All You Want

3) You Get What You Need

Draco Malfoy was skulking in an abandoned wing of Hogwarts.

He admitted it freely. Well, not if anyone were to come across him; he would deny it vociferously then. But—to himself—he freely admitted that he was skulking.

Generally speaking, skulking would be considered something degrading and unacceptable for Malfoys to engage in. But, in Draco's opinion, considering the long list of unfortunate and embarrassing things he'd done in his life, the degradation of skulking barely registered.

His reasons for skulking were many.

For one, Daphne Greengrass was very aggressively in pursuit of him and dragging her sister along with her. She had sent him a letter out of the blue telling him that she had heard about his library. That it was regarded as one of the largest libraries in Britain and that she and Astoria would love if they could be invited to come and see it. That they would be honored. 

It was unexpected, to say the least.

He had never heard of anyone using a library as a sexual euphemism. He ignored the letter. She sent a second one.

He asked Theo if he had any idea why the Greengrasses were writing to him about his library and Theo just smirked and said they had written to him too. Theo said he'd already invited them to his manor earlier in the summer and both girls had spent an afternoon exploring it. Theo also mentioned that they'd written and been invited to Blaise's townhouse for a day.

Largest library in Britain indeed. Draco ignored the letters.

But when he got onto the Hogwarts Express, Daphne had immediately found him and asked about whether he'd gotten her letters and inquired if it was at all possible to maybe see his library over the Christmas Holidays. Draco had flatly said that as a general rule he did not just show his library to any witch who wanted to see it.  Then Daphne had gotten miffed and said she knew that Pansy had seen it anytime she wanted to and that Daphne couldn't understand why he was unwilling to let herself and Astoria see it at least once.

Draco had awkwardly fled.

Having the Greengrasses' ill-concealed whatever-it-was as the primary exception to his status as a social pariah was not really consoling. With the exception of Blaise and Theo, the rest of his classmates made no effort to conceal their contempt of Draco and his family. He was damned on both sides. The Malfoys were either spineless traitors or spineless Death Eaters. 

He had gotten very talented at wandlessly casting shields due to the quantity of hexes shot at his back when walking down the halls.

Blocking hexes and avoiding other students was all he was allowed to do. He suspected that there were quite a few seventh and eighth-years trying to provoke him into doing something that would get him expelled. Too bad for them; he was not going to give anyone the satisfaction.

He had returned to Hogwarts, per the conditions of his probation, and was determined to complete the year with his head down, grades to rival Granger's, and not so much as a toe over the line. Because said toe could result in his expulsion, a violation of the terms of his probation that could get him packed off to Azkaban to join his father.

Ergo, he was skulking in an abandoned wing of the castle trying to avoid everyone.

It was an exercise in self-preservation. The one and only talent everyone could agree that Malfoys possessed.

He pulled a textbook out of his bag and set to review it. He'd had arithmancy that day. Granger had been mysteriously absent. It had been obvious because Vector had been assigning pairs and Granger, being absent and unable to protest, had the misfortune of being paired with him for the upcoming project.