White Shadow (Pureblood, Book I)

Upon the ending of the song, the entire hall erupted into a thunderous applause. The hat bent at the middle four times, one to each house, then it again went rigid. Draco was mildly surprised and more than a bit impressed at the impromptu performance and it took a moment for him to begin applauding along with the rest of the students.

"Quite a show," Blaise said into his ear as the applause faded. Draco nodded in agreement as he watched Professor McGonagall walk up to the side of the stool with a long scroll of parchment.

"When I call your name," she announced, "you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted." With that, she looked down through a pair of thin glasses. "Abbott, Hannah!"

Draco saw a blond girl who appeared distinctly pink in the face move out of the crowd of first years and towards the stool. She sat down awkwardly on the stool as Professor McGonagall gently set the hat down on her head. It promptly sagged down over her eyes. There was but a moment's pause before the hat opened the mouth on its brim and shouted:

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

The rightmost table burst into cheering applause, and, if it was at all possible, Hannah Abbott went even pinker as she shuffled off towards the table.

"Bones, Susan!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

"Boot, Terry!"

"RAVENCLAW!"

This time, applause came from the table second to the left. Terry Boot moved towards the table and shook a few hands before he sat down.

Then came Mandy Brocklehurst, followed by Lavender Brown. Millicent Bulstrode followed, becoming the first Slytherin. Draco noted what appeared to be the Slytherin table; he hadn't been lying when he said he was sure to be in Slytherin. He was, after all, pureblood, which was a prerequisite to entering the house. And according to the improvised song he'd heard but a few minutes ago, his personality seemed to match dead-on, as well.

The list went onto the C's through the E's. Draco wasn't really listening. Occasionally, he would return his attention to the front. He caught "Finch-Fletchley, Justin" becoming a Hufflepuff and "Granger, Hermione" going into Gryffindor. Neville Longbottom also went into Gryffindor, though the only reason he noticed was because "L" and "M" were adjacent letters.

"MacDougal, Morag" also became a Slytherin. Draco surmised that--

"Malfoy, Draco!"

--he would be next. He took a deep breath and got into character. He allowed a slight saunter as he made his way up onto the dais. He sat down complacently as McGonagall lowered the hat onto his head.

The hat whispered one sentence into his mind:

"When one lives a lie, it always catches up to them."

Draco was horrorstricken. The hat didn't notice. It promptly announced: "SLYTHERIN!" in a triumphant voice. The Slytherin table burst into applause again and it took Draco a split second to collect himself -– a split second too long. He could felt a distinctly skeptical gaze coming from Blaise's direction, which he decisively ignored. With a great amount of effort, he pushed his mouth into a smirk as he made for the table.

He joined Crabbe and Goyle, who had both been sorted into Slytherin, as well, at the table, the smirk firmly cemented in place, though his insides felt like crying.

'When one lives a lie, it always catches up to them.' What in hell is that supposed to mean? he thought bitterly, crossing his arms over his chest. But he knew very well what the hat meant, and the words went deep. He was living a lie, and there was no way out of it. He had a sudden sinking feeling that was very hard to mask.

He stared at his desk until he realized that McGonagall had made it all the way to the P's. A few moments after Sally-Anne Perks had been sorted into Hufflepuff, Draco held his breath.

"Potter, Harry!"

Hissing whispers swept down across the hall –- questions went back and forth again, all asking the same thing: Was it really Harry Potter?

Draco watched mutedly as Harry walked up towards the stool and the hat fell over his eyes, all the while the whispers seemed to settle down into an uncomfortable silence. The decision, he realized, was taking longer than the norm. He toyed with that in his mind for a moment. He thought for sure that Harry would be an instant Gryffindor. Why was it taking this long?

He's a Parseltongue, he thought in sudden realization. It's taking so long because he has qualities from both Gryffindor and Syltherin. Draco smirked at the idea of Harry being in his house; it seemed almost too fantastical to even be considered as a possibility.

A moment later, the hat bellowed, "GRYFFINDOR!" and the Gryffindor table got to its feet and whistled, cheered, and shouted at the top of their lungs, making Draco cringe. He could understand they were happy, but there was no reason to break a few eardrums in the process of showing it. Harry rose to his feet, looking shaky, and slowly inched to the end of the table. Draco recognized Percy vigorously shaking his hand as the twins began cheering "We got Potter!" over and over. He noticed the frilly ghost patting him on the arm and the stunned look on his face at the cold sensation he was undoubtedly feeling and smiled fondly… then realized what he was doing and it vanished.

Ron Weasley was made, like the rest of his enormous family, a Gryffindor; Draco noticed a particularly enthusiastic cheer on Harry's part. Finally, he watched Blaise take a seat on the rickety old stool and Professor McGonagall drop it on his head.

There was only a moment's pause before: "SLYTHERIN!"

Draco smiled and applauded with the rest of his table as Blaise sat down next to him, grinning from ear to ear. He returned the smile and said "Congratulations" as he patted his shoulder. He thanked him then returned his attention to the front.

McGonagall rolled up the scroll and pulled the hat and stool out of the way as a tall man with a long mane of silvery hair and a beard to match stood up at the headmaster's spot. So this, Draco thought, was Albus Dumbledore. This was the almost legendary wizard who was the only one that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named ever truly feared. When he saw him smiling, something warm grew in his heart. He liked his smile. He liked this place. As Dumbledore looked across the room through half-moon spectacles, Draco was trying very hard to keep a look of cool indifference.

"Welcome!" he said warmly. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!

"Thank you!"

With that, he sat down again. Draco laughed as he applauded, and a moment later, the golden plates filled with all types of foods. Steak and potatoes, pork and lamb chops, sausages, peas, carrots, pudding, and, curiously enough, peppermint humbugs. He helped himself to a decent serving of food; he hadn't had any real food since the croissant his mother had so rudely stuffed into his mouth earlier that day. Crabbe and Goyle each took enough to feed a third-world country for a year, while Blaise didn't take quite as much.

"Well," said Goyle gruffly through a mouth of potatoes and gravy, "that wasn't as hard as I thought it'd be."

Draco didn't say anything. He took a bite of his steak to stop himself from beating him into the dirt with more cynicism (that, incidentally, was utterly wasted on him and Crabbe both). He saw Crabbe nod in agreement, swallow, then say, "I heard someone say on the train that it was going to be some sort of test." He took a swig of his pumpkin juice. "Like, wrestling a troll or somefink," he said, his attempts at hiding his cockney accent notwithstanding. "I wouldn't have minded that."

"I bet you wouldn't have," Draco said before he could prevent it. Blaise hid a snigger with a very deliberate cough, but Crabbe and Goyle both seemed to be out of the loop. Draco smiled at that and took another large bite of his steak. "So let's compare schedules," he said, trying to make it sounds like it was directed at Blaise, though Crabbe and Goyle began rummaging in their pockets as well.

Jesus Christ on a unicycle, he thought wearily, what's it going to take to get rid of these two idiots?

Blaise unfolded a parchment with one hand. "First thing tomorrow for me is Herbology."

"Same," Draco affirmed, glad he could start the day with someone he liked.

They both turned to Crabbe and Goyle, who were staring with squinted eyes at their schedules. A moment later, Crabbe said, "Yeah, same goes for me!"

Peachy.

"And me," Goyle chimed in after a minute.

With a side of keen.

As if he was reading his mind, Blaise said, "Well, isn't that lovely," with just enough sarcasm so that Draco could notice and the other two couldn't. "We'll be regular bosom buddies before the term is over, I'd wager," he said. Draco suppressed a shudder at the thought.

The four of them picked up on their intellectual conversation they'd had on the train (or at least Draco and Blaise did), though this time the topic was religion. Halfway through the banquet, it was going something like:

"Well, it's healthy, isn't it?" Draco said after swallowing some more potatoes. "Having a religion, I mean. Gives you something to believe in; keeps you grounded and what."

Blaise nodded. "Religion is just a way to cover up the fact that we don't know a damn thing, really. Think about it," he said. "No one really knows how the universe began, correct?" Draco nodded, which proved difficult, as he was taking a sip of pumpkin juice. "So along comes religion to explain all that rubbish. Christianity says God created the world in seven days, Hinduism has their own lore of which I'm probably not aware…"

With a smirk, Draco shrugged. "India's a bit more than a hop, skip and a jump away. Unless you plan on going there, I wouldn't worry about it too much." He paused. "They have that weird combination of monotheism and polytheism that—"

"What?" Crabbe interjected.

Draco blinked, slightly irritated. "Monotheism –- believing in one god, as opposed to polytheism, which is the belief in more than one." Then he turned back to Blaise. "As I was saying, they have some weird combination. They have the three main gods, Vishnu, Shiva, and Brahma (along with a bunch of other gods whose names are impossible to pronounce), which all come together to become one god. That's what makes it so interesting."

"Learn something new every day," Blaise said with a smile. "You seem to simply be a font of useless information."

Draco laughed. "Watch it, Zabini. It isn't useless! Some day, a crook is going to hold a wand to your neck and threaten you within an inch of your life if you don't name off a Hindu god on the spot." He stabbed a bit of pork as Blaise cracked up.

"Why would a crook want to know a Hindu god?" Goyle asked, sounding sincere.

The laughter stopped. Both he and Blaise turned to look at him, baffled. Could he really be that stupid? Slowly, Draco said, "Crabbe, Goyle, from now on, if either of you hear something that you don't understand, I want you to shut up, then look it up in a dictionary later, alright?"

"Alright," relented Crabbe in a puzzled voice.

He sighed, rolled his eyes and turned back to Blaise. He was about to restart the conversation when Dumbledore suddenly stood up right as all the food vanished from their plates. The hall was suddenly silent, and everyone turned toward the aging man.

"Ahem –- just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you.

"First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well.

"I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors.

"Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch.

"And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a painful death." Draco stared as a few people laughed, thinking it was a joke. Dumbledore, though he did seem the type to enjoy an occasional jest, didn't look it at the moment. His mind began to wander… The third-floor corridor on the right-hand side.

"And now," he said, "before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!" The other teachers at the table were clearing holding back grimaces as Dumbledore pulled out his wand and flicked it, and a golden ribbon curled into words high above the tables.

"Everyone pick their favorite tune and off we go!"

Draco found it extremely peculiar, but the school suddenly began to bellow.

"Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts
Teach us something please,
Whether we be old and bald
Or young with scabby knees
Our heads could do with filling
With some interesting stuff,
For now they're bare and full of air,
Dead flies and bits of fluff,
So teach us things worth knowing,
Bring back what we've forgot,
Just do your best, we'll do the rest,
And learn until our brains all rot."

Blaise leaned over to him when it ended and murmured, "What a peculiar song." Draco nodded gravely as the last few people ended. He noticed with a smirk that two voices were sing it in a very slow tune, sounding like a funeral march. As they held the last pitch in harmony, he couldn't help but snort under his breath, along with Blaise, who was looking equally amused.

Throughout the whole song, Dumbledore had been conducting merrily with his wand, and when the last voices fell silent, he was seen wiping a tear from one eye. "Ah, music," he said whimsically, "a magic beyond all we do here! And now, bedtime. Off you trot!"

The sudden sound of talk burst forth out of nowhere, and all at once, the entire population of the Great Hall got to its feet. The Head Boy and Girl of each of the four houses started shouting and motioning for the first years to follow them. Draco was pushed along with the swarming crowd, Blaise at his side.

He tried his very best to memorize the path to the common rooms. The first door was right across from the Great Hall. Go down the steps, turn right, pass the first intersection, take another right, and the door is disguised as a wall.

The Head Boy, a tall, lanky fellow with short auburn hair and thick glasses, stood in front of it and said simply: "Bel étranger." Draco flinched. That was French, and he had completely butchered it, though Draco made no move to correct it. Blaise seemed to notice the look of mild disgust and leaned over towards him.

"What's wrong?" he murmured as the first years pushed though the rather narrow entrance.

"He obviously doesn't speak French," Draco replied simply, frankly.

"And you do? Why?" Blaise looked back when they were halfway through the passage towards the still open wall. "Oh, are you bilingual, then?"

"Yeah," he said. He took in the sight of the common room -- large, decorated with black and green and silver. There was a roaring hearth and windows built into the ceiling, through which starlight beamed down onto the wood floor. Draco smiled. He liked it.

"What did it mean? That password," he said.

"Beautiful stranger," Draco replied distantly as he inspected a rather ornate lamp made of stained glass. "Of the male variety," he added after a moment, "or that's the way it seemed; I couldn't tell. Like I said, he really had the pronunciation off by a mile."

Blaise followed him as he walked toward a tall bookshelf and began looking through the contents thereof. "So how do you pronounce it?" he asked.

In a flawless accent (that was purposefully slow), he said, "Behll ay-trahn-ghay."

"Bel étranger," repeated Blaise, equally slow.

"The 'G' should be a bit softer." He pulled a book off the top shelf and flipped it open on his palm. "Ooh, Tolstoy!"

"What do you mean, softer?"

"I mean..." He paused, frowning thoughtfully. "I mean pronounce it sort of like a 'J,' only without the edge to it." He turned toward Blaise and repeated: "Bel étranger."

"Bel étranger," he echoed.

"That's better."

"Oy, you two!" came a voice from behind them. They both turned in sync to see the Head Boy looking slightly irritated. "You'll have time to explore after classes tomorrow, now it's time to get to sleep." He pointed with one hand towards a door, over which was a dark woodcarving that read "BOYS' DORMITORIES" in an elaborate script.

Draco put the book back in its place. Mumbling, the two of them moved past him and into the dorms. The hall branched into a large, circular antechamber in which were placed seven doors, each with a number over it. They looked at each other and then at the door on the far left with a large brass "1" dangling above the crown of the door. They entered on the correct assumption that it was the room intended for the first year boys.

This room, rather than a circle, was more of a rectangular shape, with five beds set up -- two on each broad side and one on the smaller. Crabbe and Goyle were sitting on adjacent beds on the left wall and a boy they didn't recognize was sitting cross-legged on the one against the wall, his nose buried in a book. When the two other occupants heard the door open, they looked up simultaneous and broke into idiotic smiles.

"Hey, Draco, Blaise," said Crabbe.

"Hi, there, Tweedle-Dee," Draco replied as he walked toward his bed (he could tell which was his because it had his trunk at the foot). "Evening, Tweedle-Dum."

They both looked confused. "What?" Goyle asked after a moment.

Blaise cracked up. "You're my hero!" he said, sitting down on his own bed. "I didn't know you read any Muggle literature! Alice in Wonderland was such a good book."

"If not something of a drug trip," Draco elaborated, smirking as he opened his trunk.

He snorted. "Ain't that the truth."

"What else have you read?" Draco asked as he separated out a pair of black cotton pajamas and set them on the foot of his bed.

Blaise waved one hand dismissively. "Oh, you know," he said. "Most of the classics. Poe, Shakespeare, Twain, Dickens, Wilde..."

He perked up. "You've read Oscar Wilde?"

In response Blaise blinked and leaned back on his hands. "Yeah. Why?"

"He's my all-time favorite author!" he said, suddenly enthused. "Did you read the Picture of Dorian Gray?" He never thought he'd find someone else who'd read the book, especially if the person in question was a wizard; this was a real first.

"Only about a thousand times!" Blaise said, now matching his enthusiasm. "But God, what an awful ending. I couldn't believe it when Henry--"

"--I know!" Draco cut him off. "It was so dreadful!"

That was all the provocation needed to start them off into an in-depth discussion of the characters and plots in the book, the deeper meanings, the controversy it stirred, and Wilde, himself. The other three boys in the common room stopped listening and drifted off one by one, until it was just he and Blaise, sitting on the same bed in an animated (but now hushed) dialogue. They went on until the wee hours of the morning when the conversation came to a screeching halt with one cryptic interruption. A voice had suddenly resonated from behind them.

"You should both be in bed."

Both of them jumped; Draco fell off the bed with a thud. Blaise whipped around and covered his mouth to stifle a scream. Draco, who was trying to pull himself up from off the floor and not being particularly quick to recover from the fall, managed to move his head over the top of the bed. "What?" he said. "What is it?"

A tall figure was hovering in the air, still as stone. It was transparent, glowing a bluish-white that didn't cast a single shadow. The figure itself was, without a doubt, stunning -- long black hair and fierce, electric blue eyes were only some of its positive features. It also had high, aristocratic cheekbones and a Roman nose that offset a pair of pale lips and pointed chin. It was dressed, Draco realized when he managed to collect himself, in clothes that seemed to be from the early 1400s.

Softly, he said, "You really shouldn't sneak up on people like that..."

The figure cocked its elegant head to one side. It spoke again with, "I would have had to announce myself at some point." He then noticed that the voice was a definite baritone and with a definite Spanish slant. He proved the figure to be male, though he seemed very androgynous physically.

"Who're you, anyway?" Blaise said, his voice chaste with irritation.

The ghost lifted his chin. "I am Heriberto Rico-Adelio Orlando Navarro VI, Baron of Cartagena -- or I was at one point," he said. Draco could almost detect a hint of nostalgia. "However, most students refer to me simply as the Bloody Baron."

"Bloody Baron, eh?" inquired Blaise, who was begin to tame his metaphorical ruffled feathers.

"That's right," snapped the Baron. Both of them recoiled at the look on his face that could only be described as terrifying. "The Bloody Baron. All I wanted to say was that both of you should be sleeping. It's past one o'clock in the morning."

Neither of them wanted to argue -- not with an overbearing personality like his. Draco simply nodded and pulled himself to his feet. Luckily, he had changed into his pajamas earlier, so he could very easily follow the orders. He quickly squirmed beneath the covers, when he realized something was missing. Forgetting the Baron momentarily, he sat up. "Shadow?" he said in a soft, worried voice.

There was a shuffle and a meow that came form under the bed. Draco bent over the edge and laughed, pulling out a white cat that had become gray with caked dust. "Look at you, you're filthy," he said as he brushed at her fur with one hand. She wriggled as he patted her clean.

Blaise's bed squeaked as he moved beneath the covers. "Good night, Mr. ... Mr. Baron, sir," he said awkwardly. But there was no response.

They both looked up. The Bloody Baron had simply disappeared.

"That's eerie," Blaise said, stating the obvious.

"No kidding." Slowly, he scooted to a lying position on the bed and blew one last breath across Shadow's face before letting her curl up on his breastbone. A moment later, he sighed.

"Goodnight, Draco."

"Goodnight, Blaise. Don't let the bedbugs kill you."

"Excuse me?"

No thanks to the discussion they had that night, both of them were late the following morning. As Blaise struggled at his tie, Draco was already trying desperately to pull a brush through his hopelessly tangled hair, flinching every time.

"I don't know how you manage that hair," Blaise said distractedly.

"It's not that long," argued Draco, cringing as he got a particularly large knot.

"You should try being black," he noted. "Much easier to deal with hair."

"Well, if I ever figure out how to switch my ethnicity, you'll be the first to know," he said, too tired to exaggerate the sarcasm in his voice. He finally found his wand and pointed it at the now untangled hair. "Explano." There was a slight popping noise, and his hair slicked back with an invisible gel. Blaise turned and rose on eyebrow.

"Going for the 'Greaser' look, I see."

"Shut up."

They scrambled out of the common rooms and dashed for the Great Hall. After scarfing down naught but a few pieces of toast and a goblet full of orange juice each, the food vanished and everyone stood up to go to their classes. Draco was working on a croissant as he walked out the door.

"Do any of you know where to look for the Herbology classroom?" asked Crabbe, who was reading his schedule (it looked very hard).

"We're all going to Herbology, stupid. If we get lost, at least we'll get lost together," Blaise said. Draco swallowed a mouthful of the flaky, buttery bread.

"I know where they are, I think," he said. "I heard a few Hufflepuff girls talking about it just now; seemed as thought it was in the greenhouse outside."

"Where outside?" Goyle said, turning his own schedule upside-down.

"I think out the east wing," he replied, "but I'm not sure. Oy, Blaise, did you get a map of the school, by any chance?"

"Oh, damn, I knew I forgot something!"

"Never mind," Draco said hurriedly as he finished off the croissant. "There's no time. We'll just improvise. Come on, we don't have much time."

As it turned out, the Herbology classroom was not out the east wing, nor was it out the south wing. When they saw a large greenhouse through the door out onto the ground past the west wing, they went into a dead sprint. Their luck (or perhaps the lack thereof) held out. Professor Sprout, a short, pudgy woman, was at the front of the classroom and staring right at them as they came in.

The classroom was hardly a classroom, in fact. The fact that it had been set up in a greenhouse gave the entire air a very heavy, humid quality that no one appeared to appreciate. There were two long rows of desks without chairs that were lined up on either side, creating a long path down the middle towards the teacher's desk (which was actually just two large boxes adjacent to one another). The students were standing on the outside of the desks, leaving the empty space in between for a very large, very vicious looking plant that was full of tangles and barbs.

However, the plant didn't seem the least bit intimidating when compared to the teacher they were about to confront.

"You're late, boys."

"Sorry, Professor," they mumbled in unison.

"I understand that you are first year students and this is your very first class, but I think twenty minutes is pushing the envelope!" She puffed up her chest and put her hands on her thick waist.

"Sorry," Blaise said. "I was supposed to bring a map and I forgot it."

The woman heaved a great sigh and removed one of her hands from her hips to wave it dismissively. "Never mind, never mind," she said. "Just find some spots."

They kept their heads down and their sighs of relief silent as they both moved behind a long black table, upon which were a few tools, including a spade, a trowel, and a few other tools that Draco didn't recognize but surmised were probably for gardening, as well. He vaguely wondered if the idea of Herbology was to plant pretty flowers, though the large spiky plant in the center of the room seemed to disprove the theory.

"As I was saying," said Professor Sprout, hiking up her dirty trousers, "Herbology is the study of plant life, both sentient and non-sentient." She walked out from behind her desk. "It is about the properties of the plants, their uses in daily life and special circumstances." She then grabbed a pair of thick gloves and walked toward the threatening plant fearlessly.

The whole class gasped as one of the many spike-covered vines suddenly whipped out towards her. Thoughtlessly, almost effortlessly, she grabbed the vine with one of her gloved hands and held it steady. "Behave, you," she said sharply as he pulled out her wand with one hand and pointed it towards the dead center of the tangled mess of green. "Incendio!"

A puff of blue flame burst out of the end of her wand and the whole plant seemed to shudder as the flames licked its frail green skin. The vines recoiled back into themselves and it suddenly became much smaller and less dangerous. "This," she said as he released the vine in her hand, "is called Devil's Snare. As you can see, its main intent is self-defense. It uses strangulation as a form of protection. The more you struggle against it, the tighter it becomes.

"It prefers a very dark and damp environment, and therefore its greatest weakness is fire, which is why it's handy to know the Incendio charm when you're working with it." She reached out, burying her hand in the mess of vines and took a small tendril that was covered with tiny thorns, and then held it up demonstratively. "These may not look dangerous," she said, "but it's in the smaller ones that it wells a great deal of poison, so you're better off being strangled by the larger ones."

Blaise leaned over to Draco and murmured, "So it's a choice between a fast and painless death or a slow and painful one?" Draco snickered softly and made sure Professor Sprout didn't hear it.

"Devil's Snare is most common in caves, ditches, caverns and the like. Unlike most plants, it doesn't need sunlight to survive, rather, it absorbs moisture from the air around it to sustain itself, which is why you won't find any in the Sahara."

Draco wondered if that was a joke. If it was, it wasn't very funny. Only a few people managed to force a weak laugh as a way of earning brownie points. One girl, a brunette with a great deal of freckles on her face, raised her hand.

"Yes, Miss...?"

"Nott," she said in a very articulate voice. "Ebony Nott."

"All right, Ms. Nott," said Professor Sprout. "What was your question?"

"Where did you get this one?" she asked. "I don't believe there are any nearby caves, though I can't be certain."

Professor Sprout suddenly looked uncomfortable and began to shift in her spot, though it was hardly noticeable. Draco, however, was the observant type, and caught the fleeting look of discomfort on her round face. "Well," she said slowly, "I recently had to move a great deal of it from 'Point A' to 'Point B' respectively, and I'd taken just a bit too much with me. Its origin, if that's what you mean, is a cave just beyond the western mountains."

The word curious passed through Draco's mind like a whisper of wind. He filed the information away and quickly returned his attention to the lesson.

"Any other questions?" said Professor Sprout, clapping her gloved hands together. "No? Very good. Okay, then, let's begin the first exercise!"

They split up into groups of two and collected samples of the Devil's Snare poison by way of cutting off just a bit of the smaller tendrils. It acted up occasionally, and Professor Sprout would quickly tame it again with a fast charm. Once they had collected the poison, they did experiments on the effects of it on other things such as seedlings (which withered instantly) and full-grown flowers (which lost their petals and died).

Quite frankly, Draco was thoroughly enjoying himself, but he of course couldn't let it show -- not here, in front of others. He had to be in character. Every passing moment he was in character, however, he grew to hate him more and more.

Blaise and he were both very hungry by the time lunchtime rolled around, as they'd hardly had a breakfast per se. As they collapsed at the head of the Slytherin table and set into the food that had been laid out for them, a tawny owl suddenly swooped in from a high window. Draco casually glanced up and instantly recognized the owl as the one that belonged to his family, Bacon.

(Bacon had acquired his name from a very nasty incident involving hot grease and a very careless house elf. To this day, Draco was still mortally afraid of frying pans.)

Bacon landed on the edge of the table and dropped a small parcel with a note attached near the edge of his plate. Draco stroked the owl's head casually and picked it up with his other hand. He felt Blaise look over his shoulder.

"What is it?" he said through a bite of a sandwich.

"It's from Mum and Dad," he said. Then he turned to the owl. "Thanks, Bacon." Bacon cooed and took a nip of his sandwich, which Draco pointedly ignored. A moment later, the owl lifted off the table and flew out of sight.

Draco opened the letter and read:

Draco,

The parcel is a box of chocolates. Dark and light included. Lord knows that the last thing you need is more sugar, but your mother insisted. Wants her boy to have "meat on his bones," she does. Something makes me think otherwise.

At Christmas, we're thinking of traveling to Paris. Hogwarts lets out on the twentieth, I believe, so we'll leave then and return four days later in time for Christmas Eve.

Keep working hard on your grades. It would seem a shame to deny you the trip to Paris, now, wouldn't it? Safe journey through your school year.

Father

PS: I'll tell you now -- we're getting your mother a necklace for Christmas. Know the one we saw in that shop down near Berkeley? What do you think; would it look nice on her? It was within our price range, at least. Is it too gaudy? By "gaudy," I of course mean "too many gems." Next choice is that bracelet next to it. Week of searching, and those are the best we can do (pathetic, yes).

Draco was startled. His father was sending him chocolates? Why? Never before had he had the inclination to shower his son with gifts, what was the provocation now?

He opened the parcel. Sure enough, there was an assortment of delicious looking chocolates from corner to corner. How peculiar! This wasn't like his father at all. It wasn't until a moment later that Draco noticed a strange feature about the box.

On the inside of the lid was written: "The first word of every sentence."

Draco quickly closed the box as Crabbe reached for a chocolate. Hurriedly pushing himself back into his character, he said, "Hands-off; these are mine."

After dinner that night, he excused himself to take a shower, tucking the letter in the folds of his towel. He closed the door behind him, then promptly and hastily unfolded the letter.

He began to read off the first word of each sentence in a hushed voice:

"The -- Dark -- Lord -- wants -- something -- at -- Hogwarts..."

He swallowed.

"Keep -- it -- safe."

Keep it safe? Keep what safe? What could He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named want from Hogwarts that wasn't Harry Potter lacking a pulse?

"I'll -- know -- what -- it -- is -- by -- next -- week."

Suddenly, the paper erupted into flames. Draco squeaked and stumbled backward, dropping the paper in the sink, where it turned gray, curled around itself and dissolved into a small pile of ash near the drain. He watched, catching his breath. His father must have charmed it to destroy itself as soon as he found the hidden message. Either that, or God was seriously livid.

He realized his hands were shaking. He took in a long breath and closed his eyes, trying to calm himself down.

"The Dark Lord is looking for something at Hogwarts. What could he need?" he asked himself serenely. After a moment's pause, he opened his eyes. "It could be -- maybe a weapon?" After a pause, he shook his head. "No, he's got enough Death Eaters; he wouldn't need a weapon, unless he was attacking someone (or something) personally, and he doesn't have the strength--"

He stopped. "That's it," he said. "It's something that will heal him! But what?" He racked his mind. He didn't know the school well enough. There were things in the potions classroom, perhaps, that could heal him, but there was nothing that was rare enough that would drive him to infiltrate Hogwarts. Whatever he was looking for, it had to be extremely valuable.

Draco sighed. He was too frazzled (especially after one of the most unbearably boring classes he'd ever had to sit through -- History of Magic, taught by a droning, monotonous Professor Binns, another ghost) to think straight. He looked over his shoulder, disrobed, and allowed himself a very, very long shower. Only when Crabbe began literally banging on the door did he sigh and towel off, then move out and across to his bed.

He sat down on the edge and grabbed his comb. It was then he noticed that Blaise had his nose dug into a book. Raising one eyebrow, he asked, "What are you reading?"

"Phantom of the Opera," Blaise murmured, eyes transfixed on the page. Draco could tell from that moment on that anything he said would go in one ear and right out the other.

"Ah, yes, le Fantôme de l'Opéra by Gaston Leroux."

"Mhm."

"Don't you love the part with the cat?" (There was no part with a cat.)

"Yeah."

"I thought it was so beautiful when Christine did a striptease for Raoul on their wedding night. It was so romantic."

"Yep..."

"And that part where the Martians came and devoured Carlotta was touching."

"Sure was."

"But I think my favorite part is the end, when Raoul, Erik, and Christine have a threesome on top of the opera house. Beautiful imagery in that chapter."

"Totally." He turned the page.

Draco sighed and shook his head. Blaise was a million miles away. Gaston Leroux had a tendency to do that to all those who read his book. There was no use trying to talk to him, he decided as he pulled the comb's teeth through his hair. Maybe they could actually discuss it the next morning when Blaise was a bit closer to earth.

Shadow leapt up onto his bed and mewed. Draco set the comb in his lap and ran a hand across her back absently, into which she arched and began to purr. Smiling sleepily, he scooped her up and cradled the small cat against his chest. It brought him a warm (and slightly fuzzy) comfort to know that he had source of unconditional love in his arms at this very moment, and he sighed, nuzzling his nose with her own. She licked the tip of it with her tongue and he laughed, then toppled back onto the bed. Shadow stood up and circled twice, like always, before she situated herself on his breastbone and fell asleep.

Draco soon followed.