With the castle asleep, the entirety of the names on the map were very sedentary, and it wasn't until Harry had moved his wand closer to the map, about to mutter mischief managed, that he noticed movement.
The movement was curious for a number of re...
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"BECAUSE NOT EVERY FIRE CAN BE PUT OUT BY WATER."
Draco spent the entirety of that day trying to find Aulani, hoping to catch even just a moment alone with her. The exchange student had been on his mind non-stop since the previous night, and now with what had occurred that morning, he was resolved to talk to her. It quickly became an obsession, the exchange student consuming his thoughts entirely, but it was a welcomed consumption. For the first time in months, he wasn't thinking about his task.
She was gone from the Great Hall by the time he had returned, though her Hufflepuff horde remained. The three were glaring at him almost as soon as he caught sight of them, Macmillan more spitefully than the others, though as Muggleborns, Draco had tormented Finch-Fletchley and Jones more vehemently in past years. He averted his eyes from them quickly, his gaze habitually falling on the Slytherin table, but as he caught sight of the back of Pansy's head, he hastened out of the Hall before she could turn around. The last thing he needed was a confrontation with her.
With no clue of where she may be, he impatiently waited for classes to start up. Surely they'd share another, and he'd be able to find a moment to speak with her.
He was the first student to arrive at the Charms classroom, and as he entered, Professor Flitwick looked up from the papers he was grading and couldn't help but do a double take. "Mr. Malfoy!" he exclaimed, surprised more than anything. Draco froze in the doorway. "Class doesn't begin for another quarter of an hour!"
"I'm aware," Draco answered blankly, his features hardening. Intimidation was a tactic he and his mother had begun to rely heavily on in the face of the public. Already, with his father's incarceration, they had lost their place in society, but to show weakness would be to throw yourself to the wolves. "I'm here early. Is that a problem?"
Flitwick was baffled. "No," he answered after a long pause, straightening out his papers. "No, not at all. Did you need - ?" - but before he could finish his question, Draco took a seat near the door and looked away from the professor. Taken slightly aback, Flitwick shook his head and went back to his grading.
Draco knew how the professors viewed him, and he didn't find it worth his energy to try and change it. Slughorn had set that precedent on the train, refusing him a place in his Slug Club that Draco knew he would have been leading had he come the year prior. He was tolerated by the professors - ignored at best, otherwise regarded with caution, sometimes even fear. Then, of course, there was Snape. A favorite of his in years prior, Draco tried to avoid the man, going so far as to opt out of Defense Against the Dark Arts that year. He long knew that the man had been a Death Eater in the previous war, but up until his fifth year, both Draco and his father weren't entirely sure where the man's loyalties lay. But with the rebirth of the Dark Lord, a Death Eater he was once more, and now the professor, the long term spy, ranked even higher than his father.
