All Life Is Yours To Miss

Chapter 1

'Danger and delight grow on the same stalk' – old Scottish proverb.

**~*~**

The relative hush of Draco's classroom is disturbed by an irritatingly familiar crackling sound and he looks up from the stack of fourth-year essays he has been marking. For a moment, he regards the group of Ravenclaw and Gryffindor students, all of whom are supposed to be engaged in a simple theory exercise. Most of them are scratching away with their quills or frowning at their textbooks or biting their nails, and though the latter makes Draco's nose wrinkle, he knows that they are, at least, attempting to understand the fundamentals of organic-to-non-organic Transfiguration. Which is, as usual, more than can be said for Jasper Bracknell and his little band of followers.

Jasper, one of the many banes of Draco's existence, is leaning back in his chair and obnoxiously popping bubbles of acid green exploding gum as he conducts a muttered conversation with his friend in the row behind him—a conversation which Draco is certain has nothing to do with Transfiguration, organic or otherwise. The thing about Jaspers, Draco thinks, pinching the bridge of his nose as another series of crack-crack-bangs issues from his student's mouth, is that there is one in every class. And they are almost all Gryffindors. Not that he's biased. No, if he's honest, he finds nearly all of his pupils completely maddening.

Crackle-pop-bang, goes Jasper's bubblegum, and now all the students within a two-chair radius of him are looking up from their work and murmuring gently. Draco sighs.

"Mr Bracknell," he says quietly, taking some satisfaction in the fact that the classroom falls immediately silent.

Jasper continues to lean back in his chair but his impudent blue eyes swivel to meet Draco's. "Yes, sir?"

"Tell me you are not eating that disgusting green gunge in my class again," he demands, covering his weariness with severity.

Jasper blinks. Shrugs. Grins. "Okay. I'm not," he says, and his friends titter appreciatively.

Draco grimaces, feeling a headache blooming behind one eye. "Be grateful for the fact that your friends find you so hilarious, Mr Bracknell, because you are unlikely to amount to much without your Transfiguration OWL, which you are highly unlikely to achieve without an understanding of Lockheed's Law." He pauses, relishing the puzzled expression twisting the usually smug face. "If you could apply yourself to your textbook for a moment or so, you might find it illuminating. In the meantime, I think that's five points from Gryffindor."

"Sir, that's not fair! It's always..." Jasper falls silent, mouth twitching.

"What is it?"

"Oh... nothing. I think I'll just have a look at the old... Lockheed... erm... sorry, sir," Jasper mumbles, frowning and pulling his textbook towards him.

Instantly suspicious, Draco looks around. Nothing seems amiss, but he is unsettled as he returns to his marking, and the next few essays in the pile are subject to a more savage application of red ink than usual. When the giggling starts, his uneasiness turns to alarm.

Gripping his quill hard, he looks around at his class.

"Settle down," he says sharply, drawing down his eyebrows and shooting them his tried and tested silencing look. Inexplicably, this only makes them giggle harder. Every single person in the room seems to find him an object of amusement. Even the quiet, generally well-behaved Ravenclaw girls at the front are watching him with bright eyes and ill-concealed grins. Equal parts cross and anxious, he stares wildly around at his students. They're laughing at him. He has no idea what to do with that. After ten years of teaching, he's used to be feared, disliked, and occasionally respected, but this is something completely new, and he doesn't like it one bit. Desperately, he turns to Jasper, who is smirking heartily and making a show of staring at his textbook.