A Tangled Web (Post-DH)

Author's Note: This chapter includes a scene from the chapter "Draco's Detour" of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. The dialogue in those scenes is therefore all Rowling's.

Chapter 17: The Hogwarts Express

Draco's farewell with Aunt Bella had been surprisingly cordial. The rigors of his training had led him to fear her, yet in the final days things went smoothly, and she expressed her concern for his success. Draco attributed this change to his success with Borgin, a success he had achieved alone, for her status as a wanted fugitive precluded her participation except behind the scenes.

His farewell to his mother, he was dreading. She, as he had planned, knew nothing of his early success, and her fears for him were evident. She accompanied him to King's Cross-, naturally enough since his father was not able to take him. Unlike his father, she fussed over him in a way he found irritating, even a bit embarrassing - helping him with his luggage and owl, and actually seeing him into a compartment, as though some unknown danger lurked on the Hogwarts Express, or as thought he was still a lost little first year student.

With a final hug and a final goodbye, she left, her eyes watering, to Draco's mortification. He was grateful only that none of his friends had found him yet, so that this display had had no audience.

Moments later, the door opened slightly and Pansy stuck her head in. "Draco!" she exclaimed, and threw the door wide open. "Come on, let's go to the Prefects' car!" she invited him. As she stood in doorway, Draco could see that her robe clung to her body in strategic locations, which Draco eyed approvingly. She'd done some growing over the summer.

"Hi Pansy!" he returned her greeting. "You go on ahead," he added languidly.

"I'll see you later, then?" she persisted.

Draco shrugged. "Nah. Prefect duties - who needs 'em?"

Pansy looked at him, uncomprehending. "But...we could get into trouble. Professor Snape might even -"

"Let me worry about Snape," Draco said. "I don't feel like going."

"But I haven't seen you in ages!" Pansy pouted. It emphasized the fullness of her lips in a way Draco always found attractive, though her demands could get irritating.

"I'll save you a spot here, for when you get back," Draco said, giving her a pleased smile as he patted the seat next to his.

"Oh, OK, then. I'll hurry up and get the Prefect nonsense over with quickly," she said, tossing her head and grinning back at him. Draco rose to get her things, which she had left in the passageway. As he approached, she turned in the doorway to let him get by her, and their eyes met.

"Draco," she said, raising a hand to his cheek as she looked up at him, "I missed you."

He stopped and looked down at her upturned face. It seemed she was not too displeased with his decision to let her go on alone. With the slightest trepidation, he leaned his head forward, and her hand slid along the line of his jaw and her fingers twined themselves him his hair. As their lips met, Draco ran his hands down her robe and grasped her hips, pulling her closer to him. She kissed him back with an enthusiasm that seemed to have only increased during their separation over the summer.

A loud thud directly behind Pansy interrupted the reunion. Pansy spun about, and Draco looked up angrily at the source of this distraction. Draco relented, somewhat, when he saw it was Crabbe, who had set down his trunk since it was clearly not possible for him to get into the compartment while Pansy and Draco stood in the doorway. Behind him stood Goyle, neck craned to get a better view. Draco sighed regretfully and returned his friends' greetings.

"Why don't you get Pansy's trunk, and I'll stow her owl, and then you can move in too," Draco said.

Pansy moved into the compartment and out of Crabbe's way as he, with no apparent effort, hefted her trunk and placed it on the luggage rack in accordance with Draco's suggestion. Draco followed him in carrying the cage in which Pansy's dainty little Scops owl perched. Crabbe and Goyle brought in their own luggage.

"Well, I had better be off to the Prefects' car. I'll be back later!" she said, as she headed for the passageway.

Draco gave her a casual wave and set back down.

The train lurched out of the station, and Draco looked out the window. His mother was still standing on the platform, and gave him a final wave as she saw his face in the window. He resisted the sudden urge to wave back and turned back to his friends.

"Hey, Malfoy," Goyle said, after he settled himself into a seat. "Crabbe and I have a bet going. Did you make Captain this year?"

Draco felt a stab of annoyance. He had expected Snape would select him as well. He reminded himself that Snape's choice was doubtless a seventh year, and that he had more serious matters to tend to, anyway. It would be one less reason to see Snape; all the better, since he could manage his more important business without Snape's interference.

"No," he replied, with a shrug. "Snape picked a seventh year, I presume."

"You win, then," Goyle said, turning to Crabbe.

Crabbe glanced at him without much enthusiasm and continued rummaging in his trunk. He pulled out a comic book and sat down with it, and Goyle turned back to Draco, frowning.

"You should be Captain," Goyle said staunchly.

Draco was pleased, but he leaned back casually and replied in a light tone, "I've got better things to do."

Neither Crabbe nor Goyle bit at this hint. Instead, Draco and Goyle began catching up on the summer's activities (heavily edited on Draco's part) and discussing the coming Quidditch season. Crabbe was quiet, even more so than usual, not chiming as often with the usual monosyllabic agreements Draco expected in response to his conversational sallies. Crabbe's father, too, had been captured by Dumbledore and sent to Azkaban, Draco remembered. Perhaps this was behind Crabbe's surliness. If so, maybe Crabbe would be a useful and willing helper, Draco considered. He could not share the objective with Crabbe, that was the Dark Lord's secret, but perhaps just knowing there was a plan would please him

Draco was prevented from carrying this idea into action by the arrival of Blaise Zabini. After he, too, settled in, he caught the others up on his travels with his mother, and Draco resolved to bring Crabbe and Goyle up to speed later

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Draco sat up as the compartment door slid open. It was Zabini, back from the compartment of the new teacher, Professor Slughorn. The door seemed to stick as Zabini turned to slide it shut behind him, and as he wrestled to the door, he fell clumsily into Goyle's lap.

"Watch it!" Goyle exclaimed angrily. Crabbe, seated beside him, looked up from his comic and sniggered at the sight of Zabini, fighting awkwardly with the door while trying to disentangle himself from Goyle.

"I can't help it if the door's stuck," Zabini snarled back at Goyle

"Get up!" Goyle insisted with a shove that caused Zabini to collapse back into a heap in Goyle's lap.

Zabini snarled something under his breath, when suddenly Draco thought he saw something - a flash of white flying upwards towards the luggage rack above his seat. Then it was gone. He must have imagined it.

Goyle slammed the door shut and flung Zabini across the compartment into his empty seat. Zabini glared at him, looking uncharacteristically disheveled.

Crabbe resumed reading his comic, while Draco stretched back out in Pansy's lap.

"So, Zabini, what did Slughorn want?" Draco asked.

"Just trying to make up to well-connected people," said Zabini, still looking angrily at Goyle. "Not that he managed to find many."

"Who else had he invited?" Draco asked, irked by the implication that Slughorn did not consider him sufficiently well-connected to invite.

"McLaggen from Gryffindor," said Zabini.

No surprise there, Draco noted. He was definitely connected. "Oh yeah, his uncle's big in the Ministry," said Draco.

"-someone else called Belby, from Ravenclaw-" Blaise continued.

"Not him, he's a prat!" said Pansy. Draco was enjoying her caresses too much to risk an argument, so he refrained from pointing out that Belby's uncle was Britain's most famous living potioneer.

"-and Longbottom, Potter, and that Weasley girl," finished Zabini.

Draco sat up abruptly at this news. Professor Slughorn had invited that loser, but not him?

"He invited Longbottom?" Draco exclaimed.

"Well, I assume so, as Longbottom was there," said Zabini indifferently.

"What's Longbottom go to interest Slughorn?" Draco asked.

Zabini shrugged his shoulders.

"Potter, precious Potter, obviously he wanted a look at 'the Chosen One'" sneered Draco, "but that Weasley girl! What's so special about her?"

"A lot of boys like her," said Pansy. "Even you think she's good-looking, don't you, Blaise, and we all know how hard you are to please!"

"I wouldn't touch a filthy little blood-traitor like her whatever she looked like," Zabini replied coldly.

Draco leaned back across her lap. Between Zabini's comments and his return, Pansy seemed placated. She smiled down at Draco and resumed stroking his hair.

"Well, I pity Slughorn's taste," Draco said. "Maybe he's going a bit senile. Shame, my father always said he was a good wizard in his day. My father used to be a bit of a favorite of his. Slughorn probably hasn't heard I'm on the train or-"

"I wouldn't bank on an invitation," said Zabini. "He asked me about Nott's father when I first arrived. They used to be old friends, apparently, but when he heard he'd been caught at the Ministry he didn't look happy, and Nott didn't get an invitation, did he? I don't think Slughorn's interested in Death Eaters."

Draco forced out a laugh.

"Well, who cares what he's interested in? What is he, when you come down to it? Just some stupid teacher." He yawned, to underline his complete lack of interest in the man. "I mean, I might not even be at Hogwarts next year, what's it matter to me if some fat old has-been likes me or not?"

"What do you mean, you might not be at Hogwarts next year?" Pansy asked indignantly.

"Well, you never know," Draco said with a little smile up at her. "I might have - er - moved on to bigger and better things." Draco was pleased to see Crabbe was now gawping at him along with Goyle. Pansy looked dumbfounded. She resumed stroking his hair as she processed the new information. Even Zabini looked somewhat impressed.

"Do you mean - Him?" she asked finally.

Draco shrugged.

"Mother wants me to complete my education, but personally. I don't see it as that important these days. I mean, think abut it.... When the Dark Lord takes over, is he going to care how many O.W.L.s or N.E.W.T.s anyone'[Author ID1: at Thu May 1 12:14:00 2008 ]s got? Of course he isn't.... It'll be all about the kind of service he received, the level of devotion he was shown."

"And you think you'll be able to do something for him?" asked Zabini, now contemptuous. "Sixteen years and not even fully qualified yet?"

"I've just said, haven't I? Maybe he doesn't care if I'm qualified. Maybe the job he wants me to do isn't something that you need to be qualified for," Draco said quietly.

The effect of his words was most gratifying. Zabini's expression had changed to doubt and he now looked thoughtful, while Goyle, Crabbe, and Pansy were looking very impressed.

"I can see Hogwarts," Draco said. "We'd better get our robes on."

Goyle rose and grabbed his trunk, and Draco heard a quiet gasp of pain from up on the luggage rack. As he added this to the stuck door and the flash of white he had seen when Zabini entered, inspiration struck. Could Potter be up there, wearing an Invisibility Cloak? Draco had figured out he must have one, after an encounter with the latter's head in Hogsmeade, a few years ago. He'd managed to get Potter into trouble with Snape that time, he recalled. Perhaps his chance to get even with Potter had come even earlier than he expected....

Draco looked up at the luggage rack, fixing the location from which the sound had come in his memory. Then he pulled on his robes and the new cloak his mother had given him before he left. First Goyle, and then Crabbe and Zabini, left the compartment.

"You go on," Draco said to Pansy. "I just want to check something."

Draco closed the blinds on the window, and reopened his trunk. Quickly, he pointed his wand at the spot he had heard the gasp, and shouted, "Petrificus Totalus!"

To his immense satisfaction, a moment later he began to see parts of a body rolling off the luggage rack, and then Potter fell before him with a thud onto his Invisibility Cloak, his body still curled up to fit onto the rack.

With a broad smile, Draco addressed Potter. "I thought so. I heard Goyle's trunk hit you. And I thought I saw something white flash through the air after Zabini came back....

You didn't hear anything I care about, Potter. But while I've got you here..."

Draco raised his foot and brought it down on Potter's face with a satisfying crunch, and blood spurted everywhere.

"That's for my father," he said. "Now, let's see...."

Draco pulled the cloak out from under Potter, and spread it over him, so that the compartment now again appeared empty but for him. It was time to give Potter a taste of his own medicine, Draco thought grimly. Let him see how he liked riding all the way back to London, injured and immobilized.

"I don't reckon they'll find you 'til the train's back in London," he said quietly. "See you around, Potter ... or not." He trod once more on top of Potter and left the compartment.