards reflecting off the leather of the seating. "Hey!" He perked up shyly. "What are you doing?"

"Tossing them out the window," Draco said nonplussed.

"Can I...can I h-have those?" His beady brown eyes were wide with intimidation and resigned fear, though faint hope held fast. Draco shot the boy a glance and the other boy inched further back into his seat.

He snorted, tossing the dog-eared cards up into the started Gryffindor´s face. "Here, then. I´ve got all 1613 anyway." He lunged overtop of Potter´s head and violently slammed the window closed.

Mouse-boy was checking out the cards intimately, along with the Weasley girl hovering over his shoulder, their eyes both roving over the words multiple times and tipping the pictures around in the light. "Oh, cool, Gin," the Rat smiled his ridiculous smile, "Marie Laveau- `some consider her a witch who consorted with Satan, a thief and a procuress...´"

The Weasley girl smiled painfully. Obviously, she had heard the excerpt multiple times before.

"I don´t have this one. Oh, Dennis will be so excited. We´ve tried for months to get Aristotle too. Spent all of our Christmas money from Grandmum on the Frogs and only came up with three Morganas, fifteen Merlins, four Eliphas Levis, one Rasputin and two Joan of Arcs," the mouse-boy gushed. "C´mon Gin, we have to go show Dennis!" He dragged the girl out to look for this Dennis.

Draco rolled his eyes. "Dear God," he muttered, low enough so Potter couldn´t hear him well. "Save me from that pathetic Mudblood."

Potter must have heard him. He coughed suddenly, clearing his throat from a strangled laugh. Draco looked at him and narrowed his eyes skeptically.

Potter opened his mouth to say something, then stopped and resumed staring at his hands (were they honestly that interesting?), toying with a loose red thread that hung from a fraying cuff. "They´re always like that."

"Who? Mudbloods?"

"Ginny. Colin. People like that..."

Ah, Muggleborns and Muggle-lovers. Or possibly Potter´s adoring fans.

Draco was intrigued. "Potter, the Champion of all the Mudbloods and Muggle-lovers complaining about them? Are you ill?" he teased lightly as he leaned over to put a hand to Potter´s forehead motherly.

The Gryffindor recoiled from Draco´s almost touch, and put his own hand over his brow to protect his beloved scar. He frowned, clearly regretting his statement. "Sometimes it can just be...annoying, you know? People who act like that." He looked out the window as the train passed rolling green hills dotted with trees and farmhouses.

Draco´s eyebrows rose and he smirked to himself. They lapsed into silence quickly, having nothing more to say civilly to each other, and the Rat and Weasel Junior did not return.

Draco´s eyes began to linger over the present his father had handed to him, though meant for someone who sported a distinct lightning-shaped scar. He fingered the silver cording gingerly, wary of what potentially lay inside and the faintly green packaging was silken and slippery.

Perfect Slytherin colours, he thought and noticed that the tie in the center of the oblong package curled over and through itself into a knotted coil of a snake.

"Oh, what the hell," he muttered and snapped the cording apart with a sharp tug. He ripped the paper off and found only filmy indigo silk wrapped around a solid object. Draco tugged at the edge and unrolled the object, which fell to the floor with a clunk. A small, folded piece of parchment fluttered down beside it.

Draco picked up the object, a dagger or a small sword, and studied it. The hilt consisted of intricately knotted silver roping, small liquid purple amethysts and many more glittering, multifaceted nearly-black sapphires tied and weaved into the knot work. He turned it over to examine the other side, which was identical to the front, only...He eyed it carefully, squinting. There was an imperceptible gap in the weave, near the center of the hilt within a small floret of midnight gemstones. There was a missing stone. Draco squinted a second time, to make sure.

The image blurred, then refocused again.

Shit. He hadn´t remembered to take his bi-monthly Occulus potion that morning.

"Blind?" Potter sounded amused.

Draco´s head shot up. "Shut up!" he answered too quickly, "Am not!" he sneered. Potter was on to something; Draco could see the tell-tale glimmer in his eyes.

Potter was the one to smirk this time, doing a pretty good imitation of a Malfoy smirk, his lips curling. "Hmph...you squint like I did...before I got glasses."

"Don´t you ever compare me to yourself, Potter." He fished in a hidden pocket in the carry bag and found the small amber vial. He dropped a little into each eye, blinking furiously at the momentary stinging. "And don´t you ever speak of this to anyone."

Potter pushed up his own glasses further on the bridge of his nose with his thumb. "Embarrassed?"

"No," he said simply. "Malfoys have perfect vision. He blinked a couple of times emphatically, letting his pupils adjust, before resuming his inspection of the present. He pulled off the knot work sheath to reveal an untarnished and shining blade. Draco ran his thumb over the blade lightly, not wanting to cut himself.

Which he did.

Ow!

It slipped, because Potter had been watching him. A scarlet splash stained the carpet. "Still sharp," he murmured.

The blade had a double edge, like a Malfoy. There was an inscription carved through the blade in rectangular curls.

Mi amor semper.

Draco read it aloud idly for Potter´s wholesome Gryffindor curiosity. "Whatever."

"It means `My love, always, or forever.´ I think," Potter said casually, "it would be Latin."

"And I wouldn´t know that already?" Draco ignored Potter´s glare and opened the accompanying note:

Draco,

This is the Dagger of the Asteria, or so I was told, though I imagine this means little to you. I had wished to give it to you at your `Initiation´, but your mother held fast that you should have it as a back-to-school present, though I doubt she is aware of its true purpose, that which we discussed earlier.

Consider yourself in her good graces.

The dagger dates back to the mid-eighteenth century and staunchly British in design. Mr. Borgin assured me that it contains very powerful magic woven into it, but I leave this information to your own discretion to determine exactly what, if you wish. Do not establish a long relationship with this dagger, as it is unhealthy.

And lastly, do not disappoint me with a less-than-top performance this year.

As for the dagger, make sure he gives it a try.

Your Father

Draco frowned. Make sure he gives it a try? Potter gets a present from my father? Am I not worthy enough myself?

Sod the unhealthy part. It contains some powerful magic and, black or white, I want to know first!

Potter could wait for his turn; he wanted to know for himself at least what the dagger was capable of before giving it away so readily. He smiled to himself, wrapping the dagger in its silk and crumpling the wrapping around it again before shoving it into another hidden pocket in his trousers, close to his skin. Wizarding clothes were made for unknown pockets and concealments.

Draco noticed out of the corner of his eye that the Gryffindor was still watching him. "Jealous?" He smirked again.

Potter frowned. "Of what?"

"Everything about me. Everything in my life."

"You wish," Potter snorted, "I´m quite happy." He looked smugly (well, as much as he could, being a selfless Gryffindor) at Draco, then turned to the window. He must have remembered something because his eyes suddenly darkened and his face fell slightly. His gaze turned attentively to the paisley in the curtains.

Voldemort.

Draco watched him. He had never seen Potter look quite like this before. Defeated almost. As though he knew ahead of time just how doomed he really was. Draco´s brow furrowed and he stated slowly, "I didn´t know you gave up so easily fighting evil."

"Well, she- what?" Potter was startled, eyes blazing a bright green.

Oh.

He was thinking about Cho Chang. Obviously teenage hormones were more important on Harry Potter´s agenda than saving the world from an evil (and brilliant, or so Draco´s father had insinuated on multiple occasions) wizard.

"Well," Draco tried not to look too embarrassed for his misunderstanding, "she´s never going to notice you beyond the Boy-Who-Lived."

"Who?" Potter looked up from his daze.

Draco rolled his eyes. "Cho. Chang." The boy was oblivious. It was no wonder the newest Head Girl didn´t give him much thought. "She´s a waste of your energy. Better spend it on that Jenny-"

"Ginny."

"Janey. Whatever. At least she appreciates you."

"The only thing we have in common is Ron."

He shrugged. "It´s a start."

Potter´s mouth crumpled, his glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose again. "Why are you being nice to me?"

"I´m not always an arsehole," Draco stated flatly.

"But you are most of the time."

Draco flashed a grin. "Of course."

"Well," said Potter as he picked at the hem of his shirt, "be an arsehole again. You´re annoying me."

"My pleasure."

"Toss off, Malfoy."

"Language, Potter." Draco made an aghast face. "And I was about to until you Gryffindorks barged in on my private snogging session with Blaise."

"That must have been Ginny and Colin, not me. Besides," Potter added, "she´s a whore. She´ll reject you anyways."

Draco nodded. "Yes, but she is very professional in her ways, unlike Pansy."

Potter choked in disgust. "You sleep with her? That´s gross."

"At least I get some action," he drawled condescendingly. "Unfortunately..." Draco gave a dramatic sigh, "I cannot same the same for you, dear Harry Potter, the Virgin-Who-Lived."

Potter´s jaw dropped and his face was blossoming into a fetching shade of pink. "I-"

"Harry? Harry Potter? What about him?" The figure of the skinny boy with the pointed rodent features, along with the Weasley girl barreled through the door before closing it behind them.

Potter ignored Draco and grinned at the two younger students, obviously pleased at their return. This irked the Slytherin to no end. No one ignored a Malfoy, especially after slighting Potter just as he had.

"Dennis was so impressed, Harry," the Rat laughed, his voice cracking in pitch back and forth like a pendulum, "Gin was just talking about Egypt. Did you know she went to Egypt again, Harry? I´ll bet it was really hot. I´d like to go there, but my dad says that I have to wait until I graduate and then..."

Did Potter just roll his eyes?

The Weasley girl was talking at the same time, "Yeah. Bill took Hermione to the Muggle museum in Cairo and they were there for hours and hours. I didn´t want to go, so I went..."

Draco felt something inside explode and he burst out in a fit of laughter. "Wait," he choked, barely able to make out words between the laughing, "you´re telling me that you-" he pointed at the girl with a slim index finger, "went to Egypt this summer? How many months did you have to sell yourself to pay for it, Weasley?" He laughed coldly. "Rather, how many years? I mean, who would want a cheap fuck from you?"

Despite her blazing red face, white-fisted hands and clenched teeth, the girl did not reply to his comments. That would only egg him on and feed his über-ego more and Draco knew it. She turned to continue her conversation with Potter and the Rat, speaking in deliberately forced calm tones, "I went to the..."

Draco scowled to himself. Fine. She was going to ignore his remarks this time.

Fine.

I´m better than her anyway. I don´t need to go to Egypt over the summer to get my kicks for the hols.

No, instead Draco went to France with his family to visit relations of his mother´s. They had magnificent dinner parties when they got home to Malfoy Manor that his mother loved to host, his father regularly conducting his `business´ afterward, and Pansy visited frequently, with ulterior motives, of course. He smirked, recalling their last rendezvous a couple weeks previously. A hand ran along his collar bone, which still bore the faint marks from her teeth.

Pansy made sure she always left a mark. Draco usually didn´t appreciate it, but now he did.

The remainder of the train ride passed in a relative oblivion of monotony, Draco ignoring the childish chatter of the two youngest occupants of the compartment and periodically scowling at them, Potter staring off into space. Draco wished desperately that Blaise had not left him there alone, especially since she had rejected his advances several times in their fifth year and he wasn´t sure when, or if, she would ever again consider sleeping with him. However, he really didn´t feel like seeing Crabbe and Goyle, or even Pansy yet (He´d save her for that night), especially since they had an innate homing signal on his treats from home that he wasn´t willing to share.

Well, they were his.

He munched on the expensive little chocolate cakes from Belgium and the Cornish Custard Tarts and caught a bit of light reading with "Seventeenth Century German Hexes: Nasty in a New Light" in the hopes that he could find a new and dynamic and, most importantly, untraceable hex to try on Potter (or the Weasel) in the coming months.

When the train neared the familiar dense pine and oak forests and rugged hills in the Hogwarts region, the Mouse-boy and Girl Weasley, as well as Potter, left briefly to change into their school-clothes in the washrooms, and Draco did the same. He was the first to return and sat with a smug look on his face, thinking of the top mark he deserved to get on his summer Potions project: Describe all seventeen procedures to preparing the Yellow-veined Mountain Grounsel root for a medium-strength Pulegium Nigrum potion and the manifestations of each. He knew the details of each of the seventeen by heart, with a little help from his father´s private library and a Cogito-Id-Omnia charm.

He heard a frantic shuffling in the compartment and glanced up from wincing at his recently chewed and extremely painful fingernails. Potter was back, dressed in his school slacks and plaid shirt still, half-hunching over his lumpy carpet bag. He was rummaging quickly through his sagging bag and he heard muffled curses from Potter, his arms clutching protectively at the corner of a sad lump of a white school shirt beside him, which was emitting a very ripe-

"Ew!" Draco wrinkled his nose, "Did you vomit on yourself, Potter?"

Potter glared at him. "No. A first year did." He resumed his cursing and frantic searching. "Where is it?" he mumbled, his voice catching. "Where is it? I swear I-"

Draco couldn´t stand this. Potter was a Gryffindor, for fuck´s sake. "What is wrong with you now, Potter?" he drawled.

"Nothing," the other boy replied quickly.

Too quickly.

"Missing something are we?" he teased. "Or have your frequent stays with the Weasleys made you forgotten you have possessions at all?

Potter shot him a momentary loathing glance, but his mouth was set in a firm line and his forehead wrinkled, distorting his famous scar. Was he worried?... Something tugged at Draco´s insides and he sighed, crouching down beside him. "Let me help."

Potter shook his head miserably, but did nothing to stop him.

"What are you looking for?" Draco asked, no tone of sarcasm or annoyance in his voice, just curiosity; perhaps sympathy if he were capable of feeling it.

"I- I thought I had another white shirt with me, besides the ones in my trunk. I know I packed one. I swear I did. And my school sweater is in my trunk, and I know that I can´t wear this shirt off the train and I really need it and I don´t have another here and damn! and I-" he gushed eloquently.

Draco´s eyes narrowed and his mouth pursed. "I have another." He turned to get a shirt from his own carry bag.

"No," Potter looked at him wide-eyed, a deer caught in the lights of a horseless carriage.

"But your own is covered in vomit." He pulled the stiffly pressed shirt out and shoved it in front of Potter. "It´s not covered in poison, or hexes, if that´s what you think."

Potter turned a little pink. "No. Malfoy, it would be...weird. You´re my rival. You like to humiliate me."

Draco cocked an eyebrow up. "Yes, but I don´t want you to wander around looking as bad as Weasley does. It might damage my own reputation. Even my own enemies should have certain standards."

Potter eyed him carefully, finally accepting the shirt warily checking it over twice. "Alright then. I´ll return it-"

"Never."

Potter stared hopelessly, his eyes wide under his thick glasses. "What?"

"Burn it. It´ll have your germs. Besides, I have a trunk full of them."

Potter sighed, pulling his shirt out from the waistband of his trousers. "Turn around then."

Draco sneered. "Like I´d stare." He half-turned for Potter´s benefit.

If Potter were ever escorted to his own public hanging, he would have worn the same expression he wore on his face now as he pulled the oversized shirt over his head and stood with his naked torso in front of Draco Malfoy.

Draco couldn´t help his (morbid) curiosity and shifted his eyes in Potter´s direction. He had never actually seen the Boy-Who-Lived shirtless, as each house team had their own private changing rooms for Quidditch and he had been always curious as to just exactly what Potter´s uniforms hid from prying eyes. His jaw dropped to the floor alongside the shirt Potter wore and even he would admit to staring that day.

Harry Potter had the most perfect chest he had ever seen. Of male or female, and he had seen a number of very nice female French ones.

Finely muscled and defined, skin stretched out thinly over his ribs. Golden skin that had seen the sun often over the summer. Darkened nipples that hardened with-

"Stop watching me."

Draco snorted, and half-turned again, willing Potter not to turn around fully.

Which he didn´t.

One small victory!

Draco was suddenly overcome with the desire to unbutton the shirt Potter was buttoning up and touch his chest, wondering if Potter would shiver at the touch, wondering if Potter would let him-

But, he was a Malfoy and he had self-control.

Plus, touching Potter would just be gross.

Potter sighed, having finished putting the shirt on. Draco had never more envied a piece of his clothing. It fit Potter well; they were the same size.

Figures.

Come to mention it.

He had an arse to match. Not feminine at all, not small and hard like Pansy´s or prone to unnecessary swishing like Blaise´s. It was...Potterish. Slim. Trim. Toned.

Very nice.

Draco could almost feel his hands running over its smooth lines and wondered how or if he would moan if it was Draco squeezing it and kneading it under his fingertips...

Wrong.

Thinking things like that about Potter is so wrong.

He blinked and resumed his aloofness. "I don´t think you need your sweater anyway," he muttered, forcing himself to look away, before realizing he needed an excuse. "It´s...uh too warm out. Besides, no one will know what is or isn´t under your robe."

Wouldn´t you like to know?

Draco ignored the voice in his head. This was exactly Potter´s problem, though. No wonder Cho Chang never noticed him- he hid under either his baggy Muggle hand-me-downs or the formless school sacks passed off as robes and boring school sweater-vests. No body that good (though Pansy may have argued that Potter needed to gain a few pounds) deserved to be hidden from the eyes of other students.

As he was stepping off the train a short while later Draco didn´t realize that he himself was sweating profusely under the heat of his own sweater which he, incidentally, had forgot to consider removing.