“What could Snape want to do with Malfoy?” Harry asked as the three of them took up their usual positions in the Gryffindor common room. It was not the first time he’d posed the question, but his curiosity had been piqued and he wouldn’t let the topic rest. On any account, Hermione suspected he was glad to have something for his mind to think about other than Sirius’s death, which he avoided talking about like the black plague. She hastened to reply.
“Harry, we’ve talked about this before…shall we get started on the homework?” she asked brightly, opening her school bag eagerly and readying her eagle feather quill on a blank piece of parchment.
“I think they’re up to something,” Harry insisted, who reluctantly got out his own quill and parchment to tackle Snape’s salamander blood essay. He let the quill rest pointlessly in his hand, not very keen on starting work at all.
Ron, who seemed to be feeling the same way about work said, “Exchanging tips on how to be gits maybe? The most useful tip would to be themselves, I reckon.”
Hermione and Harry both snorted in derision. “But seriously…Snape never asks people to stay behind unless he wants to arrange detention or something.” He paused, remembering many a detention with Snape and glowering. “I think they’re up to something,” he repeated with conviction.
“Maybe,” Ron replied vaguely, untidily scrawling The Properties of Salamander Blood. He glanced at Harry. “Or should it be Salamander Blood’s Properties?” He frowned, and eyed Hermione’s already half-full parchment greedily.
“Why do you think he resigned from the Quidditch team?” Harry interjected.
Hermione glanced up from her parchment and put down her quill dramatically, as if she had been interrupted in top-secret workings. “I don’t know, Harry. It’s certainly fishy but---”
“It’s fishy all right,” Harry conceded, cutting her off.
“Probably realizes there’s no chance of Slytherin winning the House Cup with you as Seeker,” Ron suggested and added darkly, “Took him long enough, stupid git.”
“I don’t think that’s it,” Harry said. Hermione privately agreed, seeing as the Draco Malfoy they all knew had always had a seriously inflated sense of himself.
“Harry, I really think you should get started on your work. You don’t want your work piled up like it did fifth year. Even if Snape and Malfoy are up to something, which they aren’t, it’s not our business to know,” Hermione said plaintively. She returned back to her essay, completing her last sentence with a flourish and snatching her essay from Ron’s prying eyes.
Although feeling distinctly discomfited by her words, Harry could not let his mind escape the thoughts of just what his two least favorite people in the world could be up to.
This must have shown on his face, because Hermione said with a heaving sigh, “Harry, if it means so much to you, I’ll watch him for you, okay? But do your work.” She said this all with the air of one who knew she was making a grave mistake, but her words had the intended effect of making Harry prioritize.
Draco wasted no time making his way towards the Great Hall on Saturday, where the aroma of crisp bacon and eggs awaited him. Crabbe and Goyle entered the Great Hall ten minutes after he did, both of them looking strangely small together despite their considerable bulk. Draco nodded towards both of them, who both took positions next to him in silence, evidently waiting for him to start a conversation. It was only now that Draco began to realize what an important role he had in the trio---he was the one who provided conversation and entertainment. Without him, Crabbe and Goyle were complete nonentities.
He was grateful when Zabini made his way towards them, accompanied by Theodore Nott, a stringy looking boy whose verbal prose was limited to monosyllables and was usually alone. Draco didn’t know Nott very well, other than his father was also a Death Eater and that he was an exceptionally gifted student.
“Guess who’s going to try out for position as Seeker?” Zabini asked by way of greeting as he sat directly across from Draco and helped himself to a large portion of bacon and eggs.
Draco shrugged to feign disinterest when he realized he wasn’t feigning---he wasn’t interested. It was as if the pressure of the plan had consumed him and he was left with an emotionally detached self, leaving an insufficient amount of emotion to spare for anyone else.
“I am,” Zabini said, smiling in a way that looked more like a leer to Draco.
Draco let surprise color his face. “Are you any good?”
Zabini helped himself to more bacon and eggs before replying. “You’ll find out today when Montague holds the try-outs at noon.”
Draco swallowed his toast with difficulty. Zabini had always been hard to like, but he had never actually resented his company as much as he did now. There was something annoyingly smug about Zabini just now, whose eating habits were startlingly uncivilized.
Finishing his last strip of bacon with apparent relish, Zabini said, “And Warrington left last year, so Nott here is going to try out for Chaser.” This bit of news was even more surprising, considering Nott’s demeanor and tendency to avoid places with people.
At noon, Draco took it upon himself to witness the try-outs, and was not the only one. Crabbe and Goyle of course, attached themselves left and right of Draco like menacing bodyguards, as was traditional. Pansy Parkinson and her group of friends had secured themselves a spot on the top of the bleachers and waved unabashedly at Draco with fluttering eyes. Draco blinked, and nodded to acknowledge her presence, making a point to sit a good feet away from her crowd.
Anything he might have ever had with Pansy Parkinson was built on convenience and ease, but it was a concept he had never actually gotten around to explaining to her, and now it seemed it was too late to undo the damage. Pansy, who was apt to fawn over the littlest gesture from him was hopelessly in love with him, and deluded herself into thinking he felt the same. Pansy thought of Draco in the way one might regard the king on a chessboard, which was heartening sometimes, and other times, like now, downright annoying.
The try-outs for the Chaser took place first. Montague divided everyone into groups, instructing them to fly round the pitch. The first group of ten comprised of second-years whose capabilities on a broom were dubious, at best. After trying out five groups of equally poor flyers for Chasers, it was the last group’s turn. The last group comprised of mainly fourth-years and Nott.
A sudden and wild idea occurred to him”why not try out for Chaser himself? He could suddenly envision himself across the Quidditch pitch, in pursuit of something tangible... the Quaffle. This appealed to him on many counts. This was a pursuit he could actually pursue without fear for his life, and without the pressures of being a Seeker having to end the game. And this way, he could still be on the Quidditch team.
His mind set, he ran down to the pitch before Montague could blow the whistle to start the sixth group’s try-outs.
“Montague, you think it’d be okay if I tried out for Chaser?”
Without waiting for his say-so, he said, “Accio Nimbus Two Thousand and One!”, reminding himself distastefully of when that Potter had summoned his Firebolt for the first task in the Triwizard Tournament. His Nimbus Two Thousand and One hurtled from the Slytherin dormitory and he caught it easily and prepared to mount.
Montague, looking bewildered by this unexpected twist nevertheless blew the whistle. Draco mounted, and sped across the pitch, enjoying the light breeze whipping across as he accelerated, swerved, and completed a lap round the pitch. He had been so absorbed by flying that he hadn’t bothered noting how the others had done, but as he touched down gracefully, he felt a certainty that it would be him who triumphed.
Nott gave him a distinctly annoyed look, which Draco decided was an indication that he had flown well. Montague, however, was grinning. “Malfoy, you’re Chaser. First practice is tonight. Now, for those who came to try out as Seeker…”
Nott looked still more annoyed, if that was possible, and began muttering furiously incomprehensibly. This did not faze him, as he was too buoyed up by his success in securing the role of one of three Chasers.
“You were great,” Pansy simpered, seizing her chance to flatter him.
Pretending he hadn’t heard her, he sauntered over to where Crabbe and Goyle still sat. The three of them continued to watch the try-outs. Even Zabini being declared the new Seeker couldn’t drown his spirits. Feeling positively gleeful about the whole outcome of it, he was the happiest he’d been since last June, when the Dark Lord himself had given him the task. He tried to empty his thoughts, but after being pilfered, there was no leaving them. He sighed, and his now ready-to-wear sullen expression returned with a vengeance.
“Going to the library,” he muttered almost incomprehensibly to Crabbe and Goyle, who both grunted in their usual gorilla fashions.
Leaving the bleachers, he looked unseeingly upon the pitch, the vivid green of the field becoming a blur in his eyes. When he realized the pitch was blurring before him because of an involuntary dampness in his eyes, he blinked furiously, wondering why the hell he was getting teary-eyed out of nowhere. More annoyed with himself than ever, he was barely aware of his feet taking him to the library, where he would be, at last, blessedly alone. No Hogwarts student ever went in the library more than necessary.
But he had forgotten the same time he’d remembered. Hermione Granger, poring over a stack of thick volumes, her nose barely an inch away from the book in front of her. He entered as inconspicuously as possible, and thanked the heavens when she did not look up from her book upon his arrival into the library.
He took a seat in a table that was furthest from her, and noted with increasing discomfort that they were the only two students in the library.
Draco placed his arms in front of him and let his head rest there for a good long brooding, which was all he seemed able to do lately. It was barely past one, but already he felt exhausted. Having been declared Chaser meant nothing to him now, especially not in the stuffy surrounding that was the library. Things like Quidditch meant very little to him now, and he marveled that he had been feeling so elated just moments before.
He lifted his head and let his eyes focus on a random point in the room. He was looking at a clear inch of dust on ancient books. No surprises there. But what did surprise him was a creeping feeling that he was being watched.
Hermione watched Malfoy with a feeling of disbelief. She couldn’t honestly recall ever seeing him in the library in all her years at Hogwarts. Remembering her harebrained promise to Harry, she dropped her gaze back to When Encountering Evil hastily, but continued to observe Malfoy covertly. A prickling feeling she wasn’t sure she could identify crawled in her stomach. She ignored it, but to her dismay, it resurged throughout the rest of her body. Maybe she’d been in the library too long. She shut When Encountering Evil and shoved it in her school bag, collecting the rest of her books and parchment and her quill.
With a late lunch in mind, she stepped out of the library, inadvertently brushing shoulders with Malfoy, whose grey eyes widened slightly as he was about to leave, rooted to the same spot as her. He looked sullen. His mouth opened, but shut almost immediately after it had opened. He stalked past her, his steps quick and jerky and not at all like his usual swagger. He seemed to be in a towering temper, undoubtedly because he had just made contact with a Mudblood. The word riled her, just thinking about it.
She wondered why he hadn’t said anything to her. After all, he never missed an opportunity to taunt her, be it her bushy hair, her formerly long molars, or her blood status. As she trudged into the Great Hall, her stomach growling in anticipation, it never occurred to her that what she should be wondering about was why she was wondering.