An Ideal Death-Eater

Pansy had followed him the week before while they all searched for that over-grown oaf, Hagrid. She watched his bright red head bob around under bushes and up in trees, calling out to his sinfully delicious brother late into the night. It ought to be a crime for a Weasley to look that good. He was so . . . interesting with that earring dangling against his throat like that.

She shook her head and went back to her potion. Pansy was surprised that the younger Weasley spoke to Potter and Granger at all, but then again, he was in Gryffindor and they were a notoriously thick bunch. For that matter, so were all the Weasleys. Pansy sighed and twirled her hair, regretfully admitting that her statement included the good-looking one with the fang earring.

Her eyes travelled slowly over to Ron's bowed head and smirked. They were in Potions now and the idiot was roughly chopping up hemlock with one hand while at the same time throwing fistfuls of dried mandrake root into his cauldron. What a sorry excuse for a wizard. This was the boy who killed the Dark Lord? He must have backfired a hex or something because Ronald Weasley certainly wasn't on par with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Pansy laughed before ducking her head and glancing at Ron from the corner of her eye. He couldn't even make a Flying Ointment correctly! Ron wasn't far away, and when he caught her looking at him, she could see every freckle on his face clearly.

"Problem, Parkinson?" Ron whispered cheekily, his eyes flicking toward the wand on her desk and then back to her face.

Pansy smiled at him brilliantly, showing all her teeth. He was scared of her, no doubt about it.

"Yes," she answered in a treacle-like drizzle of words. "I have a problem with you, of course. I don't know how Professor Snape expects me to concentrate on my potion when I have to be in the same room as an ugly sot like you."

Ron rolled his eyes and leaned closer to her, even though there were no less than two tables between them. "Is that the best you can do? I think you're slipping. Then again, if I had to look at that mug first thing every morning, my game would be off, too."

Pansy narrowed her eyes and glanced up quickly at Snape. He was making a pointed effort to ignore the class while he marked sixth-year exams. "You think you look better than me, Weasley? That's a laugh."

"For Merlin's sake, either move over there or shut it, Ron," Dean Thomas grumbled, poking the other boy in the ribs. Ron scowled at him for a moment before turning back to his cauldron.

No matter, she would catch him after class. Pansy looked at Snape again; only he was glaring at her this time. He was already vexed with her, no point in making him even more upset than he already was. She flinched and went back to making her ointment, mashing the berries of deadly nightshade carefully with her mortar and pestle before adding it to her cauldron. The potion was a sort of dull grey colour when she was finished.

"Enough time has passed. Your Flying Ointments should be a blue colour similar to this." Snape held up a colour wheel for the class to see and tapped the appropriate colour with his wand. "Thick and viscous in consistency."

The arsing potion wasn't even close to the brilliant blue that it was supposed to be! She thought back through the ingredients and realised that she hadn't added the Billywigs yet. A glance at Millicent's area beside her showed that there were only two of the pesky insects left, still trapped and buzzing madly inside of the jar.

Most would have squished them with their pestle first, but Pansy took pleasure in tossing them into her bubbling potion alive. She could easily imagine that they were actually a certain ginger-haired Gryffindor. There! Now it looked about right. With any luck, Snape would be done with them soon and then--

Pansy's head snapped up when she heard a chorus of giggles around her. What was so bloody amusing? She couldn't see anything out of the ordinary except that they all seemed to be pointing at her. Even Millicent was tittering in what she probably thought was a feminine fashion. A quick glance down revealed nothing unusual. What was wrong?

"Is there a problem, Millicent?" she ground out at her bushy-haired classmate.

The girl snorted indelicately before she grabbed a hank of Pansy's curly hair and roughly plucked a sticky web of goo from it. The class snickered again before Snape growled out a warning about detentions and they all went back to their work. But before he did, Pansy scanned the room. She reasoned that Blaise was too subtle for that type of childish trick, as were most of the other Slytherins. Pansy found the one Gryffindor who wasn't laughing behind their hand at her and narrowed her eyes. The fool didn't even realise how conspicuous he looked by trying to play innocent. Oh, he was really going to pay.

Right now.

Pansy snatched up her wand and stomped over to Ron's desk. He glanced at her mildly, the barest of smiles playing over his stupid freckled lips.

"Yeah?" he asked, lifting his eyebrows at her.

Before anyone could stop her, she pointed her wand in his face and fairly screamed: "Poxis!"

There was a loud squack and her wand melted from her hands and turned into a rubber chicken. Or maybe it was a duck. Pansy stared at the remains of her wand and she could feel a muscle on her cheek start to flex and twitch involuntarily. She gritted her teeth together and was about to pull out the small knife she kept on her person, regardless of the consequences, but Snape had risen from his desk while this happened and was directly beside her.

Snape looked at the rubber fowl, then at Ron, before he favoured Pansy with a piercing eye. He lifted an ebony brow and the class held it's collective breath, cringing as they anticipated the scathing words that were about to be uttered by the greasy Potions professor.

"Well, that was unexpected."

*~*~*~*~*~*

Like Snape had said, it was unexpected.

Well, at least when Pansy had smacked him in the head with the rubber chicken that had previously masqueraded as her wand. Ron had been heartily anticipating the rest. Too bad she couldn't have cursed herself instead of beating him up with a toy.

Grudgingly, Ron had given Pansy her real wand back and he was currently looking forward to three fun-filled days of detention to accompany the fifty house points that had been taken away from Gryffindor. No one minded too terribly though, after all, it was an amusing way to end a hideous double Potions class.

At least it was Friday now, so there would be no more Snape until Tuesday morning. Hopefully. Knowing Ron's luck, he'd step on the man's foot sometime over the weekend and earn another three days of detention for himself.

Ron saw Hermione rushing up ahead of him, free of Harry for once, and he had the sudden urge to talk to her. All right, the urge wasn't sudden. He had wanted to talk to her alone since the whole mess started. His one attempt back at the Burrow had ended in disaster. He still smacked himself every day for laughing when her speech slipped. Well, it had been rather amusing at the time. She was on her high horse, launching into one of her endless moral tirades when there it was. Anyone would have laughed, wouldn't they? At least a chuckle? Upon reflection though, Ron realised that with that one action, he had cut himself off from her more thoroughly than even the lies he had told her about Harry.

He winced when he thought of calling them lies. But he had to admit it to himself: they were lies. They were barely even half-truths. Well, all right, so Harry was quickly becoming a drunk at the time, and he did shag that one bird at the Quivering Rooster one night, if Ron remembered properly. But Harry wasn't going into Hogsmeade every weekend to get his jollies like he'd told Hermione.

The thought of jollies led him abruptly back to where he didn't want to go: Ginny. She was wrong when she had accused him of not caring during their argument about Malfoy. It was just the opposite. Ron did care, very much. Unfortunately, when he was honest with himself, he realised that it was a very thin line he walked between pride and love.

Harry had always shaken his head at the Weasley dramatics, as he often called it. So was this whole thing with Malfoy going on because Ginny wanted attention or because she really did care for the prat? Malfoy seemed able to match the Weasley family as far as dramatics went, so if she was looking for excitement, she had probably found it.

Ron still hadn't had the chance to pull Malfoy aside since the discovery and pound his brains into mush. And today he had been curiously absent from classes. Perhaps someone else had already beaten him to the job and cracked Malfoy in his bleedin' skull, good and proper like the arse deserved.

He was interrupted from his violent musings by two feminine giggles. Ron turned just in time to see a blonde and brunette blur push him through an open doorway and into a musty, disused classroom somewhere near the library.

"Oooh, Eloise, we've finally caught him!" a voice whispered somewhere near his ear. Ron groaned. This was not happening. Again. He had to get to Hermione before she disappeared into the library and fell into one of her damn boring books.

"Um, girls. I really have to be somewhere about now so if you'd just---"

"Don't you want to play with us, Ronny?" another voice cooed. "We'll make it worth your time."

"Honest engine." The first girl agreed and she began to strip off his robes.

Oh God, this wasn't going to be easy, was it? He had to think of something decidedly not attractive and warm and . . . nice smelling. Um, Snape: in a dress, with a feather boa. Oh, their hair felt like feathers against his thigh. No! That was very bad. Um, umm. . .

"Girls, please. Can't we do this some other time? I really need to be somewhere else right now."

"We've been waiting all week for the chance to get you! It's our turn and you're not getting away."

"Too right," the other agreed as she ripped at his trousers. He couldn't see it, but he could hear the coy pout in her voice. "We have an appointment with Master Longstaff."

Master Longstaff? How did they find out that's what he had named his---oh, oh no. No, don't touch it! No! Um, pirates, with nasty swords. Big rusty swords and rotting teeth and-and greasy hair. Snape! Yes, Snape, all nasty and evil and---Snape-like.

"Oh come on, Master Longstaff! We'll give you a lovely kiss if you cooperate with us."

One girl whispered something to the other before she stood up and leaned over to tilt his head back. In the darkened classroom, very little was visible except for her glittering eyes.

"Naughty Ronny. I know what you're doing and it won't work."

He was about to tell her to naff off when she attacked his mouth, sliding her tongue between his lips. Ron was so distracted that he let his guard down, and Snape fled his mind just long enough for Girl Number Two to get a rise out of old Longstaff.

"Oooh hello, Master!" said the girl kneeling before him.

Bugger all, he was only human. Hermione could wait, he supposed. After all, these girls had an appointment to keep.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Draco groaned as he sat in bed, counting his many grievances with life in general. He was in hospital; cross; terribly thirsty; he'd noticed a freckle on his nose that morning; and he couldn't sleep. Blaise would pay for this, he and his new little arse-lickers, Crabbe and Goyle. How dare they attack him? Didn't they know that he was both a Malfoy and a Slytherin through and through?

He was still thinking of ways to get revenge when he heard a hesitant cough outside the curtains surrounding his bed. It didn't take a genius to figure out who it was. Who else would visit him in the Infirmary? He sighed. Why couldn't she leave him alone?

Ginny's red head peeped uncertainly around the curtains before pulling them back and stepping closer to his bed. She stared at him for a moment, taking in his black eye and the bandages around his ribs before sitting beside him.

"I had to ask Professor Snape where you were. I couldn't get anything from your housemates."

"Did you really think they would tell you?" Draco snapped peevishly. She could be so bloody dense at times. He wondered why Professor Snape had told her where he was. There was certainly no love lost between Snape and the Weasley brood.

Ginny shook her head and sighed. "No, I suppose not. Snape said that Blaise and a few other Slytherins jumped on you last night." She gazed at him and tilted her head to the side. "Why did they do that? Why now? It's been ages since . . . that day. And you didn't really do anything that bad. I mean you were just looking out for yourself. Isn't that what any other Slytherin would do?"

Draco chuckled quietly for a moment. It really was too funny. A Gryffindor had grasped his motivation, one that was so very, very Slytherin, while it had completely escaped his housemates.

"I think any one of them would have done the same thing I did, but they would all rather die than admit it. We do have our pride, you know."

Ginny nodded and leaned forward to kiss him on the forehead as his lips were heavily swollen and bruised. She didn't seem to notice his scowl, but then she rarely ever did. "Enough of them. I came to cheer you up."

Draco lifted an eyebrow at her and looked down to where she was pulling a mass of bulky, knobbled cloth out of her robes. "What the hell is that?"

Her brows drew together and she seemed hurt for a moment before unfurling the cloth to reveal that they were, in fact, two very thick green socks. "I knitted you some socks. You're always going on about how cold your feet are. Even though, I don't know how they possibly could be, what with that hair all over them."

Didn't she ever shut up?

She sighed before continuing. "But, I suppose the bottoms of your feet get cold, right?" Ginny pulled the covers back from his lower legs and slid a sock on one of his feet, still talking all the while. "I made a right balls-up of my exam in Potions today. I told you I needed to revise more and I only had one chance this past week to do so. You know, with Hagrid's disappearance and everything.

"Snape was terribly mean to me when I asked him where you were. He told me that I should ask Neville to tutor me because my marks were so wretched. Honestly!" she cried out while pushing a sock down over his other foot with more force than was strictly necessary. "Neville, of all people! Everyone knows he does abysmally in Potions. I was so irritated that I almost cursed the sarcastic bastard. I would have, too, if he wasn't a professor."

Ginny was mumbling now and Draco was glad that he couldn't make out her words. He wished that she would just go away.

"Oh." Ginny snapped to attention and covered his feet with the duvet again. She scooted up close to him and started tinkering with the pitcher of water on his nightstand. Yes, good, I want some water, Draco thought to himself.

"I haven't had the chance to tell you since last I saw you but, well, I had a row with my brother last week."

"And this affects me how?"

She scowled and poured some water into a glass before shoving it roughly into his hand. Maybe she really was psychic. "Ron found out about us."

Draco shrugged and took a sip of the water. That was so much better really, his throat was feeling a bit scratchy and it wouldn't do to sound like Longbottom's toad, would it?

"Who in their right mind would tell your brother about us? I'd think that he would be just as eager to kill the messenger as he would me."

Ginny cleared her throat. "Um, Pansy Parkinson told him."

Draco nearly choked. "Pansy? Why would she---" He narrowed his eyes and made himself think about it for a moment. What was the girl playing at now? She had something to gain from telling, obviously, since she wasn't in the habit of giving information unless it benefited her in some way. Well, it seemed that she had a lesson to learn when it came to crossing a Malfoy.

"I'll take care of it," Draco stated shortly.

"Take care of it? What are you going to do? Draco, please don't hurt Ron. I know he's an arse sometimes, but he means well. Er, I think."

"Shut up, you twit. I was talking about Parkinson."

Ginny sat up straighter and he could see that she was pulling her pride together. He was surprised that she had any left after catering to his every whim for so long.

"Don't speak to me that way, Draco Malfoy! I've had it up to here with your attitude. If you can't speak to me like an equal, then don't speak to me at all."

Draco shrugged. It didn't bother him. Maybe she would leave now. "Are you quite done?"

Her amber eyes flashed, and Draco found himself suddenly longing for a cup of tea, foamy from the sugar but no cream. He thought that this was a bit odd, since he was quite fond of cream, but ignored it as Ginny started to rant.

"I came here to cheer you up and---and I made you some socks and---look, if you want me to leave then just say so instead of being an arse!"

"Leave then."

Ginny narrowed her eyes and slapped him on the face hard enough to make his head snap. She didn't seem to be so concerned about his injuries anymore. "You're a cold bastard, you know that?"

Draco managed a smirk, even though his head was still ringing from her physical and mental blow. "So I've been told."

With one last glance, Ginny stomped through the Infirmary doors and far away from him. It would have been good riddance except that he still wanted a cup of tea and no one was around to get it for him. Damn it.

There was no way in hell that he would be able to sleep now.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Harry trudged into the Gryffindor common room, thoroughly exhausted. He was in a bit of a temper because practice hadn't gone very well that afternoon. Their star Chasers, Ginny and Ron, didn't come to practice and hadn't even bothered to notify anyone that they wouldn't be there.

He found out later that Ron had caused a scene in Potions that afternoon and was currently serving detention in the dungeons with Snape. Harry chuckled quietly and sat down in a large chair near the fire to warm up his feet. He wished that he had been in Potions that afternoon just to see what Ron did to Pansy Parkinson instead of with Madame Hooch and Professor McGonagall going over strategies and rosters for the upcoming match against Ravenclaw for the House Cup.

Harry realised, not for the first time, that he missed Ron. He always seemed able to lighten the mood in any room and bring a breath of fresh air with his patented Weasley histrionics. Aside from when he was being a conceited bastard, Ron was a generally pleasant person to be around and Harry felt the absence of his friendship keenly.

Even more now though, since Hermione had spent most every waking hour in the library for the past week. He didn't know what was going on and as usual, she wouldn't tell him. It wasn't that he didn't trust Hermione, he trusted her with his life, but she was hiding something and he was anxious to know what it was.

Absently, Harry pulled a slightly damp cigarette out of his robe pocket and put it to his lips. No one else was in the common room aside from a few fifth years revising for their O.W.L's, and who were they to tell him what to do?

Hermione was in trouble and she wouldn't let him help. It was a bit frustrating, really. They had shared some of their deepest, darkest secrets with each other, but she couldn't even let him help her with this, whatever 'this' was.

It almost seemed as if Hermione wasn't the same person anymore. Granted, she was still a bookworm as always and seemed to prefer books over most people, but there was something that struck Harry as terribly off about her behaviour of late.

He took another drag from his cigarette and let it dangle from his fingers carelessly, staring into the fire while he attempted to puzzle this out.

The new side of Hermione had at first seemed pleasant, intriguing, exciting, and mysterious . . . arousing even. But now it just seemed so wrong. Hermione wasn't supposed to swear, she wasn't supposed to encourage rule breaking, and she wasn't supposed to kiss him in public.

They'd both agreed that it was necessary to keep their relationship as private as possible. Who knew when they were being watched and photographed? They didn't need another scandal similar to their fourth year.

It seemed like an eminently sensible thing to do, and it suited their respective personalities. Their relationship was too intimate, too personal to share with anyone else and frankly, it was embarrassing to see other people snogging in public so why would they want to do that to everyone else? Perhaps that's why he'd been so shocked when she kissed him full on the lips in the middle of the Great Hall at breakfast before racing off to Arithmancy.

Ginny and Draco, they were the exuberant ones. Neither cared anymore who saw them snogging or--- whatever else they did while people were watching, which was quite a bit.

Harry threw his cigarette into the fire and hunted for another one. He brought it to his lips and began the rhythmic process of puffing and exhaling while he pondered.

Hermione was supposed to be a rock: solid, dependable, and rational. Harry's duty was to keep the rock from breaking and give it support. Lately though, the rock was crumbling and there didn't seem to be enough glue to keep it together.

Hermione was disintegrating.

Perhaps it was the stress of everything that had happened at Christmas; Hagrid's disappearance; N.E.W.T.'s coming up; and the ongoing Ginny-Draco-Ron production.

Hermione ought to be outside of all this with him, not embroiling herself in the middle of it. Or should she? Gah, it wasn't making any bloody sense, was it?

And what the devil was she working on that had her so occupied of late?

Harry pinched the cigarette in his hand lazily and tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair. He needed to talk to her about this, but she was always revising for either the N.E.W.T's or that damn project. He'd have to go to the library and talk to her there. Maybe he could pull her away from the books long enough to---

He started a bit when he heard the portrait door swing open and bang on the outside wall. Hermione came flying into the common room, dishevelled and teary-eyed.

She seemed to be hunting for something until she caught sight of Harry lounging in front of the fire and raced over to him, throwing her body onto his lap and sobbing wildly. Her fingers dug into his shoulders painfully and he couldn't see anything but a cloud of fluffy brown hair.

"Oh God, Harry! Oh God, I don't know what to do, this is too much and I don't think I can take anymore. I'm losing my mind and this isn't real. Tell me it isn't real."

Harry took hold of her shoulders and gently peeled her face from his chest. "Hermione, what's wrong? What's happened?"

She sniffed for a moment, her face blotchy and swollen from tears. "You mean you haven't heard?"

"Heard what?" he asked, growing more panicked by the moment.

Hermione took a deep breath and her lip trembled while she searched for the strength to speak.

"They've found Hagrid."

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