The Brightest Black - A Dramione Fanfic

Paper Hats

"I heard him complaining to Criston about sharing a room with a pair of shirt-lifters! You know he was talking about Dean and Seamus!"

She had been trying to focus on the potions text in front of her, but at these words Hermione found her attention drawn back to the boys.

"He said WHAT?"

Ron looked at her earnestly, "He called them a pair of shirt-lifters and implied some other things."

"And Criston said nothing?" She knew he was a worthless prefect, but to not report a slur...

"Of course he said nothing. He's a worthless prefect," Neville stated - echoing her thoughts. "He only got the badge because the rest of his class is even worse."

She grew quiet as Harry nodded in agreement. The current Gryffindor seventh-years were rather lacking. Well, at least on the boys' side. The girls' were much better than her own roommates. If only she'd been born a month earlier she could have roomed with Katie Bell rather than Lavender Brown.

Katie didn't have a penchant for giggling.

"Well," she started, "I will certainly keep an eye on him, but as long as he toes the line there will be no hexing. We don't need more enemies than we already have."

Ron grumbled about that, but the other two boys said nothing as they all returned to their studying.

XXX

Draco felt Pansy tense up next to him as soon as she unfolded her copy of the Daily Prophet. Personally, he didn't care to read the rubbish that they had taken to publishing lately. Not that they hadn't been publishing rubbish for years - but it had at least usually been entertaining. Now it was just downright embarrassingly awful.

He put down his cup of tea and turned to read over Pansy's shoulder.

He rolled his eyes.

Did they not hire fact checkers at the Daily Prophet?

"You know, I've never even met a muggle, but I'm fairly certain that their teaching methods are as good as, if not better than ours."

Pansy shot him a look, one delicate eyebrow going up, "Why would you say that?"

He shrugged, "I got bored once when mother took me to visit her sister. My uncle," his nose wrinkled a bit at the word, "keeps one of those muggle automobiles around - since he still has connections to the muggle world - and I took a look at it. There are so many knobs and dials that you must need a great education to understand them. Not to mention that thing they call an 'engine' that makes it run. I've never seen anything so incomprehensible. And I was told that in some places muggles as young as fifteen can use them competently. And-" he remembered to add as he knew they had an audience by now, "-muggles are certainly no smarter than us. Ergo, they have good teaching methods."

"Draco, your brain works in mysterious ways," Daphne Greengrass stated from her spot across the table.

"I didn't realize you had an uncle with muggle connections," Theo said with surprise.

Tracy smacked his shoulder, "Theodore Knott! Do you not listen to me? Narcissa Malfoy's oldest sister married a muggleborn. Andromeda Tonks née Black was burned off the family tree for that. But the two sisters mended bridges several years ago."

Theo's angular face twisted in disbelief, "Really? I don't remember hearing that."

Draco snickered when Theo threw him a wink and Tracy promptly began scolding him for not ever paying attention to her. Daphne gazed on her two friends with mild amusement as Draco looked back down at Pansy.