WHAT YOU DO TO ME | Draco Malfoy

Year Five - Part Five

"Where were you last night?" Hermione asked me at breakfast the next morning.

"What?" I dropped my fork and it clanged on my plate loudly through the hall.

"Yeah, we waited round for you, but you never showed." Ron said as he stuffed french toast into his mouth. "We were up all night working on something."

"Oh, I uh.... I had detention, and then I was avoiding the common room. I didn't want to run into Fred. I ended things yesterday." Nothing I said was a lie. I was just omitting some parts of my evening. No one seemed to notice.

"That explains so much." Harry said as Hermione, Ron and him exchanged glances. "Fred was in a really foul mood last night."

"Good." I mumbled as I pushed some strawberries around on my plate with my fork. I wasn't too hungry. I had lost my appetite being reminded about Fred. "But enough about Fred please. What's this project you were working on? Did Hermione rope you all in to S.P.E.W?"

"No." Hermione scowled, "We've been recruiting. We can't talk about it here. We'll tell you on the way to Hogsmeade. Which, by the way, we should get going soon."

The three of them wouldn't tell me what was going on until we were halfway to town. It seemed like they wanted to get out of Umbridge's sphere of influence before saying anything.

"You want Harry to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts to students?" I questioned as I tried to process.

"Well you don't have to say it like that." Harry frowned. This is mad. Who'd wanna be taught by me? I'm a nutter, remember?"

"No, I think it's brilliant!" I exclaimed. "We need someone who is going to be proactive. You're our only hope this year to learn anything substantial."

"Look on the bright side... you can't be any worse than old toad face." Ron grinned at Harry.

"Thanks, Ron." Harry rolled his eyes.

"I'm here for you, mate."

"So you got a bunch of people who want to join in one night?" I asked.

"Word spread pretty fast." Hermione admitted, "I think we have people from every house except Slytherin."

"Because we didn't tell any Slytherins." Ron explained, "Bloody snitches the whole lot of them."

"So where are we meeting?" I asked.

"The Hog's Head. Less traffic." Hermione said. She pointed to the building right down the road. When we walked inside there was already a crowd of students waiting.

Hi." Hermione greeted everyone. "So you all know why we're here."

I took a seat next to Ginny. She was sitting with her new boyfriend Michael Corner, a Ravenclaw boy. I kept my eyes down at the floor to avoid eye contact with Fred who I knew was staring at me.

"We need a teacher. A proper teacher." Hermione explained, "One who's had experience defending themselves against the Dark Arts."

"Why?" A hufflepuff boy asked.

"Why? Because You-Know-Who's back, you tosspot." Ron said angrily.

"So he says." The boy nodded towards Harry.

"So Dumbledore says." I said angrily.

"So Dumbledore says because he says. The point is, where's the proof?" He continued.

"If Potter could tell us more about how Diggory got killed..." Michael started to say. Ginny looked both angry and mortified. Everyone else waited expectantly.