Draco's suffering

41

It was the next morning that Draco almost had a heart attack. A letter had dropped in front of him, but it was not from the owl that he had sent off. That meant it was not from his father...right? And even if it was, there was no way that his father would have managed to reply so fast. The owl would not have even made it all of the way to Askaban yet. Perhaps if it managed to do so at the speed of light, but...Draco knew better. Yet, it confused him. He had nobody else that would speak with him, or write him, so he did not know who it was from. Narrowing his eyes, he did not detect and form of curses, or potential poisonous gas or powder...not that he thought they would send it with the morning post if that were the case. No matter what it was highly doubtful that anyone would risk the entire population of a school just to target him. That was...a bit much after all.

Still, he did not open it at the table. Instead of risking anything, he placed it in his robes, and continued to eat at the table. Though many saw the letter, none commented on it, not wanting to risk angering the young Malfoy. Draco was dangerous in the first place, but since his father had been arrested and he had shown up once more in the Wizarding school, something had changed. He was colder, meaner, crueler even, and as such he was definitely someone to be careful of, and to steer clear of if it was at all possible. It was not as though he was not dangerous enough beforehand, it was just...One should be far more wary of them now, rather than before. Before, Draco was unpleasant at the best of times, and rude at the worst, usually when challenged or angered, but now? There was something different about him now, and it was rather terrifying to most of the Slytherins.

Whilst many were able to piece together the fact that Blaise had to have pissed Draco off some way, meddling in affairs that were not his to meddle in, the way that Draco was getting back at him was far beyond what he normally would go about doing. Whilst yes, they were uncertain as to what it was that had caused Draco to levy this much punishment to the young Slytherin, but they were also aware that if they tried to figure it out, or even ask, Draco would more than likely extend the punishment to them as well. That was definitely not something they desired, and so they went along perfectly with whatever it was that Draco would wish of them, not wanting to risk the Prince's ire again, like Blaise had done.

Pansy, wanting to know more, merely pursed her lips and stared down at her plate. Pansy had used to be good friends with Blaise, along with Draco. Glancing towards the outer edge of the Slytherin table, where Blaise was sitting, she could not help but wonder what it was that he had done. She figured it probably had something to do with the abrupt arrest of Lucius Malfoy, because the only thing that she could think of that would anger Draco to this sort of degree was if he had knowingly meddled in family affairs.

"Um, Draco," Pansy spoke, eyes glancing towards the side to see how Draco began to take this information. She d id not want to agitate him. He had been on edge the entire day so far, and it was just the beginning, although...she had to admit, he seemed more on edge now than he had been before. Any time before. Whatever Blaise had done in regard to meddling in Draco's affairs had definitely left the young Slytherin more agitated and frustrated, and just plain stressed, than he normally was. That was not a good sign either, considering that Draco was often very stressed.

"What is it Parkinson?" Draco drawled out, his voice level, but dulled. He sounded exhausted, though she could not fault that on him. He had been having quite some trouble sleeping, she knew that. He was stressed, it was hard for him to be alert and ready when he was stressed. It affected his sleeping schedule. She knew him long enough to be able to tell when this happened.

"I was just...curious...what your next phase of the plan was?" Draco sighed, turning towards her, glaring at her. He grit his teeth. He could not believe that she was interfering like this. He missed when she just listened to what he had to say and stopped questioning everything. He supposed, to some extent, he did understand that she really just wanted to know what was going on, but at the same time, he despised it when people tried to inject themselves where they were not wanted. Pansy should tred carefully, as he was not really feeling particularly merciful at the moment, and she was beginning to roll down the same road that Blaise had.

"When you need to know," He hissed, his eyes flaring at her unable to quite stop it as a dark aura seemed to prevade the Slytherin table. It was drawing the attention of the teachers, who were staring at them anxiously. Draco did not seem to care, despite this, something which dismayed Pansy. She was realizing quite quickly that she had made a rather large mistake attempting to gather information from Draco. She had not been anywhere close to as subtle enough. "You will know. Until then, stay out of it." He growled. Turning back to his plate, he huffed. "Great, now I've lost my appetite." He stood up, fork clattering against the plate, drawing eyes as he left the dining hall.

Pansy released a breath of relief. At the very least, it did not seem as though she had angered Draco enough for retaliation. It was more a warning. Pansy could handle warnings. Her heart slowly returned back to a normal pace as she tried to take deep breaths. It was hard enough to deal with Draco's temperment before, now, it was almost instant when a switch to anger happened. It was getting harder to pin him down. She did not like this at all, and wished Blaise would have just left him alone.